A Cast is the Perfect Accessory

by Allison Gutknecht; Stevie Lewis

  “PLEASE,” I say, pointing to our CLASSROOM RULES sign. “It is number six on the list: Be polite!”

  “Mandy!” Mrs. Spangle yells. “That’s a warning.” She walks over to the board and places a big M.B. on the initials list.

  “Oooh, Polka Dot’s in trouble,” Dennis says in a singsong voice. Dennis has called me “Polka Dot” ever since he found out I wear polka-dot underwear sometimes, but I call him “Freckle Face” right back because his nose is covered with freckles. Even though, to tell you the truth, I would kind of like to have some freckles myself.

  I whip my head around just in time to see Anya kick Dennis under his desk, which is why Anya is my friend and Dennis is not.

  “Thank you,” I whisper to Anya, and then I turn back to Natalie.

  “I liked it better when you were absent,” I say to her, and I slide my hands across my desk, spreading my things back across both of our desktops.

  And Natalie cannot do anything about it, because she doesn’t know how to say “please.”

  . . .

  It is very hard to have a good day when you need to be somebody’s buddy and you do not want to be. Mom does not understand this because when she asks, “How was school?” and I answer, “I had to help Natalie all day because she broke her wrist,” she replies, “Oh no, is Natalie okay?” What Mom should have said is, Oh no, it must have been terrible being Natalie’s buddy! But Mom does not understand real problems.

  “She will not even tell anyone how she broke it,” I complain. Mom is holding a twin, and he is whimpering like he might start howling at any second.

  “Maybe she doesn’t want everybody to know,” Mom guesses, and she switches the twin from one hip to the other.

  “Oh please,” I say. “The best part of breaking a bone is telling the story about how you did it. Everyone knows that.”

  “Well, maybe Natalie’s embarrassed,” Mom says. “Maybe she broke it in a way she doesn’t want everybody to know about.”

  And I hate to say it after I made the big deal with the “Oh please” and all, but this is a pretty interesting idea.

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “Like she fell riding her bike,” Mom says.

  “That is not embarrassing.”

  “Or she fell roller-skating,” Mom says.

  “That is not embarrassing.”

  “Or she fell down the stairs,” Mom says.

  “That is not embarrassing.”

  Mom spreads her lips into a thin line and gives me her “You are getting on my nerves” face. “Mandy, just because you don’t think something is embarrassing doesn’t mean that Natalie won’t,” she tells me. “I bet Natalie thinks a lot more things are embarrassing than you do.”

  I think about this for one moment. Maybe Mom is right about what Natalie thinks is an embarrassing story. I will ask her tomorrow, and if she broke her wrist in any of the ways that Mom guessed, I will tell her that—ta-da!—that is not something to be embarrassed about. And also, I will tell her how to make her story more interesting, because the story is the best part of having a broken bone.

  “So when Dad gets home, I’m going to the bank to exchange Grandmom’s coins. Do you want to come with me?” Mom asks.

  “Are the twins going?”

  “No,” Mom answers.

  “Is Timmy going?”

  “Yes,” she says.

  “I do not want to go if Timmy is going,” I say.

  “Fine, then you can stay here with Dad and the twins.”

  “No!” I respond. “Dad is a bad babysitter, you know.”

  “Then come to the bank with us,” Mom says. “I know you want to see that magic coin machine in action.” But I only want to see the magic coin machine if I can put my own coins into it and get some dollars out.

  “Will you let me put in the coins myself?” I ask.

  “Yes, you and Timmy can do it together,” Mom answers. “Now, if you’re going to go, get started on your homework.” She waves her hand toward my book bag just as the twin starts wailing.

  I cover my ears and yell, “I will do it upstairs!” I grab my book bag from the couch and bang up the steps and into my room. But I do not work on my homework because I have something much more important to do first: find some change. I cannot go all the way to the magic coin machine and come away with no dollars to use toward my fancy-dancy periwinkle sunglasses.

