I wonder if there is some way I can pretend I need to throw up again, like yesterday? Or maybe get some mystery “cramping,” which might get me a free hall pass to the nurse’s office. It wouldn’t work with this teacher, though, she’s too smart for that — besides, she’s a girl. That old “cramps” trick only works with guy teachers. Mr. Marcus always goes pale, for instance.
I sigh and wiggle in my seat. This simply has to stop. I am going to freak out if I have to listen to one more word about municipal taxes. What are they for, anyway? Who gets to decide how much tax we pay? I have a paper route on Saturdays, do I have to pay taxes? My head is starting to ache. I cheer up for a moment — maybe I am going to throw up.
Nope. False alarm. Okay, then.
I try to will my body to float. I try lifting my foot off the floor, but it just falls like a dead weight back to the tile beneath my desk. I lift the other one. Nothing. My running shoe makes a loud slapping sound as it hits down. “Sorry,” I mumble as my teacher shoots me a warning look, which sadly doesn’t stop her from babbling on about garbage taxes.
I slowly float my arm out to my side, but it’s just as heavy as my leg. I try my other arm. Nothing. I’ve never felt so leaden and earthbound in my life.
At this point, I’d be happy with a floating finger. I try raising my index finger off the table. It almost hovers for a second, but no, I realize I’m holding it there.
Clearly I’m not going to float anywhere during Civics class, just when I really want to.
Noted. The ability to float seems to have nothing to do with the desire to float. In fact, it seems the more I want to float, the less likely it is that I will.
At this moment, in this class, I have as much chance of floating as a lead balloon.
EIGHT
There is nothing leaden about lunch, though. Oh no! That’s all fun and games and up in the air time. Honestly, I’m starting to feel like a hot air balloon, with all this upping and downing. And I’m starting to want some answers. The novelty is definitely wearing off.
I guess I should back up a little. I’m having lunch with Jez. She’s the best friend I’ve always had, since before we started school, I think before we could even speak. Our mothers met in the park when we were still too little to do anything but lie around in our strollers. Our mothers are actually nothing alike, so they must have been pretty desperate to meet up and become friends.
Jez’s mom is about fifteen years younger than mine. Jez is short for Jezebel, which is a not-so-nice woman from the Bible, but Jez’s mother didn’t know that. She just liked the name. It is a pretty name, I think so too.
Anyway, at lunch Jez and I are sitting at a table eating french fries and dipping them in too much ketchup, which is how we like them. Martin Evells walks by us, and my stomach flips.
Okay, so what? I like Martin. I always have. It’s not really my fault. He’s nice and he smells like lemons. We were best friends the year we were six.
“Hi, Gwen,” he says then walks away.
My stomach does its flippy thing, then under the table my foot leaves the floor. Just for a second. Which wouldn’t have been such a problem if it didn’t kick Jez on its journey.
“Ouch. Gwen. What was that for? Martin always says hi to you.” Jez looks really hurt. She’s gripping her calf where I booted her.
Uh-oh. I’m definitely starting to feel something. A kind of tingling and burning up and down my arms and legs. I grab her by the wrist and I swear I yank that girl out of her chair. I start sashaying across the lunchroom and out the door, dragging my best friend behind me.
She doesn’t go willingly. She fights me all the way. Luckily the lunchroom at our school is really noisy (since it’s got the junior and senior kids in it), so no one pays much attention to me dragging my unwilling friend out the door.
“Ow! Gwennie, stop it. What are you doing? I wasn’t finished my lunch! I’m still hungry!” She gets all weird and whiney. I don’t have time for weird and whiney. That feeling, that weightless feeling, is starting to take over. I’m tingling like I’m on fire, and I know what’s coming.
I run us down the empty school hallway into the girl’s washroom and push us into the big wheelchair stall at the end. I slam the bolt behind me then spin around and look at her. I must look a little scary, because she backs away from me until she bumps into the bathroom door. Her eyes get really big and her mouth falls open.
Yep. She’s scared. I know that look.
“Okay, Jez. You can’t get that look on your face or I’m going to lose it. Just calm down. Okay? Jez? Just shut your eyes for a minute, and I’ll explain.”
Jez shut her eyes really tight and nods. “Uh-huh,” she manages to say, but she still keeps her eyes shut. “What’s going on, Gwennie?” She sounds really scared now. Poor Jez.
I slowly start to float up to the ceiling. There’s nothing I can do. I’m gone, floating, spinning slowly above the stall, looking straight down onto the top of my best friend’s head. I sigh.
There’s no easy way to do this. I just have to tell her.
“Okay, Jez. You can open your eyes when I say, but you have to promise not to scream. Actually, you have to promise not to make any noise at all. Okay? Just don’t do anything? Just look?”
She nods and I say, “Okay, you can open them.”
Jez starts breathing funny and jagged, but she bravely nods, and with a little whimper, she opens her eyes. She slowly looks up, first at my dangling feet, then at my legs, then at my body and finally up into my face. It’s in slow motion, just like in a horror movie, when the camera moves slowly up to the horrifying thing hanging from the ceiling.
That horrifying thing is me.
Jez stops breathing and just stares at me. Her eyes are gigantic, like mini soccer balls, and she slowly moves her hands up to her mouth. But she doesn’t scream.
I really love Jez at this moment.
“Thank you for not screaming,” I say. I also want to say, “Don’t cry, Jez,” because in the next second, two giant tears slide down my best friend’s cheeks.
I don’t cry, though. For one thing, since I’m hovering right over Jez’s head, my tears will fall on her and soak her (it’s a bit gross, the thought of crying on someone).
But for another thing, I can’t cry.
I haven’t cried in a long time. It’s been so long, I can’t remember the last time. So long, I think I might have forgotten how.
NINE
Jez just stands there, covering her mouth and looking up at me with her gigantic brown eyes.
I say again, “Jez, please stop crying.” She nods really hard, which is what she always does when she wants to do what you ask but doesn’t know how. She gulps.
“Stop nodding, too,” I add. She nods really hard then suddenly stops. I can see her trying to pull herself together. She draws a deep breath, pulls some toilet paper off the roll, and dries her eyes.
“Okay. Okay. I’m not crying. I’m not,” she whispers. I’m not sure why she is whispering, since there isn’t anyone else in the bathroom. She looks up at me. She looks so sad and scared, I really want to hug her, but it’s out of the question since I am up on the ceiling and all.
“Gwen, what are you doing up there?” She is still