Courage for Beginners

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Courage for Beginners Page 11

by Karen Harrington


  Yeah. Don’t know what 2 say.

  Me neither.

  Did you see that movie CREATURES?

  Oh, yeah, I go to the movies all the time.

  chapter 30

  Here is a girl who may have more hidden genius than she realizes.

  It’s a chilly morning. The sun is just barely breaking through the thick blanket of clouds. It’s like it doesn’t want to get up. I want to say, Hey sun, I feel the same way, but we both have to get up.

  I make Mama fresh coffee because I went to the store two times over the weekend. (There’s only so much you can fit into a backpack and you don’t really want it to be obvious that you’re carrying toilet paper.) We are stocked with baloney, tuna, macaroni and cheese in a box, and bananas. I swear to you that for as long as I live, I will never take a banana for granted again. Seriously. A banana will never go rotten on my watch.

  So after the coffee gets going and Laura has had her breakfast, I manage to put my Texas History project into a supersized trash bag.

  Mama calls down the hall.

  “Bye, Mysti.”

  I wish she would get up and close the door behind me. She figures I will lock it myself, I guess.

  Click.

  I walk to the bus stop.

  “What’s that?” Rama’s scarf is Aquamarine.

  “School project. Sit next to me.”

  “Don’t I always?”

  “Well, yeah, but I need you to cover me so that this doesn’t get messed up.”

  “Consider yourself covered.”

  RamaKhan!

  Now I’m not saying I want to copycat Anibal Gomez and change my appearance and actions all at once, although I’ve been considering a makeover. I just figure that ever since that tree branch snapped, change has been forcing its way into my life. It’s time to make friends with it. Do something on the outside that matches how I feel on the inside. For all I know, that is how Anibal decided to buy his first hat.

  So as I was completing the Alamo project with those Popsicle sticks, old pieces of cardboard, and Mama’s paints, I asked myself if anything about this assignment could reflect a girl who was embracing change.

  When you ask yourself this kind of question, be prepared for an avalanche of possibilities.

  It was a bit awkward carrying the project down to Ms. Overstreet’s room before the homeroom bell rang, but I did it. Now, I sit in the homeroom class with a secret smile on my face (closed mouth, of course) because at least the project is finished and spectacularly original. No one will forget my Alamo.

  I sit through announcements smiling.

  Orange chicken with rice.

  The girl batted away her memories of poultry humiliation and shame.

  Who wants to enter the science contest? Grab a flier with all the details. There are great prizes this year!

  The girl thought this was the school administration’s subtle way of encouraging non-geeks to enter.

  It’s Bart Bartson’s birthday today!

  The girl thought poor Bart Bartson’s parents lacked offspring-naming creativity on a rather colossal scale.

  Math.

  “Let’s talk parallel lines today,” Mr. Red announces. “I don’t know about you, but I see them everywhere. They’re fascinating!”

  The girl thought Mr. Red’s exuberance over math was admirable, but not contagious.

  Lunch.

  At lunch I’m too nervous to eat. I chew on a stick of Wintergreen gum.

  “Did you know gum is really just a form of synthetic rubber or polymer and was first sold in the 1860s?” Wayne asks.

  “No, I didn’t know that,” I say. “How’s the poetry block going?”

  “Man, this poem we have to work out has a star in it. You know, when you wish upon a star, the star is already dead and your wish is really a few million light-years too late,” Wayne says.

  “You know, you are truly unforgettable, Wayne,” I say.

  “Thanks for the compliment.”

  “She doesn’t mean unforgettable in the positive sense,” Rama adds.

  “I’m taking it in a positive way whether you meant it or not!” Wayne responds.

  Texas History.

  The quality of Alamo replicas in the classroom ranges from “My dog could do that” to “Dude, I think your parents did that.”

  But not the Mysti sans Anibal project. Sans is French for “without.”

