Images. That’s what I became aware of next.

 

Like the kind you see floating on the back of your eyelids if you press the heels of your hands against them when you have a headache. Just shapes really, floating in space.

 

I watched them, wondering what they were. They looked like amoebas . . . no, like Christopher’s hair, underwater in the swimming pool, when they made us do laps in PE last time, and I was spying on him with my goggles . . .

 

Wait a minute. What was I doing in PE? Had I fallen underwater? But I wasn’t wet. At least, I was pretty sure I wasn’t . . . I didn’t feel wet. Did I?

 

How could I be seeing Christopher’s hair underwater if I wasn’t wet? Maybe my eyes weren’t open. Were my eyes closed or open? Why couldn’t I lift up my hand to feel my face and see? My hand felt so heavy . . . I couldn’t even lift it . . .

 

Why was I so tired?

 

So tired . . .

 

I heard voices. The voices were saying things. What were they saying? I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t understand them. I was too tired to understand them. Who kept talking? Why wouldn’t they let me sleep?

 

Wait. That was Mom’s voice. Mom was the one who was doing all that talking. Mom and . . . who else? Dad. That was Dad. Mom and Dad were talking. They were saying things. They wanted me to wake up. Why? Why couldn’t I just go on sleeping?

 

I knew I should listen to them – whenever Mom tells us to do something, Frida and I always do it. Eventually anyway.

 

But I felt like I couldn’t move. Like I’d been turned to stone. I just wanted to go on sleeping forever.

 

Still, I could hear Mom, her voice charged with urgency.

 

‘Em! Em, if you can hear me, open your eyes! Open your eyes, Em. Just open your eyes for a minute, Em.’

 

I knew that old trick. The second she knew I was awake, Mom would make me get up and empty the dishwasher or go to school or something equally hideous. I wasn’t falling for that one.

 

‘Em! Please! Please, just open your eyes.’

 

She sounded pretty upset, though. Maybe the apartment was on fire. Maybe I should do what she said. Just open my eyes for a second to see what she wanted.

 

‘Please, Em . . . ’

 

She sounded like she was crying actually. I didn’t want to make my mom cry. That’s the last thing I wanted to do.

 

So I tried to open my eyes. I really did. I wanted to.

 

But they just . . . wouldn’t open.

 

My eyes wouldn’t open.

 

I heard my mother crying, and I heard my dad comforting her, murmuring, ‘It’s all right, Karen.’

 

‘In cases like this,’ I heard another, unfamiliar man’s voice saying, ‘it’s not unusual for –’

 

I didn’t hear the rest of what the man was saying because I was too busy concentrating on trying to make my eyes open. Only I couldn’t get my eyelids to lift. I really couldn’t. It was like they were made of lead, and I was just too weak to raise them.

 

So then I tried to open my mouth to tell my mom not to cry, that I was fine, just so tired. Maybe if they let me rest a little more . . .

 

But I found I couldn’t open my mouth either.

 

That was a little scary. For a minute. But the truth was, I was really just so tired . . . it was so much easier to go back to sleep. I’d tell Mom later, I decided . . . about my being too tired to do what she asked. I’d explain it all later, when I wasn’t so sleepy. I needed to get my energy back. I’d be fine with a few more hours of sleep.

 

Finally I managed to open my eyes. Not because anyone was calling my name. Not because I was seeing amoebas behind my eyelids. My eyes just . . . opened.

 

All by themselves.

 

But when they did, and I looked around, I was surprised to find I wasn’t in a swimming pool, or even at home, but in a bed in a hospital room.

 

I could tell that I was in a bed in a hospital room, because even though it was pretty dark – it had to be night-time – nothing looked familiar to me. The walls were beige, not the Navajo White I’d painted my walls back home in a fit one day, because I couldn’t stand the bland eggshell the rest of the walls in our apartment were.

 

And all my posters – from the Journeyquest movie, which I know had sucked, but the posters were cool – were gone. So were all my postcards from that field trip we took to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, all I could see were wires. Wires that appeared to be coming out of me. They were hooked up to machines beside the bed I was in, which were whirring softly and occasionally making pinging noises.

