by Karen Rivers
I’m not tired at all, which is dumb because I’m always tired, but when I should sleep, I can’t. I’m wide-awake. My brain is basically a salad spinner, whirling unrelated ideas. “Slow down,” I tell it. “Give me a break here.” It ignores me. Well, it is me. Is it possible to ignore yourself?
The doctor who was here earlier said the tumor is about the size of a Brussels sprout. “Not a kohlrabi?” I said, and I laughed.
He said, “What’s kohlrabi?” But he looked so serious about it that I couldn’t answer. It had seemed funny when I first said it and then it wasn’t.
“Never mind,” I said.
He showed me on the MRI. My brain looked like a shadow. It looked like the censors had come along and rubbed it out so we couldn’t see how ugly it really was. I imagine it covered with graffiti and misspelled four-letter words. Bleep it, the network would say. That tumor is PG-13. The tumor itself just looked like an empty space where brain should be but wasn’t anymore, a blankness opening up inside of me.
Before he left, he rested his hand on my hand for a good long second or two or maybe even three. I didn’t know him, so I pulled my hand out from under his. I don’t much like being touched, especially not by strangers.
There were Brussels sprouts on my dinner tray and I wonder if they planned that, or if this is all a joke, after all. I hate Brussels sprouts but I ate them anyway. They were mushy and tasted like sweat and wet cardboard. Take that, sprouts, I thought, chewing hard.
Now I’m awake. I don’t know what time it is. Mom and Dad are gone for the night. I know that without remembering them leaving. Was I asleep? Half-asleep? Not paying attention? Is the tumor just erasing things willy-nilly from my brain?
The overhead light in the room has been turned off and now there’s a different light that shines behind my headboard so it’s never quite dark in here. I think about the hammock and how I slept in it and it left diamonds on my skin, and that was only a few days ago but it was also a different life. I think maybe if I hadn’t gone to school that day, this wouldn’t have happened, even though obviously it would. It’s my Fate. It was my Fate all along. Capital-F Fate. I want to tell Tig about it really bad. He’d know what to say. He’d know what to do. Maybe we could run away, the two of us. We could go to the Mars Now headquarters, which is in Iceland. We could explain: Mars is full of radiation. For most people, that would be bad. For me, it might save my life. That’s what the doctor said. “Radiation is our first hope,” he said. Mars could save me. Tig would get me there, if he knew.
I do a bit more crying. I’m not a machine. I’m not going to Mars. I’m a kid with a Brussels sprout named Nirgal in my brain, my own Death Star. Starting tomorrow, I’m going to have radiation treatments and they will shrink the sprout down to a cherry tomato and then down to a lima bean and then a green pea and then they will go in and cut out what is left if they can. My head is a salad bowl. Everything is salad.
Mom and Dad brought my laptop, so I pull it out of the drawer beside my bed and I log into the hospital wifi and check my email, more out of habit than anything.
Then I blink.
And blink again.
Tick, tick, tick.
I can’t stop blinking.
The email from Tig says this:
Ish,
I bet you thought I forgot you but I didn’t. I’m not good at writing emails that much. I met some kids and we’ve been hanging out. School is OK. I’m doing a thing about recycling that’s pretty cool. It isn’t the same as home but it also sort of is, if you know what I mean. I miss you and S.S. Rafty and Lunch Island. I’m sorry about that day on the island. Awkwardness is the worst. I don’t know what I thought. I guess I love you. I didn’t want to cry so I tried to put you away somewhere where I wouldn’t think about you. It’s dumb. I know it is. I made up a story that you went to Mars and left me here alone and I was so mad at you, it made it easier not to talk to you. Portland is OK. People here are kind of weird. It’s raining pretty hard right now. It’s always noisier here than at home. There’s a lot of traffic. It’s nice not to be so hot all the time. I miss the lake. Is there any water left in it? Did you read that Lake Meade is full of perchlorate? We might have been right about the lake. OK, bye for now.
Tig
I delete it and then I undelete it and then I read it again, and then I wish Mom hadn’t brought in my laptop because maybe it’s the radiation from the laptop that put this tumor in my brain.
