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  How could a red dot look great? “What do you mean?”

  “The earring!” she says, pointing to a mirror that the lady is holding up. “Look!”

  To my amazement, there’s a gold earring in my ear! I hadn’t felt a thing, not even a pinch! The lady smiles at my reaction. “So I guess it wasn’t too bad, huh?” she asks.

  I grin, almost giddy with delight, switch the ice pack to my left hand, and move it up to my ear. While we wait for that one to get numb, the lady dabs some antibiotic ointment on the front and back of the newly pierced ear with a Q-tip. Now that the numbness is starting to wear off, I can feel a little twinge and a slight tugging sensation. Nothing too painful, though. A girl and her mom watch from the side, right where Annabelle and I stood the other day. The mother is holding the fake diamond starter earrings. The girl is a few years younger than me, and I can tell she’s nervous by the way she keeps twisting her hair and biting it. I give her the thumbs-up sign, and she quickly lets the batch of hair fall. Laying the ice pack down in my lap, I say, “Okay, ready for the next one.”

  The lady picks up the red pen and walks over to my other side. I decide to close my eyes again since that worked out so well last time. Then I hear Mom say, “Um, is that normal?” and my heart sinks to the floor.

  Reluctantly, I open my eyes to see Mom pointing at my ear. The one with the shiny new earring that makes me really happy and didn’t hurt at all. I guess now that I think about it, there’s a dull sort of throbbing going on now. The lady rests the piercing gun on the table and comes over to look. “Hmm, that’s strange. You’re not allergic to gold, are you?”

  “Mom?” I ask, beginning to panic. “Am I?” It might be my imagination, but her face seems awfully pale all of a sudden.

  Turning to the woman, she says, “I thought you said the earrings were hypoallergenic?”

  “It’s very rare to be allergic to gold,” the lady insists. “This honestly never happens.”

  Where have I heard that before? I try to pick up the hand mirror, but Mom blocks me. “I think you better take the earring out.”

  The throbbing is worsening. I remember the girl in line with her mother and turn to look for them. They’re nowhere in sight.

  “I don’t think I can,” the lady says. “It’s sort of … embedded in there.”

  “What?” my mom and I say at the same time. My hand flies up to my ear. At first I’m not sure what part of my ear I’m touching, but then I realize that the earlobe is so swollen it almost completely covers the earring, front and back. The next thing I know, I hear a sort of popping sound, and the back of the earring shoots right into my hand.

  “Well!” the lady exclaims, shaking her head. “That’s something you don’t see every day.”

  “Can you pull the earring out from the front now?” Mom urges.

  “I’ll try,” the lady says. But as soon as she touches my ear I cry out, and she jerks backward.

  “Sorry,” I mutter. “Just a little sensitive.”

  “We may have to wait for it to make its way out on its own.”

  While they stand there helplessly, I grab the mirror and instantly wish I hadn’t. I look like Horton, that Dr. Seuss elephant with the huge ears. Except I have one huge ear, and one normal-sized ear. “What’s that white stuff oozing out the sides of the hole? Please tell me that’s the antibiotic you put on?”

  She peers at my ear. “Um, no, I think that’s pus.” I actually drop the mirror, and she dives for it, catching it only a few inches away from hitting the floor. “Pus is a good thing,” she claims, replacing the mirror on the small table. “It means your body is recognizing a foreign object and is fighting it off.”

  “Yay, me,” I reply weakly. I’m feeling dizzy from seeing the pus. The throbbing isn’t helping.

  The lady turns to my mom and says, “Why don’t you go to the smoothie stand across the hall and ask for some crushed ice. I’ll put it in a baggie, and that way the ice can bend around her ear.” Mom nods, squeezes my hand, and runs out.

  We wait in an awkward silence. “So,” I say, “I guess you don’t want to try the other ear?”

  She shakes her head and says something I can’t quite make out. My earlobe has now puffed up so much that it’s covering the opening to my ear. I caught the words antiseptic, antibacterial, and at home, so I think I got the important stuff. Allergic to gold? What kind of girl is allergic to gold? My spirits sag even further when I realize I won’t be able to wear Grandma’s earrings now. Maybe not ever.

