by Rachel Hruza
I was especially happy when I went to see Oliver during my fourth period study hall. He smiled when I rapped my knuckles on my stomach, and nothing but the soft plump of skin on skin sounded forth.
“You’re something else,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I leaned casually against the wall.
“Well, you know you’re going to have to put the brace back on once you get home, right?”
I nodded, sad but aware.
“So why are you so happy right now?”
“It’s relief, a break. My body is free for the afternoon.”
Oliver looked down. Not at his legs, but like he was considering something. “Oh.”
I felt my freeness melt away. Oliver couldn’t leave his wheelchair like I could take my brace off. We were supposed to meet to commiserate, but maybe our meetings were a bad thing for him; I’d only been thinking of myself, but I never meant to make him feel worse.
“Will you help me with something?” he asked, after several moments.
I didn’t even hesitate. “Of course.”
“Not today. Maybe next time.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing difficult.” He didn’t say more, and I didn’t push it.
After a while, I brought up homework and how much easier elementary school was, when parents would help with the dioramas and papier-mâché projects. The tension was palpable in the room, and I wondered if Mrs. Werth could feel it when she came back.
I left early, feeling uneasy, but Oliver smiled and said he’d see me next week. I pushed away from the wall and waved, getting a whiff of my armpit. Not great. The stress of the day had already gotten to me, and it was far from over.
Even though I’d gotten Megan her phone back, she avoided me all afternoon in sixth period Science and seventh period English. This was annoying because in Science we were building miniature bridges out of toothpicks and, though Megan wasn’t in my group, she was directly behind me, and this would have been an opportune time to joke around and discuss how gluing toothpicks together would turn us into engineers.
Instead, she kept her back to me the entire time.
I was chastised three times by our teacher for trying to tell Megan she had nothing to worry about, so I gave up. Once, while stepping around a fellow bridge builder to help hold a piece of suspended pick, I swear Megan even tried to kick me.
In English, her gaze remained focused on the chalkboard as sentence structure became the topic of the day, for about the fifth day in a row. I finally grabbed her before eighth period History and forced her to stand there while I talked. She relaxed as soon as I said it had all added up to nothing and we weren’t going to get in trouble.
“But you did look pretty when you were crying,” I said.
“Yeah, right,” she said. “Pretty pathetic. Why couldn’t I have thought of something like that?”
“Because you’re the brawn of this operation, Megs. You’ve got the right tools to get the job done. I’ve got the brains,” I said in a sinister voice.
She laughed, but not as much as I expected. “Next time, Brains, remind Brawn not to get involved in your reckless shenanigans.”
“What are you two talking about?” Brendan appeared next to us in the hall.
“Nothing,” I said. “Girl stuff.”
I winked at Megan. She smiled.
“Okay, I’ll stay out of it then.”
Brendan walked us to the History classroom and dropped us off. I hung back to talk to him.
“Did you change clothes?” he asked me.
“Yeah, I didn’t have time to change back after Gym. Do I smell that bad?” I asked, joking.
“Not that bad. You look a little wrinkled.”
“Oh,” I said, looking down. I guess I did carry my gym clothes to school crumpled in a ball at the bottom of my backpack.
“I think I can still smell the tuna from lunch, though,” Brendan said, looking in the direction of the cafeteria.
The warning bell rang, and he headed off to his class.
I set my books down on the desk next to Megan’s and talked with the girls around us until the final bell rang.
“Take your seats. Let’s get started,” said Mr. Landers. “We’ve been a bit slow this semester and have some catching up to do.”
I plunked into my seat, bumping against the metal bar that connected the seat to the desk.
As I sat, a loud popping noise sounded from within my shorts. Everyone looked around; luckily they didn’t seem to know where the noise came from. I looked around too, hoping I had a confused expression on my face, rather than the terrified one I feared was plastered there forever.
