Free Chasing Orion by Kathryn Lasky

cases of polio in the entire country. I wondered what life was like then. There weren’t families like the Rileys. The Rileys lived in one of the epidemic states — Wisconsin, I think. They lost four out of their six children in the space of seventy-two hours. The oldest boy was a basketball player. He came home from practice with a sore shoulder and then by the next day had died. That night his four-year-old sister also died, quickly followed by two more. This story haunted me. I suppose it was because the boy, Paul, was a star basketball player like Emmett. It was just too easy to imagine Emmett coming home with a sore muscle. That happened all the time, especially at the beginning of the season. But what if it wasn’t a muscle? What if it was the polio virus attacking his spinal cord? And he’d get sick and die and then I would, and my parents would be left with no kids in a matter of hours. Like an extinction.
    How could those stupid Hoosier Twirlers be out there with their batons flashing in the sun as if nothing were wrong? A John Philip Sousa march was blasting out across our nonexistent lawn. I know life was supposed to go on, but sometimes it seemed just plain wrong that it did. Nevertheless, life was going on to the accompaniment of a John Philip Sousa march! And there was no escaping. The summer was hot, and swimming pools and movie theaters and every place you could escape to was a breeding ground for this alien thing. So I put down
The Illustrated Man
and got up and decided to visit a real inmate. The Iron Girl.
    When I arrived, they were just wheeling the iron lung inside. It took two nurses to do this. When Phyllis wasn’t on the patio, she was in the family sunroom. There was a whole special panel with electrical stuff there just for operating the iron lung. There was a generator stashed in one corner for if the electricity went out. There was also a lot of other stuff that made it look sort of like a hospital room. It was as completely different from her bedroom as a place could be. Not very elegant. Lots of porch furniture with cushions covered in a sunflower print. I was looking around as they set Phyllis up again, and she must have seen me. Little escaped Phyllis’s mirrors. “Pretty ugly, huh?” she said. There was that hiccup that was her way of laughing.
    “No, not really.” I mean, what was I supposed to say?
    “Yes, really.”
    “Your mother offered to paint this room your favorite colors and get rid of the sunflowers,” Sally said. “I don’t know why you’re so stubborn.”
    “You mean you could make this like your bedroom?” I asked.
    “She sure could,” Sally said.
    “I don’t want it like my bedroom. I’m not the same. Why should my bedroom be the same? Besides it’s not a bedroom. It’s an iron lung, for God’s sake. Next thing you know, Mom will want to be wallpapering the lung.”
    “All right, all right, I’ll shut up,” Sally said, and walked out of the sunroom.
    “Bitch,” Phyllis muttered. Then she turned. “Me, not her.”
    “Maybe I should go.”
    “Maybe not?” There was no anger left in her voice, just a plea.
    “Sure.” I sat on the barstool and spun myself around slowly.
    “So,” Phyllis said, “I want you to tell me more about Emmett.”
    I went into super-alert status. My hypothesis was about to be tested. Would I find evidence?
    “What’s to tell?” I tried to sound casual. The idea here was to draw out as much information as possible — data!
    “You really think that there’s not a chance of him ever liking a girl? Going out on a date?”
    This is it! Date data. Or data date.
Please, God,
I prayed,
don’t let me think of pea shoots, because then I’ll think of Evelyn peeing and burst out laughing and all will be lost.
    “Well, not never,” I replied, cool as a cucumber. “It’s just it’s hard to imagine.”
    “Hard to imagine because you’re his sister.”
    “Maybe,” I said.
    “Not hard for me.” I stopped spinning on