Counting thyme, p.20
Counting Thyme, page 20
“I don’t want Val to die,” I said, hiccupping between each word.
Mom wasn’t a whole lot bigger than me, but her arms tightened around me like a shield. “He’s not going to die,” she whispered. Her voice was all clamped down. She cleared her throat and kept going. “Your brother is going to be just fine. And Mr. Lipinsky will be fine, too. He just needs some time to remember that he’s not alone. You’re a good friend to him, Thyme, and I’m proud of you.”
I pulled away. “I thought you didn’t like him.”
“Mr. Lipinsky’s a mixed bag, but I love you, Thyme. And I’d really like it if we could spend some time together. Whatever you want.”
I hugged her again, and her arms squeezed my sides. “This is good for now,” I said. “But maybe later, can we go see the butterflies?”
“You got it, love.”
The butterflies turned out to be incredible. There weren’t just real butterflies in cases, but huge models of caterpillars and cocoons, with parts that lit up and moved, showing how everything worked to change wormy little bugs into beautiful winged creatures.
And better yet, watching the gigantic wings of a butterfly model gave me a sound idea for the tornado machine. All of a sudden, I couldn’t wait to get back to school and work on sound production. We were more than halfway through February, which meant the show’s debut was two weeks away, but all of our sounds had to be turned in a week ahead of time, so I had until Friday to get it done. My new idea promised to blow the sound team away. If I could only get it to work.
36
AUDITORY MEMORY
THE THING ABOUT SOUND IS, OUR BRAINS LIKE TO PUT A LABEL on any noise we hear more than once. That’s called auditory memory. And according to what I read online, our mental libraries for sound are always growing. Meaning, every new sound we hear gets added to the library and given a name. But when a sound changes, when it doesn’t sound the way it used to, our brains get all mixed up.
That’s why it took Val a while to get used to his hearing aids when he first got them. With a hearing aid, everything sounds different. A cow doesn’t sound like a cow anymore, at least not to your brain. The hearing aids change the cow’s moo just a tiny bit, so that it takes your brain longer to recognize it. You have to learn the new cow sound and retrain your brain.
Auditory memory is also what makes it really hard to fool people into thinking they’re hearing a tornado when there is no tornado. If the sound you make is just a little off, people can’t recognize the sound at all. They might think they’re hearing the ocean, or an airplane, or some other sound in their sound library. But with the new idea from the butterfly wings, I thought I might be able to pull it off.
During lunch on Monday, I went to the auditorium and worked on my design, cutting careful wings from cardboard scraps. It didn’t take long to build up a pile.
Jake saw what I was up to and squatted next to me. “Something new for the tornado?”
I covered my work with my arms. “It’s a surprise.”
“I guess you’re a sound nerd after all,” he said. Then he bumped my arm with his. Since the dance, it felt like we had a secret language all our own. The arm bump meant “Good job. You can do it.”
Every day that week, I made a little progress on the machine, in between practicing with Mrs. Smith and learning my sound cues for all my other sounds. I’d started with a small black fan—the metal kind with two speeds and a wire cage—but the fan wasn’t just a fan anymore. Thanks to the butterflies, the cage sported wings around the rim and a cardboard funnel at the center. The end of the funnel was covered in mesh and long strips of ribbon and plastic. When it was off, the fan looked like a winged flower with a colorful ribbon snout.
By lunch on Thursday, I was ready to test the machine for the first time. Jake joined me. While he watched, I crossed my fingers and flipped the fan’s switch to low. A sound something like a tornado filled the backstage. After a minute, I turned it off.
“Wow!” Jake said. “It’s too slow, but it’s really close to a tornado.” His face was a mask of disbelief. “How did you do that?”
“These wings, all around here, they flutter so fast, it sounds like wind rushing,” I explained, pointing out the different parts of the machine and how all of the little noises added up to the sound of a tornado to our brains. “And when we turn it to high, it should be just right. But I want to make sure it’s ready first. I think it needs a couple more wings to be perfect.”
