The Door Is Open, page 10
“I’m going to stop by the bee in a little bit,” I say, trying to flatten my hair back into place. “Good luck, Nisha,” I add, bending down to hug my little sister.
“Thanks,” she says, beaming.
“See you in a bit,” Baba says, squeezing my hand bye before he, Aai, Nisha, and Priyanka Auntie race down the hall as fast as a mako shark, which just happens to be one of the fastest fish in the ocean.
I head for the back doors to the community center. The glass is smudged with a hundred little handprints from all the kids who go through here for different classes. Through the blurry door, I can make out a handful of kids on the basketball court at the end of the parking lot. I take a deep breath, like I do before I jump off a diving board, and push the door open.
“You’re not watching the bee?” a voice asks behind me.
I turn. It’s Halima. Her younger brother has been doing the spelling bee as long as Nisha has.
I shrug. “I thought I’d go there in a bit.”
She nods, her voice dropping to a whisper. “It is kind of boring.”
I let out a small laugh. “Are Nora and Sandeep doing the bee today?”
“Yup. Same group as always. Don’t worry, us bad spellers won’t be missed.”
We near the group of kids playing basketball by the fence separating the community center parking lot from the neighborhood. There are Sakura and Ren, the tall twins who play on our school’s basketball teams, and Andrea, a girl I took swimming classes with at the local pool when we were younger. Akshay, a boy whose dad knows my dad from when they were in high school in India, dribbles quickly around me and Halima. And a kid I haven’t seen before, who is holding a bag of gummy worms in one hand while dribbling his neon pink basketball with the other, eyes me up and down.
Halima and I say hi to everyone, but instead of saying hi back, the boy with the gummy worms shouts, “Think fast!”
Before I can even think about what I’m supposed to think fast about, a pink blur comes flying toward me.
I throw my hands out a few seconds too late, and the basketball hits me right between the ribs.
“Ow,” I groan, rubbing the spot.
“Why would you do that?” Halima scowls, throwing the ball back at the boy.
“It was just a joke,” the boy says, nearing me to shove the wrinkled plastic bag of colorful, fruit-flavored worms near my face.
“Want some?” he asks.
I frown, moving my face back, my chest still hurting, kind of like my feelings. First the ball, now this. Doesn’t this kid know what personal space means, or do I have to spell that out for him? “No thanks,” I say, shoving down my irritated thoughts.
“Don’t worry. I have braces, too. They don’t get stuck in them that much,” the boy says.
I shake my head, breathing a little easier as the pain subsides. “I’m vegetarian,” I reply. “Gummy worms usually have gelatin in them.”
“Well then,” the boy says, widening his eyes, pretending to be offended while Ren giggles and Sakura nudges her brother to stop.
Halima rolls her eyes. “I’m Halima. What’s your name?”
“Vikram,” the boy replies, grinning widely.
I swallow down the hot flash of nausea that is trying to creep up my throat at the sight of bits and pieces of purple and green gummy worms jammed in his braces.
“Gross,” Halima says, cringing a little as Vikram laughs loudly, clearly enjoying the attention.
“What?” Vikram grins. “I said they don’t get stuck that much. Just this much,” he adds pointing to his teeth.
This kid is like my polar opposite. Someone who loves to be the center of attention. It’s like he is a baleen whale, whose voice can travel farther than any other animal’s voice in the world. And I am a timid little Great Barrier Reef blenny, trying to swim through this world without being heard.
“This is my friend Sanjay,” Halima says, changing the subject away from the gummy worms. “His sister and my brother are in the spelling bee right now.”
“Chest pass!” Vikram abruptly throws his ball at my torso hard, and I just manage to block it.
Again? He threw it at me again with barely any warning. It’s like he’ll do anything to have the spotlight on him, no matter who gets a ball chucked in their face in the process.
“Vikram!” Akshay frowns as he picks up the ball and rebounds it.
“What?” Vikram shrugs innocently. “I just wanted him to play with us.”
