Another Saturday rolled around. I had promised to help Iliana with her service learning project. She rang the doorbell at exactly nine o’clock, but I wasn’t quite ready.
“Give me a minute to grab my stuff,” I told her.
I ran to my room, slipped on some shoes, and put the manila envelope and the clipboard with the sponsor forms in my backpack. Then I put my Chia Pets in a laundry basket, leaving SpongeBob for Jimmy since that was his favorite. When I returned to the living room, Mom was talking to Iliana. I felt a little embarrassed because Mom was in her robe and her hair was all messy.
“Have fun today,” she told me.
I noticed how she leaned against the doorway as if to hold herself up.
“Should I stay?” I asked. “I don’t have to go. I can lend Iliana my Chia Pets.”
“That’s right,” Iliana said. “If you need Erica to stay…”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mom interrupted. “Go have some fun.”
I nodded, even though part of me felt guilty for thinking about fun when she was still sick.
“Miguel!” Mom called out. “Chia’s leaving. Come say good-bye.”
Dad rushed over, but instead of saying bye to me, he took one look at Mom and said, “What are you doing out of bed? I thought you were sleeping.”
“I was,” she answered. “But I heard the doorbell and wanted to say hello.”
“The doorbell woke you up?” He sounded upset, and I couldn’t help thinking that if the doorbell were a kid, it would be grounded.
For her service learning project, Iliana was going to play with the children at Santa Rosa Hospital, which is across from a popular tourist spot called El Mercado, where visitors could eat Mexican food, watch ballet folklórico dances, and buy souvenirs. Her father drove us, and the hospital soon came into view. Its most impressive feature was an eight-story mural on its outer wall, a mosaic of tiles featuring a guardian angel in shades of purple and blue. She hovered over a Mexican boy with a dove in his hand. When I saw it, I glanced over my shoulder. I couldn’t help wondering if I had a protective spirit, too. After all, I almost got hurt so many times—like when I ran into the street and a car screeched to a stop right before hitting me, and when I slipped and nearly fell off a cliff at Lost Maples State Park, and when a library bookcase tipped over as I climbed it, spilling its books but failing to crush me because a column kept it from crashing to the floor. Surely, I had a guardian angel, and if I had one, then my friends had one too, and my mom. But what about the times we did get hurt… or sick? Where were the angels then? Weren’t they watching all the time? I was beginning to doubt because I’d been working so hard on my promesa, yet Mom was still sick… sicker, in fact, with her swollen arm and with dark circles under her eyes. I knew I shouldn’t think this, but sometimes those angels did a terrible job.
Iliana’s father dropped us off, and we carried the basket of Chia Pets to the children’s ward. Every time we saw a cute guy in scrubs or a lab coat, Iliana said, “Do you think he’s a doctor?” And every time we passed a glass door, she checked her makeup and said, “Do I have enough mascara?” or “Is my lip gloss shiny enough?”
“Are you here to help kids or find a boyfriend?” I finally asked.
She shrugged, but I knew what the answer was.
“Don’t you think doctors are too old for you?” I said, remembering how GumWad had said the same thing to me at Sonic.
“It doesn’t hurt to imagine. I might marry a doctor someday. You never know.”
I could only shake my head.
We made our way to the nurse’s station on the pediatric ward. I got a visitor pass, while Iliana got a special “I’m a volunteer” button. The nurse said, “They’re waiting for you,” as she led us to the patients.
“That’s great,” I said, and I asked how old the children were and what they normally did when volunteers came. Meanwhile, Iliana didn’t say a word. She kept slowing down, and because we both carried the basket, I had to slow down, too.
Finally, we reached the play area. It had a giant floor mat with brightly colored squares, each featuring a letter of the alphabet or a number. Against the wall, goldfish swam in a tank with multicolored gravel, fake plants, a scuba diver bobbing up and down as he released bubbles, and a sunken ship with windows big enough for the fish to swim through. Buckets of crayons and colored pencils were on the tables, and toy boxes filled with stuffed animals, puzzles, and board games lined the walls. A few parents stood around, too.
“Have fun,” the nurse said before returning to her station.
“What do I do now?” Iliana whispered. She sounded panicky.
“Talk to the kids,” I suggested.
