Mustaches for Maddie

by Chad Morris

  I wondered what she was thinking, but somehow I knew she didn’t want to wait until my appointment next week. I hoped nothing was really wrong.

  As far as teachers go, Mrs. Baer rocked. We did all sorts of fun stuff in her class, like spelling games where if you got so many words right you could shoot invading UFOs from the sky. She even had a “Baer Box” filled with candy and posters and stuff for super good behavior. All of Mrs. Baer’s room was covered in bears.

  Get it? Baer—Bear.

  But she didn’t cover her room with real bears. That would be terrifying.

  “Is today the day we find out what parts we get in the play?” Cassie asked as we stepped into class.

  Mrs. Baer clapped her hands. “I know many of you are very excited about that,” she said in her happy-teacher voice. She was good at that. “But no.” She shook her head. “It’s a lot of work to decide, and we still need another day or two.” Several students groaned. “But you’ll notice that I changed your seats. Please find your seat and say hello to your new neighbors.”

  All of our desks were moved around. Maybe I was going to sit next to Yasmin, or Sarah, or even Cassie. That would be awesome. I checked the desks trying to find mine. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cassie looking for her desk too. She was easy to find in her sparkly blue T-shirt. It looked like she had already found her seat, so I walked over by her and said hi. “I hope we get to sit together,” I said.

  “That would be fun,” Cassie said. I was really glad to hear her say that after she had ignored me the other day. Maybe we were becoming better friends. Maybe she’d heard that Yasmin and I had destroyed Dragoporkisaur with our laser sneezes and burp bombs. It was pretty impressive after all. “Hey, Maddie,” Cassie said. She looked around and then leaned in so only I could hear. “I was wondering if you could do a favor for me?”

  “Sure,” I said, not thinking twice about it.

  Cassie whispered, “Ask Devin who he likes.”

  Oh. My brain whirred. Either she wanted to know for someone else or Cassie didn’t like Cesar—she liked Devin. I didn’t think Cassie was trying to find out for someone else. Of course she wouldn’t admit to it, but if someone asks that question I think it’s pretty obvious. The only thing more obvious would be an “I love Devin” mustache.

  I didn’t mind talking to Devin, but asking who he liked was different. Really different. Cassie was so pretty and everyone liked her so Devin would probably like her too. It would be weird to ask him and awkward to hear him answer. Then again, maybe it could be like a secret mission. I could sneak in like a spy and find very sensitive information. Yeah, that was a better way of thinking about it. And if I needed a disguise, I had mustaches ready.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Thanks,” Cassie said and flipped her long blonde hair. And it flipped well. Some girls flip their hair and their neck gets all crooked and their hair flip-flops all over the place. I probably did it that way. But Cassie did it like a girl in a movie. Like she’d practiced it hundreds of times. She probably had.

  Most kids had found their desks. Every spot on Cassie’s row was filled. And on the row behind her. And on the row in front of her. And Yasmin was in the row in front.

  Boo. I wasn’t going to sit by either of them.

  I looked at the few remaining open desks, trying to find mine. They were all on the other side of the room, far away from my friends.

  Lexi gave a small wave and motioned for me. I guess my desk was next to hers. That would probably be okay. As I walked over, I saw Devin. He was just a few desks to the side of us. At least I knew someone close. And maybe it would make it easier to find out who he liked.

  “Hey, Lexi,” I said, immediately feeling bad that Cassie never let her hang out with us. In fact, Cassie hadn’t let her hang out with us since that day we talked about which parts to choose. I gave her an “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything, but I’ve been there too” smile. I still felt bad I hadn’t stood up for her. I pulled my binder out of my backpack with my good hand.

  “Hey, Maddie,” she said back.

  “How are you?” I asked and put my binder on my desk. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Devin, and it seemed like he was looking over at us. Did he suspect my secret mission already? Or maybe he was still deciding if he wanted to sneeze lasers beams or burp bombs.

