ANYA: Im glad it doesnt have any eyes, a nose, or a mouth drawn on it, but even without eyes, even

without a face, the wig stand seems to taunt me, Give me my hair backthats my hair youre wearing. You dont have enough of your own. (toss the wig). DOCTOR: It looks like alopecia areata. ANYA: I thought that whatever alopecia areata was couldnt be too bad, because it was such a pretty name. Alopecia areata shouldnt be a disease or a condition. It should be one of the ladies in King Arthurs court. It should be the name of a foreign beauty queen. DOCTOR: The best way I can explain it is that she has become allergic to her own hair. MOM: Whats the treatment? ANYA: I let my mind wander while my mom and the doctor talked. I got bored. There wasnt even anything to look at in the examining room except the doctors big framed diploma on the wall. I read it over three times. MOM: You mean theres a possibility shell never get her hair back? And she might lose the rest of her hair too? DOCTOR: I didnt say it was likely, but I wanted to prepare you for all the possibilities. Alopecia areata is a very capricious disease. Its impossible to predict what will happen. Some people lose every bit of hair on their entire body. But thats very rare. MOM: How can we make sure that doesnt happen to Anya? DOCTOR: You cant.

INTRO: Alopecia areata affects more than four million people in the United States. Some people who are affected by it have their hair grow back, some people get their hair back but lose it again, and some people never get their hair back at all. Fourth grader, Anya, loses all of her hair on her head because of alopecia areata. She wears a wig to hide her baldness from her classmates, but just hiding the fact that she is wearing a wig proves to be a challenge for Anya. But luckily, her classmate, Keely, is there to help her. Because of Anya, by Margaret Peterson Haddix. ANYA: The first day I had to wear my wig to school. KEELY: You think Anyas wearing a wig? TORY: Why would she need one? STEF: What if she has cancer? And her hairs falling out because she has to have chemotherapy? TORY: But Anyas just a kid. Like us. STEF: Yeah, and she might be dying. KEELY: Somebody would have told us. STEF: Maybe Anya didnt want anyone to know. We ought to do something to help her. KEELY: Stef got like this sometimes. Just when I had decided she was the meanest person I knew, she would turn everything around and act like the kindest person ever. KEELY: What do you think we should do?

STEF: I dont know Just go out of our way to be nice to her. KEELY: Im glad I have hair. Im glad I dont have to wear a wig. Im glad I dont have cancer. ANYA: It rained, and we had indoor recess on the second day that I had to wear my wig to school. Usually during indoor recess I played one of the board games with Leah and Kruti, or I drew pictures on the chalkboard with Yolanda and Fumi. But Leah and Kruti always set up their Scrabble or Boggle on the floor, and they bent their heads in together, spelling words. How could I be sure they wouldnt lean too close, get a good look at me, and call out in horror, Is that a wig? No board games. But drawing on the chalkboard wasnt a great idea either. Fumi and Yolanda liked to lean way back and draw their pictures up to the very top of the board. If I leaned way back, I might not have my wig on when I straighten up. I couldnt do anything. RING. I slipped a book out of my desk and went to a corner away from everyone else. It was the Camelot book again. KEELY: Hi, Anya. ANYA: Hi, Keely. KEELY: I just came over to tell you, um, your hair looks really good today. Did you just get it cut? ANYA: Uh, yeah. Over the holidays. KEELY: Where did you get it cut? ANYA: Just some hair place. I dont remember the name

ANYA: That was a lie. I would never forget Josephines Wig Shop. Even if I lived to be a million years old, even if my h air grew back tomorrow and never fell out again, Id still have nightmares about Josephines Wig Shop. Everybody had been nice to me, but that only made it worse. KEELY: Okay. Well, Ive got to go. Its been nice talking to you. See you later. ANYA: Keely walked across the room back to Stef and Tory. I realized I was sweating. Sweat didnt look very natural on synthetic hair. STEF: You could have just given her hair a little pull. KEELY: No, I couldnt. You werent there. You didnt see the look on her face. Stef, I think she really is dying. Im not going to do something mean like that to someone whos dying, and Stef, if you pull Anyas hair yourself, Ill never speak to you again. ANYA: In the middle of that night, I slipped out of bed to go to the bathroom. I hear mom and dad talking. MOM: No, I cant cope with this! This is my little girl! I keep looking ahead Whats it going to be like for her when its summer and all the other kids want to go to the swimming pool but she cant? Whats it going to be like when she gets to middle school and they have sleepovers where they do each others makeup and hair? Whats it going to be like when she gets to high school and nobody wants to dater her because shes bald?

ANYA: I couldnt hear Dads answer. I couldnt make myself keep walking toward the bathroom, either. MOM: And you wonder why I dont think we should keep trying for another baby? Maybe put another child through this agony? ANYA: Mom was saying that she didnt want another baby anymore, because of the alopecia. Because of me. The third day that I had to wear my wig to school was gym day. We were doing gymnastics. I didnt even like leaning over, for fear of losing my wig. With gymnastics, Mrs. Vance might as well have been plotting to humiliate me. The ladies back at Josephines Wig Shop had given me a headband to keep my wig on during gym. Nobody wore headbands at school. The headband Josephine gave me wasnt little and plastic. It was elastic and wide at least two inches across -and it circled my entire head. It looks really, really weird, but nobody laughed. Some people stared. When it was time for gym, Mrs. Vance divided us into groups. I was in a group with Stef. We had to practice front and back rolls and cartwheels on the mats. I stood as far back in the group as I could, but Mrs. Vance called on me to do a cartwheel. I stepped up to the mat, raised my hands over my head and started to run. I leaped and actually felt the air whizzing past my face. Somehow I managed to abandon myself to the joy of the cartwheel. I rose up at the end, triumphant. My wig had stayed on. It wasnt even crooked. Then I became brave enough to try everything. Even somersaults. TYLER: How many can you do in a row? ANYA: Five between here and the end of the mat.

