90 Days of Different

by Eric Walters

I was happy that it made most people smile. I liked that little kids pointed and laughed. Those who gave me disgusted looks at least were reacting. I was more bothered by those who didn’t look. I decided I wasn’t going to give them a choice. I started ringing the bell on the fire truck even louder. I honked the horn on the race car and smacked the elephant on the rump, trying to get it to go faster. I yelled like a cowboy when I was on top of my horse.

  Ella said that sometimes I just take myself too seriously. Of course, she’s right. At first it did feel embarrassing to be sitting on those rides, but there are worse things than being embarrassed.

  Some of the differents I’ve done have been scary. Others have been exciting. Some have been thrilling. Today’s was just harmless and playful, and it made some people laugh. And in the end it made me laugh. That wasn’t such a bad different to do today. And besides, I think I looked pretty good riding on that elephant.

  DAY 51

  I sat on the edge, my feet dangling in the water. In the rubber wet suit, the water felt okay—not cold. I’d never really liked cold water and was amazed at those people who could just run to the edge of the dock and throw themselves into the lake, often without even checking to see if it was cold or if the water was deep enough or if there was something in the water like a floating log.

  I always wanted to check. I needed to check. And even then, I’d ease in slowly, testing the water to make sure it wasn’t too cold or there wasn’t something dangerous just below the surface where I couldn’t see it. I guess that was like me with most things.

  I moved my flippers back and forth, kicking up little currents beneath the surface of the water. The water was clear, and I could easily see all the way to the bottom. It wasn’t that deep—at least, not here.

  “Check to make sure your tank is secured,” the instructor said. He was an older man who was heavy in the middle. With his black, slick wet suit and his thick mustache, he looked like a walrus.

  I’d already checked the fastening twice, but I didn’t say that. I checked a third time.

  “Remember, I’m going to be right there with you, so there’s nothing to worry about,” he said.

  “I’m not worried.”

  He looked a little doubtful. “You know I’ve been doing this for twenty-five years and never lost a person.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “My youngest student was five, and my oldest was an eighty-five-year-old woman. She did it on her birthday. So don’t be worried.”

  “I’m not,” I said.

  “Your friend said you’d be a bit nervous and that I had to make sure you were comfortable. There’s nothing worse than panicking down there.”

  “Thanks, and I’m not going to panic. I appreciate you checking and also Ella telling you that, but I’m okay.”

  “Just do everything the way we practiced on dry land. Breathe normally through the mouthpiece. Now, put on your mask.”

  We both dipped our masks in the water, drained the water back out and put them on. He looked at my mask and made a slight adjustment.

  “Next the regulator,” he said.

  I put in the mouthpiece, which had been dangling from my shoulder, and pushed the regulator button to allow oxygen to flow. In through my mouth, out through my nose, was how I was going to breathe. I took my first breath, and it flowed very normally.

  My instructor slipped into the water and then gestured for me to do the same thing, and I did. We both sank slowly to the bottom. He gave me a thumbs-up, and I returned the signal.

  He started swimming, and I followed. It was just like I’d been taught, just like I’d thought it would be. My instructor did a little spin, and I did the same thing. He went down, and I went down. He went up, and I went up. It was a little game of follow the leader. It was simple and safe and really pretty cool.

  I looked up and beyond him. There was activity in the water in front of us. There were lots of them, and they were moving, and we were headed straight for them—and then I remembered. It was the seniors’ aquafit class taking place in the shallow end of the pool. And as we got closer I could hear the music—or at least feel the bass pounding through the water.

  For my first dive I didn’t have to worry about sharks or reefs or currents or wrecks or boats. All I had to do was avoid a dozen dancing seniors thrashing around to a disco beat. The next time I did this, if I did it again, I’d be in the ocean. Would scuba diving in an actual body of water constitute another different, or at least a half different?

  I remembered the underwater camera dangling from my left wrist. I had promised Ella I’d take some pictures. I’d argued there wasn’t much to shoot. I’d take a couple of my instructor, maybe one showing the depth marked on the side of the pool, a couple of selfies, of course, and one more thing. I turned away from my instructor and headed for the shallow end. Seniors’ aquafit, here I come.

  DAY 52

  It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon, the perfect day for a walk in the park. Of course, being with Ella meant there was more to this than an innocent stroll. I scanned the horizon, looking for something that could be a different.

  All I saw were picnicking families, kids on the playground equipment, two guys flying a kite, and a baseball game going on in the distance. I had eaten picnic meals, been on monkey bars, flown a kite and even played baseball on a team, so the different couldn’t be any of those things.

  Ella, as always, was keeping her plans under wraps.

  “So what are we doing here today?”

  “I’m looking for the leash-free zone.”

  “It’s over there on the other side of those trees,” I said.

  “That’s right, you had a dog.”

  I nodded. Our dog—Candy—had died a year after my mother. We’d all taken it pretty hard.

  “We used to take Candy to this dog park sometimes,” I said, “so how does this qualify as a different?”

  She just smiled and kept walking. “Candy. That’s a cute name for a dog,” she said.