The bag of tuna. It was still in my pocket. I had completely forgotten about it. Only now, it burst forth like a ray of sun through the clouds and shone itself all over the inside of my athletic shorts. No wonder Brendan still smelled tuna from lunch; a ripe bag of it had been in my pocket the whole time.
“That was strange,” said Mr. Landers.
Unlike a lot of the faculty, especially Mr. Umland, Mr. Landers was very thoughtful in his speech and spoke slowly so we could catch every word. And though he was serious about history, Mr. Landers often strayed off topic, something we took advantage of whenever possible.
“Speaking of slow, you know what truly tests my patience?” he said. “Well, besides grading your essays. Traffic on I-80 during rush hour. The speed limit is seventy-five, but there are just too many cars to be able to drive that fast. I was on it this weekend and there was road construction. I went from seventy-five to a complete stop in less than a mile.”
“How long were you stopped?” Erwin Bowden asked.
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Geez.”
“You’re telling me. Years ago, the first time I got stuck there, I was driving an ’83 Thunderbird. Now, this car was pristine!”
I glanced at Megan while Landers talked about the “souped-up” interior of his first car. She was staring at my pocket. Liquid tuna juice (yuck!) was leaking out from my mesh shorts (double-yuck!).
Megan flung her hand over her mouth to keep from gagging. I wanted to blow chunks myself, but I also wanted to avoid drawing attention to myself at all costs. I didn’t remember there being so much water left in the can when I dumped the fatal fish meat into the plastic baggie that morning, but apparently my left thigh was a good pressure-strainer.
Gingerly, I shifted my bodily girth to my other leg. I considered sliding the plastic baggie out from my pocket onto the floor and trying to get the class to accept it had been there the whole time, but I knew that wouldn’t work because one of the Klafken twins sat behind me, and Tina was too observant to be unaware of a toxic-smelling fish carrier just appearing on the floor. She was probably watching me as I squirmed in my chair, cognizant of the permeable, synthetic mess ruminating near my underwear.
“And I’m telling you, the cop that pulled me over did not care that I had dropped my favorite Rush CD; he gave me a ticket anyways. Do you smell that?” Landers put his nose in the air and rolled his head right, then left. “Unpleasant.”
Several people nodded in agreement. I plugged my nose and bobbed my head along with them.
“Yuck,” I mouthed to Megan. She snorted and covered her eyes.
“It reminds me of the time I went to a fishery on a field trip in fifth grade,” Landers said.
He ran his fingers down his tie as he spoke. Then he paused and stared at the back wall of the classroom, the fluorescent lights reflecting off his just-barely-balding forehead.
Something was happening. Something big. I looked around the room; my classmates had noticed it too. We’d reached a new level of Landers’ stratospheric storytelling and opened a new door to endless possibilities of childhood recollections. We’d heard about his memories from high school before, but now we were diving into the elementary school era of Landers’ life.
I gave myself a mental pat on the back. Even though I would never admit it to
anyone but Megan, this new unleashing of brain matter was my doing; my “fishtastrophe.” With Landers’ epic reminiscent meandering, we’d probably never have to read another chapter about the Mesopotamians again. So, even though I was more uncomfortable than ever, I sat quietly through the rest of eighth period, listening to the story of Landers’ most beloved field trip.
As a class, we successfully coaxed him into reenacting his classmate’s fall into the human-constructed river: he perched on top of his desk, all six feet three inches of him, leaned back, and then jumped to the ground behind it. Fluidly he transitioned to telling us about the bus ride to the river and then the bus ride back as he maneuvered between the rows of desks just like Ol’ Jimmy did with the long yellow bus.
His memories flowed nonstop. Next we heard about his favorite backpack; a bird pooped on it when he stepped off the bus and his mom threw it out. He panned out to the layout of his hometown, stretching his arms wide in his yellow shirt and showing off the even-more-yellow sweat stains in its armpits. I swear, at one point I even saw tears in Landers’ eyes. We applauded. We cheered. We encored until the bell rang.
