A Cast is the Perfect Accessory

by Allison Gutknecht; Stevie Lewis

  Mom shakes her head slowly. “I think we’re going to have to practice you letting other people be in charge,” she says. “We can’t have you acting like a B-R-A-T.”

  “A brat!” Timmy fills in, and he looks pretty proud of himself.

  “We’re going to start now,” Mom says. “You’re going to sit with Timmy, and he is going to tell you all about what he’s building. What are you building, Timmy?”

  “A city!” he answers.

  “Great,” Mom says. “You can tell Mandy all about it.” She motions for me to sit on the floor.

  “But—” I begin.

  “No buts,” Mom says. “And no brats. Sit there and play with your brother for at least twenty minutes. Timmy, you’re in charge!”

  “Yay!” Timmy calls out.

  “That is not even a good exclaim,” I tell him. “You’re supposed to say, ‘Wahoo!’ ”

  “Mandy . . . ,” Mom says with a warning in her voice. “Timmy is in charge. Not you.”

  I slump my shoulders toward my shoes and collapse with a loud “Humph!” on the floor. Because the only person who is worse at being in charge than Natalie is Timmy.

  . . .

  The next morning I wake up with the perfect plan to stop Natalie from thinking she is the boss of everybody. I am so excited about it that I leap out of bed even before Mom comes in to wake me.

  I am going to create my own sling for my arm, so that I cannot use it all day in school and Mrs. Spangle will have to make Anya my buddy. It does not matter that my wrist is not really broken, because as long as it looks like it is hurt, Mrs. Spangle will be tricked. I am a genius.

  I scurry under my bed and root through all of the things that I am not allowed to have in my room: the green tray from the kitchen with the holes that I use to sort my gummy bears, the bag of makeup that Mom does not know is missing from her bathroom, and most importantly, my jump rope. Dad took away my jump rope the last time I used it in the house because I knocked over a lamp, but I found its hiding spot in the garage and brought it back inside. (It was not even very hard to find because Dad is no good at choosing hiding spots. He put it under my bicycle helmet on the bottom shelf of our storage cabinet. If I were hiding a jump rope, I would put it somewhere that no one else could ever find it—or at least on the top shelf.)

  I shimmy out from under my bed and try to tie the two ends of my jump rope together into a knot. I do not really like to tie knots, not even on my shoes, which is why I always ask for shoes with no laces. I weave one end of the rope around the other and pull tightly, and a knot forms in the middle, which is not where I wanted it. I try again, weaving the ends together twice this time before pulling it, and I make a knot right where I need it, turning the jump rope into an enormous circle.

  I put the jump rope over my head and pull it down to my belly button. Then I twist it in the middle and try to pull it back over my head again, but it is too short and my nightgown gets tangled in it. I stomp my foot and tug the rope back over my head.

  “I don’t need you, rope,” I say, throwing it down, and I march over to my bed and pick up a pillow. I flop my Rainbow Sparkle pillowcase up and down, holding the corners, just like I see Mom do when she changes the sheets. It takes a lot of work to get the pillow out, but when I do, I take the pillowcase and try to tie the corners together into a knot. Tying this is even harder than tying the jump rope, and I am running out of time.

  I toss the pillowcase back on my bed and run over to my closet. I take out a pink zippy sweatshirt, which I try never to wear because I hate pink. I place it on my bed, pull the sleeves up in the air, and tie them together at the wrists. Then I hang the sweatshirt over my shoulder like a handbag and put my right arm through the opening. It still doesn’t feel right, so I pull the tied sleeves over my head and hang it on my left shoulder.

  And then my sling is perfect!

  It would be more perfect if it were covered in glitter and had a periwinkle cast inside, but it is still pretty great.

  I am standing in front of my closet door, admiring my new sling in the mirror, when Dad barges into my room.

  “Good morning, Man—” he starts to say, but then he stops short right past my doorway. I turn to see what he is looking at: the jump rope.

  Oh no.

  “How did this get in here?” he asks, and he walks over and scoops it into his hand, which I don’t think is very nice.

