Where's My Wand?: One Boy's Magical Triumph Over Alienation and Shag Carpeting Read Online Free PDF

curb.
    There was a long pause as Mother surveyed the winter landscape before her. Clouds gathered. The frosty air began to crackle with tension. She rose to her feet and, at a decibel level that could be heard blocks away at the Schnucks grocery store, shrieked, “God in Heaven! That’s not the painting I liked!”
    All oxygen vacated the rathskeller. Mom turned on her heel and marched off to her laundry lair, slamming the door behind her. The lights dimmed as she plugged in the iron.
    It was quiet for a moment. Dad leaned down and picked up the painting. Without looking at my sister and me, he slowly climbed the basement stairs, A Winter’s Day under his arm.
    Val cocked her head in his direction. “Let’s go.”
    Dad marched into the garage, as we followed him tentatively. He picked up a large nail from his workbench and, without saying a word, began to hammer it into a two-by-four stud on one wall. Val and I exchanged puzzled glances. Was he going to impale himself on it? We prepared to spring into action.
    Once the nail had been sufficiently embedded, he picked up the painting and, slowly, as if possessing the eye of a gallery owner, carefully hung it. He stepped back, surveying the wall, taking pains to be sure that the frame was level, and that the light from the exposed overhead bulb flattered it; then silently he left the garage.
    My sister and I stood there, gazing at the snow-capped mountain peaks of this distant land captured in acrylics, completely mystified by what had just occurred. Finally, Val, who was older and wiser in the ways of adults, pointed out the obvious. “The painting’s facing Mother’s car. Now, every time she pulls in, it’ll be the first thing she sees.”
    Day after day, she explained, Mother will be reminded of her behavior on this holiest of commercial holidays. Eventually, one day, overcome with remorse, she’ll come staggering into the house, sobbing, begging Dad’s forgiveness, a broken woman filled with shame and regret.
    We stared at each other. This was a side of our father we hadn’t seen before. His actions were audacious. Cunning. Shrewd.
    We were impressed.
    As Val trekked back into the house, I stood before the painting, a faint smile creeping across my face. This wasn’t quite the magic I had envisioned. There would be no geisha moments, no singing of carols. But Dad had, at least for the moment, triumphed. And his act of courage and defiance did feel truly magical.

THREE
    A Call to Arms
    I spotted the new girl the moment I entered the classroom. Stacy was lanky, blond and beautiful, with a smattering of sun-kissed freckles across her nose. She exuded a devil-may-care confidence as she sat tilted back in her chair, her bare feet on top of the laminated desk, virtually daring the teacher to reprimand her.
    As someone with absolutely no backbone, I was wildly impressed by this audacious, defiant act. This girl was a renegade. It was not until an hour later, when we were asked to write our names on a sheet of paper and she picked up a pencil with her toes, that I realized her arms were not lounging inside her mod, daisy-appliquéd blouse.
    She didn’t have any.
    It was a warm September day, and the twenty-four kids in our fourth-grade class were agog at this oddity in our midst. Stacy could write, scratch her nose, even play the autoharp with her feet. Our teacher, Miss Hooperman, elected not to make any kind of public statement about Stacy’s physical anomaly. Although kind of her, this simply meant that each of us would now have to embarrass Stacy individually.
    “Where did your arms go?” Mitch McKirby asked her at recess the first afternoon, as though she had simply misplaced them.
    “I was born without ’em,” Stacy replied in an uninterested, slightly annoyed tone, as she exhibited a Pelé-like talent with a kickball, sending it sailing to the other end of the playground.
    “Do you miss them?” Theresa Tilton inquired, never one to be bothered with