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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
O
n the flight home, twenty thousand feet above clouds that were ten thousand
feet above the ground, Gus said, “I used to think it would be fun to live on a
cloud.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Like it would be like one of those inflatable moonwalk
machines, except for always.”
“But then in middle school science, Mr. Martinez asked who among us had
ever fantasized about living in the clouds, and everyone raised their hand. Then
Mr. Martinez told us that up in the clouds the wind blew one hundred and fifty
miles an hour and the temperature was thirty below zero and there was no
oxygen and we’d all die within seconds.”
“Sounds like a nice guy.”
“He specialized in the murder of dreams, Hazel Grace, let me tell you. You
think volcanoes are awesome? Tell that to the ten thousand screaming corpses at
Pompeii. You still secretly believe that there is an element of magic to this
world? It’s all just soulless molecules bouncing against each other randomly. Do
you worry about who will take care of you if your parents die? As well you
should, because they will be worm food in the fullness of time.”
“Ignorance is bliss,” I said.
A flight attendant walked through the aisle with a beverage cart, half
whispering, “Drinks? Drinks? Drinks? Drinks?” Gus leaned over me, raising his
hand. “Could we have some champagne, please?”
“You’re twenty-one?” she asked dubiously. I conspicuously rearranged the
nubbins in my nose. The stewardess smiled, then glanced down at my sleeping
mother. “She won’t mind?” she asked of Mom.
“Nah,” I said.
So she poured champagne into two plastic cups. Cancer Perks.
Gus and I toasted. “To you,” he said.
“To you,” I said, touching my cup to his.
We sipped. Dimmer stars than we’d had at Oranjee, but still good enough to
drink.
“You know,” Gus said to me, “everything Van Houten said was true.”

---

“Maybe, but he didn’t have to be such a douche about it. I can’t believe he
imagined a future for Sisyphus the Hamster but not for Anna’s mom.”
Augustus shrugged. He seemed to zone out all of a sudden. “Okay?” I
asked.
He shook his head microscopically. “Hurts,” he said.
“Chest?”
He nodded. Fists clenched. Later, he would describe it as a one-legged fat
man wearing a stiletto heel standing on the middle of his chest. I returned my
seat-back tray to its upright and locked position and bent forward to dig pills out
of his backpack. He swallowed one with champagne. “Okay?” I asked again.
Gus sat there, pumping his fist, waiting for the medicine to work, the
medicine that did not kill the pain so much as distance him from it (and from
me).
“It was like it was personal,” Gus said quietly. “Like he was mad at us for
some reason. Van Houten, I mean.” He drank the rest of his champagne in a
quick series of gulps and soon fell asleep.
My dad was waiting for us in baggage claim, standing amid all the limo drivers
in suits holding signs printed with the last names of their passengers:
JOHNSON, BARRINGTON,
CARMICHAEL
. Dad had a sign of his own.
MY BEAUTIFUL FAMILY
, it read, and then underneath that
(
AND GUS
).
I hugged him, and he started crying (of course). As we drove home, Gus
and I told Dad stories of Amsterdam, but it wasn’t until I was home and hooked
up to Philip watching good ol’ American television with Dad and eating
American pizza off napkins on our laps that I told him about Gus.
“Gus had a recurrence,” I said.
“I know,” he said. He scooted over toward me, and then added, “His mom
told us before the trip. I’m sorry he kept it from you. I’m . . . I’m sorry, Hazel.” I
didn’t say anything for a long time. The show we were watching was about
people who are trying to pick which house they are going to buy. “So I read An