  “I’m fine,” Lexi said. “Is your arm okay?”

  I looked down. “I think so,” I said, stretching it out slower than before, but I didn’t try to open my hand. I didn’t want it to tremble. “It’s just been a little weird lately.” I wished I could have pulled out my long green mustache from my backpack. If I could have put it on right then, Lexi would have loved it. And it would have distracted her from my arm. Green mustaches are good for that.

  Devin. He was still looking toward us.

  “Is it just me, or is Devin looking over here a lot?” I asked.

  Lexi blushed. Apparently talking about Devin was also a good distraction. Maybe even better than a green mustache. But not as funny. Now if Devin was wearing a green mustache that would have been the best distraction.

  “Okay, class,” Mrs. Baer said. “Time to get started.”

  I had to pay attention. In Mrs. Baer’s class, if you are good, you can get Baer Bucks. You can also get them for keeping your desk clean or acing a quiz or test. And if you get enough, you could pick something out of the Baer Box. The coupon to “get out of homework for a day” was my favorite.

  But we weren’t going to do Bear Box for a while. We had a math test. A super long math test.

  I think math was invented by some evil organization that was trying to turn all of the human race’s brains to mush. And the tragic part was, it probably was working. At least it was probably working on mine.

  Static popped out from the speaker above the whiteboard, followed by a beep. “Excuse me, Mrs. Baer,” a voice came over the intercom. “Maddie Bridger’s mother is here to check her out.”

  It was weird to hear my name over the intercom. At first I thought I was in trouble, like I was being called down to the principal’s office. Maybe they had discovered that I had been tunneling underneath the school and found a huge gold mine miles underground. I had been secretly digging it out and giving the gold to poor families who needed it. I was kind of like Robin Hood but with a hard hat and a pickax.

  No. That wasn’t it. I was getting checked out of school.

  But the only time I got checked out early was on my birthday. My mom checked me out every year and took me to Alfunzo’s Fun Zone. We bowled and drove go-carts and played mini-golf and video games. But it definitely wasn’t my birthday.

  Oh. I knew why.

  At least I could leave my math test behind. Take that, dumb evil organization. My brain would not become mush today.

  When I reached the office with my pink backpack sagging behind me, I saw my mom with Max standing beside her. I had barely even stepped into the room when Mom hugged me. It was a tight one. “I called the doctor and he said we have to go to the hospital immediately.”

  Immediately?

  “We’re going to the doctor,” Max blurted out. “Immediately,” he repeated.

  He was cute in his three-year-old-ness, but hearing the word immediately again jarred me.

  Still standing in the school’s office, I nodded, but I didn’t really understand. What was so important that it had to happen immediately? Maybe the doctors needed to see me because they’d found out I’m a cursed centaur ninja with experimental technology in me. And if they didn’t find a way to change me back, they’d keep me locked up in the circus where everyone would pay five dollars to see the robot-centaur girl.

  I would pay five dollars for that.

  But I knew it was because of my arm. Or my leg. Or both.

  No one would pay five dollars to see those.

  We signed ou
t, got in our minivan, and started off.

  I’d seen my doctor before for checkups. He was nice and smart and stuff, but the best thing about him was that his name was Ryan Evans. Just like the name of the blond guy in High School Musical—Sharpay’s twin who wears all the hats. I used to watch that a lot when I was a little kid. Except Dr. Evans wasn’t a blond high-school kid who sang and danced while wearing hats. That would have been awesome.

  Max waved a stick he must have picked up on the way to the car. “Do you want to play Wizard Club?” He had watched some cartoon about a boy who discovered a magic wand and formed a club of wizards to fight all different kinds of evil creatures. He had been pretending that sticks were wands ever since.

  I nodded. I had nothing better to do.

  “Do you know which character I want to be?” he asked.

  “The most powerful wizard?” I hadn’t seen the show, so I didn’t know the characters’ names, but I’d heard him talk about it.

