Six Months to Live (8 page)

“You’re not swimmin’?” Sandy asked, the disappointment showing in her voice.

Mike dropped his eyes and jammed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “Naw,” he said.

“But why?” she asked, her blue eyes wide. “Can’t you swim?”

Mike stood self-consciously for a moment. “I, uh, had a kind of bone cancer,” he said quietly. “They had to cut off my left leg below the knee. I wear a prosthesis,” he continued with a shrug, “you know,… an artificial leg. I, uh, I have to take it off to go in the water.”

The hot sun beat down. The sounds of kids

laughing and splashing enveloped the poolside air. The biting smell of chlorine filled Sandy’s nose. Her insides ached for Mike.

Sandy looked him full in the face, tipped her head and said, “I don’t care about your leg, Mike. I’d like you to come swimmin’ with me.”

Mike allowed his eyes to settle into hers. “What does bother me,” Sandy continued, a teasing tone coming into her lilting voice, “is bein’ around a boy who has more hair than I.”

A slow, shy grin spread over Mike’s face, reaching from his mouth to his eyes. He nodded and said, “You’re all right, Sandy. You’re all right.”

The tension eased. Mike laughed and headed to his cabin to change. Sandy waited for him, and Dawn and Greg slid into the cool, fresh water.

“Actually,” Greg said, breaking the surface and slinging the water off his face and hair, “Mike’s a super swimmer. We’re both on our high school swim team and we belong to the same swim club. We used to go to meets together all the time. Course, Mike can’t compete any more. It’s not a sport for a one-legged athlete. But he still works out and stays in shape.”

“You’re a swimmer?” Dawn asked, surprised.

“Since I was six,” he told her. “I’m hoping for an athletic scholarship to college. I’ve already won meets and tournaments at the State and National levels. And who knows? Maybe I’ll make it to the Olympics someday.”

Dawn felt awed pleasure in his presence. Greg was planning a full and active future. And he had cancer, just like her. “What kind of cancer do you have?” she asked, no longer shy around him.

“Leukemia,” he said, “since I was twelve. Two more years and they’ll call me ‘cured.’ I think I’m going to make it.” His blue eyes danced bright and colorful as the water. Small droplets clung to his golden skin and wet hair.

“Race you across the pool!” he called.

Dawn ducked under the water. She pushed off from the side of the pool in one smooth motion. She surfaced and stroked quickly over the surface.

“Hey!” Greg cried, caught by surprise.

Dawn laughed as he pulled alongside her with only a few strokes. Then he slowed and glided next to her through the water to the far side. She’d never felt happier, never more joyful.

“You’re not a bad swimmer!” Greg said as they touched the far wall.

“Thanks,” Dawn said. “I love sports.”

Just then Sandy and Mike swam up alongside them. Dawn couldn’t help but glance below the rippling water at Mike. His thick and muscular thigh ended at his knee. But he pushed off from the wall with his good leg and did a beautiful back flip under the water. Sandy clapped gleefully as he surfaced and Mike took her hand and pulled her playfully up to his chest.

Greg tapped Dawn on the shoulder. She

glided toward him in the water and his strong hands reached out for her. She realized, suddenly, that camp was only two weeks long. There would be only two weeks with Greg, Sandy, and Mike, only two weeks out of an entire year …

CHAPTER 10.

Glorious summer days passed in idyllic splendor. The four campers went swimming, riding, canoeing and on nature hikes. They spent velvet summer nights at barbecues, camp movies and on long moonlight walks. Greg Buchannan became friend, beau and big brother to Dawn. Mike became the same to Sandy.

They sat under the trees together after lunch and during the heat of the day, relaxing, talking, sharing. They talked about having cancer. There was a bond between them, an invisible thread that bound them together for all their tomorrows.

“I’m a lot more serious about my future,” Mike confessed one day. “Sometimes the guys I hang around with seem to waste so much of their time and energy on the dumbest things!”

Sandy laughed and nodded. “Isn’t it the truth? I have friends who think a Saturday night without a phone call or a date is grounds for suicide,” she said.

Dawn agreed. “I wonder a lot about going back to school. Will my old friends treat me normally?” she asked.

Greg shrugged. “Some will. Some won’t. Sometimes you have to start all over again. You have to prove to them that you’re all right, you know, socially acceptable. People are still afraid of cancer. One of my friends kept away from me because he thought he’d catch cancer if he was around me!” he said.

