Sick Bay

by Nova Weetman

  ‘I should probably head back to school,’ I say, deciding I can wait and do a test there.

  Lina scoots her feet along the ground making the swing rock gently so she can bump into Matt. ‘We have heaps of time.’

  ‘Yeah, but what if Mum’s early?’

  Lina rolls her eyes at me. ‘Stop being so boring!’

  I frown. I hate it when Lina gets like this. ‘If I’m late back …’

  ‘Yeah, I know. You’ll get in heaps of trouble!’ she says in a silly voice.

  Matt and Nick both laugh and I look down at the ground, clutching my Slurpee and chewing on the straw.

  ‘I can just go back on my own. It’s fine. Tell me the directions,’ I tell her.

  Mid-swing Lina jumps off and lands on her feet. ‘Maybe Nick can walk you?’

  She looks behind me to where Nick is leaning against the swing set. ‘Whatcha reckon, Nick?’

  I shake my head at her. I know she wants to get rid of us both but I don’t want this. She grins at me, turning away from the boys so they can’t see her expression.

  ‘Sure …’ says Nick.

  ‘All sorted then,’ Lina says, slurping up the last of her drink and crushing the cup in her hand.

  Angry, I start heading out of the park, scuffing my Converse through the sticks and dirt on the ground. I figure Nick will catch up but, to be honest, I’m done worrying about any of them.

  ‘Wrong way, R,’ shouts Lina with a laugh.

  My heart is gathering itself too fast. I need to go to the toilet and I don’t want to make small talk with Nick Zarro.

  ‘This way,’ says Nick, catching up with me.

  Feeling my cheeks flush even more, I follow Nick across the road.

  We walk around the corner towards the back of the library. I don’t feel very well and I just want to get back and check my blood glucose levels before Mum arrives. I’ve stopped talking because I’m concentrating on my feet. Nick’s not talking either so it’s a pretty awkward walk. I’m going to kill Lina when I next see her.

  I can hear the sounds of kids playing at aftercare. I’m really thirsty, and I’m hoping it’s just because we’ve walked fast in the sun and not because it’s the beginning of a high.

  ‘See ya tomorrow,’ I tell him as we reach the fence.

  ‘Yep.’ He nods as he turns and starts goofing off down the street, kicking a pinecone like it’s a soccer ball. He’s not as bad as I thought he was, but I really don’t understand the whole crush thing. He hardly knows me.

  My mouth feels a bit dry.

  I remember I’m supposed to be hurrying so I swing my leg over the fence and hear: ‘Riley Jackson!’

  The voice surprises me so much that I fall down the other side and straight into the bushes.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  I stand up, rubbing my arm where I hit the ground. Jess, the aftercare worker, is staring at me like I’m dead.

  ‘Um …’

  ‘Save it. Your mum’s here. We were about to call the police.’

  I close my eyes. I wish I could disappear like I thought I could when I was four and playing hide-and-seek with my dad and Jenna. I try to swallow away the dryness in my mouth as I follow her through the garden and towards the aftercare office.

  Mum must be standing near the window watching because she’s suddenly outside the office, storming towards me with rage screaming all over her face. Then she stops in front of me and bends down so she’s at my eye level.

  I need to speak first. I go to say something but, instead of words, I vomit a stream of red and orange and brown all over her black leather heels.

  I’m sitting up in one of those hospital beds with stiff white sheets and machines beeping around me. Mum has barely spoken to me since she brought me here, straight from school. She’s sitting on the white chair in the corner, her eyes on her phone, and I’m leaning against the pillows, waiting for the emergency doctor to come and check me out so we can go home.

  A woman about Mum’s age pulls back the curtain. She’s with the emergency nurse who’s a young guy with tattoos on both arms and spiky black hair. He’s really funny and managed to avoid telling me off, which I’m sure I appreciated more than Mum did.

  ‘I’m Doctor Baldwin,’ says the woman.

