Counting Thyme (6 page)

RAVIOLI

ON MONDAY MORNING, IT WAS TIME FOR VAL TO GO TO THE
hospital, which meant we were back on his schedule again. That included getting up extra early, staying out of Mom's way, and trying not to do anything that would make them late for their appointment. For Mom, being late was the worst sin a person could ever commit. Ever.

“Thyme, are you in there?” Dad called from outside the bathroom door.

I spit into the sink and garbled, “Uh-huh!”

“Okay, well, wrap it up. We have to leave for the hospital in a few minutes.”

“Okay!”

I swished and spit again before dropping my toothbrush into my cup.

As I walked down the hall to the kitchen, I pulled my hair back and tied it with one of Cori's new hair bands, a tiny green one with white stripes—a gift from one of her new drama club friends. She'd braided her long, wavy hair into a million skinny braids before she went to bed. Her hair looked cool. But not like Cori.

“There you are,” Mom said when I poked my head into the kitchen, like she'd been waiting on me for at least a century. Which was totally unfair. Especially after I'd spent all weekend unpacking her moving boxes to earn time. But I didn't say anything because Mom wasn't alone. There was an old lady standing next to her.

“I'd like you to meet Mrs. Ravelli,” Mom said. “She's going to help us out with school and dinner for a while.” She didn't say
because of Val
because by that point everything we did was because of Val. We'd had lots of helpers since he got sick. I just hadn't known we were getting a new one.

I offered my hand to Mrs. Ravelli like I was supposed to. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Hello, Thyme.” She wrapped her warm, squishy fingers around mine. She had a white shawl draped over her shoulders and a huge quilted bag on her arm. “I'm so happy to meet with you.” The way she said things was a little odd. Every vowel stood out.

She must really be Italian,
I thought.

That's when Val barreled into the room and wrapped his arms around Mrs. Ravelli's legs.

“
Ay!
” she exclaimed, although she didn't look upset at all, just amused.

“I'm so sorry,” Mom said, peeling him off her. “He does that sometimes.” Then to Val. “Remember what we talked about, honey. No hug attacks. Now go get your costume on. We don't want to be late.”

Val giggled, and Mom called Dad to collect him. Then she gave Mrs. Ravelli some quick instructions on dinner and apologized for the state of our refrigerator. Mrs. Ravelli took one look at the embarrassing number of take-out containers on the shelves and asked if we liked fresh bread.

“I bake for you,” she said, and then she winked, like this was no big deal.

“Great,” Mom said. “Then we're all set. Thyme, Mrs. Ravelli will walk you to school. We're dropping Cori off on our way to the hospital. See you here this afternoon, okay?” She didn't wait for me to answer. Instead, she went to get Val and Dad because they were taking too long.

Everyone gathered by the front door to put their coats on. When Val was all bundled up in his matching blue coat and hat, he wrapped his arms around Cori, who hugged him back. Then he reached out to hug me.

I leaned in close to his face, pressing our foreheads together. “Her name sounds like
ravioli
,” he whispered, with a sneaky smile.

I laughed. “You got this?”

His smile faded. “I want to take the train, but Mom says we have to take a taxi.”

“Well, I think she just wants to make sure you get there on time, Captain America.”

He fingered his new superhero costume. Before Val got sick, he wasn't really into costumes or dressing up. He was just a normal, annoying little brother who stuck Legos in the
cracks between our kitchen cabinets. But the first time he stayed in the hospital, he saw a kid dressed as Spider-Man and decided he wanted to dress up, too. After that, Mom and Dad got him one new costume for each round of chemo. That made six. This new costume for his first round of 3F8 would make seven.

“I wanted Iron Man,” he said softly. There was a tremble in his voice. He knew that Mom had spent all weekend trying to find the right costume, but the stores were out of stock and there wasn't time to order one.

“It's going to be okay.” I rubbed his back to make him feel better, but he started crying anyway.

Mom gave me an annoyed look, but Dad just stepped in and lifted Val up, swooping him through the air until he started laughing. Meanwhile, Cori slouched next to the door in her hat and coat, looking bored until Mom tossed her Val's book bag, which he used to carry his stuffed animal lovies back and forth to the hospital. “I can walk to the subway on my own, you know,” she said to Mom.

