"I'm starving," I replied. "I've been starving all day - "

"Have you eaten?" Dad interrupted.

"Yes. Breakfast and lunch." (I didn't mention the package of M&M's that I'd sneaked while I was hiding in the girls' room.) "But I'm still hungry. The only thing is, I'm tired, too. I'd like to go out to dinner. I love the Sign of the Dove, but I'm just not sure - I mean, I don't know - "

Dad interrupted me again. "We'll eat at home. We'll order something in. Let's get a cab right away." He began hurrying toward the doors.

"Can I get a soda first?" I asked.

"Can't you wait until we get home?"

I shook my head.

"All right." Dad looked even more concerned as he glanced around for the nearest concession stand. He bought me a large diet soda. I finished it before we reached his apartment.

That evening Dad ordered two kinds of salad and some sandwiches from a nearby deli. We ate dinner in the kitchen, which was much more relaxing than eating out, even at the Sign of the Dove. I changed into jeans, and Dad and I just sat around and talked and ate.

I considered calling Laine, but by nine o'clock I was so relaxed that I yawned and said, "I think I'll go to bed now."

"Now?" Dad looked surprised.

"Yeah, I'm really zonked." Thirsty, too, but I didn't say so.

It was hard to hide this from Dad, though. His apartment is not all that big. There's only one bathroom, and it's closer to his bedroom than to mine. So he heard me when I kept getting up all night for drinks of water. (At least Dad's bathroom has clean soap and my own personal gla.s.s.) Once during the night, Dad was waiting for me when I came out of the bathroom. "Are you okay?" he asked. "I knew we shouldn't have ordered from the deli."

"Oh, my stomach's fine," I answered. "It's just that I'm still so thirsty. I keep drinking water and then I have to go to the bathroom all the time."

Dad frowned. "We should check your blood sugar level."

"Now?" It was three-thirty. "No way. I'm falling asleep. Tomorrow." I made my getaway as quickly as I could.

But by the next morning, when I was still drinking like crazy, Dad didn't even suggest checking my blood sugar again. He just said, "I think it's time to call the doctor, don't you?"

I nodded. Something was very wrong, I couldn't deny it any longer.

Dad ran for the phone. When he couldn't reach my doctor immediately, he put me in a cab and we rode to the nearest hospital.

Chapter 7.

Sat.u.r.day had been a good day for Claud. At least that's what she said the first time we had a chance to talk after I was admitted to the hospital. The cab had taken Dad and me to one of New York's finest. However, having been in a number of hospitals, I can tell you that no matter what . . . the food stinks. It makes the food in our school cafeteria look - and taste - like gourmet dishes prepared by a great chef of the world. In a hospital nowadays, everything that can be is individually wrapped - a slice of bread in a plastic wrapper, juice in a disposable plastic cup with a foil lid, etc. I would look at my plate after a meal, and it would practically be hidden by a pile of plastic and foil and paper.

What a waste.

If one person in one hospital generates this much trash, I thought, after my first "factory-fresh" meal, how can our environment possibly deal with it? How can - Oops. I am way off the track. I'll tell you about the hospital later. What I started to tell you about was Claudia and her good day. It began with a pottery cla.s.s. At the end of the cla.s.s, Ms. Baehr, the teacher, chose Claudia's piece (I think Claud said she was working on a vase) as "exemplary" and asked the rest of the cla.s.s to look at it before they went home. What a boost to Claudia's ego!

That afternoon, Claud studied for a spelling test. When Janine quizzed her on the words, Claud spelled seventeen out of twenty correctly (although you'd never know it from her notebook entry).

And then Claudia headed for the Johans-sens'. After such a good day, she wasn't too worried that Charlotte would want to be a Martian chef again, but it had crossed her mind after reading my last notebook entry. However, the first thing Charlotte said when her parents left was, "Let's play Memory, Claudia, okay? I have a new Memory game!"

"You do?" said Claudia.

"Yup." Charlotte pulled Claud into the living room. "Here. Sit on the floor," she said. "The game's in my room. I'll go get it."

Charlotte dashed up the stairs and a few moments later reappeared with a box of square cards, which she dumped onto the floor between her and Claudia.

Claud glanced at one of the upturned cards. "This looks different," she commented.

"I told you it was a new game." Charlotte grinned. "See, instead of matching up pairs of things, like two beach b.a.l.l.s, you match animal mothers with their babies. A cat with her kitten, a goose with her gosling. Get it?"

"Yup," replied Claud. "This should be fun."

"It is/' Char exclaimed. "I beat Mommy twice today."

"Really? That's terrific."

"Thanks. Now let's spread out the cards."

Charlotte and Claudia needed several minutes to mix up the cards, turn them all facedown, and then arrange them on the rug in a neat square of rows.

When that was done, Charlotte said grandly, "You may go first, Claudia. You're a new player, and I've already won some games."

