Out of My Mind

by Sharon M. Draper

  But as I thought about it, I changed my mind. I felt the sorry for myself shift to mad again. And the mad me decided that I was not going to sit at home like a kicked-around puppy. I was gonna show up and let everybody know they didn’t beat me.

  Mom leaned on my door just then and said, “You want to stay home today? No one will blame you.”

  I shook my head forcefully. No! No! No! I kicked the covers off my feet.

  She sighed. “Okay, okay. But the weather is ugly, and I woke up with a migraine. Plus, Penny is sick, and Butterscotch threw up on the carpet. I had to put her in the basement.”

  She got me bathed and dressed and took me downstairs. Usually, Dad carries me up and down the steps, but with his arm out of commission, Mom just grunted, lifted me, and did it herself. She eased me into my manual chair (my electric chair and lightning storms don’t mix well), hooked up my old Plexiglas talking board (ditto for Elvira), then sat down to catch her breath.

  “It looks like we’re going to have one stormy day, honey,” she said as she glanced at the wet mess outside the window. As she ran a brush through my hair, she whispered, “I’m so sorry, my Melody, so, so sorry about everything.”

  I reached up and touched her hand.

  The rain continued to fall.

  She fixed me breakfast—scrambled eggs and Cream of Wheat—and fed me, one spoonful at a time. She kept placing her palm against her forehead. She was unusually quiet. I wondered if she was thinking about how many times she had fed me, how many more times she’d have to do it.

  Wearing a floppy yellow hat and yellow duck-footed sleepers, Penny wandered into the kitchen, coughing and sneezing.

  Mom stopped feeding me, found a Kleenex, and wiped Penny’s nose. She hated that, of course, so she screamed like she was being tortured by enemy spies. Normally, Mom makes a game of it and wipes Doodle’s nose as well to make Penny tolerate it better, but I guess she didn’t feel up to it this time.

  Then the phone rang. Mom answered, a spoon in one hand, the dirty Kleenex in the other.

  “Hello. You what? You need me to come in? But I’m off today. I’m supposed to be in Washington.” She paused. “Long story.”

  I cringed. Penny continued to howl.

  She ought to put Penny in the basement with the dog! I thought, frowning.

  Butterscotch scratched furiously at the basement door.

  “Penny, please!” Mom cried out, cupping her hand over the phone. “I can’t hear!”

  Penny quieted a little, but only because she had squatted down on the floor and put both hands in Butterscotch’s water bowl—sloshing water all over the floor.

  Mom listened for a minute, then said into the phone, “How bad is the accident? Lots of injuries? Okay, I understand. I’ll be there, but I have to wait until I get my daughter on the school bus.”

  She hung up the phone and sighed, squeezing the tissue into her fist.

  “I’ve got to go in to the hospital, Chuck,” she called out to Dad. “Big pileup on the freeway. Are you dressed and ready?”

  Dad came downstairs, still in his pajamas. “I’m not going in today,” he announced.

  “You almost never take a day off,” Mom said, a surprised frown on her face.

  “My wrist is aching, the weather is awful, and Penny has a cold,” he explained. “Why don’t you just stay home with me today?” he said to me.

  But no, I kicked and shrieked and insisted on going to school. Can’t miss today! I pointed. Must go! Must go!

  Mom just put her head in her hands once more. “Get Penny out of the dog’s dish” was all she finally said.

  Dad ripped a bunch of paper towels from the roll, cleaned up Penny’s mess, and wiped her nose with a wet paper towel. That started her screaming again. Her screech became a shriek.

  That’s when she reached up and knocked over the cup of orange juice on my tray. My clean blouse was a soppy mess. She did that on purpose! I thought angrily.

  Mom simply shrugged her shoulders and yanked off my shirt in one swift motion. She told Dad, “Melody is determined to show up at school—why, I do not know— but she may as well go.”

  I couldn’t explain to them that I wanted to see Catherine. Somehow I felt like she’d talk to me and make me feel better. She’s a college kid—she would know what to say. Besides, I had to give her that card. Today.

