by Susan Haas
I watched their coordinated hand movements. Cross chest, hit legs, clap middle. Then it really heated up. Hit the hand to your right, clap middle, hit a hand to your left, clap middle.
Their bodies knew exactly what to do and when to do it. Most of these girls were a couple of years older than me. Maybe when I got to be their age my hands would do this too.
The girls clapped faster and faster until finally, McRae and Elle missed hands all together. I squealed, and Mom gave me a little squeeze.
“Do you wanna play, Lexi?” Anna whispered.
Ggguuhhh. Even my eyes couldn’t keep up with their hand movements.
“C’mon,” Anna said, pulling at my legs. “We can use your feet instead of your hands.”
Without waiting for an answer, the five girls shifted over so that my dangling feet were within reach.
“My turn!” Elle said. She crossed her arms. “Ready? Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack all dressed in rainbow, rainbow, rainbow—”
Elle clapped my left shoe, but Anna stood with crossed arms.
“Elle! That’s not how it goes, plus nothing rhymes with rainbow.”
How about: That rule’s a pain though, pain though, pain though.
“Does too.” Elle held my hand as she spun around. “My sister’s a pain though, pain though, pain though.”
Did that just happen? Jinx! These girls get me!
Ms. Trejo shook her head and put a finger to her lips.
“You can say it however you want,” Elle whispered.
The older students filed from the classroom.
“Au revoir, Madame Joann!”
“Bonne journée!”
As they crossed a red strip of tape at the classroom doorway, the conversation became, “Whatcha doing later?” and “Text me when you wanna do homework.”
Our class lined up at the red tape. As we entered, Ms. Joann greeted each of us with “Bonjour!” and “Comment allez-vous?”
Mom started to take our usual seat in the back, but I flailed and pointed to the chair between Anna and Elle. Mom smiled and we moved up. This was where I wanted to sit every week. This was the spot for finding gifts.
Class began with a prayer in French. Ms. Joann, like everyone here except me and Mom, was part of the Bible belt, but her prayers were different from the random ones I got on the street. She prayed that we would all learn and love French language and culture, then she said a small prayer for each of us. When it was my turn, she asked for my continued good health and happiness.
I wished she would add, “S’il vous plaît, aidez Lexi à trouver ses cadeaux,”—please help Lexi find her gifts—but she didn’t.
After that, she told us to take out our cahier de preparation, or workbooks, and our new year officially began. Occasionally, Ms. Joann stopped to repeat something in English for emphasis, but otherwise everyone obeyed the French Only rule. When it was time to leave, my brain was thinking in French.
As soon as we were dismissed, everyone shoved their workbooks in their bags and tore through the kitchen shouting, “Race ya down the hill!” and “See ya at Bible study!”
“Au revoir, Lexi,” Anna said.
Elle leaped over the red tape and shouted midair, “See ya outside, Lexi.”
I pumped an arm and smiled.
On the way home I thought about Anna and Elle and the other kids. French was gonna be amazing this year. When I got my body, I would definitely learn how to play Miss Mary Mack.
As soon as I thought that, reality came flooding back. To get my body, I had to find my gifts. And to find my gifts, I had to look for them. I had been so distracted I hadn’t even thought about them. Next week, I would do better. Next week, I would stay focused on what mattered.
CHAPTER 10
Age 13, 20 hours until surgery
I could not be an MRI tech for a bunch of reasons. For one, if I had to describe the procedure to my patient, it would go something like this:
The MRI machine is a gaping, metal beast. For fun, we’ve nicknamed him Thanos. Up front, Thanos has a long, padded tongue. Once you’re asleep, we’ll lay you on this tongue, and he’ll slowly pull you into his mouth. The thing about Thanos is, he doesn’t like you to move. You must be completely still. That’s why we’re putting you to sleep—so he can eat you in peace, without you thrashing around in there. Wait! Why are you banging on the exit door? Where do you think you’re going?
Oh geez. I just realized there’s another kid in here. From the look on her face, I think she read my mind. She looks terrified.
