Page 59 of Have a Bear-y Little Christmas
“I think you meangirls,” she countered, sounding a whole lot like my mama.
“I’m not a girl,” Moss countered, and I nodded at the eleven-year-old boy I’d met the day before.
“Exactly, ergo, I was correct.”
“What does ergo mean?” Moss asked, his mouth full of scrambled eggs.
Which reminded me, I had scrambled eggs on my plate, and I was starving.
“It’s kinda like a fancy way to say because of that, or therefore,” I answered as I quickly sat down across from Addy and Eva. My legs and back were still pretty sore from the snowball fight, but whatever. I was having too much fun to care.
Besides, I had a lotta stuff on my mind that I needed to discuss.
“You sure that’s all you want?” Addy said, pointing at my plate. I’d overloaded it with an insane amount of food, but when I looked around at the kids surrounding me, I realized it actually wasn’t that much.
“I can’t eat a lot all at one time. Makes me nauseous. But I’ll snack later.”
Sometimes, when people asked me questions, I could tell they were being mean or judgy. But with my two newest, bestest friends, it wasn’t like that. Their questions werereal. I didn’t really know how to explain it better than that. They had that same push that I did to know everything about anything interesting.
And I sure did like that.
“Ooh, I love snacks!”
“Me too, Moss, me too,” I said before digging in. Even though I had a ton on my mind, food was my priority. I knew Mama worked really hard to make sure my tummy was never too grumbly for very long, but even with her almost superpowers, there was only so much that could be expected of her, so it wasn’t like our fridge was packed to the gills or I got to eat a lot of cool new treats. And that was okay. But it also meant I was definitely going to take advantage when I saw so many goodies out.
None of us talked all that much. The kids around me were inhaling their food—Mama liked using that phrase—while I ate mine at more of a noob pace. Anytime I started to feel a little bit of peer pressure to speed it up, I would hear Mama’s voice in my head sternly reminding me to“Chew, Max, chew.”
It kinda made me feel a little… What was that word that Mama used for when it was like shyness but at myself for not doing right? Oh right,self-conscious.Then I told myself that all the other kids around me were bear shifters, and even if theycouldn’t turn into animals yet, they had to eat a lot more than I did to be healthy.
That had been an interesting thing to learn on our first day of vacation.
To be honest, I maybe, sorta, possumly-bossumly felt like something was up. I never was able to really put my finger on it, because who knew that werebears were even a thing? But a lot of things kinda added up. Maybe if I wasn’t used to watching the world pass me by in my wheelchair, I wouldn’t have noticed it.
Like the very first moment that Addy and I met. The gash on her leg had been pretty bad, but by the time I was putting the bandage on her, it had stopped bleeding and the edges started to scab over. I knew a lot more about how wounds healed and how the body reacted to trauma than the average kid, so it was a little weird.
Another thing that stood out was how hot their daddy ran. He always had steam escaping his head, and he wasn’t all bundled up all the time like me and Mama. The few times I’d touched him, he’d felt like a furnace.
Then, there was howyoungeveryone looked. I mean, they were all adults, but they didn’t look like my doctors, my nurses, or any of the older people at the bookstore.
And finally, when I was taking a couple of breaks during playtime yesterday, I’d heard a couple of the kids mention their great-great-great-grandmother being around, and then a two-times great uncle and auntie as well.
Now, had my thoughts insta-turned to them being what I believe was called shapeshifters? Nah. But superheroes, mutants, enchanted people, and aliens had all been on the table.
“So,” I said cautiously once my body forced me to slow down on the whole eating thing. Unfortunately, I knew from experience that chowing too hard, too fast, could lead to disastrous results, AKA: upchuck, vom, technicolor shouting,and other generally gross terms for my body giving a big ol’ NOPE to whatever I had just eaten. “This has been really fun so far. I can’t wait for ice fishing.”
I wish that I had a smoother way of bringing up what was spinnin’ around all zippy-like in my head, but even though words sometimes came super easily to me, I did get a little stuck sometimes.
“It’s okay,” Eva said after swallowing half a pancake in one bite. Jeez Louise! “But my favorite is sledding! Maybe we can go this afternoon? Or tomorrow?”
“Sure, sounds great,” I said, ignoring that annoying voice in my head that said I would have to rest and recover at some point. I wanted to doeverything. I’d missed out on the best years of being a kid, so now that I was getting a chance to make up for it, I didn’t want to miss a thing.
But I’d learned that if I didn’t take it easy and rest when my body needed, it would force me to in some really meanie ways. Zero out of ten, if anybody was asking.
“It’s so nice having you around all the time,” Eva mused at me. That was a word my mom liked a lot.Muse.I thought it was just a Greek thing from myths, but apparently it had other meanings too. Language was cool like that. One day I wanted to know as much as Mama did about it. Maybe I’d write a book she could edit.
Or maybe a play? I really liked the musicals we watched together, especiallyThe King and I.The costumes were next level.
“I wish it could be like this all the time. Not just Christmas.”