 

Fortunately I didn’t get scared or anything, because sitting in a chair next to the machines was my dad. He was sleeping.

 

I tried to think why I would be in a hospital with wires coming out of me. I am actually a very healthy person and have only been to the hospital once, when I broke my arm falling off the see-saw in our apartment building’s playground in the second grade. Had I fallen off something again? I couldn’t remember climbing on anything. How had I ended up in the hospital? I didn’t feel hurt.

 

Just super-duper tired.

 

But I felt better than my dad looked. He had a lot of grey stubble all over his face, like he hadn’t shaved in a long, long time (which seemed kind of funny to me, since when I’d seen him just last night at dinner, he hadn’t had a beard. Or had he? Looking back, I couldn’t seem to remember . . . hadn’t I had dinner with my dad last night? It seemed so long ago . . . ) . Also, his shirt was super wrinkly and there were some stains on it.

 

The truth was, my dad looked pretty awful. I wondered why my dad would look like that. I didn’t want to wake him up to ask though. That seemed like it would be a selfish thing to do.

 

On the other hand . . . I was so thirsty. Seriously. I thought I was going to die of thirst.

 

But there didn’t appear to be anyone else around. And it looked as if, whatever was wrong with me, it was kind of serious, given all the tubes and wires.

 

If I could just get a sip of water I’d go right back to sleep, no questions asked . . .

 

I opened my mouth and tried to say Dad’s name. At first nothing happened.

 

That’s right. I tried to say the word Dad and no sound at all came out of my mouth. I had to try a couple more times before I was able to make any kind of noise and, even then, it was more of a grunt than anything else.

 

‘Dad?’

 

Only the word sounded really strange. I don’t know why. Maybe my voice was rusty from lack of use or something. Or thirst.

 

But my dad’s head jerked up anyway, and he stared at me all bug-eyed. ‘Er . . . Em?’ he asked hesitantly.

 

‘H-hey,’ I said. ‘S-sorry –’

 

Except that came out sounding weird too. What was wrong with my voice?

 

Dad seemed to think my voice sounded weird too, since, his eyes still wide, he jumped up from his chair, yelling, ‘Doctor! Doctor!’ and then rushed off.

 

Which indicated to me that I must be more hurt than I’d originally thought.

 

But I was too tired to wait around to find out how hurt. Seriously, I felt even more tired than I usually feel in first-period Public Speaking. Which is pretty tired. Probably if I didn’t stay up all night playing Journeyquest with Christopher – then have to stay up the rest of the night finishing my homework – I’d be able to get up in the morning, but . . .

 

I wanted to stay awake. I really did. I wanted to find out what was wrong with me, and why I was in the hospital. I wanted to get some water . . .

 

But I just couldn’t keep my eyes open a minute longer. I closed them, thinking I’d just take a little nap until Dad got back.

 

But of course I went back to sleep. Mmmm, sleep. Delicious sleep.

 

I hoped I wouldn’t start drooling after I dropped off. But I figured in a hospital they must be totally used to that.

 

When I opened my eyes again it was daytime. And my mom was sitting in the chair my dad had jumped out of. She was calling my name.

 

‘Mom,’ I said groggily Because the truth was, I was still pretty tired. ‘I don’t want to go to school today. OK?’

 

At least that’s what I tried to say. I’m not positive those are the words that my mother heard, because they didn’t sound much like what came out of my mouth.

 

Instead of arguing with me though, Mom flattened her hand across her mouth and started to cry. That’s when I noticed she wasn’t the only person in the room besides me. Behind her stood my dad and a couple of people in white coats I’d never seen before.

 

I figured the reason she was crying was because my voice still sounded so weird. It was kind of . . . I don’t know . . . high-pitched.

 

Also, I still wasn’t sure the words I’d said made sense.