Mr. Landers smiled at all of us, proud, as we left the room. I walked out the door clutching my messy pocket in my hand.
I made it back to the locker room without anyone realizing a can of tuna fish had manifested itself in my shorts. Changing into the clothes I’d brought for volleyball practice, I couldn’t stop grinning. When I emerged into the hallway to wait for Megan, Mr. Landers passed by and high-fived me, along with every other student he passed. I smiled as I watched him go. It was a good day for both of us.
CHAPTER 8
The Discovery (Part 2)
Life was rockin’ and rollin’ for me as a seventh grader at the end of September. Brendan was hanging around me even more, my team had won the most scrimmages in volleyball, Megan was no longer angry about her seminar for being late back to study hall because of me or our fishy revenge, and I had a listening ear and confidant in Oliver.
Jennifer Henderson had grown outwardly nicer to me for some reason, even if she didn’t seem sincere. After she pulled out her t-shirt with the chunks of tuna I’d left behind on it, she briefly analyzed it, shook it out, and then pulled it on over her head. I leaned around my side of the lockers to watch. She glanced at me, and I held her gaze. But I didn’t mention the sand, and she didn’t mention the tuna.
Every day she walked by my locker when Brendan was leaning on the one next to mine, and she smiled and waved, but I saw the glare in her eyes. In Gym she’d inquire (nicely, too nicely) in front of all the girls if I was still testing out football pads. They would laugh while I shook my head, with an enormous fake smile plastered across my face.
“Not anymore,” I answered every time. “But I can let Coach know you’re interested, Jen.”
She hated to be called Jen, and I smiled politely every time I said it. She would smile politely back, and we’d part ways, each wishing the other would just disappear from the school grounds.
My biggest fear was that Jennifer would discover my real reason for sneaking out of the locker room and expose me to the rest of the school. Changing for Gym and volleyball was difficult, but at least I had Megan with me standing guard for volleyball. Gym was frightening. Every time I ran to the locker room, trying to beat everyone there so I could separate the noisy straps of my brace and shove it into an unmarked locker, my heart would race as if I were guilty of breaking and entering.
Nevertheless, I was either becoming more careless, or Isaac Newton had discovered I was triumphing over his gravitational hold and had upped the ante. In the middle of English one day, I sneezed, and my brace’s top Velcro strap ripped apart with a sound reminiscent of a fighter jet taking off, making my blood freeze in my veins.
I immediately sat up and looked around the room with my peripheral vision as Mrs. Pike lectured about complex sentences, but no one seemed to have noticed the sound. For the rest of the class, I kept my arms straight from my armpits to my hips, to keep the two sides of my brace from pushing the fabric of my shirt out in the back. As a result, my notes weren’t legible, and I got a ninety-two percent instead of my normal ninety-eight average on the quiz the next day.
At my next appointment with Christopher, he replaced the Velcro for me, but he wasn’t very sympathetic.
“I’m terrified that if I sneeze or cough, the brace will explode off me in a glistening white fury, taking my clothes with it,” I said.
Christopher scrunched up his face, a look that reminded me of Harold when he suffered constipation. “That won’t happen. At least not the clothes part. The Velcro does wear down though. That’s why I replace it for you every visit.”
He didn’t seem to appreciate my humor, though I did get a laugh from my mother, who sat in the room and said polite, appropriate things.
Christopher was, however, impressed by how tightly I liked to wear my brace, and he hacked off more from the middle, making it even smaller and tighter.
“Usually I have to fight children to wear the brace tighter, but you’re a piece of cake!” he said.
I didn’t like being called a child, but I smiled. Then he told another sad story about a heavy-set girl who hated her brace. I understood the girl in his story; I hated my brace too. I just didn’t like floating around in the middle of a plastic prop. And most important, there was a significantly smaller chance of people seeing my brace if it was fitted tighter to my body.