  “Why aren’t you at work yet?” I ask. Mom always wakes me up for school, and she doesn’t care about jump ropes being inside the way Dad does.

  “Why do you have this jump rope in your room after I said it wasn’t allowed?”

  “I needed it for something,” I tell him honestly.

  “Is she up?” Mom appears in my doorway behind Dad.

  “Oh, she is indeed . . . ,” Dad answers her. “Give me a kiss before I leave, Mandy. And I’m taking this jump rope with me. To work this time.”

  I try to cross my arms to show that this is not fair, but my right arm is stuck in my sling. Dad kisses me on the forehead and walks out the door.

  “Good luck with that,” he mumbles to Mom on the way out, and she looks me up and down, squinting her eyes.

  “What do you have going on there?” she asks, motioning to my sling. I whip it off my shoulder and over my head and try to untie the sleeves quickly.

  “I think I will wear this today,” I tell her. I cannot tell Mom the plan about the sling, but if I can bring this sweatshirt to school, I can remake it on the bus, before Mrs. Spangle sees that my arm is not really hurt.

  “I think you will not,” Mom tells me. “Your arm isn’t broken. You don’t need a sling.”

  “But—”

  “No,” Mom says flatly. “Now pick out something else that you want to wear today, or I’m picking for you. You have five minutes to get dressed. No funny business.”

  Mom takes the pink zippy sweatshirt out of my hands and turns to walk out the door.

  “Plus,” she calls over her shoulder, “I thought you hated pink.”

  . . .

  At school Anya has to help Natalie put away her book bag, take out her pencil case, hand in her seatwork, check out a book from the library, and unpack her whole lunch box. She is so busy helping Natalie all morning that she barely says anything to me, and this is very much not okay. Especially because Mrs. Spangle is making me miss recess again today, so I cannot even talk to her then.

  Kids who have to miss recess stand by themselves under a tree, which is no fun at all. I lean against the tree and watch Anya push Natalie on a swing, and I feel my face get hot from anger.

  “Anya!” I call across the playground, but Anya doesn’t hear me.

  “ANYA!” I try again. Nothing.

  “ANYA VALENTINA ZOLIN!” I yell her full name, and finally, Anya turns around. My voice is going to get worn out from all of this yelling if people do not start listening to me. I gesture for her to come over to my tree, and Anya shakes her head.

  “COME HERE!” I yell.

  “I can’t!” Anya yells back. “I’ll get in trouble!” But Anya was never so worried about getting in trouble before she was Natalie’s buddy. Natalie is allergic to trouble, and if I don’t fix this problem soon, she is going to ruin Anya forever.

  I am stuck here by this tree until recess is over, so the only way I can get Anya to come over to me is if I have to go inside to the nurse. The aides make you take a buddy with you when you leave the playground, so I can make Anya be mine. I look down at the ground, which is kind of sandy right under the tree. I reach my right hand down, and when my fingertips touch the sand, I lift up my left leg and try to fall forward. When nothing happens, I try to kick my right knee with my left foot to knock myself down.

  Still standing.

  I lift the top of my body back up again and try to fall down more quickly, but I only land on my hands and knees. I stand again and try to fall sideways, but my right knee hits the ground first and ruins the rest of the fall. I walk three
feet forward and drag my left toes over a tree root to trip, and I barely even stumble.

  I am never going to get to the nurse if I cannot get a good scrape. And if I cannot go to the nurse, then I can’t get Anya to be the one to walk me to her office.

  I get down on my knees and try to slam my left elbow hard into the ground, but it only makes a hole in the sand. I jump up and down on my tippy toes, and I try to do a cartwheel, and I flop into a forward roll, and nothing, nothing, nothing. I walk five giant steps away from the tree and am just about to run straight into it when I hear a whistle from across the playground.

  Tweet, the whistle blows again.

  “Young lady,” the lunch aide calls. “Young lady by the tree.” She is pointing right at me. “Whatever you’re doing over there, knock it off.”

  I slump down with my back against the tree and cross my arms. I look down at myself and notice for the first time that there is dirt all over my clothes, scratches on my arms, and best of all, my knee is bleeding. Just a little tiny bit, but it is good enough.

