Nature Girl

by Jane Kelley

  And then I remember when I was.

  Last December—right at the time of year when everywhere you go there’s a plate of yummy cookies or a pile of chocolates wrapped in shiny colored paper—Lucy decided to stop eating.

  We were sitting together at lunch. I watched her stare at her sandwich. But I thought she was tired of peanut butter, so I offered her the leg of my gingerbread man.

  She shook her head. “I can’t eat,” she said.

  “Why not?” I said.

  She wouldn’t tell me, so I worried about it for the rest of the afternoon. Once we got to sixth grade, certain girls started paying a lot of attention to their bodies. Patricia Palombo was always asking questions like “How much do you weigh?” If you made the mistake of sitting next to her at lunch, she always told you how many carbs were in that mouthful you just swallowed. If you said, “Ask me if I care,” she said, “Obviously you DON’T care, May-gun. But you should.”

  Well, I didn’t. Let’s face it—I was never going to be the gorgeous type, so why should I go to a lot of trouble? Besides, I didn’t have to care how I looked because Lucy didn’t care about stuff like that either. At least, the old Lucy didn’t.

  Only the next day, Lucy didn’t eat her sandwich again. She just drank her milk.

  When I asked her what was wrong, she said, “Nothing. But maybe you shouldn’t come over to bake cookies today.”

  That made me panic. Lucy was too sensible to starve herself to death like those crazy teenage girls who think it’s attractive when your bones stick out. So why couldn’t we make cookies? Baking was one of the best things we did together. Lucy would pretend to be a crazy chef like on TV. I made up fake commercials for things like “Butt-Err—the yellow stuff it’s a mistake to eat.”

  Since I still liked food, she might not want to be my friend anymore. So I asked her, “Do you mean I shouldn’t come over or do you mean we shouldn’t bake cookies?”

  “I guess it’s okay if you come over.”

  She didn’t sound very sure, but I went anyway. I wanted to show her we could have fun even if we weren’t eating. She didn’t have to hang out with other non-eating knitters, like Patricia Palombo. (But I brought a snack with me, just in case I needed it.)

  We sat at the kitchen table, doing homework. That’s the way Lucy was about stuff. She always did all her work first. After I finished my math, I could tell she was stuck on a problem, so I said, “Want some help?”

  “No. I can do it.”

  “It’ll be faster.”

  “I don’t care.” She bent over the page. Only she wasn’t doing the problems. She was just sitting there, looking all sad and tired. I hated seeing her like that. But what could I do? She said she didn’t want my help.

  Meanwhile, I was getting hungry. I turned away from her, opened my bag of Doritos, and snuck one into my mouth.

  “Could you please eat your Doritos in the hall? They’re making me nauseous.”

  Then (I am embarrassed to say) I yelled at her. “Well, your not-eating is making me sick!”

  Her face got all red and trembling. She said, “You don’t know what sick is!”

  Then Alison called from the back of the apartment. “Lucy?”

  I hadn’t realized Alison was home.

  Lucy’s face instantly changed, like a switch was flipped. She hurried toward the bedroom. “Coming, Mom.”

  I followed along too. I wanted to see Alison. We always traded dumb bunny jokes and I knew a good one. I was going to ask her which side of a bunny has the most fur. (The outside!)

  Then I saw Lucy tiptoe into her mom’s bedroom, and I remembered. How could I be such an idiot? The only reason Alison would be home was if she was sick. And if she was sick, then she probably didn’t feel like laughing at dumb bunny jokes. Or did she? I didn’t know what to do. I kind of stood by the doorway. I could just barely see the end of the bed. The covers were rumpled. Lucy fixed them.

  “Where’s Megan?” Alison said.

  So then I had to go in. But I was really scared. I mean, I know that cancer isn’t contagious or anything. I wasn’t scared of that. I was scared of doing the wrong thing, like I always do.

  Alison was lying in bed. I recognized the purple-striped cap Lucy made in knitting club. But that was the only way I knew her. Her beautiful long red hair was gone. Her skin was yellow. Her eyes were sunk in dark circles. She looked so awful; I didn’t know what to say.

  “Megan.” Alison held out her hand.