I’m sorry.
I smile at her and wave my hand, but my whole arm pumps up and down. I’m pretty sure I look like I’m conducting an orchestra. The kid doesn’t seem to notice, or maybe she’s just too scared to care.
I try to send her a telepathic message. It’s okay. These MRIs are really no biggie.
Her eyes tear up. I’ve never really perfected that whole telepathy thing. What is she, seven? Maybe eight? Who sends an eight-year-old into this place alone?
Finally, I have no choice. I gulp huge amounts of air and let fly an impressively loud burp. She smiles through her tears. I smile back and try to make funny faces.
“You’re shivering!” a nurse says to me. “Need a blanket?”
I nod and point to the kid, who’s also trembling. The MRI room is always freezing, but I think her shivers aren’t from the cold.
The nurse tucks several warm blankets around me, and it’s like pajamas straight from the dryer. Just as she’s wrapping a blanket around the kid’s legs, an -ist walks in. My stomach lurches.
You can tell the -ists from the nurses and techs by the color of their surgical scrubs. This one is wearing a green cloth cap and face mask so he must have just come from the OR. He leans over my gurney. I squeeze my imaginary rock.
“Hi Lexi! Guess who?”
He pulls down his mask, and I laugh. It’s Brian.
Steve Shapiro hired him last year to help run the neuro-surgery program here. At first, he was Dr. Aalbers—just another -ist. But after a while, he grew on me. He’s cool for a neurologist. Now, I don’t demean him with the doctor title. He’s been promoted to just plain Brian. He’ll be in charge of programming my device, and he’ll be with me in surgery tomorrow. Thank God.
“I have to switch off your stimulator before the MRI, but we’re gonna knock you out at the same time so you won’t be uncomfortable. I promise I’ll turn it back on before you wake up. Okay?”
I stick out my tongue and laugh—gotta love an -ist who says, “knock you out” instead of something like, “proceed with sedation.”
The first stimulator has calmed my body a lot, but it only works when it’s on. If it’s off, my body will squirm on this table like a bug on its back.
“Ready for tomorrow? And by that I mean ready for the really terrible haircut you’re gonna get?” He picks up one of my braids. “You can kiss these goodbye.”
Now I’m really laughing. He’s not wrong. Surgeons can target tiny structures in the brain with sharpshooter accuracy, but they give lousy haircuts. The first couple of weeks are the worst. With two jagged incisions across my shaved head and wires bulging in my neck, I’ll look like Frankenstein. People will gasp and grab their children when I roll by.
At first, I was a little worried about the haircut, but here’s the thing. I didn’t even have to tell Anna and Elle. They just knew. They threw a hat party with all my friends, and now I have like twenty hats, scarves, and bandannas. Good friends are just like that. They build a solid platform—no, wait … a scaffolding. (Thanks, Grade 5 vocab list. You came in handy after all). They build a scaffolding of steel and cement under your feet that props you up, so you don’t fall into your sinkhole, so you don’t give in to fear.
Suddenly, I’m serious again. Anna, Elle, where are you guys? Please message me.
Before I can obsess about that too much, there’s a flurry of activity around my gurney. Someone turns on my IV, and I feel a cold rush in my hand. Brian
holds a device called a programmer up to the place where the stimulator is implanted in my belly. The programmer magnetically changes the settings on the stimulator. Brian makes selections like he’s making a withdrawal at an ATM.
“Unit is off,” he says.
A second person looks over his shoulder and says, “Verifying unit is off.”
There’s no joking or messing around with this part. If I went into the MRI with the stimulator still on, it could kill me. But this is Brian. Just. Plain. Brian. I am sure I … will … beeee …
CHAPTER 11
Age 5, The Year of the Buttered Cat
The day after French class was our first official day of homeschool. Hannah, Tucker, and I were in the kitchen waiting for class to start at nine a.m., but Mom was nowhere to be seen.
“Mom’s missing,” Tucker announced. He spun upside down in his chair and hummed “The Star-Spangled Banner,” loud and off-key.
