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Authors: Joanne Macgregor
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on
death’s door by then, anyway. Until then, they were potential plague-spreading
M&Ms — rat fever Mike and Marys . Mom had told us
that the name came from someone called Typhoid Mary, an Irish cook who
immigrated to the States in the early 1900’s. She was a carrier of typhoid
fever, and although she was never sick herself, she’d infected scores of people
in the New York area before she was identified by public health authorities and
taken away to spend the rest of her life in isolation on North Brother Island —
the early-twentieth-century equivalent of Q-Bay.
Mrs. Johnson glared at us and shook her head as she was led to
the waiting transport, but Mr. Johnson looked merely resigned, or perhaps
defeated. Rosy-cheeks gave Robin a long look then trailed after her father. As
the doors of the Q-Bay transport closed behind them, we climbed onto the Fun Bus
and handed our social security cards to the hostess. She scanned their barcodes
into the automated attendance register, misted each of us lightly with a spray
from her decon aerosol can, and directed us to the
hand-sanitizer dispenser. Someone waved from the back of the bus. Recognizing
the short blond hair and heavily muscled frame of Bruce, I steered Robin and my
mother to free seats near the front instead.
The picnic started off bad enough, with the same old bland,
tasteless, sterilized food quickly slipped in under lifted masks, many of the
same neighbors commenting how I’d grown, and the same exchange of rumors and
stories about the war on the pandemic, all in the massive city park almost
completely deserted except for our group. But then it got worse.
Mom walked off to go chat to neighbors she knew, probably to dish
the dirt on the Johnsons or maybe to compare hairstyles. She was out of the
running for the award for most extravagant look. One of the women had hair
patterned with diagonal stripes all the colors of the rainbow, and she’d
continued the look on her face, with furry rainbow lash extensions merging into
vertical stripes of multicolored eye-paint stretching up over her eyelids and
brows, and onto her forehead. She looked like an image from my science
tutorial: dispersal
of the light spectrum through a triangular prism.
Robin, still fuming, plonked himself under the shade of a tree
and stuck his nose into a thick book, and I was left alone on our picnic
blanket, lying in the warm sun with a protective arm over my eyes. This might
have been pretty good, actually, but Bruce took it as an invitation to join me.
“Hey, Blue, how ya doing?” he said and
plonked down next to me on the blanket.
I didn’t feel comfortable lying down next to him, but when I
stood up and said I was going for a walk to see the flowering dogwoods, he
invited himself along. I had no idea how to tell him he wasn’t welcome without
being horribly rude, so I said nothing. He walked beside me, complimenting my
hair and eyes and even my false lashes, and every time we came to a tree stump
or boulder, he offered to help me over. The park was eerily empty. There were
no ducks on the ponds, no dogs being taken for a walk, no children playing in
the open areas. Dogwoods glimmered in the sun like ghost trees, their stark,
dark wood stabbing through the masses of white blossoms.
The only interesting moment of the whole social came at the end,
when Bruce and I were making our way back to the bus.
“That was a great shot you had in the game, when you hit Sarge . Lucky.”
“I guess.”
“I’m looking forward to taking you on again.”
“How?” I said, looking at him directly for the first time. “Do we
get to play another game?”
“Don’t you know?”
“Know what?”
“Your mom didn’t get a letter about you?”
“Not that I know of. Though she did say something about good news
that she’s planning to tell me tonight. A surprise of some kind. What do you
know?”
“I won’t say anything except that it’s super-cool. You’re going
to be maxed out by the
death’s door by then, anyway. Until then, they were potential plague-spreading
M&Ms — rat fever Mike and Marys . Mom had told us
that the name came from someone called Typhoid Mary, an Irish cook who
immigrated to the States in the early 1900’s. She was a carrier of typhoid
fever, and although she was never sick herself, she’d infected scores of people
in the New York area before she was identified by public health authorities and
taken away to spend the rest of her life in isolation on North Brother Island —
the early-twentieth-century equivalent of Q-Bay.
Mrs. Johnson glared at us and shook her head as she was led to
the waiting transport, but Mr. Johnson looked merely resigned, or perhaps
defeated. Rosy-cheeks gave Robin a long look then trailed after her father. As
the doors of the Q-Bay transport closed behind them, we climbed onto the Fun Bus
and handed our social security cards to the hostess. She scanned their barcodes
into the automated attendance register, misted each of us lightly with a spray
from her decon aerosol can, and directed us to the
hand-sanitizer dispenser. Someone waved from the back of the bus. Recognizing
the short blond hair and heavily muscled frame of Bruce, I steered Robin and my
mother to free seats near the front instead.
The picnic started off bad enough, with the same old bland,
tasteless, sterilized food quickly slipped in under lifted masks, many of the
same neighbors commenting how I’d grown, and the same exchange of rumors and
stories about the war on the pandemic, all in the massive city park almost
completely deserted except for our group. But then it got worse.
Mom walked off to go chat to neighbors she knew, probably to dish
the dirt on the Johnsons or maybe to compare hairstyles. She was out of the
running for the award for most extravagant look. One of the women had hair
patterned with diagonal stripes all the colors of the rainbow, and she’d
continued the look on her face, with furry rainbow lash extensions merging into
vertical stripes of multicolored eye-paint stretching up over her eyelids and
brows, and onto her forehead. She looked like an image from my science
tutorial: dispersal
of the light spectrum through a triangular prism.
Robin, still fuming, plonked himself under the shade of a tree
and stuck his nose into a thick book, and I was left alone on our picnic
blanket, lying in the warm sun with a protective arm over my eyes. This might
have been pretty good, actually, but Bruce took it as an invitation to join me.
“Hey, Blue, how ya doing?” he said and
plonked down next to me on the blanket.
I didn’t feel comfortable lying down next to him, but when I
stood up and said I was going for a walk to see the flowering dogwoods, he
invited himself along. I had no idea how to tell him he wasn’t welcome without
being horribly rude, so I said nothing. He walked beside me, complimenting my
hair and eyes and even my false lashes, and every time we came to a tree stump
or boulder, he offered to help me over. The park was eerily empty. There were
no ducks on the ponds, no dogs being taken for a walk, no children playing in
the open areas. Dogwoods glimmered in the sun like ghost trees, their stark,
dark wood stabbing through the masses of white blossoms.
The only interesting moment of the whole social came at the end,
when Bruce and I were making our way back to the bus.
“That was a great shot you had in the game, when you hit Sarge . Lucky.”
“I guess.”
“I’m looking forward to taking you on again.”
“How?” I said, looking at him directly for the first time. “Do we
get to play another game?”
“Don’t you know?”
“Know what?”
“Your mom didn’t get a letter about you?”
“Not that I know of. Though she did say something about good news
that she’s planning to tell me tonight. A surprise of some kind. What do you
know?”
“I won’t say anything except that it’s super-cool. You’re going
to be maxed out by the
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