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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781937110505 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Emerald Book Company |
| Publication date: | 03/26/2013 |
| Pages: | 236 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.70(d) |
| Lexile: | 750L (what's this?) |
| Age Range: | 8 - 12 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
ARLENE, THE REBEL QUEEN
By CAROL LIU MARYBETH SIDOTI CALDARONE
Emerald Book Company
Copyright © 2013 Carol LiuAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-937110-50-5
Chapter One
FOREVER FRIEND?
My Uncle James says that change is like a wave crashing in at Scarborough Beach. If you're lucky, you see it coming. (Sometimes you don't, and it knocks your face into the salty surf.) If you do see it start to roar toward you, he says, you've basically got two choices: fight it or ride it. Fight it, and you can get slammed. Ride it, and you can have the time of your life. But you can also end up shipwrecked in some totally weird, totally uncomfortable place.
At the beginning of fifth grade, this idea kept popping into my head, with a big ba-bing! I was dealing with some pretty big changes that year.
Now, those of you who heard about me in fourth grade might be saying to yourselves, "What?! Didn't she have to deal with leg braces in fourth grade?"
Well, yes, okay, that was pretty humongous. But after those few shaky weeks in the fall, that year kind of smoothed out. Remember? The kids in my class got to know each other better, and eventually we were all singing in "har-mo-neee!" as my music teacher would say.
Fifth grade, on the other hand, was very rocky. I guess I felt the first rumble of the changes to come that one Friday in October. I made my way down the aisle of the bus—yes, in my leg braces. They're like soccer shin guards, except they cover the back of my leg, not the front. They help keep my ankles and knees steady while I walk. They're supposed to keep me from falling, but they weren't doing a very good job that year. Anyway, that terrible Friday, my troubles started. I found my seat on the bus, right next to my best friend, Lauren, just like always. It's a short ride to my stop, the first one. So I had to make plans with Lauren fast.
"So we'll pick you up at nine tomorrow, okay?" I said to Lauren as the bus lurched forward.
"Um ... yeah ... well ... I think I may not go tomorrow, Arlene," Lauren said, staring out the window, fingering one of her dark brown curls.
"What? Why?" I leaned forward to see her face, but that was a mistake. The bus heaved itself around the corner, and without the extra support of the seat back, I crashed onto Lauren. "Oh, sorry!"
Lauren sighed. "It's okay," she said as she gently pushed me off her. "Arlene, I think I'm going to go ice skating tomorrow morning... with Maddie. We're going to start figure skating practice in a few weeks, with that team I joined, and I need to get ready."
Well, that was weird. Ice skating—obviously that didn't include me! "But you always go to the stable with me," I said. "I thought you liked brushing the horses."
Lauren had been going with me to my therapeutic horseback riding classes almost the whole summer. She would watch during my lesson as my teacher helped me ride a horse named Fox. Fox was so cool, all strong and muscular, but really gentle. I felt like the queen of the world on his back. The class lasted only a half hour, and afterward Lauren and I got to brush some of the horses, although we spent most of the time with Fox. We'd pet his big, soft nose, and feed him lots of carrots. Horseback riding supposedly improved my core strength. I didn't know what core strength was, I didn't know I had any to begin with, and I didn't really care about improving it. I just liked horses.
"But this is the only time this weekend that I can go to open skate," Lauren said. "I really need to practice." She looked at me and seemed kind of worried. Maybe she was afraid I'd be mad, so I tried to lighten things up with a joke.
"Oh, sure, you just wanna hang out with the TABs this week. I know how you are." And I looked at her out of the corner of my half-closed eyes, with a half-smirk, so she'd know I was being sarcastic.
But somehow she must not have ever learned that all these half-things—like half a laugh, half a smile, half-closed eyes—usually mean someone's joking. As the bus cruised down the hill on the way to my street, things took a wrong turn for Lauren and me.
"What are you talking about?" Lauren twisted in her seat so she was completely facing me. "What in the world is a TAB? And this has nothing to do with choosing to hang out with anybody. This is about skating!"