  He shook his head, a wide grin on his face.

  “The giant?”

  He shook his head again.

  “The dragon?”

  “Nope. The dwarf,” he said.

  Really? Out of all of the characters, he picked the dwarf?

  “He’s short and awesome. Just like me.” He pointed at himself with both thumbs.

  I was glad I wasn’t drinking because if I was, it would have come out my nose. I laughed long and loud. Maybe even extra loud, but it felt good.

  While my brother started describing an episode about a stolen pair of magical boots, I looked out the car window. It never took us this long to get to Dr. Evans’ office. “Mom, aren’t we going too far?”

  “No.”

  “But Dr. Evans’ office is . . .”

  “Oh, no,” my mom interrupted. “We aren’t going to Dr. Evans’ office. He said we should take you straight to the children’s hospital downtown. We still have a ways to go.”

  A children’s hospital? “Why?” I asked.

  “Well, they have specialist doctors and better equipment to get pictures of things inside your body.”

  Something was wrong, and it would take specialists and better equipment to figure it out.

  Wrong.

  Not ninja training or magic curses.

  Wrong.

  “They probably need a CT scan or an MRI of your brain,” my mom said.

  I didn’t know what those letters meant, but I definitely understood one word. “Brain?”

  “Yeah. They just need to make sure it’s okay.” My mom looked back at me in the rearview mirror. “There’s no reason to be worried. We’ll have to find out what they see.”

  No reason to be worried? That’s what she said, but I could feel it. It was like worry was a dark cloud that filled our whole van.

  “Watch out!” Max called out, waving his wand. I was so tense from what my mom had said that it made me jump. “They’ve got us surrounded.” Apparently he hadn’t realized that Mom and I had been talking and this was kind of serious. “You take the ogres. I’ll face off with the giant snake.”

  “Okay,” I said. What I really had to face felt worse than squaring off against a bunch of angry ogres.

  My brain.

  Something’s wrong.

  I wished my little brother could use his wand and just make everything better somehow.

  An MRI.

  That’s what the emergency room doctors said I needed. After three different doctors made me squeeze their hand, kick their palm, follow their finger with my eyes, and smile for them (just like Mom had), they all said they would need to get an MRI scan to know more.

  They didn’t tell me what the letters in MRI stood for. Massive Robot Intelligence. Mustard Rat from Indiana. Mustaches Rock Importantly. But none of those really made sense, so probably not. The doctors just explained that it would take some fancy pictures of the inside of my head.

  Walking to the MRI room wasn’t bad, though. There were kids’ paintings on the walls, like one of a dog skiing and another one of a unicorn. Pretty cool. And there were fake fish hanging from the ceiling like they were swimming in the air. Max kept pointing them out.

  We walked through a door with a sign that said Imaging above it. My mom gave the person behind the desk a lot of information about me. She had done that a few times now. It seemed really redundant—that’s a word that means something happens over and over again. Or it repeats. Or it happens over and over again.

  See what I did there? I think of funny, weird things when I’m nervous. And redundant was a vocab word last week.

  “Hello, Maddie,” a lady in a long white coat said. I wanted her to tell me that everything was going to be okay, that I was just fine. But that was silly. She hadn’t even checked me yet. Well, to be honest, I wanted her to tell me that I could go home, that my arm and leg were just growing and I could go back to making my friends laugh with mustaches, hoping for a good part in a Shakespeare scene, and trying to find out who Devin liked. But that wasn’t going to happen either.

  “Come on back,” the lady in the coat said. She led us through the big doors from the waiting area into a wide, medical-looking hall. Tall stands with tubes, beds on wheels, and small portable beeping machines stood outside the doors. We made our way past all of it.

  She led us into a room that looked like an office. There was a desk and computers facing a huge window. “Okay, we are going to put you into the MRI machine, and it’s going to take pictures of your head, okay?”

