What Happened to Ivy (2 page)

“Um…I have to take Ivy with me.”

“So?”

Chapter 2

Hannah knows what Ivy looks like – her twisted arms and legs, her slightly too-big head, her eyes that sometimes cross, her saggy mouth – and she still wants to come. She’s heard Ivy’s grunting and shrieking at my place, too. But…

“Hannah, Ivy can be a real pain in the butt. Out in public especially. You know?”

“Come on, David. I like Ivy. Go get her.”

I should just say, ‘Forget it.’ I know I should. But she actually wants to spend more time with
me.
So I can’t.

Back home, my sister waves her hands and shouts, “Ga-beg!” – as close to my name as she’s ever got. When she’s this happy to see me, it’s hard not to be sucked in.

I lean down so she can wrap her rubbery arms around my neck and plant a slobbery kiss on my cheek. I rummage through the box by the door and call to anyone who might be listening, “Where’s Ivy’s sunhat?”

Dad steps out of his study into the hall. “Don’t worry about it, David.”

“She needs it,” I argue. “It’s hot out.”

“You won’t be outside for all that long. Just go.”

“The mall’s not exactly next door.”

Dad sighs and goes back into his study.

I hate arguing, but at least I’m not invisible when we’re arguing. I actually tried once to get into an argument with Dad on purpose. Knowing how he felt about the death penalty, I said I thought there were some situations when it should apply. He just shrugged and said, “Could be,” like I wasn’t even worth arguing with.

I find the missing sunhat on the coffee table under one of Mom’s old gardening magazines. I’m tying the ribbons under Ivy’s chin when she starts to shriek. I’ve tied them too tight and pinched her neck.

Oh well. It’s not like she can report me.

I loosen the ribbons, wipe Ivy’s drool off my hand onto my shorts, and wheel her down the ramp along the front of our house.

Hannah, coming down her driveway, has changed into white shorts that really show off her tan and she’s tied her hair up. Is it weird to be so taken by
shoulders
?

Ivy pats her head. “I ha?”

Hannah looks to me. “What did she say?”

It’s cool that she cares enough to ask. Most people would just say ‘That’s nice’ or pretend they haven’t noticed she’s spoken.

Ivy growls and yells, “I ha! I
ha!!
”

“She wants to know if you like her hat.”

“I do!” Hannah answers. “I
do
like your hat!”

After walking a couple of blocks past an empty playground, Hannah says, “The mall’s a long way to go for a prescription.”

“Yeah, but the drugstore there is cheaper for some reason.”

“It was really nice of your parents to invite me to your cottage so I don’t have to go on that yoga retreat with my mom.”

“They did?”

“They didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“Would you rather I didn’t come?”

“No! It’s fine. I mean, I’m glad you can come.” Bright sun reflects off the cars passing by on the busy street we turn onto. “You know, I never imagined that when Will, the old guy who used to live in your house, had to go into a seniors’ home, that it would be someone like you who’d move in there.”

“Someone like me?”

“Yeah. Someone who doesn’t mind, you know, hanging out with me.”

“Why would I mind? Are you a creep?”

“No. Just a geek.”

Hannah laughs.

“You know what’s funny? Whenever I went to visit Will, my parents thought it was nice of
me
to be keeping
him
company. They had no clue it worked both ways.” We turn the corner past a church and a couple of banks. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re coming to the cottage with us. Things have been a bit grim at our place lately.”

“Oh?”

“Ivy’s having another operation soon. My parents are kind of freaked about it.”

“What’s it for?”

“It’s supposed to help with the seizures she’s been having, but it also has something to do with the curve of her spine. That’s been getting worse lately, and…” I stop. My sister starting to need diapers in the daytime again could be a bit of a gross-out. Not to mention embarrassing for Ivy. “Well, other stuff the doctors hope they can get her back on track with, too.”

Stopping at a traffic light, Hannah says, “
Another
operation, you said? You make it sound like surgery’s a regular deal.”

“Regular enough.”

On the other side of the wide intersection, three dog-walkers have stopped to chat. As we cross the street, Ivy shouts, “Dod bye!”

Again Hannah looks at me.

“Dog party. Like in
Go, Dog! Go!
It’s Ivy’s favorite book. She’s crazy about dogs.”

“She needs to meet my dog.”

“Yeah, she’d like Shamus for sure.”

About a block from the mall, three guys from school zoom past us on skateboards. One of them yells, “Hey, nice shorts, David.”

Hannah glances down at what I’m wearing. I feel my bare knees blush nine shades of red. So I have no clue the right way to dress. But now that I think of it, I realize I’ve only ever seen the kind of shorts I’m wearing in gym class, which – as scrawny and klutzy as I am – I find as many excuses as I can to get out of.

Another guy says, “How’s it going with your list of Greek words in alphabetical order?” Back in June he’d looked over my shoulder in the cafeteria when I was writing in my garden notebook.

So Hannah won’t think I’m a total idiot, I tell him again, “It’s not Greek. It’s Latin plant names sorted by flower color and the seasons they bloom in. And I’ve never listed them alphabetically,” I add. “What would be the point?”

It shouldn’t be me who ends up sounding like a moron here, but of course that’s how it goes.

“I don’t know, David. You tell me. What would be the point?”

The third guy, checking out Hannah, says, “Nice girlfriend.”

“We’re just friends,” I say. Are we even that?

“Oh right,
this
one’s your girlfriend.” The guy nods at Ivy, drooling and crossing her eyes. “The one with the pretty eyes.”

“Bi-yee yies,” Ivy says.

Another guy laughs. My hand clenches into a fist. Not that I could ever use it, but I wouldn’t mind looking good to Hannah, standing up for my sister.

