Sunny Sweet Is So Not Sorry

by Jennifer Ann Mann

  Then it was done.

  The room stayed silent. The medical barber handed me a mirror. I looked into it. And then I looked up because I couldn’t look into it anymore.

  And in that moment I forgot all about being brave. I couldn’t imagine a good thing ever happening in the world again. It felt as if ice cream, kittens, and roller coasters had all been wiped off the face of the earth in one big, horrible wave.

  Then Alice started clapping. And then they all started clapping. The sound of their applause snapped the ice-cream-less world right in two, and my chest flooded with a happy warmness … which overflowed right out of my eyes. But because I had held my tears in so long, they didn’t roll down my cheeks like they should have. They burst from my eyes and landed on my lap.

  “She needs her mommy,” said that same little voice that had asked to touch a flower.

  “We called her mommy, Simone,” answered Nurse Sue. “But she isn’t home, and Marsha can’t remember her mommy’s phone number at work.”

  “Why don’t you call her school? They’ll probably have it,” said a boy’s voice.

  I wiped the tears out of my eyes with the palm of my hand and looked at the kid with the big idea. He was a boy sitting on one of the little tables with his head wrapped in a hard white shell. But even with an egg on his head, I could tell that he was cute.

  All of a sudden my own head felt really, really cold.

  Not Blending

  I was allowed out of the wheelchair now that I wasn’t a real patient anymore, and I helped Nurse Sue get everyone back to their rooms while the medical barber cleaned up the mess that had been attached to my head for the last few hours. I liked helping the nurse. Plus it kept me from racing down to the bathroom and staring at myself in the mirror.

  You had to be really careful with the rolling bubble sticks, which I found out were filled with medicine, not water, and it wasn’t easy to steer wheelchairs and get broken legs through doorways without rebreaking them, especially with one arm in a cast! Probably if my arm were really broken, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. Luckily, no one noticed that I was able to make pretty good use of a “bad” arm.

  I made sure to wheel Alice back last. I wanted to say thanks, but I didn’t exactly know what to thank her for, so all I did was take off her brake the way Nurse Sue showed me, wheel her out of the rec room, and ask, “Which way?” when we got out to the hall.

  “Right,” she said. “And it’s the third door on the right.”

  When I got her into her room, I wheeled her into the corner by the window and turned her in a circle so she was facing the door.

  Her side of the room was kind of messy, with textbooks and crumpled paper mixed up with headphones and chip wrappers and stepped-on blankets. The mess was moving in a bigish mass over to the other side of the room, where it looked like the bed was empty and there was no patient. The window was covered in greeting cards, all taped up at an angle, and there were a bunch of those silvery balloons hovering a little too close to the top of the table next to her hospital bed. I wanted to stay, to talk to her, but I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just said, “See ya, Alice.”

  “See ya, Masha,” she said.

  I turned to smile at her.

  “Masha,” she said. “How did you get to the hospital if your mom didn’t bring you?”

  “That’s a good question,” I told her.

  “Sit,” she said.

  I looked around and chose the empty bed, just so I didn’t disturb all the stuff teetering in a tall pile on the chair next to her bed.

  “I came with my neighbor, Mrs. Song. She had an accident this morning on her bike.”

  “What kind of accident?” Alice asked.

  “She crashed into our garbage cans. I don’t even know why she was riding a bike. I’d never seen her ride one before.”

  “Maybe that’s why she crashed … because she didn’t know how to ride one,” Alice said.

  “No, she fainted—at least that’s what the guys in the ambulance said.”

  “You called the ambulance?”

  “Yeah, it was my first time calling 911. It was so weird that it actually works, you know?”

  “Yeah?” she said. “I’ve never called 911. So did she die?” she asked.

  “Mrs. Song? No! She didn’t die. She’s fine. She’s still down in the ER.”

  Alice turned in her wheelchair so she was completely facing me. “So when does the part of the story happen where you get those flowers stuck in your green hair, you get a black eye, and you break your arm?” she asked.

