by Lynn Plourde
“Nope. Just ’cause you can’t see me, doesn’t mean I don’t want to see you when we talk. Also, I don’t have my own phone but I do have my own computer, and this way we can talk anytime we want. Can you figure it out?”
She did figure it out with her dad’s help, fortunately, because talking with Abby turned out to be almost as good as being with her.
“So when will they let you have a phone?” Abby asked. “I’ve had one since fourth grade.”
“Lucky you,” I said.
“I’m not so sure it’s luck,” said Abby. “I think my parents agreed because I’m blind, and they figured it was a way to keep track of me and, hopefully, keep me safer.”
“What’s going on with Devon?” I asked. “I didn’t even notice her crutches when we were sitting and talking at lunch.”
“She has something called hereditary spastic paraplegia. Don’t worry, you won’t catch it—like you can’t catch my blindness and I can’t catch your shortness.”
“Ha-ha! Not funny! I wasn’t worried about catching it. Just wanted to know how she’s doing.”
“She’s pretty cool with it,” Abby said. “It is getting worse though. Someday she’ll need a walker and then later a wheelchair to get around as her leg and hip muscles get weaker. But she keeps her upper body strong and hopes PT will keep her from needing more leg support for as long as possible.”
“PT?” I asked.
“Physical therapy.”
“Oh, I get it. My mom does speech therapy—maybe it’s called ST. Now let’s talk about MRD.”
“MRD?” asked Abby.
“Yes, MRD—Mrs. Russell’s disability.”
Abby laughed. “Oh, I’m trying not to let that woman drive me crazy. She’s sooooo different from the ed tech I had the last three years. Mrs. Simonds was the best and very funny, but she moved to Florida. She hated Maine winters.”
I interrupted. “That doesn’t explain Mrs. Russell.”
“Last year she was an ed tech at the elementary school with a kindergarten girl. I think she’s adjusting to the fact that I’m more independent and don’t need her to hold my hand or butter my bread. She shouldn’t even go to lunch with me. Mrs. Simonds never did, but Mrs. Russell says, ‘I want to learn as much as I can about you, dear.’”
“Mrs. Russell does seem to have an attitude.”
“Yeah,” agreed Abby. “She’s uncomfortable with both kid talk and blind talk, so she tries to control every conversation.”
I laughed. “She should know there’s no controlling us middle schoolers.”
I paused. It’s the first time I’d thought of myself as a middle school kid and didn’t flinch or barf or anything.
Woof! Woof! Woof!
“Is that my favorite puppy?” asked Abby.
“Sure is. She walked in and the second she saw you on the computer screen, she started wagging her tail and barking. She knows it’s you, Abby.”
“Aww, Maxi, way to make me feel special. What a good girl!”
Woof! Woof! Whiiiiiiiiine!
“What’s she doing now?”
I laughed. “She jumped up, with her front paws on my desk. Man, she’s getting tall. I think she was going to lick the computer screen. But when she got close and couldn’t smell you, she got upset and started whining. She wants it to be the real you.”
“Aww, Maxi, you’re too cute. Now I see why we should be doing FaceTime, Timminy.”
“The screen works both ways, Abby. Now I get to see your secrets, you book hoarder you.”
“You mean these?” Abby asked as she ran her hand across a whole row of books.
“Yeah, those.”
“It’s my can’t-wait-to-read stash.”
“Whoa!” I said.
“I’m going to be a librarian when I grow up—”
“Really? But wouldn’t that be hard since you’re—”
“Blind? Yeah, it’ll be a challenge, but challenges don’t scare me, if you haven’t noticed. You haven’t seen all the special software and adaptive equipment they have for the blind. By the time I go to college, they’ll have even more.”
“Your books—are they regular books?”
“Yes, regular in that they tell the same story you read, but I read braille books sometimes, audiobooks other times, and JAWS is good too.”
“The old shark movie?”
