When it was over, Ms. Castro smothered me in a hug. “Norah, I can’t even tell you,” she said. “I’m just speechless.”
“Didn’t she do a great job?” Ms. Farrell demanded. “Could she have expressed it any better?”
“Absolutely not,” Ms. Castro said. “Norah, the way you used that story to capture your experience—”
“You mean my cancer?” I interrupted.
Ms. Castro looked like I’d peed on her shoe. “Yes, of course. Your cancer. Exactly.”
And I thought: Woohoo, she said the word. Victory at last!
* * *
A couple of weeks later, it was time for my checkup at Phipps. By then Mom was back in New York, still staying with her friend Lisa but apartment-hunting for a place near Columbia University. Dad was out in Cleveland, interviewing some basketball player, so Mom took me to the hospital herself. On the train, which I hadn’t been on in over two years. I couldn’t stop smiling as I looked out the windows.
“When we’re done at Phipps, I’m taking you earring shopping,” Mom announced. “Do you have something specific in mind?”
I almost told her big fat dangly ones. But by then my hair was almost normal, so I didn’t need the earrings to distract people. “I’m not sure,” I admitted.
She grinned. “Ooh, good. That’s always the most fun kind of shopping.”
My checkup zoomed. All my tests were great. I’d gained six pounds. Raina couldn’t stop gushing about my Persephone speech—she’d videoed it too, and shown it to all the doctors.
The only bad part was when we were in the waiting room, before we saw Dr. Glickstein. Mom went off to get her coffee, and while I sat there on the sofa, watching the sickest kids waiting for their tests, I saw the girl with the bandana and the BAD HAIR DAY tee. It took everything for me not to jump up from the sofa to tell her: A few months ago I was as sick as you. And now I gave a speech in front of the entire school, I have a sort-of boyfriend, my hair is growing in, and I’m learning sign language with my friends! If I can do all that, so can you!
But if I said these words, would they sound like Martian?
Probably yes. Maybe there were better words, a language we could both speak, but I didn’t know what that would be.
* * *
When I got home that evening, I put on the new earrings in front of my mirror: pretty silver starfish that gleamed when I turned my head.
I was so lucky, I told myself. Lucky me.
Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about the kids in the waiting room, who probably felt like the unluckiest kids on earth. Or rather, in the underworld, waiting for their rescue.
I couldn’t rescue them, of course.
I couldn’t do anything.
I couldn’t even tell them about how I’d gotten rescued, because what difference would it make to them?
Except I did have one idea. One tiny little seed of an idea.
“Mom?” I said. She was in the kitchen, starting supper, a yummy-looking cheese omelet. “Could we possibly go back to Phipps?”
Her face paled. “Are you okay?”
Gah. I had to remember to stop freaking out my parents. But also, my parents needed to stop freaking out.
“I’m completely fine,” I said. “I was just thinking there was something I wanted to do.”
“At the hospital? Oh, you mean like a support group? Raina had mentioned one—”
“Not that.”
I told her my idea, and she hugged me. “Let me make a few calls,” she said.
Two days later, when Dad was back from his trip, they both took me to the hospital. They left me in the waiting room and said they’d be back in an hour.
I sat at a table with my book and my notebook. I opened my notebook, took out my purple gel pen, and drew a griffin. Then a norah. A kraken. A Hydra. A mini Charybdis. Then a squiggly monster who didn’t have a name.
“What are you doing?” A small boy was standing next to me, watching. He was bald and very thin. He pointed to my norah. “What’s that?”
“Me,” I said. “Want me to draw you?”
He shrugged.
I drew a smiling shaggy monster with googly eyes. The boy grinned.
“Do you like cool stories?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said.
“About monsters and superheroes?”
He nodded.
“Want to hear one?”
He nodded even bigger.
I pulled out a chair for him. He sat.
Then I opened my copy of D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths and started reading.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is very close to my heart. Once again, I owe deepest gratitude to my wonderful editor, Alyson Heller, and to Fiona Simpson and Mara Anastas of Aladdin/Simon & Schuster for embracing this project so warmly. Jenna Stempel, a special thank-you for the beautiful cover art.
Jill Grinberg, you’re the gold standard for agents as well as a dear friend. I can’t possibly thank you enough for being in my corner. Katelyn Detweiler, Cheryl Pientka, and Denise St. Pierre, heartfelt thanks for all your expertise and support. I’m so proud to be on Team Jill.
I wish I didn’t know my way around the Pediatrics floor of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, but that’s where I met the many incredible people—patients, family members, doctors, and other health professionals—who contributed in various ways to this book. Deepest thanks to Dr. Julia Kearney, who first suggested a book about a normal middle-school kid who survives cancer. Dr. Kearney generously shared her expertise and provided brilliant editorial feedback on an early draft. My debt to her is endless. I’m also so grateful for the help I received from other professionals at MSKCC who have asked to remain anonymous.
I also wish to thank several former pediatric cancer patients and their moms for candidly sharing their stories with me: