A Cast is the Perfect Accessory

by Allison Gutknecht; Stevie Lewis

  “I wish my wrist were broken,” I tell her. “Then you could be my buddy instead of Natalie’s.”

  “That’s silly,” Anya says. “I already am your buddy.”

  The lunch aide blows the whistle for us to line up, and Anya reaches out her hand to help me stand. I grab it, and she pulls me to my feet, and we walk off to join our class.

  “But if I had a cast, you could be my buddy all the time,” I explain. “Mrs. Spangle would have to let you sit next to me and take me to the bathroom and help me in the cubbies. Plus, I bet I would get fancy-dancy periwinkle sunglasses, because everyone would feel so sorry for me.”

  “You shouldn’t break your arm to get sunglasses,” Anya says. “That’s dumb.”

  We reach our line, and she skips ahead to stand next to Natalie.

  And I know then that Anya is right: I don’t need to break my arm just to get fancy-dancy periwinkle sunglasses, but I do need to do something in order to get Anya back.

  Something big.

  CHAPTER 6

  Jump, Jump, Splat !

  THE TWINS ARE CRYING WHEN I get home from school, which is not a shock because the twins are always crying.

  “How was your day?” Mom asks as they wail, and I say, “Fine,” even though it was not.

  “I am going outside,” I tell Mom. “Timmy is not allowed to come.”

  “Timmy is taking a nap,” Mom says. “And no funny business today, do you hear me?”

  “Yes,” I answer, and I open the back door.

  “Mandy,” Mom calls behind me. “I mean it—you be on your best behavior out there.”

  “Okay,” I answer, and I say the “kay” part super-duper loud, so Mom knows I heard her. I walk over to our swing set and sit on the swing farthest from the kitchen window. I pump my legs back and forth, and the swing rises in the air quickly. I may not be any good at the monkey bars, but I am an excellent swinger.

  I pull my arms back and forth on the rope handles and move my body front and back at the same time as my legs. I swing as high as I can—so high that I could touch the moon if it were nighttime. I would jump off this swing right now, like the fourth graders do on the playground, except I do not know how to do that exactly.

  I pump my legs back and forth very strongly, and push my body against the wind. I whizz through the air, my hair falling out of my ponytail and my nose so close to the clouds that I think I can smell them.

  “What you doing, Mandy?” Timmy wanders out the back door and over toward the swing set.

  “Why are you out here?” I ask. “I told Mom you were not allowed to come.”

  Timmy shrugs. “I wake up. What you doing?”

  “Jumping off the swing,” I tell him, even though I have not actually done that yet.

  “I try too,” Timmy says, and he pulls himself onto the swing next to me.

  “You do not know how to jump off swings,” I tell him. “You are a baby.”

  “I jump off steps,” Timmy tells me.

  “That is not even the same because—” I begin, but then I stop myself. I feel my eyes spread out wider and wider into humongous pancakes.

  Because Timmy has just given me a great idea.

  I hop off the swing and jog toward the back door.

  “Where you going, Mandy?” Timmy calls after me, but I do not answer him. I do not have time to talk to preschoolers when I have finally found a way to make my week better in a big way. I run through the house until I am at the bottom of the steps, then I climb up the first one. I turn around, jump as high as I can in the air, and land on the ground.

  On two feet.

  So I turn and climb up two steps and jump high in the air again.

  And I still land on two feet.

  “What you doing, Mandy?” Timmy appears around the corner.

  “Shh. Mom cannot hear.”

  “But what you doing?”

  “Breaking my arm,” I tell him. “Now shush, because it is a secret.” Timmy slides his hand across his mouth like it is a zipper, and he watches me as I climb all the way up to the third step. I turn around, take a deep breath, and leap toward the floor.

  And my feet slip out from under me, and I land on my bottom. And my bottom kind of hurts.

  But my arms do not.

  “What was that crash?” Mom calls from somewhere in the house, so I hurry back onto my feet and run up four steps before Mom finds out what I’m doing. I take a gigantic breath, turn around, and—

  “AMANDA!”

  —find Mom standing at the bottom of the steps.

