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Mrs. Straus shot me a quick look. What did
you tell him?
I told him I was sorry. I couldn t look at her.
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I m sorry, she said. I should have seen it
coming. Don t feel guilty, Bart. He shouldn t have
asked you. I shouldn t have let it happen.
That s okay, I said. It s not your fault. It was
strange that I was the one trying to make Mrs.
Straus feel better about my second strikeout in a
row. She d said I d only have to meet three kids
today, which was reassuring. I only had one more
spectacular failure and humiliation to go, and
then I was free to leave and find Fat Freddie and
take my pitiful self home.
Don t despair. How did Mrs. Straus know
that was what I d been doing? I ve saved the best
for last. You ll love Nola, everyone does. The
nurses fight to take care of her. She s a total trip.
And I just know that Nola will love you back.
It was just occurring to me that Nola was a
girl, and that if you didn t count my girl cousins,
which I didn t I hadn t even talked to a girl since
I left public school. I was afraid that I might have
forgotten how to talk to a girl, not that I ever knew,
exactly.
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For a moment I let myself imagine that Nola
was an incredibly beautiful hot chick suffering
from some not-so-bad disease of which she was
just about to be cured, at which point she would
leave the hospital and become my girlfriend.
Then I thought: With my luck, she ll be the bald
one or the burn victim or the one with the hideous
skin condition that wasn t catching but you still
didn t want to look at it. Well, fine. I would visit
my three sick kids, make my quota. I d get through
my first day of reaching out, and then I would be
free to go home no matter how badly I d done.
Walking into Nola s room, I practically had to
fight my way past a small army of teddy bears and
stuffed animals. Many of them still had gift cards
and get-well-soon messages tied around their furry
necks. Obviously Nola was extremely popular.
I saw the face of a little girl staring at me from
among all the stuffed-animal faces. She was
maybe nine or ten, and I guess she would have
been really cute except that her face was a bril-
liant, glow-in-the-dark shade of yellow.
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Nola, this is Bart, said Mrs. Straus. He s
come to hang out with you.
Nola narrowed her eyes and stared at me. You
could tell she was smart, just by looking at her.
She didn t say anything; she only raised one eye-
brow.
Hi, Nola! I said, too loud, like a total jerk.
Hello. Nola was one of those little kids with
a weirdly deep, throaty, smoker s voice.
I remembered Mrs. Straus telling me not to
ask what condition the kids had, not to make a
deal about their diseases, not to do anything that
would make them feel worse about being sick. But
the color of Nola s skin that blazing canary yel-
low was so intense that I couldn t stop myself
from staring.
Nola and I looked at each other. Once more,
I dimly heard Mrs. Straus tell us what fun we were
going to have between now and whenever she was
coming to get me.
There was a long silence. Then Nola said, It s
chameleonitis. In case you re wondering. That s
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my diagnosis, that s what I ve got.
Excuse me?
You should see me in the blue room, she
said. I turn this totally crazy cobalt color.
I couldn t believe how slow I was! Because
only now did I look around and see that the walls
were the same yellow, more or less, as Nola s skin,
which was part of what made the whole thing
seem so peculiar.
I said, You re kidding. That is a joke, right?
Ask my doctors if you don t believe me, she
said. And she raised that one eyebrow again and
looked as if she was trying to figure out exactly
how retarded I was.
I had no idea where I got the nerve to say,
You know, you re kind of bratty for a little kid.
Self-defense, she said. You wouldn t believe
what having people stick you with needles all day
long does for your personality.
Have you been in here a long time? I asked.
Since I was born, she said.
I said, You re kidding about that, too, right?
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I wanted her to be joking.
I ve been in here a lot. On and off. They keep
saying they know how to fix what s wrong with me,
and then it turns out they don t know how to fix it,
and then it turns out they don t even know what s
wrong with me.
I kept wanting to ask what they thought it was,
what had turned her that color.
How old are you? I said instead.
Ten, said Nola.
I thought how strange it was to meet a ten-
year-old who sort of reminded me of my mom.
It seemed like we d run out of things to say
when Nola asked, So what are you doing here?
Are you one of those kids who get off on hanging
with sick and wounded freaks?
No, I said. Of course not, no way. I
Don t feel bad if you are. I don t care. To tell
you the truth, I m glad for some company. I don t
care who it is.
Thanks a lot, I said.
Sorry, said Nola. I didn t mean that the way
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it sounds. It just gets so boring here watching soap
operas all day on TV. I don t know why you can t
get the cartoon channel in this place, but you
can t. The hospital s too cheap, I guess.
Doesn t your family visit you? I couldn t
believe I was asking Nola such a personal ques-
tion, I d only just met her.
Sure, pretty much every evening and all
weekend. But my parents work all day, my brother
and sister go to school, so I m mostly on my own
till the evening visiting hours. And as you may
have noticed, the other kids on the ward are not
exactly a barrel of laughs.
I noticed, I said.
I keep hoping someone fun will show up, but
no one ever does.
That ll be me, I said. Mr. Fun.
Right, said Nola. So what are you doing
here?
I wanted to tell her the truth, because it
seemed like the right thing to do but also because
something about Nola s clear blue eyes, shining
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