The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden Read online

  i

  For Sarah,

  my amazing flying girl

  “Something has come to pass, you think,

  something more important than

  a mere flight over the ravine.”

  — Gwendolyn MacEwen,

  “Fragments from a Childhood”

  ONE

  This morning I wake up on the ceiling.

  Which is odd, because I’ve never woken up there before, not that I remember, anyway. I’m pretty sure I would remember something like that. It’s not exactly the kind of thing that happens every day.

  At least, not to me.

  I wake up, and for a moment I can’t figure out where I am. My carpet is on the ceiling. I can’t understand why I am looking up at my bed, or why Cassie, my fat brown and white beagle, is also sitting on the ceiling.

  My arms are floating out at my sides, too, and my long brown hair is dangling, well, up.

  That’s when I start to wake up and figure it out.

  I’m up. Too far up. Up on the ceiling, in fact. And everything that is generally on the ground (like the carpet and my dog), is too far down. I’m not sure what to do. I try pointing my toes toward the carpet, but nothing happens. My feet just rise again and rest softly on the ceiling behind me.

  I slowly circle the room, making swimming motions with my arms. Cassie circles around beneath me, worried, looking up, whining and wagging her tail. That’s when I hear someone walking along the hallway toward my room.

  My mom knocks on the door. “Gwennie! Are you up?” she calls.

  “Yes! Yes, Mom, I’m up! Don’t come in!” I call back.

  I certainly am up. Way up. I get a little panicky. I do not want my mom to come into the room and find me stuck to the ceiling, like a little kid’s party balloon. I can’t begin to imagine the freak-out that will cause. I have to do something.

  I air-swim gently along the ceiling in my pink nightie until I bump into the top of the bedpost, which I grab with both hands. As soon as I touch it, I fall like a rock and smack hard onto the floor.

  My mom opens the door. I’m sitting beside the bed, rubbing my behind, which took quite a beating when I fell.

  “Gwennie, are you okay?” She looks concerned.

  “Yeah. Yeah, Mom, I just fell out of bed. I’m fine.”

  She looks a little worried but seems convinced. “Okay, hurry up and get ready for school.” She leaves and shuts the door.

  Cassie comes over and licks my face. My dog is the only one who knows what a liar I am.

  This is an interesting start to the day. A troubling and unusual start, but definitely interesting.

  You might think that I’d be disturbed at waking up on the ceiling of my room. You’d be right. I really should feel disturbed and perhaps a little worried about my sanity, but honestly, I can’t say that I am. A lot of weird things have been going on with me lately. Mostly puberty, I guess. I mean, growing three inches in three months, getting your period, and growing boobs isn’t exactly normal. Well, everyone says it is, but it doesn’t feel so normal.

  So what’s a little early-morning floating around your room compared to that?

  It happened. I wasn’t dreaming. I woke up on the ceiling.

  So what am I feeling?

  Nothing. Just more of the same nothing, I guess.

  TWO

  I wash my face, brush my teeth, and get dressed. I go down to the kitchen. My little brother and sister are arguing over the breakfast cereal, which I grab then pour them both a bowl.

  “Can’t you two share anything? It’s not that hard,” I say.

  “He’s always grabbing stuff!” Christine says. “It’s rude.”

  “She always wants everything first. It’s annoying,” Christopher says at the same time.

  Yes, you heard me. Unfortunately, their names are Christine and Christopher. They’re twins. I begged my mother not to name them the same thing. What were we going to call them for short? I’d asked her. How would they feel about having practically the same name? And wouldn’t they hate their names? Wouldn’t they each think their name was really meant for the opposite sex? Christine would think her name was a boy’s name, and Christopher would think his name was meant for girls.

  It was a bad idea all around, but it didn’t seem to bother my mother. Since Dad wasn’t around when they were born, I didn’t have anyone else to try to talk sense into her. Sometimes when I talk to them both at the same time, I call them C2 if I’m feeling nice, or the Chrissies if I’m not because they both hate the name Chrissie. It makes them cry.

