Halfway Normal

by Barbara Dee

  “Haha.”

  She kissed my hair. “Get off that website and do some homework, young lady.”

  * * *

  The next morning in homeroom, I made sure to sit next to Cait, but it was no use. Kylie and Aria came over anyway.

  “Norah, I’m having a party at my house on Saturday night, and you’re invited,” Kylie announced.

  “Everyone is going,” Aria added.

  I peeked at Cait; she was smiling and nodding, which meant she’d been invited too. Phew. She seemed like the type of person who didn’t get many invitations.

  “That sounds really fun,” I said. “But my mom’s going back to California, so I think I need to be with her.”

  Kylie pouted. “Well, will you at least ask her if you can come? She’ll probably just be packing anyway. And I’m sure she wants you to have a social life again.”

  Aria gave Kylie a look like: Uh, maybe that was a teeny bit much?

  But Kylie didn’t care. “Harper’s coming, obviously. Oh, and your friend Silas, too.”

  I nodded. But not in a way that meant: Oh, in that case, count me in! It was more of an I-heard-you sort of nod. Not agreeing to anything, especially the “your friend Silas” part of Kylie’s comment. Although it made me feel funny that she’d described him that way. Like he was so unimportant I might not remember which Silas she meant.

  And why was it “obvious” Harper would be coming to her party? It didn’t seem obvious to me.

  * * *

  “So how did rock band go?” I asked Griffin a few minutes later in math.

  He shrugged. “Okay, I guess. I only played for like five minutes.”

  “But they liked your bass? How it looked, I mean.”

  “Yeah. Everyone said it was cool. The drummer especially.” Griffin was smiling, but he seemed a bit nervous. “Hey, um. I was wondering: Could you do that same drawing on my hand?”

  “On your hand?”

  “Yeah, like you did on yours. So it looks like a tattoo or something.”

  “Sure. I guess. When?”

  “Lunch?”

  I blinked at him.

  “Yeah, I was actually looking for you at lunch yesterday, but I couldn’t find you,” he said.

  “You couldn’t?” I broke into a sweat. “Oh, that’s because I was in the nurse’s office.”

  “You were sick?”

  “Me? No. Allergies.”

  “Oh yeah, I get allergies too. Especially this time of year. And early spring.”

  “Yeah. Allergies are the worst.”

  He was looking at me in a way that made my heart bounce. “So can we meet today? At lunch?”

  “Oh, sure,” I said. “That would be great.”

  Wondering which period the eighth graders had lunch.

  And also how I’d sneak out to get there.

  SORT OF HIDING

  Before the start of English I asked Harper, who told me eighth grade lunch was fifth period, which was when we had health class.

  “Why do you want to know?” Harper asked. She widened her eyes at me.

  “Just wondering,” I said.

  “Norah, seriously?”

  There was a hard edge in her voice I’d never noticed before. Already I’d had the feeling that she was pulling away a little; not that she was trying to make me feel bad, but her casual comments about movies she’d seen with Aria and Kylie, plus the way she kept chatting with Addison, were starting to make me nervous. Harper was too nice to just dump someone for getting sick—but why be friends with a person who couldn’t do anything or go anywhere, and totally refused to share information? What was in it for her?

  When you’ve switched off the Share Information button for a while, it can be hard to switch it back on. But now I forced myself to speak. “I just need to talk to somebody then. The same kid. Boy.”

  “You won’t tell me who?”

  “His name is Griffin. You don’t know him, Harper. He’s a new eighth grader. And we’re just friends. Not even.”

  “Well, but if you’re meeting him for lunch, that sounds like friends.”

  “He likes how I draw. It’s not a big deal.”

  “If it’s not a big deal, why skip a class? You’ll get in trouble.”

  “No, I won’t. Anyhow, I’m allowed to skip classes.”

  “If you say so.” She gave a sigh. “Hey, are you going to Kylie’s party on Saturday? She told me she invited you.”

  Shoot. “Um, maybe not.”

  “How come?”

  “Mom’s leaving for California on Monday.”

  “And?”

  “And I should be with her. It’s her last weekend here.”

