Fleabrain Loves Franny

by Joanne Rocklin

  Franny realized Quiet Katy wasn’t actually that shy or quiet.

  “Oh, what’s this?” cried Quiet Katy, or just plain Katy at that moment. She held up Sparky’s Finest. “Is this a brooch? It’s really nice.”

  “It’s a bottle cap,” said Franny. “One of my favorites.”

  “It’s unusual for a bottle cap.” Katy waved Sparky’s Finest around the room. “Look how it catches the light!”

  Franny caught a quick flash of Fleabrain’s “face,” on Alf’s tail, looking alarmed. Franny was alarmed, as well. “Careful, please. Don’t drop it.”

  “Oh, of course,” said Katy respectfully. She gently laid Sparky’s Finest on Franny’s dresser again.

  “I could lend you some Bobbsey Twins books, the ones you haven’t read,” said Franny. “And any other books you want to borrow.”

  “Oh, good! Thank you!” Katy chose a few books from the bookshelf. “I’ll take really, really good care of these; don’t you worry. I’m not the type who folds down the corners of her pages, so you don’t have to worry about that. Sometimes I do snack while I read, but I promise I won’t do that, either. But if I do snack, I’ll make sure I’m really, really careful. I’ll use lots of napkins. I’ll shake out any crumbs. And if I do any permanent damage, I promise I’ll replace your book. But, as I said, don’t worry. I’ll be really careful.”

  Katy stopped to take a breath. “Franny, I’m really, really glad we got a chance to spend time in a one-to-one situation. I always feel much better in a one-to-one situation. Shyness is an affliction of mine and my mother’s. Oh, I guess I shouldn’t say ‘affliction.’ I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “I’m glad we got a chance to spend time, too,” said Franny.

  Franny wheeled over to her bedside, because there was one more book to lend Katy, the one she always kept on her night table. “Here’s something else for you,” she said. “My very favorite.”

  Katy examined the cover. “A book about a spider and a pig?”

  “It’s recently published,” said Franny. “You’ll love it.”

  Proud Pittsburgh

  Dr. Engel, Who Thought He Knew Everything

  Franny knew the face of her pediatrician, Dr. Harris Engel, very well. She’d spent time with it, up close, during every examination, all her life. Dr. Engel’s breath smelled like peppermint and cigars. He had two deep lines in his broad forehead, lines that seemed deeper every time Franny saw him. As he loomed over her, Franny could even count the nose hairs growing from Dr. Engel’s nostrils. His cheeks were chubby and tanned, even though it was February. That’s because Dr. and Mrs. Engel had recently returned from Florida.

  “Say ‘ah,’ ” said Dr. Engel, holding down Franny’s tongue with a wooden stick.

  “Ah,” said Franny. She counted the nose hairs. Three hairs this visit—two hanging from the left nostril and one from the right.

  “Throat looks normal,” he said. “Now for your ears.” He leaned over and poked Franny’s ears with his ear-examining contraption.

  “Did you have a nice vacation, Doctor?” asked Mrs. Katzenback.

  “Mmm,” said Dr. Engel.

  “That’s nice,” said Franny’s mother, although to Franny it wasn’t clear whether Dr. Engel meant yes or no.

  Dr. Engel never seemed to like talking about personal matters. She actually knew very little about him, except that there was a Mrs. Engel and they went to Florida the first two weeks of every single February. It was hard to imagine Dr. Engel lying on a beach in bathing trunks, baring his large stomach. Franny had never seen him in anything except his white coat and crisply pressed long pants.

  “We wanted to make an earlier appointment, but your nurse reminded us that you were vacationing,” said Mr. Katzenback.

  “Turn this way, dear.” Dr. Engel poked Franny’s other ear. “Was there an urgent need? You certainly could have made an appointment with Dr. Unger while I was gone.”

  “No, it wasn’t urgent,” said Mr. Katzenback. “We were, as I believe I told your nurse, worried about Franny’s lack of greater progress in terms of moving her legs.”

