“It’s just a little get-well present,” said Byron, lifting the bag off Will’s lap again. “Mint-chip. Your favorite, right?”
Will nodded. “Ice cream!”
“Here, I’ll take that,” said Mom. “I think there’s enough for all of you. Will, you okay to share?”
Will nodded again. “Ice cream!”
Byron looked over at Lauren. “I was worried when you didn’t come to school today. I wanted to make sure Will was all right.”
“Thanks,” said Lauren.
He glanced at Callie. “It reminded me a bit of last year when—you know—when that thing happened with my brother. It was so awful.” He let his gaze fall to the table and then glanced at Will. “I just had to make sure he was okay.”
Callie flushed pink, but she nodded.
“What thing? What happened to your brother?” asked Lauren.
“You know. That episode he had,” said Byron. His gaze moved from Lauren to Callie and back again. “You mean you really don’t know about it? I thought for sure Treena would have filled you in.”
“She did tell you, remember?” said Callie. “On your first day. About that boy in Mr. Blight’s class last year. The boy who…you know…”
Suddenly it all made sense to Lauren. Byron’s silence in class, how he kept to himself. And his friendship with Will. He knew what it was like to be different. Lauren remembered Treena’s comment about all the freaks at Lauren’s table, and now, at last, she understood what she’d meant.
“That was your brother?” she said. “The one who had a meltdown and hit Mr. Blight?”
Byron nodded.
Lauren looked over at Will, wriggling in his seat, waiting for his ice cream. He was pretty easy-going, but he had his share of meltdowns. “Did they really make him leave the school?”
“No, but Cameron was pretty upset about the whole thing. We all were. It took a while for him to get over it, and it was close to the end of the year anyway, so he never ended up going back to Birch Park. He’s at Westside now.” Byron looked down at his hands, clenched on the table.
“It must be tough for you,” said Lauren’s mom, setting a bowl of ice cream in front of Byron and another at Will’s place. “It’s not easy having a child with special needs in the family. Every day is a challenge.” She looked over at Lauren. “And sometimes the biggest challenges are for the siblings.” She paused. “As parents, it’s something we often forget.”
Byron wiped his hand across his face. “Thanks, Mrs. Scanlon,” he said.
“Ice cream!” said Will. One of his hands hit the bowl in front of him. It went flying and smashed on the floor.
Lauren and Callie burst into giggles, and after a split second Byron and Blake joined in.
“You know what?” said Callie to Lauren as they sat devouring their ice cream a few minutes later. “I think I’ve got a better idea for our play.”
“What is it?” said Lauren.
Callie’s gaze wandered around the table to Blake, Will, Byron and, finally, back to Lauren. “I’ll tell you later,” she said. “But I think you’re going to like it.”
Chapter Fifteen
Lauren stood in the wings, peering through the curtain at the audience. Her mom and dad were sitting three rows from the front, chatting to Callie’s parents and Byron’s mom. They’d wanted to sit in the front row, but Lauren and Callie had forbidden it. They didn’t want to see those eager faces staring at them from just a few feet away.
Lauren ducked back behind the curtain. Her stomach was all aflutter. She didn’t have a huge part, but performing always made her nervous, and she’d never done any acting before.
“I think I’m going to throw up,” said Callie from behind her.
Callie was wearing one of Lauren’s old dance costumes, a ballet leotard with a long, flowing skirt and a tiara. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun. With her stage makeup on, she really looked like a prima ballerina.
“You’ll be fine,” said Lauren. “You were absolutely awesome at rehearsal yesterday.”
“Yeah, well, no one was watching then, were they?” Callie glanced at the soccer uniform Lauren was wearing. “I wish I was wearing what you’re wearing.”
“What are you talking about?” said Lauren. “You look fantastic.”
But under her makeup, Callie’s face was almost white. Lauren wondered if she really would be sick.
“You’ll be fine,” she said, crossing her fingers behind her back.
Just then Mr. Pittman stepped onto the stage.
“Here we go,” whispered Byron, coming up behind them. “Break a leg.”
“It means good luck,” Lauren said when she saw Callie staring at him in horror.
Mr. Pittman introduced them and then left the stage.
“You’re on,” said Lauren to Callie.
