Polly Olly Oxen Free: Chapter 5 (Draft One)
An Onslaught of Optimism
Hello, dearest of Dear Readers,
After much brain noodling and post-experiment frustration, I finally have a Chapter 5 draft to share.
I hope it fills some of the story gaps we identified in the pre-outline episode of A Novel Experiment’s Episode 10, and that it will allow for the continued creation of our story—while I whack my head against the wall over how I’m going to redraft the first four chapters in a way that won’t ruin things downstream.
Please forgive the draftiness of it. It is, after all, a first draft.
As always, although I am itching to attack it with my editing brain, and I am very hesitant to post it without, I am here to show you the creative journey from outline to draft to final product.
So, here you go.
Cayse
Chapter 5: An Onslaught of Optimism
Laptops lose their appeal reeeeaal quick when your movement is restricted.
“Gah! Come on!” I growled at satan’s padfolio when once again it slid off my left hip and wedged between my side bolster and low back. I jerked it back up, wincing against the snag of pain that tweaked along my spine.
I had rotated as far to my right as my leg sling had allowed and scooched some bolsters over to make a temporary elbow rest for my left arm--the laptop was balanced on my left hip bone, propped up between my bent right leg on one side, and bolstered on the other as I scrolled through the backlog of notifications and emails.
Ergonomics genius that I am, I had settled on this set up as soon as I found a solution that allowed me to type, tap, scroll, and balance, with only a moderate amount of additional pain. It worked well enough so long as I paid attention to how hard I was tapping and typing. Just well enough that it continued to lull me into a false-sense of security and then…
BAM! Laptop keyboard to the ribcage.
CRACK! Laptop corner to the pelvis.
SCRAPE! Laptop hinge to the human spine as broken human arm in cast attempts to catch it against back to keep it from falling to the floor.
But all that, even the resulting crick in my neck and dead arm it was giving me using the damn thing, was nothing compared to the misery inside of it.
Thank bejeezuz I hadn’t tried to open my own MacBook since the incident at the hospital. It would have been the first thing I chucked at the apple after its mysterious appearance my first night back.
123 unread messages. And much like the five I’ve forced myself to read so far, the one in front of me left me with zero idea how to respond.
Or rather, I had no idea how to respond to them as the “Pollyanna Monroe,” they would be expecting to hear from; that happy-go-lucky Pol these people wanted to hear from wasn’t here anymore.
When the hell are they going to get it through their heads that their sweet, happy, makes everything better for everyone else Pollyanna was dead? She collapsed when she woke up in the hospital and found herself in a full body cast, and died when she heard her best friend was in a coma.
All that had happened within the same five minute time span as she was being asked if she could “sense her toes at all” and told she should be “so thankful” to be alive let alone have a chance to walk again.
Demi may think that “me” is still present and accounted for, and yes, that is my fault, shut up—but he is as close to a gloomy swamp creature as a human can get without moving to a bog. Demi wears gray when he’s feeling festive. Faking old-Pol with him takes less than nothing.
But what am I supposed to do with this?
“Hi Pol!
The crew and I just wanted to let you know that we’ve been thinking of you and wanted to share that we’ve been running all of our meets in your honor! We bring “Pol’s cleats” to every meet and they have given us a great deal of luck, but of course we can’t wait until you are well enough to come be our real-life lucky charm! We have a bleacher seat all cushioned up and ready to go for you (see the attached pictures!)
Lots of love and well wishes,
Coach Kay and The Varsity Girls Track Team”
Cue attachments of various girls mid-sprint during various meets.
Running my races.
Winning my titles.
And then at the very bottom, the whole team and coaching staff, in the stands and huddled around two decorated stadium seats with two sets of track cleats placed on them.
One labeled Pol and the other Saffi.
Do they really think I want to respond to that shit?
Or, better yet, how about this one:
“Ms. **POLLYANNA MARIE MONROE**,
As the end of **THIRD** quarter has come and gone, it is important for all of our **SENIOR** students to look forward with greater fervor and scrutiny than ever before.
To assist you in this effort, the career counseling department of **CHILEDONS HIGH SCHOOL** has collected the following relevant information on your career path of choice:
**ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN ENGINEER**
It is our determination that based on this quarterly analysis of career specific trends, the risk and viability of your career path has:
**CHANGED SIGNIFICANTLY**
And is classified as a:
**HIGH RISK CHOICE**
We recommend that you meet with your designated career counselor to review this analysis:
**IMMEDIATELY**
All collected information can be reviewed in the attachments below.