"Okay." Claudia randomly turned over two cards.

"A puppy and a chick. No match!" cried Char.

Claudia turned the two cards facedown again, and then Charlotte took her turn at trying to find a pair. No match.

The game continued. It was very close. Charlotte is just plain smart, and Claudia has a good visual memory. (Maybe that's why art is so appealing to her.) The game was tied nine to nine when the telephone rang.

"I'll get it!" said Char.

"Okay," replied Claudia. "But remember, don't say that your mommy and daddy aren't at home. Just say - "

"I know/' Charlotte interrupted. "Say they can't come to the phone right now. Then take a message."

"Right." Claudia smiled.

"Oh, and no peeking at the cards while I'm gone," said Char.

"Promise," Claud answered. "No peeking. Cross my heart."

Charlotte ran into the kitchen. A few moments later she returned to the living room. "Claudia?" she said, with a catch in her voice. "That's Mrs. McGill. She wants to talk to you. She sounds like she's been crying or something."

"Are you sure?" said Claud, not even bothering to wait for an answer. She dashed into the kitchen and picked up the phone. "Mrs. McGill?" she said.

My mother did sound as if she'd been crying. That was because she had been. My father had called her an hour or two earlier, to tell her what had happened. And as soon as they hung up, Mom had freaked out completely. Then she began packing two suitcases - one for her and one for me.

Mom thought about driving straight to New York that very moment, but Dad discouraged her. This was not because he didn't want to see her. It was because she wouldn't have enough time to pack before the last train of the night left for New York, and Dad could tell that Mom was much too worried to drive the car for two hours in the pitch-black. So Mom decided to drive to New York the next morning. (I know all this because Dad was sitting in a chair in my private room at the hospital when he called Mom. I couldn't help but hear his end of the conversation.) Maybe it was no wonder that Mom had freaked out. She and Dad and I know that with the kind of diabetes I have, I can get sick no matter how strictly I stick to my diet and no matter how careful I am about giving myself the insulin injections. I guess none of us wanted to think about that, though.

Anyway, Mom felt better (she said) if she kept herself busy. So first she packed the suitcases. She knew I'd brought only enough things for the weekend, so she put some extra underwear, some nightgowns, my bathrobe, and a few other things into a bag for me.

Then she reorganized the closet.

And then she called Claudia.

She knew that Claud and the rest of my friends should be told what had happened. They would freak out if they thought my mom and I had disappeared off the face of the earth. Anyway, a best friend should know when her best friend is in the hospital.

"Hi, Claudia?" said my mother when Claud picked up the phone in the Johanssens' kitchen. Mom wasn't sure how to break the news.

"This is Claudia. Um ... is everything all right?"

"Well, not exactly. I guess I might as well come right out and tell you. Stacey went into the hospital today. In New York."

"Oh, my lord," Claud whispered. "What happened?" (Claud told me later that the first thing she thought of was not my diabetes but the horrible news reports she hears on TV every night. All the murders and attacks and muggings in New York. I don't think this is quite fair, because people can get mugged or murdered anywhere, but I guess New York City does have a bad reputation.) "Stacey's blood sugar has shot way up," my mom told Claud.

At this point, Claud actually sighed with relief. She'd been picturing me lying in bed with stab wounds or something. But then Mom went on to say, "She's pretty sick. The doctors aren't yet sure why her blood sugar level is so high. Right now, they're just trying to stabilize it. Then they'll begin doing tests. A lot of them, apparently. She may be in the hospital for awhile. ... I just thought you'd want to know."

"Oh . . . oh, yes. I - I'm glad you called.

I mean - I mean, I'm sorry Stacey's sick," Claudia stammered, "but I do want to know. ... Can I call her?"

"Sure. Not tonight, because she needs her rest, but I know she'd be delighted to hear from her friends tomorrow. And if she's still in the hospital next weekend - and I'm not saying she will be - but if she is, you can come visit her on Sat.u.r.day or Sunday, if your parents give you permission."

"Okay," said Claud, her voice shaking slightly. She took down the phone number that my mom gave her. Then Mom said she was leaving for New York the next day, asked Claud to get my homework a.s.signments from my teachers (why did Mom have to think of that?), and told Claud not to worry and that she'd keep in touch.

When Claudia hung up the phone, she knew what she had to do first. Tell Charlotte the news. And she would have to do that carefully, since Charlotte is pretty attached to me.

"Char?" said Claudia, not wasting a moment.

"Yes?" Charlotte had been standing in the doorway to the kitchen all that time. She knew something was wrong.

"Char, um, let's go into the living room and talk." Claudia led Charlotte to the couch and sat down next to her. "I guess the easiest way to tell you this is just to say it. Stacey's in the hospital in New York."

Charlotte looked horrified. "Did the Stalker get her?" she asked shrilly.

"What?" said Claud.

