Whipple's Triad
The sweat-chills come right before you cramp up, Cailin Whipple preached to herself. She pulled her knees up to her chest, and felt for more bruises. Her sore hands searched, found the cool skin of her ankles, and they embraced. She’d told Barbara that practice would end at four o’clock today. It had to be almost five, and she still wasn’t here. Big surprise, she sneered, step-moms don’t remember jack.
Do better next time. Coach didn’t look too happy about her play today, but he could go take a long walk off a short pier. She replayed the last five minutes of the practice game in her head for the forty-second time since walking off the field. She came up with scenarios where she could have snagged that last bullet pass. Just a reach, a cradle, maybe juke and play it off a fumble. Even Chet Haskell could have done it, and he can’t even touch his toes. Her mind always had the same answer, though: my hands aren’t tough enough. She felt the dull heat of her palms, and rubbed them on the curb. First just palms, then she ran her fingers across. Back and forth, up and down, faster, more pressure. The friction ate at her skin, quickly wearing the first layer off, and soon over-stimulating her nerves. She hissed, and brought her hands back to her naked calves.
A gust of late November wind pushed through her sweat-stringy hair, and she set her jaw against it. The curb in front of Cobb High was cold and cruel; like sitting on Ebenezer Scrooge’s lap, Cailin smirked. Her stomach tightened and shrank. It gurgled an unladylike sound. She kept ignoring its pleas. She could take it. Lunch was a long time ago, and consisted of a bun-less hotdog and over-steamed zucchini. Wet, slippery, and melting apart zucchini, a boiled, bland pickle, pale paste in tepid water. Cailin opened her mouth to retch, but caught her breath. In through the nose, out with the mouth. In, out, in, out. Swallow slowly. Eyes watered, and she shivered.
Dinner, she thought, as her mouth formed the word. She played harder on an empty stomach anyway, and since starting that crazy diet to shut up her step-mom, she didn’t even get her afternoon candy bar.
“You like games with rules, right, Cai?” her step-mom had started, “This can be a game. You have to get so many meat things a day, and dodge the breads and sugars. No sodas, no Snickers, no sweets. A system like this would help a girl like you”, Barbara smiled.
“What kind of girl is that, Barb?” Cailin had snapped back.
“You will call her ‘Mom’ at this dinner table” Dad said, and that was that.
But Barbara was right. That pixie woman Dad had gotten all crazy over knew something. Cailin had lost a lot in this last month, and had to tighten all her straps down more. But she missed the Frappuccinos, the chocolate and the sugar. Oh, not getting sweets was the worst! Cailin ground her molars and imagined being different. What it was like for other girls? Girls not like her, skinny and petite enough to shop at Miss Thing. Heck, just to be small enough to walk in there, look at the sparse tables of tees and shorty-shorts, and then laugh at how uncool this shop, this whole scene was. Just once. Just once.
Cailin looked both ways and dragged her runny nose on the shoulder of her shirt, leaving a thin dark streak on the polyester. She sniffed, and laughed to herself. She still wore her practice uniform, and tried to think of anyone, someone to blame for having forgotten her change of clothes. The track pants weren’t too thin, but the football jersey was ridiculous. She was swimming inside it without shoulder pads at the beginning of the season, and now it had just gotten looser and bigger. She pulled her legs under the shirt-hem, and thought for a moment about the Fun Dip in her bag.
She could have taken a shower, and gotten dressed like normal, if she hadn’t been so forgetful this morning, and left her clothes in Barbara’s car. This week had been bad for remembering stuff. She forgot to wear kneepads on Monday, and almost forgot about a math quiz today. Good thing she’d told Wendy about it last week. Wendy called last night and asked if she was studied up for today. Cailin had lied and said she was finishing the practice test, even though she hadn’t touched it. She made sure she studied when she hung up. The quiz wasn’t too bad, but would have tackled her if not for that reminder.
They all didn’t get it, but it had to be football. Coach said at tryouts that she was built for basketball, but Cailin had just shrugged. Sometimes people, she thought, classify you like M&Ms. There are a lot of different M&Ms out there. Plain, Peanut, Peanut Butter, Almond, and she’d even heard Jamie talk about Coconut ones. Well, if you saw all of them in front of you in a big trick-or-treat heap, you’d think that it was all just a mixture of colors. If you wanted to put them in piles, you’d put the reds over here, the greens over there, and keep going like that. When you see the melts-in-your-mouth-not-in-your-hand shells, you think you know how to sort them. Cailin knew she was an M&Ms Football, no matter what her candy coating made you think.
Another Ford truck lumbered past Cobb High, rolling cautiously past the “Slow Down During School Hours” zone. Another hour, and the kids would be back to racing down Mackinaw St, whipping around the law-abiding fuddy-duddies. Cailin still hoped her dad would get her that car he’d been promising since Mom. Her dad managed the only Burgie’s in town, and business wasn’t good this year. When the McDonalds opened up down the block, the burger-and-fries, milkshake-drinking teens in town migrated to it. No business meant no bonuses from Headquarters, and no car for Cailin. Barbara loved that; more control over her “little girl”.
