Chicken Soup for the Kid’s Soul (23 page)

Missy and Me

I sold my bike to a friend in my sixth-grade class when we moved from Oklahoma. I planned to buy a new one in California when we got settled, but that never happened. The house we bought in San Diego was near a busy highway, outside of town, and I wasn’t allowed to ride there, even if I had wanted to.

Instead I spent my bike money on Missy, a cuddly, brown-eyed cocker spaniel puppy. It was love at first sight. The other puppies at the kennel hopped all over each other, but Missy walked straight up to me and gently licked my hand with her pink tongue. When I picked her up, she looked at me with those big, sad eyes, and I was hooked.

I missed my friends in Oklahoma. I wrote to all of them every week. The kids in my new school made fun of my Southern accent. One red-haired girl named Melissa mimicked me every time I spoke. She showed off by arguing with the school bus driver and using swear words. When I heard him call her “missy,” I felt like changing my puppy’s name.

In those days, my only friend was my dog. Every day, I spent hours training her and brushing her blond, wavy coat. Within a few weeks, she was house trained. At night, she slept curled up in my bed. In the morning, she licked my face to let me know she was awake and wanted to go outside.

One morning when she was six months old, I was dressing for school when I heard screeching brakes and a yelp. I ran down our driveway to see a huge truck pulled over to the side of the highway and the limp body of Missy lying in the ditch. “You hit my dog!” I screamed at the driver. I jumped into the ditch and picked up Missy’s lifeless body. “Wake up, wake up!” I yelled at her.

My parents thanked the man for stopping. “The dog ran out right in front of me,” he said. “I tried to stop.” I knew he meant it, but all I could do was cry.

I carried Missy into the house and wrapped her in her favorite blanket. I rocked her and cried, hoping she would wake up, but she never did.

Before my dad went to work, we dug a little grave and buried her. The three of us held hands, and my dad thanked God for giving us Missy. Then he prayed to God, asking for him to send me new friends here in California. My dad ended his prayer by thanking God for the joy Missy had brought to my life. But I didn’t feel thankful. The thoughts just went around and around in my head.
Why hadn’t God protected her? Why hadn’t he kept her from running out on the highway? He knew how lonely I was. Why had he taken my only friend away?

For weeks, I cried myself to sleep. I woke up every morning to the bad dream that was my reality— Missy was gone. Classes, teachers, homework and weekends all blurred together through my tears. I tried to concentrate on my schoolwork, but all I could think about was Missy. My parents offered to buy me another dog, but I didn’t want just any dog. I wanted Missy. Nothing else mattered anymore.

One day, my gym teacher gave me a hall pass and told me to go to see the vice principal.
I must be in trouble if I’m being sent to Mrs. Stevens’s office,
I thought.

Mrs. Stevens asked me to sit down. In a gentle voice, she said, “You must be wondering why I called you in. Your teachers are concerned about you. They have seen you crying in class. Do you want to talk about it?”

I began sobbing so violently that I couldn’t speak. She handed me a box of tissues. Finally I choked out, “My dog got run over.” We talked for the whole gym period. When the bell rang, Mrs. Stevens gave me a little notebook.

“Sometimes it helps when you write down your feelings,” she said. “Be honest. You don’t have to ever show it to anyone—it’s just for you. It may help you decide what you are learning about life and death.” She smiled and led me to the door with her arm around my shoulder.

For the next week, I did what she said, spilling out all my sadness and anger. I wrote to God about letting Missy die. I wrote about my parents moving to this awful place. I wrote about Melissa and the kids who hurt my feelings. I even wrote to Missy: “I loved you so much. Why were you so stupid? I taught you not to go near the highway! Now you are gone forever. Forever. Things will never be the same. Never.”

When I couldn’t write any more, I finally closed my notebook and wept. I cried and cried. I cried because things never would be the same, because Missy wasn’t coming back and because I knew we weren’t going to move back to Oklahoma. When I was finished crying, there was nothing else to do. I decided I would just have to make the best of it.

As difficult as it was, Missy and her death helped me to grow up that year. God answered my dad’s prayer and gave me new friends to fill my loneliness. I finally stopped missing all my old friends. My time was filled with school and activities instead of just memories. I was surprised that these friends became just as special as the ones that I had left behind in Oklahoma. My heart was starting to heal.

