by Abby Cooper
I blinked. “I could probably make it work.”
“Cool,” he said.
“Cool,” I agreed.
Cool, I repeated in my head.
And I hoped with everything I had that somehow, some way, it would be.
23
The Library
I never realized how busy the library was after school. I guess it was because I was never there; I was picking up Bo or hanging out with Zoe. And before Real Zoe, I’d been writing about Fake Zoe. Anyway, the place was packed. A lot of people were reading, obviously, but some people were making art projects out of old books. Others were building something out of teeny tiny wooden pieces. Somebody else was making a movie using an iPad and a bunch of Legos.
I eyed the table by the fiction section. Zoe and Afiya were working, just like Clue said they would be. They were working all the time, it seemed like. They’d worked all through lunch, and now they were at it again. Only this time it didn’t look like they were working at all. They were doing some of the fun library activities. And they weren’t alone—the seats around their table were totally full, and that didn’t even stop people from standing around them. I recognized people from all my different classes. Even a couple teachers were crowded around, watching what was going on.
I tore my eyes away from them and forced myself to look back at Clue. We had our whole giant table to ourselves. It was just us and a ginormous stack of books and articles about livers.
Sometimes things were really unfair.
“If you want to go say hi to your friends, I’d understand,” I told Clue.
He looked over there but shook his head. “Nah, I’m good. Do you want to go say hi to Zoe?”
I ran a hand through my hair. I thought I had, but now I wasn’t so sure. There was just so much going on over there. I didn’t want to get in the way. “Maybe later.”
Clue sighed. “Why is it so important to you that Zoe stays, anyway? Like really. I know you’re a nice person. It’s not about having someone to boss around. So what is it?”
I tapped my fingers on the table. “Why is it so important to you that she goes?” I asked back.
“It’s not about her going. It’s just what I told you: I don’t think the pond water works for two people at a time. And I need someone here like you needed Zoe.”
“But you have friends,” I shot back. He ate lunch with different people every single day, so who could he possibly need to bring to life? Why couldn’t he just let me have Zoe?
“I guess,” Clue said. He gazed at the crowd by Zoe and Afiya’s table. Not a single person had looked his way since we walked in.
A funny thought crossed my mind. Maybe Clue had friends—like, a lot of friends—but maybe he didn’t have a best friend. Maybe none of his friends were just right for him. Was that a thing?
OPPSERVATION: People can have friends but still feel lonely.
Questions for further research: Is that why Clue wants to bring someone else to life?
I glanced at all of our study supplies.
“Let’s get this over with,” I said.
He handed me one of the books from the stack and I flipped through it. The dumb liver—well, a picture of one—stared back at me. The more I looked at it, the more it really didn’t look like much. It was like when you stare at a certain word or write it over and over again. Soon it doesn’t look like anything real. After a while the liver looked like any other piece of meat. And not too much after that, it just looked like a blob. How could something so blobby, so nothing-y, so little, cause so many big problems?
“Are you learning things?” Clue asked.
“Oh, yeah.” I was definitely learning things. The liver was even dumber than I thought it was.
“You know, the liver is powerful beyond measure.”
I frowned. What was that supposed to mean?
“Cool,” I said, in a voice that made it clear that I didn’t think it was cool at all and so maybe we could stop talking about it.
“If you ever want to talk about why the liver is important to you, you can talk about it with me,” Clue added.
Okay, now he was being really weird. Did Clue know about my dad? I didn’t tell him about my dad that day he wouldn’t give up the window room at the hospital. And if he did know, why didn’t he just come out and say so?
“Okay,” I said.
I thought “thanks” in my head, but for some reason I couldn’t make myself say it out loud. So I didn’t.
24
Our Mission
The second I walked in the door with all the dumb liver books Clue had made me check out to read over the weekend in my arms, Mom threw my purple squishy bag at my head. It landed on the floor behind me, because what was I supposed to do, grow a third hand?
“Hi,” she said. “Pack!”
“What?”
“Catch!” Bo appeared from the living room, and Mom tossed him his red bag with all the farm animals on it.
“Mom, slow down!”
She zoomed around the house faster than a person on Rollerblades. I actually checked her feet—nope, she wasn’t wearing her Rollerblades at the moment, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she had been. I tried to follow her, first with my feet and then with my eyes, but both ways made me dizzy.
“Can’t slow down. Have to pack. Have to clean. Have to organize.” She paused for a millisecond. A grin exploded on her face like a Fourth of July firework. Bam! Kaboom! “We’re going on vacation!”
“Chemo-cation,” Dad called from his chair.
“Chemo-cation,” she echoed. “The cancer center called. There are a few patients who’ve gone into remission recently—people with families, like us—and they won a grant that will pay for all of us to take a relaxing trip to the Grand Canyon together! It’s last minute for us because one family canceled, and Dad is well enough to go. I don’t think we can pass this up.”
“A trip, a trip!” Bo jumped up and down. “I’m gonna bring Giraffe, and my papers, and my twisty crayons, and my Big Time Action Man, and the royal princesses, and all my Legos!” He rushed up the stairs, taking them two at a time, but then he came back. “Wait. What’s our mission?”