  Mum jumps to her feet and goes to shake the doctor’s hand. ‘I’m Doctor Jackson,’ she says. Mum’s a psychologist and I think it’s a bit of a cheat to call herself a doctor, but she’d argue she’s a doctor of the mind.

  ‘This is Riley, a twelve-year-old with type 1 diabetes. She came in an hour ago, having vomited twice on the way here. Her mum’s worried about diabetic ketoacidosis and her ketones were a little elevated at 0.6. We treated the high and need to do another blood sugar test,’ explains the nurse.

  I hate being spoken about when I’m in the room. ‘I feel fine now.’

  The doctor steps closer to me and smiles briefly. I’ve been in emergency departments before but only twice for diabetes and that was when I was first diagnosed and then when I had gastro and we couldn’t get my blood sugar levels under control.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Riley,’ says the doctor, pushing her pale grey glasses up her nose.

  ‘Can we go home? I’m sure I’m fine.’

  ‘What if it’s DKA?’ Mum says, stepping closer to me.

  ‘It’s not, Mum.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I feel fine.’

  I see the doctor share a quick look with the nurse. It’s a look I’d give my dad if Mum was hounding me at home.

  The nurse turns and pats Mum on the arm. ‘Why don’t we go and get a cup of coffee while Doctor Baldwin checks Riley out?’

  Mum shakes her head. ‘No. I’m staying.’

  ‘Okay,’ says the nurse.

  The doctor sits down on the edge of my bed. ‘So, what happened, Riley?’

  ‘Um … I forgot to test,’ I say. But I don’t tell her that I didn’t test after lunchtime and I shared Tessa’s cake and then had rice crackers and then a Slurpee. It’s no wonder I had a high.

  ‘She ran away from aftercare,’ snaps Mum.

  The doctor keeps watching me, ignoring Mum. ‘Do you often forget to monitor your blood glucose levels?’

  ‘Yes, she does. Her levels have been everywhere lately,’ says Mum.

  ‘I need to hear from Riley.’ The doctor keeps her concentration on me.

  I slump back on the bed. ‘I don’t forget. It’s just hard sometimes.’

  ‘Do you understand how serious it is? Your blood sugar levels were high. We do not want to be seeing ketones in your blood,’ she says.

  I nod. This has been drilled into me since I was first diagnosed. I could almost hear Mum’s lecture: You could end up in a coma! It’s kind of true – when people who have diabetes don’t get enough insulin, sugar builds up in their blood and it can’t get out to give the body energy. When that happens the body starts to break down fat for energy. That makes stuff called ketones and when they build up they make you really sick – you start vomiting, you get really bad stomach pains and yes, you can go into a coma. I knew the symptoms and the risks. I didn’t need to hear it again.

  ‘Okay, well I’m going to check you out and then I think we can probably send you home,’ she says. ‘We just need to do another test first.’

  Mum stares over the doctor’s shoulder as the doctor checks my blood sugar levels and then does blood pressure tests. I watch Mum’s face but all I can see is a grim line where her mouth is, like she’s trying not to cry.

  ‘It’s not DKA. It’s just a bad high that has started to correct itself,’ says the doctor. ‘I’m happy for you to go home but I do want you to make an appointment to see your endocrinologist next week. And I’ll send her a letter explaining everything that happened. And make sure you test every two h
ours until your ketones are back to normal. Understood?’

  I nod. ‘Yep.’

  ‘Appointment already booked for Monday,’ says Mum.

  I decide to keep my smart comment to myself and instead slide my feet into my dirty Converse so we can get out of here.

  The adults make small talk while I lace up my sneakers, wishing that I didn’t have to deal with any of this.

  ‘Take care, Riley,’ says the doctor as I slowly follow Mum out of the cubicle and into the emergency ward.

  ‘See ya,’ I say.

  The ward is loud and busy. Babies scream behind curtains and kids chatter. Nurses hurry from one cubicle to the next, dragging gloves on and off their hands. I head through the glass doors after Mum.

