Chapter 6

Alone in Dr. Allen’s office, I stood up, sat down, rested my chin on my knuckles, and leaned my head back against the wall. Boredom would have been better than how nervous I felt. My stomach churned. I thought I might throw up again.

I rubbed my belly gently, hoping to calm myself down, and looked around.

Dr. Allen’s office seemed dark. The desk was made of a dark wood and the bookcases that edged the walls were of a similar dark wood. His flat-screen computer monitor was black, his penholder was black, and the leather chair behind the desk was black. Even the black-and-white framed photos of waterfalls were carefully placed on white walls.

Books of various sizes lined the shelf behind me. I couldn’t pronounce more than half the titles.

Whatever was going on had to be serious. They’d left me in the office for more than half an hour. I tried to ignore how frightened I felt. It was like that fear you have when you’re little and lying alone in your room at night and you just know there’s a monster under your bed. You figure if you don’t move—don’t even breathe—then it won’t get you.

Nothing made any sense. There had to be a reason I couldn’t hear. Once they figured out what was broken, they’d fix it. After all, that was what doctors did. They cured sick people. How long would it be before they’d get around to fixing me?

Then I remembered Tommy.

He used to live in the house next door. A hornet had climbed into his ear, stung him repeatedly as it crawled deeper and deeper inside. When he got back from the hospital, he had a bandage on his ear. I asked him to play outside. He said he wanted to stay inside. He pushed open the door, and as he looked over my shoulder, he hurried me inside his house, like he thought a swarm of bees were waiting to attack. In his room, he told me how insanely painful the stings had been, and about how the doctors had to remove the hornet. Days passed before he came out to play again. Days!

I didn’t feel any pain. But something was wrong with my ears. Something must be wrong. I just wanted the doctors to fix it, like they did for my friend.

The door to the doctor’s office finally opened. Mom and Dad walked in, followed by Dr. Allen. He was smiling, but his face looked pretty stiff to me. Mom’s eyes were red and she was biting her upper lip.

“Dad, why am I here?” I tugged at my earlobe. I could feel my throat vibrate and the static was back, a little louder than before. I kept coming back to the same hope: if the doctors got rid of the static, maybe I’d be able to hear again.

Dad stared at me. Only his eyes moved, like he was watching me from behind almond shaped cut-outs in one of those store-bought plastic Halloween masks.

Mom took my hand, sitting in the chair next to where I stood. My legs felt weak, my knees wobbled. I sat back down. Dad came over and stood behind me. He put his hands on my shoulders. The doctor moved around the desk and plopped into that big black leather chair. The air in the room seemed thicker, making it hard to breathe.

Questions kept forming in my mind, but I didn’t seem capable of asking them. And maybe, I don’t know, I wasn’t really thinking I would like the answers I would… hear.

Dr. Davis wrote on his tablet: You had meningitis.

I raised my eyebrows and shook my head as if saying: Yeah? And what is that? I didn’t really know what had made me sick. It had felt like a pretty bad flu. All I could really recall was passing out after the baseball game. I only vaguely remembered riding in the car to the hospital, and then the nurses and doctors rushing to get me to a bed in the emergency room.

He handed my parents and me a few stapled pages. At the top of the first page I saw the words: “Center for Disease Control and Prevention website.” In capital letters it said, “What Is Meningitis?” I started to read:

Bacterial Meningitis: an infection of the fluid of a person’s spinal cord and the fluid that surrounds the brain, can be severe and may result in brain damage, hearing loss, learning disability, or death…

My heart beat fast. “Am I going to die?”

Dr. Allen shook his head and smiled. I was really starting to hate all the smiling these doctors did.

I pressed my tongue against my top back teeth and tried to swallow. There was no spit in my mouth. I wiped sweat off my forehead and pointed at the words “hearing loss” in the handout.

Dr. Allen pursed his lips and nodded.

This couldn’t be happening. I pointed to the words “brain damage.”

The doctor shook his head.

How could he be so sure? Had anyone tested me for that? “How do you know I had meningitis?”

Dr. Allen turned a page in my handout and pointed to the top. I read the first paragraph under the heading “Signs and Symptoms of Meningitis.”

High fever, headache, and a stiff neck are common symptoms of meningitis. Other symptoms may include nausea, vomiting, discomfort looking into bright lights…

I thought back to the way I felt the night before and during the baseball game. That was exactly what I’d felt. Exactly.