“Re-mission,” Dad called. “It’s just a fancy way to say I’m good for now.”
“For now?” Bo asked.
It was great news, but Bo looked as worried as I felt. For now was good, but it didn’t mean forever. Dad could still get sick again. He could get too tired to have dinner with us like the other night. He could have a totally normal day, and then, bam, end up at the hospital like he did that day in fourth grade.
Bo’s worried face passed. “I’m going to bring my twisty markers, too! And my goggles and my juggling balls and my Easy-Bake Oven.” He raced back up the stairs.
“And clothes!” Mom shouted after him. “Bo! Clothes. Pajamas. Underwear!” she hollered. “He’s going to need more bags,” she said to me.
I stayed where I was and tried to smile or nod or do something to make it look like I was excited. Sure, a trip sounded amazing, but who were these other people we’d be on vacation with? And where exactly were we going, and when were we leaving? And would I have to miss school, and what about Zoe? I couldn’t leave Zoe, especially not now. I’d stopped Clue from switching her out for now. But by the time I got back, Zoe could be a permanent member of the Sparkles, or worse, swapped out by Clue for someone else.
My mouth dried up but wet, sticky beads of sweat formed everywhere else. For two years I’d wanted to go on a vacation. To leave Colorado, to leave this town that everybody else got to leave all the time. And now that I could, it was the last thing on the planet I wanted to do.
“You’re still standing there. Why? I need you to move. We need to move. We leave first thing in the morning! There are things that must be done!” Mom waved her feather duster in the air lik
e a baton.
“Give her a minute, Lila.” I heard Dad’s voice from the living room again. “She probably has questions. C’mere, Jade.”
My feet felt stuck to the ground, but I pushed them forward until they took me all the way to the living room.
Where Dad was standing.
Apparently Dad stood a lot during the day, but I never really saw it because I was in school. By the time I got home, he was all tired out. But there was something different right now. Right now he had real energy.
I smiled at Dad as he put an arm on my shoulder.
“What’d you and Zoe do today? Everything good with my daughters?”
I exhaled and thought about all the things I wasn’t going to say. What’d we do today? Well, Zoe went to class. Spent way too much time with the Sparkles. Was the most popular person in the library and probably the whole world too. Pretty much forgot that I existed.
“Dad, it sounds like we don’t have time for that. What’s going on with this trip?”
He smiled and patted my head, and I stood on my tiptoes and peeked up at his. There was no hat today. Instead, there were a few springy brownish-grayish hairs poking out, like the first teeny flower buds blooming in spring.
“We’re going to Arizona for a few days,” he said. “We leave first thing in the morning tomorrow and come back Monday night.” Like he could read my mind, he added, “I know it’s kind of spur-of-the-moment, but we’re lucky they invited us, and extremely lucky that I’m well enough to go. I’m sure your teachers will understand missing one day of school. This is a pretty big deal for our family.”
It totally was a big deal, but my life at school right now was a big deal too. I couldn’t leave everything and everybody, even if it meant I’d get to go on a plane and see cool places that weren’t Tiveda. Missing the weekend and one day of school wasn’t that much, but it was all the time Clue would need to get rid of Zoe forever if he decided to. It was more than enough time, probably. He could get rid of her and still have time to give clues and eat lunch and steal hospital rooms and study livers and do whatever else Clue did every day.
There had to be a way I could go on the trip and not have to worry about that the whole time. Maybe there was a way I could hide her or something, so Clue couldn’t get her while I was gone.
Or…
That was it!
“Dad, I know my new friend Zoe from across the street isn’t technically part of the family, but do you think I could maybe ask her to come with us? Would it cost a lot of money?”
Dad looked like he was thinking. “I’m not sure,” he said.
Mom poked her head into the living room. “How’s it going, people? What am I missing? Why are we not packing?”
“Jade wants to invite Zoe from across the street along,” Dad said.
Mom made a face I couldn’t quite read. “Sorry, sweetie,” she said. “The trip is only for families. I think it’ll be really good for the four of us to have some quality time together, don’t you?”
“Yeah, sure, but…”
Mom held up a hand. “It’s not up for discussion,” she said.
My heart pounded. This was so unfair! Bo got to bring his friends places sometimes. Not Grand Canyon types of places, but still. I knew exactly what would happen. We would get there and Mom would start cleaning everything and Bo would want to play with his toys and Dad would be tired. And I’d be stuck by myself, thinking about all the fun Zoe was having while I was gone.
I took a deep breath and tried to get my heart to chill out a little bit. After all, we were going on vacation, and that was awesome. The more I tried to calm down, though, the more stressed out I became. I was going to be gone for three whole days. Meanwhile, Zoe would be here. With Afiya. And Clue.
And a pond full of magical water that could send her away forever.
25
Can Sir in the Sky
“Please make sure your tray tables are up and your seats are in the upright position. Flight attendants, please prepare for takeoff.”
