"The thing is you shouldn’t have to say ‘brush your teeth’," said Sandy. "People will brush their teeth even if you don’t tell them too. Indeed, sometimes they won’t brush their teeth because you told them they must."
This is one of the last things Sandy ever said before the second time she and her brother went to the hospital to visit her brother’s friend, who broke his leg. The first visit, she had sacrificed her right to speak as a means of passive resistance.
The halls in the hospital seemed too long to fit in the building, or so thought Sandy. Eric began to regret bringing his younger sister when he turned around and much to his discontent could not find her. Sandy always liked long, elusive hallways, and always took advantage of them when she had the opportunity. She liked using the hallways to play hide and seek with her brother against his consent. This time though, she had told her brother exactly where she was going.
Eric had come to visit his friend Marty, who broke his leg skateboarding precariously down a stairwell at Francis Bellamy High School. It was a compound fracture; such a nasty injury that Marty would be in the hospital for over a week. Eric had warned him it was a dangerous and stupid feat. Marty replied, "skateboarding’s not a crime." Eric argued back, "but on that stairwell, it’s suicide." Eric liked to speak with very cheesy taste in diction. But despite his rhetorical charisma, this was perhaps a bad thing to say to Marty at that time, because suicide had very recently clutched Marty’s older brother. It was still on his mind the day he skated down the stairs precariously and broke his leg. That was three days before Sandy and Eric’s first visit at the hospital.
Eric ran up and down the halls occasionally squeaking to a stop by the friction of his sneakers, spinning around and taking his quest in new directions. He was looking for his sister, who he thought snuck off. It’s important to know that he is a mean brother and an overall asshole.
Sandy was in room 209, visiting with an old woman named Mrs. Eunice Hanson Gladstone. She was being treated at the hospital for hip injuries. They talked about a number of things.
"I don’t believe you."
"It’s true," said Mrs. Gladstone. "Drinking water from the sink will made you sick. You will throw up blood and die."
"That’s simply not true," replied Sandy. "I’ve done so a hundred times and I’m fine."
"It will happen one day, you’ll see."
"I don’t believe you."
"You must be sure to always keep clean. Germs and bugs are out to get you. They’ll get you in your sleep."
"You’re trying to scare me and its not working."
"You’re quite pompous for a little girl you know. How old are you?"
"I’m nine. But I’m much smarter than most my age. How old are you?"
"I’m two hundred years old," answered Mrs. Gladstone maliciously, not playfully.
"Well you sure are dumb for your age."
"How rude. You know what happens to girls like you? When they turn ten years old the Rudeness Police take them to a camp where they must climb ropes, lift weights and clean bathrooms all day and all night. No sleep and very little food."
Eric raced down the 300s floor, searching desperately for Sandy. He was not worried about her. He just wanted to find her so he could yell at her for being such a brat.
Eric was wearing a basketball jersey. He really liked basketball but he was not very good at it because he was very short and a tad on the slow side. The thought of his sister getting in trouble at home brought a frighteningly authentic gleam of sadistic pleasure in his eyes. His heart sped as he turned a corner, passing by a pediatrician’s office. He liked being at doctor’s offices, and especially liked being around sick children.
"Why are you in the hospital?" asked Sandy.
"I’m having my soul replaced," explained Mrs. Gladstone.
"What?"
"When you get to be my age, your soul will begin to die once in a while. You must buy another one. I have Blue Cross Insurance so I’m covered."
"I think I’d better leave. My brother might be looking for me. I told him where I was. But he sometimes forgets."
"Don’t leave. I like your company."
"Why are you really in here?"
"I’m in here because I broke my hip."
"How did you break your hip?"
"I got in a fight with Santa Claus."
"You’re weird. You’re very, very weird."
"You don’t believe in Santa Claus?"
"I do, but not in the way you’d want me to."
"How about God? Do you believe in him?"
"Same thing."
