Out of My Mind (16 page)

Connor interrupts him with a wild, whooping cheer. Of course.

“And if I may continue,” Mr. D says over his glasses, “we also are pleased to welcome Claire Wilson and Rose Spencer.”

Claire’s smile is smug.

“But that’s only three,” Connor says, looking around in confusion.

“I can count, Connor,” Mr. Dimming replies dryly.

“So who’s the last person on the team?” Molly asks.

Earthquake report: TV weather guys feel some strange activity coming from a local school. Could it be a girl’s heartbeat—pounding too hard?

Mr. Dimming clears his throat. “I must apologize. I think we have all underestimated a member of our class.”

Earthquake report: This is the big one.

He continues. “In my fifteen years of running this
competition I have
never
had a student make a perfect score on the practice test. It is designed to be challenging, to weed out the weaker candidates. In a word, it’s hard.”

“Tell me about it,” Connor mumbles.

“When Melody Brooks took that little practice quiz with us last week, I thought it was a lucky accident that she did so well. But yesterday Melody blew us all away. She got every single question right.” He pauses, making sure everyone is taking this in, and then he says, “All of them.”

Earthquake report: Walls are tumbling everywhere!

“So she’s on the team?” Rose asks, disbelief in her voice.

“Yes, she’s on the team.”

“But . . . but . . . we’ll look weird!” Claire counters. “Everybody will stare at us.”

“I’m not going to have any of that kind of talk, do you understand?” Mr. D says sternly. “I’m very proud of Melody. I regret I underestimated her, and I’m glad to have her on our team.”

Earthquake report: Call the paramedics. A girl in fifth grade is about to explode.

Everybody in the class turns to look at me. Catherine gives me a hug, Rose flashes me a smile, and I try not to kick and drip and make my teammates sorry that I’ll be on the team with them.

“Will the Whiz Kids folks be cool with Melody?” Molly asks.

Mr. Dimming looks thoughtful. “I’ll contact the quiz team officials and let them know about our special circumstances,” he says. “But that’s no concern of yours. Now listen up! Team members will meet every day after school for two hours for the next two weeks—right up until the first competition. Practice sessions are mandatory. Here is paperwork for your parents to read and sign. I need it back tomorrow.”

Earthquake report: Expect big aftershocks—nothing like this has ever been seen before.

The more I think about it, the more excited I get. Television! Pressure! People looking at me! I can feel myself getting tense and tight. My arms and legs start doing the tornado spastic dance. My head jerks. I try not to, but I screech—just a little.

Everybody turns at the sound. I can see Molly and Claire jerking their hands, kicking their legs, and making crazy noises. A few people giggle. Mr. Dimming’s face grows tight.

I aim all my energy at my thumb and point to
“Go.”

Catherine gets the message and hurries me out of there.

I want to find a hole and hide in it.

The next two weeks pass in a whirlwind.

In spite of my little display of weirdness that Tuesday in class, I showed up at practice on Wednesday afternoon as if nothing had happened. Maybe nothing had. I was just being me. I’m not sure what the others thought. They said nothing about it.

So, like all the other team members—alternates and regulars alike—I stayed every day after school to practice, from three thirty to almost six o’clock.

I still couldn’t get over the fact I was part of the team. Okay. Truth. There was the team, and there was me,
and we were in the same room. But we weren’t quite a team. They appreciated the fact that I usually got the answers right, but . . .

When Mr. Dimming gave us multiple-choice questions to answer, I had to think for only a moment, then hit the correct letter on my machine. But lots of the preparation involved fast-and-furious, back-and-forth discussions, and I had trouble adding anything to what was being said—most of the time.

“One of the longest one-syllable words in the English language is ‘screeched’,” Connor announced one afternoon as he chomped on a raspberry Twizzler.

“That’s a good word for Melody,” Claire said as she snatched his candy and took a bite.

I couldn’t respond, and nobody else bothered to.

“What do you call that dot that goes over the letter ‘i’?” Elena asked the group.

I knew the answer, but it took me too long to spell out the word.

“It’s called a ‘tittle,’” Amanda answered quickly. “Like the brain of a fifth grader!”