  I nodded.

  “But first you have to take off any jewelry or metal.” She was looking me over as she said it.

  Usually I’m just dripping in diamonds and gold chains. Oh, and a crown, of course, with emeralds. It’s probably worth a quadrillion dollars. Good thing I had left it all with the royal guard back at the palace. That made things easier.

  I took out my one pair of earrings with little gold mustaches on them.

  “Do you think we’ll have to sedate her?” the lady asked my mom.

  “She should be fine,” Mom said. “She’s a brave girl.”

  I didn’t know what sedate meant. It wasn’t a vocab word last week. But I liked the fact that I was brave. I mean, of course I was brave. I’d put on a mustache at school to make my friends laugh. I’d written that I wanted to be Juliet, even when Cassie wanted me to write something else. I’d defeated an evil mastermind with my remote-controlled spy agents. And when I’d been shrunk to no bigger than a penny, I’d faced the swarm of killer bees by myself to save a colony of ladybugs.

  Wait. No. I only did the last two in my imagination.

  But I am brave.

  Just in case, my mom turned to me. “Do you think they should give you medicine to make you fall asleep while you’re in the machine?”

  Oh, so that’s what sedate meant.

  “Or can you lie on the table and stay really still?” Mom smiled at me.

  I didn’t know what machine or table we were talking about, but I nodded. “I can stay still,” I said.

  The lady in the long coat didn’t look convinced. Maybe lots of kids couldn’t stay still. That made me wonder if I really could. “Let me show you the machine and you can make sure that’s okay,” she said. I nodded. “But your mom and your brother will have to stay here.”

  What? I had to go in alone?

  “You’ll do great, girl,” my mom said and gave me a hug. It was a many-hug day.

  “Bye, Maddie,” Max said. “You’re so lucky.” I guess he liked the idea of a machine that could see into my head.

  But I didn’t feel lucky. I felt alone.

  I followed the lady down the hall. This probably wasn’t a big deal. I’d had X-rays at the dentist before, and they just put a little machine close to my mouth. I guess that was what I was expecting.

  It wasn’t even
close.

  This machine was huge.

  It practically filled the entire room. It looked like a giant washing machine with a hole in the front. There was just enough room for a person to lie down on a table and slide inside of it. It was like going into a mechanical cave.

  The lady confirmed that I was okay to lie there on my own, and then she patted the table, telling me to sit on it.

  “Alright,” she said. “I just need to give you a shot so the machine can bounce its wave off the medicine in the shot and get a good picture of your insides.”

  I didn’t know what that meant, but I didn’t like it. The lady in the coat got a needle. It wasn’t tiny. I didn’t like that even more. As the needle went in, I felt like I was getting stabbed in the hand with a small sword. My tender, useful hand.

  She pushed on the end, and sting-y stuff went into my veins.

  I cried.

  Call me a wimp, but I had just found out there might be something wrong with my brain, I was going to have to sit in a huge machine, and then I got stabbed with a small sword.

  Not my favorite day. Not even close.

  The lady waited a minute until I was feeling better, then she laid a thick blanket on top of me. It didn’t seem like a blanket though. It was heavy, like it was made of mud and covered in plastic. She strapped my head into a helmet thing that was attached to the table. It probably made me look like a spacewoman.

  She also popped some headphones over my ears, but no music was coming out. They must have been to keep noise out or something.

  “Are you okay?” the lady asked.

  I was okay. Not good or comfortable or happy, but okay.

  “I’m going to put you in the machine as soon as I leave the room,” she said.

  And then she left.

  I was alone.

  No Mom.

  No Max.

  No lady in the lab coat.

  Just me in a giant machine.

  Really not my favorite day.

  The lady must have pushed a button or something because the table suddenly started to move me into the machine. After a few seconds, the top half of my body was surrounded by metal. I could only move a few inches if I wanted to, but I tried to hold super still.