the back and rest my head on it.
I’m starting to doze when I hear footsteps, and then in walks Halbrook, his face stuck between the covers of a book.
He’s startled when he notices me. “Oh, hi, Danielle. I didn’t see you there.” His book is War and Peace and I half-wonder if he’ll decide to read aloud to us next class, instead of us working on our assignments.
“Are you all right?”
I’m surprised he hasn’t gone back to his reading yet. “Perfect.”
“How’s your sister doing?”
Halbrook hates Jena. She used to forge notes all the time for fake track meets and sporting events. That’s not why he hates her, though. I think it has to do with the fact that she once did it for every student in his math class. It was only a joke, of course, but Halbrook isn’t exactly known for his sense of humor.
My parents gave her the third degree when they learned of her activities. If she did something like that now, they’d be secretly delighted. We’re all searching for signs the old Jena still exists.
“Perfect, too,” I mutter, feeling the desk beginning to imprint itself on my cheek.
“And how’s your project coming?”
Here’s a question for him: Why is he expressing teacherly concern over me instead of reading War and Freaking Peace ?
“You’ll be blown away,” I tell him, though Jack and I got next to nothing done during lunch on Monday.
When he leaves the classroom again, I close my eyes and try to fall asleep. I dream Mr. Halbrook hovers over me, halo made of concern as his book sits unattended at his desk. I dream he and the rest of the world hesitate around me, pray for me and try to help, and yet I don’t let them.
I wake up with a self-prescribed mandate for normalcy. Tomorrow, I will catch up on all the work I’ve missed. Tomorrow, I will bring my T. rex–sized bag of M&M’s and share with all my classmates, let them sift through the round nuggets of deception, trying to sort good from evil, peanut from peanut butter. Peanut butter is a wolf in peanut’s clothing. Shame on it.
Focus, Dani.
Tomorrow, when I return to popularity and humanity and normalcy , I will not give people any more reasons to wonder.
Lots of people have sisters with cancer. Lots and lots of people. Some people have buried their sisters and brothers and mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles, and I have not.
Some people have sat by their loved ones and watched them hack or hurt or throw up early, too early in the morning, so often that they can no longer fall asleep, and so, they now draw all over themselves and do strange voodoo, and I have not.
Some people have gotten cancer and had to quit school and stay home to Be Sick, a full-time calling, but one that is thoroughly wrong for them since they are the strong ones and they win state soccer championships and so they can’t have cancer, and I have not.
I should be grateful, ecstatic.
Many people have died from car crashes, from infections, from drowning, from motorcycles, and I have not.
I keep waking up.
18
Saturday morning brings my father standing over me, nudging me awake. Today is the makeup callback.
I tell him I’d rather stay in bed and let it swallow me whole. He laughs and squeezes my shoulder. “Come on, sleepyhead.”
Still asleep, I trudge into the bathroom and splash cold water on my face. We use Colgate, not Whitaden, around here. Since I don’t want things to be awkward at the callback, I decide to forgo toothpaste and brushing entirely.
Thanks to the bangs, the only visible reminder of the accident is the cast around my left arm. Mom spoke to Brody Richardson about my most unfortunate accident, and since they won’t actually be filming the commercial for another two months, they’re willing to overlook the broken wrist.
I walk all the way across the hall. The door to Jena’s room is wide open, the torn pieces of paper still hanging limply there, skulls without bones and wordless warning signs.
When I go in, there is
I’m starting to doze when I hear footsteps, and then in walks Halbrook, his face stuck between the covers of a book.
He’s startled when he notices me. “Oh, hi, Danielle. I didn’t see you there.” His book is War and Peace and I half-wonder if he’ll decide to read aloud to us next class, instead of us working on our assignments.
“Are you all right?”
I’m surprised he hasn’t gone back to his reading yet. “Perfect.”
“How’s your sister doing?”
Halbrook hates Jena. She used to forge notes all the time for fake track meets and sporting events. That’s not why he hates her, though. I think it has to do with the fact that she once did it for every student in his math class. It was only a joke, of course, but Halbrook isn’t exactly known for his sense of humor.
My parents gave her the third degree when they learned of her activities. If she did something like that now, they’d be secretly delighted. We’re all searching for signs the old Jena still exists.
“Perfect, too,” I mutter, feeling the desk beginning to imprint itself on my cheek.
“And how’s your project coming?”
Here’s a question for him: Why is he expressing teacherly concern over me instead of reading War and Freaking Peace ?
“You’ll be blown away,” I tell him, though Jack and I got next to nothing done during lunch on Monday.
When he leaves the classroom again, I close my eyes and try to fall asleep. I dream Mr. Halbrook hovers over me, halo made of concern as his book sits unattended at his desk. I dream he and the rest of the world hesitate around me, pray for me and try to help, and yet I don’t let them.
I wake up with a self-prescribed mandate for normalcy. Tomorrow, I will catch up on all the work I’ve missed. Tomorrow, I will bring my T. rex–sized bag of M&M’s and share with all my classmates, let them sift through the round nuggets of deception, trying to sort good from evil, peanut from peanut butter. Peanut butter is a wolf in peanut’s clothing. Shame on it.
Focus, Dani.
Tomorrow, when I return to popularity and humanity and normalcy , I will not give people any more reasons to wonder.
Lots of people have sisters with cancer. Lots and lots of people. Some people have buried their sisters and brothers and mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles, and I have not.
Some people have sat by their loved ones and watched them hack or hurt or throw up early, too early in the morning, so often that they can no longer fall asleep, and so, they now draw all over themselves and do strange voodoo, and I have not.
Some people have gotten cancer and had to quit school and stay home to Be Sick, a full-time calling, but one that is thoroughly wrong for them since they are the strong ones and they win state soccer championships and so they can’t have cancer, and I have not.
I should be grateful, ecstatic.
Many people have died from car crashes, from infections, from drowning, from motorcycles, and I have not.
I keep waking up.
18
Saturday morning brings my father standing over me, nudging me awake. Today is the makeup callback.
I tell him I’d rather stay in bed and let it swallow me whole. He laughs and squeezes my shoulder. “Come on, sleepyhead.”
Still asleep, I trudge into the bathroom and splash cold water on my face. We use Colgate, not Whitaden, around here. Since I don’t want things to be awkward at the callback, I decide to forgo toothpaste and brushing entirely.
Thanks to the bangs, the only visible reminder of the accident is the cast around my left arm. Mom spoke to Brody Richardson about my most unfortunate accident, and since they won’t actually be filming the commercial for another two months, they’re willing to overlook the broken wrist.
I walk all the way across the hall. The door to Jena’s room is wide open, the torn pieces of paper still hanging limply there, skulls without bones and wordless warning signs.
When I go in, there is
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