The other three broke out laughing at the idea. “What a dumbo!” Dawn cried.

The hot afternoon sun beat down through the canopy of the overhead trees. Sunlight and shadows flitted across Greg’s face and shoulders. Dawn watched as he chewed on a long stem of grass. It was so easy to be around him. He understood. He really understood all the things she was feeling, because he had felt them, too. Would any other boy ever understand? Would the boys back home in her circle of friends understand and accept her the way Greg did?

“Hey!” Mike cried suddenly, sitting up from his prone position on the grass. “Not to change the subject, but I have a dynamite idea!”

His friends leaned in eagerly. “What?” “Tell us!” they whispered, catching the excitement in his voice.

“Let’s ‘get’ Dr. Ben!” he grinned.

“How’d you mean?” Sandy asked.

“You know,” Mike said, his brown eyes

twinkling. “Let’s play a trick on him, something funny. Let’s make it something he’ll remember every year he comes to this camp!”

Sandy squealed mischievously. “Let’s!” she said.

“What do you have in mind?” Greg asked, his blue eyes lighting up at the thought.

“How about a midnight raid with water balloons?” Dawn suggested. “Imagine being ‘bombed’ at midnight out of a sound sleep with a blast from a water balloon!”

Mike’s eyes sparkled. “That’s not bad, Dawn. What else?” he asked.

“Well,” Sandy drawled. “Once, to get even with one of my brothers, I stole his underwear and sewed flowers all over them. It took him days to pick all the threads off. He was the talk of his gym class for weeks!” she laughed.

“We’ll run them up the flagpole!” Greg shouted. “Can you picture the look on everybody’s face when we go to breakfast and see Dr. Ben’s underwear flying from the flagpole!”

The four of them dissolved into helpless laughter, then set about making their plans. “After we hit him with water balloons,” Mike said, “he won’t be expecting anything else. I’ll get the underwear while the place is in confusion.”

They decided to make the “hit” the next night. “Once everybody’s asleep, Greg and I’ll come to Coyote cabin and get you two,” Mike said.

“We’ll tap on the window, lightly. Then you two sneak out, and we’ll go over to Dr. Ben’s cabin. Greg and I’ll sneak in it. You two pass us the balloons through the window. We’ll make the hit, get the merchandise and then split.”

“Sounds good to me,” Sandy said. Dawn clapped with anticipation.

“I heard he sleeps with a rope surrounding his bed. The floor is covered with pots and pans,” Greg offered. “That’s so no one can get near his bed.”

Mike snapped his fingers to dismiss the obstacle. “No problem,” he said. “We’ll be so sneaky, he’ll never know what hit him!”

At arts and crafts the next morning, each of them took a handful of balloons from the craft supplies. That afternoon, they carefully filled them with water. Then Dawn and Sandy put them inside their shower caps and stashed them under their bunks.

“My poor cap looks like it’s about to have a litter of kittens,” Sandy remarked slyly to Mike at supper.

“Sh-sh!” he cautioned. “Doc Ben has spies all over the place.”

As if to underscore Mike’s warning, that night after a movie Dr. Ben stood up and said, “It has been brought to my attention that a lot of balloons have mysteriously ‘disappeared’ from the craft supplies.”

An excited buzz swept around the campers.

Dawn felt her color darken. But she maintained a facade of complete surprise.

Dr. Ben held up his hands and continued. “I know that there are campers here who think they are smarter and more clever than us counselors,” he started. A murmur of protest sounded in the room.

“However,” he cried, his dark eyes teasing with challenge. “There’s not a camper been born who can outwit, outsmart or outdo Dr. Ben Isaacson!”

The protest grew to open hisses and verbal challenges. Mike and Greg looked especially innocent during Dr. Ben’s speech. But when the meeting broke up and everyone was dismissed, Greg leaned down to Dawn and whispered, “Tonight! We hit tonight. Tell Sandy. We’ll come for you at midnight!”

With total anticipation, Dawn and Sandy went to their cabin and prepared for bed. They slipped on their nightgowns over their clothes. They crawled into bed and, once the lights went out, feigned sleep. It seemed like hours before Dawn recognized the calm, even breathing of deep sleep from her cabinmates.

Dawn heard the noise first. It sounded like little scratches on their window. She reached over and poked Sandy. “I hear the signal,” she whispered. Dawn’s heart pounded with the tingle of the upcoming adventure.