  Alice’s eyes were so dark that they seemed to be looking at me harder than normal eyes, as if I were a test that she was determined to do well on. And her mouth fell into an extracurvy smile. She was waiting for my story, and I wanted to tell it. Not only did I want to tell her the story of what happened today, but I wanted to tell her the whole story.

  “That story starts back in Pennsylvania.”

  “I’m not going anywhere soon,” she said, nodding her head at her messy side of the room. And then she folded her hands together and put them under her chin, signaling to me that she was ready.

  I told her about living in Pennsylvania and my old house. I told her about how my dad was the principal of my school and how I used to get to go in on Saturdays and play in the gym with all the millions of basketballs and volleyballs from the gym closet. I told her about how my mom had announced that she and my dad were getting a divorce and that we were moving to New Jersey, where she had grown up. Then I told her about Nicole and Alex and being the new kid at school and how I didn’t have that many good friends. And finally I told her about how Sunny had gotten up in the middle of the night, crept into my room, and glued plastic flowers on to my head while I was sleeping so the girls at school would notice me.

  Alice gave a scream at that part. It made my heart jump, but not in an “I am stupid” kind of way, in a “how cool to make people scream by just telling them a story” kind of way. It made us both break down laughing, which sounded more like snorting because we were both laughing so hard.

  “Did you and your sister get into a fistfight and she punched you in the eye and broke your arm?” Alice squealed.

  It was my turn to scream. “No! Sunny didn’t do the other stuff. I did that to myself.”

  And then I told Alice the rest of the story … about the freezer and the peanut butter, about the cast and the mean nurse, and about Sunny taking me to the basement. And just because Alice loved the stories, I got into telling a few more about Sunny. I told her about poor Eddie the gerbil, and then I told her about the time that Sunny put a video of me snoring on YouTube. “She said she was doing a study on adolescent deviated septums. You know, when there’s something wrong inside your nose. It turned out that nothing was wrong with my nose and that I just snored. It got, like, ten thousand hits.”

  “She did not do that!” Alice yelled.

  “She did.”

  I loved it that Alice was laughing. For the first time, it made me laugh at the stuff that Sunny did.

  “My older brother is awful too,” Alice said. “Not because he’s the devil, but because he’s an angel. He never does anything wrong. He’s so good all the time so I can be the bad one if I want.”

  “Wow, that’s the strangest thing I ever heard. So you can be bad?”

  “Yeah, because of this,” she said, motioning to the wheelchair. “But it’s no fun to be bad when someone’s letting you. My brother lets me. My parents let me. They let me get my ear pierced up here,” she said, pointing to a diamond stud in the top of her ear that I hadn’t really noticed before. “They let me get a D in math. And when I stole a hat from a store last winter they just paid for it. They never even yelled or told me not to do it again or anything.”

  “You got a D in math.” I gasped.

  Alice laughed. “You’re so funny, Masha. Most kids I know would think the hat was worse, not the bad grade. And just so you know, I got an
F in gym too.”

  “Really?”

  “No, Masha, not really! I can’t play gym.” She giggled.

  “Oh yeah,” I said. And then I stopped and looked at her. She instantly knew my thoughts.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Are you … dying, Alice?” I asked her.

  “No, Marsha, I’m not dying. Are you dying?” Alice shot back.

  “Uh,” I said.

  Alice laughed. “We’re all dying, Masha! One day.”

  I thought about it a second, and she was right. “Hey, Alice, do you think your hair keeps growing after you die, you know, like your fingernails?”

  “You’re sick.” Alice giggled.

  We started laughing again, and I kicked the stack of junk on the chair by accident and the whole mess slid to the floor, which just made us laugh harder.

  “I wish you could stay here,” Alice said. And then she blurted, “I like it that you complain, and freak out, and knock stuff over, and talk about stuff like dying. I think it’s so cool.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Because I can complain and freak out all the time if you want.”

