• Another long, boring day at school. Why can't something big happen, like being famous? Then, I wouldn't have to go to school...Hey, that's not a bad idea. "Mary Kate! We need to find a way for me to get famous. Can you think of anything?" Mary Kate is my best friend. We know each other because we are next-door neighbors...well, not technically. Harold Weiser lives in between our two houses. He is not someone you EVER want to hang around. Let's just say...well, he is a nerd. What else can I say? I need to stop saying say because I am saying say way too many times. That rhymes! Well, not really. I need to stop saying well as well...ugh! You see what I mean? We absolutely LOVE walking to school together. We think the bus is for losers. "Hey Shasta, what about those auditions for Golden Wing Productions? They sound pretty decent. AND they don't force you to take 3,000 dollar acting classes! At least they say so..." Yep, my name is Shasta. It is the name of a mountain. My mom says that is why I fight till I get what I want. My mom once climbed that mountain with my dad, before they married. I don't have a dad anymore, but I don't wanna talk about it. Ok, if you insist...my dad worked with trucks, and one day someone got drunk at a work party and ran him over while trying to leave. Mom hasn't fully recovered yet. I sorta have, but that is because I have a lot of friends to support me. Mary Kate is my only best friend. All of my other friends are just friends. Carla, I'd say, is probably closest to taking up the spot of best friend #2. I envy Mary Kate sometimes because of her rich, flowing, dark brown hair and her long, skinny legs. That is one reason she beat me on the 50-yard-dash on Track and Field Day. Carla, I don't envy so much. Let's not even get into talking about her. Me? Well, I am pretty average. I have dirty blonde hair, a little under my shoulders. I have side-bangs and my hair is layered. Wow, I never knew I could say THAT much about my hair. I am not TOO short, and not TOO tall. I guess I am just right. Average. Just like my life. I am pretty fast, let's just say. Not fast enough to beat Mary Kate on the 50, apparently. That's okay. I better hurry to school, before Mom says I have to ride the BUS!
    Math, Science, English, and every other subject I have to learn about every single day. Everything I learned today will probably be flushed down the toilet tomorrow. And then, I will flunk all of my tests. Today, P.E. was horrible. Mr. Cortalo, our gym teacher, made us play VOLLEYBALL. Can you believe it? The ONE sport I absolutely cannot play. And he makes us do it! AND now my wrist hurts, because I tripped over Brittany, who seemed to have her foot there on purpose. I landed on ONE of my wrists with ALL of the weight in my body (90 pounds) and now it hurts really bad. One reason why is probably because the nurse refused to give me an ice pack. She said it would be fine. And now I am sitting on the sofa at home waiting for my mom to finish work. I should probably go get an ice pack. The cold hurts my wrist; I can feel it go down to the bone. I hear the garage door opening. It is either Mom, or a burglar. The door opens...and it's Mom. I tell her about my wrist. "How bad does it hurt, sweetie? If it hurts like a broken bone, we should go to the doctor and check it out." I think about it. "Yeah, I think we should go. Now? Wait, are we going to the walk-in?" Mom walk back out the door. "Let's go!" She calls from outside. On the way to the doctor, Mom asks, "How did this happen?" I told her EVERYTHING. At the doctor's office, he told me to sit in a chair and lay my wrist out so he could take an x-ray. After a few minutes of waiting for the x-rays to develop, he said, "Your wrist is only sprained and we are not worried about it, it is your forearm that we are worried about." Mom's eyes seem to grow bigger. "What is wrong with it?" she asks. The doctor says, "She seems to have something wrong with it, but it is not something I can recognize. I asked all of the doctors if they knew something about it. Your daughter may have a disease that no one in the world has ever had." Mom cannot help but cry. "How big of a deal is it?" she sobs. The doctor says it looks like a pretty big deal and I might have to stay in the hospital for a few days until they learn more about the disease, and we would go from there.
    Three days later Mary Kate visits me. She promised she would visit as soon as the doctor allowed her to. They weren't sure whether my disease was contagious or not. They figured it wasn't, since it was in the bone. Mary Kate comes in, and we talk about how everyone in school is now finally acting like I am real. "How's this for missin' school, huh? Don't even have to try out!" Mary Kate says. "Oh, shut up! It is NOT worth the pain...I have had more blood tests than any other child my age!" I mutter. We both crack up. Mary Kate obviously doesn't know what to say next, so she just stares at me with curious eyes and finally comes up with something. "What exactly is the disease?" I stay quiet for a long time, thinking. "I don't know, the doctor said he would explain it to me sometime. Maybe he doesn't want me to know, in case it is serious or something. Because then I would like, break down." That seemed to be the doctor's cue, because suddenly he walked in with a weird face. A face that doesn't mean good. "Shasta, I see you have a friend visiting. That is so nice." He accented the "so". "We have done some research and we think we know about your disease." My heart suddenly and abruptly soars. It surprises me. I can't think straight, so I say, "Who is we?" The doctor did not expect that sort of question. "We is the whole medical hospital, well, the people working with me. So, would you mind if your mother came in, and your friend went out?" Mary Kate looks at me with burning eyes. She wants to stay. "Can Mary Kate stay?" The doctor thinks about it for a moment, then, nods his approval. Mom walks in. "Well, your disease is VERY rare. You are the only person in the whole world to have it. What it is is that when you are born, your brain does not develop as one. It cuts itself into sections of 3/4, your normal brain, and 1/4. The 1/4 of the brain belongs to whatever bone is affected, in your case the forearm. That bone will fully develop its part of the brain by a certain age, and then it is another being, basically. If human flesh touches it, your body shuts down. There is one exception. That exception is that doctor's flesh can touch it. No matter how much you wrap it, or put things around it. If anyone touches it, you're dead meat." Halfway through, Mom had already started crying. It wasn't very loud, but she was crying. By the end of it, she was sobbing very loudly, and the doctor could barely be heard.
    The next day, Carla visits. She doesn't seem very interested in my arm. We talk a while, and then she points each index finger at each arm. "Which arm is injured? This one, or this one?" While she said that she pointed to each of my arms. But she accidentally touched my left arm, my crippled arm. I start seeing little white dots on the wall opposite of me. Hey, isn't that what happens when you are fainting? Or in this case, SHUTTING DOWN?!
    I am not quite dead. Don't you dare think that, or you might jinx me. Carla calls Mom and Mom calls the doctor. "Oh my goodness, did you touch her arm?" Carla is sitting in the corner of the sofa, sobbing. "Yes.", she manages to say. Mom asks the doctor if there is any possible way to save me. She is too shocked to start crying now. "Yes, there is actually. A doctor has to donate his same bone as the patient's affected bone. Then, the doctor could get a fake bone, or something of the sort." Mom asks if he would donate his forearm. " I am so very sorry. But, no I do not think I can." For the next few days, all that Mom does is search online for doctors who could donate forearms. No doctor is willing. Mom gets a great idea. For the next ten years, she will study to be a doctor, and donate HER forearm.
    That is exactly what she does. When she is a doctor and ready to go, she goes into surgery to remove her forearm, and replace it with a fake. It is a very painful procedure. When they are ready, I go into surgery and get HER forearm into MY body. The surgery did not work. Mom studied for nothing. Donated for nothing. But it still did not work. Now she has lost Dad AND I. I cannot think how she will live this down.