Chapter 4* - Skinny Girl

Then I broke my arm.  “Hey Shannon, wanna do a double penny drop?” asks Shellie Chandler standing on the packed red dirt by the lime green monkey bars.  We’re in PE, and it’s a free play day.  “What’s that?” I ask.  I’m game for all things playground. And I love doing penny drops. On the lowest of three staggered yellow chin up bars, I have gotten very good at them.  Hang upside down by my knees then swing, swing, swing until I’m high enough to safely flip off and land on my feet.  Susan taught me how.  Her mom lets her take gymnastics.  I’m also learning to do back hip circles thanks to Kara Linton and S.F. Griffith who don’t know my name and just call me Skinny Girl, which I only mind a little.  I walk past the tetherball pole toward the staggered chin up bars. 

“It’s really cool, but come ‘ere,” Shellie says.  “We have to do it on the monkey bars.”  “Oh. Ok,” I reply, “but, how?”  She points up over our heads.  “You hang upside down on this side, and I’ll hang upside down across from you, on that side.  We hold hands, count to three, then we flip off at the same time.”  My eyes light up.  Wow.  This is gonna be cool.  Even better than double-dutch jump roping.  ‘Cause two are always better than one.

The monkey bars are high for a penny drop.  I can cross them easily, but this seems a little riskier.  If Shellie can do it, I can, I think to myself.  I’m as good as anyone at penny drops.  “Alright,” I say as we both climb up on top of the bars and crawl on our knees to the middle.  I’m nervous.  And excited.  Carefully, I wrap my ankles under the hot metal bars all pro-like and lean back until I’m completely upside down. 

“Grab my hands,” says Shellie who is upside down in the same position on the opposite side.  I crane my neck back to look for her hands, and we get situated.  It’s a good thing my hair is in braids, or I wouldn’t be able to see her.  “Ok, are your feet ready?” Shellie asks.  They aren’t.  I unwind them from the bars and put them unhinged on top.  Whoa.  I hope this works.  I hope we don’t knock heads.  “Now we gotta swing toward each other, but not too much, for three counts.  We’ll go one, two, three, and then flip off.  Got it?  Like this.”  She gently pulls my arms back and forth to demonstrate.  “Yeah.”  Is anybody gonna to see this?   I sure hope so. 

Out the corner of my eye, I see a few girls watching us.  One, swing, two, swing, three, swing flip.  Suddenly I’m at the point of no return.  Off fly my legs, and I look up.  Our heads come within inches of each other, and it scares me.  Clomp.  Dust cloud.  Feet on the ground.  Both of us.  Standing up.  Huge smiles overtake our faces, and I look at the girls around us.  Tada!  “That was so cool,” says Julie Williamson, “I thought you were gonna kill yourself.”  “Me, too,” I say.  I feel like a circus performer, in a good way.  I can’t wait to do it again.  We start to climb back up, but the bell rings, so we scamper back down and run to line up.

“I’ve got some stuff to finish up, so why don’t y’all go play on the playground,” says Aunt Lesia after school.  I’m riding home with her.  Natalie and I are fine with that.  I’m thinking about the double penny drop.  I tell Natalie what one is and about how great it was.  “Wanna do it with me?” I ask.  She’s hesitant.  “Aren’t you afraid you’ll fall?” she asks,  “it sounds kinda dangerous.”  “No,” I say.  “It’s really easy.  Just like a regular penny drop.”  Natalie can do regular penny drops.  I fail to mention how scared I was or that Shellie and I almost cracked skulls.  No need to worry her, and I really want her to try it with me.  “I don’t think so,” she says apologetically.  “Maybe we can play King of the Hill.”  We both like that game.    I look toward the half-buried tire where we play it at the other end of the playground. 

The playground looks sparse.  Almost everyone has gone home.  But there’s a girl in my class named Tallie milling around by the monkey bars.  She looks bored.  Perfect.  “Hey Tallie!” I say walking up to her.  “He-ey,” she replies lackadaisically.  “Wanna do a double penny drop with me?” I ask brightly.  “Yeah, you should do it,” says Natalie relieved that I am not begging her.  “Sure.  Is it hard?” she asks.  “No, it’s fun,” I say, “come on.” 

