Addy's Race (8 page)

A farm pig can run almost eighteen kilometers an hour. Wild pigs are faster. Cheetahs are the fastest animals on four feet. Ostriches are the fastest on two. Some cheetahs can run more than two hundred kilometers an hour. Lucy and I were about as fast as two jellyfish in a bowl of pudding.

“I’m sorry I slowed you down,” Lucy said. “But I’m glad you ran with me. I never would have finished if it wasn’t for you.”

“Congratulations, girls!” my mother said. “How’d you do?”

“Lucy finished two hundred twenty-fourth and I finished two hundred twenty-fifth,” I said. “That’s last.” In case she hadn’t noticed.

My mother smiled. “I’m proud of you both!” she said. She had the same smile on her face as she did when I finished sixteenth at the first race. That’s how good an actress she is.

Joanne would not be a good actress, so it’s a good thing she’s a bank manager. Instead of congratulating us, she said, “Did you girls have a good time?” which was like asking someone who had broken their leg skiing if they’d had fun on the chairlift. It didn’t help when she added, “You’ll do even better next week!”

“We couldn’t do worse,” Lucy said, which is what I was thinking but didn’t want to say, because I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. I wanted to do better next week, but unless Lucy sprained her ankle again, that probably wouldn’t happen.

“Lucy! What kind of attitude is that?” Joanne said. “You get out there and train harder, and you’ll knock their socks off next time.”

Suddenly Joanne’s face changed from uncomfortable to happy. I turned to see what she was looking at. There, behind me, were Stephanie and Emma and their mothers.

“Hello, Sandy!” Joanne said to Stephanie’s mom. I couldn’t understand how Lucy’s mother could be friends with Stephanie’s mom when Stephanie was so awful.

When Joanne asked, “How did you girls do?” I wanted to turn off my hearing aids before Stem could answer, but my mother was looking at me. So I had to listen when they said how easy the race was. Then Joanne made excuses about Lucy’s ankle and gushed that I was such a good friend to let her finish ahead of me.

Of course my mother agreed. She said I was a sensitive girl due to my hearing aids, and the reason I wore hearing aids was because she had a recessive gene. So, it was all because of her that I was sensitive.

Then Sandy reminded everyone that Stephanie and Emma were in the best running club in Edmonton. Before Stephanie and Emma left, Emma said, “Bye, bye,” in a little singsong voice. And then she leaned close to me and whispered, “Cheater. Loser.”

Chapter 12

I crossed my fingers, hoping Mrs. Shewchuk would be back the next day, and she was. She hadn’t been sick. She’d been at a workshop. When novel study ended, she made us play a game she’d learned.

“This will get you thinking about how stars fit into the solar system,” she said. “I’m going to hand each of you a card with a picture of a constellation on one side. On the other side is a picture of half the constellation. You have to find the person whose constellation makes yours whole. Compare pictures, and when you find your partner, stand together and wait for the next instruction.”

I got Pisces, the fish. Lucy got Ursa Major, the Great Bear. So did Sarah, who is supposed to be a piano prodigy, but I don’t think she is because she never plays in the school talent show.

Henry and Stephanie wound up together, which I thought was pretty funny until it turned out my partner was Sierra. We were the last two to find each other. With everyone talking, the room was so loud I had stopped trying to ask people about their constellation. I guess she had too.

Mrs. Shewchuk explained we were going to use “repurposed items” from the Reuse Centre to make mobiles inspired by our constellations. She showed us some finished samples. My favorite had wires shaped like question marks and strung with beads, and more wire shaped like lions, covered with orange and yellow yarn, for Leo the Lion. I wanted to start right away, but Mrs. Shewchuk said we had to do research first to learn about our constellations.

“We’ll be spending the next period in the library at the computer stations. Except Addy and Sierra. Come here, please, girls,” Mrs. Shewchuk said.

When we got to her desk, she explained that she wanted us to work on her computer. “With everyone in groups, the library will be noisy,” she said. “It will be better in here—quieter.”

She pulled another chair up to her desk and motioned for me and Sierra to sit. “I’ll get you started, and then I’ll go to the library,” she said.

“It’s okay,” Sierra said in what I was starting to think of as her I’m-more-important-than-you voice. “I got a computer like this for Christmas last year, so I know how to use it.”

By recess, Lucy was an expert on the Big Dipper and I was an expert on Sierra.

“Did you know slaves used to call the Big Dipper the drinking gourd?” Lucy said as we walked across the playground. “When they escaped, they’d say they were following the drinking gourd because they went north and the North Star is part of the Big Dipper. And the Big Dipper is part of Ursa Major.”

“Did you know Sierra is really bossy?” I said. “She wouldn’t let me use the computer until Mrs. Shewchuk overheard her saying someone had to be in charge and it should be her. Mrs. Shewchuk had to tell her, ‘Sierra, you and Addy are partners. You have to work together.’ So I got to be in charge of the keyboard, but she was in charge of me. Every website I went to, she kept saying, ‘No, go to this one.’ I went to Cool Cosmos without her permission, and she made me go to some Star Trek thing. When it turned out to be as useless as I knew it would be, she said, ‘Go back to Cool Cosmos.’ She didn’t even say please.”

