Kasey & Ivy Read online

  “Well,” Mom sniffed, wiping her eyes with her hand. “We’ve just had some terrible news. Kasey here is going to have to be in the hospital for a month.”

  I tried to blot my nose with a sheet from my bed.

  The redheaded nurse took this staggering news calmly.

  “Yes, I heard. That’s not great, is it, Kasey? In fact, it sucks. But I’ve had a word with Dr. Roberts, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t be completely cured after that! That’s the good news, right? You’ll be all better.”

  “Yes,” I whispered, because I had to. It was the good news in the whole thing. But it kind of sat alone and cold and forgotten in the huge, dark shadow of the bad news.

  “So,” said the redheaded nurse, “we just have to be practical and find ways to make your month here the best it can possibly be.” She smiled and plopped down on the bed beside me. She was a very big lady, with a round face and small blue eyes that creased up when she smiled.

  “Think of this room as Camp Kasey.” She didn’t say it in a babyish way. Just in a bright, matter-of-fact way. “What would make it fun? Some of your own stuff?” I thought about it, then nodded. It would make a difference if I had my books and stuffies and drawing stuff.

  “How about your own nightgown? Glamorous as these may be,” she said, tugging a little on the sleeve of the hospital gown I was wearing, “they’re a bit drafty out back.” I gave a snorty, watery giggle.

  “Yeah, I hate them. And I need my slippers,” I said. “For the germy floor. And my robe.”

  “Excellent! That’s a great start. Mom, can we bring Kasey some of her own stuff?”

  “Absolutely,” Mom said, nodding and jogging the baby on her hip. He was grinning and batting at Ivy, gripping her tubes in his fat little fist.

  “So there’s no Wi-Fi or even cable in this part of the hospital, in case you were wondering. The old folks don’t miss them. But we do have TVs for rent! They’re old too, and only get two channels, but still, better than nothing. Do you want me to call the guy for you?” Mom and I both nodded, and the nurse bustled out.

  “Well, good,” Mom said as she bounced the baby gently on the bed. His fat legs buckled underneath him as he grinned and lurched, smiling up at Ivy. “This is good. At least we have a bit of a plan, hey, Kasey? I’ll pack up your favorite things, and we’ll visit a lot…” Her voice trickled off.

  I said nothing, fighting back tears again. I cuddled with the baby until I had myself under control.

  Then he started fussing, and Mom said he was hungry and she better go.

  “You okay?” she whispered.

  “Yeah,” I said, even though I wasn’t.

  “You better get some rest and get better, Pumpkin.”

  Get better. I was sick. Diseased, in fact. And I couldn’t even feel it.

  When Mom and the baby left, I wondered what I was supposed to do all day. What do you do in a hospital all day long? I glanced out the window and watched a loud garbage truck do a beep-beeping reverse up to the dumpsters. I looked at the germy pile of magazines on my nightstand and even considered opening one. I watched the clock on the wall: 0945 hours.

  I lay back and closed my eyes, which were tearing up babyishly again.

  It’s 9:45 AM on the first day of my month in the hospital.

  Your friend (who is still in shock),

  Kasey

  Seven

  Dear Nina,

  The nice nurse is named Rosie, which exactly suits her because she’s big and has red hair. Your name suits you too, Nina. It’s fun and a little different and suits your wild, curly black hair. I think Kasey suits me too. Katherine-Charlotte, as I’ve mentioned, is not me at all. Think Katherine-Charlotte and you immediately think of a girl in a dress, right? Possibly even a bonnet. Have you ever seen me in a dress, Nina? The hospital gown doesn’t count.

  Did you know my sister Lizzy is really Elizabeth-Grace? Truth. Now, you know Lizzy. Could you ever call her Elizabeth-Grace without bursting out laughing? My parents learned their lesson with Lizzy and me—they didn’t pass on the curse of the hyphen to the other three.

  Anyway, Rosie saw me staring in a hopeless way at the clock and asked me whether I would like to go on a tour of the ward. It wasn’t like I had a lot of other entertainment options, so I said okay. She found a hospital robe to cover up the back of me. It is faded hospital blue and as big as the school field, so she had to do a bunch of wrapping and tying and hiking upping. Finally, when I was all bundled up and looking like I was going to some bizarre martial-arts contest, we set out to be stared at by strange and sick old people.

