Sarah Honenberger - Catcher, Caught

When I first met Holden Caulfield, I didnt know I was dying. Hes way more cool than me, but I like how he tells what its like to be him. Straight out. Real. And even though his story is lots more exciting, Im going to tell you mine anyway. It may be the last thing I do.

So howd I hook up with Holden? The Catcher in the Rye is required reading for tenth grade, along with a long list of other books, mostly ones Ive never heard of. The Essex County library has four copies of Catcher. Worn edges, faded covers. Obviously lots more people than me have read it. The fronts what grabbed me. Plain maroon with little yellow letters, like it was no great shakes. And the way Holden writes, you can almost hear him thinking. Its wild how clearly the dudes voice sounds in my head.

You have to excuse my skipping around. I dont have a lot of practice at this kind of thing and Im short on time. According to the doctors.

Daniel Solstice Landon, thats me, soon to be dust. My names from the Bible, though my parents would never credit that. Theyre into the great cosmos, not God. Thats where the Solstice comes from, straight out of my parents hippie phase, a phase theyre still stuck in. Another thing they dont admit. My opinion is they picked Daniel because they liked the idea of the little guy, the underdog. To tell the truth I found out what my name really means from a girl I wanted to date last year but was too chicken to ask. Cassie Jones. She said Daniel translates as judged by God. Tough standard.

Being sick puts you right out there. Kind of like being the lead in the middle-school play when every little sixth-grade teenybopper stares at you in the caf and fights over the stool you used at lunch or insists on chewing the same kind of gum you do. Where we live in Virginia they still teach sixth through ninth in one school. According to Mom, educational theory says teenagers dont settle down until tenth grade, so its better to keep the raging hormones all together. My take, theyre trying to wear you down. Four years with sixth graders hanging around you would wear anyone down. Its definitely killed the teachers.

Last winter, before we knew about the leukemia, I played Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. At the time I didnt mind the attention so much. It was kind of flattering, even if the sixth-grade groupies tracked my every move. At least someone liked me. And I was lucky. I had only one song all by myself, I was the good guy, and I got to kiss Marissa Bennett. Counting practice and performances, twenty-two times. My big brother said to enjoy it, most ninth graders dont kiss anyone no matter what they tell you.

Aside from the kisses, being in the limelight is more complicated than you might think. The whole time I was kissing Marissa I didnt realize that someday I would wish people didnt know everything in the world about me. When youre sick, everyone talks about you behind your back. They pass around all the gory details like theyd share M&Ms, but dont kid yourself, its not the same as wanting to know you. They wont even talk to you.

Thats partly why I admire Holden. Everyone knows hes been kicked out of that high-end prep school. The teachers, the headmaster, even his roommate, Stradlater, and the guys in the dorm, they all have an opinion on why he shouldnt have let it happen. And theyre all hot to tell him what they think. Good old Holden just acts like he doesnt care. Okay, sure, he blows them off partly because its not any of their goddamn business. Theyre not people he respects. But mostly, I guess, because hes already figured out where you go to high school doesnt matter in the long run.

No matter how much I try to convince myself to suck it up that everyone knows about me and The Disease, having leukemia is different. Dying is the long run. So it matters. Theres just nothing I can do about it.

Daniel, front and center. Thats my dad calling.

Its long past end-of-the-year report cards and I havent broken any rules this week, so I dont have a clue why hes in his regimental father mode.

You gotta like my dad. Hes bearded, sandaled, right out of The Love Bug. Even when hes seriously off base, hes okay and you feel a little sorry for him. He lost six or seven of his best buddies in Vietnam. His entire life since then has been a shrine to the loss. He goes to every antiwar rally within a two-hundred-mile radius. On New Years Eve he calls their families to show he hasnt forgotten them. And G.I. Joe toys and vehicles and paraphernalia were seriously off limits for us. We werent even allowed to play with our friends army toys. Although he avoided the draft because of a childhood injury to his eardrum, he announces regularly that he would have gone to Canada but for the 4-F. He tells it to anyone wholl listen. Hard of hearing before my time, he always says, as if it were hysterically clever.

Fathers, at least the fathers of my friends, are big into jokes. Its like theyre cartoon versions of what a father should be. Even though they tell the same horrible shaggy dogs over and over, no one ever calls them on it because its what fathers do. Its supposed to be endearing. The joke thing must occur like Immaculate Conception as soon as a man has his first kid. It doesnt bother the fathers that no one else thinks the jokes are funny. It doesnt bother them that the wives all say, Oh, sweetie, not that one again.

Me and Mack Petriano and Leonard Yowell, whose father is a state senator and probably wears a three-piece suit to bed, all cringe in unison at the jokes our fathers tell. Even though their dads are straight and mines a held-over hippie, the jokes are all lame.

The military lingo has gotta be a father thing too. Leonards dad is forever saying things like battle stations or at ease. It so fits Senator Yowell, hes a star-studded Nam hero. But when my dad talks like that, it always surprises me because he lobbies so hard against war. Any kind of war. Local school boards, gestapo-like anti-immigration tactics, Palestine, even sibling rivalry. Hes a certifiable pacifist. But as far as being an all-right, sincere kind of person, he is.

Hes also a vegetarian. And recycling is his favorite pastime. We never use paper plates, even though its a big pain to wash things now that were living on a houseboat. Hot waters sketchy and not enough water is typical. Theres more good about my dad than bad, though. Hell watch any movie I want, and he refuses to wear a tie. Not at all like Antolini, that touchy-feely English teacher of Holdens, with the silk bathrobe and the itchy hands. Holden could have stayed on Dads sleep sofa without a second thought.

If you want to know the truth, until I got sick my life was boring. Truly and completely boring. You wouldnt have kept on reading. School and summer, summer and school, mostly hot and more hot in our part of Virginia. Holdens cab rides around New York sound exciting compared with my life. Even my little brothers soccer schedule is more exciting. Seriously, Im not into contact sports myself, but Nicks definitely the star of the team, a brilliant sweeper at thirteen, just too nice to admit it. A zillion times a game he stops the other team cold. Anyone can see how much his team relies on him and how he lives to be that indispensable guy.

My older brother is a first-year at UVA, with more girlfriends than anyone I know. As Holden would say, hes Joe College to the umpteenth degree, too cool to hang with me much anymore.

The thing is hes a real Joe, short for Joseph Ides Landon. My parents stuck him, too, only Ides isnt half as bad as Solstice. Plus, its way easier for people to believe Ides could be a real name, so hes never embarrassed like I am. Hes not forced to make up some song and dance about Solstice being a family holdover from the old country, another freebie from Cassie Jones, who probably doesnt even remember me or my stumbling discussion of the Harvest Dance that never quite made it to the level of an invitation.