Or maybe it’s Tig’s fault for leaving a big hole in there that cancer could fill up.
I guess I love you.
We are only twelve. Nobody loves anybody yet. Right?
I guess I love you.
I have a brain tumor.
Or maybe it was just bad luck or the way the wind was blowing one day that blew a speck of something into me that turned out to be a seed that grew.
I hit reply.
I write:
Tig,
I miss all that stuff too. Except I don’t miss me. You can’t miss yourself. (Ha-ha.) I miss you. I was mad you left me on Mars alone. You said you wouldn’t. Your house has cracked.
Love, Ish
PS—I have a brain tumor. I’ve named it Nirgal.
I stare at it on the screen for a few minutes, then I delete the PS. I can’t tell him. I want to. I don’t know why I can’t. I guess because if I do, then it becomes true.
I leave everything out that matters. I leave everything out that I meant to say. I sneak the love in there, though, just so he knows that I know. Just so he sees that I get it and that I feel it, too, even though I don’t really know if it matters now at all.
Chapter 13
When I wake up, it is daylight and Fish-boy is sitting beside my bed in the green vinyl chair. Naturally, I scream.
“Hey,” he says. “Don’t do that! Stop!”
I don’t stop.
He looks afraid. “What are you doing?”
“Sorry,” I say, stopping, even though I’m not sorry. What is he doing here? “What are you doing? Here, I mean. Why are you here?”
“Oh, right,” he says. “Um, the class made you this card.” He lifts up a huge piece of purple poster board. All over it, people have written nice things. “Get well soon! xo Kaitlyn.” And “We miss you soooooooooo much!—Amber” And “OMG, I love you and miss you!—Bea.” Everything on the card looks like a lie. Do they really love me? Do I love them? I mean, it’s nice if they do, but right away I feel sort of bad because if one of them had a brain tumor and wet their pants under the tree, I’m not sure if, OMG I LOVE YOU would be my first reaction. Maybe I’m a bad person. They should know this before they love me up in this way! I sigh.
“What’s wrong?” he goes.
“Nothing,” I tell him. Explaining would be too hard. He is not Tig, after all. I make a mental note to write Tig an email when Fish-boy leaves, explaining. He’ll get it. Thank goodness he is back in my life and no longer Dead To Me. Although I’m still mad at him, so maybe he’s just moved up to Comatose To Me.
I look back at the massive card because I can’t not. It’s blocking my view of absolutely everything else. Pictures have been cut out of magazines and glued on. (I guess Mr. Wall anticipated the need for collage-based Get Well cards when he put together the school supply list! Impressive.) There is a picture of a blue purse. There is another one of a lamb drinking from a baby bottle. There is a plate of macaroni and cheese with a fork lifting a gooey-looking bite. There is a picture of a very skinny Jesus on a cross, his mouth hanging open. Is this how people see me? It’s crazy! None of it makes sense! Oh, Ish Love? She makes me think of newborn lambs. I mean, seriously.
In the bottom corner, Mr. Wall has written, “Our prayers are with you, Mischa. Mr. Wall.” Mr. Wall doesn’t look like someone who prays. He looks like someone who runs over coyotes and doesn’t look back. That is one insincere-looking Get Well prayer, I think. I roll my eyes.
“Yeah,” says Fish-boy. “I know what you
mean. Look, this was mine.” He points to a picture of a motorcycle that he’s stuck a coyote underneath. The coyote’s legs are sticking straight up because it’s a photo of a standing coyote that he’s just turned upside down.
It is hilarious, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of laughing. Well, a small laugh escapes, but it’s by accident.
“You don’t know anything,” I say, covering up my giggle. “How did you get here?”
“My mom works here,” he says. “She’s a doctor? She brought me. I have to go in, like, an hour.”
“An hour?” I say. I feel sort of stupefied, like I can’t process what he is saying. An hour is a long time. “Is she Dr. Klein?”
“Yes!” he says. He looks surprised. “How did you know that?”
How did I know? I don’t know! I frown. What am I going to say to Fish-boy for a whole hour? Tears prick my eyes. I don’t blink them away because I don’t want him to hear them slish slosh slishing.