Even though I still believe that no other dog could ever take Missy’s place in my heart, maybe one of these days I’ll let my parents buy me another dog. Maybe.

Glenda Palmer

The Miracle of Life

C
ourageous risks are life-giving; they help you grow, make you brave and better than you think you are.

Joan L. Curcio

I never knew how valuable life was until I almost lost my little brother. It all started when my brother got sick. I was nine, and he was just nine months. My mother thought it was an ear infection because he kept grabbing his ear. The first doctor she took him to told her that it was an ear infection. After a week, he was still grabbing his ear. My mother took him to a different doctor for a second opinion. They immediately started running blood tests on him. The doctor knew that he needed to be in the hospital as quickly as possible. My mother, father and brother all rode to the hospital in a speeding ambulance.

At first the doctors did not know what was wrong with him. Then a couple days later, they found out he had a type of bone marrow cancer. My mother and father stayed with my brother the first few weeks. Then my mother would stay with my brother while my father would come home and see my sisters and me. It was hard not seeing my mother all the time, but I did go to the hospital about once a week.

The doctors tried one round of chemotherapy. It helped, but my brother lost his hair. Then he needed a bone marrow transplant. They needed to find a donor, so the doctors tested my family first. I was so scared to get a shot. My sisters and I were all crying. We got it over with quickly, and it did not hurt as much as I thought it would.

A couple of weeks later, we found out that one of my sisters and I were both matches. My parents had to choose which one of us should be the donor. After thinking about it for a long time, they chose me because I was the oldest. I was excited and scared at the same time, but I knew that I might save his life.

My brother was moved to Duke Hospital. It was a unit of about ten kids who all had a disease. About two weeks later, I went to Duke to do the transplant. The doctors showed me what it was going to be like. I was not scared until the next day, when I had to wake up at 5:00
A.M.
I had to be at the hospital at 6:00
A.M.
When I got there, I had to put on a gown. Then my mother and I went into the operating room with the doctors. They put a mask over my face, and in about ten seconds I fell asleep.

When I woke up, there was a tube stuck into the back of my hand, putting fluid into my body to keep me from getting dehydrated. I immediately wanted to know how my brother was. My mother told me that he was getting my bone marrow right then.

About two hours after I woke up, I went to see him. He was asleep, and my father was holding him. All of the bone marrow that I had donated had gone into him. Everybody hoped and prayed that it would work.

About a month and a half later, my mother came home. My brother was doing fine. We still had to be careful to not let him get sick with a cold or the flu. He could not be in the sun, either. Also, we had to wear surgical masks when we held him.

Now, two years later, he is doing great! He is full of life and is very energetic. He is always doing something. We have to watch him and make sure he does not get too curious!

This experience has shown me that all you have to do is believe. You have to believe that the best will happen. Also, you need to be strong no matter what happens. That makes a true hero!

Lacy Richardson, age 12

8
ON CHOICES

I can overcome my fears
I can buy for the hungry
I can help stop pollution
I can give to the poor
I can be what I want
I can use my head
I can give advice
I can receive
I can behave
I can listen
I can think
I can teach
I can know
I can give
I can feel
I can see
I can.

Kendra Batch, age 12

Goodwill

I
cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.

Lillian Hellman

Annie leaned against her locker and sighed. What a day! What a disaster! This school year wasn’t starting out the way she had planned it at all.

Of course, Annie hadn’t planned on that new girl, Kristen. And she definitely hadn’t planned on the new girl wearing the exact skirt Annie was supposed to bewearing.

It wasn’t just any skirt. Annie had baby-sat three active brothers all summer to buy that skirt and its designer accent top. When she saw them in her
Teen
magazine, Annie knew they were meant for her. She had gone right to the phone and called the 800 number for the “outlet nearest” her.

With price and picture in hand, she had set off to convince her mother.

“It’s great, hon,” her mother agreed. “I just can’t see spending as much on one outfit as I do for all your clothes.” Annie wasn’t surprised, but she was disappointed.

“Well, if it’s that important, we could put it on layaway,” her mom said. “You’d have to pay for it, though.”

