After a month, my hair started to fall out in clumps. I lost eight pounds. I was flunking math.
Finally, after my Bridesmaids meltdown, the Freakshow staged an intervention and demanded to know what was going on. I didn’t want to get Mom in trouble, but I didn’t know what to do, so I told them.
Naturally, Brainzilla was on the case right away. She called Child Protective Services and got in touch with Mrs. Morris, my neighbor. Mrs. Morris said that of course I could come and stay with her, but the state wanted me to have an “observation period” before they released me into her custody. So I got down at Crazytown.
And that’s how I ended up in this life.
Poor Mrs. Morris. I know she feels bad that she scared me out there in the garage. It isn’t her fault, of course. It isn’t my fault, either.
There’s no one to blame. No one who’s around, anyway.
Chapter 19
IT’S NOT SO EASY WRITING IN A DIARY IN HOMEROOM
Homeroom is nothing but dead air this morning. I don’t feel much like writing. Still no luck with the new ending for Twilight. For a while, I was working on a musical number. But I can’t write music. And it’s hard to get the dance steps across in a book.
So that’s not working.
Half the class is zoning out, and the other half is trying to carve expletives onto the desks, so nobody notices as I take a little mental vacay and go visit Laurence.
The English countryside is way more beautiful this morning than dreary suburban Portland. (No offense, suburbs!)
So I’m sitting there, mentally running through a field of flowers, when it’s like a heavy weight lands on me. You know what’s worse than having a football lineman pull you out of a back-row seat? It’s some football lineman sitting on you because he didn’t even notice you were there.
I try to gasp but can’t get enough oxygen. Tommy Marinachi has got to weigh two-eighty.
Interestingly, it’s Marty Bloom who notices I need help. “Jeez, Marinachi!” he says, smacking Tommy on the side of the head and hauling him off me.
Tommy apologizes as I try to massage some feeling back into my legs. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t even see you!”
He’s only making me feel worse. “I’m okay.”
Marty looks doubtful. “Are you sure?” he asks. “Do you want me to carry you to the nurse or something?”
“No, really,” I say. “I can feel the blood returning to this one already.” I attempt to move my foot, and fail. Any minute now.
Marty looks concerned, but he doesn’t push it. I’m grateful. I mean, I haven’t even spoken to him since that whole food fight/Freaky Jesus deal.
It would definitely be a little weird to have him carry me to the nurse.
I just wish I could figure Bloom out.
Nice?
Mean?
Why can’t he just be one thing or the other?
Chapter 20
THE FREAKSHOW’S OPERATION HAPPINESS: HOLIDAY EDITION
Chapter 21
TRUE CONFESSIONS
I love taking the bus to Portland. It’s fun to watch people whiz past the windows as I ride along, imagining their lives. There are worse ways to spend a sleety Saturday.
The bus is so toasty that I have to take off my coat, which is fine with me. Mrs. Morris insists that the cold air is good for her circulation, so she keeps our place pretty chilly. The bus is a nice change from my seven-degree bedroom.
It’s already mid-December, and everyone around me is loaded down with red and silver shopping bags. I’m not going shopping, though. I’m actually on my way to see Dr. Marcuse. She’s the one from Crazytown and she is 100 percent awesome with zero byproducts. I’m serious.
Anyway, don’t worry—nothing dramatic has happened. Well, nothing except this mild freak-out I had the other day when I tried to borrow Brainzilla’s turtleneck.
Once I got the turtleneck off my head and took a few deep breaths, I realized that Katie was right. Not just because of the turtleneck, but also because of how worried I got when I couldn’t find Mrs. Morris the other night. And also because I really like Dr. Marcuse.
Not because I’m having a psychiatric emergency. I swear.
Anyway, I make it to St. Augustine, and I just have to ask, is it weird to say that a mental hospital feels homey?
I actually feel kind of happy to be back here. It’s a bit like visiting my old elementary school: There’s my old locker! There’s my old teacher! There’s that same dead fly that has been on the windowsill for three months!
But it’s also like visiting your old school in that there are all these new faces. I check in at the desk, then walk past the cozy activity room where a bunch of teen girls are using safety scissors to cut up magazines for a collage. Right. It’s Saturday—art therapy. Mr. Noyes is smiling at one of the girls, explaining something in his slow, patient way, gesturing with his tiny, clean hands. He doesn’t notice me as I pause in the doorway, remembering what it was like to be one of those girls at the white table.
I don’t feel any crazier now than I did then.
Laughter bubbles from the activity room as I move toward Dr. Marcuse’s office. Light streams in through the large windows, lighting up the colorful fish mural that lines the hall. A nurse in Tweety Bird scrubs pushes a medication cart out of one of the rooms. Her face lights up with a huge smile.
“Hey, there, Ms. Maggie,” Opal says, waving at me with her fabulous nails. They’re painted with little Tweety Birds. “Guess you missed us too much?”
“I’m just here to check in with Dr. Marcuse,” I say, walking into her soft-bodied hug. She smells like hand cream.
“Well, you’re looking real good, sweetheart. You take care of yourself.” And Opal gives me a little squeeze, like she really is happy to see me, and really is happy I’m better.
Here is the thing about Crazytown: It’s shockingly normal. It isn’t like the mental hospitals you see in movies, where the staff is all psycho and desperate to give people lobotomies. Even the so-called patients wouldn’t strike you as nutcases. That’s because most of the crazy goes on inside their heads.
At Crazytown, the staff encourages you to, like, live in the real world most of the time. Then, with your doctor, you work on those little parts of your brain that are tripping you up. So most of the day is spent doing art or playing games or exercising or whatever. It’s kind of like camp. Minus the archery.
Dr. Marcuse’s door is half open, like it’s inviting me in, but I give a soft knock anyway.
“Maggie, is that you?” she calls, and when I walk in, she gets up from behind her desk and comes over to grab my hands. Dr. Marcuse isn’t a very huggy person, but I can tell she likes me.
I sit down in the same old comfortable wing chair. When I was at Crazytown, I saw Dr. Marcuse every day, sometimes twice a day. I know every detail of this room: the slightly crooked diploma from Columbia on the wall behind her head, the elegant aloe plant on her dark wood desk, the framed print of a yellow elephant that sits propped among the books on her disordered shelves, the green fabric wall hanging.
Who wouldn’t get better in a place like this, talking to someone like Dr. Marcuse? After ten days, she pronounced me “sound of mind.” I’m totally fine now. Mostly totally fine. Still a little blue sometimes, but hey—it worked for Picasso, right?
Chapter 22
INDEPENDENT
There’s a great indie bookstore about five blocks from my house called Pagemakers, where I like to spend some of my time and most of my money. It always has a great selection of books, and sometimes it hosts readings by awesome authors. Usually only, like, three people show up to the readings, so I always get to ask lots of questions and get my book signed, and it’s really great. But this evening, the store’s hosting one of my favorite authors, Nancy Werlin, and her fans are hogging up some serious floor space. It’s also mid-December, so the place is buzzing with holiday shoppers.