“Well, did you find out anything interesting?”

“I found out Sierra can’t read lips.”

“Anything you can use for your mobile?”

“Sierra won an art prize at her last school. And she moved here because her father got a job at Epcor. She’s going to Vancouver next month to give a talk at a cochlear implant conference.”

“How are you going to use that for your mobile?” Lucy asked.

“I’m not. She thinks because she won an art prize, she should do everything. I want to use empty tuna cans. If we take the paper off, they’ll be kind of silvery and shiny, like stars. Or maybe we can use fish skeletons.”

“That’s gross. But the tuna can idea is good. Did you tell Sierra?”

I nodded. “She said no way, tuna cans stink. As if I wasn’t going to wash them first. I bet we’re going to do whatever she wants.”

“Remind her that Mrs. Shewchuk said it’s a partnership.”

“How can you be partners with someone who thinks they know everything?”

“Remind them they don’t,” Lucy said. “Show her your ideas. Except not the fish skeleton one.”

“What are you going to do?

“Something with the drinking gourd song, I think. Sarah can play it on the piano.”

“We’re supposed to be making mobiles, not putting on concerts,” I said.

“She’s not going to play it for everybody. Maybe we’ll cut sheet music in star shapes. I don’t know. We don’t have to have a plan yet.”

“Go tell that to Sierra.” I pointed to the stairs behind the school, where Sierra sat with a sketchpad. “She’s making one now. When I told her we didn’t have to do it during recess, she said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll come up with ideas.’ Which means we’re using hers.”

“Then you come up with some too,” Lucy said. “I’ll help.”

Chapter 13

The next day started badly. When I woke up, I put my hearing aids in and they were all staticky. I turned them off and on, but they didn’t get better, and then the left one stopped working.

My hearing aids never break, although the summer after I got them, I was swimming in Susie Patrick’s pool and her dog ate one and chewed half of the other. I had to borrow a pair from the audiology clinic while I waited for my new ones.

I still have the half-chewed one. Mom keeps it in the hearing-aid box in the kitchen, with batteries and the battery tester and the hearing-aid dryer, which we never use because Alberta is so dry you can feel your skin shriveling when you get out of the bathtub. At least that’s what my grandmother says all the time.

I went downstairs and got a new battery. When I took the old one out of my left hearing aid there was brown slimy stuff on it. There was brown slimy stuff in the battery cage too. I pulled the battery out of the right hearing aid. It was just as bad.

“Mom!” I yelled. She was checking her email. She doesn’t like being interrupted, but I knew she’d come if it had to do with my hearing aids.

“Look!” I held out the batteries and hearing aids when she came into the kitchen. “What’s that gross brown stuff?”

“It’s corrosion,” she said, wiping a battery with her finger. “It must be from running—from your sweat. I’ll clean it with a Q-tip.”

Corrosion? I thought that only happened to cars. My dad called his old car the Corroda. Rust had eaten away so much of the side panels, if you touched them, parts of the car crumbled off. Could that happen to my hearing aids?

“Aren’t you going to call the audiologist?” I asked as my mother swabbed the inside of my left hearing aid.

“I’m cleaning your hearing aids, Addy,” she said. “I can only do one thing at a time. And the audiologist doesn’t open for another twenty minutes. It’s only ten after seven.”

“Sorry,” I said. That’s when I noticed the Q-tip, covered with brown stuff. “Gross. I need new batteries.”

“Test the old ones first,” she said. “They might still work.”

According to the battery tester, the batteries were fine. But my hearing aids still crackled. After a couple of minutes, they died again.

“What am I going to do? I can’t go to school without them. And we’re supposed to be doing a science project. If I’m not there, Sierra will do it herself.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Mom was trying to be funny.

“Sometimes it’s nice to have someone else do the work.”

“Yes, it’s a bad thing!”

“Calm down, Addy,” my mother said gently. It was hard for me to hear her, and she was right next to me. How was I going to hear anything at school? It wasn’t as if Mrs. Shewchuk would stand beside my desk all day.

“I am calm! But I’m mad. We’re supposed to be making mobiles, and Sierra thinks she’s the only one with ideas. She’ll probably do the whole thing even if I am there, but if I’m not, it’ll be worse.”

“Who is Sierra?”

“She’s new. She has a cochlear implant.”

“You haven’t told me about her,” my mother said.

“Because she’s not my friend.”

“Did you know that when you were diagnosed, people used to ask if you were going to get a cochlear implant?”

“I know,” I said, in a voice that made my mother give me a warning look. “You’ve told me. I’m glad I don’t have one. If I did, I might be like Sierra and act like I’m better than everyone.”

“How exactly does she act?”

“As if she knows everything. Next month she’s going to Vancouver to give a talk about cochlear implants.”

“Do you want to go to Vancouver to talk about hearing aids?” My mother was serious. If she thought I wanted to talk to a bunch of strangers about my hearing aids, she would find a way to make it happen. She’d even coach me. She would say, “It’s like acting.”