I looked at her. “You're taking the subway?”

“She is,” Dad said. “But we're still walking you there,” he told Cori, “because when you're on your own, you do things like this.” He pulled off her hat to reveal her braids.

“Dad!” Cori shouted. Dad made Cori jump to get her hat back, while Mom yelled at them to get it together and Val laughed. Then they left, and I was alone with Mrs. Ravelli.

Someone I'd only just met.

“
Ay!
” she said, unwinding her shawl. “Quiet, is good, yes? After that, we need some tea.”

Mrs. Ravelli got straight to work in the kitchen, digging through drawers for the things she needed, clamoring on about what she found and didn't find. I liked the way she exclaimed, like it was okay to shout whenever you wanted, but I wasn't sure about the giant quilted bag that she set on the counter. There could be all kinds of stuff in there. Had Mom and Dad searched her for weapons or mind-altering substances? Not likely. They were too busy getting Val out the door, as usual. I had to look out for myself.

So, while Mrs. Ravelli filled our kettle and set it to boil on the stove, I sat on one of the stools at the breakfast bar and watched closely to make sure she wasn't going to poison me and stuff me in the closet. Her hands never stopped moving. They darted over the counter and the sink, leaving a trail of order and neatness behind. I wondered what she thought of us, with all of our drama and rushing around. And I wondered what she thought of me, being there alone with her.

Suddenly, I wished I'd gone with my family. They were loud and annoying, but they were mine. I didn't want to be left behind, especially not on Val's first day of treatment. A sick feeling rushed through my stomach, the same way it did every time they left me, whether I was spending the night with Shani or staying with a helper like Mrs. Ravelli. It wasn't the same as homesickness, but close to it. I was familysick.

Mrs. Ravelli rummaged around inside her bag and pulled out a packet of tea bags held together with a green rubber band. “You like milk or lemon?” she asked, and my stomach tightened. I liked it when my parents were home with me. I liked it when I went with them to the hospital so I didn't have to worry about what was happening to Val.

She set the tea bags on the counter and dug through her bag again. This time, she offered me a tin with a picture of cocoa beans on the front. “Or maybe you like hot chocolate?”

A smile snuck onto my face.

She nodded like I'd said something and pulled a white paperboard box from her bag, the kind that was tied with bright red string and came from bakeries. “Now, you do me a favor,” she said. “
Ay!
What was I thinking? I could feed an army.”

She whipped open the box to reveal two shining rows of doughnuts.

Well, that did it.

The tightness left my stomach, and I realized how hungry I really was. I wondered if Mrs. Ravelli had done this before. Were we her first cancer family, or had she watched over others? She sure seemed like she knew what she was doing. Even Mom couldn't resist getting doughnuts every once in a while.

She pointed at a doughnut coated with red and green candy. “You like the sprinkles?”

“Not really.” I reached for a regular glazed. “I like the plain ones the best. With all those sprinkles, you can't even taste the doughnut.”

“Smart girl,” Mrs. Ravelli said, and I noticed how her eyes crinkled up at the corners. “Eat up. We don't want to be late on our first day.”

She set a steaming mug of hot chocolate in front of me, and I stuffed the doughnut in my mouth, wondering how I was going to slurp the cocoa down in time. Then Mrs. Ravelli came back and dropped an ice cube in my mug with a wink.

PAIN

THE MAIN SIDE EFFECT OF VAL'S NEW CANCER DRUG WAS
pain. I read that online. Mom and Dad didn't like to dwell on the “downside,” as they called it. I wished they trusted me enough to tell me what was going on, but they didn't. I had to look up what was happening with Val on my own, although there wasn't as much information as you might expect. Not many kids got neuroblastoma. More people won the lottery.

The 3F8 antibodies, the ones from mice, would travel through Val's body and attach to the cancer cells to help his body kill them. Which sounds great, right?

But there's a
but
—a big one.

Because neuroblastoma is nerve cancer, the cancer cells look just like regular nerve cells. During the drug infusion, the antibodies would attack the healthy nerve cells in Val's body, too. Like pins and needles, only millions of needles stabbing him all over, all at the same time.

