The Nose from Jupiter (10 page)

Prudence

My head aches. I’m hungry and thirsty, and I still have a stuffy nose. I reach across the hospital bed to the tray on wheels, and take a drink of ginger ale. Warm, of course, and a bit flat, but it feels good going down. I wonder when I get lunch.

My parents are still asleep. Stereo snoring. I yawn and wonder what time it is. It’s bright outside. Going to be a sunny day.

Angela the nurse comes in with a smile, and asks me how I feel.

“Not bad,” I tell her.

“You look better. Tina – that’s the other nurse – says you didn’t have too much pain. She says she wishes all her patients were as easy as you.”

While Angela is talking, she’s taking my temperature and blood pressure and neatening my bed. Nurses are like barbers, they can work and chat at the same time.

“Did you go to the bathroom?”

I nod my head. “All by myself.”

“Any stools?” she asks.

“Huh?”

She explains. “In the bathroom. Did you just pee or did you –”

“Just pee,” I said quickly. She’s not embarrassed but I am. “I haven’t eaten solid food in a long time.”

“Didn’t you get your snack? The doctor ordered it. Food services probably got mixed up.” Angela looks at her watch and frowns. “Probably too late for snack now. I’m going to see what they have in the kitchens. Is that okay? Could you eat lunch if I got it for you?”

“Anything,” I say, my mouth watering at the thought of stale hospital food. I must be getting better.

Angela takes blankets out of the closet and covers my sleeping parents. They’re not her responsibility but she takes care of them. She’s a nurse, she can’t help herself. She goes out the door with a smile and a wave. A few minutes later I hear a cart with a squeaky wheel and my mouth starts watering. Pavlov’s hospital patients.

But it isn’t food. It’s the lady who cleans. She nods at me, shakes her head at my parents, and empties the wastebasket. “Thank you,” I tell her, but she’s already out the door.

The next one who comes in is a doctor. I haven’t seen this one before. “Hello, um, Alan,” she says. “My name is
Doctor Mitchell.” She doesn’t look very old – more like a babysitter than a doctor.

“You must be tired,” she says. I am tired but you know what? She’s even more tired than I am. She looks enviously at my parents. She can’t help yawning as she examines me. I don’t have to take off my hospital gown, thank heavens. She puts the stethoscope down the front, and around the back. Then she stares into my eyes with the little flashlight. “Don’t look at the light,” she says, yawning. “Look beside it.” I try.

When she’s gone I lie back against the pillows and listen to my parents catch up on missed sleep. I’m lonely. I haven’t heard from Norbert in awhile. I whisper his name but he doesn’t answer.

Angela comes back with a tray. “The snacks were all gone,” she says, “so I grabbed you an early lunch.”

I thank her. Milk, ham sandwich with a sweet pickle for garnish, a muffin and, beside it, a bowl of – “What are those?” I ask.

“Prunes,” she says.

I make a face. Pigeon eggs. Stool pigeon eggs. “Do I have to eat them?”

She shakes her head, and goes out the door with a smile. I push the bowl away. It’s a great meal. The milk is warm and the pickle is rubbery but I don’t care. I hardly notice. Food glorious food.

My parents wake up together. They say “Hi” to me, then, in quiet voices, with edgy politeness, begin to fight about
who will go to the bathroom first. I try not to pay attention. I keep eating, but the food doesn’t taste as good as it did a moment ago.

“I’m just fine,” my dad says for the third or fourth time. “You go, dear. I know you want to comb your hair and freshen up for Alan.”

“Thank you, dear, but really you’re the one who should go. After all, you had to spend the night in the hospital.”

“You had to drive to Cobourg and back. You must be exhausted. You use the bathroom.”

“I’m feeling just fine, thank you.”

My tray is empty, except for the prunes. I push it away. A doctor comes in. It’s the one from yesterday, whose name I don’t know. “Hi, Alan,” she says. “How are you feeling?”

I tell her I’m feeling fine. “The food tasted great,” I say.