  I stand up and shoot onto my tippy toes and wave my hand in the air.

  “Excuse me!” I call to the lunch aide. “EXCUSE ME!” I jump up and down in place until she turns around.

  “What is it?” she answers me.

  “I need to go to the nurse!” I call back. “I’m bleeding.” And I can’t be sure, because she is super far away, but I think the aide lets out an enormous sigh then.

  “Fine,” she calls back. “Take a buddy with you.” Before she can tell me not to, I dart onto the playground and over to the swings. I grab Anya by the arm and begin to pull her away from Natalie.

  “Come on, you have to take me to the nurse,” I tell her.

  “What?” she says. “Why do you need to—why are you so dirty?”

  “I fell down,” I answer. “Now hurry.”

  Anya and I walk up the sidewalk back to the building.

  “Do you think the nurse will have periwinkle Band-Aids?” I ask her.

  “I don’t know,” Anya answers. “I hope so. Can we stop and get a drink at the water fountain first?” And this is why Anya is my favorite person in the world, at least most of the time. Because she knows how important periwinkle Band-Aids and trips to the water fountain are.

  “You’re my friend, right?” I ask her. “Not Natalie’s.”

  “I’m Natalie’s friend too,” she answers, which is not what I wanted her to say.

  “But me more,” I say.

  “Yes, you more,” Anya tells me as we reach the fountain. She bends down to take a sip, and when she stands back up, water is dripping down her chin. I grab her wrist again and drag her with me to the nurse’s office, and I hold on to her the whole time just to make sure that she cannot run away from me.

  CHAPTER 5

  Jungle Jam

  IT IS A WHOLE DAY later, and Anya is still Natalie’s buddy, so my life is pretty much ruined.

  “You should not help her so much,” I say to Anya when she opens Natalie’s lunch box for her and unwraps her sandwich.

  “She only has one arm, Mandy,” Anya tells me, like I am some kind of dope or something. And I am pretty angry with Anya then, because she is not remembering that she is supposed to be my friend more than she is Natalie’s.

  Anya even laughed at something Natalie said during seatwork, which is just ridiculous, because Natalie never says anything funny. And when I leaned my chair back on two legs to ask what was so funny, they did not tell me, and then Mrs. Spangle put my initials on the board for rocking in my chair again.

  When lunch is over, we line up for recess, and I do not stand near Anya because she is with Natalie. Instead, I end up stuck in front of Dennis, which is just awful. Dennis keeps pulling at the ends of my hair, and I tell him to stop, so he does it some more. I wish I could pull on his hair to show him how it feels, but his Mohawk is too short for me to tug.

  Dennis is pretty terrible, if I forgot to mention.

  “What are you going to do at recess, Polka Dot?” he asks me.

  “None of your beeswax,” I answer.

  “Do you want to play TV tag?” Dennis asks. “Or are you too slow?” TV tag is Dennis’s favorite game ever, because Dennis watches a lot of TV, so he is very good at not getting tagged. The only TV show I watch all the time is Rainbow Sparkle’s, except when it is taken away as punishment, so I think TV tag is dumb.

  “I do not play TV tag,” I tell him. The lunch aides open the doors then, and we run out onto the playground. I see Anya and Natalie skip over to the monkey bars, which is silly because Natalie cannot even do the bars with her one stupid arm.

  “Mandy!” Anya calls from across the playground. “Come play with us!” But I do not answer her because I am not going to play with Natalie. No way!

  I walk around the playground by myself, which is pretty lonely, if I am being honest. But the swings are all taken and the slide is too hot and there is nothing for me to do unless I play TV tag with Dennis or swing on the monkey bars with Natalie, and I am not doing either.

  I kick up sand as I wander around the edge of the playground, with no friends and nothing to do. I kick one rock and then another, trying to send them as far into the air as possible so that they crash down into the sand. Gray rock, black rock, white rock, copper rock . . .

  Copper rock?

  I lean my nose farther toward the ground and dig for the rock I just kicked. As sand fills my fingernails, I find it, and it’s not a rock at all. It’s a penny! I scoop the penny into my palm and blow the rest of the sand off it, and then I stick it in my pocket to keep it safe. I am not going to lose this coin like I lost the others. It is the only good thing to happen to me today. Maybe the only good thing all week.

