I didn’t answer the notes, but they kept right on coming. I shoved each one back across Andy’s desk. But he didn’t stop. The jokes got worse and worse. When Andy drew a picture of the founding fathers wearing ballet tutus and big curly wigs, the laughter exploded right out of my mouth.
Andy started laughing, too, and there was nothing either of us could do to stop.
“Andy Liddell! Pansy Smith!” Miss Quetzel shot a warning in our direction.
I clamped a hand over my mouth. I inhaled the laugh, and it came out as a snort. Andy’s whole body shook as he tried to keep the laughter from escaping.
I’d gone over the edge of the waterfall as far as the giggles went. There was no turning back, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.
Miss Quetzel erased a point from the Good Citizens chart and then stepped in front of my desk. “What’s with you two today? I think you’d better excuse yourselves if you can’t pull it together. I know you don’t want to spend any more than ten minutes of your recess in detention hall,” she said sharply.
I clamped a hand over my mouth and scooted out of the room, ignoring the dirty looks of some of my classmates.
“Thanks a lot, Pansy,” Hannah whispered as I rushed past her desk. But I was too busy giggling to pay much attention to her.
Andy and I collapsed against the wall by the water fountain, trying to catch our breaths.
“Pansy?” Andy asked a few minutes later, after we had calmed down. “Not mad at me anymore, are you?”
I shook my head. “Only for getting me in trouble.”
“Don’t worry,” Andy said with a grin. “I got myself in trouble, too.”
It wasn’t until we were back in the classroom taking our quiz that it all sunk in: I was missing part of recess and I’d caused the class to lose a Good Citizens point.
I tugged on my hair. There were also those goals I’d made about being Miss Quetzel’s favorite student and making straight A’s. This was not the way to go about it. Perfect students did not have total giggle fits during social studies movies.
To make things worse, I flunked the quiz. At least I wasn’t alone in that—Andy held a paper with a red F and the words PAY ATTENTION! written on the top.
I shoved the quiz in my desk, burying it beneath a pile of books. I hoped Miss Quetzel would forget all about it, just like I planned to do.
I glanced over at Andy, who was crumpling up his quiz and shoving it in his desk also. That’s when I felt a smile slowly spread across my face. If Anna had seen Andy’s drawings, she would have giggled along with us. I had three whole months to reach my goals, and I wasn’t about to let one giggle fit and an F on a quiz slow me down.
CHAPTER FOUR
Thirteen Weeks, Six Days
How’s the skating coming?” Dad asked on Saturday morning as he sat down next to me on the sofa.
“Skating?” I nibbled on a piece of toast with butter. I didn’t turn toward my dad, staring at the cartoon on the TV instead.
Dad pulled off his gardening gloves. Then he flicked off the TV.
“Daaaad! I was watching that!”
Dad ignored me. “You are the girl who was begging for ice-skating lessons a few days ago, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“You better get a move on, then. I saw the Liddells outside, and they said they’re going to Gateway Park. It’s a great day for roller-blading.”
I popped the rest of the toast in my mouth and brushed off the crumbs on my pajamas. “I bet they’ve already left by now,” I said hopefully.
“As a matter of fact, they’re stopping by in fifteen minutes. Andy’s bringing his skates.”
“Great,” I mumbled. Why would anyone want to ruin a perfect day by going roller-blading? I knew Andy hadn’t come up with the idea on his own. He’d much rather spend the day reading mysteries in his tree house, drawing comic strips, or building with his new LEGO set.
Dad clapped me on the shoulder, picked up his gardening gloves, and headed back outside.
I guess that was his way of saying, “Good luck. You’ll need it.”
There went my nice lazy morning. I let out a big sigh. All week long I’d tried to be extraordinary, talking to people I didn’t know and raising my hand in class even when I didn’t know the answer. It was a lot of hard work, and I was ready for a day off. But there was no way out of this one, so I got dressed and waited on the front porch for the Liddells.
When I saw Mrs. Liddell, Andy, and Anna appear around the corner, my heart skipped a beat. Mrs. Liddell was pushing Anna in a wheelchair. She could have walked to the park. But it would take a really long time because she liked to wander around instead of going in the right direction.
