It had never mattered so much in the past, but now the end was in sight. Cleo’s cast was coming off and I was going to be in the race.
I put full weight on Cleo, swinging my good leg back and forward. I tried to concentrate on making Cleo stronger and stronger. I focused on keeping my balance.
After a while I collapsed on the bed. I swung my leg up and took off the plastic boot. My foot and leg ached from the balance exercise.
I stared at the cast. What was it going to look like when it finally came off for the last time? I knew I would have scars from the surgeries. I also knew that my left leg would be skinnier than my right, because it hasn’t had a chance to grow the same. But would people notice? Was I finally going be normal?
The idea of being NORMAL hovered ahead of me like a glittering, shiny new world—a place that I had never been allowed into. Somehow I knew that if I could just run in the race like everyone else, it would prove that I deserved to be there—in magical Normal Land.
“Nice work,” said Mom, poking her head through my bedroom door. She came in and sat on the bed. Our pack of ancient dogs followed her.
Mom works at a nursing home for seniors called Golden Elm. This is why we have a collection of ancient pets. Golden Elm won’t allow animals, so the new residents have to give them up. Mom says it’s beyond stupid because it’s the time when they need their pets the most. So Mom hunts the pets down and we adopt them if we can. Sometimes she sneaks them in for visits. We’ve ended up with a proper menagerie. At last count we have two cats and three dogs.
There’s Smelly the beagle, Alfred the whippet, and Frieda, a Chihuahua who has a bottomless need for cuddles. The cats keep to themselves pretty much, which is sensible considering they are outnumbered.
“Look,” said Mom, handing me an envelope. “Sadie sent you something.” Mom sat on my bed and settled Frieda the Chihuahua onto her lap.
“Thanks,” I said, opening up the envelope. Sadie is Frieda’s first owner. We exchange things like photos, drawings, and stuff. She knows I have a thing for hummingbirds. Inside Sadie’s envelope was a magazine article about how to make a hummingbird feeder.
Mom patted my knee and got up again, carrying Frieda with her. “I’m going to make dinner,” she said. “Don’t forget to write Sadie a thank-you note.”
“Okay,” I said, petting Smelly the beagle, who had decided to stay behind and keep me company. Smelly yawned, releasing a waft of his stinky dog breath in my direction. I waved the air in front of his nose. “Gross,” I told him. He ignored me as usual.
I took a thin-tip marker and started to draw a picture for Sadie. I drew a charm of hummingbirds—that’s what a group of hummingbirds is called, a charm. The drawing was to go with a list of hummingbird facts that I had written for her. Last time I sent her a migration map. I was on my final hummingbird, a ruby throat, when the telephone rang. It was Levi’s mom.
“Hello, Alba,” she said. “Is your mom there?”
“Yes,” I said. I could tell from her voice that something was wrong. “She’s in the kitchen.”
“It’s Levi,” she said gently. “He had an asthma attack this afternoon.”
Chapter Seven
The Fledgling Birder Camp
Last year, Levi and I had gone to sleepover camp together. It was a camp for kids who liked bird watching. It was called the Fledgling Birder Camp. Levi had seen the advertisement for the camp in one of his nature magazines.
We couldn’t believe such an amazing place could be real. We had to go. We sent away for the brochure and launched a begging campaign with our mothers.
“Pleeeease, Mom,” I said, showing her the brochure for the hundredth time. “Please. We get to study real birds and sleep in real log cabins!”
We were relentless in our attack. Our moms were defeated within weeks. They signed us up to go in the summer.
The camp was held in a national park about two hours from where we live. When we arrived at the camp, the rangers gave us our birding kit: binoculars, a bird identification book, a pencil, and a blank field-notes booklet.
The field-notes booklet, we learned, was to write down our data: the birdlife we identified and any other wildlife observations.
“Is this heaven?” Levi asked me, flipping through the blank pages.
