Elvis and the Underdogs (6 page)

“Yes, I am a nurse, a great nurse. You got a problem with that?”

“Daddy, Uncle Dino, stop it right now!”

Again, I heard and recognized the voice before I saw her. I saw two hands pushing apart the two men, and standing between them was Taisy McDonald. Taisy McDonald, the tallest girl in the fourth grade. Taisy McDonald, who was the only daughter of Big Tate McDonald, a two-time Super Bowl champion and local celebrity in these parts. Taisy is the best female athlete in our entire town. When she was only six years old, she was one of the top gymnasts in the under-ten category in the entire country. Then I guess she hit a crazy growth spurt when she turned nine, and she grew too big to be an Olympic hopeful. But even though her gymnastics career was over, everyone knew all she had to do was pick out what other sport was lucky enough to get her. She's kind of like the twins, meaning she plays every single sport well. Instead of playing just girls' soccer or softball, she's so good all the boys' sports teams in town want her as well. She's also a year older than the rest of us in fourth grade, but that's because she missed so much school with all her training.

I couldn't believe I hadn't known that Dino was Taisy McDonald's uncle. I also couldn't believe that Dino looked small compared to her father. Well, maybe not small, but he was now the second biggest guy in the room. Whenever I'm in the hospital, I never really talk about school much with Dino, and it's not like Taisy and I are friends, though we've had a few enrichment classes together.

“You two, take it out into the hallway! You're embarrassing me.” And with that, Taisy actually pushed both of them toward the door. It was a pretty funny sight to see a young girl bossing around two huge men.

“Taisy, stop it. Why don't you sit here while your uncle and I go to the cafeteria? Do you want something?”

“May I please have a soda?”

“No, you may not have a soda. I'll get you some fruit and water.”

“Then why did you even ask me what I wanted? What about some Vitaminwater? I like every color but orange.”

“Anything else? A bendy straw, perhaps?” her dad said sarcastically.

“Stop being snarky, Daddy, or I'll tell Mom on you. And yes, I'd love a bendy straw if possible. And you be nice to Uncle Dino.”

Dino and Taisy's father left. By then, pretty much all eyes were on her, and she knew it. She looked at the floor and walked over to the corner of the room, taking a seat right across from me. I quickly looked down at the picture open in front of me and found the last object I had been looking for, an owl. Then I heard her crying softly. Looking up, I saw her head hanging low. She was sniffling.

My mom has always put a little Kleenex packet in the front zippered pocket of my backpack. I never ever use it, and I always tell her I don't need it, but she always puts it in there. “Benji, honey,” she says, “you never know when you might run into a damsel in distress who needs a hankie.” And I always say back, “Yeah, Mom, because my life is exactly like a fairy tale.” Well, score one for my mom, because I guess this was the moment she was talking about.

I took out the tissue packet and walked over and held it out for Taisy. She looked up at me and said in the saddest voice I've ever heard, “Thanks.” And then she said, “I've never seen a tissue with a duck on it before.”

I looked at the packet, and sure enough, there was a yellow duck with a red bow tie printed right on every tissue. Oh great, why can't my mom ever be normal? Who buys tissues with ducks on them?

“Oh, I, uh, well, my mom got them. I guess. They're kinda lame, I guess.”

“They're not lame. I like them. They're supercute. Though I feel bad that I just blew my nose all over the duck.”

I guess I was really nervous, but there was something about this that cracked me up, and I knew it wasn't the right time or place to laugh, but that only made me laugh harder. I felt bad about laughing, but I'm happy to report that Taisy joined in, which was cool, because she always seems so serious. She motioned for me to sit down next to her, and I did.

She noticed my sling that one of the emergency room attendants had given me. “What happened to your arm?”

“I kinda got into a thing with Billy Thompson in the bathroom.”

“You fought Billy Thompson?”

For a moment I considered saying yes, because maybe Taisy would think I was tougher than I looked if she thought I got into fights in bathrooms, but she was probably too smart to believe it.

“Not exactly. It was an accident, kind of.”

“I don't think there are any accidents when it comes to Billy Thompson.” Taisy said it with such certainty; I knew there was a story behind her words.

“Does he pick on you too?”

“Not really. He knows better. But he glued my friend Annabel's locker shut once for no reason at all. And my friend Georgia swears he stole her favorite gold glitter pen. I was with her when she confronted him, and he had gold glitter all over his fingers, but he still denied it! For some reason he doesn't have to take gym, and I hear that's when he goes around the school stealing things from lockers.”

“Jerk, thief, liar. Yep, that sounds about right.” I knew I sounded a little bitter, but I couldn't help it. I'm one of the few kids who actually like school, so it always burns me up that he manages to ruin at least one day a week for me. “Can we change the subject now? Just talking about him puts a bad taste in my mouth.”

She nodded. “Should I ask about the helmet?”

Oh no, with all the craziness that happened, I had forgotten I was still wearing it. “Please don't.”

She nodded, and I could tell she understood. I wondered if I should ask her about what had just happened. Instead, I went the safer route.

“What are you in for?” I know that sounds overly dramatic, like we were both in prison, but she doesn't know me at all, so it felt liberating that I could pretend to be cooler than I was.

“My dad wants me to get my elbow x-rayed, because my free throw's a bit off lately.”

I waited to see if she'd say anything more, but I didn't want to push, because she didn't push me about my helmet head.

“Can you keep a secret?” Taisy whispered.

“Of course.”

“Pinkie swear secret?”

I held out my good hand and raised my pinkie. “Pinkie swear.” My heart was racing at the thrill of a secret. I took a deep breath so I wouldn't get overly excited and faint.