“Um,” he says. “I’m sorry I said that thing about—”
“Don’t,” I go. “Please don’t say what you’re going to say.”
“OK,” he says. “But seriously, I don’t know why I did that. I’m not mean. I swear. I’m, like, normal. I was nervous? I’m new.” When he talks, his voice has a random uptick, even when he’s not asking a question. He taps his sneaker up and down on the ground. His sneaker is a hot pink Converse.
I almost laugh again, but then I don’t. Mom would like him for a daughter, though! He’s sparklier than me and Elliott put together, but that’s because neither of us is sparkly.
“This is kind of awkward,” he says. “I don’t know you. I’m the new guy. They should have sent one of your friends, I guess.”
“Yeah,” I say. “For me, too.” I don’t tell him that Tig was my only friend. I don’t want to imagine how probably no one else volunteered to come. I feel bad that I wasn’t nicer to everyone. There’s nothing wrong with those girls! They are perfectly nice girls! It’s me. I’m the one who isn’t that nice.
Fish-boy taps his hands on the arms of the chair. It’s like his whole body is tapping. Maybe the tapping is an energy that all boys just have and can’t help, like the hiccups. He reminds me of a boy version of Elliott, the way his whole body seems to participate in his thoughts. I think my body isn’t like that. I think I hold still a lot.
“I liked that thing you were drawing,” he volunteers. “In class. Like a greenhouse?”
“Thanks,” I say. “It was a Mars colony.” My face is burning. An hour is too long. An hour is forever. I sigh. “I don’t know your name,” I say. I’m trying to be polite. Even though, in my head, I keep hearing him saying, “She’s wet her pants!” And “Fish!” I don’t forgive you, I think but don’t say. I might decide to forgive him. He’s wearing pink shoes. He’s funnier than he thinks.
“Gavriel,” he says. “Gav.”
“Gav,” I say. “Huh.”
“Yeah,” he says. “My parents named me after their dog.”
“For real?”
“I know,” he says. “Lame, right? It’s an angel, actually. Anyway, it died.”
“The dog was an angel?” I ask. “The angel died?”
“No, dummy, Gavriel was an angel. The dog died.”
“But Gavriel was the dog,” I say. I’m being a jerk, but it’s also sort of funny.
He looks at me like he can’t tell if I’m kidding or not. I like people who are accidentally funny more than people who are funny on purpose. He is absolutely accidentally funny.
“The dog was named after an angel,” he says, slowly, like I’m really dumb.
I’m trying not to laugh. “Um,” I say. “I guess they loved the dog?”
“They did,” he says. “He was a . . .” he hesitates. “A teacup poodle.”
And then I’m laughing for real and so is he. His laugh is nice, like ice in a glass of water. It’s weird how things go, how I happen to be lying here with a Brussels-sprout-Death-Star in my brain, laughing with Fish-boy, of all people. But it’s pretty OK, I guess.
I want to tell him about Mars and how I want to be in the first group of settlers, but I don’t. It’s too important. What if he thinks I’m joking? What if he laughs? Instead, I go, “Are you missing school for this?” I wish I’d been awake when he got here. I wish I’d brushed my hair or something. I haven’t had a shower in forever. I probably smell awful.
“Yep,” he says, leaning back and putting his hands behind his head. “I wouldn’t exactly say I’m missing it, though.”
“Ha-ha,” I say.
“I’m funny,” he says. “You’ll see.”
“Maybe,” I say. But if you think you’re funny, then you’re not! I want to say, but don’t. There’s a silence while we both think about how maybe I won’t be alive long enough to see if he’s funny or not. I might be dead. Me being dead is the elephant that shares this room with me. That’s a saying: the elephant in the room. It’s basically the huge, enormous topic that everyone avoids, but you all know it’s there, you just keep your eyes averted so you can pretend not to notice it. The thing with brain tumors is that you sometimes die. I’d never really thought about it before I got one. You just don’t know.
I try to remember what we were talking about. Oh right, being funny. “Um, my dad’s funny. He writes . . . jokes and stuff. In movies. He’s working on a Martian movie that’s pretty terrible, but his dream is to write one about cows. He thinks cows will be the next big thing.”
