by Wendy Mass
She’s off and running before I can stop her. My father and I just look at each other. Time passes very slowly until she returns.
Cradling a few dusty blocks in her arms, she holds one up in front of me. It has the letter q carved on each side in faded red. “What color is this?” she asks.
“It’s red,” I tell her.
“See!” she says gleefully. “I’m right!”
“The q is red,” I repeat, “on the block. But in my head it’s a dark silver, like the color of Dad’s helicopter.”
My mother doesn’t say anything. She just keeps turning the block over and over in her hand.
“Well,” my father says after a long pause, “we’ll just have to go see Dr. Randolph. I’m sure he’ll be able to help.”
Over the years, Dr. Randolph has cured us kids of everything from chicken pox to broken bones. He means well, but he’s getting old and a little forgetful. For the last few years, he’s called me Beth. I even heard him call Zack Beth once, but Zack denies it.
“Dad, the last time we went to Dr. Randolph you said he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed anymore.”
“Never mind that,” he says. “We have to start somewhere. I’ll call him right now.”
He goes into the kitchen and opens the cabinet with the emergency numbers posted on it. Mom is still staring at the block, as if she’s trying to see what I see. I know how frustrating it is to see something differently from someone else, or in my case, everyone else, and I feel sorry for her.
I have to go give Mango his pill, so I stand up to leave. Mom breaks her gaze away from the block and looks at me solemnly.
“Why didn’t you come to us before?” she asks. She sounds hurt.
My throat tightens. “I tried to, back in third grade. No one believed me, remember?”
“I’m glad you’re telling us now,” she says, reaching out to hug me. It feels good. Mom’s not usually the touchy-feely type.
“We’ll find out what’s going on,” she assures me. “Don’t worry.”
I nod and leave her holding the q up to the light.
Mango is asleep on my bed, wheezing his mango wheeze contentedly. He springs up as soon as I open the box of tuna-flavored cat treats. Without my colors, Mango’s wheezes would just be wheezes with no comforting mango puffs. Is that worth giving up for good grades? I guess I have no choice. After all, everyone else manages just fine without seeing them. He gobbles down the treat, never suspecting a pill is hidden inside it. He’s so trusting. I give him a few more treats without pills in them, and then he yawns in my face and I wave away his icky tuna breath.
That night, I go to bed early and dream that Dr. Randolph has turned Mango into a stack of dusty building blocks. Every time I pile them up, someone comes and knocks them back down.
I can never turn around fast enough to see who it is.
By morning my parents are still waiting to hear from Dr. Randolph, so they decide to send me off to school. On the bus I randomly open my art book to an artist I haven’t seen before. I decide instantly that this is the guy for me. His name is Kandinsky, and the shapes he uses in his paintings look a lot like the ones I see when I hear noises. His images are all twisted together and overlapping, like when I hear music with a lot of different instruments. The colors he uses are flatter, more primary than the ones I usually see, but they’re still pretty close.
In history we are divided into groups of four and told that each group will have to present a big project at the end of the marking period. It will be based on an event in American history that America would rather forget. Roger Carson is in my group, along with Jonah Finley and Laura Hoffson, who is always the first to volunteer the answer in class. Roger and I glance at each other, and he quickly looks down at his desk. We’re supposed to get together outside of school to decide the topic. Half of our grade will depend on this assignment, but no one seems too eager to make plans. Least of all me. The marking period isn’t over until Thanksgiving, and that seems very far away right now.
During lunch Jenna tells us about the boy-girl party she’s planning for her birthday in November. Molly starts pointing at the boys she thinks should be invited, when the school guidance counselor shows up at our table.
“You’re Mia Winchell, right?” she asks me.
Surprised, I nod. Had I done something wrong? Had I put my history homework in the wrong pile?
“Your mother is here,” she informs me. Then she lowers her voice and says, “You have an appointment with your doctor.”
I gather my books while the guidance counselor waits.
“It’s nothing,” I assure my friends. “I’ll see you later.”
My mother is waiting on the front steps of the school, and she tells me Dr. Randolph has agreed to see me right away. For some reason Beth is in the front seat of the car, her newly red hair glowing unnaturally in the sunlight.
“What’s she doing here?” I ask.
“She has poison ivy all over her arms and legs,” my mother informs me, holding open the back door. “Be nice.”
I slide in and lean forward, noting that Beth has tube socks on both her arms. “So, how’d the herb-picking go, Beth?”
“Shut up.”
“Can’t you just cast a spell and make the poison ivy go away?” I ask.
“Mom!” Beth says.
“Mia,” my mother warns.
I lean back in my seat. “Sorry.”
Beth looks at me over her shoulder. “Why are you going to Dr. Randolph anyway? You don’t look sick.”
I don’t know what to say. Luckily Mom jumps in and says I just need a checkup. Beth doesn’t seem convinced, but she drops it and starts scratching the back of her hand through the socks. Mom tells her to stop or she’ll get scars. That stops her instantly.
