Broken Birthday Page 3

  “I don’t want to have an operation,” I said.

  “I know, sweetheart,” Mom said.

  “You’re going to be fine, darling,” Dad added.

  “That’s right,” Patricia said. “We have the best doctors in the world working here at Somers General. And they’ll come to talk to you about it before you’re wheeled in, so you will know exactly what to expect. Okay?”

  I said, “Okay,” but I didn’t actually feel okay about it.

  Patricia left, and my parents and I were waiting again. I never realized that the thing you do the most when you’re in a hospital is wait.

  “Can I use your cell phone to call Willa?” I asked.

  Mom shook her head. “Sorry, sweets,” she said. “There’s a rule against cell phone calls in the emergency room.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there are lots of medical machines in here,” she said. “Sometimes making a phone call can interfere with the work the machines are doing. But you can play some games, if you want.”

  “Really?” I asked. Mom and Dad never let Penny and me play games on their phones, even though a lot of other parents let their kids. They think it’s too much technology.

  “Sure.”

  “But it’s a rule that we can’t,” I reminded her.

  “I think it’s okay if we break that rule just this once, don’t you?” Mom asked.

  “Yeah, okay,” I told her. Mom took her phone from her purse and handed it over. I played two and a half games of Pony Hair Salon, and then two more people came in to talk to us. I was in the middle of braiding a palomino pony’s hair with yellow and blue sparkle ribbons when Dad motioned for me to give Mom her cell phone back.

  “Hello,” the man said. He had on scrubs and a stethoscope around his neck. I knew he was a doctor, not a nurse, because his scrubs were blue like Dr. Marconi’s, not the color of gummy Peachie O’s, like Patricia’s.

  He picked up the chart that was at the edge of my bed and studied it for a couple seconds.

  The woman who was with him wasn’t dressed as a doctor or a nurse. She had on gray pants and a pink sweater and she said, “You must be Stella.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And Mr. and Mrs. Batts?”

  “I’m Elaine,” Mom told her.

  “David,” Dad said.

  “I’m Mary Morrison. I’m a Child Life Specialist.”

  “You specialize in children’s lives?” I asked.

  “I specialize in helping kids who have to be in a hospital,” she said.

  The man put down my chart and introduced himself, too. His name was Dr. Fuentes and he was an anesthesiologist, which meant he was in charge of the medicine I’d get to put me to sleep for the operation, so I wouldn’t feel a thing. He said he had a few questions for us, but mostly they were for Mom and Dad, about whether I’d ever had anesthesia before (I hadn’t), and if I had any allergies (I didn’t).

  Mary Morrison had a bag with her, and she pulled an iPad out of it. When Dr. Fuentes was finished with his questions, she tapped on the iPad and turned it toward me to show me a picture of a white room with a bed in the middle and a bunch of machines around it. “This is what the operating room will look like,” she told me. She swiped to the next picture. “And here is Dr. Marconi, who will be doing your operation.”

  “I met her,” I said.

  She showed me more pictures—one of Dr. Fuentes, who was still standing in the room with us, and then the nurse, Patricia, who’d cut off my shorts. The last picture she showed me was of three people with caps on their heads and masks on their faces. “This is what your doctors and nurse will look like when they put on their surgical caps and masks. You can tell the doctors apart because Dr. Marconi wears a plain surgical cap, but Dr. Fuentes’s has a jungle pattern on it.”

  “A very sophisticated jungle pattern,” Dr. Fuentes said.

  “I know they don’t look like themselves,” Mary Morrison went on. “But trust me, they’re the same people under there. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Mary Morrison put the iPad back in her bag, and pulled something else out. “This is the mask that you’ll wear,” she said.

  The only time I’d ever worn a mask before was on Halloween. One time I was Spidergirl, and one time I was an owl. But this mask was much different from both of those. It was a see-through plastic circle that was big enough to fit over my nose and mouth. Mary Morrison gave it to me to hold. There was a tube coming out of the middle, and she told me that’s where the gas would come in.

  “Gas, like for a car?” I asked.

