Izzy tore off the striped washi tape and opened the drawer of her desk. She placed the drawing on top of the growing pile. Then she ripped off a new piece of washi tape from the roll and sealed the drawer shut.
2
Watch Wren Fly
“Okay, Bird,” said Wren’s dad. “Let’s see you fly.”
Wren pushed off from the ice-skating rink boards. The edges of her blades carved into the frozen surface. With every stroke, Wren skated faster.
The cold, early morning air rushed over her cheeks, across her neck, and between each individual finger.
Wren inhaled. It tasted crisp, like spearmint gum.
She turned into her back crossovers, her arms wide and her legs moving in smooth inside-edged arcs.
She gathered speed. And power.
Wren waited for the click in her brain that told her it was time. When it came, Wren balanced on her right leg, gliding backward while she prepared the rest of her body. Shoulders down. Head high. Arms back.
She stepped forward onto her bent left leg and pushed off until the toe pick on the tip of her skate blade caught in the ice.
Wren swung her body forward.
She lifted into the cold air. Where she heard nothing. Saw nothing.
Wren was flying, floating, spinning.
Two-and-a-half turns later, she landed backward on her right leg. A double axel.
The muffled sound of her dad clapping his leather-gloved hands echoed across the ice. “That’s my Bird!” he shouted. “Woo-hoo!”
Wren held her landing position for the count of five. Then she turned forward and skated back to the boards.
“Amazing,” said her dad. “You made that double axel look like a piece of cake.”
“It’s not,” said Wren, her hands on her hips, catching her breath.
“Well, it sure looked that way.” Wren’s dad raised his fist and she bumped it with her own. Then he checked his watch. Before he could say anything, Wren skated away.
Her legs were the perfect combination of warm and strong. Her body wanted to fly again.
The feeling was like a gentle poke deep inside her brain. A combination of mental and physical. Brain and body.
It was everything working together, under her command.
She could jump. Axel, lutz, toe loop, flip, salchow.
Or spin. Layback, camel, sit, scratch.
She could stretch into a graceful spiral, or switch into a fast-paced footwork section.
On the ice, Wren was in charge.
Her dad could check his watch. Then his phone. He could cross his arms over his chest or fiddle with his wool hat.
What was he going to do? Chase her across the ice in his snow boots?
Wren’s dad was the men’s ice hockey coach at Dartmouth College. He knew how rare it was for her to have the entire ice rink to herself. It only happened early in the morning when the hockey teams were on a rest day. Wren’s dad would use his coach’s key to unlock the ice rink door and they would stand together in the dark as the overhead lights flickered on with loud buzzes and electric clicks.
At other times there were skaters who Wren needed to watch out for. Younger kids practicing waltz jumps who didn’t have the speed and coordination to get out of her way. Older teenagers who left deep divots in the ice that she had to avoid.
So Wren didn’t want to get off the ice until she had no choice. Until the huge rubber wheels of the Zamboni machine began their slow churn across the frozen surface, Charlie behind the wheel yelling at Wren to clear out already.
Yelling, but also smiling.
When Wren was younger, Charlie would let her sit on the bench of the Zamboni while her dad led his team through endless drills and her mom stayed home with Wren’s little sister, Hannah.
“You like the view from up here?” Charlie had asked one day.
Wren had nodded. She’d gripped the cold metal Zamboni wheel with both hands, pretending to steer with exaggerated movements.
“Just you wait till you see the view of the ice from the winner’s podium,” Charlie continued. “That’s where a skater like you should be.”
Wren glanced up at him. “Me?”
“You see any other pint-size people working harder? You got fire in your belly, kid.”
Then Charlie ruffled Wren’s hair, which she hated, before climbing down to shovel the slushy pile of ice remains.
Wren had always been aware of it. A restless stirring. An energy that wanted her to move fast. Jump high. Spin tight.
Now the sensation had a name: fire in her belly. And Wren loved it.