“And how much do you remember about yesterday?”

I hesitate. “I can remember right up to the moment I fell in the water,” I say, “but it’s all a blank after that.”

“That’s great! I’ve known concussed football players who couldn’t remember anything about the game. You remembered right up to the moment when you went unconscious. There may not be anything more to remember. By the time you got to the Cobourg Hospital, you were completely unresponsive. I have their report here.”

I shake my head. It still hurts a bit. “I know there’s something else,” I say. “I can see – or almost see – an arm. And I can feel it pulling.” It hurt, too.

The doctor nods. “Your girlfriend told the doctors that you were trying to speak when she pulled you out of the
river, but I don’t know how conscious you were. It might have been more like a dream.”

Mom sniffs. Dad looks solemn. I frown, thinking about Miranda. There’s something I’ve forgotten. I try to picture her pulling me out of the river, and I can’t. There’s a curtain between me and what happened yesterday. A curtain in my mind, and I can’t tug it out of the way.

“I’m going to let you go home now,” the doctor says.

“This afternoon. Go home and rest. Can you promise to do that?” She looks at me and then at my parents. We nod. I don’t know why Dad is nodding. I’m not going home with him.

The doctor holds up a cautioning finger. “No strenuous physical activities. I mean that. For the next few weeks, I don’t want you involved in any contact sports. Do you understand, Alan? No climbing ladders or trips to Disneyland for awhile. And if you have any dizzy spells, vomiting, balance problems, go straight to hospital. Promise?”

I nod. She goes on. “I don’t think you’ll have any problems, though. I think you’re fine. In the meanwhile,” she smiles, closes my folder, “you can go home and get some sleep.”

I’m still worried. Not about dizziness. “Doctor, will I ever get all the memory back?”

“There may not be much to get. You can’t always remember a dream, even if it’s a vivid one. And anyway, it’s probably not a happy memory. You may be better off without it. I wish I could forget my last dentist’s appointment.” She smiles.

“That’s it,” I say.

“What?” She’s startled.

“A dentist’s appointment. Miranda had a dentist’s appointment yesterday. She couldn’t have walked home with me.”

And at that moment there’s a knock on the hospital door and Miranda walks in. But not by herself; Prudence is with her. Prudence, with her hair done up nicely under a little beret, and a clean leather jacket and blue jeans. She looks pretty. Even with the ring stuck in her eyebrow and a big wad of gum in her mouth, she looks pretty.

Miranda, of course, looks spectacular. Her eyes are swollen and her hair is uncombed and the collar of her jacket is all rucked up. Spectacular. “Alan,” she says, running over to take my hand. “How do you feel?”

“Fine,” I say.

“You didn’t answer your phone last night. Prudence told me about your accident before school this morning and I…are you sure you’re all right?”

Prudence stands there, hands on her hips, cracking her gum.

Mom stares at her. Not exactly friendly. Prudence ignores her. Dad straightens up to stand taller, and runs his hand over his hair to smooth it down. Prudence ignores him too.

My mother speaks to Miranda. “You must be the girl I spoke to on the phone. It’s nice to see you, dear,” she says. “I appreciate your concern for Alan’s health. Where’s your mother – parking the car?”

“No, Mrs. Dingwall.” Miranda stands up straight. “Prudence and I – we came on the nine o’clock train from Cobourg.”

I stare at Prudence. The curtain in my mind is slowly lifting. I can see bits of what happened yesterday. Prudence. Her hands, gripping tight; the muscles in her arms, bunching and pulling. Prudence.

My mom and dad are telling Miranda she shouldn’t have come to a big city like Toronto by herself. Doesn’t she know how dangerous it is? She’s only thirteen years old. She should call her parents right away. They’ll be so upset. And of course she’ll have to come home with my mom and me.

No one seems too worried about Prudence. No one says she’ll have to come home with us too.

