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f comfortable

As you can see, I clearly knew my stuff But when it was nearlyup a papier- to be sick I went up to Mrs Cuthbert, and told her if I stayed to do this assign to be happy

"Anna," she said, "if you tell yourself you feel fine, you will"

So when Stephen finished, I got up I took a deep breath "Kangaroos," I said, "are marsupials that live only in Australia"

Then I projectile vo in the front row

For the whole rest of the year, I was called KangaRalph Every now and then soo topinned to the front of my fleece pullover, a reatest eym and accidentally pulled down Oriana Bertheim's skirt

I'eneral aversion to public speaking

But now, on the witness stand, there's even more to be worried about It's not that I' up, either I' too much

I look out at the courtroo at her lawyer table, and at my father, who smiles at me just the tiniest bit And suddenly I can't believe I ever thought I e ofeveryone's time and bolt--only to realize that Ca, and his pupils are so big they look like quarters set deep in his face "Anna," Calass of water?"

I look at him and think, Do you?

What I want is to go home I want to run away to a place where no one knows hter, the heir to a toothpaste dom, a Japanese pop star

Cae "May I confer for a moment with my client?"

"Be e DeSalvo says

So Campbell walks up to the witness stand and leans so close that only I can hear him "When I was a kid I had a friend naine if Dr Neaux had married him"

He backs ahile I a that maybe, just maybe, I can last for another two or three minutes up here

Ca crazy--he's the one who needs water or so, from the looks of it And I'e DeSalvo says, "please control your animal"

"No, Judge"

"Excuse me?!"

Ca, Your Honor, like you asked" Then he turns to me "Anna, why did you want to file this petition?"

A lie, as you probably know, has a taste all its own Blocky and bitter and never quite right, like when you pop a piece of fancy chocolate into your et lemon zest instead "She asked," I say, the first tords that will become an avalanche

"Who asked what?"

"Myat Campbell's shoes "For a kidney" I look down at my skirt, pick at a thread Just

About two ot tired easily, and lost weight, and retained water, and threw up a lot The blaenetic abnorrowth hormone shots Kate had once taken to boost marrow production, stress froet rid of the toxins zipping around her bloodstrea

One night,out She had my father with her, which meant ere in for a -by-accident "I've been doing so on the internet," ans aren't nearly as difficult to recover from as bone marrow transplants"

Kate looked at me and popped in a new CD We both knehere this was headed "You can't exactly pick up a kidney at Kmart"

"I know It turns out that you only need to match a couple of HLA proteins to be a kidney donor--not all six I called Dr Chance to ask if I ht be a match for you, and he said in normal cases, I probably would"

Kate hears the right word "Normal cases?"

"Which you're not Dr Chance thinks you'd reject an organ froeneral donor pool, just because your body has already been through so much" My mother looked down at the carpet "He won't recommend the procedure unless the kidney comes from Anna"

My father shook his head "That's invasive surgery," he said quietly "For both of them"

I started thinking about this Would I have to be in the hospital? Would it hurt? Could people live with just one kidney?

What if I wound up with kidney failure when I was, like, seventy? Where would I get my spare?

Before I could ask any of this, Kate spoke "I'ht? I'm sick of it The hospitals and the che Just leave me alone, will you?"

My mother's face hite "Fine, Kate Go ahead and commit suicide!"

She put her headphones on again, turned the music up so loud that I could hear it "It's not suicide," she said, "if you're already dying"

"Did you ever tell anyone that you didn't want to be a donor?" Ca helicopters in the front of the courtroom

"Mr Alexander," Judge DeSalvo says, "I' to call a bailiff to remove yourpet"

It's true, the dog is totally out of control He's barking and leaping up with his front paws on Canores both Judges "Anna, did you decide to file this lawsuit all by yourself?"

I knohy he's asking; he wants everyone to know I' choices that are hard And I even have ht between my teeth But what I mean to say isn't quite what slips out "I was kind of convinced by someone"

This is, of course, news to my parents, whose eyes hammer onto me It's news to Julia, who actually makes a small sound And it's news to Campbell, who runs a hand down his face in defeat This is exactly why it's better to stay silent; there is less of a chance of screwing up your life and everyone else's

"Anna," Campbell says, "who convinced you?"

I am small in this seat, in this state, on this lonely planet I foldbetween the away: regret "Kate"

The entire courtroo bolt I have been expecting strikes I cringe, but it turns out that the crash I've heard isn't the earth opening up to shole It is Ca stands nearby with a very human look on his face that says I told you so

BRIAN

IF YOU TRAVEL IN SPACE for three years and come back, four hundred years will have passed on Earth I am only an armchair astronomer, but I have the odd sense that I have returned fro quiteto Jesse, but it turns out I haven't been listening to him at all I have listened carefully to Anna, and yet it seeh the few things she has said, tracing the to make sense of them the way the Greeks somehow found five points in the sky and decided it looked like a woman's body

Then it hits inal people of Australia, for example, look between the constellations of the Greeks and the Ro under the Southern Cross where there are no stars There are just as many stories to be told in the dark spots as there are in the bright ones

Or this is what I'hter's lawyer falls to the floor in the throes of an epileptic seizure

Airway, breathing, circulation Airway, for soie I ju out of the way; he's co body like a sentry The attorney enters the tonic phase with a cry, as air is forced out by the contraction of his breathing round Then the clonic phase starts, and his muscles fire randomly, repeatedly I turn hi for so to stick between his jaws so that he won't bite off his own tongue, when theknocks over Alexander's briefcase and pulls out so that looks like a rubber bone but is actually a bite block, and drops it intooff the courtroom I yell to Vern to call for an ambulance

Julia is at ht?"

"He's gonna be fine It's a seizure"

She looks like she's on the verge of tears "Can't you do so?"

"Wait," I say

She reaches for Campbell, but I draw her hand away "I don't understand why it happened"

I don't know if Cas, though, that occur without a direct line of antecedents

Two thousand years ago the night sky looked coht down to it, the Greek conceptions of star signs as related to birth dates are grossly inaccurate for today's day and age It's called the Line of Procession: back then the sun didn't set in Taurus, but in Gemini A Septeo And there was a thirteenth zodiac constellation, Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer, which rose between Sagittarius and Scorpio for only four days

The reason it's all off kilter? The earth's axis wobbles Life isn't nearly as stable as ant it to be

Cahs his way to consciousness in the judge's cha him sit "You had a bad one"

He holds his head "What happened?"

Amnesia, on both sides of the event, is pretty corand mal to me"