Get It Through Your Head

A Car Ride

*Victoria's Point of View

Dad is really excited. He never met his birth parents, and his dad just reached out to him. He has proof to. We are about to loose the apartment anyways. We're way behind on rent and the electricity has been off for a week. So now we're moving again. Dad says we're going to some tiny town in Oregon called Gravity Falls. My Grandpa and his brother live there. Dad says they aren't rich but are well off and are offering us free room and board. They're both old and apparently my Grandpa lived off the grid for 30 years.

So we loaded out few things into our dumpy old pickup truck. A couch, 2 bookshelf's, my wheelchair, an old box TV, a radio, and the lumpy queen sized mattress we all share. In the back seat, I have the old blankets and our 2 garage bags full of clothes. As we go, I try to embroider a patch for the new quilt I'm making, but the road id bumpy. We pass through the mountains, and lots of forests. The old truck is slow and has poor gas milage so we stop at a hotel for the night. We sleep there, spending the very last of our money. I even got my own bed!

Now might be a good time to tell you about myself. My name is Victoria Parr. I have really unruly curly brown hair that I always have pulled up and back in a pony tail with a headband. I want to be a scientist when I grow up, but I don't know what field. They all appeal to me, really.

I'm a classic nerd to. Not thw weird people who wear fake glasses and wear Parry Hotter shirts. I always have pens in my jacket pocket and behind my ear. I have purple braces, and I have poor vision. I should have glasses, they get broken too much, so I wear contacts. A very strange thing about me, is I have 6 fingers. Its weird, I know. But its not one of the first things people see about me that they think is strange.

One of the first things people see when they see me though, is my leg. All along the west coast its not entirely uncommon for kids ages 9-17 right now to have a condition where they have no bones in their limbs. I've done research, and its because a chemical put in the air by a chain of factories in northern California. Its shut down, but some of us still live with it. Instead of bones, we have whats like vertebrae made of cartilage. In case you don't know what that means, we have arms/legs like snakes. My left leg is one. I call it Vertalimbrae. There's no real name for it though. I mean there's a scientific diagnosis but no cool names. So I made one up.

People with Vertalimbrae arms don't always have problems, just weak upper body strength and extra flexible arms. Legs, on the other hand, can rarely support their own weight. The stupid factories got away without paying compensation, and my parents have to pay for everything. The wheelchair, the crutches, the monthly appointments, the leg brace, all of it. We aren't exactly rich. Far from it, really. But we are rich in love. Cheesy, I know.

We would have been fine, but then mom got sick. Leukemia, cancer of the blood. It took years, and a lot of radioactive therapy, but she pulled through. Now we're up to our necks in debt.

I still get to tinker with stuff. Mom works as a hotel house-cleaner, and Dad is my schools Robotics teacher. Sometimes mom gets pizza as a tip at work. Usually there is no tip. But sometimes we get a few dollars. Dads work allows him to take projects home to try out. But its never him, its always me. So I'll make the clock, or the simple mechanics in a robot that picks up and puts down pencils. Then, when he lesson is done, I disassemble it all and make something new. Like my grappling hook!

So yeah, that's all probably all you really need to know. The next day we woke up bright and early and headed out. Mom and Dad left our last $4.00 as a tip. I hope we don't run out of gas.

"Hey VeeVee, we don't have much longer. Only another hour, ok?" My mom calls back to me from the front seat. I look out my window. I watch the trees, the bushes, the few animals close enough. I watch and see everything. But I don't see the other car.

The truck swerves off the road to avoid collision. I see the black sports car zoom by, the driver doesn't even look our way or slow down. I see the car behind us, then its all chaos. We hit the metal railing and go flying through the air. Time seems to slow. Glass shatters and flies through the air as we turn over in the air. I grab my seatbelt just before we land upside down. Smoke starts to form inside.

"MOM! DAD!" I yell. I fumble with my seatbelt until its unbuckled. I fall to the roof and try to crawl out the window. My dad appears and drags me a good 30 feet form the wreck.

"Your mother is still in there. Stay here." He says and hurries back to the truck. Mom is still. Too still. Fire is starting to appear. I see where it is. I realize what's about to happen.

"DAD! GET BACK! ITS GONNA BLOW!" I scream and struggle to my feet. I limp towards them. I'm only about two yards from the truck, when an explosion throws me back. I hit my head but feel nothing. I don't hear anything either. The truck is still on fire. My dad and mom are not too far from me. I stumble to them, the world is spinning and I can't hear. I fall to my knees right by them, calling their names but making no sound. They're dead. I can see it. Moms neck is all weird, I think she died in the initial crash. I take her necklace. When help comes they'll take everything away. I need something to keep. My hands shake but my mind is surprisingly calm and focused.

The heavy stone at the end of the necklace is a clear rounded crystal. The only heirloom we have that we didn't sell. Next I fumble with my dads hand and take his ring. Its the only thing he has besides the clothes on his back. Its way too big but I slip it on my thumb and lie over their body's. Snow melts and seeps into my pants. Its so cold, and I tired, so tired, but I can't fall asleep. I know that. My brain seems just fine. I can think straight.

I can faintly see the fed flashing lights on the snow. I can't move. Paramedics make their way down. They freak out over me and haul me onto a stretcher. I weakly reach for my parents, but sleep is coming and the last thing I see before everything goes dark is their forms being covered in a sheet.

I'm all alone.