I arched and groaned. I couldn’t handle another missing thing in my life.
“Chill out, Lex. He’s just kidding,” Hannah said.
Finally, Mom shuffled into the kitchen, balancing her open laptop in one hand and a coffee mug in the other. Her cell was wedged between her ear and shoulder.
“So, I got this email from Lou Lattimore this morning,” she said into her phone.
I didn’t know who Lou Lattimore was, but Mom might as well have said she had gotten an email from the Dark Lord, because that’s how grim her tone was.
There was talking on the other end that I could tell was Dad, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
“Lou wants to dig a little deeper and needs our notes ASAP. You know how I feel about this, Ken.”
There was more blah, blah, blah from Dad.
Mom sighed. “Okay, I’ll get on it right away. But after this, I want as little to do with Lou as possible.”
“Sorry guys,” Mom said. She let her phone drop onto the kitchen table. “A little project has come up that I need to take care of this morning.”
Hannah groaned.
“Okay, okay, how about this? The three of you work on something … maybe a poster or flyer about The Cat.” She snapped her fingers and pointed to the family computer. “That’s it. You guys make a missing cat flyer for English—”
“Mom!” Hannah shook her head.
“No? Okay. Then, recess. Make a missing cat flyer for recess. Print out a few, and after lunch we’ll put them up around the neighborhood.”
“Crushing it,” Hannah called after her. “Crushing homeschool!”
Mom waved a hand and turned towards her office. When she did, her laptop screen flashed towards me.
Tucker pumped his fists. “First day, free day!”
“Flyer. Now!” Hannah said, pointing to the computer.
She held me on her hip so I could see, but I wasn’t thinking about the missing cat. It had only been a flash—a hot second, really—but I could’ve sworn that when Mom’s laptop turned, I saw a fancy gold heading matching the one on the mystery letter. This Lou Lattimore guy was digging deeper into missing things. My missing things. Why didn’t Mom want his help?
“Earth to Lexi!” Hannah said, giving me a little jiggle. “I said, what do you think of this?”
Tucker held my head steady, and Hannah ran her finger under each word to help my eyes follow:
MISSING CAT
Name: The Cat
Last seen: Not sure, but it’s been a while
Appearance: gray fur, green eyes
If found: DO NOT APPROACH. The Cat should be considered armed and dangerous. Please call 704-333-2121
“Whadaya think? Hannah asked.
I gave an absentminded nod.
“You’re right. It needs a picture.” Hannah said.
Tucker scrolled through files of family photos, but there weren’t many of The Cat.
Finally, a tiny thumbnail appeared in one corner. Tucker clicked on it, and the image filled the screen. It was The Cat perched near the top of our Christmas tree the year before, taken just before the tree fell over, smashing a dozen ornaments.
“Yep, that’s the one,” Hannah agreed. “If anyone finds him, they won’t keep him long. He’s kind of a jerk.”
“He wouldn’t let anyone bring him home,” Tucker said. “He probably wouldn’t let us bring him home.”
He copied the picture under the Missing Cat heading, then stuffed paper into the printer.
After lunch, we loaded into the van, and Mom drove us around the neighborhood to post flyers on streetlamps and stop signs.
I was grateful for the uninterrupted time to think about Lou Lattimore. His name sounded like a superhero alias like Peter Parker or Bruce Banner. I pictured him flying over Charlotte in his cape searching for my missing things.
The van door slammed. I jumped.
Tucker wiped sweat from his forehead. “That’s the last one. Now all we have to do is go home and wait for a phone call.”
It would be a long wait.
CHAPTER 12
Age 5, The Year of the Buttered Cat
The day after our false start, school started back for real with Hannah and Tucker at the kitchen table and me in my beanbag chair. Hannah worked on her laptop, wearing headphones to block out Tucker, who was once again upside down singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
I was excited to be studying North Carolina history this year. On Thursday, Mom read me the story of Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World. Weeks after her birth, Virginia’s grandfather, Governor White, returned to England for supplies. It took forever for him to get back to the colonies. First, he was stuck in a harbor with no wind, and when he finally got back to England, there was a war.