  On the outside, my project doesn’t look like the Alamo at all. In fact, it looks curiously like the glass-and-metal pyramid that serves as the grand entrance to the Louvre Museum in Paris. It’s not perfect. I think the dimensions are pretty good. The color is a pale Yellow Ochre painted over pizza-box cardboard. I superglued more than 100 black bobby pins all across the sides to replicate the 603 rhombus-shaped and 70 triangular glass segments of the actual pyramid. (If only Mr. Red was here to witness how much math I used in this project.) When the sun hits the metal, it actually looks cool.

  “Um, Miss Murphy and Mr. Gomez, please come up to my desk and explain why there is a replica of the Louvre Museum in my Texas History classroom?” Ms. Overstreet asks.

  I walk up to her desk. “There were once French settlers in Texas.”

  “Go on,” Ms. Overstreet says.

  And I do.

  “It happened in 1685 under the command of King Louis the Fourteenth. The crew was supposed to set up a fort somewhere in Louisiana, but because of a navigational error, they landed in East Texas instead. Once they realized their error, they made the best of it,” I say.

  Anibal stands there with his hands in his pockets and his stupid mouth hanging open. Ms. Overstreet raps her fingers on her desk. Her diamond wedding ring is in the shape of the Lone Star State. Man, she found the one right guy to marry, I guess.

  “When you have to do a project alone, you might as well do like the French and make the best of it. So I made something I’d like to have in my room,” I reply.

  “You realize that not doing the assignment in an appropriate manner will result in a bad grade,” Ms. Overstreet states. “A zero. And that’s for both of you.”

  Here is a girl who believed her Parisian emblem was perfect in all ways, both as a project and a reminder that smart girls can get back at dumb boys in interesting ways.

  I take my seat.

  The Louvre Museum model draws a crowd of admiration. I soak it up like the imaginary fancy French perfume that it is.

  Parfait!

  Sometimes doing the unexpected is the exact right thing to do.

  When done with the proper amount of planning.

  And hope.

  I wait until the class is over and everyone walks out before I make my move.

  “Is there something you want to talk about, Mysti?” Ms. Overstreet asks.

  “Oui. That is French for ‘yes,’” I say.

  “I know it is.”

  Very carefully, I lift up the pyramid-shaped model. Voilà, there is my project underneath.

  “Just so you know, I remembered the Alamo, Ms. Overstreet.”

  “So I see,” she replies in surprise. “And why did you disguise one of the Lone Star State’s greatest historical sites?”

  “I didn’t want my so-called partner to see this. It’s sort of a joke.”

  “Your education is not a joke, Mysti.”

  “I know. It won’t happen again.”

  “I’m still not certain you did the assignment correctly,” she says. “I’ll have to think about this.”

  I put the Louvre back on top of the Alamo. It’s a perfect fit.

  The bus line.

  After school, the cheer squad paints posters outside near the bus line. So Anibal and his henchmen throw paper into my hair. I bite the inside of my mouth to keep from saying anything.

  “Do you have birds living in that nest?” one of Anibal’s henchmen says.

  That is their biggest cut-down to me. About my hair. They are utterly unoriginal. I use my voice, my greatest weapon after all, and pre
tend I’m Girl Who Draws Tortoises as I shout, “Yes, Angry Birds! Get away!”

  “Weirdo!”

  So I walk home with Rama in the cool afternoon. “You are weird,” she says.

  I don’t mind it coming from her.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “That’s sort of how I meant it.”

  By Mysti Murphy standards, the day was pretty great. Of course, I don’t know if I will get a decent grade in Texas History, but I’m sure it won’t be a zero. The main thing is that Anibal Gomez thinks he got a zero right now.

  Zing! Don’t mess with Mysti!

  Rama even applauded me for getting back at Anibal in an intellectual way.

  Zing!

  And then, the walk home was crisp and cool and problem-free.

  Double zing!

  But that’s the thing about life.

  You sort of get one area of your life zinging along and then you have to look at those other areas that aren’t so smooth.

  Because I’d completely forgotten that Halloween is this week. Tomorrow, in fact. Tomorrow is Halloween.

