by Ali Standish
“Um, Ms. Singh?” I say, eyes still closed. I feel like this will be less awkward if one of us is talking.
“Yes?”
Snip.
“You’re an English teacher.”
Snip, snip.
“Can’t get anything past you, can I?” she says with a little laugh.
“Do you like to write? Like stories or poetry or anything?”
The snipping stops for a moment. “Sure,” she says. “Sometimes. Why do you ask?”
“Well, how do you decide what your story is supposed to be about?”
Snip, snip, snip.
“That’s tricky,” says Ms. Singh. “But I guess I would say that you should write about what’s in your heart. About something that’s important to you.”
“Yeah. That’s good advice.”
Snip.
“Are you writing a story?”
“Kind of. Yes.”
I decide to leave out the fact that I have a mysterious pen pal who is helping me write it.
“That’s wonderful! There, now look,” Ms. Singh says, squeezing my shoulders.
I open my eyes and look in the mirror. The bangs are much better than before. They’re straight now, and cover everything above my eyebrows. You can’t see my spots at all. If Ms. Singh noticed them while she was cutting—and I don’t see how she couldn’t have—she doesn’t say anything.
“Thanks,” I reply. “It doesn’t look like I cut them myself anymore.”
“You’re welcome,” she says, smiling. “Now, get to class, and good luck with that story. And Emma?”
“Yeah?”
“You look nice with bangs. But you looked nice without them, too.”
When I arrive in English class later that morning, Ms. Singh gives me a thumbs-up, and I smile back at her.
“What happened to your zombie freak face?” Edie says as she sits down.
“What happened to your twin?” retorts Fina, appearing behind her.
“What are you talking about?” Edie asks, eyes narrowing.
“I just figured the only explanation for being so rude is that you’re someone’s evil twin.” Fina crosses her arms over her chest. “So what’d you do with the good one?”
I laugh, and Edie starts to say something, but Grace Number One jerks her head toward Ms. Singh, who looks like she’s about to come over. Edie smiles sweetly at her.
“Are you okay?” Fina whispers. “Ruby told me what happened on the bus.”
“I’m fine,” I say. Honestly, it was almost worth it for Edie to call me a zombie freak just to see Fina defend me like that. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
“Good. Why’d you cut your hair anyway?” Fina asks. “I mean, the bangs look good on you, but what inspired you?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I guess it was just time for a change, you know?”
19
At the end of the week, I tell Fina and Ruby I’m going to be late to school the next Monday because of a dentist appointment, but really I’m going for my first light treatment at Dr. Howard’s office. I’ll have to get good at thinking up excuses if I’m going to have to do these treatments twice a week.
A nurse takes me back to a room with this really tall box that looks a little like a spaceship. Then I have to close my eyes and put on goggles and go stand inside the box. She counts down from three. When she gets to one, a light flicks on so bright I can see it with my eyes closed—and there’s a whirring noise. Then I just stand there like that for a whole minute, pretending that I’m being beamed up into space.
“That’s all?” I ask when the light switches off. I didn’t feel anything. It seems kind of crazy that just a little bit of light could bring the color back to my skin.
“That’s it,” says the nurse.
Dr. Howard told me that even if the light box works, it will take a few months to start seeing any improvement, but I still glance down at myself afterward. The patches on my feet are bigger than quarters now. Looking in the mirror, I hold up my hair and turn to see my neck. The spots there haven’t joined together yet, but there are a dozen or so sprinkled around. Next, I pull back my bangs and study the spots underneath. There are even more now than last Monday, following the angle of my eyebrows. I pat my bangs firmly back down so that the spots are hidden again.
Here’s something I haven’t really been honest about until now. I’ve started noticing other people’s faces. Like, a lot. I study their skin colors. Give them names like the ones on the backs of Gram’s paint tubes. Summer sands for Lily and wild honey for Fina. I stare at Ms. Singh (driftwood) during class and look at how smooth and even her face looks, even on the days when she has little baggies under her eyes.
And sometimes I feel jealous of them. All those one-colored people who don’t even know how lucky they are because they’re too busy thinking about how their noses are too long or their eyelashes aren’t long enough, so they never stop and take a second to be thankful for their skin. Even Ruby has an even layer of fresh cream underneath her freckles.
I always wear my hair down now to cover the spots on my neck and long-sleeve shirts and sneakers to cover my other ones. But I won’t be able to hide the spots on my forehead if they decide to creep down past my bangs. And what happens if all my treatments don’t work and the spots keep growing, and more and more of the color gets sucked out of me until I have none left at all?
I read online that it happens to some people with vitiligo. They lose all their color. Then there are some who have patches all over their body and actually have their doctors give them a depigmenting cream to get rid of the rest of their color. Because at least that way, they’re one color again. And people probably don’t stare at them anymore, because they just look really pale (magnolia blossom). So maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
But the idea of losing the rest of my color makes me wrap my arms tightly around my waist, like if I just squeeze hard enough, I can keep it from draining away.
Every afternoon that week, Boomer and I run through the village and down to the meadows after school, always heading for the Spinney. On Thursday, we race Old Joe’s tractor as it rumbles down High Street. It’s not much of a race, to be honest.
