Mia Luce

Bad News

I didn’t have the slightest inkling where I was when I woke up.

I wasn’t at home, that much I knew; it was colder here and the mixed scent of plastic, rubbing alcohol, and air freshener stung my nose. I was lying on a soft surface. Maybe it was a bed. There was something white above me, and somewhere to my left I heard a strange garble of noise.

My eyelids were open, but all I could see was that big white thing above me. A ceiling? Suddenly something warm was put on my forehead and the shape of it felt like a hand. If it was a hand, then why was it warm? I wanted the hand to be cold.

Suddenly the swirl of noise began to make sense.

“Campbell? Can you hear me, honey? Helloo-oo?”

It was Vanessa’s voice. I nodded tiredly. When I remembered that I had hands I wiped my eyes and her face swam into focus.

“Where am I?” I asked curiously, my voice hoarse.

“Umm… the hospital,” she said nervously.

I stared at her blankly. “Why?”

She bit her lip and avoided my eyes. “Well, when you passed out… I’m sorry!” she blubbered.

I watched her fiddle with a strand of her hair and asked, “Why? What are you sorry for?”

“I… called an ambulance. I know it probably wasn’t a big deal, but-”

She stopped and waited for me to do something. She knew how much I hated hospitals. And how much I really really hated them when I was a patient.

“You’re right. It wasn’t a big deal,” I replied calmly. “I was just… tired. And it‘s not your fault, any mom would have done the same.”

She gazed at me, not allowing herself to be relieved and not allowing herself to be pleased at the word “mom.”

The sound of someone clearing their throat came from behind her.

“Okay, okay,” Vanessa mumbled. “Campbell, this is Dr. Moore. He’s going to ask you some questions, okay?”

She stepped back and was replaced by a thin man with round green eyes who was wearing one of those blindingly white lab coats that hurt your eyes.

He turned to look at Vanessa, who was hovering in the doorway. “If you could step outside, please…” he suggested.

“Oh… of course,” she said, looking a little surprised, and shuffled glumly out the door.

Dr. Moore sat down in cozy red chair next to the hospital bed I was in. I watched him take the stethoscope out from around his neck.

“How do you feel?” Dr. Moore asked me blandly, probing with the stethoscope to find my heartbeat.

“I’m fine,” I told him.

“Can you sit up?”

I pulled myself upright easily, not feeling even a tiny bit off. I only felt like I had just woken up from a long sleep.

“Take a deep breath,” he instructed.

I inhaled. He made a satisfied face and put the stethoscope back around his thin neck.

“Your lungs sound perfect. We took some of your blood while you were unconscious-” I looked down and saw a Winne The Pooh band-aid on my forearm, “-and we’re doing a few tests on it now, just in case. But, we have to consider all possibilities, not just the medical ones. Do you remember what happened the last time you passed out?”

“Yes,” I said stiffly.

He sighed tiredly. “We need to know the details, Campbell. Your mom told me you went to dinner with Jack Lewis last night.”

Wow, thanks, Vanessa, I thought. “So what does that have to do with anything?” I asked, peeved.

“Did he… do something to you?” Dr. Moore asked cautiously.

I stared, not yet believing that this was about Jack. “What, like spike my drink?”

He said nothing.

“Jack didn’t do anything,” I replied, a bit too venomously. “I swear. I was just really… tired. I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep lately. And he’s really nice.” I added.

He patted my arm. “Okay. That’s all I need to know. Feel better.” With that, he strode out the door.

Vanessa rushed to my side, her face deeply sympathetic. She looked slightly ruffled. Her usually orderly blonde hair was flipped to the side in an offhand way, and several strands were in the wrong places. She didn’t seem to have put much thought into what she was wearing, which was normally a top priority; her outfit today was a purple T-shirt and blue sweat pants.

         “Hey,” she said awkwardly.

         “Did you bring me some clothes?” I asked, noticing the icky blue hospital gown I was clad in.