So she did. Every Friday, Annie took all her baby-sitting money and paid down the balance.

She had made her final payment just last week and hurried home to try on the skirt and top. The moment of truth had arrived and she was afraid to look! She stood in front of the mirror with her eyes squeezed shut. She counted to three and forced herself to open them.

It was perfect. From the side, from the back and even from the front, it was perfect. She walked, she sat and she turned. She practiced humbly taking compliments so her friends wouldn’t think she was stuck up.

The next day, Annie and her mother gave her bedroom the end of summer “good going over.” They washed and ironed the bedspread and curtains, and vacuumed behind and under everything.

Then they sorted through the closets and drawers for clothes to give away. Annie dreaded all the tugging on and pulling off, the laundering and the folding into boxes. They dropped the boxes off at Goodwill, then headed to her grandmother’s for the weekend.

When they got home Sunday night, Annie ran straight to her bedroom. Everything had to be just right for her grand entrance at school the next day.

She flung open her closet and pulled out her top and her . . . and her . . . skirt? It wasn’t there.
It must be here!
But it wasn’t.

“Dad! Mom!” Annie’s search became frantic. Her parents rushed in. Hangers and clothes were flying everywhere.

“My skirt! It isn’t here!” Annie stood with her top in one hand and an empty hanger in the other.

“Now, Annie,” her dad said, trying to calm her, “it didn’t just get up and walk away. We’ll find it.” But they didn’t. For two hours they searched through closets, drawers, the laundry room, under the bed and even in the bed. It just wasn’t there.

Annie sank into bed that night, trying to figure out the puzzle.

When she woke up the next morning, she felt tired and dull. She picked out something—anything—to wear. Nothing measured up to her summer daydreams.

It was at her school locker that the puzzle became, well, more puzzling.

“You’re Annie, right?” a voice said from behind her.

Annie turned. Shock waves hit her.
That’s my skirt. That’s
my
skirt! That’s my
skirt?

“I’m Kristen. The principal gave me the locker next to yours. She thought since we lived on the same block and I’m new here, you could show me around.” Her voice trailed off, unsure. Annie just stared.
How . . . ? Where . . . ? Is that my . . . ?

Kristen seemed uneasy. “You don’t have to. I told her we didn’t really know each other. We’ve only passed each other on the sidewalk.”

That was true. Annie and Kristen had passed each other, Annie to and from her baby-sitting job and Kristen in her fast-food uniform that smelled of onions and grease at the end of the day. Annie pulled her thoughts back to Kristen’s words.

“Sure. I’ll be happy to show you around,” Annie said, not happy at all. The entire day, friends gushed over Kristen and
the skirt
while Annie stood by with a stiff smile.

And now Annie was waiting to walk Kristen home, hoping to sort this out. They chatted all the way to Annie’s house before she worked up the nerve to ask the big question. “Where did you get your skirt, Kristen?”

“Isn’t it beautiful? My mom and I saw it in a magazine while we were waiting for my grandma at the doctor’s office.”

“Oh, your mom bought it for you.”

“Well, no.” Kristen lowered her voice. “We’ve had kind of a hard time lately. Dad lost his job, and my grandma was sick. We moved here to take care of her while my dad looked for work.”

All that went right over Annie’s head. “You must have saved most of your paycheck then.”

Kristen blushed. “I saved all my money and gave it to my mom to buy school clothes for my brother and sister.”

Annie couldn’t stand it. “Where did you get your skirt?”

Kristen stammered, “My mother found it at Goodwill in a box that was dropped off just as she got there. Mom opened it, and there was the skirt from the magazine, brand new, with the tags still on it!” Kristen looked up.

Goodwill? Brand new?
The puzzle pieces finally fell into place.

Kristen smiled, and her face glowed. “My mother knew it was meant for me. She knew it was a blessing.”

“Kristen, I . . . ” Annie stopped. This wasn’t going to be easy. “Kristen,” Annie tried again, “can I tell you something?”

“Sure. Anything.”

“Kristen.” Annie took a deep breath. She hesitated for a moment. Then she smiled and said, “Do you have a minute to come up to my room? I think I have a top that would go great with your skirt.”

Cynthia M. Hamond