Caterpillars Can't Swim

by Liane Shaw

  “Thanks. You’re always so supportive.”

  “Yeah, you’re lucky to have me!” Cody goes over to the fridge. “Who’s ready for more beer?” He looks at us both.

  “I’m good,” says Jack. I shake my head. Cody reaches in and grabs himself a beer and then stands there looking at me for a second.

  “Ryan, Clare thought you were super cute. Her words not mine. Sophia thinks I’m totally awesome. My words not hers, but I could tell she was thinking it. They want to spend the day with us tomorrow, so maybe you could practice not feeling sorry for yourself and actually enjoy being somewhere away from Thompson Mills with a couple of girls who might be willing to put up with you.”

  I take this in for a few seconds. Cody might be doing his best to piss me off but he’s making sense at the same time. Besides, I can never stay mad at him for more than five minutes. He won’t let me.

  “I guess,” I say, “but it doesn’t sound like much fun for Jack.”

  “Well, I was trying to find a way to talk to you about that. Caleb invited me to spend the day with him and some of his friends. I wasn’t really sure at first about spending the whole day with them, but I’ve thought about it and I think I’d like to give it a try. Maybe we could just keep in touch by text and meet up later in the day—if that’s okay?” Jack looks a little embarrassed to be asking.

  “Oh, okay. That’s cool.” I don’t really know if it’s cool or not. I want to ask him if he’s sure it’s a safe idea. But if I say anything about it, I’ll be accused of morphing into my mother again.

  “I guess we’ll hang out with Clare and Sophia then,” I say instead, looking over at Cody.

  “Good plan. In the meantime, could we stop with the heavy crap and just have a couple of drinks and watch the rest of this movie? We’re acting like a room full of girls,” Cody says.

  “I thought you liked girls.”

  “I like being with girls, not turning into one,” says the master of sensitivity. “Oh, by the way, what about you, Jack? Have you managed to stop being a virgin yet?”

  “Cody!” My voice squeaks like it’s decided to go through puberty again. The guy has no boundaries at all!

  “It’s okay. He’ll just find another way to ask and probably in a more embarrassing situation, so I might as well answer now. No, Cody, I haven’t stopped being a virgin yet. Seeing as I’m pretty sure I’m the only gay guy in town, it’s a little tough to find someone to stop being a virgin with.” Cody looks at him, nodding seriously.

  “Anyway, Cody, can we just stop with the heavy crap and watch TV?” Jack says, smiling but looking like he wants to punch him at the same time.

  I know exactly how he feels.

  Twenty-Three

  By about two a.m. we finally decide to try sleeping. We had ordered a pizza after the first movie and by the end of the second one had managed to eat everything we’d bought or brought. The second beer was cold enough that it tasted half decent, which was too bad because Cody grabbed mine about halfway through and drained it, since he had finished his hours earlier.

  We open up the hideaway bed in the couch, which Jack volunteers to use, leaving Cody and me with the two double beds. The room goes silent within seconds and I figure both Cody and Jack have passed out. The beer must have had a relaxing effect on my legs because even they fall asleep right away. I should mention it to my doctor as a therapy option.

  The alarm I set on my phone wakes us up six hours later. The morning session is scheduled for ten, which should give us time to get in costume and eat some breakfast.

  “So, who wants the bathroom first?” Cody asks, jumping out of bed with an annoying level of energy. I’m tired and now my legs are cramping, probably because the bed seems to be made of rocks. I guess it’s too early for beer therapy, not that there’s any left.

  “I’m going to take a few minutes to get up so you go ahead. Unless you want it, Jack?”

  “No. I’m good. My mom’s already texting me, so I’d better take a minute and answer her.” He concentrates on texting for the next few minutes while I concentrate on relaxing my legs and wondering whether my costume is good enough or whether I should just go as me again.

  About five minutes pass in silence and then Cody leaps out of the bathroom.

