“Okay—listen—are you sure you’re okay?” chuckled Marvalyn nervously. “You’re not makin’ a whole lotta sense, here, pal.”
“Yeah, I am. I have congenital analgesia.”
“Huh?”
“I have congenital analgesia. Some people call it congenital insensitivity to pain. And some people call it hereditary sensory neuropathy type four, but it all just means I can’t feel pain.”
“Congenital ana-what?” Marvalyn hadn’t quite caught what Steve had called his disorder.
“Analgesia. You can hit me if you want to, to see.”
“What?—No!”
“Yeah!” Steve offered Marvalyn his book of THINGS THAT CAN HURT YOU. “With this!”
“No!” Marvalyn got up and moved away from Steve.
“Yeah! Go ahead! It won’t hurt! See?” Steve whacked his head with his book of THINGS THAT CAN HURT YOU.
“Stop!” cried Marvalyn.
Steve whacked his head again.
“Don’t!” begged Marvalyn.
Steve whacked his head again. “Now you try!” he said, offering Marvalyn his book again.
“NO!!” insisted Marvalyn, and she grabbed the book out of Steve’s hands so she could put an end to his twisted game.
“Okay,” said Steve. “You don’t have to hit me. Most people don’t. Hit me. When I ask them to. Most people just go away. You can go away, too, if you want to. That’s what most people do when I tell them about myself. My brother Rob says I just shouldn’t tell people about myself, because I scare them—that’s why they go away, he says—so I’ve actually recently put ‘myself’ on my list of things to be afraid of, but—”
Before Steve could finish his sentence, Marvalyn’s curiosity had gotten the better of her, and she crept up behind him and walloped him on the back of the head with his THINGS THAT CAN HURT YOU book.
“Oh, my gosh! I’m sorry! I can’t believe I just did that!” Marvalyn was horrified by what she had just done.
But Steve was thrilled. “You hit me! Most people go away, but you didn’t! You hit me!”
“Yeah! I had to see if it really wouldn’t hurt—did it hurt? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I don’t feel pain!”
“Right, you don’t feel pain, of course you’re okay! But—are you sure?”
“Well, is there any blood?” asked Steve.
“No,” answered Marvalyn, kindly, but a little condescendingly, because a smack on the back of the head with a composition book wouldn’t cause someone to bleed.
“Any discoloration?”
“No,” smiled Marvalyn. A smack on the back of the head with a composition book wouldn’t cause someone to bruise.
“Or swelling?”
“No,” smiled Marvalyn. A smack on the back of the head with a composition book wouldn’t cause any swelling.
“Then I’m okay,” said Steve, giving Marvalyn a thumbs-up.
“Well, you can be hurt and not even look like it,” said Marvalyn.
This didn’t match up well with Steve’s worldview. And he started to protest. “But—”
“Trust me,” interrupted Marvalyn. “There are things that hurt you that make you bruised and bloody and there are things that hurt you that don’t make you bruised and bloody and … they all hurt.”