My Gift!

“I have been blessed, truly blessed! Yes, I know how cliche that sounds, but bear with me and you will understand why I feel this way and I’m pretty sure that you will ‘disagree’ with me after hearing this. I know, I know, you’re asking yourself, did she just say ‘disagree’, well I didn’t. If you are still here, you must be pretty clear about everything I’ve just said.”

Okay, let me start from the beginning. I may or may not have had a smart mouth and might have had a tendency of being sarcastic and mouthing off a lot, but what else was I supposed to do? When you’re 4’ feet 11” inches tall and the youngest of five siblings you use whatever you can to survive. For me, that was my mouth. My mom would often say that my mouth would get me into trouble, I doubt she had any idea just how much trouble.

My brother Adam was a talented athlete, there wasn’t a sport he didn’t excel at, but academically, well let's just say ‘we didn’t talk about Adam’.  At Least that’s how I referred to him. Now don’t get me wrong I loved Adam. In fact, I loved all four of my brothers, there wasn’t a thing I wouldn’t do for them. However, being the youngest and the smallest meant I got teased a lot and so, I did what I was good at. I can remember Adam coming home from a basketball game one day, in which he had almost single handedly carried his team to victory. He was ecstatic!

When our family sat down to dinner that night, it was all he could talk about. I couldn’t help myself when he asked me, “Sam don’t you wish you were like me?” 

I responded by saying, “if I were you, I would find the tallest building and jump off of it and shoot myself on the way down just to be sure.” 

Adam just looked at me in confusion and said, “why would you shoot yourself.” I almost toppled over my chair in my laughing fit. Mom assigned me dinner dishes for a week, but it was all worth it. 

The following day our dad left for a business trip and Adam, and I had to help mom with grocery shopping. Dad was the one who usually helped mom; it was their ‘away from the kids' time. Imagine wanting to be away from a kid like me. Anyway, when we got home Adam got out of the car, arms filled with groceries and headed for the back door. 

He then started tapping on the door with his foot. I looked up at him and asked, “who do you expect to get the door for you?'' Without pausing for a second, he responded, “Dad, obviously.” 

“Obvi-ous-ly,” I said very slowly. 

He looked at me and said, “yeah, his car is in the driveway.” 

I smiled at him, tapped the side of my head with my index finger and said, “is anybody home upstairs buddy." Unfortunately, mom joined us at that precise moment, and she had overheard enough of our conversation. Needless to say, I was in trouble for my mouth again.

Later that evening, mom came into my room to drop off my laundry. She warned me to stop giving everyone so much sass, especially Adam, or I would one day ‘learn my lesson’. 

I responded by saying, “well if I’m going to learn a lesson, Adam sure isn’t going to be the one teaching me.” 

Mom sighed and said be careful what you wish for as she left my room. I shrugged and went back to working on my computer. I wasn’t going to change, people just had to learn to accept me as I was, a feisty big mouth in a little package. In all fairness, Adam wasn’t the only one I sassed; I sassed my other siblings, classmates, little pesky kids, you name it. Everybody got their fair share of my tongue. 

When my 11-year-old cousin Ari said to me, “Sam, is there an app I can use to help me with my homework?” I smiled and said, “yep.” “What’s it called” she asked, and I casually responded, “your brain.” 

She spent the next hour googling the ‘app’. It was pretty funny until she asked my mom for help. I tried to make a quick exit by running up the stairs, but I could hear my mom yelling, “Samantha get down here now!” I don’t know what everyone was so mad about, I was doing the kid a favor, teaching her that there are no shortcuts in life. I should have been commended, instead I got stuck with having to tutor her two days a week. It just goes to show you, no good deed goes unpunished.

My life was pretty good as far as I was concerned. I was misunderstood by everyone, and that led to occasional problems, but I was fine with that. I did what I wanted to do, said whatever I felt I needed to say and didn’t really worry about anyone else’s opinion of me. Life was good, well at least it was up until that day in Algebra class. Lin and Molly were sitting behind me. It was as if it had been Opposite Day and they were talking about me in ‘hushed tones’. Tones so hushed that I’d still hear them from a mile away. I might have said something to Molly earlier in the day at gym class that might have upset her, but hey, someone had to let the girl know that brushing her hair 40 times a day did not count as arm exercise. Everyone just smiled whenever she asked dumb questions for, she was fairly harmless, but I had had enough. Nevertheless, they continued talking about me and I actually wanted to hear the teacher instead. 