"Well. Oh my. You are a smart ass little girl. Tell me this. If there’s no God, where did we come from?"
"I’m not sure. I’m just not prepared to say that everything I don’t understand should be explained in terms of God."
"How do you know not to do bad things, then, little girl?"
"I just don’t want to do bad things."
"Is this guidance of yours enough to also make you do good things?"
"I want to do good things."
"What makes you want to. Who does?"
"I do, myself."
"Well. How righteous of you! But really, where did you learn to take care of yourself, certainly someone else."
"But we were talking about God."
"Yes. God. God tells us what to do. Including Santa Claus. Some of us listen. And we spread those ideas around. Do you do what you’re told?"
"Sometimes."
"You have a nice smile there. I’m sure you take good care of it."
"Always."
"Who tells you to brush your teeth?"
"The thing is you shouldn’t have to say ‘’brush your teeth.’ People will brush their teeth even if you don’t tell them too. Indeed, sometimes they won’t brush their teeth because you told them they must."
Sandy was quite the contrarian, but she was often right. Eric walked by the door and looked inside when he heard her sister’s voice, and he immediately interrupted the conversation.
"Sandy. What are you doing here."
"I’m just visiting with Mrs. Gladstone."
"Are you bothering her," Eric asked. He turned his head to Mrs. Gladstone and asked, "Is she bothering you?"
"Why, yes. Very much so. I’m in terrible pain and I keep telling her to leave, but she just insists on staying and not letting me rest."
Sandy was grounded, which made Eric very happy. The night after the first hospital visit, Eric, Sandy and their mother talked about the incident over dinner, which was Mexican-themed Hamburger Helper.
"I don’t want to hear it!" said Sandy’s mother.
"But that old lady is a liar! She even told me she got in a fight with Santa Claus."
Unlike many children her age, Sandy almost never lied at all. Her mother and brother had no reason to think she would.
There was a time that Sandy did lie, to protect her older brother. Eric would blame Sandy for things he did, like break the table lamp years ago. When this happened, Sandy covered up for him and took the blame. So her mother should have had no reason to think Sandy was a liar. The only things she lied about were not in her best interest and things that her mother still thought were true.
"You’re grounded."
"How can you not believe me?"
Being grounded didn’t do anything to Sandy really. She never went out at her age anyway. But Eric salivated nevertheless.
For the next week Sandy did not speak. She had used the silent treatment before, mostly in dealing with her friends, but it had never been this serious. She carried her protest with her even to school. Things got worst on Friday.
"Sandy, do you know the answer? Who discovered California?" asked Ms. Terrace.
"Sandy doesn’t talk," said her classmate Peter. "She’s dumb."
The class laughed out loud. In third grade, students haven’t yet been trained to relinquish their sense of humor.
"That’s enough Peter. That wasn’t nice at all. Just because a person can’t or doesn’t speak does not mean their dumb."
Of course, Peter said "dumb" to show his clever knowledge of the word’s double usage. It wasn’t that clever, you might say, but for a third grader it showed wit. Some of the class laughed at the pun. Others laughed at the insult. Sandy even laughed under her breath, knowing that Peter was just joking and meant no harm. Ms. Terrace, however, did not get the joke.
"Some people would say you were dumb," continued Ms. Terrace. "Everyone here knows Sandy is as smart as John F. Kennedy."
Ms. Terrace had a perverse obsession with Kennedy. She had photographs of Kennedy on the walls, and tried to incorporate his image in all sorts of school projects. If the theme was Thanksgiving, she would have the students color in pictures of Kennedy in Pilgrim outfits.
Aside from this obsession of hers, which could easily be marginalized if she were normal otherwise, Ms. Terrace was very loyal to the practice of favoritism. Sandy sensed this more than anyone else in the class. She usually got this bias in her favor, and hated it. She remembered:
"You’re a good little girl Sandy. You’re smart and you’re pretty. You can help me glue these new pictures of John F. Kennedy in the back room."