“Cool.” He bumped his shoulder into my shoulder to emphasize just how cool he thought my invention was. Which sounds awkward, I know. But it was actually really nice.
That night, I tossed in my bed, too excited about the tornado machine to sleep. I was going to show it to the entire sound team the next day at lunch—our deadline for new sounds. Except for Jake, no one had any idea that I’d cracked the tornado sound. As far as they knew, I’d failed, and we were stuck with the dreaded substitute for real sound effects: a tape recording.
I sat up and rearranged my pillows for the hundredth time, and a noise filtered in from the hall, loud enough to hear over Cori’s snoring: Dad’s voice, muffled but urgent. I slipped out of my bed and snuck across the floor, taking care to avoid the squeaky spots. When I pressed my ear to the door, Mom’s voice came through loud and clear.
“What if it doesn’t go down?”
Dad responded, but his voice was too deep to understand through a thick wooden door.
A floorboard creaked. “I don’t know,” Mom said, her voice rising. “I just thought this once, things would go our way. And now, with a fever—”
“It’s going to be fine.” Now Dad’s voice was close enough to make me jump. “The cancer isn’t back. It’s probably just an infection like last time. We’ll stay on top of it like we always do, and he’ll be all right. I promise.”
“You don’t know that,” Mom said.
More creaks. And then a sound like coughing, only quieter, with gasps in between each cough. “It’s okay.” Dad’s voice was distant again. And that’s when I realized the sound I heard was Mom crying. She was outside, crying in the hall, while Val slept in their room.
I crept back to my bed, suddenly anxious for the warmth of my comforter. With the fluffy blanket pulled up to my chin, I thought about what I’d heard. Val had a fever. It seemed like it wasn’t high enough to be an emergency, but still, it was bad enough to make Mom cry. And that was more than enough to make me worry.
In the morning, I watched Mom like a hawk, but she didn’t give anything away about what had happened during the night, and I was too afraid to ask. I was so distracted I ended up late, and Mrs. Ravelli had to wait while I raced around the apartment, gathering last-minute supplies for the tornado machine. “Thyme!” she called as I rooted around in Dad’s desk drawers. His plastic report covers would add the perfect slippery rustle to the tornado’s sound.
“I’m coming!”
“We have to go. You make us late, Thyme.” She held the door open, waiting.
“I have to say good-bye to Val.”
“He’s still sleeping, bambina. Vai!”
“Okay, okay!” I made a quick wish for Val and hurried out the door.
On the way downstairs, I stayed on my tiptoes past Mr. Lipinsky’s door. I didn’t want to see him. I wasn’t going to give him another chance to say horrible things to me.
By the time I hustled up the steps at MS 221, my nerves were jangling. In a few hours, I would find out what everyone thought of my machine, which made me feel like smiling and barfing at the same time. So I tried not to think about it, especially while I was waiting for Mrs. Harris to dismiss us for lunch. Jake must have noticed how I felt, because he nailed me with a ball of paper and gave me a thumbs-up when I scowled at him.
At lunch, he walked with me to the auditorium. “Ready to blow everybody away?”
I swatted his shoulder and he laughed, and then we were there. I dragged the tornado machine out of hiding, and Jake called for everyone to come over, and my heart started thumping so loud, I could hear it in my ears. Amelia and Davis were there. Lizzie and Emily, too, grinning her megawatt smile.
“What have we got here?” Mrs. Smith asked.
“This is the Tornado Two Thousand.”
The other kids giggled at the name, but Mrs. Smith just said, “Well, let’s hear it.”
A flutter of nerves made me freeze for a second.
Then I flipped the fan’s single switch to HIGH, and the blades inside the metal cage whirred to life. A roar built in the air—a fluttering, whipping roar, with the dry rustle of leaves and a deep, howling undertone. To my ears, it sounded just like a tornado should. And judging by the smiling faces around me, my machine sounded just like a tornado to them, too.
But then a flap of cardboard flew off the fan and whipped into the crowd. Oh no.
