Roll with It

by Jamie Sumner

  “We’ll take it from here, Ms. Cowan.” Bert holds his hand out to shake hers, but she ignores him. She’s squinting at the building as we all unload. I say “building,” but now that I’m closer, I think technically it’s what you would call a shack, like the kind they serve snow cones from at the beach. The walls are big sheets of plywood nailed together and painted white like the fence. There’s a counter, but it’s taller than I can see over. Bert runs around the back and pops up behind the counter like a puppet. He unrolls a canvas sign and it falls down the front.

  I read in bright blue letters: BILL AND WILL’S PUTT-PUTT EMPORIUM.

  “Ta-da!” Coralee says, and twirls in a circle. “Miniature golf is the perfect anti–Valentine’s Day activity, right?!”

  Mom shakes her head.

  “Ladies,” Bert says, and passes down golf clubs.

  “Bill and Will?” I say.

  “My twin brothers. They built the place.”

  “Your parents named your brothers Bill and Will?”

  He shrugs. “They didn’t know they were having twins. They only picked out one name.”

  We choose our ball colors out of a bucket. I’m purple. Coralee’s red. Bert is blue.

  While we wait for Bert to unlock the gate, Mom leans over me and taps my jacket where I’ve got my phone. Her breath makes a cloud. “I’ll be here if you need me. You call me when you’re done or if you get too cold.”

  I nod, but when she tries to stuff mittens in my pocket, I roll away. Everybody knows you can’t play miniature golf with mittens.

  The gate creaks open and Bert waves us inside with his club over his shoulder.

  “Let’s do this!” Coralee yells, and races through.

  It’s a proper eighteen-hole course and it’s kind of amazing. It’s got a Western theme. There are holes that look like saloons and deserts and a train filled with gold. There’s even one with a horse’s tail that swishes back and forth in front of the hole when you turn on the switch.

  “I can’t believe your brothers did all this.”

  “They’re on scholarship for engineering,” he says, like of course it’s totally normal to build a full-size miniature golf course in your spare time. I’m beginning to think Bert is the most normal one in his family.

  “Me first!” Coralee yells.

  “Hold on. Hold on.” Bert pulls a tiny scorecard and pencil out of his white jacket pocket. He looks like the guy on the front of the popcorn box. Or Colonel Sanders. “We have to make it official.”

  “Whatever,” Coralee says, and drops her ball.

  I smile. They have no idea.

  Coralee hits like she’s trying to make it to the moon. Her ball flies off the rocks and back down the green. One time she has to chase it into the parking lot. Bert is worse. He’s so precise, it takes him five minutes to line up a shot. But he almost always gets it in the hole in two or three swings.

  By the fifth hole they both stand back and watch when I roll up to tee off.

  What I did not tell them when we pulled up is that I have been playing miniature golf since I was three. Mom and I went to the fun park out near the mall all the time in the summer. While the other kids ran off to the go-karts and the bumper cars and the arcade, I stayed with Mom on the greens.

  And so now, after nine years of practice, I can line up, lean over, hit the ball one-handed . . . and get a hole in one almost every time.

  Mini golf is my jam.

  “You’re like a golf goddess,” Coralee says when I hit one over the water and through the Grand Canyon to the hole on the other side. My hands are freezing and I can’t really feel the club, but I nod.

  “Yes. Yes I am.”

  It’s getting darker now, and I think of the other kids heading off to the dance and feel sorry for them.

  “Did you know that seven men died in the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929?”

  “Bert, jeez! Filter, remember? You’re up, anyway,” Coralee says.

  He lines up his shot for three minutes and then finally swings, but misses the hole that is just to the left of a wooden cactus. It’s only by half an inch. But a miss is a miss. He takes out his scorecard, makes a note, and then walks forward. He’s still talking when he steps up and taps his ball in. “Well, did you know that Saint Valentine was a priest who was martyred and buried on February fourteenth in a city near Rome?”

  “Bert.” I poke him in the shoulder with my club.

