Chapter 8

Megan visited Cynthia every day the rest of the week. And every day she became aware of Cynthia’s worsening condition.

On Friday, when Megan delivered The Owl with the Halloween photos, Cynthia had bad news. “Oh, Megan.” Her fingers folded and pleated the pink-flowered sheets pulled up around her. “I have to go into the hospital tomorrow. The doctor wants more tests for—for leukemia.”

“Cynthia, no, oh no.” Megan knelt beside her friend’s bed and took her slender hand. It was so cool and lifeless. “It can’t be. You have to fight back, though, whatever it is. Promise me you’ll fight. You have to get well.”

“I’m just so tired. I don’t have any fight left.”

“Are you in pain?”

“No, I don’t have any strength. It’s as if something is just sapping all my energy. I can hardly stand up when I get out of bed.”

Megan didn’t know what to say. What could you say when your best friend was fading away before your eyes? She stood and paced the floor.

“I wish I could go to the mall with you for Halloween,” Cynthia said, changing the subject. “Will you come to the hospital first thing Sunday morning and tell me all about it?”

“I will, Cynthia. I promise. And I’ll bring our pictures as soon as we get them developed.”

On the way home from Cynthia’s, Megan stopped at the photo shop where she got most of her developing and printing done. She ordered two poster-size enlargements of her photos of Cynthia in her Homecoming dress. She’d put them on the wall in Cynthia’s room. Then she bought rolls of crepe paper and Halloween decorations at the drugstore next door. The hospital room was so sterile—so white. All she could do for Cynthia was try to keep her cheered up. They’d stop at the hospital on their way to the mall on Saturday night.

Robert thought that was a great idea. Even Derrick, who to Megan’s dismay was going with them, seemed concerned about Cynthia and was willing to stop. She had thought she and Robert were going to the mall alone, but this really was a picture-taking expedition, not a date. She was glad she had called Bunny and Roxie and asked them to meet at the hospital in their fairy costumes. Cynthia would love the New York creations.

Megan wore a clown costume. She had long ago stopped trying to be glamorous for Halloween. It wasn’t her style. She had a lime green acrylic wig-Afro style—that her mother had found in a shop in Denver. Painted on her face was the biggest smile she had room for. Her eyebrows arched in perpetual surprise. Her floppy suit was green with orange polka dots, and she’d painted an old pair of her dad’s shoes orange with green dots. White gloves with a mass of colored pompons on the wrists completed her outfit. As she entered the hospital room she hoped the painted-on smile would hide her sadness for Cynthia.

They strung the crepe paper across the room while Cynthia and her roommate giggled. Cynthia’s roommate had a broken leg and was much more energetic than Cynthia. She clapped and cheered for the unexpected celebration.

“How’d you break your leg, Geri?” Megan asked.

“In a warm-up basketball game.” Geri made a face. “Now I’ll miss basketball season as well as skiing.”

Bunny and Roxie appeared just in time to see the last witch taped on the wall. The girls looked like twins despite their different coloring.

“Fantastic,” Cynthia squealed at the sight of the fairy costumes. “I wish I had made them.”

“Now for the finale. Ta-ta-ta-da!” Robert, dressed appropriately in a magician’s outfit, pulled out a big bag he’d saved for last. In it was a tall, black witch’s hat. He placed it on Cynthia’s head. Propped up by pillows, she managed a smile. “Let’s have a photo, Derrick,” Robert suggested. “Not for publication,” he assured Cynthia. “But for your scrapbook—the time you bewitched all the doctors at Community Hospital.”

Megan posed a fairy on either side of Cynthia. First they perched beside her, then did ballet poses, holding to the railing at the head of the bed, tapping Cynthia with wands topped by gold and silver stars. Derrick, again with two cameras, snapped several photos with each to insure some good shots. Megan noticed that Bunny was quieter than usual, but she looked incredibly beautiful in the silver-and-white costume. Megan caught one glimpse of herself in a mirror and tried not to compare clowns and fairies. The world needed both, she reminded herself.

“Cynthia should get magically better.” Roxie tapped Cynthia on the head with her wand. “I command it.” They laughed and wished Cynthia well as they left.

“Why don’t we all ride together?” Robert asked Bunny and Roxie. “Leave your car here. It will be hard enough to park one car near the mall.”

Bunny and Roxie surrounded Derrick in the small backseat, amid much tickling and giggling. Derrick, in a cowboy costume, looked totally out of place and uncomfortable.

“Kiss me or I’ll shoot.” Roxie had stolen Derrick’s gun from its holster and teased him with it.

Megan couldn’t resist spying on the trio as Roxie kissed Derrick and Bunny looked on, giggling, waiting her turn.

“If we get separated, which is certainly possible in this crowd,” Robert said, “meet back at the car at midnight. The crowd gets wilder after that, and surely we’ll have had enough of this madness. Agreed?”

Everyone thought midnight was a good witching hour for the end of the fun, and they started off together. Boulder at Halloween was like a Mardi Gras celebration. Throngs of merrymakers flocked to the outside mall, which was closed off to traffic. There was every conceivable costume: yellow Venus pencils and a ruler, old hags and elegant movie stars, all manner of aliens and outer-space characters, three couch potatoes, California raisins, Super Priest, Miss Muffet and her spider, the president, Prince Charles and Diana, pirates, and a wonderful Quasimodo. Soon all of them were squashed together and had to move with the crowd whether or not they wanted to.

Robert and Derrick helped Bunny and Roxie, both five foot two, onto lampposts so they could see and people could see them. Everyone in the vicinity cheered at the beauty of their costumes. The girls struck flying poses and waved their wands.

