style="font-size:15px;"> It’s really about the fact that I’m flying around and I don’t know how to stop. That’s really what’s going on here.
When I am firmly on the ground again, Jez and I leave the washroom and go back to the principal’s office. We have to sign ourselves back into our next class, which is math. As we are getting our late slips, Mrs. Abernathy comes out of her office and calls to us. We walk over to her and she says, “Gwendolyn, Jez, I hear there was some excitement in gym class.”
That’s what she always calls trouble, “excitement.” We both look at her. If only she knew how truly exciting it was, or could have been if I’d broken free of Jez’s vice grip and floated to the ceiling of the gym in front of everyone.
I have a sudden image of myself bobbing against the light fixtures, way up on the gym ceiling, with all the kids down below me, laughing and pointing. The custodians would have to get the big outdoor ladder, the one they use to get soccer balls off the roof, to try to get me down. Maybe that wouldn’t be big enough, though, and they’d have to get the lifesaving extendable hooks from the pool to try to grapple me back down.
I suddenly imagine the school custodian and his assistant lassoing my arms and legs with ropes. They’d say useful things like, “Easy with her now, don’t let her head bounce too much.” Or, “Watch her legs don’t hit the window, we don’t want to break it.” And other helpful things like that.
And maybe even that wouldn’t work, and they’d finally have to call the fire department, like when a cat gets stuck in a tree. I suddenly imagine firemen in their suits with masks on, breathing loudly like Darth Vader and edging slowly toward me on their special electric ladder, gloves out, ready to pluck me from my perch.
It’s a funny image. It’s so funny that unfortunately I start to giggle. Mrs. Abernathy is kind, though, and has a motherly look on her face.
“It’s not terribly funny, Gwendolyn. If you need to leave the classroom again, please ask permission before running from the room. You may both get changed and go back to class now.”
Oh, I think it’s funny. It’s hilarious.
I’m going to grow up to be a Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon.
FOURTEEN
I make it through the rest of the day without so much as a hover. I decide it’s good that someone else knows what’s happening to me. Knowing that Jez knows really helps. She can be my anchor. If I start taking off, she can pull me back to the ground.
I make it through the rest of the day without so much as a hover. I decide it’s good that someone else knows what’s happening to me. Knowing that Jez knows really helps. She can be my anchor. If I start taking off, she can pull me back to the ground.
It’s kind of like that, anyway. She’s always the sensible one. Like I said, she’s the motherly type, making sure everyone has a sweater and a snack on school trips. Or putting us all to sleep with night-night songs at sleepovers when we were little. Or being the one to call home if one of us is sick or hurt or worried.
I can definitely count on Jez. It makes whatever is happening to me just a little easier to handle.
After school, Jez and I wander along our main street. She doesn’t seem to want to talk much; besides, the Chrissies are with us. I have to walk them home and make their dinner on Fridays, since Mom works late. Mom always gives me a little extra money so I can buy us all a treat (Jez included) on Fridays. We head to The Float Boat, which is the name of the candy store in our town. They make ice cream floats in glasses shaped like boats. Which I guess explains the name.
It’s a great place, and you get hit with a sugar smell as soon as you walk in, like every single candy that was ever in there left a little bit of itself behind. Just to tempt you and remind you how delicious it was.
As I stand in front of the store, I get this weird feeling. Float Boat. That’s me. I’m a float boat. That’s me exactly. Except I’m hardly candy-filled and delicious. I decide then and there that I will think of myself as the “float boat” from now on. It makes me smile.
We walk in. The Chrissies run to the jars filled with jelly beans, like they always do. They never vary much, those two.
There is a whole wall filled with jars of different
flavoured jelly beans. Mandarin, lemon, licorice, mint, chocolate, watermelon, vanilla, all the standard flavours. Then all the weird ones that don’t associate with any flavour exactly, like midnight sky and winter dream.
What does a “midnight sky” jelly bean taste like, I wonder? But I’ve never been curious enough to try one. I don’t really like jelly beans. I’m more of a chocolate kind of person.
My brother and sister do, though. Every week, the C2s get their jelly bean fix. Christine is very thoroughly going from jar to jar every Friday. Even if the next jar, the jar of the week, is some terrible jelly bean flavour like liverwurst or green pepper (if those exist), she has to take a bag.
Christopher is exactly the opposite. He either picks the same jelly beans every week (he went for an entire year just eating lemon-lime, for instance) or he closes his eyes and points. Whatever jar he points at, he has to try. These days he just grabs different flavours and mixes them up in the same bag (which is fine, since they are all the same price).
This drives his twin sister crazy. She is Miss Jar-a-Week Organized. He is Mr. Any-Jar-Will-Do Random. They are an interesting combination, those two.
As they pick their jelly beans, Jez and I walk up to the counter. Mrs. Forest is standing there with her huge glistening arms and her striped red apron. She is about the biggest lady I’ve ever seen.
I should tell you a little about Mr. and Mrs. Forest. They own The Float Boat. They are great to us kids. They always remember your birthday and give you extra ice cream if you’re in the store that day. Or somehow they know when you aren’t having a great day, and they sneak you a little treat you weren’t expecting, like your favourite gum drop or something. For me, it’s always a Hershey’s Kiss.
They don’t have any kids of their own, which I think makes them sad. But they sure see enough of everyone else’s kids, so it isn’t like they don’t get to be around any, or anything. I guess if you love kids but can’t have any of your own, opening up a candy shop makes a lot of sense.
The kids come to you by the boatload. The floatload.
“Hi, Mrs. Forest,” I say. Jez wanders over to the gum balls, daintily picking out a small bag of cinnamon-flavoured ones.
“Hello, Gwennie. Are you ready for a float?” Mrs. Forest says. Then I swear she winks at me.
Now, in a store called The Float Boat, you’d think that’s not such an unusual question. It probably wouldn’t be for any other kid, any kid other than me.
See, the thing is, I hate floats. I always have. I’ve hated them since the first time I spat one out all over the counter in front of Mr. and Mrs. Forest. I was about four years old, and my dad took me in there and made me try one. And it was hate at first taste. I decided then and there that ice cream and soda had no right to be together in the same glass.
For many years after that, Mrs. Forest would wink at me whenever I was with a bunch of kids and everyone was ordering floats. She’d look over at
