When Anna didn’t move, I figured she was asleep. I closed my eyes, picturing her old white canopy bed in my mind. It had the most beautiful lavender curtains that would open and close. Whenever I spent the night at Anna’s, we’d wait until everyone had gone to bed, and then we’d sneak Oreos from the kitchen, race back to her room, and jump on the bed, exploding into giggles as we closed the curtains around us.
I opened my eyes and stared at Anna where she lay quietly on her bed. After Anna had the stroke, her parents got rid of the canopy bed. They had to buy a bed like the kind in hospitals that you can move up and down easily. It looked cold. Hard. The kind of bed that says sickness all over it.
Anna turned her head in my direction and opened her eyes all the way.
“I’m sorry you’re not feeling well,” I told her from the doorway. “Your mom wants me to stay out here, so I don’t give you any more germs.”
Anna stared at me with unblinking eyes. She didn’t smile, but I could tell she was listening.
“Come on, Pansy,” Andy said as he ran up behind me. “Did you bring any shoeboxes?”
“On the table,” I told him. I wanted to stay and talk to Anna. So far I hadn’t told her about my goals—I’d been so busy I’d barely seen her since school started.
“Are you coming, or what?” Andy said again, so I waved to Anna and followed Andy down the hall.
“I’ve got an awesome idea,” he said. “We’ll cover the shoeboxes with construction paper. Those will be the government buildings, where the leaders make all the important decisions.”
“Okay.” I sat down on the floor next to him. “Is Anna okay? You didn’t tell me she had an infection.”
Andy shrugged. “She gets sick all the time. The doctor gave her a prescription.”
“Your mom didn’t want me to go in her room. She said I’d give her germs, even though Anna’s already sick.”
“Mom’s being extra careful. She won’t let me go near Anna unless I use hand sanitizer first. She says it’s important for Anna to be germ-free right now.”
“Germ-free?” I waited for Andy to say something about the surgery, finally.
Instead, he just shrugged and said, “Well, something like that.” Then he pulled out his notebook and opened it to the Zeraclop City diagram, like he was sweeping Anna out of his mind. But Zeraclop wasn’t anything without Anna.
“Hey, do you want to work on the government buildings or the neighborhood?” Andy asked.
“I’ll do the government buildings. Do you have any glitter?”
“Glitter?” Andy frowned. “There’s serious stuff going on in those buildings. That’s where they talk about their undercover spies—the Z.I.A. Remember?”
“I know. I was thinking if we’re covering them with black construction paper, they’ll look nicer with a little glitter. Like maybe gold or silver?”
Andy stared down at his notebook and didn’t answer me for a while.
“Well? Don’t you have some glitter?”
Andy shook his head. “At least you didn’t ask for pink glitter.”
I put down my scissors and looked up at him. “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing.”
We worked in silence for a while. I covered the buildings with ordinary black paper, while Andy began the layout of the town.
“Pink glitter is something Madison Poplin would want on her buildings,” Andy said a few minutes later.
“So?” I said as I taped paper to the last box. “What does that have to do with me?”
“Well, if Madison likes pink glitter, you probably like it, too.”
I stopped taping and looked Andy straight in the eye. “I never said anything about pink glitter. Besides, what do you have against Madison?”
Andy gave me one of those you-really-have-to-ask-me-that? looks.
“She’s nice,” I told him.
“Anna never liked her.”
“That’s not true! Anna didn’t know her. I didn’t know her, either, before this year.”
“I just don’t get why you now want to hang out with stuck-up girls like Madison, that’s all.”
I dropped the box on the floor. “Madison is not stuck-up.”
“She’s a pageant girl. Someone who wins contests by looking pretty. What do you care about that?”
“I don’t.”
“Then why are you hanging out with her?”
“I am not hanging out with her,” I said, and my voice came out louder than I planned.
“And I’ve been wondering,” Andy said as he stared at my feet. “Why are you still wearing two different shoes? I thought it was an accident on the first day of school.”
I glanced at my shoes. “It was.”
“Is it an accident every single day, then?”
“No. Now it’s on purpose.”
Andy rolled his eyes. “I don’t get it.”
I sighed. “It’s not something I can explain.” I looked him straight in the eye. “By the way, I know all about the surgery. So I’m not looking for another best friend, if that’s what you think.”
Andy pushed his glasses up on his nose. “What are you talking about?”
“The surgery. Anna’s brain surgery! She’s going to get better, and when she wakes up after it, she’ll hear about all the extraordinary things I’ve done.”
“All the things you’ve done?”
“Yeah. Like joining Girl Scouts and cutting my hair and taking skating lessons, like I told her I would. Plus, I’m going to be top in the class for the reading contest.”
Andy snorted.
“It’s true,” I said. “Anna’s going to be so proud of me.”
Andy paused. “But, the surgery’s just for her seizures. You know that, right?”
“Well, sure. That’s what Mom told me. But it’s brain surgery. Brain surgery. The doctors don’t know what might happen until they operate.”
Andy was shaking his head. “Mom and Dad say it’s impossible for Anna to be normal again. She has permanent brain damage, Pansy.”
