for the sound of anyone - or anything - around her. Once she felt safe, she pushed the back of her shirt up and untied the confining scarf. A sigh escaped her lips as the petals whipped back into their original position on her back. It felt like being released from a tiny, cramped box.
A beam of sunlight shone down from a break in the trees above, making her silhouette stretch out on the grass in front of her. The outline of her shadow looked like an enormous butterfly with gauzy wings. And, in the same strange way balloons cast shadows, the blackness had just a tinge of blue in it. She tried to make the wing-things move, but although she could feel them — feel every inch of them now, soaking in the rays of sunlight — she had no control over them. Something so life-shattering shouldn’t be this beautiful.
She stared at the image on the ground for a long time, wondering what to do. Should she tell her parents? She had promised herself she’d tell them Monday if the bump wasn’t gone.
Well, it was gone.
Pulling one of the long strips over her shoulder, Laurel ran her fingers down it. It was so soft. And it didn’t hurt. Maybe it will just go away, she thought optimistically. That was what her mom always said. Eventually most things go away on their own. Maybe…maybe it would be OK.
OK? The words seemed to fill her head, reverberating in her skull. I have a humongous flower growing out of my spine. How is this supposed to be OK!
As her emotions tumbled around like a hurricane, her thoughts suddenly centred on David. Maybe David could help her make sense of this. There had to be a scientific explanation for this. He had a microscope - a really good one, from what he said. Maybe he could look at a piece of this weird flower. He might be able to tell her what it was. And even if he told her he had no idea, she’d be no worse off than she was now.
She wrapped her scarf around the flower again and hurried back to the house, almost running into her dad as he lumbered into the kitchen.
“Dad!” she said in surprise, her nerves already at breaking point stretched even further.
He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “Morning, Beautiful.” He laid an arm across her shoulders, and Laurel sucked in a nervous breath and hoped he couldn’t feel the petals through her shirt.
But then, her father rarely noticed anything before his second cup of coffee.
“Why are you up?” she asked, a slight quaver in her voice.
He groaned. “I have to go open the store. Maddie needed the day off.”
“Sure,” Laurel said absently, trying not to see this change in the normal routine as some kind of bad omen.
He started to pull his arm away, then stopped and sniffed the air by her shoulder. Laurel froze. “You smell nice. You should wear that perfume more often.”
Laurel nodded, praying her eyes weren’t popping out of her head, and unwound herself from her dad’s embrace. She hurried to pick up the cordless phone and then headed up the stairs.
In her room, she stared at the phone for a long time before her fingers managed to dial David’s number. He picked up after the first ring. “Hello?”
“Hey,” she said quickly, forcing herself not to hang up.
“Laurel. Hey! What’s up?”
The seconds stretched into silence.
“Laurel?”
“Yeah?”
“You did call me.”
More silence.
“Can I come over?” she blurted.
“Um, sure. When?”
“Right now?”
A few minutes later, Laurel had her chair wedged under the doorknob again. She lifted the front of her shirt and pulled the end of one of the long white and blue strips free from the pink scarf. It looked so harmless, sitting there in her hand. She could almost forget it was attached to her back. She picked up her mother’s nail scissors and studied the end of the petal. She probably didn’t need too big a piece. She eyed it again and selected a small curve at the ruffled tip.
She braced herself as she moved the shiny scissors into position. She wanted to close her eyes, but she was afraid she’d do even more damage that way. She counted silently. One, two, three!…I meant to count to five. After mentally calling herself a wimp, she positioned the scissors again. One, two, three, four, five! She pressed down and the scissors cut cleanly, flipping a small piece of white on to her bedspread. Laurel gasped and hopped up and down for a few seconds until the sting eased and she looked down at the cut edge. It wasn’t bleeding, but it oozed a little bit of clear liquid. Laurel blotted the liquid away with a towel before smoothing the end back into the scarf Then she wrapped the small white piece in a tissue and tucked it carefully into her pocket.
She bounced down the stairs trying to look as casual as possible. As she breezed by her mom and dad sitting at the table eating breakfast she said, “I’m going to David’s.”
“Hold it,” her dad said.
Laurel stopped walking, but she didn’t turn round.
“How about, ‘May I go to David’s?’”
Laurel turned with a forced smile on her face. “May I go to David’s?”
Her father’s eyes didn’t even leave the paper as he lifted his coffee to his mouth. “Sure. Have fun.”
Laurel made her feet walk at a normal pace to the door, but as soon as it shut behind her, she ran to her bike and kicked off on her way. It was only a few blocks to David’s, and soon Laurel was leaning her bike up against his garage. She stood on his doormat, focused on the bright red front door, and rang the doorbell before she could convince herself to turn tail and run home. She held her breath as she heard footsteps and the door opened.
It was David’s mother. Laurel tried to hide the surprise on her face - after all, it was Saturday, and Laurel should have expected her to be home. But it was only the second time Laurel had ever met her. She was wearing a cute red tank top and jeans and her long, almost-black hair was loose and tumbling down her back in waves. She was the most unmotherly mom Laurel had ever met. In a good way.
“Laurel, how nice to see you.”
“Hi,” Laurel said nervously, then just stood there.
Luckily David came round the corner. “Hey,” he said with a broad smile. “Come on back.” He gestured Laurel down the hall. “Laurel needs a little help with some biology homework,” he explained to his mother. “We’ll just be in my room.”
David’s mom smiled at them both. “Do you need anything? A snack or something?”
He shook his head. “Just some quiet. It’s a pretty intense assignment.”
“I’ll
