After Natalie was suspended due to breaking into Keith's locker. Dunya knew she had a beautiful rival for Billy's affection, or so she thought and when Natalie came over to Keith's house to deliver a present, she crept behind her and said. "Hello, Natalie, did you forget something?" "No." "Well, maybe you forgot…his dad!" She pulled Mr. Zetterstorm into the living room who sadly admitted that Keith did not want to see her and when Keith walked out to his truck asking Dunya to go with him, she just sat there on the divan and refused to leave. Johann finally got her over to Billy's house; Alex said afterword that if Natalie had to choose between Raphael and Keith, he'd pick the latter.
To make matters worse, by the time Billy went through a few fainting spells, Dunya tried calling Keith's cell phone. Keith was already making out with Natalie in the loader of his truck, stripped to the waist. They both heard the sound of the phone humming, "Don't answer it." Natalie moaned. Keith tried to read for it with his right hand, "I have to…" the battery went dead.
Johann was holding Billy's left hand as the boy sat in bed. "What's happening?" Billy asked weakly. Johann patted his hand. "I think this may be our farewell meeting." Dunya came into the room, looking as if she had seen a ghost. "Oh god…Alex! Al! Call the hospital! I think he might be dying!" Billy went into unconscious for a bit, Johann making sure he was alright, resuscitated him twice, then pushed his chest three times, to little avail. Dunya made a short scream as the darkest areas of her life was yet to come.
When Keith heard after coming home from his consummating with Natalie, Dunya rushed him right over to the hospital and introduced him to the receptionist who quickly brought him over to Billy's room. He asked about the situation and knowing that it was extremely dire, had his upper body right on top of Billy, whose breathing was labored and his speech was slightly nonsensical. "Can you hear them chanting?" Billy said in a voice that stared through Keith's eyes into empty space, the sound was clearly his heartbeat. "Do you understand?" he asked again. "Billy?!" Keith screamed, holding his shoulders tightly. "I saw you in my dream…" Billy uttered in a faint voice, but Keith gripped him firmly, refusing to let the poor child die of an uncertain fate. "Billy!" he shrieked again with great force. Keith and Billy locked their eyes together in a great stare (contest) as a tear came out of his left eye. "Keith…" Billy sobbed, his spirit had left his body and his pupils dilated: he had finally succumbed to his leukemia and died on his brother of a friend's abdomen.
Billy's mother sobbed on her husband's shoulder and Dunya patted them on the back. Johann had taken a blood sample from when Billy was tested on and gave it to her in a close up bag, "Put this in his house for preservation and note the time of death." "Okay" the girl replied sadly. Alex gave a shout to all the other witnesses, "Let's clear out." Keith gave the younger boy's forehead a kiss, "Well, I guess this is goodbye." The four were not going to attend a private funeral for him.
Dunya was conversing with Johann in Keith's bedroom, (in English for they no longer had to hide Billy's secret since he was dead already). "Now that Billy's dead," she asked. "I don't supposed you've thought of what you'll say to his school." "We won't need to," replied Johann. "We'll just tell them he moved to Helsinki, Finland and it will be a month or two before they find out the truth. We'll be gone by then." "Gone? Where?" "London, Ontario, of course." Dunya was startled. "But we can't leave Keith. You know it's his dream." Johann replied. "It's the only way, 'cause I don't believe in marriage and boys like my cousin that have set America back by a hundred and two years!"
"Billy wasn't a bad boy."
"There is good and bad in every person, Dunya. But leukemia can be one of the most evil products of the most evil system ever invented by God in heaven."
"Speak for yourself."
"If you could hear things I've seen and heard, not even you, Dunya, would be able to draw a knife from it's sheath and kill him while he slept."
"I won't listen! If you hate Keith so much you must also hate me and Alex."
"I could never hate you."
"What about Natalie?"
"No one in Natalie's school is innocent. I mean, what does she matter? It's meaning of her boyfriend's life that counts."
So by the time Natalie found out, no thanks to Al (causing Dunya to utter Lucille Ball's now-famous groan of disgust/spider face "Eww.") she instructed the trio to pack their bags as she put Keith's apparel in the suitcase she carried and a feigned plane ticket from scratch paper and gave to a waiting Keith at the airport. Johann hugged Dunya as Alex paid for the plane tickets to Ontario. "Soon we'll be in that big house by the river." he consoled her as Keith and Natalie conversed over his life being miserable.
But she was going to stay with him no matter what, and when they kissed it gave trio the oppertunity to grab Keith away from the Natalie and through the security gate. "I just want to say good bye." he muttered before Alex covered his mouth with his left hand. As soon as they were far enough, Natalie followed them onto the plane when no one on the security squad was looking, she huddled close to her dying lover just as she had promised him earlier.
As Johann had promised, the group soon came the big house by the river, and it wasn't until later when Keith was at the truck convention for 15 minutes and was laid to rest on a king sized bed nude, if not simply just barechested with Natalie holding his clamy hand, Dunya crying on Johann's shoulder and Alex praying to the invisible god.
"There may be an attempt on our lives... and unto those who would follow us all the way from Monte Carlo... I am not afraid of death."