  We laughed.

  “So do you know the kid with the egg on his head?” I asked.

  “Michael Capezzi,” she said.

  “I think he’s cute.”

  “Me too,” she answered. Then she added, “I know that you’re really mad at your sister right now, but I’m kind of glad that she glued flowers to your head, because I got to meet you.” Her dark eyes looked down at the mess on her floor, and her eyelashes made feathery shadows run down her cheeks.

  “Marsha!” Nurse Sue called from the hall.

  Alice and I looked at each other and then fell apart laughing.

  “Coming,” I managed to shout back.

  * * *

  By the time I got to the front desk, Nurse Sue had already called my school and was dialing my mother’s work number.

  “Finally, Marsha,” she said, “we’ll be able to get you your mother.”

  “But I don’t want to go home,” I whispered as I ran my hand across the top of my empty head. She hadn’t heard me—not that I had actually meant her to—and I just watched her finish dialing the telephone and then listened to the quiet ring coming from under her ear.

  I heard the second ring.

  My mother always takes forever to pick up her phone. It’s as if she doesn’t really hear it until the third ring.

  There was a loud beeping from a panel on the desk in front of Nurse Sue that seemed to display all of the room numbers on it, and a light lit up room number 216. Nurse Sue looked down the hallway and then she hopped up and handed me the phone.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said, taking off toward room 216.

  I heard the third ring and knew my mother would pick up in the next second. But that was all the time I needed to form my plan. I couldn’t believe what I was about to do. Being nearly bald had somehow also made me want to be brave.

  “Jane Sweet.”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi, Masha sweetie, how’s it going? How do you feel?”

  My eyes started watering, and I had the most awful urge to sniff. But I didn’t want her to know I was crying, so I just wiped my nose with the back of my wrist and told her I felt fine. What I really wanted to tell her was everything … about Mrs. Song, and Calvin’s disease, and my cast, and meeting Alice, and how I was nearly bald, and, weirdly, even about that cute kid with the egg head. But most of all I wanted to tell her how I knew I hadn’t been acting the nicest toward Sunny and that I loved her, and that I wasn’t mad about the move anymore. But I didn’t.

  “What time are you going to be home?” I said, trying to sound normal, but instead my words came out faint and filled with air. My mom didn’t seem to notice.

  “I’m going to pick up Sunny after school in about a half hour and then I’ll be home,” she said.

  I forgot about Sunny and school! “No, no, Mom, I’ll get her. I can walk right over.”

  “But your hair, Masha,” she said.

  “I’ll wear a hat. No problem,” I told her.

  She was quiet for a moment. Then she said softly, “Hey, a few of the people in the office gave me some good ideas about how to get the plastic flowers off.”

  “Really?” I gulped. “Cool, Mom. Okay, I’ll see you after work.” I had to push the words from deep inside my chest. I could tell by the way she said goodbye and hung up that I had made her happy. I knew that she’d be upset when she saw my head … and everything else, but since I didn’t have Calvin’s disease, the cast was already dried on my arm, my hair would grow back, my eye would heal, and there was a bus outside that would take us close to home, I knew that I could leave her to finish her day and tell her all about it later (or at least, mostly all about it, leaving out the parts that might get me in trouble). If I could get my head shaved, I could get my little sister and me home on the bus alone.

  Even as I was having these brave thoughts about standing up out of this chair and walking out of the hospital, my heart wasn’t totally convinced. In fact, it was kind of bobbing about in my chest, feeling a little alone.

  I looked up and down the halls, but they were empty except for some carts filled with blankets and towels and stuff. I could hear activity going on inside the rooms, but none of it had anything to do with me. Nurse Sue was nowhere in sight.

  I ran my hand over the top of my bald head, and then in some kind of panic reflex, like someone had just hit my knee with a tiny hammer, I picked up the phone to call my mother back. My fingers hovered over the buttons. Argh! I didn’t know the number! Without my dumb cell phone, I didn’t know anybody’s telephone number.

