Cellular by Ellen Schwartz

Author:Ellen Schwartz [Schwartz, Ellen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: JUV000000
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2010-09-30T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

One day I feel a little chill. I shiver. Then I feel hot. I start running a fever.

I’ve got an infection.

It’s like a fire alarm went off. I’m surrounded by nurses taking my temperature, sponging me down, taking blood. I’m put to bed with iv antibiotics. They’re hovering over me so much, it freaks me out.

Then it hits me. I could beat the leukemia, wipe out all the bad cells, only to be killed by a freaking infection?

That really pisses me off.

I’m lucky. The antibiotics work. After a day or two, my fever comes down. The infection is beaten.

This time.

When I’m able to walk around again, I go looking for Lark. She’s not in her room. I ask Harjit, and she tells me that Lark’s started preparation for her bone-marrow transplant. She has to get high-dose chemotherapy and total body irradiation for a week and a half. That’s to completely wipe out her immune system so her body won’t reject the donor’s bone marrow.

I try not to think of her with no immune system.

Next time I check, she’s there. She’s in black yoga pants and a lime green polo shirt. Her back’s to me, and her shoulder blades stick out. There’s nothing to her, and for the first time I wonder if she’s strong enough to get through the operation.

She’s standing in the middle of the room, both arms overhead, the i v line trailing from under her shirt. She reaches up, first with one hand, then the other, her ribs lifting from side to side.

I don’t want to interrupt, so I turn to go.

“Brendan!”

“Sorry, I didn’t know you were—”

“No worries. Come on in.”

I go over. There’s a little color in her cheeks, and her eyes are bright. “You look good,” I say.

“Feel good,” she says with a grin. “Haven’t thrown up in two whole days.” She stretches again, and she’s so light I think she might rise up off the floor.

“Want to meet someone amazing?” she says.

“Uh…sure.”

She walks over to the picture of the ballerina and points. “My hero.”

I go over and look. The dancer is bent over at the waist, her tutu jutting up behind her. Both arms are curving over her head as if she’s pulling up a hood. There’s an intense look on her face.

Pain? Sadness? I can’t tell.

“Who’s she?”

“Galina Romanovska.”

“Who’s that?”

“A Russian ballerina. I saw her dance ‘The Dying Swan.’ It’s a famous piece, very short, only a few minutes long. The swan has been shot, by an arrow. It’s dying.” Lark looks back at the picture, her eyes far away. “She didn’t just portray the swan, she became the swan.” One of Lark’s arms floats up, and then she makes it tremble, at first quietly, in small fluttery motions, then violently, jerking, and in that instant I know that she’s a dancer. In fact, it’s so obvious— her lightness, her gracefulness—that I can’t believe I didn’t realize it sooner.

“She was magnificent,” Lark goes on. “The audience clapped so much that she came out and did the whole piece all over again.

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