  I rattle the piggy bank where I am supposed to keep my allowance, but it is empty since I used all of my money to buy ten balls of gum, just to see if I could chew it at once. I crawl along the floor of my room slowly, looking for any lost change, but I find only a cheese puff, a button, and an old tooth-breaker gummy bear (I know it is a tooth-breaker because I stick it in my mouth and it almost breaks my teeth).

  Very quietly, I head downstairs to check under the couch cushions. Luckily, the twin is still howling, so Mom cannot hear what I’m doing. I stick my hand in between two of the cushions and then two more, and I find a dime. A dime! Ten whole cents. It is not much, I guess, but it is better than nothing.

  “What you doing, Mandy?” Timmy startles me so much that I almost fall off the couch and hit my head.

  “You almost made me egg my head open,” I tell him. Mom always tells me not to crack my head open, but I think eggs are the best things to crack, so I say “egg my head open.”

  “What you doing, Mandy?” Timmy repeats.

  “None of your beeswax,” I answer. I cannot have Timmy looking for lost change too. No way! I am not splitting my money with a preschooler. Not when there are fancy-dancy periwinkle sunglasses to be bought.

  “I am going back upstairs,” I tell him. “Don’t follow me.” I scurry up the stairs and into Mom and Dad’s bedroom. I clutch my one dime between my fingers and crawl around the floor. The best part about Mom and Dad’s bedroom is the window because it is huge and it is wide and it faces the front yard. I have only one small window in my room and it faces a tree, so that is not useful at all. I stand in Mom and Dad’s window and look outside. Our neighborhood is all out in front of me, and it is a very good spot for being nosy. I look from one neighbor’s house to the next, and I try to see into their windows. A car drives down the street, and then I see it: Right in the middle of our road is a sparkly, shiny, golden circle. A coin! It has to be a coin. And I have to get it immediately.

  Only I am not allowed in the street without a grown-up watching. Not ever. Not even if I look both ways and everything.

  I stick my head down the top of the stairs and listen to make sure a twin is still howling. Then I tiptoe down the first six steps to see if Timmy is in the living room, and I shimmy down the rest when I see that he is not. Fast as a flash, I open the front door and run across our yard. I reach the curb, look both ways, and dart into the street.

  And I cannot find the coin anywhere.

  I walk back and forth on the pavement looking down, and when that doesn’t work, I bend my knees to look closer.

  “AMANDA IRENE BERR! GET OUT OF THE STREET THIS INSTANT!” I look up to see Mom running through our front yard, a twin flapping on her hip. Before I have a chance to stand, she yanks me up by my armpit and pulls me onto the sidewalk. Timmy watches us from the open front door, and I stick my tongue out at him for being a snoop.

  “What were you doing?” Mom asks in her angriest voice.

  “Looking for a coin,” I answer.

  “What is the rule about the street?”

  “Don’t go in the street without a grown-up watching,” I answer.

  “Well?”

  I shrug. “I looked both ways,” I tell her.

  “Room. Now.” Mom points me inside. “And no bank for you later. Absolutely not.”

  I stomp up the stairs and slam the door to my room. I flop onto my bed and hold my chin in my hands, and that’s when it hits me: Not only did I not find the coin in the street, but now I lost my dime somewhere too.

  And with this kind of coin luck, I am never going to be able to
buy my own fancy-dancy periwinkle sunglasses. And this is the most gigantic tragedy of all.

  CHAPTER 3

  Becoming Famous

  MRS. SPANGLE ASKED ME TO HELP Natalie take her pencil case out of her desk, and I said, “Only if she gives me a quarter,” and now my initials are on the board again. I do not think this is fair because I am tired of being Natalie’s buddy, and plus, I need some coins if I am ever going to get my fancy-dancy periwinkle sunglasses.

  Mom made me stay in my room all of last night except for dinner, which was not even worth it because it was pork chops, and I hate pork chops. And then she took Timmy with her to the bank to use the magic coin machine, and I got to do nothing. Plus, I never even found the dime I had lost, so now I am back to having no coins at all, and this week is turning out not so hot.