I turned around, smiled sweetly and said, “you know I don’t pay attention to the people who talk about me behind my back because they’re usually behind me for a good reason.” 

That turned into a yelling match. An unnecessary one at that. I wasn’t yelling, Lin and Molly were, but somehow, we all ended up in the principal's office. Needless to say, mom was not happy when she got the phone call. She was so mad. I could feel her anger in my bones. I knew something was coming. When we arrived at home, she told me that I would have no allowance for two weeks. I thought that was a bit too harsh and didn’t hesitate to mention it to mom. What was I to do? Go two weeks without an allowance for doing nothing wrong? I think not, but of course, I was once again warned about my mouth and this ‘lesson’ I must eventually learn.

That night I went to bed earlier than usual and I had a bizarre dream. It was really strange but what was most confusing was the fact that I couldn’t remember the dream. I knew I had a crazy dream, but I couldn’t remember what it was. I decided not to worry about it and went down to breakfast. 

At breakfast mom asked me if I could help her clean out the attic and I said, “yeah sure, I’d love to,” mom looked at me with raised eyebrows. If she was surprised, imagine my sentiments. Why did I say that? What was I thinking? Cleaning the attic was the last thing I wanted to do on a Saturday morning. A few minutes later Adam walked into the kitchen and mom asked him if he had cleaned his room yet, of course he hadn’t. 

“You’re not leaving this house today until you clean your room. Sam agreed to help me clean out the attic and you need to get started with your room,” mom said. 

“Ahh really mom, maybe Sam should clean my room since she likes cleaning so much,” replied Adam. 

“Yeah, sure I’ll clean your room for you.” Ewww what was that? These words coming out of my mouth tasted of vinegar and a week-old unwashed sock. I couldn’t believe I had just said that. Both mom and Adam looked at me as if I had lost my mind. Why was I saying these strange things, it wasn’t what I was thinking, in fact it was the complete opposite of what I was thinking. It seemed I was saying the opposite of what I was thinking every time I opened my mouth.

Something was definitely wrong, my mouth and my brain were no longer in the same zip code, let alone configured to the same body. What was going on with me? Not like I had the time to figure that out, having committed myself to a day’s worth of unwanted chores. I just needed to get through cleaning the attic. Mom picked up a stack of comic books I had forgotten I had. 

“Sam, I think it’s time you got rid of these,” said mom. No,no,no,no! My mind was screaming no but I could feel that ‘yes’ coming up the back of my throat like vomit. It was as if I had no control of my own lips, my tongue, my brain. It was as if I was cursed to always say the opposite of what I was thinking.

I heard myself say, “ok mom” and that, too, tasted like vinegar. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t say what I was really thinking. I had to fix it and I had to fix it fast too, or I’d spend the rest of my life cleaning Adam’s room and saying things I never meant to say. But how? How would I fix this mess? Was there a computer programmer for humans? Maybe I could reprogram this coconut of mine? It sounds a little comical, but I was indeed worried and a little frightened. Would I spend the rest of my life always saying the opposite of what I was thinking?

It was a long weekend, I stayed in my room as much as I could, pretending I wasn’t feeling well just to avoid everyone. When Monday rolled around, I knew I had to face the world, I couldn’t hide forever. School was going to be my biggest challenge; how would I get by without revealing my secret? My first two periods were uneventful but when I sat down in algebra class Lin walked over to me and smiled and asked how I was doing. That was strange considering what had happened on Friday. 

I looked up at her and said, “great.” It was the first time I actually didn’t mind having this curse. 

She winked at me, smiled and said, “we’ll see.” I got a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was impossible, she couldn’t possibly know what was going on with me, or could she? At the end of class Mr. Reed asked if anyone would like to volunteer to work at the chess club’s upcoming tournament. Lin raised her hand and said, “Sam wants to volunteer, don’t you Sam?” I wanted to scream! She knew my secret. I didn’t know how but she knew. 