Dr. Randolph’s waiting room reminds me of the vet’s except with kids instead of animals. A group of toddlers play with toy trains and Legos while a baby hollers in his mother’s arms. I cover my ears to soften the shrill screams, but it doesn’t stop the silver spears from shooting across the room. I wish everyone else could see them. At least here I’m not the only one covering my ears. I’m dreading going in there and having to explain everything again.
The three of us sit as far away from the chaos as possible. Beth has started scratching again. I make sure I don’t get too close.
“Why do you still bring us to a baby doctor?” Beth asks our mother. I am wondering the same thing.
Mom frowns. “Dr. Randolph is a pediatrician,” she says. “That means he sees children of all ages. Including sixteen-year-olds and thirteen-year-olds.”
Beth is finally called in, and my mother starts to get up with her. “That’s okay,” Beth tells her. “I can do this on my own.” My mother sits back down with a sigh.
“By the way, Mia, I spoke to your math teacher this morning.”
I try to ignore the toddler pawing at my sneaker. “You did? What did she say?”
“She doesn’t understand why you’re having so much trouble, since you do so well in most of your other classes. She said if you don’t improve you’ll have to go to summer school next year.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I wish I were.”
“What am I going to do?” I ask. Nothing could be worse than summer school.
“We’ll figure something out,” she promises. “I’ll go over your homework with you.”
I don’t have the heart to tell her it’s not going to help. I know what I’m supposed to do to solve the equations; somehow I just manage to get all mixed-up in the middle.
Ten minutes later Beth returns covered in pink lotion, clutching a prescription. She doesn’t look happy. The nurse pokes her head out of the door and motions me in. I wait for my mother to join me. There’s no way I’m going in there alone.
Dr. Randolph meets us in the examination room. I hop up on the table and wait for him to cure me. He’s always done it before. He finishes flipping through my file and
then turns to me.
“Hi, Mia,” he says, smiling his friendly-neighborhood-doctor smile. “How are we today?”
I look at my mother, and she gestures for me to answer.
“I’m fine,” I tell him, relieved he remembered my name.
“Your father told me what’s been going on with you,” he says. “And I have to admit, it has me puzzled.”
My shoulders drop, and my mother’s face falls a little.
“But I’ll do my darndest to figure it out,” he says, and I allow myself a small surge of hope.
He proceeds to give me a regular exam, checking my ears, eyes, throat, and reflexes. He listens to my lungs and heart with a cold stethoscope and even tickles my feet to see if I feel it. I do.
Then he asks if I’ve started menstruating yet.
I feel my face start to burn. I don’t see what that has to do with anything. “No,” I reply, looking away. I think many girls in my class have their periods already, but as far as I’m concerned there is no rush to cross that threshold into womanhood. It sure hasn’t made Beth any nicer. After that day in fifth grade when the boys were sent out of the room to play kickball and the girls had to learn about becoming a woman, Jenna and I swore we’d never get our periods. So far, so good.
Dr. Randolph makes some notes in his file and scratches his head. Then he weighs me, measures my height, and has me bend over so he can see if my spine is straight. I keep glancing at my mother, but she is wearing her just-be-patient face.
Suddenly he opens the door and slams it. My mother and I both jump.
Dr. Randolph turns to me. “So,” he says. “What did you see?”
It takes me a few seconds to realize this is a test. “I saw brown rings,” I tell him.
“Where?” he asks.
“About three feet away from me, in the air.”
“Just hanging there in space?” he asks.
Did I sense an edge of disbelief creeping into his voice? “Just hanging there,” I say.
“Are they still there?” he asks. His eyes flicker toward my mother.
“No,” I tell him. “The colors and shapes only last about two seconds unless the noise keeps going.”
“What color is the word doctor?” he asks.
I answer without hesitation. “It’s mostly hot pinkish purple because that’s the color of the d, but the colors of the other letters add a gold tinge to it. Oh, and it’s also kind of grainy.”
“Anything else?” he asks wearily.
I think for a minute. “Nope, that’s all.” I cross my arms and wait for the next question. Instead he motions for my mother to step into the hall with him. I wonder if I failed the test somehow.
A minute later they’re back. “Well, Beth,” Dr. Randolph begins, “I think it will be best if —”
“Mia.” I correct him, ignoring my mother’s glare.
“What?” he asks.
“My name,” I say clearly, “is Mia.”
“Of course it is,” he says defensively. “Now, as I was just telling your mother, I think it will be best if you see a psychotherapist. I’ve given your mother the name of a young woman who I’m sure will be able to help you.” With that he ushers us out the door and back down the hall.
My head hangs low. I feel deflated, as though the air is slowly leaking out of me. “So he thinks I’m crazy too,” I say to my mother as we rejoin the fray in the waiting room.
“No, he doesn’t,” she says softly so Beth won’t hear. “He’s just trying to help.” Beth hops up when she sees us. The lotion flakes off her as we walk to the car. If I didn’t feel so sorry for myself, I would feel pretty bad for her.
“If Dr. Randolph doesn’t think I’m crazy, then why is he sending me to a therapist?” I ask my mother as we walk to the entrance of my school together. “I watch television. I know what therapists do.”
“Dr. Randolph only wants you to get better. He believes this is the next step.”
“He called me Beth again,” I remind her.
“It could have been worse,” she says, turning to go. “He could have called you Zack.”
