Fifty-Four Things Wrong with Gwendolyn Rogers Read online

  25. Picky about her appearance

  Every morning my mom folds my blond hair into twin French braids because that’s the only way my head feels right. Otherwise it feels all loose and I can’t concentrate without the pulling on my skull. I always have to tell Mom to redo them tighter and tighter, and she tells me we’re going to be late to school or wherever we’re going, and I tell her I can’t go to school or wherever we’re going with loose braids, and eventually she does them tight enough, and then we’re late or almost late to school, and then, by the middle of the day, my braids are too loose again anyway.

  5. Will only do what she wants to do

  31. Poor sense of time

  “Sure,” Tyler says. He kneels behind me and I start to feel the tug of my hair pulling my ear closer to the top of my head. I sigh with relief. Tyler’s own jitters calm down with the pulling and twisting so it’s easier to understand him.

  We haven’t talked about it, but I’ve noticed: Tyler is like me. There’s something(s) wrong with him too. He has the same things inside him poking and jumping and turning him into a bad kid all the time. He’s a splinter-heart kid too.

  Those bad pokey things—they must come from our dad. Neither of us have ever met our dad, at least not that we can remember. But he’s still what makes us brother and sister.

  “Did you talk to your mom about horse camp?” Tyler asks, excited.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It didn’t go too well.”

  “It didn’t?” Tyler sounds alarmed. He does this thing with his tongue where it sticks out the side of his mouth and sort of clicks. He always does that when he’s nervous, and sometimes Hettie says some mean things about it behind his back, but I don’t mind the clicking because he’s my brother.

  “What did your mom say?” I ask.

  “I didn’t get to see her yesterday,” Tyler says. His mom works at the university like mine, although I didn’t realize that until this fall. It isn’t surprising though because it feels like almost every adult in this town works at the university. But I guess my mom didn’t even know Tyler’s mom also lived in Madison, Wisconsin, until this fall, when we ran into each other at Back-to-School Night and my mom’s jaw dropped so far you could see all the way down her throat. She told me later that she never thought she’d see Ms. Christakos again. She told me that she didn’t think I needed to know Tyler since she had never considered that there was a chance he could actually be in my life. She told me that she had no idea his mom was sort of her coworker for years.

  My mom used a strange voice when she said all of this. And she spoke in shorter sentences than she usually does. It was weird.

  The things that are wrong with my mom are different from the things that are wrong with me. Which means my mom has a filter. Which means I don’t know how much of that story is the absolute exact truth.

  And even though our moms work in the same place, it’s different because Tyler’s mom works as a professor in the psychology department and sometimes ends up working all night long. They live in a big house with people Tyler calls au pairs and housekeepers, so I think she makes a lot of money. My mom works for the admissions department, and Mom and I live in a two-bedroom apartment that could fit inside Tyler’s living room. I think that part makes Mom mad, but I like our apartment better than their big stone house.

  “It doesn’t matter, though,” Tyler is saying. “I know my mom will say yes. She loves whenever I want to do anything outside.”

  “Really?” I ask. “She’ll say yes no matter what?”

  I can feel my hair go up and down as Tyler shrugs.

  “Why wouldn’t she?” Tyler asks.

  “But . . .” I trail off. I don’t want to say it. I don’t think Tyler wants me to say it.

  Before I can help it, the words are out of my mouth.

  10. No filter

  “But what about what happened yesterday?”

  Tyler and I talk about animals and braids and I listen while he talks about outer space and dinosaurs and ninjas and video games. We don’t talk about the biggest sign that he’s my brother. We don’t talk about things inside us that jump and poke and make us into bad kids.

  And we aren’t usual brother/sister. Not like my best friend Hettie and her younger brother, Nolan, who live in the same house and get on each other’s nerves all the time, but who are also sort of like partners because they’ve been together for as long as anyone can remember. Tyler and I are siblings because of a stranger.

  Tyler is in sixth grade and I’m in fifth, so he’s a year older than me. But it seems like I matter to him as much as he matters to me. We both only had a mom, no one else in our family, until we found each other. Our moms know we love each other but they don’t understand why it matters so much to have a sibling.

