10
The Baths
Sunday, November 9
A furry lion pawed at me with its huge claws.
Principal Striker? Is that you?
Wait! The lion was trying to tell me something. Had to write it down. Oh, yeah. Lion wants to go to the museum. What long whiskers you have, Principal Striker. And what a fluffy tail, too. Never noticed that before. My eyes burned. So did my throat.
Sooooo tired. Still… have an idea. A really, really good idea.
Nice lion. Nice lion. You’re very wise. Now, please, Principal Striker, don’t eat my face.
Trembling fingers. Mine. A keyboard. A message. A lion’s paw? I definitely was not in the principal’s office anymore.
Voices floated around the room.
“… exhaustion…”
“… high fever…”
“… worn out…”
Phrases broke apart like bits of paper, ripped up and tossed like confetti. My language arts teacher would be very proud of how poetic my mind was while in the throes of fever. I felt too tired to move.
In my mind, I was waving frantically for them to come closer. Wanted to share my idea. But my eyes felt glued shut. Maybe a nap instead…
By Thursday the fever was gone. I was still tired, but the worst of it had passed.
Dad said he’d received a call telling him I fainted at school. He took me to the hospital and they pumped me full of meds and sent me home. He was told my temperature was 107 degrees.
“Any higher and you might’ve had brain damage!” he said.
Katy said, “Daddy, are you sure you got to her in time? In fact, are you sure she didn’t already have some sort of fever before?”
I made a face at her, but she smiled and squeezed my hand. Her scruffy cat was sitting on the bed, a wreath of yellowish fur around its face making it look like a tiny lion. A lion? A memory tried to struggle up from the fuzziness of my brain. But I couldn’t quite make it out.
Katy said, “I know how much you hate the animals. Don’t worry, I’ll get her out of here. But while you were knocked out, we couldn’t get her to leave your room.”
My hands shot out and scooped up the cat before she had the chance to remove it.
“No!” I said, holding the cat close to me. My voice was hoarse and thick. “I want to keep her!”
The room went silent. Dad came and put his hand on my forehead. Mom squinted, looking worried. She said, “Brianna, are you sure you’re all right?”
I let out a long, shaky breath. “Fine, Mom. It’s just… I’ve kinda gotten used to the ratty old thing. I want to keep her. I’m going to name her Angel.”
They all looked at me for a long moment. Then Mom nodded. “That’s fine, baby. We’ll talk about it later.”
She started telling me about Mr. G.’s visits to the house.
“He’s been here a few times. He’s really worried about you. Your friends have been here, too!”
Dad rolled his eyes. “Sara, she showed up with some fuzzy concoction on her head, bright red lips. With those skinny legs, she looked like a chicken,” he said.
Mom swatted him on the shoulder.
They stared at me. Mom said, “I think you need more rest. You and… um, Angel, should just be calm. I’ll bring you up some juice and crackers.”
I tried to object, but found myself drifting off to sleep again before they were even out of the room. By Friday, I felt much better, but Mom and Dad still wouldn’t let me have any company. They wouldn’t even let me use the computer.
“We should’ve been keeping a closer eye on you,” Mom said. She had her stern-mama face on. “You’ve been running yourself into the ground. No wonder you’ve been acting like you’ve lost your mind lately. You’ve driven yourself crazy with exhaustion.
“No computer, phone, nothing before tomorrow. If your temperature continues to be good, we’ll let a few folks stop in to visit,” she said.
Even after I told her, “I love you, Mommy!” she wouldn’t cave. She just kept telling me to take a hot bath. Said the heat would sweat out the last of the fever. I felt like a pickle.
Saturday was the Michigan vs. Michigan State game. My folks were letting a few of my friends stop by.
That was when I finally got information about what was going on.
First of all, Mr. Galafinkis had, indeed, been to the house. He told my parents that he was very proud of the work I was doing. Huh?
Then he sent an e-mail that blew my mind:
Your fund-raising ideas are excellent. Thanks to a lot of good students and your friends reaching out, we have accomplished a lot. I am so sorry if the stress of making our trip possible contributed to your ill health. However, rest assured, we are working hard on your behalf. The event should be spectacular. Reaching out to the Detroit Institute of Arts and getting their approval like that, Brianna, was pure genius. The entire sixth grade owes you a debt of gratitude. Get well soon!
Sincerely,
Mr. G.
P.S. Thanks to an anonymous e-mail that Principal Striker received about some underhanded work on the part of Braxton Brattley, rest assured that neither he nor his brother will trouble you again.