  “My parents let me name her. I was only three years old.”

  As we got closer I could see dogs tearing around on the other side of the fence and hear them barking up a storm. The sight and sounds caused a rush of memories of being here in the park with just my mother and father, then with them and my brother in a stroller, then with just me and my father and my brother. Candy had liked the leash-free zone, and I’d liked watching her have fun. Dogs never worried about anything.

  We walked through the first gate. We were in a little area that had gates at both ends. It was made that way so no dog could accidently slip out and escape.

  “Are you Ella and Sophie?” a guy asked. He wasn’t much older than us.

  “I’m Ella,” she replied. “And this is Sophie.”

  He walked toward us. In his hands were two very small, very cute dogs. They were Maltese—I recognized the breed. They had matching blue ribbons in their fur.

  “I’m Ethan,” he said.

  “Pleased to meet you,” I said. “And what are your dogs’ names?” I asked as I gave one of them a scratch behind the ears.

  “This is Zig and Zag,” he said, “But they’re not my dogs.”

  “Are you an international dog thief?” I asked.

  “Not quite. I’m a dog walker.”

  “And you’re here to walk them?”

  “Actually, Soph, you’re here to walk them,” Ella said.

  “Walking Zig and Zag is my different?”

  “Zig and Zag are part of your different,” Ella said, and Ethan just smiled.

  As Ella had promised, Zig and Zag were part of the different—a very small part. There were also a pair of standard poodles named Shadow and Lola, a Doberman named Tilo, two mixed breeds called Grunt and Winnie, a big greyhound named King, two Chihuahuas named Harley and Choncho, and one very large Great Dane called Tiny. I was proud I could handle all the names. No
w I had to prove I could handle all the dogs.

  The smaller dogs were all attached to me by leashes hooked to a belt around my waist. The bigger ones were on individual leashes. On Ethan’s recommendation I went for balance and held the Great Dane and greyhound in my left hand, and the two big poodles and the Doberman in the other. The Doberman wasn’t the biggest, but from what I’d been told he was most likely to give me a problem, and I had to keep him on a tight leash—both literally and figuratively.

  “Look this way,” Ella ordered. “I have to take a few more pictures.”

  The dogs and I posed for the pictures. I knew that kittens playing pianos, and cute dogs, got retweeted and favored and posted and pinned more than almost anything else. Me with a herd of dogs would generate a lot of interest for me. Maybe I should have worn my Wonder Woman costume if I really wanted to ramp up the score.

  Funny, but sometimes I’d wondered how one specific friend and follower was viewing my posts. I knew I shouldn’t really care how Luke felt or what he thought of me and what I was doing, but I did. It wasn’t so much that I had feelings for him as I had feelings about him. I guess I wanted to prove him wrong and show him what he was missing out on. I wanted him to see that I could be completely unpredictable.

  He, on the other hand, was completely predictable. There were pictures of him with a couple of girls. One of them was a repeating theme. She was pretty but had that “I know I’m hot” look that I hated. He hadn’t changed his status from single—I knew because I checked every day—but I figured it was only a matter of time. I just couldn’t believe that it mattered to me as much as it did.

  “Just do it the way I told you,” Ethan said, startling me out of my thoughts.

  He had given me a little lesson on walking multiple dogs and how to be in charge.

  “Remember,” Ethan said, “establish dominance.”

  “I’ll try, but they do outweigh me,” I said.

  “The Great Dane almost outweighs you. Just take it slowly,” Ethan said.

  “I wasn’t planning on racing.”

  “And remember, you’re walking them. They’re not walking you.”

  “I guess that’s still up for debate.”

  The dogs were already pulling in different directions. The Great Dane was lying down, so he was only creating inertia. There were eleven dogs with eleven minds, and there might be eleven different directions that interested them. I had to at least get them all moving in the same direction to begin with.

  “I’ve been walking most of them for years, so they know the commands,” Ethan said.

  “Most of them?” I asked.

  “Tiny is new, but he’s a sweetheart. Take charge!” Ethan barked.

  “Sit!” I said. Three of the biggest dogs listened, including Tiny, who got up slightly in order to sit down. “Sit!” I said more firmly, and five of the others did as they were ordered. Zig and Zag just looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. I figured it didn’t matter, though, because once we got going, they’d be pulled along by the bigger dogs.

  “Heel!” I commanded, and they all got to their feet and we started walking.

  It was reassuring that they were listening. Ethan had said that the secret was letting them know who was in control. Control. I was good at that, and according to my brother and Luke and Ella, I was pretty good at giving orders.

  We moved along the path that ringed the park. It was a popular route, people walking, running, riding bikes and walking their dogs. The path wasn’t much wider than the dogs extended out on both sides of me. Some people looked at us with amusement. Others appeared annoyed, and some, afraid. Runners and people on bikes tended to move as far off to one side as possible or even bumped up onto the grass. Those with dogs either went really wide around me or, worse, didn’t move far enough, and we were in danger of tangling our leashes.