I waved as I hopped off the steps to greet them. “Hi, Mrs. Liddell. Hey, Andy.”
I squeezed Anna’s hand, the one that wasn’t clutching a pink teddy bear. “Hi, Anna! We’re going skating today!”
Anna looked up at me with her big blue eyes. A crooked smile stretched across her face.
“Wish you could skate with us,” I whispered so no one else could hear.
My dad had been right about one thing: it was a great day to be outside. Andy and I walked along behind Mrs. Liddell and Anna, talking about Saturday morning TV cartoons. White clouds dotted the blue sky. A breeze fluttered the leaves on the trees, which were beginning to change colors.
I picked up a yellow leaf and ran my fingers across it, feeling that butterfly flutter inside me again. Summer was turning to fall, and fall would turn into winter, like it did every year. And just like I knew the seasons would change, I knew that a bigger change would take place in a few months.
After Anna’s stroke, the doctors said she’d never walk again. But only a couple months later, she started walking and even running. The doctors said that Anna had permanent brain damage and there wasn’t a cure. But I knew the surgery would fix her brain, and soon she’d be roller-skating in the park with me, instead of sitting in a wheelchair, watching.
“I thought you gave up roller-blading,” Andy said a little while later as we sat on the grass, lacing up our boots.
“That was last year,” I told him. “I thought I’d give it another try.”
Most people who’d seen me up on skates would have laughed and said I had the right idea last year when I quit. But not Andy. He just held out a hand to help me to my feet.
“We’ll be at the playground,” Mrs. Liddell said.
Andy nodded and began to make his way toward the paved path.
I hobbled on my wobbly skates over to Anna’s wheelchair, which Mrs. Liddell had parked by a bench. “Just watch!” I told her. “I’m going to be a real pro!”
Anna looked into my eyes as though she understood what I’d said. She couldn’t talk, of course, and if you told her to do something, she wouldn’t. But when I spoke to her, I got the feeling she was really listening. I touched her golden half-heart necklace. And I wondered, as I did every time I saw her wear it, if Anna was still wearing that necklace when she came home from camp, after our big fight. Or had Mrs. Liddell dug it out of her jewelry box because she remembered how Anna used to wear it every day?
It was one of those questions I was dying to know the answer to, but I never had the guts to ask.
I touched the necklace I wore, the other half of the heart. As I stared into Anna’s eyes, I could almost hear her say, “You can do it, Pansy!” Then she smiled out of one side of her mouth.
I smiled back. Anna believed in me. She always had.
I began walking on the grass toward the path where Andy waited. I will not fall, I told myself as I picked up one foot at a time. I felt a lot like a baby trying to walk across the living room rug for the first time. But I filled my head with positive thoughts.
If Anna believed in me, anything was possible.
***
I stepped onto the path and noticed the ducks for the first time. They floated across the lake, some of them dipping their heads beneath the surfa
ce for food, some quacking, some honking.
All my good thoughts disappeared. Poof! Learning to roller-blade on a path that surrounded a big lake suddenly seemed like a really terrible idea.
Andy didn’t seem to be bothered by the large amount of water we could suddenly find ourselves submerged in. He pushed off unsteadily, arms flailing for balance. “Let’s go!” he yelled as he took off with awkward strokes.
Okay. Take a deep breath, I told myself. Just. Don’t. Look. At. The. Water.
I concentrated on my feet and the path ahead. The pick-up-one-foot-after-another method that had worked on the grass wouldn’t work here, so I pushed off across the smooth pavement in a tipsy way. I must have pushed a little too hard, though, because my left leg trailed behind and I almost did a split. And not a very graceful one. The former fourth-grade klutz hadn’t disappeared at all. She was just a little bit older.
Oh, why had I let Dad talk me into this today? The sky was too blue and the clouds were too fluffy to expect a quiet park where a person could learn to skate in peace. If I didn’t fall down on my own, I definitely would when a biker, runner, or skater whizzed by a little too closely.
