Legless No More

Chapter 2

My next encounter with him was not very exciting, but it was something that got me to where I am today.

It was opening house of my Junior year. The time was tumbling nearer: one more week and I would be stuck in the dim-witted classrooms for seven hours a day, five days a week, and nine-and-a-half months. I had tried to preserve the summer by sleeping until noon and waking up to sunshine and doing what I pleased. My mom cleaned that up quickly, however. Now I not only had evening runs with my dad, but early morning walks with my mom too. I could never be a teenager.

She was right though, even if she didn't tell me straight. I had to face reality. Junior year was awaiting me, staring me down. Probably in the leg, that's where everybody looked first. I had to prepare for my new team at the school. There was this feeling inside of me - I knew this was the year they would allow my presence on the field. I'd be surrounded by the screaming stands with shocked expressions gazing at me, galvanized by the sight. Me. Not the dumb old plastic strapped to my stump that seemed to become who I am.

That was the last place I visited that night: the sports building. It was wiser to get a direct answer from the activities director, but I wanted to hear it from the assistant coach myself. She was a lady I trusted and still do to this day. But on the very day I desired my answer most, in her place was the kid from the fields. At my school.

"'Ey! You int'rested in trying out for the soccer team? It's top five in the county, I 'eard." He spoke with a weird accent, as he fixed his eyes on his phone. He couldn't have possibly been in the U.S. for very long. Not if I could hardly understand him. "Waid'a minute. I know you." His gaze lifted up, as well as the corners of his lips. "You were at the Fields yestaday, weren't you?"

I was too caught up in his voice to answer, mesmerized by his pale skin. Nobody had that pale of skin around here. Yet, at the same time, I didn't want to answer. Ms. Rudy, the assistant coach, knew about my condition. Although this was a trained kid (he had to be), I didn't want to go into detail about my problems. He was still unbelievably young, too young to understand. Plus, he had to have been European of some sort. He had to be good. So, yes, for once in a long time, I, Olivia Banks, was embarrassed.

My mom could sense it, and stepped in for me, explaining my condition in as much sugar you could pillow it with. She made me pull up my pant leg to show him as if he wouldn't believe me. He was shocked, it was easy to tell, but I also knew he was trying his hardest to keep a straight face.

"Right, they told me 'bout you. I'm sorry, they 'aven't come up with anything yet. When they do, though, I'll be the first to let you know."

Great, that's exactly what I want.

I did want it.

"Where's Ms. Rudy?" I asked without faze.

"She's uh..." he stammered a lot, "she's been gone all summer. Migh' not be back for a while. I'm 'ere in'er place for now. Do you - do you mind comin' by the same fields Friday? I would, you know, if you wouldn't mind, I 'aven't ever-" He rambled on, repeating what he said over and over until he could spit out the correct way to ask me.

I suddenly felt less uncomfortable about my leg. He was just like everybody else, afraid that they would offend me if they said the wrong thing. But none ever did. None that modest. "Yeah, sure." I cut it short, wanting to leave and go home so I could wait for the email that would tell me whether it was going to be a good year or not.

Every other year they had their answer by at least this time. Surely they were finally considering the fact that amputees had souls too.

"...I've never actually-." He stopped mid-sentence with a smile. "Great. Eleven, then? Make sure to bring your ball. Oh, by the way, the name's Martin." He stuck out his hand, but I did not move.

Mom smiled for me and grabbed my shoulders, even if I was slightly taller than her. "Thank you. She'll be there."

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I awaited the drive home for so long. I practically clung the to the side of the couch next to my father as soon as I had walked through the front door. He was sitting lazily in the love seat, arms flailed, just as tired as I had been.

"How'd things go? What classes did'ya get?" he asked monotonously.

"Well," Mom interfered, "she's still ahead in math with Trigonometry, AP History, and a new boyfriend."

My dad furrowed his eyebrows and stared at me with weariness as if to say "How did this happen?" I shrugged my shoulders and rolled my eyes, or as much as I could with my cheek smashed against the dark leather.

The news was on, and going strong about the disappearance of the Transformers. They even had an anonymous subject speak on behalf of the government, assuring the world that they were done. But there were pictures from all around the world about unexplained tragedies; Buildings smashed, craters in the earth, forests uprooted. Yet, the official blew them off, bit by bit. He would claim they were either minor natural tragedies or from the previous wars.

