Ruby Flips for Attention Read online

  Ty was right. Marcellus, or, as he’s called, “Big-Time,” is good at almost everything: school, drumming, music, basketball, spelling big words, you name it. He’s even an awesome flipper, too. And he never lets me down.

  “Will you? I mean, thanks, Marcellus. I knew you would help me, and that’s great!” I said, really fast and excited. Marcellus is a seventh-grader at our school. Everybody looks up to him, even some eighth-graders.

  “Okay, okay, calm down. I just hate to see you all bummed out. You think I’d pass up a chance to help out my little sis flip and fly in the air? If you want to learn the right way, I’m the kid to see, right?” Marcellus had a big grin on his face.

  “You’re the kid!” I answered.

  “Everybody should call me Do-It-All, because there’s nothing I can’t do.” Marcellus went on and on talking so big about himself. Typical Marcellus, but I love him. “I mean, I’ve never taught anyone how to flip before, but I figure that since I’m good at it, I should be able to teach it.”

  We shook hands like Daddy does when he greets people at The Booker Box. I guess this time I was kind of like the customer for Marcellus. I just hoped I’d get what I’d bargained for.

  Marcellus and I headed down to the basement. I even brought my pet, Lady Love. I’m probably the only eight-year-old girl in the world with a pet iguana. She sat on an old foot cushion and watched my first flip lesson.

  I couldn’t believe that Marcellus “Big-Time” Booker was helping me. He even cleared out all of the boxes, Ty’s good-grade trophies, and a lot of other brainy cool stuff so that we’d have enough space. Carefully, he slid his drums to the side. If he even scratched a drumstick, he would just lose his mind. He then rolled up the long carpet to get it out of the way.

  “I’ve seen this a million times on TV, ladybug. Trust me. You’re going to do just fine. But you’ve got to listen to everything I tell you so that you don’t get hurt,” Marcellus said, sounding just like Coach Tuma, our gym teacher at school.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said, rushing him. “So when do we get to the super-double flips and stuff?” I asked Marcellus. I couldn’t wait to get my “Kee-Kee” on.

  “First we have to warm up and stretch, ladybug. You can’t just get to it. Then we’ll try a couple of cartwheels,” Marcellus said as he held both of my hands. “Hey, Kee-Kee was once little just like you. She had to start somewhere. One step at a time, baby sis, and I know that you can be just as good as Kee-Kee.”

  I looked him up and down like he was crazy and said, “Cartwheels? That’s baby stuff, Marcellus.”

  “Come on, girl. Do you want me to help you or not? If you just listen to me, you’ll be doing flips within a month or so. I just know it.” Marcellus tried to treat me like a real little kid, but I wasn’t hearing it. I didn’t have time to waste.

  “Whatever you say, Marcellus,” I told him, but I wasn’t really listening. I was going to do my own thing. I just needed him to get me started, that was all.

  “Look, if you don’t want me to coach you, that’s cool. I guess you’re comfortable just being a fan of the number one drill team in Wallace Park. I’ll go back to what I was doing,” Marcellus said before he started to walk back up the stairs. I grabbed his arm.

  “Okay! Okay! Let’s go … right now!” I ordered.

  “That’s the Ruby I know!” Marcellus said. Lady Love made her little click-hiss kind of sound. She does that when she doesn’t like something. I don’t think she liked the idea of me flipping. Maybe she was right.

  We sat on the floor and touched our tippy-toes with our fingers. We stood up and bent our backs in an L shape. Then we held our arms straight out and twisted around like two helicopters. I was so bored. None of that stuff had anything to do with flipping!

  “Okay … now what?” I asked. That was enough stretching.

  “Well, it’s easy. Just go back a few feet and face me,” Marcellus coached. I followed his instructions and stood there, waiting on his next step.

  I took my shoes off and bounced up and down. I was starting to feel it … whatever “it” was. “Come on, Coach. I’m pumped up. Let’s do this!” I balled up my fist and pounded it in my other hand. That’s what Ro does when he gets excited about something. It stung a little bit, but I can get tough, too … I can.

  “Now, all you have to do is run as fast as you can toward me. Right before you reach me, do a tiny cartwheel. That’s it. I want to see how easy that is for you. We’re taking it slow, remember?” Marcellus asked.