Mrs. Smith spread her arms wide. “Everyone, get back!”
I reached for the switch, but Jake grabbed my arm. “It’s not safe,” he shouted as another part flew off, and then another. Bits of the Tornado Two Thousand flung in every direction. Kids ran every which way. I rammed straight into another girl and fell. Here I was, thinking that maybe I was figuring things out. I must have been kidding myself. I’d wanted so badly to do this one thing. And I’d failed. Completely, totally failed.
Suddenly, the stuttering sound of the tornado cut off. Mr. Calhoun had pulled the plug. His mouth was pinched, and I hung my head, waiting for him to yell at me for making such a mess of everything.
“Thyme. You need to come with me immediately.”
His voice was calm, gentle even.
“What?” I looked up. Mr. Calhoun had that look on his face, the one people got when they were acting like everything was okay but things were really not okay.
Lizzie started walking toward me, but I kept my eyes on Mr. Calhoun.
He pointed to the back of the auditorium, by the doors.
Mrs. Ravelli was standing there with her scarf in her hands. She spotted me looking and waved. A little rush of panic rolled up my spine.
“Who’s that?” Lizzie said.
I snatched my book bag off the floor. “I have to go,” I said. Then I hopped off the stage.
“Is everything okay?” Jake called after me, and I felt bad for not stopping.
I don’t know, I thought. I don’t know.
I raced up the aisle to Mrs. Ravelli and led her outside the auditorium, where we could talk.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. That’s when I noticed the bright spots of color in her cheeks, and the way she twisted her scarf in her hands. “Mrs. Ravelli? What’s wrong?”
“It’s little Val,” she said. “We must hurry, bambina. Little Val is in the hospital.”
Then I heard it. The panic in her voice. That was a sound I knew by heart.
37
LOST
WHEN A CANCER PATIENT GETS SICK, THEY GET REALLY SICK. Their skin turns kind of yellow. Their cheeks get hollow. They suddenly look as close to death as they really are. The last time Val had been in the hospital for chemotherapy, he hadn’t looked as bad as a lot of the other patients there. But he wasn’t himself. He was thin. Frail. A ghost.
When Mrs. Ravelli and I arrived at the hospital, Mom and Dad were standing in the hall with a heavyset doctor in a white coat. He had a beard like Dad’s and a tablet in his hands.
“We’ve started the first course of antibiotics,” the doctor said, “but given that his chest films aren’t completely clear and his temperature is so high, we’d like to observe him overnight.”
Mom and Dad nodded. Then they saw me standing there.
“Thank you, Dr. Everett,” Mom said, saying good-bye without introducing me.
She and Dad walked over to us. “Your sister’s in with Val,” Dad said. Then he nodded toward the door, like I should go in, too. It was another room where I didn’t know what to expect.
Mrs. Ravelli set her hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I will see you later, bambina.”
I nodded and went inside.
The lights were turned low. Val was asleep in the narrow hospital bed on the other side of the room, beneath a giant painted mural of Winnie-the-Pooh. Long, clear tubes trailed from the crook of his arm to a stand beside the bed. Machines crowded close to the stand, their displays full of ominous lights and numbers, none of which meant anything to me beyond the reality that my brother was sick.
Cori was in a chair next to Val’s bed. She sat up when I walked over. She didn’t say anything. She just gave me a hug. After a long minute, she wiped at her eyes and said, “He’ll be okay,” like she had the power to decide.
“But the doctor said his films weren’t good. And his fever is too high.”
She frowned. “Yeah, I know. I’m gonna get a Coke, okay? I’ll send Dad in here.”
“No, I’m fine by myself.”
She touched my shoulder. “You sure?” I nodded, and her eyes met mine. She looked as scared as I felt. The chest films were a bad sign. Maybe the 3F8 wasn’t working. Maybe the cancer had come back. Even if it was just a really bad infection, Val’s body was so weak from all the treatments he’d been through that he could have trouble fighting it off. He could die.