That's where the pain came in.

So, while Mrs. Harris went on about prime factoring in math, I thought about what was happening to Val at the
hospital, and how much it hurt, and if he would get through it okay. I wished he didn't have to do the treatments at all. It seemed wrong to give him a medicine that would hurt him, though all cancer treatments came with a price—the chemo stole Val's hearing, and the stem cell transplant left his immune system weak. With 3F8, the price was pain.

It was hard to accept, but Grandma Kay said sometimes the enemy of your enemy is your friend. That's why she added ladybugs to her garden in the springtime. The ladybugs always chewed up her favorite rosebushes, but they also killed off all of the aphids in the garden, and the aphids destroyed ten times as many plants as the ladybugs.

According to the hospital's website, Val would get the 3F8 infusion through his MediPort, which was a special plug the doctors put in his chest back in San Diego. That way he wasn't getting stuck with needles all the time. He just plugged in to get his meds, the way other kids plugged in their headphones.

“I'm like Cyborg,” he'd said the day he got the MediPort. Later, his nurse had taught Mom and Dad how to flush the port. Which sounds gross, but really just means rinsing out the connection to keep it clear. Not like flushing a toilet.

“Thyme,” Mrs. Harris said, loudly enough to make me jump.

My attention snapped back to class. Mrs. Harris was standing at the front of the room, staring at me, like everyone else. She waved. “I said, Thyme Owens, come on
down
!”

Face burning, I stood up, searching the whiteboard for
clues, but Mrs. Harris was blocking what was already written there. I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

I grabbed a black dry-erase marker from my desk—at MS 221, all students were required to carry them due to their green policy—and as I turned back to the front of the room, Jake's eyes caught mine. I froze. Just for a second. But it was long enough for Darien from homeroom to notice.

“What's wrong, California? Forget to pack your brains?” He laughed, and a few other kids joined in, but not Jake. He twisted around in his seat and threw an eraser at Darien's head.

Mrs. Harris's voice cut the laughter short. “Boys! Is there a problem back there?”

Darien's grin vanished, replaced by wide, innocent eyes. “I was just helping Thyme.”

“You can help
everyone
by paying attention. Now.” She sounded just like Mom, with her “no arguments” voice. Judging by her outfit of the day—a skirt with pink poodles and a matching bow in her hair—I wouldn't have thought she had it in her.

“Yes, Mrs. Harris,” Darien said, but he rolled his eyes, too.

Seven,
Jake mouthed as I turned away, and I thought,
Seven what?

By the time I got up to the board, I could see what he meant.

Mrs. Harris had written different numbers across the board. Some of them had lines drawn beneath them, like legs. Below the legs were more numbers, like
eleven
and
two
below
twenty-two
. Eleven and two were the prime factors for twenty-two. A prime factor is a basic building block in math. A prime number can't be divided by any number other than one and itself—like three, five, or eleven. I was supposed to write my number's prime factors. My number was seven, which was already a prime number. So . . . the answer was also seven.

Great,
I thought as I squeaked the answer onto the whiteboard. Maybe Jake thought I was too dumb to factor a prime number? I glanced at him, and there was that funny feeling in my stomach again.

“Well done,” Mrs. Harris said. Then she called another girl up to the board.

On the way back to my desk, Darien pointed at Jake and made a kissy face at me. I wanted to jam my dry-erase marker right down his throat. Instead, I sat down and counted the minutes until lunch.

On the way to the cafeteria, Darien snuck up behind me. Standing, he was at least an inch shorter than me. But what he lacked in height, he made up for with nastiness. “Hey, California. Looks like when it comes to math, you need more
time
, right?” He said it loud enough for everyone to hear. Then he laughed really loud, right next to my ear.

I cut away and hung back near the wall so he would leave me alone. Which he did, thankfully, following his goon friends down the hall to the cafeteria.

Emily's friend Lizzie stopped next to me. “You okay?”
Thanks to her glasses, her eyes looked extra big and worried.

“He's so original,” I joked, and she laughed.

