Free A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass Page A

quite snapping at me, but almost.
    “You already put the key in the car door.” I point to the keys dangling from the lock.
    After that we don’t talk much. I keep peeking over at her on the ride home, but she has a sort of pinched expression on her face. This worries me more than anything else. My head feels very heavy. I flip down the visor and stare at the small mirror. I never thought of my brain as anything other than the place where thoughts came from. Now it’s this big heavy thing rattling around in there — all mushy and gray and, I don’t know,
brainlike.
I move my fingers around my skull.
    “What are you doing?” Mom asks with a sideways glance.
    “I read somewhere that doctors used to feel the bumps on people’s heads to tell what was wrong with them.” I keep searching but don’t feel anything unusual.
    “Don’t worry, Mia. Everything will be fine.”
    “I won’t worry if
you
won’t worry.”
    “I’m not worried,” she says.
    “Me either then.”
    “Good.”
    “Good,” I echo.
    “So neither of us is worried,” she says.
    “Right.”
    Then we look at each other and the corners of our mouths twitch. I start laughing and she joins me. It’s better than crying.
    “You don’t have a brain tumor!” my mother says, shaking me awake. Dad stands behind her, beaming.
    “What?” I rub my eyes and look at my wall clocks. 6:10 a.m. Mango yawns and stretches at the foot of the bed.
    “How do you know? I haven’t even had the tests yet.” Suddenly panic grips me. I sit up and grab my mother by the sleeve of her nightshirt. “Or did I have them and the doctor took out the memory part of my brain?”
    They laugh. “No, you didn’t have them,” my mother assures me. “I just got off the phone with the neurologist.”
    “At six o’clock in the morning?”
    She sits down on the edge of the bed. “He’s at a conference in Europe, where it’s already the afternoon. He got the message I left yesterday and wanted to reassure us. He said that since you’ve had this condition your whole life without any other neurological impairments, he can rule out diseases such as epilepsy or tumors.”
    I lean back on the pillow as relief washes over me. “What else did he say?”
    “He said he’s pretty sure what’s going on from my description, but he wants to meet with you first. He’ll be back next week, and your father and I will drive you down.”
    I sit up again. “Wait, he didn’t say anything about middle child syndrome, did he?”
    They look at me oddly, and my mother shakes her head.
    “So I have to wait a whole week to find out?”
    “You’ve waited thirteen years, right?” my dad says, closing the door behind them.
    “Thirteen and a half,” I whisper. By this time Mango has climbed up onto my chest, and I pet him while he purrs loudly. Each mango-colored puff reminds me that even though I’m not dying of a brain tumor, I still don’t know what’s wrong with me. And my best friend still isn’t talking to me. I lie there with Mango for a few more minutes and decide it’s time for action.
    Mr. Davis lets me in and tells me Jenna’s still up in her room. I knock on the door and wait for her to tell me to come in.
    “Oh, it’s you,” she says. She is standing by her bed, trying valiantly to squeeze her schoolbooks into a purple minibackpack that I haven’t seen before. We used to make fun of people with minibackpacks and now she has one. But she’s wearing the pajamas I got her last Christmas. I’ll take that as a good sign.
    “What are you doing here?” she asks.
    “Please talk to me.” I sit on the bed. “I can’t stand it.”
    She lays down the backpack in defeat. “What do you want me to say?”
    For the second time that morning I feel a surge of relief. At least she’s not giving me the silent treatment anymore. “I don’t want to fight. And I understand why you got mad at me.” Then I can’t help myself. I mutter, “Even though I really needed you to be