  “So we’ll show you around your new home away from home, get you more settled feeling,” Rosie said. “The geriatric ward is really a comforting, reassuring place.”

  It wasn’t. Just letting you know right now that it wasn’t.

  We started at the front desk, which is the control center of the unit. It’s what you might expect—computers, binders, phones, paper, flowers in vases, a few cards propped up. It’s where visitors can go to ask which room the person they’re visiting is in. The unit clerk, who’s the control freak for the unit, is a busy woman who kept standing up and then bouncing down heavily in her chair. Her name tag said Barbara, but privately I call her the Bouncer. She let me do a test of the intercom, barking instructions at me like really only she could know how to use that thing. She and Rosie thought I’d be all nervous, but I grabbed the intercom and said, “Testing, one, two, three. This is only a test,” clear as a bell. They didn’t know that we do office duty at school, Nina, so intercoms are nothing new.

  Then Rosie introduced me to the row of old people in wheelchairs who were sitting by the front desk.

  “This is Edward,” she said. A very thin old man glared at me from under bushy gray eyebrows. But in fairness, he seemed to have a sort of permaglare. He kept glaring after he looked away from me.

  “And this is Yolanda and Sadie, who are having their little nap. And here we have our oldest resident, ninety-four years young, little Missy Wong! Hello, little Missy,” Rosie said in a loud voice.

  Missy Wong was a tiny woman, smaller than me, whose thin white hair was scraped up into two pigtails on the top of her head and tied with pink ribbons like a two-year-old girl’s. I wondered if she wanted her hair like that or if the nurses just thought it looked cute. She turned her flat, round, wrinkled face toward me and smiled. She had sparkling little dark eyes and a teeny bump of a nose and no teeth at all! None. Just gums. A gummy, toothless smile. I was not expecting that at all, and I’ll be honest, Nina, no teeth at all is quite a shocking look.

  I took a step back, but she grabbed my hand with both her thin little hands and held on tight, smiling and nodding at me, and pulling me down into the chair beside her.

  “She likes you, Kasey!” Rosie said. “She’s such a sweetie. She’s pretty hard of hearing and doesn’t talk at all, so we don’t really know how much she remembers, but we still communicate just fine.” Rosie smiled at Missy Wong and pointed at me, and Missy Wong smiled and nodded and tightened her grip on my hand, and I smiled and nodded and started to wonder if this smiling and nodding would go on forever and when it would be rude to stop.

  “Twenty-one’s calling, Rosie,” barked the Bouncer. “Again. One thing after another with him.”

  “Be right there.” Rosie turned to me and Missy Wong. “I’ll just answer this call while you two get acquainted.”

  I was left holding hands with a little ninety-four-year-old I’d just met. I’m ashamed to say I panicked a little, Nina. I racked my brain for something to talk about.

  “Have you had your breakfast?” I asked, miming eating with an imaginary spoon. She smiled and nodded, but I wasn’t sure if it was about the breakfast, because the nod kept on going.

  “I like your hair,” I said, pointing at my head, then at hers with my Ivy-tubed hand. She still had a firm grip on my other one, and she kept nodding, as though she was thinking of something else.

 
Suddenly she pointed my hand at a shawl she had wrapped around her. It was all rumpled and slumped down, and she struggled to pull it up, so I helped. As we yanked away at the shawl, I was shocked to discover that Missy Wong was strapped into her wheelchair with a seat belt. A seat belt, Nina! Right across her lap, like she was in a car, not in a stopped wheelchair. I looked down the row at the others. Same thing. I felt sad and angry for these old people, forced to sit or sleep sitting up here at the front desk without being able to get up and walk away when they wanted to.

  We finally worked the shawl up around her tiny shoulders, which seemed to make Missy Wong happy. It was a beautiful shawl—black and silky with a long fringe and embroidered in brilliant rainbow colors. A peacock spread his gorgeous feathers and strutted in front of an old temple, masses of flowers led to a silvery-blue river framed by cliffs and trees, and people in triangle hats worked in fields shimmery with water. Elegant birds stretched their long wings in the background, and a fiery-red dragon wound his scaly body around a tower in a sky studded with stars. Missy Wong traced my hand over each scene like she was telling me a story. Maybe she was.

