I CAME back from the hospital today. I had an abscessed tooth. Two weeks ago I woke up with a lump on my cheek. When the lump grew to the size of a marble and got blue, Sister Theo sent me to see Sister Nurse. The next thing I knew Brother Pitt was driving me to the hospital in the blue Volkswagen bus. Brother Pitt squints and talks in a gruff voice. He has a red nose. “Get in,” he growled, flinging the car door open. When I got in he slammed it shut with a loud bang.
The hospital where I went is made of red bricks, like school. My nurse was Miss Murdoch. I was at the children’s ward in a room with a window, a bathroom and two beds. In the next room there was a boy who had been burned in a house fire. Most of the time he had medicine to make him sleep, but sometimes he woke up at night and cried. Miss Murdoch wouldn’t let me visit him. She said I might give him germs and make him die. She made me stay in my room.
I liked it in the hospital. Father Sloane came to visit me and he let me wear his relic around my neck. It’s a tiny piece of bone from one of the saints that he keeps in a round gold case like a watch. Father Sloane said sometimes miracles happen because of the saints. He brought me lots of comics that he collected from the junior boys. Miss Murdoch came in three times a day with my pills. I swallowed them with a tiny paper cupful of water. She asked how I was doing and talked to me for awhile.
There was another girl in my room. Her name was Miyoki, a Japanese girl. She was fourteen. Her parents came to see her every day. They brought her treats like pop and chips and comics. Sometimes they gave me chips too. They talked to me a few times but mostly they just smiled and said hello. After Miyoki’s parents left we read our comics and traded. Miyoki and I both love art. I draw horses and she draws fruit or flowers. Mum and Dad would have come right over if they knew I was in the hospital. I guess Father Sloane never told them.
I wasn’t scared to sleep there but I still wouldn’t let my hands or feet dangle over the edge of the bed. I thought the devils might have followed me to the hospital. Mostly I just thought about home before I went to sleep.
My dad likes Japanese people. He guarded them in a camp near Firefly during World War II, and he learned some Japanese words from them. They told him about medicine tea. Sometimes he hunted deer for them. Once my brother Jimmy called them Japs and my dad took him in the woodshed and whipped him. Both my dad and Jimmy cried.
When my lump went away Miss Murdoch told me it was time to go back to school. She thought I would be happy, but I wasn’t. She gave me my tunic, my blouse and blazer and told me to get dressed. My brown oxfords felt heavy. That’s when I knew I had gotten weak from lying in bed too much. When Brother Pitt came with the bus to pick me up I told him my shoes felt heavy. He didn’t seem to hear me. “Get in,” he growled.