But she didn’t say anything. She just stared at them. A few kids were in wheelchairs. Others had IVs or oxygen masks. One boy didn’t have a leg, and one girl was bald with a long scar on her head. There were also kids who didn’t seem sick at first. Except for the hospital gowns and ID bracelets, they looked like students on a field trip. But then, you noticed that they were tired or pale or extra thin. You noticed something else, too. All of them had added a personal touch to their hospital clothes—slippers shaped like fire trucks or teddy bears, crazy socks with stripes or polka dots, robes with cartoon characters, or baseball caps with the logos of their favorite teams. Sure, the children weren’t feeling 100 percent, but that didn’t stop them from having a sense of humor and a sense of style. They had a special kind of bravery, the kind I saw in my mom whenever she laughed at her own situation. She wasn’t in denial, like my dad thought. She was trying to make the best of things.
I nudged Iliana. She didn’t move. The kids stared at us, full of expectation, so I nudged Iliana again. Nothing. This was going to be a disaster if I didn’t act fast.
“Good morning, everyone,” I said.
They stayed silent.
“Good morning,” I said again, this time with a big smile and my arms moving like a drum major’s urging the band to play.
This time they said, “Good morning.”
I glanced at Iliana. She was looking at me. Very quietly, she said, “Go on.”
So I said, “My name’s Erica, and this is my friend Iliana. You can call me Erica the elephant, and you can call her Iliana the iguana.”
The children laughed at that.
“So who are you?” I asked, pointing to a girl who wore a jangly bracelet.
“Susan the swan.”
“Hello, Susan. You have beautiful feathers.”
She brushed her arm as if smoothing a wing.
“And you?” I pointed to a boy.
“I’m Hugo the…”—he looked up—“Hugo the hyena.”
“And I’m Clarisa the camel,” another girl said.
After that, everyone jumped in, all of them giving us their names and laughing at the animals they chose. Soon, Iliana the iguana was laughing, too.
“Why don’t we make name tags?” she said, finally warming up to her job.
She pulled some blank stickers from her purse, and the children wrote their names and drew their animals. Then they pressed the stickers onto their gowns. Now everyone knew everyone else.
“What’s in the basket?” a boy named Juan asked.
“More animals for our zoo,” I announced. I reached in and pulled out Mickey Mouse, his big ears peeking through the green hair.
The kids giggled.
Juan laughed, “Mickey doesn’t have hair!”
“Well, this isn’t Mickey,” I explained. “This is Mitch, his green-haired cousin.”
The giggles turned to laughter. The children wanted to see the other Chia Pets, so Iliana and I took them out, telling a story for each one. Then we handed them to the children.
Some were too weak to hold the Chia Pets, so we put them on their laps or nearby tables. They smiled and petted the funny green hair. Soon, Iliana and I heard animal noises even from Chia Pets based on historical figures. Abe Lincoln barked, and Einstein mooed. One girl had a kitten, but instead of meowing, it quacked. Why not? If a kitten could have green fur, then it could quack, too. We were acting so silly, all of us, and I caught myself laughing till my belly hurt. When I glanced at my mood ring, it was red, which meant I was feeling energized and adventurous.
Now that Iliana knew what to do, I decided to work on my own project. Since I was at a hospital, I figured lots of people would know how I felt about my mom. After all, if they were here, then they knew someone who was sick. Surely they wanted to cure diseases, so I went to the lobby to ask for sponsors.
“Hello, can I speak to you?” I said to the first group who walked in. When they saw my clipboard, they hurried away. I asked the next group. They shook their heads and said, “Not now.” This was turning into a repeat of going door to door. But eventually, people stopped to listen, and they were very understanding. Some even admitted knowing someone with cancer, too. So I was able to collect more sponsors. After a while, I was on a roll. Maybe this had been the answer all along. Instead of ringing doorbells, I should go to hospital lobbies. San Antonio had lots of hospitals. Maybe I could visit them all. What a great strategy! I finally had a genius idea. At least, that’s what I thought until a security guard approached and said, “I’m sorry, miss, but you are not allowed to solicit here.”
“I’m not soliciting,” I explained. “I’m just trying to get donations.”
He put his hands on his hips as if to scold me. “That’s what ‘soliciting’ means,” he said.
