by Suzanne Weyn
Jason texts to ask how I’m doing. Better every day, I reply. Are you coming over?
After football practice.
Jason has been bringing me homework and make-up assignments almost every day since I got home. He gets here close to six and leaves pretty quickly. Between football practice and school and caddying, he’s busy.
He holds my left hand and kisses me lightly on the lips sometimes, but he acts like he’s scared I’ll break. “I’m stronger than I was before,” I tell him, “not more fragile.”
“I know but … still.”
“Still what?”
“It’s not like we can exactly … make out …” he argues.
“Would you want to if we could?” I ask.
“Sure. Of course,” he replies.
Even with all the homework I’m trying to stay on top of, it’s been so hard to be cooped up, first in the hospital and now at home. I’m restless. I want to get on with my life, go out and do something.
I grab a blank marble composition pad to begin a list: Ways to get on with things.
1. Do PT exercises
2. Contact old friends I’ve neglected
3. Get strong in every way
I’m not exactly certain what number three entails, but I’m determined to do it.
Everything appears softer so early in the morning just after dawn. I ride my bike to the lake, grateful that I can ride it. I can’t believe how quickly all this is happening. The chip in my brain is a miracle.
After I lock my bike against a tree, I shake out my hair. In just a few days that chip is giving me clear skin, strong nails, and killer hair. It’s bouncy, shiny, thick, and grows like crazy. My hair is now really curly, which it never was before. I’d always wanted curly hair, so I love it.
The weather was cool for a while, but it’s warm again. Hot, really, an Indian summer.
I’m still on medical leave from school. For now I’m free. Free of school, free of the hospitals. Free.
Unchaining one of our three kayaks is a chore since I lean heavily on my cane. I stagger as I pull it to the sloped muddy patch where we always launch the kayaks. The lifejacket and paddles are stored inside the kayak. As I pull on the life vest it strikes me that this is simply another bionic device, but one I’ve never thought much about before. I strap it on and I can float, even if I’m unconscious. I’ve always been a good swimmer and resented having to wear the vest, but now it’s just one of many additions that bestows additional abilities on me.
Getting settled in the kayak’s hull is the really tricky part. The little boat wobbles as I slide in on a muddy incline leading into the water, but I manage, pushing off against the rocks that border the property. Once afloat, I screw together both sides of the paddle.
I’m able to keep on my bionic arm. At the hospital Dr. Hector told me the controls are encapsulated inside a waterproof tube. Like everything else, it’s the latest innovation in prosthetics. When I row for the first time, the kayak shoots wildly out into the water, spinning like a top. Catching my startled breath, I laugh, relieved that I haven’t tipped.
This happens because my bionic right arm is so much stronger than my left arm. It takes nearly ten minutes of practice before I stop rowing in circles. Left, right, left, left, right … Eventually I get the hang of it, though, and head out to the center of the lake.
The morning breeze carries the smell of lake water and wraps me in a cloak of sensation. No other body of water can duplicate the smell of a living lake: marsh, wet rock, underwater plant life, lily pads, fish—all tumbled together to make the unique essence. I’ve always been aware of it, but not like this. Now it nearly overpowers me. Part of me feels strange to be back out here, like I was when I was in a coma. I keep catching myself expecting to wake up in the sterile white-and-gray room. But the other part of me wants to stay forever, listening, watching. It feels like comfort.
I see every glittering wing as dragonflies dart past. Schools of small silvery fish glide beneath my kayak, following the wispy clouds that drift across the sky.
I paddle along slowly, quietly, listening to the birds that haven’t migrated, the ones who weather over. They’ve just come awake for the day, each delivering its distinct call (the whistle of the red-winged blackbird is my favorite) to tell the other birds that it has survived the night. It is still there. The territory it claimed days earlier still belongs to it. It has not disappeared during the night.
I haven’t disappeared during the night, either.
So I row, and I grow stronger.
I start school nearly a month late, but I start. The kids at school are welcoming, holding doors, smiling, waving. Even kids I don’t know offer to help me. I don’t need their help, but I accept it anyway. It seems like the friendly thing to do.
“You sure have changed since that day you first left the hospital,” Leanna says. She steps back to study me more closely. “Like, in a big way,” she adds.
Nodding, I smile. I haven’t seen or heard from Leanna for a while, but she’s acting like we just talked yesterday. I guess it’s her way of smoothing things over. It’s not a bad strategy, really.
She’s right. I’ve undergone some big changes. I don’t look like a monster anymore. Honestly, I’m better looking now than before the accident. My cheeks have evened out and all the kayak paddling I’ve been doing has given me shoulders and biceps like never before. I’ve started docking the kayak on some rocks and swimming, which I also think shows. The parts of me that still have skin are tan from all my time in the sun, and with all the time I’ve been spending in the water, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so relaxed and at peace in my body.
“Cool arm,” a boy I don’t know says as I head to class. He seems to mean it, too.
“Welcome back,” says Coach Sanders, passing me in the hall. “You look great!”
I thank her, smiling.
My first class is Western Civilization II. Jason’s in my class. There’s no seat left near him so I take one in the back of the room. The teacher is new this year so she doesn’t mention me being there as anything unusual. I’m happy about that. I want to ease back into school as normally as possible.