  My mother deserves that, she really does.

  I eat my toast and jam, sneak a cup of really strong coffee, which I’m not supposed to have, and get the twins’ lunch ready.

  Mom drops us off at Bass Creek Junior School, and I walk the Chrissies to the front door, but they walk themselves to class. They’re pretty self-sufficient, having each other to rely on and everything.

  I walk to my school next door, Bass Creek Senior School, for the grade sevens and eights: the schizophrenic years. Us grade eights share lunchtime with the little kids from the junior school, but we have gym with the giant grade nine girls from the high school down the street. It’s like no one can decide if we’re children or teenagers.

  The town planners weren’t very imaginative, either, since our high school, our public schools, and our town all have the same name: Bass Creek.

  Which is odd, because there isn’t a creek, a stream, or a puddle anywhere near town. There’s one of the great lakes, though, an hour to the south. Mom says there was a creek once, a long time ago, before the highway was built and all the local rivers and streams (and creeks presumably) were diverted or buried. It always seemed unfair to me, forcing water to do something other than it wants to, but I’m not in charge here.

  My first class is English, a class I’m never too crazy about. I’m not much of a reader. Our teacher, Mr. Marcus, wants us to write a half-hour, in-class essay that starts with the three words, “If I could….”

  If I could … what? What am I supposed to write? Mr. Marcus is in love with making us write these scenarios where we’re supposed to imagine ourselves differently.

  Differently enough to wake up floating on the ceiling, I wonder?

  So I write: “If I could, I’d name Christine and Christopher something better, like Isabelle and Rodolphus. Or Cynthia and Michael. Or Emma and Shiloh. Nothing rhyming, nothing with the same sequence of letters, nothing embarrassing and stupid….”

  That’s as far as I get, because that’s when my foot starts to float off the floor.

  I accidentally boot Jeffrey Parks, the boy sitting facing me, in the shin. It isn’t my fault. My foot just starts floating slowly, and suddenly my running shoe is jammed into his leg.

  “Ouch! What the heck, Gwen? What are you doing?” Jeffrey’s eyes get squinty and scared, and he moves away from me really quick.

  Now, Jeffrey Parks and I have had words before. We aren’t exactly the best of friends. He once teased me about the wrong thing in grade five (I’d recently had a very bad haircut), and I punched him so hard he cried every time he saw me for days afterwards.

  But really, today, this particular incident is nothing personal. I have no control over myself, this time. My eyes get really wide. I am not going to float up to the ceiling in the middle of my grade eight English class. It just isn’t going to happen.

  I jump up so fast that my desk falls over. My pencils and papers go flying, which is just as well, because it distracts everyone. They’re all running around trying to pick up my stuff. I run toward the door, and all I can say to Mr. Marcus as I run by is, “Sorry, sir, I think I
’m going to throw up!”

  That’s the kids’ “get out of jail free” pass. No teacher is going to make you stay and talk if they think you are about to barf your breakfast all over their shoes.

  He just nods and opens the door extra wide for me. I leave that room really fast, believe me. So fast, that no one notices that as I run away, my feet aren’t actually touching the ground.

  THREE

  I run down that hallway as fast as I can and burst into the staff supply room, the nearest room I can find with a lock on the door. It’s really odd, running without touching the ground. It feels a little like when you try to run in those bouncy inflatable castles you find at rich kids’ birthday parties, or at the town fair.

  I slam the door and lock it behind me. Technically, I’m not supposed to be in the staff supply room, but this is an emergency. Gail Todd came in here last year when she had her period and didn’t want everyone to know. I figure this is at least as serious as that.

  I hold on to the door handle, not sure what to do. I’m breathing fast and my heart is pounding. To make matters worse, my feet gently start to float toward the ceiling. I don’t want to let go of the handle for anything, so I float horizontally for a while, then as my feet rise toward the ceiling, I’m head down with my toes pointing skyward. It isn’t very comfortable. As the blood rushes to my head, I start to feel dizzy, so I have to let go of the door handle.

