Chapter 3
The next day Lily found herself in a dreary waiting room. Today was the day Dr. Wong would either make the rest of her day the best day ever, or ruin it entirely. If she was doomed to this cast any longer, she firmly believed she would go insane and that her aunt would ship her off to an asylum for the rest of her cast ridden days. This was not a favorable option. As Lily was mulling over her brutal cast situation, she came across an article called, “NDE Gifts: Psychic or Psycho?” Anything with the word psycho in it had to be somewhat interesting, right? She didn’t get far before the matronly nurse called her name.
“Lillian Harrison? Please follow me to room five.”
The door had hardly swung shut behind her when it opened again. This time a short man with wire frame glasses poked his head in. Dr. Wong was always very friendly, and very prompt.
“That was quick”, Aunt Jenny commented.
“You are most important patient today,” Dr. Wong responded with a strong Asian accent.
Jenny raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Lily figured that he must say that to all his patients, but it seemed to her that he actually meant it.
***
Later that afternoon, Lily sat in her wheelchair on the backyard porch. She listened as the wind picked up the tune of the silvery wind chimes from next door. She was a little discouraged when Dr. Wong had said she would need to remain in the cast another week, but on the other hand, she would only be in the cast another week! Throw in a little physical therapy and she would be twirling on the dance floor for homecoming! Thinking she was alone, she did a little happy chair dance at the very thought of being free again. Then she heard a snap. She twisted her head around as far as it would go, but she saw nothing but the weeping willow swaying in the cooling breeze. She thought she might have seen movement behind the worn wooden fence, but it was hard to tell.
“Hello?”
No one answered. It must have been a stray dog. She held still and listened for another minute before deciding to go indoors. Inside the house, Ruthie and Jackson were playing their favorite card game, Spludge. Jackson had invented it for a school project and it had turned into a regular family game option. It was a mix of a couple different card games. At the end of the game the winner was entitled to “spludge” the losers with chocolate pudding. It was a messy game that had been quarantined to the back yard. However, her two cousins were taking their chances on the kitchen floor.
“You better have this kitchen spotless by the time your mom gets home from work,” Lily said as sternly as she could muster.
“We will,” said Ruthie, “we aren’t four, you know!”
Ruthie was only seven, but she may as well have been thirteen. That attitude was sure going to cause Aunt Jenny a barrel full of grief.
“Oh, and you need to be clean too,” added Lily.
“We know, Lily,” Jackson mumbled.
Lily was pretty sure they did know. They were very responsible for their age, but it seemed they sometimes forgot things when they were having fun. Lily wheeled herself into the living room. On her way to her bedroom, a picture on the wall caught her eye. It was her mom with her sisters, Jenny and Candice. They were all teenagers sitting on the porch of a white Victorian house. Flowers clung around the porch railings and down to the ground where they curved and grew around the base of the house. You could tell it was summertime because each girl had that summer “glow”, AKA sweat. They each had rounded scoops of ice cream in delicate glass dishes. Off to the left was an old woman who looked on at them in the most loving way imaginable. Her thin lips curved into a pleasant smile. This was her great grandmother. Lily had never met her, but she had heard many lovely stories about her life. She looked back at her mother’s girlish figure. It had been almost two weeks since the dream. She had nearly forgotten it. Lily wished so much that her mother were still with her. She wished that every day, even though she knew it wasn’t possible. The only place she would see her mother was in her dreams. As the tears began to fall she could almost hear what her mother would say if she were right there with her. “Oh, honey, don’t cry! I am right here, and everything is going to be okay”. But everything wasn’t okay, and Lily wondered if she would ever really be “okay”. She quickly wiped her tears from her stained cheeks when she heard her aunt pull into the driveway. If Jenny heard so much as a sniffle, her own water works would turn on to full blast and she would be crying and moody the rest of the evening.
Lily hurried off to her room to finish what little homework she had. Lily had finished most of it with Malaya during lunch. They didn’t have anything else to do. Their lunches had disappeared, and they didn’t have extra money with them to buy it from the cafeteria. Slade had struck once again. He somehow rigged half the lockers in the north hall so they wouldn’t shut. Most students didn’t want to carry around all their textbooks, sack lunches and other personal items so most just chose to leave their belongings unsecure. There were only four lunches stolen, but other items went missing too. A watch, several homework assignments and English papers, a snow globe of the statue of liberty, and a magnetic mirror. Supposedly there wasn’t enough evidence to convict Dean, Slade or any of their buddies, but everyone knows they did it. Who else would? While the lockers were being repaired, they were given temporary lockers in the west hall. Of course they had to be in the same hall as “Dean’s gang”. Now they were far more at risk of being tormented by the vandal himself. Lily was hoping he would take pity on a poor orphan in a wheel chair. Malaya didn’t think it would matter if they were Mother Teresa, he would still find something to ridicule or make a joke about. Was it even possible for him to resist the slightest teasing or jest? She would soon find out.