Counting Thyme (9 page)

EUROPE WHO?

I DIDN'T GET TO TALK TO SHANI THAT WEEKEND. OR THE NEXT
week. We finally managed a call the following Saturday, twenty-four days since we'd last laid eyes on each other in person, according to the Calendar of Us. It was December fifteenth, and there were fifty-five hours of time in my jar. I dumped them out on the bed to show her how much I'd saved, even if I didn't have as many hours as I'd hoped.

“That's more than two days,” she said. “That has to be enough.” I had the tablet propped against my pillow so we could talk while I counted. It looked like Shani's familiar face was sticking out from beneath my comforter, as though the rest of her was hidden under there.

“I don't know. Dad said I need two hundred hours to get a cell phone, but the most I've ever saved was eighty hours for our camping trip. That took me forever.”

“You could always make some extra slips yourself,” she said, sitting back against her pillows, which were a strange shade of . . . green?

“Did you change your room?” I asked.

“What? Oh, this? Yeah.” She leaned back so I could see and lifted a pillow to show me the cute pattern of leaves and circles on the fabric. “They're lime trees! Mom got them for me as an early Christmas present. I was so over those pink stars.”

“Oh.” I looked back at the Calendar of Us. I'd been so focused on counting the days since we left San Diego that I hadn't realized Christmas was so close. I hadn't even made a Christmas list yet. “What about the stars on your ceiling?”

“Oh, those are staying. Gotta have my glow-in-the-dark universe.”

I smiled, but it was beyond weird that I didn't recognize Shani's room anymore. While she told me all about this new boy at school and how all the girls liked him even though he was a total jerk, I searched the screen for more evidence of change. There was a set of books on her shelf that I didn't recognize. And a new picture tacked to her mirror. I couldn't really tell, but it looked like her with a group of girls at the winter carnival our neighborhood held every December.

“At least you don't have to stay with my idiot cousins for winter break,” she said. “You know Jeremy still thinks chocolate milk comes from brown cows? You'd swear he was in kindergarten instead of fifth grade.”

“You remember last summer, when I told him that knock-knock joke—”

She grinned. “Europe who!”

“You're a poo, too!” I said automatically.

Shani fell back on her bed, laughing, and when she caught
her breath, she said, “He never got it, you know. Even though we kept saying it again and again. I told him the joke went over his head, and he actually looked up.”

We burst into a fresh wave of giggles, laughing until our sides ached. I told her how Emily was the queen of the lunch table at MS 221 and how I felt weird every time I looked at Jake. While we talked, it was like I stopped being there, in New York. Instead, I was home again.

Then Shani said, “Mrs. Bellweather gave us a new project. We have to research the Paleolithic era and write a report with an annotated bibliography! But Jenny's actually pretty good at that stuff. Who knew?” She smiled, and my stomach turned hollow.

“You're working with her on another project?”

“Well, yeah. We got a great grade on the pyramid model. She made little signs for all our facts about the desert. Mrs. Bellweather loved it.”

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. “How can you stand her? She's so gross.”

“Actually, she's not like that anymore. She hasn't chewed on her hair once.”

“No way! She does it all the time. It's like . . . an addiction or something.”

“That was third grade! You'd like her now, I swear.” Shani was talking like this was a good thing. Like I was supposed to be happy about Jenny Hargrove taking my place with my best friend.

“It's been fifteen minutes!” Cori shouted from outside the
bedroom door. Dad had ordered her to let me use our room alone to call Shani. Cori was timing me.

“I have to go,” I told Shani.

“It's okay. Mom's waiting to take us to the library.” By us, she meant her and Jenny, so when she crossed her finger over her heart the way we usually did, I just turned my screen off.

When I opened the door, Cori barged right past me. “It's about time, loser bait.”

She plopped down on the floor and opened her big, glittery drama club binder. She was working on a project proposal, something to do with making people-sized horse costumes and walking beneath them. The old Cori wasn't obsessed with clubs. She'd actually enjoyed spending time with us. But ever since Val got sick, Cori had found excuses to be somewhere else. Over the summer, she'd started volunteering at the zoo. Then she'd joined the high school's Green Team in the fall and spent all of her time with them before we left. Now drama club was all she seemed to care about.

I kicked her binder. “You don't have to be such a jerk about sharing a room, you know.”

She glared up at me with her owl eyes. She was wearing a bright pink shirt with the words
I Believe
across the front, and her hair was twisted into loops tied with yellow rubber bands. “Maybe if you stop moping around the apartment and talking to your
old
friend, you'll make some new ones, and you won't be such a loser,” she said in a flat voice.