  “A different kind of gas,” she said. “This kind you breathe in, and it’ll make you fall asleep, so you won’t feel a thing during the operation. It may smell kind of funny, but I have something for you to take care of that.”

  She reached back down into her bag. You’ll never guess what she pulled out so I’ll just tell you. It was lip gloss! She had a bunch of different flavors: Banana Strawberry, Chocolate Milk, Vanilla Frosting, and Very Cherry.

  “Pick the one you want,” she told me.

  “I have to wear lip gloss in my operation?” I asked. I glanced over at Mom. “You always tell Penny and me that we’re too young for makeup.”

  “We can make an exception today,” Mom said.

  “Or not,” Mary Morrison said. “You don’t need to wear it if you don’t want to.”

  “I do want to,” I said.

  “Okay,” Mary Morrison said. “And we’ll also rub the flavor you pick on the mask, so you’ll smell the lip gloss instead of the gas.”

  She let me take the caps off all the lip glosses so I could smell them. I finally decided on Chocolate Milk, because it was the closest to smelling like chocolate fudge, which is my very favorite treat in the whole entire world.

  Mary Morrison made a note about my lip gloss choice. Then she left, and so did Dr. Fuentes. Mom, Dad, and I were waiting again, but not for long, because Dr. Marconi came back. She drew an X on my broken leg with a black marker. She said it was so everyone knew what leg needed to be operated on.

  There were papers for my parents to sign. Patricia was there and she flipped something on the bottom of my bed, and started to wheel me to the operating room. I was crying again. I couldn’t help it. Mom’s eyes were watery, like she was crying a little bit, too.

  We rode in an elevator, and then down a long hall. Patricia said, “Okay, Stella, we need to say good-bye to your parents now.”

  “No!” I cried.

  “It’s only for a couple hours. You won’t even feel the time passing, because you’ll be asleep.”

  “Mommy,” I said, crying more. I couldn’t help it. It felt like saying good-bye forever. “Daddy!”

  “I know, darling, I know,” Dad said.

  He clutched my hand. Mom kissed my cheeks and my forehead.

  I was holding Dad’s hands so tight, but he made me let go, so I grabbed on to Mom.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll be right here. So will Daddy. We’ll be right here waiting.”

  Dad helped her peel my hands off hers. I saw him put an arm around Mom. Then I was wheeled through the double doors, and they were gone.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Signal

  Dr. Fuentes and Dr. Marconi were already in the room when we got there. I could tell it was them from their surgical caps. Plus, there was another person, but I’d never seen him before. His surgical cap had little yellow ducks on it. He said his name was Peter. He had to be a nurse because his scrubs were the Peachie O’s color, plus, he told me his first name, which I’d figured out doctors never did.

  Patricia wheeled me up right beside the operating table. She and Peter lifted me up very VERY carefully, and moved me over. The bed got wheeled away, and Dr. Fuentes stood in the space where it had been.

  “Do you remember everything we talked about with Mary Morrison?” he asked me.

  I was still crying a little bit, but I managed to nod.

  �
�Chocolate Milk, right?” Peter asked, and I nodded again.

  Dr. Fuentes lifted a mask, just like the one in Mary Morrison’s bag, and moved to put it on my face.

  “No, no, I’m not ready!” I said.

  Patricia knelt beside me. Her face was so close to mine, I could smell her breath: minty, like she’d just had one of the green mint sucking candies we have on the Penny Candy Wall at Batts Confections.

  “It’s all right, Stella,” she said. “Dr. Fuentes is here to make sure you get all the medicine you need to fall asleep. Dr. Marconi will fix your leg. And Peter and I are here for you.”

  I looked over. Peter was right next to Dr. Fuentes, kneeling by me like Patricia was.

  “We’re here for you, Stella,” Patricia said again. “We’ll be here the whole time. We won’t leave you.”

  “That’s right,” Peter said.

  “What if I feel something and I can’t talk because there’s a mask on my face?” I asked.

  “You won’t feel a thing,” Peter told me. “No one ever does.”