  Mom returns and the ice is transferred into a small baggie. I hold it around my ear. It hurts if I press too hard, though, so I’m not really sure it’s helping anything. The piercing lady promises that the swelling should go down really quickly, and that once I can pry the earring out, I’ll feel much better. A teenage boy comes in, sees me, blanches, and scurries back out. I want to tell him to man up, but I’d run away from me, too, if I could.

  The lady refunds our money without even being asked, and sort of rushes us out of the store without trying to look like that’s what she’s doing.

  I feel wobbly as we walk out, like I’m going to tip over. “I think your balance is a little off,” Mom says, taking my arm with the hand that isn’t holding the pet food bag. “Your inner ear controls your equilibrium. You better lie low until it heals.”

  “Please speak into my good ear.”

  She repeats what she said, but into my left ear. “We still have time before we have to get Sawyer; let’s swing by the doctor’s office.”

  Oh, joy.

  Besides the mothers, I’m the oldest by about eight years at the pediatrician’s office. All the little kids gawk at me when we walk into the waiting room, and I wonder why no one has told them that it’s not polite to stare. One of the women pulls her son close to her as we take our seats. Mom sees this and says, “She’s not contagious. I’m more concerned about what he’s going to give her.”

  You tell her, Mom! I wish I had a book to hide my face behind, but I have to settle for some old Highlights magazines from my mom’s generation.

  “Yep, you’re allergic to gold,” the doctor says when it’s our turn. “And from what your mom told me on the phone the other day, you should stay away from plant-based products as well. Down the road we’ll send you for more extensive testing to try to narrow down the culprit.” Then I have to hold still while he uses this tool that looks like a skinny pair of pliers to pull the earring out. I do my best not to scream, but a small one might have escaped.

  I’m about to hop off the table when he says, “Hang on. I’d like to give you an allergy shot before you leave. It’s more effective than the liquid, and since you’re just coming off the other allergic reaction, I think it’s a good idea.”

  I glare at my mom even though I know this whole thing’s not her fault. On the other hand, maybe it is! After all, she made me, which means I can blame my plant sensitivity and gold allergy on her.

  As he readies the shot, Mom says, “While we’re here, can you take a look at her legs?”

  “What’s wrong with her legs?”

  Will the humiliation never end? Having no choice, I lift up my pant legs and show him.

  He peeks under the bandages. “Oh, my.” Fortunately he doesn’t pry, just gives Mom a handful of ointment packets and tells me to put clean bandages on each night for a week. He points to my left leg. “You might have a scar on that one.”

  Great. So now I’ll have a lifelong reminder of the whole experience.

  “Well, Mom,” I say, rubbing my upper arm as we climb into the car, “this has been a really fun day. Thanks.”

  “Look on the bright side,” she replies. “Now no one will notice you’re walking funny.”

  “Ha-ha. If this motherhood gig doesn’t work out, you could take your act on the road.”

  She laughs and says, “Don’t tempt me. Hey, and when I pick up Sawyer, try to cover your ear with your hair.”

  The only thing that makes me feel bet
ter is knowing that Bunny is waiting for me at home. I cover my ear the best I can, and Sawyer’s so tired from his playdate that he doesn’t notice anything. I don’t think I could stand to hear him screaming again. Even with my one good ear.

  Dad opens the door before I even step up on the porch. The breeze has blown my hair away from my ear and his jaw drops when he sees me. Mom walks up with Sawyer just as Dad opens his mouth, and she gives him a quick shake of her head. He closes his mouth and clears his throat. “Ah, you got a phone call, Rory. It was the AD for the movie. She said she tried to call your cell, but it wouldn’t accept the call. I’ll program it in for you tonight.”

  “What did she want?” I ask, wondering if I could be in trouble somehow. Maybe they found out Annabelle and I were in the trailer with Sari, and they’re firing us? I really hope not, since I just spent all the money from the soccer game scene at the pet store.

