Jenna held Linda on the way to the hospital. She was in the special baby carrier Will had made for her.
“Will is really into this egg baby project, isn’t he?” Jenna said as she nestled the baby carrier into the back seat beside her.
“He truly is. I think it’s replaced the cafeteria ants as his favorite thing.”
Jenna laughed. “What did you say they’re called? Sidewalk ants?”
“No, pavement ants. That’s their common name. The scientific name is Tetramorium caespitum.”
“Right,” Jenna said. “I don’t know how you remember stuff like that.”
She was quiet for a second as she looked out the car window. “Hey, do you know what’s going on with that other school? Hampshire? Are they going to let you back in? Talking about the scientific ant name made me think of it again.”
I saw Mom glance at me out of the corner of her eye. She knew this was not my favorite subject to discuss, especially not with Jenna. But Jenna seemed genuinely curious; for once I didn’t mind talking about it with her.
“I don’t really know,” I said. “My friend Sierra told them her side of the story—which is the same as my side of the story, that I didn’t do anything wrong—but the honor code review board hasn’t met yet. They just told her they’d ‘take what she said into consideration.’ ”
“It’s hard to be patient,” Mom said.
Jenna nodded. “Yeah. Waiting is the worst.”
“Well, one wait is almost over,” Mom said as she switched on the left-turn signal to go into the hospital parking lot. “You finally get to see Rhoda.”
* * *
• • •
The first thing Mom, Jenna, and I passed after walking through the big front doors of the hospital was a hand sanitizer dispenser, and we all used it. The second thing we passed was a gift shop.
“Do you think we should get something for Rhoda here?” Jenna asked. “Maybe some candy?”
I shook my head. “Rhoda emailed me the other day that her chemotherapy treatments usually make her feel nauseous. So she tries to just eat something really boring (usually toast or rice) on her chemo days. She said if she eats something she loves, like chocolate, she might develop an aversion to it and never want to eat it again.”
Jenna pursed her lips and nodded. “Okay,” she said in a small voice. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so quietly accepting of one of my explanations. I think the hospital was making her a little scared. I felt the same way, but I didn’t want to show it.
“Besides, we’re her present. Just us visiting is going to cheer her up. Right, Mom?” My voice didn’t sound like it belonged to me.
“That’s right, Elf.” Mom gave my shoulder a squeeze. “And you can introduce her to Linda. She’ll get a kick out of that.”
We took the elevator to the eighth floor and followed the “Oncology Outpatient Unit” signs, just as Betty had instructed us to do. We walked through what felt like a giant maze and finally wound up at a desk at the end of a long hallway. A lady behind the desk asked if she could help us, and Mom said we were there to visit Rhoda.
The lady smiled. “Oh, she told me she was excited for her visitors today. If you could just sign in and take a minute to wash your hands, I’ll point you in the right direction.”
Mom wrote our names on a clipboard, then she, Jenna, and I washed our hands at a sink in the hallway beside the desk. A sign above the sink said:
Chemotherapy Patients Are at Increased Risk of Infection
SANITIZE HANDS HERE
It was a lot of serious words in a small space. I suddenly felt even more nervous than I already had.
After we dried our hands on paper towels, the lady behind the desk directed us to walk down a long corridor lined with big white reclining chairs separated by flowered curtains. Each recliner had two smaller chairs beside it. Most of the recliners had people sitting in them, with tubes going into their arms from machines. Some, but not all, of the people in recliners had guests with them.
I tried not to stare at the people in the recliners, but it was hard. For one thing, it wasn’t something I was used to seeing: a long row of people hooked up to machines. Some of the people were completely bald. Others were wearing hats or scarves, but if you looked closely, you could see that they were bald underneath. A few had hair; I wondered if they were wearing wigs. It was a lot to take in.
But I also felt like I almost had to stare in order to figure out which of the people was my person. My Rhoda. Usually I could spot her from far away with her long, dark wavy hair, but of course that was gone now.
