Chapter Two

           So, it turned out that Dr. Mahoney meant Wyatt had to stay home until he felt better and the spots were gone. “No school, no sports, no visitors, not one single step beyond your front gate,” she explained. That was quarantine.

            And no cold pizza and green beans for lunch on Tuesdays, Wyatt added in his mind. Nobody laughing at my nail polish. Not having to worry about the big kids taking over the jungle gym at recess. Not having to clean up all the broken crayons when somebody dropped the big box and they rolled all over the classroom. That was also quarantine. And at first, it was awesome.

            Even though he wasn’t feeling very hungry, he could eat rocky road ice cream mixed with granola, crushed-up pretzel dust, and mushy banana bits for breakfast at noon while hanging upside down on the couch and playing Cereal Crunch on his tablet, and no one even blinked. Except for Wyatt, when ice cream dripped into his eyes.

             He could spend an hour lounging on his bed, watching as a couple of robins built a nest on the old tree that branched right outside of his bedroom window, and no one tried to hurry him into doing something more productive. In fact, when he tore apart his bed pillow to poke some extra fluff to the birds through a tiny hole in the window screen, his mom just brought him a broom so he could clean up the mess. “Sweep it up later,” she said, putting the broom in the corner. Then she joined him to watch the birds at work. “Do you think they’re newlyweds? Is this their first apartment?”

            When night fell, he could sit on the porch with a pocketful of pens. He could look up at the stars in the sky and find his favorite constellations: Orion, and the Dippers. Taurus, the bull. And he could recreate those constellations by connecting the dots on  his body (what else were the chicken pox polka dots good for, anyway?), without anybody scolding him for scribbling all over himself. He’d just have to take another baking soda bath before bed, and those weren’t really so bad. Kind of fizzy, in fact.

            Sure, he was tired. Sometimes he was grumpy. And the spots all over him itched and itched and itched…but it was a small price to pay. He could do whatever he wanted! Whenever he wanted to do it! All day, every day!

            “It’s awesome!” Wyatt told anyone who would listen—his mom, the cat, the family living in his dollhouse, a spider busy at work building a web in the corner of the bathroom.

            But on Wednesday, he woke up and remembered something sad. That day, the weekly spelling bee would take place in his classroom—without him. He’d been determined to win that week’s spelling bee, ever since Jasmine took first place the week before. “D-I-S-A-P-P-O-I-N-T-E-D,” he spelled to his mom. She gave him thumbs up, for full spelling points, and then a hug.

            On Thursday, it was soccer practice that he missed—and ice cream sundaes right after as long as everyone on the team remembered both of their shin guards. And Wyatt just knew that nobody had forgotten, not even Misty, who usually showed up with just one. He could picture his team, crowded together on a picnic table, chomping on cherries and nuts and poking each other with the spikes of their cleats. Without him.

            He missed eating special breakfasts at his Nana’s house. He missed making it only halfway across the monkey bars in the schoolyard. He missed sneaking the cat into the hood of his sweatshirt and exploring the neighborhood with him. He missed everything.

            Well, almost everything.

            Every time he passed by the kitchen windows and heard a cluck or a rustle, or saw a fluttering of feathers in the yard next door, he got angrier and angrier. How could Roberta do this to him? Make him so sick with the chicken pox that he’d have to stay home and miss everything good? They had been friends! Roberta had even come to Wyatt’s kindergarten class for show and tell last year. She’d pecked at Mr. Roman’s gold watch, and everyone had laughed. Even Mr. Roman. And Roberta.

            Well, they weren’t friends anymore, Wyatt decided. When the chicken looked up at the window, Wyatt turned away.

            On Friday, his friends all gathered on the back porch and yelled up at Wyatt, who waved from his bedroom window.

            “Did you get bitten by a chicken? A whole stampede of chickens?”

            “We had a substitute! She made us do math at snack time and snack at math time!”

            “I lost a tooth! I thought it was part of my apple so I swallowed it. I can’t wait to poop!”

            “Sam pretended to go to the bathroom and mixed up all the coats in the coatroom. Look, this isn’t even my jacket!”

            “Jasmine won the spelling bee. Her word was ‘disappointed.’”

            As he heard about each thing he’d missed, Wyatt tried to smile back at his friends, but sadness grew inside him. It felt like a balloon inflating inside his belly. He had to hurry away from the window before he cried right there in front of them. “It’s time for my baking soda bath!” he yelled, and slammed his window shut.

            On Saturday, a small package arrived in the mail. It was addressed to Wyatt, from his Nana. He hugged the squishy yellow envelope, but what he really wanted was a hug from his Nana, who always smelled like paint and gardens, and who appreciated glitter almost as much as he did.

            On Saturday night, he painted his nails with the sparkly gold nail polish his Nana had sent. It looked like fireworks under the light on his desk, but Wyatt was still sad. He couldn’t share it with his Nana so they could be twins. And he didn’t know when he would be able to. His spots itched, and he smudged his polish scratching them.

            Outside, in the distance, a dog howled. It was the loneliest sound Wyatt had ever heard.

            “Exactly, dog,” Wyatt said. “You get it.”

            He went to his window, hoping to hear another lonely howl, but all he heard was silence. Suddenly, Wyatt couldn’t take it anymore. The anger and sadness and loneliness that sat in his belly and his heart rose up into his throat, and he yelled it out into the night, as loud as he could. “CURSE YOU CHICKENS! CURSE YOU CHICKENS!”

            Enough was enough. It was time for drastic measures.