“How’s school going?” Old Joe calls as we slow down by the tractor cab. “What grade is it again?”
“Seventh,” I say, tugging on Boomer’s leash to get him to slow down. “And it’s good.”
A car honks. There’s a long line of them behind Old Joe. He grins at me and winks.
“Seventh grade is a head-scratcher, that’s for sure,” he says. “You be good now. Make your gram proud.”
“I will.”
Then he kicks the tractor into full speed, by which I mean about ten miles an hour. Boomer and I peel off past the orchard, where families are picking apples from the trees, then through the meadows and into the Spinney. We rush down the hill toward the glade and the sycamore hollow to see if my pen pal has written the next chapter of our story.
Every day, the carpet of leaves on the forest floor has grown thicker and brighter, and today I actually slip on them and go sliding down the slope. When I get to the bottom, Boomer pounces on me and starts drenching my face with kisses. For the first time since Gram died, I laugh so hard my stomach hurts.
There’s this part of The World at the End of the Tunnel—after Sarah and Jack are taken in by the clover elves and have started training to defeat the troll army—when Sarah suddenly realizes that she can’t remember the last time she thought about home.
Did things like bedtimes and hot baths and setting the table for supper still exist somewhere? When Sarah thought of such things, it was as if she were recalling details of a long-ago dream.
When I step into the Spinney—or roll into it, for that matter—I feel the same way. Like the rest of my world doesn’t exist at all. Like the forest is the only thing that’s real.
Even though I didn’t say it to Fina, I think that’s the other reason I love The World at the End o
f the Tunnel so much. I always felt like Sarah, Jack, and I all shared this secret. They had the Goldengrove, and I had the Spinney.
Every day this week, I’ve checked the journal for a new chapter, and every day, there’s been nothing. It’s been almost two weeks since I wrote about Ivy seeing the woman in white leaving Poppy Cottage.
I thought it would be a good cliff-hanger, but maybe my pen pal doesn’t agree. Or maybe they have writer’s block. Or maybe they’ve forgotten about the story altogether.
But as I dust myself off and look inside the sycamore hollow today, I feel my heart leap. I’m sure the journal isn’t quite at the angle I left it. And sitting atop it is a new pencil, freshly sharpened.
I grab the journal and skip breathlessly over to Throne Rock. I nestle myself into the nook of the cool boulders and turn through the pages, impatient to find out what happens next in the story.
Ivy ran across the clearing and burst through the door of Poppy Cottage, Shilling galloping beside her like a shooting star.
Inside the cottage, Gran sat upon a stool by the little fire, whittling something that looked like a crutch. She looked up in surprise as Ivy rushed in.
“Gran!” Ivy cried, running to her grandmother and flinging herself at the old woman’s feet. She laid her head in her grandmother’s lap. “You’re safe!”
“Of course I am, child,” said Gran. But her face looked pale in the meager firelight.
“The woman in the white cloak,” said Ivy. “I saw her leave. Are you all right?”
“I am,” Gran replied. But a tear slipped from the corner of her eye.
“What did she want?”
“Dearest Ivy,” said Gran, setting down her whittling. “There is so much I wish I could tell you.”
Ivy shook her head, confused. Shilling whined. “What do you mean, Gran? Why can’t you tell me?”
Gran smiled. But her breath rattled in her chest.
“Are you sick, Gran?” Ivy asked, noticing how her grandmother’s color seemed to be fading further, like the sun fleeing the evening sky. “Did the woman in white do something to you?”
Her grandmother lifted a cold hand to Ivy and brushed it against her cheek. “I am an old woman, my girl. It is time I take my leave of the world.”
Ivy clutched at Gran’s skirts. “You can’t!” she cried. “You mustn’t!”
“You are strong,” said Gran, passing the half-whittled crutch to Ivy. “You are ready. Be well, my girl.”
Gran took one last breath that seemed to go on forever, and then in an instant was gone.
Ivy and Shilling tilted their heads up in unison. Their howls pierced a hole through the moonless night.
20
I don’t go back to the Spinney on Friday afternoon, or even over the weekend.
By the time I finished reading the new chapter, hot tears were burning down my cheeks.
And the more I thought about it, the more I felt like I’d been betrayed. It was my story, after all. It was supposed to be something to take my mind off my problems. A fairy tale that started with “once upon a time” and ended with “happily ever after.”
I had to watch my grandmother die, but Ivy was supposed to save hers. Wasn’t she?
I’m still stewing about it on Monday, when I arrive at school late from my light treatment.
“You’re quiet today,” Fina says at lunch. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I reply. “Totally fine.”
“Did you have another dentist appointment this morning?” Ruby asks. “Do you have a cavity or something?”
“No,” I say slowly, trying to decide what to tell them. “I—”
But just then Fina’s head cocks to the side. She’s staring at me.
“What’s that?” She points to my mouth.
“What’s what?” I ask, running my fingers over my lips, feeling for sandwich crumbs. But there’s nothing.
“You have this little white spot,” she replies, “right there at the corner of your mouth.”
My heart stumbles, then falls, like a runner who’s just been tripped.
