Mind over Monsters, page 5
When Spike left her room that Sunday evening, he had stirred up a slight breeze. Nothing spin-worthy, but Lena watched as Myron fussily resettled afterward. And as Myron went about his business, Lena had a brain wave.
Many people were afraid of spiders, even mild-mannered ones like Myron. This was a perfectly legitimate fear to have. So, what if… when she was supposed to be Finding and Facing, instead of letting any old fear come at her like an enraged killer in a horror movie, she pictured Myron? She wasn’t afraid of Myron, but the app didn’t know that. She could picture Myron in the woods, he could wander toward her, they could wave hello, and that would be that. No screaming, no phone throwing, no tooth-reconstruction bills.
Of course this was cheating. Using a fake, substitute fear wasn’t going to help her in the long run. But Lena was thinking about the short run Monday morning, and she was pleased with how calm she felt as she entered the small gym.
* * *
It turned out that Lena had made it almost to the end of part 2, session 1, the first time she tried it. What is it that is rushing toward you? which was as far as Lena had gotten, was followed by: Without turning away from the oncoming figure, move calmly backward until you are free of the wood and out in the field again. The figure stops at the edge of the wood, then moves back into the darkness.
Maybe if she’d known about the stopping part, she could have gotten through her encounter with asparagus-eye Spike.
Finally, the voice concluded, stand in the bright meadow and listen to the comforting sounds of nature. Reflect on what you felt when confronted by your fear and how you feel now that you are distanced from it. Breathe deeply, in and out… and gently open your eyes. Then came the tiny gong.
Sofie was the first to speak when they had removed their earbuds. “What was that even about?” she said, chomping on a defenseless cuticle.
“I am so not relaxed,” Sam put in. “I am the least relaxed I’ve been since we started.” He cracked an angry knuckle for emphasis.
“Where are Owen and Catherine?” Ava asked.
Owen’s and Catherine’s mats, on the far side of Ava, were still there. But the two sixth graders were gone.
“Did anyone hear them leave?” Tom asked.
“I was concentrating pretty hard on not screaming for a while there,” said Ava, and Lena gave her a grateful smile. That she could admit she’d been freaked out without apology or embarrassment sent Ava shooting toward the top of Lena’s Most Admired list. She wasn’t threatening Simone Biles up there or anything, but still…
“Glad I wasn’t the only one about to lose it,” said Tom.
“Same,” said Sam.
And that was when Lena realized that in this utilitarian room, with its hard floors and lingering body odor, she might have found Her People. No one was trying to “get control” of their worrying. Sure, the program was meant to help them do that, but in the meantime, they weren’t gritting their teeth down to nubs and snapping rubber bands on their wrists and pretending they were fine. They were talking about being afraid. Out loud.
Lena was just starting to wrap her head around this when the door opened and Catherine returned.
“Are you okay?” asked Ava. “Where’s Owen?”
“I’m fine,” said Catherine. “Owen kind of flipped out when that whole your-fear-is-coming-to-life-and-chasing-you-around thing happened. I took him to the nurse’s office. He’s going to lie down with his buddy the barf bucket for a while.”
“You and Owen are good friends, huh?” said Ava.
Catherine laughed. “No. We’re sister and brother. Did none of you know that?” She looked around the small gym.
“Nope,” said Sam. “No idea.”
“Are you twins?” Lena asked.
“No. Owen’s a year older,” said Catherine. “But he was in a bad car accident a couple years ago and missed a lot of school. So we’re in the same grade. I don’t love it,” she added. “But he’s kind of shy, so it’s handy for him to have me around to speak up for him.”
“Kind of shy?” said Sofie. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say a word.”
“Okay, more than kind of,” said Catherine. “He opens up eventually. Sometimes. Anyway, when that picture-your-fear part started, I opted right out. Pictured a clown, which doesn’t scare me.”
Ha, thought Lena. Another fear faker.
“But Owen did it right,” Catherine continued. “He really pictured his fear. Which is another car accident, no surprise. He has a good imagination, and it seemed so real he didn’t even make it to the backing-away part. Anyway, he freaked and felt sick, and you know the rest.”
