Poster Child by Emily Rapp Read Free Book Online Page B

other patients and asking, "How's it going in there? Everyone okay?" He told me that he'd had no mind for prayer that day. "I just kept moving around," he said. "It was the only thing that made any sense."
    Mom tells me, "Dad and I were the only ones left in the waiting room when Dr. Elliot came to get us. We were so happy that you were going to be in a body cast, which sounds strange—to want your child in another body cast—but it was so much better than traction." The hip spica body cast would be on for seven more weeks, scheduled to come off just after Thanksgiving. My legs were separated again by the metal rod and also by metal pins through the femur bone; like anchors, they held everything in place.
    That Halloween, I was Little Red Riding Hood and Mom was Groucho Marx. The rounded edge of the cast stuck out from beneath my red dress, and I wore a black felt boot on my right foot. Our eyes were hidden: mine in a red mask, Mom's in black plastic glasses attached to a false rubber nose. Mom carried me on her hip around the neighborhood, collecting candy. "We were a hit!" she said.
    Before I left the hospital and returned to preschool, Ms. Sharon searched through her supply closet and found an old walker that looked like pipes that had been soldered together. "That thing was impenetrable," Mom tells me. "Like a metal tank. If some kid ran into you, they'd probably regret it." Dad used the bicycle seat from my first makeshift walker and covered it in a new layer of sheepskin so my butt wouldn't get sore from so much sitting.
    The pipe walker, or "the tank," as we called it, was great for protection from other kids who might collide with me during the chaos of preschool, but it was so heavy that I could not move it alone. The teacher or several kids together had to push me around the schoolroom.
    At home, Mom gave me a small, round platform with wheels attached. Lying on my plastered stomach, I pushed myself forward and backward with my hands. I looked like a white plaster beetle with my back legs immobilized and stiff and my hands scurrying like small feet along the ground. I felt mobile once again after the disappointment of not getting the leg and being forced to move around in the tank while wearing another body cast. A few hours of fast forward motion across the kitchen linoleum made the situation feel more bearable.
    The best part of the scooter was being able to play with Andy again, not just indoors but outside, too. After a snowfall, he suggested projects that we could both do at ground level; we built miniature snowmen and shallow forts in the snow. Then one day he dared me to a race—he would crawl, and I would push. We weren't even supposed to be outside without supervision—but we didn't care. It was a beautiful November day. The sunshine was luminous against the white, melting snow, and the wet ground smelled fragrant, almost springlike.
    When Mom thought we were napping, Andy quietly crept outside and I followed on the scooter. We started the race on the long concrete walk that ran the length of our downward-sloping backyard and had just been cleared that morning of fresh snow. In the middle of my descent, I hit a hidden patch of ice and the scooter slid out from underneath me. I skid face first on the concrete, knocking out a tooth. Catapulting into the alley, I bumped one of the pins and landed on my back. The force of the jostled pin hurt so terribly that I threw up on the front of the cast.
    Stunned, I looked up into the branches of the snow-covered trees. Wet snow crystals dropped on my face when the wind shook the branches. Andy was screaming my name, but his voice disappeared into the cold ground. I could taste blood and feel it, fast and wet, filling my mouth. I heard Mom's shouts and hurried steps down the path. I wanted to move, but I could not. Sun moved over the snowy branches, and then the whole sky exploded into a glowing, sparkling white.
    After everything was healed and my tooth was spirited