Dr. Allen wrote on his pad. You were in a coma for eight days.

“I was asleep for more than a week?” I felt the air being sucked out of my lungs. “I’ve been in the hospital that long?” It seemed like the game was only yesterday. Wasn’t it?

Mom put a hand on my leg. Dad, still standing behind me, rubbed my shoulders. I felt alone in the room.

“Did I almost die?”

Dr. Allen paused before nodding.

“How come I got sick?” I felt suddenly tired as I read the answer. It could have been spread from a cough or a kiss. Some people carry the bacteria around and never get sick, but manage to infect the people they come in contact with.

“Was I contagious? Am I contagious now?”

Dr. Allen nodded, then wrote again on his pad and handed it to me. You were contagious. Not now. Everyone on your team, even the coaches, needed to go to the hospital. They all got checked out, and some were given antibiotics. Of course, your dad, mom, and sister were examined, too. If this had happened during the school year, everyone in your class, even your teachers, might have needed treatment. The school would have had to scrub down your locker, desks and destroy textbooks. Meningitis is a serious illness.

“But I’m better now, right? I mean, I’m not still sick, am I? Am I going to get sicker? Am I going to hear again?” I kept talking. I wanted to stop, to give the doctor a chance to answer, but couldn’t; I was a little out of control. “I’ll hear again. Right? Dad? Mom?” I looked at one, then the other.

Mom gave my leg a squeeze as if trying to reassure me, while Dr. Allen wrote on his pad for several more moments. When he handed the paper to me, I didn’t feel like reading his answer. I wanted Dr. Allen to talk, and me to listen. That was what I wanted.

You’re not still sick, and I see no reason why you would get sick again. You are a very fortunate young man. Some people who contract meningitis do not survive. Let me review some of the results from your hearing tests, OK?

“I don’t care about reviewing the tests.” I might have been yelling. It felt like I was yelling. I wanted to be yelling. “I just need to know what happened to my hearing!”

Dr. Allen wrote on his pad again and handed it to me. Then he said something to my parents. Mom looked like she’d placed something in her mouth before realizing it was a red-hot chili pepper. Her eyes opened wider, her nostrils flared, and her lips looked glued together. I read what the doctor wrote.

Meningitis gave you a very high fever, and the fever destroyed something called fine hair cells in your ears. These fine hair cells are what allow you to hear.

I struggled to catch my breath, to keep my cool. I wasn’t going to cry—not here. Not now. “What’s that mean? Does that mean I’m deaf, that I’m going to stay this way?”

For just a moment, Dr. Allen looked like he’d also placed a piece of that chili pepper in his mouth, but then his face went flat. No smile. No wide eyes. And he nodded.

“But that can’t be. I hear things. I can hear static. It comes and goes, but I hear it,” I explained, pointing at my ears. “Maybe once that clears up, I’ll be able to hear again?”

My parents’ eyes brightened and were hopeful, like mine, as we waited. That static I heard—it had to mean something!

The doctor’s chest rose and fell in a heavy sigh. He wrote on his pad: What you are describing is called tinnitus, a ringing in the ears. We don’t know why this happens, what causes it, or how to stop it.

Stop it? Why would I want to do that? It was sound—it proved I could still hear! “So I’ll be able to hear again, I mean, once the static stops.” It wasn’t a question. I was telling the doctor what had to happen.

That static sound may never stop. But if it does, it does not necessarily mean that you will be able to hear again.

The static sound may never stop? This was insane! I wouldn’t be able to take it. I was in a dream, no—a nightmare. Everything moved in slow motion. Like trying to get away from a dream-monster, only when you look down you see that your feet are on some kind of sticky floor—it gets harder and harder to take a step forward as the dream-monster closes in. And even though you realize it is a dream, it seems so real that you’re terrified.

That’s what was going on now. I was dreaming. Having this bizarre nightmare. There is nothing to be afraid of. All I have to do is scream, and I will wake myself up.

“Those hairs in my ear, they’ll grow back, right? And when they do, I’ll be able to hear again.”

The hairs will not grow back.

I looked up, mouth open—no air in my lungs.

Dr. Allen looked away.

This is it, the part where the monster has it in for me. So I screamed.