Fleabrain Loves Franny

by Joanne Rocklin

  There was a game Franny liked to play. She’d repeat the most gorgeous words she could think of, words like sassafras and gladiola and filigree, over and over and over again, until the beautiful words were transformed into meaningless, nonsense syllables, having lost all of their luster. Heck, which wasn’t exactly beautiful to begin with, had easily met the same fate. And saying the word didn’t make her feel better. Not really.

  That same evening, her parents were visiting relatives, and Min had plans to meet her friends at Weinstein’s Restaurant. Min was wearing Orange Spice lipstick and her good blue angora cardigan, which meant Milt was probably one of the friends, maybe even the only friend. Nurse Olivegarten would be staying with Franny for the evening. Franny had begged to stay alone, but her parents had absolutely refused.

  “Franny, do you want me to stay home with you?” Min asked.

  “That’s OK,” said Franny. She’d try not to be a baby. And she did understand about boyfriends. Anyway, Nurse Olivegarten would be spending the whole night on the telephone. She could pretend she was alone.

  Franny pored over the newspaper. Maybe she’d discover a piece of information her parents had missed. Her heart pounded as she read, A polio-free world may be at the fingertips of a Pittsburgh scientist … But the news report was about vaccines and prevention. Not one single word about curing those already stricken.

  Aren’t I a part of the world? she thought.

  Suddenly, a chemical whiff of lilacs. Nurse Olivegarten.

  “Your parents told me you were a bit upset today,” said Nurse Olivegarten, standing at the edge of the living room. “They said you had been expecting the announcement of a cure for polio.” Nurse Olivegarten’s ruby red lips twitched into a little smile. “Oh, my dear, dear girl. I’m so sorry you misunderstood Salk’s work. Perhaps this has been the problem all along.”

  “What do you mean?” Franny asked.

  Nurse Olivegarten moved closer to Franny. “You’ve been waiting for a quick cure, eh? That’s why you haven’t been working hard enough at your physical therapy. Nothing is easy. Everything takes work.”

  “I have worked at it. But I’m tired of work,” Franny said. Then she whispered, “I’m only eleven.”

  “I beg your pardon? What did you say?”

  “I’m tired of work.”

  “When I was your age, I certainly wasn’t afraid of work! I sold carrots and fiddleheads at my grandfather’s farm stand in New Brunswick, Canada. I scrubbed a kitchen floor every now and then, too. One is never too young to work, young lady.”

  “This isn’t carrots. This isn’t fiddleheads,” said Franny. Whatever those were. A Canadian vegetable, probably.

  Nurse Olivegarten’s lips twitched again. “My dear girl, don’t you want to be like all the other kids, instead of a cripple? Don’t you want to keep up with them when you go back to school?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I want to get you out of that awful, confining chair. It won’t be easy, and, yes, it will take work. But isn’t that what you want? To walk again?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You guess so!”

  Franny was silent. She felt so tired.

  “I think we should practice now, as a matter of fact, to get your motivation back.”

  “I don’t really want to,” Franny said.

  “I said now,” declared Nurse Olivegarten, looming over Franny. “It’s only seven in the evening.” Suddenly Franny felt very small. The nurse put her arms under Franny’s armpits and jerked her up from the wheelchair. “Go ahead! Just as we practiced this morning.”

  Lean on left foot. Swing right hip out. Step with right foot.

  Lean on right foot. Swing left hip out. Step with left foot.

  Over and over and over. Franny’s tiredness became pain. “Enough,” she said, crying now.

  “Again,” said Nurse Olivegarten. “Practice makes perfect.”

  Lean on left foot. Swing right hip out. Step with right foot.

  Lean on right foot. Swing left hip out. Step with left foot.

  “No more,” Franny said when they reached her chair again.

  “Again!” said Nurse Olivegarten. She squeezed Franny’s arm, leaving the marks of her ruby red nails, like tiny mean smiles.

  Franny’s pain had become anger. “No!” she shouted, sitting in her chair and rolling herself toward her bedroom. “No more!”