Abby laughed. “No, JAWS is a software program on PC computers that reads the words on the screen aloud to me, or VoiceOver on Macs does the same thing too.”
“Cool, you’ll have to show me how it works sometime.”
“Sure.”
“Until then, could you do me a favor?”
“Maybe?” Abby sounded suspicious.
“Don’t worry—nothing that will poke out your eyeballs. Could you recommend some books for me? I haven’t been reading anything other than school books lately.” (Even though I’d been sitting at the reading nerd table!)
“Will do,” said Abby. “Now you know my dream job, what’s yours—besides being tall?”
“I don’t know. I’ve only ever thought about what I can’t be when I grow up—since I’m so short. Can’t be a butcher and see over the counter or an NBA player or an air force pilot—gotta be sixty-four inches for that one. Let me think about it and get back to you.”
“No rush,” said Abby. She almost looked pleased.
So I asked, “Why the smile?”
Abby laughed. “I forget that you can see me with FaceTime. I’m smiling because it’s nice for you not to have an answer for once. You always jump in with one of your jokes or sarcastic comments—so people can’t get to know the real you.”
Then she hung up.
Abby didn’t give me a chance to say anything back, which was okay. For once, I had nothing to say.
But I grinned later when I saw Abby’s email with the subject line: Book Recommendations for Timminy—You’re Welcome! She’d put everything into a spreadsheet with titles, authors, publication dates, lists of awards they’d won, even a space to write my critique for each book. Phew! Abby was some serious about her librarian dream.
I hit reply and said, “Looks kind of like a homework assignment! Thanks, I think!”
• • •
SECRET #26
We all need dreams.
CHAPTER 27
THE NEXT MORNING I walked down the hall to meet the Beast of the East at my locker (which I think was on the south side of the building—so maybe I could be the Mouth of the South and Rory and I could become comic book characters).
But before I ever got there …
BAM!
Shoved inside someone else’s locker!
SLAM!
Everything dark!
Just as dark as my locker, except stinkier. BO stinkier. Hadn’t this kid heard about deodorant?
I jiggled the back of the lock—no luck. I didn’t want to make a scene, but asphyxiation would come sooner in this locker, much sooner.
To scream or not to scream? That was the question. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I heard a knock a couple of lockers away, then another knock on the locker next to me, and then on the locker I was in, and then on the locker after me. Yikes, my chance to escape was escaping! So I said loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough to sound like an announcement over the intercom, “Hey! Pssssst! This one.”
There was a pause in the knocking. Nothing happened, so I tried again, “This one here,” as I knocked ever so lightly on the inside of the locker.
Rattle! The door opened. I gulped in fresh air, like you would before going underwater for a deep dive, in case the locker was gonna slam shut again. But it didn’t, and there was …
My hero?
The Beast of the East.
He yanked me out and shut the locker.
“Your locker?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“Stinks like you.”
“I said nope.”
“Then whose?”
“Ain’t sayin
’.”
“One of your buddies? Got a thug to do your dirty work?”
“Shut up, Minny. You weren’t at your locker so I figured it happened again. You’re an easy target.”
“Yeah, this is getting to be a bad habit. I really do need to learn how to jimmy open lockers.”
“Then you figure it out,” said Rory. “I don’t share my secrets with pipsqueaks. Pipsqueaks who insult me.”
He stomped off.
I slunk off.
Maybe it was time to shut up. I hoped that was possible, since my smart-aleck mouth seemed to have a life of its own.
At lunchtime, I headed straight to Abby’s table, determined to shut my mouth. Just watch, listen, and get to know everyone better. Even if they teased me about last Friday’s lunch disaster, I’d shut up. Even if Mrs. Russell started in with her she-rules-kids-drool attitude, I’d shut up. It was time to start learning how to fit in—if that was even possible.
NOT.
POSSIBLE.
I hadn’t even sat down when I knew I’d never fit in.
NEVER.
