MY MOTHER’S WORDS stabbed me like an icicle to the heart: “Megin, I want you to take Toddie to the library tonight.”
“Library?” I said. “He can’t even read.”
“Children’s Story Hour. Puppets too.”
“Can’t Greg take him?”
“Greg took him last month.”
“Can’t Daddy take him?”
“Saturday night. He’s working.”
“Can I just leave him there and come right back?”
“Take him, stay there with him, and bring him back. Alive.”
I took a deep breath and asked the big question: “What time?”
“Seven o’clock.”
Arrrrgggh! I wanted to scream “No! Never!” and throw things through windows. But I didn’t. I controlled myself. Remember Zoe, I told myself—how good an actress she is. Be an actress. Act.
So I acted. I nodded and said, “Okay, no problem.” I even smiled a little. I got up from the dinner table and strolled away, all calm and cool. I didn’t say a word about the Wayne Gretzky special on TV that night. At seven o’clock. I didn’t say they were going to be talking with him and showing highlights of his best games, his most fantastic shots. I didn’t tell my mother that nothing—not a flood coming down the street or the earth colliding with another planet or the Children’s Story Hour—was going to keep me from being in front of my TV set at seven o’clock.
I had to work fast. It was already after six. By six-thirty I was ready. I left my bedroom door open, so my mother could hear. She was coming up the stairs, heading for my room, just steps away—now, girl, act! I toppled off my bed, hard, onto the floor: thump.
First I heard my mother’s voice in the hallway: “What was that?” Then she was in my room. “Megin! What are you doing?”
“Nothin’, Mom. I’m okay.” I made my voice sound grunty but friendly.
“What did you do? Slip on an old pizza crust?”
I chuckled painfully. “Maybe it’s an attack of cleanophobia.”
“Well,” she said, “if it is, you better get over it pretty soon. It’s almost time to go.”
“I will, Mom. Don’t worry.”
“To tell you the truth, Megin, I wasn’t all that worried. I just want you on your feet and ready to go.”
“Right,” I grunted. I reached up for her arm, clawed up to her shoulder, and pulled myself up. I put all my weight on her, so she was practically on her knees by the time I was standing.
She started to walk away. I collapsed to my knees. She turned. “Megin! What is going on?”
“Nothing, Mom,” I answered cheerfully, clutching my stomach. “I’m okay. I’m ready to go. Is Toddie ready?”
“Megin, stand.”
She took a quick step backward, so this time I had to pull myself up with my dresser. “There,” I said, smiling, panting, “okay?”
She looked suspicious. “What’s the problem?”
“Nothing, Mom, really. Just a little cramp, that’s all.”
“Cramp? Where?”
“I don’t know. Around here.” I pointed to a place.
“Maybe just a bad enough cramp to keep you from taking your little brother to the library, huh?” She was looking very suspicious.
I straightened up. “Mom, honest, look. I’m okay. I want to go. Really. C’mon now.” I pushed her ahead of me into the hallway. “Let’s go down. I gotta get my coat.”
The next time I heard my mother’s voice, I was in the living room ready to leave with Toddie. I had his hand. She howled from the kitchen. “Megin!”
“What, Mom?”
“What in God’s name are you doing?”
“Goin’ to the library, Mom.”
“Crawling?” She’d noticed that I was down on all fours. “Are you planning on crawwwling all the way to the library?”
“Mom, it’s okay. It feels better this way, that’s all. No big deal.”
Five minutes later I was in my bed (Mother’s orders), under the covers with my Gretzky stick, watching TV and listening to Grosso squawking downstairs: “Mom, I’m telling ya, she’s lying! She’s faking it! She just doesn’t wanna take him! I took him last month!”
Gretzky was great. He was great just sitting there talking in the studio, great being mobbed in the shopping malls, great waving in the parades. But most of all he was great on ice, weaving through the Black Hawk defense, beating the Canucks single-handed, hat-tricking the Maple Leafs. Gretzky was making mincemeat of the Jersey Devils when suddenly my bedroom light blazed on and my father came rushing in. He knelt by the bed, right in front of me, so I had to crane my neck to see Gretzky mopping up the Devils. He put his hand on my forehead. “Yep,” he said, “you do seem a little warm.”
I pushed his hand away. “Daddy, I’m watching.” He turned off the TV. “Dad-deeee!”