From the seat next to me, Bo stared straight ahead with a terrified look on his face. He pulled on Giraffe so hard I thought Giraffe’s stuffed head might fly right off.
I understood that feeling. I mean, not exactly. It wasn’t my first time on a plane. But I was so nervous about leaving Zoe that if I were holding a stuffed giraffe, I’d probably squeeze the poor thing half to death too.
I really needed to write in my notebook—something about how while I was gone, she has a lot of fun (by herself) while patiently waiting for me to get back—but I couldn’t ignore my brother at a time like this. Seeing him so upset made me feel worse than I already did.
“Hey.” I pried Giraffe out of his death grip and took his hand in mine. “It’s going to be okay,” I told him. “Flying is fun. We get to go up into the sky.”
He answered immediately. “What if the bad guy is in the sky?”
“Hmm. Well, I don’t think the bad guy is. But maybe you could draw a picture of the airplane defeating him.”
“Why?”
“Because that might make you feel better.”
Bo whimpered and shook his head. His arms shook too.
“Or maybe I could draw a picture of the airplane defeating him,” I said. “And you can tell me what to do.”
He bobbed his head up and down. I ripped out a page from my notebook, and we got to it.
“Okay,” I said. I took my pencil and drew a long plane-shaped thing. It looked more like a hot dog than a plane, but oh, well. It was the thought that counted. “Now how exactly do I make the bad guy?” I asked.
Bo leaned in and pointed to the paper. “First you need the can. It’s an oval and it’s silver and you can not forget the crown.”
I giggled to myself as I drew the thing the best I could. Bo rammed his head into my shoulder.
“That’s not Can Sir,” he laughed. “That’s a blob with another blob on top. That’s Mr. Blob Blob!”
My eyebrows squished together. “What did you just say?”
“Mr. Blob Blob,” Bo repeated.
“Before that.”
“You made Can Sir wrong.”
I glanced behind me to see if Mom and Dad were listening, but they were both sound asleep.
“So the bad guy’s name is…cancer?” I asked.
Bo grabbed the pencil out of my hand. “Yeah, and you make him like this,” he said.
“Cancer?” I asked again.
Bo laughed. “Do you have spaghetti in your ears? I already said that.” He repeated it one more time extra slowly. “Can. Sir.”
I leaned back and took a slow breath. I had heard him right. The bad guy’s name was Can Sir. Can Sir. Cancer.
Bo knew about Dad’s cancer? Like, really knew?
I thought about that day when Mom and Sleeping Dad had sat us down. Mom told us not to make them worry, Bo said he hoped Dad got his sorts back on, and then…nothing. I was scared, and apparently Bo was scared too. But I didn’t do anything to help him. I didn’t do anything for so long that Bo picked up his Giraffe because his own sister wasn’t hugging him, and then she couldn’t hug him because she was too busy hugging a notebook.
I didn’t think Bo understood. But he did, in his own way. He pictured cancer like a can, with a crown. And apparently for Bo, when you called someone sir, they obviously had to wear a crown.
I leaned forward and observed our new picture. Bo had calmed way down, and now he was happily drawing away like we were hanging out at home, not sitting on an airplane thousands of feet above the ground.
I’d seen so many of these pictures. I hadn’t counted, but the number had to be somewhere in the millions. But now I was seeing Bo’s art in a whole new way. I was seeing Bo in a whole new way.
“Mr. Blob Blob is better now,” he informed me.
I ruffled
his hair. “Thanks. Hey, Bo?”
“Yeah, Jadey?”
“You know Can Sir is…defeated, right? He’s not a real bad guy anymore. Dad’s all better.”
Bo gave me a questioning look. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure, yeah.”
“But what if the bad guy comes back? He’s very powerful, you know. He’s the most powerful bad guy in this whole planet.”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah, I know. I’m not sure what we do. I guess we just…help each other if we get scared of him.” Tears poked at the corners of my eyes. I blinked them back and wrapped my arm around Bo’s shoulder.
“You were really scared of him,” he told me.
I laughed, even though it wasn’t funny. Kindergarteners weren’t just good at making friends. They were good at understanding things too. Like way better than I ever thought. Maybe little kids like Bo didn’t know everything. They just knew the important things.
“Yeah,” I said. “I was scared. And so were you. The whole time.”
I frowned. There had been so many sad and scary moments during Dad’s treatments. Moments where I should have helped Bo. But I’d reached for Zoe instead.
OPPSERVATION: It’s so obvious when you need other people. But it’s easy to forget that other people need you too.
Questions for further research: Is it too late to be there for my brother the way I wished I had been before?
“But what if the bad guy comes back?” Bo asked me again. “He is big-time scary, Jade.”
Now I knew the answer more than ever.
“We deal with him together,” I said.
That answer seemed to calm Bo. Weirdly, it sort of calmed me too. I waited for him to ask why, but instead, he snuggled closer into my shoulder, and I rested my head on top of his.
“Want to draw more pictures?” I asked.
He snuggled even closer. “No,” he said, “I just want to stay like this.”