I peered around the store to see if any employees stood nearby—anyone who had seen him tear the box from my hands and who could help me. But all I saw were other shoppers who were too busy to notice me. This is one more reason why real life is nothing like the Robin Hood series.
The man went back to sifting through the rest of the boxes, chuckling, but he kept one hand on his cart, protecting it.
Madison is a big believer in karma. She doesn’t think she ever needs to take revenge because sooner or later bad deeds catch up with people. I have my doubts about the concept. If it were true, wouldn’t guys like this get struck down by meteorites?
Anyway, I figured it was time to hurry karma along. I took a step toward him. “Have you ever played football?”
He glanced at me suspiciously. “Sure.”
I let my gaze fall on his bulging stomach. “But I bet you haven’t played for a while.”
“What does that matter?”
“Because I can outrun and outdodge you, especially with that shopping cart.”
He caught my meaning as soon as I spoke. I faked to my right. He moved to block me. I spun left, grabbed a Robin Hood from his cart, and dashed away.
My older sister, Leah—who has never touched a football because it might break her fingernails—says I’ve wasted most of my adolescence playing sports, but this is obviously not true. Running through the store toward the checkout line was just like running for a touchdown, except the other shoppers didn’t try to tackle me. Only the man in the fake leather jacket barreled toward me, but he wouldn’t let go of his shopping cart, so he kept getting caught up behind other carts.
I lost him long before I found Madison. She stood in the checkout line, now within sight of the registers.
“Here, buy this.” I shoved the box and my wallet into her arms. “And don’t let some overweight, half-psychotic man in a black jacket take it away from you. Start screaming if he tries.”
Her eyes widened in panic, and she clutched the box to her chest. “Annika, what did you do?”
“Nothing.” I checked over my shoulder for any signs of him. “Well, nothing Robin Hood wouldn’t have done. I’ll wait outside.”
Then I ran to the exit before she could ask more questions.
I waited in my minivan with the doors locked. Not that I expected the man to come outside looking for me. I knew he wouldn’t leave the store without his stash of Robin Hoods, and there was no way he’d get through the checkout line before Madison.
Still, it always pays to be cautious.
I sat huddled in the driver’s seat, looking at the dark sky and wishing that clouds hadn’t covered up the stars. Clouds always made it seem more like winter and less like Nevada.
Madison came out twenty minutes later. I unlocked the door, and she slid into the front seat, then relocked her door. She handed me the shopping bag and sent me a long gaze. “So do you want to tell me why an angry man pushing Robin Hood boxes around the store kept yelling, ‘Come out and show yourself, you punk! You can’t hide forever!’”
“Not really.” I looked inside the bag, just long enough to make sure it held Robin Hood, then I started the van.
“You risked my life for a stupid toy, didn’t you?”
“No. He didn’t know I gave you the toy. Besides, he wouldn’t have hurt you with all of those witnesses around.”
Madison fastened her seat belt. “The veins were popping out of his neck. A couple of employees went over to talk to him, and he yelled about thieves in the store, then threatened to sue them for their lack of security.”
I pulled out of the parking lot, checking to make sure no headlights suddenly flicked on and followed me. Only a few cars moved through the street, and I pressed down on the gas, urging the van to go faster so I could zip around them. “Technically I didn’t steal from him. It’s like he told me when he ripped the box out of my hands first. Possession is nine tenths of the law.”
Madison folded her arms, her disapproval clearly etched on her face. “You don’t need to turn shopping into some sort of extreme sport, Annika. It’s not supposed to be a duel to the death.”
“Jeremy wants the Talking Teen Robin.”
“He also wants to live on Sesame Street, you can’t just—” Her expression softened. In the space of one breath, her voice changed from berating to reassuring. “Jeremy is going to be okay. Lots of people with cancer recover completely. He probably has better odds than, say, anyone who rides in a car with you.”
I took my foot off the gas and let the van slow down but didn’t answer her. People kept telling me that Jeremy would be okay. He had top-notch doctors. Cancer treatments improved all the time. He was young and resilient. My parents were unfailingly optimistic in front of me—which was perhaps why I had my doubts. I knew they were faking it. Jeremy’s situation was more serious than they let on.