  “Oh, but she has made progress!” said Franny’s mother. “We are thrilled that she has moved her feet since we last saw you! And she does walk short distances with her braces, even without the crutches. Show the doctor, Franny.”

  Her father eased Franny out of her wheelchair, helping her stand upright. Franny leaned hard on one braced leg, then pushed her opposite hip forward so that her other braced leg swung out stiffly. She reversed the process with the other leg, clinging to her father’s arm, continuing to walk this way to the doctor’s big desk, then back again to her chair, into which she sank with relief.

  “We are wondering if you would write a note to the authorities at Creswell School, describing her progress with her braces and crutches, and allaying any fears they might have of contagion,” said Mr. Katzenback.

  “Of course, of course,” said Dr. Engel, adding to the notes on his clipboard.

  “But she will improve even more and walk normally again, won’t she, Doctor?” asked Franny’s father.

  “Mmm,” said Dr. Engel.

  “We also have some concerns about her eyes,” said Mrs. Katzenback.

  “Her eyes?” asked the doctor.

  Franny squirmed in her wheelchair. “Oh, Mom. I told you. I was just pretending.”

  “That may be, but we thought a quick eye exam would set our fears to rest. Franny has been fitting a glass bottle cap inside her eyeglasses to correct her vision, Doctor.”

  “I wasn’t correcting anything,” Franny said. “I just wanted to pretend I was wearing a monocle, like people used to do in olden times.”

  “Honey, it seems you’ve pretended more than once. All of us have noticed you wearing the bottle cap several times in the past few weeks,” said her mother.

  “Just a quick exam, Doctor,” said Mr. Katzenback, “as long as we’re here. And, if necessary, we’ll take her to her ophthalmologist for a stronger eyeglass prescription.”

  Still wearing her glasses, Franny rattled off the letters on the eye chart, first covering her right eye and then her left, starting with the giant E and proceeding all the way down to the almost-invisibles. “E, F, P, T, O, Z, L, P, E, D, P, E, C, F, D, E, D …”

  “Excellent,” said Dr. Engel. “Her vision with her current prescription seems fine, Sam.”

  “See? I told you,” said Franny.

  “I just don’t understand—”

  Dr. Engel interrupted Mrs. Katzenback. He turned his back on Franny and put an arm on one shoulder of each of her parents. “Muriel. Sam,” he said in a low voice. Dr. Engel paused, then gave a deep sigh. “I don’t have to tell you what your daughter has endured. Is still enduring. I don’t have to tell you how her life has changed and that she is extremely lonely. Surely you understand how an active imagination can add a little pleasure to her life.”

  “Of course we do, Doctor,” said Franny’s father.

  Franny’s eyes smarted with tears.

  You were not supposed to punch a doctor in the nose. Actually, you were not supposed to punch anyone in the nose if you were brought up to be a good citizen, except maybe in certain situations. The only times Franny had seen noses punched were in cartoons and movies. But if she had the nerve, which she didn’t, and if she could reach his nose from her wheelchair, which she couldn’t, this was certainly a real-life nose-punching situation.

  How dare he talk about her as if she weren’t there, as if she were a strange, unlikeable girl just because she’d gotten polio! As if there was no hope that things would ever get better; as if she didn’t have, couldn’t have, a good friend or two! And as if Dr. Harris Engel knew every single thing there was to know, and Muriel and Sam were dumb (and why weren’t they Mr. and Mrs. Katzenback to him?), just because they worried about their daughter.

  Dr. Engel turned and bent over Franny in her chair, speaking to her in a loud voice as if not only her legs but h
er ears weren’t working properly. “All right, young lady! It’s been so good to see you again! Just continue the exercises with your caregiver!”

  “I will, Harry,” said Franny.

  And then, courtesy of her active imagination, Dr. Engel stood before her in floral bathing trunks, a yellow-ducky tube around his belly because he’d never learned to swim.

  Doctors didn’t know everything.

  Horsey! Horsey!