  “What did I tell you two about jumping off the steps?” she says.

  “You did not tell me,” I point out. “You told Timmy.”

  “Funny how you listen when I give Timmy directions,” Mom says to me. “Is there a reason you don’t when I tell you no funny business today?”

  “Because you are not funny!” I yell, and I stomp my foot and cross my arms and begin to pound my way up the stairs to my room.

  “Wait just a minute,” Mom calls after me. “Come back down here right now, young lady.”

  I turn on my tippy toes without looking at Mom and bang my feet loudly on the way down. I think about jumping down the last three steps, but Mom is standing in my way.

  “Would you like to tell me what you were doing?” she asks.

  “No, thank you,” I answer, and I am polite and everything.

  “Timmy,” Mom says, “can you tell me what Mandy was doing?”

  “She was breaking her arm,” Timmy answers. And he looks pretty proud of himself.

  “Why were you trying to break your arm?” Mom squints her eyes into slits at me.

  “So I can get Anya to be my buddy and not Natalie’s,” I answer.

  “Listen to me carefully,” Mom begins. “You are not to break your arm, or your leg, or your finger, or your nose, or anything. Do you understand me?”

  I nod, but I still do not look at her.

  “I thought practicing giving other people attention was helping, but I guess not,” she says. “I guess I’m going to have to take away Rainbow Sparkle’s TV show until you learn—”

  “No!” I yell. “I don’t even want attention. I just want Anya back.”

  Mom looks from my forehead to my toes like she doesn’t believe me. “Did you and Anya have a fight?”

  “No, but she is not acting like my best friend anymore,” I tell her. “She is acting like Natalie’s.”

  “Anya can be friends with both you and Natalie, you know,” Mom says.

  “I. Do. Not. Share. Anya.” I say each word like it has its own period after it. “Anya is mine!” I stare right at Mom then, so that she knows I mean business. And I feel my own eyes tickling with tears again, but I rub my hands against the lids to push them back inside.

  Mom looks at me for a couple of seconds without saying a word, then she reaches out her hand and takes one of my nonbroken wrists. Without pulling too hard, she leads me to the kitchen table, which is still covered in twin stuff. She sits me in a chair at the head of the table and puts herself in the one right next to me.

  “Timmy, go to your room for a while,” she says. “I need to talk to Mandy in private.” And I like to talk to Mom with no Timmy and no twins around, so that is something, I guess.

  Mom leans forward. “Tell me what’s happening with Anya,” she says.

  “I did already.” I cross my arms on my chest.

  “Start at the beginning,” Mom says.

  So I sigh a big gust of breath and begin: “Natalie broke her stupid wrist—”

  “No ‘stupid’ talk,” Mom interrupts, which I do not think should be allowed.

  “Natalie broke her wrist, and Mrs. Spangle made me her buddy. But Natalie is very bossy, so I did not want to be her buddy. And then Mrs. Spangle moved Natalie’s seat away from me and made Anya her buddy. So now Anya spends all of her time with Natalie and not with me,” I finish. “It is a tragedy.”

  Mom smiles a little bit at me then,
which is not very nice. “Anya is just spending extra time with Natalie because she needs help right now. She’s still your friend too.”

  I shake my head back and forth very quickly. “No, she plays with her on the playground. And she sits with her at lunch. And she laughs at Natalie’s jokes, and Natalie is never funny.” I take a big breath. “I think she likes Natalie better than me.”

  “Did you talk to Anya about it?”

  “Yes, and she said I was being dumb,” I say. “She doesn’t listen to me. She only listens to Natalie.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true,” Mom says. “Try to talk to her again tomorrow—nicely. See what she says.”

  I shrug my shoulders up to my ears. “I don’t feel like it.”

  “Friendship is hard work, Mandy,” Mom says. “If you and Anya want to be friends—which I know you do—sometimes you have to do things that you don’t want to. You can’t just mope around and act like a crankypants and expect things to work out. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I answer quietly.

  “Good.” Mom nods with satisfaction. “And listen to me—I don’t want to hear or see one more thing about broken bones. Do you understand me?”

