Obviously.
Ana and I sat at the back table of Mr. Byrd’s math class.
Jaz whizzed up next to me in her wheelchair. “You’re gonna love this class, Charity. Mr. B is super cool.”
I knew she was right when I saw his T-shirt with a picture of Einstein sticking out his tongue.
“Welcome, young Jedi knight,” he said, bowing to me.
Still, I could not help gnawing on my knuckles for the first thirteen minutes.
I loved math. The logic and peacefulness of numbers. Sad to say, in all my classes at school, math lessons had never gone past counting to ten.
The teacher would command, “Pick up three blocks, pick up three blocks, pick up three blocks.” When my hands grabbed one block or five blocks, the Thinkers concluded I had no understanding of numbers.
The aide at Borden would say the same thing over and over. “If Suzy has two pieces of bubble gum and Bobby gives her one more, how many pieces of bubble gum does Suzy have?” I prayed that Suzy would just choke on her stupid gum.
I watched Mr. Byrd scribble equations on the board and talk about monomials and binomials. My mind flashed to all of Mom’s flashcards on multiplication and division. Algebra was the same but with Xs and Ys. Yes, it made sense to me, but with no way to communicate, I could only sit and listen. I started picking pieces of lint off Jazmine’s sweater.
“Here is a fidget for you to spin.” Ana handed me a blue spinner and my eyes drank in the perfect circle that formed each time I spun it. Round and round and round.
Mr. Byrd gave the class a problem to solve: 15x2yx ÷ 5xy.
Numbers and letters floated in my head.
Round and round and round.
The answer is 3x2.
Round and round and round.
No way to tell anyone, though.
Page 278: The leatherback sea turtle is the largest species of turtle, some weighing more than 2000 pounds.
Round and round and round.
I dropped the spinner on the floor.
Mr. B walked over and handed me a Rubik’s cube. “Maybe you’d like to fix this for me, young Jedi.”
I know he only gave it to me for fidgeting, but I so wished my hands would cooperate in solving it just this once.
Fact: No one will ever know I have a brain.
Page 276: The Galápagos tortoise can live for more than 200 years.
Twist, twist, twist, twist.
My mind could see the twenty-five or so turns that needed to be made. Would my hands obey? To my amazement, they did. I counted down the turns . . . 13 . . . 12 . . . 11 . . . Just ten more turns, and I would have it. My body rocked with each twist.
Rock, twist, rock, twist, rock.
My hands twisted the cube automatically.
Everyone will finally see what I can do.
Or not.
A noise scraped my ears. A bright light flashed above the door.
CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH.
My hands dropped the cube and covered my ears.
Every blast hammered a stake into my brain cells.
“Let’s exit in an orderly fashion, dudes and dudettes,” Mr. B said.
My logical brain knew it was only a fire alarm. But my bulldog impulse acted on instinct.
My legs sprang up.
Run! Get away!
My feet sprinted out the door.
CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH.
Faster! Go!
Down the hall.
Move! Run!
The sound stabbed my ears.
Get out! Escape!
I crashed into kids, banged into walls, stumbled over backpacks.
CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH.
Run! MOVE!
My feet kept flying.
Away! NOW!
My sneakers scrambled like prey escaping a predator.
A flash of sunlight pulled me toward the end of a hallway, an emergency exit. I knew that beyond the exit was a sidewalk. Beyond the sidewalk was a busy street.
CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH.
My brain yelled at my feet: Stop! Stop! Two steps out that door, and I would be in the middle of the street.
My bulldog impulse commanded: Keep going!
The sun threw a spotlight on the door. A truck engine roared from the street outside. My brain hollered: Freeze!
My bulldog impulse commanded: Get out NOW!
CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH . . . CREECH.
My arms rammed the door open.
I’m dead! I’m roadkill!
My left foot stepped outside, heading toward a massive garbage truck.
At that second, my body snapped back like a yo-yo. Someone had grabbed the back of my shirt. My throat choked on the collar. My arms swung around. My fist smashed a face.
Right in the nose.
Mason?
Mason breathed hard. He was hanging onto my shirt with one hand and covering his bloody nose with the other.
“What the crud, Charity.”
How did you even keep up with me?
My feet froze. I stared in shock at the river of red dripping from his nose. He wiped blood onto his sweatshirt. Then he led me out the emergency exit and to the soccer field at the back of the school.
All the kids were standing in lines with their classes. In front of everyone, Mason held my hand and walked me to a frantic Celia, who was on the phone to a frantic Ana. “Gracias a Dios! Thank you for your help, young man!”
Mason nodded and left.
My heartbeat slowed as I watched Mason walk away, still wiping away blood.
Hypothesis: Cousin = friend.
…
Even after my morning freak-out, Ana insisted on taking me to my new English class that afternoon. Walking down the hallway, I heard the whispers. I am sure they all knew about my five-hundred-yard dash that morning.
“That’s the one who went ballistic . . . OMG, she almost mowed me down . . .”
I wanted to scream at them.
OMG, I have ears, you know!
Every giggle, every glare added a new bruise.
“That fire alarm was no drill,” Ana said. “It was pulled by a student as a prank. For normal drills, we always lead our students outside before the alarm sounds since so many have sensitivity to loud noises.”
My legs could barely take the next step, like they were plowing through frigid, knee-deep snow.
Ana squeezed
