Serendipity and Me (9781101602805) (3 page)

 

If I get well in time

I will be the perfect Wendy.

 

I will be so nurturing

the Lost Boys will miss their mothers.

 

John and Michael

will forget I'm only their sister.

 

I will even help Peter Pan

grow up gracefully.

 

This is what I think

when my daisy quilt becomes

too hot to lie under

and then not warm enough

when I'm shaking from chills.

 

If I get well in time

I will be the best mother.

 

Even though

I don't have anyone

anymore

to show me

how.

 

 

 

Taylor comes over after school Thursday

her arms full of books.

She dumps them on the floor

beside the couch

and backs away.

All the work,

Tuesday through Thursday.

If we get more tomorrow,

I'll bring it.

 

I look up at her through puffy eyes.

What's happening at rehearsal?

 

Taylor softens her

force-field-against-germs attitude.

Miss Conglin put in Kelli for now.

 

Is she any good?

 

Taylor shrugs.

She knows the part.

 

I decide to ask Taylor something

I'm not sure she'd even notice.

Is, um . . . does Garrett

still act goofy?

 

Taylor rolls her eyes.

He's always a goof.

Kelli laughs her head off at him.

 

Just what I was afraid of.

 

 

 

It is time for drastic measures.

I need to get well now

so I can make it

to the last practice tomorrow.

 

It used to be our nightly ritual.

Mom and Dad would come to my room

at bedtime

and we'd pray together.

 

After Mom died

things were so confused for a while

and then one night

I asked Dad to come pray again.

 

He stood in the doorway for a minute

then sat on the edge of my bed.

You start,
he said.

 

But when I prayed

Bless Mommy and Daddy

a sob burst out of him

then he laid his hand on my head

and lurched out of the room.

 

I didn't ask again.

 

So I ask alone tonight

Please, God.

 

 

 

I wake up on the couch

to sounds in the kitchen.

Dad?

 

Just me,
Mrs. Whittier calls.

Then she steamrollers in

with a steaming bowl.

Hungry?

Here's some chicken bone soup.

 

My mind is cloudy with sleep and sickness.

What day is it?

 

Friday.             I've got ceramics lab at noon

so one of the college girls

will be coming later

to check on you.

 

I force my zombie brain to think.

The play's tomorrow.

 

Yes.

Her drab pottery work shirt

suits the mood
because

by the sympathy dripping off her face

I can tell I won't be in the play.

It is too late

 

and Neverland

 

has a whole different meaning

for me now.

 

 

 

I'm pretty sure Jocelyn

was one of Dad's freshmen

when Mom died.

 

Now she's a serious senior.

Majoring in psychology,
she tells me

dark eyes wide with compassion.

 

She wants to know how I feel

about everything.

Either I'm too sick to guard my mouth

or she's going to be

really good at this.

 

Because I tell her everything

I've been keeping quiet inside me.

 

I tell her how much I love
Peter Pan
the play

and how much I like Peter Pan the boy.

I tell her how much I miss my mother

and how my dad's a mess of sadness.

 

I tell her how lonely I am

in my own house.

 

I lumber off the couch

to show her my room.

 

She asks about the cats.

 

 

 

There are pictures of cats

on every wall

of my pale-pink room.

 

Besides my cuddly stuffed kitty,

lions and tigers and cougars

lie helter-skelter on my covers.

 

Cat-head slippers peek out

from under the bed.

 

Where's your real cat?

Jocelyn asks.

 

I don't have one.

 

She raises her eyebrows in a question.

 

Mom always said, Ask your father

and Dad always said, No.

 

She purses her lips and then her look rests

on my book of Mom Tales.

What's this?

 

Mom used to make up fairy tales

and write them down for me.

I show her the first page.

This one's about Mom and Dad.

 

 

 

Beginnings

 

Once upon a time there was a magical professor who spun poems around his students. The poems gave his students wings. Sometimes they found themselves hovering in the air as if in a dream. One of his students was a girl named for dreams.

Aislinn was born with a hunger for words. She took to the winged poems like she was created to fly. She drank the words in. She swallowed them whole. And she soared.

Each time Aislinn heard the professor speak, her wings grew stronger and she flew toward paradise. But the spell never lasted. When she left the professor, her wings drooped and she drifted to the ground.

She knew she must keep the professor and his magical words with her forever. So Aislinn decided to cast a spell on him.

Her plan was a web of beauty. She reversed the spell he placed on his class and spun her own poems around him. Aislinn's poems captured his heart and sent his soul soaring with dreams of her. And when he was completely under her spell, Aislinn showed him her own dreams of flying with him forever. She offered him the wings of her soul with a book of Love Songs.

The magical professor took the book. He took the book and read her heart and fell into her soul.

The sweetest spell of all.