A Cast is the Perfect Accessory

by Allison Gutknecht; Stevie Lewis

  “Okay, Mandy,” Mrs. Spangle calls from her desk. “Get us going.”

  “Aren’t you coming?” I call back.

  “I’ll catch up in a second,” Mrs. Spangle says, moving around piles of papers on her desk. “You’re in charge.”

  I take a deep breath and step into the hallway, looking over my shoulder to make sure everyone is following me. I make a left out of our classroom and take ten medium-size steps down the hall—not too big and not too small—so that everyone can keep up. I am an excellent Line Leader, I think.

  I look behind me and grin super wide when I see my whole class following me. I take ten more medium-size steps and then look back again to see what is taking Mrs. Spangle so long to come hold my hand. I see her in the middle of our line, and I stop at the corner near the library, just like I am supposed to, and wait for her to catch up to me.

  “Mrs. Spangle!” I whisper-yell, but instead of coming to meet me, Mrs. Spangle only waves her arm to signal me to keep going. And that’s when I see it: the reason Mrs. Spangle is not holding my hand.

  She is holding Natalie’s hand. The one that is not covered by the cast.

  I am absolutely positive that I have never been so angry in my life.

  I flip my face forward and begin walking much faster down the hallway, not caring anymore if my class can keep up. I reach the end of the library and do not even stop at the corner before making a right, and I march at full speed toward the art room.

  “Mandy! Mandy!” I hear calls behind me, but I ignore them because you are not supposed to talk in the hallway, and also, I am too busy being angry.

  “Mandy!” I recognize Mrs. Spangle’s voice. I whip my head around to face her, even though I don’t want to, and I see the rest of my class waiting at the other end of the hall. Mrs. Spangle points to the door they’re standing near. “We have music today, not art.”

  I feel my forehead get hot, and Dennis starts laughing at me loudly.

  “It’s okay,” Mrs. Spangle says. “We all make mistakes, Dennis.” She shoos my class into the music room while I shuffle back down the hall with my head down. I take my place in line behind Dennis—even farther back than the caboose.

  “You’re not such a hot Line Leader,” he says, and Anya does not even care enough to be here to stick up for me. I guess it is no wonder that Anya wants to be Natalie’s friend and not mine. Because no one wants to be friends with a bad Line Leader.

  CHAPTER 8

  Bad Mood Berr

  THE WORST PART ABOUT HAVING the most awful week of your life is that everyone keeps asking, “What’s wrong, Mandy?” and I say, “Everything,” and they think I am kidding. But I am not even joking one bit, because everything is horrible and it’s all because of Natalie.

  I do not like that Natalie has a cast and a broken wrist and a secret story about how she did it, and I do not like that I have no change to go to the magic coin machine and buy fancy-dancy periwinkle sunglasses, but they are not even my worst problems. The biggest problem is that Anya has not been my best friend all week, and that is a tragedy. And it is not just a little tragedy—it is the most gigantic tragedy ever in my life, except for maybe when the twins were born.

  I thought we were best friends again during music, because Anya sat next to me on the carpet instead of next to Natalie, and I had never been so happy in my life. So when we were back in our classroom, I asked her, “Do you want to go on the swings at recess?” I wanted to make sure that she would play with me today and not with Natalie, but she didn’t answer me.

  “Psst, Anya.” I looked over at Mrs. Spangle to make sure she was not watching, then I rocked my chair back on two legs until I was as close to Anya as I could get. “Do you want to go on the swings at recess?”

  “Maybe,” Anya whispered, and then she turned her face away from me and leaned over her paper.

  By the time we get to lunch, I do not know if we are friends again or not. I slap my lunch box onto the cafeteria table next to hers and sigh my biggest sigh, and she only covers her ears and says, “You are being very loud.” And this is just ridiculous, because Anya loves loud noises.

  “You always slam your lunch box too,” I tell her. “Remember?” And I pick up her lunch box myself to show her.

  “Stop, Mandy!” she yells, and she grabs her lunch box away from me before I can slam it. “It’s too loud.”