We had lessons on how to properly use our binoculars and how to use the “clock” method.
The clock method is a way of describing a location, because it’s not helpful to just point and say, “It’s over there.” Instead, you pretend you are looking at the face of a clock: twelve o’clock is straight ahead or above. One o’clock is a little to the right. Eleven o’clock a little to the left. And so on.
“I think I see a bright purple penguin,” Levi said, peering through his binoculars.
“You’re nuts,” I said.
“Nope. Definitely purple. Definitely a penguin,” said Levi, pointing. “At three o’clock.”
“Nuts,” I said again, looking through my own binoculars, trying to find it.
He wasn’t nuts. The camp rangers had stuck some dummy birds in the trees to get us started. By the end of our first day, we’d filled multiple pages of our field-notes booklet. We even managed to identify some real birds.
On the second day at camp, Levi had an asthma attack. A bad one.
Usually when Levi has trouble breathing, he puffs on his inhaler and it slowly gets better. This time Levi kept puffing, but it didn’t get better. I ran and told the rangers that he needed help. I ran back and held onto his hand, because I didn’t know what else to do. The camp rangers called an ambulance to take Levi to the local hospital.
When the ambulance arrived, the paramedics said I could ride along because Levi wouldn’t let go of my hand.
The truth is I never would have let go either.
Chapter Eight
Climbing Mount Everest
I gripped the telephone tightly. “Is he all right?” I asked Levi’s mom. “Can I talk to him?”
“Maybe later, okay?” she said. “He’s resting now. Don’t worry. But he won’t be at school tomorrow. I thought you’d like to know. Can I speak to your mom now?”
I handed the telephone to Mom and stood beside her while she nodded and said things like “Of course,” and “No problem,” in a quiet, soft voice. When she hung up, she gave me a hug. “He’s fine now; try not to worry,” she said. “But Levi’s mom is wondering if there is anything out of the ordinary going on at school right now. He seems very agitated at not being able to go in tomorrow.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
His asthma attack was my fault. I knew it. I never should have said the wormhole was a stupid idea. I never should have said it was weird. I never should have called him a nerd. “Um, we have our eco-project due, I guess.”
“Is that it? Can you hand it in for the both of you?” she asked.
“I suppose, but I really need to talk to him about some of the work first,” I said. “Can I go and visit him before school?” Levi had actually finished the project weeks ago. We had done it on the energy efficiency of hummingbirds. (Did you know that hummingbirds have the highest metabolism of all animals?) I had drawn a pie chart and done all the coloring-in.
“Let me ask Levi’s mom,” said Mom, dialing Levi’s number. “I’m sure it will be fine.”
I set my alarm an hour early the next morning so I could stop by his house on the way to school. Levi’s mom answered the door and led me into the kitchen where Levi was eating breakfast. “So nice of you to come over, Alba,” she said. “You two go ahead and catch up,” she said. “I’m going to take a shower.” She smiled at Levi and left the room.
“Hey, how are you feeling?” I asked Levi, sitting down at the kitchen table. He looked worn out.
“I’m okay,” he said. “Just tired, I guess.” Levi offered me a bowl of porridge.
> “Yuck,” I said. “I don’t know how you eat that stuff.” Then I remembered Mom telling me it’s rude to comment on people’s food choices.
“Sorry,” I said. “I had some toast already. So tell me what happened. Was it really bad?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t have to go to the Emergency Room.” Levi clutched his inhaler and glanced toward the kitchen door. “Listen, we need to talk about the wormhole.”
“Levi, I’m sorry about yesterday, but don’t you think you should just forget about the wormhole for now?” I said. “Your mom is worried about you. My mom asked what was going on at school, and I told her it was the eco-project. I don’t think you should be getting yourself worked up.”
Levi blinked. “Worked up? Just forget about it? Why don’t you understand the significance of this discovery? A wormhole is not something you just forget about. It may only be open for a short amount of time! What if it closes or collapses? What if it collapses with Ms. Sharma in it? What if she gets lost? What if she gets hurt? What if she can’t get back?”