"Okay, calm down. It was a joke!" I said, laughing to show her even more clearly what she should be doing right about now. "A TAB is a temporarily able-bodied person. My physical therapist told me that. Get it? A TAB! It's like, everyone is only temporarily not disabled. Someday, even you'll get all old and feeble." I bent over in my seat, put a hand on my back, squinted my eyes and puckered my mouth, all for the best demonstration of a wrinkled old lady that I could muster up.
Lauren didn't even laugh at my old lady impression. She just stared at me.
What was going on? I thought it was hilarious when I heard what TAB meant. It's kind of true and really funny all at the same time.
"That's just rude all the way around, Arlene," Lauren shouted over the squeal of the bus tires as we swerved onto my street. "I'm not a TAB! And I'm not old and feeble. And everything isn't always about you. Maybe I'm tired of watching you trot around in a circle all morning!"
Whoa! As I think about this conversation now, I can see where her feelings got hurt, and I should have chosen a much kinder thing to say. But see, my feelings got all fired up at this point too. And the bus was slowing down to my stop. So, yeah, I didn't help things much.
"Maybe you should lighten up! I'm just trying to talk to you, joke around, and you're freaking out."
Lauren whipped herself around and looked out the window again. So, of course, I kept talking, trying to get some kind of reaction. I hate it when people ignore me—it's my weak spot, really.
"Never mind," I shouted right back at her. "Don't come tomorrow. Don't come ever!"
She ignored me. Again.
The bus screeched to a stop near my house. I stood up and looked at Lauren and couldn't think of anything to say, anything to do. How did we get to this awful place?
I turned and worked myself and my backpack up the aisle. Lauren was my new "Bus Buddy," the person who was assigned to help me on and off the bus. Apparently people felt that my legs had gotten too weak to safely get me on and off the bus. Whatever.
I wasn't surprised that Lauren had clearly just quit her job. She didn't follow me up to the door like she was supposed to, and I didn't look back. I started stepping slowly off the bus, pushing against the door hard with my fist, all balled up like I was ready to punch someone—which I was.
Mrs. Kracken, our bus driver, lifted her face to the rearview mirror, which made the saggy skin under her chin stretch out like a rubber band. She called out with her thick Rhode Island accent, "Ah-lene! Wait! Wheah's yaw helpah?" Her gray hair fell out of its loose braid as she whipped her head around to search the aisle. "Hey!" she shouted again. "Wheah's Ah-lene's helpah?"
She might have just as well screamed into a megaphone that a poor, sick, helpless, pathetic baby was about to plunge to her death unless some angel named Lauren swooped in to save her.
I could make it down these steps myself. I certainly didn't need her to help me. The last step was tricky, but I bent down very low, almost sitting on the bottom step, and eased myself onto the street. Humph! Helper, help-ah, whatever you wanted to call it, I didn't need one!
I shuffled up my driveway, grinding street sand beneath my high top sneakers, enjoying the gritty sound. Lauren and I had had arguments before, but this one felt deeper. What would I do if I didn't have her as my forever friend?
Chapter Two
CALM BEFORE THE STORM
Uncle James would know about change. His life had changed in a big way on September 2. His wife, who is my mom's sister, had a baby on that day. So of course we had to go see the baby.
After my huge fight with Lauren on Friday and my lonely horseback-riding lesson on Saturday, we got up early Sunday to head to New York City. Traveling to see Aunt Marie and Uncle James is always stressful because New York is not like Rhode Island. For some reason, there's nowhere to park in the city except in expensive garages that Dad doesn't like to pay for. So, we ride around and around, looking for a space, only to end up in a garage an hour later because Dad is a terrible parallel parker and he can never make our big van fit into the street spaces.
Then there's Uncle James's apartment, which has four steps up to the front door. That means Mom has to take her manual wheelchair, which either Dad or my older brother Chris has to push and bump up the steps. Her motorized one (don't call it an electric wheelchair—Mom always says, "I'm not being executed!") is just too big to go up steps, and so without a ramp, she's trapped. But Mom really likes her big motorized chair better because she can move whenever she wants to. Otherwise she feels like a statue.
