Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus

by Dusti Bowling

  I felt like I was starting to understand Connor’s tics—what made them worse and what made them better. Definitely when Connor was stressed or excited about anything, his tics got worse. When he felt calm and comfortable, they weren’t so bad. I guess video games got him worked up.

  Mom walked in the door just as we were putting the games away. “You absolutely would not believe what Bob did now,” she said as she threw her hat down on the kitchen table.

  I looked at Connor and whispered (in a Dracula accent for some reason), “Murdered someone.” He giggled.

  She walked into the living room and saw Connor. “This must be Connor.” She reached out her hand to shake with his.

  “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Green,” Connor said softly. I could tell he was trying to hold his tics in.

  “Nice to meet you, too,” Mom said.

  Connor let out a loud bark and Mom jumped back. “Oh, my.” She giggled. “That was interesting.”

  “Connor has Tourette syndrome,” I reminded her.

  “Oh,” she said. “That’s right. Don’t look so nervous, honey.” Mom touched Connor’s arm to put him at ease. “It will only make your tics worse.”

  I looked at her in surprise. “Mom, you know about Tourette’s?”

  She gave me an annoyed look. “Aven, I was a psych major in college. Of course I know about Tourette’s.”

  “You were a psych major in college?” I said. “What’s that?”

  She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Psychology. Don’t you ever listen to me when I talk?”

  “No,” I joked, “ ’cause you usually just talk about boring old people stuff.”

  Mom grabbed me and ran her knuckles over my head, messing up my hair. “Ouch!” I cried, wriggling away from her.

  “All right, I’m going to get dinner started. Will you two do me a favor and run over to the gold mine and fire Bob?”

  I smiled, but Connor looked grave. “Thank you, Mrs. Green, but I’m not staying for dinner.”

  “Yes, you are,” I said. “Your mom’s working. What are you going to eat for dinner if you don’t eat with us?”

  Connor froze up, like he had no idea what to say to that. “I’ll eat . . . cereal.”

  “That’s unacceptable,” Mom said. “You’re eating with us. Then I’ll take you home after dinner since your mom’s working.”

  Connor appeared absolutely terrified at the thought. “No . . . really . . . I like . . . cereal.” He could barely get the words out from his ticcing.

  “Why won’t you eat, Connor?” I asked. “Are you anorexic?”

  He seemed to relax a little at that and laughed. “No, I’m not anorexic. I just . . . ”

  “What?” I nearly shouted. “I’m your friend, Connor. Tell me.”

  “Sometimes I . . . spit when I eat.” Connor’s cheeks were bright red as he shrugged and blinked his eyes rapidly. “I spit food at people.”

  Mom gave Connor an understanding smile. “That’s not uncommon,” she said. “We’ll all wear rain gear at dinner tonight.” And with that, she opened a cabinet and started pulling out potatoes.

  Connor looked at me. “I hope you have face masks, too.”

  I kicked at his shoe. “See? It’s no big deal. We know you can’t help it.”

  Connor’s expression changed. “I wish my parents were as understanding as yours. It got to the point at home that neither one of them wanted to eat with me anymore. My dad would yell at me for spitting and that would make it worse.” He tugged at his hair. “Now I just eat in my room by myself. My mom’s hardly ever around so it doesn’t matter anyway.”

  “It matters,” I said emphatically. “It matters a lot.”

  As we were setting the table for dinner, Dad walked in. “I think that old llama might have to be put down,” he said sadly, shoulders slumped.

  My head shot up. “What? No, not Spaghetti!” I cried. Mom and Dad both gave me a funny look. I shrugged. “We have a special connection.” I looked at Connor. “We’re X-Men,” I added softly.

  “I’m sorry, honey,” Dad said. “He’s so old. He’s like twenty-two years old. Denise said he’s hardly eaten in two days. And that thing growing out of his head—well, it can’t be comfortable.”

  “I’ll nurse him back to health,” I insisted.

