by Carol Cujec
My arm knocked the rusty metal box to the floor.
“You’re tap dancing on my last nerve, Missy.” Miss Marcia sucked and crunched her mints while marking my failure on the useless chart that analyzed my daily progress for the Thinkers.
Progress? What a joke!
Then she picked up the jack-in-the-box, held it two inches from my nose, and twisted the silver, tiny handle.
“Here’s how you’re supposed to do it,” muttering, “for the umpteenth time” under her breath.
Da-ding-da-ding-da-ding-da-ping-ping . . .
Each ding and ping slapped my ear. The smell of her donkey breath hit me in the nose.
Da-ding-da-ding-da-ding-ping . . .
My heart pounded faster. Every note turned up the heat on the boiling kettle inside me. I begged my body.
Please stay in control. Please stay in control.
Miss Marcia smiled. Like the creepy clown.
Da-ding-da-ding . . .
My bulldog impulse took over. My hands squeezed into fists. Firecrackers exploded in my toes.
Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!
Countdown to KETTLE EXPLOSION. . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
I jumped up—knocking the toy to the floor—and screeched like a bat on fire.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Page 15: Bats can produce sounds louder than a rock concert.
Isabella appeared by my side and jumped with me, clapping her hands.
Oh no! Too late.
Miss Marcia pushed Isabella away and grabbed my arm. I knew what was coming.
Nooooooooo!
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Miss Marcia dragged me. Across the room. Opened the closet door.
Nooooooooo!
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!
My mouth moaned. My fingers gripped the door frame.
Miss Marcia peeled my fingers off.
One.
By.
One.
Slam! Click.
Time-out closet. Cave-dark except for the ray of light peeking under the door.
Page 15: Bats use sound waves to navigate in the dark.
My body screamed and jumped.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Locked up like a beast. They lock me away instead of trying to understand me . . . trying to help me.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!
I’m worthless . . . moldy bread . . . a spit-out piece of gum in the gutter.
After a few minutes, my mouth stopped screaming. I puffed air to catch my breath. There was nothing to do in here, nothing to sit on, even. I lay on the floor and peered beneath the door. Isabella’s purple sneakers paced back and forth, back and forth. I could hear her crying. She was loyal like that.
Time stopped, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
I am valuable. I am precious. I deserve a real life.
If only I could believe it.
I felt a nudge on my shoulder and a wet nose on my arm. A gray wolf gently licked my cheek. I opened my eyes. Large as an IMAX film, the amazing animals from my kids’ encyclopedia surrounded me and formed a protective circle, one that Miss Marcia could never get through.
I am valuable. I am precious. I deserve a real life.
Music rang in my mind. What song was it? Tubby Trash Bags? No, one of our favorites—Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” My animals swayed to the powerful chords of the organ (the ones with feet did, anyway). Around and around they circled, swaying, almost dancing. I danced with them.
Spin, sway, twirl, spin. Spin, sway, twirl, spin.
I spun and I spun and I spun . . . and . . . I . . . spun . . . until . . .
POOF!
In a burst of smoke, my IMAX film changed scenes. I looked down at my golden lasso, my tall red boots. I was Wonder Woman.
My superhero cape flew behind me as I kicked open the closet door.
KABLAM!
Miss Marcia froze when she saw me and lifted her top lip in a sneer, showing her brown, crooked teeth. She rolled up her sleeves, ready to fight.
She stared at me.
I stared at her.
She laughed her evil laugh.
BWAHH HA HA!
She did not scare me anymore.
Time to KICK BUTT!
Miss Marcia shot Legos at me so fast they were just colored streaks of light.
POW! POW! POW!
I deflected them with my metal bracelets.
PING! PING! PING!
I jumped straight in the air . . . CHOOM! . . . and landed on the desk in front of the room.
Miss Marcia let out a shriek . . . ZOINKS! . . . and ran for the door.
That’s when I twirled my lasso of truth . . . WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! . . . and wrangled Miss Marcia.