After she left, I stood right next to Val’s bed and looked at his face. His bones seemed to stick out too much all of a sudden. I ran my fingers over his arm, and he stirred in his sleep, furrowing his brow like he was about to open his eyes and ask me a tough question. I would have been happy to answer one right about then, but he didn’t wake up.
The sky outside grew dark, while Mom and Dad took turns watching over Val and helping the nurses. After so many trips to the hospital, they knew how everything worked. Val’s temperature didn’t go back to normal, but it didn’t climb any higher.
“It’s a holding pattern,” Dad said as he rubbed at his eyes late that night. “We won’t know more until something changes. Why don’t you try to get some rest.”
I let him tuck me into one of the two reclining chairs in Val’s room. Most hospitals had them—a chair that looked regular but stretched out so that you could stay in the room overnight. I lay there for a long time, watching Val, hearing the nurses come and go, thinking I would never fall asleep.
Then it was morning, and Cori was shaking my shoulder. “Come on, T. Time to get up.”
I sat up quickly, wondering what had changed, but Val was still in the bed. His face was so pale, it barely stood out against the sheets, but there was a bright red spot on each of his cheeks, like clown makeup, and an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose.
“What time is it?”
“Close to lunch,” Cori said as she stretched her arms over her head.
“Where’s Mom?”
“Outside,” Cori said. “I crashed in the other chair, but she and Dad were up all night.”
We went out into the hall. Mrs. Ravelli was there with my parents.
“It’s going to be a while until we know more,” Dad said. “It doesn’t make sense for you girls to stay here all day. Val’s stable, so you’re going home with Mrs. Ravelli for now.”
Mrs. Ravelli gave me an encouraging nod, but Cori’s face darkened. “No way,” she said. “You can’t make me leave.”
“Honey, remember what we talked about,” Mom told her, and Cori softened. I couldn’t believe it. What could they have possibly talked about that would make Cori give up like that?
Dad had a bag in his hands. I realized it was my book bag.
He handed it to Mrs. Ravelli, and she gave me a little wave. I was supposed to follow her like a good little girl. But I had that feeling again, that there was something Mom and Dad weren’t telling me. And if I walked out right then like I was supposed to, I might never know the truth. So I stood my ground.
“Why do I have to leave?” I asked. “What’s happening to Val? Is something wrong?”
“It’s nothing,” Mom said, way too quickly. “We just want you to get some rest.”
“I don’t need any rest,” I said. “I slept in the chair.”
Dad smiled. “I know you want to be tough for your brother, but trust us—”
“Trust you? You never tell me what’s going on!”
Cori’s mouth fell open, and Mom and Dad looked at each other in surprise. They could think what they wanted. I was tired of being lied to.
Just then, Dr. Everett walked up to us. “Good morning, folks,” he said. “It looks like we can fit Val in for a set of scans a little earlier than I thought.”
“What?” I said. Mom and Dad hadn’t said anything about scans to us.
Mom glanced at me. “Maybe we should talk inside,” she told the doctor, and he smiled like that sounded just fine to him. Well, I wasn’t going to let them leave me out anymore.
“What’s wrong with my brother?” I asked, looking right at Dr. Everett. I hoped that maybe he was under some medical obligation to tell me the truth.
“We’re not sure yet, but we hope to know more soon,” he answered carefully, with a smile that said he didn’t expect me to understand how complicated all of this was.
I changed tactics.
“Is he rejecting the 3F8? Or is the cancer back? Is that why he’s having scans? You need to tell me what’s going on. Now.”
The doctor raised his eyebrows, while Mom and Dad stared at me like they were really seeing me for the first time.
“Mr. and Mrs. Owens?” Dr. Everett said.
Mom just stood there, but Dad finally said, “All right. First, we’re still waiting on the HAMA results, but we don’t think the fever is from Val rejecting the 3F8. So far, his immune system’s been too weak to fight the antibodies. And yes, he’s having scans to check for any signs that the cancer is back. Hopefully they won’t find anything.”
