Friday at school held no surprises.
There was a video in History, to make the words
she had read come alive. There were the usual
math exercises. In Phys-Ed, it was volleyball
and Tab was ready at all times to lunge for a
solid support. It was not what bothered her most
however.
So, she thought, the kids said she had a
crush on Mr. Player. A funny shiver made her
wonder. Was it true? No. NO WAY!
Certainly the way they snickered about it
made it an uncomfortable thought. She was
supposed to be reading but Tabitha considered
it "from the outside," as she had written in her
assignment for Miss Longshanks a while back.
"Objectively," her teacher had written in the
margin.
One, ALL the girls had a crush on Mr.Player.
Two, he was usually so nice, even when he got
mad; she smiled at recent memory. Three, he was
a super teacher, so kind, so fair, and Four, so
good looking. Tall, athletic! She guessed a lot
of the girls daydreamed about being noticed by
him. But why would the kids pick on HER? She
hadn't told ANYBODY how she felt about him, not
even Maria.
Next they went to Miss Longshanks' room.
Tab had just taken her seat when she heard,
"First, I believe we were waiting to hear yours,
Tabitha." Miss Longshanks settled into her chair
to listen, pen in hand, to record her impressions
in the record book.
Mildly disappointed at having only an oral
evaluation, Tab placed her foot strategically
under her desk ready for emergencies. Her essay
had been polished to perfection, and would have
scored high on a mechanical checklist too.
Oh well. She stood close to her desk, ready to
read it. She had included friendship within the
family as part of her essay, now that she had
discovered a brother could also be a best friend.
"Because most of the kids are acquaintances
rather than friends," she read... Maria looked
down at her hands.
Little did Tab know that she had discovered
a lifelong truth about peers. After the murmur
had died down, she continued, "It is true that
to have a friend, you must BE one first." She
looked at Elsbeth, and as quickly looked away so
that no one would notice. No way did Tab want to
make problems for Elsbeth. "Acquaintances
come and go, but our friends are ours forever."
With great relief, she sat down.
Someone actually clapped and quickly
stopped. Miss Longshanks beamed her approval,
and for once, no one was horsing around.
That evening in her room, she sat leafing
back through her journal. It was amazing how much
had happened to her in a short time. The earliest
times had been a total fright.
As she read, the creepy feeling returned, a
feeling that there was nothing she could count on
anymore, when two worlds were no longer in register
and she was the only one who knew it. And it was
getting worse. Greggy helped, but how could he
understand something even she couldn't understand
herself? Worse, was she going bonkers? She
remembered how, after it was over that second time,
she had collapsed to the floor. The real floor,
cold and hard. Her knees had let go, and she had
wept while running thankful fingers over its
ceramic tile hardness.
"Only my journal listens to me," she
whispered. "It believes me, never scolds or
punishes. It lets me be me."
"Oh, Greggy," she said as he stopped by her
door. "I have homework, but come on in." As he
paused in the doorway, she offered, "I'm reading
bits here and there." Reality returned when Greggy
came in.
Gregory sat on her bed and said, "That's
your journal?"
"Uh-huh. And here's the part I hid from
you." She paused. Greggy didn't ask to see it,
but he didn't leave either. "At the time I was
afraid you'd think I was crazy."
"If you are," Greg said, "then we all are."
"Precisely. Do you want to hear it?"
"Sure, if you want."
"Okay, here goes." She settled in for a long
read. "....The second time, I felt it start." Tab
read the detailed description of the attack, her
voice shaking as she lived it again. It ended
with, "There was no invisible SOMETHING between
me and the floor. Just nothing."
She read on: "It was like a separate world
above this one." She paused. "Like parallel
universes that didn't fit together anymore."
"Two separate realities?" Gregory asked.
She nodded yes, surprised that her brother,
young as he was, actually understood. He was
so smart he kept amazing her, but it made it
a lot more fun to talk with him.
"In the same space and time," She went on.