KABOOSH!
All the kids cheered. My animals roared, brayed, chirped, and squawked their approval.
Captured in the lasso of truth, Miss Marcia confessed everything: “I hate children! I steal their lunch money! I haven’t washed my socks in three months! And I have donkey breath!” She laughed her evil laugh. “BWAHH HA HA!”
Everyone cheered again when I locked Miss Marcia in the time-out closet.
KABLAM!
Then I loaded all the kids into my invisible jet, and we soared far away from Borden. Forever.
Forever.
Forever. I have been locked in here forever.
How many more minutes until I would be released from this prison? Would it matter? My mind would never escape the prison of my broken body.
It was a life sentence.
Long Walk off a Short Pier
Pops offered me a fist bump when he saw us at the door. “How’s my chipmunk today?” He has called me his chipmunk ever since I was a chubby-cheeked baby.
Slapping Dad on the back, Pops said, “Come on in, Steve, and we’ll chew the fat a little. Hehehe.”
Sunday dinners with the family were a happy tradition—until now. At least I would not have to face Elvi. She was still in Hawaii on her honeymoon. But Mason, my cousin who thinks I am a disease? Probability: high. Aunt Kiki and Mason had moved back to town after the divorce and were living with Gram and Pops for a while.
Aunt Kiki greeted Mom with a celebrity kiss. Her cheek grazed Mom’s as she kissed the air.
“Who wears a silk shirt to a barbecue?” Mom teased. “One drop of hamburger grease and you’re done.”
“You know my motto, Gail,” she put her hands on her hips and puckered her glossy lips, “Fashion doesn’t take a break for the weekend.”
Mom and Kiki sat on the faded flowered sofa and launched into a hushed conversation. The word divorce—like the word retarded—was always whispered in our family.
I parked myself on the floor and pulled Gram’s coffee table book of San Francisco onto my lap. A photo of Alcatraz jumped out at me—the prison built on a tiny island in San Francisco Bay. No prisoner had ever escaped. I stared at a picture. Concrete, gloomy cells with iron bars.
Not so different from my prison at Borden. At least those prisoners had a nice view.
Aunt Kiki stared at me, pressing her lips together like she might cry. “Gail, I remember Charity and Mason running around together at family barbecues when they were little. They jumped on the trampoline and chased each other around the house.” She shook her head with a what-happened-to-her frown.
Mom reached for my arms and pulled me onto the sofa next to her. “She’s not herself these days. Are you, sweetheart?” She jiggled me for a response.
I chewed my knuckles.
Mom pulled my hand out of my mouth. “You must be thirsty. Let me get you some apple juice.”
When Mom left, Mason drifted into the living room wearing a Hang Ten T-shirt and flip-flops. He achieved a perfect imitation of a surfer dude, even though
he had spent the last eight years in Milwaukee, approximately 900 miles from the ocean.
“S’up?” he said to no one in particular. He popped open a can of lemon-lime soda and took a swallow.
Aunt Kiki’s eyes lit up. “Mason, sweetie, why don’t you play with your cousin Charity?”
Mason stared at her as if she were speaking Chinese. I would have done the same if I could.
Play with me? Does everyone think I am still five?
He looked back and forth between me and his mom. My knees swayed apart-together, apart-together.
“Does she even understand what we’re saying?” he asked.
Aunt Kiki patted the sofa next to me. “Come sit down, Mason sweetie. I’m sure Charity can push the buttons on a video game controller.”
My knees swayed apart-together, apart-together.
Mason waded over as if he were moving through waist-deep water.
“Come on, sweetie.” Aunt Kiki lowered her voice. “She probably doesn’t have many friends.”
Her hypothesis was correct.
Breaking news: Kids like me rarely have friends.
I used to think of Mason as my friend, even when he was gone. Now I see that was a miscalculation.
The largest number with a name is called a googolplex. My calculation was off by one googolplex.