  “Uh … yeah. Sure. Taking it slow. I got it.” There was no way I was taking it slow. All I kept thinking about was how easy Kee-Kee made it look. If she could do it, then so could I.

  “You can do it. Trust me,” Marcellus said as he looked at me and nodded his head.

  I just stood there for about ten seconds, thinking. I had Marcellus fooled. He thought I was going to run all the way toward him and do a weak little cartwheel. Not me. I was going to try that big backflip that I saw Kee-Kee do.

  Suddenly, I decided to just take off running. I saw Kee-Kee in my mind again. She had looked so pretty that night. I heard the crowd in my ears cheering her on, and then they started cheering my name: “Ruby! Ruby! Ruby!”

  Halfway to Marcellus, I could see him smiling. I closed my eyes for a second and thought, Here goes nothing.

  “Come on. You got it!” Marcellus yelled in support.

  I slowed down a little, did a cartwheel, and then my left foot landed kind of twisted. I arched my back, flipped over backward, and came down funny. My right hand snapped back in a weird way and I smashed down on my tummy. The strange thing was … my right hand was bent backward and sticking up toward the ceiling!

  The basement was silent. I looked up and Marcellus was frozen. He stood over me with his hands on his mouth. I couldn’t feel anything in my right arm, and then all of a sudden it felt like a hippo was sitting on my wrist. It felt hot and I couldn’t move it. It was the most pain I had ever felt. I couldn’t even scream. I tried, but nothing came out. Tears ran down my face so fast, it felt like they had track shoes on.

  “Ladybug … ladybug … are you okay?” Marcellus finally spoke up. I twisted my head around, looked up at him, and finally my voice came back to me.

  “MA!!! DADDY!!!” I cried, and wished that the big hippo would get off my wrist.

  Ma heard me screaming in the basement and ran down as fast as she could. After seeing my hand bent back, she put a bunch of ice in an ice bag and then held it on my wrist. Ma called Daddy at The Booker Box. He and Ro came home right away. Daddy picked me up just like he did when I was a little baby and carried me to the van. Ma and the boys were already inside. We all rushed to the Bellow Rock Regional Hospital.

  When we got to the hospital, Daddy scolded Marcellus. “Boy, what were you thinking? I’ll tell you — nothing.” Ma and I were waiting in a special emergency room. Ro and Ty went to the restroom and to grab a snack.

  “My hand and wrist are hurting so, so bad. Can you help me?” I asked the nurse. It felt like that hippo was still squatting on my wrist. Then suddenly more tears came out, and I couldn’t stop crying.

  The nurse said, “I’m going to try my best, young lady. I think I have just the thing to help you feel better.” The nurse was so nice, and he smelled good, too. He gave me a peach lollipop and some medicine to take away the hurt in my hand and wrist. It worked fast, because I didn’t hurt too much after that. Then the nurse took an X-ray of my hand and wrist and left to go get the X-ray pictures.

  Ma always knows how to make me feel good. I sat on her lap and she stroked my hair and sang in my ear.

  “Ruby’s all right, she’s okay.

  She’s beautiful

  and in her own way.

  She’s strong,

  she’s so strong,

  and she’s my baby.”

  We were waiting for Ty and Ro to come back. Daddy finished fussing at Marcellus and they left to get a snack. Then the nurse came in my room wit
h the X-ray pictures of my hand and wrist. I was worried about getting in trouble for doing something so crazy.

  “Ma, are you and Daddy mad at me for trying to do flips and causing so much trouble?” I asked.

  “No, baby, I’m not mad. I was scared when I heard you scream, but not mad,” Ma said gently. The soft way Ma spoke made me feel good. “I know you were excited and inspired by what you saw your cousin Keeva doing, but she’s seven years older than you. She’s had tons of practice. That’s why she’s so good at flips,” Ma explained.

  “I just thought that maybe if I tried some of the flips on my own, with the help of Marcellus, I could be as good. Then I could start my own drill team. It didn’t turn out so good, huh, Ma?”

  “That’s okay, Ruby. You have to be more careful, and Marcellus has to start using better judgment,” Ma said.

  “May I come in?” a sweet voice said on the other side of the door.