Miranda smiles at my parents and doesn’t say anything. In her own way, she’s as tough as Prudence. A mind of her own. She squeezes my hand; I squeeze back. Meanwhile I’m thinking, no wonder my own arms feel like they’ve been dragged out of their sockets. No wonder I have bruises, not just from the rocks on the riverbed and the branches and stumps and rushing water, but from her incredibly strong hands.

Prudence saved me. The curtain across my memory has lifted and I can see now. I see her face an inch from mine, her hair dripping wet. I’m lying on the riverbank, coughing water. I remember Prudence covering me with her coat and going away. Getting smaller and smaller as she stood
up, and then disappearing. And I disappeared too, and woke up in this hospital with my mom beside me.

I try to catch Prudence’s eye, so I can thank her. She looks away.

The doctor is leafing through my file. “Prudence Armstrong,” she says “you found Alan … is that right? And dragged him out of the river and called the ambulance?”

Prudence looks at her, nods.

“Pleased to meet you.” They shake hands. The doctor waves good-bye to me and leaves the room.

My parents, thank heavens, stop talking. They stare at Prudence with open mouths and look embarrassed. I want them … I want my dad to thank Prudence. To say, “Thanks for saving my son.” He doesn’t.

But somebody should.

“Thank you, Prudence,” I say.

She shakes her head. “Don’t thank me. I didn’t come here to be thanked.”

“Why did you come here, then?” asks my mother.

“I came to apologize,” says Prudence.

A Miracle All Right

“Why?” We all ask it together but it’s me she turns to.

“For following you around. For threatening to beat you up. For being a bully. I’m sorry, Alan. I’ve already spoken to the other Cougars. We won’t bother you anymore. In fact, we won’t bother anyone anymore.”

Outside the old year is dying, getting ready for winter. Inside the hospital room, a new era is being born. I try to think of something mature and graceful to say. “Huh?” is what comes out.

She looks at the ground. “Well, Mary and Gary might still try to bother you. They’re bad kids – the way I used to be. I told them they’d have to deal with me if they acted up – maybe that’ll stop them. But they’re bad kids. Mad and bad.”

“Oh, the poor things,” says Mom. Prudence stares at her.

“If it’s not too difficult a question,” I say, “how did you, er, decide to… well….”

“To change my ways?” She smiles. Another difference. The old Prudence never smiled. “Is that what you are asking, Alan? What made me want to give up hurting people? Threatening them, making them scared? What made me want to become one of the good guys? Is that it?”

“Um, yes.”

She looks serene and kind of thoughtful. “Would you believe I heard a voice from heaven? Speaking to me?”

Nobody says anything, and she goes on.

“I followed you home from school yesterday, Alan. On my bike. I’d done it for a couple of days. Did you see me last night, in your garden?”

I nod.

“I thought so. I took off pretty fast but I wondered if I’d been fast enough. Anyway, after school yesterday I rode over to the King Street bridge – that’s the way you usually go home. I was inside the variety store there by the river, looking at a magazine, when I saw you come over the hill. I ran around the side of the store to get my bike, and that’s when you fell in.”

My mom whispers, “Oh no. Oh no.”

“I didn’t fall. I tripped over that dog.”

“Yes. The collie dog.” She frowns. “She isn’t
your
dog, is she, Dingwall? I never thought of that.”

“No,” I say. “Not my dog.”

“She didn’t have a collar, you see.”

A cart squeaks down the hallway and enters the room. The guy pushing it is an orderly – not the one from this morning. He takes away my empty lunch tray. Prudence goes on.

“I ran over to the water. I don’t know what I was going to do. I was kind of glad that you’d got in trouble.” She turns to me, blushing. Another first. “I’m sorry, but I was. I said to myself, ’Yes! He’s got what’s coming to him!’ I felt powerful, like I was calling down vengeance from the sky to punish you for bad-mouthing me and my team, and breaking Gary’s nose.”

“Alan?” says my mom, displeased. “Did you break somebody’s nose?”

“Son?” says my dad. I can’t tell if he’s pleased or not.

I shrug my shoulders.