  “But what if I do?” I asked. “This could be the first time someone feels something in an operation.”

  “We can have a signal,” Patricia said. “You can raise your hand.”

  “My right hand,” I told her. “There’s an IV in my left arm and that hand is harder to raise.”

  “Your right hand,” Patricia agreed.

  “Like this,” I said, and I raised my hand like I was in school and I knew the answer. I wished I were in school right then. Even though Mrs. Finkel was sometimes strict, I’d rather be with her than with all the doctors and nurses. I’d rather be anywhere else in the whole entire world!

  “I’ll stay here, on your right side, the whole time,” Patricia said. “I’ll look out for the signal. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “But, Stella,” Peter said, “I don’t think you’ll have to use it.”

  “It’s good to have one just in case,” I said. “Sometimes you wake up when something hurts. Like one time my sister pulled my hair when I was asleep. I felt it, and it made me wake up.”

  “The medicine will keep you asleep,” Peter said. “Don’t worry.”

  “And I know the signal,” Patricia said. She was speaking soft and low, just to me. And in that same voice she said, “Dr. Fuentes, I think we’re ready now.”

  Dr. Fuentes put the mask on me. It smelled like chocolate milk. But under the chocolate milk smell, there was something else, too. Something that smelled like rotten eggs. I felt my eyes get hot with tears again. “I hate this,” I said, even though there was a mask over my mouth and it was hard to speak.

  “Just breathe and count backwards in your head,” Patricia told me. “Let’s start at ten. By the time you get to one, I promise, you won’t be awake anymore.”

  She counted out loud and I counted in my head. “Ten.” I was still wide awake. “Nine.” Awake. “Eight.” Awake. “Seven. Six.” Awake. Awake. “Five.”

  Patricia’s voice got farther away, like she was speaking from across the street, or maybe down the block.

  “Four.”

  I couldn’t hear her anymore.

  What number came next?

  I couldn’t remember.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Recovery Room

  “Five! Four! Three! Two! One!” Dr. Marconi shouted. She wasn’t in her scrubs anymore. She was wearing a suit and a top hat.

  “Okay, let’s get this show started,” Dr. Fuentes said. I don’t know why he was dressed like a gorilla.

  “No, wait!” I cried. “I’m not asleep yet. I’m still awake. I’m still WIDE AWAKE!”

  “Patricia, turn up the music, will you?” Dr. Marconi said. “I can’t hear my cue.”

  Patricia didn’t look like herself anymore. She looked like Willa. Except not the same size. No, this Willa was as small as a fairy you could cup in your hand, and she floated over to the DJ booth at the corner of the operating room. I hadn’t noticed a DJ booth before.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Peter, who was right next to me. But he was wearing the gas mask, and he was sound asleep.

  Some music started blasting. It was the Barbra Streisand show tunes that Grandma always played in the car, but the words were all wrong, like the way Penny would sing them.

  The Willa-Patricia-fairy twirled up higher and higher until she floated into the sky. “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “To Pennsylvania,” she said, and she was gone.

  “Let’s get started,” Dr. Fuentes said again.

  “No! I’m still awake! And I don’t even have Patricia with me anymore! She flew away and left me!”

  Dr. Marconi took off her top hat and smeared Very Cherry lip gloss all over her lips. “Which leg is it again?”

  “You get to pick,” Dr. Fuentes said. “Hold on, I have a call.”

  Dr. Marconi did eeny meeny miny moe on my legs. Then she lifted my left leg and said, “I think I’ll operate on this.”

  “NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!” I cried.

  “Phone for you,” Dr. Fuentes the gorilla told Dr. Marconi, holding out a banana. Then he took my left leg in his big gorilla hands. “I’ll take care of this,” he said.

  “Help me!” I said to Peter, but he just rolled over in his sleep.

  I searched the sky for Patricia. I couldn’t see her, but I raised my right hand anyway. That was our signal. I raised it as high as I could and I waved it around and around. “I’m awake!” I cried. “Patricia, if you can hear me, I’m awake I’m awake I’m awake! WILLAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!”