“Come on, Pansy!” Andy called back to me. He was miles ahead now.
I rolled to a stop by leaning over and reaching for the ground. This wasn’t so difficult since I was barely moving anyway. “Go on ahead!” I yelled to him as I kneeled down on the path. “I’ll catch up later!”
Catch up? Ha, ha. Only in my dreams. Soon he’d be back around, catching up with me on his second lap.
Which was exactly what happened. I’d fallen twice by then and could already feel a blister popping up on my right ankle.
“Looking good!” Andy said as he clapped me on the shoulder.
Andy’s pat was enough to send me to the ground again. That’s when I heard the sound of wheels behind me. I stood up bravely, turning to see what was coming.
“Look out!” warned Andy as a skateboarder pulled by three yapping dogs tried to pass me on the left.
I tried to step back out of the way. Instead of rolling backward, I rolled forward. Right into three outstretched leashes. My arms waved around in the air, and I could feel I was losing my balance, so I reached out for the leashes to keep from falling.
The skateboarder jumped off his board. “Whoaa!” he commanded his dogs, which might have meant “stop” in some languages but not in a language the dogs understood.
“Hey, wait, come back here!” the skateboarder yelled when he realized his dogs were no longer pulling him.
They were pulling me!
“AAAAHHH!!!” Screams echoed in my ear, and it took a second to realize they were coming from my mouth. The other people on the path turned into a colorful blur as I flew past, clutching the leashes. My heart dropped to my toenails, and I finally got what people meant when they said, “My life flashed before my eyes.”
And then the craziest thing happened: the three dogs must have sent ESP messages to each other because together they turned, heading down the hill toward the lake.
“HELPPPP!!!!” I screamed. My Rollerblades hit the uneven ground, and my legs shook as I rolled over rocks and bumps.
“Tiko! Bansai! Moochers!” yelled the skateboarder.
I heard Andy calling my name, but I couldn’t answer him. I was being hurled toward my death. I was about to sink into the mucky lake, my Rollerblades sticking out of the water to show where I’d gone. There’d be no Good Citizens party for me because I’d be dead. Which, of course, would disappoint Anna once she got better.
I wouldn’t be too happy about it, either.
Get hold of yourself, Pansy! My logical voice kicked in. I could avoid death and humiliation if I stopped myself before landing in the lake. But how? There was only one thing I could do. And luckily, it was something I was exceptional at. I had to drop the leashes and fall.
So I did.
Everything happened so fast. The earth rushed up to meet me, and I landed face forward with a thump. My hands stung as I sat up and spit out a clump of grass. The dogs turned and circled the lake. The skateboarder didn’t stop to ask how I was. He got back on his skateboard and took off after his dogs. “Tiko! Bansai! Moochers!” his voice bellowed into the distance.
Whoosh! My breath came out fast, the way air escapes from a bike tire when you hit a nail. My right palm was bleeding, but my kneepads had stayed in place. I wrapped my arms around my knees and rocked back and forth, staring out at the sun reflecting off the lake.
“Wow, you were something!” Andy sounded excited as he dropped down next to me. “You were going really fast!”
I threw my arms around Andy, knocking him to the ground. “I made it!” I yelled. “I faced death, and I survived!”
Andy sat up and laughed. “The lake’s only about four feet deep, you know.”
“Really?” I brushed hair out of my eyes. “But still. The dogs could have flung me into the lake, and I could have hit my head on a rock. CRRRACK. That would have been the end of Pansy Smith.”
Andy laughed again. “The end of your Rollerblades, maybe.”
I looked down at my skates. Maybe that wouldn’t have been such a bad thing.
“Anyway, you did great. You stayed up for a long time.”
“Really?”
Andy nodded. “I would have let go a lot quicker than you did. You looked like a pro.”
“A pro? Yeah, right,” I said with a grin. “Hey, do me a favor.”
“What?”
“Promise you’ll never tell anyone I got pulled by dogs across Gateway Park and almost ended up in the lake.”
Andy laughed.
“I mean it,” I said. “Promise?”