  “Captain America at your service!” He bows, sweeping his arm down to the floor. He’s got the whole deal on, complete with shield and a few fake muscles thrown in, not that you’d ever get him to admit that.

  He actually looks pretty good, not that you’d ever get me to admit that. He’s already full enough of himself as it is. Cram any more self-confidence in there and he’ll explode.

  “You’re still in bed! Get your ass moving. They have breakfast at this place in a little room behind the office. We have to get there or it’ll be gone.”

  I’m still trying to get my legs calmed down, but there’s not much point explaining that to Captain America, who is busy admiring his muscles in the mirror.

  “Give me a minute. Why don’t you go grab us some stuff and bring it back?”

  “Sure. Do you care what you eat?” he asks, standing sideways to check out his profile.

  “No, whatever they have is fine. What about you, Jack?” He looks up from his phone.

  “Sure, whatever. I’m not that hungry anyway,” he says.

  “I’ll be back!” Cody does a really bad imitation of the Terminator as he heads out of the room, still carrying his shield just in case he has to defend justice on the way to breakfast.

  I finally manage to make my body work enough to get out of bed and into my chair.

  “I’m going to steal the bathroom for a bit, if that’s okay. Try to get my costume on.” Jack puts his phone into his pocket and nods.

  “No problem.”

  “Do you have your costume ready? What did you decide on anyway?”

  “I had no idea what to wear. I’m not a big fan like you guys. I’ve seen some of the movies but nothing I’ve seen before seemed like something I’d be able to pull off. So I just went for the super traditional and bought a cheap Superman costume. Blue spandex and a red cape. Reminded me of Jay the Great.”

  “Superman is fine. I actually didn’t see all that many wandering around yesterday. Maybe going traditional makes you more of an original.”

  “I guess. But I was thinking I might not wear a costume at all, if that’s okay with you. I’m meeting new people today. I think I just want to go as me.”

  “Whatever you’re comfortable with is cool. I’m starting to think I’d rather just go as me also. I’m having second thoughts about Wolverine in a wheelchair.”

  “No, you should do it! Cody will kill you if you bail and besides, Wolverine in a wheelchair is awesome. I saw a Batman in a chair, which I thought was incredibly cool.”

  “Seriously? I wish I had seen that. Sounds almost as cool as a Wonder Woman costume on a guy. If you had known that guys dress up as women characters, would you have tried one?” Jack thinks for a few seconds then shakes his head.

  “I wouldn’t have had the guts to do that this year. Especially with Cody here. Maybe next year I’ll buy a blond wig and a red skirt and use my costume after all.” His cheeks pink up a bit, but I just grin at him.

  “I’d love to see Cody’s reaction to that!”

  “Yeah, well, it’s enough that he knows I’m gay. Pretty sure he hasn’t quite absorbed that one yet. I think we’ll keep the rest of it to ourselves for now. Don’t want his head to explode.”

  I laugh as I grab my bag and head for the bathroom to try to transform into someone tough and cool so that Clare won’t remember that it’s me.

  Come to think of it, she’s dressed as Rogue, who follows Wolverine around a lot in the movies. This could be perfect. Although from what I saw yesterday, Clare is more of a leader than a follower.

  That’s cool. I�
��d be happy following her around.

  I pull out the black stretchy costume that’s supposed to look like the X-Men in full attack mode. But the pants catch on my braces when I try to pull them up, and I’m left with a bulky-looking mess at the bottom instead of smooth and muscular calves. Not a good start.

  The top part goes on fine. There aren’t any fake muscles in this one, but it’s got enough layers that I look okay from the waist up. Except for the bright red hair and freckles.

  I pull out the brown wig and shove it on my head. Great. Now I’m a brown-haired, orange-freckled Wolverine. I take the sideburns out of the bag and put the special glue on so I can attach them to my cheeks. That’s a little better but still mostly looks stupid.

  I open the door of the bathroom.

