As Christine muttered something unintelligible, a thought started rattling around in my head. It was what I had just said: that chicken pox spots didn’t cluster.
They don’t, I reminded myself. There were just individual sores when the rash popped up.
I nodded, affirming my own train of thought. Christine’s son was probably just being a typical five-year-old boy. Making everything seem more dramatic and exaggerated than it actually was.
Returning my attention to the studio where Rosie practiced, I smiled with appreciation as she pirouetted gracefully. She did a slight bow in front of her teacher and classmates and then returned to the barre.
Whereupon once again, almost absentmindedly, my daughter raised her arm and scratched her back.
5
Rosie turned over in bed and pulled the covers up over her head. Shoving her face into the pillow, she tried her hardest to stifle the sound of her cough. She rolled over onto her back, then sniffled and pulled her leg up to her chest, so she could scratch her knee.
She didn’t feel well.
And she wasveryitchy.
Rosie had noticed when she got home from ballet and started undressing to put her pajamas on that she had some little red dots on her arms. And there were a few on her chest, too. She was sure that if she turned on the light and looked at her knee, she would probably find some spots there, too.
But her mum said that you couldn’t get chicken pox twice.
Rosie felt worry build in her chest. She really didn’t want chicken pox again. It had been miserable the last time. She couldn’t stand the thought of being cooped up in bed, not being allowed to play with her friends or her dinosaurs, and having to take long, warm baths just to try to ease the itch that came with those yucky blisters.
She shuddered, thinking about it.
Maybe she was just tired. That had to be it. It had been a long week and maybe she was just feeling a bit worried because her friend Ellie wasn’t well and then Clara had gone home sick the other day, too.
Kevin hadn’t looked like he was sick, though—and he said he’d never had chicken pox before—so how couldsheget them twice?
She swallowed hard and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. That was what Mum had told her to do anytime she was feeling overwhelmed. Of course, she had told her that because of what she had seen with her dad, but Rosie supposed that trick could be used in this situation, as well.
Taking one, two, three deep breaths, she closed her eyes in the darkness and willed herself to go to sleep. In the morning, everything would be fine. She would feel better.
But then her eyes sprung open as it felt like something had bitten her on the back. She cranked her arm around awkwardly to shove her hand up the back of her pajama top to reach the area. Once the itch was scratched, she ran her fingers over her skin and felt a few flat bumps. There were more of them all over her, too, she just knew it.
Breathing hard again, she whispered to herself like her mum told her to do when she needed to calm herself down. “You’re fine, just go to sleep. Everything is OK. You don’t have chicken pox. Everyone knows kids can’t get it twice.”
Debating on whether or not to get up and tell her mum about this, she decided against it. Mum worried about things. And Rosie knew she’d be even more worried if she had to take time off work to take care of her, when there was no need.
She was a big girl now.
“Just go to sleep,” she told herself quietly in the darkness, trying to count sheep like her dad had once told her. But that had never worked, so instead Rosie decided to try counting the names of all the different dinosaurs she knew—especially all the new ones she’d learned from the exhibit she’d been to over Easter. And after tossing and turning for an hour or more, she finally fell asleep, achieving a fitful slumber.
Several hours later she woke, realizing that she had kicked all of her covers off. She felt hot and cold at the same time and her pajamas felt wet and her skin clammy. She was covered in sweat!
At once, the problem of the previous night came rushing back to her and Rosie realized that she didn’t feel better—atall. Instead she felt much, much worse.
“No, no, no,” she said, feeling a fresh wave of panic. She was so warm—she had to have a fever, like that time she’d had a bad flu and her mum had explained all about how fever was the body’s way of getting rid of bad germs.
Bad germs like chicken pox?
And as much as she wanted to jump out of bed to look at herself in the mirror to confirm that the spots were still there, she just couldn’t. She felt exhausted.
Rosie wanted her mum, but when she opened her mouth to call out, she found she could barely manage a squeak.
“Mum...” she croaked. When she didn’t hear any footsteps on the stairs, she tried again, and this time it was a bit louder. Her mum had to hear her—mums just knew, somehow, when their kids needed them. Particularly her mum.
Sure enough, a moment later, Rosie heard, “Coming, honey,” and she felt some of her panic subside.