After Mason moved away, I did have one other friend before Isabella. An actual come-to-my-house, run-around-the-backyard, hold-hands-hopping friend.
Grace.
She had long, golden hair the color of honey and thirteen freckles on her cheeks, which got darker whenever we spent the day outside. We met in preschool, where we played in the pretend kitchen mixing invisible batters. “What did you girls whip up today?” our teacher would ask.
Grace would shout “chocolate cake!” or “peanut butter cookies!” and I jumped and clapped in agreement.
Mom invited Grace over to our house for playdates every single week for almost three years. We dressed dolls and swam in our pool—one of the few places my body felt at peace, wrapped in the warm water. We baked cookies with Mom in our kitchen, both of us standing on stools wearing too-big aprons. Sometimes we put on princess gowns and ran around the yard trying to escape the dragon—my dog, Hero—who chased us and barked. We screamed with wild joy.
Once I started at Borden, our worlds drifted apart. Grace became busy with dance classes and soccer—and I was busy with therapy and doctor appointments. Still today, I imagine what my life would be like if we had stayed friends. She would braid my hair with beads, and we would talk about our forever crushes on pop stars.
I mean, if I were a normal girl.
…
Aunt Kiki handed me a video game controller and talked to me in a loud voice, like maybe I was hard of hearing. “Push here to move your car forward.” She put her purple manicured thumb on mine to demonstrate.
Mason set up the game—a car race with New York City as the background—and sat on the arm of the sofa. The screen flashed 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . START.
Aunt Kiki yelled, “Okay, Charity, now go! Push the button like I showed you! GO! The race has started!”
Aunt Kiki meant well, but I wanted to strangle her.
I moved my thumb forward, and my car drove for about two seconds before it crashed into a wall and blew up in front of the Empire State Building.
Aunt Kiki cheered as if I won the Indy 500. I crashed and burned five more times until my uncooperative hand dropped the controller on the floor.
“Can I go now?” asked Mason. The tone of his voice suggested this was a complete waste of time.
I agreed.
I spared him the pain of playing with me by getting up and moving to the kitchen. Mom stood at the counter, holding my sippy cup. “Sorry, honey, I was on my way to give this to you.” She put the cup in my hands and led it to my lips.
Bleh—warm apple juice. No one older than four should drink this.
Gram stood over a steaming pot wearing her stained apron. “Never trust a skinny cook or one with a clean apron,” she always said.
I sniffed the air.
Maple syrup?
“My darling girl is here.” Gram swung around to plant a kiss on my cheek, still stirring the pot with one hand. She folded my hand around the wooden spoon and guided it in a circle to stir the orange, creamy mixture.
Butternut squash soup.
“Now that my assistant chef is here, I can take a break.”
Gram pointed her finger at Mom. “Gail, this girl is getting thinner and thinner.” She squished my cheeks with her warm hand and examined my face. “Honey, where’s that sparkle in your eyes?”
Mom sat down with a big exhale. “She hasn’t been sleeping well, either.”
“How’s she doing at school?” asked Gram.
“Well, I’ve called them a few times and they say she’s the same as always. I’m at my wits’ end here.” Mom pulled me toward her and brushed the stray hair from my eyes. “But I’m trying to get an appointment with a specialist . . .”
Gram cut her off. “Fiddlesticks. Charity, honey, you just need some hearty food and some chamomile tea at bedtime, maybe with a drop of whiskey.” She winked at Mom.
Gram and Pops always acted as though I was a regular kid. Gram taught me the secrets of her kitchen. Pops let me help him at the ice cream shop and took me and Dad fishing at the pier on Sundays.
My unpredictable body sometimes caused trouble, like the time Gram’s two-layer cake became a one-layer cake after I knocked a pan onto the floor. If she was upset, she did not show it. Instead, she shrugged her shoulders and said, “You’re right, honey, I don’t need that many calories traveling to my hips tonight, now do I?”