  As soon as my body is free, it floats lazily toward the ceiling, where it bounces around for a few moments, then settles gently, bumping up and down against the ceiling tiles.

  I realize that I’m now talking about my body like an “it,” like it’s no longer connected to the rest of me. But that’s what it feels like. As if my body is totally in charge, and I’m just going along for the ride.

  Which I guess I am.

  I edge away from the hot light fixture on the ceiling. No sense getting third degree burns all over me. I look around.

  The supply room is where the teachers get their extra pencils and paper and their classroom supplies for arts and crafts. It’s filled with shelves of coloured paper and huge, econo-sized buckets of non-toxic paint. It’s also filled with strange classroom leftovers, like giant papier-mâché puppets that were too good to throw away, but not good enough to display in the school foyer.

  This is why, as I float around on the ceiling, I come face-to-face with a huge clown puppet that the grade nines made for a play last year. The clown was creepy then. It’s even creepier now, looming out at me, grinning in the dark. A red nose, pointed eyebrows, and huge red mouth grin as I spin by in the air current.

  “What’s so funny?” I demand as I float by, but I suddenly worry that the clown is going to giggle and answer me in clown-rhyme: “TEE HEE HEE! You’re a freak, Gwendolyn Golden, just like MEEEE!”

  That would likely finish me off for good.

  After that, I just try to avoid the stupid clown.

  I float for about half an hour. I’m beginning to wonder if I will slowly deflate, like a helium balloon, before I can touch down again. It took my little brother’s Batman balloon almost three days to deflate and sink to the ground last Halloween.

  I can’t wait three days. I’m starting to get a little panicky. What am I going to do?

  Finally there’s a knock on the door and I hear our principal, Mrs. Abernathy, calling through the crack.

  “Hello? Are you in there, Gwendolyn?” Mrs. Abernathy says.

  She sounds very sympathetic and nice. I’ve always liked her. She’s really good in a crisis. Once she had to take Christopher to the hospital when he needed stitches in kindergarten, and my mom had to meet them there. But this isn’t exactly a case of stitches. A crisis, perhaps, but probably not one that can be fixed with a quick visit to the hospital. Although that would be nice.

  “Uh, yes! It’s me in here,” I say. I hope she doesn’t notice that my voice is coming from the ceiling.

  “Oh, is everything all right, dear?”

  I can sense the worry in her voice. I reach out to steady myself, and as soon as I touch the door, I crash to the ground. It must have been loud, because I hear her gasp.

  She rattles the doorknob. “Gwendolyn! Gwen! Are you okay?” she calls.

  I stand up, brush off my shirt and jeans, straighten my long hair, and open the door.

  Mrs. Abernathy and Mr. Marcus are both standing there.

  “Are you okay, Gwen? We’ve been looking for you everywhere,” Mr. Marcus says. He really sounds worried.

  “Yeah, I think I’m fine now. I should go home, though.”

  The truth is that I feel fantastic. I try to look like I have been throwing up (but I don’t have to lie because no one asks me if I did or didn’t), but I actually feel incredible, better than I have in ages.

  I can’t explain it, but floating around on the ceiling seems to agree with me.

  FOUR

  I get my backpack and sign out at the office. I call my mom to come and get me, but she can’t because she’s in a meeting.

  FIVE

  This time, I wake up with my feet dangling down toward the carpet as my body slowly circles the room. Cassie is sitting underneath me, quietly watchful. She doesn’t seem as freaked out as she did yesterday. Which is good, I guess.

  SIX

  I walk to school. Mom drives the twins, but I really feel like walking by myself, so she lets me. It’s Friday morning and a beautiful spring day. All the rain from yesterday makes everything smell great, and the trees are starting to turn green. The grass is greener too, and flowers are coming up fast, those first ones, the little ones that look like bells, and the tall yellow ones.