Mom must have been thinking the same thing, because she also had stopped at the end of the corridor and was trying to casually scan the row of patients. But then we heard a familiar voice.
“Justine! Jenna! Ellllfie! Down here!”
At the very end of the corridor, one patient was leaning forward and giving us a little wave. She was wearing jeans, an orange sweater, and a bright blue head scarf covered in butterflies. Rhoda.
Mom zipped down and grasped both of Rhoda’s hands in hers. “Hey there, kid!” she said. Jenna and I followed, but I wasn’t sure what to do. Part of me wanted to hug Rhoda, but another part of me was afraid. Was I even allowed to hug her? What if a hug knocked out her tubes?
Rhoda grabbed my hands next. She looked really different. Even though she had the scarf on, it was easy to tell she was bald underneath. Something else was different too, but it took me a moment to figure out what it was. Her eyebrows. They were gone. It hadn’t occurred to me that the chemotherapy would also make her eyebrows fall out. But her eyes had a smile in them the way they always did. Her eyes were the same.
“Hey, it’s okay,” she said, looking up at me. “I’m still me, remember? You reminded me about that, in your email.”
“I know,” I said, making a small laughing sound as if to show that I didn’t need reassurance. But Rhoda knew me better than that.
She gave my hands a squeeze and reached for Jenna’s next. “And Jenna too! How’d I get so lucky to have so many cool kids visit me?”
“You’re sure it’s not too much?” Mom said. She had texted with both Rhoda and Betty earlier to make sure it was okay to have three visitors, and they had both said she would love it. Rhoda repeated that now.
“Are you kidding?” she said. “This feels like a party!”
“Okay,” Mom said, “but I think we’ll still go in shifts. Jenna, do you want to see what kind of ice cream the cafeteria has?”
Mom knew I’d want some time alone with Rhoda, and Jenna seemed to get it too. She gamely followed Mom back to the elevator, and I sat down in one of Rhoda’s visitor chairs.
“So.” Rhoda looked up at the machine pumping medicine into her arm, then back at me. “Is it super weird to see me like this? I mean, I know I almost never wear orange.” She pointed both index fingers toward her orange sweater.
I laughed. Only Rhoda would know how to make me laugh at a time like this. “Yes, the sweater is extremely weird,” I said.
Rhoda smiled. “I know it’s got to seem strange. It’s still pretty strange for me, and I’ve been doing this for a little while now.”
“How do you feel?” I asked. “Does it hurt?”
She shook her head. “Nah, not in the way you’d think. I mean, there’s a sharp prick for a second when they put the needle in your arm, but I’ve gotten used to feeling like a pincushion. The hard part about it is that it makes me feel really, really tired for a day or two. And most days it also makes me feel really sick; I’ve thrown up a few times.”
“Urft,” I said.
“Yeah. Urft. But it’s better to be getting sick from the medicine than from the cancer.”
“That’s true.” I wasn’t sure what was the best way to ask my next question, so I just blurted
it out. “Is the medicine working?”
“It’s too soon to tell. The doctors will do some tests at the end of this round of chemo and see what they can find out. That will tell them if they have to do more. So for now we just have to wait.”
“Waiting is the worst.” I thought of how Jenna had just said that in the car, about me waiting to hear news about Hampshire. But waiting to hear news about Rhoda’s health was much, much harder.
“Yeah, I hate it too.”
Rhoda reached out and rubbed the soft fleece of Linda McMuffin’s baby carrier. “What’s in here?” she asked.
I suddenly felt silly telling Rhoda about Linda McMuffin, and I certainly didn’t want to take pictures of Linda here; what was I thinking? Did Rhoda even want to be in pictures these days, looking as different as she did from her usual self?
But as I was trying to come up with an answer, Rhoda got distracted by something behind me.
“Hey there, lady! I wondered if you were coming today!”