  It took Mom several minutes to find a new shirt for me until she remembered all the clean clothes in my suitcase. When she rolled that red suitcase into the kitchen, I looked at her, then looked away. I refused to cry any more.

  For some reason, the bus came early that morning. I’d just gotten my clean shirt on, my book bag still needed to be packed with my lunch and Catherine’s card, and I had to go to the bathroom. Even over the noise of all the rain and thunder, the honk of the bus horn blared clearly. It always sounds like a goose in pain.

  I heard Dad open the front door to wave the driver on. He yelled, “Don’t wait, Gus! She’s not ready!” The driver—a sandy-haired guy who’s been on this route for a couple of years—beeped once more, then rumbled on. Gus is really cool and often waits a few minutes as parents hustle to get their children out of their houses. It just takes us longer sometimes to get it together in the morning.

  “Melody, baby, why don’t you just stay home with Dad and Penny today? Please?” Mom asked as she lifted me off the toilet. “It’s such an icky day.”

  I kicked and cried out again, shaking my head. No, no, no! I didn’t know why it was so important, but I knew I had to show up. Maybe I wanted to let everybody know what the team had done to me—I wasn’t really sure. I only knew I had to go to school.

  Mom sighed and pulled up my jeans. When I got back in my chair, I pointed to Thanks and Mom. She just shook her head and stuffed my lunch into my book bag.

  The rain didn’t seem to be letting up, so Mom took a deep breath and started the process of loading me into the car. When I ride the bus, I simply roll down our ramp, down the driveway, onto the bus lift, and into a specially designed area of the bus that straps my chair into place.

  But when I ride in the car, it involves a whole process of taking apart and putting together me, my chair, and my stuff. Even with my manual chair, it’s a pain.

  And Dad was no help. With his arm in a sling, he shrugged and tried to look like he was sorry he couldn’t come out and lend Mom a hand. I think he was enjoying it a little, and that made Mom even more upset.

  The rain and wind, if anything, had gotten worse. Mom had draped a huge plastic raincoat over me and my chair, and another one over herself, but in seconds the hoods had blown off and our heads were soaked. We headed slowly down the wheelchair ramp, the wind whipping at us and the rain attacking from all sides.

  I thought it was exciting. I’d never seen the sky so dark at eight in the morning. The thunder and wind made it feel like a scene out of a really good movie. My hair is short and curly, and I think it looks sorta cute when it’s wet. Good thing. Mom hates it when her hair gets wet—it gets stringy and limp. I gotta admit: Mom with wet hair should hide in a closet.

  She opened the car door on the passenger side, and the wind blew it shut. She did it again, this time using me and my chair as a doorstop. The front seat of the car, of course, was getting soaked. She lifted me into the seat, strapped me in, and began the process of collapsing my chair. Fortunately, most of it is plastic and leather and metal, but I knew it would stay damp all day, even if somebody wiped it off real good when I got to school.

  Mom placed my chair, along with my old communication board, into the back of the SUV. When she shut the trunk, she slammed it hard. The rain continued to fall. By the time she scooted into the driver’s seat, she was a dripping mess and in a terrible mood.

  “I wish I could go back to bed,” she said grumpily as she put the key into the ignition. “My head is killing me—why did I agree to go to work? I’m supposed to be off today, with you in Washington.” She sighed heavily.

  I kicked
my legs in response, but only a little. I didn’t want to upset her even more. That’s when I glanced down and noticed she’d forgotten my book bag. Catherine’s card! I reached over, grabbed Mom’s arm, and pointed to my feet.

  “What?” she said, irritation in her voice.

  I kicked, I pointed, I grunted. Then I pointed to the house. Dad, who had changed into thick gray sweats, was standing there at the front door, grinning, my denim book bag in his right hand. I could see Penny, still in her little yellow duck pajamas and now a yellow rain hat, standing behind him. She had Doodle and Mom’s red umbrella in her hands. Lightning crackled. Thunder followed. The rain poured. I watched Mom’s hands tighten on the steering wheel.

