A Night Without Stars

Maria Tirone is frightened. She's in the hospital, about to undergo open heart surgery. And no one—not her friends, not her family, not even her doctors—can tell her what to expect. Then she meets Donald, badly disfigured in a fire years before. The other kids in the hospital call him Monster Man, and tell Maria to stay away from him. But Maria sees the human being hidden behind Donald's scars and his bitterness, and finds in him what she needs most of all—answers to her questions, and a friend.