         “Oh, yeah. They’re right here.” She scurried over to the side of the room and pulled something out of a plastic bag on the floor. It was the same blue shirt I had worn the first day of school and a pair of comfy yoga pants. She handed them to me, then asked, “Are you hungry?”

         “Yes. Very,”  I admitted, and my stomach growled horrendously. Almost all my senses had slowly come back.

         “The nurse brought some food up a few minutes ago,” she said, gesturing towards a plastic tray sitting on the coffee table next to the bed.

         “Okay. I’m going to change into this, I guess,” I mumbled. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and got to my feet carefully, just in case my body wasn’t ready to support itself yet. Vanessa watched me, her face stilll guilt-ridden, as I closed the bathroom door.

         While I was changing I heard the ring of a cellphone. The ringtone was one of those annoying little tunes that you always get stuck in your head. It stopped abruptly and I heard Vanessa say, “Hello?”

         She started pacing around the room, like she was anxious.

         “Oh no!” she cried, and I almost fell over trying to get my leg into my pants. “I’ll be right there, Mr. Tanner. Okay. ‘Bye.”

         I heard a knocking on the bathroom door. “Campbell? I’m going to have to leave for a few minutes, something came up in the office. I’ll be back soon, okay?”

         I was still hopping around with my pants half on, trying to get my other leg in. “Okay… ouch!” I cried as I ran into the metal toilet paper holder.

         “Is everything okay in there?” she asked.

         “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” I mumbled, rubbing the spot where I was sure to have a bruise.

         “I’ll be right back.” I heard her gather up her purse and jacket and leave.

         When I emerged from the bathroom, I sat on my bed, propped up by pillows, and watched a little red light blink on an inactive heart rate monitor next to my bed. There was never anything to do in hospitals. I stared at a generic painting of a lighthouse. I ate the contents of the tray on the coffee table. I snooped in the drawers of the coffee table, and found an abandoned ink pen. With it I drew little happy faces on each of my fingers, and then my toes. I wiggled them and imagined that they were alive. Finally I realized how stupid I must look and stopped.

         The TV was on, but I hadn’t been paying attention to it. All that was showing was some Jerry Springer episode that was muted, so I had to read the subtitles. Some lady was angry because her husband was cheating on her, yadda yadda blah. The picture was all fuzzy. I watched as little armies of squiggly lines marched across the screen.

         I think it was watching the squiggly lines that made me fall into some kind of half-conscious stupor. I don’t know how long I layed there like that with my mouth half open, but I wasn’t brought back to life until I heard footsteps through the open door. I craned my head to see if Vanessa was already back.

         A boy, who looked around three years old, walked past my doorway holding his mother’s hand. He stared at me with big brown eyes. The woman who led him was pretty, with curly red hair and freckles, and wore a ladies business suit. She was also pretty far along, if you know what I mean. The little boy, obviously her son, stared at me like I was the most unusual thing he’d ever seen.

         I desperately wanted to say something to them, but they just walked right past, which made me mad for some reason. I just wanted to tell them that this wasn’t really me. I wasn’t really in the hospital. Even though I was. I was just confusing myself again.

         So for a few more minutes I just sat there, my mind wandering mundanely. I wasn’t aware that my mouth was hanging open again. Now I had absolutely nothing to occupy my time except to flip through the droning mid-day talk shows on TV. I turned the volume up and changed the channel. It was a soap opera. Ew. I changed it again and settled on the News. A reporter with bleached blonde hair and an overly-powdered face was speaking.

         “Good afternoon, thank you for joining News Nine at noon. I’m Ashley Webster.”

         “And I’m Sam Baker,” the other anchor piped up. “We have some breaking news for you this afternoon. A young girl was reported missing just a few hours ago in
Oakridge.”

         I frowned. A picture filled the screen. It was a small girl with long blonde hair, greenish eyes, and a cute snaggletooth smile. It seemed to be a school picture.