  Happy Birthday to Franny

  Franny mailed out six invitations to her eleventh-birthday celebration, to be held Sunday afternoon, March 1, 2:00 P.M., with cake and ice cream. Walter Walter noted in one of his Get Well cards that he couldn’t make it. The mother of the A, B, and C Solomon siblings phoned with her sincerest regrets, as the family would be traveling to Highland Park that day.

  On the morning of the party, the dining room table was set for three with good china and flatware, a pink-and-yellow-striped tablecloth, and a two-layer cake from the Waldorf Bakery, dark chocolate icing with lacy pink birthday wishes. Alf lay by Franny’s wheelchair as she waited for the guests to arrive. At 1:45 P.M., Teresa Goodly phoned to say she had to visit her great-aunt, but she’d probably stop by to drop off her gift in the late afternoon. Franny’s mother removed a place setting and moved the two other settings closer together.

  “I hope Katy comes,” said Franny.

  “Of course she will,” said Mrs. Katzenback. “And we’ll have another celebration with the family tonight.”

  Franny was wearing her favorite dress, golden yellow with punctuation marks all over it—commas and semicolons and exclamation and question marks. And her Mary Janes. “There will be lots of leftover cake!” she said, trying to joke, her voice trembling with disappointment.

  Oh, pooh, why care? thought Fleabrain. Birthday parties were a needless, pagan ritual, originally observed by the ancients at a time when birthday horoscopes and birthday omens were used to forecast droughts and cattle disease.

  And then there was the infamous Roman Emperor Caligula, born August 31, AD 12, died January 24, AD 41, who considered himself a god. He organized a lavish birthday party for his baby daughter, which included two days of horse racing and the ritual slaughter of three hundred bears and five hundred assorted other beasts.

  Such disgusting excess! thought Fleabrain, not to mention all those homeless fleas as a result of the slaughter. He lay very still at the tip of Alf’s tail, made sick to his stomach by this knowledge.

  Still, he was happy for Francine when Katy arrived at five minutes past two. And he had to admit that the modern tradition of birthday cake and gifts was a big improvement over grim omens and dead animals.

  “Would you like some hot chocolate?” Franny asked her guest. “With a marshmallow on top?”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” said Katy, offering her cup. “Franny, I’m so glad this is a one-to-one party. Because of, you know, my—”

  “Affliction!” said Franny.

  “Right,” said Katy.

  Both girls giggled.

  “Teresa is going to drop by. Maybe,” said Franny.

  “It’s a really, really lovely party, just the way it is,” said Katy.

  Fleabrain thought it was a devastatingly boring birthday party. Not that he’d ever attended another, but any fool would come to the same conclusion. Sprightly conversation was vital at social gatherings! The devastatingly boring conversation at this party revolved around Charlotte’s Web, both girls’ favorite book (Katy had her own copy now), as well as the unremarkable coincidences in that both girls’ names ended in y and their favorite color was yellow. Not one smidgen of a mention of current events or Nietzsche or Shakespeare or even Howell’s Paramoigraphy! And the music, if you could call it that! Was any tune more devastatingly boring than “Happy Birthday to You”? Especially when tooted on the clarinet?

  After playing the song, Franny leaned over her beautiful, fancy cake and blew out the candles. Katy clapped.

  “The birthday person isn’t supposed to provide her own music, but ‘Happy Birthday’ is such a nice, easy song, I couldn’t resist,” Franny said.

  “When you come to my house, bring your clarinet, and we’ll do a duet. I can play that song on the trombone.”

  Franny frowned. “Doesn’t your house have a long staircase in front?”

  “Yes, it does,” said Katy. “But that shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll make a friendship seat for you. You know the kind I mean.”

  Katy held her left wrist with her right hand.

  “Oh, I see,” said Franny, doing the same.

  Then the girls clasped one another’s wrists with their free hands to make a “seat.”

  “See?” said Katy. “My mom or dad will be at one end, and I’ll be at the other. And you’ll be sitting in this seat as we carry you up the stairs.”

  “A friendship seat,” said Franny.