  “She said they need all the extras tomorrow after school. You’ll need to bring party clothes with you.”

  “Perfect,” I mumble. Not only do I not have party clothes, I have an elephant’s ear. I grab the pet store bag and storm up the stairs. Well, as much as I can storm. I fling open my bedroom door and the first thing I see is Bunny’s cage on my dresser. The second thing I see is that it’s empty.

  This is not good. I look all around the cage, my desk, the floor.

  Nothing. No Bunny.

  I also don’t hear any nibbling or crunching, but that might be because of my sudden deafness in one ear. I double-check that the computer wires are still in one piece. My research told me rabbits love to chew wires, and they can get electrocuted that way.

  Then I see him. He’s sitting on my pillow, happily nibbling on a carrot he must have carried out of the cage in his mouth. I breathe a sigh of relief, and join him on the bed. I stroke his back for a few minutes and then text Annabelle and Sari to tell them what happened at the mall. Annabelle writes back first.

  Sari’s response is more helpful.

  If I didn’t have the world’s dorkiest phone, I could take a picture of my ear and send it. But since I do have the world’s dorkiest phone, they’ll just have to take my word for it.

  Mom lets me eat dinner up in my room, since there’s no way I could keep my hair over my ear the whole time. And the only hats we have in the house are baseball hats, which wouldn’t cover it.

  I spend the rest of the evening alternating between feeling sorry for myself, icing my elephant ear, and playing with Bunny. He loves tossing the chew toys up in the air and letting them fall on his head. I still don’t know how he escaped. Dad swears he didn’t let him out, and the door to his cage was still latched. Just to be on the safe side, after I hug him good night, I wind some tape around the latch.

  Since I usually sleep on the side of my bad ear, it takes a while to get comfortable. Bunny must be having trouble, too, because he keeps turning around in his cage and nudging at his water dish. Once I fall asleep, I have this dream where an elephant is standing on my chest, pushing down on me. I can’t breathe! I struggle against his foot, grunting and gasping for air, but he doesn’t budge. Finally, I wake up out of the nightmare. As I lie there, trying to recover from the dream, I realize that even though I’m awake, I’m still having trouble breathing. Fear flows through me as I attempt to fill my lungs, and can’t. I try to sit up, but it feels like that elephant from my dream is squeezing the air out of my chest. Panicking, I look down. There IS something pushing down on my chest. But it’s not an elephant.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Your bunny is not trying to kill you,” Mom assures me, pouring some Cheerios into my bowl.

  “How can you be sure?” I can still feel his weight crushing my lungs.

  “I’m pretty sure bunnies are nonviolent creatures.”

  From the other room Sawyer yells, “Bugs Bunny is the best!”

  “Yes, he is, honey,” Mom yells back. She’s still keeping Sawyer away from me, due to my ear. I’m starting to miss him. It’s a sad state of affairs when you can’t be around your little brother because you scare him.

  I guess in the light of day it seems pretty silly to accuse Bunny of any evildoings. He was probably just trying to snuggle close to me. It’s not his fault those red eyes are so beady and scary in the dark.

  Mom comes up behind me with a brush and some hair bands. She pushes my hair this way and that, trying to find a way to cover my ear. It’s a little better this morning, more like a baby elephant’s ear than a full-grown one’s.

  “I’ve really gotta go,” I tell her, gathering my books from the table. “I’m meeting Sari early.”

  She steps back. “Okay, take a look.”

  A little wary of what I’ll find, I head over to the mirror in the hallway. Basically I now have a single ponytail hanging down the side of my head. She gathered the hair just below my ear, so it sort of puffs up around it. “Well, it does hide my ear.”

  “It might not exactly be the hottest style,” Mom admits. “But maybe you’ll start a new trend.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Probably not,” she agrees.

  “What’s going on with the side ponytail?” Sari shrieks when she sees me. We had arranged to meet at the entrance to the trailer area before school. Her own hair is three inches shorter on one side, but on her it looks cool. “Let’s get you in there before anybody sees you!” She ushers me past security by waving her badge, and practically throws me into the chair. I wave meekly at the two hair and makeup ladies who are busy setting things up for the day.

