Chrissa Stands Strong

by Mary Casanova

  “He’s going to be okay,” Mom said. “He’s been mumbling. I expect that as the medication wears off, he’s going to have quite a headache.”

  “Hey,” he said, his voice a little gravelly.

  I smiled at him, even though his eyes were closed. “Hey, Tyler.”

  That day, we took turns staying with Tyler. The first time Mom and Dad stepped out for a bite to eat, Nana pulled an extra set of knitting needles and yarn from her bag. “Here,” she said, offering them to me. “I brought this along for you. Sometimes it helps.”

  Nana was right. Moving the knitting needles in and out of stitches, back and forth across rows, and transforming the orange-yellow yarn into a scarf really was what I needed. It quieted my worries and eased the ache in my heart. Most of all, just knowing that Nana understood helped more than anything.

  When I got tired of knitting, I tried to play “Brain Scan” and read Tyler’s mind. I concentrated and tried to imagine what he might be thinking. But time and again my mind drew a complete blank, which scared me and filled me with worry. What if I never fully got my brother back again? He was sleeping, but I leaned over and said softly, “Here we are, brother and sister…and I haven’t been very nice to you lately.”

  Nana set her knitting down on the bed and reached over to hug me. “He’s going to be just fine; you wait and see. And no wonder you don’t get along all the time. You’re brother and sister, after all. No two people can get along all the time.”

  “But Nana, I’ve been mean. I’ve been calling him names. I’ve been jealous of his diving. And when he said something show-offy, I gave Tara the idea to teach him a lesson. Now look what I’ve done to him.”

  Nana seemed to search for words, but then she said, “Chrissa, you love your brother. I know that and he knows that, too. But none of us is perfect. We all make mistakes. It’s how we handle our mistakes that matters. You’re already admitting you made a mistake, and that’s important. That takes courage. And now you can learn from it.”

  I sighed.

  “When I was a girl,” she continued, “there used to be a saying that went, ‘Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.’”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that one.”

  “It isn’t true, is it?”

  I shook my head.

  “Because words really can do a lot of damage. Once they’re out there, it’s hard to take them back. Then things like this can happen, even when we don’t intend them to. But what’s important is that we keep working all the time at being kind and caring, and being a good friend. And when we fail, we admit our mistakes, ask for forgiveness, and start again.”

  “But this isn’t just a little mistake, Nana!” I whispered. “Tyler could have died.”

  “You’re right,” she said, “but what happened to Tyler is not your fault.” She placed her hand on my shoulder and nodded. “Chrissa, it’s good to know when to hold your tongue. But this? I know you didn’t mean for this to happen. And neither did Tara. You probably should have spoken up, but it was an accident. And no doubt, hard as this is, you’ll both learn plenty from it.”

  Later, when Nana and I went for dinner in the hospital cafeteria, the cell phone Mom had given me rang. It was Gwen. “How’s Tyler?” she asked. “Sonali and I have been so worried.”

  “He has a concussion,” I replied more calmly than I felt. “He’s on medication to keep the swelling down and to keep him quiet. But he’s going to be okay.”

  “I still can’t believe it,” Gwen said. “If there’s anything we can do, let us know.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Um, I’m using Sonali’s cell phone. She wants to talk to you, too.”

  “Chrissa?” Sonali began. “When you left the pool in a hurry with your dad, the coach asked us to gather your things from your locker and get them to you. I’ll leave your backpack on your porch, okay?”

  I sighed. “Yeah, thanks.”

  “Well, I’d better go,” Sonali said. “We hope Tyler gets better soon. We’ll call you again later, Chrissa. Okay?”

  “Yeah, I’d like that.”

  I appreciated their phone call more than they knew.

  Sometime that evening, Tyler’s eyes popped open and he looked at me, all serious. “We’re getting close to blastoff,” he said. Then he closed his eyes again.

  “Phew!” Mom said. “I know he’s still a little loopy with the medication, but he’s sounding more like his old self—finally!”