  I feel like skipping, I really do, just like a little kid. But I don’t skip. I make myself walk along in the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other regular way. It’s a struggle not to skip, but I’m kind of worried that skipping might lead to bouncing, which might give my body ideas about being weightless. And floaty.

  That I don’t need. I walk, but I keep a close eye on nearby trees and fences in case I have to grab on to anything to keep me earthbound.

  But nothing remotely floaty happens.

  So I walk. And as I walk, I bump into old Mr. McGillies, wearing his filthy long coat over his raggedy clothes. I’ve never seen him wear anything else, and I’ve known him my whole life. He’s pushing a cart along, which is rattling because it’s filled with empty bottles. Mr. McGillies grew up when milkmen dropped full bottles of milk off at your front door every morning, then collected the empty bottles every night. Now that he’s old, people think he’s pretending to be a milkman with all those empty bottles. But I think he just likes bottles. Some bottles he collects, and some he returns to the recycling depot for nickels. People think he’s crazy, but Mom says he’s just old, not crazy. I’ve always kind of liked him.

  “Hi, Mr. McGillies. How are you today?”

  He stops and looks up at me (he’s really short). He pushes his thick glasses up his nose.

  “Well, young Gwen. How’s flyin’?” he says. I blink. Flyin’?

  “Er. Flying?” I say, not altogether very intelligently. What does he mean? He can’t possibly mean … flying, can he?

  He cackles. He has a really funny laugh that always makes me laugh, too. He sounds a little like Grover from Sesame Street when he laughs. I smile. I can’t help it. I’ve watched Mr. McGillies push his empty bottle cart around our neighbourhood since I was a little girl. He did always make me smile. But this is a bit odd — he’s never mentioned flying before.

  “Flying, Mr. McGillies? What do you mean?” I repeat.

  He winks at me then and says, “Flying, missy. You heard me! You know exactly what I mean!” He cackles again, but this time I don’t smile. I think my face must do a downturn, and I go from looking like I am being nice to Mr. McGillies to being horrified by him.

  He starts to hum a little tune. “Scrub and wash, scrub and wash, scrub and wash the bottles,” as he turns away. He’s not getting off that easi
ly.

  I run up to him and stand in front of his bottle cart. I put my hand on the cart and ask him again, sterner this time, “What do you mean? Flying? What do you mean?” It’s starting to dawn on me that Mr. McGillies knows something I don’t. But he isn’t owning up to anything. He cackles again.

  “Oh no, Miss Gwennie. All in good time! All in good time! Don’t fly away now!”

  His old brown face splits into a wide smile, one of the widest smiles I’ve ever seen. How did I not notice that Mr. McGillies has a gold back tooth? I guess I’ve never seen him smile that wide before.

  Then he trundles his cart away, and no matter how much I pester and yell and downright whine at him, he pretends he can’t hear me and goes on humming his crazy man scrub-and-wash-the-bottles song. He shuffles off down the sidewalk.

  Okay, this is just very odd. I shake my head and decide that despite what my mother thinks, maybe he is just a crazy old guy. A crazy old guy who somehow knows exactly what is happening to me.

  I am going to have another chat with Mr. McGillies, really soon, but right now I have to get to school.

  SEVEN

  I make it through the morning at school without any body parts floating away from me.

  It is actually such a dull morning that I catch myself wishing for that floating feeling.

  It would be a welcome distraction from the boring lesson about local taxes in our Civics class. I’ve been taking Civics for almost seven months, and I still can’t quite figure out what it’s about. Sometimes we talk about helping old people and volunteering for things, and sometimes we talk about garbage collection. Those things I can pretty much understand as something that we all need to get behind, at least some of the time. But then our teacher goes on about salt or taxes, and I swear my body just goes limp. I simply cannot get my mind around what on earth she is talking about.