Ann Martin - Stacey's Emergency

"A puppy and a chick. No match!" cried Char.

Claudia turned the two cards facedown again, and then Charlotte took her turn at trying to find a pair. No match.

The game continued. It was very close. Charlotte is just plain smart, and Claudia has a good visual memory. (Maybe that's why art is so appealing to her.)

The game was tied nine to nine when the telephone rang.

"I'll get it!" said Char.

"Okay," replied Claudia. "But remember, don't say that your mommy and daddy aren't at home. Just say — "

"I know/' Charlotte interrupted. "Say they can't come to the phone right now. Then take a message."

"Right." Claudia smiled.

"Oh, and no peeking at the cards while I'm gone," said Char.

"Promise," Claud answered. "No peeking. Cross my heart."

Charlotte ran into the kitchen. A few moments later she returned to the living room. "Claudia?" she said, with a catch in her voice. "That's Mrs. McGill. She wants to talk to you. She sounds like she's been crying or something."

"Are you sure?" said Claud, not even bothering to wait for an answer. She dashed into the kitchen and picked up the phone. "Mrs. McGill?" she said.

My mother did sound as if she'd been crying. That was because she had been. My father had called her an hour or two earlier, to tell her what had happened. And as soon as they hung up, Mom had freaked out completely. Then she began packing two suitcases — one for her and one for me.

Mom thought about driving straight to New York that very moment, but Dad discouraged her. This was not because he didn't want to see her. It was because she wouldn't have enough time to pack before the last train of

the night left for New York, and Dad could tell that Mom was much too worried to drive the car for two hours in the pitch-black. So Mom decided to drive to New York the next morning. (I know all this because Dad was sitting in a chair in my private room at the hospital when he called Mom. I couldn't help but hear his end of the conversation.)

Maybe it was no wonder that Mom had freaked out. She and Dad and I know that with the kind of diabetes I have, I can get sick no matter how strictly I stick to my diet and no matter how careful I am about giving myself the insulin injections. I guess none of us wanted to think about that, though.

Anyway, Mom felt better (she said) if she kept herself busy. So first she packed the suitcases. She knew I'd brought only enough things for the weekend, so she put some extra underwear, some nightgowns, my bathrobe, and a few other things into a bag for me.

Then she reorganized the closet.

And then she called Claudia.

She knew that Claud and the rest of my friends should be told what had happened. They would freak out if they thought my mom and I had disappeared off the face of the earth. Anyway, a best friend should know when her best friend is in the hospital.

"Hi, Claudia?" said my mother when Claud

picked up the phone in the Johanssens' kitchen. Mom wasn't sure how to break the news.

"This is Claudia. Um ... is everything all right?"

"Well, not exactly. I guess I might as well come right out and tell you. Stacey went into the hospital today. In New York."

"Oh, my lord," Claud whispered. "What happened?" (Claud told me later that the first thing she thought of was not my diabetes but the horrible news reports she hears on TV every night. All the murders and attacks and muggings in New York. I don't think this is quite fair, because people can get mugged or murdered anywhere, but I guess New York City does have a bad reputation.)

"Stacey's blood sugar has shot way up," my mom told Claud.

At this point, Claud actually sighed with relief. She'd been picturing me lying in bed with stab wounds or something. But then Mom went on to say, "She's pretty sick. The doctors aren't yet sure why her blood sugar level is so high. Right now, they're just trying to stabilize it. Then they'll begin doing tests. A lot of them, apparently. She may be in the hospital for awhile. ... I just thought you'd want to know."

"Oh . . . oh, yes. I — I'm glad you called.

I mean — I mean, I'm sorry Stacey's sick," Claudia stammered, "but I do want to know. ... Can I call her?"

"Sure. Not tonight, because she needs her rest, but I know she'd be delighted to hear from her friends tomorrow. And if she's still in the hospital next weekend — and I'm not saying she will be — but if she is, you can come visit her on Saturday or Sunday, if your parents give you permission."

"Okay," said Claud, her voice shaking slightly. She took down the phone number that my mom gave her. Then Mom said she was leaving for New York the next day, asked Claud to get my homework assignments from my teachers (why did Mom have to think of that?), and told Claud not to worry and that she'd keep in touch.

When Claudia hung up the phone, she knew what she had to do first. Tell Charlotte the news. And she would have to do that carefully, since Charlotte is pretty attached to me.

"Char?" said Claudia, not wasting a moment.

"Yes?" Charlotte had been standing in the doorway to the kitchen all that time. She knew something was wrong.

"Char, um, let's go into the living room and talk." Claudia led Charlotte to the couch and

sat down next to her. "I guess the easiest way to tell you this is just to say it. Stacey's in the hospital in New York."

Charlotte looked horrified. "Did the Stalker get her?" she asked shrilly.

"What?" said Claud.

"The Stalker. I've been reading about him in the paper. He stalks girls and then he — "

"Oh, no!" interrupted Claud. "It's not that. Stacey's sick. Her diabetes."

"Oooh."

And in a flash, pretty much as Claudia had expected, Charlotte fell apart. She began to sob. All Claudia could do was hold her. She couldn't tell her it would be all right, because she didn't know that for sure. However, when Char had calmed down, she and Claud put together a care package for me: a crossword puzzle book, a drawing by Charlotte, and a few other things. Claud promised to mail it to me on Monday. During the rest of the evening, Charlotte asked questions such as, "Is Stacey going to die? What if she has to stay in New York where her doctors are and she can never come back here?"

Poor Claudia was stuck with the job of trying to answer those questions — and later with calling the other BSC members to spread the bad news.

Chapter 8.

On Sunday at noon, Mom walked into my room at the hospital. I had been in there for almost twenty-four hours. Dad had stayed with me the entire time, except for a few hours very early in the morning when he went back to his apartment to try to catch a little sleep and to change his clothes. I had told Dad that he didn't have to stay with me, but when he said that he wanted to, I was secretly glad. You won't understand why unless you've been in the hospital yourself. (I mean, apart from the time you were born. That doesn't count, because you don't remember it.) The thing is that no matter how hard the doctors and nurses and other staff members try, most hospitals are very impersonal places. They feel impersonal, anyway. At least to me. I-don't care how many clowns come to visit or how many pretty posters and balloons decorate the

walls of the ward. A hospital is still a hospital, and that means:

— There are so many nurses and doctors you can't keep track of them all. (I wished my specialist were there, but he was on vacation for two weeks. He wasn't even in New York.)

— You wonder how the nurses and doctors know who you are. (Are you really Stacey McGill — a person — or are you just "that patient in Room 322"?)

— You have hardly any privacy. All day long, you are poked and prodded, sometimes by people you've never seen before. All night long, the nurses check on you. This happens about once an hour. Since the door to your room is left open, there is always light flooding in on you. On top of that, squeaky, rubbery nurses' shoes constantly step into your room. Sometimes they approach your bed, and then you know that the night nurse is going to take your temperature or something.