There was a booster seat on the empty chair next to Abby.
A booster seat for a toddler … waiting for me.
I glared at the booster seat.
Everyone was laughing.
“So you think this is funny?” It was hard to talk between gritted teeth.
“What’s funny?” asked Abby.
“No need to pull your innocent act, Ab—”
Mrs. Russell interrupted. “Timminy’s wish came true already, to be taller.”
Brian chuckled. “Yeah, Abby, feel beside you. There’s a booster seat for Timminy.”
Abby’s arm reached out. When she felt the plastic booster seat, her head fell back and she clapped her hands as she squealed in delight.
I stared at each of them, even longer at Abby. I wanted to make sure she felt my stare.
“Not funny,” I growled.
Abby and her friends stopped laughing—but it was too late.
A shout ricocheted from across the cafeteria. “HEY, WHO’S THE BABY WITH THE BOOSTER SEAT?”
I looked from this table to the next and the next. Everyone was staring, pointing, laughing …
At me.
Me—one big joke!
I knew they were waiting for me to say something.
But I held back.
At least I remembered my promise to myself. To shut my mouth.
I hadn’t made any promises about my hands though. And they couldn’t hold back the anger gushing out of me. Just like hands can’t hold back a flooding river.
I picked up the booster seat, took two steps away from the table, and slammed it as hard as I could.
CRASH!
It bounced across the table, sent two lunch trays skidding to the floor, and then …
IT SMACKED DEVON!
Knocked her backward off her seat with her metal crutches clattering and clunking in two different directions.
Gasps replaced laughter.
I gulped down my own gasp.
A second gasp filled the cafeteria as the word Timminy! rang out.
Pronounced correctly, of course. My dad. No, Mister Harris.
Mr. Harris stared at me. Everyone stared at me—except Abby. Let them stare. All of them.
I did not care.
Take that, booster seat!
Take that, Dad!
Take that, Skenago Middle School!
• • •
SECRET #27
When the world gnaws on you day after day, there comes a day when they reach the bone and you just can’t take it anymore.
CHAPTER 28
WHEN I LEFT the cafeteria, my instincts said, Run! To my secret stall in the bathroom. But I didn’t.
I wasn’t going to hide anymore. Hiding hadn’t worked—short as I was, they still found and tortured me.
So I stood outside the cafeteria with my arms folded and my mouth shut. Let them all gawk at me. Take pictures if they wanted. Show their friends. Enter me in the Guinness World Records for shortest middle school loser.
Some students came up to me as they left the cafeteria. I stared straight ahead like a wax museum figure. They moved their mouths but I didn’t hear a thing. It was as if my ears had shut too, along with my mouth. For the first time, I realized how good Maxi had it. She could shut out part of the world. I wanted to shut out all of it.
Except for Maxi.
When Mr. Harris stepped up, I couldn’t hear anything he said either. Maybe he didn’t say anything. Maybe he had locked his words inside too, for later.
I followed him. We both knew that’s what he wanted.
I sat outside his office and stared straight ahead.
Mom picked me up. She knew better than to talk to me. No Maxi in the car this time.
When we got home, Maxi’s tail thump-thump-thumped against the wall as she raced to greet me in the entryway. I leaned down, and she licked my face as she tried to wash away my day. But even she didn’t have the power to do that.
I think I took her out to do her business. But I can’t be sure. When you do something day after day, it doesn’t register. Was it today or yesterday I brushed my teeth, combed my hair, took Maxi out? Some things in life work on autopilot. I could handle the autopilot parts. You don’t have to feel when you’re on autopilot.
We ended up in my room. On my bed. For days. Just letting each other be. No pressure. Just be.
I heard my parents talking, trying to coax me into opening up, but I kept staring at the ceiling, Maxi still at my side.
I might never be ready to talk. And I loved Maxi for being okay with that.
• • •
SECRET #28
Everyone needs somebody to let them just be.
