Counting by 7s: Chapters 16–30

He stammered: "Willow h-has an appointment. That's not something th-that's optional."

Because as I watched the school district offices recede into the distance, I was certain that the old dynamic between Dell and Mai and me was over.

One of the kinfolk is in the Valiant Village, which is a care facility for patients suffering from dementia.

Should they take me into something called "protective custody"?

Dell Duke didn't contradict her because Mai was so convincing that he now half believed her story.

"It's not much consolation, but you'll probably never have any loss this big again."

Pattie tried to sort it out but it wasn't long until both of the police officers were standing in front of her getting ready to launch an avalanche of questions in her direction.

Dell hung around the cash register trying to be relevant.

You don't have to watch many wildlife documentaries to know that the herd doesn't accept the lone straggler.

She saw more of me than any other student and we shared a love of germ eradication.

I cannot put on paper the idea that I want to scream, as loud as I can, until my throat ruptures.

Introspection requires you to think and analyze.

And I would also like all of the blue notebooks, as well as my clothing, the metal box under my bed with my life's savings, the orange towel in the bathroom, my humidifier, and my copy of Atlas of Human Anatomy by Frank H. Netter and Sharon Colacino.

I would like to formally request a forensic autopsy be performed on both my mom and dad.

I would like a sedative prescribed to help me deal with anxiety.

It is my hope that the Nguyen family will allow this, and be compensated for taking care of me.

And I don't move a muscle other than to take shallow, almost imperceptible breaths.

Finally, when it is obvious that none of her talking is working, the woman implies that force is an alternative.

Below the caption I see my dad's demolished pickup, in pieces and burned black, conjoined with a mangled medical truck.

I hit my head on the elephant-shaped coffee table when I experienced syncope, or a transient loss of consciousness, more commonly known as passing out.

And when I did, the sharp edge of the pachyderm's trunk sliced right into my glabella.

Blood suddenly is everywhere because blows to the head bleed profusely.

Willow Chance, according to the assembled authorities—was he part of them now? It looked like it!—had no viable relatives.

I find no literature or empirical data directed to a middle schooler.

I feel overwhelming empathy for that group right now.

Mai appears to understand the principle of absorption.

Mai is thin, but I'm starting to realize that she has a monster appetite, especially for things that she previously has been denied.

I'm done with my job as consumer advocate/health adviser.

Now I take a deep breath and hold the noxious fumes in my lungs.

One of his shoes is untied but, with his belly leading the way, he has a new swagger in his step.

But I cannot find my voice to do anything about these future calamities, because it is someone's idea of inspirational to release the bobbing weapons.

His parents finally manage to pry the ribbon from his clenched fist.

As the four-year-old sobs in agony, I know that he is the only one here who understands.

I know that I'm eating meat bits that escape this tragically simple procedure, but the principle of my decision is intact, even if the reality is compromised.

Maybe that was why so many apartment complexes around town were named for ferns and wet, wooded sanctuaries.

It was "an expression of the yearning of a moisture-challenged climate"

Dell tried, in desperation, to add up the events of the long and challenging month.

He knew now that he was being observed. And if there was one thing Dell Duke understood, it was that he didn't do well under scrutiny.

She found the new catalog from her most reliable supplier and circled a shade that she thought Willow would approve of.