“You could have hurt him,” Andrea says, talking about me like I’m not even there. But I guess that’s okay, since I don’t really feel like talking about my feelings the way Nisha is probably talking about words inside the hall.
“Hurt. May I have the definition?”
“To cause pain or injury to.”
“Would you use it in a sentence, please?”
“It hurts when Priyanka Auntie makes fun of my arms and rubs my head without my consent. It hurts when Vikram throws a basketball at my chest without any warning, twice; my chest and palms still sting from the impact. And it really, really hurts when Aai and Baba make me miss lifeguard class for a local spelling bee that I’m not even in because they don’t realize how much I like this class or that I go to every local spelling bee my sister is in, so ‘what’s the big deal if I miss one?’”
Whoops. I guess I used “hurt” in way more than just one sentence.
“Yeah,” Halima adds. “And if you ever get hurt out here, he’s the only one who could help. He’s a junior lifeguard.”
“I don’t see any water on the court for me to drown in.” Vikram laughs, turning his back to us as he dribbles his ball.
Ignoring him, I shake my head a little defeatedly at Halima. “I’m not actually a junior lifeguard yet. I’ve missed a bunch of classes because Nisha’s spelling bees are at the same time. I’m missing class right now, actually.”
“Don’t feel bad. It kind of sounds like a pointless class,” Vikram says, shooting his ball into the basket. “Unless you plan on being a professional lifeguard.”
I grit my teeth. What is this kid’s problem? He’s like a fish louse, clinging to one cyprinid, determined to bring that fish down to make himself feel better.
Halima kicks a small rock across the parking lot. I can tell she is getting as annoyed with Vikram as I am.
“There’s more to being a junior lifeguard than just saving drowning people. You actually learn all sorts of first aid stuff,” Andrea replies, speaking up on my behalf again. “My swimming teacher was telling me all about it last year before I quit swimming.”
I smile awkwardly, the insides of my lips scraping against my braces. I wish I spoke up for myself the way all these kids, most of whom I barely speak to, easily do on my behalf. Maybe I do need to start spelling things out for people. But there is a reason I never do the spelling bee. There is a reason I am usually in the audience and never onstage, speaking into a microphone while my voice is amplified one hundred times for an auditorium full of people to hear. I dig my shoe into the parking lot tar.
“You learn how to pull someone out of the water if they’re drowning and lay them on their back,” Andrea continues, “and check if they’re breathing by putting your ear near their mouth and nose and seeing if you feel air on your cheek. Right?”
She looks at me, and I nod, sort of embarrassed by all the attention.
“It’s neat. And important,” Andrea adds firmly.
“Still sounds kind of funny,” Vikram says with a snort, shoving a few more gummy worms into his mouth. “And if they’re not breathing, you know what’s next, right? Mouth-to-mouth. Blech.” Vikram gags dramatically, and my ears burn. “You have to put your mouth on all those manikins everyone else does CPR on to practice. Slobbering on their faces where everyone in line before you already drooled? Now that’s actually gross,” he says, looking pointedly at Halima for calling him gross before.
I bite the inside of my cheek, feeling the soft part of my flesh against the wire of my top braces. It isn’t gross. It isn’t gummy worms purposely jammed in braces. It’s how we learn. Coach Simone showed me the right way to tilt a head and do CPR with that manikin if they’re drowning. I wish Vikram knew this. I wish someone else would tell him so he’d stop making fun of it.
“They’re cleaned with alcohol.” Halima huffs.
“Yeah,” I add softly, as Sakura shoots a three-pointer, clearly not wanting to be part of this conversation with Vikram anymore.
“We should test your lifeguard skills,” Vikram says, looking over at the gray fence next to us. “You know that one lady’s house has an aboveground pool in it. You can watch us swim in it.”
Akshay shakes his head. “No way. That’s the woman who spoke up at the town hall meeting about the community center and said it shouldn’t be renovated and should be torn down instead.”