  I look at Mom’s nose and do not answer.

  “Mandy,” she warns me, “I mean it. No broken bones in the Berr house. You are not to hurt yourself. Understood?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Does breaking a bone hurt?”

  “Very, very much,” Mom says. “I broke my ankle in middle school. Believe me—you don’t want to do it.”

  “How’d you break it?” I ask, because the story is the best part of breaking a bone.

  “I fell down the stairs at my friend’s house,” Mom answers. “Do you see now why I’m always telling you and your brother to stop jumping off the stairs? It’s dangerous.”

  I nod, because I think Mom is forgetting to punish me, and that is great news.

  “Now remember: No broken bones and no B-R-A-T behavior,” Mom says, standing up from the table.

  “Brat!” a voice calls from behind me, and I whip around to find Timmy sitting on the third step, not minding his own beeswax.

  “Hey!” I leap from my chair. “We were supposed to be talking in private!” I run at my fastest speed ever toward the steps, and Timmy scrambles to get up them as fast as a preschooler can scramble. I start to chase him, and I am just about to grab the sock off his foot when Mom appears behind us.

  “NO FUNNY BUSINESS ON THE STAIRS, YOU TWO!” Mom yells.

  Timmy and I stand like statues for a moment, then I march past him up the steps and into my room without saying one word. I slam the door behind me and jump onto my bed, pulling my bag of gummy bears out from under my pillow. I pick out a green bear and bite off one of its arms, and I do not even give him a buddy to help him.

  Because gummy bears never, ever need a stupid cast.

  CHAPTER 7

  Following the Leader

  “I NEED TO TALK TO you,” I say to Anya when we’re both in the cubbies the next morning. “My mom said so.”

  “Okay,” Anya answers. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Nat—” I begin, but before I can even finish her name, Natalie appears behind Anya’s shoulder.

  “Good morning, Anyie,” she says, and Anya gives her a big smile—the kind of smile she is only supposed to give her best friend.

  “Hi, Natty,” Anya answers, and I feel my chin drop down so low that my tongue may be hanging out of my mouth.

  “Absolutely not!” I yell, and Anya and Natalie both look at me with eyes as wide as pancakes. “No nicknames!”

  “What’s wrong, Polka Dot?” Dennis pipes in. “Lose another coin?”

  “Shut up, Dennis!” I yell. “I am not talking to you.”

  “Hey, folks in the cubbies, wrap it up in there!” Mrs. Spangle calls from her desk. “You have seatwork waiting that isn’t going to write itself.”

  “Anyie, can you help me with my sweater, please?” Natalie asks Anya, and I give her my meanest look ever.

  “What did you want to talk to me about?” Anya asks me as she pulls a sleeve of Natalie’s cardigan off her cast.

  “Never mind.” I turn around quickly and walk to my desk in a huff and a puff.

  “Hey, Polka Dot,” Dennis whispers behind my ear. “You still owe me that penny.”

  “Do not,” I say.

  “Do too,” Dennis argues. “You lost the monkey bar race to Anya. That was the deal.”

  “I didn’t lose,” I say. “I did not even finish.”

  “Right,” Dennis answers when I tell him this. “That means you lost.”

  I shake my head ferociously. “No, I didn’t get to finish,” I respond. “I was still practicing.”

  “Nope, lost,” Dennis insists. “Loser.”

  I would ask Anya what she thinks, but she is too busy carrying Natalie’s stuff to her desk and helping Natalie rip the correct page out of her math workbook and giving Natalie best friend nicknames. So I reach into my desk and give Dennis the penny that I was hiding in the corner, because I do not feel like arguing about it anymore, and I always feel like arguing with Dennis. And now I have no coins again, so there is no way I am ever going to be able to buy my own fancy-dancy periwinkle sunglasses.

  I place my elbows on my desk and rest my chin in my hands, and I do not even let out one “Wahoo!” when Mrs. Spangle tells us we are going to have fifteen minutes of extra recess this afternoon, even though I love recess.

  “If you’re finished with your seatwork, Mandy, you have time to do some silent reading,” Mrs. Spangle calls from her desk. So I pull out my Rainbow Sparkle book, but I do not read it. Instead, I lay my head down on my arms and close my eyes.

