Chapter 10
Today is my last regular visit with Scott, the physiotherapist. We’ve been doing exercises to help me extend my range of movement. After being inactive those weeks in hospital, I was pretty stiff and inflexible. Since I’m working with a tutor rather than going to school, we have to decide on a type of exercise for me since I won’t be doing sport as a class.
Scott is soft-spoken and gentle, not really the kind of person you’d think of as the ‘sporty’ type. He’s broad-shouldered and tall. You wouldn’t immediately guess how strong he is. I could feel the strength in his hands when he was working on my shoulders and lower back.
‘Can I take up racquetball?’ Clarissa Hobbs does racquetball.
‘Racquetball?’ Scott looks at me through his rimless glasses and blinks. ‘Well, I don’t see why not, but racquetball’s not that popular. It might be difficult for you to find a place to take lessons. Why don’t you try tennis?’
I figure tennis will do.
‘And can I start lifting weights?’
Scott frowns slightly. ‘You can do light weight training,’ he says. ‘Just dumbbells – no barbells and definitely no weight machines. Your bones and muscles are still developing – I don’t want you pumping iron and risking injury. And don’t even think of dieting,’ Scott cautions me further. ‘You’re a mesomorph – stocky and muscular. There’s no sense in starving yourself to make yourself look like Lila-Rose and LeeLee. You’re not built that way.’
I’d rather be dead than look plastic and phony like Lila-Rose and LeeLee, who probably started wearing thick makeup at age three, but I take his point. Scott says he’ll ask Lyyssa to order a tennis outfit for me, and arrange lessons at a gym twice a week.
‘Can you swim?’
Can I swim? I think about this. When I scan my brain for swimming, I come up blank, just like when I try to remember anything about my mother.
‘No.’
‘Everyone should learn how to swim,’ Scott says firmly. ‘We’ll sign you up for swimming lessons once a week.’ He makes a note for Lyyssa to get me a swimsuit as well. ‘That should be enough for the time being. If you decide you want to spend more time at the gym, speak to me or Lyyssa. We can look at getting you a pass so you can go as often as you like.’
Scott gives me some pamphlets about healthy eating and exercise, and tells me to call him if I have any problems.
It’s a short walk from the physio’s office to the Refuge. When I get back, I go into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of milk and spoon in some Milo. I’m planning on having a nice afternoon snack by myself, so naturally Bindi and Cinnamon have to ruin it by barging in.
‘Better not drink too much Milo, Len,’ Bindi snipes. ‘You’ll put on weight.’ Bindi is an ectomorph, tall and angular, with razor-sharp cheekbones. Her hair is naturally curly, but she irons it straight every morning and pulls it back into a skin-tight ballerina’s bun.
‘Yeah, you’ll get even fatter, as fat as Karen,’ stupid Cinnamon chimes in. Cinnamon shouldn’t talk – she’s a pear-shaped endomorph. But she probably thinks her big boobs make it okay to have a big arse.
‘I’m not fat,’ I say. ‘I’m a mesomorph.’ I say the word slowly and carefully, so they’ll understand. Bindi and Cinnamon have a vocabulary of about a hundred words between them, not counting the four-letter ones.
‘A MESOMORPH!’ Bindi screeches. She and Cinnamon start screaming with laughter. ‘Come on, Cin, let’s get some food and leave the mesomorph to pig out on her Milo.’ Bindi grabs a bag of Doritos from the cupboard and Cinnamon gets two Cokes from the fridge and they clatter out of the kitchen, hooting and saying ‘mesomorph’ over and over. They’ve left their school books from Ramsay on the kitchen table. Remedial English. Mathematics for Morons. History for Retards. Design for Delinquents.
I stare at my glass of Milo. I spoon out the chocolatey grains floating on the top and flick them into the garbage. Then I make myself drink the rest of it, even though I feel like dumping the whole glass down the sink.