I tried to say no but I knew it was pointless, I felt as though I was literally sitting on pins and needles whenever I tried to say what I really felt, so through clenched teeth I said, “yes I would love to.”

When the final bell of the day rang, I was so relieved, I couldn’t wait to get out of the building. I needed to get home and think things through, Lin clearly knew about my secret. I needed to figure out how she knew, how she was connected to all of this and how I was going to undo it. As I was about to exit the building, I heard Ivy calling for me, Ivy and I had been best friends since first grade. 

“Hey sorry I missed you at lunch. I was showing my cousin Nora around, you remember Nora, you met her two summers ago.” I nodded at them. “Her dad got a new job here; she’ll be going to school with us. I thought we could show her around, want to hang out this afternoon,” asked Ivy. I would have loved nothing more than to spend the afternoon with Ivy and Nora, but I knew I couldn’t. I smiled and shook my head; I couldn’t risk talking and saying something that might hurt my best friend. It was pure agony, not being able to speak, the fear of what would come out of my mouth was ruining my life.

The next day I was putting my textbooks in my locker when Ivy and Nora showed up. Ivy was wearing a new dress and her hair was styled differently. She had struggled with her weight for years and had recently started a rigid exercise routine, it was paying off, she looked great. 

She did a twirl and said, “what do you think, we went shopping yesterday and Nora styled my hair.” I smiled and looked at her refusing to speak. 

“So, what do you think,” she asked again. I tried not to speak, knowing it would be futile, my traitorous mouth would inevitably betray me. 

I looked at Ivy with tears in my eyes and said, “You look horrible, you lost a few pounds and got a new dress, big deal.” 

The look on Ivy’s face shattered my already broken heart. Ivy was the very last person I would ever want to say anything unkind to. She turned with tears rolling down her cheeks and ran for the bathroom. How was I supposed to fix it, turning toward my locker I banged my head against it and cried. Someone placed a hand on my shoulder and when I looked up, I saw that it was Adam. 

He looked at me and said, “I saw what happened and I know something is wrong with you. You’re one of the smartest people I know, whatever it is you can fix it.” I couldn’t believe it. Adam, my goofy brother, was coming to my rescue. He tussled my hair, winked at me and said, “you can do it, squirt.” 

I dried my tears and decided it was time to put things right. I couldn’t say what I really meant but there had to be another way to communicate how I felt. And then it dawned on me, what about texting, I hadn’t tried texting! I decided to try it. My hands shook as I texted, “I’m soooo sorry!!!” to Ivy. I prayed and crossed my fingers as I hit send. It felt like an eternity but after twenty seconds Ivy responded, “then why did you say that.” It had worked, it had actually worked! I started furiously texting Ivy, explaining to her what had happened to me and begging her to forgive me. I ran to the girl's bathroom and Ivy, and I hugged each other and cried. It was such a relief to be able to talk to my best friend, well, text but you get the idea. Ivy showed Nora my text and they both decided that they were going help me find a way to break my curse.

A week had passed, and we were still no closer to breaking the curse. I was heading to my locker to put away my books when I found a note taped to it. I yanked it off and opened it. There, written in the center of the paper in purple ink with red hearts around it, were the words, “I hope you are enjoying your gift.” What gift? Telling my favorite people, the most horrendous things or committing myself to a long list of chores? It all made sense now, I had been cursed and the note was my confirmation. Someone had cursed me, but who? A moment later Lin walked by and winked at me.

Now, rewind to what I said at the start. I’m ‘blessed’. Oh so ‘blessed’ to say all the things I don’t mean whenever I speak. Oh, so blessed to volunteer at school and clean my brother’s room and my mom’s attic and who knows what else there might be if I don’t get a handle on this! What’s next? The neighbor’s basement? It's not fun nor is it easy enduring the consequences of such a curse, but I’m on a mission. I’m on a mission to have my voice again, to share my opinions and to sprinkle around some literary side-eye; oh, how I miss my sarcasm. With the help of my friends, Ivy and Nora, I’m going to break this curse and my tongue will be back in business whether Lin likes it or not. And maybe I’ll tone it down a bit, maybe.