  She made a noise that sounded like something I would say, almost a growl. “Arrrrh!” She flung open the car door, stomped back out into the storm, up the ramp, and then she snatched the book bag from Dad. She was sopping by the time she got back in the car. Dad waved his bandaged arm from the porch one last time, then turned and went back into the dryness of the house. I watched as the front door almost closed.

  That’s when I saw a small bundle of yellow, dragging a red umbrella, dart out of the house. I saw her for only a second. But I saw.

  I screamed! I kicked! I flailed my arms!

  The windows were almost completely fogged up, and they got even worse as I continued to act like I’d been possessed by demons. Mom looked at me as if I had lost my mind. She screamed at me, “Stop it! Are you crazy?”

  But I wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t. I banged on the car window, pulled Mom’s shirt, hit her head. I pinched her, or at least tried to.

  “I can’t take any more, Melody!” Mom screamed over the thunder. “I hate it when you get like this. You’ve got to learn to control yourself! Now QUIT!” She put her hand on the keys to start the car.

  I screamed, reached over, and tried to pull the keys from her. I scratched the back of Mom’s hand.

  She smacked me on the leg. She’d never raised a hand to me before. Never. I still didn’t stop screaming and kicking and jerking. I had to tell her. I had to tell her that Penny was out there! Never had I wanted words more.

  I was going out of my mind.

  “I’m taking you to school, and I hope they keep you!” Mom mumbled under her breath. Angrily, she turned on the car. A rush of air started to clear the windows. The windshield wipers rocked at their fastest speed.

  I cried. Huge, sobbing tears. I grabbed at Mom’s arms once more, but all she did was shake my arm away. I could tell she felt like hitting me again, but she didn’t. Her lips were tight. She looked out the rearview mirror. She put the car into reverse.

  I shrieked, I screeched, I yelled. The rain poured. The thunder roared.

  Slowly, the big car rolled backward. I felt the soft thud. I became deadly silent.

  Mom stopped, turning her head slowly to the left. Then she turned slowly to the right, almost as if in slow motion, as she saw Dad come running out of the house, a look of stark alarm on his face. “Penny!” I heard him yell. “Where’s Penny?”

  Mom rolled the window down on my side. Rain poured in onto me, but I didn’t care. “What do you mean? She’s with you!” Mom’s voice was low, but sounded frantic and very, very scared.

  She got out of the car. She looked down. She screamed for a long, long time.

  Her screams were louder than the police sirens that eventually came shrieking around our corner, louder than the fire truck and ambulance sirens that followed them, louder than my silent cries.

  I sat there for what seemed like hours, basically forgotten, strapped in the front seat of the car as the rain poured in my open window.

  I ached with fear.

  CHAPTER 31

  The air felt thick and damp, like the silence that followed the screaming and crying and sirens. The rain had slowed to a drizzle.

  After Mom and Dad left with the ambulance, Mrs. V took me out of the car and sat me in my chair. She placed the soggy, filthy Doodle on my tray.

  “I found this under the car,” she said, her voice shaky.

  I touched it and burst into tears.

  As she rolled me to her house, she said, “We’re gonna clean Doodle up and have him waiting for Penny when she comes home. You hear?” I couldn’t tell if she was trying to convince me or herself.

  I felt dizzy and nauseous. I could not stop shaking.

  After changing my clothes into warm, dry sweats, she switched the radio to an easy-listening station and turned the volume down low. The only color I heard was gray.

  Mrs. V stood behind me, gently rubbing my shoulders.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  I shook my head no.

  She continued to massage my back and shoulders until we both could feel the tension slipping away.

  “I’m going next door to get your Medi-Talker and the dog,” she said. “You want anything else?”

  I shook my head and continued to listen to the tones of smoky gray.

  When she got back, Butterscotch seemed nervous. She kept pacing and sniffing, as if she was looking for something.

  “I think she’s looking for Penny,” Mrs. V said. “Dogs know.”