  I pull Natalie’s stupid pencil case out of her desk for her, and she does not even thank me. I plop it down so that it makes a loud noise, and Mrs. Spangle tells me to “Knock it off,” so I do, but only because I do not want to miss recess.

  “Psst,” I whisper to Natalie. “Did you fall off your bike?”

  “Huh?”

  “Did you fall off your bike? Is that how you broke your wrist?”

  “No,” Natalie answers.

  “Did you fall roller-skating?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “Did you fall down the stairs?”

  “No, Mandy,” Natalie answers, like I am a dope or something. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Well, that is ridiculous,” I tell her. “The best part of breaking a bone is telling the story of how you did it. Everybody knows that.” But Natalie just looks down at her cast through her glasses and doesn’t answer me. “And also, your cast is a boring color.” If I were lucky enough to have a cast, I would pick a stand-out-and-shout color, but Natalie’s cast is white. And I hate white things.

  “Open to the next clean page of your writing journals, please,” Mrs. Spangle tells us. “I’d like you to write a five-sentence summary of the last story you read in your reading group. Who can remind us what a summary is?”

  Natalie shoots her good hand in the air.

  “Yes, Natalie?” Mrs. Spangle calls on her.

  “The main idea of what happened in the story, with some details,” Natalie answers, and she looks pretty proud of herself.

  “Excellent answer,” Mrs. Spangle tells her, and I cross my arms because I did not think it was so great. “Natalie, are you going to be okay writing with your left hand again?” Natalie broke her right wrist, and because she is right-handed, she has to use her left hand to write now.

  “I think so,” Natalie answers.

  “Just try your best,” Mrs. Spangle tells her. “The rest of you have fifteen minutes—remember, five sentences all together.”

  I uncross my arms to begin writing, and Mrs. Spangle circles the room to watch us work. When she gets to our group, she leans over Natalie’s shoulder.

  “You’re doing a beautiful job,” she tells her. “Maybe you were meant to be left-handed after all!” Natalie grins an enormous smile at her, and I look down at her journal to see her work. Her handwriting looks pretty awful, and I am positive I could do a better job with my own left hand.

  Carefully, I move my pencil from my right hand to my left, grip the whole thing in all of my fingers, place the point on the journal, and press down.

  And I press a hole right through the paper.

  I lift the pencil back up, rearrange my fingers so only three are on top, and try again. And this time, I draw a thick line down the entire page.

  Hmm. This writing with my left hand business is harder than I thought.

  I place just two fingers on top of the pencil and try once more, and now my hand is steadier. I decide that before I do anything else, I better learn to write my own name with my left hand. Slowly, I make the shape of an M at the top of the paper, followed by an a and then an n.

  Just as I am finally getting to the curlicue of the y, Mrs. Spangle calls out, “Time’s up. Everyone, please place your journals in the basket on my desk so I can check them during lunch. Leave them open to the page you were working on.”

  Uh-oh.

  I look down at my journal—at the hole and the line and my wobbly name across the top. I have not written any part of the summary except the words “In the story,” and I know this is going to be a problem.

  “Natalie, come here for a second,” Mrs. Spangle calls. “Mandy can bring up your journal for you.” I watch Natalie walk to Mrs. Spangle, who whispers something in her ear. Natalie smiles and nods.

  “Class,” Mrs. Spangle begins, “Natalie and I think it would be a nice idea if each of you had a chance to autograph her cast. What do you think?”

  My class whoops and cheers, but I do not even let out one “Wahoo.” Natalie returns to her seat, and Mrs. Spangle hands her a package of colorful markers for everyone to use to sign their names.

  “Mandy, can you put my journal in Mrs. Spangle’s basket, please?” Natalie asks as one classmate after another comes over and writes his or her name gently across Natalie’s cast.

  “Only after I get to sign,” I tell her. “I have to be your buddy, so I should have gotten to go first.” I pick up a black marker, because Natalie is the one who chose the boring old white cast and her boring old black glasses, so she should not get to have any fancy-dancy colors. I place the marker in my left hand with two fingers on top.