  But I didn’t go hug her. Her arm was all bandaged and it had purple bruises on it. I just sort of waved. “Hello.”

  “I’m so glad you could come over. Lucy needs to see her friends,” Alison said.

  “I’m fine, Mom. Don’t worry about me,” Lucy said.

  “What were you girls talking about?” Alison said.

  Oh no, I thought. I was sure Lucy would complain about me, and Alison wouldn’t like me anymore.

  But Lucy said, “We were just playing. You know, like we always do? Our characters were arguing about the best way to defeat the Evil Sorceress Doritas.”

  Lucy sat down on the bed and held her mom’s hand. I wanted to sit with them, but I didn’t know if I should. I would probably bump Alison and make her feel worse.

  “Um, I just remembered. I have to do a little more math. Bye, Alison.”

  I made a dumb little wave and tiptoed back to the kitchen.

  The bag of Doritos was still sitting on the kitchen table. Looking at them made me nauseous too. I mean, why are they that color? Does anybody even know? I crushed them into the tiniest of crumbs and turned the faucet on full blast to wash them down the kitchen sink and through the pipes way out into the Atlantic Ocean. Then I crumpled the bag and pushed it under the other trash that was in the garbage can. Then I washed the orange powder off my fingers. Then I took a wet paper towel and wiped the orange powder off the table. While I was getting another paper towel to dry the table, Lucy came back.

  She sat down. She traced her finger through the wet part on the table. I was thinking of what to say. Why is it that when you desperately need some really good words, the only things in your brain are Styrofoam peanuts?

  Finally Lucy said, “My mom has been having chemo.”

  I nodded.

  Lucy kept rubbing the wet part of the table long after it was dry.

  Suddenly I had a news flash. “Is that why you’re not eating?”

  Lucy nodded. “Mom can’t eat anything. The drugs they gave her don’t help. The chemo still makes her throw up.”

  “But it’s supposed to make her better.”

  “It’s a poison, Megan. It makes her better by poisoning the cancer and her stomach.”

  “And her hair.” I started to cry.

  Lucy shushed me. “She’ll hear you. She hates people feeling sorry for her.”

  So I hugged Lucy because I wanted her to hug me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You know how you get, Megan.”

  Actually I did not know HOW I GET. In fact, I remember getting a little mad that she would say that. But I was also wishing there was something I could do to help her help Alison. So I said, “I won’t eat anything either until your mom can.”

  “Oh, Megan.” Lucy hugged me tighter.

  I kept that promise. I had thrown away the Doritos. At dinner, I pretended I had an upset stomach. (Actually that wasn’t hard, since Mom had made beans and rice AGAIN, like she always does when she’s too busy painting to go to the store.) Skipping breakfast was harder to get away with. But I kept Mom from noticing my bowl was full of oatmeal by asking her if art should be mandatory in public schools. By lunchtime, I was STARVING TO DEATH. I’m not kidding. I almost fainted on the way to the cafeteria.

  I felt so noble and loyal, not eating anything with Lucy. We each sipped our milk. Then she left to go to the bathroom and I was there all by myself. I looked in the brown paper bag just to see what Mom had packed for me. Not that I was going to eat it or anything. After all,
I had promised Lucy. Luckily it was a disgusting egg-salad sandwich on whole wheat bread, so I wasn’t even tempted. I picked a little at the crunchy stuff on the crust that normally I would never ever eat. And that’s when I decided that eating food I didn’t like didn’t really count as eating, since the main idea was to suffer like Alison. If I ate egg salad with those mysterious pieces of green stuff, boy would I be suffering. So I gobbled up every last bit of it.

  When Lucy came back, I saw her stare at my crumpled-up paper bag.

  “Lucy, I had an idea. You know how we aren’t eating because of your mom?”

  Lucy sighed.

  “Well, if the point is to suffer like your mom …”

  “Never mind, Megan. I know you ate your sandwich.”

  “Only because it tasted so awful that eating it made me feel even more terrible than not eating it.”

  “Stop making excuses. I knew you’d never do it.”

  Then she left before I could ask her HOW she knew I’d never do it. I mean, I hadn’t planned to eat my sandwich. I had planned NOT to eat my sandwich. So how could she know what I was going to do?