At that point I would rather have been called anything but crazy. It is one thing for me to call myself crazy. It is another thing entirely when a doctor does it.
I pull open the heavy front door right as the bell rings at the end of sixth period. I blend in with the throng and make my way to gym class. Running around the track always makes me feel better. I quickly change into my gym clothes and am the first one out on the field. I may be crazy, but at least I can run fast. The other kids eventually file out, and the track fills up. As I pass Roger on the track I decide he must have outgrown his two-different-socks phase. Just as I make this observation, he trips and lands hard on his side. Two kids help him off the field, and he hobbles back inside. After I change into my regular clothes, I find him sitting on the bleachers with an ice pack on his left ankle.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
He looks up and grimaces a little. “I twisted my ankle pretty bad. I could have sprained it.”
“If you wanted to get out of gym class, there are easier ways.”
He smiles, and I think he must have gotten his braces off recently because his teeth look very straight.
“We need to get together about the history project,” he says, steadying the ice pack, which had begun to slip. “I’ll give you my number, and we can make plans over the phone.” With his free hand he reaches in his book bag and hunts around for a pencil. I notice he has a paperback copy of one of the Narnia books.
“Have you read that yet?” I ask him as he pulls out the book and leans on it to write his phone number.
“At least ten times,” he says, handing me the scrap of paper with his number on it. “They’re my favorite books. Have you read them?”
“I’ve only read the first one,” I tell him. “I’m not too big on reading.”
A brief look of disappointment flickers across his face. For some reason I feel like I need to explain. “Reading is hard for me sometimes, that’s all. It’s not that I don’t like it.”
“Oh,” Roger says, clearly unsure of what else to say. The bell rings and startles both of us.
“Call me tonight about the project, okay?”
I nod as I hurry out of the gym. I don’t picture myself calling him any time soon.
Jenna tries very hard not to pry on the bus after school. She talks about the weather, how it should be cooling off a bit. She tells me her gym teacher made the girls cheer for the boys in volleyball and that she’s going to file a complaint.
When the driver lets us out at our stop, she can’t hold it in anymore. “I know you’d tell me if something was wrong,” she says, “because best friends tell each other everything, right?”
“Can we talk about it later?” I ask. “It’s kind of a long story, and I need to start my art project.”
“Just tell me one thing. Are you sick?”
“No, I’m not sick.” Am I? “I promise I’ll tell you everything later.”
“Later like when?” she asks.
“This weekend,” I hear myself saying.
“Okay,” she says reluctantly. “But I’m going to hold you to it.”
“I know,” I say, wondering if there is any chance she’ll forget. Not likely.
When I get home I close myself in my room and set up my easel. As if on cue, my father starts hammering. If I’m going to imitate Kandinsky, I’m going to have to bring on the shapes. I turn on the radio to a heavy rock station and also put in a cassette of a thunderstorm. The shapes come unbidden, as always, and I begin to paint. It’s a good thing this assignment was given early in the year. After all, my colors and shapes may not be around much longer if I can actually find a doctor to cure me. I should record them for posterity — a word I only recently learned means the people who come after you in history, not your rear end, which is your posterior.
I concentrate hard and paint fast to keep up with the fleeting image
s. As soon as I try to capture one in my head, it’s gone and morphed into another shape. After an hour I stand back and admire my progress. It actually looks a lot like Kandinsky’s work. But I bet he didn’t get a headache from all the noise! I paint and paint until I fill up almost every available space on the canvas. When I turn off the music, the resulting quiet is a big relief. I lie down on the bed and let the silence seep into me like a cool breeze.
Saturday afternoon rolls around all too quickly, and Jenna waits impatiently for me to start talking. The gray sky looks slightly threatening. I keep glancing up as we find our favorite log at the edge of the woods. I run my finger over the words Mia and Jenna’s Log, Keep Away, which we carved into the soft bark a few summers ago using my father’s pocketknife. One of our first PIC missions was snagging the knife from his toolshed and then returning it, undiscovered.
Jenna swings her legs back and forth, side to side, wordlessly willing me to speak. I had hoped to be able to tell her I’d been cured so I wouldn’t have to go into the details, but I still haven’t seen the therapist. Apparently a lot of other people in town have mental problems, because I can’t get an appointment until Monday.
I watch ants file neatly into the ant hole by my feet and remind myself that Jenna and I have known each other forever. She is closer to me than my own sister. Much closer actually. I open my mouth and force myself to start talking. Breathlessly, I tell her about seeing colors and about how I thought everybody saw things that way and then I found out that nobody did and I felt so alone and strange. I tell her I wasn’t lying that day I got sent home in third grade. She’s not saying anything, so I ramble on, my hands flying around in the air. “I’ve always wanted to tell you that your first name is the color and texture of wet grass. And your last name is purplish pink and white, like a peppermint candy. Grass and peppermint, isn’t that nice?” As I say that I realize how cool Jenna is, and I wonder how I could have been afraid to tell her all these years. I wait for her response. When it comes it almost knocks me off the log.
She bursts out crying.
“Jenna?” I say, my eyes opening wide. “What’s wrong?”