  “What do you mean?” he asks. “What happened yesterday?”

  I move my head against the pressure of the braid he’s currently pulling on. “You know . . . at PowerKids?”

  I’m talking about what I saw from the fifth-grade table. I’m talking about when Tyler purposefully slammed his foot down on Ms. Hayley’s toes and then ran away when he was supposed to be playing chess.

  His brain cracked.

  When my brain cracks my mom says no to everything. Horse camp. Vacations. Hanging out with Hettie or Tyler. Dessert. My iPad. Everything.

  Tyler’s brain cracked but he still thinks his mom will say yes to horse camp.

  Tyler shrugs. “She doesn’t know about that,” he says.

  My face burns. “Ms. Hayley didn’t call your mom?” I ask.

  Ms. Hayley is like the boss of PowerKids and she always calls my mom. She always always always calls my mom.

  Tyler shrugs. He changes the subject.

  He doesn’t like to talk about being bad. It’s like being bad is just one thing about him and not everything about him.

  There used to be other things about me too. And there still are, I guess. My pets. Hettie. Tyler. But the fifty-four things make it so hard to find any of the good stuff anymore.

  “I’m going to that horse camp. It’s so much better than the pathetic regular day camp option PowerKids does. Is that the one your mom wants you to go to?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Well you can’t. You have to come with me.”

  “I want to!” I say.

  The braids are tighter now and that feels good, but other things feel bad and I’m worried Anger is waking up. He’s going to come out from his shell and ruin my day. He’s red and triangular with big googly eyes and, when things are going OK, he sleeps in a white, circular shell in my left rib cage, but when they aren’t, I can’t stop him from waking up and poking his way out of his shell and shoving his pointy body all over my organs until I can’t control anything, not even my own self.

  “It’s not enough to want to go,” Tyler says. “Promise me you’ll come.”

  “I can’t. My mom didn’t answer me. She just kept telling me to behave.”

  “Then you have to be good!” Tyler says. He’s almost yelling at me as he snaps the final rubber band into place.

  I think he maybe snapped it a little too hard.

  Poke. Poke. Poke. Anger jumps inside me. My rib cage is on fire.

  “Please,” Tyler says, like he didn’t hear any of what I said about it not being up to me at all.

  Anger jumps faster. Harder. My insides are getting scratched up and achy.

  The only way to slow Anger down is to speed up the rest of me.

  I need to move.

  30. Fidgety

  I jump to my feet.

  “I’ll race you to the other tree,” I say.

  Tyler startles a little and I realize I was louder than I meant to be.

  “Horse camp,” he says. He never wants to run. At least not when I do. “What did Nina say exactly?”

  Nina is my mom. I call Tyler’s mom Ms. Christakos but he calls mine Nina. I’m still working on figuring out why but so far my eavesdropping hasn’t answered t
hat question.

  “I don’t remember exactly,” I say.

  “Tell me,” he says.

  Poke. Poke. I shake my arms and legs. I need to move. Now. “To the tree and back. Ready?”

  Tyler can’t see the glass wall I built in front of us, but I can. It’s going to feel so good to run right through it and send shards of my imagination flying—sharp—through the schoolyard.

  Tyler stands with me. He leans in so his face is right next to mine. We’re siblings and you can see it, but you have to look closely. We’re both white, but Tyler is half Greek and I’m not, so his skin is darker than mine. His hair is jet black and thick and sits in a pile of curls on his head while mine is blond and would be pin straight if I ever took it out of my braids. He has a higher forehead and I have a smattering of freckles all over my cheeks and chin. Our sibling-ness is in the smooth slope of our nose and the yellow specks in our hazel eyes. It’s in the gap between our front teeth and the half dimple that shows up in our left cheeks but only when we’re really happy. I like when Tyler stands close enough for me to count these brother clues on his face.

  “She said something about after school, didn’t she?” Tyler demands. Because he’s not the only one who got in trouble at PowerKids yesterday.