  “Cody?” I yell out.

  “He’s not back yet. Must be fighting crime or something,” Jack calls back. “Are you okay? Do you need something?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean? Oh, that’s cool.” He’s at the door of the bathroom, trying to be polite as he looks at my so-called transformation.

  “Yeah, the orange freckles and eyebrows really finish it off.”

  Jack looks at me for a few seconds.

  “I can fix that for you,” he says, looking a little embarrassed.

  “How? Do you have a full-face mask in your bag?”

  “No. But I have some makeup. I bought it a while ago.” He shrugs, cheeks pink again. “I think I have something that’ll cover the freckles. And I can darken the eyebrows, if you want me to try.”

  I hesitate for a moment, imagining what Cody would do if he came back while Jack was putting makeup on my face.

  “I’m pretty sure Hugh Jackman wore makeup in those movies,” Jack says, as if he’s reading my thoughts and giving me a comeback for Cody.

  “Good point. All right. Go for it. It’s better than looking like this.”

  He runs back into the main room, then comes back and dumps a bunch of little bottles and tubes out of a small bag onto the back of the toilet.

  “I hide this stuff in my bedroom closet. Which makes sense, I guess, since the rest of me is still basically in there too.” He takes a little bottle and shakes it. He pours some beige stuff into his hand.

  “Best if you just close your eyes until I’m done. Your mouth, too. I’ve never practiced on someone else. I don’t want to get it anywhere it shouldn’t be.”

  I close everything up and just try to sit still while he does his thing. It feels really strange, and I just focus on hoping Cody stays amused somewhere else for a few more minutes.

  “There. It’s not perfect but it’ll do. You can open your eyes.” I open them and look at myself in the bathroom mirror. Jack is standing behind, also looking at me, his eyes a bit worried.

  My freckles are completely gone. My cheeks and forehead are one color for the first time in my life, except where he’s drawn over my eyebrows and made them dark brown with kind of a slant to make them look more Wolverine-ish. I’m not sure but I think my eyelashes are brown, too, instead of their usual pale orange. The sideburns look better, and I lean forward to see why. It looks like he’s sort of sketched in around them, so it seems like they’re part of my face, and then drawn in what looks like what my dad calls a five o’clock stubble, which looks real if you don’t get too close.

  “Wow. That’s…amazing! You could do this professionally.”

  “Makeup artist? Sure. Tell that one to my dad.”

  “Hey! Where are you guys? I have breakfast!” Cody’s voice comes into the room before he does. We both jump, looking guilty, and Jack backs out into the main room quickly as I shut the bathroom door for a second, opening it again as if I was just coming out of the bathroom on my own.

  Cody is setting a pile of food down on the TV stand. It looks like bagels and muffins and maybe some cold toast.

  “That took a while,” I say as I wheel self-consciously across the room. Cody looks at me, eyes tracking up and down, before settling on my face.

  “Hey, that doesn’t look nearly as lame as I expected.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. Here’s the food. It took a while because there were three very nice ladies there who were in need of some company.” He grins.

  “Lucky for them Captain America was on the case.”

  “Totally. Hey, where’s your costume?” Cody asks Jack, who’s checking out the breakfast options.

  “I decided not to bother.”

  Cody looks at him for a second and then grabs a couple of bagels, holding them on either side of his head. “You could always go as a Princess Leia,” he says, laughing at his own joke.

  Jack and I don’t join in.

  “Maybe next year,” Jack says in a voice that manages to be sarcastic and serious at the same time.

  “Whatever.” Cody rolls his eyes as he grabs a muffin and shoves it into his mouth. “Come on, eat something. I did go to all the effort of bringing it here,” he says, giving us a nice view of muffin mush.

  “I think I’ll pass on the bagels,” Jack says.

  “Agreed. Who knows where those hands have been.”