“Poor guy,” said Ava. “Did he break his glasses somehow?”
“He doesn’t wear glasses,” said Catherine. “Why?”
“Because there’s broken glass on the mat.”
“Huh,” said Sam. He picked out a fingernail-size chunk of glass and studied it in his palm. “It’s cold—is it ice?”
“It isn’t melting in your hand,” said Ava. “It can’t be ice.”
“Here’s the thing, though,” said Sam. Then he paused, shaking his head.
“Go on,” said Ava.
“This looks like a piece of windshield glass, doesn’t it?” Sam said. “Windshield glass is meant to shatter into blocks like this if it breaks.”
“So?” said Sofie.
“So Catherine said Owen’s fear was a car crash,” Sam said.
“That’s a coincidence,” said Tom.
“Huh,” said Sam again. He turned to Catherine. “Okay, this is going to sound weird, and maybe totally out of line, but… does Owen, uh, carry broken glass around with him? Maybe as a superstition about car crashes?”
“No!” said Catherine. “At least I don’t think so.”
“Huh,” said Sam for the third time. He tossed the glass chunk back onto the mat with the rest.
Lena gathered the broken glass into a small pile. She didn’t want anyone to step on it. Also, if Owen did keep glass as a superstition, he might want it back.
“Do you have any extra copies of your survey?” she asked Tom.
“Absolutely!” said Tom, producing one immediately.
“Thanks.” She tore a sheet from the survey and wrapped the glass in it. “What?” she said as everyone stared. “Owen might want it. Do you want to keep it for him in case?” she asked Catherine.
“No, thanks,” said Catherine. “I’m sure it isn’t his. That would be too strange even for him.”
Lena put the package in her pocket. Sometimes brothers were stranger than their sisters could imagine.
“You know what?” Sofie said as they put away their mats. “That session was disturbing, but I’m looking forward to the next one. No idea why.”
Lena felt the same way. She had cheated on session 1, of course, which had made it easier. But she felt ready and even eager to handle session 2. Now that she knew the fears couldn’t leave the woods, maybe she would tackle a real one next time.
CHAPTER 13
Lena hadn’t seen Regina all weekend—she’d been at a riding camp reunion. Lena was looking forward to lunch, when they could catch up. But her walk to the cafeteria was long on Mondays, and Regina’s was short. By the time Lena arrived at “their” table, it was already full. Of Regina and a bunch of boys, among them the omnipresent Jared Kent.
Lena was headed for the last chair when a girl she didn’t know sat in it.
“Um, hi,” Lena said to Regina. And only Regina.
“Hey, Lisa,” said Jared. “Come and join us. We can scooch over, right, Reggie?”
Reggie?
“Lena! Yay!” said Regina in a high-pitched voice Lena didn’t recognize. Was she choking? Did she need the Heimlich maneuver? But no—if she could squeal like that, she was getting air. “Jared! Quit it!” she squealed.
“I’m scooching over for Lisa,” he said.
“You’re scooching right into me.”
“Sor-reee!”
So now Jared was squealing too. Lena didn’t care if he needed the Heimlich. He could fend for himself. She dragged over a chair from another table and squeezed into a corner between one of the Joshes and the girl she didn’t know.
“Hey,” said the girl, shifting her chair to make room. “I’m Kenny.”
Kenny? Was this where “Reggie” had come from? Was Lena going to be dubbed Lenny by this group? If so, she was going to find another table, with or without Regina. Even Spike wouldn’t dare call her Lenny. Because she would retaliate with Glenny, and they both knew it. There was a way out, though, and she took it.
“I’m Lisa,” she said to Kenny. “Nice to meet you.”
Kenny was perfectly pleasant to chat with. Various boys tried to get her attention the way they did Regina’s, but they didn’t succeed. Lena got the sense that Kenny, who was undeniably pretty—sleek, dark hair cut short, and the kind of cheekbones that didn’t usually kick in as early as seventh grade—was not newly pretty. Her prettiness was well worn, while Regina’s was recent and fragile. Kenny gave the impression that she simply assumed everyone was treated the way she was. Why wouldn’t they be? She always had been.
