Page 17 of The Rebel
I texted back:What is?
Even though it had taken me less than ten seconds to reply, it was like Paris had suddenly abandoned his phone. I had visions of him in the middle of hitting a hundred ball rally—that could be the only reason he didn’t answer me.
I called out to Dad for help with the boxes and together we carried them out to the garage.
“Is Paris going to Spain?” I asked as he climbed the ladder to store them up in the rafters.
“Who said that?” Dad questioned.
I shrugged. “He sent an emoji of the Spanish flag. Does it mean he’s going to Spain?”
“He’s looking at some tournaments,” Dad said vaguely, as if for once he didn’t want to talk about Paris. “How was school?”
“Fine.”
“Algebra?”
“Hate it.”
Dad laughed. “Any new teachers?”
“No. But Miss Simpkins had her hair cut. Like it had been down to the middle of her back and now it’s short. Apparently she donated it to a cancer cause.”
“Okay,” Dad said, “that’s admirable.”
“Her cousin has cancer.”
“That’s not good,” Dad said, hurrying me along. “Hand me that smaller box,” he said, pointing at the one that Volley had been sitting in.
“How was your day?” I asked, passing it to him.
“Busy,” Dad said briskly. My parents owned a refrigerated trucking company and were contracted to Whittakers Ice Cream Company for transporting their ice cream all over the region. “Okay, last ones, Poppet. Good girl,” he said, keen to finish up.
With all the decorations stored, Dad put the ladder away and I went back to my room. I’d barely opened my art pad when a sharp knock on my door was followed by Mom bursting in with an armful of folded laundry.
I immediately sat up on my bed. “Sorry, I meant to bring that up,” I said before she yelled at me for not doing my chores. But Mom didn’t tell me off, instead sitting on the end of my bed, scowling as she brushed at the dark canopy like it still disgusted her.
“I’ve got some news,” she said, peering across at my pad which I quickly closed. I’d only sketched an outline of a head—possibly Gabby’s—just to test my new charcoal pencil. Sheclasped her hands together nervously, and as Dad and I had spoken about Miss Simpkins and cancer only a few minutes earlier, an unshakable premonition came over me—Mom had some bad news for me. That headache she’d gotten when she’d forgotten her hat while watching tennis was actually a tumor. In the space of two seconds, I had her needing chemo treatments, having brain surgery and dying.
“Yes,” Mom said as fear raced through me like a rampant forest fire, already scarring and burning and leaving me in ruins, my whole life transforming before my eyes in a matter of moments, envisioning the worst, when she said softly, “I have something to tell you.”
My eyes widened and my body froze as I pictured life without my mother. Yes, she could be a pain, she was strict and controlling and demanding and critical, but she was my Mom and I loved her to death. Uhhh, death...no, she couldn’t die on me. Not like Jade and Ollie’s father, who had died from some sort of cancer.
I reached out and grabbed hold of Mom’s twitchy hands, already reimagining my life taking a twisted and tumultuous turn.
“Have you got cancer?” I blurted, needing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, as brutal as it might be.
Mom’s brow furrowed first, then her eyes narrowed in suspicion and her lips pursed in irritation. “What are you on about?”
I stiffened and pulled back. That wasn’t the tone of a woman with a terrible illness. And neither was her next retort, jumping down my throat with, “What on earth are you talking about, Vali?”
I blinked back my watering eyes, realizing I’d gotten it wrong. Mom clearly wasn’t on her death bed. “Nothing,” I mumbled, manifesting a cough like I was in the throes of dying myself.
“Valencia?” Mom suddenly had the nurturing concern of a protective mother elephant. “Why would you say that?”
I shrugged and sniffed and swiped at my eyes. “I don’t know, you’re scaring me.”
“Scaring you? I’ve just come to tell you something.”