She shook her head, trying to clear the feeling of cinder blocks scraping. She really didn’t hate-hate Barbara. Ugh. This headache had been bugging her all afternoon. Rubbing her temples wasn’t helping anymore, and the hunger wasn’t helping. She drew the rogue hairs from her face back behind her ears, and sighed. She stomped her feet against the cold, and crunched a few leaves in the gutter. The pieces of leaves looked like fish food flakes, and swirled in a small dust-devil.
When she was in second grade, Cailin had a fish. She called him “Blink” because he couldn’t. It took her dad a week to convince her that fish breathed water, and ate the baked fish-meal cereal he or Mommy sprinkled into the water. Cailin tried the fish food, and even though it didn’t taste like the cereal she ate, she still served Blink a breakfast of champions. She felt rotten inside when her Dad said her fish was dead. Gone? When does he come back? Dead from eating too much? Why didn’t he stop? Do fish get fat, or do they die first?
Mom was gone, too. It wasn’t from eating, but it was just as permanent. Cailin poked at the bloody patch on her elbow. It was sticky, and it still wasn’t scabbing. She’d stumbled on the ‘hike’, collided with one of her own team’s defenders, and took a hard spill onto the 40 yard line. “Use BOTH your feet, Whipple!” Coach yelled. “Use both my feet... to kick your face!” she now thought, and shook her head. She couldn’t think of anything good to say when he was shouting at them, and really she hadn’t thought of anything good now, but at least it was a retort. It was something.
She squinted against the streetlights, too bright for her eyes. The longer she sat, the more her resolve to wait grew. It wasn’t patience, but an exercise in endurance. When Barbara finally got here, then she’d be sorry. Cailin’s cold hands were fists, and she didn’t want to relax them. No apology would be good enough for making me wait without bus-fare or a candy bar.
There was the Fun Dip though. No, she thought, I can’t.
They started appearing weeks ago. It started during a history test. The first one was on her desk when she came back from the drinking fountain. She looked around the room, but no-one was looking back. So many faces, but no eyes and no suspects. The history teacher loudly cleared her throat, and Cailin sat down, holding the candy like Police evidence. She snuck it into her backpack, and forgot about it until she got home. The diet said no sweets, so she didn’t want it, simple as that; it’s against the rules. It didn’t taste so great, but she felt better after eating it.
I have one still in my... she rolled her eyes toward her backpack, and caught herself. No sugar. Meats, proteins, vegetables. Dinner.
Her blood had chilled. It was maybe a week after the history test. She was stooped in front of her locker, exhaling, watching her breath turn to fog. Through the cold smokescreen she saw there was more Fun Dip. In her locker? Was this a joke? She took another breath, and as she remembered it, the air didn’t steam up.
They showed up again, almost for every practice, and Cailin didn’t want to eat them, or throw them out. In her backpack they went, and she’d end up tearing into them later when Barbara wasn’t around, and wouldn’t see her tie-dyed tongue. Enjoying the magically-appearing candy felt weird, but it was just a little sugar, right?
Now, as she sat waiting, something different surged inside her, warm like black pepper, and it chased those chills away. Today was different. She was late to warm-ups, and not thinking about the game. The “C” on her history test made her stay after the bell to talk to the teacher about it. The teacher almost added a ‘minus’ to the grade when she saw another stupid mistake Cailin had made. Late already and anxious, Cailin just grabbed her paper and left, running down the halls.
Moving fast changed her. Speed made her feel real. Her hair was built for momentum. She hit her stride; nostrils drew silent breath into her warming lungs. She was flesh and blood, but underneath, a bone machine ran. She moved through the hallway like she was already on the field. There’s the fifty yard line, a drinking fountain. A band kid and the janitor’s mop bucket: the forty, the thirty. Around the corner, and towards the girls’ locker room with the flair of a ballerina, she stuck her turn. Right at the entrance to the girls’ lockers Cailin almost collided with someone. This guy she almost hit said a startled “Hi!”, and as she passed him, Cailin waved at him, but she still ran into the locker room.
The room was empty, and almost quiet. As she slid up to her locker, she realized that guy had walked out of the girls’ lockers. She laughed at the idea as she spun her combo lock back and forth. Wasn’t he in one of my classes? Poor kid, he must have made a wrong turn; why else would he be walking out of...
The locker door let out the tiniest squeak as it swung open. There was another package of Fun Dip inside.
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The school clock tolled the half-hour. 5:30. Dark outside. Sidewalk, wind, sweaty. Headache throbbed. Mad at Barbara. Hate size 12 shoes. Confused.
Cailin pulled the Fun Dip envelope out of her backpack, and tore out one of the candy stix. The Fun Dips were sweet, and kind of nice to have. She dipped into the first pouch. Grape. Grape was plain, and mild. Not like eating real grapes, but... OK. She tasted the second. Cherry. It was better, warming, sweeter than most cherry candy. Third, RazzApple. Color-changing, tangy, distinct. That’s the one to keep for last.
The headache was melting. Maybe today’s practice wasn’t so bad. A make-up test in history. Not-so-magical Fun Dips appearing. She looked down with a smile, and wondered about what she’d say to him. She pulled the candy stick out of her mouth, and dipped again. This’ll take more sugar.