“I am
not
a loser.”

“Let's see . . . you spend your whole weekend waiting for
Shani to call, you do whatever Mom says, and you run around doing every little chore possible. Sounds like a loser to me!”

“I'm doing those chores for a reason!” I blurted out.

“Oh yeah?” Her eyes narrowed. “What reason would that be?”

“None of your business.”

She laughed. “I bet you're saving all that time for something really lame. Like a hermit crab or a goldfish.”

“You think you're so cool because you have all of these friends, but they don't know you! They're not
really
your friends,” I shouted, and she stopped laughing. Her owl eyes blinked. I knew I shouldn't have let her get to me, but I was just so angry. Angry at Cori. At stupid Jenny Hargrove. At Shani.

I ran out of the room.

“Oh, come on, T! I was just kidding,” Cori called after me, but I didn't stop. I ran past Dad at his computer and Mom and Val reading on the couch, out of the apartment, and into the hall. It was strangely quiet and shadowy compared to the apartment. But at least out there, I didn't have to listen to anyone telling me things I didn't want to hear.

Monday at school, there was news. Mr. Calhoun had started giving out audition sheets for the Spring Fling. Anyone who wanted to try out could pick up a sheet to practice over winter break. There were songs to learn and lines to memorize, depending on the part. Not that I was interested.

Normally, the Spring Fling was Emily's favorite topic,
but at lunch, she was quieter than usual. Her hair was in a perky ponytail, but her normally smiling mouth was stuck in a frown. While the other girls talked about which parts they wanted, Lizzie told me about her parents' store, Take Two. They fixed old things and sold them again. I said it sounded cool, and Lizzie told me she'd come up with the name herself. The whole time she was talking, I kept catching Emily watching us. Finally, she interrupted.

“I have a question for you, Thyme,” she said loudly. The other girls hushed. “Say you were afraid of something—like, I don't know, heights—do you think getting on an airplane would be a good idea?”

It was a weird question, so I just said, “Probably not.”

“Exactly!” Emily nodded like I'd said something really important.

I shrugged and unwrapped my sandwich. Mrs. Ravelli used exactly three slices of turkey spread out in a fan shape, just the way I liked it. She was some kind of mind reader when it came to food.

“But if you don't try, you never get to fly anywhere,” Lizzie said quietly.

Emily glared at her. “That's the point, isn't it? You don't go on a stupid airplane if you know you're going to freak out!”

The table went dead silent. It was a weird thing to argue about, but middle school made people argue about everything. Every fight was a challenge to see who came out on top, only no one seemed to know what the problem was between Emily and Lizzie.

Delia giggled nervously. “I love flying,” she said, “but we've only been once—”

“—to visit Grandma in Florida,” Celia finished.

Emily slapped her hands on the table. “I don't care about your stupid grandmother!” she shouted. Then she stormed out of the cafeteria with Rebeccah close on her heels. As she stomped off, Lizzie stared at the table. Something had definitely gone down between them.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

Lizzie didn't say anything for a minute. Then she pushed her glasses into place and tucked her hair behind her ears, smoothing it down on the sides of her head. “She's just mad at me.” I could barely hear her over the cafeteria noise.

“For what?” Lizzie just sat there, so I said, “Personally, I think going into outer space would be way scarier. I like oxygen, you know?”

She smiled a little, and I nudged her shoulder. “Come on. It can't be that bad.”

Then I told her about the time Shani had stopped talking to me for a whole week in fifth grade. I'd left her clay model of the Colosseum on our deck, and it had melted in a surprise rainstorm. But I'd rebuilt the model from scratch and we were fine again, like always. Remembering that made me feel silly for worrying about Jenny Hargrove. What was one hair-chewing girl in the face of a lifelong friendship? Nothing, I hoped.

Finally, Lizzie said, “Thyme, can you keep a secret?”

I thought of Val and nodded.

“When Emily and I went to Mr. Calhoun's office this morning, I took the audition sheets for Dorothy, too.”

“Oh.” I was surprised. Practically everyone at MS 221 knew that Emily wanted to be Dorothy in the Spring Fling, especially Lizzie.

“Yeah.” Lizzie stared at her sandwich some more.

“Well, I'm sure everything will be okay,” I said, though I kind of understood where Emily was coming from. I felt bad for Lizzie. It was never fun to fight with your best friend, but Emily had a reason to be mad.