Callie took a deep breath. She blew it out and then stepped forward. She strode to center stage and took her position.
“Look at me,” she said, throwing her arms wide. “This is what happens when you try to do what other people want you to do.” Her voice rang through the auditorium, loud and clear.
A tingle slid up Lauren’s spine. Callie was so great!
“I’m a tomboy. Always have been and always will be, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Not now anyway. But there was a time when I tried to be something I wasn’t. And that’s what landed me in this ridiculous outfit”—Callie fluffed the skirt out to demonstrate—“and led to the most embarrassing moment of my life.
“My parents always wanted a girl. Not just any girl, but a girly girl. So when I came along, after three boys, they thought their prayers had been answered.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Lauren thought she saw Bernice and Gareth exchange surprised glances.
“They dressed me up in skirts,” Callie continued, “tied my hair up with fancy ribbons and, of course, enrolled me in dance classes. But no matter how hard I tried to be quiet and dainty and graceful, it just felt wrong. I wanted to wrestle with my brothers, race around on the playground and splash in puddles. I tried to be what they wanted me to be, but I couldn’t. And in the end, it took a little boy with a big heart to show me that I needed to be myself and follow my own dreams. When everyone told him he couldn’t do something, he didn’t listen to them. He went ahead and did it anyway. This is what happened.”
Lauren almost cheered out loud. The opening speech was the heart of the play, and Callie had delivered it to perfection. Lauren was so happy she almost forgot to go on. Luckily Byron grabbed her arm as he went past, and she quickly followed him onstage.
She thought she’d be nervous, but she didn’t have time for stage fright. The lines seemed to bounce off each other. Before she knew it the curtain had closed on the last act. The applause was deafening. Lauren and Callie threw their arms around each other. It had been the best, and scariest, half hour of their lives. Lauren was sorry it was over.
The curtain rose, and the performers linked arms and took a bow. Then they parted in the middle to allow Miss Chatwal to push Will’s wheelchair to the front of the stage. The audience rose in a standing ovation. Lauren whooped and cheered along with the parents. Then she joined arms with Callie again, and they took another bow.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Hi Kat,
I can’t believe you’re really coming to visit. We’re going to have so much fun. There’s tons of things to do here. We can go skating and to the movies and bowling and to the Aquarium or Science World too if you want. I can’t wait for you to meet Callie. She’s awesome. And guess what? Remember that play we wrote? The one we called BREAKING OUT? Well, Mr. Pittman and Mrs. Dupont chose it for the special assembly! We performed it last week. I was so nervous. Callie was awesome, and Will even had a little part even though he’s not in our class. Do you know what he did? He walked, Kat, on his own, in front of the whole school and all the parents and grandparents. He had to walk two steps and then
kick the soccer ball into the audience. He practiced so hard for it. I didn’t think he’d be able to get it right, but he did. He was awesome. Of course, then he got so excited, he fell over, and everybody laughed, but that’s Will for you. He was laughing harder than anyone.
Can’t wait to see you!
Lauren
Acknowledgments
It was over twenty years ago that I met the family who provided the inspiration for this book, at a mothers’ group following the birth of my first child. We shared play dates, attended birthday parties, drank coffee and swapped stories, and celebrated the birth of our subsequent children. Then our kids hit school age, life got busy, and we lost touch.
I’ve thought of them many times over the years, and it was during one of these times that Lauren and Will’s story came to be. The story is fiction. I’ve drawn on my experience as a speech pathologist, a writer and a mother in developing it. But I’d like to thank them for the seed of an idea that grew to be this book.
I’d like to thank my sister, Stephanie Dand, for providing early feedback on the story and especially for her insight into schools in British Columbia, as I haven’t lived there in many years.
Thank you also to my editor, Tanya Trafford, and the other wonderful people at Orca Book Publishers for their tireless work and continued faith in my writing.
And lastly, thank you to my family, for always supporting me and putting up with the roller coaster of emotions that comes with being a writer.
Sonya Spreen Bates is a Canadian writer living in South Australia. She has written several books for children and adults and has been published in Australia and New Zealand as well as in Canada. She is also trained as a speech-language pathologist and works with children who have communication difficulties.
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