Haley paused in her coloring to take a drink from the crazy purple bendable straw Franny had brought.

“It feels funny,” she complained, frowning, tears welling up seemingly out of nowhere.

Anne rubbed her back. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

“No! No!” she cried, curling her fingers against her throat as if she were trying to pull something away.

Anne could see the hysteria building. She knew exactly how it felt—like an avalanche coming down, like a tsunami wave crashing.

“You’re okay, Haley. I’m right here. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you,” she said as the little girl fell against her, sobbing. “It’s okay. You’re okay, sweetheart. You’re safe.”

Anne didn’t tell her not to cry. She knew that sometimes crying was like opening the valve on a pressure cooker, and once the steam was released the worst of the panic passed with it. She did what she would have wanted someone to do for her: She was a rock, an anchor, a sponge to absorb the tears and wring them out until they were spent.

After a few minutes she felt Haley’s body relax against her. Asleep.

Without moving the sleeping girl, Anne looked at the drawing she had left on the bedside tray and studied Bad Monster. Was Bad Monster black or had Bad Monster worn black clothing? Or was the color associated with fear? Maybe Bad Monster was the fear she felt metastasized into an entity, something she could isolate and push away from her sense of self.

The answers were only easy after you had them, Anne thought. Until then there were only puzzle pieces.

Chapter 35

35

Dennis was angry. Miss Navarre hadn’t shown up all day. He had waited for her, looked for her, asked the stupid nurses where she was and when she was coming. And she never showed up or called or anything.

He had even done his stupid reading assignment and everything. How could she just not show up?

Maybe she was dead. Maybe she was in a car accident and ran her car into the back of a tractor-trailer and cut her stupid head off. That would be funny. He could picture her decapitated head still lecturing him as it lay on the pavement.

That made him laugh.

She would have asked him why he thought that was funny.

He imagined running up and kicking her head like a soccer ball, and her head flying through the air. He wouldn’t have to listen to her then.

He laughed harder, but held his pillow up to cover his face so no one would hear him.

The hospital was quiet now. All the crazies were drugged and in bed asleep instead of babbling to themselves in the halls and in the common rooms. The lights in the rooms were off. The lights in the halls were low.