  “Sure. Come on in,” I called out. The door opened and in walked a doctor. She was wearing a long white coat. She had smooth chocolate skin, curly braids, and gold hoop earrings like Ma wears sometimes. She was the prettiest doctor I’ve ever seen. “My name is Dr. Wells,” she said as she shook my left hand.

  Daddy and Marcellus walked in behind Dr. Wells. Marcellus took a seat next to the door. Daddy stood next to me. Marcellus’s head was down and it looked like he had been crying. I started to feel sorry for him. I knew he didn’t really mean to hurt me. I hoped that maybe he didn’t get in too much trouble.

  Daddy kissed me on my forehead.

  Dr. Wells had my X-rays in her hand. She pinned them up against what looked like a lamp picture frame on the wall. She flicked a switch and the X-rays lit up. I’d never seen a real, live X-ray before. My bone picture looked weird, like a Halloween skeleton arm.

  “Wow, I can see every bone in my hand and wrist! That’s cool, Dr. Wells!” I was so shocked by what I saw.

  “It is cool, Ruby. Seems like you have a tiny fracture in your wrist,” Dr. Wells said.

  “What’s a frack-cher? Is that bad or good?”

  “That means that it’s broken. That’s the bad news,” Dr. Wells explained. “But the good news is that the break is tiny.”

  I couldn’t tell anything by looking at the X-ray. I guess doctor eyes are good at seeing things like that.

  “So, how do we fix the frack-cher, Doc?” I asked.

  “What I’m going to have to do is put your right hand and wrist in a cast, Ruby,” Dr. Wells explained.

  “My right hand? That’s my writing hand. My typing-on-my-laptop hand. My scratching hand. My picking-up-things hand. What am I going to do without my good hand, Dr. Wells?”

  “Because of the fracture, you’ll need a cast so that your little bone can get back to normal. Don’t worry. It’ll only be on for five to seven weeks,” Dr. Wells said.

  Ro and Ty had just come into the room. Both of them were holding a bag of corn chips. “Five to seven weeks!” Ro said.

  “Come on in and have a seat, boys,” Daddy ordered. They sat down at the same time the nurse came in with red, purple, and pink bandages.

  Dr. Wells asked, “So, Ruby, what color do you want your cast to be?”

  “Would it be any trouble to use purple and red and to make it look like a candy cane? You know, striped?” I really hoped Dr. Wells would say yes.

  “No problem, Ruby. I’ve never done that before, but I can try.” She and the nurse began to work right away. They carefully wrapped my candy-cane cast. It didn’t take as long as I thought.

  By the time they were finished, my right arm looked like a mummy’s arm. A cute mummy’s arm. It was hard and it was stuck in an L shape.

  “I like it, Rube. It does look like a giant candy cane,” Ty said with a grin.

  “Yeah, squirt, you better be careful at school on Monday. Some kid may mistake your arm for the real thing and take a bite!” Ro joked.

  Marcellus didn’t say a word the whole time. He had a really sad look on his face, and so did I. I started to think how having a cast would stop me from doing a lot of things, especially at school. And maybe the other kids would look at me funny. Most of all, I thought about how long it was going to be before I could put my drill team together. Ma could see the sadness on my face.

  She whispered to me. “I love your cast, too, Ruby. Besides, it’ll be off before you know it. Things may end up being better than you think.”

  When Dr. Wells finished with my cast, we all left the room. Marcellus had his head down. “Marcellus, it’s okay. Really it is.” I tugged on his arm with my good hand.

  “I’m just so sorry, ladybug. I’m supposed to protect you and keep you from getting hurt,” he said, moping. “I didn’t do a good job, did I?”

  I wrapped my good arm around Marcellus’s waist and then gave him a little hug. “I know you were just trying to help. I’m not mad at you.”

  Marcellus hugged me back and said, “You’re not mad? Good.”

  I told Marcellus, “I can handle the cast.” I raised my arm up as high as I could (which wasn’t that high). “It’s really Ruby-licious. Everybody at school will love it, don’t you think?”

  “They sure will. Let’s go home, ladybug.” He grabbed my good hand and we walked out of the hospital together.

  The next morning my hand and wrist felt a whole lot better. From the time I walked out of the house and onto Chill Brook Avenue, everyone was staring at my candy-cane cast. Kids yelled from their school buses, “NICE CAST, RUBY!” or “SWEET CANDY-CANE ARM, RUBY BOOKER!” I smiled all the way to Hope Road Academy. The day was starting off better than I could have expected.