  Someone was speaking. I didn’t recognize the voice, but she knew me. “I think Stella Batts is awake,” she said.

  “I know I’m awake!” I said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell everyone!”

  But my voice wasn’t working and my eyes were closed. It was hard to open my eyes. Why was it so hard to open my eyes?

  I tried my voice again. “Mmm mmm,” I said.

  “What was that, sweetheart?”

  There were sounds all around—beeps and blips, and footsteps, and things being wheeled around, and more voices.

  I tried talking again. “Help me! Help!”

  “There, there,” the stranger said. There was a cool hand on my hand. “Your parents will be here soon. Don’t worry. You’re fine. Don’t worry.”

  “I didn’t fall asleep yet,” I said. I opened my eyes, just a crack. Everything was fuzzy. “Don’t let them start yet. I didn’t fall asleep.”

  I tried to lift my other hand, the hand that wasn’t being held, to wipe my eyes. But something hurt and pulled me back.

  “Help!” I said. “I’m tied down!”

  “Stella, it’s okay,” the voice said. A hand was on my forehead now.

  “What’s happening to me?” I cried.

  “You still have the IV in. But the operation is all over. It went great.”

  “But I thought that . . . What happened to the doctors?”

  “They did a great job on your leg.”

  Someone patted the corners of my eyes with a tissue. I blinked and blinked. “You’re . . . ,” I started. “You look just like . . .”

  “I’m Joshua’s mom,” she supplied.

  That was it! Joshua from my class—it was his mom! Mrs. Lewis! What was she doing there with me, after my operation? I wanted MY mom. And my dad. And my house, and my room, and all my things. And maybe also some fudge from the store.

  “I’m a nurse,” Mrs. Lewis told me. “And you’re in the recovery room, where everyone comes after their operations. Another one of the nurses went to get your parents. They’ll be here in a minute. In the meantime, I won’t leave you.”

  My eyelids felt so heavy. I couldn’t keep them open. I closed them again. Mrs. Lewis kept her hand on my forehead, smoothing back my hair. “The hard part is over,” she said.

  Then I heard my mom’s voice. “Oh, Stella!”

  And my dad’s voice. “Hi, darling, we’re right here.” />
  I opened my eyes again, and I cried some more when I saw them. I don’t think I’d cried so much in one day ever in my whole entire life. Well, maybe I did when I was a baby. Marco sometimes cries the whole day for no reason.

  Unlike Marco, I had a reason. A big reason. I’d just broken my leg and had an operation and it was almost my birthday!

  But I was tired again, so I went back to sleep.

  CHAPTER 8

  Out With a Smash

  The next time I woke up, my eyes weren’t so heavy. It was almost like waking up on a regular day.

  Except on a regular day I’d be in my house, in my own bed. This bed was different. The sheets were white, and a little bit scratchy. The pillow wasn’t soft. My pillow at home is squishy as a marshmallow. And the most different thing—at the end of the bed, my broken leg was propped up on a big piece of foam.

  I turned my head. Dad was sitting in a chair, reading.

  “Hi,” I said.

  He put his book down. “Oh, hi there, darling,” he said, speaking softly. He leaned forward and pushed my bangs back from my eyes. “How are you feeling?”

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  Dad moved his hand from my forehead to check his watch. “Just about eight o’clock,” he said.

  “But it’s still light out,” I said, looking at the window behind him. “How is that possible?”

  “It’s not Friday anymore,” he said. “You slept through the night. It’s Saturday morning.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s so weird. When I fell asleep, I didn’t know I was going to sleep for the whole night. Now I’m in a whole new day. I wonder if I missed anything.”

  “You missed a lot of Mom and me pacing around, waiting for your operation to be over,” Dad said. “Then you fell back to sleep, and you missed being moved to this room, and the doctors getting your leg set up. You missed Mom kissing you good-bye.”

  “Oh no!” I said.

  “Don’t worry,” Dad said. “She’ll be back soon.”

  “Okay, good,” I said. I shifted around in bed.

  “Careful,” Dad said. “Your leg is really fragile.”