  For the first time all night, I laughed. “Yup, sounds just like him.” I felt a surge of giddiness, as if I could dance around the room and up and down the halls. But instead, I sat right on the edge of the bed beside my brother. As the minutes passed by, his babbling started to make more sense. And then, as if he was truly waking up for the first time, he kept his eyes open and blurted, “I’m really thirsty—and starving.” Then he screwed up his bruised face and said, “And what am I doing here?” Just as quickly, he answered his own question. “Last thing I remember was the diving board. Oh…” He moved his hand gingerly up toward his forehead. “Wow, I think I blew that dive!”

  I couldn’t help myself. I planted a sisterly kiss on his cheek. “Oh, Tyler, you’re right. It was going to be a 9.8, but—”

  The corners of his mouth lifted slightly.

  “Honestly, I’m just so glad that you’re okay!”

  The next morning, after a few extra tests, Tyler was released from the hospital. On the drive home, I squeezed close to him in the backseat. There are times when he drives me so crazy that I can’t get enough space between us, but just then I was so happy to have him coming home that he couldn’t do anything wrong.

  “I wonder if being a good diver helps when you’re trying to get into the space program?” he said. “I mean, it seems like anything that helps with three-dimensional movement would be good. When you’re weightless in space, you have to know where your body is in the air.”

  He rambled on and on, and he didn’t get on my nerves a bit. That in itself was pretty much a miracle.

  Later that morning, when Tyler and I played “Brain Scan” together, I guessed what Tyler was thinking in most of my tries. When it came to colors, I got “orange” right. Maybe it was because I was thinking of the scarf I’d started, which I intended to give to Tyler. When he thought of a sport, I guessed “diving,” but then, that seemed to be the only thing that Tyler had focused on all summer. And then he guessed the kind of fish I was thinking about—“pike.” But of course, that’s a diving position, as well as a fish common in Minnesota lakes. So maybe we really can read each other’s minds. Or maybe, being brother and sister means that we know each other so well, we can guess, more times than not, what is in the other’s mind. Either way, it felt good just to be playing a game together again.

  “You know what, Tyler?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “You’re my brother,” I said, “and sometimes you bug me…but you’re my friend, too, you know that?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Same here.”

  After Tyler woke from a nap, Nana said he could walk with me to the barn. His forehead was bruised with shades of purple and green, but at least he didn’t have to wear that ice pack all day. We leaned over the stall door while Cosmos chewed her cud contentedly and Starburst jumped and skipped around her. I wished my life were as carefree.

  “Hey, you two,” Dad said, entering the barn with Mom. “We just came from a meeting with the coach, Tara’s mom, and Jadyn’s parents. We need to talk.”

  They sat down on the nearby bench. Tyler and I turned to face them.

  “Three things,” Mom said. “First, Chrissa, your coach has suspended both you and Tara for two weeks.”

  “Two weeks?” I whispered. Though I knew it was fair, my heart still sank.

  “You’re expected to go to practice but not to suit up. He wants you to be there in the bleachers and keeping up with what the team is doing.”

  “But—” I started to pro
test and then stopped myself. I had been on the ladder, too. And more importantly, I could have called for the coach, but I hadn’t done so. “Okay.”

  “Second,” Dad explained, “Coach Beck has been in contact with Jadyn’s parents, the Johnsons, since they’re computer experts. In fact, they helped him set up the swim team’s message board. When we talked to your coach about the cyber-bullying, he said he’d already been in touch with the Johnsons after the first posting. They were able to find out where it’s been coming from and who sent out the messages.”

  I held my breath, then exhaled. “Who?”

  “Well, it’s pretty devastating for the Johnsons as parents,” Dad said. “It’s their own daughter. It’s Jadyn who’s been doing all this.”

  My jaw hung limp. I turned to look at Tyler, who looked equally stunned. Jadyn? I’d never suspected her.

  From their stalls, Cosmos and Checkers lifted their heads high. Their ears were alert, ready to take in the news, it seemed. Even Starburst stared at us with her big eyes.

  I found my voice. “You’re sure? Not Tara?”

  “Not Tara,” Mom repeated.