“Ooh, snap!” said Rodney.

I had planned to type
snap
when she said that too, but I was too slow. The group had already zoomed on to another question.

Gee, they talk fast.

“Who was the first child born in the American colonies?” Rose asked, reading from a huge stack of three-by-five cards in her hand.

“Virginia Dare,” Elena answered. “Okay, my turn.” She flipped through her own cards—color-coded. “Who was the first Miss America?”

“That’s dumb,” Connor said. “They’re not gonna ask stupid girl stuff like that.”

“You don’t know the answer?” Claire asked him.

“Of course I know,” Connor replied with a snort. “Margaret Gorman. In 1921. She was sixteen and probably looked better than you!” He and Rodney were the only ones to laugh.

Rodney jumped in then. “I’ve got a nasty question. What is ‘pediculosis’?”

Without missing a beat, Rose answered, “When you’ve got a scalp full of head lice! Yeeww. Do you know that from personal experience?”

“Of course not. I was just looking for a hard word,” Rodney told her. He and Connor didn’t laugh that time.

“You want a hard word—I’ve got one,” Amanda told the group. “What is ‘hexadactylism’?”

That seemed to stump all of them for a minute, so I had time to tap on the number 6, followed by the word
fingers
, then I pushed play so they could all hear my answer.

“Good job, Melody!” Elena said.

“How does she know all this stuff?” Claire whispered to Rose.

“She’s smart!” Rose said, flipping through more cards.

“But she’ll look odd on TV, don’t you think?” Claire continued, as if I couldn’t hear her.

I was ready for her. I had typed a couple of things the night before, so all I had to do was push a button.
“TV makes lots of people look funny,”
I had the machine say.
“Maybe even you, Claire.”

“Ooh, look who’s got snaps now!” Connor hooted. “Good one, Melody!”

If I could have danced, I would have!

But as quickly as that moment happened, it disappeared. The team zipped on at rocket-paced speed, feeding off one another’s knowledge and skill. At the rate they were going, there was no way I could jump in quick enough. I listened, however, and remembered it all.

“What’s the only rock that floats?”

“Pumice.”

“How many chromosomes does a human have?”

“Forty-six.”

“What was the first state to allow women to vote?”

“Wyoming.”

“What’s Mr. Dimming’s first name?”

“Wallace!”

We all cracked up at that.

At the end of every prep session Mr. Dimming gave us another official quiz from national headquarters. Since those always consisted of multiple-choice questions, I always did well, but I wanted to be like the rest of them as we studied.

One Thursday in the middle of a practice session, Rose’s mom ordered pizza for everyone and had it delivered to the school.

“Your mom rocks,” Connor said.

“You’re easy to please, Connor,” Rose replied with a laugh.

Everybody rushed to get the hot, spicy-smelling slices from the box. I was starving like the rest of them, but I just sat there.

“Don’t you want some pizza?” Elena asked me. “I’ll go get a slice for you.” She never said much during the practices, but she took lots of notes and she usually scored pretty high on our practice quizzes.

“Not hungry.”

How could I explain to her that without Catherine or my mom or Mrs. V, I wasn’t able to eat? I had to be fed like a baby. And I made a mess even then.

When my mom came to pick me up, she asked me if I wanted to stop by Pizza Hut on the way home.

I just shook my head.

The day of the actual competition dawns bright and chilly. I shiver in the early March air as Mrs. V and I wait for my school bus. My jacket feels good. We’ve decided to use the manual chair today since the electric one, even with the car ramps, is a little too heavy for Mom to handle on her own.

“You ready, Mello Yello?” Mrs. V asks me.

“Oh, yeah!”

“Your head feel like it’s gonna pop with all those facts stuck inside?” she teases.

“Oh, yeah!”
I grin at her.

“You’ll do fine. Better than fine. Dynamite. Possibly awesome!” Mrs. V says.

“Oh, yeah!”
I push again.

“We’ll all be downtown in the audience cheering you on.”

“And the team?”

“There are others on the team?” she asks, smacking herself on her forehead. “I thought you were a solo act!”

