The Wanderer

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

         The park can sometimes be a fun place to play but it wasn’t that day. The park was boring because they are doing construction on the play ground. Without the swigs and slides there was nothing to do. And when I told this to my mommy she just said to go climb a tree or something. So I took my mom’s advice literally and there I was stuck in a tree.
         I didn’t mind being in the tree though, it’s quiet nice actually. I could see for miles and miles. Well maybe I’m exasperating some, but I can see my mommy on the park bench; I can’t quite tell what books she’s read though. Maybe next time we come I’ll bring a book that I can read in the tree.
         I just changed my mind. I liked being up in the tree a whole lot, more then I did on the swings; who could have guessed that trees are more comfy then swings? I could also look up into the sky, and if I wrapped myself around a branch right, then I felt like I was flying.
         I decided that I liked this position best; the one that I was all wrapped up in the tree looking down.
         “Kristi, it’s time to go, where are you?” my mommy’s voice rang out.
         I thought to myself, darn it, but I would have been mean not to tell Mommy where I was, even if she was the one who told me to go climb the tree, so I yelled “I’m up here Mommy!”
         “Christine! What the. . .? What are you doing up in that tree?”
         Mommy did not sound happy, and when ever she called me Christine that means I’m in trouble. I didn’t want to get in trouble, but well, I’ll just have to tell her the truth, I mean she shouldn’t get mad at me because she was the one that told me to go up there to begin with.
         “You told me to go climb a tree, and I was only following directions.” I replied.
         “I was being sarcastic; I didn’t really want you to climb a tree.”
         “Sarcastic means when someone says something but it means the opposite, right?”
         “Yes, that’s right.”
         By now I was wondering how I was going to get down; suddenly the ground seemed so far away. Besides I had never ever climbed a tree before I wondered if Mommy knew that, because if she had known maybe she wouldn’t have told me to climb a tree, even if she was being sarcastic; but it didn’t matter, I just had to figure out how to get all the way down to the ground. As if my mommy was thinking along the same lines as I was thinking she said:
         “How are you going to get down from there Kristi?” going back to the use of my preferred name.
         “I don’t know Mommy.” I said in my cutest voice.
         “Well, what goes up must come down, so you’ll have to come down somehow.”
         “Not true.”
         “What’s not true, that you’ll have to come down?”
         “No silly, what comes up must come down. Because say a space ship goes into space, now say the space ship broke, then the people couldn’t come back to earth gravity is only on earth and other planets, but not in space so. . .”
         “Well,” said my mom looking like she was trying to figure out my perfect logic “like you said on earth there is gravity, and if there’s gravity what comes up must come down.”
         “Not true,” I said again, being happy to contradict my mommy, again “On some planets like. . . umm. . . Jumper has so much gravity that nothing would go up hardly at all.”
         “One, I’m talking about earth, and two where did you learn all that stuff?”
         “Magic School Bus books” I said simply.
         “Well, that’s not the point, but how are you going to get down from that tree?”
         I did not want my mommy to know that I didn’t know so I said “Watch and learn Mommy.”
         My mom had tried to protest, but before she could say a word I started down the tree. Mommy was so shocked by this she did not say a word.
         I had seen other people, like Josh; climb down a tree before so I decided to copy him. First I slid backwards off the branch I was on, then, slowly, I went down the tree branch by branch. It was easier then I thought it would be, and as I got used to the steady downward motion I went faster and faster until I was flying down the tree. Wham! I had gone down the tree so fast I had slipped, and fell face first in the wet squishy mud. I lifted my head and spit out a mouth full of dirt. Then, losing all of my strength completely I let my head fall with a squish.


         When I opened my eyes again I did not see mud. I see the clean whiteness of a room that smells funny. I really wanted to where this funny place is so I asked.
         “Where am I Mommy?” expecting an answer of course but none came.
         I looked all around the room, and I didn’t see anything in sight. Nothing, except the clean whiteness. I saw a door and a window too, but I still didn’t know where I was. At least until I looked behind me because then I spotted a tube that was going from my arm into a bag, which I immediately recognized as an IV.