“Darien is as dense as a bag of rocks,” she said. “I bet he doesn't even know what a homophone is. In third grade, he stuck his tongue to a flagpole like in
A Christmas Story
.”

“Only an idiot would do that.”

“Precisely,” she said, and we both laughed. Her blond hair was pulled back with a plastic hairband. Not as goofy as the pigtails, but still more of a little-kid style. “Mom says my brother dared me to do that when I was five years old, but I was already too smart for him.”

“Nice brother.”

“I have
three
. Can you imagine?”

I couldn't. When Val was feeling good, he had more energy than three boys put together. At the thought of him, all my worries came rushing back, and I felt even lamer for worrying about a pole-licking doofus like Darien.

On our way to the cafeteria, Lizzie talked about other kids at school and who was dense and who wasn't. When we got to the doors, Emily came rushing up to us.

“Where have you been?” she asked Lizzie. “You were supposed to help me with the copies for Mr. C.”

Lizzie flushed pink. “Sorry, I was talking to Thyme.”

Emily glanced at my outfit: a long-sleeved shirt from my old school and jeans that were all of a sudden too short. Mom hadn't had time to buy me new ones. “Hey, Thyme,” she said, with zero degrees of warmth. She probably thought I was a total jerk for the way I'd acted when she bought me lunch.

“Sorry about last week,” I said. “I have a twenty-dollar bill for emergencies, so I can pay you back. I just have to get the money from my bag.”

“What happened last week?” Lizzie asked.

“Nothing.” Emily waved it off, but I didn't want her to think I was clueless.

“I should have said thank you.”

“Totally not necessary,” she said, although I thought maybe she sounded pleased. “It would be a crime to let you eat the free lunch. They leave those sandwiches out until they grow beards.” She grinned. “Tell you what. You can make it up to me right now. I could use your help.”

Helping Emily meant spending my lunch break in the teacher's lounge. Back home, there were rumors of reclining sofas and televisions in the lounge. One kid even swore he saw rainbow-colored disco lights flashing inside. But here, there were just a bunch of tired-looking grown-ups sitting around a cheap folding table with their lunches, like normal people.

One of the teachers frowned when we walked in. She pointed at us with her triangle of tuna sandwich. “Can I help you?” By “help,” she looked like she meant “remove” or “extinguish.” Then she caught sight of Emily. “Oh, hi, Emily. Do you need something?”

Emily held up a sheet of paper. “Hi, Mrs. Peterson. I'm making flyers for Mr. Calhoun. We're doing
The Wizard of Oz
for the Spring Fling!”

Mrs. Peterson smiled. “Just keep it down, please.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Emily ducked her head close to us. “Mrs. Peterson likes to read
Architectural Digest
at her desk during tests. I brought her my mom's old copies.” She laughed and flipped her ponytail over her shoulder, like she had absolutely everything under control.

The photocopier was on the other side of the room. We got our lunches out to eat while we worked. Emily said she didn't usually bring a bag lunch, but she'd made an exception for Mr. C. She had a little plastic container filled with rice balls that her mom ordered especially for her. Lizzie had a regular PB&J with a pack of chocolate chip cookies, the kind Mom never let me buy in stores. Mom preferred her own, which would have been fine if she had time to bake them.

Emily set up for the flyers on a table next to the copier. “Lizzie, you copy.” She handed Lizzie a pack of bright, lemon-colored paper. “Mr. C got this on special order. It's perfect for the yellow brick road, right? We need parent volunteers to help with the show.” She grinned. “Soon, we'll get audition sheets! I'm not supposed to say anything but I saw them on Mr. C's desk.”

“Are you his assistant or something?” I asked.

“No. I just like to help out. Here, you can help me count the flyers for each classroom.” She handed me a list of head counts.

“She wants to be an actress,” Lizzie said.

“Or a dancer!”

They laughed, and we got to work. Emily said we had to
make almost four hundred copies, so there was no time to waste. Lizzie fed paper into the copier, Emily piled the finished copies on the table next to the machine, and I counted, sorting the copies into piles according to Emily's list. It was a little weird how we all just did exactly what Emily told us to do, but she worked just as hard as us, double-checking my piles to make sure the count was just right.