Fleabrain Loves Franny (18 page)

On the historic night of March 26, Franny was awakened in her bed by Salk's voice on the living room radio. She turned her head
to look at her clock. The toe shoe of the dancer's bent leg pointed to eleven. The toe shoe of her stretched-out leg pointed gracefully toward nine. For fifteen whole minutes the voice rumbled wisely and hopefully. From her bedroom Franny could understand only one word, but it was an excellent word.
Progress!

At the breakfast table the next morning, her parents were silent. Their eyes were red-rimmed and not exactly jubilant. “Good morning, girls!” they sang in one voice, a “Let's buck up and pretend to be happy” voice.

“What did Dr. Salk say?” Franny asked. “It was good news, right?”

Franny's mother looked down at her plate of eggs.

“It was good news, right?” Franny repeated. “Why so glum?”

“Yes,” said her father. “A vaccine to prevent polio will be ready to be released to the world very soon, Salk said. The researchers know how to grow the virus, kill it, and use it to create a vaccine. They've already tested the vaccine on small groups. When those people were injected with the vaccine, even though the virus was dead, their bodies were fooled into producing antibodies against it, Salk and his team learned. Those antibodies would protect them if they were ever exposed to the live poliovirus. And nobody contracted polio after receiving the vaccine. In other words, the vaccine works and is safe. They will begin vaccinating large groups of kids next year, to further test the vaccine.”

“He was so confident about the vaccine, he gave it to himself. Others in his lab injected themselves, too.” Franny's mother's voice broke. “They say he even gave it to his own three sons.”

Min slammed her fork down so hard, the plate holding her scrambled eggs broke into three pieces.

“That's not good news!” Min cried. “Why couldn't Salk have shared the vaccine with his neighbors, too? Did he have the vaccine last summer, before Franny got sick?”

“Oh, Min,” said Mrs. Katzenback. Tears streamed from her eyes down to her nose. “You broke your plate,” she said, as if that was the reason she was crying. She wiped her face with her hand and jumped up to remove the broken china and clumps of egg.

“Mom, I'm sorry,” said Min. “I'll clean it up.”

“No, no, I'll do it,” said her mother, and Franny knew she wanted to continue crying in the kitchen.

Mr. Katzenback sat very still, as he always did when he was upset, his hands clasped tightly on the table.

“The vaccine to prevent polio is a little too late for our Franny,” Mr. Katzenback said. “The researchers wanted to make very sure the vaccine was effective and safe before they gave it to the public. And we are happy for the kids who will be saved from polio with this vaccine. Very happy.”

“But what about all those dimes pouring in from all over the country? Miles and miles of them! Weren't some of them being used to find a cure?” Franny asked. Deep down she knew the answer. Had she known all along? “Didn't Dr. Salk also talk about the cure he and his lab partners were working on?”

Her mother had returned with Min's scrambled eggs.

“There's no cure, Franny,” Min whispered.

Mrs. Katzenback sat down slowly. “There is no cure for the
effects of the poliovirus, Franny,” she said. “The virus attacked the motor neurons in your spinal cord. The resulting paralysis of your legs can't be undone.”

“Francine,” said her father. He always called her Francine at very serious moments. “Your family will be here to help you. And life goes on.”

“You always say that,” said Franny.

“Franny, please don't talk to your father that way,” said Mrs. Katzenback. “He is trying so hard to make you understand.”

“I will never understand!” Franny said. “And of course life goes on. Heck, easy for you to say! Your lives go on as pedestrians! Mine goes on in a wheelchair!”

“But exercise and massage
are
helping you,” said her mother. “You're beginning to walk! And please don't say ‘heck.' ”

“Exercise and massage take too long! And who says they're helping me? I'm not
really
walking. If that's walking, then I like my wheelchair much, much better. Furthermore, it feels good to say ‘heck'! Heck, heck, heck!”

“I personally think Franny should be allowed to say ‘heck' as many times as she wants to,” said Min. “And I'll say it, too. HECK!”

“A million times ‘heck'!” shouted Franny.

Her parents looked at one another and smiled, even though now her father was crying, too. He reached over to hold his wife's hand. “Muriel, under the circumstances, I think we should allow our daughters this particular transgression.”