“I've been messing up on purpose, and when my dad asked me what was going on, I lied and said my elbow felt funny. He freaked out and dragged me down here. Now it's a big mess, because there's actually nothing wrong with my elbow at all.”

“Why would you lie?”

“Did you know I play sports?”

“Taisy, everyone in the world knows you play sports. You were on the cover of
Sports Illustrated
when you were eight.”

“That's true, but it's not like I was the only kid on the cover. There was a kid from every state—I was just the kid from Pennsylvania. We were all supposed to be these ‘elite'”—she used air quotes—“child athletes.” But six months later I got too big for gymnastics, and it was over for me. Just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “And ever since, my dad keeps pushing me to try all these other sports like tennis, golf, basketball, and one morning I woke up to find he put a volleyball court in our backyard, but that's cool now because we use it for badminton, which I love. It's like he's determined to make me a champion again and . . .”

“And what?”

“And I'm just kind of sick of it. I really loved gymnastics, so it was disappointing when I got too tall. But it's not like I'm a light switch and he can turn me on and off when it comes to any other sports, you know? And I used to get invited to birthday parties, but they were always on the weekends when I was playing in tournaments, so I never got to go. Now I don't even get invited anymore. I don't want to wear sneakers all the time and ponytails. I want to wear dresses to school and do my hair cute like other girls. I'm tired of being sweaty and having to high-five everyone. I dunno, I guess I just want to be normal and have fun and hang out. This must sound so stupid to you.”

“Nope. I definitely get wanting to be normal.”

“What should I do? Do I get the X-ray? Do I tell my dad I lied? I hate it when he's disappointed in me. I'm so mad at myself for making everything such a big mess. The lie just came out, and I thought he'd let me relax a little, but instead it had the opposite effect.” She started to cry again. I handed her the ducky tissues again.

“I can't say I know what you're going through. But I can say this. Your uncle is my favorite nurse here at the hospital, and as you may or may not know, I spend a lot of time here. I'd talk to him if you don't want to talk to your dad. Maybe he can help.” I paused, and then said, “Or maybe that might make things worse, because your dad would just get mad at Dino and they might get into a fight, and if Dino gets a busted lip, I'd feel terrible. But if he did get a busted lip, he'd at least know what to do with it, since he's a nurse. Okay, I guess I'm not all that helpful. Most people don't tend to ask for my advice.”

Taisy smiled.

“You're pretty funny, Benj.” She stood up. “I'm going to go find them and talk to them. It's my life. If I want to take some time off from sports, I should be able to say so. Just because my dad and my mom were champion athletes doesn't mean I have to be, right?”

I admired her quick decision and her bravery. The twins would never accuse her of being a waffle-butt. She suddenly seemed exactly like the confident and supercool Taisy who proudly walked around the school hallways. She held out the ducky tissues packet for me to take. I shook my head and gently pushed them back to her.

“You keep them. To remember me by.”

It sounded better in my head than when I said it out loud. But that's because I think it's some piece of corny movie dialogue from some corny movie that my mom watches. I couldn't believe I'd just said that. Why would I say that? I was immediately embarrassed, but before I could regret it too much, Taisy laughed again.

“You're too funny.”

And just like that, she was gone. I was still staring at the doorway after her when my mom showed up again.

“Awwwww, is that goofy smile for me? Did you miss me? I tried to hurry.”

I didn't have the heart to tell her that my smile was for some other girl, so I nodded.

So I'm skipping over
the majority of the two long and boring weeks it took for me to get my dog, mainly because they were the longest, most boring days in the history of the world. Dr. Helen had written me a note so I missed school while I was waiting. All my teachers sent me my homework over email. Every morning I did my homework, and by lunchtime I was free to stare at the clock on the kitchen microwave, hoping that time would pass more quickly.

Even though the days were long and boring, the nights were a little different. Like I said before, the twins were the exact opposite of me, so where I saw my helmet as one of the worst things to ever happen to me, the twins saw it as one of the best things that ever happened to them. You think your older siblings torture you sometimes? Well, trust me, that's nothing compared to my brothers.

The morning after I got the helmet, I woke up to find that they had taken off the tusks of Stinky Tuskadero (my mom named him for me), my gray stuffed elephant, and glued them to either side of my helmet so I looked like a Viking. Brett called me Sir Buttsky Buttsby and saluted me. I told them Vikings didn't have titles like “Sir,” nor were they saluted. Brick thought it was hilarious that I corrected Brett and started laughing at him. Pretty soon they were rolling around on my floor like wild animals.

On the second night, they painted the helmet silver and attached the antennae from an old TV we have in the basement on top of it. That was Brick's brilliant idea, but he wasn't in my room when I woke up the next morning, because he got silver paint all over mom's glue gun and stayed up really late trying to scrape it off before she busted him. What he should have realized was they were always going to get busted. I found it pretty funny he even bothered to try to clean off the evidence.

On the third night, despite the fact that my mom had threatened them both, they decided to risk getting grounded anyway. They taped a bunch of magnets to the helmet, convinced that whenever I passed something made of metal, it would stick to my head. What they didn't realize was that while trying to tape on the magnets, the digital alarm in my helmet got triggered.

The medical alarm company was alerted. They immediately called my mom in the middle of the night. I woke up during all the commotion, got totally disoriented by everyone in my room yelling about the alarm company, and assumed something really bad had happened. Then I fainted, fell off my bed, landed funny, and had to go to the emergency room to see if I'd broken my other wrist. I hadn't broken it, but while I was there, they checked out my first sprained wrist, and it was much better, so the nurse just switched my sling from one arm to the other one.