  Except I did.

  I knew Sunny’s.

  I dialed those ten digits. The phone rang.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Uh, hi, Sunny, it’s me.”

  “Masha, you’re calling me!” she shouted into the phone, making my heart ache. “Where are you? Are you still up in pediatrics?”

  “Yes. Listen,” I told her, “I think we should bust out of here.”

  “Really?” she breathed. “When?”

  “I think … now,” I told her, looking around the hospital corridor and having the feeling of no longer belonging here.

  “I’ll meet you out front,” she said, out of breath from excitement. “And Masha,” she added, “I promise I’m going to get those flowers off your head. And I’m going to fix your hair too, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, rubbing my hand over my baldness.

  She hung up.

  We were going home.

  Two minutes later, Nurse Sue came hurrying back down the hall.

  “My mom said she’ll be here as soon as she can,” I told her.

  But Nurse Sue didn’t hear me. Instead, she picked up the phone I had just set down and dialed.

  “Security?” she asked. “I need to report a missing patient. Yes. Pediatrics. Yes, Michael Capezzi. Yes, I’ll hold.”

  Hey, the boy with the egg on his head just stole my idea!

  Sunny Sweet Is So Sorry

  “Nurse Sue?”

  “Yes,” she said, still staring at the spot on her desk that she had been staring at since security asked her to hold—I guess she didn’t want to risk not being in the same position when they came back to the phone. A clump of her dark hair was out of her bun and hanging down over her ear, and she chewed on her lip as she waited. She looked younger than I first thought.

  “I’m all itchy from getting my hair cut,” I told her. “I’m going to go to the bathroom and clean up. I may be in there for a little while.”

  She took a quick breath in and looked up at me, and I was sure that she absolutely knew my entire plan.

  “Sure, honey,” she said. “Down the hall and on your right-hand side, you’ll find a linen closet with towels and washcloths and scrubs. The bathroom will be across the hall from the closet.” She pointed and gave me a tight smile
, and then she went back to staring at her desk.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking a quiet, deep breath and getting up.

  Another nurse came rushing to the desk. I was sure that this nurse was completely on to me. I stopped and stood by my chair, waiting to be caught.

  “Sue?” she said, not even noticing me standing there.

  “I know,” Nurse Sue said. “Again! I don’t know why he does this.”

  They seemed distracted, and I used the moment to sneak back down the hall to Alice’s room.

  “I came to say good-bye,” I said.

  Alice didn’t say anything. She just looked at me with those round, dark eyes. I could tell that she was struggling to keep her mouth in the shape of her curvy smile.

  My eyes scanned the messy hospital room for her cell phone, and I spotted it lying almost under the bed. I got down on my knees, grabbed it, handed it to her, and told her my cell phone number.

  Her smile was real. “I’ll call you later,” she said. And then she peeked behind me. “Is your mom here?”

  “Uh, no,” I told her. I guess I must have looked sneaky, because she dipped her head toward me and asked, “How are you getting home, Masha?”

  “Getting home, hmm,” I said.

  “What is it?” Alice asked.

  “Well, I’m breaking out. I’m meeting my little sister out front, and we’re taking the bus home.”

  I must have looked just like I felt, because she said, “You can do it, Masha.”

  “I can.” I smiled. “And if I make it home on the bus, then I can make it back on the bus. How about I come visit you after school tomorrow?” The thought of school sent a whirl of fear flying around my stomach. My hand went up to my head and rubbed the place where my hair had been. “If I survive school, that is.”

  “You’ll survive,” Alice said.

  And I knew that I would survive, because now I had someone who was going to listen to every horrible detail of how hard it was.

  I nodded my head. And then I bent down and hugged her ponytailed head, clunking my giant cast into her shoulder blade. She smelled like a warm sweatshirt that had just come out of the dryer.