  I shrug. “I want to race,” I say.

  It happens with everyone. As soon as I really need to move, people insist on talking to me.

  Tyler grabs my wrist. “Gwendolyn, you have to be good, OK?” His voice is pleading. “You know your mom won’t let you go to horse camp or see me at all if you aren’t good.”

  Something about the desperation in his voice makes Anger wiggle back into his shell.

  I want to tell at Tyler that he knows about the creatures who live inside us. He knows I can’t be good when I’m just plain bad.

  But it doesn’t matter if Tyler is a bad kid. Even if he stomps on people’s feet, we still get to see each other. It’s me that matters. I’m the one who has to be good so that we can be together.

  I do a quick whole body shake to get out the worst wiggles. I manage to slip Anger back into his shell without him cracking my brain.

  “I know. I will,” I say.

  I have to be good. I have to. For Tyler.

  I’m still thinking about everything Tyler said later that day at PowerKids. I’m going to be good today. I just know it.

  At free time Hettie asks if I want to play basketball like we have the past few days. I love playing basketball. But it’s too risky. If I have the ball when free time is over, Anger gets so mad that I have to stop playing, and he might crack my brain. We need something safer today. I ask Hettie if we can do a swing-jumping contest like we used to in fourth grade. At first I’m afraid she’ll say that’s too nerdy or babyish because no one uses the swings here when in elementary school you had to wait hours just to get a short turn. But Hettie never says anything like that. She says swing-jumping is perfect.

  We take turns jumping off the swings for a while, then we start just plain swinging. I love it. Inside my head I’m chanting: No trouble, no trouble, no trouble TODAY.

  The words whoosh in my ears as the swing goes up and down and down and up. Everything is in perfect harmony for once, even me. My brain makes up the song and it falls into rhythm with the pendulum of the swing.

  No trouble. No trouble. No trouble TODAY!

  Up and down. Down and up. Up and down. Down and up.

  I love the way the wind rushes past my face, pushing my newly tightened braids backward as my swing goes down forward. I love how the motion throws my braids up over my shoulders as I start the backward descent.

  I love the weak April sun on my cheeks and the chain of the swing making indents into my palm. I love the feeling of blisters starting to work their way out onto the top of my skin.

  I love the colors that rush past my eyes brighter with each swing. Green of the grass. Blue of the sky. White of the clouds. Yellow of Hettie’s shirt.

  I love Hettie’s legs matching mine pump for pump. I love her voice chatting next to me about something and anything even though I can’t hear the words right now.

  Up and down. Down and up. Up and down. Down and up.

  No trouble, no trouble, no trouble TO—

  “Gwendolyn, NOW!” Ms. Hayley is yelling.

  The words jam their way right into everything, like an ice chip that gets stuck in your straw just when you’re getting to the sweetest sip of lemonade. The colors aren’t as bright. The blisters start to hurt. My thoughts are jumbled.

  Can’t stop. Keep pumping. Keep chanting.

  20. Cannot manage transitions

  Trouble. No, no trouble. Something. Today.

  The rhythm is gone.

  “Gwendolyn! I told you three times already.”

  She’s lying. I don’t even know what she’s trying to tell me. If she told me something three times, I would know what it was by now. Ms. Hayley is standing as close to my swing as she can without getting kicked every time I go forward. She seems like she’s trying to step even closer but she can’t because I don’t stop swinging.

  Right now everything is colors and wind and sun, and if I stop it will all just poof away, and I might poof away with it.

  “NOW, Gwendolyn,” she says again.

  I manage to make my voice work. “Two more minutes,” I say.

  Two minutes means I can slow down. I can let the colors fade back to normal. I can let the wind gradually get weaker on my face. I can turn back into regular Gwendolyn, who doesn’t fly, instead of having my wings ripped off.

  “No,” Ms. Hayley says.

  “I’m supposed to get five more minutes!” I yell.