"Why don’t I have to keep my head down on the desk, like all the other kids?"
"They’re all bad kids, Sandy. You’re my little angel."
Sandy hated this favoritism. And she despised how Ms. Terrace would pick on Peter so much. Of all her classmates, Sandy thought Peter to be one of the smartest. But his attitude was always being used as an example to the class of how not to behave. Ms. Terrace would even treat kids better if she saw them be mean to Peter during lunch.
Peter was a very harmless looking boy. His hair was always a little messy. He wore whatever silly clothes his mom chose for him. Unlike many other kids who would be picked on, Peter was rather sociable and not really a loner. He had several friends. He liked to talk with Mitch about airplanes, with Alexander about cartoons, with Emir about mathematics, with Sandy about life. Many kids liked him. No one really hated him. Everyone laughed at his jokes, but no one would have said he was his best friend. Not at this point in his life, anyway. And kids did make fun of him from time to time.
Sandy was quite fond of Peter, and absolutely despised how Ms. Terrace would pick on him. Ms. Terrace was very unintelligent, when it came down to it, and would often punish Peter for his failure to think down to her level. Ms. Terrace liked Sandy, though, because she was pretty and a girl.
She was very pretty in fact. She had auburn hair and hazel eyes and barely visible freckles and threateningly adorable dimples. Her classmate Gary took special notice of this, and on Friday during recess took special advantage of her silence.
"Can I kiss you?" asked Gary.
Sandy did not respond. Gary kissed Sandy on the lips as she tried to push him away. He grabbed a hold of her hair violently and she fell down attempting to escape. Crawling on the ground and soiling her new white blouse, Sandy looked down and noticed Gary looking up her pink skirt, holding her legs apart.
"Until you say ‘no,’" explained Gary, "I can do what I want."
Gary learned this from his father and from school.
Sandy kicked Gary in the head and ran away. A yard duty saw this and grabbed her by the arm as she ran past the monkey bars.
In the principal’s office, Sandy was told that it was never right to fight. She would remember this lesson her whole life. She would not buy it as much as some students, however.
Gary got in trouble, but not much. There had been kids his age expelled or even prosecuted for kissing a girl at school, even a girl much less resistant and angry about the situation. But at school, it didn’t matter whether or not the girl wanted to be kissed. The rule was against kissing. Likewise, it didn’t matter who started the fight. The rule was about fighting.
At dinner that night, over Mexican-themed Hamburger Helper leftovers, Sandy’s mom yelled at Sandy. It wasn’t because she got in a fight, but because she got her new white blouse dirty. Eric grinned and leered past the rim of his water glass as he watched his sister cry without words.
The next day was a Saturday, and Eric took Sandy to the hospital again to visit Marty. His mom made him take her, because she didn’t want to watch her daughter herself. Marty was soon to be released.
"Aw man, you should have seen it!" reported Eric. "Grody got diarrhea during P.E. and the coach wouldn’t let him go to the bathroom."
"Ha ha. Grody. That guy looks like he always has diarrhea."
Sandy had to go to the bathroom herself. She pantomimed to Eric that she had to go and would be back in ten minutes, using such gestures as pointing to her wrist, holding out ten fingers, and clutching at her groin. Eric said something like, "yeah, yeah whatever."
Sandy looked for a bathroom and she finally found one on that floor, she saw the toilet was clogged with bloody tissue paper. She went downstairs to find another.
She found a clean bathroom, relieved herself, and started back to Marty’s room upstairs. She heard a lot of very depressing moans coming from some of the rooms. She stopped at one and looked inside and saw a person, either male or female, with peeling skin, broom-like hair and distant eyes. It was this person moaning, with tubes coming out of the nose and applesauce dripping from out of the mouth onto the sheets. Then she noticed that the sickly androgynous patient was staying in room 210. She turned around and saw Mrs. Gladstone grinning from room 209.
"Why did you lie to my brother about me?" These were Sandy’s first words since she gave up speaking.