“That's the thing,” Lizzie said. “I don't know if it will be.”

PROOF

MRS. RAVELLI INSISTED ON WAVING AT MR. LIPINSKY IN THE
hall. Since my run-in with him and his bird, I preferred to walk by his door like he wasn't there. But if she saw his door open even the tiniest bit, she stopped. Just like she did that afternoon, on the day Lizzie told me her secret.

“
Ciao,
” Mrs. Ravelli called, waving her little gloved hand.

Mr. Lipinsky's door opened a little wider, but I didn't stop. He wasn't going to say anything, anyway. He was just going to stare at us. That's what he always did when I was with Mrs. Ravelli.

Then I heard him clear his throat. “That cart of yours is a nuisance,” he said.

I turned around just in time to see him shut his door.

Mrs. Ravelli stood there for a minute, and I felt terrible, like I should go bang on his door and demand an apology. But then she clapped her hands and said, “
Capo tosto!
” just like she had when she'd told me the story about her dad.As though Mr. Lipinsky's brand of stubbornness was a true achievement.

“You know how we heard a bird in there?” I said. “He has one. I saw it.”

“So it seems,” Mrs. Ravelli said. “Is a cockatoo, yes? White, with a bit of yellow?” She splayed her fingers over her forehead like the bird's crest.

“You saw it, too?”

“
Ay!
I see many things. Cockatoos are beautiful songbirds. They repeat what they hear.”

“Really? It just squawked at me.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Ravelli said. “In Italy, we have a saying: Old birds are not caught with new nets.” Then she winked, like she had given me a great piece of wisdom. Mr. Lipinsky's bird
was
old. So I guess that made me the new net. I thought of the bird's beady eyes and hooked beak. I figured I was just fine with not catching it.

Upstairs, the apartment was quiet. No Val running around in a Batman cape, waiting to hug me when I walked through the door. No Dad working at the table. “Does Val have a playdate?” He and Mom had been spending time with his support group ever since his party at the hospital.

“No,
bambina
,” Mrs. Ravelli said as she untied her scarf. “They'll be back soon. They took little Val for his blood test.”

“What blood test?”

She hung her scarf with her coat and squeezed my shoulder.

“Don't worry,” she said. “Little Val will be fine. God willing.”

Then she disappeared into the kitchen, humming a tune, while I wondered if this was the big secret Mom and Dad weren't telling me. Had something gone wrong? Or was this just a regular test, like the scans?

Cori got home a little while later. “What?” she said when she saw me watching her. She'd changed her hair again. Today she was wearing bright blue and pink strands woven through her dark waves. She looked like a rock star.

“I thought you were Mom.”

“As if.” She looked around. “They're not here?”

“They took Val for some kind of blood test.”

She scowled. “This is what I'm talking about,” she said, and stomped off to our room, which made no sense because she hadn't been talking about anything at all. I almost followed her back there, but I knew she'd just find something mean to say to me.

Instead, I finished my homework and folded the laundry, pairing the socks and stacking them in the bins just the way Mom liked. It actually made me angry, folding socks for Mom while she was keeping things from me, but I told myself I was earning time. That was what mattered.

It was dark outside when the door to the apartment swung open and Val burst in, wearing his Captain America costume and carrying a huge stuffed dinosaur. “Rawr!” he yelled, running at me with what looked to be a T. rex, his favorite dinosaur after triceratops. Mom and Dad trailed after him.

“Watch your boots!” Mom shouted over the roaring.

Dad scooped Val up, dino and all, and carried him back to the boot trough in front of our coat hooks. “Come on, buddy. Let's get those wet galoshes off your stinky feet.” Val giggled as Dad set him down on the bench and started working the boots off his feet.

Cori walked into the room with an anxious look on her face.

“Are you girls ready to eat?” Mom asked. “Your brother's hungry.”

“
Right,
” Cori said. She started spreading the place mats on the dining table, slapping each one down with a big clapping noise. Mom didn't even seem to notice her attitude, but Dad sure did. I saw his head snap in Cori's direction, but he didn't say a word. He just went over to his albums and slid a record into the player. As the low thrum of Louis Armstrong filled the room, Mrs. Ravelli emerged from the kitchen with a pan of meat loaf, and my stomach growled. She set the pan on the table, along with mashed potatoes and green beans. Everything smelled delicious.

“Bye, bye, then,” she said as she pulled her scarf over her head.

“Won't you stay?” Dad asked. Like he did every night.

“No, no. You eat. I see you in the morning.” Then she left, like she did every night.