We look forward to discussing your career prospects and know that you have a bright future ahead of you, **POLLYANNA**!
The Senior Career Counseling Center”
Uplifting, don’t you think?
So, support. Very custom. Much personal.
UGH.
And no, I will not open those attachments, thank you very much.
I don’t need to because Tibbs already told me allllll about my career getting tanked by the latest AI advancement. He found it appropriate to burst into my hospital room as soon as he found out.
I had been there for, what, maybe three days? But that didn’t matter to Tibbs. I needed to know IMMEDIATELY—which he was irritatingly correct about given this email—so he started yammering about how AI had officially broken into the architectural sector by designing the first earthquake resistant brick wall rated over an 8.5 ground shake. He then stole my Jello and suggested I pick a new major “reaaal quick” because he needed me to go to college no matter what.
His reasoning? Duh sis, Tibbs and Telly need their own rooms. And I am all that is standing in the way of their happiness.
Me. Pollyanna. Standing in the way of their happiness. In my full body cast.
It was this little irony that triggered my blow up with Gena over not getting to see Saffi and the aformentioned attempt to see Saffi. And thus my infuriating two-week-long set-back from being out of this damn body cast.
Given that the blow up in front of Gena was the first time in seven years my “true-to-name” Pollyanna mask had slipped in public since first putting it on seven years ago.
I had zero desire to open another email before a physical therapy appointment. But that big red bubble with eighty-four unread messages was staring me down like a challenge.
Stupid round punk was just tempting enough to stop me from realizing that by using a school laptop instead of my personal laptop for this task was the equivalent of waltzing right into a social-reconnection trap.
As soon as my profile loaded into the mailing system four different instant messages popped up from teachers--all wanting to say hello to their “favorite student.”
I panicked. I scanned the menu. Opening, scrolling, and cursing as I searched for the “away from desk” toggle. Right as I was about to click the little settings savior, the school therapist’s video call popped up on my screen and my dumb ass mouse’s arrow landed on the dumb ass ‘accept call’ button instead.
“Pollyanna!” Mrs. Carmelo beamed in what can only be described as the grin of an eager sociopath.
I slammed the laptop shut and chucked it under my leg hammock.
Dr. Gena Falko’s vibe can be summarized in two GIFs: wiggly Shaq shoulders and Shaq swatting away drama. Put another way, she is a Shaq-sized positivity fairy stuffed into a tightly wound, 5’1”, German-Italian Jew.
How do I know she is 5’1” and a German-Italian Jew? Because little miss happy-pants never stops her onslaught of chipper chattering from the moment she says, “Hello!”
“Ouch!” I growl.
Gena’s hands lift from my right ankle where they had only just grazed the blanket.
“Polly!” She turned with a sly grin, and a toss of her mass of black curls. “I haven’t even looked at it yet.”
“I thought I’d save us the trouble.” I said, ripping the blanket back. “You aren’t going to listen to me when I tell you it’s fine, so might as well just get going on recasting it.”
Gena’s smile didn’t flinch into pity, nor did she roll her eyes. The damn woman’s mouth twisted up into a big grin and she clapped her hands.
“I’m so glad to hear that.”
Glad. Always with the glad with this woman. Like I didn’t know why the hell she was saying it.
“Yeah?” I bit back. “Well, I’m glad that being back in a full body cast means you won’t need to be here for another two weeks.”
Gena laughed. LAUGHED.
“I’m sure you are pretty glad about that.” She chuckled as she walked past my bruised up right leg and over to my leg hammock. “But I’m not putting you back into a full body cast.”
The demon PT then had the audacity to wink at me.
“What?” I stuttered, furious for reasons that made little sense. “Why?”
“Because it wasn’t a true set back.” Gena shrugged and then frowned. “Pol, this isn’t a safe place to store this.” She said holding up my school laptop.
Before I could form a comeback for why a laptop wasn’t safe below a anchored leg’s hammock—or figure out how to make sense of my much-worse nose dive trying to get the apple “not being a set back” when my attempt to see Saffi had been barely a stumble but gotten me on this woman’s “untrustworthy” shit list—Gena grabbed my school bag from where Dad had stuffed it back by the dresser where I didn’t have to see it, and walked it over to set it next to me where I could reach it and balanced the laptop on my side table.
By the time she was back at my leg hammock she was shaking her head and looking at me with another co-conspiratorial wink.