  “My point is, you two, that miniature golf is a much more appropriate pastime for Valentine’s Day than a dance or date or dinner. Romance has no place on this holiday.”

  “Except dinner sounds good now.” I wipe my nose on my sleeve.

  “Okay,” Coralee says, “this is the last hole. Then dinner.”

  But I grab both their clubs before she can take her running start. Even though I’m pretty sure my toes are blue inside my boots, I still want a minute to take a mental picture of all of us head-to-toe in red and white like candy canes on the eighteenth hole. My club is across my lap, and I can hear the water from the hose running through the canyon. It’s perfect. It’s the best Valentine’s Day, or any day, really, I’ve ever had.

  “What?” Coralee says.

  “Nothing, just sizing up my victory shot.”

  “Nah, don’t you know the rules? Whoever gets a hole in one on the last hole is the real winner.”

  She takes a flying leap, and we all duck when her ball shoots off the bucket of gold on the little wooden train and comes flying back at us. Bert catches it with surprising reflexes.

  I, of course, take the hole in one.

  We stop at the Dairy Queen on the way home and pick up burgers and chocolate-dipped cones. It’s so cold, even in the van with the heater running, I have time to eat my entire burger before the cone starts to melt.

  It’s completely dark when we roll down the gravel drive after dropping off Bert and Coralee. Mom and I sit in the car for a minute. I’m so tired, I close my eyes.

  “Did you have fun, sweetheart?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “And you’re glad we’re here?”

  “I’m glad we’re here.”

  “And school’s better? At least better than it was? The teachers are giving you enough time between classes and you’re all right without an aide?”

  “Yeah, Mom. Things are better.”

  Better but still not great, I don’t say. People still don’t really look at me or talk to me, other than adults and Bert and Coralee. But then again, nobody really talks to anyone but their own friend group anyway.

  “Good, good. I just want to know you’re taken care of,” she says, reaching her arm back and rubbing my knee. “And I’m sorry about last night. I’m sorry you had to find out that way. Grandpa’s not going anywhere for a long, long time. I promise, okay?”

  “Okay. Can we go in now?”

  I want to believe her. I do. But I can’t get that picture of the Autumn Leaves brochure out of my head. This is the first time all night I really feel the cold.

  I spend all of Sunday, the day before my speech, blowing my nose. But I don’t mind because miniature golf finally gave me an idea.

  10

  Speeches and Ambulances

  Speech class with Mrs. Roman is fourth period, right before lunch, which makes my topic just about perfect. But when the bell rings at the end of third, all I want to do is throw up and hide.

  I have to get Bert to carry all my supplies. We make sure to get there early to stash everything up by the whiteboard. There’s one speech before mine. Keith demonstrates how to dribble between his legs. But he never looks up at the class, and his ball hits his foot and knocks Mrs. Roman’s trash can over. Everybody still claps and whistles, though, because he’s on the basketball team.

  While Keith is cleaning up the trash, I remind myself: Make eye contact, pause, enunciate, ask for questions. This is the first time I’m going to have to talk to the entire class and they will have to talk back. Class part
icipation is part of their grade too. I cough into my elbow when Keith sits down and say a quick prayer. Then I roll forward as Mrs. Roman calls my name.

  I’ve never baked in front of anyone before or had to narrate it like I’m on a cooking show. It’s weird, like I’m one of those kids with their own YouTube channel.

  With Bert as my assistant, I take the class step by step through the cookie recipe I was making on Saturday. It was the miniature golf that gave me the idea. Bill and Will made something amazing because it was something they loved. They didn’t care if anybody else liked it or thought it was strange. So I decided to do the same thing—I would do something I’m good at, even if nobody else cared.

  I set out the flour and butter and bowls. Nobody says anything. But technically, I guess they aren’t supposed to yet. When Bert drops the cookie sheet, it sounds like a thunderclap and everybody jumps. But it finally gets me talking.

  I begin to explain the history of the snowball cookie, “otherwise known as a Mexican wedding cookie or Russian tea cake,” I say.

