Flying Lessons & Other Stories(41)

that Justin would be pissed if you dumped him

for me,

so I’ll forget

the whole bet

if you do me two favors.”

Favors? Are you crazy?

Wait, how do you know about Justin?

I didn’t even tell Carla

about him. OMG! Do you know?

I nod, and I can almost see a tear forming in her eye.

“Yeah, two favors,” I whisper in her ear again, so no one can hear us. “Uh, how about, uh, a kiss.”

“WHAT?! I don’t think so!”

“It’s either that, or—”

“I am not kissing you, Monk.”

“Well, then, just walk me to my next class—”

“That’s it?”

“And, hold my, uh…hand.”

Ugh! Why would I do a thing like that? I really got to pee!

“It’s either that, or we’re going to the movies, ’cause I know

how much

your hair cost. Plus tax.

So it’s your choice.

And you probably ought to decide pretty quickly,

’cause I’d hate for you to pee on yourself

in front of

all these people.”

He knows, but how could he know?

It’s not possible.

This is so embarrassing.

I back up, walk over to my locker, and eagerly wait.

Angel Carter inches toward me like a centipede.

When she gets so close that her cornrows

brush up against my cardigan, I close my eyes

and imagine

the two of us

on some tropical island, like Bermuda, and all I can hear is

the sound

of the cool

calm river,

and two swimmers

ready to dive.





EPILOGUE

In this memoir

I have taken

some liberties

and added a little

drama

here (and there)

to keep it interesting.

But everything

I’ve written here

is true.

(Mostly.)

Monk Oliver

Mr. Preston’s Honors English 7





Sometimes a Dream Needs a Push


WALTER DEAN MYERS





You might have heard of my dad, Jim Blair. He’s six five and played a year of good basketball in the pros before tearing his knee up in his second year. The knee took forever to heal and was never quite the same again. Still, he played pro ball in Europe for five years before giving it up and becoming an executive with a high-tech company.

Dad loved basketball and hoped that one day I would play the game. He taught me a lot, and I was pretty good until the accident. It was raining and we were on the highway, approaching the turnoff toward our house in Hartsdale, when a truck skidded across the road and hit our rear bumper. Our little car spun off the road, squealing as Dad tried to bring it under control. But he couldn’t avoid the light pole. I remember seeing the broken windows, hearing Mom yelling, amazingly bright lights flashing crazily in front of me. Then everything was suddenly dark. The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital. There were surgeries and weeks in the hospital, but the important thing was that I wasn’t going to be walking again.

I didn’t like the idea, but Mom and I learned to live with it. Dad took it hard, real hard. He was never much of a talker, Mom said, but he talked even less since I was hurt.

“Sometimes I think he blames himself,” Mom said. “Whenever he sees you in the wheelchair he wants to put it out of his mind.”

I hadn’t thought about that when Mr. Evans, an elder in our church, asked me if I wanted to join a wheelchair basketball team he was starting.

“We won’t have the experience of the other teams in the league,” he said. “But it’ll be fun.”

When I told Mom, she was all for it, but Dad just looked at me and mumbled something under his breath. He does that sometimes. Mom said that he’s chewing up his words to see how they taste before he lets them out.

Our van is equipped with safety harnesses for my chair, and we used it on the drive to see a game between Madison and Rosedale. It was awesome to see guys my age zipping around in their chairs playing ball. I liked the chairs, too. They were specially built with rear stabilizing wheels and side wheels that slanted in. Very cool. I couldn’t wait to start practicing. At the game, Mom sat next to me, but Dad went and sat next to the concession stand. I saw him reading a newspaper and only looking up at the game once in a while.

“Jim, have you actually seen wheelchair games before?” Mom asked on the way home.

Dad made a little motion with his head and said something that sounded like “Grumpa-grumpa” and then mentioned that he had to get up early in the morning. Mom looked at me, and her mouth tightened just a little.

That was okay with me because I didn’t want him to talk about the game if he didn’t like it. After washing and getting into my pj’s I wheeled into my room, transferred to the bed, and tried to make sense of the day. I didn’t know what to make of Dad’s reaction, but I knew I wanted to play.

The next day at school, tall Sarah told me there was a message for me on the bulletin board. Sarah is cool but the nosiest person in school.

“What did it say?” I asked.