Chapter 37 2006
I held the feather up to the computer camera for Profe to see. “I think it came from a downy woodpecker,” I said.
It had taken hours of scouring the internet to find the bird I believed the feather Dylan sent belonged to.
I’d even emailed Mr. Jeffries a photo and asked his opinion.
He’d gotten back to me in minutes to say he’d look into it.
He always addressed his emails Dear Future Greatest Figure Skater of the World.
“Splendiferous!” Profe declared. “A rare bird indeed, and a great addition to your collection.”
Profe and I Skyped once a week, on Sunday mornings. I missed him terribly, and I got the sense he missed me as well. His life was lonely since I’d left. Mother and the minister had separated, and Mother had returned to traveling most of the time for work.
I hadn’t heard from her since I’d left, over two weeks before, and though I tried not to think about it, I couldn’t help but remember the awful way we’d left things.
Guilt has a way of weeviling into your brain, and those first days at the institute it plagued me.
I wondered if Mother was right, and if all the closeness we’d developed when I was home had only been manipulation on my part to get her to agree to let me go to the institute.
I didn’t think it was, considering how much I wanted her to write or call.
But I’ve also never been good at self-deception, and I knew, at least in part, my over-the-top kindness and affection had been false.
“Are you enjoying The Hobbit?” Profe asked.
Profe had downloaded the Audible version of the J.
R. R. Tolkien series onto my iPod, and I’d been listening to it during my workouts.
The routine at the institute was exhausting, and it was difficult to find time to read.
We woke at six, worked out in the training center until eight, had breakfast, went to our first rink session until ten, then went to the study center for online schooling.
After, we had lunch, then did another two and a half hours of school, then returned to the rink for our afternoon skate with our personal coaches, which for me was Meryl.
Then we had two hours of free time before dinner, and another hour before lights out.
But because I was so behind the other skaters, I’d been using my free time to train.
Meryl was the most demanding of the coaches and the most sought after, and desperately, I didn’t want to let her down.
She’d taken a chance bringing me to the institute, a girl who’d only been skating a few months on a pond behind her mother’s house, and I wanted to prove to her and everyone else it hadn’t been a mistake.
When we were training, she made it clear I was just another student, which stung at first until I realized she was doing it for me.
She didn’t want anyone to think I was getting special treatment.
She showed her affection in other ways. A secret wink when no one was looking, or a Toblerone bar left under my pillow after she’d visited the city.
I think she was also responsible for putting me in a room with Esma.
She looked out for me but did it in typical Meryl fashion, being careful to keep her kindness from being noticed.
“Could you imagine how awful it would be if people discovered I’m not the ice queen they think I am?
” she told me once. “The scandal of it. My entire reputation destroyed.” The other students were terrified of her, which made me smile, like I was the only one who knew this great big secret between us.
The little free time I allowed myself I spent with Esma and Heinrich.
We hung out at the rec room or went to see the animals.
The three of us were thick as thieves, equal parts of a whole, something I’d never been before, and for the first time since I’d lost Boodo and my Blue House family, the loneliness stone was gone entirely.
“It’s really good,” I said to Profe. “I’m halfway through The Two Towers, and I think I like it even more than the first one.”
“Agreed.”
“Each time I listen to it, I think about Kai and how much he’d like Bilbo.”
Profe laughed. “Why don’t you send it to him?”
“Send it to him?”
“The best gifts are the ones least expected.”
The idea was wonderful. I hadn’t spoken to Kai in almost two years, but he’d been on my mind a lot. I think it had to do with Heinrich. Though they looked nothing alike, both were oversize goofballs with hard outer shells and soft, mushy insides.
“I could download it on your old iPod and mail it to him,” Profe suggested. “Just tell me what I should write on the card.”
Kai was a straightforward guy, so I decided on a straightforward note:
I think you’re going to like this.
Patch
“Splendiferous!” Profe said.
Writing to Dylan proved much more difficult. I didn’t know if he wanted me to write back. I wanted to let him know I didn’t blame him for what happened, but I didn’t want the letter to be too serious. I settled on funny because, it seemed to me, everyone, especially Dylan, liked funny.
Hi,
Thanks for your letter. Sorry it took so long for me to write back. Your letter took a while to reach me because I live in Prague now.
I told him how I ended up at the institute and about skating.
I thanked him for the feather and told him about the woodpecker.
Then, at the bottom of the page, I drew a cartoon of two downy woodpeckers, one perched on the trunk of a tree, looking at the other who was inside a hole.
A bubble over the one inside the hole read, “Seriously??? Not another knock-knock joke.”
I wondered if I was trying too hard. I showed the drawing to Esma, and she laughed, which made me feel better.
“You’re in love,” she teased.
I wasn’t. Or I didn’t think I was. At nine, the only thing I knew about love was what I’d seen on TV and in movies, and the mushy parts were always my least favorite.
I only knew I liked being around Dylan and that I missed him, and that, as I licked the envelope, I really really hoped he’d write back.