  “Stronger than rope,” said Katy. The girls swung their linked arms together.

  “Now, time for cake!” Franny said.

  “Oh, please open my gift first,” said Katy. “I can’t wait for you to see it.”

  Franny took several moments to carefully untie the yellow ribbon and open the brightly wrapped small package. The gift was a crocheted yellow spiderweb.

  An utterly useless and ridiculous gift! thought Fleabrain. Poor Francine.

  “I’m learning to crochet. Spiderwebs are really, really easy to make, because if you make a mistake, it hardly shows,” Katy said. “You can use it as a coaster for a glass of water on your night table, or hang it on the wall for decoration, or use it as a hanky.”

  Oh, for goodness’ sake, thought Fleabrain. How can you blow your nose if your hanky has holes in it?

  “It’s beautiful,” said Franny. “It could also be used as a table protector under a potted plant. Or a bookmark for Charlotte’s Web!”

  “What a really, really wonderful idea,” said Katy.

  You both must be joking, thought Fleabrain.

  But now he was worried.

  As he matured day by day, he was absorbing the Truths of the Universe at a rapid pace. Aside from the Truth he’d learned from Great-grandfather Zadie Ben (a truth he couldn’t even bear to think about), there were many other truths he was acquiring, truths he supposed everyone learned as they went through life, including:

  The day is long when you are bored but whizzes by when you are having fun.

  The night is long when you are awake and as nervous as a cockroach but whizzes by when you’re asleep.

  Odors—perfume, excrement, garlic—call up memories, and everyone’s memories are unique.

  No two dog hairs are exactly the same.

  Several good friends are nice to have, but one good friend is enough to make you happy. Sometimes one is all you need, really.

  That was the worrisome truth.

  “Thank you, Katy. It’s the best birthday gift ever,” Franny said.

  We’ll see about that, thought Fleabrain. We’ll just see about that!

  FB Saliva #1-X

  His dear Francine deserved much more than a table protector for a potted plant. With holes, no less.

  Fleabrain knew the perfect birthday gift, inspired by an old coloring book of Franny’s. Although she had long since outgrown crayoning in coloring books, Franny had kept this one for its fascinating content. It was called Let’s Visit the Seven Wonders of the World! Mrs. Nelson, aware of Franny’s interest, had brought her several books about the Wonders. After reading them, Franny had carefully outlined each Wonder in the coloring book with a Crayola Black crayon, lightly shading in the rest with hues she hoped were true.

  Fleabrain planned to show Francine the true colors of the Seven Wonders, one Wonder on each of seven nights. A birthday week of Wonders! An around-the-world extravaganza, a lollapalooza tour of Wonders!

  The gift would require an application of FB Saliva #1-X for speed-of-light warp drive, woof and whinny travel.

  “A drop on each hoof, paw, and e
ar will allow us to travel in a flash,” Fleabrain told Franny. “I promise, there will be no jet lag the following day. Just wonderful memories.”

  “Oh, Fleabrain!” Franny opened the coloring book to its Table of Contents. “Stonehenge. The Leaning Tower of Pisa. The Colosseum. The Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa. The Hagia Sophia. The Taj Mahal. The Great Wall of China. Do we have to go in order?”

  Fleabrain smiled. “My dear Francine, there is no order, except that which you yourself create.”

  A Wondrous Travel Journal

  WONDER #1

  STONEHENGE

  FK:

  Leaving at 3:00 A.M., we zoomed instantly east across the Atlantic in order to arrive in Salisbury, England, at eight in the morning. Several tourists were already there. I pretended I was a local who was riding her horse and exercising her dog. My imitation of Queen Elizabeth’s accent helped.

  Stonehenge is beautiful and mysterious, just as I knew it would be. My coloring book had posed many questions: Who built it? Why? When? How did they move those heavy stones? Experts, as well as FB, have some probable theories, below.

  I have used a mixture of Silver, Gray, and Prussian Blue crayons in my coloring book, but they don’t truly capture what’s in my mind.