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  Gavin vomited when we got upstairs. Mick cleaned it up while I gave Gavin a bath. He was feeling a little better by then, so I left them together and went off to pick up a frozen mac and cheese for our lunch. When I came back, the two of them were sound asleep on the couch.

  I don’t want to have babies yet.

  I really don’t. I want to get my nursing degree and start my career, but…but…seeing Mick lying there with Gavin in his arms, I couldn’t help thinking what a great dad he would make. Especially if the kids got his eyes.

  And his hands.

  And that funny smile of his.

  (I’m bad…)

  Note to Self

  1. Arrange for babysitter for spring dance.

  2. Decide about long hair or updo.

  Mick

  Chapter Thirteen

  We’re in my car in front of her place. I’ve turned off the engine. I lean over to kiss her, but I can tell something’s wrong. I sit back and look at her.

  “Dalma?” I say.

  “Yes?” Even yes is funny when she says it.

  Her arms are folded on her lap.

  It’s not the most inviting pose.

  “Why you smile?” she says.

  “I like you.”

  She turns and looks out the windshield, as if there’s something to see other than some garbage bags out for tomorrow’s pickup.

  “No,” she says. “I think you like Jade.” She pronounces it “Yade.”

  I shake my head. I say, “No, no, no, no, no.”

  I reach over and take her hand. “I know that’s what this looks like, but that’s wrong. It’s just Gavin. Her little brother. He’s sick. She needs my help. That’s all this is.”

  I yammer on for a while. Dalma’s hand has gone kind of limp in mine. She doesn’t believe me. I tell her how long Jade and I went out, how we’re still friends, how I’m really close to Gavin—but that only makes it worse.

  “Dalma, please,” I say.

  I sit there, holding her hand, looking at her. After a while, she turns and looks at me too. I get the feeling that if I can say the right thing, it’ll be okay.

  Her father’s strict. I’ve got ten minutes to make my case, then she has to be inside.

  I think of Gavin, puking on the kitchen floor. I think of Jade and her pile of laundry and her lunches to make and her homework to do. I think of Quinn saying I’m not the only guy interested in Dalma.

  I rub her fingers. They’re long and straight—I wasn’t surprised at all when she told me she plays the piano. I really like her.

  “Dalma, I promise. This isn’t going to happen again. I’m going to take care of this.”

  Jade’s Diary

  Chapter Fourteen

  April 24

  It’s as if Mick has just disappeared. He isn’t in the cafeteria at lunchtime anymore. He wasn’t shooting hoops in his third-period spare. On Tuesday, he wasn’t even in English class. He was there Wednesday, but he barely said hi.

  It is starting to worry me. We’ve come so far in the last couple of weeks—then this. I don’t know if I can stand the emotional roller coaster anymore. (Especially since my dress arrived yesterday for the spring dance. I’m not even sure we’re going yet!)

  I got Gavin to sleep, then I had a little cry. This doesn’t make any sense. Why is Mick acting this way? We were so much happier when we were together. If he’d just relax and spend some time with me again, he’d see that. He’s got to stop listening to Quinn. He’s got to stop whatever he thinks he’s doing with Dalma. He can’t keep screwing up our lives this way.

  I felt so sad and mad and frustrated. I tried to do some ironing, but I had to stop. I was afraid I’d burn something.

  I stood there for the longest time, staring at the steam coming out of the iron. I burned myself before. I remember how much it hurt. It was right before Dad left. He put this special ointment on it and let me stay up late watching TV with him. I was only seven, but the scar’s still there. That made me cry again, and I don’t have time for that. I said, “Jade. Pull yourself together. You’re being ridiculous. You’re a strong person. You’re a good person. You work hard. You deserve to be happy. It will hurt for a while, but you can do it.”

  I wiped the tears away, and then I got up. I put my books away and decided what I was going to wear tomorrow. I made Gavin his lunch. I gave him a little extra this time, just to be on the safe side.