She entered competitions at her rink, skating short programs to happy, chipper music. A waltz jump here. A sit spin there. Pink ribbons fluttered in her braided pigtails and wide smiles displayed missing teeth. Wren stepped onto podiums barely higher than a shoebox and bent her head as plastic medals were placed around her neck.
But then things began to change.
The competitions got farther away. They were held on ice surfaces that were harder or softer, at rinks with overhead lights that were too bright or too dim. Wren started skating against girls who wanted to stand on the podium just as much as she did.
The fire in her belly remained. But it got harder and harder to win.
Which is why no matter how many times her dad glanced at his watch, Wren wouldn’t get off the ice. The only other time she had an entire ice surface to herself was during competitions. She’d been over it one hundred times and decided that was why she blew it at sectionals last year.
She let the empty ice rattle her. She lost track of her music. She lost her focus.
And on the final double lutz in her program, Wren fell.
Laney Lewis got the bronze.
Laney Lewis got to stand on the podium and compete at nationals in San Francisco against the top skaters in the country.
Wren got fourth.
There was no place on the podium for fourth. Fourth was not special. It took her nowhere.
Wren refused to let that happen again. This year she was going to place in the top three at sectionals and qualify for nationals.
Sectionals was just four weeks away. It was time to push harder than ever before.
“Seriously, Bird,” yelled her dad as he pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his jeans and frowned. “We’ve gotta go.”
“Just one run-through of my program,” said Wren. “Charlie’s not even here yet to warm up the Zamboni.”
Wren didn’t wait for her dad to respond. She skated to center ice and struck her opening pose. Gaze down. Arms overhead.
From the corner of her eye, she saw her dad shake his head and walk to the rink’s sound system, cueing up her program music.
As the electric opening beats of her music played, Wren’s dad yelled, “Just once. Your mom and Hannah are waiting. So after this, it’s straight off the ice.”
Wren nodded, but she tried to put his words out of her mind.
All she wanted to think about were her jumps, spins, and footwork sequences.
She tried to hear only the music. Feel only her body.
But Wren couldn’t get in the zone. Something was off. When it came time for her double lutz, she under-rotated. The blade on her landing foot made contact at the wrong angle. Wren crashed to the ice.
She picked herself right up. She increased the pace of her forward crossovers to catch up with the music and ended her program with a strong double axel. But when Wren stepped off the ice and slid her plastic skate guards over her blades, she noticed the weight of her boots and the effort it took to move her tired legs to the locker room.
And she allowed herself to think it. Even though she hated the thought.
Thanks a lot, Hannah. This is all your fault.
Inside Lou’s Restaurant and Bakery it was warm and sweet, as if the sugary icing that coated Lou’s famous cinnamon buns was floating in the air. Wren unzipped her fleece skating jacket. She followed her dad to a booth in the back of the bakery
where her mom and four-year-old Hannah were hunched over pieces of paper, coloring with crayons.
Wren’s dad put his finger to his lips and snuck up to them, surprising Wren’s mom with a kiss on the lips.
Wren expected her mom to swat him away. Or look embarrassed.
Instead, she reached her hands around his neck and gave him a long kiss.
“Eww,” said Hannah.
“You’re next,” said their dad. He stepped toward Hannah with his arms wide, like a pretend monster. As Hannah squealed, he planted a sloppy kiss on her cheek and straightened the paper crown that was tilted on her head. Then he folded his large body into the booth beside Hannah. Wren slid in beside her mom.
“Good skate?” asked Wren’s mom.
“I missed my double lutz,” said Wren. “Again.”
“That’s okay. You’ll get it.”
“It’s not okay. I keep under-rotating.”
Wren paused, waiting for her mom to ask if her dad had caught the fall on video. Maybe she could take a look? Try to figure out what went wrong?
Twice a week Wren took skating lessons with a professional coach named Nancy. But Nancy charged by the hour and taught several students a day. She didn’t have the time to sit and watch Wren’s jumps in slow motion, analyzing the angle of her blade and the position of her shoulders.
But Wren’s mom did. When Wren was having a tough time with a new jump, her mom would stand in the bleachers and video Wren’s practices. After Wren finished her homework, they’d sit together on the couch and watch the recording.
