by Peg Kehret
“I don’t know. We can’t quit taking food without being sure that Sophie and her family are okay. I know we aren’t responsible for them, but since we know about their trouble, I feel as if I have to help.”
Lauren nodded. “The question is, how? It’ll be hard for only two of us to keep providing enough food, especially if we don’t have a way to get it there.”
“We need to talk to Sophie,” I said, “and find out exactly what the situation is. She started to tell me about her father. Maybe he can be contacted and would help. Maybe there are other family members here in the United States.”
Lauren said, “I also think Hunter is right; we should find out what’s wrong with her mom.”
“So we need to go to Sophie’s house and talk to her,” I said.
“How are we going to get there?”
“On the city bus, I guess.”
“If we’re going to go there, we might as well take some more food,” Lauren said. “I have a piano lesson today, but I could collect food on Friday.”
We agreed to collect food in another section of the housing development where Lauren lived, and to check the bus schedules to find out how to get to Sophie’s house.
The next morning, Mrs. Reed said, “You will be happy to know that Jason is much improved and is allowed to have visitors as long as there are only two people at a time in his room.”
Right away everyone started yammering about going to visit Jelly Bean. Shoeless suggested we each contribute money to buy Blizzards from Dairy Queen, and he would take them to the hospital. “Snickers Blizzards,” he said, “or Milky Ways.” This started a debate about which flavor Blizzard tastes best.
Mrs. Reed clapped her hands to quiet us down. “Jason’s father suggested that the class select one person to represent all of you and that I take that one person for a brief visit tonight.” She looked at Shoeless. “We will not be taking any food with us.”
I thought for sure the class would select Shoeless to be the visitor, since he and Jelly Bean always hung out together at school, but instead they chose me.
“Emmy was the last person from our class to see him before the accident,” Abby said, when she nominated me, “so I think Emmy should be the one to go to the hospital.”
When I won by three votes, I could tell Shoeless was disappointed. Mrs. Reed seemed relieved.
“I’ll call your parents,” Mrs. Reed told me, “to make sure it’s all right with them.” She arranged to pick me up at 6:45.
I nibbled at my dinner, uneasy about going to see Jelly Bean. The only time I’d visited anyone in the hospital was when my grandma had her knee replaced. I had wanted to see her after the surgery, but when I got there, her pale face shocked me. My grandma is one of those cool old people who’s interested in what goes on in the world and who pays attention when kids talk, but that day she had been given pain pills, so she was sleepy and barely said anything to me. The whole thing creeped me out. In a day or two Grandma was home and back to her usual chatty self, but the experience had left me wary of hospital visits.
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Mom said. I swear the woman is psychic sometimes. I hadn’t said one word about not wanting to go.
“I want to go,” I said. I really didn’t, but there was no way I could back out after my classmates had voted me to be the one to visit Jelly Bean.
“I thought you might want to take him a gift,” Mom said as she handed me a new DVD. It was the movie I’d coveted for months, so I figured she had bought it as a present for me and had been saving it for my birthday.
“Thanks,” I said. “He’ll like this.” I wondered if she’d buy another one for me or if I’d get one less gift in order to take a DVD to Jelly Bean. I was surprised to realize that I didn’t care. The DVD that I had wanted so badly didn’t seem important now. I’d rather give it to Jelly Bean than keep it. Maybe it would help me to feel less guilty about the accident.
Mrs. Reed arrived promptly at 6:45 and told Mom she’d have me home by eight.
When we got to the hospital, she stopped at the reception desk. “Which room is Jason Logan in?” she asked.
Jelly Bean was on top of the covers with the head of the bed elevated, playing a computer game on a laptop. He wore blue striped pajamas and had a little plastic bracelet on his wrist. A cast encased the bottom half of his left leg, and that foot was propped up on two pillows. That pajama leg had been cut from ankle to knee, in order to accommodate the cast.
Jelly Bean’s dad greeted Mrs. Reed, who introduced me. Then his dad said he and Jelly Bean’s mom, who was in Chance’s room, would be in the cafeteria for a while.
“Want to sign my cast?” Jelly Bean asked, handing me a box of markers. I chose a green one, and wrote my name. There were already several other names in various colors, including a bright red one that said SHOELESS.
“Shoeless was here?” I said.
“He came about an hour ago,” Jelly Bean said. “He brought me a Snickers Blizzard from Dairy Queen.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Mrs. Reed said.
“Do you want to sign my cast, too, Mrs. Reed?” he asked.
“Absolutely.” She took a deep purple marker and not only signed her name but embellished it with curlicues. Jelly Bean grinned when he saw it.
“How’s Chance?” I asked.
Jelly Bean quit smiling, and I was sorry I’d asked. “The same,” he said.
I gave him the DVD, and then we chatted a while about school and the spring band concert that was scheduled for the following week. Jelly Bean plays trumpet in the school band but would have to miss the concert.
“The one good thing about this,” Jelly Bean said, “is that I don’t have to do any homework.”
“What makes you think that?” Mrs. Reed said. “I’m saving it for you to do after spring break.” Then she laughed at Jelly Bean’s expression and said, “Only kidding.”