  “Okay, so just come for a little while, then.”

  “I can’t.”

  Harper threw me a look. “Really? Your mom wouldn’t understand that this was the first party you’ve been invited to in forever, and that I’ll be there, and also Silas, not that you care, plus all your other friends? She wouldn’t let you come for like an hour?”

  No, because it’s against my parents’ Back-to-School Rules. I’m trying to get them to change the No-Afterschool rule, so I can’t ALSO ask them to bend the No-Socializing-on-Weekends rule!

  “Harper and Norah, are you with us today?” Ms. Farrell asked sharply. Class had started sometime during our conversation, and we hadn’t even noticed.

  “Sorry,” we both muttered as we opened our notebooks.

  And when Harper passed me a note—Your mom will be happy that you have a social life again!—I just wrote back: I don’t know. Maybe.

  * * *

  Would I really do this? Skip a class my first week back at school? Just to make Griffin believe I was an eighth grader? It seemed crazy, so unlike me, or the person I thought of myself as being.

  But maybe I wasn’t that person anyway. Maybe chemo had zapped that person right out of me. Or maybe I was still that person mostly, but I’d also changed over the last two years. Mutated into a norah. And this tentacled, many-headed creature was the kind of person who met a boy for lunch when it wasn’t even her lunch period.

  I had to do this, I told myself. There was just no choice. If I didn’t meet Griffin for lunch, he’d realize that I wasn’t in his grade, and then everything about me, “my whole story,” would be exposed. Anyway, I’d only be skipping health class—and if there was one class I felt entitled to skip, it was that one. Because, I mean, all I’d done for the last two years was obsess about health. I am utterly SICK OF HEALTH. Time for a new topic!

  At the start of fifth period, my heart was pounding as I went up to Ms. Nargesian, the health teacher. She was at her desk, counting pamphlets called Making Sensible Decisions. That is definitely NOT a message to me from the gods, I told myself. Even so, I looked away.

  “Um, I think I need to go rest this period,” I told her.

  Right away her eyes clouded. “Of course, Norah! I’ll write you a pass for the nurse’s office.”

  She did it on a hot pink Post-it, which I crumpled and stuck in my jeans pocket. To get to the door I had to walk past Harper, who wagged her pointer finger.

  I ignored her and went straight to the lunchroom.

  * * *

  What I hadn’t counted on was that Griffin would be sitting with other eighth graders—and that these eighth graders would be Thea, Astrid, and Rowan. I couldn’t imagine just squeezing into the table with the four of them, and having Astrid and Thea quiz me about the Bugs Club, or watching Rowan check out his hair in his phone camera, the way I saw him do during math.

  So I grabbed a napkin and drew a Hydra on it. Meet me by the yogurt, I wrote. Then I walked over to Ezra, the boy who’d remembered me from the bus, and asked him to give the napkin to Griffin.

  “Why can’t you do it yourself?” Ezra demanded. He squinted suspiciously.

  “Because we’re playing a game, and I’m sort of hiding,” I said.

  The funny thing was that this made sense to him. He took the napkin and walked o
ver to Griffin’s table. I could see Griffin say something to his tablemates and immediately spring up, like a piece of toast popping out of a toaster.

  “Hey,” he said as he spotted me by the yogurt shelf. “Don’t you want to come over? I saved you a seat.”

  “Thanks, but no. I can’t draw in front of people.”

  “Oh. No, I get that. I can’t play bass in front of people either.”

  “You can’t? How can you do rock band, then?”

  He winced. “Yeah, it’s kind of a problem. But I’m working on it. So where should we . . . ?”

  I pointed to a small, empty table near the exit. As we headed toward it, I tried to ignore the people looking at us, probably wondering why Cute New Boy was walking behind Tiny, Skinny New Girl with Short Hair.

  “So,” I said as we sat side by side. “Your hands aren’t greasy, right?”

  He shook his head. “Thanks for doing this, Norah.”

  “No problem.” I’d always hated that expression; why had I just used it? “Left hand or right?”

  “Well, I play left-handed, so left.”