"As if one of the worlds had slid slightly out of
place, and I straddled the space between the two
worlds. Unreal, yet real." Tab paused, appalled
at what had happened to her. "Like on a shifting
FAULT line." She looked up and saw Greggy's
eyes, their pupils wide, full upon her.
"Scary eh?"
"Uh-huh," he said. "That's real scary
stuff, Tab."
"Yup. Sure is. 'This CAN'T be happening,'
I kept saying to myself. 'Why ME?'" Shivers
shook her suddenly, and there was a hint of
hysteria in the tremble of her voice. "I still
feel that way. It repelled my weight. I could
have stretched out and taken a nap in the air,'"
she read.
She looked
up and saw Greggy
staring into
space. A smile
played tag with
the corners of
his mouth. He
looked at her
and asked,
"Wouldn't that
be a great
invention for
an air mattress
company?"
"Ah," she
said and laughed
out loud as she
pictured it.
On air as if it
were water!
|
 |
What a relief it was! "GET YOUR ANTIGRAVITY
MATTRESSES HERE!" she proclaimed. "NEW CONCEPT
IN SLEEPING COMFORT! Great idea!"
"But it's invisible, right?"
Still giggling, she said, "Sure, Greggy. You
wouldn't have to make your bed in the morning."
"But what if you misplaced it? How would you
ever find it again?"
"That's the point-- It's wherever you need it,
isn't it?"
He laughed. "All those invisible air beds
wouldn't be left floating around to be bumped
into! You can't lose something that's with you
all the time. So I guess we don't really need
air mattresses."
"If only we could figure out how it all
works." Tabitha was feeling a lot better.
"It would make a fantastic Science Fair project...
I have all these notes... The teacher said
original research is best."
"But then, everybody would know the secret."
Tab was silent for a while. "Yeah," she said.
"Read some more, Tab."
Then she turned to another page and read,
"...While hanging onto the towel bar with one
hand to keep from going higher, I had to dress.
It was hard with only one hand. I had to hold
my robe in my teeth to be able to push my free
hand into the sleeve, and then to get it in
place for the other hand, and not let go of
the towel bar with the other." She looked at
Greg. "How do one-armed people ever manage?
I wished I had been tethered to the wall."
Gregory was silent. That word 'tethered'
was worth remembering. Putting his sister on
a leash might look odd, but outside, it
would keep her safe.
He heard Tabitha go on, "Apparently Mother
still thinks she should monitor my every
thought."
Gregory waited, knowing she would tell him
if she wanted him to know. He watched Tab's
face grow grim as she remembered what had
happened. "Not a smile in a carload," Grandpa
used to say.
Her mother had called her downstairs. Still
shaky and pale, she had obeyed, and stood
shivering as her suspicious mother questioned
her.
"What were you doing so long in the
washroom anyhow?" her mother had asked.
"Nothing," Tab had said cautiously. Never
again would she tell her mother about
levitation, if that was what it was. Even
more scary than having nothing under her feet
was what her mother would make of it.
"Please answer, Tabitha."
"Well, I took a bath," Tab said. "Tidied
my room while my hair dried, and did some
writing." It was all strictly true as far
as she went, but nobody would ever catch her
telling all that crazy stuff. She felt
unreal enough already without having her
mother tell her so.
"That's good," her mother said, but her
look had clearly said that she was not
convinced. She stood up suddenly and walked
to the window where she turned to face
Tabitha. "Something is bothering you. I can
tell."
Tab said nothing.
After a long minute, her mother spoke,
as if to herself. "Funny, the students at
school freely confide all kinds of things
to me, but my own daughter avoids me." She
looked truly puzzled and hurt, wringing her
hands. "You're sure there's nothing wrong."
"I'm okay, Mom."
As if alone, her mother said, "I wonder
why we always fail with our own." She didn't
know that given the right climate, Tab could
have answered that question.
The drawings end here unless a
loud demand for more is "heard."