Running, running, stop on a bend. Balance, running, running, skip around a pastel corner, running. Stomp on the green edge then swiftly tiptoeing around another curve. Running, steady myself on the rim of the baby-sized swimming pool. My toes slip down the brim, then crashing, I fall downward crushing the lip of the pool. The plastic edge bends inward, then snaps up sending me spiraling onto the perforating cement. Droplets of blood gather on my knees, hands and elbows. The blood flows up from beneath my torn skin creating small half bubbles kept together only by surface tension. Finally, too much blood pools in each semicircle and they split, each breaking open like a tiny dam. The blood spills down my legs onto the tops of my feet. The blood spreads from my palms onto my fingers and wrists. The blood slips down my upper arm and soaks into the sleeves of my shirt. I stare wide-eyed and vaguely fascinated at my shredded and gushing body. Then realizing that I am not only bleeding all over the cement and swimming pool but also on my favorite pair of blue flowered shorts I rush inside. A pair of tears escapes my eyes.
The next day I am sitting on the countertop, legs softly bumping back and forth, hands in my lap. I carefully inspect the band-aids encrusting my hinges. The bandages on my palms and elbows look clean, but my knees are beginning to look like oozing, molding, Red Delicious apples. I carefully bounce off the table and search for my nanny, Anna. She is in the bathroom with my little brother Jacek. He is standing naked in the tub while she pours pitchers of scalding water over him; she always bathes us this way, whenever we complain she tells us it saves water.
“Anna, me duele.” I tell her quietly as I lean up against the door flame. She doesn’t hear me.
Jacek sticks his tongue out at me and shakes his bare bum.
“Anna,” I whisper more urgently. “Anna, me duelen mis rodillas. Hay sangre.”
She is filling another pitcher with water and does not hear me over the pounding of the water. I walk over to her and gently tap her shoulder.
“Hmmm,” she says.
“Anna me estan sangrando las rodillas. No me gusta.”
Jacek grabs the pitcher of water and attempts to heft it over his head. It slips from his hands and clatters onto the bathtub’s dotted floor, shooting water over the edge of the tub.
“Ayaa, mi’ijo.” Anna exclaims. “Esperate un momento Sofi.”
I walk out of the bathroom and back into the kitchen. In the kitchen I drag a chair in front of the freezer. I gingerly climb up rotating from shin to hip to rib, and finally onto my feet. I pry open the freezer and look longingly at the pile of Otter pops stacked-up against the back wall. The last time I managed to pilfer a couple Otter pops I was incriminated by the wrappers I left on the top of the trash pile. This time I will not be so careless.
I lean forward, pushing the fossilized broccoli and chicken chimichangas to one side. My bandaged knees press up against the fridge door. I yelp and lean backwards, almost falling of the chair. I try again, this time leaning on my ribcage instead of my knees. I quickly grab a bushel of Otter pops. They are cold and wet. The thin outer film of frozen dew melts in my palm. I clamber off the chair, then shove it back into place next to the table.
With my sparkling stolen treasures in hand I wobble down the stairs. I can hear Anna explaining to Jacek that if he does not dry himself quickly he will have worms in his body. Once down stairs I open the heavy brown door leading outside. I slide into the warm, dry air, carefully shutting the door behind me. It has a tendency to slam.
I awkwardly run across the grass and pull myself up the sandpaperesque ladder to the slide (making sure not to put pressure on any of my bandages.) I never go down the slide because when I was younger we had turned the mere slide into a superb water slide by duck taping the hose to the handrail at the top. I had put my blue UV suit on and, as I had just done, scrambled up the ladder. On my swift, sloshing decent I opened my mouth to squeal in glee. As I opened my mouth I shot of the end of the slide. The jolt from my land on the mud and grass slammed my jaw shut on my flailing tongue.
I sit perched at the top of the slide with my back to the house, the row of vacuum packed treats laid out in front of me. One orange. One red. Two pink. Three blue. Thankfully no purple cough medicine ones have made it into my cluster. I had picked this spot because Anna could easily see me front the window above the kitchen sink, and so would not go searching for me. But, she could not see what I was doing (gorging myself on contraband.) I look over the dilapidated fence at the full, rushing canal. The canal is forbidden territory. My parents told me periodically that two people died every year in the canal. When you only know about twenty people that means that in ten years you will be the only survivor on planet earth. Terrifying.
So I sit, my back turned to the house, my knees gingerly propped up, my eyes fixed on the gushing, black water of the canal, my fingers busily prying open the wrapper around an orange Otter Pop.
Blue. Pink. Green. Red. Orange. Purple
Blue is my favorite not only because of the flavor and the color, but because of the friendly otter on the front. Admittedly all the otter pops have their personal otter: Red- Poncho Punch, I knew what gauchos were, and he had it all wrong, Green- Sir Isaac Lime, I confess this one is clever, Sir Isaac Lime is a tall (no surprise) lime green (also not a surprise) otter holding a telescope and wearing both a thick white mustache and square glasses, but the humor of Sir Isaac was wasted on my naïve self, Purple- Alexander the Grape, also ingenious but the mummy feet threw me off almost as much as the taste, Orange- Little Orphan Orange, no offence but when eating otter pops I prefer to enjoy myself not be thinking of all the poor children without mothers and fathers, Pink- Strawberry Short Kook, besides the fact that she is topless, Kook? what is that supposed to mean? especially to a child? and back to Blue- Louie-Bloo Raspberry, a dreaming painter, probably from France smelling a sweet daisy. Obviously the winner.
I eat my otter pops in reverse order, least favorite first, favorite last. Once I have ingested all my otter friends, I curl the wrappers around my finger, speculating as to what to do with them. I can’t put them in the trashcan inside, that risks discovery. I have a brilliant idea.
I lower myself back down the ladder and totter across the prickling lawn to a small evergreen bush. Beneath the bush the soil is soft, more like fine dust than real earth. With my fingernails I dig a hole past the dust and into harder, damper soil. Once the pit is large enough for me to fit my whole fist in I push the seven otter pop wrappers into the dirt. I pile the dirt and dust on top of the packaging, careful not to smear incriminating grime on my bandages. I place a rock on the disturbed ground. I evidence is hidden.
I stand back up and walk to the house. I open the brown door; this time I don’t stop it from slamming shut behind me. I walk up the stairs. Anna is reading Jacek a book, I think it is Max and Ruby. When she sees me come up the stairs she clucks her tongue and says,
“Mira que te estan sangrando las rodillas.”
“Ya se.”
She takes me into the bathroom and removes the bloody bandages. The skin is shredded and loose, I can see into my body. Jacek walks to the bathroom door and says,
“Anna, quiero un Otter pop.”
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