There was a note attached to my schedule telling me to meet Mr. Curtin during my next period, which is a study hall.
“Hi, Mira,” he greets me. “You look good. How are you feeling?”
“It was rough at first, but I feel pretty good these days.”
“Science is so amazing. Look at that arm … Wow!”
“It takes some getting used to,” I say. “I love it, though.”
“You’re a trooper, Mira. You have all my admiration.”
“Thank you,” I say, genuinely touched. “Thanks.”
“But listen, I have to talk to you about some not-so-good news.” He has the essay I’ve written on Frankenstein in his hand. I wrote it right after I came out of the hospital the second time. It’s the final test for my Advanced Placement English class. “This is an interesting piece of writing,” he says.
“Interesting?” I ask nervously.
“You brought a unique perspective to the essay, and I’m guessing it’s due to your recent experiences. I thought your idea that Dr. Frankenstein should have made the monster a bride and allowed them to have children was original.”
Interesting. Unique. Original. He’s picking his words carefully and my trouble-sensing antennae goes up. His apologetic expression is also a clue.
“I get where you’re coming from. It’s a bold idea, really.”
“But?” I know the but is coming.
“The advanced placement scoring committee didn’t see it as speaking to the central themes of the novel. Science versus nature. The dangers of playing God. You treated the creation of the monster as if it were a positive achievement. The monster was a murderer. He was a failed experiment, not a successful new type of creation.”
“Okay, so Dr. Frankenstein’s creation had a few glitches,” I admit. “But still … think of it
! To create a moving, thinking, talking person!” Standing, I spread my arms wide. “Look at me! I’m just a few parts away from being an artificial creation myself.”
“That’s not true,” he protests.
“It’s an exaggeration, I know. But science has caught up to Frankenstein. Well, almost, anyway,” I say as I sit.
“I wrote the committee with similar thoughts. Sorry to say, though, they didn’t go for it. They gave you a fail on your final test.”
A fail!
“That means I don’t get credit for the course, doesn’t it?”
He nods. “Technically, it just means that you don’t get college credit, but the English department here at Moon has always made passing the test a requirement for passing the course. Which leaves you an English language arts requirement short for graduation.”
“You mean I won’t graduate?”
“Not in May, unless you can join one of my senior elective classes if your study skills periods let you.”
He hands me a schedule. Upon comparing it with my existing schedule I see that it does not, in any way, allow me to squeeze in another English class.
We look at each other for a moment. “Well, that sucks,” I say. “All because they don’t agree with my opinion?”
“They feel you’ve missed the point of the novel.”
“Well, I feel they’re still living in the eighteen hundreds.”
This makes him smile. “I agree, but I couldn’t sway them.”
“Thanks for trying.”
“Sorry. It’s school policy.”
“Couldn’t they change it for a special situation like mine?”
“I can ask, but you’ve missed a lot of school, Mira. There’s talk of having you graduate next year, anyway. It might be good to wait, to not put so much pressure on yourself while you’re still adjusting. I’d love to have you in my class again in the fall.
Almost the moment I leave Mr. Curtin’s class, I run into Taylor from my lacrosse team. “Mira!” she shouts shrilly, throwing her arms around me. Then she draws back. “Ew! It feels so weird to touch you, with that arm and all. You’re a regular little robot girl now, aren’t you?” All the while she’s saying this she has a stiff smile on her face and her eyes sparkle. It’s hard to tell if she’s being insulting or just dumb. “I’ve missed you!”
“You have?” I say, not really knowing what to say.
“Of course, we all have! The team, I mean. We had a bad season last spring after you … left. We were all so upset. It’s going to be hard without you this year, too.”
“Hopefully I can play,” I say.
She folds me in another rib-rattling hug. “You’re so funny! Good to see you. I’d better get back to class. I’m out here on a bathroom pass. Bye!” I watch as she scurries down the hall.
Not such a great way to begin my big school comeback.
OCTOBER
Dr. Hector approves of my kayaking and thinks that continuing to swim on a schedule might be perfect PT. “Even though you have these powerful cable yarn muscles, you have to keep fit. All your organs and bodily systems are adjusting to these huge changes. It’s critical that your body stays well oxygenated and that the cable muscles are challenged daily, and swimming in the lake was a great instinct on your part, but now that it’s getting cold we have to find you a pool.”
“The school has one,” I tell him.
“Excellent.”
So Dr. Hector writes a note and I receive special permission to swim laps after school and during my study halls.
I swim and swim and swim. It’s almost as good as the lake, and nearly as comforting as soaking in the bathtub. I don’t love the chlorine, but I can bear it. While swimming I can disappear from reality, lost in the underwater blur.
Dr. Hector has given me a few feet that can click on or off the titanium half leg. The foot I wear for the pool has a small flipper attached to it and rubber bottom to avoid slipping. Zack says I’m a metal mermaid, but the extra push it gives means I have to practice to avoid swimming in circles, just like I did with the kayak.
One day I’m stepping out of the pool when one of the gym teachers approaches me. I know her name is Mrs. Patrick, but I’ve never been in any of her gym classes.
