A Mango-Shaped Space (8 page)

“Who has the largest bedroom?” Ms. Finn asks bluntly.

“Beth does,” I admit. “But that’s only because she was here first, you know; she was already in there when I was born.”

“And who does your mother spend the most time with?”

“Zack, I guess,” I say, feeling slightly defeated. “But that’s because she has to do things with him that Beth and I can do on our own. He’s only eleven.”

“So you see what I’m saying?” she asks, leaning back in her chair. “Middle children can feel neglected, often for good reasons. Or they feel that they aren’t as special as the other children, or even as loved. When that happens, middle children often act out.”

“Act out?” I repeat suspiciously.

“A child may devise an elaborate plan to get his or her parents’ attention,” she explains. “Something that will make her stand out from the other siblings.”

I do not like where this is heading.

“Something,” she continues, “like telling her parents that she sees colors all the time. Colors that no one else, including her brother and sister, can see.” She leans forward and waits for my response.

My heart sinks — a feeling I’m becoming all too familiar with. Another doctor who doesn’t believe me. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

“That’s not it,” I assure her, aware that I’m losing the battle to stay calm. “I am not making this up to get attention. I don’t even
like
getting attention. I just want to figure out what’s wrong with me.”

She nods thoughtfully and scribbles some more notes. “Tell me, Mia,” she says, “do you often get depressed for no reason?”

“No.”

“Do you get enough sleep?”

“Yes.”

“Any trouble making friends?”

“No.” Keeping them is another story, but I don’t tell her that.

“And these colors and shapes, they feel real to you?”

“Very real.”

She looks at me steadily. “Well, then,” she says, “why don’t I talk to your mother for a while? We’ll see what she has to say.”

As she leads me out of her office, I swipe three jelly beans from the bowl.

When we reach the still-empty waiting room, I trade places with my mother. I wait until I hear Ms. Finn’s door close behind her, then tiptoe down the hall and stand outside her office.

I put my ear as close to the door as I can without touching it. The first thing I hear is my mother exclaim, “A brain tumor?”

I jump back against the wall; my eyes open wide. Does Ms. Finn think I have a brain tumor? Isn’t that what people in soap operas get before they die young and still beautiful? The grape-flavored jelly bean in my mouth suddenly tastes flat.

“I’m sure that’s not it, Mrs. Winchell,” she assures my mother and, without her realizing it, me. “A neurologist does a lot more than test for brain tumors. If Mia’s problem is real and not in her imagination, then a neurologist will be able to test her brain functions.”

Relieved but still shaken, I return to the relative safety of my deep chair. It sucks me in again, but this time I don’t mind. So another doctor will poke and prod and then send me to someone else. Why did I get myself into this?

I pick up the magazine my mother left on the table and open to a page full of text. As I read, a rainbow of colors drifts by in my head. I close my eyes and watch the colors fade away. I imagine that when I open my eyes again all the letters are black, the color of the type they are printed in, and nothing more.

I open my eyes and stare at the page. I see the black letters. But I also see the pinks and greens and purples and yellows. I can’t say I’m surprised.

My mother ducks her head in the waiting room. “Let’s go, Mia.” By the time I push myself out of the chair, she’s halfway down the hall. I hurry to catch up.

“So what’s going on?”

Without turning to look at me, she says, “Ms. Finn gave me the number of a neurologist at the University of Chicago. He’s going to run some tests.”

“What kinds of tests?” I ask as we head out to the car. “Is something wrong with my brain?”

She finally stops walking and turns to me. “Nothing is wrong with your brain, Mia.”

I size her up as she stands by the car, searching her purse for the keys. “But you don’t know for sure, do you?”

She keeps digging in her bag. “I suppose I don’t.”

“Mom?”

“What?” she answers, not quite snapping at me, but almost.

“You already put the key in the car door.” I point to the keys dangling from the lock.

After that we don’t talk much. I keep peeking over at her on the ride home, but she has a sort of pinched expression on her face. This worries me more than anything else. My head feels very heavy. I flip down the visor and stare at the small mirror. I never thought of my brain as anything other than the place where thoughts came from. Now it’s this big heavy thing rattling around in there — all mushy and gray and, I don’t know,
brainlike.
I move my fingers around my skull.