I reread the e-mail several times.
What idea?
And the Detroit Institute of Arts? What was that all about? Again, a memory stuffed deep in my head struggled to free itself. Something to do with an idea that came to me when I was sick. Only I couldn’t quite remember what it was.
Dad told me that he’d spoken with Principal Striker, too. Principal Striker told Dad about Braxton’s attempts to overthrow the sixth-grade government. The principal wasn’t going to make me step down. In fact, he’d received an anonymous tip that Braxton Brattley was “misappropriating” school funds. Misappropriating was a fancy word for stealing. So now Braxton was on probation.
I wondered, who ratted him out?
Maybe I’ll send him a muffin basket. Or maybe not.
Down in the family room, finally out of bed, I was dressed in pajamas with a sweatshirt over the top, two pairs of socks, and fuzzy slippers. I wasn’t cold, but Mom had turned into her superhero alter ego, Overprotective Mom.
“DAD!” I whined. More like rasped, with my scratchy-sounding voice.
“Jean!” my dad said to my mom. “Give her some room. And maybe she doesn’t have to wear two pairs of socks AND the slippers.”
I sank down on the deep cushions of the sectional and read Mr. G.’s e-mail for like the eleven hundredth time. The stuff about Braxton I got; but the business about the fund-raising idea, that was still fuzzy.
Then I heard the kitchen door open. Next thing I knew, footsteps came racing from around the corner.
“Bree-Bree! Bree-Bree! Bree-Bree!” shouted Liam. My father tried to catch him by the coat, but the little squirt was too fast. Liam flung himself against me, burying his face into my neck. I could smell the cold air from outside on his clothes, could almost taste the sunshine on his moon-pie cheeks. He was delicious!
“Bree-Bree, guess what?” He slid off me just far enough to look in my eyes. His knit cap was navy blue to match the marshmallow-puff jacket he wore.
“Come on, little man,” Dad said. “Give her some space. She’s still recovering.” My cousin was an excited blur of fast talking and big, dimply smiles. He told me all about his big news—how his teacher was planning to buy a whole box of my cupcakes from Wetzel’s.
He grinned. “I told her you were my cousin!”
I couldn’t help laughing. I put my arms around him and squeezed.
As the day went on, a constant stream of visitors popped in to check on me. Katy came in, snapped a photo of me with Angel on my chest, and said she was making a poster of it.
“My sister, the heartless mogul, turned into an animal lover. Yes, my work here is done. Thank you, thank you!”
When Sara and Becks came over, Sara hugged me and said, “Sweetie pie, we’ve got your back, all the way!”
She and Becks told me that after Mrs. Benson from the Henry Ford Museum called the DIA, they had been able to set my idea in motion.
When I stared at them blankly, they misunderstood at first.
“Oh, don’t worry, Bree. We know how you like to do things a certain way. So we followed all of your instructions. Soon as you come back to school, you’ll be back in charge,” Becks said from the doorway. She was scared I might be contagious, even though my dad told her I was cootie free. You can’t catch dehydration, anyway. But like I said, Becks had always been a little paranoid about germs.
“Do what a certain way?”
Sara finally realized I had no idea what she meant. She grabbed my clipboard and flipped back several sheets. “Your dad said you must’ve come up with this just before you conked out,” she said, showing me the date next to some scrawly-looking handwriting. “You don’t remember?”
Daddy stuck his head into the room and said, “When you should have been passed out from being pumped full of fluids, you somehow managed to make a phone call. You called Mrs. Benson, the woman from the Henry Ford Museum. She called the Detroit Institute of Arts and they ultimately called your teacher.”
Sara picked up the story. “Your idea is genius!”
I squinted, reading the clipboard.
Then the memory came back. Me with my voice all scratchy and hoarse on Monday when I’d stayed home sick, calling the museum lady from Henry Ford. I laughed to myself. The cat was sitting on my chest when I called her. The memory was getting clearer. Then I turned to Sara.
“And this is what you guys have been working on all week?” I asked.
“Sweetie, they’ve been working like dogs,” said Becks.
“Does Mr. G. really think we’ll be able to raise enough money to make the trip happen?” I asked, turning back to her.
She nodded.
“He thinks it could be our biggest moneymaker ever. But Bree, there’s still A LOT to do. So get better soon.”
I couldn’t help feeling a huge dose of love for my friends. To do this, to work this hard, it made whatever we’d been upset about before seem stupid.
That’s what it meant to have friends, I told myself. When you really need help, true friends are the ones who show up.