I was happy when the appointment was over. Christopher’s a great guy—he always made me feel like I was absolutely normal for having a spine deformity. But it was still nice when I was able to leave his office and know I wouldn’t be back for about three months. And I was really looking forward to the day when I could walk out of those sliding glass doors for the last time, knowing I’d never have to go back in.
Actually, against my will, I was growing more comfortable in the brace. The constant pinches and digs into my skin had become normal, and my early morning and afternoon sweats were expected. But I still couldn’t wait until the end of the day when I could take it off. Every day, my damp skin burned as I pulled the thing off, tossed it on the ground, and threw my arms up in the air, spinning in circles and letting the cool, refreshing air envelop me.
Volleyball practice and scrimmages remained my favorite part of the day. Those were the only times when I felt in complete control of my body. While other girls groaned at having to run sprints, I was the first one at the line, ready to take off. When the coaches told me to jump, I launched as far off the ground as my legs would allow. If the ball was about to smack the floor, I rolled, sacrificing life and limb to punch it back into the air. It felt amazing.
I played outside hitter, and though none of us seventh graders could hit especially hard, we were at least hitting the ball over the net most of the time. I whacked the ball every time with relish, and whenever possible, I aimed for Jennifer. She’d stopped squealing and getting mad and instead would pass it back and then try to hit me. It was a battle, but I enjoyed it immensely.
We scrimmaged every Wednesday and Friday. Megan and I had ended up on the same team. She played the position of setter, partially because she didn’t like having to receive serves and partially because she was actually pretty good at it. She liked to set it to me, shout, “Truth pound!” and then cheer wildly if my hit connected with the floor, which was called a kill.
One afternoon I had three kills in a row, and all of my teammates began shouting “Truth pound!” whenever I jumped up to hit it. I felt adrenaline kick in, and the next time Megan set it to me, I thought of the stupid brace sitting and waiting for me in the locker room. I could feel it wrapping around me and stealing my breath away with each Velcro strap. I imagined knocking Isaac Newton senseless as I launched into the air and slapped the ball. Take this Truth pounding, Newton.
Unfortunately, this time the ball slammed into the net instead of over it—then bounced back and hit me right in the stomach. Oof.
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“Darn,” Megan said. “You looked so angry I was sure you were going to kill it again.”
I bit my lip and rolled the ball to the other team to serve. I hadn’t realized my rage for my brace had been showing on my face.
Megan high-fived me anyway. “Let’s try it again!”
Though I hated having to put my brace back on, it seemed less daunting after doing something I really enjoyed. No matter how hard Newton might try, he couldn’t take away my spirit, at least where volleyball was concerned.
However, Newton crossed the line when he started messing with something very important in junior high: hygiene.
One day while walking to Band, I passed two eighth-grade girls. One of them pointed at me and waved her hand back and forth in front of her face as her nose wrinkled. Then she mouthed the words “she smells.”
I fought the urge to cry and then the urge to run away from school and never come back. Instead, after Band I went straight to Megan.
“Do I indeed carry the stench of a trillion sweaty socks?”
Megan laughed.
“Be honest. Does it need to be burned to eliminate the stink?”
After a long, dramatically overdrawn sniff, she shrugged and said, “It wouldn’t hurt to wash it, I suppose.”
That made me realize I couldn’t just ignore the brace after I took it off at night. The last thing I needed was to smell like a boys’ locker room. So I began wiping the inside of my brace with rubbing alcohol, which Christopher said would get rid of daily body sweat and odor.
On weekends, I washed it in the tub (“like a puppy,” according to Harold) and let it dry overnight. It seemed to help, but it was a hassle, and I awarded ol’ Newton one more point for another contribution to ruining my life.
One Saturday afternoon (post brace bath), my mother took me with her to Oliver’s house, where she was meeting his mom to do some PTA work.
“‘PTA work’—pssh, you’re really just going to be talking about how wonderful I am,” I said. “What could be better than talking about me?”