They were especially worried about his upcoming surgery next Friday to remove the tumor from his brain. Mom could hardly speak about it without tensing up. This is the downside of being able to read people. Sometimes it’s better not to know when your parents are lying to you.
Madison glanced at me, her voice a mixture of frustration and sympathy. “Look, Annika, no matter what you get Jeremy for Christmas, he’ll still know you love him.”
I shifted in my seat, looking determinedly out at the traffic. I didn’t want to talk about Jeremy or his cancer anymore. I didn’t want to think about the fear that daily found its way into his eyes, or the way he automatically panicked when you mentioned doctors. A month and a half of chemo treatments had made him hate hospitals. Last night he told my mom he didn’t want to go to bed, because if he did, it would mean surgery was one day closer.
Out of the blue, he said things like, “Do people get to fly after they die, or only the angels?” Other times he swayed back and forth with worry and told us he didn’t want to get buried in the ground. He knew it would be cold and dark there. I don’t even know where he learned about cemeteries. None of us talked about that sort of thing. But now he refused to turn off the light when he slept.
“Besides,” Madison went on, “he probably won’t care about that toy two days after he opens it. If you want to do something nice, then spend a few hours playing with him. That would mean more to him than anything you could buy at a store.”
She made me sound like one of those neglectful parents who ignores their children and then tries to buy their affection.
“Just drop it,” I said. “You don’t understand about this.”
“What’s not to understand? It’s a textbook case of trying to shop away your feelings. People do it all the time, and I’m just saying—”
Right. I refused to believe someone could flip through a book and come to the chapter on how I felt. “Stop it,” I said. “Until your little brother has cancer, don’t tell me how I feel.”
Neither of us spoke for a few seconds. Madison looked out the window with her lips drawn into a tight line. “Sorry,” she said in a clipped tone. “I was trying to help.”
I knew I had overreacted. It seemed like I’d done nothing but overreact since we’d gotten the news in mid-October. I snapped at people who reassured me. I argued with people who offered me comfort.
I knew I should apologize to Madison, but I couldn’t do it. We drove through the streets of Henderson watching the darkness fade away, pierced by the rising sun. We still didn’t speak. Madison turned on the radio, but the music didn’t chase away the silence between us. I pulled up in front of her house.
“Thanks for coming with me,” I said.
She reached for the door handle. “No problem. It was fun. Especially the part where I had to shield your action figure with my body so Mr. Gargoyle wouldn’t see it as he stormed around the store.”
I let out a sigh. “Just because the guy was unbalanced doesn’t mean he would have killed you.”
“Of course not.” She flung the door open. “Besides, I think it’s a good thing to face death every once in a while. It makes you appreciate life all the more.” She paused halfway out of the van and looked back at me, her face ashen. “I’m sorry, Annika. I didn’t mean that.”
I hadn’t even connected the two subjects in my mind, and my heart squeezed painfully in my chest. “Stop apologizing. Jeremy’s not going to die.”
“I know. That’s what I keep telling you.”
“I’ll talk to you later,” I said. I just wanted to leave.
“Right. We’ll get together and do something.”
“Right.”
She shut the door. I pulled away from her house too fast, which was usual, and gripped the steering wheel white-knuckled, which wasn’t. As I drove home, I took deep breaths and glanced at the shopping bag on the seat next to me. This would work. I’d read dozens of stories about how positive thinking had saved people’s lives. I’d read studies saying the same thing.
Cancer Research
magazine said that reducing stress could slow the spread of some cancers.
And even researchers who doubted the link between positive thinking and healing couldn’t deny the placebo effect. When doctors give participants of drug tests placebos, there are always a certain percentage of people who get better simply because they think they’re taking medicine. Their belief heals them.
If a sugar pill can make an adult get better, then Jeremy could get better if he really believed it. All I had to do was to convince him he’d come through surgery with flying colors, and he would.