  Now I’ve just got to figure out which shoes to get for the dance. I’m worried the teal ones might be too old-ladyish. I’ve got to make up my mind by tomorrow, or they won’t be here in time for the dance.

  Note to Self

  1. Text Lily BEFORE English class.

  2. Check Mom’s work schedule.

  Mick

  Chapter Fifteen

  I’ve been driving Dalma to school almost every day. It’s going to get me in trouble. I can’t seem to make it from the parking lot to class on time.

  I walk into English with a big smile on my face. Ubu goes, “Why, if it isn’t the late great Mr. Staynor.” I brace myself, but all he says is, “How wonderful to see someone so obviously delighted to take my class.”

  Jade’s been late a few times herself, so I don’t notice her empty seat until he calls her name for attendance. I’m flipping through my textbook, trying to remember if there was anything I was supposed to do for today, when Lily says, “She quit.”

  Mr. Ubu takes off his glasses. They dangle by the string around his neck. “Quit?” He’s as shocked as I am.

  Lily checks her phone. “That’s what she said.”

  “Quit English?” Ubu loves Jade. She’s his star student.

  “No. Quit school.”

  The whole class starts to talk. I hear someone mention my name, and Fariq say something about Jade’s little brother, but mostly I zone out. This is bad news. I can feel it.

  Ubu rubs his hand back and forth over his head a few times, then says, “All right. Enough. Turn to page two hundred and sixty-nine. Let’s hear what our friend Bill Shakespeare has to say about the vicissitudes of life.”

  He asks me what vicissitude means. He’s told us before, but I say I don’t know. He lets me off. He asks Kyle instead. He must know I’m upset.

  I call Jade as soon as class is out, but there’s no answer. No answer after Chemistry or Biology either.

  I’ve been here before. Part of me thinks she’s not picking up the phone because she wants me to worry.

  The other part of me thinks she’s in the hospital with Gavin. I’ve googled migraines before. All the pages say the same thing. They’re painful but not serious. Kids get them all the time. Most grow out of them. Gavin’s got all the classic symptoms. There’s no reason to worry.

  Then I remember Jade saying, “It’s probably not a tumor.” I’m standing in the school lobby, staring at the trophy case, and it hits me. Probably not means almost exactly the same thing as might be.

  I promised Dalma I wasn’t going to let this happen again, so I meet her for lunch like we planned. I don’t say a thing about Jade. Afterward, I walk her to class. She reminds me about dinner tonight at her place.

  “I can hardly wait,” I say.

  She says, “Sure,” and we both laugh. We had a long talk yesterday about how sometimes sure means the opposite of what it sounds like.

  “No, really,” I say. “I love intestines.”

  We laugh some more. She told me they eat cow intestines in Croatia. I’m not sure if she was joking. Her English is really improving, but we still have some misunderstandings. I hope this is one of them.

  I’d kiss her goodbye, but Ms. Lumsden says, “So long, loverboy” and pulls the door closed.

  I go out into the parking lot and try Jade again. She’s still not answering. I think of calling Angie, but I don’t want to make things worse. This could just be one of Jade’s moods, and I can talk her out of it.

  I get into the car and drive to her apartment. I’m not doing this for her or even Gavin anym
ore. I’m doing this for me. I’m never going to be able to get on with my own life until this problem is solved. I think Jade should talk to the guidance counselor. Mr. Brownell’s a nice guy. He’ll know what to do.

  I run upstairs. Someone’s home. I can hear movement. I knock. The sound stops. I knock again. Nothing.

  “Jade? It’s me.”

  It goes even quieter. I can actually hear the silence inside.

  “Jade?”

  Footsteps, then the door opens a crack. “I’m busy, Mick.” She’s whispering.

  “Just for a second? Jade. Please. We need to talk. I won’t stay long.”

  She lets the door creak open but turns her back and walks away before I get a look at her.

  The place is a mess. Toys everywhere. Unfolded laundry. What looks like last night’s dinner. I don’t see any barf, but I can smell it.