  “Me too. I mean, I don’t play anything, but I’m left-handed.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.”

  “You did?”

  “Uh-huh. Lefties always notice other lefties.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I concentrated on the drawing. My hand was trembling a little, but I managed to do the griffin, this time from memory. And I had to admit it looked good—if anything, better than the one on Griffin’s bass.

  When I finished I told him to use hand sanitizer instead of soap and water if he needed to clean his hands.

  “Hand sanitizer?” he repeated. “They have some at school?”

  “I don’t know, but I have a whole bottle in my locker, and I always carry some in my backpack. See?”

  When I showed him the small plastic bottle, he gave me a funny look. And right away I realized I’d almost blown it. Again.

  UNEXPLAINED ABSENCE

  Once I’d finished Griffin’s griffin, there were fifteen minutes left until the start of sixth period. I didn’t want to go back to health (especially not if they were discussing Sensible Decisions), and there was no point going to the nurse’s office for a fifteen-minute nap. Besides, I liked the nurse, Mrs. Donaldson, who had a warm smile and calm blue eyes. If I showed up at the end of fifth period, she might urge me to skip sixth period too—and I already felt guilty enough about missing health.

  What I did was hang out in the first floor girls’ bathroom. I had it all to myself, so I spent the time staring at myself in the mirror. Was my hair really growing in, or was that just Mom being supportive? It was hard to tell, but maybe it was a teeny bit longer. And was it the same color as before? Ayesha had told me that after chemo, her hair grew in darker and kinkier. Maybe the norah creature would have long tendrils. That could be awesome, actually.

  Just before the bell rang, I obeyed the Bathroom Rule, washing my hands with fake-flower-smelling soap, and drying with paper towels. Not that my parents would ever find out if I used the hand dryer—but right at that moment it felt like maybe I owed them some obedience.

  * * *

  At dismissal, Dad was in a great mood. His editor had liked some article he’d written about a baseball player so much that he’d assigned him a longer piece for the magazine—the kind of assignment he hadn’t been able to do since I’d been diagnosed. Maybe there’d be a little traveling involved, “but just overnight,” he said quickly.

  Mom, who was in the car, turned to him then. “Who’ll stay with Norah?”

  “Nicole,” he answered. “I already asked, and she already said yes.”

  Mom didn’t reply. But I knew what she was thinking: Time to head back to California. I gave her an extra-big hug when we dropped her off to do some shopping.

  When Dad and I got home, we went into the kitchen for my after-school snack. Right away I noticed that the answering machine for the landline was blinking.

  “Probably my editor,” Dad said happily as he hit the button.

  “BEEP. Hello, Mr. Levy? This is Janice Castro, Norah’s guidance counselor from Aaron Burr Middle School. I’m calling about an unexplained absence. Please give me a call as soon as you get this message. I’m here today until four. Thanks very much. BEEP.”

  Dad eyed me. “Do you know what that means? ‘Unexplained absence’?”

  My throat closed up. “Not really. I had a pass for the nurse’s office fifth period. If she means that.”

  “Well, we’d better check. Don’t go anywhere.” He dialed the school while I pretended to eat carrot sticks dipped in hummus. “Hello, Ms. Castro? Greg Levy here. Fine, thanks. Just got your message. Yes . . . Today? When? . . . Oh. That’s very strange. Are you sure? . . . Oh. I see. Well, no. No, I appreciate that. . . . Yes. Yes, I agree. And her mom will too. Absolutely. Yes. Thanks so much. See you then.”

  He hung up.

  My heart skittered.

  Dad turned to me with a confused expression. “You told your health teacher you were going to the nurse’s office, but you never went?”

  I nodded. “How . . . did she know?”

  “Because your health teacher was worried about you. So after class she went to the nurse’s office to see how you were doing. And you weren’t there.”

  “Because I wasn’t tired! I’m only supposed to go there when I’m tired, right?”

  “Uh-huh. So where did you go, then?”

  I swallowed. “To the girls’ bathroom.”

  “Why?”

  “To look at my hair. There’s a really great mirror there, and—”

  “Norah. You were in the bathroom checking your hair the whole period?”