I turned and saw a woman with blue eyes settling into the space beside Rhoda’s. Like Rhoda, she seemed to be bald, but instead of a scarf, she was wearing a pink baseball cap with little tennis rackets embroidered on the brim. And she was older than Rhoda, closer to Mom’s age.
“Hey, Rhoda,” the lady said, putting her purse down and sitting in the recliner. “The traffic was terrible, plus my mother drives like an old lady. I suppose that’s because she is an old lady.”
Rhoda laughed. “I know how that goes. April, this is Elfie, who I’ve told you so much about. Elfie, this is April, my favorite chemo-mate.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Elfie.” April smiled. “Oh, Rhoda, I brought that book I mentioned the other day. It’s in my other bag; my son’s bringing it up. He was going to stop by the snack machine first.”
“Ooh!” Rhoda sounded excited. “Do I finally get to meet your son today?”
April smiled. “Yes, we forced him to come. He has lacrosse practice after this, and my mom told him if he wanted a ride, he’d have to tag along because she won’t drive all over creation for him. She doesn’t mess around.”
Yesterday I might have been surprised that a kid wouldn’t want to be with his mom during her chemo appointment. I’d been asking Mom forever if we could see Rhoda here. But now I could understand why it might not be too easy. Even when the patients seemed cheerful, like Rhoda and April, there was still a sadness in this place.
Rhoda leaned forward and gave a wave. From where I was sitting behind the curtain, I couldn’t see who she was waving at; I assumed it was Mom and Jenna, returning from the cafeteria.
But I was wrong.
“This must be them,” Rhoda said.
April leaned forward and looked down the corridor. “Yes, that’s my entourage,” she said with a laugh.
I turned to see an old lady with a big purse walking briskly toward us. Like April, she was petite and blue eyed; her hair was short and white. Then I saw the boy, April’s son, walking slowly behind her.
He was carrying a large canvas bag with “April” stitched onto the side. He was a bit taller than me, with light brown hair that flopped in front of his eyes. He was frowning. He was someone I knew, someone I hadn’t seen in a while. He was the last person I expected to see in the hospital that day.
He was Colton Palmer.
It felt like the air had gone out of the room. I didn’t know what to do. I’d thought about Colton and what he did every day. Even though I’d only met him once, he had become something like a monster in my mind. And here he was, right on the other side of a thin curtain. Visiting his mom, who was having her chemotherapy treatment.
I was trapped. I turned my back to the curtain and tried to make myself as small as I could. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them.
“Are you okay?” Rhoda asked. “I know it gets cold in here; do you want to use my coat as a blanket?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s okay.” I did not want to use Rhoda’s coat as a blanket. I did not want to be there at all anymore. I wanted to escape.
April’s voice drifted over from her recliner. “Rhoda, this is my mom and my son, Cole.” (Cole?) “Guys, this is my friend Rhoda.”
The old lady—Colton’s grandma—gave Rhoda a small nod. “Pleasure meeting you.” If Colton said anything, I didn’t hear it. But it’s possible that my hearing was compromised because I had half buried my face in my arms.
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Rhoda said. “I’ve heard so much about you both. This is Elfie.”
Without picking my head up off my knees, I gave a quick little wave with my right hand. Rhoda gave me a wide-eyed look that said, What’s the matter with you? I could tell I was embarrassing her by being so unfriendly, but what else could I do?
Then there were new voices in the corridor. Mom and Jenna.
“Okay,” Jenna was announcing as she came nearer. “The cafeteria only has vanilla and mint chocolate chip today, but they also have brownies if anyone wants one.” She stopped as she reached our nook, and her face turned pink.
“Oh man, Rhoda, I’m sorry…I forgot about your eating rules.” Jenna’s face went from pink to red. I’d never seen her this uncomfortable.
“It’s okay, Jenna; I know it’s hard to imagine me not wanting sweets!” Rhoda smiled at her. “Hey, I want you guys to meet my friend April and her family.”
