Passage

A couple of days after that, Vielle came to see her. She was wearing a pager, too. “They won’t let me work in the ER until my hand gets better,” she said, looking mad only not really, “so they sent me up here to take care of you.” Vielle looked up at the TV. “What is that?” She made a face. “The Sound of Music? I hate The Sound of Music. I always thought Maria was way too cheerful. Don’t you have any good videos around here? I can see I’m going to have to bring in some of mine.”

She did, but Maisie didn’t get to watch them because her mom had started staying in her room all the time, even at night. It didn’t matter. Most of the time she was too tired to even watch The Sound of Music and she just lay there and thought about Joanna.

They kept having to take her down to have echocardiograms and one of the times when they were getting her into position, the button on her pager got pressed, and Vielle and a crash cart and about a hundred doctors and nurses showed up, and a couple of minutes later Dr. Wright came running in, all panting and out of breath, and after that she didn’t feel so worried, but she still felt terrible. It was hard to breathe, even with the oxygen mask, and her head hurt.

Her heart doctors came in and told her they were going to put a special pump in that would help her heart do its work. “An L-VAD or a bivad?” she asked.

“An L-VAD,” they said, but then they didn’t.

“They’ve decided to wait till you’re feeling better,” her mom said. “And, anyway, your new heart’s going to be here any day now.”

“When they put a new heart in,” Maisie asked Vielle the next time she came in to check her vitals, “do they cut your chest open?”

“Yes,” Vielle said, “but it won’t hurt.”

“And your arms have IVs in them and stuff?” Maisie said.

“Yes, but you’ll be under the anesthetic. You won’t feel a thing.”

“Can I have some adhesive tape?” Maisie asked. “And some scissors?” and when her mom went down to the cafeteria for dinner, Maisie took her dog tags off and went to work.

The next day her mom said, “You have to think positive thoughts, sweetie. You have to say to yourself, ‘My new heart’s going to come in just a few days, and then this will all be over, and I’ll forget all about feeling uncomfortable. I’ll get to go to school again and play soccer!’ ”

And a little while later, Vielle came in and said, “You just have to hang on a little longer, honey,” but she couldn’t. She was too tired, even, to push the button on her special pager, and then she was in the tunnel.

There was no smoke this time, and no light either. The tunnel was totally black. Maisie put her hand out, trying to feel the wall, and touched a narrow metal strut. Next to it there was nothing for a little ways and then another metal strut, at a different angle, and another.

“I’ll bet this is the Hindenburg,” she said. “I’ll bet I’m up inside the zeppelin.” She looked up, trying to see the inside of the big silver balloon far overhead, but it was too dark, and the floor she was walking on wasn’t a metal catwalk, it was soft, and too wide. Even when she took hold of the metal strut and stretched out both arms as far as they would reach, she couldn’t feel anything but space on the other side of the tunnel.

So it must not be the Hindenburg, she thought, but she didn’t dare let go of the strut for fear it was and she would fall.

She worked her way along, walking carefully along the soft floor and holding on to one strut and then the next one, and after a few minutes the struts on the side she was on disappeared, and there was nothing to hold on to on either side of her. I must be at the end of the tunnel, she thought, peering into the darkness.

A light shone suddenly, mercilessly, in her eyes. She put up her hand to protect her eyes, but it was too bright. “The explosion!” she thought.

The light swung suddenly away from her. She could see its long beam as it swung, like the beam from a flashlight. There were little specks of dust in it. It swung around in a big arc, lighting the struts behind her as it went, and she could see they were the underneath part of a grandstand, full of people. Up above the tunnel where she had been standing was a big red-and-gold sign that said “Main Entrance.”

The light swung in front of her and then stopped and shone on a man standing on a round box dressed all in white. Even his boots were white, and his top hat. The light made a circle around him. “La-deez and gentlemen!” he said, really loud. “Kindly direct your attention to the center ring!”

“I like this part the best,” someone said. Maisie turned. A little girl was standing next to her. She had on a white dress and a big blue sash. She was holding a fluffy pink puff of cotton candy on a paper cone. “My name’s Pollyanna,” the little girl said. “What’s yours?”

“Maisie.”

“I love the circus, don’t you, Mary?” Pollyanna said, eating cotton candy.

“Not Mary,” Maisie said. “Maisie.”