  It didn’t make sense. Why would Jadyn post mean messages and create hurtful images about Gwen, Sonali, and me? Jadyn was usually in the background, the one who always stood up for Tara. It just didn’t add up. But then I remembered that she was good with computers.

  “What do we do?” I asked. My surprise and bewilderment gave way to anger. Jadyn had no right. “What she did to us was mean.”

  Tyler elbowed me lightly. “Chrissa, you’re not all that perfect, y’know. You’ve been calling me names all summer.”

  I winced.

  “Okay,” Mom interjected, “third. Chrissa, the Johnsons have asked us to stop over.”

  “Do I have to go?” I asked. I saw no reason whatsoever to have to meet up with Jadyn after what she’d done.

  “Actually,” Mom replied, “though it won’t be comfortable, they asked that you come along, too.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was to go to Jadyn’s house. But there I was, stepping up to the brick home with its covelike entry framed with ivy. The carved sign beside the mailbox read “The Johnson Family.”

  I determined, from the moment we stepped inside, to let my parents do the talking. In the living room, I counted at least four computers on various counters and desks—one big-screened computer and several laptops. Computer manuals, stacks of disks, and printouts were piled everywhere.

  “Please excuse the chaos,” Mrs. Johnson explained with a dainty wave of her arm. She was a petite woman with tiny hands and feet. “We both work from home as computer consultants. Sometimes it’s hard to know where work ends and home begins.”

  With a Twins baseball cap snugged on backward, Mr. Johnson rose from a computer desk. I recognized him from the meeting with the principal last spring. He grabbed his cap’s rim and spun it to the front. Then he seemed to reconsider and took it off and set it on a coffee table instead.

  “Thanks for coming over,” he said, extending his thick hand toward my dad’s in a handshake. He lowered his voice. “Daria and I create Web sites. It’s our work, so Jadyn comes by her technological skills naturally. I asked you to be here so that Jadyn could apologize in person and see the impact of her actions.” He nodded in my direction, but I glanced away.

  Mrs. Johnson stepped toward a hallway. “Jadyn, the Maxwells are here.”

  A door creaked opened, and the padding of footsteps sounded in the hallway. Jadyn snugged her arms around her waist, as if the warm air had grown icy. Her gaze dropped to the wood floor.

  Mrs. Johnson motioned us to the table. “Please, everyone. Have a seat.” She began pouring glasses of lemonade, but no one took one.

  “Jadyn,” Mr. Johnson began, “I realize this isn’t easy, asking you to apologize like this, but I think it’s important that you try to explain your actions to Chrissa and her parents.”

  The silence around the table grew.

  I shifted in my chair and then sneaked a look at Jadyn. She reminded me of the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, who begins to melt into a puddle. Jadyn, who always stood up for Tara, seemed to be wilting before my eyes.

  Heat crept up my neck to my face. I felt for Jadyn. I’d been fuming inside at her, but now I just felt terrible. I would die if I were in her shoes, sitting with all of us looking at her.

  Jadyn’s green eyes glistened as she blinked away tears. “At first, I just sent a couple of anonymous text messages? To try to get Sonali back in our group? I mean, we’ve been friends for years until you moved here. And then, well, over the summer Tara started to talk about how she wanted to change, to become friends with you, Chrissa, for starters. I mean, I worried I’d lose the only friend I had left.” Her face reddened. “I would end up all alone!”

  “What about Tara?” I asked, needing to finally know whether she had played a part. “Did she have anything to do with this?”

  “She didn’t know anything about it.”

  I felt a surge of relief. I hadn’t been wrong about Tara. Tara was still Tara, jumping up the ladder at the tiniest encouragement, acting before thinking, always pushing the limits. But her wish to be friends—to change—had been sincere.

  Sitting beside Jadyn, her mom leaned closer and asked, “Honey, is that why you wanted to know how to post photos on the message board?”

  Jadyn flinched but then met her mother’s eyes. “No and yes. At first, I just wanted to help put up team photos—kids swimming and that kind of stuff? But then, once I knew how, well, it was so easy.”