“So did you like the meditation this morning?” Kenny asked her.
Lena took a moment to swallow and arrange her answer to avoid terms like “teacher-selected experimental worrier.” “Yeah, it was nice—”
“So, Kenny, are you blissed out?” The Josh on Kenny’s other side nudged her in the ribs.
Kenny’s attention stayed on Lena. “I thought it was great,” she said. “So relaxing. I would have fallen asleep if I hadn’t been sitting upright.”
Lena laughed politely. She felt a little resentful that everyone at school was going to get Calm and Clear whether they needed it or not. All those Spikes out there, who were perfectly relaxed already, getting even more stress-free. It didn’t seem fair.
* * *
Lena was forced to walk home with Regina and Jared Kent again Monday afternoon. At least they weren’t om-ing and squealing at each other. They were comparing happy places. Regina’s was the lake at horseback-riding camp, which, to be honest, Lena found hurtful. Regina’s happy place was somewhere Lena had never been.
Jared had obviously made up a happy place he thought Regina would find cool. He claimed it was sitting on a hill overlooking a lake (probably Regina’s), playing guitar. Did he even own a guitar? Maybe it didn’t matter—you could do whatever you wanted in your happy place, Lena supposed.
She wondered if Jared secretly pictured Regina in his happy place with him. Maybe gazing at him adoringly as he strummed his fake guitar. Because watching Jared Kent talking to Regina, Lena realized she was seeing something she never had before: a boy with a crush. She’d been witnessing girls with crushes since fifth grade or so, although she’d never had one herself. But not a boy. The signs were all there with Jared: the manic eagerness to please, the blotches on the cheeks, the ability to ignore all else when in the presence of the crushed-on one.
And wow, was he good at that last part. Lena could have set her hair on fire, rushed into traffic, and been flattened under a speeding garbage truck, and Jared wouldn’t have noticed that “Lisa” was no longer with them.
When she got home, she texted Regina.
When are we actually going to be able to talk? she wrote.
As soon as she pressed send, she knew how selfish and even pathetic that sounded, so she added, I want to hear about the reunion!!, even though she didn’t.
Sorry!!! Regina texted back a few minutes later. I miss you so much! A series of weeping emojis followed.
Me too! Lena wrote back quickly. She turned all the letter beads on her bracelet to face up as she waited for Regina’s reply.
Jared says hi! Regina wrote after a few minutes. He really likes you! Smiley face, smiley face, smiley face.
Lena tossed the phone away. Frowny face, frowny face, frowny face.
She rolled over on her bed, and something poked her leg. She reached into her pocket and found the packet of glass she’d scooped up from Owen’s mat this morning. She unfolded the paper and picked up a single chunk, holding it up to the sunlight. It was cold between her fingers. It felt like an ice chip, despite having spent all day in her pocket. What kind of glass was this?
Shifting into science mode, Lena brought the chunk of glass downstairs. She went into the kitchen and pulled a drinking glass out of the cupboard. She held the drinking glass in one hand and the piece of broken glass in the other. There was no doubt about it: The small cube was much colder than the drinking glass.
She took the strange glass outside and placed it on the hood of her father’s car in the driveway. The car was in the sun and so was the chunk. She waited ten minutes, then compared the temperature of the chunk to that of the car’s windshield. The windshield was warm. The glass was cold.
And now Lena went full-on Marie Curie. She subjected the broken glass to heat, pressure, water of various temperatures, ketchup, mustard, and hot sauce. She hit it with a spoon and then a rolling pin. The glass refused to change, no matter what she did to it.
Physical experiments over, she moved into research mode. She googled “unbreakable cold glass” and got a lot of ads for drinkware. She googled “windshield glass properties” and learned a lot about those but nothing about windshield chunks remaining cold despite half an hour in a 350-degree oven.
Then Marie Curie’s mother got home and demanded to know why the kitchen was strewn with condiments and who on earth had left the oven on.