  “I’m not sure that’s possible at his age,” Dad said. “Anyway, we can talk about it later. The vet’s coming tomorrow, and we’ll see how he does over the next few days.”

  By the time we all sat down at the table together, I didn’t have much appetite. I kept thinking about poor Spaghetti not being able to eat. I looked at Connor. I could tell he was hesitant to take a bite of his pork chop.

  “It’s okay, Connor,” Dad said. “We’re all prepared.” Dad lifted something off his lap: ski goggles. He slipped them over his eyes. “No worries.”

  “David!” Mom cried, punching Dad in the arm. “That’s terrible.”

  Connor laughed, though. It seemed to put him at ease, and he finally took a bite of his mashed potatoes.

  “Don’t worry,” Mom said. “Everything is non-staining.”

  I glared at Dad. “All the things we had to get rid of, and you brought ski goggles with us to Arizona.”

  “These were like eighty bucks,” he defended himself. “So, Connor,” Dad said, removing his ridiculous goggles, “what are you interested in? I mean besides pulling morbid pranks with my daughter and scaring our visitors away.” Dad narrowed his eyes at me. “You might want to rethink hanging out with her—she’s a bad influence.”

  “And you have terrible sideburns,” I said, unable to come up with anything better. He really did have bad sideburns—they were horribly uneven.

  Dad ignored me. “So?” he said, returning his attention to Connor.

  “Uh, I like movies,” Connor said. “I have a huge movie collection at home.”

  “Oh, why don’t I take you guys to the movies this weekend?” Mom said, clearly thrilled I had made a friend.

  Connor looked appalled and shrunk down in his seat. He shook his head rapidly. “No, no. No movie theaters.”

  “You don’t go to the movies?” I said.

  “No way. I went only once since my tics started a few years ago, and it was not a fun experience.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “People complained, of course. No one wants to listen to a dog barking while they try to watch a movie.”

  “That’s messed up,” I said. “People are so rude.”

  “They’re not rude,” Connor said. “They don’t know I have Tourette’s. That’s what makes it so embarrassing.”

  I scrunched up my nose. “You should wear a T-shirt that says ‘I have Tourette’s’ on it everywhere you go. Then people will leave you alone.”

  Connor snorted. “Yeah, maybe you could make me one, Aven.”

  Then he kicked my foot under the table gently. “Should we tell them?” he whispered.

  “Tell us what?” Mom said.

  I gave my parents a highly serious look. “We think there may be a murderer at Stagecoach Pass.”

  Dad coughed and choked on his mouthful of pork chop. Mom slapped him on the back while he hacked his food into his napkin. When he could finally breathe, he gasped, “What? Why would you think such a thing?”

  We updated Mom and Dad on our theories about the Cavanaughs.

  “Aven,” Mom said. “Just because people are secretive doesn’t mean they’ve been murdered.”

  “I have to admit, Sheebs,” Dad said, “you haven’t exactly presented us with the most convincing evidence.”

  “Some people just really value their privacy,” Mom added.

  I nodded at them like I agreed, but Connor and I gave each other knowing looks. Yeah, right—like we were going to let it go that easily.

  Then Connor looked from me to my parents and back again. “So where does Aven get her red hair from?” he asked.

  “I’m adopted, Connor,” I said.

  “O
h, that’s cool,” said Connor.

  “It’s so cool,” said Mom.

  I rolled my eyes. “Here she goes. She loves telling people about my adoption.”

  Connor looked at Mom with interest, so she took that as her cue to tell the story for the millionth time. “Well,” she began, “Aven’s dad and I couldn’t have a baby, so we figured we’d end up adopting one. I started reading a lot about adoption online. Then one day I was on this website and there was a tab that said ‘Kids in need of a forever family,’ so I clicked on it. I scrolled down until I saw it—the most precious little angel baby face I’d ever seen in my entire life.”

  “It was mine, in case you were wondering,” I said.

  “I knew the moment I saw her she was my daughter,” Mom went on. “With those chubby pink cheeks and bright red mop of hair.”