         So I knew I was in a hospital of some kind, but I didn’t know wither the IV had a good or ill purpose. What if I really was at an alien hospital and the TV was trying to suck up all my insides. This idea suddenly struck me as realistic although I knew it probably wasn’t possible. I wanted to be back in the mud again, not in the clean white sucking room.
         I then realized that I was lying down; and that I wasn’t wearing my muddy clothes any more, I was wearing a clean white gown. So then I figured that I must be dreaming because the aliens wouldn’t have changed my clothes. I didn’t like the dream one little bit, so now all I had to do was wake up to end this nightmare.
         Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Before all I’ve had to do to wake up from dream is think wake up, but it wasn’t working. Then I decided to do one more test to make sure that I was awake, and that I was in a living nightmare.
         “Ouch!” I cried
         I guessed I really was awake and someone really is sucking out my guts. I guessed before I’d die I’d sing a song, so I started singing Home on the Range.
         Then you would have never guessed what happened. Mommy came into the white room of despair. Following Mommy was someone in a while coat that matched the white room, he blended right in. Then I finally figured out that I was in a normal hospital, not one with aliens.
         Mommy ran right up to me and went started to babble. I didn’t listen to her, I turned to the doctor instead.
         “What happened doctor. . .” I read his name tag “Robert?”
         “You had a very minor concussion.”
         “But I was out so long how could it be really mild?” I protested.
         “You were only out for about a minute, but with relaxants and sedation you fell right to sleep.”
         “Oh, so I only lost about three weeks of brain cells? That’s great, I though that I might have lost years and year of brain cells-so that’s really good!”
         “Where did you learn all that stuff?” asked Robert
         “In a bunch of different places, so, when will I be checked out of the hospital?”
         “Later today.”
         “Okay.”
         And that was that. Mommy and the doctor were talking is soft voices, and I wondered why, because I knew what was going on, maybe even more then Mommy, oh well, they just didn’t understand. I was still really tired though, so I thought that I’d just go to sleep till a nurse woke me up. But when I finally fell asleep I did not dream of happy things.
         I saw things, well actually I didn’t, it was pitch black, but I certainly felt things. It felt like I was blocked off from my body, it was still working, but I didn’t have any control. It was like I was bound within my body. This lasted for forever and then…
         I woke up with a jolt. I was able to control my own body and I was covered in wet stuff. When I looked up it was into the face of a nurse taking my temperature. He smiled when he saw me awake, then he asked me if he could take my vitals. As he started (without me saying anything) I wondered why he asked me in the first place. I was only five so why bother to ask it wasn’t like I could say no or anything. So I thought it was kind of funny, but oh well.
         Then I thought of some thing, it was dark and the doctor said I would leave later that day, but I was alone except for the nurse, and it was night.
         “Did my mother leave sir?” I asked in a slight monotone when he was almost to the door
         “I don’t know,” He replied. “If you call the nurse station maybe they can find out.”
         “Okay, thanks”
         “Do you need help doing that?” he asked not unkindly
         “I can do it myself thanks.” I answered in the same tone
         Then he left, so I decided to call the nurse station. I knew how to do it because I had read books and watched movies about people who had been in the hospital. There’s a little button you push and then you get the nurse stations, easy a pie, well more like cake, because it is easier to make then pie.
         So I called the nurse station and asked them about my mommy. They didn’t know; however I just decided to go to sleep while I waited.
         This time I dreamed of the ring, I knew every little detail of it. Every slight curve, even where one of the wires had come a little out of place, and it could hook on to … whatever. The ring just unearthly rotated in the air.
         This time when I woke up my mommy was right there, next to me.
         “Mommy?” my voice croaked
         “Yes,”
         “What time is it?” I asked with a touch of sleepiness still in my voice
         “6:23” she answered after looking at her watch
         “Oh, then why is it dark? Did I sleep all day? Or is it six in the morning?” I questioned
         “It’s six in the morning, and we can go home when ever you want”
         “Now?” I wanted to get out of this places, it freaked me out
         “If you want,”
         “Okay, let go,” she said getting up to push the call button on the bed, “Could we have some one come down here?” the reply was just a bunch of static to my ears, but Mommy must have understood it because she told me that someone would be down as soon as some one was free.
