Hannah's Touch by Laura Langston Page B

do back and grew hotter still. The buzz faded; the tickling dropped to my chin.
    Some kind of bug. I brushed at my face, heard an angry buzz, and then I felt it—a sharp sting on my neck.
    â€œOw!” The pain was intense, red-hot and scorching.
    A bee sting. My first.
    It had to happen sometime. And what better place to get stung than outside a drug store where I knew the pharmacist and he could pull the lid on a bottle of Calamine lotion without me paying for it.
    I grabbed my soda and scrambled to my feet. Sunlight glinted off the cars passing by, the sky was an unreal pencil-crayon blue. A car horn sounded; a child laughed. The noises rushed in, filled me up.
    Probably I should get the stinger out, I thought. Weren’t you supposed to?
    A wave of dizziness turned the world sideways. Nerves, I told myself. It was only a bee sting. No biggie.
    Except the pain was spreading. Down my neck and into my chest. Sweat beaded my forehead.
    Don’t be silly. You’re going to be fine.
    I hurried toward the parking lot. The dizziness was getting worse, the noise from the cars growing louder. I knew about shock reactions; I’d learned something working at Bartell’s for the last eight months. But no one in my family was allergic. To anything.
    By the time I got to the parking lot, I knew I was wrong. Someone in our family was allergic to something. And that someone was me. My legs felt like they were going uphill through cement. My arms tingled, my breath was wooly in my throat.
    Across the lot, I saw M.C. and her stupid Kitty dog standing in the doorway talking to Lila.
    I started to run. And then everything turned black.

Chapter Two
    I was going to die in the parking lot of Bartell Drugs wearing that stupid red vest and with short hair. Mom would hate burying me without my long hair.
    What a stupid waste, I thought, seeing my body on the pavement. My first bee sting and it’s fatal. It was almost as stupid as Logan getting in that car.
    It’s all part of the plan.
    I felt the words rather than heard them. They became part of me. With them, I grew bigger, fuller, softer.
    More accepting.
    At the same time, I felt someone. Something. A warm presence.
    Beside me, above me, everywhere. It filled me with a kind of hum. I wanted to look around, see who or what it was, but I didn’t want to miss the scene below.
    I was out of my body. I knew that. I also knew this would probably be the last time I saw myself. It was odd viewing my body from the outside. Kind of like seeing a 3-D image that looks real but isn’t. The real me was up here. Strange but true. I wondered if they’d called my parents. My brother, Geoff.
    It didn’t really matter. Nothing did.
    M.C. cradled my head. Kitty dog was in the basket beside her. Lila, the cashier, was on her cell phone. Bentley knelt beside me and pulled something out of a package. An EpiPen.
    So I was having an allergic reaction. I was dying. Which meant I was off the hook for that group project with Tom. And I could go find Logan and give him crap for dying.
    The thought struck me funny. I began to laugh.
    You must go back.
    There was the voice again.
    I didn’t want to go back. Being here, wherever here was, was the nicest thing that had happened to me since…I don’t know. Since before Nana died, when I used to stay at her house in the country, and she’d tuck me in at night and make me apple pancakes in the morning and put my hair in French braids and she would love me. This was like that love, only more.
    I hadn’t felt it since I was ten years old. And I didn’t want to give it up.
    â€œNo,” I said.
    Your work is not finished.
    â€œSomeone else can pick up my shift.” When I laughed a second time, I felt Logan draw near. I smelled him.
    And I began to cry.
    Tears ran from the eyes of the 3-D Hannah on the ground. I saw M.C. wipe them away with the sleeve of her caftan. But where I was, there were no tears, only