  “I agree,” Natalie says, even though no one asked her. And I realize then why Anya hates loud noises now: Natalie. Natalie has ruined her.

  Natalie ruins everything.

  Anya does not speak to me all through lunch, but I do not speak to her, either, because I have never been so angry in my life. Instead, I watch Anya punch the straw into Natalie’s juice box and untwist the lid on Natalie’s thermos and be Natalie’s friend instead of mine.

  As we walk outside for recess, Dennis asks Anya, “Aren’t you going to have a rematch with Polka Dot on the monkey bars soon? So you can beat her all over again?”

  Anya shakes her head. “No, I don’t feel like it,” she says. And I am happy that I do not have to do the monkey bars again, but I am not happy when I see Anya and Natalie walk off to the side of the playground to sit in the sand together. I run after them and stand behind Anya’s shoulder.

  “I thought we were going to swing,” I tell her.

  “We’re playing tic-tac-toe,” Natalie answers, and I see Anya dragging a stick through the sand to draw the board.

  “I was not talking to you,” I say. “Anya, I thought we were going to swing.”

  Anya shakes her head again. “I don’t feel like it,” she says. “I just want to be quiet.” Without another word, she draws an X in the middle square of the board, and then she draws an O in the corner where Natalie points her finger.

  Anya is pretty much playing tic-tac-toe by herself, since Natalie cannot draw in the sand with her left hand, and the game looks even more dull than usual.

  “It would be much more fun to play with me,” I tell Anya.

  “Tic-tac-toe is only for two people,” she answers rudely. I feel my eyes widen into pancakes then, because I am absolutely positive that this is the meanest thing Anya has ever said to me.

  “I meant it would be more fun to play with me on the swings,” I say, and then I turn on my heels and run away from them. I run far across the playground and lean against a tree, and I am surprised that my eyes do not feel ticklish from tears. But I am not sad, I think—I am mad. Super-duper mad. More mad than I have ever been in my life.

  And I am not just mad at Natalie; I am mad at Anya, too. I decide I am going to make a new best friend and show Anya what it is like to lose her favorite person in the world. I am going to eat lunch with my new friend and go on the swings with my new friend and tell Anya that there is only room for my new friend and me to play tic-tac-toe.

  The only problem is that I don’t really feel like making friends right now, and plus, I only know how to be friends with Anya.

  Dennis runs up to me and asks me to play TV tag, and I say, “Yes,” even though I do not want to. He tags me and yells, “You’re it,” and I run after him across the playground very slowly.

  “Hey!” he turns and calls back to me, his Mohawk blowing a little bit in the wind. “You’re not even trying!”

  And I stop running and shrug because Dennis is right. I turn around and walk away until I reach the swings, but when I sit on one, I do not even try to fly to the moon.

  “Hey, Polka Dot,” Dennis says. “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything,” I answer, and Dennis rolls his eyes up to the sky, which I think is rude, even for Dennis.

  “Come on, Polka Dot,” Dennis begs. “I’ll be ‘it’ this time, if you want.”

  “No, thank you,” I say. And I do not call Dennis “Freckle Face” or tell him that my underwear is not even polka dot today, because I do not care about Dennis right now.

  “Suit yourself,” he says, and he runs away across the playground. So I spend the who
le rest of recess on the swing by myself, without a single friend in the whole entire universe.

  . . .

  When I get home from school, Mom asks, “What’s wrong, Mandy?” and I say, “Everything.”

  “That can’t be true,” she says. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Natalie happened,” I explain. “Natalie and her stupid broken wrist.”

  “What did I tell you about this broken bone talk?” Mom says. “No broken bones in the Berr house.”

  I shake my head back and forth quickly because Mom does not understand. “That is not the problem,” I tell her.

  “Then what is?” Mom asks.

  “Anya is not my friend anymore. Not even a little bit,” I say real quiet-like.

  “What? I can’t hear you.”

  “Anya is not my friend anymore,” I repeat, but a twin starts crying then, and I do not want to say it any louder.

  “Anya? I thought you two talked and worked things out.”

  “No, she is Natalie’s best friend now,” I tell her.