ANYA: I bent down, tucking my knees against my chest. I didnt think about the wig at all. One. Two. Three. Four. Then in the middle of the fifth somersault, as I put the top of my head against the mat, something pulled at my scalp. TYLER: You lost your hair! ANYA: It seemed like the whole gym went dead silent after that. The gym was never silent. KEELY: Anya had the wig in her hand; she was running out of the gym like her life depended on getting away. The doors slammed shut behind her, and still nobody moved. RANDOM: Did you see Why Whats wrong with her? KEELY: She has cancer and shes really sick and she might even die. And Stef just pulled her wig off. ANYA: There was no place to hide at school, no place Icould be sure I wouldnt be found. I kept waiting for someone to stop me, but nobody did. I ran faster. The only place I could think to go was home. The house was empty both Mom and Dad were at work but I still didnt feel safe enough. I dragged myself into my room. I threw my wig and wig stand out into the hall. In no time at all, mom and dad were there crying oh honey. ANYA: They saw. They know. Everyone knows. Im never going back to school again. Please, dont make me. I wont go. ANYA: I didnt go to school on Thursday. I didnt go to school on Friday. I stayed home and lay in bed, eating chicken noodle soup and butterscotch pudding. Sick food.

KNOCK KEELY: Anya? Hi. I hope Im not bothering you. Your mom and dad said it was okay to come in. I just wanted to tell you, well, I was afraid that you thought that Stef pulled off your wig on purpose. I thought she did too, because, well, you know Stef. But she swore to me that she had nothing to do with you wig coming off. So if thats the reason you havent wanted to come back to school, because youre afraid people will be pulling your wig off left and right, well, you dont have to worry about that at all. You can come back to school and nobody will bother you. ANYA: You thought everything was Stefs fault. KEELY: Well, yeah. Just because Stef noticed that you were wearing a wig, and she was really curious about it, and she wanted Tory or me to tug on it to see if it really was a wig. ANYA: Why didnt you tell me you knew? KEELY: We didnt want to be rude. And we thought you might have cancer. Wed never hear of alopecia areata. So we thought you might be dying. And we didnt know how to talk to someone who was dying. ANYA: How do you know how to talk to someone with alopecia areata? KEELY: I dont. I just wanted to make you feel better. Why dont you come back to school? ANYA: Didnt you see me? How can I ever go back

KEELY: But Anya, you were beautiful. Maybe you felt weird because you dont have hair -- I guess I would feel weird about it too. But when I saw you without your wig, it was like you were the prettiest girl in the class. You didnt look ordinary, like the rest of us. You looked like a movie star or a singer, someone who looks really different from everyone else. Different good, I mean, not different bad. ANYA: Keely, I lost my hair. It just fell out, for no reason. And now youre telling me you thought I looked beautiful? Is that supposed to make me feel good? KEELY: Im sorry. CantCant I do anything to help. ANYA: Keely had been in the same class as me since kindergarten. She had learned to read at the same time I did. She learned her multiplication tables at the same time I did. She brought in chocolate-iced cupcakes every year on her birthday, just like I did. But Keely had long, thick brown hair, and I didnt. ANYA: You cant help. Not unless you want to give me your hair. ANYA: I could hear my parents muffled voices. Then I heard the front door open and close, which probably meant Keely was leaving. You were beautiful. Those would have been the last possible words she would ever have expected Keely to say to her. Beautiful. Could someone be beautiful with ugly hair? Or no hair? I hadnt looked in the mirror since November. The wig stand and the wig werent there between me and the mirror anymore. Take off the cap. I am bald. Completely bald. Beautiful. Was that true? Without the distraction of hair, my eyes looked bigger, my nose straighter, my mouth redder. If I still had hair and was flipping through one of

my moms magazines and had seen a picture that looked like I looked now, the word beautiful might have flickered in my mind. But so would strange. So would weird. So would whats wrong with her? KEELY: I sat down with the phone and two lists. One had the names of girls in my class with long hair. The other was the list of girls with short hair. I started with the second list. All I wanted from them was a promise, but the best answers I got were Ill think about it and Ill let you know later. Nobody said yes. MOM: Keely says she has a surprise for you. ANYA: Oh, whens she coming? MOM: In about an hour. Do you want to put your wig on first? ANYA: No, shes seen me without a wig before. The caps good enough. I dont think Keely cares. ANYA: An hour later I heard the doorbell ring. I waited awhile. Had Keely come to see me, or just my parents? KEELY: Anya, can I come in? ANYA: At first I almost didnt recognize Keely. Id never seen her without long hair before, but now her hair was chopped to the bottom of her ears. I didnt notice what she was holding in her hands. It was my wig stand. But she had drawn eyes and a mouth and a nose on it. It didnt look blank and anonymous anymore. It looked like me. And instead of holding a wig on top, the wig stand was covered with a thick long braid of hair.

KEELY: You said I couldnt help unless I gave you my hair. So I did. I read some stuff on the Internet and one of the things it said was that wigs made from real hair are much better than fake ones. But the real-hair wigs are more expensive and theyre harder to get because, well, its not like theres a bunch of hair lying around that wig makers can use. But there are ways for people to donate their hair, to make wigs for kids. So thats what I did. For you. Im giving you my hair. ANYA: Thank you. ANYA: It was kind of gross, touching someone elses cut-off hair. But I didnt let myself shiver. I reminded myself that Keely was sharing. This wasnt Keelys hair anymore. It was mine.