Meet the Austins by Madeleine L'Engle

for any of the things that I’d done that day. If I hadn’t been mad at John, if I hadn’t gone off on my bike in a huff, I might have been at home right that minute, maybe upstairs with Mother being read to or saying prayers. But I wasn’t home; I was in the hospital, and maybe I’d made John worse, because he’d come running outdoors into the icy night air after me in only his pajamas and bathrobe. I wondered what Rob would say in his God Bless that night, if he’d ask God to help John get better, and to help me get better, too, and if he’d been scared when he saw me all bloody like that. Rob never seems to get scared at anything, but I think sometimes he feels things more than we know.
    The longer I lay there, the worse I felt. And then a man’s shadow stood near the door and then turned and came in. But it wasn’t Daddy, it was Dr. Harlow. He came in and turned on the little lamp by my bed.
    â€œWell, Vicky,” he said, “how goes it?”
    And suddenly I knew I was going to throw up. “I’m going to be sick,” I said, mumbling through the bandages and the tongue depressor.
    Quick as a flash he took out a pair of scissors and slashed through my bandages and stuck a pan out and I threw up lots of
blood and stuff and he put his hand against my forehead to hold it till I was through.
    â€œThere,” he said, “that was good timing, wasn’t it? I’m going to bandage your head all up again to keep those teeth of yours immobilized, but not quite so tight this time. And your father and Dr. Olsen and I’ve left all kinds of pills for you to take and we want you to go to sleep, and sleep and sleep and sleep.”
    â€œI can’t take the pills if you tie me up again,” I mumbled.
    â€œNo, but you can take them before I tie you up,” and he rang the buzzer on my bed.
    A nurse came in and he said, “Bring in Vicky’s medication now, if you will, please, Miss Dunne, before I get her all bound up again.”
    She brought me some pills in a little glass, and Dr. Harlow helped me to hold the water to swallow them with, because my unbound-up left hand seemed for some reason awfully shaky. Then he put the tongue depressor between my teeth again and tied my head up, turned out the light, and left me.
    When he left me I started to cry again. I felt bad about crying because I knew Daddy wanted me to be brave and not give any trouble. Miss Dunne came in and looked down at me with a flashlight and saw the tears creeping down my cheeks, and she put her hand on my forehead, saying, “Try to go to sleep, Vicky, dear, and you’ll feel better. You’ve been a good, brave girl, and your daddy’ll be proud of you. Everybody’s remarked on how cooperative you’ve been—Miss Fisher at X-ray, and Dr. Olsen and Dr. Harlow and everybody. So now you just try to go to sleep, and if you feel too miserable you ring your bell and I’ll come in to you.”

    All I could do was nod, and she went out. I felt worse because she had praised me and it wasn’t true, because I hadn’t been a brave, good girl at all, I’d been awful to John, and I’d done something Mother would never have allowed me to do, and if I was hurt it was nobody’s fault but my own—not Maggy’s, not John’s, not anybody else’s—and the least I could do now was not scream and yell and make Daddy ashamed of me, too.
    I closed my eyes tight and tried to pretend I was home in the big bed with Rob in the little bed at my feet, and that nothing hurt, that I was cozy and comfortable, and Mother would have to rout me out of bed in the morning to get ready for school.
    I felt a shadow cross my eyelids and I opened them and Daddy was standing by my bed. He put his finger to his lips for silence. He laid Elephant’s Child by me on the pillow and I knew Rob had sent his most precious possession down to me. Then Daddy pulled