Real by Carol Cujec (snow like ashes .txt) 📕

from my past play back like high-def IMAX films with surround sound. I can hear a melody once and know it forever.

This can be irritating too, like when that Tubby Trash Bag commercial gets stuck on repeat in my brain.

Na na na na—icky, yucky, stinky mess!

Na na na na—Tubby Trash Bags are the best!

Everything I read, my mind archives in color-coded folders tucked into alphabetized filing cabinets. That’s how I imagine it, anyway. Since forever, Mom gave me books to keep my hands busy. My favorite book—the one I still take everywhere, even with its well-worn cardboard cover and silver duct-taped spine—is The Amazing Kids’ Animal Encyclopedia. People think I like looking at the glossy pictures. They do not realize I have memorized all the animal facts—all of them—a total of 327. My mind flashes back to these facts like a prayer, especially when I get jittery nervous.

Numbers, too. My mind soaks them in like thirsty paper towels mop up my spilled oatmeal. (Mom does not get why my oatmeal bowl keeps falling on the floor.)

Na na na na—icky, yucky, stinky mess!

I can keep track of how much money our grocery cart will cost with each item Mom puts in. I want to scream when she weighs the organic, steel-cut oatmeal from the bulk bin: Do NOT buy $6.49 worth of that barf. You could get a whole POUND of gummy worms for that price.

Could I solve a Rubik’s Cube in less than thirty seconds? In my head? Probability: high. Getting my hands to cooperate in making all the turns? Probability: zero.

In the car, Dad strapped on my seatbelt, and Mom handed me my sippy cup. Yes, a sippy cup of watered-down apple juice . . . for a thirteen-year-old.

Could I get a caramel frappuccino JUST ONCE?

Even worse, she covered my lap with the fluffy Barbie princess blankie I’ve had since I was three, in case I spill.

Did I mention I am thirteen?

“You’re going to see your cousin Mason today, sweetheart. Can you believe it? How long has it been?”

Eight years, fifteen days and five hours, to be exact. It was the one thing that made this day bearable. My long-lost cousin was moving back to our town. At last, a friend for Charity.

Then Mom handed me my animal encyclopedia and turned on a Disney CD, probably so I could not hear them talking. It played “When You Wish upon a Star” from my least-favorite movie, Pinocchio, about the puppet who wants to be a real boy. I sang a different song inside my head and flapped my fingers in front of my eyes to make the sunlight dance.

Flap, flap, flap.

If my brain moves like lightning, my body sometimes moves like it’s been invaded by aliens. For no apparent reason, I might jump, flap my arms, clap my hands, shrug my shoulders, squish my lips out like a duck face. Sometimes I am in control of my body, sometimes I am not. Even I do not understand how my body works. And no one can imagine how scary that feels.

My cousin Mason is one of the only kids who never looked at me weird. That’s because cousin = friend. It’s a rule.

Adults are even worse than kids. They just shake their heads and whisper that disgusting R-word. They think that because I cannot talk, I do not understand what they say. They think I cannot see the such-a-tragedy look on their faces.

Fact: my senses work great—maybe too well. My five senses notice everything. Except sometimes the input gets jumbled, or becomes so growling and intense, I feel I will explode.

I have a sixth sense, too. I can often sense the emotions of people around me. They flow through me and pound on my heart. A painful talent for someone who most people consider brainless.

Mom’s prickly anxiety in the car, for example, hit me hard.

Mom fastened her pearl earrings in the mirror. “Steve, we have to make this work.” She flashed me a smile in the back seat. I noted a dribble of sweat running down her neck.

Luckily, Mom’s constant code-red worry is balanced by Dad’s aloha cool. Their competing emotions rumble in my chest—Dad’s spring rain usually drenches Mom’s forest fires.

“It’ll be fine, Gail. Cherry and I will take a walk when she gets fidgety.”

Cherry, that’s Dad’s nickname for me. One of many.

Wherever we go, Dad takes me for little strolls to calm my restless body. We sashay, gallop, and skip all over town. For me it’s scary to stay still for too long. My body begs to move most of the time—dart, turn, tap, jump, flap, rock. My hands beg to touch things around me—books on shelves, pebbles on the ground, people’s faces, or lint on their clothes.

In second grade, a boy screamed when he saw me reaching for his throat. I only wanted to feel the silver, shiny buttons on his coat.

“Fishface tried to strangle me!” That was his nickname for me—Fishface. How come I was the one sent home for the rest of the day?

Dad parked the car across from a white church overlooking the ocean and unbuckled me. “Hang in there, princess,” he whispered. “I stashed our favorite T-shirts and shorts in the trunk. We won’t have to suffer too long.”

He helped me out of the car, and I breathed the salty, fresh air. My body hopped, and Dad hopped along with me while Mom finished painting her lipstick on perfectly.

Hop. Hop. Hop. Hop.

“Hey, remember our first trip to that beach?” Dad pointed to a ribbon of sand below the cliff.

Of course I remembered that day: July 30th. I was five years old. Dad promised to take me to the beach, and I was expecting the usual splashing and bobbing in my crab floatie. Instead, Dad zipped me into a small wetsuit and strapped an orange life vest around my chest. Then he walked me toward the water, holding his surfboard under one arm. “This is the day Princess Charity gets her mermaid tail.”

I had watched