Sierra B

April Fool’s

It was always a ritual to go over to my best friend’s house every Wednesday after school.  This Wednesday night just so happened to be April Fool’s, which wasn’t that big of a deal.  Maybe a couple of teachers told us we had a pop quiz when we really didn’t, but we weren’t clever or creative enough to pull pranks on each other, so the day had been relatively uneventful.  That is, until her mom dropped us off at church.

“Race you to the door,” she said with a mischievous smile on her face.

We were in fourth grade, and I remember the huge ego she had and it bothered me so much.  We would play dodge ball during recess and she just thought that she was the fastest girl to exist.  And yes, I’ll admit she was probably the fastest girl in our class, which didn’t bother me because I never cared about my speed, but that little attitude just set me off.  I just hoped to out-run her one day to shut her up. 

“Okay,” I agreed, picturing the look on her face once it was over and I’d won.  That would show her.

“Ready. Set. Go.”

I was ready and I went faster than I had expected.  I was so close behind her and almost beside her, everything in my vision blurring as I sped by.  So close to that door, I had only a couple yards left.  But that’s when my clumsiness got the better of me - the clumsiness that comes only at all the wrong times.

I recall it in slow motion like it was a movie as I fell onto the concrete.  It wasn’t just some ordinary fall where you scrape your knees, toughen up, and get a Mickey Mouse Band-Aid to cover up an ugly wound.  No, I had chosen to fall in such a weird way that I don’t even think my knees were touched at all.  I flew straight forward with my left arm crossed over my chest and my hand balled up in a fist.  Once on the ground, I heard a faint snap and looked down to see that my arm had swollen like a balloon instantly.  No one was around but my friend – her mom had dropped us off just two minutes earlier.  Some woman and her small son came out after I had sat up against the wall, seeing me crying. 

“Are you okay?” she had asked.  She knelt down beside me to inspect what could possibly be wrong.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”  It was all I could say.  I had thought that the pain in my arm would be gone soon enough and that there wasn’t much this random lady could do for me.  Many times before I had felt that I had maybe broken a bone, to only find that five minutes later I would feel back to normal.  Surely, this was one of those times that I was just being crazy and overly dramatic.

But all during Awanas, the church gathering for elementary school kids, I cried and I could feel millions of eyes glued to me.  People asked if I was okay and what had happened, yet I didn’t really know exactly what had happened to me because the pain, for some odd reason, wouldn’t leave me alone.  Someone gave me ice – that Good Samaritan – but it didn’t do me any good whatsoever.  The hour passed as slow as molasses and I couldn’t wait to go home.

Finally, my parents came to pick me up.  At first, both of them were shocked and worried about me.  When my friend’s mom came, though, she was a little shaken because I’m sure from her perspective it was all her fault that she dropped us off to be alone in the first place.  As we got in the car, my mom suggested we go to Urgent Care to get my arm looked at, but my dad just waved it off.  “Oh, she probably just sprained it.  Don’t make such a big deal out of it, it’ll scare her.”

So, I didn’t go to the doctor until the next day.  All night was just tossing, turning, and lugging my arm around so slowly so that I might not roll over on it in my sleep and crush it even more.  I was very, very thankful to finally arrive at Lewis Gale, but it was a never-ending process to figure out what was wrong.  First, I went into the children’s section, and from there I rode in a wheel chair to the x-ray to prevent me from falling…again.  After hours and a couple snacks from the vending machine had passed, I found out that I was right.  I had broken it in two places, actually.  When the doctor told me I got a little upset because I wanted to be able to say that I’d never broken a bone for as long as I lived.

This April Fool’s Day “joke” wasn’t what I was expecting.