 

‘Honey,’ Dad said. He had his hands on Mom’s shoulders and was looking at me funny . . . like the time I slipped and hit my chin on the side of the pool at the hotel we were staying at in DisneyWorld, and I didn’t know it but a big chunk of my skin had come off and I was bleeding copiously, but since it didn’t hurt I wasn’t crying or anything, nor did I notice I was covered in my own blood because I was wet anyway. ‘Do you, um, know who we are?’

 

Whoa. Whatever number I’d done to get myself into the hospital, it must have been serious.

 

‘Um, yeah,’ I said. ‘You’re Daniel Watts and she’s Karen Rosenthal-Watts.’

 

The words didn’t really come out sounding that clear. There seemed to be something wrong with my enunciation.

 

Maybe that’s why my mom burst into loud sobs. Which was really startling. I’ve never seen her cry that way before. Not even at the end of the movie Love Actually, which always makes her weep like a baby.

 

I’m pretty sure Dad had never heard her cry like that before either. He looked totally startled by her outburst, and kept going, ‘Karen, it’s OK.’

 

Fortunately one of the people wearing a white coat stepped around my parents while they were huddled in their weepy hug and said, in a kind voice, ‘I’m Doctor Holcombe, Emerson.’

 

‘Oh,’ I said. Then I tried to clear my throat. Only it didn’t work, because there was nothing in my throat to clear, apparently. ‘Why does my voice sound so weird?’ I asked.

 

Dr Holcombe had taken out a penlight and was flashing it into my eyes. ‘Are you in any pain?’ he wanted to know. I wasn’t sure if he was ignoring my question or if he just hadn’t understood me. My voice sounded so weird, I couldn’t quite understand myself.

 

Meanwhile, another person in a white coat, this one a lady with her dark hair in a bun, said, ‘I’m Doctor Higgins. Can you wiggle your toes for me, Emerson?’

 

It was hard – I was still so tired – but I wiggled my toes.

 

‘What happened to me?’ I wanted to know.

 

‘Can you follow the end of my finger with your eyes, Emerson?’ Dr Holcombe wanted to know. ‘Don’t move your head. Just follow it with your eyes.’

 

So I followed his finger with my eyes. I could see everything just fine now. No more amoebas everywhere.

 

‘I mean, I know I’m in the hospital,’ I went on. ‘But what’s with all these wires? And why does my voice sound like that?’

 

‘Just keep looking here,’ Dr Holcombe said as he continued to shine the light in my eyes as I was following his finger with my gaze.

 

‘Can you squeeze my hand, Emerson?’ Dr Higgins wanted to know.

 

I squeezed her hand.

 

‘Seriously,’ I said. Since Mom was still crying and Dad was still trying to help her pull herself together, I had no choice but to address my concerns to these doctors I had only just met. ‘How much school have I missed?’ Because I was in all Advanced Placement classes, and it was no joke if you fell behind. And then, because I still sounded so weird to myself, I asked, ‘What is wrong with my voice?’

 

‘We’ll get to all that,’ Dr Holcombe said, finally flicking off his flashlight, ‘in time, Emerson.’

 

‘Em,’ I corrected him. ‘I go by Em.’

 

‘Of course.’ Dr Holcombe smiled, and put his penlight away. ‘Now why don’t you try to get some more rest? Your family, as you can see, is fine –’ he glanced at them, realized they were both still sniffling, and looked uncomfortably away again – ‘er, at least, they will be. They’ve been very worried about you, that’s all. It’s quite a relief to see that you’re doing so well. You can go back to sleep now, if you want to.’

 

I was still pretty sleepy. But I was worried about the school thing. His assurance that we’d get to all that in time didn’t mean I wasn’t going to have bucketloads of work to make up.

 

And how come no one would answer my question about my voice?

 

But the doctor with her hair in a bun was jiggling some of my wires, and suddenly I got sleepier than ever. So I closed my eyes for another little nap.

 

And when I opened them again, it was night-time, and the handsomest guy I’d ever seen in my life was sitting in the chair beside my bed.