“But that’s crazy!” I was mad. “Who chooses their friends by the number of ears they have?”
Dr. Barclay’s waiting room had interesting displays. Photos, models, paintings. Lots of stuffed animals, all with detachable ears stuck on with Velcro. While I waited, I pulled ears off of big, soft elephants, bunnies, and even a crocodile. Then Dudi said, why not mix them up? So we took a furry dog and gave it one elephant ear and one rabbit’s ear.
The other kids in the waiting room looked on, smiling.
There was one grown-up girl there, maybe 19 years old. Dudi took the dog we did “surgery” on and struck up a conversation with the girl’s father, who told him they’d come from Colorado (so there really is such a state — it’s not just a square drawn on a map). Dudi translated everything they said.
They’d wanted to do a Medpor implant years ago, the father told Dudi, but it took them all this time to save up the money to pay for it. The girl herself, whose name was Amanda, had worked in a pizza shop to help raise the money.
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