“You were lying in the water,” says Prudence, “and you started to drift away. And then I heard a voice. I don’t know how I knew it was an angel, but I did. ’Save him,’ said the angel.” She’s smiling, reliving the memory.

I can think of only one explanation. “Did the angel have a high, squeaky voice?” I ask.

“No,” says Prudence. “It was a deep voice. And it was right beside me, warm and strong and sort of – wet. Very alive! I never thought angels would sound so alive. Almost in my ear. ’Save him and save yourself.’ And it called me by name. ’Save yourself, Prudence.’ I don’t know what I was saving myself from. I turned my head and there was the collie dog. Are you sure she’s not yours?”

“Not mine,” I say. “All I do is trip over her.”

“But,” Miranda frowns at Prudence, “are you saying – was it the
dog’s
voice you heard? Warm and wet and all? The dog is really an angel?”

“I don’t know,” says Prudence. “I only know I heard it.”

Standing there beside me, a suddenly nice girl. Prudence. It’s a miracle all right.

“Anyway, before I really understood what I was doing, I was running downstream and wading out to grab you.”

The bruises on my arms throb with recollected pain.

“Thanks,” I say again. This time my parents say “Thank you” too. Prudence looks away. My dad goes over and holds out his hand. Prudence’s grip makes him wince.

Angela the nurse comes in without a thermometer or blood pressure gauge. Almost like she’s naked. At least she’s got a clipboard. “There are a couple of forms to fill out,” she tells my parents. “Then Alan can go home.” They follow her out the door to fight over which one of them ought to sign the forms. My dad is still wiggling the fingers of his right hand.

“Your folks are okay,” Prudence says to me. Does she mean it? I’ve never met her folks. If she means it, I don’t think I want to meet her folks.

“Do you guys believe in my angel?” Prudence asks us.

I don’t know what to say.

“I believe in voices,” I say. “Sometimes I hear them too.”

She nods. “It’s funny that you should ask about a squeaky voice, just now. Because when I got you onto the bank, I tilted you on your side, and all this water poured out of
your nose and mouth. And a different voice – a high, squeaky voice – said, ’Thank you.’ At first I thought it was you, Dingwall. You know when you talk without moving your lips? But I called your name and you didn’t say anything. So then I thought I was going crazy, hearing voices where there weren’t any. I got mad for a moment. That voice reminded me of you insulting me at the soccer game. I actually thought about tipping you back in the river, only, of course I couldn’t. Not after having pulled you out.”

“No,” I say faintly.

“So maybe it was another angel talking to me.”

“Maybe. Or a nose.”

“What was that?” she asks.

“I said, who knows?”

The girls leave the room while I get changed. Mom has a knapsack full of clean clothes from home, including clean underwear. Blue this time, if you’re interested. It’s a sunny, windy day – I can tell from the window of my room, which overlooks the dumpster, by the way. I don’t know why everyone kept staring out at it last night.

Mom has decided that we will all go home to Cobourg together. Me, her, and the girls.

Not Dad. He has to get back to his meeting in Vancouver. “I’ll get back here soon,” he says. “Maybe we can see a hockey game. Or basketball. Do you follow basketball?”

“Sometimes,” I tell him. We’re standing outside in a windy parking lot. The girls are already sitting in the backseat of
the car. Mom is standing by the driver’s side, staring at us. The wind is whipping at her coat.

“Well, Alan, I’m glad you’re feeling better. I was really worried, you know,” he tells me.

“Yeah,” I say.

We stare at each other for a minute. My mom calls to me to hurry up.

“Well – bye, son,” says my dad. He holds out his hand, kind of tentatively, and puts it on my shoulder. After a minute he takes it off and turns to walk away. He’s not going to say he misses me, or thinks about me, or loves me. He’s not going to say any of those things.

Prudence is right. He’s okay. But is that all he is? Okay? Shouldn’t a parent be more than that? Shouldn’t your dad be more than just, okay?

“I love you, Dad,” I say, but the wind whips my words away. He doesn’t hear me, doesn’t turn around.