Lena found a large salsa jar in the recycling and stowed the glass chunks inside. She wasn’t sure why she was saving a handful of trash, except she still had questions about it.
CHAPTER 14
Take a step back and put your hand up like a stop signal. Your fear will freeze, and when it does, walk around it. Consider it from all sides. What are the details of its form and dimensions? Memorize it as if you were going to draw it later.
Session 2 of “Finding and Facing Our Fears” had started off like session 1, with Lena meeting her fear in the dark woods. Except this time, she decided to picture an actual fear, though not a huge one. Sort of a starter fear, to ease herself into it. And this time, instead of backing away from the fear, she was studying it like the subject of a drawing.
So at this point in session 2, Lena was, in her head, pacing carefully around an overgrown Canada goose. The threat from Canada geese didn’t end with their camouflaged, hard-to-avoid poops all over the ground. When feeling feisty, they chased, they snapped, they flapped, then they chased some more. This had happened to Lena once as a child, and she still steered clear of them.
Turn and walk calmly away, the voice instructed, leaving the figure in the dark wood. Return to the meadow. Reflect on what you’ve seen now that you are distanced from your fear. Breathe deeply, in and out… and gently open your eyes.
Lena left the goose behind with no regrets. Not only had she pictured it the size of a pony, but she’d given it mean little eyes with glowering eyebrows, plus an unnecessary spike on the tip of its beak. She didn’t know where these details had come from or why she’d felt the need to add them, but they were not welcome.
Everyone sat up, and six of them oh so casually pretended not to be studying Owen.
Catherine was the first to break the silence. “He’s fine,” she said. “Right, Owe?”
Owen nodded.
“I told him to pick a fake fear this time, and it was fine, right?”
Owen nodded again.
“So what was the fake fear?” Sofie said. “If you don’t mind sharing?”
Five of the group members waited without breathing to see if Owen would speak.
“Pickles,” he said finally.
“So did anyone go for a real fear today, or did we all picture burger fixings?” Sam asked.
“I went with snakes,” said Tom. “Lots of people are afraid of them, but I’m not.”
“The dentist,” said Sam. “Not one of my fears. I have excellent teeth. I floss regularly.”
“Roller coaster,” said Ava. “I like them, so it was a total cheat.”
“Thunder,” said Sofie. “My feelings toward thunder are completely neutral.”
“High dive,” said Catherine. “Same.”
“What about you, Lena?” asked Ava.
Lena, who was afraid of roller coasters, thunder, and diving boards of any height, was caught off guard by the question. She blinked, then blurted, “I cheated yesterday, so I went with a goose today. They’re not in my top ten fears. Or even my top twenty, but I don’t like them.”
“They can get feisty,” said Ava.
“So Lena gets the bravery award for session 2,” said Sam. “And the rest of us are wimps.”
It was as she was rolling up her mat that Lena noticed the feather. It tumbled off the mat and blew a few inches across the floor. It wasn’t one of those tiny down feathers that come from a pillow or a coat. It was the kind of feather you saw outside, lying in a mud puddle. It was a bit mangled and missing some… what were they called? Fronds? Lena wasn’t sure.
Without thinking about it, she picked the feather up and stuck it in one of the side pockets of her backpack. It certainly didn’t look like a lucky feather. But you never knew.
* * *
At least Lena got a seat at lunch and had a few words with Regina (and Kenny) before half a dozen boys descended on the table. But they didn’t walk home together because Regina went to Ralph’s for ice cream with Jared and his crew after school. She invited Lena, but Lena made an excuse about too much homework and retreated. The group was starting to seem like a gaggle, and she’d had enough of geese for the day.
When she needed a bookmark that afternoon and couldn’t find so much as a dirty sock for the job, she remembered the feather in her backpack. It was the right size for a bookmark. Once she got a good look at the feather, though, she changed her mind. It was too grimy to use as a bookmark, even in a math text. She was headed for the wastebasket with it when she realized how cold it was. The soft part felt like snow against her fingers when she stroked it, and the stem (Lena didn’t know any of the scientific names for feather parts) felt like a dry icicle.
