Abby, Tried and True by Donna Gephart

Author:Donna Gephart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2021-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Other than a boy yelling, “Watch it!” when he accidentally bumped into Abby in the crowded hall between classes, no one spoke to Abby all day. Not a teacher. Not another student. Not even the school custodian, Ms. James.

For a moment, Abby wondered if she was invisible. If maybe she was still back at the hospital and only thought she was at school.

“Abby!” It felt good to hear Conrad call her name from his spot by the fence after school.

She rushed over. “Hi, Conrad.”

They fell into an easy stride walking together toward home. “How did it go at the hospital this morning?” Conrad asked while they waited for the crossing guard to give them the signal to cross.

As they stepped into the street, Abby shifted her backpack. “It was weird.”

“Weird how?”

Abby stopped on the other side of the street in front of a bench. “Once Paul started getting the chemotherapy, nothing happened.”

Conrad nodded and started walking again. “With my uncle, the changes didn’t happen right away. It was two weeks after his first treatment that his hair fell out.”

“Oh.”

“And I hate to tell you this, but he actually got sicker the more treatments he had.”

“Oh,” Abby said again.

“Want to come over? I baked cookies last night.”

Abby’s heart skipped a beat. She’d been so worried about Paul, she hadn’t thought as much about Conrad as usual. About how she felt when she was near him—tingly. She almost blurted a quick Yes! but then remembered something. “I can’t.”

Conrad nodded.

“No,” she said. “I want to, but I promised I’d walk and feed Miss Lucy, then head right over to my mom’s shop in town. We’re going back to visit Paul at the hospital so Mom Rachel can go home for a while.”

“Yeah.” Conrad’s shoulders slumped. “Makes sense.”

“Or…” Abby held up a finger.

Conrad looked at her, hopeful.

“You could walk me into town, I mean, if you’re not too busy with homework and—”

“Yes. I’ll walk you into town. I can do homework later.”

Abby nodded, feeling a lot better than she thought she would on her brother’s first day of chemotherapy. Paul seemed okay when she’d left the hospital, and Conrad wanted to walk her into town. Even if hardly anyone talked to her at school today, it wasn’t the lousy day she’d expected. Maybe Paul would be one of those rare people she’d read about on the Internet who got hardly any side effects from chemotherapy. And life could get back to normal as soon as he finished his treatments.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.