“What are you doing?” Mom asks with a sideways glance.

“I read somewhere that doctors used to feel the bumps on people’s heads to tell what was wrong with them.” I keep searching but don’t feel anything unusual.

“Don’t worry, Mia. Everything will be fine.”

“I won’t worry if
you
won’t worry.”

“I’m not worried,” she says.

“Me either then.”

“Good.”

“Good,” I echo.

“So neither of us is worried,” she says.

“Right.”

Then we look at each other and the corners of our mouths twitch. I start laughing and she joins me. It’s better than crying.

“You don’t have a brain tumor!” my mother says, shaking me awake. Dad stands behind her, beaming.

“What?” I rub my eyes and look at my wall clocks. 6:10 a.m. Mango yawns and stretches at the foot of the bed.

“How do you know? I haven’t even had the tests yet.” Suddenly panic grips me. I sit up and grab my mother by the sleeve of her nightshirt. “Or did I have them and the doctor took out the memory part of my brain?”

They laugh. “No, you didn’t have them,” my mother assures me. “I just got off the phone with the neurologist.”

“At six o’clock in the morning?”

She sits down on the edge of the bed. “He’s at a conference in Europe, where it’s already the afternoon. He got the message I left yesterday and wanted to reassure us. He said that since you’ve had this condition your whole life without any other neurological impairments, he can rule out diseases such as epilepsy or tumors.”

I lean back on the pillow as relief washes over me. “What else did he say?”

“He said he’s pretty sure what’s going on from my description, but he wants to meet with you first. He’ll be back next week, and your father and I will drive you down.”

I sit up again. “Wait, he didn’t say anything about middle child syndrome, did he?”

They look at me oddly, and my mother shakes her head.

“So I have to wait a whole week to find out?”

“You’ve waited thirteen years, right?” my dad says, closing the door behind them.

“Thirteen and a half,” I whisper. By this time Mango has climbed up onto my chest, and I pet him while he purrs loudly. Each mango-colored puff reminds me that even though I’m not dying of a brain tumor, I still don’t know what’s wrong with me. And my best friend still isn’t talking to me. I lie there with Mango for a few more minutes and decide it’s time for action.

Mr. Davis lets me in and tells me Jenna’s still up in her room. I knock on the door and wait for her to tell me to come in.

“Oh, it’s you,” she says. She is standing by her bed, trying valiantly to squeeze her schoolbooks into a purple minibackpack that I haven’t seen before. We used to make fun of people with minibackpacks and now she has one. But she’s wearing the pajamas I got her last Christmas. I’ll take that as a good sign.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

“Please talk to me.” I sit on the bed. “I can’t stand it.”

She lays down the backpack in defeat. “What do you want me to say?”

For the second time that morning I feel a surge of relief. At least she’s not giving me the silent treatment anymore. “I don’t want to fight. And I understand why you got mad at me.” Then I can’t help myself. I mutter, “Even though I really needed you to be there for me.”

“That’s an apology?” Jenna asks. She crosses her arms in front of her.

I tug at my ponytail for lack of anything better to do while I think of a response. “It’s half an apology. The other half has to come from you.”

“You’re the one who kept the secret,” she says pointedly.

I take a deep breath. “Listen, Jenna, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just couldn’t talk about it. But now I need to talk about it. With
you.
Unless you’ve got a new best friend I should know about. Like the person who gave you that backpack.”

“This stupid thing? A friend of my father’s gave it to me. I promised my father I’d wear it at least once.”

I’m relieved it wasn’t from Kimberly or Molly or Sara trying to move in on my best friend while we were in a fight.

Jenna pulls her clothes out of the closet and lays them on the bed. “I don’t want to fight anymore either. But you don’t know what it’s like finding out something might be wrong with someone you care about. I’ve been there before, and believe me, it’s really scary.”

I look down at the floor, ashamed. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. I’m really sorry if I made you worry.”