The Transformers were here for a reason and gone for a reason. This Earth couldn't handle more than one powerful force. One needed to go, and the Humans surely weren't giving up their planet now. No, not yet. But nobody could deny what was happening. It was going on the whole time whether they knew it or not.

The Transformers were back.

The Transformers are back.

And I want nothing more from or of them.

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Days rumbled by, no particular event setting off any alarms or worth getting excited over. The only thing I had been looking forward to the remaining week were the emails from my German Pen-Pal, Lisa, who was an amputee as well. Only, she was in a nasty electrical accident as a child. Let's just say her parents weren't good at watching their children, and Germany's hotel staff forgot the meaning of "key".

The emails were getting more interesting by the week though. First, she tells me she is going on a month-long vacation to Russia to visit her father at work, then nearly days later she shows me these...robotic arms that looked just like real arms - moved just like real arms. She had complete control of them apparently; I watched it second hand from a video. It seemed photoshopped for the longest time, but I came to the conclusion that this had to have been the real deal.

"That's great!" I said to her. But I had a choke hold back anything else. My selfish attitude was getting the better of me again. I wanted a new leg I could move and use that's perfectly intact to my knee again. Why were some people so lucky, and then there were people like me?

People gawked; mothers slapped their children around if they stared at me for too long. It bothered me more that they were so worried about offending me rather than taking their own discretions into consideration. I didn't care that much; the questions weren't a hassle. I could deal with the public's interest. It felt better to inform them than leave them in the dark of first-world problems. I would be lying if I said I didn't want to be normal again, though.

No, I am normal. Just a different type of normal. A degree, or certainty, of it. I was the cripple, degree four.

After another few short minutes, I ended the chat. It was hard to watch her adjust to her new limbs. It was unnatural to congratulate somebody for something you wanted so badly.

As I sat with my back resting against the end of my bed, my head hanging off with just my neck holding on, I grasped a book that was already lying on the floor below my head and picked up from where I last left off. This was how I always read. It was some weird fetish of mine that was probably the reason why I needed to read from the brain cells I was probably losing in this time.

Suddenly, a whirring of wind hovered around my room, clicking and beeping like a recorder in an interrogation room. It had been my brother again with his stupid toy car. For months he had been trying to get a toy monster truck to fly like a helicopter by attaching fan blades to it and doing some other mechanical crap. I wasn't the engineer here. But, by the looks of the plastic, fake pipes suspended above my face, he had done it. Took long enough. I lacked a personal assistant.

Before I could pluck it from the air, however, it inched it's way towards the window to my right and dropped without hesitation. Right where my laptop lay. My body snapped up faster than my brain could process as I made a grab for the damn thing. "SIMON!" I hollered, having already dropped down to the wooded floors to examine my laptop. "SIMON!"

He sped in with an expression of fear, smashing through my door like it was a barricade. "What? What is it?"

I held up the car like it was obvious, but he hid his expression all too well. Doing that, a grappling hook untangled itself from a set of series of gears between the wheels, dangling from a rope before being wound back up. "Care to explain?"

Simon did not splutter out his words as he did on a daily basis. His tone was serious and straight, which made me more suspicious than his mumbled excuses. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had planned this all along. "Don't let me catch it in here again," I warned with a stern glare. "That might be the cause of the alien armageddon and I don't want to be the first to go.

He nodded, slightly confused as he stared down at his little creation. With a light scratch of his head, Simon was gone, probably figuring out the minor details of why his mini mission had failed.

By then I had decided I was way too tired to be reading. So I flicked my side-table lamp off and buried myself deep into the comforter of my bed. A hum of beeps sung me to sleep even though there was nothing in my room that could have possibly emitted such noise.

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"So, tell me about yourself."

It was finally Friday, and I hadn't exactly been looking forward to this particular day. For once, somebody other than my doctor volunteered to speculate my specific performance. I tried to slip out of it by searching through my unfinished English documents for summer homework, but my laptop had mysteriously disappeared ironically after my brother's mission failure. He was clueless, and I was running late as it was.

But, hey, two more days and I was trapped under the authority of unfair teacher officials. Might as well get my worth out of summer now. Playing a little soccer with a strange boy that was soon to be an enemy to my team for a couple hours would do no harm for now.

I spoke some of my first words that morning as we took some shots at the goal, not really saying much but giving him the small stuff like birthplace, birthday, music, movie interests, and etcetera.

He was a good listener as I found out quick. With every statement I made about myself - good or bad - he had something else to add on. It was nice to know he was interested at least, but he had said nothing about himself quite yet.

