Loser by Jerry Spinelli Page A

only light reaching the cellar comes from the doorway at the top of the stairs. He begins counting.
    How he wishes for the puny light from the forty-watt bulb! He holds up his hand. He stares at the backs of his fingers, anchors himself to the sight of them. His stitches are gone now, but the scar they left behind tingles on. By the time he reaches one hundred, the fingers he’s staring at are shaking. He clambers up the stairs.
    Next day: down six steps. More than halfway. The hand before his face less clear now. He finds himself counting too fast, makes himself slow down. It takes forever to reach one hundred.
    When he descends to the bottom step next day, the hand he holds up is pale and ghostly. It does not seem to be his. He forces himself to stareinto the blackness before him. He counts a new way: “The light is right behind me, five…the light is right behind me, ten…the light is right behind me, fifteen…” Some of the counts come out as burps. He burps a lot since the operation. By the end he’s screaming, “The light is right behind me one hundred!” as he flies up the stairs.
    His mother comes running. “What happened?”
    â€œNothing,” he says.
    â€œWhy were you screaming? Why are you breathing so hard?”
    â€œI am?”
    She takes his chin in her hand and tilts his face upward. “I think we’ll both be glad when you go back to school. Back to the sofa.”
    As usual Zinkoff is first up next morning. He is so nervous, he’s burping even more than usual. He can hardly get his breakfast down. Hard as the darkness test has been so far, the worst is yet to come. He waits for his father to leave for work. He waits for his mother to begin her telemarketing phone calls. He peers into the livingroom—The Alarm is in her playpen, guarding the front door.
    For a long time he sits alone in the kitchen, feeling the light, soaking it up, imagining himself a light sponge. Never before has he so appreciated the mere sight of common things. The silvery sides of the toaster and its tiny pinched reflections. The plump blue-and-yellow Dutch boy cookie jar. The red straw sticking up from Polly’s drinking cup.
    He takes one last look around. Will he ever see these things again?
    He pulls from his pocket the single sock that he has brought along. He bunches it into a ball and sticks it into his mouth. He sits some more.
    He ponders his plan: three steps on the first day, three more on the second, down to the bottom on the third.
    At last he pushes himself up from the chair and, like a condemned man, takes the long, doomed walk to the cellar door.
    He opens the door. He takes one step forward. He pulls the door shut behind him.
    And learns that his fear has missed the target.
    He was expecting darkness, yes, really dark darkness—but this is something else. This is darkness so absolute, so wickedly pure that he himself seems to have been wiped out. He holds his hand one inch before his face and cannot—positively can not—see it. He reaches for his opposite forearm, missing it on the first try, to reassure himself that he is still there. He squeezes the forearm in hopes that some of the light he has sponged up will come squirting out. It does not.
    He reaches behind for the door, for its smooth painted surface. His trembling fingers find the doorknob. Turn it , a voice inside his ear whispers, turn it and go back . And that’s what he tells his hand, turn it , but his hand is not listening, his hand is letting go and now his whole body, contrary to all his wishes and good sense, is lowering itself to a seat on the first step.
    And he learns a second thing: He can forget the three-day plan. He must do it all today.
    Now.
    Or never.
    He lowers himself one more step, seven to go…one more step, six to go…one more…one more…his silent scream probes for a weakness in the sock…one more…one more…and the Monster is