  “Stand back, everybody,” I say. “I am going to show you how easy it is to write with your left hand.” Before Natalie can let out one peep, I place the marker on the cast and try to drag my hand into an M shape. It is harder to write on the cast than I had thought, because it has a lot of bumps and ridges, so I have a little trouble.

  Actually, I have a lot of trouble.

  So much trouble that by the time I am finished signing my name, Mandy takes up half of Natalie’s cast.

  “Mandy!” Natalie screeches with so much exclaim that it does not sound like Natalie at all. She shoots her left hand in the air and waves Mrs. Spangle over. “Look what Mandy did.” She points to my signature.

  Mrs. Spangle looks at me out of the side of her eyes, and it is a pretty scary look, if I am being honest. Without a word, Mrs. Spangle approaches the board and places a check mark next to my initials.

  “Oooh, Polka Dot’s in big trouble,” Dennis whispers.

  “Be quiet, Dennis,” Anya hisses, defending me, but I cannot even thank her because I am too busy watching Mrs. Spangle come over to our group.

  “Scoot your chair back,” she says to Natalie. Natalie does, and then Mrs. Spangle slides Natalie’s desk across the floor.

  She slides it farther and farther away from me. Wahoo!

  And then she slides it right into the space next to Anya.

  “Anya, I’m hoping you can be a good helper to Natalie until her wrist gets better,” Mrs. Spangle says. “What do you say?”

  “Okay!” Anya answers, and I try to give Anya my “How dare you?” look, but she is too busy carrying Natalie’s journal up to Mrs. Spangle’s desk.

  “And you, Mandy,” Mrs. Spangle begins. “You’re going to spend recess today fixing that mess you made in your writing journal. And you’re missing tomorrow’s recess, too, for what you did to Natalie’s cast.”

  I slouch in my seat and push my lips together into a pout. It was bad enough when I had to be Natalie’s buddy. But for Natalie to be the most famous person in our class and to have Anya as her buddy?

  I need to put a stop to this immediately.

  And also, I need to learn to write with my left hand.

  CHAPTER 4

  Have a Nice Trip?

  “GUESS WHAT?” I YELL TO mom the moment I bang through our front door.

  “What?” Timmy calls from the living room floor. He is playing with blocks because he likes dumb baby toys.

  “Guess what?” I yell even louder to Mom.

  “WHAT?” Timmy answers.
>
  “I’M NOT TALKING TO YOU!” I say in my loudest voice ever, and this finally gets Mom’s attention.

  “What’s going on in there?” Mom appears in the doorway to the living room with no twins attached to her body for once.

  “Guess what?” I repeat.

  “What?” Mom asks.

  “Natalie is an Anya thief,” I tell her, and Mom looks at me for a second like I am not making any sense.

  “What do you mean, she’s an Anya thief?” she asks.

  “She is trying to steal Anya from me,” I explain, even though I think “Anya thief” is a very clear description of her.

  “How is she trying to steal her?” Mom asks.

  “Mrs. Spangle made Anya be Natalie’s buddy, and—”

  “I thought you were Natalie’s buddy,” Mom interrupts.

  “That did not work out,” I tell her. “So now Anya is her buddy, which is not fair at all, because Anya is my friend. And also, Natalie should not need so much help.”

  Mom crosses her arms and looks at me like she knows something I do not.

  “Why didn’t it work out with you being Natalie’s buddy?” she asks. “I thought you and Natalie were getting along better.”

  I shake my head back and forth very quickly. “She did not like how I autographed her cast.”

  “How did you autograph it?”

  “With my left hand,” I explain.

  “And?”

  “And it was big,” I say.

  “What was big?”

  “My name. On the cast.”

  “Why did you sign it so big?”

  “Because Natalie is not polite,” I tell her. “She thinks she is in charge, and she is not.”

  Mom uncrosses her arms then and puts one of her hands on her forehead. “You know, Mandy,” she tells me, “you need to let other people be the boss sometimes. It can’t always be you.”

  “I do!” I say “do” extra loud so Mom knows I mean it. “But Natalie thinks that she is the boss of everything.”