As I explain what we’re gonna do, she looks calm and confident.  We smile at each other and climb on top of the bars just like before.  She wraps her brown lace up shoes under the bars, and I wedge my tennies in good.  “Here goes nothin’,” I say as I lean back and swing upside down.  Tracey follows my lead and carefully leans back, too.  “Here.  Take my hands,” I tell her.  All I can see is her thick brown hair in a bushy ponytail.  She finds my hands blindly, and I start to count and swing.  One.  Two.  Three.  Just as I get past the point of no return this time, something feels wrong.  Our hands come apart, one then the other.  I’m thrown off and fly off the bars sideways.  Everything’s a blur of flailing arms and material until I land hard on my arm in the dirt.  “Ow!!”  What in the world?  “Why’d you let go?” I yell as tears threaten to roll over my eyelids. 

My arm really hurts.  Tallie is still on the top of the monkey bars, sitting up, and I’m mad at her.  “My skirt came up,” she says apologetically.  She let go because her cotton white underwear was exposed in broad daylight.  For a second I feel bad for her.  “But you shouldn’t have let go,” I tell her.  “Are you ok?” she asks.  “My arm really hurts,” I tell her.  “I’ll go get my mom,” says Natalie who is not only my cousin but also my best friend in the world.  I try to move then lie back down on the cracked dirt.  Why didn’t she think of that before we did the penny drop?  I wonder as angry tears streak down my face. 

“Hey, let’s see.  I think we need to take you to the nurse,” Lesia says.  Cradling my arm, we walk across the parking lot and through the front door to the office.  “Let’s splint it up with a ruler,” the nurse says after taking a good look.  “A what?” I ask, because I have no idea what she’s talking about.  “In case it’s broken,” she explains as she calmly takes out an Ace bandage and wraps it around my arm with a cold wooden ruler that has a shiny metal edge.  The ruler is much sturdier than my blue plastic one.  After that, she puts my arm in a sling.  “I’ll take her to the emergency room,” Lesia says.  More tears well up.  Then I think of the cast.  I’ve always wanted a cast.  Doesn’t everyone?  This might not be so bad after all.  Lesia calls my mom who meets us at the emergency room with love in her eyes.  “Hey Sweetie,” she says as she comes through the fancy electric glass doors, “you’re gonna be ok.”  “I know,” I say weakly.  I’m feeling a little queasy about bein’ at the hospital. 

In the exam room, I lose it.  The nurse comes toward me with a very large looking needle, and I burst into tears.  “I don’t wanna shot,” I wail, my face red with anger.  She laughs and says, “Oh honey, this is just a thermometer.  I’m just gonna ease it here up under your arm and take your temperature.”  Embarrassed, I laugh too as a wave of relief floods my body.  The actual shot comes later and doesn’t hurt.  Much.   

When the doctor comes in, he takes my hand and clamps my fingertips into shiny metal cages so my arm can dangle to be casted.  Those are really cool.  And that stuff smells good.  It’s plaster.  I’ve wrapped my arm in toilet paper caked with baby powder countless times trying to simulate this very moment.   It’s even better than I imagined.  Around my forearm and up my elbow goes soft wispy cotton then plaster.  We look at the X-rays, and all I catch is Greenstick Fracture, which sounds pretty great.  “Six weeks,” says the doctor, “then she can probably get it off.”  That sounds like a long time, but I quickly start thinking about what markers I have that I can take to school tomorrow and who I want to do the signing.  Susan, Christy, Patrick, Julie, Stephen. Everybody. I want everybody in my class to sign it. I want it to be covered with names in lots of pretty colors. 

“Tell Aunt Lesia thank you,” Mom says.  “Thanks,” I say and wave bye to her and Natalie as we head to our car.  No scolding on the double penny drop.  Just sympathy and love.  “Kids fall down and break their arms all the time,” Mom volunteers as we walk, “it’s just part of being a kid.”  At home in the kitchen, she hands me a baby aspirin and opens the cabinet to get me a cup of water.  I put the aspirin on the top of my tongue and feel it start to dissolve.  Then I chew it up slowly, before I swallow it, because it is absolutely delicious. 

 “What happened to Tallie Brown?”  I ask pulling out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the smelly lunchroom a few days later.  It’s chicken and dumpling day, and it stinks.  “She left the school,” says Christy Freeman who is in the know.  “Why?” My eyes grow wider.  Did she leave because I yelled at her for breakin’ my arm?  Is it my fault she left?  Was I really mean to her?  Christy replies. “Nobody knows.  She just up and left.  I think something was wrong.  She seemed upset.”  I didn’t mean to yell at her.  I know it wasn’t really her fault.  Her skirt came up.  I take a bite of my sandwich and slump down in my chair wondering what I have done. 

When Tallie reappears in high school, I am tempted to ask her about it, but I don’t.  I hope she’s forgotten all about it, and if she hasn’t I really don’t wanna bring it up. 

*i can barely remember where i put my keys, so this is a work of pure fiction that just happens to based on a true story.