  Keith starts to text under his desk, and only about a third of the class is even watching what I’m doing. But then, once I begin to scoop out the dough and roll it in the powdered sugar, people start to lean forward to try to see in the bowl.

  Sierra raises her hand. I mean, she actually raises her hand to ask a question and not to fix her hair or pass a note. At first I don’t know what to do. You’re not supposed to take questions until the end, but then I nod to her because my hands are busy, and she says, “What’s that ice cream scoopy thing?”

  “This?” I hold up the metal scoop I’m using to portion the dough. “This is actually a melon baller that I found in my grandma’s kitchen drawer. But they make real cookie scoops, and I’m going to get one once I become a professional baker.”

  I can’t believe I just said that out loud, but Sierra just says, “Cool.”

  “Yeah. Cool.”

  When the cookies are laid out on the baking sheets, I explain about preheating the oven and cooking time. Then, because I am aiming for a big finish, I pull out the Tupperware filled with the snowballs I made yesterday and pass it around. Everybody cheers and Sierra takes two, because as I said, we are only minutes away from lunch and the whole class is starving.

  I get more claps than Keith. All that’s left when the container gets back to me is a little pile of powdered sugar.

  Dear Editors and Bakers at Southern Living,

  I found your recipe for Almond Snowballs in my grandma’s 1989 holiday baking issue. I liked the picture, and it seemed like just the thing to make when you’re tired of real snow but still stuck in winter.

  It was also for a grade in class. It went well. At least, I think it did, because I didn’t have any left afterward and everybody clapped. Luckily, I didn’t actually have to bake them in front of everybody, because that would have taken fifteen minutes of us staring at one another with nothing to do, and also, we don’t have an oven in class. I brought in my most perfect batch. But man, are they messy! I think all the powdered sugar stressed out my teacher, but she still ate three.

  So, thank you for helping me to get a good grade and for thinking up a recipe from so many years before I was born that people still like. I get why people want them at their weddings.

  Many thanks and wishes for warm weather your way,

  Ellie Cowan

  “Ellie was amazing,” Bert says at lunch after my speech.

  “Ugh, I wish I could have been there. I tried to get Susie to write me a pass, but she said I had to take my history test or I couldn’t go to the pageant.” Coralee shoves her spoon around her banana pudding. She only gets it for the Nilla wafers. “I like her and all, but sometimes I wish it were just me and Dane and the cockatoos.”

  I tear my sandwich into little pieces and then roll them into balls. It’s hot in the cafeteria, and the two snowballs I ate in class are making me feel funny. I wish I’d bought a water instead of Coke. But I’m so happy that my speech is over and that it went well that I don’t even care.

  “You guys, they looked at me and it wasn’t just to laugh or check out my chair.”

  “Who?” Coralee asked.

  “Everybody. The townies, Mrs. Roman, the whole class.” I spread my arms wide.

  “Like I said.” Bert nods. “She was amazing.”

  “Well, don’t get used to it,” Coralee says, pointing her spoon at me.

  “What?” I let my arms fall on the table.

  Coralee looks over to where Sierra and her friends are trading bags of chips. “I said—don’t get used to it.” And then she looks at me. “A townie’s a townie for life.”

  My stomach swirls and gurgles and I press into it with my fist.

  “And what about us?” I say, punching at my lunch bag like bread dough. “Are we trailer kids for life?”

  “Honestly?” She looks from me to Bert. “Yes. We are.”

  I wait for her to say she’s kidding, but she doesn’t.

  Bert stares at his hands.

  “Why are you being like this?” I hate it that my voice has gone all high, but I can’t help it.

  “Like what?”

  “Mean. And like you can’t even let me be happy for one second.” I feel the beginning of tears but blink hard. I am not going to cry at the lunch table. “Why can’t you let me just be normal?”

  There’s a pause that feels like a million years, and then Coralee taps my chair.

  “Ellie, honey. You’ll never be normal.”

  And then I do start to cry.