  FB Saliva #2-X

  Fleabrain felt the venom rising within him, his most potent concoction yet: FB Saliva #2-X, a fast-acting and effective version of FB Saliva #2, formulated for larger entities. Quivering, he sat on top of Sparky’s Finest, waiting. Alf awoke, sensing that something interesting was brewing between Fleabrain and Franny.

  “Nurse Olivegarten!” Franny called. “Please come here!”

  As usual, Nurse Olivegarten made Franny call her more than once.

  “Nurse Olivegarten!”

  The nurse spoke from behind the closed door. “What is it?”

  “Please come in. I want to ask you something.”

  Nurse Olivegarten stepped into the room. “I think I’ve had enough of your unpleasantness for the evening.”

  Franny was sitting in her wheelchair by her night table. She took a deep breath, then asked her question. “Why do you hurt me?”

  Nurse Olivegarten flushed. “Practicing hurts. Practicing something hard always hurts.”

  “No, not practicing. You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t think I do.”

  “You hurt me on purpose, just because your method isn’t working. I’m telling.”

  “I don’t know what you are going to ‘tell.’”

  “Oh, yes, you do,” said Franny.

  Nurse Olivegarten’s eyes were narrow green slits. She loomed in front of Franny now, arms akimbo. “I am helping you. Your parents know that.”

  “You aren’t helping me. And my parents don’t know everything,” said Franny, her voice trembling.

  On the night table a magnified Fleabrain suddenly appeared behind Sparky’s Finest. Franny reached for the bottle cap and placed it behind her eyeglass lens.

  “My parents don’t know everything!” Franny repeated, louder and braver. And then she instructed, “Make her smaller than a mouse but bigger than a gnat!”

  Fleabrain’s leg gave a “thumbs”-up wriggle.

  “My dear girl, what are you talking about?” asked Nurse Olivegarten.

  “Actually, the size of a large spider will do,” said Franny.

  “What are you talking about? Eh?”

  Fleabrain bit Nurse Olivergarten behind each of her ears. Pfffft! There was the pungent smell of firecrackers and popcorn, mingled with that of decaying lilacs.

  “Eh?

  Eh?

  Eh?”

  Three seconds was all it took. A miniaturized Nurse Olivegarten now stood at the tip of Franny’s clodhopper shoe, the nurse’s mouth wide open in astonishment.

  Franny leaned over to get a good look at this tiny being, a squeaking, quaking specimen of Nurse Olivegarten. How wonderful to be looking down at her instead of up! Franny felt huge and strong and free.

  “Well? How does it feel to be smaller than me?” Franny asked.

  It would have been so easy to squash her, but Franny just couldn’t.

  Nurse Olivegarten turned and ran. She raced around the treelike legs of the bed and tripped over the rolling mountain ranges of the braided rug. Righting herself, she galloped toward the bottom shelf of Franny’s bookcase and disappeared behind Anne of Green Gables. Franny wheeled over and shook each book until a wailing Nurse Olivegarten was finally dislodged from Treasure Island, Chapter IX. Franny reached out to break her fall, catching one of her tiny legs as she floated to the floor, but Nurse Olivegarten wriggled away. She ran toward the bed again, hurling herself beneath it.

  Franny leaned down to see, as far as she could. Nurse Olivegarten was hanging on to a bedspring with both hands. Alf scurried under the bed and tried to brin
g her down with his paw.

  “Alf, no!” yelled Franny.

  But Alf’s hunting instincts were aroused by this strange, uniform-clad insect, who was now pulling herself from spring to spring like a monkey-bars champion. The dog scurried after her, crawling on his belly from one end of the bed to the other, until Nurse Olivegarten, exhausted, dropped to the floor.

  “No!” cried Franny.

  But there was no stopping Alf. His big tongue hanging out, he joyfully leaped toward Nurse Olivegarten and slurped her up. Triumphantly, Alf emerged from under the bed. Around and around the room the dog raced, his prey’s little upper body hanging from his dripping mouth, her little arms gesticulating wildly.

  “Alf, drop it! Drop it!” Franny yelled.

  Alf obediently deposited Nurse Olivegarten at the foot of Franny’s wheelchair, just as his proud, wagging tail (with Fleabrain on it, enjoying the spectacle) got tangled in the wire of the ballerina alarm clock, which crashed to the floor. The clock’s protective glass cover popped out, as did its innards, to the off-key, dying strains of the Moonlight Sonata.