  “To see if it was growing! I hate looking like a boy!”

  “First of all, you don’t. That’s just ridiculous. And second of all—why would checking your hair take an entire class period?”

  “Because in health they were discussing Sensible Decisions! I hate that class! It’s torture! I wish I didn’t have to do it!”

  “But you do. As long as you’re in seventh grade.”

  “That’s the problem, Dad! I don’t feel as if I’m in seventh grade.”

  “Why not? You mean because you’re in eighth grade math and science?”

  “No, it’s not about that. And I should be in those classes, anyway.” I chewed my lip. “It’s more that there’s all this stuff happening and I’m not part of it.”

  Dad gave me a stern look. “Norah, we’re not having the Afterschool fight again, right?”

  “Why can’t we? Mom said you’d discuss it.”

  “And we will. Just not this very minute. We’re talking about you missing a class. On purpose.”

  “Well, it’s not even just Afterschool, anyway. There are parties—”

  Dad blew out some air. “All right, Norah.”

  “This weekend, for example. And I can’t go! Because you and Mom won’t let me!”

  Dad sank into a chair. “Norah,” he said tiredly. “We’re not discussing the Weekend rule or the Afterschool rule. We’re discussing the fact that if you’re back at Aaron Burr, you can’t pick and choose which classes you go to. You have to go to all of them, unless you need to rest. That’s the only reason you’re excused, and the only place you’re allowed to be is the nurse’s office. Capeesh?”

  I nodded.

  “Good.” He exhaled. “So what’s this Ms. Castro like? Mom and I have to meet her tomorrow.”

  “She wants to see you?”

  “Yep. Is she scary?”

  I rolled my eyes. “No. She has Silly Putty.”

  “Slinkys?”

  I shook my head. “But a Rubik’s Cube.”

  “Yeah? Well, this should be buckets of fun, then.”

  SILLY PUTTY

  All day on Friday I tried hard not to panic. But the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t understand why Ms. Castro needed to see my parents. If you skipped a class,
you were supposed to get detention. Calling parents into school was really serious, an overreaction. Unless someone had spotted me in the lunchroom with Griffin and I was in trouble for Impersonating an Eighth Grader. Or for Vandalizing a Student’s Hand. Or maybe Astrid had reported me to Ms. Castro for Theft of Special Red Marker. Which I should definitely return to Harper right away, I told myself.

  I was so obsessed with these thoughts that I barely registered when Silas came over to me at the start of social studies.

  “Um,” he said. “Hi.”

  “Hi, Silas,” I answered flatly. “What’s up.”

  “Nothing. I was just wondering if you were coming to Kylie’s party. She said she asked you but your mom said no.”

  “Kind of,” I said. I really had zero desire to be having this conversation, especially when, for all I knew, my parents could be sitting in Ms. Castro’s office right at this moment. Plus, I was still mad at Silas. “Can I ask you something? Why do you even care?”

  Silas looked shocked. “Me? What do you mean?”

  “Because you’ve barely even spoken to me since I’ve been back. I tried to have lunch with you and you basically ignored me.”

  “Oh. No. That wasn’t what I—”

  Then I kept going. “And you know else I’ve been wondering, while we’re on the subject? How come you never came to see me in the hospital? I mean, the texts were funny, but it would have been nice if you’d have shown up in person. I wasn’t there for a broken leg, you know?”

  “Yes, I know,” Silas said in a choky voice. “I feel really bad, Norah. I felt really bad. But I just couldn’t. I’m very sorry.”

  “Yeah, well. You may be sorry. But you’re also not my friend, obviously.”

  His face turned pink, and his eyes scrunched up. I realized he was in danger of violating the number one rule for seventh grade boys—WHATEVER HAPPENS, DON’T CRY ON SCHOOL PROPERTY—but I told myself that if he did, it was his problem. Because why should I worry about Silas? I was the one who’d been sick, not him—just like Raina said.

  Class started. From across the room, I could see how his shoulders drooped.

  SO WHAT? I yelled at myself. Do NOT feel sorry for him. It was good you finally told him how you felt. Raina would be proud!