  “She’s what? Wait, I still can’t—hold on,” Mom says, and she scoops the crying twin into her arms just as the other one starts wailing. “I’ll be back to you in one second.”

  But I know it will take many more seconds to make those twins stop crying, so I escape from Mom because I do not want her to call me a “crankypants” again anyway. I tiptoe up the stairs to my room, twist the doorknob all the way to the right, and close it behind me as quietly as I can so no one can hear me turn the lock. Then I flop onto my bed and lie on my stomach with my chin in my hands and stare out the window. It is a cloudy day, which is perfect, because I am in a cloudy mood. And plus, I do not have any sunglasses.

  CHAPTER 9

  Bathroom Buddies

  BY MONDAY MORNING I AM just as mad at Anya as I was at school on Friday. Actually, I am even more mad, because Anya could have at least called me after our fight and said, “I am sorry for being a crummy best friend, Mandy,” but she did not. Not all weekend. And I did not call her either, because I am right and she is wrong.

  There is absolutely, positively no way I want to see Anya at school today, so I wake up with a nervous and jumpy feeling. I slide my whole body underneath the covers and rub my palms up and down across my cheeks ferociously, then back and forth across my forehead. I sniff in as far as my breath will go until my nose feels stuffy. And then I wait.

  “Mandy,” Mom calls from the hallway, and I pop my head out from under the comforter as she opens my bedroom door. “Rise and shine, sleepyhead.”

  I twist my neck to the side of my pillow and try to look very weak.

  “I’m sick,” I tell her, and I try to make it sound like I have cotton balls in my throat. “I cannot go to school.” I sniff all the way into my nose again, just so she knows I mean it.

  Mom comes over to my bed and places the back of her hand on my forehead, and I know my face must be red and hot from rubbing it under the covers.

  “Oh yeah?” Mom asks. “What hurts?”

  “My head,” I answer. “And also my nose.”

  “Your nose hurts?”

  “It’s stuffed up,” I explain, and I sniff way up into my nostrils one more time.

  “Hmm,” Mom begins. “This sickness wouldn’t have anything to do with your fight with Anya last week, would it?”

  “No!” I say, and I sit up straight in bed before I remember. I lower myself back onto my pillow slowly, trying to look ill.

  “Do you want to tell me more about what happened with Anya?” Mom asks. “You never explained the whole story.”

  “No,” I answer. “I am too sick.”

  “Well, I’ll take your temperature,” Mom says. “But if it’s normal, you’re going to school.”

  “Fine,” I answer, and as Mom goes to get the thermometer, I wonder if I can run to the bathroom and swallow some burning water to make my mouth super hot, but I do not have time. Mom comes back, sticks the cold, glassy end of the thermometer in my mouth, and we both wait.

  “Whatever happened, I bet you and Anya will be fine today, anyway,” Mom says. “You two can never stay mad at each other for long.”

  “Nopth yiss shime,” I try to say with the thermometer hanging out of the corner of my lips.

  “Shh,” Mom says. “No talking with that in your mouth.” And I do not think it is fair for Mom to talk to me when I cannot even answer, especially when I know that Anya and I are done being friends for good.

  When the time is up, Mom pulls the thermometer out of my mouth and glances at it. “Ninety-eight point six,” she announces. “Up and at ’em for school.” She pats me on the knee and stands up from my bed.

  “But my nose—” I begin to protest.

  “Mandy,” Mom says, with a warning in her voice, “no more stalling. I mean it. Get ready for school.” And then I feel like a crankypants all over again.

  . . .

  I walk into my classroom on my tippy toes and try not to look in the direction of Anya’s desk. I sit in my chair and do not even rock it on two legs, and I work on my seatwork quietly as Mrs. Spangle takes attendance.

  “Natalie,” she calls.

  “Here.”

  “Mandy.”

  “Here.”

  “Dennis.”

  “Present.”

  “Anya.”

  Silence.

  “Anya’s out today?” Mrs. Spangle looks up from her list, and I am more surprised than anyone. Natalie shoots her left hand in the air.