  At the end of the table, Mr. Johnson sat back with his arms crossed. “I thought all this ended last spring after that haircutting episode. Whatever is going on between you girls has to come to an end. We didn’t raise you like this. What happened?”

  Jadyn cupped her hands over her mouth and breathed through her fingers. “I’m sorry! I really am!” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I don’t know why I did it. I knew it wasn’t nice, but I didn’t know what else to do. Who else was going to be my friend if I lost Tara, too?”

  “It’s a reason,” her dad said, “but it doesn’t excuse the behavior. There are going to be consequences.”

  He shifted around in his chair, as if searching for the right words. Finally he said, “We’ve always said that computers are great tools, but their value depends on how they’re used. They can be used for good and they can be used badly, too, as we now know all too well. Jadyn, I want you to show me everything you’ve put online so that we can take it down immediately. Then we’ll figure out where to go from there. But first you’ve got some apologies to make, and you need to find a way to make it right.”

  Jadyn nodded. She sniffed loudly and stared into her lap. “I’m sorry?” she said, and I wondered if she meant it. Then she looked up and met my eyes. “Really, Chrissa. I mean it. I’m really sorry. What…what can I do to make things right?” she asked in a shaky voice.

  I didn’t move in my chair. After so much hurt, I wasn’t sure that I was ready to forgive her. This was all happening so fast.

  “I don’t know. I mean, I’m not sure what you can do. But it’s nice that you’re apologizing to me.”

  Jadyn’s shoulders shuddered and she met my eyes briefly. “Thanks.”

  Then I added, “Sonali and Gwen were also hurt by what you wrote. Maybe you need to apologize to them, too. That would help.”

  Jadyn nodded.

  “Jadyn, the coach has suspended you completely for two weeks from swimming,” Mrs. Johnson said, handing her a box of tissues. “You’re not to go to the pool until your suspension is over.”

  Jadyn blew her nose. “Okay.”

  I wasn’t happy to be suspended, either, but at least I wasn’t banned entirely from the pool. Jadyn’s punishment was far more serious.

  “Y’know,” Jadyn’s mom said to my parents, “these incidents of cyber-bullying have led me to read more about bullying of all kinds. I think that with t
his incident, and with all that went on last spring, it’s time we put our heads together and work with the school as it deals with this issue.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Mom chimed in.

  My throat was dry, and I took a long drink of lemonade while the adults talked. Although Jadyn hung her head and looked as miserable as I’d felt since the bullying had started, a wave of relief spread through me. The bullying finally had come to an end. I could breathe again.

  I was smarter now. I had told the truth, asked for help, and gotten it. Maybe bullying would show up again sometime in my life, but when it did, I’d be better prepared to handle it. I had a few tricks up my sleeve. For starters, I wouldn’t go it alone.

  “We have e-mail access to all the parents and teachers at the school,” Mr. Johnson said. “We could work with Coach Beck and Mrs. Ziminsky to see if there’s any interest in gathering a few families and teachers to start brainstorming.”

  “Think two weeks would be too soon?” Dad asked.

  Mr. Johnson shook his head. “No, why?” he asked.

  “We could gather at our house for a Labor Day potluck before school starts. What do you think? It’d be a good way to start the new school year off right.”

  During the two weeks of being suspended and having to sit together on the sidelines, Tara and I got to know each other better. We cleared up some of our misunderstandings and watched Tyler as he practiced his diving moves on the floor. He was supposed to take a full month off from any activities that might risk bumping his head again, but he continued to stretch and practice as much as he could.

  On the very first day of suspension, Sonali and Gwen came over before practice started. I had already apologized to both of them by phone, saying that I was sorry that I hadn’t been a very good friend when they’d felt so hurt.

  “We’re here to apologize to you,” Sonali said to Tara. Gwen nodded.

  Tara looked surprised.

  “Tara,” Sonali said, twisting her hair around her finger, “we suspected you, not Jadyn. I guess that after last spring, we just assumed that it was you. And that was wrong. But Chrissa stood up for you and kept saying that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. That we didn’t have any proof it was you.”