But beside me, Hannah giggles.

I give Ivy’s wheelchair a firm shove forward – away from Hannah and down a curb. The wheels thunk down hard. “Damn you, Ivy,” I mutter as we cross the parking lot toward the mall entrance. “I might have had a chance with Hannah if it weren’t for you.”

If a delivery truck were to come zipping along right now, I would gladly shove Ivy in front of it.

“David!” Hannah calls, scurrying to catch up. “I’m sorry. I just…I don’t know…”

“Whatever.” I’ve laughed along at wisecracks myself, stupidly hoping it would make me seem like less of a loser.
That kid’s like a bad car wreck. Yeah, you know you shouldn’t look but you can’t help it. Haha-haha-ha.
“It’s alright.” And it is. Dad tells Ivy she’s pretty all the time. She probably thought that guy back there was doing the same.

I give the automatic door opener a bash. With Hannah beside me, I push my sister inside where it’s ten degrees cooler.

Chapter 3

On benches around the fountain, people escaping the heat are eating ice cream cones and slurping slushies. In front of a store having a big sale, Hannah spots a yellow top she likes.

“Why don’t you go ahead to the drugstore while I try it on,” she says, “and I’ll catch up with you there?”

“It’s okay. We can wait for you.”

Careful not to block an aisle with Ivy’s wheelchair, I stand off to the side of the entrance to the change rooms. While we’re waiting, Ivy starts digging a finger up her nose. “Ivy, don’t.” I pull her hand away from her face. She growls at me and I can tell she’s winding up to object big time if I try to stop her again. So the next time her finger disappears up her nose, I ignore it.

A minute later, “Yook!” A big, wet booger dangles from Ivy’s finger.

I reach into my pocket for a Kleenex, but the woman handing out the numbered cards to customers who want a dressing room is on us.

“Don’t you think your sister might be more comfortable over here?” She gestures to a corner out of sight of shoppers, where empty cartons have been tossed among the garbage bins.

If there’s one thing I hate more than having Ivy make a fuss in public, it’s having people act like a brain-damaged kid with cerebral palsy is less than human somehow.

I stare at her. “We’re fine where we are. Thanks.”

Hannah comes out of the change room, in the new top. “I think it might be too small,” she says. “Do you think?”

It does this thing with her breasts that’s different from any of the tops I’ve seen her in before. I feel my face go sixteen shades of red. “Um…” I use Ivy’s wheelchair to hide the way the rest of me is reacting. “Yeah, maybe.”

She goes back into the change room and when she comes out again, it’s like those breasts have practically disappeared. She must wear one of those things girl runners wear – I’ve seen her jogging off down the street a few times. But I guess you don’t wear one with a top like she just tried on. It’s amazing what she can hide in that running bra thing. Seriously.

Since it’s tough maneuvering the wheelchair in the narrow aisles of the drugstore, Hannah agrees to wait with Ivy on a bench nearby while I go in for the prescription. Waiting in line to pay, I can see her out in the mall, wiping drool from Ivy’s chin. Then, saying something to Ivy that I can’t hear, she circles my sister’s face with her finger, then points to Ivy’s eyes, her nose, and strokes her smiling lips. Could having a mom who works in pediatrics somehow make you immune to stuff like drool?

“Ga-beg!” My sister waves her hands excitedly when she sees me.

I ask Hannah, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine. I was just teaching Ivy this rhyming thing I saw my mom do with one of her patients once. I think Ivy liked it.”

Wow. This mall trip is working out way better than I thought it would.

Passing the fountain again on the way out, Ivy says, “Wah! Wah!”

“That was her first word,” I tell Hannah. “Water.”

“That’s neat.” Hannah smiles.

I turn Ivy so she can watch the water gush and tumble into the pool below the fountain. Right away, staring intently at the trickling streams and splashing droplets, she goes quiet. She better not have a seizure here. I mean, I’d know what to do and everything, but…

Hannah leans close to Ivy and says, “You like this fountain, don’t you.”

Ivy’s head rolls to her shoulder. “Ngo waybo.”

“No way? I thought you did.”

More loudly, Ivy repeats, “Ngo
waybo!
”

Several people on the benches around the fountain turn their heads to see who’s shouting, even the ones who’ve been trying to pretend they didn’t notice her before. “Ivy, shh. Never mind.” I have no clue what she’s trying to say.

Loud enough for shoppers in stores halfway down the mall to hear, Ivy yells, “Ngo
waybo! Ngo waybo!!
”

If I could walk out right now and pretend I don’t know the weird-looking kid bellowing at the top of her lungs, I would. As I grab the handles of her wheelchair to steer her out of there, Hannah calmly puts a hand on the back of my sister’s head. “Ivy, are you saying, ‘No rainbow’?”

Just like that, Ivy shuts up. Her grin fills half her face and she flaps her hands excitedly.

“Hannah, you’re brilliant.”

“What’s it mean, though? No rainbow?”

“It means she noticed there aren’t rainbows in the fountain water like there are in the sprinkler water at home.”

Hannah couldn’t look more impressed if Ivy was her own sister.

But she’s my sister and sometimes, at times like this, that’s okay.

Chapter 4

A wall of heat hits us when we leave the mall, but the sun has disappeared, thankfully, behind a cloud.

Back on our street, I watch Hannah head up her driveway. She turns and waves. Again I think of the breasts hidden somewhere under her shirt.

“Hey,” she calls.

For a sec I think she’s caught me checking her out.

“Does Ivy want to meet Shamus now?”

“Sure.”

When Hannah opens the door, the dog bounds outside and runs circles around the front lawn. Ivy laughs.

“Want to see him do some tricks?” Hannah asks her.

Ivy waves her hands excitedly.