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

  “Who is going to be my buddy?” she asks, and she sounds pretty panicked actually.

  “Everyone will help you out today, when you need it,” Mrs. Spangle answers, and Natalie shoots her hand in the air again.

  “Yes?” Mrs. Spangle calls on her.

  “Can I come up to your desk?” Natalie asks. Mrs. Spangle nods, and Natalie trots over to her and whispers something in her ear. Mrs. Spangle glances around the room until her eyes land on me.

  “Mandy, can you come here, please?” I slump my shoulders as I rise slowly to my feet. Of course Natalie is getting me in trouble. I don’t even know what I could have done to her, but it doesn’t matter. Because Natalie is ruining my life.

  But when I reach Mrs. Spangle’s desk, all she asks me is: “Could you accompany Natalie to the bathroom?”

  I nod, even though I do not want to, because at least I am not in trouble. Natalie and I head toward our classroom door.

  “Thank you,” Natalie whispers when we reach the hallway, and I am surprised she is being polite.

  “Why do you need help in the bathroom?” I ask.

  “You’ll see,” Natalie says. And when we get there, Natalie goes into one stall and tells me to go in the one next to her.

  “Could you hand me some toilet paper, please?” she asks. “I can’t unroll it.”

  I pull a huge glob of toilet paper from the holder, climb onto the toilet seat carefully, and toss it over the side of my stall and into Natalie’s.

  “Arghh!” I hear from the other side of the wall, followed by a sound I almost never hear from Natalie’s lips: laughing.

  Natalie is not a very giggly person at all, so I am very surprised by this.

  “Why are you laughing?” I ask.

  “I’m covered in toilet paper,” Natalie answers, and she snorts through her nose a little because she is laughing so hard. “Can you hand me some more? Most of this fell in the toilet. You can give it to me under—”

  But before Natalie can finish, I tear off an even bigger mound of toilet paper, hop up onto the seat, and throw it over the side of my stall.

  “Arghh!” Natalie screams again, and then she begins laughing even harder.

  And I kind of like to make Natalie laugh, if I am being honest, because it is usually very hard to do.

  “No more, no more!” Natalie calls, but she is still laughing. “I meant you could just hand it under the wall and I would
reach for it—arghh!”

  I toss the biggest ball of toilet paper yet into the next stall. Natalie flushes the toilet and swings open her door, so I open mine, too. The floor of Natalie’s stall is covered in ribbons of toilet paper, and her face is pink from laughing.

  “I hope you used some of that,” I say.

  Natalie nods. “I caught a couple of pieces before they landed on the floor. Could you help me wash my hand now? I can’t get my cast wet.”

  I begin to turn on the sink faucet, but Natalie stops me. “Mandy,” she says, “my cast really can’t get wet. I mean it.”

  “Don’t worry, it won’t,” I tell her. I squirt a small drop of soap onto Natalie’s left hand, and when she is finished rinsing, I help her dry it off with a paper towel. I am very careful and Natalie is too.

  “See—all dry!” I say when we have finished.

  “Thank you for helping me,” she says.

  “That was harder than I thought,” I tell her, and Natalie nods.

  “It’s a big pain,” she says. “The cast can’t get wet, and it makes my arm itch, and I can’t do anything with it. I can’t wait until it comes off.”

  “Really?” I ask. “Because if I had a cast, I’d want to keep it on forever.”

  Natalie shakes her head back and forth quickly. “You would hate it after one day,” she tells me. “Maybe even before. Plus, I can’t do the monkey bars now.”

  “You know how to do the monkey bars?” I ask. “I am not so good at them.” And I look down at the bathroom floor then, because monkey bar talk makes me think of Anya, and that makes me sad.

  “I can teach you,” Natalie says. “When my wrist is better. Then you can have a rematch with Anya and beat her.”

  “Why would you want me to beat Anya?” I ask.

  Natalie shrugs. “She’s kind of bossy,” she tells me, and this makes me laugh so loudly that Natalie rises onto her tippy toes. “Please don’t tell her I said that.”

  “I won’t,” I promise. “If you finally tell me how you broke your wrist.”