“I’ve always wondered why they’ve kept your stuff so far away from you.” She said with a bewildered smile as she lowered my leg to the bed and gestured for me to lean forward so she could help me sit up.
I did so out of habit more than out of a willingness to comply. Habit and the desperate need to not look at my backpack or acknowledge her implied question.
Gena helped me rotate toward her and hang my legs over the side of the bed. In the same eager sociopath grin of my school counselor, she asked me to stand up.
“What?” I asked. Hissed might be a better description. Gena was entering a danger zone with me and until that moment I had realized how deep she was.
“I’d like you to stand up!” She beamed. “I want to see what you did to get the apple. Your family was very impressed from the sound of things. Your brother Thibado wouldn’t stop raving about it when I got here.”
I stared at her. Not because I didn’t have something to say, but because what I had to say wasn’t going to help either of us. Unfortunately, Gena took the redness in my face and my silence as modesty or some sort of hesitant embarrassment.
Because, again, this bitch knows zero about me.
“Oh, come on. You know how much your family loves you! Your Uncle was also bursting with pride when I got here about how well you managed what sounded like a very difficult social situation this morning. I’m so happy you have such a supportive environment around you Pol. And, from what they told me, and from the look of things, ” She gestured to the windowsill, “you reached the apple just fine!”
A dangerous calm settled over me as she continued.
“A walk to that window and back without a fall and without assistance is a huge step for you! It shows a great deal more healing than I was expecting at this stage and may even get us back on track with the accelerated plan. Things may just turn around for you yet Pollyanna. And I’m so glad to say that.”
“I didn’t make it to the apple.” I said with care. “Someone else put it in the trash can.”
“Well, that’s not the point though now is it?” Gena was still beaming. “So long as it is still in the trash, does it really matter who did the task? The Monroe Team still wins no matter who crosses the finish line! But how about we see if it can be you today?”
She reached for my hands with a wink and a nod to the windowsill.
“Because they aren’t heartless assholes!” I snapped.
Gena’s smile fell. “What?”
“The backpack.” I said. “They didn’t bring it closer because they, unlike you, aren’t heartless fucking assholes.”
My heart beat hard against my chest and the scream of anguish I was holding back behind it. They didn’t tell her. Why the hell hadn’t they told her?
Gena licked her lips and firmed her jaw as she crossed her arms. “I would imagine there is more to that statement? Given the implication.”
“Such a keen assessment.” I said with slicing dryness. “This backpack is what I was reaching for during the crash. It’s why I had my feet up on the fucking dashboard.”
It’s why my eyes weren’t on the road when Saffi was driving.
Why I didn’t see the truck backing out.
Why I couldn’t warn her in time.
Gena’s jaw trembled a moment but she firmed it again. “I didn’t know, Pollyanna, I’m sorry. There also is no reason to speak to me like that however.”
“Isn’t there?” I asked. “Because I’m pretty sure only a heartless sadist would come in here with a cheery smile every session and vomit their rainbows and sunshine all over me while dismissing away every hope I have of helping my family. And only a psychotic bitch would do that while simultaneously referencing the ‘glad game’ from a movie where a poor paralyzed girl finds a reason to be GLAD ABOUT IT!”
Gena turned and walked toward the door, but at the last second she reached for the chair by Pol’s old desk and swung it back and sat down. Arms crossed, she raised an eyebrow and nodded.
“Go ahead.”
“Wh… What?” I all but choked. She wasn’t supposed to stay. That isn’t how this worked.
“Get it out.” Gena smirked. “What? You think because I vomit ‘rainbows and sunshine’, I can’t take a your sass? I’m honestly shocked it took you this long to crack.”
“You’ve been trying to get me to crack?”
“Yes and no.” Gena grinned, tilting her head to the side.“There is this whole matter of the namebearers, you see. And Alison is being such a bother about it.”
Gena continued tilting her head. Far to the side. Like, farther to the side than normal people should be tilting their head to the side. Her grin and her eyes widened as she did this, spreading across her face larger than before and taking on a tinge of ivory yellow. Both sharpening and softening in discombobulating waves.
I had to be getting sick.
“I don’t feel right.”
Shaking her head, a shiver of purple waves rippled up Gena’s body and she laughed, her head popping back into position again. “No dear, I doubt you do. But not to worry. You have two on your side, and a third in the dark. You’ll know when you find them.”
I blinked and she was gone.
The scream that was locked behind my heart erupted at once in a shriek of terror.
No one.
Zilch.
Zero.
Not a single goddamned Monroe believed my story about Gena.