When Jelly Bean’s dad returned, Mrs. Reed and I said our good-byes. Mrs. Reed gave Jelly Bean the cards my class had made, and as we left he had already started reading them.
As we stepped off the elevator in the lobby, I spotted a familiar face. Why was Sophie here?
“Excuse me a minute,” I told Mrs. Reed. “That girl is a friend of mine.”
I hurried over to Sophie, who was as surprised to see me as I was to see her.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“Mama’s here.” Sophie’s eyes brimmed with tears. “She was admitted last night.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She has pneumonia.”
Relief swept through me. Sophie’s mom didn’t have some horrible terminal illness. “My grandpa in Florida had pneumonia last year,” I said, “and now he’s back playing golf and building birdhouses in his workshop.”
“Mama’s very sick, because she waited so long to come.”
“Who’s taking care of Trudy?”
“One of Mama’s friends from Burger Barn, where she used to work before she got sick, is babysitting tonight. I stayed home from school today.”
“I’m with Mrs. Reed, my teacher,” I told her. “You could meet her, and she might be able to help.”
Sophie shook her head. “No!” she said. “No, don’t tell anyone that Mama’s here.”
“Mrs. Reed is—”
“Please! I know you want to help, but there are things you don’t know, and you would only make it worse for me.”
“Okay,” I said. “Lauren and I plan to bring food for your family again. Maybe I’ll see you then.”
Sophie put a hand on my arm. “You have been a good friend,” she told me. “Thank you for helping us, and for helping Midnight. Thank you for everything.”
Later, I wondered why she had used the past tense. Why didn’t she say, “You are a good friend,” instead of “Yo
u have been a good friend.” It was almost as if she was saying good-bye, as if she knew we’d never see each other again.
I went to Lauren’s house after school the next day. Before we started out to collect more food, we went online and looked up the bus route we would need to take to get from school to Sophie’s house.
“There isn’t a direct route,” Lauren said. “We’ll have to take one bus downtown, transfer, and take a different bus to Sophie’s street.”
I wrote down the bus numbers and the times. “It’s going to take us nearly an hour each direction,” I said, “but I don’t know any other way to get the food there.”
“We could call a taxi,” suggested Lauren.
“I’m trying to save my money for a new bike,” I said. “I don’t have extra for cab fare.”
“The bus won’t be too bad,” Lauren said. “Coming home, we won’t have heavy bags to carry.”
We collected food in her neighborhood again, easily filling two more bags each. When we got back to Lauren’s house she said, “My cousin is coming for the weekend, so I can’t go to Sophie’s until Monday. We can store the food in my sister’s closet. She’s away at school.”
“Monday works for me,” I said. “Maybe Sophie’s mother will be home by then.”
As soon as I got home from Lauren’s house, I took Waggy for a long walk. When we came back, Mom was cutting up fruit for salad while vegetable soup simmered on the stove. My stomach grumbled. Not only had I put my usual mid-afternoon treat in the bag for Sophie, I had also skipped an after-school snack because Lauren and I were busy collecting more food. No wonder I was hungry!
The simple meal tasted delicious. Since I had not eaten any junk food all day, I decided this could be a Low Fat Day. I didn’t even put butter on my bread.
Dad got home late Friday night. He was worn out from working long hours in Alaska, so all he wanted to do on Saturday was watch some baseball, eat Mom’s cooking, and nap. I heard Mom bring him up to date on Chance’s condition. I knew she had told him on the phone about the accident and how I was almost in the car. I tensed, waiting for Dad to lecture me, but he said only, “I’m sure Emmy learned a lesson from this.”
I felt antsy all weekend, unable to settle down to anything. On Saturday morning I walked to the Farmer’s Market and bought two tote bags to replace the ones I’d left at Sophie’s house. I always enjoy strolling around the market, admiring the fresh fruit, vegetables, and baked goods, but that day I kept wondering how children in my town could be hungry when there was such an abundance of good food. Usually I eat a doughnut at the Farmer’s Market; that day I was content to look.
When I got home, I hid the bags in the pantry. I knew Mom would think they had been there all along, and that she had forgotten where she’d left them.
I spent most of Saturday afternoon and evening in my room, reading, playing computer games, and surfing the Internet. At three I called Community Hospital and asked about Chance’s condition. I was told that the hospital could confirm that Chance was a patient there, but they could not release any specific medical information.
I called again an hour later. That time I asked for the Intensive Care Unit, but when my call was transferred the ICU nurse told me the same thing.
Since Lauren lived in Jelly Bean’s neighborhood, I called her to see if she had any news.
“Jelly Bean’s uncle set up a CaringBridge page for him and Chance,” she said. “It’s a web site where families can post updates about someone who’s sick or injured. Instead of having to answer dozens of e-mails and phone calls, they post any changes on their CaringBridge page. Friends and family can go there to get the latest news. You can leave comments, too.”
“What a great idea,” I said. “Will you send me the link?”
As soon as Lauren e-mailed me the link to the Logans’ CaringBridge page, I clicked on it and signed in. Jelly Bean’s mom had posted an update an hour earlier:
Chance has been awake since early this morning. He is not yet talking but his eyes are open, and he responds to commands to blink once for yes and twice for no. Although the doctors say it is too soon to predict whether or not he’ll make a full recovery, we feel optimistic.
