Out of the Loop

Chapter Twenty-One

Maz was utterly humiliated, even if no one was there to see it.  There was apparently a hospital rule that all patients discharged that had a moderate to severe injury had to leave in a wheelchair.  

“You almost weren’t a moderate injury, except for the stitches,” Mary had beamed in her sugary voice as she brought in the wheelchair.  “Lucky you!”

Yeah, lucky me, Maz thought now.  She was fully recovered, dressed in her own clothes, all her bandages gone - but she was still being treated like an invalid.  Her cheeks were brighter than the stop sign several feet to her left.

Her mother’s station wagon slowed to a stop directly in front of her.  Maz glanced behind herself at the obnoxiously-sweet nurse holding onto the handles of her wheelchair.  

“I’m allowed to walk to the curb by myself, right?”

The sarcasm skimmed over Mary’s head.  “Oh, of course dear! What a silly question.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s no problem, honey!”

Maz refrained from rolling her eyes as she stood up and entered the car.  Her mother smiled at her through the rearview mirror, and the car gently began to head home.  

Maz dashed upstairs to her room as soon as she walked through her front door. She reached into the bag she had brought upstairs with her and pulled out the piece of paper that had been tucked into the TARDIS card.  Flopping onto her bed, she studied the page.

It was an incredibly detailed drawing of her; most likely one Derek had been working on for a while.  A miniature Maz read happily in the branches of a large tree, holding a copy of The Legends of King Arthur.  Her hair tumbled over her shoulder as it was now, although her entire face was unusually exposed.  Derek had decided not to put her in a dress, opting instead to clothe her in a long tunic with a rectangular neck that almost reached her knees. Leggings enveloping her legs extended into a pair of winged, Robin Hood-esque ankle-boots.  

He has a flair for medieval style, Maz thought with a smile.  

On other branches, knights battled, princesses beckoned, and a tiny Morgan Le Fay smiled over a bubbling pot with her son Mordred. The tree grew out of an island surrounded in the background by a shallow lake, purple from the impending twilight.  A pale hand stretched up from the still waters, its fingers curled around an ornately decorated sword: Excalibur.  At the very base of the towering structure, shrouded in mist, lay a slumbering King Arthur, waiting for the day when he would be awakened once again when England needed him most.  

Maz was honored that anyone would spend this much time on something so intricate for her.  Smiling happily, she grabbed a roll of tape from her desk and carefully placed the drawing on her wall, resolving to frame it sometime soon.  

She grabbed her phone and fell back onto her bed, dialing Derek’s number, and waited with the phone cradled between her head and her shoulder.  

“Hey!” he answered brightly on the second ring.  “How’re you doing?”

“I’m fine, thanks.  That’s why they let me out of the hospital,” Maz teased.

“Hey there, there’s no call for being a smart aleck, miss,” Derek shot back in a bad imitation of a cowboy.  “That’s just plain rude.”

Maz snickered.  “You don’t seem to have a problem with it. Hey, I figured out your clever card.  Bigger on the inside, indeed!”

Derek paused nervously.  “What did you think?”

Glancing up at the window into another time on her wall, Maz grinned.  “I love it! It’s like the story walked off the page and took me with it.”  

“Phew!” Derek let out a breath.  “I was kind of worried you wouldn’t like it!”

“That would be impossible, don’t be ridiculous.  You started this the first day, right?  And how come you didn’t dress me up?”

“Yeah, I that’s when I did the original of you reading.  I just redrew it for this one with the tunic.  I guess I didn’t put you in a dress because I thought you looked good the way you are.  You don’t seem like a dress kind of girl, anyways.”

Maz blushed, glad Derek couldn’t see her.  “You’re spot on, honestly.  The dressiest thing I own is a silly black velvet skirt, and I haven’t even worn that since-” Maz clapped a hand over her mouth.  “Um, since a while ago.  Before we moved, I think.”  Oh jeez, I almost mentioned... Shoot.

“Hmm, that’s kind of funny.  I guess I just know you too well!”

He missed it, Maz thought.  I can’t slip up like that again, or I’ll have to explain what happened.  That was just stupid.

Derek had continued to talk while Maz was mentally facepalming.  “ . . . . was, um, wondering if you wanted to hang out on Saturday?  Like, not with my parents or anything.”

“Sure, where would we be going?”

“Oh jeez, I hadn’t thought that far ahead . . . .”  

What does that mean? Maz’s brow furrowed.  “How about we go to the cafe, then walk over to the point?”

“New kid here, Madison,” Derek groaned.  Maz could practically hear him rolling his eyes.  “I don’t really know where those are, remember?”

“No need to get your knickers in a twist,” she grumbled back.  “Well, the cafe is this little place that the populars steer clear of, since it’s in the back of Whisked Away Bookstore.  I’m not sure they even know it exists.  The point is at the end of the nature reserve trail, overlooking the ocean.  The trail starts a block away from the back exit of the book shop, conveniently enough.”

“You had me at ‘inside a bookstore,’” Derek chuckled.

They talked for a little while longer, until Maz hung up to work on the homework she had missed.  Derek and Kelli had been bringing her the work in their spare time.  As she opened up her notebook, a thought struck her.

When he said he wanted to hang out, he didn’t mean . . . .  No, I’m imagining things.