  The ballerina, or what was left of her, stared reproachfully at Franny, as if to say, “I am but an innocent victim of this terrible ruckus; I, who have always performed my strenuous job so heroically, especially at noon and midnight!” The dancer’s graceful arms and legs were scattered nearby, like a game of pickup sticks.

  Meanwhile, Franny realized that tiny Nurse Olivegarten had fled across the room to the window and was at that moment pulling herself up the curtains, hand over hand.

  “Nurse Olivegarten! Wait!” hollered Franny. “Fleabrain, quickly! We need to reverse the miniaturization process!”

  But it was too late. The tiny nurse reached the sill, dived through a hole in the screen, and disappeared into the night.

  Franny felt terrible. No matter how much she disliked and feared Nurse Olivegarten, no matter what Nurse Olivegarten had done, no living being, large or small, deserved such an unnatural transformation.

  “Don’t worry,” said Fleabrain. “Nurse Olivegarten will be all right.”

  “Fleabrain, what are you saying?” asked Franny. “How can she survive on the streets, as small as she is?”

  “She will. Trust me.”

  “But how do you know?”

  Fleabrain seemed to be averting his tiny eyes on either side of his head. “I just know,” he said evasively. “Nurse Olivegarten will be fine, although she doesn’t deserve to be.” As if to change the subject, he added, “I can certainly fix that alarm clock. I’ll have your ballerina dancing in no time. A simple task. I’ll start working on it pronto.”

  And then the question came to Franny, a question as natural and inevitable as the air in the room.

  “Oh, Fleabrain, can you please fix me, too?”

  The Good News and the Bad

  Fleabrain raised one of his legs in a “Just a minute, please” gesture to Franny’s question. He was at that moment using his tubelike mouthparts to screw the ballerina’s arms and legs onto the clock’s face. He had already replaced the clock’s innards, and once the limbs were connected, he lifted the glass front piece onto the clock, jumping up and down on it to snap it into place.

  “Done!” he declared as the dancer’s outstretched “minute leg” began to move. “All fixed.”

  “Fleabrain, did you hear my question?” asked Franny.

  “Oops—one second while I adjust the appendages to the correct time, according to my instincts.” Fleabrain turned the clock’s back knob to set the ballerina’s legs at thirty-five minutes past eight. “Now,” he said, “where were we?”

  “I asked you a question,” said Franny. “An important one.”

  “Oh. You did?”

  “Yes. I want to know if you could fix me with your potions, being as wise and expert and powerful as you are.”

  “Oh. Right. Let me ponder on that.” Fleabrain reclined on top of the clock, put several tarsi over his face, and pondered. After a few seconds he looked up and asked, “Do you want the long answer or the short answer?”

  “Both,” said Franny.

  “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

  “Both,” said Franny. “You’re stalling.”

  “Me? Stalling? OK. The good news is that Nurse Olivegarten will be all right.”

  “You told me that already. What’s the bad news?”

  “The good news is also the bad news. Nurse Olive will be ‘all right,’ as in back-to-her-full-size-sour-self, with only the occasional nightmare or intrusive memory.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Franny.

  Fleabrain looked sheepish. “The power of my potions is temporary, dear Francine. The effect disappears eventually, just like a fleabite. Only the memory of the experience remains. I don’t have to reverse the process; it happens by itself, naturally.”

  “You reversed the process when you miniaturized me.”

  “Yes, well—I pretended to reverse it, purely for the dramatic effect. I wanted you to believe I was all-powerful. You would have returned to your regular size on your own.”

  “Oh.” Francine was beginning to understand the import of what Fleabrain was saying. Her insides suddenly filled up with a great sadness, crowding out her one last hope.

  “So even if I were able to concoct a fluid to enliven the nerves in your legs and strengthen your muscles, thus enabling you to walk and run and skip and dance, my dear, dear Francine, it wouldn’t last. And what you are asking me to do is so very, very complicated! I predict that humans will be walking on the moon itself years before your difficult problem is solved by scientists!”

