Baby and Solo by Lisabeth Posthuma

Author:Lisabeth Posthuma [Posthuma, Lisabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781536218558
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Published: 2021-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

“Joel, I don’t know how you can stand this hospital food.” She stuck a spork into the congealed pasta salad that had maintained the shape of the ice cream scooper with which it was served.

“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” I said, closing my eyes. “The doctors say you aren’t real, so go away.” I opened them a few seconds later. She was still there.

“That’s mean,” Crystal informed me. “Where exactly am I supposed to go?”

“I don’t know,” I told her. In the drawer of the bedside table, I found a manual for the Posturepedic hospital bed I was lying on. I was reading it to distract myself from her. “Back where you came from, I guess.”

“Well, that’s impossible.” She sighed, stretching out one of her curls and watching it bounce back into place. “I thought we were friends, Joel.”

“I want to be your friend, but being your friend means I’m crazy,” I explained to her. “I don’t want to be crazy.”

“Your mom might think you’re crazy, but no one else really does,” she corrected me. “I’m telling you, Joel, she’s the one with the real problem.”

I set down the manual and took her bait. “Why?”

Crystal laughed to herself. “She’s afraid. The majority of the time someone is the way she is, it’s because they’re afraid.”

It had never occurred to me that my mother was afraid of anything. Angry? Yeah. Critical? You betcha. Paranoid? Definitely. But not afraid. “Of what, though?”

“The unknown consequences of being wrong,” she (kind of) explained. “That’s what most people are afraid of.”

This seemed like it might make sense, but I wasn’t sure. Crystal seemed to know a lot of things I didn’t. “Not me. I’m just afraid of being crazy,” I informed her. “Which is why you have to leave.”

“Oh, come on. I have it on good authority that you are afraid of other things.”

I gave her a doubtful look. “Like what, exactly?”

She came around the side of my bed and leaned against it casually. “I can name three specific things.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know. Those three things.” Crystal’s green eyes sparkled.

I did know, but I didn’t believe that she really did, so I called her bluff. “I never told you about any three things.”

“Oh, you did. Three Star Wars things, to be precise.” Crystal leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Wampas and rancors and banthas.”

I felt my cheeks go red. “How do you know about that?”

She took a step back and shrugged. Then she whispered it louder. “Wampas and rancors and banthas!”

“Seriously? Who told you that?” I shook my head at her. “I haven’t been scared of that stuff since I was a kid.”

She started chanting it, à la “lions and tigers and bears.”

“Wampas and rancors and banthas, oh my!”

“All right, enough!”

“Wampas and rancors and banthas, oh my!”

“You’re not funny!”

Crystal apparently thought otherwise, because she suddenly yelled “Boo!” in my face and began laughing hysterically when I jumped.

I threw my sheets back and stood up. “That’s it! I’m going to tell!” I shouted, and stomped out of the room.

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