by Susan Haas
She unfolded the papers and read, “Bilateral, pallidal, deepbrain stimulation in primary generalized dystonia: a prospective three-year follow-up study. Yep, that sounds terrifying, Lexi. Absolutely devious.”
She held the paper so I could see it.
“In case you haven’t noticed, our mother is a medical writer. This is her job. I’ve told you before. You mishear stuff. All. The. Time.”
I stared at the papers. I read the first few words of the title before my eyes darted in different directions. Hannah was right. This paper looked complicated and boring, but not devious.
Still, in the pit of my stomach, something didn’t seem right. No way did I mishear all of what she said. She had definitely said that if I didn’t catch up by the end of summer she would do something radical that she might regret.
I had to be alert for more clues.
But above all, I had to find my gifts. Before the end of summer. Before it was too late for my body to come in. Before Mom did something she might regret.
CHAPTER 27
Age 5, The Year of the Buttered Cat
I had a tradition of naming the communication devices Celeste sent home with me. It always took a few days to get to know a new device, and this one was no different. By the end of the first week, I had named this one Haha—good for some laughs, but that was about it. Each afternoon Mom wheeled me up to the kitchen table to practice. If I could hold my head and eyes just right, I could choose the letter I wanted, but the only button I could hit almost every time was the big one at the top.
On Wednesday, Anna and Elle came over. We had a lot less French homework now that the exam was done, so Mom suggested I introduce them to Haha.
She rolled me up to the table and held my head steady until the cursor appeared. I tried to type hello, but hit all the wrong buttons.
When I hit the top button, Haha said, “Jekklip.”
Anna giggled. Elle elbowed her in the ribs, but I laughed too.
“Lemme try,” Elle said.
She touched several letters. I activated the top button.
“Jekklip brklfsh.”
“That’s cool,” Elle said. “It’s like a game of Add On.”
“My turn!” said Anna. She added her letters.
“Jekklip brklfsh pooklngr.”
Anna and Elle kept adding mashed-up, made-up words to the top screen. Those crazy words sounded so familiar … like the made-up words Mr. Bean had chanted in that diner six months ago.
Six months ago. Six months to go. Tick. Tick. Tick.
The new deadline went off in my head so often, I had gotten used to it. Six months, after all, was way, way in the future. And there was Lou Lattimore. He was out there right now, flying over the city, looking for my missing things.
I pointed to my room. The girls wheeled me off to escape with Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
By Friday, I was totally over Haha. The day before, I had managed to spell go and no, but now I couldn’t even turn my head for it to read my eyes. Kali was working on a homework assignment at the table. After I grunted and groaned for several minutes, she looked up.
“Lexi, would you like some help?”
Tongue out.
She reached over and tried to turn my head, but it was stuck. She pressed one hand against my cheek and whispered in my ear, “Guess what happened at school today?”
My eyes met hers.
She smiled. “Someone pulled an alarm so the entire school had to stand outside in the freezing cold while the fire department checked it out. We didn’t even get to put on our coats!”
I gasped. Kali gently moved my head toward the middle.
“The principal walked up and down the sidewalk and asked if anyone knew who had done it. No one said anything, but I think I know who it was.”
I could feel my neck muscles relax and my head straighten.
“There’s this kid in my chemistry class who’s always causing trouble. I saw him outside and guess what? He was wearing his coat. I bet he did it!”
My head was now perfectly straight. The cursor popped up on the screen.
I wanted to tell Kali she should ask the kid if he had pulled the alarm. The cursor settled on the A long enough for Haha to say, “A.” I moved my eyes over just a bit, and Haha announced, “S.”
Two in a row! Now all I had to do was slide my eyes to the right six spaces, and I’d run smack into K. Five spaces. Four. Three. Two. My eyes suddenly darted back to the left and hit S again.
No! Not S!
My eyes bounced around the screen then hit the top button.
“Ass,” Haha said.