“And teams from other schools?”

“Don’t worry—you’re smarter than all of them put together! So we’ll be cheering the loudest—your mom and dad and me and Penny.”

“Do I look okay?”

Mrs. V looks me up and down. “Like a television star!” she replies. “Your mom tucked an extra blouse in your bag, just in case. Catherine knows what to do.”

I’m glad Catherine will be going with us, and I think Mr. Dimming is glad as well.

“Tell me the plan again.”

“Your mom will pick you up from school, take you to get a bite to eat, and get you to the TV studio about fifteen minutes before the rest of the contestants. Penny and your dad and I will meet you there.”

“TV folks won’t freak out when I show up?”

“They are well prepared for you. Actually, it’s
possible a few reporters might be there and want to talk to you.”

“Me? Why?”
I can’t imagine why any newsperson would want to talk to somebody who can only talk through a machine. How boring.

“You’re a wonderful human-interest story. Other people might be interested in knowing more about you.”

“They won’t make fun of me?”
Just the thought of it makes my palms sweaty.

Mrs. V takes my hand in hers. “Not at all. They’ll admire you, I’m sure. You are Spaulding Street Elementary School’s own personal Stephen Hawking. They’re lucky!”

“Hope so.”

“Here’s your bus. Have a great day, Melody. I’ll see you tonight.”

I manage to get through the day without spilling anything on my clothes, and I’m relieved to see Mom when the last bell rings at school. After a quick meal of macaroni and applesauce in the car—smart Mom, nothing red—we head downtown.

We find a handicapped parking spot right in front of the studio, and after the usual unloading the chair down the car ramps, seating me and strapping me in, then attaching Elvira, we roll inside. The receptionist, a
chunky, pleasant woman with lots of makeup and frizzy hair, directs us to the staging area.

I have to blink a little to figure it all out. Everything you see on TV is fake. I see the place where they film the news. When I watch it on television at home, it looks like the reporters are sitting in front of a huge window that shows all of downtown. But it’s just a painting, and it’s pretty small. So is the desk where the reporters sit. It seems so much bigger from home.

I recognize a couple of the reporters who I watch every day. I can’t believe how
skinny
the morning lady is. On TV she looks normal-size. I’m going to look like a huge balloon when the cameras show me.

Speaking of cameras,
they
are huge—like giant, black mechanical space beings on wheels. Guys with headphones and women with clipboards run around checking stuff. The back part of the studio is dark, but the place where the contest will take place is lit brightly. I can see where the teams will stand and the big buttons they’ll push for the answers.

In another room, behind all the cameras and the action, are the benches where the audience sits. Some people have already started to file in. I can see them through a large glass window.

I jump when Catherine taps me on the shoulder. “Fascinating, huh?”

“For real,”
I type.

She and Mom chat a bit before a man wearing jeans and a Cincinnati Bengals sweatshirt approaches us.“Excuse me,” he says to me, “but are you Melody Brooks?”

Surprised, I quickly hit
“Yes.”

“My name is Paul, and I’m the stage manager.” His huge hand swallows mine as he shakes it. “I’m glad you’re here early. Let’s see if we have you set up correctly. We’re really glad to have you participate.”

He spoke directly to me, not Mom or Catherine! I like him right away.

We roll across the studio, careful to avoid cords and wires, and enter the area where the competition will take place.

“This is where the members of each team will stand,” he explains. “They each have four large buttons to push. Red is for the letter ‘A.’ Blue is for the letter ‘B.’ Yellow is for the letter ‘C.’ And ‘D,’ of course, is green.”

I nod.

“And here, Miss Melody, is where
you
will sit. Right next to your teammates. I have rigged a special answer board for you, so it’s adjusted to the height of your wheelchair.” He looks pretty proud of himself as he shows me the setup.

“Wow!”
I type.
“This is perfect. How did you know?”

“My son is in a wheelchair,” he says with a shrug. “I build stuff for Rusty all the time, but there’s no way he could do what you are about to do.” He kneels down so he can look me in the eye. “Knock their socks off, champ! Rusty will be watching.”