All-Season Edie by Annabel Lyon

Author:Annabel Lyon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV000000
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2008-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

On Christmas morning, I lie on the sofa while Mom and Dad and Dexter bring my presents over to me. This is a change from the usual rip-roaring, hair-flying, tornado-raising creature that’s me under the tree at six thirty in the morning while everyone else struggles to act awake, but I’m still not My Old Self, as Mom puts it. My new self sleeps in to nine o’clock and then nests on the sofa with a blanket and pillows, gazing sleepily at the blinking lights on the tree more than at the presents under it. Mom and Dad make tea and coffee, and Dexter peels us each a mandarin orange. Dad lights the fire he laid last night, with about as much mumbling under his breath as every year as match after match extinguishes itself with nothing to show for its efforts. Finally the fire catches, blue and then orange, and everyone has something hot in a mug (even I have tea), and Dexter asks me if I want to start and I say no, that’s okay, Dexter can start. Then everyone gets concerned again and says they’ll bring my presents over to me.

Still, I’m getting better. I’m not nearly as sick as I was in the days immediately after I fell off my chair in the coffee shop and woke up in a bright white room. Mom and Dexter and a man I didn’t recognize were leaning over me with worried looks on their faces. “Mommy,” I said.

“Hi, sweetie,” Mom said. I could see the worry lines on her forehead and between her eyebrows.

“I saw Zeus and Mercury and Ganesh and the Buddha,” I said. “Grandpa’s in the underworld. Next time I want to try coffee instead of a Julius, like Dex.”

“She’s delirious,” the strange man said. Afterward, Mom told me he was in charge of the mall, and we were in the first-aid room, next to the cinemas, which most people never get to see.

“No she isn’t,” Dexter said, looking at me closely, but not in a mean way.

After I fainted, the Indian women quickly arranged their coats for me to lie on and put something soft under my head. The big man returned with two security men and a stretcher, and they took me to the little room, where Mom and Dexter had been waiting. They had gone to security as soon as they realized I was missing. After we got home, I had a fever for a few days and got to drink lots of soup and ginger ale, which came out about as fast as it went in. For the first time in the history of the world as I knew it, I didn’t help decorate the house but watched from the sofa until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I also fell asleep during my favorite videos, card games, stories and meals.

Still, I slowly got better. My temperature came down and I was finally able to explain coherently about the various ancient gods in the mall.

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