Relief sent a tingle down my arms. I rushed downstairs to tell Mom and Dad. If Chance recovered, I could quit beating myself up for not warning him against texting and driving.
On Monday morning, Mrs. Reed told the class that Jelly Bean would be going home from the hospital that day.
“When will he be back in school?” asked Hunter.
“Oh, he won’t be in our class again,” said Crystal. “Concussions cause brain damage and he probably has the mind of a five-year-old now.”
“Are you sure?” asked Abby.
Crystal nodded. “If he comes back at all, he’ll most likely be in kindergarten.”
“Where in the world did you hear that?” Mrs. Reed said.
Crystal frowned. “I read case histories of concussions on the Internet,” she said.
“Don’t believe everything you read online,” Mrs. Reed said. “Anybody can post anything on the Internet, whether it’s true or not.”
“His brain seemed fine Thursday night, when I saw him in the hospital,” I said.
“I visited him yesterday afternoon,” said Shoeless. “We played gin rummy and read the latest Sports Illustrated together.” He wiggled his ears up and down.
“There is not a thing wrong with Jelly Bean’s brain,” said Mrs. Reed.
“He must eat a lot of radishes,” said Crystal.
We all gaped at her, but nobody asked what radishes had to do with the state of Jelly Bean’s brain.
We didn’t want to know Crystal’s opinion.
CHAPTER SIX
I left for school half an hour early on Monday morning and walked to Lauren’s house in order to help carry the bags of groceries to the school bus.
When school got out, Lauren and I removed the groceries from the supply closet, where Mrs. Reed had let us put them, and started down the street to the city bus stop. We waited nearly fifteen minutes before the number six bus rolled up and we climbed on board. We didn’t talk much. I watched out the window, to be sure we got off at the right stop. I think Lauren was worried about that, too. We followed our progress on the map we’d printed off the transit company’s website, and we disembarked at the right place.
Ten minutes later, we boarded the number fourteen bus, headed for Sophie’s neighborhood.
By the time we walked up the uneven sidewalk to Sophie’s door, we were both tired. We climbed the stairs to apartment 3 and knocked on the door. Nobody answered.
“Sophie?” I called. “It’s Emmy.”
Silence.
We knocked again.
The door to apartment 4 opened and a scruffy young man with three earrings in each ear said, “Nobody’s home there. I think they moved.”
“Moved!” I said. “Are you sure?”
“Nobody’s been here since last week when the ambulance came. The mom got carried out on a stretcher, and the kids trailed along after it.”
“They haven’t moved out,” I said. “They’re only staying somewhere else while the mom is hospitalized.”
He shrugged. “Whatever.”
“Meow.” The scrawny black cat crept out from behind an old broom that leaned against the wall in the corner of the hall. “Meow.”
“Midnight!” I said. “What are you doing out here?”
“Meow!”
I squatted down, holding my hand out toward Midnight. He hesitated, then approached and sniffed my fingers.
“Dang cat’s driving me nuts,” the man said. “It cries and scratches on their door all night long.”
“Have you fed him?” I asked.
“It ain’t my cat,” the man said. “Why would I feed him?”
“Th
e poor thing is hungry,” I said.
I dug in one of the grocery bags, lifted out a bag of dry cat food, ripped off a corner of the bag, and shook some food onto the floor. Midnight began eating.
“We brought some food for the little girls who live here,” I said. “We’ll leave it here, and if they don’t come back in a few days, you can have it.”
“Okay,” he said. “Leave as much as you want.”
I held out the bag of cat food. “Would you feed Midnight and give him a bowl of water?”
“Not me,” he said. “I don’t like cats, especially black ones. Black cats bring bad luck.”
“That isn’t true,” Lauren said. “That’s a silly superstition.”
“Whatever.”
Lauren and I glanced at each other. I wanted to give this guy a lecture about kindness and common sense. Either that or a good hard kick in the shin.
Instead, I asked him, “By any chance, do you have a Post-it note that I could have?”
“A what?”
I held up my fingers to indicate the size and said, “Those little papers that have stickum on the back.”
He shook his head. I don’t think he knew what I meant.
I ripped a three-inch square piece off the top of one of the paper grocery bags, then rooted in my backpack for a pencil. Dear Sophie: Call me! I put down my phone number, and signed the note Emmy (Your Secret Friend).
“I don’t suppose you can give us a piece of tape,” Lauren said to the man.
“Nope. No tape,” he said.
I wedged the note into the crack of Sophie’s door as hard as I could, hoping she’d find it. I did not believe she had moved because she would never move and leave Midnight behind. Probably her mother remained in the hospital, and Sophie was staying elsewhere and had no way to get home to take care of her cat.
The man abruptly closed the door to apartment 4, leaving Lauren and me—and Midnight—in the hall.
“Thanks for nothing,” I muttered.
“I think his name is No Help,” Lauren said.
“If we leave the bags of food here,” I said, “No Help will grab them the second we’re out the front door.”
