Girl Unmoored (18 page)

Then someone yelled, “Way to go, Eeebs,” which made my eyes pop open and watch that whole midget line of Perrys, plus the teepee of M, stand up and cheer for him.

The burning line of sun was all the way over to Jessie Cartwright now, who kept scooting over so close to Jimmy Cannon’s shade that finally he said, “Hey, cut it out,” which made Ms. Frane say, “
Shh.”
Finally, the last eighth grader shook Principal Parker’s hand and walked back to his seat. But right when you thought we could leave, Principal Parker clapped straight into the microphone and started talking about “students who stand out” and “students who go the extra mile to get there.” The burning sun was on Jimmy Cannon’s knee now, and the next place it would go was on mine. I prayed there were only a few students who took that extra mile, but Principal Parker kept calling up practically every eighth grader and their brother, except for Eeebs, who was just lucky to get out of middle school
period
.

When the sun had finally sailed onto my left knee, Principal Parker wiped his forehead and took a deep breath, which sounded like a hailstorm when he let it out into the microphone. “Now today, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, clutching the sides of the podium with both hands. “There is someone amongst you whose attitude and genuine courage just begs to be singled out, even though they are not graduating today.”

The burning sun moved onto my right knee now. If you stared at it, it went nowhere, but if you looked up and listened to Principal Parker’s voice saying—“This young lady simply has not slowed down, despite what we can only imagine has been a terrible time for both her and her family”—then looked back down again, it would have moved an inch.

I thought I heard my name.

I looked up. That burning line might as well have been inside my brain. Everyone, including Johnny Berman, was staring at me.

Principal Parker said, “Apron Bramhall” again, and Joe Blink elbowed me right in the ribs. All the people in the bleachers, even M, were clapping. Ms. Frane yelled for me to stand, so I did.

The
B
s moved their feet for me to get by, but when I got to Albie Albertson something tripped me, and my hands slammed into the floor, and then my knees and my chin. Or maybe my chin then my knees, I couldn’t tell, because all I could hear after that were cotton balls in my ears and Ms. Frane saying, “Apron, are you all right?” Someone pulled me up by the arms and there was a tinny taste in my mouth. Ms. Frane said, “She’s bleeding” and told Albie Abertson to go get the nurse. There wasn’t one eyeball in there that wasn’t staring at me now, and it was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. Until Rennie said, “She’s
such
a klutz.”

Then, even two broken legs wouldn’t have stopped me from walking over and getting my award. I wiped my mouth with the back of my stinging hand. People started clapping all over again and Principal Parker covered his microphone and said, “Are you sure you’re okay, Apron?” I nodded. He handed me a gold and wooden plaque with the Falmouth Middle School sign on it, and shook my hand. I looked him square in the eye and said, “Thank you,” and tried not to look up at M, but couldn’t help it, and for a second, just a tiny second, I felt like running up and hiding behind her.

Albie Alberston got into a lot of trouble for tripping me, whether he meant to do it or not. But he didn’t get detention because no one was going to stay late on the last day of school to give it to him. Instead, he got a warning and had to say, “Sorry for tripping you, Apron” really politely. I said, “It’s okay,” nicely back, because Ms. Frane was standing there with two parents and it turns out my award was for Best Attitude. So even though I was holding some ice on my chin that was so cold it felt like my face was on fire, I had to keep smiling. But the truth was dawning on me; I really
was
a klutz. I didn’t remember being one before, but now it seemed like every step I took, I ended up on my face.

M found me in the gym while everyone else except me and the school nurse were having refreshments on the field. She leaned down to hug me so the nurse could watch. “Oh congratulations, Aprons,” she said loudly. And I had to admit it was pretty lucky she had come.

But then the truth hit me harder than the gym floor.

“Did you know I was getting this?” I asked into her ear.

“Ucch,” she whispered. “Why else would your father have made me come to this?”

I dropped my award and pushed her off of me. She screamed something all wrong in English and pulled her knee up. The school nurse thought she was going into labor, so she ran over and tried to get her to sit. And when she finally did, you could see M’s little toe had already started to turn black and blue.