  She says nothing. Not walking to the car. Not when we’re belted in. Not even when she starts driving. She says nothing and it’s so much worse than if she spewed furious words at me.

  ‘Mum?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Not now.’

  ‘Mum,’ I try again, not able to wait.

  ‘Riley, I’m so angry with you that if I talk I might say something I’ll regret. I will definitely talk to you about this, but not … now.’

  She stabs her finger at the radio and Mozart fills the car, and I feel like I’m running in circles on the netball court, yelling for the ball and being ignored by the rest of my team.

  Meg

  It’s Friday and Peggy is coming to take Mum to see the doctor. That’s about all I know. And that they spent three hours in the front room with the door shut a few days ago, until finally Peggy came out and squeezed me hard and told me I smelt like lasagne and fresh washing.

  Her eyes were red and ringed, but Mum looked even worse and went straight to bed. Peggy stayed for a bit, helping me do the dishes and she told me stories about Dad. I’d heard most of them although one of them made me laugh. It was when Dad tried to fry eggs on the hot concrete one summer because Peggy was hungry. I sort of listened and I sort of wondered about what had happened in the front room.

  When she went to leave, I asked her. She smiled and tapped the end of my nose, her pink hair flatter than I’d ever seen.

  ‘All you need to know is your mum is going to see a doctor and she’s going to be okay.’

  I heard the words but didn’t believe them. Not really. Although when I left for school this morning, Mum was dressed. She told me Peggy was coming over and they were going to see someone. That’s all she said. Then she wrapped me in a big hug and told me she loved me.

  Riley isn’t at school today and I didn’t go the last few days so I still haven’t seen her since she told Lina to leave me alone. We’re supposed to present our graduation speeches to Mrs Myer and do a practice run with Ms Barber today. Instead of English this morning, we’re having a special working bee, which means all of the grade six classrooms are full of graduation buzz. Banners are being decorated, menus written and song lists argued about.

  Ms Barber has printed me out another copy of the form for the dinner. I’m supposed to invite my parents and my siblings. They have the chance to stand at the back of the gym and watch us eat dinner and make our speeches and then applaud us all as we listen to the band sing a farewell song. Then they have to leave so we can dance for a couple of hours with our friends.

  Right now, Lina and Tessa are huddled together with Nick and Matt in the corner, leaving Eleanora sitting alone at the large table with a huge sheet of white cardboard and hundreds of coloured pompoms.

  I know I risk being mocked or teased, although with only ten more days left of primary school I figure I’m beyond injury. Besides, I suspect that Lina’s distracted by Matt Park.

  ‘Um … hi …’ I mumble.

  Eleanora starts to smile then looks up at me and her face freezes until it morphs into a look of horror. She flicks her eyes around to check the room, obviously wanting to know if Lina is watching.

  ‘That pompom is actually pink not blue, Eleanora,’ I tell her, pointing where a pink pompom disrupts the perfect sea of blue pompoms.

  ‘It’s Elle. And what do you want, Meg?’

  Eleanora doesn’t look like she did when we fished on my couch for Dad’s old socks. Or when we ate too much popcorn and she snorted orange juice from her nose. She doesn’t look like she did when she fell from the monkey bars and broke her arm and I had to sit with her in Sick Bay wiping away the tears until the ambulance turned up.

  She looks different. Her teeth are hiding behind purple braces just like Lina’s. And her fringe is as straight as a ruler. But she still has trouble distinguishing some colours because she can’t see the red element. She’s colourblind. When we were friends, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world because only about one in two hundred girls are.

  ‘Where’s Riley?’ I ask her, aware that around us the rest of grade six are busily organising and laughing and avoiding doing any real work because of graduation.

  ‘She’s sick,’ says Eleanora.

  ‘Sick how?’

  Eleanora shrugs and it reminds me of the day she walked past me in the playground at lunch and sat with Lina instead.

  ‘Which one?’ She looks back down at her pompoms.

