The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen

swollen. I still get phantom pains, but not as often, and they’re not as severe. It’s like my stump is giving up being angry. Giving up fighting back. Like it’s ready for a truce.
    I maneuver out of the shower, and as I’m dressing, I think about my leg.
    Not the one I’ve lost.
    The one they’ll build me.
    How does that work?
    What will it be like?
    Hank tried to explain it when I was in the hospital, but I couldn’t bear to listen. He had a brochure with pictures of legs. They had plastic feet, a pipe for a calf.… They were Frankensteinish.
    In my mind he became Hankenstein.
    Somebody I didn’t want to see.
    But now … now the idea of a leg—any leg—seems better than crutching.
    Or wheeling, or hopping, or scooting, or crawling.
    What a liberating luxury walking would be.
    It’s the first time I’ve thought about this without someone else bringing it up. It’s the first time I
haven’t
thought that the only leg I want is the one I can’t have.
    It’s the first time I’ve felt ready.
    And suddenly I want it
now
.

PART III
     

     

 
    M ONDAY DURING SCIENCE a note from the office gets delivered to me. There’s a single line scrawled beneath the checked REPORT TO OFFICE IMMEDIATELY box:
    Dr. appt
.
     
    I’m a little stunned. I knew Mom was going to get me an appointment with Dr. Wells, but I wasn’t expecting one so soon. I strap on my backpack, and Fiona helps me down the ramp. I’m crutching my way around school today, and it’s been going okay, except for the ramps. I have a tough time with them, which I find strangely ironic.
    “I’ll be fine,” I say to Fiona as she starts to follow me to the office. “You need to go in there and take notes for us, okay?” She hesitates, but I shoo her off and hobble across the campus.
    It’s quite a distance to the office, and I’m relieved to finally get there. The backpack has become heavier with every step, and my arms are sore. But my mom’s waiting for me, full of energy. “Dr. Wells had an eleven-thirty cancellation. If we hurry, we’ll make it!”
    We do hurry. And we do make it. And then we fidget in the waiting room for almost an hour.
    The meeting itself is short. When we’re finally in an examining room, Dr. Wells appears almost immediately. “Hello, Jessica!” he says, then wheels over to me on his doctor’s stool. He inspects my stump, prods it, measures it, then says, “Outstanding!” He whips a prescription pad from his white coat pocket. “You are definitely ready for a preparatory prosthesis, and in record time.” He scribbles on the pad, then peels off the prescription and hands it to me. “Good work, and congratulations!”
    He’s already on his way out the door when my mom says, “So we take this to Hank Kruber?”
    “Or any other prosthetist.”
    “Uh—who would you recommend?”
    Dr. Wells stops in the open doorway. “Hank’s a good choice. And you do want to stay local. Jessica will be needing regular adjustments—especially since she’s almost certainly still growing.”
    When we get home, my mom looks up prosthetists in the phone book, and what she discovers is that if we are going to stay local, Hank Kruber is our only choice.
    “Hankenstein’s fine, Mom,” I tell her.
    She turns to look at me. “Hankenstein?”
    I shrug. “My head was in a bad place in the hospital. He thought a pipe leg was something I should be thrilled about. But if he can get me walking, let’s go.”
    “Hankenstein,” she chuckles, then finds the number and makes the call.
    When she’s done, she says, “The receptionist was so nice! She’ll work us in at ten tomorrow morning. She says to wear shorts.”
    So the next day I miss more school and report to Hankenstein’s lab. It’s on a busy part of Grand Avenue, behind a fenced-off gas station and next to a Laundromat. The asphalt parking lot is full of potholes and there’s trash blown up against the building. A faded blue sign reads QUALITY ORTHOTICS AND PROSTHETICS