Sunny Sweet Is So Not Sorry (12 page)

I walked to the door and turned around to say good-bye one more time. I knew that I didn't have to tell her not to say anything about my leaving on my own; she just wouldn't. “See you tomorrow,” I told her.

Alice gave me the “rock on” sign. And I turned
and left. As I started down the hall, it felt like my heart was smiling.

* * *

I walked to the linen closet and pulled out a washcloth and towel and also a pair of plain blue hospital pants and a blue hospital shirt, and then went into the bathroom. It was one thing to run around with elephants all over you in a hospital, but I wasn't going to take the bus home dressed like this. After I changed, I stood and stared at myself in the mirror. When I was down in the basement peering into that paper-towel dispenser, I really thought for sure that I couldn't possibly look worse than I did right then. I was wrong.

I closed my eyes so I could unglue myself from the mirror, and then I walked out of the bathroom without looking back.

I walked straight out of pediatrics and wandered up and down a few random hallways looking for an intersection with some signs telling me where I was and which way to go. The first sign I found was one pointing out the direction of the emergency room. I
stopped and whispered a good-bye to Mrs. Song. One more hallway and I saw it, MAIN LOBBY with a comforting arrow.

I wondered if Thelma, the lollipop lady, would remember me, but before I reached the lobby, I turned a corner and there was Sunny, standing down the hall, still wearing her white lab coat.

She froze, staring at me with her big, spooky eyes. I walked slowly toward her, watching those eyes get bigger and bigger with every step I took. When I finally got about ten steps away, she screamed and fell onto her knobby little knees right there in the hallway. I guess I did look pretty scary, but strangely, I also felt a little bit cool. Maybe I would ask my mom if I could get a diamond stud in the top of my ear like Alice's. I bet it would really stand out with my bald head and black eye.

When Sunny got done screaming, she held her cheeks in her hands, and her face looked like the sad mask that my English teacher, Ms. Lee, had hanging in her classroom. I think it's the tragedy one. “Like it?” I asked. “You did it.”

But even before I was done saying it, I wished that I could suck it back in. I wanted to be a better me … a me that liked her little sister, even if she was the devil.

And then Sunny did the weirdest thing. She started to cry, hard … like a real six-year-old and not like an evil genius six-year-old.

Sunny Sweet was finally sorry.

And now I didn't want her to be!

“Oh, Sunny,” I said, running over to her. “It's okay, it's okay.” I knelt down on the floor and wrapped my good arm around her little shoulders and whispered into her ear, “I kind of like it.”

“Really?” she asked, looking up at me with the truest glow of love you ever saw.

And in that moment, I realized that yes, I
really
did.

“Girls,” came a voice … a mean voice.

Sunny and I stared down the hallway. There, with his hands on his hips, stood the mean nurse!

Never in my life have I ever run from trouble. And I probably wouldn't have run if it weren't for Sunny, who whispered, “We need to separate. I'll meet you at the bus stop,” and then spit, “Run!” directly into my face.

She took off, and I took off right after her. When we got to the end of the hall, she hooked right and I flew left.

I snapped my head around for one last look behind me at the same time Sunny turned to look back at me. She smiled that evil little smile of hers, and
for the first time in my life, it sent a huge smile shooting across my own face. And then I spun around and ran.

I made the first turn I could and jetted up a set of stairs and out into another hallway. I had no idea where I was, but I didn't stop to find out. I hurried past a nurses' station, struggling to catch my breath and look like I hadn't just robbed a bank or something. When I got around the corner, I decided to pull my cast inside my shirt. That way, if the mean nurse asked if anyone had seen a kid with an orange cast, they would have to say no.

I came upon a group of elevators and hit both the up and down buttons. I was going to take the first one that opened. The light pinged. I was going down.

When the door opened, I poked my head out. I was on the first floor, but I didn't know where. I stepped out and headed in the only direction that I could: left.

I walked past office after office. There were people in them, but no one looked up from their computers as I walked by. When I passed by a dark office, I
noticed a guy dumping garbage from a can into a big bin—a custodian.

“Hi,” I said. “I'm a little lost. I was supposed to meet my mom in front of the hospital and I took a wrong turn.” I tried to pull my cast under my shirt as close to my body as possible so he wouldn't notice. But I also knew that in this place, no matter what you looked like, people treated you as if you were normal. I swear I could be carrying a basket of slithering snakes and no one would even blink!

“You did take a wrong turn,” he said, not looking at my arm at all. “If you go down this hallway and take a right, all you have to do is follow the signs that say main lobby. It's a bit of a walk.”

“Is that the Shapiro main lobby?” I asked.

“Yes, it is.” He smiled.