"What? Who are you?"
"It’s me, Sandy, Mrs. Gladstone. You and I talked for quite some time. I know that we weren’t always agreeable. But when I said I wanted to leave you told me to stay. And then you lied to my brother and I got in trouble. Why would you do something like that to me?"
"Oh. I remember now. Yes, yes. I didn’t mean anything real by it. It was a joke. Can’t you and your brother take a joke?"
"It was a cruel joke."
Moaning came from room 210.
"I’m sorry. Is your brother here, now?"
"Yes."
"Bring him to me and I’ll set this whole thing straight."
Marty and Eric discussed the latest news about their school. Eric really liked hanging out with Marty, because Marty also liked basketball and was even worse at it than he was.
"Man, Grody definitely called in that bomb threat," asserted Eric. "He’s such a freak."
"I think it’s that new girl."
"What? You think so?"
" It was the new girl, I know it. She’s on the same crazy wavelength as Grody, but she has the guts. Grody wouldn’t actually have the guts for a stunt like this."
It was at this point in their conversation that Sandy came back.
"Where have you been," asked her brother, not expecting an answer.
"To the bathroom. I told you."
"Oh. You’re talking now, huh?"
"Yes. And I have something to show you. Mrs. Gladstone wants to tell you something."
"Oh no. Not this again. Did you go bother that old bag again? Why do you do that?"
Marty began to laugh, but it was not clear whether he was thinking about his classmate Richard Grody or the conversation at hand between Eric and Sandy.
"Come on please. Come with me. I’ll show you."
"No. I refuse to play these games. Now shut up or I’ll tell mom about this whole thing." Eric would tell his mom regardless.
"Please?"
"No."
Sandy ran out the door more angry than she had been in years. More angry than when her mom and brother didn’t believe her about Mrs. Gladstone the first time. More angry than when Gary looked up her skirt. More angry than when she got in trouble for fighting back.
She ran down the stairs and almost fell. It would have been a particularly nasty fall, but she immediately extinguished her retrospective fear of the situation by rationalizing that had she indeed fallen, she would have been very close to medical help.
Her plan was this: Eric would eventually have to come and find her. And he would immediately think to go to room 209. He would say:
"Sandy, you’re in big trouble."
"Mrs. Gladstone, tell him," Sandy would say.
And Mrs. Gladstone would say, "I’m sorry, but Sandy’s been getting in trouble over a lie I told just to make a joke."
And Eric would tell her mom. And everything would be better.
Meanwhile, Eric and Marty continued to talk about school.
"So what did Ms. Watson assign us over the weekend?"
"We’re supposed to read some poetry by Sylvia Plath and write something about it in our response journal."
"I hate that bitch."
Marty probably meant that he hated Sylvia Plath, because he usually would follow up his criticisms of Ms. Watson with, "but I’d sure like to jump those bones." So he probably was referring to Plath. Truth was, however, he never had read any Sylvia Plath. Not one single line of poetry.
Sandy had read Sylvia Plath. She read The Bell Jar during class once in 2nd grade, when she was supposed to be doing something else. Surely she did not understand all of it, but she did get something out of it. She didn’t like that bitch either, but she had more authority to say so.
"Hey, where did your sister go?"
"I don’t know."
"Aren’t you gonna go look for her?"
"I don’t want to play her games."
When she finally got to the door of room 209 she was completely out of breath and yet was still able to say, "Mrs. Gladstone, I’m here." The patient was no longer there. Sandy sat down on the floor in room 209 with her legs crossed and looked up at the somewhat cracked stucco ceiling. Tears squeezed out her eyes and dropped down her face as she waited for her brother to come or not to come. She put her head in her hands.
It’s a good thing that Eric did not decide to follow Sandy. Mrs. Eunice Hanson Gladstone had left to go the cafeteria in her walker, planning on Sandy and her brother to arrive at her room when she was gone, so Sandy would get in even more trouble.