If you wander the hospital late at night, you might be lucky and run into a boy who lives there. He has a bright smile and brown eyes and black hair and wears glasses. His name is Calum and he was everyone's favorite.

Calum was a little, sassy, fantastic boy with a metal screw in his left knee and a missing part of his right leg and a metal plate in his chest. He was a long term patient in the children's hospital with cancer in his bones. So far, he'd lost a large portion of his sternum, his patella, his tibula and his fibula, and a finger on his right hand.

The doctors kept his treatment up, but they had caught it late and every few months they would find a new sarcoma and change his medications or put him through another surgery. It never worked longer than a few months.

So Calum was a permanent resident of the children's hospital now. He was a favorite of the nurses and doctors. He was always bright, even when he had every reason not to be.

He was also funny and spunky and referred to his nurses like such: "What's up bitch? OMG, lovely, you look gooddddd today!"

It took a few weeks for everyone to get used to his way of talking and doing things, but after that, they loved him. They loved him because he was always asking about their love lives and their families and the specials in the cafeteria.

They loved him because he was kind and sweet when the whole world seemed to be telling him that he had nothing left.

What Calum had left was hope and happiness. It was bizarre to everyone, which was even more sad because he had so much less than those around him.

Calum was allowed to walk around the hospital when he wasn't in treatment or resting. Sometimes he liked to wander over to the sky tram that connected the actual hospital to the offices and medical school. He liked to ride it up and down and watch the world go past.

Other times, he went to the newborns ward to look at happy families. The nurses knew him well there, so they often would let him hold the babies whose parents were sleeping or were absent.

Other times, he just went down to the cafeteria to eat some food and watch the cars pass below the large window in the back. It was nice to get some sun and all that jazz.

Calum's favorite thing to eat for breakfast was toast and eggs, sometimes he ran into a surgeon who would put down two pieces of bread after her own toast popped up. She was a very nice woman, never very friendly, but always kind and gentle.

As for lunch, Calum liked Tuesdays best because that's when they had hot dogs and steak fries as a special.

Friday's were chicken parmesan and pasta days, so you could find Calum leading the line at 6 o'clock sharp every week.

There was a man who worked the night shift in the cafeteria. He usually took over after the dinner rush and would stay through the night. Every night he would get there a little early to help restock things or clean up the sitting area. It was his 7th year at the hospital on the hill when he met Calum.

It had been a Friday. Calum's first Friday as a resident of room 207. The man had come in early and noticed a young man sitting in the far corner of the sitting area, finishing his last few bites of chicken.

After a little while, Calum had stood up to throw his trash away and take his dishes to the self bussing area. Then he had stopped at the condiment station to get some napkins. After that, he went back to his table and began to brush all the crumbs to one side of the table. He took some time to scrub some spare tomato sauce that had fallen on the table. When he was all done, he scooped the crumbs into his other hand and took them to the trash.

"You didn't have to do that," the man said to him.

"I know I didn't have to, but I know that I should. Why should I make someone else clean up my mess?"

The man thought for a second. He didn't have anything to say in return, so he nodded and did one of those lippy frowns, like he was contemplating what Calum had said and agreeing with it.

"What's your name?"

Again, the man was surprised. Who was this boy?

"Topher. Yours?"

"Calum," the boy smirked. "You have night duty, that's fucked up."

The man laughed. "Hey, at least I get to see my son off for school in the mornings."

Calum smiled. Topher was a good dad.

Calum wandered towards the big refrigerated cases on the far right of the cafeteria. On the very far right of the case, there was a little area of deserts. Puddings and cakes. There was a vanilla cake in a plastic box, with white frosting and blue roses.

That was the night Calum discovered that the hospital had the best vanilla cake in a plastic box anywhere. He made it a weekly goal to have Vanilla cake from the cafeteria no more than once a week. As he liked to tell his doctors, just because he was dying it didn't mean he could break his diet.

So for 3 years, every Friday, Calum and Topher would sit and enjoy two slices of Vanilla cake in a plastic box.

And on the 174th week, Topher saw Calum on Friday. And on Saturday. And on Sunday.

On Monday he finally asked.

"What happened to the diet, man?"

Calum smiled grimly. "Just because I'm dying it doesn't mean I should miss out on the best vanilla cake in the world."

"That bad, huh?"

"It's like I'm this... this plastic box. And inside was all this cake. But I got left out too long and now there's nothing I can do about it."

Topher was quiet for a moment.

"Best damn vanilla cake I've ever had, though."

If you wander the hospital late at night, now, you might run into a man who usually has an apron on and a crooked finger on his left hand. He'll smile brightly and ask about your day and maybe show you a picture of his son. And if you are a child who finds themselves in the cafeteria late at night, he'll buy you a slice of vanilla cake and assure you it is the best on you'll ever have.

His name is Topher and he will oftentimes tell the same story to those who have lost hope in their treatments or in their doctors or in themselves. It's a story without a happy end and it starts with the happiest boy to ever wander these halls. Named Calum. Who was everyone's favorite at some point because he was happy when he had nothing left.

"The best way to honor him," Topher claimed, "is to be happy because we have so much more than he did."