  Besides, that very day Alison got furious with Lucy for not eating. Lucy had to have extra vegetables and protein to make up for the meals she had skipped. A few days later, Alison was able to eat bananas, soup, and other yellow foods. And when Alison had more chemo right after Christmas, Mrs. T. came to make sure Lucy ate.

  But I didn’t say “I told you so,” like I could have.

  Even though I was right, I know I was wrong too. I didn’t tell Lucy she should eat because she couldn’t help her mom if she got sick. No, I just made a mess of it by pretending and lying and quitting.

  “Just like you always do,” my good old yucky voice says.

  My foot is really killing me now, so I stop walking. I take off my shoe. I dump out some dirt. Then I drink some water and eat the dried fruit from the trail mix. It tastes better than it looks. Unfortunately it only makes me hungrier. Like that little bit of food woke up a sleeping monster—my stomach.

  The only thing to do is keep going. I try to fix my sock again. But the hole gets so big my toes won’t stay in. The sock is useless. Just like me. I groan.

  Arp looks at me like “What’s up?”

  I don’t want to tell him how I let Lucy down. He’ll lose confidence in me. Then he’ll start wondering whether we’re walking all these zillions of miles and starving and getting eaten alive by bugs to see someone who might not be glad to see us. Who actually has a few reasons to be mad at me.

  I go into a frenzy of bug-swatting. Arp barks at me like I’m playing. Only I’m not playing; I’m going insane!

  It’s so unfair. Especially the part about being starving and getting eaten at the same time. I mean, what’s up with that?

  Then I freeze. “Be quiet, Arp,” I say.

  In the distance, I can hear someone whistling that goofy Star-Spangled Home on the Range song.

  Oh no! Not Trail Blaze Betty!

  12

  The Lake

  Why is Trail Blaze Betty still following us? Doesn’t she have anything better to do? Why doesn’t she go back and put the other two walls on that shelter?

  By the time I get my shoe on, the whistling is very close.

  “We can’t get ahead of her now. We better hide until she goes past.”

  I drag Arp off the Trail and into some bushes.

  This is a big mistake. The bushes have prickly thorns that attack me. But I keep going. I can’t even cry out because I’m afraid Trail Blaze Betty will hear me. I’m in total agony when I hear the sound of girls laughing.

  I stop. But they aren’t laughing at me—even though I know I look completely ridiculous stumbling through the bushes silently going ow ow ow. They’re laughing because they’re happy.

  Then I hear water splashing.

  “Come on, Arp. I bet those girls are in a swimming pool.”

  I fight my way through all kinds of scrubby trees and vines until finally I see the water.

  You probably already know there aren’t any swimming pools in the Woods. It’s a little lake. But from a distance, the water is a beautiful blue. So Arp and I keep going toward it until I can see the girls dancing around on the far shore.

  One girl’s swimsuit has magenta bottoms and a lime green top. The other girl has lime green bottoms and a magenta top. It’s like they’re such good friends that they traded. They drag a little yellow raft into the lake and paddle around. The magenta-top girl tries to tip it over. The green-top girl is squealing, but I know she isn’t scared—she’s just having a wonderful time.

  They’re having the summer that Lucy and I were supposed to have. The summer of s’mores and wishing on falling stars and laughter and more laughter. The summer of no past and no future, no homework to do and no one to bother us, just best friends having an endless sleepover.

  But Lucy didn’t come.

  The two girls lie on the raft and drift around. They don’t paddle to get anywhere. They don’t need to. They’re together. That’s all that matters.

  It’s not fair that they’re floating so free and easy while I’m scrambling through the bushes. I mean, why couldn’t one of their moms have gotten sick? Why does it have to be Lucy who is worried to death? Only Lucy would never say “worried to death.” She never lets anybody say things like “I was so embarrassed, I could have DIED.” Or “That homework nearly KILLED me.” Or even “You make me SICK.”

  Lucy is such a good person and Alison is such a nice mom. But Alison got cancer anyway, so Lucy got worried. And (even though I’m not as nice as they are) I got worried about Alison too, no matter how many times they said she had the good cancer. How can cancer be good? But I couldn’t ask anybody that. I couldn’t talk about any of my feelings. Not even to Lucy.

