“I’ll be back in the morning,” she said, kissing me on my forehead. “I’m so glad you’re with us, honey.”
I was by myself. I turned on the TV with the remote at my side and flipped through the channels, but nothing good was on. I skimmed a few of the cards and letters people had sent, but I was too tired to go through them. Why was I so tired if I had just been asleep for a week?
There were a bunch of boxes of candy on the windowsill next to the bed. I reached over and picked up one of them. There was a ribbon wrapped around it. I knew I wasn’t supposed to eat anything until I spoke with the speech therapist, but what harm could one piece of candy do?
I untied the ribbon and ripped the wrapping paper off the box. There was no note attached to it. I opened the box and was surprised to find that there was no candy inside.
Instead, there was a cell phone. It was one of those old flip phones people used before everybody had smartphones.
I wondered—why would somebody give me a cell phone? All my friends know that my mom won’t let me have one. They make fun of me about that all the time. And if they saw me using a flip phone, they’d make fun of me for that. The only reason I even know about flip phones is because I’ve seen them on old TV shows.
One of the nurses came in to check on me. I slipped the phone under my pillow. I didn’t want anybody to see it, and possibly let my mom know about it.
The nurse looked at one of the beeping screens and said she was monitoring my blood oxygen level. She wrote something down, and left the room.
I reached under my pillow and pulled out the flip phone. Maybe it was a gag gift, I figured. The thing was so old. It couldn’t possibly still work.
I flipped it open anyway and pushed the power button.
The screen lit up.
YOU COULD HAVE ESCAPED
I couldn’t believe it. That phone must have been ten years old, at least. It had a black-and-white screen! And the battery hadn’t died? Amazing. The screen doesn’t light up unless the phone works, right? That’s what I always thought. Not that I know much about cell phones. But technology moves so fast. I just assume anything that’s so old isn’t going to work anymore.
Of course, I tried to test the phone right away. I needed a phone number to call. There’s this horribly annoying TV commercial for a company that asks people to donate their cars to raise money for underprivileged kids. I’ve heard their commercial about a million times, and the 800 number would be stuck in my head forever. I dialed it, and waited.
Nothing. Nobody picked up. There was no recording. The phone didn’t even ring.
I tried calling Zeke’s cell phone number, which I had also memorized because I’ve called it so many times from our landline at home. Nothing.
I tried dialing a few other random phone numbers. The same thing happened. The screen lit up, but the flip phone couldn’t make an outgoing call. Too bad. Just when I was getting my hopes up.
But that made sense, I guess. You have to pay extra money to get cell phone service, I think. My mom pays over a hundred dollars a month. She’s always complaining about it, because she doesn’t use her cell phone very much. And I know she would never agree to pay for service for my phone too. Bummer. I put the phone back in the box and went to sleep.
When I woke up the next morning, my mom was already in the hospital room with me. My headache was gone. The nurses were monitoring me closely, but it wasn’t necessary. I was feeling just fine. They took the tubes out of me. The physical therapist, a really nice lady, helped me get out of bed and walk up and down the hall. I had no problems. She showed me some exercises to strengthen my muscles. Then the speech therapist came in and did something called a “swallow test” on me. I must have passed the test, because after that I was given real food—eggs, home fries, and toast with jam. It tasted great.
Dr. Fischer came in, looked at my chart, and gave me the okay to be discharged from the hospital. My mom was overjoyed. When she wasn’t looking, I stashed the box with the flip phone in my backpack. Someday, I hoped, I might be able to make it work.
I told my mother that I didn’t want to bring home all the flowers that people had sent, and she arranged for them to be given to other patients in the hospital who didn’t have a family. But I boxed up the candy to bring home with me. I’m no dummy! I said goodbye to all the nurses and doctors who had taken care of me and been so nice while I was in the hospital.
My mom had to sign a bunch of paperwork to get me discharged. Then an orderly rolled a wheelchair into my room to bring me downstairs.
“I really don’t need this,” I told him. “I can walk fine.”
“Hospital rules,” he replied.
I said that was awfully nice, but my mom whispered in my ear that the hospital wasn’t just being nice to me. If a patient falls or gets hurt on the way out of the building, they might sue. So even if you only have a hangnail, they put you in a wheelchair until