  Jade sits down on the couch. She’s wearing baggy sweatpants and that old shirt of mine. She’s obviously been crying. The skin around her eyes is all pink and blotchy.

  “You okay?”

  She nods and starts throwing Gavin’s toys into a rubber bin. She won’t look at me. I move some laundry aside and sit next to her on the couch.

  “Jade. You can’t quit school.”

  She rubs her fingers up and down her forehead.

  “Jade. You can’t. This is crazy.” I touch her back. I can feel her shaking. “There’s a way around this. There has to be.”

  She swings around. She’s whispering, but her voice is as hard as if she were screaming.

  “How? GooGoo’s sick. I take him to the doctor’s. I take him to the hospital. No one can help him. Certainly not his parents…”

  “What about talking to Mr. Brownell?”

  “You think I haven’t?” Her chin is trembling. She puts her hand over her mouth.

  My parents would help. I know they would, but I’m afraid to say that to Jade, not when she’s like this. She’s never liked them very much, and she’s proud, too. I’m not sure she’d want that.

  “You’re exhausted,” I say. “You should go to bed. Get some sleep. I’ll stay here.” She closes her eyes. Tears pour down her face. I put my arm around her and help her up. I’ll talk to Mom about it later.

  “Why don’t you sleep in your mother’s room? It’s nice and quiet there.” Jade normally sleeps on the couch. She’s so tiny and frail, I almost want to carry her. She doesn’t put up any fuss.

  “Why is Jadie crying?”

  Gavin is hugging Kanga and peering at me from behind his door. Jade turns into my side so he can’t see her face.

  “Just tired, buddy,” I say. “I’m going to put her to bed, then you and I are going to the park.”

  He starts running on the spot and waving his hands. His headache must be better.

  I tell him to get ready, then help Jade into bed. I grab a box of Kleenex from the chest of drawers and put it on the nightstand. She takes my hand and pulls me down closer to her. “Thank you, Mick. You know I couldn’t do this without you.” She goes to say something else but starts to cry again.

  “Don’t worry, Jade,” I say. “We’ll figure this out. I promise.”

  I turn out the light and close the door. Gavin is already dressed and raring to go.

  Jade’s Diary

  Chapter Sixteen

  April 25

  Why does he do this to me? I should never have opened the door. I shouldn’t have let him in.

  He acts like he cares so much. Like he’s a good guy. He touches my arm. He holds me. He looks me in the eye and he’s all like, “Jade. Please.”

  “Let me help.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  Or my favorite: “We’ll figure this out.”

  We’ll—like we’re a couple. Like we’re in this together.

  And I believe him! I’m finally feeling okay, like this nightmare has finally ended. I get up from my nap. Have a shower. Wash my hair. Clean the living room. Get dinner ready—homemade spaghetti, just the way he likes it.

  He walks in the door carrying Gavin. They both have rosy cheeks and smell of outside. He says, “I bought Gavin a banana. I hope that’s okay. I checked the migraine list before I left, and I didn’t think it was one of the triggers.”

  “No, no,” I say. “That’s fine. I just hope it doesn’t ruin his appetite. You guys must be starved.”

  He looks at me, and he looks at the table. I’ve got it set with three places and even a candle in the middle. He looks back at me, and it’s like I just know what he’s going to say.

  “Oh, um, Jade. I’d really like to stay, but I promised Dalma…”

  Everything goes blank after that. A week before the spring dance, he has the nerve to say to me, “I promised Dalma.” It was like he stuck a knife in my eye. That’s what it felt like.

  “Fine,” I say. I smile because there’s no way I’m going to let him know he hurt me, but clearly this has upset Gavin. He wanted Mick to stay too. “You’d better go,” I say. “Thank you for your help.”

  “Don’t be like that,” he says.

  Me! Like I’m the one doing it.

  Gavin starts to cry. I stand in front of him and turn to Mick. “Please don’t help us again. You’re the one making him so sick. You know that, don’t you?”