Ren’s eyes widen, and he quickly stops dribbling. “The one who said she heard South Asian women pee on the grass before they build things to make it holy?”
I cringe, remembering how embarrassing it was when the paper covered that story and people in school talked about it. That woman even went on the local news. Aai says she was making up ridiculous stories because she didn’t like the noise from the community center right in her backyard, which I guess would be annoying. I wouldn’t want to have to listen to Vikram making other people feel uncomfortable and unimportant all day. But she could have made her point a different way, rather than spreading racist lies.
“That’s the one.” Vikram grins, throwing a big wad of gummy worms into his mouth as he rushes to the fence. “Come on.” He runs his hand over the wooden pickets. “Hopping it is easy.”
I watch Vikram stick his foot in a notch in the fence and feel my stomach drop as he gets halfway up the picket and peeks through the fence.
“Whoa!” he exclaims. “The water looks amazing. And it’s hot today. Besides, don’t we sort of need to get even with her after she said all that bad stuff about us?”
“So what are you going to do, pee in her pool and prove her right?” Halima asks, with an exasperated groan.
“You’re so gullible.” Vikram laughs, waving a blue-and-red gummy worm around before dropping it in his mouth. “I’m not going to do that. But I do think I could jump in and do a lap around her pool and get back over it before she notices.”
Sakura raises an eyebrow at Andrea. Are they feeling the same nervous feeling I’m feeling? Like an ocean is churning in their belly? Like something really bad is going to happen if we don’t stop him?
“No, you can’t,” Ren says.
“Watch me,” Vikram replies, popping more worms in his mouth.
He scales the fence, and everyone else rushes over to watch him, so I do too, not wanting to go against the tide.
But this is a time to go against the tide. Someone has to put a stop to this. You never get into a pool without a trusted grown-up around. That is Swimming 101. The first thing you learn. Well, that and don’t pee in the pool.
“Time me,” Vikram says, his cheeks looking like they are ready to burst from the worm convention in his mouth.
“I don’t like this,” Halima whispers.
I clench the wooden planks of the fence, my palms sweating as I spot glimpses of the yard through the slats. It is empty. No grown-ups around. Not that it would be better if the woman who hates the community center in her backyard was there.
I’m not a certified junior lifeguard yet. But I know this is unsafe.
I clear my throat as Vikram swings his right leg over the fence. He is really doing this. He is actually going to trespass in someone else’s yard, possibly get in big trouble for swimming in the pool or worse, and endanger his life in unsafe swimming conditions if someone doesn’t stop him.
I look at the other kids. They’re staring at him in shock, mouths open, with no sounds coming out.
Someone has to do something.
And it looks like that someone is me.
“Stop!” I shout, surprised at how loud I can get. Was I baleen-whale-loud?
Vikram yelps, startled, and falls back off the fence. “You fell for it.” He laughs, covering his awkward dismount. “I can’t believe you fell for it,” he continues, laughing even louder, so loud a gummy worm falls out of his packed mouth.
I watch it practically slither on the ground in a puddle of saliva as Vikram continues to snicker at me. My ears burn. I had finally spoken up, and now I’m the butt of his joke. Remind me never to do that again, I think, when Vikram’s giggles suddenly turn into coughing.
I look at him as Ren quickly bends down by his side.
“You okay?” he asks.
Vikram smiles, getting to his feet, coughing and laughing more, until suddenly there are no more laughs or coughs. And his skin starts to turn almost as red as Aai’s tikli.
“He’s choking!” Halima says.
My heart pounds in my chest. He is choking. Vikram is choking. I think back to what Coach Simone had taught us with the manikins. She didn’t just show us how to save someone who was drowning with them. She also showed me exactly where to hit someone’s back or do abdominal thrusts if they were choking on food. She even taught us how to help a choking baby with a baby-sized manikin, since that’s a totally different method.
I look at Vikram and really think fast. I think about exactly where Coach Simone had showed me to use the heel of my palm on someone’s back before doing abdominal thrusts.
