According to Plan (Alice)

Never in my life did I think I'd be poked and prodded with so many needles. Never did I think I'd have cancer. Never did I'd see so many nurses in one place.

Never did I think anyone would care about me so much.

The burning sensation of chemotherapy running through my veins startled me. I was still sleepy from the other medicine, but powering through sleep deprivation is a skill I have honed over the years. A nurse gave me a book of classic fairy tales. I turned to one about a boy who found a magical golden creeper idol in a tree and used it to become a prince by getting a very serious princess to laugh. I wanted a nice girl to do this for me. I've found a few girls at Mindcrack to be cute, but I'm scared to tell them about it. For one thing, I'm not pretty, talented, or clever enough to fake being the two. For another, they may find it weird for a girl to be attracted to other girls.

I found another one about a girl so small she could fit in a dandelion. The illustration looked suspiciously like my private teacher. The story also reminded me of my mother when she was nice, the days when she would do pretty much anything to get a laugh or a smile out of me. I remembered when she bandaged my knee after I tripped killing a zombie and stealing its boots. I grew into those boots eventually and I'm proud of them. They're a reminder that somewhere, someone cares. I'm not sure who, but someone does.

My mom actually used to care about me, before everything went downhill when, in the fourth grade, we lost most of our money and I had to start working. She began to demand more and more from me. Since I barely slept because she started screaming for pain meds in the middle of the night, my grades began to decline, which caused her to start berating me for those.

89...88...87....86

The trend continued from there. I started playing trumpet because I thought I'd be good on that instrument. When I missed a note, she would tell me it was terrible. I ended up giving up in seventh grade, thinking I could never be good enough, not just for the trumpet, but in every area of life as well. No college wants a student with my GPA, so I'll most likely end up scrubbing tables for the rest of my life.

An intense wave of nausea crashed into me. I've heard of chemotherapy having these effects, but experiencing it still shocked me. I made my way to the bathroom and expelled the contents of my stomach into the toilet. After going back to my bed, a nurse reassured me that this was normal. She brought me a glass of water, a boiled egg, and some rice topped with nori. I bit into the egg and the rice, which tasted like metal. I spit it out. How do eggs taste like metal of all things? Again, a nurse reassured me that this was normal. If this is normal, I'd hate to experience something abnormal. The nurse returned with another tray of food: apple juice, a bowl of cream of wheat with some brown sugar, and some strawberries. Though I was still thrown off by the metallic-tasting eggs, I spooned some cream of wheat and brown sugar into my mouth. The sweetness distracted me from the unsettling feeling in my mouth. I ate a strawberry, its acidity a welcome contrast to what was in my bowl. Though hospital food was supposedly not all that good, I felt as though I had eaten like a queen when I was done.

Pleased with this, the nurse took my tray and another nurse took me for more testing. I've haven't gotten around to memorizing their names yet, but I do know their different persons like the back of my hand. The one who escorted me to the testing room was plump and had skin the color of oak planks. I looked at her name tag and found that her name is Angela. She took my blood and told me that everything was going more or less as planned.

When I was going back to my room, I felt the world being pulled from under my feet. Angela caught me and returned me to my bed. Although I wanted desperately, to sleep, I got to folding cranes. I wanted to honor my teacher by practicing her art. Everything is going according to plan, Angela had said to me. This certainly wasn't in my plan, but I know the nurses are working hard to keep me--and everyone else--healthy and happy to the fullest possible extent.