“Calm down, Dimpus, easy, easy, no getting excited.” He was petting me like a dog. “You dressed?” He pulled down my covers. “What’s this?”
“My hockey stick.”
“Oh—okay. Now, think you can stand up?”
For the first time I took a good look at him. His hair was messed up. He still had his coat on. He was breathing hard, like he was excited, or upset. Something dawned on me. “Hey—aren’t you supposed to be working tonight?”
“I was. Mommy called me.”
“Called? What for?” As soon as I asked the question, the answer hit me. “Daddy, did she tell you I was sick? I’m okay now. I just had a little cramp, that’s all. Look—” I hopped out of bed, flicked the TV on, and started doing jumping jacks. My father tackled me, gently, turned off the TV, and dumped me back on the bed. He pinned me down with his hand. “Don’t—move.”
“You can’t be okay. Not from what I heard. And you know Mommy—she wouldn’t call me unless it was serious.”
He was right about that. I must have done a great job of acting. “Yeah, but Dad, it feels a lot better now. Especially since I was watching TV. It was distracting me. Can I put it back on?”
He wasn’t even listening. He was just giving me this silly grin and wagging his head and looking really goofy. Suddenly he was hugging me and mumbling into my hair. “I’m really proud of you, you little trouper.”
“Wha’d I do?”
“Mommy told me how you tried to take Toddie to the library.”
Maybe I’d done too good a job of acting. “Well, y’ know, I’m a hockey player. You gotta play with pain. You can’t let every little twinge stop you.”
He kissed my nose. “That’s my trouper.” He stood up. “Okay, come on, we gotta hurry. Can you stand?”
“Hurry? Where’re we going?”
“Hospital. C’mon, try standing.”
“Oh no!” I screamed and dove under the covers and rolled myself into a ball in the corner of the bed.
“Come on, honey.”
“No.”
“Dimpus.”
“No.”
I could feel his hands all around me, trying to find a way through the covers. Something was making it. A finger. It reached my knee. I bit it. He howled. The finger left. “Megin, come out.”
“I’m not going to the hospital just for a little cramp.”
“Megin, you were having pain, weren’t you?”
“So?”
“You were having so much pain you couldn’t stand up, true?”
“I was. It’s gone now.”
“And do you know what you were pointing to when Mommy asked you to show her where the pain was coming from?”
“I don’t know. My stomach or something.”
“Your appendix.”
“My appendix is fine.”
“Let me tell you a story, Megin. A man at work, in floor coverings, Mr. Eckersley, has a daughter. Last year she had pains in that spot. They took her to the hospital. The doctor said she had acute appendicitis. He said if they had gotten her there a couple hours later, it might’ve been too late.”
The jig was up—hospital or the truth. I took a deep breath: “I was faking it.”
He laughed. He patted me where he probably thought my head was; actually it was my butt. “No, Dimpus, you weren’t faking it. If Mommy thought you were faking it, she never would have called me. And if I thought you were faking it, I never would have rushed home from work. Especially when the man I was talking to wanted to buy two refrigerators.”
What could I say? What could I do? I let him unwrap me, lead me downstairs, put my coat on me. Then he picked me up. “Daddy!”
“We have to be careful. The appendix can rupture.”
“What’s that mean?”
How embarrassing, my father carrying me out to the car like a baby. He kept muttering stuff like, “Trouper… gutsy little snapper…”
I didn’t have appendicitis (surprise), so I was allowed to walk away from the hospital. Even so, as we were getting into the car, my father said, “Looks like you’ll be staying in tomorrow, Dimpus.”
“What do you mean?”
“You heard the doctor—‘Keep an eye on her for the next day or two.’”
“Daddy, they always say that. It doesn’t mean I’m not allowed out.”
“I think that’s exactly what it means. Fasten your seat belt.”
“Daddy, I don’t have appendicitis. You heard him.”
“I heard. And Mommy saw the pain you were in.”
“I can’t stay in tomorrow.”
“No?”
“No. We have a game at the lake. We’re playing the Skatium Rink Rats. I gotta be there.”
“Fasten your seat belt.”
“Daddy!”
“Fasten your seat belt.”
When we got home and Grosso found out I wasn’t allowed out next day, he didn’t make a sound. But his grin was so wide that the ends of his mouth nearly knocked his ears off.
