Meg Cabot - All American Girl

But before I had time to ask what was so good about it (the morning, I mean), Mom went, in a shocked voice, as she looked out the window, “Oh . . . my . . . God.”

I got out of bed and came to see what my mom was Oh-my-Godding about, and was shocked to see that there were about three hundred people standing along the sidewalk in front of the hospital, all looking up in the direction of my room. The minute I appeared in the window, there was this roar, and all these people started pointing up at me and waving these posters and screaming.

My name. They were screaming my name!

My mom and I stared at each other, slack-jawed, then looked down again. There were news vans with huge satellite dishes on their roofs, and reporters standing around with microphones, and police officers everywhere, trying to hold back the huge crowd of people who had shown up, apparently just hoping to catch a glimpse of the girl who’d saved the life of the President.

Well, they caught a glimpse of me, all right. I mean, even though I was like three storeys up, they sure didn’t seem to miss me. Possibly that’s because I was in two hospital gowns and had this great big wad of red bed head coming out of my scalp, but whatever. They caught a glimpse of me, all right.

“Um,” my mom went as the two of us stood there, looking down at the big mess below. “I guess you should ... I don’t know. Wave?”

That sounded like a reasonable suggestion, so I lifted my good arm and waved.

More cheers and applause rose from the crowd. I waved again, just to make sure it was all because of me, but there was no doubt about it: those people were cheering. Cheering for me. Me , Samantha Madison, tenth grader and celebrity-drawing aficionado.

It was incredible. Like being Elvis, or something.

It was after I’d waved the second time that there was a knock on my door, and a nurse came in and went, “Oh, good, you’re up. We thought so when we heard the screaming.” Then she added, with a sunny smile, “A few things arrived for you. I hope you don’t mind if we bring them in now.”

And then, without waiting for a response from us, she held the door open. A stream of candy stripers holding floral arrangements—each one bigger than the last—came pouring into my room, until every last available flat surface, including the floor, was covered with roses and daisies and sunflowers and orchids and carnations and flowers I could not identify, all overflowing from these vases and making the room smell sickly sweet.

And there weren’t just flowers, either. There were balloon bouquets, too, dozens of them—red balloons, blue ones, white ones, pink ones, heart-shaped and metallic ones with Thanks and Get Well Soon written on them. Then came the teddy bears, twenty at least, of all different sizes and shapes, with bows at their throats and signs in their paws, signs that said things like, Just Grin and Bear It and Thank You Beary Much !

Seriously. I watched them come in and pile this stuff up, and all I could think was, Wait. Wait. There’s been a mistake. I don’t know anyone who would send me a Thank You Beary Much bear. Really. Not even as a joke.

But they just kept coming, more and more of them. The nurses, you could tell, thought it was pretty funny. Even the Secret Service guys, standing in the doorway, seemed to be smirking behind the reflective lenses of their sunglasses.

Only my mom seemed as stunned as I was. She kept running to each new bouquet and tearing open the card and reading the writing on it out loud, in tones of wonder:

“Thank you for your daring act of bravery.

Sincerely, the US Attorney General.”

“We need more Americans like you.

The Mayor of the District of Columbia.”

“For an angel on earth, with many thanks,

the people of Cleveland, Ohio.”

“With much appreciation for your bravery underfire,

the Prime Minister of Canada.”

“You on are an example for us all. . .

the Dalai Lama.”

This was way upsetting. I mean, the Dalai Lama thinks I’m an example? Um, not very likely. Not considering all the beef I have consumed in my lifetime.

“There’s a lot more downstairs,” one of the candy stripers informed us.

My mom looked up from a card written by the Emperor of Japan. “Oh?”

“We’re still irradiating most of the cards, and running the fruit and candy through the X-ray machines,” the Secret Service guys informed us.

“X-ray machines?” my mom echoed. “Whatever for?”

One of the agents shrugged. “Razor blades. Tacks. Whatever. Just in case.”

“Can’t be too careful,” the other agreed. “Lot of whackos out there.”

My mom looked as if she didn’t feel too good after that. All her daisy freshness drained right out of her. “Oh,” she said faintly.

It was right after that that my dad showed up with Lucy and Rebecca and Theresa in tow. Theresa gave me a knock on the back of the head for the scare I’d given her the day before.

“Imagine how I felt,” she said, “when the policeman told me I could not get through to pick you up because there’d been a shooting. I thought you were dead!”

Rebecca was more philosophical about the whole thing. “Sam’s not a member of the group with the highest risk of death from gun violence—males ages fifteen to thirty-four—so I wasn’t particularly worried.”

Lucy, however, was the one with the most urgent need to see me . . . and alone.

“C’mere,” she said, and pulled me into the room’s private bathroom, where she immediately locked the door behind her.

“Bad news,” she said, speaking low but fast—the same way she spoke to her fellow squad members when she felt they hadn’t been showing enough spirit during the human pyramid. “I overheard the chief hospital administrator ask Dad when you were ready for your press conference.”

“Press conference?” I sat down hard on the toilet. I really thought for a second I was going to pass out. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“Of course not,” Lucy said, matter of factly. “You’re a national hero. Everyone is expecting you to give a press conference. But don’t worry about it. Big sister Lucy has it all under control.”

With that, she slung her gym bag into the sink. Whatever was inside it—and I was pretty sure it was probably the entire contents of the medicine cabinet she and I shared—clanked ominously.

“First things first,” she said. “Let’s do something about that hair.”

It was only because I was in such a weakened physical state, what with my sleepless night and cast and all, that Lucy got the upper hand in that bathroom. I mean, I just didn’t have the strength to fight her. I did scream once, but I guess the Secret Service couldn’t hear me over the sound of the shower, since they didn’t come busting in, guns drawn, to save me this time.

But it would have taken a troop of commandos to stop Lucy. She had been waiting for this moment since the day I hit puberty, practically. Finally she had me in a position where I was powerless to stop her. She had brought with her not only a complete set of clothes for me, but a small arsenal of beauty products that she seemed intent upon squirting at me as I stood trapped in the shower stall, my broken arm, in its plaster cast, sticking out like a tree branch.

“This is awapuhi,” Lucy informed me, shooting something that smelled vaguely fruity at my head. “It’s a special Hawaiian ginger extract. Use it to wash your hair. And this is an apricot body scrub . . .”

“Lucy,” I yelled, as awapuhi got in my eyes, and I couldn’t, having only one free hand, get it out. “What are you trying to do to me?”