Optimists Die First - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Susin Nielsen got her start feeding cast and crew on the popular television series Degrassi Junior High. They hated her food, but they saw a spark in her writing. Nielsen went on to pen sixteen episodes of the hit TV show. Since then she has written for many Canadian TV series.

Nielsen’s first two young adult novels, Word Nerd and Dear George Clooney: Please Marry My Mom, won critical acclaim and multiple young readers’ choice awards. The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen won the prestigious Governor General’s Literary Award and the Canadian Library Association’s Children’s Book of the Year. Most recently, We Are All Made of Molecules was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award, longlisted for the Carnegie Medal, and nominated for the Canadian Library Association’s Children’s Book of the Year. Nielsen lives in Vancouver with her family and two extremely destructive cats. Visit her at susinnielsen.com; on Facebook at Susin Nielsen, Author; and on Twitter at @susinnielsen.

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1

The first time I saw the Bionic Man I was covered in sparkles.

It was a typical Friday afternoon at Youth Art Therapy, YART for short. I was trying to help Ivan the Terrible with our latest, lamest project. As per usual, Ivan refused to focus. Instead he tipped a tube of rainbow glitter onto my head, all over my cat hat and all over me. Alonzo tutted sympathetically. Koula snorted with laughter. Another sunny day in paradise.

We were sitting in the common area of the counseling suite. It was always either Antarctica cold or Saudi Arabia hot. Even though it was early January, I’d stripped down to my tie-dyed tank top. Ivan started punching my bare arm with the very fingers that had, moments ago, been wedged up his nose. I reached into my tote bag for my bottle of hand sanitizer, just as one of the counselor’s doors opened.

Ivan glanced up. “Petula, look,” he said. “A giant.”

The Bionic Man was not a giant. But he was well over six feet. Everything about him was supersized. A bright orange parka was slung over one arm, which was major overkill for a Vancouver winter. He looked about my age, with a mass of curly brown hair, and big brown eyes that were red from crying.

The Bionic Man had stepped out of Carol Polachuk’s office. I’d sat in that soulless space many times myself, forced to talk to she of the up with life! T-shirts, bulgy eyes, and condescending attitude. Carol was very good at one thing, and that was making you feel worse. So I wasn’t surprised that the Bionic Man looked disoriented. And angry. And deeply, terribly sad.

I recognized those looks. The Bionic Man hadn’t been in there for a chat about career options. You didn’t see Carol Polachuk for the small stuff.

He was one of us.

For a brief moment, our eyes locked.

Then he made a beeline for the doors.

And he immediately left my brainpan as I started slathering myself in hand sanitizer.

The End.

Except .?.?. it wasn’t.

2

On Monday afternoon I saw him again.

I stood at the front of history class in my presentation outfit: plain white shirt with purple crocheted vest, my favorite peasant skirt, and purple rubber boots that hid my lucky striped socks. I was midway through my talk. The assignment: discuss a historical event that has ripple effects to this day.

I’d chosen September 11, 2001. Nine-eleven, the day two airplanes, hijacked by terrorists, flew into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. I meant to talk about the political aftermath, and the many ways it changed how we view personal safety.

But I never made it that far.

A lot of people on the floors below the point of impact were able to escape down stairwells before the towers fell. But the people above the impact must have understood that they were doomed, that no one was coming to rescue them because, well, how could they? Those towers practically rose into the stratosphere.

I thought about those people a lot. How their days started out so normal. How they were average, regular humans; just like me, just like Mom and Dad, just like anyone. I pictured a guy wondering if it was too early to dig into his lunch, because even though it was only just past nine, he was already hungry. I imagined a woman who couldn’t stop worrying about her son because he’d cried that morning when she dropped him off at day care.

They were expecting a day like any other.

That part of my presentation was supposed to be brief, just laying out the facts so I could get to the ripple effects.

But I could not shake the thought of all the innocent victims. Or the people they left behind, the children, spouses, parents, and friends whose loved ones were not coming home from work that day, or any day. Their lives from that moment forward would never be the same.

My heart started to race. My breath came in short bursts. I opened my mouth but no words came out. My classmates looked alarmed.

That’s when I spotted him, sitting at a desk in the back corner.

The last thought I had was Oh God I’m wearing my old granny underpants oh God please don’t let my skirt ride up--

Then all five feet eleven inches of me crumpled to the floor.

An hour later I was sitting across from Mr. Watley in my favorite chair, the one with the nubby multicolored fabric. I’d sat in it so often in the past two years, its grooves had molded perfectly to my bum.

It was my favorite because it was the farthest from his bookshelves, which were not secured to the wall in any way. Believe me, I’d checked. So if there was an earthquake--and in Vancouver they say it’s a matter of when, not if--I could be badly injured by falling hardcovers. (I tried not to think about the building itself, which would collapse like a pile of Jenga blocks in any quake over a five point zero on the Richter scale. If I thought about that, I would have to leave school, and Vancouver, and live alone in a cave somewhere, which would crush my parents. Plus I would be a sitting duck for any psychopathic serial killer who happened past. And/or I would contract a respiratory illness because of the damp and die a slow, painful death. At least death by earthquake was more likely to be instantaneous.)

In spite of the bookshelves, I liked being in the principal’s office. It was a surprisingly warm and cozy space, lit by floor lamps instead of overhead fluorescents. And Mr. Watley still had the mason jar snow globe that I’d made for him in the ninth grade on his desk. I picked it up and gave it a good shake, and snow cascaded down onto a little Lego building, which had princess margaret secondary written on it.

Mr. Watley gazed at me with his big, watery eyes. He looked a lot like a Saint Bernard. “Feeling better, Petula?”

“Much. The school nurse gave me a good once-over. Deemed me fit for release.”

“You’ve been making progress. I was hoping we’d moved past these episodes.”

“Me too.” My last full-blown panic attack had been at least three months earlier, in biology. The topic was infectious diseases. I’d talked about the Ebola virus, which is transmitted through bodily fluids and leads to a truly horrible death. I’d crumpled when I mentioned how easily it could become a worldwide plague.

“At least they’re fewer and farther between.” Mr. Watley said. He smoothed his hair. I wished his wife would tell him that his comb-over fooled no one. Then again, I’d studied the family photo that sat beside my snow globe many times. It showed a grinning Mr. and Mrs. Watley and their pug. The dog was far and away the most attractive thing in the picture. My theory was that they had a reciprocal arrangement: Mrs. Watley ignored Mr. Watley’s comb-over, and he ignored the giant mole on her chin. “Nonetheless, Petula, we’ve talked about trying to stay away from trigger topics.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t need to talk about the victims at all.”

I glanced out his window at the rain coming down in sheets. “It was just a small part. If...