“Help him!” Ren shouts, looking at me as Vikram motions toward his own throat and the red in his cheeks start to turn slightly bluish.
Without giving it a second thought, I spring into action.
“Hurry!” Akshay pleads, his eyes welling with worried tears.
“Get the parents!” I shout. “Get help! I’m going to start first aid.”
Sakura and Akshay rush past me to the community center.
I stand to the side and just behind Vikram. I put one arm over his chest for support, help him bend at his waist so he is parallel to the ground, and then start to give him five back blows behind his shoulder blades with the heel of my hand.
“One,” I say, huffing. “Two, three,” I say, louder with each count. “Four,” I cry, desperate for the food to get dislodged from Vikram’s throat. “Five!” I shout, determined, smacking his back once more.
A wadded-up gummy worm ball goes flying out of his mouth like a flying fish, landing on the concrete. And Vikram takes a gasping breath of air, the color returning to his cheeks. He coughs hard and then sputters some words my way, but I can’t understand them.
“You okay?” I ask.
He nods, taking in a few breaths of air. “You saved me,” he repeats, clearing his throat. “You actually saved me!”
The community center doors swing open, and a mass of parents rushes toward us. I spot Nisha and my parents along with Priyanka Auntie.
“Do we need a doctor?” Andrea’s dad asks from the crowd.
“I’m a doctor!” Sandeep’s mom calls out, making her way forward.
“I’m a doctor,” Nora’s dad says.
“Me too,” several other aunties and uncles in the crowd chime in.
I step back as the doctors check Vikram and his parents swarm him.
“What happened?” Aai asks, running to my side, Nisha and Baba right behind her.
“That kid over there, Vikram, he was choking,” I sputter, my heart still racing from what has just happened. “I used what I learned in lifeguard class to help him.”
Baba’s mouth drops. “You did?”
I nod, wiping away tears of relief from my cheek as Nisha hugs me.
“Arey wah!” Priyanka Auntie exclaims, nearing us. “I’m so proud of you!” She raises her hand, going in to rub my head.
I duck back. “I actually don’t like when you do that,” I say softly.
Priyanka Auntie stops just short of messing up my hair. “What?”
I take a deep breath. I surprised myself with my whale voice when Vikram was going over the fence. And I was sort of impressed with it when I was helping Vikram when he was choking. I like the sound of it. I want to hear more of it.
“I don’t really like when you do that to my hair,” I say again, louder.
Aai and Baba look a little taken aback.
And Priyanka Auntie looks totally shocked. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry, betu. Thanks for letting me know. Fist bump?”
I smile. I am down with a fist bump. I offer my fist and she bumps it.
“Then this is our new way of saying hi.” Priyanka Auntie beams. “If it’s okay with you, that is.”
I nod. Then someone taps my shoulder.
I turn to see Vikram standing there with his parents.
“I just wanted to say thanks,” Vikram says softly.
“No problem,” I say, over the hum of the crowd.
“You saved his life,” Vikram’s mom says.
“You’re a hero,” his dad adds.
“It was just something I learned in lifeguard class,” I say, feeling my cheeks grow hot from the attention.
“Well, it was incredible,” Vikram’s dad says.
“Yeah, I might even sign up for your class with you,” Andrea says from behind them.
“That would be fun,” I reply. I look at my parents, who are beaming proudly at me and my lifeguard skills when they should have been at Nisha’s spelling bee. The bee was interrupted, but there is something I still need to spell out. Even if it is in front of everyone. I clear my throat.
“Aai? Baba? Can we talk?”
I feel eyes on us from all around. Aai and Baba get a little closer, and I don’t feel the stares anymore from the crowd.
“I know our family is into spelling bees,” I start, as people begin to turn away. “I like cheering Nisha on. But… I also really like lifeguard class. I love learning the first aid stuff and how to help someone if they’re drowning or if they’re choking.” I take a breath and look at both of my parents, everyone else around us blending into the background. “It’s important to me.”