  “Beautiful!” I said, smiling and nodding. “It’s a beautiful shawl.” And it was. I was glad she had something beautiful, something that wasn’t hospital blue, something from her life before she came here. She hunched happily into the shawl, smiling and wrapping it around her. Then her face got kind of sneaky, and she pointed my hand down at the dragon on her shawl, then over at the desk, where the Bouncer was bellowing into the phone about some supplies that were late. Our eyes met for just a second, and even though I’m not sure, I think Missy Wong might understand more than people give her credit for.

  “Sorry ’bout that.” Rosie bustled back, her cheeks flushed. “How about we take Missy Wong on our tour? Would you like that, honey?” Rosie bent down, miming vrooming in a wheelchair. She’s so nice, Nina. When you come to visit, I’ll introduce you.

  We went slowly down the hall. Missy Wong tapped her feet in their wooly pink slippers as we went, and with her pigtails bobbing and the fringe of her shawl swaying, I almost forgot she was wheelchair-walking—it looked more like she was dancing.

  “Why are they all strapped in?” I whispered to Rosie.

  “Oh, sorry, should have explained that,” Rosie said. “It’s for their own protection. Many of the old folks need help to walk, and if somebody’s not right there when they get up, they might fall and break a hip or something.” That made me feel a bit better.

  We wandered through the unit, smiling and nodding at everyone we met. I’ve never seen such old people, Nina, and some of them seemed so sick. Some had tubes in their arms and even up their noses! Some were crying out, coughing or just lying there. The just-lying-there ones were the saddest of all. We got glimpses of them as we walked down the hall. But Rosie chattered away cheerfully, and she works there every day, so you must get used to it.

  I saw the blanket warmer, the linen cabinets, utility room, storage room and staff room. Rosie pulled out a plastic container of soft caramels from a cabinet. The container had a Rosie’s Private Stash! Keep Out! sign taped to the top, but she let me and Missy Wong each have one.

  After the tour they dropped me at my room, and I watched them move slowly down the hall, Rosie’s cheerful voice fading away.

  I paced around my room, trying to calm down. Because, Nina, I felt panicky. My hands were freezing cold and my stomach was fluttery, the sort of feeling you get when there’s a test you haven’t studied for, or your team is playing the best team in the league. A pit-of-the-stomach feeling of dread mixed with fear mixed with worry.

  If I had to put my feeling into one word, it would be trapped.

  I could not imagine staying here for a whole month. How on earth was I supposed to get better in a whole unit of very sick people? I looked at the three empty beds in my room and imagined the sick and scary old people that might end up being my roommates.

  I wanted to yank Ivy out of my arm and run and run and run away from all of these old, sick people. I closed my eyes and saw myself racing down the stairs, hospital robe flapping, through the doors and out into the sunshine. Running all the way home.

  But I didn’t, because I’m a big girl, a brave girl. I took a deep breath. I ran on the spot until I was sweating. I was shocked to find that it tired me right out. I crawled into bed, thinking I might have a little nap before I have to face whatever horror they’ll be bringing for lunch.

  Only 11:12 AM on my first day in the hospital, and I’m already living like an old person.

  Please write or visit, Nina. Pleasepleaseplease pleasepleaseplease.

  That sounds desperate, and I don’t even care.

  Your pathetic friend,

  Kasey

  Eight

  Dear Nina,

  Wow!!!!!!!! I can’t believe you and your mom and Coach brought the whole team to visit! I guarantee that this hospital unit has never, ever had two vanloads of girls visit anyone. All the old folks are talking about it! Rosie tells me that even patients who almost never leave their rooms came to the door to see who was making all the noise. Not that you made a lot of noise—it’s just different noise from hospital noise. The noise of giggling and movement and happiness and life rather than the buzzing, rattling, moaning and beeping sounds of a hospital. It was so wonderful to see you guys. I never expected a visit from all the Wildcats. And straight from practice!