“Ravioli sure knows how to cook,” Cori said, shoveling a huge bite into her mouth.

Mom frowned. “Cori. It's Mrs.
Ravelli
. Show some respect.”

“Ravioli is the best,” Val said. “So it's a nice nickname. Not like Ralph-ioli.”

“Or Rav-smelly,” I said around my mouthful of food.

“Or—” Cori started, but Dad cut her off with a wave of his hand.

“Seriously. That's enough.” He was struggling to keep a straight face. He didn't want to get in trouble with Mom, either. Cori was the only one who challenged her anymore. I wondered if Cori would be the one to ask about the blood test, but then she started complaining about her drama club and how the school wouldn't pay for spring projects due to budget cuts.

“They can't just do that,” she said. “It's total bull.”

“Don't talk like that,” Mom said, and Cori slumped back in her chair, muttering something about the system and how they obviously didn't understand.

“You think I don't get it?” Dad said. “These big advertising companies are all politics. I almost lost this freelance job because I didn't use purple in the dog food ads. Guess what? The client's kid loves purple. It was completely unreasonable, but that's the way life is sometimes. You have to pick your battles, kiddo. You can't win them all.”

“Well, my friends think we should protest,” Cori said.

Mom frowned. “I don't think that sounds like a very good idea.”

“What do you want me to do? Just sit there and take it?”

“Sometimes that's the only choice you have,” Mom said.

Cori sat there, stewing, and I had to admit I felt pretty sorry for her. Even if she was a jerk half the time, Mom and Dad weren't being fair. It wasn't like she wanted to join a biker gang or something.

Then, right when we'd gotten back to eating, Cori turned to Mom and said, “Why should I listen to you? You never tell me what's going on anymore. You take Val for a blood test, and you don't say a single word to me about it. You don't even care that I
exist
!” It was like she was reading my mind.

The table went quiet.

Mom looked stunned, her face still as a statue.

Val reached over to pat Cori's hand. “It's okay, C,” he said, and she started crying into her napkin.

“How about some Legos, buddy,” Dad suggested. “You have that new set of subway cars to build, remember?”

Val took the bait.

After he hopped down, Dad turned to Cori. “You owe your mother an apology,” he said quietly. “But I think we also owe you girls an explanation.”

Mom started to object, but Dad said, “No. We need to tell them. It's time.”

I couldn't believe my ears. Dad had taken the controls.

“Cori, you first,” he said.

Cori apologized, and Mom thanked her.

Then Dad explained that Val's blood test was to check for
HAMA. HAMA stood for “human anti-mouse antibodies.” Because 3F8 came from mice, Val's body would eventually fight back against it. When that happened, he would test positive for HAMA. Then the 3F8 would stop working . . . and we needed the 3F8 to keep working, to keep the cancer from coming back. If Val spiked a fever, that could be a sign of rejection. Or a fever could also be a sign of infection, or even a relapse . . .

“The goal is to get enough antibodies into Val before he becomes resistant.” Dad looked at Mom. “Which we will.”

Mom's mouth pursed up. I hadn't seen her cry in ages.

“What happens if he doesn't get enough antibodies?” Cori asked.

Dad took a deep breath. “Then the cancer could come back.” The way he said it sounded like we would be out of options.

“But he could try something else,” I said. “There are other trials, right?” There had always been one more thing to do for Val.

Mom shook her head. “This is the best treatment available for him.”

“If the cancer comes back, there's always chemo,” Dad added. “We'll never stop fighting, but there are limits to what his body can take.” His voice broke on the last words.

I felt like I couldn't breathe. With chemo, there had been no talk of rejection. Val just took the medicine and it killed the cancer. But this was so much worse than that. Val could reject the 3F8. The trial could fail. He could
die
.

“We didn't want you girls to worry about the blood tests,” Mom said. Her voice sounded hoarse, like it was hard to talk.

“Jesus, Mom!” Cori exclaimed, her eyes full of tears just like mine.

“Cori,” Dad said, but all the fight was gone from his voice, too.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

Dad gripped Mom's hand and gave it a squeeze. “Now we wait for the test results.”

After dinner, I helped clear the table. Then I collected my time and went into my room to add the slips to the Thyme Jar. That made sixty-one hours. I sat on my bed and pulled Mr. Knuckles into my lap. Grandma Kay gave him to me when I was just a baby, though why she chose a stuffed Hulk hand was beyond me—maybe she'd been expecting a boy. Weird or not, Mr. Knuckles was always there for me.