Derrick, the cowboy with cameras, took several photos of the almost-twins. before crowds swept him, Megan, and Robert forward, separating them from Bunny and Roxie. At every opportunity Robert and Megan snapped pictures. But stopping to focus was almost impossible.

Perhaps an hour had passed when Megan and Robert found they were alone. “Want a Coke?” asked Robert. They were right in front of Pearl’s.

“This is madness. Yes, I need a breather. Work some magic to get us a drink and a seat.”

“You love Halloween, Megan. I know that.” Robert ordered Cokes when they pushed out of the crowd and into the restaurant.

“Sort of.” Megan laughed.

A very sad clown came up to the bar where they stood and looked at Megan. She wanted to cry with him, his manner was so woebegone. Instead she put her arms around him and whispered in his ear, “It’s all right. Things will get better.”

“If I look sad will you hug me?” Robert put on a long face.

“I only hug total strangers.” Megan was amazed at her sense of abandon. But everyone seemed safe tonight.

They found two chairs near the big picture window and watched the crowd while they sipped their drinks and rested. Suddenly Megan nearly doubled over with a stab of fear. A cloud of pure evil filled her nostrils, cloying, clogging her mind and pores, her body with its nauseous smell. She choked on her drink. “Robert!” She grabbed his arm. “Bunny! Something has happened to Bunny.”

“What—how do you know, Megan?”

“Never mind. I just know it.” How could Megan explain that she had seen Bunny fall from the lamppost? The picture flashed through her mind so quickly she had trouble believing it herself. It was the same kind of knowledge she’d had when Cynthia fainted at the dance, only this time the clear picture was mixed with naked fear.

On the mall they heard the siren pierce the air. “Let’s go, Robert. We have to hurry.”

“There’s no way we can hurry through this crowd, Megan.” Robert tried to follow Megan, who was pushing people aside frantically.

The sheer number of people held them to a frustrating, creeping pace. Megan tried not to get angry and start screaming. That was what she wanted to do. By the time they reached the spot where they’d left Bunny and Roxie the girls were both gone.

A wizard filled them in on the details. “Suddenly she just fell, the silver fairy. Such a beautiful girl. The crowd caught her, so she wasn’t hurt. She was unconscious, though. Her friend went with her to the hospital.”

“I wonder where Derrick is,” said Robert as they headed for the car.

“Forget Derrick. He won’t care.” Megan ran as fast as her floppy shoes would allow.

Starting their evening from the hospital, they’d parked north of the mall, so now it was easier to get through the traffic jams to go back. Megan clutched the door until her hand ached, watching Robert inch his way to Broadway and turn right. They parked as close to the hospital as they could get. Megan jumped from the car and ran, not worrying if Robert was behind her, not worrying about what people thought of a clown racing toward the emergency entrance.

Bunny had been checked in through emergency, but her parents, living close to the hospital, had called their own doctor and were getting Bunny a room when Robert and Megan arrived.

“I almost didn’t let her go out tonight. She hasn’t felt well since before Homecoming. But the lovely costume.… And Roxie begged.” Mrs. Browne looked as pale as Bunny had earlier, now that Megan thought back.

Roxie sat sobbing in a vinyl chair, her costume an incongruity with the sterile, Naugahyde waiting room. “Bunny said she didn’t feel good three times. But I insisted. I don’t feel so good myself, but I didn’t want to miss the celebration. And we had these costumes.” Roxie took a breath. “Will someone take me home?”

There was nothing Megan and Robert could do, so they took Roxie home. Then Robert headed for Megan’s.

“Will you come in, Robert?” Megan invited. “I need some company. My folks went to a party.”

Halfheartedly, they put a match to the fireplace, where a fire had been laid. The house seemed unusually cold to Megan. She’d gotten chilled in the late October air, despite long underwear and a sweater under her clown suit. Sitting on the stone ledge in front of the crackling fire, she cupped her hands around a steaming cup of cocoa. But she couldn’t stop shivering.

Robert sat beside her and circled her shoulders with a warm hug.

“What’s going on, Robert? Have we got some kind of mysterious epidemic at Boulder High?”

“Two people sick? I don’t call that an epidemic. And I heard the mention of mono twice.”

“I’d like to think it’s mono. I need to think it’s mono.” Megan giggled despite her confused feelings. “But mono is contagious. You get it by kissing.”

Robert pulled her even closer. She snuggled in the hollow of his shoulder, not worrying about getting her clown white on his jacket. He kissed her fuzzy head, then her ear, which had escaped the green wig. “Are you going to wear that wig forever?”

Megan tugged off the lime green hair and tipped her face, her painted-on smile, toward Robert, wanting him to kiss her. “I might have mono.”

Robert took the cup from her hand, placing it on the hearth. “I’ll risk it, but if both of us get sick, who’ll report the epidemic?”

“Miss Hubbard?” Megan giggled. Their journalism teacher was single and would probably remain so unless her personality changed drastically. “I doubt she’ll catch it.”

“I’ve never kissed a clown before.” Robert’s lips closed over Megan’s.

With the fire behind them and the warmth of Robert’s kiss, Megan stopped shaking, but only until Robert spoke.

“What did you mean, Megan?” Robert questioned. “When you said Derrick wouldn’t care about Bunny?”

“I never said that.”

“Yes you did. When we were looking for him. I feel guilty about leaving him. I hope he gets home all right.”

Megan stopped listening to what Robert was saying. She didn’t remember the statement about Derrick, but she knew it was true. Derrick didn’t care what happened to Bunny or Cynthia. And she couldn’t shake another idea.

One that was totally crazy.

He had something to do with it.