So I had to sneak out of the house next day. I listened for Grosso leaving for the game and waited as long as I could stand it. I went downstairs. Everybody was in the living room. “Am I allowed in the basement,” I said, “or did the doctor say no basements?”
“By all means,” chirped my father.
I had my hockey stuff stashed under the basement steps. In a couple minutes I was ready. I was inching the back door open when I heard a voice, Toddie’s, behind me: “You can’t go out.”
I wheeled. “What’re you doing here?”
“You can’t go out. Daddy said. You sick.”
I pressed my hand over his mouth. “Quiet. Shut up.” I had to think. Fast. I knew my father would find out I was gone sooner or later, but I at least needed time to get to the lake. He wouldn’t yank me off the ice. I thought about tying Toddie to the water heater and gagging him—I’d tell him it’s a game—but I chickened out. There was no choice; I had to take him with me. “Toddie, wanna go see me play hockey?” He started yapping and hopping around. I had to muzzle him again. Luckily I found a ratty old coat of mine in the basement. It came down to his shoes. We took off.
By the time we got there, the first period was over. I pointed Toddie to the sideline and skated up to Skelley who was in charge. “Who’s winning?” I asked him.
“They are, one-nothin’.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Where you been?”
Grosso barged in from behind. “She’s supposed to be home sick.”
I smacked his stick. “Butt off, man.”
“Sick?” said Skelley.
“I ain’t sick. Look at me. Do I look sick?”
“Last night,” went Grosso, “she had an attack of appendicitis. She couldn’t even stand up.”
“My father had to take her to the hospital. Emergency room.”
Skelley was staring at me. “Yeah?”
I laughed. “Skelley, do I look like I got appendicitis? Huh? Do I?”
Grosso wagged his stick at the sidelines. “There’s Toddie. Go ask him. Ask him if I didn’t have to take him to the library last night because she was having such terrible pains.”
Ah, now I got it. Grosso was getting back at me for last night. “Skell,” I said, “I was faking it. Y’know that Gretzky special on TV last night? I wanted to see it, so I pretended I was sick so I wouldn’t have to take Toddie to the library.”
Skelley’s face was a blank.
“Yeah?” croaked Grosso. “Well listen, Skell, how come my father raced all the way home from work and took her to the hospital? Could she fake it that good?”
Silence. The whole team was standing around Skelley, gawking into his face. He wiped his nose on one sleeve, then on the other; looked like snails had been crawling over him. He looked back and forth from me to Grosso. He wiped his nose again. He looked down. He scraped ice with his skate blade till he had a little hill of snow. Then, real slow, he started shaking his head.
“What’s that mean?” I said.
“It means no,” quacked Grosso.
Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. “Skelley?” He was still looking down, scraping ice. He mumbled something. I couldn’t hear it. “What?”
“No.”
“What do you mean by no? No what?”
Some Rink Rats came skating up, drumming sticks. “Yo! Let’s go! Next period! You guys wanna forfeit?”
Skelley looked up. “Okay, let’s go.” The players started fanning out.
I grabbed his arm. “Skelley, no what?”
He was squinting at the sky. “You can’t play.”
“Skelley, I gotta! This is the big game! I gotta!”
Rink Rats laughed. “Go play with yer dolls!”
“Skell, we’re losing! You need me!”
He pulled his arm away. “Come on, Megin, you gotta go.” He headed out to center ice.
“Skell! I was faking it!”
“Fake yerself off the ice!” the Rink Rats were hooting. The Homesteaders were just standing, staring at me. Skelley stopped at the face-off spot. The Rink Rat center was waiting, and the referee. They just stood there, staring. The cold from below came seeping up through me. I shivered. I turned away and pushed off for the sidelines. My eyes were blurry. Somewhere ahead I saw Toddie, a face on top of my coat, grinning, holding something, something gleaming white and pink—the silly dressed-up egg Grosso had been carrying around all week. I reached out, I took the egg. I put the egg down on the ice. I nudged it with my stick. I looked up, at the players. No one was moving. It was all so blurry. The sun made sparklers in my eyes. I couldn’t see faces. I couldn’t tell one team from the other, only heard the Rink Rats hooting, louder and louder…
I wound up and blasted that egg to smithereens.