God is in the Pancakes by Robin Epstein

downhill.”
    â€œHow much time does he have left?”
    â€œDon’t know.” I shake my head. “The only thing they do know is that he’s just going to get worse and worse, and they can’t do anything to stop it.”
    â€œThat sucks. I’m sorry, Grace.”
    I consider telling Eric what Mr. Sands asked me to do, and I wonder how he would respond. But I decide not to say anything—to him or anyone else—because I think it would be like telling someone’s most personal secret, which is the last thing I’d want to do. It would also expose him to other people’s judgments, and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. This is about what Mr. Sands wants.
    â€œYeah,” I say, my stomach knotted with a variety of feelings, “I’m sorry too.”

Chapter Six
    S urprises are a funny thing. When I was younger, I loved them. I couldn’t imagine anything better, and I couldn’t get enough of them. That’s probably because back then, surprises mostly came wrapped in brightly colored boxes, tied with silky ribbons. A surprise could also be a fuzzy little animal pulled from a magician’s top hat. Or a sweet-tasting candy-coated reward that turned my tongue and teeth exotic shades of the rainbow. But whatever it was, the surprise almost always came with a smile that seemed like a promise: This thing that you hadn’t even seen was going to make your day better.
    The surprises I’ve had recently have been an entirely different variety. They’re the pop quizzes I’m not prepared for. Fights I didn’t see brewing. Appearances and disappearances of people whose smiles mean squat. These surprises make me feel like I’m that poor fuzzy bunny who’s being yanked around by the ears.
    When my cell phone rings ten minutes after school ends, I look at the call screen and get another surprise. “DAD,” it reads, like a punch to the gut.
    I drop the phone back into my book bag and continue unlocking Big Blue from the school bike rack. I hop on my bike and don’t stop pedaling even when the alert of a new voicemail sounds. It only makes me pedal faster toward Hanover House, despite the fact that I now feel the contents of my lunch rumbling around in my stomach.
    Dad has left messages before. But I’ve always deleted them. When I pull into the Hanover House parking lot, I hop off my bike, thread the lock through the front wheel, and leave it in the space next to Jeff Potts’s cherry red Kawasaki motorcycle. It’s only when I get to the big porch on the main building that I take the cell out of my bag and look at the flashing red message icon.
    I exhale, then hit the voicemail button, deciding today is the day I’ll finally listen to what he has to say for himself.
    â€œHi, Grace, it’s me . . . Dad? Remember m—”
    Delete.
    The ladies’ room isn’t far, but I wonder if I’ll be able to make it there without throwing up. Thankfully I manage to get into a stall, turn around, and bend over the toilet before the contents of my stomach come heaving out of my throat. I spit the metallic remains of stomach acid and nasty school lunch into the bowl before flushing the toilet. When I’m sure my stomach is entirely empty, I flip down the lid of the toilet and stand on the seat. Crouching on top of the bowl, I grip my hands around my stomach and rock back and forth trying to recover from this shock to my system.
    â€œ Come on! ” I say, looking up, angry now . “What is going on here? Are you doing this for some special reason?”
    â€œWouldn’t be any fun if you knew the plan,” a voice replies.
    I’m so rattled by the sound of the voice I lose my footing on the toilet seat and bang my hip against the metal toilet paper roll. When I get back on my feet, I open the door and see an old woman with bright white hair pinned in a loose bun at the top of her head. Her hand