         The anchor continued to speak. “This is Leah Lawrence. She was last seen playing in the front yard of her home in west Oakidge. She was wearing a purple tank top, blue jeans, and tennis shoes. She weighs approximately fifty pounds and is six years old. If you have any information concerning her whereabouts, her family urges you to contact the Oakridge Police Department at 522-8727. There hasn’t been any word yet on a possible suspect. Now let’s go live to Amelia Jones, who’s live in Oakridge. Amelia?”

         Before whoever Amelia Jones was came up on the screen, however, a man walked into my room and I promptly forgot about the news. He was tall and smiling, with curly brown hair remarkably like mine and identical hazel eyes.

         “Dad!” I cried, sitting bolt upright. He shrugged and strode over to my bed, carrying a stuffed teddy bear and grinning wildly.

         “Hey kid!” he said, sitting on the edge of my bed. He ruffled my hair like he always did, and placed the teddy bear on my lap. It had a pink ribbon around its neck that was tied in a neat bow, and was holding a little pillow that read, “Get Well Soon.”

         “You didn’t need to get me anything! I’m not even sick,” I insisted.

         He chuckled. I felt like I had never left Trenton. My spirits had uplifted dramatically just at the sight him.

         “That’s not what I heard from Vanessa,” he said. "I like your band-aid, by the way. I didn't know you were still into Winnie-The-Pooh."

              I made a face. "They put it on when I was asleep, I had no choice.Did you come all the way from Trenton just because I passed out?” I asked.

         “Well… yeah,” he admitted. “So, is Oakridge suiting you?” He put his arm around my shoulder and I could smell his familiar scent of peppermints and soap.

         “It’s… nice.”

         His eyes twinkled. “That’s all?”


         I grinned. “I like the scenery, just not the weather.” And then I thought for a moment. “Nevermind. I don’t like either.”

         He grimaced. “You’ll get used to it. This place doesn’t get that much sun, does it?”
         “Nope.”

         He looked around at the room, and his eyes fell on the TV. “What are you watching?”

         “Just the news,” I answered, and turned the volume up a little more so both of us could hear.

         It looked like Ashlie Webster was speaking about the little girl again. Her face was solemn as she gazed directly into the camera.

         “The police have just confirmed that the body of six-year-old Leah Lawrence was found in the woods bordering her home in Oakridge. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The police still do not have any leads on a suspect.”

         “And this, of course, is a tragedy for everyone living in Oakrdige,” Sam Baker, the other anchor, said. “Our sympathies here at News Nine go out to her family.”

         My dad frowned. “That’s horrible,” he mumbled, looking away from the TV. He was never one to show his emotions.

         “Yeah,” I agreed, staring mutely at the picture of the cute little girl on the screen. Leah Lawrence… her name sounded familiar…

         I gasped. “Oh no!”

         My dad looked up, startled. “What?”

         “Lark Lawrence! I think this must be… her sister!”

         “Who’s Lark Lawrence?”

         “She’s one of my friends at school…”

         My dad just gaped at me, and I gaped at the TV. My stomach twisted into a knot. Neither of us knew what to say. Leah Lawrence’s picture kept popping up repeatedly on the screen, and every time it did, I felt another drop in my stomach. If it was Lark’s sister, what would I do? What would I say to her if she came back to school?

         And who could possibly hurt such an innocent child? How could someone just take away her life? The thought was too horrible for me to comprehend. I had never had a brother or sister, so I couldn’t really picture what it would be like to lose one.

         Maybe I should do something.

         But what could I do? Something that would help her family. Like… bring them groceries or food, or…

         Suddenly Vanessa trudged through the doorway, a defeated look upon her face. She dropped her purse on the floor next to my dad.

         “Mom!” I cried, ripping the bedcovers away and springing to my feet. My dad had to leap away to avoid me. “That girl who was kidnapped… is she… Lark Lawrence’s sister?”

         Vanessa looked at me sadly, a tear trickling down her cheek.

         I started to open my mouth, but closed it when she held up her hand.

         “C’mon. We’re going home.”