  * * *

  “Ruby, what an awesome arm thing!” Manny Flemon said.

  “It looks hard. Can I touch it?” whispered Low-Low. His real name is Lionel, but because he speaks so softly, everybody calls him Low-Low.

  Since Low-Low talks quietly, I answered him the same way: “Go ahead, Low-Low.” He touched my cast carefully. Then Chyna Wentworth touched it. And then almost everybody in Pluto-3, my classroom, rubbed it. I didn’t mind that much.

  “It sure does look like it hurts, girlie. Are you okay?” asked Teresa.

  “I’m okay, girl. It hurt a lot worse yesterday. I’m fine now,” I said. “The only problem I’ll have is getting used to doing everything with my left hand. That’s all. No biggie.”

  Everyone crowded around to listen to me. “I was just doing some big-time training, you know — flips and stuff. Teresa and I are starting our own drill team.” Everybody thought it was a great idea to put the Chill Brook Steppers together. Everyone except for Marquetta Loopy.

  We just don’t get along, Marquetta Loopy and I. She thinks that I think that I’m full of myself because I’m the little sister of the Booker boys. Plus, she hates the fact that Miss Fuqua always chooses me to run errands for the class.

  Marquetta sat at her desk and didn’t even look my way. She was jealous of all the attention I was getting.

  When Miss Fuqua stepped out in the hallway to talk to Miss Honeygrove, the second-grade teacher from across the hall, Marquetta came close to my desk to sharpen a pencil. She looked down at me and said, “Nice cast … Ruby Booger.” She turned up her nose and then trotted back to her desk. She always calls me that when Miss Fuqua isn’t listening.

  I got up from my seat, even though Miss Fuqua doesn’t want us to do that when she steps out of the room. I stopped Marquetta before she sat down and asked, “What did you just call me?” I cracked my knuckles, the knuckles that weren’t in a cast. I was sick of that girl.

  Marquetta Loopy saw that I meant business. She caught a big lump in her throat and then said, “Who, me? I didn’t say anything, Ruby.” I knew she wasn’t telling me the whole truth. Finally, she admitted, “I just said, ‘nice cast.’”

  “That better be all you said. I’m sick of being nice to you. Why do you have an attitude with me all the time?” I put my hand on my hip.

  “I don’t know what
you’re talking about,” Marquetta said. She was still not telling the whole truth.

  “Yeah, whatever. One day you’re really going to make me angry, girl … watch yourself,” I said, steaming. Then I marched to my seat before Miss Fuqua came back.

  “Wow, Ruby, I’ve never seen you that mad before. That mean Loopy girl sure had it coming, though,” Teresa said softly in her usual Tennessee twang.

  I wasn’t going to let Marquetta get me down. I had a cute cast and an even cuter matching outfit, and everybody else but Marquetta thought so.

  As the day went on, things got a little out of hand. I told all of the kids in my class how I hurt myself. But by the time that story got around the school, it came back to me in a dozen different ways. Some of the things I heard were crazy! I just knew the wild stories had “Ro” written all over them.

  * * *

  At lunchtime, a kid named Chester Pootin, a fifth-grader, came up to me and said, “That was very brave of you, Ruby Booker, to run out in the street to save that entire litter of kittens from being run over. I didn’t know you had it in you.” Chester patted me on the back and chuckled like he was so proud of me. I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  On the way to the computer lab, a second-grader named Prissy Preston came up to me and held her hand up like she wanted to give me a high five. I gave her one. I didn’t know what it was for but I figured there’s nothing wrong with giving away high fives every now and then.

  She smiled real big and said, “Ruby, I think you’re the coolest girl ever, seeing how you went out there and played football with your big brothers and their friends.” Then Prissy clapped for me. “I even heard that you hurt yourself when you caught the winning touchdown pass. That’s what I’m talking about, girl. Represent!”

  And in gym, some kid I didn’t even know came up to me with teary eyes and a goofy-looking grin and said, “You’re my new hero, Ruby Booker. I heard that you busted into a burning animal hospital, saved a whole floor full of gerbils, and then leaped to safety out a window. Wow, you’re amazing.” He shook my hand like I was Oprah. Then he just walked away. Things were getting weird.