I admit that I have lied to people about my foot when it’s in a cast—only with folks I’m not likely to see again, like bus drivers, shopkeepers, and random strangers.
But it can backfire.
One day I was waiting for the school bus and a woman stood next to me. She smiled and pointed at Cleo. “Ouch,” she said. “How did you do that?”
“Oh, this?” I said. “It’s nothing. Just a skydiving accident.”
“Really? Skydiving? That’s amazing!” she exclaimed. “You went skydiving? What happened?”
“It was a parachute failure,” I said. “It happens more than you think.”
The woman squinted at me. “Wait. So you jumped from an airplane and your parachute didn’t open,” she repeated.
“Yep. I broke my leg pretty bad, but it will be completely fixed in a few weeks.” I tapped Cleo and smiled. “It was just an accident; it could happen to anyone. Soon I’ll be back to normal, jumping out of planes.”
The woman nodded her head slowly and smiled back. “Hm, I see,” she said. “You are one lucky girl.”
The bus arrived and she helped me climb on board. “Good luck with the skydiving,” she said, waving good-bye.
A few weeks later, when our teacher was away at a conference, Principal Ibrahim came to our classroom and told us we would have a substitute teacher for the whole week.
In walked the woman from the bus stop. Her name was Ms. Honey and she was probably the nicest substitute teacher in the history of all substitute teachers. She let us spend entire mornings cutting pictures out of magazines to make a giant collage.
She never brought up our talk on the bus, but every time she looked at Cleo with her kind smile I wanted to hide under my desk.
Lying to strangers kind of lost its pizazz after Ms. Honey.
Chapter Four
Cowgirl and the Nutty Professor
Mom picked me up after school because we were going to Dr. Schofield’s for a checkup. Dr. Schofield has been Cleo’s doctor since I was a baby. He is super nice and he calls me his cowgirl. The cowgirl thing came about when I was tiny and I had a miniature leg brace that I used to bang around, and he would say, “Whoa there, cowgirl!”
Dr. Schofield has two sons who are a few years older than me. I’ve never met them, but I feel like I know them because of the photographs in his office. I have watched them get bigger in those photographs. The lengths of their hair and their smiles have become different. Geffrey, the younger one, now has braces on his teeth and in the latest photo he is trying to smile without showing any metal. Michael, the older son, now wears his hair over his eyes.
Dr. Schofield used to have a wife, too, but last year she stopped appearing in the office photographs. I overheard Mom telling her best friend Alisha one night when she was over for dinner that he had gotten a divorce. “It’s really sad,” Mom had said. “All those years together.”
Alisha had raised her eyebrows and her wine glass, saying, “A-ha,” nodding and smiling. Mom had rolled her eyes and swatted Alisha with her magazine. I was sent to bed soon after, so I didn’t get to hear any more about it. Whenever I ask Mom nosey questions about Dr. Schofield, she says, “That’s his personal business.” She always adds something more about being grateful to him, which has to do with our lousy medical insurance.
“Whoa there, cowgirl!” Dr. Schofield said to me when we went into his office. “How’s that foot of ours doing?”
“Good,” I said. This is what I always say.
“Have you been doing your exercises? Hm?” He asked, watching me. “Take a walk around for me.”
I did a few circuits around his office. Mom sat down in a chair in the corner of the office, watching me too. She was wearing lipstick.
“Are you still using your crutches?” he asked.
“No. Not much,” I said. “Just if I’m super tired.”
“That’s great to hear, Alba. “You’re managing to put full weight on it, just as I hoped.”
“This walking cast has been great,” Mom said to Dr. Schofield. “It’s made a world of difference, Alba being able to get around on her own.”
“Good, good,” said Dr. Schofield, turning toward Mom and smiling. “I’m glad to hear it.” They kept looking at each other. I stopped walking and coughed. Dr. Schofield turned to me, looking flushed.
“Okay, let’s see how it’s coming along,” he said, patting the exam table. “Up we hop, please.”
I sat on the bench and swung Cleo up on the table. Dr. Schofield took off the plastic boot, which looks more like an oversized sandal that protects the cast. He examined my toes poking out of the cast. The fiberglass cast wraps around my foot and up my calf to just under my knee. The most recent surgery was my final treatment to help Cleo point the right way.
“Any pain?” he asked. “Any tingling?”
“A little.” I nodded. “Not as much as before.”
“Wiggle your toes for me,” he said.
In the old days, when I was little, Dr. Schofield used to play This Little Pig with my toes.
“Looking good, cowgirl,” he said, giving me a wink. “I think we’re on track to take this puppy off very soon.”
“For keeps?” I asked.
“That’s my plan,” he said. “But you know, true works of art are never really finished.”
“Great,” I said to him. “Out of all the doctors in the world, I get the nutty professor.”
Dr. Schofield threw back his head and laughed. I like making him laugh.
He put the boot back around the cast.
“Once the cast is off, I’ll be able to do anything, right?” I asked him, keeping my gaze on Cleo.
“Well, I’d prefer it if you don’t try to climb Mount Everest straight away,” he said.