  Cody picks the two bagels back up and throws them, hitting both of us square in the face. Jack throws his right back, but Cody neatly deflects it with his plastic shield. I just let mine bounce off me and fall to the floor as I take a quick glance in the mirror.

  I really hope he didn’t ruin my makeup.

  Twenty-Four

  We find the girls first and then say good-bye to Jack. He looks so nervous about meeting up with that Caleb guy that I want to offer to go with him, but I manage to keep my mouth shut so that Cody won’t call me a worried mother in front of Clare.

  The first part of the morning seems to disappear in about three seconds. We managed to get a few photos done and are now waiting in a crazy line that looked impossibly long at first but has ended up being pretty close to perfection because it’s giving me time to get my brain functioning enough to have a full conversation with Clare. She is the smartest person I think I’ve ever met, but she seems to find me worth talking to anyway. She’s one of those people who knows something about everything but doesn’t lord it over you. Little bits of information just seem to pop out of her mouth naturally, as if she had the world’s largest storage locker of random facts in her head.

  She asks me about my legs so casually, like it’s the sort of thing she discusses every day. I tell her I have CP, and she nods and tells me what she knows about it, which is more than anyone else I’ve ever met outside of the rehab center or doctor’s office. She asks me a few questions about things like accessibility where I live and about being on the swim team. I usually hate it when a girl wants to talk about my legs or my wheelchair, or even my swimming. Most of the time, it’s an awkward conversation with lots of oh-poor-you or isn’t-that-amazing type comments. But Clare isn’t acting sympathetic or amazed. She’s just…interested.

  “You want to hear something cool about Ryan? Tell her about Jack!” Cody interrupts us. He’s been running up and down the line, finding other Captain Americas and comparing costumes. Mostly people seem to be laughing at him but a few looked less than thrilled with some of his comments. I keep expecting him to go flying into the air on the end of someone’s fist, but so far he seems relatively unscathed by his adventures in bothering people.

  “Jack?”

  “Yeah. Sir Ryan here saved the guy’s life,” Cody answers, going down on one knee in front of me with his stupid plastic shield plastered against his chest before I can tell him to shut up.

  “Do you mean the guy who was with you yesterday?” Sophia asks, smiling like she does every time he comes anywhere near her. She obviously thinks Cody’s the funniest person she’s ever met.

  Both girls look at me with interest.

&n
bsp; I guess it is kind of impressive to rescue someone, whether you’re in a chair or not—despite what my little brother thinks. It would be pretty sweet to see the admiration that I figure would come into Clare’s eyes if she heard that I actually went into the water to save someone’s life.

  But Jack’s here somewhere, trying to get away from home and everything that went on there. I have no right to bring up something that’s more his business than mine.

  “No, not him.” I decide on a lie. I glare at Cody for a second. I can’t see his eyes very well because of his silly mask, but I’m hoping he can read mine. “It was a different guy. There are a few Jacks in our school.”

  Cody makes a you’re-full-of-shit face at me. I ignore him, and neither girl notices his expression because they’re both focused on me. This is new. Two gorgeous females staring at me while Cody stands around, looking for someone to impress.

  “So, tell us about it!” Sophia says as we inch forward in the line. At this rate, we might be here all day.

  I can think of worse ways to spend my time.

  “It was nothing,” I say modestly.

  “Says the great hero of Thompson Mills!” I send a shut-your-mouth glare at Cody, but he isn’t looking my way. He’s scoping out another Captain and preparing for battle.

  “Thompson Mills. I’ve heard of that place.” Clare stares at me for a second. I can feel myself blushing under the makeup and hope it’s thick enough to conceal my impression of a fire truck.

  “Oh, I know! I read about it. That was you?” I nod, still being modest and humble about the whole thing.

  “What are you talking about?” Sophia asks Clare.

  “He’s that guy I told you about! Remember? The guy who got himself out of his wheelchair and down into the river from a bridge to save someone. You were a headline in our local paper! It was a pretty ironic one when you think about it.” Clare laughs.