“And I’m sorry I got so mean,” she says, starting to pace. “But I kind of did a bad thing yesterday after you left school early.” Guilt flickers across her face. I recognize it from that time she literally got caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She takes a deep breath. “Well, Kimberly was asking me what was going on with you, and at first I told her I didn’t know — because I
didn’t
know — but then when I
did
know and I was so mad at you … well, I told her the truth. About you seeing the colors.”

“How could you do that?” A dark cloud of dread descends upon me.

“I’m really sorry.”

“Who else knows? Wait, if Kimberly knows, then everyone must know!”

“I’m sure not everyone …,” Jenna says, trailing off and looking everywhere but at me. I can hear the third-grade laughter ringing in my ears all over again. The passage of time doesn’t make it sound any nicer.

“I’d take it back if I could,” Jenna insists.

Still stinging from the betrayal, I say coldly, “What’s done is done, right? I’m sure eighth-graders aren’t as cruel as third-graders.”
Yeah, right.

“No one’s going to make fun of you,” Jenna says. “They’re just curious, that’s all.”

“We’ll see about that.”

I hurry out of her house and walk quickly back down the road, suddenly eager to get home. I hate the idea of everybody at school talking about me behind my back. I’d tried so hard to avoid it, and then Jenna, of all people, sets it off.

Zack is sitting at the kitchen table eating scrambled eggs when I walk in the back door. Seeing him there strikes me as strange. My life is changing by the minute, when for Zack everything is exactly the same as it was yesterday. As I pass by he tosses a handful of salt over his shoulder, spraying me with it.

“Hey!” I say, brushing the tiny crystals off my jacket.

“Sorry,” Zack says. “Didn’t see you there.”

“You better clean that up before Mom sees it. And don’t leave it for Mango to lick up.”

“Relax,” he says and grabs a sponge from the sink. “If you spill salt, you have to throw some over your left shoulder to appease the evil spirits. No big deal.”

“The evil
salt spirits?
”

“Go ahead, make fun,” Zack says. “But Beth knows it’s true.”

“You’re brainwashing her,” I accuse him. “She never used to be this way.”

“Hey, the Voodoo Vixen came to me, not the other way around,” he says, stuffing a whole piece of toast in his mouth.

I head out of the kitchen, and Zack calls after me in a muffled voice. “By the way, if you can’t find Mango, he’s probably hiding in the walls.”

Like the rest of us, Mango had found the house’s little nooks and crannies that never quite fit together. I go back in the kitchen. “Why is he hiding?”

“I think Mom scared him. She was sweeping the hall, and she caught him peeing on the couch. So she chased him with the broom, and I haven’t seen him since.”

“Mango peed on the couch?” I ask in disbelief.

“Yup. Haven’t you noticed he’s been a little weird lately?”

“Weird like how?”

Zack shrugs. “Slinking around the house with his tail real low. Sleeping a lot.”

“He always sleeps a lot,” I snap. “His medication makes him tired.” At that minute Mango saunters into the room and heads straight for his food bowl. Zack shrugs.

I bend down and examine him. Poor Mango. Maybe he’s suffering from middle cat syndrome and peed to get attention. Being chased with a broom probably wasn’t the kind of attention he had been hoping for.

“Five minutes till the bus,” Mom yells from upstairs.

I cringe and sit down across from Zack. “Hey, can you show me how you get the thermometer to read like you’re sick? I really don’t want to go to school today.”

“Ah, the ol’ thermometer and lightbulb trick,” he says fondly. “Never fails. But you only want to use it if you don’t mind being brought to the doctor.”

I quickly push back the chair and stand. “Ugh, never mind.” In my haste I knock over the saltshaker. I turn it upright and pause. With a sigh of defeat, I pour a tiny bit in my hand and throw it over my left shoulder. Salt spirits or no salt spirits, I need all the luck I can get today.

Zack smiles proudly. “Don’t worry, I’ll clean that up.”

I give Mango an extra cat treat, grab my book bag, and head out to the bus stop. Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe it won’t be that bad after all.

Then why do I keep hearing
freeeeek, freeeeek, freeeeeeeeeek
over and over in my head?

Chapter Six

Throwing the salt must have worked, because no one asks me anything about my colors until English class. That’s when the dam breaks. Before the teacher comes in, kids rush over to my desk and begin firing questions at me.