  When I get to the lake, the water that looked so beautifully blue turns out to be muddy and gunky and choked with weeds and infested with slime-loving creatures JUST LIKE ALL THE OTHER STUPID LAKES IN VERMONT.

  I hate Vermont. I really do.

  Please don’t be like my dad and tell me how the blue water is only reflecting the sky or whatever it does. I don’t want to hear anything logical. I just want Lucy and me to be those girls floating on a yellow raft.

  Arp happily wades right into the water and has a nice drink. He doesn’t know about disappointment and sorrow. He’s just a dumb dog. He doesn’t even have any friends, unless you count the cat that sleeps in the dry cleaner’s window and hisses at him whenever he trots past.

  The girls stop playing with the raft and drag it onto the shore. Magenta Top spreads out towels. Green Top gets two bottles of purple Vitaminwater and a bag that looks like lunch out of a little cooler. I’m hoping it’s such a huge lunch that there’s plenty to share. But I’m worried because there are TWO girls. And when you’re talking about hanging around with friends, THREE is an unlucky number.

  Still, I walk along the shore closer to them. After I go a little ways, I have to walk in the water because there are bushes in the way. Arp swims along with me. I think he has his eye on the lunch too.

  Unfortunately the lunch is just two sandwiches. Even if you cut each one in half, it still wouldn’t divide up for three. It’s an impossible mathematical problem.

  Green Top has hair just like Lucy’s. Dark and straight and never completely staying in a ponytail no matter how many times she smooths it back. Of course, the girl isn’t Lucy. Lucy doesn’t even have a swimming suit like that.

  I’m anxious to see the second girl’s face. I mean, I know it isn’t me. OBVIOUSLY. But if it’s someone LIKE me, then it’ll be a sign. I never used to pay attention to signs until last year, when Lucy started picking up pennies for good luck. Actually, until last year, I never needed signs of good luck because I always had Lucy. But now I’m desperate for some good news, no matter where it comes from. So I’m hoping hoping hoping as I wade past the bushes and get out of the lake to walk on the pebbly shore.

&nbs
p; Suddenly I hear dogs barking way off in the distance. It isn’t Arp. He’s still swimming in the water. It’s a lot of dogs and they sound big. They sound so big that Arp gets out of the lake to be close to me.

  The girls hear the barking too. As they stand up and look toward the sound, they notice Arp and me. Their eyes get wide when they recognize us. Then I realize what the dogs are for—sniffing us out.

  I pick up Arp so we can run away really fast. But it’s too late for that.

  “Wait!” the Lucy girl says. “You’re Megan, aren’t you?”

  “And that’s your dog, Arf?” says the other girl, who (I have to say) has smooth yellow hair and looks much more like Patricia Palombo than like me.

  “Arp,” I say.

  “Wow!” the Lucy girl says. “Everybody’s been looking for you. They say you ran away.”

  “I thought you were kidnapped or maybe even dead,” the blond girl says.

  “I’m not,” I say.

  “What are you doing in the Woods?” the Lucy girl says.

  I don’t have much time to explain. The barking is still pretty far away, but it’s getting closer. “I need your help.”

  “What for?” the blond girl says.

  “You see, I was supposed to be having this wonderful summer in Vermont with my best friend. But her mom is sick. So she decided to stay with her mom even though she would rather have been having fun with me. She is very unselfish that way.”

  “Oh,” the Lucy girl says, very sympathetically.

  “So?” the blond girl says.

  “So since my best friend couldn’t be with me, I decided to go on a journey to be with her,” I say.

  “Why didn’t you just drive?” the blond girl says.

  Why didn’t I?

  “Because.” I pause. The barking is making it hard to think. “I can’t drive.”

  The blond girl smirks. “Obviously. But your mother could.”

  “No. Nobody can drive you when you’re going on a journey like this. When you’re making a quest to prove your friendship, you have to make sacrifices or the journey won’t mean anything. You have to endure hardships. You have to be brave. You have to go on a Hodgkin’s Hike.”