Sunny Sweet Is So Not Sorry (5 page)

“I also read your Chinese dictionary for the same reason. Mandarin is really hard to learn, by the way. Every word is a different symbol.”

“What? Stay out of my things!”

“But reading your journal gave me the idea to put the flowers in your hair,” she said. “You wrote a bunch of times that the girls in school don't ever pay attention to you. I was going to make them look at you.”

“You smell like a peanut butter sandwich,” said the boy. “I love peanut butter sandwiches.”

“She loves this boy named Anton in a book she's reading,” Sunny said, giggling. “That was in the journal too.”

“You little germ,” I said, jumping out of my chair. “That stuff is private!”

“My name's Calvin,” said the boy. “What's your name?”

“Her name is Marsha,” said Sunny, sliding to the floor laughing.

I leaped at her. She scooted around behind the boy. I chased her. Every time I got to the front of the boy, Sunny got around to the back, and every time I got around back, she darted in front of him. I stopped short and turned back the other way and grabbed her. I could hear the boy honking with laughter.

“Calvin, save me,” Sunny cried.

“Okay,” said the boy.

“Calvin,” cried a nurse from behind us, “don't …”

Calvin grabbed Sunny and me together in a big bear hug, and we fell to the waiting room floor.

The nurse came running over. She had on rubber gloves and a mask over her face, as if she had just run out of surgery. And she wasn't alone; there was a group of nurses behind her all dressed the same with masks and gloves. They surrounded Calvin, and, speaking gently to him, led him away. Then one of the masked nurses reached for Sunny and me.

“You'll have to come with us too, girls,” she said, taking my arm.

“But Mrs. Song …” I tried to jerk away from her.

“You can sing us a song on the way up in the elevator,” she said.

There were a bunch of them now, and they were surrounding us.

“Sunny!”

I reached for my little sister, but she was already gone.

I was bustled down a bunch of halls and into an elevator. I had no idea what was going on or where Sunny or the boy in the hospital gown had gone. The soft, happy music playing in the elevator made me feel sure that something horrible was about to happen to me. I could hear the beeping of the passing floors but couldn't see anything because I was surrounded by people in blue. They seemed to take turns telling me that everything was going to be fine.

When the doors opened, they shuffled me down a
hall, into a room, and up onto a bed. I curled up in a ball and waited for the sound of a chain saw or the glint of a giant knife. Instead, one of the blue people turned and handed me an apple juice and a package of saltines. I love saltines.

Another blue person explained that it wasn't exactly a killer virus, but it was a virus with a funny name, whooping cough. And Calvin had it. They said that Sunny and I probably had shots for it when we were little—which meant we couldn't catch it. But because Sunny and I had rolled around on the floor with Calvin, they had to check just to be sure. They said that Sunny was next door and that they were taking great care of her. They told me that they would put us back together as soon as they got done with a few tests. I nodded like I cared, but really I was fine with getting a break from Sunny. I couldn't believe she had read my journal and found my Chinese dictionary! That was my stuff. I didn't go messing with her stupid ScienceWiz Physics kit, or touch her precious ultraviolet science goggles.

They made me change out of my pajamas and into
a pink hospital shirt and pants that had tiny elephants all over them, but at least I wasn't in a hospital gown like poor Calvin. Then they said they'd call my mother. I gave them our home phone and said that I would try to remember my mom's work number. I actually really didn't know it by heart because I always just hit number 2 on my cell phone, and my cell phone was back in the garbage where I left it by accident. But the truth was that I wasn't trying to remember it. If we ended up having some sort of virus, okay, then we'd call her. Anyway, I knew that Sunny remembered Mom's work number because Sunny remembered everything. I also knew that she would pretend that she didn't because she wouldn't want to go back to school.

At first, being quarantined was pretty cool. I put the Disney Channel back on and sat in bed eating crackers and drinking apple juice. But then the team of masked people showed back up, and the equipment they carried in with them made me kind of nervous. It looked like blood-taking stuff.

“Hi, sweetie,” said one of the nurses. “Everything is going to be fine. We're just here to collect a quick
sample so we can make sure you're safe from whooping cough.”

Another nurse asked, “What's your name, honey?”

Their voices sounded funny coming from behind the masks.

“Masha,” I said.

“Well, Marsha, why don't you take off your hat?” said one nurse.

I shook my head no.

“We're going to have to take that off,” came the masked reply.

One of them untied the hat and whisked it off. The hospital air on my head made me shiver.

“Okay,” said one of the muffled people, “should we ask?”

“My little sister did it,” I mumbled.

