where Baby wants to go.

Baby does something he has rarely done

in his seven years on this earth:

he refuses to go.

Baby pulls back.

The collar slips a bit

toward his ears.

Baby’s heart leaps with Maybe.

His body quivers with Hope!

His feet are ready to run!

The hand reaches down.

The hand scoops him up.

“Time to go back inside, little guy,”

the man says.

40

Telling About

There’re five of us stuffed into Mrs. Bailey’s car, Henry. Turns out she didn’t have to work today because she is a teacher’s aide, so we don’t have to ride the bus. Karina wanted to come too, but she volunteered to watch Dylan so Mama could come instead. Given how excitable Ree can be, having Mama’s negotiation superpowers might come in handy.

There was no way Fire was staying behind. She doesn’t trust us to make sure the doctors know about Jewel’s pills.

“Do you think they’ll listen to everything we have to tell them about Jewel?” Fire asks.

I shrug I don’t know, watching the world outside the car window. “We’re just kids, and you know how adults are about that. They think we have ‘overactive imaginations.’”

Fire snorts. “We don’t have ‘imaginations,’” she says, crooking her fingers around the word imagination, “we have facts.”

I hope she’s right.

At the front desk in the hospital, Mrs. B announces our arrival to a lady staring at her computer screen. “We are here to visit a patient, Jewel Knight.”

The lady looks up from her computer and frowns. She peers past Mrs. B, taking in Ree and the rest of us. “All of you?” she asks.

“Yes, ma’am,” I say. “We’re all her friends.”

“That may be,” the lady says, “but only two visitors are allowed at one time.”

I feel Ree tense up next to me. Ree does not take comfort in rules.

She takes one step forward. “She needs her friends,” she growls.

“Those are the rules,” the lady growls back, which is, frankly, pretty impressive.

“Ree,” Mama says, “why don’t you and Piper go on up and see Jewel, since she knows you. We’ll stay here.”

“I want to go too!” Fire stomps her foot. Sometimes I forget how young she is.

Mama cups Fire’s face in her hand. “I need you to stay here with us, honey. We need to do what’s best for Jewel right now.”

I fiddle with the visitor’s pass hanging around my neck as we ride the elevator up to the third floor. What will Jewel be like? Despite what Mama said, Jewel doesn’t really know me. I talked with her that one time in line, but, well, she was kind of odd that day. I don’t know if she’d remember.