  According to our calendar, magical things are supposed to happen tomorrow. Magical things that will cure Dad’s head and put 4520 Fargo Drive back at square one. Food. Shopping. Groceries. Ice cream. Long pants. Riding in the green Toyota. And Mama out of her Cold Midnight Blue guess-how-I’m-feeling-today funk.

  According to our calendar, this was going to happen.

  According to our calendar.

  chapter 31

  Here is a girl being introduced to Dad: The Sequel.

  I am sitting at our kitchen table explaining life to Laura. Judging by the confusion on her face, I might be here until the sun sets. I mean, the hugging salt and pepper shakers seem to understand better than her.

  “Dad still has a lot of recovery,” I say.

  “What does that mean?”

  “He’s not coming home.”

  “But I don’t get it. He’s awake, right?”

  Since I knew Mama wouldn’t tell me the truth, I got on the kitchen phone and listened in earlier when she’d talked to Dr. Randolph.

  “It won’t be back to normal so soon, Mrs. Murphy,” Dr. Randolph said. “This part of the process is what we call emerging.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, your husband’s memory is impaired. His muscle and motor skills will need to be rehabilitated. Recovery takes time. I know you get tired of me saying we should wait and see, but that’s exactly what we should do.”

  Dr. Randolph went on with lots of medical talk. Dad is doing better, but things will not be back to normal anytime soon. In fact, Dad will not be home soon. Not tomorrow. Not any specific day. Dr. Randolph says we should do two things: Visit Dad and be patient with his progress.

  I am still thinking about what this means when Laura punches my shoulder and says, “So, what did the doctor say?”

  “He said people just don’t roll out of comas, come home, do the grocery shopping, and wash their cars in the driveway.”

  “So he’s not coming home?”

  “Not anytime soon from what I can tell. So be nice to Mama and stop leaving your socks all over the place.”

  “I’m always nice. Stop bossing me.”

  “Extra nice,” I say. “Here she comes.”

  “What are you girls doing?” Mama asks.

  “Just hanging out,” I say.

  “Does your hanging out include helping me with dinner?”

  Helping her with dinner? I want to say that she would be helping me with dinner. That dinners by Mama are hard to come by. But I say nothing.

  Here is how we make dinner.

  I boil water for macaroni and cheese, then open a can of tuna fish to mix in.

  Mama slices two apples.

  Laura puts three plates on the kitchen table and folds the napkins in perfect triangles.

  Laura and Mama sit at the table while I do all the rest.

  That is how we make dinner.

  But when Mama sits down to eat, she looks tired to the bone. She’s so tired she stares at the salt and pepper shakers at the center of the table and says, “Well, I don’t know why I thought someone in a coma would just roll out of bed and drive home. How stupid could I be?”

  “That’s not stupid, Mama,” Laura says. “None of us have experience with comas.”

  “I mean, I really thought it was like he would be gone for an eight-week trip or something.” Mama nervously laughs. “And now, well. I’m grateful for all this, but…”

  She trails off and looks across the family room at nothing in particular.

  I already knew this day was coming. A calendar on the wall, counting off the days until you thought “normal” would walk back through the door, doesn’t really mean anything. I want to tell her that all those red checks were just red checks of hope. Not red checks of certainty. She can count on me now. I will walk in and out the door of 4520 Fargo Drive and get the things we need. I will do that and more. But I don’t get a chance to say this because I don’t take the chance. At least, I wait until the last minute to say anything and then Mama starts down the hall. By the time I decide to get up from the table, she has closed her door softly. The click close of her door makes a two-syllable sound.

  Not now.

  So I clean up the kitchen and stomp a bunch of ants on the floor. They got past the chalk line somehow. Then I go to my room and make myself fall asleep reading Dad’s old copy of The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway. I’d wedged this book out from under my bed and so my bed is now tilted. I need to find another book to help prop up the frame.

  Before I know it, it is morning and it’s time to go and see Dad. The night and day have just run together and we are outside.