“Levi, please calm down,” I said. “You’ll give yourself another attack.”
“It even says in this book,” he said, tapping the cover of his copy of A Brief History of Time, “that Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity offers the possibility that bridges, or wormholes, could be created to different regions of space-time.” Levi stared into the distance. “Maybe she has stumbled upon a wormhole left open by an advanced civilization!”
“Well, why don’t you just ask her?” I said.
“Ask who?” he said.
“Ms. Sharma. Just ask her where she goes at lunch. Ask her if she has a cosmic tunnel in her office.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” said Levi. “She’s not going to give up the best discovery of the universe to a sixth grader. She expects me to figure it out for myself. That’s why she told me to read this book.” He paused. “She is a teacher after all.”
We stared at each other for a few seconds. My mind wandered and I played imaginary dot-to-dot with the freckles on his left cheek.
“Focus!” he said. “We haven’t got much time before my mom comes back.” His eyes darted to the kitchen door. “To use a wormhole, you would need to warp space-time. But how? We need to find out how she is doing it. How could she—”
“I can’t,” I said, interrupting him.
“Why not?” Levi said. “Time is critical! Haven’t you been listening?”
I had to stop him from getting worked up again. I took a deep breath. I gave him a big, cheesy grin and threw my arms open like I was on a game show. “I’m going to run in the cross-country race!”
Levi leaned back in his seat, looking stunned. “What?” he said. “What are you talking about? How can you run in the race?”
The sting was sharp and sudden. My arms collapsed into my lap. I swallowed and felt a lump catch in my throat.
“My cast is coming off soon,” I said. “My doctor said it would be no problem.” My voice sounded croaky. “He said I’ll be able to do anything I want. He said I will be completely normal. He said I could even climb Mount Everest if I wanted.”
I turned away from him, pretending to look for something in my backpack. Tears started to burn at the corner of my eyes.
“Anyway,” I said. “You don’t even look sick. You look fine.” I knew it was an awful thing to say to someone who had been up all night trying to breathe. “But if it’s so important to you and your nerd hobby,” I went on, unable to quit being horrible, “you can look for the stupid wormhole by yourself when you get back to school.”
I stood up from the table, breathing heavily. “But if you ask me, it’s a dumb idea, and you’re only making it up because you’re scared of going outside.”
Everything was worse. I had come to try and make up for saying mean things and instead I was being even meaner. I couldn’t stop.
Levi didn’t say anything. He just sat at his kitchen table, staring at his porridge, gripping his inhaler. He looked as fragile as a bird. My heart was pounding hard.
“I have to focus on my race-training, but I’ll hand in the eco-project,” I said. “That’s all I came here to tell you.”
Just then Levi’s mom came back into the room. “Did you guys work out your project?” she asked.
“I have to go,” I said. “I’m going to be late for school.”
I didn’t wait for them to say good-bye. I brushed past Levi’s mom and made my way to the front door, hating the awkward way I walked. Hating my stupid limp.
I let myself out and walked to the school bus stop at the end of Levi’s street.
In my mind I kept seeing the shock on Levi’s face when I told him I wanted to run. His look of disbelief. His head bowed at my mean words.
The look on his face that told me I didn’t belong in the race.
Chapter Nine
Now You See Her!
The kids at school aren’t mean to me. It’s not like in the movies where the limping girl gets teased all the time. Not at all. I’m the girl that everyone is super polite to but who never gets invited for a sleepover.
There was one time when Allegra invited me for a playdate. It was back in first grade. It was terrible. Her grandmother spent the entire time with us, following me with her small, wet eyes. She watched me like I was an endangered animal. She asked a lot of questions—like about my dad, whom I have never met. At one point she put her heavy arms around me and pressed me to her chest, tut-tutting, saying, “You poor mite.” At the time I had a leg brace and I kicked her in the shins with it. When Mom came to get me I said that I couldn’t help it. “Allegra’s grandmother tried to suffocate me,” I told Mom in my defence.