I held my breath as Mom read that when the Governor returned to North Carolina on Virginia’s third birthday, he discovered that she and all the colonists had vanished. All he found was the word CROATOAN carved on a post.
“Not to interrupt or anything, Mom, but you do remember that Lexi starts back to horseback riding today, right?” asked Hannah. She was standing in front of the refrigerator peeling an orange.
“Today? I thought that was next week.”
Hannah nodded her head towards the calendar on the fridge. “Well, there’s a big star on today’s date that says Mitey Riders.”
Mom looked at her watch. She jumped up, pulling on her shoes and my shoes. She swiped her car keys and purse from the counter, and we bolted for the door.
We only lived a few miles from Misty Meadows Farm, home to Mitey Riders Adaptive Horseback Riding. On the way, I couldn’t stop thinking about Virginia Dare, separated by a whole wide ocean from people who loved her. It made me so sad and empty I wanted to go back in time and fix it. If Virginia had her own personal superhero like I did, he could fix it. Lou Lattimore could swoop down, grab Governor White, and fly him back across the Atlantic. The colonists would look up, and Virginia would look up, and there would be her grandfather, tucked under Lou’s arm like a newspaper.
I sighed. Impossible. They didn’t have newspapers back then. Obviously.
When we arrived at the farm, Mom signed me in at the barn office then carried me out to the loading area. Last year, I had been the first rider of the day, but this year there was a new class before mine. The riding ring was humming with activity, and six empty wheelchairs sat waiting at the fence.
I watched as the horses were guided to a platform. The riders were lifted off and carried down a ramp. Their arms flailed, and their heads jerked as they were positioned in their wheelchairs. They looked like they were about Kali and Kasey’s ages—teenagers—but why were they like this now?
Where are their bodies? Why haven’t they come in?
A fear rippled through me. It had been nearly six weeks since the prophecy, and I had made exactly zero progress in my gift search. I hadn’t considered the possibility of a deadline. What if there was one? What if I only had a certain amount of time to find my gifts before … before this? I
watched as the kids rolled off in their chairs.
“Lexi, is that you?”
An old man jogged towards us. I arched my back and squealed.
He scooped me from Mom’s arms.
“I missed you this summer. My farm is lonely without you.” He gave me a big hug and kissed my forehead. “Lemme hear my name. I know it’s in there. I know you can say it! Harry.” He bounced me with each syllable.
I took a deep breath and puffed, “Hhh, Hhh.”
“That’s it. Ha-rry.”
I looked into his eyes and saw the same ocean I had stared into with Dad. Deep, stormy blue. The keeper of a million secrets and promises and dreams. These eyes had watched kids learn to ride and then learn to walk. These eyes knew stuff. And they saw me walking and talking and riding my horse. All. By. Myself.
My body is coming. I’ll find my gifts, and then my body will be here. I WILL.
“Let’s get to the barn,” Harry finally said. “Pepper is waiting.”
After class, Mom signed me out in the barn office. I stared at a yellowing collage of photos on the wall. They all featured the same young woman on a prancing black horse. The horse was shiny and graceful, but it was his rider who stole the show. In every picture she had this smile—like she owned the place. Like she was doing what she was born to do.
I lunged toward her.
“What on earth are you doing?” Mom asked, reeling me back in.
I stared up at the wall.
“You like the pictures?”
Tongue out.
“That’s Harry’s wife, Marilyn. Look how young she was!”
She walked me around the room so I could see all the photos. “Marilyn used to compete in a type of horseback riding called saddle seat. Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Saddle seat was obviously Marilyn’s gift. Maybe I just needed to see a picture of myself with mine.
I imagined a frame and inside—me. I squinted and tried to see more. What was I doing in that picture? What was my gift that everyone would want to see up on a wall? But all I could see was me sitting in my beanbag chair against a white background.