There was a game Franny liked to play. She'd repeat the most gorgeous words she could think of, words like
sassafras
and
gladiola
and
filigree
, over and over and over again, until the beautiful words were transformed into meaningless, nonsense syllables, having lost all of their luster.
Heck
, which wasn't exactly beautiful to begin with, had easily met the same fate. And saying the word didn't make her feel better. Not really.

That same evening, her parents were visiting relatives, and Min had plans to meet her friends at Weinstein's Restaurant. Min was wearing Orange Spice lipstick and her good blue angora cardigan, which meant Milt was probably one of the friends, maybe even the only friend. Nurse Olivegarten would be staying with Franny for the evening. Franny had begged to stay alone, but her parents had absolutely refused.

“Franny, do you want me to stay home with you?” Min asked.

“That's OK,” said Franny. She'd try not to be a baby. And she did understand about boyfriends. Anyway, Nurse Olivegarten would be spending the whole night on the telephone. She could pretend she was alone.

Franny pored over the newspaper. Maybe she'd discover a piece of information her parents had missed. Her heart pounded as she read,
A polio-free world may be at the fingertips of a Pittsburgh scientist …
But the news report was about vaccines and prevention. Not one single word about curing those already stricken.

Aren't I a part of the world?
she thought.

Suddenly, a chemical whiff of lilacs. Nurse Olivegarten.

“Your parents told me you were a bit upset today,” said Nurse Olivegarten, standing at the edge of the living room. “They said you had been expecting the announcement of a cure for polio.” Nurse
Olivegarten's ruby red lips twitched into a little smile. “Oh, my dear, dear girl. I'm so sorry you misunderstood Salk's work. Perhaps this has been the problem all along.”

“What do you mean?” Franny asked.

Nurse Olivegarten moved closer to Franny. “You've been waiting for a quick cure, eh? That's why you haven't been working hard enough at your physical therapy. Nothing is easy. Everything takes work.”

“
I have
worked at it. But I'm tired of work,” Franny said. Then she whispered, “I'm only eleven.”

“I beg your pardon? What did you say?”

“I'm tired of work.”

“When I was your age, I certainly wasn't afraid of work! I sold carrots and fiddleheads at my grandfather's farm stand in New Brunswick, Canada. I scrubbed a kitchen floor every now and then, too. One is
never
too young to work, young lady.”

“This isn't carrots. This isn't fiddleheads,” said Franny. Whatever those were. A Canadian vegetable, probably.

Nurse Olivegarten's lips twitched again. “My dear girl, don't you want to be like all the other kids, instead of a cripple? Don't you want to keep up with them when you go back to school?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I want to get you out of that awful, confining chair. It won't be easy, and, yes, it will take work. But isn't that what you want? To walk again?”

“I guess so.”

“You
guess
so!”

Franny was silent. She felt so tired.

“I think we should practice now, as a matter of fact, to get your motivation back.”

“I don't really want to,” Franny said.

“I said
now
,” declared Nurse Olivegarten, looming over Franny. “It's only seven in the evening.” Suddenly Franny felt very small. The nurse put her arms under Franny's armpits and jerked her up from the wheelchair. “Go ahead! Just as we practiced this morning.”

Lean on left foot. Swing right hip out. Step with right foot.

Lean on right foot. Swing left hip out. Step with left foot.

Over and over and over. Franny's tiredness became pain. “Enough,” she said, crying now.

“Again,” said Nurse Olivegarten. “Practice makes perfect.”

Lean on left foot. Swing right hip out. Step with right foot.

Lean on right foot. Swing left hip out. Step with left foot.

“No more,” Franny said when they reached her chair again.

“Again!” said Nurse Olivegarten. She squeezed Franny's arm, leaving the marks of her ruby red nails, like tiny mean smiles.

Franny's pain had become anger. “No!” she shouted, sitting in her chair and rolling herself toward her bedroom. “No more!”

FB Saliva #2-X

F
leabrain felt the venom rising within him, his most potent concoction yet: FB Saliva #2-X, a fast-acting and effective version of FB Saliva #2, formulated for larger entities. Quivering, he sat on top of Sparky's Finest, waiting. Alf awoke, sensing that something interesting was brewing between Fleabrain and Franny.

