Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

Yes Sir

Mervyn POV

I had taken Mik out shopping. The first Saturday after school opened, and she had just decided that she needed new school clothes. It was kind of a date day for us. Mik wasn't really a designer label kind of person, she bought whatever was cheap and sturdy. We were in Kohl's at the moment, and it was 11:30. We were going to get lunch as soon as she was finished here.

Mik was in a dressing room, trying on something. Of course, that last part went without saying, because she was in a dressing room. I stood outside, partly to take clothes from her and hear her comments, and partly because I didn't want to come back and realise that I had no idea which room she was in. So I stood outside. Mik wore a lot of blue. She liked blue, and it looked good on her, because it matched her eyes. But practically everything in her cart was blue. I slipped in a couple other things, from time to time, that I thought would look good on her. I wasn't any kind of fashion designer, but I knew colours. And I knew Mikelah.

There was a coughing, choking kind of sound, and a thud, what sounded like Mikelah falling down. "Mik, are you okay?"

No reply came. "Mikelah?" I knocked on the wall, next to the curtain. Nothing again, except a weak sort of cough. "I'm coming in, okay?"

I didn't expect a reply, and none came. If she was conscious, then I assumed she heard. I pushed aside the curtain, and went into the dressing room. She was curled up on the floor, knees tucked into her chest, arms crossed over her legs.. He eyes were squeezed shut, and she looked like she was in pain. She wasn't wearing her t-shirt at the time. I barely noticed. I was more worried about what was wrong with her, why she wasn't getting up. "Mik, what's wrong?"

She didn't look at me until I tilted her chin up, and when I did, her eyes were dull. "It hurts..."

"What hurts?" I mumbled to her, straightening her up and helping her to put her shirt back on. I couldn't help but note that her stomach looked a little weird, sort of bloated, disproportionate to the rest of her body. I'd have to tell the doctors that when I took her to hospital. "You're gonna be fine, okay? I'm going to take you to the hospital, and the doctors will check you out, but you're okay."

I kept going like that, all the way from the shopping complex to the hospital. She recovered about halfway there, and then began to protest that she didn't need to go to any hospital, but I convinced her just to get checked. She folded her arms across herself again, and said nothing the whole rest of the way, chewing on her lip. When I didn't have my eyes on the road, I glanced across at her, more worried than I was before. Something was wrong.

I let my hand find its way to her knee (I couldn't look, I was afraid I'd crash into a tree or something) and left it there. I felt her put both her hands on mine and squeeze it. When her grip loosened, I smiled, knowing that she was feeling a bit better.

******

"Well, I have some good news, and some bad news." The doctor smiled at Mikelah, glancing at me as well. He was a fatherly sort of man, with salt-and-pepper hair, and wrinkles beginning to form around his eyes. "The good news is that you're going to be fine. Nothing out of the ordinary happening."

Mikelah almost let herself relax. Almost. Then she seemed to catch herself, and the fear returned to her face. "The bad news?"

"Well, it's not altogether bad news." The doctor commented, uncertainly. "It all depends on your perspective. It's not necessarily the end of the world, but at the same time... You're so young."

All the colour had washed out of Mikelah's face. She looked at her feet. "The bad news, doctor?" She whispered, with something sounding like resignation in her voice. As if... she already knew what it was.