  Mick

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dalma looks across the table at me and mouths the word sorry. Mrs. Zagar really did serve intestines, but that’s not what I’m worried about.

  “This is delicious,” I say. Dalma’s little sister, Flora, whispers to her mother in Croatian. Her mother looks at me and says, “Thank you.”

  The whole evening pretty much goes like that. Her parents say something to me. One of the kids translates. I say something else. They translate again.

  While they’re doing that, my mind keeps slipping back to Jade. I still can’t believe what happened tonight. All I did was mention Dalma, and she went ballistic.

  What was she thinking? She’s seen us together for weeks. It’s not like we’ve been hiding anything. I don’t think this is just exhaustion. I’m starting to worry there’s something really the matter with her.

  “You like more?” Mrs. Zagar says without any help.

  “Sure,” I say and hand her my plate.

  “Sure—or yeah, sure? There is difference,” says Dalma. She and her sister laugh while her parents try to figure out what’s going on.

  Flora’s laughing makes me think of Gavin. That’s who I’m worried about the most. We had a great time at the park this afternoon. He was just like a regular four-year-old, running, jumping, playing with that stuffed kangaroo of his.

  Maybe I’m listening to Quinn too much, but I found myself wondering if Gavin really did have a migraine. I asked him about it when we were over by the sandbox. He started filling a little bucket up with sand. He wouldn’t look at me. He kept saying he doesn’t like magic sprinkles.

  I asked him what they were. He put down the bucket, then looked around to see if anyone was there.

  He whispered, “I can’t tell you.”

  “C’mon! Give me a hint,” I said.

  I wasn’t sure if this was a game or not. He held Kanga up and whispered in her ear as if she was going to tell him what to say.

  “I get them all the time,” he said.

  “From who?”

  He shook his head. He looked scared.

  “Gimme another hint?” I gave him a little poke in the belly. “C’mon. Just one more.” He talked to Kanga again, then picked up a stick and drew something in the sand.

  “M,” I said, “for Mick.” I taught him how to spell my name.

  He drew an S.

  “And a snake for Staynor!” It’s an old joke of ours.

  He nodded.

  “I gave you magic sprinkles?” I said. He really laughed at that. I figured he was playing a trick on me.

  That’s all he’d say about it until we stopped in the grocery store a little later. We were walking down the
spice aisle, and I was talking about buying him a treat, and he got all agitated about magic sprinkles again.

  I didn’t know what brought that on. It took me forever to calm him down. I had to buy both him and Kanga a banana.

  I finish my second helping of intestines and do my best to answer the Zagars’ questions. Yes, I have a brother and a sister. Yes, I enjoy hockey and basketball. Yes, my father is an accountant, and my mother stays home. Yes, I want to be an accountant too. (I make that up. I have no idea what I want to be.)

  Dalma rushes me out the door as soon as dinner’s over. She apologizes for the interrogation, but I didn’t mind it. I like her family. They’re like her. They don’t have all the words yet, but you can tell they’re having fun by the look in their eyes.

  We walk outside. I can’t kiss her because Flora’s watching from her bedroom window.

  I reach out to shake her hand, and she cracks up. We arrange where we’re going to meet tomorrow, then I get in my car and go. It’s time I talk to my parents about Jade.

  Jade’s Diary

  Chapter Eighteen

  April 26

  Gavin won’t talk to me. I need to know what he said. He’s little. He’s got a big imagination. Kids make stuff up all the time. Especially when they’re upset. And Mick saw how upset Gavin was. He can’t rush in here like a knight in shining armor, then just desert us.

  It’s time he understood that. It’s time he saw how much he’s hurting us. Mick’s behavior is going to make Gavin very sick.

  Mick

  Chapter Nineteen

  When I get home, my brother and a bunch of his friends are in the kitchen, drinking beer and acting like idiots. I forgot Mom and Dad are out at a dinner party tonight. I’ll have to talk to them tomorrow about Jade. I say hey to the guys, then head up to my room. I had this brainwave about what magic sprinkles might be, and I want to check it out.