  I moved slightly off the path at times, pulling in leashes and giving continual orders and tugs to get the dogs’ attention. It was more than a little unnerving to think I had this many dogs. I did quick mental calculation—I had close to five hundred pounds in dogs at the ends of these leashes. I was outweighed by more than three times.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Ella and Ethan were trailing behind. We were almost halfway to our destination—the lot where Ethan’s van was parked. Once there he’d load the dogs into the vehicle and return them to their homes. I could see the parking lot ahead. This hadn’t been bad at all. In fact, it had been fun. I missed having a dog. If I wasn’t going away to school, I would have talked to my father about the possibility of us getting another one.

  And that’s when I saw the squirrel—and so did the dogs.

  DAY 54

  I seemed to be spending more and more time looking at Twitter, searching my name, responding to posts on my Facebook wall or looking at pictures on Instagram. It was fun to see how people were reacting, and I even took time to answer a lot of them. It seemed only polite. As I gained more friends and followers, it took more and more time. If things continued at this rate, I wouldn’t have time to keep doing new things and reporting on them and responding to the reactions. Right now I could still do it, and I really was having fun.

  My Twitter and Instagram accounts had about the same number of people—around twelve hundred—but Instagram seemed to generate a lot more interest, more likes and reposts, than the Twitter account did.

  I opened up Facebook and scrolled down through my timeline, looking at the comments that had been posted. People were so supportive. They offered suggestions for activities—that was partly how Ella was getting some of her ideas, and she made some of the arrangements through social-media contacts—as well as just cheering me on. It made me feel good to know I wasn’t doing this journey alone.

  Many people had viewed the dog-walking pictures, and—I saw a comment that wasn’t so nice:

  So the beautiful, rich girl does a few things that most people would pay to do themselves and somehow we’re supposed to think you’re some kind of hero. More like a zero or a spoiled brat. Why don’t you try to do something that does some good for somebody instead of indulging in your own little fantasies?

  I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. For a second I had the strange thought that it was Luke who’d posted it. Of course it wasn’t. It was some random girl. I looked a little at her profile. She seemed to be around my age, and her interests were Oreo cookies, techno-pop and “hanging.” Like she was so noble herself.

  I needed to speak to Ella, but as I grabbed my phone I realized I had to do something first. I felt my lower lip start to quiver as I started to cry.

  “Look, you can’t stop things like that,” Ella said. “There are always going to be haters, so you can’t take it personally. Haters are gonna hate.”

  “I guess that’s easy for you to say because it wasn’t about you.”

  “Some of us get used to the occasional negative comment. Remember, not everybody in life is going to love you.”

  “I don’t think everybody is going to love me,” I protested.

  “Then suck it up. You put yourself out there, and somebody is always going to try to knock you down. That’s the thing about the Internet—you don’t have to be right to have an opinion.”

  “But the thing is, she is right,” I said.

  “What?”

  “She’s right.”

  “You’re not a spoiled brat. That’s just stupid,” Ella said. “And if you don’t believe me, then look how other people defended you with their posts after she put that nasty message up.”

  “I know a lot of people have said nice things about what I was doing, and some were even angry at her post, but still, this has been a pretty selfish summer, if you think about it.”

  “You’re one of the least selfish people I’ve ever met. You’ve always been the one to do things for your family, your friends. You were part of the social justice club at sc
hool and—”

  “And she’s still right,” I said, cutting Ella off. “It’s all pretty indulgent.”

  “So now you’re blaming me?” Ella snapped.

  “Of course I’m not blaming you!”

  “’Cause I went to a lot of work to arrange things, and instead of being grateful you’re angry that I haven’t arranged the right—”

  “Really, I’m not blaming you,” I said.

  “That’s good, because you really haven’t thanked me for what I’m doing.”

  “I’m really grateful. I’m sure I’ve said thank you.”

  “No, you haven’t. It’s been like you’re doing me a favor in doing these things.”

  “I never thought that!”

  “Then show some gratitude. Do you know how hard it’s been to arrange some of these things?”

  “You’ve done an amazing job, and I know it hasn’t been easy. So really, really, really, thank you, Ella, for all the work you’ve done and for everything you’re going to do.”

  “Well, you’re welcome. It’s been my pleasure.”

  “It’s just…I hope you won’t mind, but I might want to try to set up a couple of different types of different.”

  Ella gave me a questioning look. “What do you have in mind?”

  “They don’t even have to count as official differents if you don’t think they should, and you don’t have to go with me if you don’t want to.”

  “We’re in this together. Besides, somebody has to take the pictures. So what do you have in mind?”

  I smiled. “You’ll just have to come along and see. You’re not the only one who can keep a secret.”

  Today Ella and I spent the afternoon in the kitchen of the Good Shepherd Center, helping to make the evening meal. We peeled and chopped all the ingredients for a beef stew. Not a chunky, new and improved stew from the can, but a really chunky, new and improved stew made with real ingredients. It was also a really, really big stew that was going to feed over a hundred people. It was a lot of work, but the work was well worth it when we got to be part of serving it.