So when we got to the city, we paid all that money for a garage, shook Chris awake from the snorty nap he took the whole way there, bumped Mom up the stairs to the building, and finally made it to Uncle James's apartment. When you first go in, boom! You're in the living room right away. Then to the left, you think it's a closet, but no, that's the kitchen. Keep going forward about three steps, and there's one more room, the bedroom/office/storage room/and now, baby room. And that's about it. Oh, and a bathroom. But, of course, Mom can't fit in there, so we can only stay at Uncle James's house so long, even if we stop at a rest-stop bathroom right before we get there.
I heard Mom say something about how the new baby will force Uncle James to finally move to a bigger apartment. That seems like a lot of power for one tiny little baby.
Mom and Aunt Marie squealed and kissed and oohed and ahhed. Little Zoe, celebrity-star-super-baby, was in Aunt Marie's arms and looked ... well, like an ordinary baby to me. Not really very exciting. Chris plopped down on the couch, plugged himself into his music, and tuned the rest of us out. Nice.
I wanted to see Uncle James right away, so I walked into the back room and found him sitting at his tiny desk, typing at lightning speed. Uncle James and I are cool. We get each other.
"Hey, Uncle James!" I called.
Tip-tap-tip-tap-tap.
"Uncle James!" I tried again. (When he's typing, it usually takes two or three tries to stop him. I don't mind. Like I said, I get him.)
Uncle James pulled his eyes away from the computer, very slowly like his forehead was attached by thick rubber bands to the screen. Finally, his eyes reached me and focused. "Hey! What's happening? When did you get here?"
"Um, right now."
"Well, c'mere. Give me a hug, Curly-Whirley."
Uncle James walked around to the front of the desk and gave me a big squeeze. He always calls me the goofiest names. It's our thing.
I hugged my uncle right back. You see, he's a little different, just like me. Uncle James is my only Chinese uncle. And as I learned last year during that crazy school election, differences are definitely something to be celebrated.
For example, Uncle James showed us this really cool Chinese thing called dim sum. At dim sum restaurants, the waiters push carts filled with little dishes of food around the room. You point at stuff that looks good, and they plop it on your table. There are only about two or three pieces of food on the little dishes, so you've got to keep pointing. The waiters keep plopping, and the carts keep rolling around. There are dumplings, sticky rice, spring rolls, and soft buns with meat inside. Everything's really yummy.
But I have to warn you, if you're going to try dim sum, you might see chicken feet—for real! Chicken. Feet. Uncle James loves them. I actually tried them. I just closed my eyes and bit off a toe, covered in this brown, gooey sauce. I spit out the bone like I saw Uncle James do, and chewed on the skin, which would have been tasty except I couldn't stop my imagination. What if I accidentally swallowed a toenail? Or what if the chicken stepped in chicken poop right before he got cooked and served in this restaurant? How could a one-footed chicken possibly cross the road?
Anyway, back to Uncle James. He isn't just different because he's Chinese. He also has a really different kind of job. He's "the people's lawyer," he says. He works for a group of civil rights lawyers, fighting for equal rights for all people. Apparently, not everyone has equal rights yet. I thought they did, but based on how hard Uncle James works, I'm guessing not.
So this is why we get each other. As a Chinese lawyer fighting for equal rights when most people think everyone already has them, Uncle James is different. And I'm different, living with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. I have to deal with wearing leg braces, a lot of falling (which has really been driving me crazy lately), and not being able to tie my shoes anymore (what am I, a kindergartener all over again?).
In case you don't know, Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease is something people are born with. It's basically a problem in your genes that makes your nerves just slowly stop working as you grow older. With messed-up nerves, your muscles don't hear your brain talking to them, so it gets harder and harder for you to move your feet, legs, fingers, and hands. My mom has CMT, too, but my dad and brother don't. It's a disease that gets passed down, but there's only a fifty percent chance you'll get it from your parent. And sometimes, it pops out of nowhere, like it did with Mom.
