Get Well Soon by Julie Halpern Read Free Book Online Page A

her to think I’m some crushing dork. Not this soon in our friendship anyway.

Thursday, Day 7
    Tracy,
    Well, a week later and I still haven’t actually mailed you a letter. I’m kind of afraid what they’ll do at the front desk if I ask for an envelope and a stamp. Maybe they’ll take my bra back or make me sleep in the hall again. I never know here.
    Today I get the exciting addition of school to my schedule. I haven’t been down there yet. (“School” is on a lower floor of the building. According to the elevator buttons, we live on the third floor, and there are four floors total.) Yesterday the hospital staff made me sit in my room during school hours. I did some reading from a random English textbook the staff found left over from a
past inmate. I really loved the story “Kaleidoscope” by Ray Bradbury, where all of these people are floating around in space because their spaceship blew up. They still had radio contact with each other, but they knew that sooner or later they would all drift apart and lose communication. Some went crazy, others berated each other, and then in the end they all died as meteors sliced their limbs off or they burnt up in the Earth’s orbit. I wonder which was the best way to die.
    I have cramps. I wish I had my ugly brown cardigan here. What I wouldn’t give to snuggle up in some brown acrylic. In other clothes news, my pants are definitely looser. I still don’t have much of an appetite. That would be so amazing if I was actually losing weight without trying.
    They’re coming to get me to go to school now. More later …

AFTER SCHOOL
    Whoa! I don’t know where to start! School is cool! (Don’t be a fool!) It’s like this little maze of classrooms, so we get left alone a lot when one of the “teachers” (I don’t think they’re actual teachers, since they don’t actually teach us anything. And we get to call them by their first names) has to go help someone else. I was in the same room as Matt O. and Colby, and across the hall I could see Justin, Tanya, and this short buff guy named Luther from Group A. My teachers at real school finally sent
my homework, and—oh joy!—I get to read The Crucible. How sad that someone could write a play about witchcraft and make it so boring. Being in a school set me on edge again. The classrooms weren’t full, but they were quiet. I started bouncing my knee up and down, which is what I do when the stomachaches start. I was about to ask the teacher if I could go to the bathroom when she stepped out of the room. The instant she walked away, Tanya and Luther started making out! It was totally weird and kind of gross, but also funny. I never would have thought of the two of them together, but I guess it’s pretty slim pickings here. The whole time Phil/Shaggy was simultaneously peering into the hallway to see if the teacher was coming back and leering at the young lovers. I couldn’t take my eyes off of Justin, who looked so cool and studious sitting next to them and writing in his notebook. Then he looked up at me, and I totally wanted to turn away but couldn’t because he looked so good. Then he smiled at me, and I nearly let out a moan. Phil broke the moment by zooming back to his desk. Tanya and Luther wiped their forearms over their mouths and went back to their homework. When the teacher got back, it was as if nothing happened.
    So love is possible at the Loony Bin. Or, at least, lust.

STILL IN SCHOOL
    Wow. The minutes pass like hours here, just like in real school! As part of my assignment for The Crucible , I’m supposed
to write a list of characters. However, since I can’t seem to get past page three, I’ve decided to create my own cast of Lake Shit characters. I shall call it:

    ANNA’S HANDY DANDY GUIDE TO ALL FOLKS OF LAKE SHIT
    ANNA: Your lovable narrator, dealing with panic attacks, irritable bowels (ugh! That word!), and fatness.
    SANDY: My trusty roommate, slightly white trash, who ran away from home and landed