Andy shrugged. “Okay. I promise. Though I’d be proud of it if I were you.”
We sat on the grass, staring at the water for a few minutes while I caught my breath. Andy got to his feet first. “Come on, let’s go around again.”
Again? Wasn’t I daring enough for one day? But I reached for his hand even though I was feeling pretty sore and a bit shaky. This time I made it all the way around with only two falls. It was an improvement, but I’d had enough. I limped over to the nearest bench and pulled off my skates.
Andy sat down next to me. “Are you okay?”
“Sure.” I wiggled my toes. Even though I was starting to feel like one big bruise, I decided not to say anything. “We’d better get back to Anna and your mom, though.”
We walked slowly back to the playground. “Mom, you should have seen what happened to Pansy!” Andy said when we spotted her on the bench by the swings. “She was sensational! You wouldn’t believe it!”
“I wasn’t sensational,” I said, taking off my helmet.
“It’s not every day that someone gets pulled by dogs across Gateway Park,” Andy said. “I didn’t even know Pansy could skate.”
“I can’t,” I protested.
Mrs. Liddell gave me a quick smile, but I knew she wasn’t listening. I watched her brush the hair away from Anna’s face. “Anna had a bad seizure just now,” she said quietly.
My heart thumped harder than when the dogs were pulling me.
“Another one?” Andy asked. “I thought she had a bad one last night.”
“She did. I was hoping she wouldn’t have any today.”
I kneeled down next to the wheelchair and reached for Anna’s hand. Anna must have been asleep because she didn’t squeeze back. “Is she all right?”
“She’s fine,” Mrs. Liddell said. “The seizures just wear her out.”
I only nodded, because I didn’t know what to say to Mrs. Liddell. Even though it was a warm day, goose bumps popped up on my arms. Mom had explained to me that Anna was having seizures because of the brain damage. She had to wear a special helmet when she walked because if she had a seizure, she’d fall to the ground and pass out—and she could get really hurt.
“I hope you feel better,” I whispered to her even though she was sleeping.
�
��I hate to cut the afternoon short,” Andy’s mother said. “I was hoping to have a picnic lunch. I packed sandwiches and chips . . .”
“That’s okay,” I said. “Anna needs to go home.” I glanced over at Andy. He shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked a pebble across the pavement.
On the way home, I wanted to say something to make him feel better about Anna’s seizures the way he’d made me feel better about my roller-blading. I wanted to tell Andy that the seizures would be all gone once the doctors operated on her brain. But for some reason, I still hadn’t told him I’d overheard Mom’s phone conversation. As much as I wanted to talk about it, I kept waiting for Andy to bring it up first.
We walked beside each other, taking turns kicking the pebble down the sidewalk. Neither of us said a word all the way home.
CHAPTER FIVE
Thirteen Weeks, Six Days
I pushed open the front door and dropped my Rollerblades on the floor with a loud clunk.
“Pansy?” Mom looked up from where she sat eating lunch at the kitchen table. “You’re home early. How’d it go?”
“Okay,” I said, deciding not to tell her about my adventure with the dogs. “But we had to skip the picnic. Anna had another bad seizure, and they had to go home.”
“Is Anna all right?”
“I guess.” I sat down next to Mom. “Mrs. Liddell said she gets super tired from the seizures.”
“I know. It can take a lot out of a person, going through that all the time.” Mom put down her coffee cup and stared straight at me. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
“About Anna?” I asked.
Mom nodded. “The Liddells think they know a way to stop the seizures. Or most of them anyway.”
A grin stretched across my face. “Do you mean surgery? I already know all about it. Anna’s going to have an operation on her brain!”
“How did you find out?”
“I overheard you talking on the phone to Mrs. Liddell last week.”
“Honey,” Mom said, reaching for my hand. “Look at me.”
I did. Mom’s mouth was a straight line, and her eyes didn’t sparkle with the excitement I felt. When she spoke, her voice was firm and serious. “I need you to listen. The Liddells are considering surgery to help with the seizures. But they can’t bring the old Anna back. Do you understand?”
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