There are lots of different types of CMT. Sometimes you can't even tell a person has it, and other kinds, like with Mom and me, you can tell right away. Mom uses a wheelchair to get around, and she can't move her fingers at all anymore. Except for that index finger on her right hand, which she shakes at you when she's really mad. I've had that happen way too many times, especially last year when all that mess happened with the boy-girl war.
I can still walk but I have to use leg braces because my knees and ankles are really getting weak. My braces aren't bright purple like my first ones were, and they don't have floating butterflies on them. I am ten after all, and I figured I needed a more grown-up look. But not a boring one! So I put pink camouflage duct tape all over my grown-up, plain-white braces. They look much better now.
I still lose my balance a lot, even with my braces. My fingers are getting weaker too, although I can still write and pick up stuff. But spinning a spinner on a game is tough, and unfortunately, just as I'm about ready to talk my parents into getting me a cell phone, it's getting harder and harder to push buttons. What in the world is the point of a cell phone if I can't text?
Anyway, after we did our hug thing, Uncle James sat on the edge of his desk to face me head on. He crossed his arms and stared right into my eyes. "What's up this year at school? What's your plan?"
It's true, I was hoping to come with a new Big Plan, something to top last year as class president and being a pretty popular girl in the school. But then in July I got really busy at this cool sailing camp for kids who live with a disability, and in August I got busy with all the family that came to visit us (they love the beach!). I kind of just ran out of time.
"I'm thinking I might lie low this year. Just kind of hang out with my friends, focus on school, maybe relax."
Uncle James put both hands on the sides of his head, covering his ears, like those words stung his eardrums. Then he shook his head, I guess to ease the pain.
"Are you kidding me?" he said. "You stand still in this life, you get run over. C'mon! There's got to be something going on, something new you can try this year."
"Nah, it's really all the same crowd, same school, same deal. Byron is Byron, Joey's still trying to run things, Jessie is as annoying as ever, and Lauren and I are still best friends." I caught my breath for a second on that last one, thinking about Friday. But I moved on, because I didn't want to talk about it, even with Uncle James, not right then anyway. "Oh, but I've got a new teacher, though. Mr. Goldberg. That's different—I never had a guy teacher before."
Uncle James yawned a big, dramatic, bored yawn. Then he smiled and put his arm around my shoulder, leading me out to the other room. "Allow me to clue you in, Fleecy Niecey. What you're describing here is called the calm before the storm. Just when you think things are absolutely going to stay all nice and familiar, all smooth and still, all comfortable like your favorite spot on the couch that's dented perfectly to fit your pee-goo (that's Chinese for "butt"!), right then, at that moment when you let your guard down, that's when you get hit with the biggest change of your life."
Uncle James sighed and stood with me in the doorway as everyone gushed over Baby Zoe. "Believe me, I know." He squeezed my shoulder. "You'd better just get ready for the storm."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from ARLENE, THE REBEL QUEEN by CAROL LIU MARYBETH SIDOTI CALDARONE Copyright © 2013 by Carol Liu. Excerpted by permission of Emerald Book Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
To the Dreamers....................viiChapter 1: Forever Friend?....................1
Chapter 2: Calm Before the Storm....................9
Chapter 3: Watermelon Droppings....................17
Chapter 4: Big Action, Big Change....................25
Chapter 5: Turtle Trap....................39
Chapter 6: Liar, Liar....................47
Chapter 7: Action Plan....................55
Chapter 8: Divided Highway....................63
Chapter 9: United We stand....................71
Chapter 10: Rally Time....................77
Chapter 11: Dramatic!....................83
Chapter 12: Powerful Change....................91
Chapter 13: Slippery Slop....................101
Chapter 14: Rewind Not Available....................109
Chapter 15: Saving Uncle James....................119
Chapter 16: Step-By-Step....................135
Chapter 17: Turtle Trap, Part 2....................141
Chapter 18: Independent Man....................153
Chapter 19: Wheelchair Dumping....................161
Chapter 20: Sales Dud....................173
Chapter 21: Ruckus Maker....................179
Chapter 22: Talent Boy....................187
Chapter 23: The Show Must Go On....................195
Chapter 24: Floating On....................207
The Power of One....................217
Note to Readers....................227
About the Authors....................231