  “She’d never seen such a precious, beautiful, amazing, brilliant, intelligent child,” I said. Connor raised an eyebrow at me. “I may be embellishing a little.”

  ”No, she’s not at all,” Mom said. “I knew right at the moment I saw her that I was looking into the face of my daughter. It was like she was born for me right in that moment. Some women birth babies through their you-know-whats, but I birthed Aven through the computer that day.”

  I groaned. “Mom, that is the worst part of your story. Connor totally didn’t need to hear that.”

  “Really, Laura,” Dad said. “It’s the worst. It’s just awful.”

  She glared at Dad before returning to her story. “Anyway, right below her picture it said, ‘Aven, two years old.’ I couldn’t believe she was two years old and hadn’t been adopted yet.”

  “Yeah, she didn’t realize she was on an adoption website for children with special needs,” I said.

  “So I clicked on her picture and that’s when I saw she didn’t have arms.”

  “And it didn’t even matter,” I said. “She wanted me anyway.”

  Mom gave me her gushy love face. “So I broke the news to her dad that night at dinner.”

  “Yeah,” Dad said. “She told me my future daughter was a beautiful redhead. Oh, and also that she didn’t have arms.”

  “How did you feel about it?” Connor asked.

  “Well, you know, I was surprised, of course, but once I saw her I agreed wholeheartedly—she was our daughter.” Dad gave me his own version of the gushy love face.

  “We did a lot of research before we got Aven so we could give her the best care,” Mom said. “You know, Connor, there are a lot of amazing people in the world who don’t have arms.”

  “Really?” said Connor.

  “Yes,” said Mom. “There’s a successful architect who designs skyscrapers by using his feet to type, just like Aven does on her computer, and a woman who paints beautiful artwork that sells for quite a bit of money.”

  “There’s that guy who’s the motivational speaker,” Dad added.

  “Oh, yeah,” Mom said. “And then there are people just living totally regular lives, raising babies and driving cars and doing everything people with arms do.”

  “That’s so cool,” said Connor.

  “Remember when we visited that teacher? What was his name? Carl?” Dad said to Mom.

  “We found him through his website,” Mom told Connor. “It was called Unarmed Education. We had to drive all the way to Colorado to meet him, but it was so worth it.”

  “He showed us how he did all kinds of things,” Dad said. “He even drove us to the grocery store.”

  “Yeah.” Mom laughed. “David chewed his fingernails the whole way there.”

  “Can you blame me?” Dad asked Connor.

  “Anyway,” Mom said. “He shopped for food all on his own and made us a lovely dinner with his feet. We knew Aven would be able to do all these things and more. When we finally got her, though, she couldn’t do anything.” Mom threw her arms up in exasperation. “Her foster families had done everything for her—bathed her, fed her, brushed her teeth. She just sat around like a slug, waiting to be cared for like the Queen of Sheba.”

  “Queen. Of. Sheba,” Dad reiterated. “Or Sheebs, for short.”

  I rolled my eyes. “And this was when Mom’s full-time job became teaching Aven how to do stuff.”

  “Right away,” Mom said, “I was dumping out jars of marbles and telling her to put them all back in the jar, giving her a bowl of fish crackers and telling her to feed them to herself one at a time, giving her a sheet of stickers and a blank piece of paper and telling her to decorate it, telling her to brush her own teeth, wash her own feet, scratch her own itches.”

  “Come to think of it,” I said. “It wasn’t so much teaching me how to do stuff as it was telling me to do stuff.”

  “That may be,” Mom said. “But mostly it was telling her she could do just about anything if she tried hard enough.”

  “Yeah, I got over being the Queen of Sheba pretty quickly,” I said.

  “I can see that,” said Connor, and with that he spit his mouthful of mashed potatoes right in my face.

  «Hey,» I said, walking up to Connor a couple of days later at his locker.

  He turned around to face me. “Hey. How’s Spaghetti?”

  “Better.” I had spent as much time with him as I could, trying to motivate him to get well and eat his hay, even offering it to him with my feet. I also made sure he ate his llama ration. My efforts seemed to be working.