  “Now you’re exaggerating,” said Franny.

  “Perhaps,” said Fleabrain. “So … the long answer is also the short answer. I can’t fix you. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “What about time travel?” asked Franny.

  “What about it?”

  “What if you do something powerful and magical and somehow we both go back in time to the exact moment when I got polio, whenever and wherever it was. And somehow the danger is averted, and I don’t come down with polio, and things go on the way they were meant to? How about that, Fleabrain?”

  Fleabrain seemed to smile ruefully. “Time travel is impossible.”

  “Who says it is?”

  “I do. I am smart enough to know that Time Past is just a memory, not a real place. There is no ‘it’ to go back to, Francine.”

  Maybe it was the slight condescension in Fleabrain’s tone, or her huge disappointment in Fleabrain’s non-all-powerfulness, or the fatigue of a long, sad day, but Franny was angrier than she’d ever been in her entire eleven years.

  “You are a sham, Fleabrain,” she said. “Just like the Wizard of Oz!”

  Sham, sham, sham, Fleabrain, the taunting chorus sang.

  Fleabrain hung his head mournfully. “I admit to a bit of shamming,” he said.

  “Actually, it’s even worse, Fleabrain,” said Franny. “You’re probably not even real. You could be just a figment of my imagination.”

  Fleabrain lifted his head. “Now, that hurts, Francine. It really does. I am at your service, but I belong to nobody but myself!”

  “Oh, Fleabrain. I’m sorry,” said Franny, leaning very close to him to look into his tiny eyes as best she could. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s just that I’m very upset. Of course you’re real. But I wish you’d told me the truth. You must have known, being so miraculously smart, that if you couldn’t fix me, then neither could Dr. Salk.”

  “Do you really wish I’d told you the truth? That unhappy truth would have spoiled all the fun, Francine!”

  “ ‘Fun’? Was it all about having fun? I thought we were friends, Fleabrain.”

  “Of course, of course, of course we’re friends! But didn’t we both have fun, my dear, dear Francine?” Fleabrain’s little voice was shriller than usual as he leaped back and forth across the top of the ballerina alarm clock. “And there’s still
more fun to have. Oh, the Wonders I’ve yet to show you! Bug it, listen to me, Francine. We can’t go back in time, but we can do something better. We can stay young! I’ve just finished Ulysses, that wonderful book by the great Irish writer James Joyce, born February 2,1882, died January 13, 1941. The main character has a lollapalooza of an idea. Listen, please, to this magnificent quote!”

  Waving a tarsus dramatically, Fleabrain closed his tiny eyes and began to orate:

  “Somewhere in the east: early morning: set off at dawn. Travel round in front of the sun, steal a day’s march on him. Keep it up for ever never grow a day older technically …”

  “What do you think of that?” Fleabrain asked hopefully, opening his eyes. “You and I and Lightning and Alf will just keep traveling in front of the sun for perpetuity and never grow old! Technically.”

  “I think it’s a stupid idea!” said Franny. “Who wants to stay the same age? I want to grow up, like every other kid in Squirrel Hill. I want to stay in Squirrel Hill, too. I don’t want to see any more faraway Wonders. Not yet, anyway.”

  “ ‘Stupid’? The great James Joyce, stupid? And, by implication, myself? Ha!” cried Fleabrain, stung by Franny’s insult and momentarily forgetting what they were arguing about. “The great James Joyce and I can’t be any stupider than What’s-His-Name, the author of that book about Charlotte and Gilbert that you love so much.”

  Fleabrain caught his breath, immediately realizing, by the stricken expression on Franny’s face, that he’d gone too far.

  “What did you just say?” asked Franny.

  “I’m so sorry, Francine. I meant no offense!” Fleabrain spluttered.

  “Whom did you say Charlotte’s Web was about?”

  “Charlotte the spider and Gilbert the pig.”

  “For your information, the pig’s name is Wilbur.”

  “Wilbur, then. A similar name and a momentary forgetfulness.”

  “Fleabrain, you have a terrific memory, and you know it. How can you forget something as important as a main character’s name? I bet you never even read Charlotte’s Web!”