“Um,” I murmur, “I don’t know. I—I need to go to the bathroom.”
I whip out of the cafeteria, down the hall, and into the bathroom. Please, no, I think. Please let it be a spot of sunscreen. I check to make sure no one else is there, and then lean close to the mirror above the sink.
There it is. My newest spot, hovering just above the left corner of my lip.
Tears spring to my eyes.
I can’t hide my mouth with a strategic haircut—unless I want to become a bearded lady. Why is the vitiligo spreading so quickly? Why does it have to be on my face? Why me at all?
A really mean thought crosses my mind.
Which is that I wish this were happening to someone else. Anybody else but me.
“Emma?” calls a voice. Fina is standing in the doorway, Ruby right behind her. “Are you okay?”
For some reason, her question makes my tears multiply. “Um,” I say, my chin all wobbly, “I don’t really know.”
In an instant, Fina is there with her arm around me, hugging me tight. Ruby stands just to the side, watching wide-eyed and biting her lip as I cry.
“It’s okay, Emma,” says Fina. “Whatever it is, it’s going to be okay, I swear!”
I’m not sure how she knows this, because she doesn’t even know what’s wrong yet. But it still helps me to stop crying. And then instead of tears spilling out, it’s words.
I tell both of them about seeing the first spot at Gram’s funeral and then the next ones in the dressing room at the mall. I tell them about seeing Mom’s face out in the hall with Dr. Howard, and how I knew then that I really did have vitiligo.
Fina nods as I talk, and Ruby’s frown grows deeper and deeper until she wears a panicked look, like I’ve just told her that I’m dying.
“Oh my god,” she says when I’m finished. “That’s awful, Emma. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s not so terrible,” Fina protests. “I mean, I’m sure it’s really hard getting used to it, but I think it’s kind of cool. Most people just get to be one color, but you get to be two!”
I shoot her a watery smile. Leave it to Fina to think that being one color is boring.
“So it’s not contagious?” Ruby asks.
“Right,” I say.
“Then how’d you get it?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. It just happens to some people. That’s the way autoimmune diseases are.”
I see Ruby shiver a little, and I’m pretty sure she’s worrying about what it would be like if she got it. Which is kind of annoying, actually.
“Don’t worry,” I say to her. “Only like one in a hundred people get it.”
That was something else Dr. Howard told me at our appointment.
“One in a hundred?” Fina echoes, handing me a paper towel to blow my nose on. “I know way more than a hundred people. How come I’ve never heard of it?”
I shrug again. “Maybe because some people get it when they’re older? And not everyone gets it on their face, so some people can cover it up with clothes and stuff. Or they wear makeup.”
“Oooh,” breathes Fina. “Your bangs. Is that because—”
I lift up my bangs so they can see underneath.
Fina’s expression doesn’t change at all. She just looks at my forehead and nods. “And your appointments?”
“Light treatments,” I say. “I stand in this box that fills up with a certain kind of light that’s supposed to help me get color back in my spots.”
“Whoa. Cool,” Fina says, looking genuinely impressed.
“Is it working?” Ruby asks.
“I’m not sure. It takes a while to know.”
“Emma,” Fina says, “this must be really tough for you, but Ruby and I are here for you no matter what. We don’t care what color—or colors—you are. And I will personally kick the sorry butt of anyone who does.”
She pulls me and Ruby into
a group hug, embracing us tightly.
“Thanks,” I reply. “That makes me feel a little bit better.”
And I’m not lying, either.
21
My friends are really good about keeping me busy after school for the next few weeks. Fina invites me and Ruby over a bunch, and Ms. Ramirez takes us to the bakery in town for cake, or if she’s busy, Mr. Ramirez takes us to the movies or bowling.
Fina and Ruby are also really good about not talking about my vitiligo. I mean, I know they would if I wanted, but right now, I kind of want to talk about anything else. Especially since I’ve started thinking about it all the time when I’m at school.
Now that I have spots where people can see them (another one showed up a few days after the last one, this one on the right side of my mouth), I’ve started being really careful about keeping my head down in the hall and making sure that in class my hair is always hanging loose around my face so you can’t see the spots from the sides. If I have to talk to someone up close, I rest my chin in my hands, so my fingers cover them up.
Fridays are the best because I get to go home for the weekend, where I don’t have to worry about hiding all the time. Even better, Mom’s been so preoccupied with reviewing Lily’s college applications that I think she’s forgotten to be so worried about me.
One Friday night, I’m in bed reading The World at the End of the Tunnel. Sarah and Jack and the clover elves are just about to celebrate their victory over the troll army when an ogre kidnaps Jack and sweeps him off to the hobgoblin king’s castle. Before Sarah can follow them, there’s a knock on my door.
“Come in,” I say.
I have to hide my surprise when the door opens to reveal Lily standing there, holding her huge makeup bag. This is a surprise because (a) I have no idea what Lily wants from me and (b) Lily never stays home on Friday nights. Though now that I think about it, she hasn’t been going out nearly as much as she used to. I guess because Mom’s been keeping her so busy with applications.
“Hey, Emma,” she says, smiling.
“What’s up?” I ask.