  If Ms. Madeline were here, that’s what she would do. She always gives me five minutes after telling me to get off the swing or stop whatever else I was doing. She knows that everything needs to change slowly for me, especially if I was just moving quickly. But Ms. Madeline is out sick today and Ms. Hayley doesn’t know anything.

  “I already gave you your five minutes. I told you five minutes almost fifteen minutes ago.”

  And she lies. She never gave me five minutes.

  I feel the white shell behind my rib cage starting to rattle. Anger is waking up. I try to slow the swing but that makes Anger rattle even harder.

  “Now!” she yells.

  I keep pumping because I know if I stop he will definitely wake up and I don’t want him to. I can’t let my brain crack. Not today.

  “Horse camp,” I remind myself.

  “What?” Ms. Hayley says, even though it’s none of her business. “Gwendolyn, get down now.”

  I pump a little slower. “Horse camp,” I whisper. “Just get off the swing. You can do it.”

  “What?” Ms. Hayley says. “If you’re talking to me I can’t hear you.”

  “I’m not talking to you!” I shout. The words fly out of me. Anger throws them.

  “Gwendolyn!” Ms. Hayley screams. If she would just be a little quieter, I could focus. I could do this. “Gwendolyn!” she says, even louder.

  “I’m coming.” I am. I’m coming the way I know how to. I was pumping like

  PUMPpump PUMPpump PUMPpump PUMPpump

  So I start instead like

  PUMP pump PUMP pump PUMP pump PUMP pump

  and next I will do

  pump pump pump pump pump pump pump pump pump

  and then I’ll be ready to go inside. Ms. Madeline knows that. Ms. Hayley should know that too.

  “Your legs are still moving,” Ms. Hayley says.

  Duh.

  “I’m coming!” I yell back.

  “Stop lying to me, Gwendolyn. This is unacceptable.”

  But I’m not lying. She’s the liar.

  Anger rattles his shell harder.

  “Gwendolyn, I said now!” Ms. Hayley screams.

  I pump, but more slowly. “I’m trying,” I say.

  “No you are not!” Her voice is high and desperate. Her face is red. “Get off that swing right
this instant! This is unacceptable! You aren’t listening!”

  Anger breaks through his shell and digs his red pointy head between two of my right ribs and stabs me there so that it hurts and I have to yell.

  “I’m slowing down. Duh! You can’t just stop a swing, stupid.”

  “Excuse me?” Ms. Hayley says.

  Anger’s favorite meal is Other People’s Anger. He’s eating Ms. Hayley’s now. He’s sucking her anger right out of her brain like spaghetti. He’s swelling between my ribs until they start to ache.

  “If you’re not off the swing by the count of three, I’m calling your mother,” Ms. Hayley says.

  Three? No. I can’t be off this swing by three. I’d have to jump. I’d have to let everything go from moving to still.

  I speed up, pumping faster. “No!” I yell.

  “Yes!” she yells. “One.”

  “Stop it!” I scream. “Stop counting.”

  My legs go faster. They’re supposed to be slowing down. Anger sinks into them to make them go as fast as they possibly can.

  “Two.”

  Anger jumps on my stomach.

  “Stop it!” my voice screeches.

  My legs pumppumpPUMP like Anger wants them to.

  “Three!” Ms. Hayley yells.

  Anger uses my stomach like a springboard. He vaults up my throat and lodges his pointy head into my brain.

  Sirens sound inside my skull.

  Then there’s nothing except noise and speed.

  Crack.

  3

  The Millionth New Plan

  Bang.

  I don’t know how long the world was reduced to noise and speed. Anger has been controlling my brain. But now, pain rings through my arm and shoulder, and my body falls limp onto the ground next to the fence that goes around the outside of the schoolyard.

  When my brain cracks, everything changes. Things feel different and look different and sound different. The world is louder up close and silent farther away. Everything around me seems so slow that I have to speed through it or I’ll disappear.

  Also, I feel like someone else. I don’t remember a lot of what happens when my brain is cracked. Later, I’ll sometimes remember part of it, but like it’s a story someone told me a long time ago. Not like it’s my own memory.