Amazement

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

***

"I can't believe you. This better be the last time anything like this happens!"

April stood in Maddie's hospital room, her hands on her hips as she spoke to Carlo.

"I didn't mean for it to happen," he mumbled back.

"So what exactly did happen?"

Penelope shot Carlo a look sharper than flint, silently warning him to say nothing of what Maddie had admitted to them.

"He, uh...my girlfriend was cheating on me with him," Carlo lied feebly.

April sighed. "Just be careful." She stood on her tippy toes and planted a kiss on Carlo's bruised cheek before scooping up Mickey.

"We're going to make a snack machine run," April announced. "Who wants what?"

"I'm okay," Penelope said, and Carlo echoed her. 

Maddie was jolted awake. She tried to open her eyes, but the whiteness of the room was too much to handle. So she kept her eyes shut.

"What's wrong with you." Penelope's voice sounded strangely distant to Maddie.

"Shut up, Penelope," Carlo responded, exasperated.

"You punched him! You hunted him down and you just hit him! What's Maddie going to think?"

Carlo rolled his eyes. "She'll understand. I did it for her."

"And what if she doesn't?"

"She will," Carlo said, though his voice was noticeably more doubtful.

Maddie slowly opened her eyes. She still wasn't used to the brightness of her room, but she could see if she squinted.

One of the many machines on either side of her began beeping incessantly as she tried to sit up.

Almost immediately, a nurse was at her side.

"Hi! I'm Jenna," she chirped.

"Hi," Maddie muttered as Penelope and Carlo rushed to her side.

Jenna gently shooed them aside. "Are you feeling any discomfort?"

"No. I just can't hear very well."

Jenna nodded understandingly. "There's gauze in you ears. You'll have to change it every six hours, which is also when you'll put in you ear drops."

"Ear drops?"

"The doctor called in a prescription."

"Maddie!"

Maddie peeked past Jenna to see Mickey shuffling into the room, a bag of Baked Lays in his hand. He tossed the bag to Carlo, who easily caught it, and ran over to her bed.

"Hi, Mickey."

"Can you hear better?"

Maddie nodded and smiled. "Yeah, Bubba. All better."

***

"I hate this." Maddie sighed. She lay on the couch in the living room, wearing nothing but an oversized black t-shirt, her white-blonde hair down.

"I don't want you running up and down the stairs," April countered.

"But still," Maddie huffed childishly.

"Maddie," April scolded her daughter. "You have to stay home from school and you can't go to dance for three days until you get used to the noise level."