“Ever think of joining the swim team?” she asks me. “I know you’re just getting back into the swing of things,” she continues. “But I’ve been watching and you could be a competitive swimmer.”
I point down to my swim leg. “This helps.”
Folding her arms, Mrs. Patrick studies my foot. “Wow! That’s amazing,” she murmurs. “Is it difficult to swim with that prosthetic leg?”
“Just the opposite. The flipper actually provides a lot of forward propulsion.” I shiver and go for my towel on the bench. Mrs. Patrick tells me to change and meet her back by the pool.
The locker room is empty, which I’m glad of. I need to remove my swimmer foot and change to my regular walking leg and foot. It makes me self-conscious when I have to change legs because the other girls all have me fixed in sidelong glances even though they don’t blatantly stare. At first I tried to do it in a changing stall, but it’s difficult balancing in such a narrow space.
I return wearing jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, which has become my uniform these days. As soon as I sit, Mrs. Patrick tells me that someone has dropped out of the swim team and she needs a replacement.
“You’re such a strong swimmer,” she says. “Would you want to join the team?”
I hesitate for a second, watching her face closely. I hope this isn’t a pity thing. I can picture my guidance counselor, Ms. Trip, asking Mrs. Patrick to “get her involved in something.” Could Mom have called and asked her to do it?
“I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me,” I say. “I’ve never swum competitively before.”
“This isn’t about me doing you any favors. You’d be doing us the favor by filling in at the last minute. You tell me,” she says. “Are you up to it?”
Strange as it might sound, the main thing that hurts right now is my artificial cheekbone. The entire ridge of my eye socket is still tender to the touch. Otherwise, I feel great. My mood is up, too, without the depression medications.
“I’d be willing to give it a try,” I say.
The first thing I do is call Emma to tell her the news. “Can you believe I’ll be on the swim team?”
“Maybe that’s the change Madame Suza saw?” Emma says. “The number fifty-six.”
I’d nearly forgotten about the palm reader. “What do you mean?”
“What if she saw you turning into a fish?”
“I’d say that’s pretty unlikely,” I reply.
Emma laughs at her own silliness. “Of course it is. You’ve already proven her right … so many changes. I wonder if you’re done with the changes.”
“I’d better be,” I say. “I don’t think I could stand any more of them.”
“Oh, I know another change that’s coming. You’re getting back with Electric Storm!”
“No, I’m not!”
“If you’re strong enough to swim, you’re strong enough to play guitar and sing.”
“Then I’ll be right back where I started, with too much to do. Plus, I don’t think I can sing anymore.”
“Of course you can!”
“No, Emma, I’ve tried. Really. I can’t.”
Emma sighs and I sigh, too. “Have you tried since you got the new chip thing in your head?” Emma asks.
“Emma! Let’s drop it, okay?”
“Okay,” she says in a tone that really means: I’ll agree to stop talking, but you’re wrong not to try again.
“It’s exciting about the swimming though, isn’t it?” I say. I form a mental picture of myself getting in great shape by swimming competitively. By lacrosse season, who knows? That lacrosse scholarship might not be out of the question, even if it’s delayed a little.
I start swim team practice today. The girls are standoffish at first, not ru
de, but not welcoming, either. I know one of the girls, Elana, from Western Civ I last year. At least I have someone to talk to.
“None of us thought you could even walk,” she tells me as we stand around the pool. “I was amazed when I heard you were joining the team.”
I nod. “It is kind of mind-blowing.”
Mrs. Patrick blows her whistle. “Into the pool. Warm up.” I start with my favorite stroke, the butterfly. So much shoulder strength is required as I lunge forward out of the water. My shoulders are strongly developed from using the bionic arm and from all the rowing and swimming. That’s probably why I’m good at the butterfly stroke.
Mrs. Patrick assesses each girl as she swims.
“Don’t strain your neck when you turn to breathe. Roll your head,” she tells a girl doing the freestyle crawl.
“The thumb should hit the water first,” she says to another, who is doing the backstroke.
“So few girls are strong in the butterfly,” Mrs. Patrick says to me when I’m out of the pool. “It takes a lot of upper body strength. You’ve got it, even with the prosthetic. I want to work on your freestyle, though. You could use some better breath control there.”
That night I make supper for Zack because Mom is working late. More grilled cheese and soup. (But this time I remember to cut it on the diagonal, diner style.)
“Guess what swimming stroke the coach thinks I’m best at?” I say, sitting beside him at the table.
“I don’t do guessing,” he tells me between neat, tidy soup sips.
“The butterfly!”
Putting down his spoon, he casts a narrow-eyed look at me. “Is this a joke?”
“No, silly! I’m telling you the truth. Look!” Leaving the table, I demonstrate the upper part of the stroke. My arms scoop the air in big, round curves as I undulate my spine doing the best imitation I can.
“I see the wings, but that’s not how butterflies fly,” Zack says.
He proceeds to do his interpretation of a butterfly flying.
“No, like this!” I continue my stroke, which strikes me as being more like a dolphin breaching the waves than a butterfly flapping its wings, but I’ve staked my position and I feel bound to defend it.