“How do they know what’s permanent? They said she wasn’t going to walk again, didn’t they?”
Andy nodded.
“See? They don’t know what they’re talking about. I know it’s going to happen. And you’ve heard her talk in your dreams, too.”
“I know,” Andy said quietly. Silence filled the room. Andy stared at the notebook for a minute. Finally he said, “Look at this. There’s a wall with a drawbridge surrounding the government complex. I was thinking we could cut up some of those Styrofoam trays for the wall, and then we could use real water for the moat.”
I smiled. “We could use blue-green food coloring so it will look like real water, and we could line the bottom and embankments with stones.”
“I think I can figure out a way to make the drawbridge open and close. I have some wires and string. And I’ll just cut the box a little, like this.” Andy took his pencil and outlined a rectangle on the box. Then he opened his desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of silver glitter. “We could put glitter in the water, if you want. It can be magic Zeras, to protect the government palace.”
“Cool,” I said, knowing Anna would agree.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Nine Weeks, Six Days
Pansy, are you ready?” Mom called from downstairs on Saturday morning.
“Just a minute!” I called back. This time I was prepared. I wore tights under my leggings and I had a long-sleeve shirt underneath my sweater. I threw an extra pair of gloves and socks into my bag along with earmuffs and ran down the steps.
“Are you excited?” Mom said as we drove to the Ice Palace.
Excited wasn’t the word I’d use. This was something I had to do, like cleaning the toilets if I pulled that particular slip from the Jobs Jar Mom had sitting on the counter. “I’ve been waiting to take lessons forever,” I finally told her.
“You know, I was just saying to your father the other night that I’ve never seen you so
determined about anything before.” Mom smiled at me in the rearview mirror. “You’ve set your mind on learning to skate, and that’s exactly what you’ve done.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that exactly. I haven’t even put ice skates on yet.”
“But you’ve been practicing on Rollerblades. Honestly, with as many times as you’ve fallen, we’re surprised you stuck with it.”
I frowned, thinking about all the times I’d already crashed, and I hadn’t even stepped onto the ice yet. “I’m not too good at sports, I guess,” I said in a lowered voice.
Mom shook her head. “No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. We’re so proud of you for sticking with it, even though it hasn’t been easy. I bet ice-skating will be totally different. You’ll probably take off like you’ve been skating all your life.”
Ha ha, that was a good one. I’d already tried ice-skating, so I knew I wouldn’t take off like I was born on skates. But I put on a smile as I got out of the car, pretending like I was looking forward to the whole thing, even though my insides were churning like ingredients in a mixer.
A few minutes later, I was standing at the entrance to the rink, my legs wobbly. Part of the ice was reserved for freestyle practice. Lots of little girls in short skirts flew around doing leaps and spins. And instead of putting the Beginners’ class at the front of the rink, which would make logical sense, they put it at the opposite end. Which meant I had to somehow make it across the entire length of ice. I’d be exhausted before my lesson even started.
“Go on, Pansy,” my mom said. “Your teacher’s waiting for you.”
I stopped watching the highfliers, put my hand on the side rail, and pulled myself over to the coned-off area where my instructor stood, not once taking my hands off the bar. My ankles turned out to the sides the same way they had the last time I’d tried this crazy sport. This was nothing like Rollerblades, where you had nice solid wheels to balance on.
Why couldn’t Anna have chosen something easy and less dangerous to do, like learning to meditate?
When I finally made it over to my class, the instructor, Trina, checked off our names on a list. I counted seven others, all girls except for one boy around six who was already skating better than I’d ever hope to. Most of the kids looked younger than me, and one little girl wore a pink tutu like you’d wear for dance class.
“Welcome to Beginners’ Class!” Trina greeted us. “How many of you have been on skates before?”
A couple of kids raised their hands. I put up mine, too, still holding on to the rail with my left hand.
“Well, it’s really quite simple. All you have to do is hold your arms out to the side and begin with small steps, picking up one foot after the other. Like this.” Trina demonstrated.
Baby steps. Looked simple enough to me.
“All right, everyone face me.” Trina turned toward the group. Holding her arms out to the side, she glided backward, motioning for us to follow. “And, begin!”
That’s when I remembered why I spent so much time sitting on the ice during my last lesson. Following someone meant letting go of the rail. I held my arms out like Trina, picking up one foot, then the other. But instead of standing up nice and steady like my instructor did, my ankles wobbled with each step and my arms waved about in a crazy attempt to hold on to my balance.
“Great! You’re doing great!” Trina coached us as we made our way across the ice.
I was halfway there. I silently congratulated myself when the second person went down and I was still standing. Must have been all that roller-blading practice. If I could make it all the way to Andy’s on Rollerblades without falling, surely I could make it from one side of the ice to the other. I held my head up high and squared my shoulders with new confidence.
Next thing I knew, I was sitting on the ice. Yowch! It happened so quickly I’m not sure what made me lose my balance. All I knew was that it wasn’t an easy or a graceful fall. And soon I realized something else: ice is colder than concrete and much more slippery—which means once you’re down, it’s hard to get back up.