“Really?” he says. “That’s cool. I like cows. They are just sort of automatically funny. Maybe he could combine them to have Martian cows. Why do we assume Martians would be personlike? Maybe they just walk around all day, mooing and grazing and chewing and stuff.” He pauses and then he leans back and scratches his curly hair. I can hear his nails against his scalp. Scritch, scratch, scritch, scratch. Then he goes, “My dad’s dead, actually.”
“What?” I say. “Dead-dead?” Like there might be another, more temporary dead that his dad could be. Dead To Me, like Tig was. That’s what I mean.
“It was cancer,” he says, quietly. He looks past my face and out the window.
I look at the window to see what he sees, but I just see both of us, reflected in the glass.
“What?” I say, even though I heard him fine. Isn’t he supposed to be cheering me up? Shouldn’t he have lied or something to protect my feelings?
“Cancer,” he says again, like he thinks I missed it. “Lung cancer. He didn’t smoke or anything. It was just really bad luck.” I roll over and push my face into the pillow so he can’t see the tears that are suddenly leaking down my face.
“Oh, man,” he says, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean that you’re . . .”
“Whatever,” I say, muffled. “It’s fine. I’m kind of tired.”
“Um,” he goes. “I still have forty-five minutes to wait for my mom.”
“Well, you can sit there if you want,” I say. “But I’m going to sleep.”
“Cool.”
I lie there, totally awake, watching a flock of brown birds fly from the top of one building to the next in a big, undulating wave. It’s pretty beautiful, how they do that. How do they know where to go and who to follow? One of those birds is making the decision! One of them is thinking, “Well, time to move the troops over to the next building!” The rest are followers. But it’s impossible to tell which one is leading. It’s not the one at the front, it’s probably one in the middle. But then how would the front ones know where to go? But if you really look, you can see that the front bird is changing all the time, slipping back into the middle, then out the back. Birds are a mystery. There are a lot of things that are a mystery. I guess I’ll miss birds when I go to Mars. Buzz Aldrin and wild flocking birds and all of them.
Behind me, I hear Fish-boy tapping on the chair, then I hear the page of a book turning. The only book on my bedside table was a new copy of The Martian that Dad brought last night. I’ve re
ad it so many times now that it’s practically boring, but it’s still the best Mars book that there is, if you like that kind of thing, which I do. I mean, I wish he wasn’t alone on Mars for the whole book. I wish he had people with him. I wish he’d grown something other than potatoes. I wish he’d understood that the dirt he was growing them in was contaminated. I guess if that book was real, he’d be dead of cancer before they could have gone back for him, after all.
Fish-boy coughs and then makes a super-annoying smacking sound with his lips. I shudder. I lie as still as I can and watch the birds and listen to the pages of my favorite book turning and turning. Fish-boy reads and scratches, scratches and reads and coughs. I hope he doesn’t have lice and/or tuberculosis. But it’s OK that he’s there. It’s nice. I mean, it’s as nice as it’s going to get with a vegetable growing in my skull in this ugly, stinky room. My skull is a biome. The cancer was the seed. Think about it. Maybe I am Mars. My brain tumor is a kid who wanted to be the first one to live there. So now I’m kind of rooting for the tumor, which is dumb. I’m Mars. Obviously, I don’t want a tumor!
Eventually, I hear the click of heels on the floor and I hear Fish-boy whispering with someone who must be his mom (Dr. Klein!). I don’t open my eyes. I can feel them looking at me. Then I hear them go, leaving the huge purple card lying on my legs. I wait until they’re gone for sure, the door clicking back into place, before I let my eyes open again. I pick up the card again and read it to myself. “Miss you! —Zoe” “We totally miss you soooooo much already —Ana Sofia” I snort-laugh to myself, but it turns almost right away into crying, which kind of surprises me. The sadness snuck up! Why am I sad that people I usually avoid are being nice to me? I think the tumor must be in the part of my brain that used to make sense. Now nothing does. It’s definitely pressing on my “cry a lot” button. I can’t seem to stop. It’s nuts.