“But, I mean, like…running,” I said. I saw Mom straighten up in her seat when I said it.
“Once the cast comes off, you’ll have to work on your physio exercises,” he said. “But in time, I hope so.”
“How much time?” I asked.
“It depends, Alba. It will take a while to get used to walking without the cast. Your foot, your ankle, and your leg have gotten used to relying on the cast for strength and balance. You’ll need physio to stretch and strengthen those muscles again. The muscles will be smaller and weaker from being in the cast.”
“But—,” I started to say and Mom hushed me.
“Alba, listen to the doctor please,” she said.
“Let’s see how we’re doing when the cast comes off, okay?” Dr. Schofield said, helping me down from the exam table. “The good news is it won’t be like last time when we did the bone operation. That time, you were off your leg completely while it healed. This time around, you’ve been active during cast time, so it will be easier.” He paused. “You have worked a long time toward this final step, cowgirl.”
I nodded and put on my backpack, ready to go.
“Alba, can you make an appointment with Agnes in a couple of weeks?” said Dr. Schofield. “I just have to talk to your mom for a minute.”
Mom nodded at me. “I’ll be right out,” she said. They both stood watching me leave, and I closed the door behind me.
I had to wait until Agnes was finished on the phone, and then we looked at the calendar together. Agnes is not the kind of person you interrupt. If it wasn’t for the fact that I had known her so long, I would be terrified of her. Dr. Schofield sometimes answers her with a salute and “Yes, ma’am!”
“How is Friday after next?” Agnes asked me.
“That’s good,” I said, thinking that would give me that weekend—cast free!—to start my training for the cross-country race. No matter what Dr. Schofield said, I knew I could do it. I was going to be in that race.
“Let’s check with your mom, but you got it,” said Agnes. “Here.” She passed me her appo
intment calendar. I wrote my name in the Friday square and Agnes typed it into the computer. Then Agnes glanced over at Dr. Schofield’s closed office door.
“So what have you and your boyfriend been doing lately?” she asked, typing and smiling at her computer screen.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said, making a face at her. “I keep telling you that.”
“Sure, girl,” she said, winking. “You keep telling me that.”
Mom came out of the room. Usually when Mom comes out of the doctor’s office, she has a worried look on her face and she stares at Cleo. This time she stole a look at herself in the mirror behind Agnes’s desk. She took a deep breath and was still looking at herself in the mirror when she said, “Are we ready?”
Chapter Five
Barefoot Librarians
The next day at school, when we were meant to be working on our eco-project, Levi and I mulled over how we could get ourselves into the library over the lunch break.
“Let’s volunteer to collect all the classroom library baskets,” suggested Levi.
“But that’s a lot of work,” I said. “By the time we finish, lunch will be over.”
“We’ll use the elevator,” said Levi. “You can say your leg hurts.”
I nodded, but at the same time I was thinking that if we used the stairs, I could get in some powerful race training.
“We’ll use the wheelie cart too,” he added. “That will give us plenty of time.”
“The elevator is for staff only,” I said primly.
“Hah!” said Levi. “Since when do you care about that? Besides, we can’t use the wheelie cart on the stairs.”
Levi had the same bright-eyed look that he gets when he receives a new copy of his Junior Quantum Mechanics magazine. I knew it was impossible to argue. Besides, it was a good plan.
“Okay, you go and ask Ms. Sharma at first recess,” I said.
Levi shook his head. “No, you have to come with me,” he said. “There is a far better chance of her going for it if we both ask her.”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” I said, and it came out more testy than I expected. The truth was I wanted to get the wormhole drama out of the way so I could have his attention back. I wanted to tell him that my cast was coming off and that I wanted to run in the cross-country race. But I didn’t want to while he was giddy about cosmic tunnels.
I missed the old days when Levi’s curiosity was contained to birdlife.
***
We visited Ms. Sharma at first recess, and she totally went for the idea.
“Brilliant, helpful children!” she exclaimed, beaming. “What did I do to deserve you?”
Neither of us answered her, but I don’t think she expected us to. She is always asking questions without expecting an answer, like “Don’t you love the smell of pencil shavings?” or “Is there a better place to be than two pages into a good book?” or “Whoever said the library was boring?”
“Use the wheelie cart,” she suggested. Levi gave me a sideways look and I pinched him for being a smarty-pants.
Once we got started with our rounds, we zipped around the halls and up and down the elevator. I had never seen Levi so motivated. He dashed around like a lightning streak. I nibbled on my sandwich and watched him fetch and carry like no one’s business. My job was to push the wheelie. On our first return to the library, with the cart fully-loaded, Levi pointed to Ms. Sharma’s office.
“Look!” he said, already out of breath. “Her light is off!”
I nodded and stopped myself from saying—again—that she was likely in the staff room. Levi went to the office and peered through the glass door.
“Empty,” he said. “Let’s hurry!” He was practically throwing the library baskets off the cart. “We have to finish and get back here before she reappears.” I didn’t say a word—just followed behind and picked up the stray books that he dropped on the floor in his frenzy.