  “Hey, Polka Dot,” Dennis calls to me. “How come you’re not playing with your twin?”

  “What are you talking about, Freckle Face?” I ask.

  “Anya,” Dennis says. “Your twin. How come you’re not playing with her on the monkey bars?”

  “Because I do not want to,” I answer.

  “Because she’s better at the monkey bars than you?” Dennis challenges.

  “No way,” I say. “I just do not want to.”

  “Liar,” Dennis says. “There is no way you are better than her.” He points to Anya, who is swinging across the bars two at a time, swiftly and smoothly, like a real monkey. “Anya is the best monkey barrer in second grade.”

  “She is not,” I say. “I could totally beat her across the bars.”

  “No way,” Dennis says.

  “I bet you I can,” I answer.

  “Bet me what?”

  I think about this for one second only, and then I dig into my pants pocket for the penny.

  “This penny,” I show him. “If Anya beats me across, I’ll give you this penny. If I beat her, you’ll give me a quarter.”

  “How is that fair?” Dennis asks. “If you beat her—which you won’t—I’ll give you another penny.”

  “Fine,” I answer. “Let’s go.”

  Dennis and I charge across the playground to the monkey bars. “Hey, Anya,” he calls. “Polka Dot here wants to race you across the bars.”

  “Okay,” Anya agrees with a shrug. She climbs back up the ladder and waits patiently, her hands draped over the first rung. I climb up next to her and place my own hands on the bar.

  “I am going to beat you,” I whisper-yell in her ear, and Anya shrugs again like she does not even care.

  “Go Anya!” Natalie calls, and this makes me madder than ever.

  “On your mark . . . ,” Dennis counts down. “Get set . . . go!”

  I swing myself off the ladder and grip the bar between my hands tightly. In less than a second Anya moves out ahead of me, one arm in front of the other, until she is halfway done with the bars, and I am still hanging on the first.

  “Time out!” I call. “TIME OUT!” I hang still like a statue on the first bar, and Anya turns to me, her arms scissored out across th
ree bars.

  “What’s the matter, Polka Dot?” Dennis asks. “Glued to the bar?”

  “Anya got to practice first and I did not,” I say. “She is all warmed up.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Natalie pipes in. “Dennis only said that you wanted to—”

  “Shut up, Natalie!” I interrupt her.

  “Fine,” Anya says. “I’ll give you time to catch up to me, and we’ll go from here.”

  “Fine,” I agree. Anya stays hanging in the middle of the bars, and I drop my left hand and reach for the next one. I catch it with my fingertips and pull myself up, and then I force my right hand to follow. My hands scrape across the bar and it hurts a lot, but I am not going to give up.

  “Oh, come on,” Dennis calls. “This is not even a contest.”

  I release my left hand from the bar again and reach for the next one, but before I can grab it, my right hand slips off the bar and I fall to the ground with a thud. Anya lets go of the bars herself and rushes toward me.

  “Are you okay?” she asks.

  “NO!” I answer, and I stand and run away from the monkey bars as fast as I can, tears tickling the backs of my eyes.

  I run all the way across the playground, and then I crouch down and hide behind a tree. I put my eyes against my knees and wrap my arms around my legs. I hear footsteps running up behind me, so I wipe the tear that has fallen on my cheek onto my pant leg.

  “What’s wrong?” Anya comes to a stop and stands over me.

  “My hands hurt,” I tell her. This is true—my hands do hurt from those dumb monkey bars, but they are not the real reason I am upset.

  “Let me see,” Anya says, so I hold out my hands to show her. “You don’t have any blisters. They’re just red.”

  “They hurt,” I tell her.

  “They’ll feel better soon,” Anya says. “My hands hurt, too, when I first started doing the monkey bars. I can help you practice if you want.”

  “No, thank you,” I say. “Just go play with your best friend, Natalie.”

  “She’s not my best friend,” Anya tells me. “You are. I just have to be her buddy because her wrist is broken.”