Kali snorted. “Well, he’s a bit of a jerk to make the whole school stand outside but, wow, Lexi! That’s harsh!”
Kasey appeared in the kitchen and picked through a bowl of fruit on the counter.
I activated the top button again. “Ass.”
Kasey’s eyes widened as she bit into an apple.
I laughed and hit the button three times in a row.
“Ass-Ass-Ass.”
I heard Mom’s footsteps closing in from down the hall.
“Uh-oh! Now you’ve done it,” Kali said.
“What did you say?” asked Mom.
I looked at the device.
“Ass.”
Mom erased the screen. She glared at Kali.
“Hey, it’s not my fault. You said you wanted her to talk. Well, now she’s talking!”
“Yeah,” Kasey said. “You can’t exactly wash her eyes out with soap, can you?”
Mom shook a finger at me. “No more cursing!”
But I could tell there was a little smile behind her and-I-mean-it glare.
“I have an idea,” Kasey said when Mom left. She touched letters on the screen. “Now say that.”
I looked at the top button. Haha said, “Communication devices are what’s wrong with America today.”
We all laughed. Kasey turned up the volume. I hit it twice more.
Mom reappeared in the kitchen doorway, shaking her head but smiling.
“Get used to it, Mom,” Kasey said. “She’s here and she can’t be censored.”
That night I dreamed about computers. First, I was in Celeste’s office. She was loading computers onto my lap and saying, “Maybe this one will work for you. Or this one!”
Then, out of the blue, hands reached toward me, and a voice hissed like water on a hot griddle, “Stolen, stolen, stolen.”
The scene changed. I was sitting in Mom’s lap in that island of soft, blue light from her computer. Everything else was pitch dark and completely quiet except for the clickety-clack of the keyboard. I don’t know exactly how old I was, but I was tall enough to see the screen. We were at our house in Chapel Hill, so I guessed I was about one.
For a few minutes, this dream was nothing more than the familiar clickety-clack, clickety-clack, stare, rock, rock. Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, stare, rock, rock. But then, Mom abruptly stopped typing, stopped rocking, and leaned in toward the computer.
One-year-old me looked up at the screen. Near the bottom was a picture of a man with a graying beard, bright, happy eyes, and a slightly crooked tie.
Was this the thief? I wanted a good, long look at that man, but it was too late. Baby me was now reaching for Luke, who was licking my toes.
I giggled and squirmed. Mom’s grip tightened on my waist. She stood up fast, flung open the front door, and sat down hard with me on the porch steps.
The night air was cool and quiet. Luke nuzzled the grass in front of us. Mom breathed deeply and rocked me back and forth, but it wasn’t the gentle rocking I knew so well. This rocking was hard and fast.
As she exhaled, she began to mumble softly—so softly I couldn’t make out what she was saying. Bit by bit her voice grew until I realized she wasn’t talking; she was praying.
“Oh, God! Please no! Please no! Don’t let her … Oh, God.”
Warm tears spilled onto my neck and trickled down my back.
All at
once Mom stood up, leaned over the porch railing, and threw up.
It must have been the thumping in my chest that woke me. My heart pounded, like someone locked in a cellar, desperate to get out.
I knew one thing for certain: This wasn’t a dream. It was a memory. A real one.
CHAPTER 28
Age 13, 12¾ hours until surgery
Dad’s whistles have faded into the background and under this tree, I am very nearly asleep. It’s in these moments of fragmented consciousness that I let my imagination off leash.
When I was younger and I dreamed of the things I would do when my body came in, they were always action packed. I cartwheeled down a beach. Outsprinted my friends in tag. Raced Tucker on a bike.
I used to think those early dreams were about chasing fun, but now I know better. They were about chasing identity. About defining myself. I am a runner. I can jump. After all, those things would help me fit neatly into the human prototype, right?
We call people who run crazy fast and jump extra high superhuman. Where does that leave me?
I’m not sure how or when I slogged through all that. It started with the gift prophecy, but as for identity? Yeah, work in progress.