“We’ll leave this level until last,” he said, galloping ahead of the cart as we left the library. “Come on! Second floor!”
“Levi, calm down,” I told him, trying to keep up. “You’ll give yourself an asthma attack.”
By the time we finished the second floor and had unloaded the cart again, half of the lunch hour had gone by. Levi had stopped talking to conserve his breath, but he still had the same nostril-flared look on his face.
“We’re nearly done,” I said, “just a few more classrooms on the ground floor.”
When we finally reached the last classroom, Levi was looking desperate. “Quick!” he said, grabbing the basket. “Only a few minutes left!”
“Chillax,” I tried to tell him, but he ignored me and threw the last basket on the cart. Then he took over steering the wheelie and scooted ahead of me back toward the library. I looked at the clock on the classroom wall. Five more minutes to the end of lunch hour. I struggled to catch up.
“Five minutes,” I called out. I rounded the corner and banged into the back of Levi because he had stopped, dead in his tracks with the wheelie, inside the library doors.
Ms. Sharma’s office light was back on, but her door was still closed and the Do Not Disturb sign was still hanging on the door.
“Oh, she’s back,” I said.
“When I came in, her office was still dark,” he whispered, panting. “The office door was still closed. It was still dark. The room was still empty. Then the light came on…while I was watching! And then there she was, inside the office!”
“But she could have come in from the staff room before you got here,” I said.
“But her door would be open when she turned on the light,” said Levi. “Besides, I can see inside her office from here.” Levi waved madly at Ms. Sharma’s glass door. “It was empty.”
Ms. Sharma’s door swung open, making us jump. “Hello, children!” she said. “Look at all the work you managed to do. I hope you also ate your lunch.”
We nodded, watching Ms. Sharma take down the Do Not Disturb sign. Levi was spellbound in place. I gave him a shove to snap him out of his trance.
“We’ll just unload this last cart,” I said to her. “Come on, Levi.”
We pushed the wheelie over to the library book shelves, out of Ms. Sharma’s earshot.
“Did you see her feet?” Levi hissed at me over a stack of books.
I shook my head. “Why would I look at her shoes?” I asked him.
“That’s the point!” he said, eyes shining. “No shoes!”
“No shoes?” I repeated.
“She has bare feet!” Levi wagged his head like he was trying to dislodge an answer. “Maybe she loses them in the space-time shift.”
“Does that happen?” I asked.
“The evidence would suggest it,” he said, tilting his chin toward Ms. Sharma’s office.
I stared at the pile of baskets overflowing with library books. Then we heard Ms. Sharma call out from her office.
“Hey, Levi,” she said. She came out of her office and walked toward us, carrying a book in her hands.
“Look at what just came in,” she said, handing the volume to Levi. “The book you’ve been waiting for.”
Levi reached out and took the book in both hands. “The new illustrated version of A Brief History in Time,” said Levi in awe, studying the cover.
Ms. Sharma smiled. “And the best part,” she said, opening the book and pointing to the chapter index, “is that Professor Hawking has added a new chapter.” She tapped the page with her finger. “Look,” she said. “A new chapter on time travel and wormholes.”
Chapter Six
The Edge of Reason
Levi’s imagination had been pushed to the brink. On our way home from school, he staggered around like a drunken sailor and waved his arms around wildly. He could barely speak in full sentences.
“Did you…did you hear wh
at she said?” he panted. “It’s proof! It’s proof!”
I shook my head, wishing he would calm down. He looked more pale than usual. He was wheezing and his freckles seemed to leap off his face.
“I’ve got to get home and read the chapter on time travel and wormholes,” he continued. “It could be a code. A code to another galaxy!”
I watched Levi wave his arms around, nodding his head in deep thought. I knew that this craziness about wormholes was not going to stop.
How was I ever going to get his attention? How was I going to get his help with the race? How was I ever going to be a normal girl if I was spying on librarians?
“I hope you don’t expect us to keep doing the library baskets every lunch hour,” I told him.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I have a new plan.”
“Well, maybe I don’t want to be a part of your plan,” I said.
“What do you mean?” He said. “Why not?”
“Can’t you just be NORMAL for a change?” I blurted. “Why do you have to be so WEIRD?”
“What?”
“The wormhole is a STUPID idea. It’s impossible and dumb and it’s making you nuts. You’re getting yourself in a hot mess about it. And besides,” I said, “I’ve got important things of my own going on.”
Levi glared at me. “This is important,” he said. “This could be the most important discovery in the world.”
“It’s important to you,” I said. “To me, it’s just…it’s just…nerdy.”
I should have just told him there and then that I had plans of my own. Plans to run in the race. Plans that I wanted to put into action. But I still couldn’t.
Instead, I turned my back on him and left him standing on the sidewalk, looking like I had slapped him.
***
At home I threw myself into my leg exercises like never before. I have always been lazy about doing them because Cleo gets tired quickly. And it’s boring. But Dr. Schofield had told me that the more exercises I did while Cleo was still in the cast, the stronger I would be after the cast came off.
The Theory of Hummingbirds Page 2