They’d zoom in, looking for a shoulder tilted at the wrong angle. A foot lifted too high. An arm that released too late.
Sometimes, after watching Wren fall over and over, her mom would say that what they really needed was to watch puppy videos on YouTube.
And then try again tomorrow.
As Wren sat in the booth at Lou’s waiting for her mom to offer to help, she realized it had been weeks since they’d watched puppy videos.
Wren understood why. She knew those videos weren’t important.
But that didn’t make her miss those silly puppies getting their heads stuck in trash cans any less.
“Wren,” said Hannah, tapping Wren’s hand across the table. “Do you like my new crown?”
Wren nodded. “Yeah. It’s really pretty. Are you going to a royal ball?”
Hannah shook her head. The paper crown slid down her forehead. “It’s not a princess crown. It’s for meeting unicorns.”
“Unicorns?” asked Wren, looking from Hannah to her mom.
Hannah smiled. “Yep.”
“Wait, what?” said Wren’s dad. He tried to stand, but his thighs hit the underside of the table. Forks and knives jumped. A water glass spilled. “Did Dr. Koffer call?”
Wren’s mom smiled. “Her nurse called while you were at the rink. Dr. Koffer reviewed all Hannah’s tests and she thinks she can help. She had an unexpected cancellation next week. I think we should take it. Otherwise it could be months before she can see us.”
Wren’s dad slid out of the booth. He lifted Hannah into his arms and began jumping in place. Hannah’s crown fell over her eyes.
Wren’s mom raised her phone to take a picture. “Look at me, you two. Smile.”
Three college kids in the booth next to them turned and stared. But only Wren noticed. She grabbed some napkins from the dispenser and cleaned up the spilled water.
This was the news that Wren’s parents had been waiting for. Hannah had epilepsy, which meant that her brain had seizures. Sometimes the seizures made Hannah’s arms go stiff, or her eyes wander, or her body shake. The seizures were usually fast, but when they happened, it felt like they lasted forever.
In the year since the seizures began, Hannah had tried three different kinds of medication to make them stop. None of the medicines worked. So a few weeks ago, Hannah and her mom went to a hospital in Boston to meet with a new team of doctors.
They stayed in the hospital for an entire week. Wren stayed home with her dad.
Every night her dad’s phone pinged with texts from her mom. Pictures of Hannah playing with therapy dogs, or banging on drums with a music teacher, or squeezing the red rubber nose of a clown.
Wren had leaned over her dad’s shoulder as he swiped through the photos. But she barely noticed the shaggy golden retrievers. The shiny cymbals. The clown’s exaggerated smile.
All she could focus on were the red, blue, and yellow wires running down Hannah’s head. They were stuck to Hannah’s scalp with round stickers and told the doctors what part of Hannah’s brain was causing the seizures.
That’s where Dr. Koffer came in. She specialized in the kind of surgery that Hannah needed. Her job was to cut out the section of Hannah’s brain that was causing the seizures.
Not that Wren’s family used words like surgery and cut. Words that were too hard to say out loud.
Instead, they used unicorn as a code name for Hannah’s treatment. Their parents told Hannah that having epilepsy made her extra special, like how a unicorn would just be a horse without its magical horn. They said that if Hannah went to all her doctor’s appointments and tests, maybe she’d get to do something really amazing, like meet an actual unicorn.
Wren thought the code name was stupid. It made no sense.
Special was good. Special was people cheering your name as you stood on the top of a podium.
Epilepsy was scary. Watching Hannah have a seizure reminded Wren of catching her toe pick in the ice, the moment of knowing she was about to fall but being unable to prevent it. Except Wren could handle a bruised knee. A sore hip. Hannah was so little and helpless.
But whatever, Wren’s parents thought the unicorn comparison was brilliant. It stuck.
Maggie, their favorite waitress at Lou’s, came up to their table. She raised one eyebrow. “What exactly are you all so happy about over here?” asked Maggie. “Did this dynamo of ours add another skating medal to her collection?”