“Nurse Olivegarten!” Franny called. “Please come here!”

As usual, Nurse Olivegarten made Franny call her more than once.

“Nurse Olivegarten!”

The nurse spoke from behind the closed door. “What is it?”

“Please come in. I want to ask you something.”

Nurse Olivegarten stepped into the room. “I think I've had enough of your unpleasantness for the evening.”

Franny was sitting in her wheelchair by her night table. She took a deep breath, then asked her question. “Why do you hurt me?”

Nurse Olivegarten flushed. “Practicing hurts. Practicing something hard always hurts.”

“No, not practicing. You know what I mean.”

“I don't think I do.”

“You hurt me on purpose, just because your method isn't working. I'm telling.”

“I don't know what you are going to ‘tell.'”

“Oh, yes, you do,” said Franny.

Nurse Olivegarten's eyes were narrow green slits. She loomed in front of Franny now, arms akimbo. “I am helping you. Your parents know that.”

“You aren't helping me. And my parents don't know everything,” said Franny, her voice trembling.

On the night table a magnified Fleabrain suddenly appeared behind Sparky's Finest. Franny reached for the bottle cap and placed it behind her eyeglass lens.

“My parents don't know everything!” Franny repeated, louder and braver. And then she instructed, “Make her smaller than a mouse but bigger than a gnat!”

Fleabrain's leg gave a “thumbs”-up wriggle.

“My dear girl, what are you talking about?” asked Nurse Olivegarten.

“Actually, the size of a large spider will do,” said Franny.

“
What
are you talking about? Eh?”

Fleabrain bit Nurse Olivergarten behind each of her ears.
Pfffft!
There was the pungent smell of firecrackers and popcorn, mingled with that of decaying lilacs.

“Eh?

Eh?

Eh?”

Three seconds was all it took. A miniaturized Nurse Olivegarten now stood at the tip of Franny's clodhopper shoe, the nurse's mouth wide open in astonishment.

Franny leaned over to get a good look at this tiny being, a squeaking, quaking specimen of Nurse Olivegarten. How wonderful to be looking down at her instead of up! Franny felt huge and strong and free.

“Well? How does it feel to be smaller than me?” Franny asked.

It would have been so easy to squash her, but Franny just couldn't.

Nurse Olivegarten turned and ran. She raced around the treelike legs of the bed and tripped over the rolling mountain ranges of the braided rug. Righting herself, she galloped toward the bottom shelf of Franny's bookcase and disappeared behind
Anne of Green Gables
. Franny wheeled over and shook each book until a wailing Nurse Olivegarten was finally dislodged from
Treasure Island
, Chapter IX. Franny reached out to break her fall, catching one of her tiny legs as she floated to the floor, but Nurse Olivegarten wriggled away. She ran toward the bed again, hurling herself beneath it.

Franny leaned down to see, as far as she could. Nurse Olivegarten was hanging on to a bedspring with both hands. Alf scurried under the bed and tried to bring her down with his paw.

“Alf, no!” yelled Franny.

But Alf's hunting instincts were aroused by this strange,
uniform-clad insect, who was now pulling herself from spring to spring like a monkey-bars champion. The dog scurried after her, crawling on his belly from one end of the bed to the other, until Nurse Olivegarten, exhausted, dropped to the floor.

“No!” cried Franny.

But there was no stopping Alf. His big tongue hanging out, he joyfully leaped toward Nurse Olivegarten and slurped her up. Triumphantly, Alf emerged from under the bed. Around and around the room the dog raced, his prey's little upper body hanging from his dripping mouth, her little arms gesticulating wildly.

“Alf, drop it! Drop it!” Franny yelled.

Alf obediently deposited Nurse Olivegarten at the foot of Franny's wheelchair, just as his proud, wagging tail (with Fleabrain on it, enjoying the spectacle) got tangled in the wire of the ballerina alarm clock, which crashed to the floor. The clock's protective glass cover popped out, as did its innards, to the off-key, dying strains of the
Moonlight Sonata
.