Going Bovine by Libba Bray Page B

of sugar substitute and a whole carton of milk into it and it still won’t have any taste. If this is what my last days are going to be about, put the pillow over my face now. Dad was here this morning. Now Mom’s on duty. She brought me some new comics, which was cool. I must have drifted off. When I wake up, she’s sitting in the ugly hospital chair, slipping pictures into a big book. She gives a half-smile. “I thought I might finally finish that photo album of our Disney trip.”
    “Mom. I was five when we went to Disney.”
    “I know. I kept saying I’d get around to it.” She puts a picture in my hand. “Do you remember this?”
    It’s a picture of us standing outside Tomorrowland. I’m grinning maniacally like my face might break with joy.
    “You loved that place. Made us go on everything you could ride at least four times.”
    “Was this before or after I tripped out on A Small World?”
    “After,” she says with a sad little smile. Mom sifts through the shoe box of pictures. She picks up and abandons one after the other. “I don’t know where to put all these things.”
    Finally, she closes the box. She slips it and the half-finished photo album into her book bag to be forgotten.
    DAY NINE
    The stoner trio has come today. Their conversation is like watching a volleyball match where you can’t tell the players apart.
    Rachel: Dude, some of those nurses are smokin’ hot. The one with the dark hair in a ponytail? Is she into piercings and science nerds?
    Kevin: Does she ever come in and, like, take her hair down and be all, “Oh, Cameron, I never dreamed it could be like this!”
    Rachel: Pig. Stop talking about my future girlfriend that way.
    Kyle: That could totally be like, one of those last wish things, though. Do it. Put in for hot nurse sex before you kick.
    Kevin: They hooking you up with good meds? My uncle went in for gallbladder surgery and they gave him, like, Make-Me-See-God-Ocontin or something. It was the only week he wasn’t a complete asshole. We wanted to put it in his water supply.
    Rachel: Did you hear? The student council is selling gold ribbons to raise money and everything. Whole school’s wearing ’em. Mrs. Rector dipped into her margarita money to buy one, and she doesn’t even like you.
    Kevin: It was supposed to be black-and-white, you know, like a cow pattern? But that was already taken for some other disease.
    Kyle: Sorry you’ve gotta be in the hospital, dude.
    Rachel: Sucks.
    Kevin: Yeah, definitely the big suckage.
    They nod in unison.
    Kevin: Speaking of suckage, ask Kyle what he’s doing this summer.
    Kyle: Shut up, Kevin.
    Rachel: Summer School City, man. Shithenge didn’t cut it after all.
    Kyle: I said, shut up.
    Kevin: I told you I woulda hooked you up with a paper off the Internet, dude. I know sites the teaching bots never even think of checking. Oh! We brought you the new Director’s Cut of Star Fighter, episodes one through four—
    Kyle: The only ones worth watching—
    Rachel:—Sorry the plastic’s off, but we tested ’em out last night. Figured you wouldn’t mind. Dude, the print is so clear, you can see everything. Like when Star Fighter is battling it out with Dark—
    Kevin:—Matter? The glow of his ultimate peace weapon doesn’t even look computer-generated. Awesome.
    Rachel and Kyle: Yeah. Awesome.
    They leave the boxed set on the end of my bed, where it balances on my toes.
    Rachel: So. Dude. Seriously. Before you croak, you think you could put in a word for me with that nurse?
    DAY ELEVEN
    The door opens and a tiny bird of an old lady shuffles in, using her IV pole like a cane.
    “Um, I think you’re in the wrong—” I start.
    She puts her finger to her lips, silencing me. “They won’t look for me here.”
    “Who?”
    Her eyes widen. “Them! I’m going to get out of here. I’m running away.”
    Her hair is a long tangle of wiry gray down the front of her hospital gown, and I wonder if she’s an Alzheimer’s patient or