I do know one thing: as I’ve gotten older, those action sequences have become less important. Now when I unleash my imagination, my dreams are nearly always about my voice.
Do you know what it’s like when you hear your voice on a recording? How you shudder and think, Do I really sound like that?
I don’t. I’ve never heard my voice. Sure, I’ve heard the quick bursts of words I can huff out since my last surgery, but those don’t really have a voice. Those words are strained and gasping, like I’m coming up for air in a swimming pool.
I do have a voice inside my head, just like everyone else does, I guess. And I think that voice is what I would sound like, but I’m not sure.
My wildest, craziest dream is to hear my own voice played back to me on a recording. Would I have a Southern drawl? North Carolina twang? Would I sound smooth and sweet? Loud and shrill?
In this dream, I laugh or maybe cringe and say, “Is that really me?”
I listen to my recorded voice with my eyes closed, like I do when Mom plays a podcast on her phone. I concentrate on the rhythm, the tone, the pitch. And the words!
Words I have heard in my head forever, become real when they leave my lips.
When I’ve had my fill of talking, I test out my singing voice—jazz, rock, and maybe opera in falsetto.
After that, I try on my shouting voice, an earsplitting shriek so loud I have a sore throat when I’m done (is that really a thing?).
Then, I drop my voice so low you have to lean in, and I whisper a secret.
Out of nowhere, a panting, drooling furball punches through my nap like a linebacker through a paper banner. Gus is halfway on my lap, a slimy ball in his smiling mouth. I survey him with one eye.
“If it isn’t Sleeping Beauty,” Dad says. “Someone wants you to play too.”
“There’s a little playground at the hospital,” Mom says. “Unless you’re too old for that.”
I stick out my tongue and smile. Right now, pretending I’m a little kid again sounds amazing.
Deep breath in. My story. Breath out.
CHAPTER 29
Age 5, The Year of the Buttered Cat
I don’t know what Mom found on her computer that night, but I was sure of one thing. It was about me. She said, “Don’t let her.” And yeah, there are a bunch of people in our house who could be her, but I knew by the way she hugged me—pressed to her chest, like she was scared if she let go she would lose me.
If that man in the computer was the thief, and the thief had the answer to my missing body … I had to know what this memory was about. But no matter how much I searched my brain, no more came.
Finally, I shifted my focus to the information pipeline on the other side of my bedroom wall. Maybe I would at least get an update on how Lou’s search was going.
For several nights all I overheard was ordinary conversation. Sometimes Dad would sing his responses to Mom’s comments, and I would bite my lower lip to keep from laughing out loud.
Mom: “Don’t forget you have a dentist appointment tomorrow.”
Dad (strumming “Hey Jude”):
“Hey Sue,
I won’t forget
That tomorrow,
They’ll clean my chomper-er-ers …”
But then one evening, as Gershwin’s “Summertime” seeped through the walls and settled around me like a thick August night, Mom cut in, midtune.
“I have a confession.”
Dad’s guitar strummed out dum, dum, duuummm like he was announcing a thickening plot on a TV soap opera.
“No, seriously,” Mom said, laughing. “This has been bothering me, and I need to confess.”
Confess?
The strumming stopped, and I imagined Dad leaning in on his guitar, just as I leaned toward my wall.
Mom drew a deep breath. “I buttered The Cat.”
“What?”
“When The Cat finally came back last fall, I brought him into the garage and buttered him. Top to bottom.”
“Why on earth—”
“Because I needed to fix something, even if that something was as silly as the relationship between a dog and his cat.” She paused, and I could hear muffled sobs. “I don’t handle all of this as well as you. I can’t just let things roll off me.”
Dad laughed, but it wasn’t his laugh. It was calculated. Almost mechanical. “I don’t handle it better, Susan. I just hide it deeper.”
“Either way, what are we going to do? How are we going to fix this?”