I asked him the same.

We were now simply passing the ball back and forth. He had wanted to see how I played with my "injury" as he called it, so I showed him with basic taps.

"Ah, I would tell you." Then he was silent. I expected a catch, but his lips were sealed.

"Would?" I urged.

His head snapped up as if I should have taken heed to what he said. "Yes, would. Telling you about myself would give you no opportunity to learn more about me." He stopped the ball under his foot in a crushing trap and averted his eyes, then slowly they rose to meet mine.

"Right, just like I would be infuriated at you. But it won't make much of a difference, because, I think my ride is coming soon." My words were harsh, but made sure to keep my tone calm.

I shivered at his unexpected smile.

"You American Girls are 'ard ones to catch, aren't you?" His grin broadened in kind of a creepy way. My first instinct was to run and call 911, but something about his composure told me I was fine for now. "You know a little bit 'bout me from our conference at the school and...I found out a little bit 'bout you. 'Ow about you let me show you the guy who changed everything for people like...uh," his comfort disintegrated, "um, I mean...amputees, like you...who want to, you know, play soccer. Next Friday. After school, of course."

My throat quivered with uneasiness. He had been a good guy from the start, but something sent bad vibes that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. For some reason, some stupid, crazy reason, I nodded. And I did this for my own discretion this time.

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Then there I was, not even hours later, sitting at my local pediatrician's office, waiting for the nurse to call me into the back room. My mother rubbed my thigh - the good one - with a hidden smile playing at her lips. We weren't here for a checkup or anything. There was a numbness I had been experiencing for the past few weeks and my mom became worried - a bit too worried.

"Olivia." A nurse in neon green scrubs slipped through the door that separated the office from the waiting room. It was a man with scraggly grey hair from the top of his lip down to just about his collar bones. And he smelt of spoiled milk. Beautiful.

I waited for what seemed like another hour for the doctor to arrive. To make matters more tedious, when he did find his way around, the was in and out within minutes, asking me a set of questions he always asked me every time we came for regular checkups. But this wasn't a regular checkup, and he was acting as if my dying stump was nothing of a problem.

Then the nurse who smelt of spoiled milk took the place of the doctor, holding his own clipboard between the crevice of his fingers, eyeing my mom with apology. "I am sorry, Mrs. Banks. The doctor and I believe it would be best to speak with Olivia alone." I wished to hug the man. My mom was a worry wort, and whatever he was kicking her out for had to have been something serious. I was prepared to hear it, just not with my over emotional mother in the room.

She looked at me, waiting for the slightest of a response. I nodded and she was gone.

"Olivia, my name is Mr. Richards. We have some news for you which may or may not be fortunate in your opinion, but I think you're going to like it." The nurse had a peculiar accent, as if English was not his first language. His pronunciations were still understandable, but his slip-ups were obvious. "We have taken some consideration into your grave dislike for your plastic replacement of your tragic incident..." he motioned towards the gross prop swinging by my hip, leaving my stump free. "As you may have seen or heard, some very lucky people have been receiving very lucky gifts of very advanced technology by anonymous donors. You are about to be offered a chance to feel that leg again. Your doctor told me your dream of playing in the Professional Leagues of Footba - er - Soccer, eh? With this new-"

"I don't want it," I nearly exclaimed with a sort of madness heating up inside of me. This had happened too many times to count, only, there weren't sent from anonymous donors. "I've already tried out three different prototypes that suck. I think I'd rather die before I'm tortured with this "improvement" for the rest of my life."

Here we go. I was being unnecessarily dramatic again.

I rammed my plastic leg onto the tiled floor and grabbed my crutch in one single swipe "I'm done with these experiments! I'm not your lab rat!" My mother jumped into the room all of a sudden, growling like a guard dog in the dump.

"Wait, no, let me explain. This has already been tested by many variables. It is proven to bring back all stimulants and nerves and feelings from the missing body part and stable itself to where it once was. There is only six percent chance of failure during the process. That is how sure we are. But there is one catch..."

My lungs filled up with as much as air they could hold, ready to either blow out the steam I had regretfully shedded, or an anger that could not be contained. What catch? Wasn't there always one?

"It is permanent. There is no surgical needs for this, only a designated nurse - that would be me - and a full 24 hours for it to heal. Do we have a deal?"

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I promise, for all who are waiting for the Transformers action, it WILL be in the next chapter, for sure!
Thanks for reading!

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