Cautiously, they crept out of bed and slipped

to the window. Sandy slowly slid the window up and leaned out. Mike rose from the bushes to greet her.

“Got the bombs?” he asked.

Dawn dropped to her knees and slid the bulging shower caps out from under her bed. She handed one to Sandy who passed it out the window to Greg and Mike. Next, Dawn swung her legs out the window and felt Greg’s strong hands grab her waist. In another minute, Sandy boosted herself onto the windowsill, and Greg hauled her down to the bushes, too. There, the four of them hovered for a moment, breathing hard, quieting their nerves.

“Let’s go!” Mike ordered.

They crouched and stealthily crept through the woods toward Lion cabin, where Dr. Ben and his male staff slept.

“This is going to be a piece of cake!” Mike whispered. “Now, here’s what I want Sandy and Dawn to do. Greg is going to get in through the window. Then he’ll help me inside. You two keep a lookout and pass us the bombs. Once the battle starts, look for me to toss out the underwear. Once you get it, take off! Go back to your cabin. Get in bed and don’t look back.”

“But what about you guys?” Sandy asked.

“We’ll split. Don’t worry,” Mike said. “But it’s important that Doc Ben thinks that the water balloons were the object of the raid. We can’t let him suspect there’s anything else going on.

Okay? Is everything ready?”

Dawn nodded and squeezed Greg’s hand in the dark. Quickly, he leaned forward and brushed her mouth with his. “For luck!” he said. Her heart pounded with flushed surprise.

Greg raised the window and struggled to haul himself up over the ledge. He disappeared inside, then leaned out and reached down for Mike. In moments, both had vanished into the hushed darkness of the cabin. A minute later, Greg leaned out and Sandy and Dawn passed them the water balloons.

The girls crouched in the dark bushes, clutching each other’s hand and suppressing adrenalin-soaked giggles. Suddenly, the cabin erupted with shouts, cries and yells. “What the?” “Hey! What’s happening?”

“Bonsai!” Mike yelled. Splat after splat could be heard. Confusion and mayhem reined. Dawn wished she could see inside the cabin, but she and Sandy crouched against the outside wall, awaiting their prize to sail through the window.

Minutes later, an object was flung out the open window. Dawn scooped it up and stuffed it in her top. Then she and Sandy took off running. They never looked behind them and arrived back at their cabin winded and delirious with success.

“We made it!” Sandy whispered from the ground below their window.

“Not yet!” Dawn warned. She gathered her strength and grabbed the outside of the windowsill. Then she hauled herself up over the ledge. She was grateful for her sports background. Her arms were still strong and she got inside noiselessly. She reached out to Sandy, and her friend scrambled in after her.

Quickly they climbed into their beds. Dawn lay perfectly still, her ears straining for any signs that they’d been heard. All was quiet. Under her covers, she pulled the lump of material out of her top. Even in the dark she could tell that it was a pair of men’s underwear. They’d done it! The four of them together had pulled off the ultimate prank.

She hoped Mike and Greg had gotten away. Sandy took the pants and sneaked into the bathroom. There she sat for over an hour on the floor with her small sewing kit. Dawn checked on her and found Sandy’s handiwork perfect. The underwear was adorned with bright embroidered flowers, butterflies and bees.

Dawn took a laundry marker and scrawled across the seat: “The Fearless Four!” Finally, Sandy folded them up and stuck them under her pillow.

Dawn slept fitfully. But early the next morning, when the rest of the cabin was just awakening, she and Sandy excused themselves for an early walk to the mess hall. They walked swiftly toward their destination, the empty flagpole.

The dew clung to the woods and the fresh

smell of morning filled the hazy air. Dawn’s pulse raced with anticipation. At the flagpole they paused, looked around for privacy, clipped the newly decorated underwear on the flag hooks, and hauled it up the chain. A slight morning breeze caught the new “flag” and the girls watched as the brightly emblazoned pants fluttered and flapped at the top of the pole.

They swiftly slipped into the mess hall where Greg and Mike sat in wide-eyed innocence waiting for them. “You made it!” Sandy cried with delight.

“He never knew what hit him!” Greg whispered.

They all stifled laughs and waited for the hungry campers and counselors to descend on the mess hall and see the result of their night’s work. Beneath the table, Greg took Dawn’s hand. He held it tightly and her heart danced.