There was a long pause, and I thought that was all, but then Dad said, “Maybe we could both focus less on what was taken and more on what was left, because it’s pretty awesome.”
Mom sniffed. “It is awesome. But I can’t let go yet. Maybe I’m being selfish, but when Lexi’s grown, I want to be able to look her in the eye and tell her we tried everything. That we tried to get it back.”
There was a soft strum of chords. “I get that. And I’ll help however I can.” There were more chords, then a few finger-picked notes from “Here Comes the Sun.”
“So, I guess you didn’t really burn your arm?” Dad’s happy, light tone had returned.
“No. Even half-starved that cat is feisty.”
“Yeah … Did you really have to butter the whole cat? I mean, couldn’t you have just buttered his ear?”
Mom laughed. “You know I can’t do anything halfway.”
I let out a deep breath and opened my eyes.
The room spun. I felt like I had been plunked down into the cyclone scene in The Wizard of Oz. I was lying on Dorothy’s bed as her house was swept into the sky. Scenes from everyday life flew past the window. All the pieces of my life were still there, but nothing was in place. I just wanted to make sense of it all.
Something stolen. Something broken. A buttered cat. And Mom, desperate enough to lie and keep secrets. Desperate enough for a devious plan. And now Dad was in on it too?
CHAPTER 30
Age 5, The Year of the Buttered Cat
In the weeks after the overheard confession, I became more and more frustrated with the fact that I had zero control over the pace of my life. I had to wait for things to happen to me, wait for information to blow past. It was all so passive.
I thought about Governor White, stranded in a harbor waiting for wind to take his sails so he could go back to England then back to his family in the New World.
I felt like I was sitting in my own harbor waiting for my gust of wind. No wind came.
But here’s what did happen: every morning, before my brother and sisters woke up, Dad pulled on oven mitts, wrestled The Cat onto the kitchen table, and together, he and Mom buttered The Cat’s ears.
Luke sat at their feet wagging his tail while The Cat hissed and twisted, but Dad held tight. When they were done, th
e buttered cat leaped from the table, and Luke swooped on him, licking his ears top to bottom. And that little bobcat would transform into mellow mush.
Mom and Dad had no idea they had an audience. I was always up way before the other kids. Mom would drag my beanbag to my TV-viewing spot and plop me in front of Word Girl. Of course, all I had to do was arch just right, and I had a clear view of the real show in the kitchen.
No more clues about Mom’s devious plans or Lou’s search blew past, so instead I worked on my gifts. As I lay in bed at night, I tried counting them like they were sheep.
One, memory.
Two, words.
Three, humor.
Four, I don’t know.
Five, I don’t know.
I repeated the list over and over until I finally fell asleep. I guess I was hoping another gift would jump into the lineup. I wanted an Aha! moment. But the only one I had was that they don’t tend to show up when you’re looking for them.
I would’ve been flat-out miserable, except for one thing. The woods around our house had taken on the airy green tinge that meant spring was on its way.
Spring meant there would soon be swinging and sliding and bare feet and ice cream on the porch. And most of all, spring meant my birthday was coming.
One late-March morning, Mom took me, Hannah, and Tucker to the park to do our schoolwork.
In between lessons, we conquered the playground. The three of them took turns hauling me up the steps, over the bridge, and down the slide. I squealed as we zoomed down onto sweet, new mulch.
“Lexi’s birthday is coming up,” Hannah said. She breathed hard as she handed me back to Mom.
“But mine first!” Tucker said, jumping up and down. “Mine is three days before hers, and I want a party at the movies.”
Mom gave Tucker a thumbs up. He pumped his fists and did a victory lap around the playground.
Hannah ignored him. “Know what we should do for Lexi? A friend party!”
I arched and squealed. I only ever had family birthdays, but this year, I had actual friends.
Mom smiled. “I think you’re old enough for that. Let’s invite Anna and Elle and all your friends from French class. We can decorate the back porch and play party games.”