“Thanks,” I said, giving him a salute, although I'm not sure why. He saluted back. And I took off.

I followed his directions, my heart pounding with every bend in the hallway. The closer I got to the Shapiro main lobby, the harder it was to breathe. Spotting a bathroom, I dodged inside and closed the door,
locking it behind me. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes, willing my heart to chill out. I knew I had to keep going. Sunny would be waiting. But it felt so good to be safe. I glanced in the mirror but then looked away. I focused on the WASH YOUR HANDS sign and wondered where Sunny was. Maybe she was already out at the bus stop. I looked over at the door. I had to go back out there. I looked back in the mirror. There was no way to disguise myself. I was bald, with a black eye and one arm. The only option was to open that door and get out of the hospital as fast as I could. I stepped out and started down the hall at a gallop.

After what felt like seventeen million hospital hallways, I found myself creeping into the Shapiro main lobby. My knees were actually knocking together. I was so close. I told myself that if I saw the mean nurse, I could just make a run for it, but I wasn't sure that I'd be brave enough to run again. It was one thing with Sunny and me doing it together, but it was another thing doing it alone.

I tiptoed into the lobby. I was now officially in
no-man's-land—out of the hall but not out of the door. There were two ladies sitting on the couches that Sunny had been climbing around on earlier, and an unfamiliar lady was at Thelma's desk. The doors were about twenty steps away. I wanted to run so badly, but I knew that I would just attract attention if I did. I forced myself to walk slowly, counting my steps in my head as I went. “One, two, three, four, five …”

I was dying to look around and see if the mean nurse was near, but I didn't; I kept my attention on the glass doors.

“Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.”

The phone at the desk rang, and my legs just about collapsed underneath me.

“Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen-fifteen-six-seven-eight-nine-twenty!” And I was out. I pulled my
cast out of my shirt and ran down the front walk. The bus stop was right where Sunny said it would be. I looked up and down the street, but she wasn't there. It felt like someone kicked me right in my heart.
Maybe he caught her?

I stopped on the sidewalk and tried to decide what to do. Should I go back in? I turned to face the hospital's front doors. Could I do this? Could I walk back in there? I had to find her. My heart pounded in my temples as I took my first slow steps back to the front doors. I had to get Sunny. I started to run.

“Masha!”

I turned around with the biggest smile ever. There was Sunny Sweet, standing behind a giant stone flowerpot by the bus stop. But the smile quickly fell from my face.

“Sunny,” I whispered, “no!”

I ran toward her. “No, no, no!”

She stood as still as the stone flowerpot next to her … and she was bald!

“Sunny, why?” I asked, dropping to my knees in front of her.

She rubbed her bare little head and shrugged.

I threw my arms around her and hugged her tight.

“How did you do it?” I asked.

We sat on the bench by the bus stop. According to Sunny's bus app, our bus was number 68, and we needed to get off at Washington Street and Elm Avenue. The bus was due to arrive in three minutes, although it was nowhere in sight. An afternoon breeze swished through the pansies in the big stone pots. I shivered. It was actually a little chilly not having hair.

“After I left you,” Sunny said, “I ran back down to the lab. I had seen the depilatory creams in the cabinet when I was searching for the ingredients to
dissolve the glue on your head. They use them for surgery patients.”

“What's a depilatory?”

“It's usually calcium thioglycolate or potassium thioglycolate. They are chemicals that weaken the hair so it falls right out. It took three minutes.”

“Why didn't they use that stuff on me?” I asked.

“You wouldn't want to have mixed the chemicals from the depilatory cream with the chemicals I used to create the glue. It would have changed the chemicals.”

“And what is so bad about that?”

“Have you ever seen a firework explode?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“That is an example of a chemical change,” she said. “It was better that they just shaved you.”

I laughed. “You're so weird, Sunny, but I'm glad you're my sister.”

She giggled back at me and threw her little bald head in my lap.

People began to collect around us at the bus stop,
and I saw their eyes land on Sunny and me for a second before they quickly looked away. I thought about Mrs. Song's hat. I had left it up in pediatrics, but I didn't need it anymore. A bald head or a big hat, what did it matter? I didn't blend in, and I was okay with that.

Finally the large, round headlights of the bus caught my eye.

“Come on, Sunny.”

We walked to the curb, straining to see what number it was. It was number 68, our bus. We were as good as home.

The bus's breaks squealed and then hissed as it came to a stop. The doors swung open with a screech. This was when it occurred to me … we didn't have any money.

Sunny moved to get in line for the bus. I held her back, moving us out of the line. “We don't have money,” I whispered.

She frowned. “Maybe if we tell the driver we're only going a few stops he'll let us on?”

“Maybe,” I croaked, even though I didn't believe it.