“Yikes,” said yet another muffled person tugging at one of the blooms, “these things are really glued in there.” Even though I couldn't see their mouths, I could feel every single one of them smiling behind their masks.

I sighed through clenched teeth.

I guess some of the other muffled people didn't believe the first muffled person. It was like everyone had to take a turn trying to yank a flower or two out of my hair to prove that they were really stuck in there. They were.

“Maybe we should have the hospital barber take a look at this,” one of them suggested.

“Is there such a thing as a hospital barber?” I asked.

But I stopped thinking about the barber because they started explaining things I didn't want to hear, like taking blood for tests, and they began to wrap that rubber band around my arm and search for my vein. I really liked my blood right where it was—inside me. The needle hovered over my arm, and I could feel all my blood vessels screaming, “Not me, not me, not me!”

Ouch.

They figured out within an hour that Sunny and I had gotten the shots against “Calvin's disease.” This is what I decided to call the virus as I ate my third packet of crackers. Whooping cough just sounded way too silly when I practiced saying it, as if I were telling Mrs. Hull why I had missed her big test.

I asked where Sunny was, and one of the now unmuffled nurses said that she was fine and that she'd gone on rounds with Calvin's orthopedist, the doctor that helps with people's bones.

“Whooping cough hurts your bones?”

“No,” said the nurse, smiling. “Calvin also has cerebral palsy, a disorder that can affect how you move. Your sister said she was interested in this condition.”

Of course she did.

The nurse told me to finish up my orange juice. (I got bored with apple. You always get bored with apple.) Then she said she'd send in the barber to take a look at the wreath of daisies on my head. She mentioned that they were still trying to get in touch with my mom. I had given them a couple of fake telephone numbers, and they'd taken off happy. I was pretty happy too. I mean, how often do you meet a medical barber? He was exactly what I needed.

I was sucking down the rest of my juice and thinking about how lucky I was that Calvin's favorite color was red when my medical barber walked in. His initial reaction went something like, “Whoa! Lord have mercy,” and things didn't seem as promising as they had two minutes before. The next five minutes of head shaking and silent laughter drained the last bit of hope I had in my medical barber.

“I'm sorry,” he said, wiping his eyes but still laughing—so really, how sorry could he be? “It's just that you think you've seen everything, and then …” He couldn't finish. He excused himself for a moment, and I heard what sounded like sneezing laughter going on outside the closed door.

It was a good thing Sunny was busy playing doctor right now because if she were here with me, I'd glue this hospital pillow right to her butt! Instead, I stuck the thin, scratchy pillow up to my face and shouted into it, “Sunny Sweet is going to be sooo sorry!” Silly, maybe, but it made me feel better so I did it again. “
Sunny Sweet, you are going to be sooo sooorry
!”

The medical barber walked back in, and this time he was ready for business. He put down his bag and turned on the light over my bed, focusing it on top of my head. It burned my scalp a little, but I didn't say anything. I wanted him to be able to get a good, long look at what he was dealing with.

“Hmm,” he said. “She used a cold-setting epoxy.”

I didn't say anything. I didn't really care what materials the shrinky-dink snake used. But I was starting
to like my medical barber more. The word “epoxy” made him sound official and smart, which meant that any minute he was going to pull a prescription out of his bag and remove this nightmare forever.

“Is this a peanut?” he said, picking something out of my hair.

I bit my lip. I didn't want to tell him about the freezer or how my mom thought that since peanut butter was supposed to get gum out of your hair that it would somehow also remove fake flowers.

He sniffed. “She must have mixed the epoxy with peanut butter,” he whispered, “but that doesn't make any sense.”

I sat with my mouth shut while he picked out a few more peanuts and examined them. He messed around with the flowers for fifteen minutes. Just when I was beginning to feel like a glass vase being arranged, my medical barber stood back and looked at me.

“What?” I asked.

“It looks like your sister used a thermosetting resin,” he said, looking serious, “which is characterized by monomeric units that are linked together by
chemical bonds and form three-dimensional networks that are infusible and insoluble.”

All of a sudden I didn't like my medical barber anymore.

“What?” I asked.

“This stuff is not coming out,” he said, giving a little shake of his head.

And I wished more than anything that I did have Calvin's disease, because then at least I could be dying right now!

“How am I supposed to live like this?” I cried.

“You don't,” said my medical barber, although I was beginning to suspect that he might just be a regular barber who happened to know a weird amount about glue.

“What?” I asked.

“We'll have to shave your head,” he said.

“WHAT!” I shouted.

“We'll have to …”

I fell back onto the hospital bed and waved my hand at him to stop. I had heard him. I was just shouting to shout.