M’s baby toe might or might not be broken.
That was what Myra Bennington’s father said, leaning over her foot with a plastic cup of lemonade and a
Congratulations
napkin filled with cookies in his hand. Either way, she was going to have to keep it taped onto the next toe and wear one of those flat wooden shoes with Velcro flaps.

The school nurse had asked one of the sixth graders to go outside and see if there was a doctor, while M’s face got wetter and redder, her bubble body turned sideways so she could keep her whole leg across some chairs. She was definitely in pain, even with the ice bag for my chin on her toe. My chin was still throbbing, but no one seemed to remember that now.

“The problem,” Dr. Bennington said walking over to a chair and putting his cup and cookies down next to my plaque. “Is that you can’t get an X ray anyway. You’re expecting, right?”

M looked at me with her eyes so puffed out it was hard for her to squeeze her forehead together. “Pregnant,” I told her. Then to Dr. Bennington, I said, “She’s from Brazil.”

“Ah,” he nodded. Then he started talking to her like she was Helen Keller instead of just un-American. “
So, unfortunately, all you can do is keep it taped and stay off of it
.”

“For how longs?” she asked.

Dr. Bennington tipped his head, “I’d say, ooh, six to eight weeks. Just go by the pain. But a woman in your condition, ah, a
pregnant
woman, is going to take longer to heal. Your body just cares about the baby now.”

M clenched her teeth when he said that.

Dr. Bennington must have seen her look too, because he started talking to me instead: Could someone come pick us up? Could someone find her crutches? Could someone get her one of those flat wooden shoes?

“I can call my grandmother?”

What I
couldn’t
do was call my dad. Not in the middle of finals week.

“All right then,” Dr. Bennington nodded, sitting down next to M’s foot. “Nurse, can she use a phone?”

After the school nurse and I walked into the gym teachers’ office and I pretended to laugh at the joke she made about how
me and my mom were quite a pair
—first I fall flat on my face and then she breaks her toe, ha ha—I dialed Grandma Bramhall’s number.

After three rings, the answering machine picked up.

“Greetings,” her voice said, with no hint of a shake. “I am not home right now. If this is that nice insurance man, I was calling with regards as to whether or not cruises are a part of my plan.” She was probably out shopping for a bikini.

“No luck?” the school nurse asked, looking up from her magazine—tan, happy people all over the place.

I shook my head. “My grandmother’s going on a cruise.”

“Oh. That’s nice,” she said, but we both knew that I didn’t know what to do next.

The nurse went back to reading.

I hesitated for a minute. But it was the only other person I could think of.

“Scent Appeal,” Mike answered.

“Hi,” I said.

“Oh hey, Apron. Listen, I’m just finishing up with a customer. Yes, that’s a Casablanca, ma’am.”

“Mike,” I said, sounding different, because right away he said, “What’s wrong?”

“I broke M’s toe.”

“What?”

I told him the whole story and didn’t even stop when he whispered, “Yes, irises come in white, too,” until I finished telling him how Dr. Bennington said it might or might not be broken.

“I used to think Chad was a klutz,” he said. “But you take the cake.”

“Okay,” I said. “But I can’t call my dad, he’s giving finals right now. You’d have to be dead to interrupt him.”

Mike sighed and I held my breath.

I hadn’t actually come out and asked him to pick us up, so when he said, “All right, give me twenty minutes, I gotta go dig out my old crutches,” I knew with every last drop of blood and every bone in my body that Mike was at least
related
to Jesus.

“Thanks, Mike,” I said. “You’re saving me.”

“Then we’re even.”

“Do you remember how to get here?”

“What do you mean? Of course I do. I was just there this morning, dropping off the flowers.”

“What?”

“Yeah. I told you. Your teacher got all the graduation flowers from us.”

“No, you didn’t.” I couldn’t believe it. “And you didn’t even ask me to help set up?”

“Oh, we didn’t set anything up. The head of the decorating committee wanted to do that herself, Mrs. Something-or-Rather. I can’t remember now. So I just dropped the flowers off.”