  “Careful,” I warn Sari as she’s about to yank out the ponytail. “It’s really sensit — ow! I asked you to be careful!”

  “Sorry,” she says. “Yikes, that looks pretty bad.”

  “That’s why I was wearing the ponytail!”

  “Trust me, a hat will be better.” She digs through a box full of hats and scarves, but discards one after the other. While she digs, she says, “You know, Natalie’s party is in two weeks. Do you think you could try not to maim yourself for that long?”

  “I’ll try,” I promise.

  “Try this one,” one of the makeup ladies says, tossing me what appears to be a chef’s hat.

  “She might stand out a bit in that one,” the other lady says. “You know, since this is a school and not the kitchen of a restaurant.”

  I’m glad she said it so I didn’t have to. I lay the hat on the countertop.

  “How about this one?” Sari asks, picking a white woolen cap off a hook. She plops it on my head, then pulls down the side to cover the offending ear. The four of us look at my reflection, and all shrug at almost exactly the same time. “Well, it does the job,” Sari says, summing it up.

  I can hear the warning bell ring over at the school, which must mean that my hearing is getting better. Sari and I are gathering our things to go when the trailer door bangs open. Madison and Jake walk in, laughing. Even without her makeup on, Madison is beautiful. I don’t see any acne scars, either. She stops laughing when she sees us, but Jake keeps smiling that bright smile of his. Seriously, his teeth rival the clouds in whiteness.

  “Nice hat!” he says. “It’s, um, jaunty!”

  Instinctively I reach up and touch it.

  “Hey,” Madison says, looking from the hat to the empty hook on the wall. “Isn’t that my hat for the scene at the homecoming game?”

  No one seems to know the answer to this.

  “And why does it look so … lumpy?” Madison holds out her hand. “I’d like my hat, please.”

  “I really think she needs to wear it today,” Sari says.

  “Oh, you do?” Madison says. Then in two quick steps she’s in front of me and tugging the cap right off my head. I grimace as it catches under my ear. For an instant everything’s quiet as my ear is revealed. Then Jake bursts out laughing.

  “You just can’t catch a break, girl, can you?”

  I shake my head sadly.

  “Does it hurt?”

&
nbsp; I glance at Sari, who is clearly mortified for me. “A little,” I admit. “Especially” — I pause to glare at Madison — “when someone pulls at it.”

  She scowls. “Well, how was I supposed to know?”

  “How did it happen?” Jake asks.

  “Allergic reaction to a gold earring,” I mumble.

  “You’re kidding!” he says.

  I shake my head.

  “Well, look on the bright side —”

  I interrupt. “Don’t say now no one will notice my face. Or my legs, whichever.”

  “I wasn’t going to. I was just gonna say that on the bright side, your boyfriend’s a lucky guy — he never has to buy you gold jewelry!”

  The makeup ladies laugh. Madison just looks annoyed. I, however, am in shock. Does Jake really think I would have a boyfriend?

  “C’mon,” Sari says, tugging at my sleeve. “We’re going to be late.”

  Still buzzing over Jake’s words, I let her lead me out. We’re halfway down the steps when the hat comes sailing after us. “Just take it,” Madison snaps before turning on her heel.

  Sari picks it up and sets it back on my head. It must have gotten stretched out or something, because it keeps slipping down all the way into school. Not too many people in Willow Falls wear hats in the middle of May. Or at any other time, really. I think the hat is attracting more attention than my ear would. So I pull it off and stuff it in my locker and hope for the best. I try to lie low and keep my hair over it as much as possible. By lunchtime, though, I decide maybe the hat’s a better idea after all, and retrieve it from my locker. Before heading to the cafeteria, I duck into the bathroom to change into the clothes Annabelle brought me for the dance scene after school. The top fits pretty well, and the pink color matches my pink-colored ear, which while not something I want to play up, still sort of amuses me. The miniskirt is too long on me, but at least the leggings cover up my bandages. I’m stuck wearing my own shoes because her feet are bigger.