Chapter 1
Dear Diary,
I lost my voice! The doctors said that I was so scared that I cannot speak anymore. They don't know if I'll be able to ever speak again. I ran to the roof of the hospital and I tried and tried to scream something, anything, but no sound came out.
JB and I were supposed to have some fun. He convinced me to ditch school to go out and play. We were on the bus when a drunk driver swerved into our lane and our bus overturned. I screamed before the bus hit and after that I don't remember anything except when I woke up here in the hospital.
My mom came to visit me today. She was so sad she was crying. I didn't want her to cry. I think she was afraid that I will never be able to speak again. It was after she left the hospital that I went back to the roof and tried to say something again. Still, not a sound left my mouth.
Lily, age 11
Dear Diary,
I made a new friend today! He is around my age, I think.
He was wheeled into the hospital early in the afternoon. The nurses told the doctor he was injured in a hockey accident. The doctor checked his eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and throat before he removed his neck brace. Then he checked his neck and the rest of his body to make sure there weren't any bruising. I heard the doctor tell his dad the nurses will be x-raying his bones to make sure nothing was broken and they would be keeping him overnight just in case he had a concussion.
I was writing letters in my secret place on the roof when he saw me. He did most of the talking though. When he asked me for my name, I wasn't sure how to tell him I couldn't speak, so I wrote my Chinese name on the notepad the doctor gave me. He thought my name looked weird so he asked me if I was Chinese and I smiled and nodded. He said his name is Adam Banks.
Lily, age 11
Dear Diary,
My mom died this evening. She was on her way to visit me when she had a heart attack. I don't think she died of a heart attack; she died from a broken heart. Dad had already passed away a long time ago and now I am this "mute". I think it broke her heart that she will never be able to hear me speak again.
Uncle Lou, JB's dad, promised my mom that he's going to take care of me. They were good friends, just like JB and I are good friends.
I went to my special place after Uncle Lou and JB left the hospital. Adam saw me crying and said he knew what happened. His dad came in during the evening for visiting hours and overheard the nurses talking about my situation.
To make me feel better, he told me a story about a "Lucky Star." The "Lucky Star" story goes like this: When somebody dies, they never really leave you. A good person (like my mom, he says) becomes a shining star in the sky. That good person will always be up in the sky shining so brightly and when her star shines, it means that the person is watching out for you.
There's also a hand gesture that symbolizes this "Lucky Star". He showed me this hand gesture and says that it can be my lucky star. His story made me feel a lot better. It was as if he knew what I was feeling.
The roof became our secret place. This would be the place where we can get away from the sadness in life. He told me how he ended up in the hospital. He was playing in the peewees tournament hockey game. He was playing against his former team and his friend, or now ex-friend took him out of the game by pushing him onto the ice and he slid and hit the goalpost. That was how he ended up in the hospital.
That's when Dr. Lawrence found us and told us it was way after our bedtime.
Lily, age 11
Dear Diary,
Today was the best day and the worst day of my life all rolled into one.
Adam woke me up this morning and told me he wanted take me to go somewhere fun instead of being stuck in the hospital. We snuck out of the hospital and went to the Mall of America. It was early so nobody really noticed us in our pajamas on the way there. We went on the rides and had a great time. We even shared cotton candy. To remember this day, Adam and I went into a photo booth and took a picture. He took two of the pictures and gave me the other two. He also got us identical friendship bracelets with the words "Best Friends" stitched in it, except mine was pink and his was blue.
We went back to the hospital afterwards so that we would not get caught leaving by ourselves. He asked me why I do not talk to him and that it was very selfish of me to do that. Instead, he says he's going to do the same—not speak to me, but write to me. So we wrote to each other the entire bus ride back to the hospital.
We put every conversation we wrote in a box and took it up to our secret place. We found a loose brick on the wall and put our box in it. Adam asked me later if I liked him. I was unable to answer and he knew that so he said to forget it. He thought of the idea that we should write a note, leave it in our secret place and come back 10 years later New Year's Eve to see what we wrote. So I wrote a long message to him and he wrote a message. We folded up the paper, put it in the wall, and placed the brick back on the wall.
When we went back our rooms, Adam saw his dad at the nurse's station and was told he would be discharged from the hospital today. Adam grabbed my notepad and my pen and wrote down his name and number on it, telling me to call him. After his dad finished filling out the discharge forms, Adam left with his dad. I ran after the car and tried calling after him. I wanted to tell him that I do like him and that he is my best friend in this whole world, but the car had disappeared.
Lily, age 11
Dear Diary,
I've been released from the hospital for quite some time now. I moved in with Uncle Lou and JB. Uncle Lou adopted me as his daughter.
I wish mom was here. I miss her so much. She didn't even get to see me turn twelve. I wanted to tell her how much I love her and appreciate everything she's done for me.
I tried to call Adam once, but it didn't work out the way I wanted it to. I was unable to tell him that it was me on the phone even though he knew it was me when I didn't say who I was. He just kept saying, "Hello?! It's you, isn't it?" How was I supposed to answer that when no sound would come out? I just hung up and felt so frustrated. I gave up on contacting him since even though I still wear our friendship bracelet. I haven't taken that off and I never will.
Lily, age 12