feature, which, alas, is your mind.”
Mariah gave him a withering look. “Isn’t it time for you to go home and water your cymbidiums?”
“Why, so it is.”
“Then go before I beat you to a pulp with my order pad.”
“I pray for your soul, Simon,” Gammy said.
“Now there’s an exit line if ever I heard one.”
He exited out the back door, and Mariah shook her head, trying to clear it enough to figure out how to undo this “date.” Her mother had taken Khan for a walk, and Dr. Goodnough had gone along with her. Lindsay was upstairs researching topics like chaos theory and black holes. “Why does everyone around here know my personal business?” she asked her grandmother.
“Count your blessings,” Gammy said. “I hate to think what things would be like if we left you to your own devices.”
5
Lindsay
“Y OU CAN SO STAND IT ,” Sally DeThomas said when Lindsay told her about Allegra’s chemotherapy a week later, during yet another endless block of art. Mrs. Shiasaka, her homeroom teacher, had convinced Lindsay’s mom to keep her in art class. “Just because you think, omigod, I am going to curl up and die when stuff gets bad, it doesn’t mean a hundred percent that’ll happen. Just cry for a while and then figure out a way to get through it. My dad croaked before I was even born. My mom’s had one heart attack already, both she and my stepdad are in wheelchairs for life, and my aunt Ness is HIV positive. What is the common denominator?”
Lindsay thought hard. “Really bad luck?”
Sally waved her hand in Lindsay’s face. “Hello? Me! I’m still here. And they’re still here, too.”
“I guess,” Lindsay said, “except for your dad.”
Sally shrugged like she didn’t care, but Lindsay knew otherwise. Sally glued a feathery fin to her papier-mâché fish, which was edged in glitter and perfect. “Your grandma will be sick for a little while, but once she’s on the right medicine, things will go back to normal.”
Lindsay doubted it. Carl Sagan had not gotten better. He did everything right. He got his bone marrow transplant from someone in his own family, and he died anyway. If Allegra died, then what? Would Lindsay inherit Khan? Walk him every day to the cemetery to see Allegra’s grave? Who would be left to protest for the underpaid hotel maids who wanted maternity leave? Who would take samples to the city council and make sure everyone knew just how much chlorine was in the drinking water?
“I know!” Sally said, setting her fish down, her beautiful purple-and-orange-spotted fish that looked like it had just been pulled up in a fisherman’s net from a tropical island where happy people sang and ripe fruit fell into your hands. “Make her a card. Grandmothers go wackadoo over hand-made cards. She’ll be so happy she’ll give you more money on your next birthday. When’s your birthday? Mine’s in November, only two months away. I can’t wait to turn thirteen. God, I love the way the word sounds—thirteen—so French.”
Lindsay looked down at her hopeless fish. This was the first assignment of the year that counted. She’d been working on it for two weeks and it was due at the end of this period. She’d given up on making it look realistic. Now it was a fish that had been in the back of the line when evolution was busy making all the other ocean creatures strangely beautiful and leaving him only strange. “I don’t know how to make a stupid card,” she said, throwing the fish-mess down onto the table. “I don’t know how to make a stupid fish, either.”
Sally took Lindsay’s fish in her hands, turning it over and over. “This looks like that mongo weird fish at the Aquarium, doesn’t it?”
“The ocean sunfish?”
“ Mola mola in Latin,” Sally said.
“Also translates to—”
“Millstone!” she and Sally said in unison, and several of the other girls looked up to see who was having more fun than they were.
“Actually, that’s my favorite
Mariah gave him a withering look. “Isn’t it time for you to go home and water your cymbidiums?”
“Why, so it is.”
“Then go before I beat you to a pulp with my order pad.”
“I pray for your soul, Simon,” Gammy said.
“Now there’s an exit line if ever I heard one.”
He exited out the back door, and Mariah shook her head, trying to clear it enough to figure out how to undo this “date.” Her mother had taken Khan for a walk, and Dr. Goodnough had gone along with her. Lindsay was upstairs researching topics like chaos theory and black holes. “Why does everyone around here know my personal business?” she asked her grandmother.
“Count your blessings,” Gammy said. “I hate to think what things would be like if we left you to your own devices.”
5
Lindsay
“Y OU CAN SO STAND IT ,” Sally DeThomas said when Lindsay told her about Allegra’s chemotherapy a week later, during yet another endless block of art. Mrs. Shiasaka, her homeroom teacher, had convinced Lindsay’s mom to keep her in art class. “Just because you think, omigod, I am going to curl up and die when stuff gets bad, it doesn’t mean a hundred percent that’ll happen. Just cry for a while and then figure out a way to get through it. My dad croaked before I was even born. My mom’s had one heart attack already, both she and my stepdad are in wheelchairs for life, and my aunt Ness is HIV positive. What is the common denominator?”
Lindsay thought hard. “Really bad luck?”
Sally waved her hand in Lindsay’s face. “Hello? Me! I’m still here. And they’re still here, too.”
“I guess,” Lindsay said, “except for your dad.”
Sally shrugged like she didn’t care, but Lindsay knew otherwise. Sally glued a feathery fin to her papier-mâché fish, which was edged in glitter and perfect. “Your grandma will be sick for a little while, but once she’s on the right medicine, things will go back to normal.”
Lindsay doubted it. Carl Sagan had not gotten better. He did everything right. He got his bone marrow transplant from someone in his own family, and he died anyway. If Allegra died, then what? Would Lindsay inherit Khan? Walk him every day to the cemetery to see Allegra’s grave? Who would be left to protest for the underpaid hotel maids who wanted maternity leave? Who would take samples to the city council and make sure everyone knew just how much chlorine was in the drinking water?
“I know!” Sally said, setting her fish down, her beautiful purple-and-orange-spotted fish that looked like it had just been pulled up in a fisherman’s net from a tropical island where happy people sang and ripe fruit fell into your hands. “Make her a card. Grandmothers go wackadoo over hand-made cards. She’ll be so happy she’ll give you more money on your next birthday. When’s your birthday? Mine’s in November, only two months away. I can’t wait to turn thirteen. God, I love the way the word sounds—thirteen—so French.”
Lindsay looked down at her hopeless fish. This was the first assignment of the year that counted. She’d been working on it for two weeks and it was due at the end of this period. She’d given up on making it look realistic. Now it was a fish that had been in the back of the line when evolution was busy making all the other ocean creatures strangely beautiful and leaving him only strange. “I don’t know how to make a stupid card,” she said, throwing the fish-mess down onto the table. “I don’t know how to make a stupid fish, either.”
Sally took Lindsay’s fish in her hands, turning it over and over. “This looks like that mongo weird fish at the Aquarium, doesn’t it?”
“The ocean sunfish?”
“ Mola mola in Latin,” Sally said.
“Also translates to—”
“Millstone!” she and Sally said in unison, and several of the other girls looked up to see who was having more fun than they were.
“Actually, that’s my favorite
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