  I can’t thank you and your mom enough for the cookies. You guys must have baked all day! I’ve been wolfing cookies all evening. I put the box right beside me on my bed, within grabbing distance. The cookies are delicious and very effective at getting the taste of “dinner” out of my mouth.

  It felt very lonely here after you left. It was so much fun, and then poof! It was over. Somehow this room seems emptier than it was. Quieter. I’m back to watching the clock. I’m thinking of counting out days like they do in prison movies, with a piece of chalk on the wall—four ticks, then a diagonal one straight through. Groups of five days. One month would be six groups of five days. Only six groups of five. When you break it down like that, it doesn’t seem so bad, hey, Nina? I just need a piece of chalk.

  It’s 1830 hours. Six thirty. Still early. Lots of time for all the healthy kids to be outside playing, enjoying what looks like a beautiful day out there. I hope you’re outside, Nina, running around with my brother and sisters. Keep an eye on them for me, okay?

  Your inside, unhealthy friend,

  Kasey

  PS. That last letter I handed you may possibly be depressing. I’m sorry—I didn’t have time to happy it up.

  Another PS. Lydia and Jamie seemed disappointed I didn’t have a cast. Very disappointed. They made me feel quite guilty about it, like I’m just pretending to be sick to get attention. Could you tell them that my leg bone is not broken but is merely being eaten from inside me by disgusting, ravenous bacteria? That ought to shut them up.

  Yet another PS. Ivy is not “gross” and was slightly offended by the eeeewwwws of the team. She didn’t say anything, but I could tell. She is a good companion, a defensive weapon in the middle of the night and a helpful feeder of the medicine I need to get better. You can tell anyone that.

  One more PS. Missy Wong is not “that creepy, toothless old lady at the desk” as Shelby called her. Does that girl ever think before she speaks? Yes, Missy Wong is old. She is toothless. But she’s not creepy. She can’t help not speaking or being old. She was once a kid like us a long time ago, playing with other kids, running around. Oh, and the pigtails are not her fault. I asked. The nurses just think they look cute on her, and she seems to like them. Anyway, you can tell Shelby I’ll visit her in eighty years, and we’ll see how wonderful both of us are looking.

  Very last PS. I seem crabbier when I PS, so maybe I won’t in future letters.

  Nine

  Dear Nina,

  Mom and the others brought some more of my stuff, so my corner of this huge room is starting to lo
ok as messy as home. I still shudder at the image of Molly cheerfully dragging a green garbage bag of my stuffies along the hospital floor. What is it with my family and germs?

  Anyway, I have books! Books I have already read, but sometimes those are the best kind. I don’t mind knowing what happens. I actually like that. Just looking at them makes me feel like I have friends here.

  I also have some of my own clothes. But here’s the problem, Nina—Ivy. She doesn’t mean to be a problem, but because we’re attached, I can’t put my left arm into any sleeve! It would have to go all the way over Ivy’s bag head, down her pole, maybe even over her wheels. It’s impossible. This “gown” I’m wearing is different. It has three snaps along the shoulder area, because some smart hospital person thought at some point, Hey, what about those people with IVs? How the heck are they supposed to get in and out of this? I know—let’s design a hideous gown that you can rip right off!

  But while it is practical, I hate my hospital gown. I hate it with a desperation I haven’t hated anything before in my life. I may have mentioned its ugliness before. And possibly its hugeness. Not to mention the draft at the back. So anyway, I was determined to wear my own cozy, closed-at-the-back nightgown and my purple fuzzy robe. But how?

  I shut the door to my room and shoved a chair in front of it so nobody would barge right in while I was changing, which, believe me, they do. I managed to get my hospital gown off (and gave it a good, strong, soccer kick into the corner). I struggled into my own nightgown, got as far as pulling it up, getting my right arm into it, and then I stopped, not knowing what to do with that left arm, the one joined to Ivy. I ended up tucking the useless nightgown-arm in, and just rocking a bare-arm-and-shoulder look. Toga style. Not really what I’m comfortable with, so I shrugged my robe over my shoulders and felt better. More normal and in control. Less hospital patient, if you know what I mean.