  She hooked up Elvira to my chair and switched it on, but there was nothing either of us could say.

  “It’s not your fault, you know,” she said finally.

  I shook my head forcefully. Mrs. V should know better than to say stuff just to make me feel better.

  “I mean it, Melody. It is not your fault!”

  “Yes, it is!” I replied on my talker. I turned the volume up loud.

  Mrs. V walked around to where I could see her, leaned down until her face was just inches from my own. “You did your best to warn your mother. You should be proud of yourself.”

  “Not proud. Not enough,” I typed.

  “Sometimes things happen that are beyond our control, Melody. You did everything right.”

  The guilt bubbled up then.

  “I was mad at Penny,” I typed, slower than usual.

  “Penny knows you love her,” she said.

  Tears slid down my cheeks.

  “Made Mom take me to school.”

  “So what? The fact that you insisted on going to school, even after what happened to you yesterday, shows you are a strong person, a better person than anyone else there. I’m proud of you for that.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “I’m sure Penny will be just fine,” Mrs. V said then, but her voice said otherwise. For the first time I could remember, Mrs. V sounded unsure.

  “Will she die?” I had to know.

  “She was alive and breathing when the ambulance took her, so I’m going to believe that’s still the case. Toddlers are very resilient, you know.”

  I had to know something else. “Her brain? Messed up?” I asked. I had seen enough television shows on brain trauma to know it was possible. My classmate Jill had been in a car accident. I couldn’t bear to see Penny like that.

  Mrs. V answered thoughtfully and honestly. “I suppose it’s possible, but I pray that’s not the case.”

  “Two broken kids,” I typed. Just the idea almost made me gag.

  “That’s not gonna happen, Melody.” But Mrs. V’s voice wavered—I heard it.

  I was still for a moment, then I typed, “It should have been me.”

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  “Nobody would miss me.”

  “Now, you just stop stupid talk like that! My whole world would fall apart if something happened to you. Your parents’ as well.”

  I’m not sure I believed her. I tilted my head. “Really?” I typed.

  “I plan to wear purple to your college graduation!”

  “Far away and very hard.”

  “Like making the quiz team?”

  “They left me.”

  “And they lost!”

  I glanced out of her large picture window and watched the wet branches sway. How could I say it? I looked back at my talker
and typed very slowly, “I want to be like other kids.”

  “So you want to be mean and fake and thoughtless?”

  I looked up at her angry face, then looked away. “No. Normal.”

  “Normal sucks!” she roared. “People love you because you’re Melody, not because of what you can or cannot do. Give us a little credit.”

  “I want it to be yesterday,” I typed.

  “Yesterday your heart was broken because they left you behind, remember?”

  “Rather have that than this.”

  “I know. Oh, Melody, I know.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Me too.”

  The silent room echoed our thoughts.

  “I had a goldfish. He jumped out of his bowl,” I typed then.

  “I remember your mom telling me about that.”

  “Tried to save him. Couldn’t.”

  The phone rang then, startling both of us. I jerked in my chair. Mrs. V picked it up.

  “Yes,” she said.

  I strained to listen.

  “Oh, no!” she said.

  My heart dropped beneath my chair. She listened for a long time.

  “Oh, yes!” she said finally. Then she burst into tears and hung up.

  “Is Penny dead?” I typed. The world was spinning.

  Mrs. V wiped her eyes, looked at me, and took a deep breath. “She has some internal injuries, a badly broken leg, but she survived the surgery! She’s gonna live!” Then she cried once more.

  Normal doesn’t suck at all.

  CHAPTER 32

  It’s Monday, so I have to return to school today. The temperature has dropped and the sun is glowing like some kind of frosted golden jewel. Yet everything feels different and not quite right.

  Mom spent the weekend at the hospital with Penny, sleeping on a cot in her room. I have not seen her since, well, since everything changed. I wonder if Mom is mad at me.

  Mrs. V comes over and helps me get dressed and fed. Even Butterscotch seems to miss Penny. She puts her head in my lap and looks at me with lonely eyes. I can’t help her.