"The Stalker. I've been reading about him in the paper. He stalks girls and then he - "

"Oh, no!" interrupted Claud. "It's not that. Stacey's sick. Her diabetes."

"Oooh."

And in a flash, pretty much as Claudia had expected, Charlotte fell apart. She began to sob. All Claudia could do was hold her. She couldn't tell her it would be all right, because she didn't know that for sure. However, when Char had calmed down, she and Claud put together a care package for me: a crossword puzzle book, a drawing by Charlotte, and a few other things. Claud promised to mail it to me on Monday. During the rest of the evening, Charlotte asked questions such as, "Is Stacey going to die? What if she has to stay in New York where her doctors are and she can never come back here?"

Poor Claudia was stuck with the job of trying to answer those questions - and later with calling the other BSC members to spread the bad news.

Chapter 8.

On Sunday at noon, Mom walked into my room at the hospital. I had been in there for almost twenty-four hours. Dad had stayed with me the entire time, except for a few hours very early in the morning when he went back to his apartment to try to catch a little sleep and to change his clothes. I had told Dad that he didn't have to stay with me, but when he said that he wanted to, I was secretly glad. You won't understand why unless you've been in the hospital yourself. (I mean, apart from the time you were born. That doesn't count, because you don't remember it.) The thing is that no matter how hard the doctors and nurses and other staff members try, most hospitals are very impersonal places. They feel impersonal, anyway. At least to me. I-don't care how many clowns come to visit or how many pretty posters and balloons decorate the walls of the ward. A hospital is still a hospital, and that means: - There are so many nurses and doctors you can't keep track of them all. (I wished my specialist were there, but he was on vacation for two weeks. He wasn't even in New York.) - You wonder how the nurses and doctors know who you are. (Are you really Stacey McGill - a person - or are you just "that patient in Room 322"?) - You have hardly any privacy. All day long, you are poked and prodded, sometimes by people you've never seen before. All night long, the nurses check on you. This happens about once an hour. Since the door to your room is left open, there is always light flooding in on you. On top of that, squeaky, rubbery nurses' shoes constantly step into your room. Sometimes they approach your bed, and then you know that the night nurse is going to take your temperature or something.

For these reasons and a lot more, I was glad that Dad stayed with me. Dad knew I was Stacey McGill, his daughter, a person - and not just "that patient in Room 322." He could be my advocate. Oh, well. I'm off the subject again.

As I started to say before, Mom showed up on Sunday around noon.

"Mom!" I cried when I saw her. (I don't know why I sounded so surprised. She had told Dad, and he had told me, that Mom was going to come to New York that day and stay until I was out of the hospital.) "Hi, sweetie," Mom replied. Her eyes were bright with tears, but she didn't cry. Instead, she leaned over, kissed me, and placed a big, fuzzy, pink pig next to me. "I tried to find Porky Pig," she said apologetically, "but that's hard to do on short notice." (Porky Pig is a favorite of mine. I can even imitate his voice.) "That's okay," I said. "I don't think I've ever had a stuffed pig before."

Mom's eyes cleared and she smiled at me.

I smiled back, looking from rny mom to my dad and back to my mom again. When was the last time the three of us had been in the same room at the same time? I wasn't sure, but it definitely felt nice. My family was together again.

But not for long.

As soon as Mom had taken off her coat and found a place to sit down, Dad jumped up from his chair. "I could use some coffee," he said. (Or, I think that's what he said. He left the room so fast I wasn't sure.) Mom and I were alone. Before Mom could ask how I was feeling or what the doctors were doing, I said, "I hope my room isn't too messy for you."

Mom looked puzzled. She glanced around her. "You just got here yesterday, Stacey," she said. "You haven't had time to make a mess."

I laughed. "No, I mean my room at Dad's apartment. You probably couldn't even find the bed. I left clothes everywhere. Your suitcase - "

"Honey," Mom interruped me, "I'm not staying in your room. I'm staying at Laine's apartment, in the guest bedroom."

"You're staying at the c.u.mmingses'?" I exclaimed. "Why?"

. "Because," Mom said calmly, "your aunt and uncle are out of town." (I have some relatives in New York, but I don't see them very often.) "Why aren't you staying at Dad's, though?" I asked.

"Stacey, your father and I are divorced."

"I know you're divorced," I said crankily. "Does that mean you can't stay under the same roof together?"

"In our case, yes," Mom answered.

I think she was going to say something more, but she changed her mind and stopped speaking. So I changed the subject.

"Look at my arm," I said. I held it out. In the crook of my right elbow were two Band-Aids. "They keep drawing blood to do tests on it. And every time I go to the bathroom, I have to go in a plastic cup. They keep testing my urine. It is so embarra.s.sing. . . . Have you talked to any of the doctors yet?"

"Not yet," replied Mom. "Your father has, though. And no one knows much more than they did yesterday."