As the introductions were being made, Colton’s mom again called him Cole, so I knew Mom wouldn’t make the connection. I felt like my scalp was on fire. How could this be happening? It didn’t seem real.
“Hey,” Jenna said, walking over to my chair, “did you tell Rhoda about Linda yet?”
“Yes, I already did,” I said quickly. “I emailed her about it.”
“Oh, okay…but has she seen her?”
“Wait…you brought Linda McMuffin with you today?” Rhoda sounded genuinely excited. “How could you not have told me yet? I want to meet her!”
“Who’s Linda McMuffin?” April asked.
“She’s our egg baby,” Jenna said. “It’s a project we’re doing for school.”
From behind the curtain, I heard Colton laugh. “An egg baby?”
“Cole,” his mother said in a warning tone.
“Sorry,” he said. “It just sounded funny to me, an egg baby for a school assignment.”
I couldn’t take it. Not only had this kid cheated, lied, and gotten me kicked out of Hampshire Academy, but now he was laughing at Linda McMuffin, our egg project, and, by extension, Ms. Rambutan and Cottonwood Elementary. It bothered me. A lot.
I sprang out of my chair and turned to face him. “So I guess you wouldn’t do something so dumb at your school, huh? You know what else we do at my school that you don’t do at yours? We tell the truth. And treat each other fairly.”
It was hard to say who looked most shocked: Colton, Jenna, or any of the staring grown-ups. Mom was the only one who could find her voice.
“Elfie! What’s going on?”
But I was still looking at Colton. “I don’t know if you remember me. I went to your school for about five minutes. But thanks to you, I got kicked out for something I didn’t do. And your mom might call you Cole, but that day you said your name was Colton. Maybe that’s another lie you were telling.”
I heard Mom make a little gasping sound. I wanted to turn and run down the corridor, but something made my feet stay.
“Why did you do that, by the way?” I asked. “Why did you let the headmaster believe I stole your phone? Why did you lie?”
Colton looked at the floor. “You did take my phone,” he mumbled.
“You know what I mean,” I said. “You know what really happened.”
“What’s this all about, Cole?” Colton’s mom seemed genuinely perplexed.
“Elf
ie.” Mom’s voice was quiet. “Maybe you and Colton can talk later. But not here.”
Tears had started running down my cheeks; I wiped them on my sleeve, and I suddenly felt horrid. I knew Mom was right. I couldn’t believe I was yelling in this place, at this time, in front of Rhoda and Colton’s mom as they had tubes pumping chemicals into their bodies. I thought I might be sick.
“I’m sorry, Rhoda,” I sniffed. “I’m so sorry. I’ll email you later; I promise.”
I thrust Linda McMuffin’s baby carrier into Jenna’s hands, grabbed my jacket, and ran down the corridor to the elevator.
Just as the elevator doors were about to close, an arm covered in friendship bracelets was quickly thrust in between them, and the doors bounced back open. Jenna.
But she wasn’t alone. She hopped onto the elevator, and Colton quickly stepped in behind her.
“Why are you here?” I glared at him, then looked to Jenna as the elevator doors closed. She shrugged and grimaced.
“I told my mom I had to talk to you,” Colton said. “My grandma said she would explain the rest.”
“She’ll probably just tell your mom all the same lies you’ve been telling all along.”
Colton shook his head. “Nah, probably not. I’m guessing my grandma’s on your side here.”
I snorted. “I seriously doubt that.”
Colton sighed. “No, it’s true. Sierra Nichols wrote an email to the honor review board and told them what happened. My whole family knows about it now. Except for my mom. We’re not supposed to tell her anything that might upset her these days.”
“She seems like she could handle it,” I said.
He laughed. “Yeah, that’s the ironic part. She’s probably stronger than all the rest of them put together.”
“Hey, good example of irony!” Jenna said. Maybe she paid more attention in school than I thought.
“Thanks?” Colton said, giving Jenna a strange look.
The elevator had reached the ground floor; we stepped out into the hospital lobby.
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