Lizzie! by Maxine Kumin Read Free Book Online Page B

does indicted mean? And what’s a nexus ?”
    â€œWhen in doubt look it up,” Josh said. So we did.
    I also looked up ostensibly without telling him because I wasn’t sure. Three new words in an afternoon—not bad.
    We got off Google then because we could hear my mom coming back. I didn’t have to ask Josh to keep my secret. He got the picture.
    â€œCan Josh stay for supper?” I asked her. She said sure, if he phoned his mother and she okayed it.
    We talked about a lot of things during supper—spaghetti and meatballs, which Josh said was his favorite meal—stuff we might never have gotten to if we hadn’t been sitting across from each other at our kitchen table, not the hideously noisy cafeteria at Graver. We said a lot more about where we were with our bum legs. Josh can walk. Sort of, as he put it. He uses his chair at school because he doesn’t want to have the whole student body watch him gimp-and-gallump from place to place. I knew just what he meant. I can sort of walk too, though with me it’s more like clip-clop-flop . It’s humiliating to do it on two quad canes in front of a whole cast of normals, and my legs are only good for four or five steps, like from chair to couch. And don’t tell me to exercise. Believe me, you people reading this don’t know Day One about exercise. I’ve done at least a million push-pulls. I’ve stepped a million steps between the parallel bars.
    Mom would say, “Lizzie, I’ve told you a million times not to exaggerate.” And then we’d both laugh.
    Mom came up with ice cream and brownies from somewhere for dessert—she is just a magician when it comes to putting a supper together out of odds and ends. Then she left us and went out on the porch to read one of her academic journals. We kept on talking.
    Josh’s favorite subject is history but he’s like me, he’ll read anything.
    â€œThe back of a box of cereal, ads for life insurance, whatever,” he said.
    He says he averages about three books a week, pretty much like me. He reads a lot about the civil rights movement. I’m more into Jane Goodall and saving the habitat for animals. I already told you that he does the Sudoku and Jumble puzzles every day, which made it clear to me that we were meant for each other. For fast friends, I mean. I wasn’t thinking anything, you know, sexy. And he has an older brother Greg, who’s a senior at Graver, but I haven’t met him so far. Turns out he’s been in Italy for three weeks with his Advanced Latin class. Is that ever boss? The sweet thing is that he has his own car. Josh says it’s a real junker but it runs and sometimes he can get Greg to drive him places but then he has to go on his canes.
    Then we got to talking about our “conditions.” That’s Josh-talk for what the doctors say when you have to go for a checkup, as in “given your condition” . . . and he asked me what I remembered about hitting my head. “I remember racing out onto the board and slipping and thinking, uh-oh, something bad is about to happen. But I swear I have perfect amnesia for the rest. You read about characters in books having perfect amnesia and then I had it and it was true. I didn’t remember anything until I woke up in the hospital around midnight that night.”
    â€œWow. So you were unconscious for what—about twelve hours?”
    â€œSomething like that. Everything was hushed with no overhead lights on and I didn’t know where I was. I just knew I had this horrible headache. It was so scary because I was connected to all these . . . apparatuses dripping stuff into me and measuring my heartbeat and pulse and beeping. I was so confused. I knew I wasn’t dead because the machine was beeping but I think I must have cried out because then my mom woke up—she had been dozing in a chair next to my bed. My head hurt so bad it was