  And I am trying not to cry again, if I am being honest, because everything is awful.

  I have no coins and no sunglasses and no best friend, and I do not know how to do the monkey bars, which I didn’t even know I couldn’t do before. I squeeze my eyes shut and push the tears back inside with my pinkies, and I try to think about gummy bears and Rainbow Sparkle because they are the only things that still make me happy.

  “Mandy,” I hear Mrs. Spangle whisper from her desk. “Mandy.”

  I whip my head up and look at my teacher, and she is a little bit blurry behind the mist in my eyes. She wiggles her finger back and forth for me to approach her desk.

  I wipe the backs of my hands across my eyes as I walk toward Mrs. Spangle, and I just know she is going to put my initials on the board again, and I do not even care why.

  “Are you feeling okay?” Mrs. Spangle asks.

  I nod my head, even though I am not. But I am not really sick—I am just sick of Natalie and Dennis and my two working wrists.

  “Are you sure?” Mrs. Spangle asks again. “You’re not acting like yourself.”

  I nod again, because Mrs. Spangle will not understand my problems.

  “Just having a bad day?” she asks.

  “A bad week,” I answer.

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “No, thank you,” I say, and I am polite and everything.

  Mrs. Spangle smiles a little then, which I think is rude. She places her fingers under my chin and lifts it a tiny bit. “Buck up,” she says. “You just keep plugging away, and I bet it gets better.”

  I nod again, and I am pretty sure I have never been so quiet in my life.

  “Remember, the Mandy I know never gives up,” Mrs. Spangle tells me. “Even if she is having a bad week. Am I right?”

  “You’re right,” I say, but I am not sure that I mean it.

  Mrs. Spangle gives me a sad face that matches my own. “I hate to see you like this.”

  “My mom says I am a crankypants,” I tell her, and Mrs. Spangle smiles.

  “Well, what can I do to cheer you up?” she asks.

  “Nothing,” I answer, because I am absolutely positive that Mrs. Spangle will not know how to make Anya my best friend again instead of Natalie’s.


  “I have an idea,” Mrs. Spangle tells me. “Julia is absent, and she is supposed to be our Line Leader this week. How about you take her place for the day? I know you like that job.”

  “Really?” I clap my hands together and then shoot my fist in the air. “Wahoo!” Being the Line Leader is the best of all of the classroom jobs, because you get to be at the front of the line and be in charge, and best of all, Mrs. Spangle always holds the Line Leader’s hand in the hallway. I got to be the Line Leader the third week of second grade, but I have a very long wait until Mrs. Spangle makes it all the way through the rest of my class and back to my name. I know this because when she switches the classroom jobs every Monday, I ask her if it is my turn to be Line Leader yet.

  “There’s the Mandy I know,” Mrs. Spangle says. “Now skedaddle back to your seat and do some silent reading. We have two minutes before we go to special subject.”

  I bounce away from Mrs. Spangle’s desk and back to my own. I lift my Rainbow Sparkle book off my desk and pretend to read it, but I am too jittery from Line Leader excitement to concentrate.

  After what feels like many, many minutes, Mrs. Spangle announces that it is time to go to special subject, so I stuff my book back into my desk and sit up very straight with my hands folded, waiting.

  “Look at the great example our Line Leader is setting,” Mrs. Spangle tells the class, pointing at me. “Go ahead and start the line for us, Mandy.”

  I leap from my seat and push my chair in super fast, then I walk as quickly as I can to our classroom door.

  “Hey, Polka Dot’s not the Line Leader,” Dennis calls out. “Julia is.”

  “Julia’s absent today,” Mrs. Spangle explains. “And what did I tell you about name-calling?” When Mrs. Spangle looks away, Dennis sticks his tongue out at me, but I am too busy focusing on being the Line Leader to care.

  “Let’s see which groups look like they’re ready for special subject,” Mrs. Spangle continues, and she tells them to get in line one by one—all behind me, because I am in charge. Dennis walks to the line the slowest, because he always likes to be the caboose.