From Ant to Eagle by Alex Lyttle

Author:Alex Lyttle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Central Avenue Publishing
Published: 2017-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

THE NEXT MORNING WE WERE TRANSFERRED TO THE ONCOLOGY floor. It was a weekend so I didn’t have school, which meant I could come early to the hospital with Dad.

I’d imagined the oncology floor differently; a place dedicated to children with cancer naturally conjures an image of gloom and fear and pity. I’d imagined a place of absent hair matching absent smiles, cries and moans haunting dark halls and darker rooms. To tell the truth, I was afraid of the oncology floor before I saw it, but when the doors opened and I saw the unit for the first time, my fears vanished.

If the rest of the hospital were a playground, the oncology floor was the giant slide in the middle. Paint splashed the walls and doorways in every variety. The wide hallways were well lit and voices—not cries—echoed from the nursing station in the middle. The unit, I would learn, was the shape of a bicycle wheel. Spokes of hallways spread from a central nursing station, each with rooms along them and a kitchen or a library or a games room at the end. We were directed to Room 18 halfway down one of those hallways. We were lucky—it was the hallway with the games room at the end.

For the first part of the morning Sammy and I sat on the bed playing cards while Mom set up the place as if we were moving in. The room was much the same as the one before: a hospital bed for Sammy, another bed pushed up against the window for Mom or Dad, a TV hanging on the wall and the now familiar tubes and wires and thingamabobbers all hospital rooms seemed to have. This room, however, had a third bed. A small cot was pushed right up against Sammy’s bed and I smiled because I knew it was for me. The walls were white and near the top was a line of blue wallpaper with different animals repeating themselves around the room. A half-opened doorway in the corner revealed a bathroom and through the window I could see the early morning sun bathing an empty playground outside.

On the sill by the window Mom put up old pictures from home. One was taken outside our house in London with me in horrendous yellow overalls pointing proudly at Mom and Dad while they held a brand new baby bundled in their arms. Another was from only the year before—Sammy and I kneeling with our arms around each other by the river behind our house with makeshift fishing rods of sticks and string in our hands and goofy grins on our faces. It was scary to see the contrast between Sammy from the picture and Sammy lying in the hospital bed. Had I not seen him every day in between, I don’t know if I would’ve recognized the two kids as the same. His skin was pink back then, not an off-shade of white, he was plump not skinny, and I

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