Girls in Pants - Ann Brashares [39]
Carmen couldn’t keep her eyes from scanning the halls. Her heart was beating a lot harder and faster than normal. Of course she was thinking about him. Of course she wanted to see him. But on the other hand, she didn’t.
She rested Katherine on the reception counter in pediatrics. “Katherine Rollins to see Dr. Barnes,” she said to the woman behind the desk.
The woman wrote Katherine’s name down and located her file. “Do you want to play in the playroom for a few minutes, sweetie?” she asked Katherine.
“Can she come?” Katherine touched her pointing finger right to Carmen’s cheekbone.
“Of course,” the woman said, and gestured them in the right direction.
Carmen couldn’t help looking over her shoulder as she walked. A part of her really wanted to see him. A big part.
Well, another time, she thought, entering the confines of the playroom. It was bright and sunny, involving a few other children and lots of toys and miniature furniture. Carmen would have to content herself with standing or sitting on the floor, because there was no way she was fitting into an Elmo chair. And if by some miracle she did fit in, she wouldn’t be getting out. She pictured herself walking out of the hospital with a red plastic Elmo chair attached to her butt.
“Hey, you.” She put Katherine down in front of a bead maze and straightened her helmet. “What do you want to play?”
Katherine danced around, utterly pleased. She brought over a Noah’s ark, a xylophone, two puppets, and a book. Carmen knew that Katherine was always miffed at how Tibby’s friends came over and spent time with Tibby. Now she had Carmen all to herself.
Carmen heard a girl’s giggle from behind the big dollhouse set up in the corner. She also saw a few parts of a man popping out—the girl’s father, no doubt. Carmen figured she and Katherine could take over the dollhouse once those two vacated. Twin boys were throwing Nerf basketballs at each other. Carmen observed that somebody had taken a few bites out of one of the balls.
“How about this?” Katherine was shaking the animals out of the ark.
They played. There were a lot of singletons in this version of Noah’s story, probably due to loss and theft, but Katherine didn’t seem to care. Carmen was the hippo, the elephant, the lion, and the penguin. It was good, because Carmen had always had a knack for animal sounds and voices. With the penguins, she really got into a character. In this case, her penguin was a mafioso, kind of like Marlon Brando in The Godfather, only in a penguiny way. Katherine was laughing so hard she stopped making any noise. The people behind the dollhouse were laughing too. The twin boys were circling them eagerly.
Suddenly Carmen realized that the leg extending from one side of the dollhouse had a brown shoe on the end of it. A brown Puma, specifically. She cut off the penguin’s soliloquy. Moments later, a face appeared over a miniature gable.
She put both hands over her eyes in complete humiliation. “Hi, Win.” Could she have been any louder?
He came entirely out from behind the dollhouse. He was fighting the impulse to smile. No, probably the impulse to laugh. At her.
“Hi, Carmen,” he said. He crawled over to where she was sitting cross-legged on the floor. He pushed the inner part of her elbow and made the arm she was leaning on collapse. “Can I tell you I’ve never heard a more entertaining penguin in my life? I didn’t even know penguins could talk.”
“Ha ha,” Carmen said, straightening her arm again. She tried to pull herself up and recapture some tiny amount of dignity.
She cleared her throat. “Win, this is Katherine. Katherine and I are friends. Katherine, this is Win.”
Katherine stood up somewhat importantly. “Hi,” she said.
Win pointed to her helmet. “I like your stickers.”
She nodded. “I crushed my skull.”
Carmen looked aghast. “You didn’t crush your skull, sweetie. You fractured it.”
Katherine waved this off as an uninteresting detail.
“And it’s getting better really fast,” Carmen added, possibly for her own sake.
Carmen could tell