Wren’s mom shook her head, unable to answer. She put her phone down on the table, looked at Hannah, and started crying. Messy, snotty, emotional tears.
“Noooo,” said Maggie, glancing from Wren’s mom to Hannah. “Does this mean what I think it means?”
“It does,” said Wren’s dad. “It really does.”
Maggie hollered. She put her hands on either side of Hannah’s face. “Oh, my precious baby girl,” she said. “Oh, my precious baby girl.”
Hannah smiled, not seeming to mind Maggie’s hands or her cooing. Their town was filled with college kids, but not a ton of families. People like Maggie knew about Hannah’s epilepsy.
They prayed for Hannah. They cheered for Hannah.
They cheered for Wren, too.
But she had to earn their applause on the ice.
3
Izzy’s Left With a Mitten
Izzy followed the scent of baking cookies to the kitchen, where her mom was straightening mugs on the shelf. “Are the cookies ready?” she asked.
“Almost,” said her mom. “But first can you take Row for a walk? Ms. Stallton will be here in ten minutes, and the last thing I need is Row jumping all over my client.”
Izzy knelt down and wrapped her arms around Row’s furry neck. “You wouldn’t jump on any nice ladies would you, Row?”
Row licked Izzy’s cheek. They both knew that’s exactly what Row would do.
Izzy’s parents got Row when Nate was six years old and just learning to play “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” on the piano. It didn’t take long for Izzy’s parents to realize that letting Nate name their puppy was a big mistake. It was impossible to tell the puppy “No.” No and Row. Whenever Row did something bad like eat a sock, or bark at another dog, or jump on a stranger, and they tried to teach him to stop, Row thought they were calling his name. He would happily wag his tail, hoping for a treat.
Which is why Row was the worst dog in the world. But also the best. Opposites.
Izzy sighed. I
t was freezing out and the kitchen smelled so good. The last thing she wanted to do was take Row for a walk. But she knew how much the client meeting meant to her mom. So Izzy grabbed Row’s leash from the hook in the mudroom and pulled her hat and gloves from the bin where her mom had tucked them away. As Izzy slid her hand into the sleeve of her jacket, she noticed something fluffy and bright pink under the mudroom bench: Phoebe’s mitten.
Phoebe must have been in such a rush to escape Izzy’s house that she’d dropped it on the way out. Izzy imagined Phoebe searching her bag and pockets, looking for the missing mitten. Phoebe got flustered easily, and it would only be a few seconds before she started turning in circles and screaming for her mom to help her find it.
Except Phoebe wasn’t with her mom. She was at Daphne’s house for the sleepover.
Izzy squeezed the mitten in her hand. She could toss it in her backpack to return to Phoebe at school on Monday. Or her mom could send Phoebe’s mom a text. Found P’s mitten! Want to come back and grab it? But the mitten, slightly curled from weeks of wear, felt too important to leave for a later time. It felt like an excuse.
Izzy hadn’t been to Daphne’s house since second grade, when Daphne invited all the girls in their class to a petting zoo birthday party. They’d sat on bales of prickly hay in Daphne’s backyard as people wearing jean overalls and red bandanas placed baby ducks, bunnies, and kittens wrapped in fleece blankets into each girl’s waiting arms. Izzy could still remember the warm weight of a particular baby duck, so small and soft with its coat of bright yellow fluff. Next to Izzy on her hay bale, Phoebe had held a sleeping gray kitten, its whiskers twitching as if it was having an intense dream. Izzy and Phoebe took turns brushing their foreheads against the animals in each other’s laps, murmuring promises that they would love them forever.
Then Daphne, wearing a pink T-shirt with the words Birthday Girl spelled out in sequins and a matching ruffled chiffon skirt, had marched over to their hay bale and grabbed the gray kitten from Phoebe’s arms.
“Hey,” said Phoebe. “I was holding her.”
Daphne shrugged. “Now it’s my turn. I get to pick a kitten to keep. For my birthday. It’s part of the package. So I need to test this one out.”
Stick With Me Page 2