         A smiling nurse walked in; her name was Jenifer. “Are you ready to get that IV out of your arm?”
         I had forgotten about the IV, as I looked at it, horror when whipping around inside me. There was blood going up the tube that once forced clear liquid in to a vein, feeding me while I couldn’t eat. I stared at it with alarm. “W-why? H-how?” I stuttered
         Jenifer noticing my horror knew what I was trying to say, “That’s completely normal, your body don’t need the IV any more.” She said as she gently took the tape off my hand and pulled out the needle, “All done, you can go home now.”
         “Thanks,” I said looking up into her clear brown eyes
         She looked as though no one had ever truly thanked her before, and it was her turn to stutter “G-good, good bye.” As she turned and left the room
         My mom turned completely unaware of what just took place, “Ready to go home?”
         “Yes, Mommy, but I have one question, where are my clothes?”
         She looked down at me like she hadn’t noticed that I was in a gown, “Your clothes are in the drawer of that little table over there.”
         “The one with the phone?” I asked even though there was no other table in the room, it was the only thing that wasn’t white.
         “Yes,” my mom said distractedly
         I went over to the drawer and just like my mommy had said my clothes were in there along with a book.
         “What’s bible Mommy?”
         She answered with a fierce voice “Why?”
         “Because there’s bible over here, in the drawer, a book that says bible on it.”
         Her voice softened “I’ll tell you some other day.”
         “Okay,” I agree, simply to make things easier
         I didn’t always agree with my mommy but my mommy is a very reasonable person wither or not I like it, and even though I forget this sometimes, I know it to be true. Just like when I tell her I want to go to school. I want to socialize with other children my age because I only have Kori. And though I love Kori very much sometimes I want a friend MY age, not 16. Anyways, I want to go to school, so I can meet someone like me, but my mom says no, she says that the other kids won’t like me, will call me names, laugh at me, or even hurt me. And when I asked her why she said it’s because I’m smart, and she called me prodigy, but why is being smart bad? And then when I asked her why couldn’t I pretend to be dumb or the same smart as them. And she told me never, never pretend to do that not ever in a million year, she told me always be myself, no matter what it means. I don’t quite understand that but I trust my mommy’s judgment and when I’m older I think I’ll be glad I listened to her. Anyways things good for the long run are sometimes the better choice. As a quote I heard once, ‘What is right isn’t easy, and what is easy isn’t right.’
         “Kristi? Anybody home? You’ve been staring at your clothes for quite some time, with out putting them on, or moving. You must have been in Kristi Lee land.” My mom said playfully
         “Mom, stop it, don’t call me Kristi Lee.” I said as I whipped of the hospital’s gown putting it on the bed I had just gotten out of. She laughed as I put on my clothes.
         “By the time we come home can we have waffles with the boys, right?” I asked
         “Why not?”
         “Yay!” I cried, not know what was yet in store
         As we left the room, neither of us looking back, talking unconcernedly about breakfast and the boys, although there was something in my mom’s voice that wasn’t usually there I couldn’t figured it out, it was like a steely note, but different. We continued this in the elevator, going down to the first floor. I pretended not to notice anything, while my mom; well I just didn’t know about her.
         Right as we were about to leave the hospital’s long hall a cart was dragged down it. In it was a body, and the body wasn’t moving. At first I didn’t recognize it, but then I realized that it was Kori. Maybe because she wasn’t moving, or because her once very shiny black hair was sprinkled with frothy, smooth, pink vomit with steams of blood in it. I don’t know, but it was definitely a sickening sight. Doctors started yelling things I didn’t understand. Time seemed to change, slow down, and the only thing I could do was stare at her dumbfounded as my best friend when into a room with glass window that said ICU, which I knew meant Intensive Care Unit.
         My mommy recovered first, steering me away from the sight of the lifeless figure that was my best friend.
         “We’ll check in later, we’ll call right when we get home, okay?” she said in what was a would-be-calm tone.
         Me, still dumfounded didn’t, and couldn’t say anything, but allowed her to steer me away down that hall, out the doors, and into the car.