  So I back away.

  Roll fast down the hall.

  Turn the corner into the gym.

  And throw up all over the court.

  It’s too bright in this room. I can feel it before I even open my eyes. And something’s over my face, trying to smother me. It’s too tight. I can’t breathe. I tug at it, but my hands are heavy and I can’t get it off.

  “Honey, honey. Relax, baby girl!”

  I open my eyes. Mom’s over me. She’s taking my hands and pulling them away, but she’s not getting the thing off my face. I pull at her and push, but she won’t let go.

  Her head moves in front of the light, and now everything’s in shadow.

  “Where?” But I can’t talk because the thing is covering my mouth, too, and my fingers aren’t working right. My chest hurts.

  “Rest, honey. Just rest. We need you to—” but I’m already falling asleep.

  It’s night now and there’s something cold in my nose. It shoots air like icicles down my throat, and I yank it away. Something beeps over my head, and then alarms go off, like ten alarms all louder than the loudest setting on my phone.

  A nurse runs in with Mom behind her and puts the little tubes back into my nose and then gently hooks them behind my ears. She’s wearing Doc McStuffins scrubs.

  “Honey, you’ve got to leave this in. I know it’s itchy and cold, but it’ll help you breathe,” she says.

  I start to cry. Everything hurts. My legs are tight, and it feels like something’s sitting on my chest.

  Mom leans past the nurse and hugs me, and that makes it hurt worse. I yelp, and she jumps back and starts crying.

  “Oh, not you, too.” The nurse turns to Mom. “Let’s get you something to eat. I’ll stay with Miss Lily here until you come back.”

  Mom shakes her head. She’s grabbing on to the bed rail like they’re going to have to drag her out.

  “Now, Mom, we need you to keep your strength up so you can take care of your girl,” the nurse says. “We’re all trying to get her out of here as soon as possible, but it’s not going to be tonight, so you might as well make your way down to the cafeteria.”

  The nurse’s arms wobble over my head as she pushes some buttons on the monitor.

  Mom doesn’t move. The nurse pats her hand, the one still holding the rail.

  “I’ll have them bring you up a tray, all right?”

  Mom nods.

  I fall
back asleep.

  It’s day again, but I’m not sure what day. The tube’s gone from my nose and they’ve propped me up a bit. Mom is asleep in a chair next to the window. Her hair’s flat on one side and straight up on the other. She used to have hair as long as Mema’s. I remember when she first cut it off. I was six and in the hospital after this one seizure they couldn’t stop. I just kept shaking and shaking. Once I was a little better, Dad came to visit and Mom left for a while. When she came back, all her hair was gone, up above her ears and everything. She looked like an elf.

  She hears me moving and jumps up. The blanket wrapped around her falls in a puddle on the floor.

  “Ellie, you’re up!”

  I try to rub my eyes, but there’s an IV in my hand and it pinches to move it.

  “You’ll be able to get that out as soon as you finish the last of your antibiotics.” She points to the baggie of liquid hanging near my head. “They say if your oxygen levels stay stable, we’ll be able to leave in a few days.”

  “Seizure?” It feels like I’m talking around rocks. Please, God, don’t let it have been a seizure. Don’t let me have to go back on those meds, with everyone treating me like I’m a bomb about to go off any second. Please don’t let the count start again, X many days since the last episode. Please.

  She hands me a big pink jug with a bendy straw and makes me take a sip of water before she says anything. I forgot about the ice, like little pellets of sleet. Hospitals always have the best ice.

  “You got an infection, baby. It turned into pneumonia.”

  Well, that explains it, the feeling like a horse was stamping on my chest. I’ve had pneumonia before, but it’s been a few years since I was in the hospital for it. I’d take it over being the “seizure kid” again, any day. But Mom doesn’t look like she’d agree.

  “How long have I been here?”

  She rubs my arm above the IV.

  “Four days.”

  “Four days!”

  “They had to keep you pretty sedated for most of it. You kept trying to pull off your oxygen mask.”