If the surgery was successful next Friday—if they were able to take out the entire tumor—then everything would be fine. But if they couldn’t remove it all, or something went wrong—I didn’t even want to think about the fact that sometimes people died on the operating table. I had to think positively too.
Chapter
2
I pulled up to our house, a one-story beige stucco in a row of nearly identical homes. The Nevada heat doesn’t allow for much diversity in building materials, and our home owners association doesn’t allow for much diversity in anything else. I swear, my parents put out the mat that reads, THE TRUMANS WELCOME YOU just to make sure we were walking into the right place. But over the last month, I can’t shake the feeling our house has changed. Sometimes I look at it and it feels like I’m looking at a picture, at a mirage, something that might disappear when you blink. One day I’ll drive home and there will only be a vacant lot there.
The garage was empty. My parents must have gone out to brave the crowds too. I made a beeline for my bedroom, shoved my shopping bag in the closet, and went back to bed.
Three hours later, I woke up to the sound of things clanking in the kitchen and Jeremy yelling at the TV. He seems to think his video games work better if he shouts while playing them.
I pulled myself out of bed, then took the Teen Robin Hood out of the bag to reassure myself I’d really gotten it. I hadn’t examined the toy closely before, but the action figure did bear a striking resemblance to Steve Raleigh, the actor who played Robin Hood. It had the same blond hair, square jaw, and perfectly handsome features. His warm brown eyes gazed back at me with an expression of confidence, and I could almost imagine him strutting around Sherwood Forest ordering Merry Men around.
I stared at it a while longer. Probably longer than is normal for a seventeen-year-old girl to stare at a plastic doll. Sometimes when I watch
Teen Robin Hood
—and, okay, I admit I’ve never missed an episode—I feel a connection with Steve Raleigh. I feel like he’s someone I already know, someone who fits with me.
I can’t explain it better than that; to tell you the truth, I’m not sure I’m actually reading him right anyway. It’s more likely my connection is with Robin Hood. I admire a person who devotes his life to justice, who can live off the land, and who still looks hot after sleeping in the forest. That’s real talent.
Steve Raleigh, on the other hand, is probably one of those pampered celebrities who never sets foot in the grocery store, let alone the wilderness.
I slid the box under my bed for later. I would wait until Jeremy and I were alone, until everything was perfect and my plan couldn’t go wrong. Then I would give it to him.
When I went into the kitchen, Dad and Mom were cleaning up dishes from a pancake breakfast, Jeremy’s favorite. Although now Mom bought the pancake mix and syrup from an organic health-food store. She won’t serve anything that’s not 100 percent natural anymore.
“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” Dad called to me. “We saved you a couple, but you’ll need to heat them up.”
Mom crossed the kitchen and gave me a hug. She insists on hugging us every day. She read it’s good for your immune system. “Did you get any good bargains?”
I picked up a pancake and took a bite. “Actually, I made out like a bandit. How about you guys?”
“I got some good deals.” Mom lowered her voice and looked toward the family room where Jeremy sat planted in front of the TV. “I couldn’t find a Teen Robin Hood anywhere. We told Jeremy the stores were all sold out and so now he wants to go to the mall to ask Santa for one.” Her eyes crinkled with worry.
“Don’t worry,” I said, trying to downplay my smile. “Something might turn up.”
“Oh?” Mom waited for me to explain, but when I didn’t, she didn’t question me further. After I’d eaten breakfast, I played
Super Mario Kart
with Jeremy for a couple hours. I tried to get Leah to play so I could take a break, but she was too busy simultaneously tying up our phone line and text-messaging people on her cell phone.
Leah goes to the College of Southern Nevada. Which basically means she lives with us but is disdainful about being forced into spending time with us. Usually when she’s not at class she’s out somewhere working on her social life.
People say I look like Leah, and I take it as a compliment. The difference is, beauty and flirting have always come naturally to Leah. Everything I know on both subjects, I’ve copied from her. Sometimes when I’m with guys, I’m not sure if I’m being myself or just channeling my sister. I’d rather play basketball with guys than bat my eyelashes at them.