  Mr. Jennings has his car idling in front of our house. Next thing, we are standing in front of Dr. Randolph, who directs his attention at Laura because I guess she looks more scared than I do.

  “It will be okay, sweetheart. Your father’s speech is still a little slower than what you’re used to. So be patient, okay? Just talk about some of your favorite things. Squeeze his hand. Speak in a calm voice. Got it?”

  Dr. Randolph is super optimistic. I’ve come to like that about him. He doesn’t focus on what’s wrong, but what’s possible. I’m going to tell Rama about him.

  Speak.

  Squeeze.

  Listen.

  We could do these things.

  Laura and I enter his room. It smells all fresh and flowery. Dad is sitting up, a big pillow supporting his back. As soon as he sees us, his eyes fill with tears. There is a familiar Dad smile on his face. Laura throws herself onto him in an extreme hug. Dad runs his hand gently through her long brown hair. Then Laura runs her hand through his hair, too. It is starting to grow back in around the patch where they shaved it for surgery. “My girls.” His voice sounds scratchy like an old man’s voice.

  “How are you?” he asks.

  Laura is a dump truck of information. She talks all about herself, her drawings, her teachers, who she doesn’t like at school, and who is bothering her at recess. Actually, I learn a few new things about her. That she’d won a school award for being nice to a new classmate. And that there was a mystery stink in the second-grade hallway that required the janitor to search every single locker and bring in huge fans to air everything out.

  “It smelled so rotten that the teachers thought an animal had died, but it turned out that Ari Goldman just left a banana in his locker for an eternity,” Laura says. “Ari Goldman is in love with me. The other boys told me he said this, but I don’t love him back. I like Albert okay. Oh my gosh, did I tell you that Albert had his mother’s underwear in his backpack? He said that he always puts his backpack in the laundry room and it must have just accidentally dropped in there. So embarrassing!”

  “How are you, Mysti?” Dad asks when Laura finally stops reciting her autobiography.

  “Fine.” I sound like Mama. Faux.

  �
�Mysti is doing everything at home, Dad. She gets the food, does the laundry, and got a zero on her class project.” I pinch Laura’s arm. Like Anibal Gomez, Laura doesn’t know that I did two projects.

  “It’s all good, Dad. I didn’t get a zero,” I say.

  “Proud of you,” Dad says. He squeezes my hand and I squeeze his back. I hold back tears until I feel my head throb because I don’t want to cry in front of him. And I know that my tears would be the pitiful cry of some mushy girl who forgot to worry about her dad and spent more time thinking up bracelet making and models of Paris museums. If I had any sense, I would pinch myself.

  “Got any jokes?”

  Oh man, this is going to be hard. Calling up a joke right when you’d just like to go find a bathroom stall and bawl for about five minutes.

  Here is a girl summoning her superpowers.

  “Do you know what you call unhappy cranberries? Blueberries.”

  That is the stupidest joke, but the only one I can think of on the spot.

  “Really proud of you,” Dad says again. I kiss his cheek and promise to call him every day. It is then I notice that he has a framed picture of me and Laura on his bedside table.

  “From your mother,” he says.

  Back at home, there is evidence Mama has been in deep-cleaning mode. The air smells like glass cleaner and there are vacuum tracks on the carpet. This is what she does sometimes. She organizes the only thing she can, which is the house.

  I go to the living room bookshelf and steal a framed picture of Dad. I carry it to my super-organized Mamafied room and place it on my nightstand.

  “What’s up, Dad? You like being in here? Great.”

  Then I get Mama and Daddy’s wedding album and study all the pages. The album is like looking at one of Laura’s old picture books. A wordless story with a happy ending. There are my grandparents, who have since passed away. There is Dad standing outside a church. My grandmother putting a lace veil on Mama’s head. Pink flowers. A picture of wedding rings on a pillow. A three-tiered cake dripping with orange and pink flowers. And finally, Mama and Dad kissing at the altar, preparing to live happily ever after.

  I wonder if they knew change was coming for them.

 

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