I tried the method I used for getting back up on Rollerblades: I leaned forward, pushing off the ice with one hand while I tried to get to my feet. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy as it sounded. If only the ice wasn’t quite so slippery! My hand slid forward. Splat. I was down again.
I looked over at my instructor who was still spouting out things like, “Come on, you can do it!”
I crawled on my hands and knees until she finally came over and helped me to my feet. Or should I say, my blades.
Trina clapped once everyone was safely on the other side. “Guess now would be a good time to teach you the proper way to get up from a fall,” she said with a giggle.
There was actually a trick to it. Bend down on one knee, put one foot in front of you, and push off the bent knee until you’re standing up. It took a while to figure it out, but by the end of the session I’d mastered one very important thing: how to get up once I was down.
During the last few minutes of class, Trina put up cones and asked us to “slalom” in and out without knocking the cones down. She was dreaming if she thought I’d try anything like that. Just because I’d figured out how to get up from a fall didn’t mean I needed to practice that skill any more than necessary.
After the lesson and once I was safely back off the ice, I collapsed on the nearest bench. I pulled off my earmuffs, the extra pair of gloves, and my heavy jacket. Wow, I was actually beginning to sweat. That must have been a sign I was working hard.
“You looked good out there,” Mom said as she sat down next to me.
I stopped unlacing my skates and looked up at her. Good? I knew that was a lie and gave her a look.
“What?” Mom said. “I’m impressed. That roller-blading has really paid off. You looked much more confident than you did the last time.”
I leaned over to pull off my skates. “Ice-skating is nothing like roller-blading.”
“Well, all that skating couldn’t have hurt.” Mom picked up my skates and carried them over to the counter. “Did you have fun?”
I shrugged. Slipping on the ice and landing on your butt was not exactly what I’d call fun. “It was okay.”
“You’re coming back next week, right?” Mom said, and that’s when I knew for sure that I hadn’t looked confident at all.
“Don’t worry, Mom. I said I’d learn to skate, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
Mom smiled. When we got to the parking lot, she held open the car door for me to lower my aching body onto the seat. “I’m glad you are going to stick with it. Now, how about we stop off at Yogo on the way home? I’ve been dying to try the salted caramel.”
I smiled for the first time since we entered the rink. I’d been hoping ice-skating would come easier this time around. It hadn’t, really. But I’d learned to stand up on Rollerblades, so I could learn to stand up on ice skates. Even if I broke a leg or two trying.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Seven Weeks, Four Days
I filled up the next two weeks with skating, reading, and studying. Every time Andy asked me to come over, I told him I was busy. I said I was really sorry, that I wanted to work on Zeraclop City, but that I had things I needed to do. He usually just shrugged and looked away from me. After the third time, he quit asking.
There was a space between us that hadn’t been there before. We weren’t arguing, and Andy didn’t bring up Madison Poplin or my mismatched shoes again. But we weren’t talking about Anna, either, and neither one of us said another word about the upcoming surgery.
“Anna’s finally over her infection,” Mom told me at breakfast. “I spoke to Mrs. Liddell last night, and she said it would be fine if you stopped by to see her one day after school this week.”
“Great,” I said, slurping down the rest of my cereal. “I’ll go this afternoon.”
When I stopped at the Liddells’ after school, Anna was resting in her room. I sat on the bed and finally tol
d her all about my goals.
“I’ve only had three skating lessons,” I said, “but I can already baby step all the way to the other side of the rink without falling. Can you believe it?”
Anna looked up at me, her big blue eyes sparkling and clear. She looked a lot better than she had the last time I’d seen her. She was making sounds the whole time I talked to her. It sounded a little bit like “yay,” except she stretched the word out, almost as though she were singing. Then she smiled out of half her mouth the way she always did now.
She was also spinning around Bright Stars, her favorite toy. It was a toy you’d buy for babies, with bright colors and lights. When you pushed the top, the stars would light up and spin.
“I’m learning forward swizzles, too,” I told her. “Do you remember doing them in your lessons?”
Anna didn’t stop spinning the toy. But her sound switched to something like “uh-huh.” She kept sing-songing the word while I talked, but somehow I knew she was listening.
“They’re not as hard as I thought. You just have to bend your knees and lean on your inside edges, but you have to be careful you don’t lean too far. Or else you might fall flat on your face.”
The sound switched back to “yay.” Was she cheering because I might fall? Or maybe she was making a joke.
“And guess what else? Miss Quetzel posted the reading scores yesterday, and I’m in second place, right behind Daniel!”
All of a sudden Anna let out a squeal, and it was high-pitched enough that I had to cover my ears.
“I know,” I said. “It’s really great. You want to know my trick?”
Anna kept her eyes on the toy.
“Okay, I know I don’t need a trick to win. I just need to do a lot of reading. But there’s no rule that says you can’t read picture books along with novels, and it’s a really easy way to rack up points. The books are pretty good, too.”
Anna grew quieter, making only humming sounds.
“I’m going to do it,” I said. “I’m going to win the contest, just the way you wanted to last year. Oh, and tomorrow I’m going to Madison’s to work on our cooking badge for Girl Scouts.”
Extraordinary Page 7