CHAPTER 29
THE ONLY THING that mattered was Maxi. She stayed with me. She knew I wasn’t ready to be alone. So she stayed.
Until Saturday. Maxi had to go to her obedience class. But she wouldn’t leave me. My parents hooked her leash to her collar and tugged, but she threw a paw across my chest and wouldn’t let go. They tried to lift her off my bed, but she burrowed her head under me and spread her paws out in every direction trying to dig in.
Mom sighed and said, “Timminy, can you help us with Maxi?”
I looked at Maxi and said, “She won’t go unless I go.”
“Then let’s go!” said Mom. “We’re going to be late.”
I gestured with my head toward the door. No need to use words. Maxi couldn’t hear and we had both figured out how to understand each other without words.
She jumped off the bed and wagged her tail like crazy. She was excited to leave this cave we’d been hibernating in. Poor girl. Even though she looked like a polar bear, she wasn’t the kind of bear that was supposed to hibernate. Her windshield-wiper tail wag turned into a full-circle, windmill tail wag. She only wagged that way when she was extra excited. I felt myself smile for the first time in days, just a little, at her happiness. It felt strange and good all at the same time, as if something were waking up inside me.
When we got to her class, Maxi wouldn’t get out of the car unless I did.
Mom sighed and passed Maxi’s leash to me. “Here, Maxi wants you, Timminy.”
I wasn’t sure what to do, but then I remembered Maxi knew. She’d been here before so I followed her lead. It might be a class to teach Maxi new ways of behaving, but it seemed Mom and I were the ones learning new behaviors.
Maxi’s class was filled with squirming, yapping puppies in every shape and size. And their owners came in every shape and size too, but mostly they were my mom’s age and they cooed over one another’s puppies. I tried to ignore them. Maxi and I weren’t here to socialize. We had work to do.
Things started with a review of the last lesson, practicing sit and stay. Maxi had those mastered—most of the time. The next command was down, which meant lie down on the ground. I needed to make up a sign language signal for down. Common sense wa
s my guide. I held my arm out straight in front of me and then lowered it while saying “down.” Of course, Maxi stayed up, but I looked around and saw that so did all the other puppies. The instructor walked by and whispered, “Don’t forget the cheese.” So the next time, I held a chunk of that stinky horseradish cheese in my hand as I lowered my arm all the way to the ground. The front half of Maxi’s body lowered as if she were bowing, so then I reached back with my other hand and pushed down on her butt. It worked! Maxi lay down and got the cheese, and I got a pat on the back from the instructor. “Nice job, kid.”
“Nice job, pup.” I patted Maxi.
She followed the down command over and over, until I no longer had to push on her butt or say the word down. I just did the gesture. She understood and knew the cheese was coming her way as long as she lay down when I gestured downward with my arm. The instructor noticed and gave me a thumbs-up.
Next was the come command. All I had to do was get Maxi to sit and stay. Then I walked away from her, said “come,” and made a big waving, beckoning gesture with the cheese in my hand. Maxi came bounding right to me to get the cheese.
“Hope to see you two next week,” the instructor said as class ended. I smiled and nodded.
I planned on practicing the commands with Maxi every day. This next week would be all about her. She’d made the last few days all about me so it was my turn to pay her back—not that she expected it. Maxi never expected anything. She was grateful each time she got food, pats, loving. She never took them for granted.
I hoped I never took her for granted.
• • •
SECRET #29
When you expect nothing … everything is a treat.
CHAPTER 30
WHEN WE GOT home, my parents asked me to show them what Maxi had learned at obedience school. I said, “Later, I promise. But first, Dad, I need you to take me to see someone.”
He blew out a big breath and asked, “Abby?”
“Not Abby.”
“That’s good,” he said. “I talked to her parents and she’s not ready to see you. Not yet anyway.”
Dad looked at me like he expected an answer. There was no answer. I wasn’t ready to see her either.
“Devon,” I said. “I need to see Devon.”