  “That’s good,” Connor said. “Do you know why he’s named Spaghetti? Seems like a weird name for a llama.”

  “Denise told me he’s named after spaghetti westerns.”

  “Oh,” Connor said. “What are those?”

  I shrugged. “No idea. Maybe movies full of cowboys eating lots of spaghetti.”

  Connor nodded. “Weird.”

  I saw Zion walking down the sidewalk toward us. “Hey, Zion,” I called to him. He was concentrating so hard on watching his feet, he didn’t hear me. “Zion!” I called again.

  He looked up, seemingly surprised again that someone was talking to him. I can’t exactly wave to get someone’s attention, so I jumped up and down a little bit. “Zion,” I said again as I bounced. He finally saw me.

  He stopped in front of me and Connor. “Hi, Aven,” he said softly.

  “This is Connor,” I told him, and the two boys gave each other a little mini-wave.

  “You’re in my history class,” Zion told Connor. “I’ve, uh, heard you in there.”

  Connor barked and shrugged his shoulders. “You and everyone else.”

  “Connor has Tourette syndrome,” I explained to Zion. “He can’t help it.”

  “Oh. I didn’t think he could.” Zion looked down at his sneakers, then back up at Connor. “I’m sorry.”

  Connor shrugged again. “It’s okay.”

  “Anyway,” I said, “I was just about to ask Connor if he wanted to come over after school and do some investigating.” I eyed Zion seriously. “I live at this theme park called Stagecoach Pass—”

  “Yeah, I know that place,” said Zion.

  “Oh, good,” I said. “We’re trying to figure out why no one ever sees the owner. We think he might have even been . . . ” I looked around and whispered, “murdered.”

  Zion took a step back. “That sounds scary.”

  Connor barked. “Trust me, there’s nothing scary about that place.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said. “This morning, when I left the apartment, I found a dead lizard right at the bottom of the stairs.” I sighed and nodded. “Yep. I think someone was trying to send me a message.”

  “What kind of message?” Zion asked.

  “Stop butting your nose in where it doesn’t belong, or I’ll send you some dead lizards,” I said. “Obviously.”

  Connor shook his head. “I don’t know. Stuff dies in the desert all the time. That’s kind of what the desert does—kills stuff.”

  “Well, you guys should come over. I’ll show you the dead lizard and we can search the
storage shed more.”

  Connor slammed his locker shut. “I can’t. My mom needs me to wait at home for the maintenance guy. For some reason our hot water won’t work.”

  “Oh, that stinks,” I said.

  “I can’t either,” said Zion. “And I’m not sure I want to get involved with murders and dead lizards and stuff. I don’t know if my parents would like it.”

  “It’s only one murder and one dead lizard.” I rolled my eyes and tapped my foot. “How about tomorrow? It’s Saturday.”

  “Yeah,” Connor said. “I can come over early.”

  We both looked at Zion. “Okay,” he said. “But if anyone sends you any more dead animals, I’m out.”

  “Great,” I said. “I can’t wait for tomorrow.”

  As Connor, Zion, and I walked together down the sidewalk, I heard someone do that coughing thing when they sneak a word into the cough, but they’re not actually being very sneaky about it at all.

  And the word was freaks.

  The next morning, I wrote a new blog post.

  I’m sure most people who see me feel sorry for me at first. I think their first thought is probably something about how terrible it must be to not have arms. Maybe they imagine me helplessly being carried around by my mom everywhere in a giant baby backpack and my poor parents having to brush my teeth and feed me through a tube and change my diapers and whatever.

  What a lot of people don’t realize, though, is there are a lot of fantastic things about not having arms. Seriously, I can think of twenty right now:

  1. No fistfighting. This is really a positive for other people because I would totally win in any fistfight. No really, it would be a total smackdown.

  2. No rough elbows. My mom has eczema, so I know what a curse rough elbows can be.

  3. No need to clean my fingernails. You can add filing, polishing, and trimming to that as well.