The True Meaning of Smekday Read Online Free PDF Page A

weird…ly. Weirdly. Is it weird or weirdly?”
    “Mom, you have got to get that mole removed,” I said.
    “What? Why?” she said, looking confused. “What?”
    “It’s bigger than before, and it’s changed color,” I said. “Moles that change size and color, that’s like, a sure sign of cancer.”
    Mom began vigorously shaking her head. “I’m not going to let some quack hack me to pieces,” she said.
    “But a second ago I saw it glow !”
    There was a heavy silence in the kitchen. Mom looked at me like I had feet growing out of my head.
    “Glowing moles are definitely cancerous,” I added. I was pretty sure this was a lie, but I hate losing arguments.
    Mom hesitated. Then she reached up to her spine and touched the mole gingerly. She didn’t like what she found, I guess, because her hand snapped back and she began to shake her head again, violently, like she had swimmer’s ear. Like she was trying to shake a thought right out of her.
    “I’m the grown-up, and you’re the baby,” she said finally, and left the kitchen. It was how a lot of our fights ended. Not this time.
    “We can’t just ignore this,” I said slowly, sweetly. “We have to be brave and go to the doctor. Do you remember Dr. Phillips? You thought he was going to be scary, but everything turned out all—”
    “Jesus, Gratuity, stop talking to me like that,” said Mom, shooing me away. “This’ll work itself out.”
    I huffed. “Oh, yeah. What, like everything else does around here? Yeah, everything else works out, and you never have to worry or think about it or do a thing. But you know why this is different? Because I can’t fix it this time !”
    “Oh, Gra—Turtlebear, don’t—”
    “I need you to cooperate because I’m not a doctor yet, and I can’t take your mole to have it looked at without you attached to it, so I need you to just do as I say!”
    Mom just stood there in a door frame for a really long time looking angry, then something like sad, then angry again.
    “We’ll talk in the morning!” she said, and slammed the door. Only, our doors were cheap and lightweight and about as good to slam as a Wiffle ball is to hit.
    “Mom…” I sighed. “Mom, you’re—”
    The door opened again, and she brushed past me to the other end of the hall.
    “I knew it was your room,” she mumbled.
    The Shirtless Man Movie had clearly been ruined, so we both went to bed early. But I awoke three hours later on account of the twelve glasses of water I’d had before bed. After a few minutes I was seated at the computer.
    I turned it on. I forgot that ours was one of those computers that makes a sound like a choir saying “Ahh” when you turn it on.
    “Shh,” I hissed, pressing my hands over the speakers. “Stupid computer.”
    I peeked out into the hall. Lights off, no sounds. I settled back into my chair and started the web browser, and went to Doc.Com, one of those medical websites. It loaded a cover story about whooping cough, and a banner ad that suggested I ask my doctor if Chubusil was right for me, and then finally the part where I could enter Mom’s symptoms. I typed:
    mole changes size color
    After a moment, I added:
    glows
    and hit RETURN .
    The search turned up something like 140 articles, with names like “Do I Have Cancer?” and “Oh, No! Cancer?” and “Okay, So It’s Cancer, Now What?”
    Excited, I clicked on the best match and began to read. Maybe moles do glow, I thought. But the first item didn’t mention it. Neither did the second. I read five articles before realizing my search had only turned up results for the words mole, changes, size, and color, except for one that mentioned getting a “healthy glow” in an essay about tanning salons. No mention of glowing moles.
    You know that part in the story where the character thinks, I bet I didn’t really see a ghost after all. I bet it was just a sheet. Wearing chains. Floating through our pantry. Shrieking. I bet it was just my imagination.