Gram yelled out to the patio, where Pops and Dad were talking. “Bob, it’ll be a good hour till supper. You and Steve take this young lady for a little walk. She’s in dire need of fresh air.”
Mason strolled into the kitchen and dug into a bowl of chips.
“And take Mason with you,” Gram added.
Mason stood there, a chip hanging out of his mouth. I felt sorry for him. He could not escape the torture of being around me.
Pops drove us to the pier in his 1968 GTO convertible with the top down. I lifted my face to the sky to be brushed by the wind.
“Too much air, Mason old boy? I can roll up the window if you like.” Pops tried to get a grin out of Mason. It was not working.
Dad glanced back at the frowning boy, who had squished himself to the side—as far away from me as possible.
Seeing him squirm made me more anxious. My hands slapped my cheeks.
Slap-slap-slap.
“How do you like your new school?” Dad asked him.
Mason looked at Dad and blew air through his lips like a horse. “Full of suck-ups and phonies.” Under his breath he added, “Now I’m one of ’em.”
Boo-hoo, Mason. You have no idea how lucky you are.
My hands slapped my knees now. Slap-slap-slap.
Mason examined me a few seconds and asked, “What’s wrong with her? My mom never told me anything.”
Dad shot him a look with an eyebrow raised.
“No disrespect or anything, but, I mean, why does she act like that?”
I went back to slapping my face. Slap-slap-slap.
Dad puckered his lips in thought for a second. “Well, I think Charity sometimes dances to music only she can hear.”
“Does she talk?”
“Not like you and me, but she communicates in different ways. Problem is, her body speaks a different language. So, for example, just because she’s not looking at us doesn’t mean she’s not listening. Just because she jumps up and down doesn’t mean she’s happy.”
That’s right, Dad. Most people do not get that.
“So how do you k
now what she’s feeling?” Mason asked.
“A lot of times, I can see it in her eyes. Sometimes even I’m at a loss, though.” Dad reached back and squeezed my knee. “I know you’d really love to talk if you could, wouldn’t you, Cherry?”
More than you know, Dad. More than you could possibly know.
Mason brushed his nose with his hand. “Yeah. That sucks.”
Pops piped in. “It doesn’t ‘suck,’ young man. It vacuums vigorously. Hehehehe.”
A sea of cars greeted us at the parking lot. “Pesky tourists think they can elbow us off our own pier,” Pops complained.
He crammed the car into a tiny parking space, and Dad helped me out so the passenger door did not hit the next car. Dad and I strolled next to Pops, while Mason trailed behind like he wasn’t with us.
I remembered the new rule: Cousin ≠ friend.
This place usually calmed me, but today it was a war zone to my senses. Screaming seagulls dive-bombed French fries on picnic tables while a polka band sang out of tune, “In heaven there is no beer, that’s why we drink it here . . .” Every boom of the bass drum hammered my head.
Each step became harder. I could almost feel the pieces of my broken heart clinking inside my chest.
Clink, clink, clink.
I numbered the hurts. Borden. Miss Marcia, Mason, Elvi.
Panic grew in my belly. My toes pranced on the wood planks like they were hot lava. I envied the gulls’ freedom to fly away.
Hop, hop, hop.
Dad squeezed my hand tighter. “Easy, honey. We’ll be in our peaceful fishing spot in a minute and you’ll be fine.”
Fine? Look at my life. Probability of peace: zero.
A thundering voice shot in our direction. “Bob, you ol’ son of a gun. Howsit goin’?” A guy in a fishing cap greeted Pops with a bear hug. A battle of fishing stories began. Their voices became fuzzier as panic screamed inside my skull.
“A ten-pound sand bass, I swear on my honor.”
“That’s nothin’ compared to the one we hauled in last week, is it, Steve?”
Where was Mason? Leaning on the pier, earbuds in both ears, looking everywhere except our direction.
Another piece of my heart chipped off and clinked inside my chest.