There had been no more invitations.
The lunch hour drew closer. Kids like me are good at avoiding the playground. We know how to keep busy. I decided to go and talk to Coach Adams about the race. I had planned on speaking to Mom about it first, but now I’d gone and blabbed about my “race-training” to Levi, so I had to move things along.
“Hey, there’s my best timekeeper,” Coach Adams said when he saw me standing at his office door. “Come on in, Alba.”
Coach Adams’s office was crammed full of sports equipment, and it smelled musty like the gym. “What can I do for you?” he asked, looking down at his paperwork. He continued to fill in a chart at his desk.
“Um, the race…,” I started to say, still hovering at the doorway.
“Couldn’t do it without you, kiddo,” he said, still working on his chart. “I can count on you, right?”
“Well, I was wondering,” I said. “Um, the thing is…”
Coach Adams looked up from his work, peering at me, waiting for me to spit it out.
“I was, well, I wanted to ask if I could run instead of timekeeping.”
“I see,” he said, putting his pen down. “Come on in, Alba. Take a seat.”
I did as I was told. Butterflies fluttered around my insides. I sat down slowly.
“Why don’t you start by telling me how you’d like to participate,” he said.
“My cast is coming off soon,” I said, keeping my gaze on the whistle that hung around his neck. “And I’d like to run.”
“Have you talked to your mom about this?” he asked. “Are you cleared from your doctor to do that kind of activity? It’s a two-kilometer race, Alba. We need to make sure you will be okay.”
“I know,” I said. “I asked my doctor and he is fine with it.” The lie rolled like a stone down my throat and into my stomach.
“Well, that’s great, kiddo,” he said, but his eyes still looked worried. “I’ll miss your excellent timekeeping skills, but that’s great news.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll need to have a note from your doctor, okay?” he said, returning to his paperwork. “You can drop it by anytim
e.”
A note! I hadn’t thought about that. Of course I would need to get a note from Dr. Schofield.
“And, Alba,” he added, looking up. “Walking the race is fine too, you know, right? You don’t have to run.”
“I know,” I said, “but I want to run.”
Coach Adams nodded. “I understand, kiddo,” he said. “Just bring me the note, okay? And have your mom call me too.”
I got up from the seat feeling dizzy. The talk with Mom loomed ahead. I still had to get Dr. Schofield to write the note. But now that I had told Coach Adams, it felt almost real.
Running in the cross-county race, just like all the normal kids, was becoming real.
I left the coach’s office and almost bumped into Miranda Gray. She was standing in the hall outside the coach’s door. Had she heard my conversation with the coach? Miranda stared at me like she wanted to say something, but Coach Adams called to her and she went in without saying a word.
Coach Adams’s office is across the hall from the library, so as I turned away I looked through the double glass doors. I couldn’t help but notice that Ms. Sharma’s office was dark, the room was empty, and the Do Not Disturb sign hung on the closed door.
I looked down the hall at the other offices. Some offices had the door open with the light on. Others had the light off with the door open. Some doors were closed. None of the offices had the Do Not Disturb sign on the handle. It suddenly hit me why.
Teachers put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door when they are in their office. They don’t bother when they go to lunch. After all, if the room is empty there is no one to disturb.
I stood thinking about this, looking into the library, when it happened.
The light in Ms. Sharma’s office suddenly came on!
I couldn’t have missed her coming in from the lunchroom because I was standing at the library entrance.
I had to tell Levi! Surely it could not be true that there really was some kind of tunnel in Ms. Sharma office? A cosmic tunnel? And if it was a wormhole, like Levi said, could she be in some kind of danger? How was this happening? My mind raced with ideas.
The Theory of Hummingbirds Page 3