“Wait. This Mrs.? Did she have one big tight curl?”

“Yeah,” Mike chuckled. “She did.”

“That was Mrs. Perry. Rennie’s mom.”

“Oooh.”

“Was Rennie there, too?”

“Nope. Just Mrs. Perry. See you in a bit,” Mike said and hung up.

It took a long time to get M into the Scent Appeal van.

First, Mike had to find us in the gym. M was still sitting with her leg up, sipping the lemonade I had gone out to get for her and I was waiting in the eighth-grade section, as far away from Dr. Bennington and the other leftover parents as I could without seeming rude. I smelled Mike and Chad’s flowers. We would have done a much better job arranging them than Mrs. Perry had. On the soccer field, I had found Mrs. Perry and told her M wouldn’t need a ride back now after all. My friend Mike was going to take her. I waited for her to recognize the name, but she just smiled and said, “Okay, honey,” and, “Congratulations on the award,” then checked on her curl and went back to talking.

When Mike finally walked in with some crutches under his arm, I jumped up and ran over to him.

“Hey, Apron,” he said giving me a tight hug. His hair was back to being all around his face again and he was wearing his same old blue jeans and a white T-shirt, with a swipe of pollen on his left sleeve. I wished Johnny Berman had seen us. He might have thought Mike was my boyfriend. “You must be in big trouble,” he whispered.

“Not yet,” I said. “My dad still doesn’t know.”

“Looks pretty good in here,” he said, glancing around at the flowers. “So where’s the evil M?”

He didn’t need my help finding her, though. We just both started walking toward the chairs and pretty soon the parents moved out of the way and there she was, her face slumped down so low her cheeks practically touched her chin.

Until she saw Mike.

Then all of a sudden, her face slid back up. She didn’t exactly smile, but you could tell she was thinking about it.

“Well,
hello
,” Mike said taking her hand and kissing the back of it. “You must be Marguerite.”

“Yes,” M said, shifting herself straighter. She smiled like the lady on
Dynasty
, but the bad one, with the black hair. Even though Mike had been standing next to me in church when she walked by and hissed, clearly M didn’t remember him.

Mike brought the crutches out from behind his back with his other hand and said, “Your chariot awaits, Madame,” then bowed to her.

M smiled. Even though her toe was purple and her bump was huge and I was about to get grounded forever, I smiled too. If you didn’t know the whole story, you might think that Mike was asking M to marry him and giving her a set of crutches for a promise.

Dr. Bennington poked his head down in between them and said, “Hi there, are you Margie’s husband.”

“No,” Mike said shaking his head low. “Alas, we all can’t be.”

M must have understood that Shakespeare, because she laughed quickly, throwing her head back.

“Okay,” Dr. Bennington said. “I told her she needs to keep the toes taped together. She should be looked at by a doctor at some point, but for now, she needs to keep it up and iced.”

“Thanks, doctor, can she come to your office tomorrow?”

“Oh no,” Dr. Bennington chuckled. “I’m an oncologist, not a podiatrist.”

My skin unzipped. Those were the worst kinds of doctors. They never saved anyone.

I tugged on Mike’s shoulder and said, “Come on.” The last thing I needed was for Rennie to walk in and start batting her eyelashes at him.

When M saw me do that, she lost her smile, but it came right back on as soon as Mike leaned down to help her up, hooking his hands under each of her arms. M kept her foot lifted and Mike reached back for the crutches and slid them into her underarms. “Perfect,” Mike said. “Gorgeous
and
tall. Are you a supermodel?”

M giggled. Turns out she knew
that
word, too.

Mike said, “Apron, can you get Marguerite’s shoe?” Then they both ignored me and started hobbling out the door, so I stashed my award for Best Attitude under my arm and hooked my finger under the smelly black strap.

I heard M say, “Are you one of Apron’s teachers?” when I came around the corner with my bike.

“No,” Mike answered. “Just a friend.”

That put a skip in my step, until I saw Rennie and her family walking the same way as us toward the parking lot.