I start crying. Bawling, really. The class goes silent, and all the kids around me avert their eyes. I feel Flatso’s hand on my shoulder, and Zitsy murmurs, “Oh, Kooks, oh, Kooks.” But I can hardly hear him. All I hear is that goddamn phone.
I keep on crying when the bell rings, and for the first eight minutes of first period. I’m finally starting to pull it together, take shaky breaths and all that, and then—surprise, surprise, Ms. Alter shows up at the door and beckons me down the hall to Ms. Kellerman’s office.
When I walk in, she’s sitting in her chair. She’s got the same look on her face that supervillains always wear when they capture James Bond. It’s that moment when they feel like their plan is really coming together.
This isn’t really a look that you want on your psychologist.
“Hello, Margaret,” she says, gesturing for me to have a seat. “I’ve heard what occurred two days ago. I’m very sorry.”
“Okay,” I say, because I can’t bear to say thank you.
“I have been informed that you have not been handling the situation well.” Ms. Kellerman starts rooting through her pencil cup, as if she’s talking to the pens, maybe hoping to get their advice. “I fear this represents a real crisis in your case.”
“I wouldn’t call it a crisis.”
She selects a pen, then looks up at me—finally meeting my eye. “Then what would you call it?”
“Appropriate sadness?”
“Do you think that crying in homeroom is appropriate?”
“Not really.”
“And skipping school yesterday—was that appropriate? The hospital in Tuality informs me that you spent the night in the waiting room. That you refused to go home. Is that appropriate?”
A hot, angry tear leaks from my right eye. This is enough to convince Ms. Kellerman that I’m going over the edge. “Margaret, you need to accept the fact that you are mentally ill. You’ve already been hospitalized once, and I think you should consider that option once more.” She starts signing some paperwork, which sends a creepy feeling all over me. “I’m writing out a recommendation—”
“What?” The word bursts from my mouth like a scream.
“Margaret, I’m concerned that you might be a danger to yoursel—”
Danger! Danger? I grab her pencil cup and dump the writing implements on the floor. Then I stomp on them.
It feels really good to hear those pens and pencils crunch under the soles of my Uggs.
Ms. Kellerman is totally speechless, and I’m not going to lie: I feel really good for wiping that supervillain grin off her face. In fact, I feel better than I have in three days.
“Wow, Ms. Kellerman,” I say, “I think you’ve cured me. Thanks.”
And then—before she can think of anything to say or even stand up to stop me—I walk right out the door.
Chapter 59
MEN IN WHITE COATS
Kooks!” Marjorie meets me at the front door the minute I get home from school. “What happened?” Her nervous little hands flutter to her throat.
“Did they call you?” I ask, but a moment later, I look past her and get my answer. Mr. Tenant Goldborough is sitting on our couch in the living room. Beside him stands Billy, one of the attendants from St. Augustine Hospital.
“Margaret, I’m afraid I have some bad news,” Mr. Goldborough says.
“Hi, Billy,” I say. “It’s been a while.” Billy isn’t a bad guy. He’s got broad features and the flat expression of someone who doesn’t ask a lot of questions, which is probably what makes him good at his job.
He sighs and looks at the paperwork in Mr. Goldborough’s hand. “I’m sorry, Maggie.”
I shrug. It looks like Ms. Kellerman got everyone’s attention. I guess I shouldn’t have attacked her pencil cup like that. My insides feel heavy—like I just ate a giant block of cheese, or concrete, or something. Ms. Kellerman claims to be so worried about my fragile psyche. Did it ever occur to her that sending people off to the loony bin is the kind of thing that makes them crazy?
But I don’t pitch a fit. I don’t even argue. I just let Billy put a warm hand on my elbow and guide me out the door.
“Oh, Kooks!” Marjorie’s hands have sunk into her hair.
“I’ll be back,” I tell her, and try to smile. “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“You sound like my mother,” Marjorie calls after me as we step outside into the steady rain.
I don’t know if it’s true, but I cling to that compliment like a gold coin. I want to put it in my pocket and examine it later. If I could be like Mrs. Morris—even a little bit—then I know I’ll get through this.
Chapter 60
ST. AUGGIE’S I AM
Why do you think you were crying in class?” Dr. Marcuse asks me.
I’m sitting in her office across from a funky green felt wall hanging. It’s a thousand shades of green, like a forest, and I love looking at it. It’s funny—I don’t like the fact that Ms. Kellerman sent me here, but I don’t mind actually being here. “I was crying because I was sad,” I tell Dr. Marcuse. “Because my best friend nearly died.”
Dr. Marcuse takes off her glasses and polishes them with a handkerchief. I love that she has a handkerchief. It’s so old-fashioned and elegant. “Can you think of a more appropriate response?”
“Not really.”
“Neither can I,” Dr. Marcuse says, perching her glasses back on her nose. “Do you have any idea how the school administration expected you to react? What they would consider appropriate?”
“Increased study time, maybe?”
Dr. Marcuse laughs softly, like a cat’s purr. “No doubt that was their hope.”
“Sometimes I just feel like I’m going to be sad forever,” I say. “Like my blue period is going to turn into my blue life, and I’ll just be a loser who cries nonstop and feels sorry for herself.”
“How much do you believe that? One hundred percent?”
“Thirty, maybe. Thirty-five? Thirty-three. No. Twenty-eight.” I can’t quite come up with the perfect number, but it’s in that range.
“So—less than half. You don’t really believe it, in other words. A small part of you thinks it, but you don’t really believe it.”
“Yeah.”
“Is there anything that makes you happy now?”
“Well, Katie’s okay,” I say.
“Yes, that’s good.”
I think a moment. “And I have my other friends. And Marjorie—she’s been really sweet to me. I’m starting to see how we could be…” I shrug, unsure what to say. Friends? Foster relatives? “We could really get along.”
Dr. Marcuse nods. “Good.”
I think about Morris the Dog. And Laurence, and all the books at the library. And all those happy things make me start to feel a little bit better.
I can even imagine a day when I’m just happy and nothing else.
I’m not there yet. The hospital and Mrs. Morris and my mom and everything—it’s all still too raw. But someday.
“You have a right to be sad, Maggie. You’re fine. Sadness is not a mental illness.”
I look back up at the leafy wall hanging. The forest. Even trees go though sad times. But then they burst back to life. That will be me, I tell myself.
That will be me.