  I point to the pink one, knowing I could actually point to a different one. But I once loved Eleanora so much I thought we were kindred spirits. She plucks the pink pompom off the desk and looks for a blue one. I know she’s having trouble distinguishing the colour, so I grab it and hold it out to her. It’s soft and light and as bright as Peggy’s hair was before she went pink.

  ‘Sorry about the other day,’ she says in the smallest of whispers, as if she’s afraid of uttering the words.

  Surprised by the apology, I hand her the pompom and leave her to it. As I sit down at a table for one and open my half-written speech, I can’t stop thinking about what would have happened if Eleanora and I had stayed friends. There was no reason why we stopped hanging out. We didn’t fight. We didn’t even disagree. It was just that Lina decided to add Eleanora to her group. And I guess Lina had more appeal than me. It was about the time my dad died and I was probably not much fun anymore. I had bundles of sadness weighing me down and I wasn’t sure how to balance what I felt on the inside with who I was supposed to be on the outside.

  ‘Can’t wait to see what you’ve written, Meg,’ says Ms Barber, dragging a white plastic chair over to sit close.

  ‘I’ve made a start,’ I tell her as she slides the page towards her.

  I watch as Ms Barber reads the five or so lines I’ve written and rewritten so many times I could speak them without any prompting.

  She finishes and sits back on her chair, looking at me until I have to look away. ‘I think you could come up with more … truth.’

  ‘I know it’s not great, but it’s what we were told to write.’

  ‘Meg, your essays and stories are beautiful. You craft words together really well. This is … and please don’t be offended … it’s dull.’

  I lay my arms across the speech, not wanting the words to be seen. ‘I told you I didn’t want to write one.’

  ‘Yes, but you don’t always get to decide what you do and do not want to do.’

  I sigh, wondering if she knows how true that is. ‘Fine. I’ll go to Sick Bay and finish it there.’ I stand up and start to grab my things.

  ‘No. You can’t just go to Sick Bay. I’ve been far too lenient about that this year.’

  ‘But …’

  She shakes her head. ‘Sorry, Meg.’

  I sink back down into the chair, dreading having to stay here until lunch. She’s never said no to me before. Is this what high school will be? Teachers who make me stay?

  ‘Write your speech. I know you can.’

  I let her leave the table and I drop my head down, wishing I’d stayed home again after all. But I missed Riley yesterday and I was re
ally hoping to see her today.

  Behind me Lina laughs and walks past with Tessa. Lina pauses as she reaches my table.

  ‘This isn’t taken, is it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Great. We can chat while we work,’ she says, sitting down in the seat that Ms Barber just left.

  I roll my eyes at her, wondering what she’s about to deliver and doubting she can do too much damage when a teacher is around.

  ‘What’s your speech about, Meg?’

  ‘School.’

  ‘Sounds fascinating,’ she says, causing someone on the other side of her to giggle.

  I look around for Ms Barber and see her watching from the other side of the room. I make sure she can see my face distort as I try to drag breath noisily into my chest. I cough, although it sounds like the air is stuck in my throat. I make a choking sound and drop my head down onto the table.

  ‘Meg? You okay?’

  I can hear the words but I can’t look up. I feel someone rubbing my back in circles like Mum when I was little and I couldn’t sleep.

  ‘Meg … let’s go outside … come on …’

  Hands slide under my arms, lifting me up, carrying me out. I hear Lina laugh. Someone else too. I’m helped to sit down on a cold metal step near the door. The cold seeps into my legs through my jeans. Ms Barber sits beside me, her hand still rubbing my back.

  ‘Breathe in and hold it … One, two, three … And out.’

  I can hear her shushing me, whispering to me over and over that it will be okay, if I just breathe.

  I breathe. And look up behind me to the window at the front of the common space. I see Lina’s face pressed against the glass. Using my hand as a blinker so Ms Barber can’t see, I stare up at Lina and then give her a huge, cheesy grin, hoping she knows what I’m saying.