Читать книгу Reading Lips - Claudia Sternbach - Страница 7

“All’s we have to do is get on top of the Dumpster, and then we can reach the roof,” said Jimmy Z. He was one of the tallest kids in the third grade and if he got up on the roof first could help the rest of us.

“I’ll go second,” said Curtis. Curtis never would do anything first. But he always had to do whatever Jimmy Z. did.

I got to go next. The metal Dumpster was hot. Burning hot to my bare legs. Stupid school rule: gotta wear dresses every day. Stupid. Boys get to see our underpants all the time.

Jimmy and Curtis were lying on the flat rooftop, hanging their arms over the side to help me. I tried to grip the wall with my feet while they pulled me up. I landed on my belly, scraping my elbows on the tarpaper rooftop. It was so hot, it felt like the roof was melting.

Babs came up next. At the last minute, Jimmy let go of her hand and she almost fell.

“Hey,” she yelled at him, “you almost dropped me. Stupid!”

And then she flopped down next to me.

It was too hot to play foursquare. It was too hot to play tetherball. The bars were too hot to climb. To hang from. We had finished lunch and tossed our garbage in the Dumpster, and that was when Jimmy figured out that we could climb up on the roof. There was nothing else to do until the bell rang and we would have to go back to Mrs. Waverly’s class. She always read to us after lunch. She was in the middle of The Borrowers. I loved that story. The family of tiny people living in the walls of the house. I loved how the dad would go out at night and find surprises for the mom and the little girl. A thimble they would use for a sink. A spool for a table. We had no dad at our house. But we still had tables and chairs.

“So now what?” asked Babs. Babs was cranky today. When I met her on the corner before school, she was mad ’cause her sister had told her mom Babs had been snooping in her stuff. Babs’s sister was in junior high and had really interesting stuff. Babs and I snooped in it all the time. I wanted to read her diary, but it had a lock and so far we couldn’t find the key. Babs had been trying on her sister’s bras. And she had been stuffing them with toilet paper. When she got tired of looking at herself in the mirror, she put everything back in the drawer, but she forgot to take out the toilet paper. So she got caught. Babs can stay cranky all day sometimes. I’ve seen her.

I liked looking at the school yard from up here. I could see Mrs. Lawrence, the yard-duty teacher. I’d never seen her from the top before. I could see the part in her brown hair. It was crooked.

Curtis leaned over the side and spit. It just missed Cindy. She turned around when she heard him laugh, but she didn’t look up, so we were safe.

There were good things about being on the roof. Sounds were different. Floaty. And I liked watching people who didn’t know I was watching. I could see the baby kindergarteners over in their yard. They had their own playground with a fence around it. Sometimes we made fun of them. Told them they were in a cage like the monkeys in the zoo. But only when their teacher, Mrs. Day, wasn’t around. But really I liked ’em. They were so little. And cried so easy.

But a bad thing about the roof was there was no shade.

And it was getting hot on my legs. And little rocks were digging into my palms. And they were hot. I was just thinking of climbing down when somebody shoved me. I was right by the edge, trying to see the kindergarteners better. And I fell.

Mrs. Waverly got there first. I remember she rolled me over. I saw my arm. It was twisted. And my head was bleeding. But at first it didn’t hurt. I didn’t feel anything.

“Get down from there, all of you,” said Mrs. Waverly. But they were already climbing down.

“Jimmy pushed her,” Curtis said. “I saw him do it.”

I kept looking at my bent-backward arm.

“You broke it,” I cried. “You broke my arm, Jimmy.”

Now Principal Lundahl was there. He was putting his hands under my armpits. That was when everything started to hurt. He lifted me up and my arm hung down. My hand wasn’t going the right way, and I couldn’t make it turn around. Jimmy was crying. Babs was really crying.

“I only pushed her ’cause she tried to push me off,” said Jimmy.

“Claudia didn’t try to push you,” said Curtis. Now he was crying too. “Babs did. Babs pushed you.”

And then Babs really cried.

Mr. Lundahl was kind of running with me. I remember bouncing. And the bouncing hurt. And I couldn’t open one of my eyes.

I remember the nurse’s office and the scratchy gray blanket on the cot and Mr. Lundahl calling my mom at her work where now she had to go every day. And then the nurse, Mrs. Hannagan, put two pieces of wood on my arm and wrapped it up tight. And she put wet paper towels, the brown kind, on my head. And I wondered why brown paper when it’s wet smells different. And then we waited for my mom. I wanted my dad too. Only he didn’t live with us anymore. And when I told Mr. Lundahl I wanted my daddy, he asked me what his phone number was. I didn’t know. He asked me where he worked. I only knew he had an office.

“Maybe your mother can call him,” he said.

Mr. Lundahl carried me outside to wait for my mom. So he could put me right in the car when she got there.

My mom had a station wagon. I kept looking down the street. No cars were coming. We sat on the steps in the shade.

Then there she was. I knew my mom’s car. I saw it when it came around the corner. Mr. Lundahl picked me up and put me in the front seat by my mom and we drove away.

My mom carried me into the hospital. She smelled like perfume. Like my mom. There were bright lights and doctors and they took me to a room and changed my clothes right over my arm in the wood.

“Can you get Daddy?” I asked my mom.

She said she would call. A nurse was with me. And then a doctor. And then my mom was gone.

She came back and told me he was on his way. But it might take a little while.

Then they wheeled my bed, and a doctor said he was going to make me fall asleep. And when I woke up my arm would be in a cast and I would feel much better.

But I wanted to see my dad first. I wanted to see my dad.

My mom came in and told me we could wait just a little while. She waited with me. We watched the door.

She looked at my head where it was hurt. She kissed it.

And then they made me go to sleep.

When I woke up I had a patch over my eye. I had a cast on my arm. And there was a new stuffed lamb in bed with me. My daddy had brought it.

I still have it.