Mike: “Yeah, well, it gets hot in here and I get a little dizzy.”
Mr. Clayton: “Maybe you should take your jacket off, then.”
Mike (with a shrug): “I guess I forget I have it on.”
Mr. Clayton: “You’ve lost weight.”
You were sick. You had the flu.
Mike: “I had the flu.”
Mr. Clayton: “You didn’t miss school.”
Mike: “Yeah, I had it over the weekend. It was a weekend-only kind of thing.”
Mr. Clayton: “My nephew looked a lot like you, not long ago. It turns out he was really sick.”
Mike: “I just got a checkup from a doctor. He said I was fine.”
Mr. Clayton: “My nephew had five checkups, and five doctors told him he was fine. But he was really sick.”
Does Mr. Clayton have more medical expertise than five doctors?
Mr. Clayton: “Now he’s on the road to recovery.”
Mike: “Who?”
Mr. Clayton (carefully): “My nephew.”
This is so tedious.
Mike: “The road to recovery. That’s good.”
Mr. Clayton: “It’s a long road.”
Mike: “Well, at least he’s on it.”
Mr. Clayton: “My nephew was on the wrestling team. His coach wanted him to be a certain weight. He stopped eating, just—stopped. He exercised like crazy. He ran for hours. He could do hundreds of sit-ups.”
Don’t be jealous. You’ll get there.
Mr. Clayton: “His parents told him he couldn’t run. He snuck out in the middle of the night, and his body just gave out. He collapsed, hit his head, needed seventeen stitches.”
His parents shouldn’t have told him he couldn’t run. That’s how accidents happen.
Mr. Clayton: “He almost died. He could’ve bled to death.”
Mike: “Well, at least he didn’t.” Mike turns to leave. “See you tomorrow.”
Mr. Clayton: “You take care of yourself, now.”
It sounds like a threat.
CHAPTER 20
MIKE CAN’T GET THROUGH TO AMBER ON HER CELL—it goes straight to voice mail. He looks up her number and calls her house.
Woman: “Hello?”
Mike: “Hi, this is Mike Welles.”
Woman: “Amber said you might call.” Of course it’s Amber’s mom, but she doesn’t identify herself. Her tone is so flat, she sounds like a computer. I take an instant dislike to her, but Mike reserves judgment.
Mike: “Is Amber all right?”
Amber’s mom: [nothing]
Mike: “Hello?”
Amber’s mom: “I can’t go into it right now. You can’t call her directly. You can visit if you want. Let me give you her information, the hospital and visiting hours.”
Mike writes it all down.
Mike: “I know that hospital. My grandmother died there.”
Oops.
Mike: “Different floor.”
Amber’s mom: “Is that all?”
Mike: “I heard something happened with her heart?”
Amber’s mom: “Like I said, I can’t go into it right now. I’ve got a lot on my plate.”
Mike thinks that’s an odd way to put it, considering.
Later Mike is so hungry he can’t sleep. Even FireBalls don’t help. He feels like there’s an animal in his stomach, clawing him with huge talons, taking him apart from the inside. He wishes he could call Amber. How did Amber know Mike would need to call her in the middle of the night? She’s so intuitive, almost clairvoyant.
Mike goes to the kitchen. Mighty Joe Young is digging into his Feline Fine.
Mike: “Don’t throw up.”
Mighty Joe Young looks up at him with large copper eyes. Mike wonders if the cat is thinking about what he just said. Mike tries to remember what Amber told him she eats when she can’t sleep.
Carrots dipped in mustard.
Mike takes a carrot out of the refrigerator. It’s pale and limp. He opens up some horseradish mustard. Amber recommended it—she likes strong mustards. Mike sticks in the carrot, takes a bite.
Mike: “Gahhh!” It makes his eyes water. He thinks if he takes another bite, he’ll throw up, along with Mighty Joe Young.
Amber also drinks lemon juice in water. Mike pours out a glass of water and splashes in some lemon juice. He takes a sip and finds it disgusting. He wonders if Amber has any taste buds left or if all those FireBalls killed them off.
There’s a loaf of bread. Before I can say anything, Mike grabs the loaf and takes it back to his room like a thief. He pulls out a slice, stuffs it into his mouth.
Don’t eat that, don’t eat that, don’t eat that.
He removes it from his mouth. It’s a soggy ball of bread. He puts it on the windowsill and stares at it. Then he shoves it back into his mouth.
Don’t eat that, don’t eat that, don’t eat that.
He takes it out again, puts it back on the windowsill. It looks like a snowball. He takes out another slice and does the exact same thing. Why is he doing this? Soon he’s got five snowballs on his windowsill.
And he remembers:
In Belle Heights Park, after a snowstorm. Mike throws a snowball at his dad. His dad fires one back—misses. Mike throws one at his mom and she lets out a shrieky laugh: “Ah, it hurts my teeth! I’ll get you for that!” Her aim is perfect. Another snowstorm. Mike and his parents build a snowman in Belle Heights Park. The next day somebody puts a hat on it, a real old-fashioned hat from the 1940s. No question about it, Mike thinks, he’s the classiest snowman in all of Belle Heights. Another snowstorm. Mike wears sneakers in the snow and his feet get really cold and wet. He is seven—a big boy—but his dad carries him home.
Mike keeps putting the snowballs back in his mouth, chewing them, spitting them out. Eventually they fall apart and he throws them away. The behavior is bizarre, but I’m pleased he doesn’t actually eat them.
Mike doesn’t know what else to do. He starts taking down all his baseball posters. That’s fine—he should’ve done this long ago. They rip. He doesn’t care. He wants totally empty walls, except for the mirror.
All you need to look at is you.
CHAPTER 21
THE HOSPITAL IS ON THE FAR SIDE OF BELLE Heights, and Mike takes the Q33 bus to get there. He rides the elevator up to Amber’s floor. When he gets off, he sees a large room with a TV and some couches. It’s dark except for flickers of light from the TV. Several girls are there. One girl is skinny. Scary-skinny, Mike thinks. She has a needle in her arm, attached to a pole with a bag of fluids. She sees Mike staring at her. Mike wonders if she’s embarrassed by this. She yawns.
His sneakers squeak on the shiny floor. There are nurses everywhere—at desks, walking around. A nurse tells Mike that Amber is in the Sun Room. He has to pass a series of closed doors before he gets to an open one with a hand-drawn picture of the sun on it. He sees Amber sitting on a couch. The room is empty except for her. She’s got on a white T-shirt and jeans. Mike has never seen her arms before. He thinks she looks thin but nothing like the girl with the pole.
It’s good, really good, to see Amber again.
Amber (smiling a sneaky smile): “So how do you like the E-D unit?”
Mike: “E-D?”
Amber: “I told you about my boyfriend, Eddie, remember? It’s a joke. ‘E-D’ stands for ‘eating disorder.’” She laughs.
Mike: “Eddie’s not your boyfriend?”
Mike can be a little dense sometimes.
Amber: “No, Eddie’s not my boyfriend!”
Mike wonders why Amber thinks it’s funny that she lies to people about having a boyfriend.