I felt so stupid. If I were Carmen, I would have known the definition and wouldn’t have made a fool of myself. But I wasn’t Carmen. I wasn’t a child genius. I was Erica, dumb Erica, a failure at math, at vocabulary, and at finding five hundred names.
“I’m afraid I have to ask you to stop,” the security guard said.
So I left, returning to the pediatric ward, all down in the dumps. When I got there, most of the kids were gone, and those who remained had moved to other activities, which meant my Chia Pets were scattered about, completely ignored. One was on the floor, not broken but on its side, the leaves getting squished. And over by the giant window, Iliana was giggling with some guy. Okay, he was amazingly cute, but he wasn’t wearing a hospital gown, so he wasn’t a patient, which meant she had no business talking to him. She was here to work with the kids.
“What are you doing?” I said to her.
She didn’t catch my anger at all. “Oh, Erica. Back already?” She glanced at her watch. “I guess time flies when you’re having fun,” she said, smiling at the boy, who smiled back. He was even cuter when he smiled, which just made me angrier.
“Aren’t you supposed to be playing with the kids?” I said.
“I was. We had a great time, but then I met Alan, Clarisa’s older brother. You remember Clarisa, right? Clarisa the camel?” She told Alan about the name game we played, taking all the credit. He said she was clever, and she giggled again.
Normally, Iliana’s flirting wouldn’t bother me. In fact, I’d be flirting, too. But not today, when we were supposed to be working on our projects! How could she play around like this in a hospital where people were sick or dying—even little children, the very children she came to meet? There I was, in the lobby, begging for sponsors and then being humiliated by the security guard, while she was up here playing around. This was a game to her, but for me it was life and death, my mom’s life and death.
I knew I was about to cry. That’s how angry I felt. So I decided to calm myself by collecting my Chia Pets. That’s when I noticed some were missing. I counted. Yes, nine Chia Pets were gone!
“Where’s Tweety?” I asked Iliana. “Where’s the president?” I held out the basket to show her how empty it was.
She shrugged. “A couple of kids asked if they could have them, and I said yes. I guess the other kids thought they could take them, too.”
“You gave away my Chia Pets?” I couldn’t help it. I shouted.
That’s when Iliana finally realized I was angry. She got apologetic. “I’m sorry, Erica. I thought you wanted to give them away. I thought that’s why you brought them.”
“I’ve been collecting them since I was a baby, so why would I give them away?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I thought you were tired of them.”
“But I love my Chia Pets. They make me laugh. They’re like my friends! And my whole family calls me Chia. It’s like my identity. What are they going to call me if I don’t have the pets anymore?”
I wasn’t making any sense. Even as I spoke, I could tell how ridiculous I sounded.
“My mom’s the one who started the tradition,” I said.
Iliana’s eyes got watery. “I’m sorry.”
I wasn’t in the mood to forgive, but I didn’t want her to cry, either. I glanced at my mood ring to figure out how I felt. It was orange, a firebrick shade, which meant I was feeling vexed. Breathe in, breathe out, I told myself. I did this three times, trying my best to change the color of my mood ring.
“My sister took one,” Alan confessed. “I’ll go get it for you.”
He turned toward the rooms and was almost out of the play area when I called him back. “Wait!” He stopped and looked at me. “She can have it,” I said.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
I nodded. After all, how could I take a Chia Pet away from a sick child, especially one as cute as Clarisa the camel? If she was anything like Jimmy, she’d start to cry. All the kids would cry. I didn’t want to cause so much sadness, especially when I came here to make them laugh.
“Are you sure?” Iliana repeated, and I nodded again. Sometimes, it was too late to get things back even if they were still close by.
I made another pass through the play area in case I had overlooked a Chia Pet, but, no, they were definitely gone. Meanwhile, Iliana and Alan exchanged cell phone numbers and said good-bye. Then Iliana asked a nurse to sign her timesheet, and we headed to the elevators. When we got there, I spotted a directory of the hospital departments. I pointed at the word “oncology” and said, “That’s where the cancer patients go.”
And that’s when the tears finally came. I couldn’t push them down anymore.
“Oh, Erica,” Iliana said. She hugged me. She probably knew I wasn’t crying about Chia Pets, but about my mom.
A moment later, the elevator doors opened. Some people came out. They saw my tears, but they didn’t say anything. Why would they? We were in a hospital, where tears were more normal than smiles.