For one, Tibbs and Uncle Ali both insist they never let anyone enter the house after the Bahtia’s left. Two, Mom claims Gena canceled due to the flu and she just forgot to tell Tibbs—which created a whole side quest of drama about how Tibbs is just sooooo put upon and never respected or cared about by the family, how he is such and after thought child and blah blah blah. Drama-Tibbs. Classic.
Anyhow.
Dad interrogated me as if he was back in the special forces and I was some Iraqi spy that had infiltrated the base. I swear if we had a lie detector he would have used it. The only saving grace from this was watching Tibbs and Telly’s eyes get wide as they witnessed me under full-military-captain-Dad mode.
That’s right twins, this is what it was like before you. This intense 24/7. Be thankful he had that heart attack after Telly’s second heart surgery at 2 yrs old. You definitely wouldn’t be complaining about not getting enough attention, that’s for damn sure. The whole family would be at attention and in tension the entire time.
Ahhh. I crack myself up. Trauma drama.
What? You think I’m losing it again? Think that word play means that my mind must be shattered and I’m losing my capacity to keep my head on straight?
OF COURSE I FUCKING AM!
My goddamned physical therapist just turned into some weird psychedelic morphic being that talked in riddles and here I am talking to myself as if I have an audience!
And good lord. The look of disappointment on Mom’s face. It was as if I had sucker punched the soul out of her. She just sat there at the end of my bed, patting my leg absentmindedly as Dad rage-questioned me and Telly and Tibbs looked on from the hallway as Uncle Ali glared into the room from the shadows at the top of the stairs.
A knock sounded from my door.
Two knocks had been sounding on it every ten minutes or so for the last two and a half hours. One firm yet half-hearted, which would be either Telly or Tibbs impersonating them (likely the latter), and the other knock soft and hesitant—but growing louder with each successive tapping attempt which was Mom’s way of checking in on me without words while making sure I didn’t take a nap.
This knock I didn’t recognize.
“Why did she mention you?” I frowned at the ceiling. “And what the hell is a namebearer?”
There was an odd scruff sound of metal on wood and then Uncle Alison tumbled into the room holding a gigantic brass spheroid. He closed the door behind himself and straightened, shifting the metal contraption in his arms as he walked toward my bed. As he came near, the metal shifted from indeterminate to definitely apple shaped, brass to definitely a mix of gold and glass, and the fine details of it’s craftsmanship put me in a bit of a trance.
“It’s beautiful!” I exclaimed, reaching my free hand out to it. Feeling childish, I adjusted my reach and took the laptop off of my nightstand, and leaned to set it down on my backpack. Not an easy task considering I still refused to look at it.
Uncle Ali gave me a pained smile and placed the apple on the table with a substantial thud that seemed to outmatch the size of the piece. He took my laptop and the bag and placed them both back where Gena had grabbed them. He sat on the chair that Pol had insisted countless times to her father she hadn’t moved herself, and leaned forward with a small grimace.
“What do you remember about the night the twins were born?”
A knock sounded on my door. Firm yet half-hearted.
“For the love of chr—TIBBS GO AWAY!” I yelled.
The door opened and in walked a glowering Telly.
Uncle Ali stood at once. “Telemachus Atrates, you should be resting!”
Telly walked past Uncle Ali without acknowledging the statement. Understandable, given that Telly knew better than anyone what their limitations were and if they were up and moving around they had already calculated whether or not it was a) worth it and b) whether they could manage it. Mom, Dad, and I had all backed off three years ago when at ten years old Tibbs had presented a full thirty-minute powerpoint presentation he and Telly had written detailing why we needed to back the hell off of Telly when it came to managing what they “should be feeling or doing” with regard to their heart condition.
“You okay?” I ask them as they walk right past me and reach down below my bed.
Uncle Ali, still at the door, and me, staring from my bed, watched as Telly rummaged around and then popped up with my old portable game device in his hands. Unplugging a cable I had definitely not connected it to in years, the device pinged on and Telly snapped in an SD card and plopped the whole unit onto my lap with a satisfied smile.
As they left the room they yelled over their shoulder in the hoarse voice they always had after a scope procedure.
“Console’s updated. Fixed it last night waiting for pre-op to be over. Telly got you the game.”
As Uncle Ali closed the door I looked down and watched as the glowing, swirling logo of Polly Olly Oxen free glared up at me, this time with a now sickeningly familiar eager-sociopath grin.
I looked up to Uncle Ali, tears already streaming.
“What is happening to me?”