Thor's Child ©
by K Pelle
Chapter 7
When Tor's mom came to get him out of the hospital, he expected to go straight home. Instead she detoured past the school although he'd already been registered and had even been doing homework assignments and reading over notes from various classes, courtesy of Sunny's help. However, Tor's mom felt he should meet some of his teachers, find his classrooms and familiarize himself with the layout of the school.
After considering the idea, Tor decided that stopping in at the school was probably a good idea. What he didn't count on was the fact that it would mean he'd be on his crutches for a longer period of time than he was accustomed to using them. It was late in the afternoon and school was almost out for the day, so of course all the classrooms were full of students. That meant Tor and his mother had to wait until classes ended before seeing three of his teachers. In the long run he was on his feet, or rather leaning on his crutches and hobbling from place to place for most of an hour.
Tor soon realized why his doctor had recommended that he shouldn't go to school for the rest of that week, even if it was only Wednesday afternoon. He simply wasn't 'toughened up' to the use of his crutches, at least not well enough to attend a full day of school. At the end of the hour he was even blaming the staff at the hospital for being tired, because although they had let him 'practise' with the crutches, it had never been for any length of time. Instead they'd encouraged him to use a wheelchair almost exclusively, which didn't make much sense to him, since he couldn't use one after leaving the hospital. After all, a wheelchair would be useless on the farm and since the school had steps leading up to the front door, then even more stairs inside, a wheelchair would be just as pointless there.
By the time Tor and his mom left for home he'd accomplished all they had set out to do and more. He'd found his locker, picked up a copy of his class schedule, met his teachers and even collected a few school assignments which Sunny hadn't arranged to bring him yet. After that however, he discovered that curbs could be a pain in the butt when someone is new to using crutches, especially if they are tired. He almost fell on his face because he caught his cast on the curb as he stepped down into the parking lot. He was feeling tired, almost ready to lie down and rest, but even more than that he was a bit grouchy about getting little previous practise at walking and manoeuvring while using crutches.
Then to top off his mood, his mom laid down the law on the way home as for farmwork was concerned. Tor wasn't to do any farmwork until he was walking normally. He really didn't like the limitation, but to be honest he wasn't looking forward to using crutches to get around in the barnyard anyway. Actually his mom's original words were that he wasn't to have anything to do with any of the farm animals until he could walk normally. The only complication to that ruling was Ghost, who was there to meet the car when they got to the farm and seemed to think that since Tor was back home, his life would return to normal. Actually, Ghost's greeting was so enthusiastic when Tor got out of the car that he was almost knocked over. Tor finally calmed the dog down, then headed for the house, but by then he was already feeling quite annoyed at those darn crutches.
That's when he had to face the fact that he wouldn't only be climbing stairs when he was at school. The Eklunds lived in a two-story home with a full basement. At the front of the house, the basement floor was only four feet below ground level, but that still meant Tor had to climb six steps to get to the main floor of the house. That afternoon those six steps looked like a small mountain, especially after touring the school before coming home, because that had left Tor more tired than he'd expected. To get to his bedroom, which was on the second floor, he'd have to climb twelve additional steps though and right then he didn't feel up to the task. Instead he managed to struggle up those six steps, then flopped on the living room couch for a rest. Going up to his bedroom was going to have to wait until later.
He'd already found that crutches were no fun on stairs, but he either had to manage them, or move his bedroom to the basement for three months. For the first couple of days, living in the basement was a tempting alternative because the basement door at the back of the house was at ground level. It wasn't that he found going up any stairs to be all that hard, but until he was fully comfortable with the crutches he was constantly worried about falling when he started to go back downstairs. On the way up the stairs he could lift his knee slightly, then bend it back to hold his cast clear of the steps and it didn't matter that the toes of his injured foot were dangling downward. That didn't work coming back down though, because he worried that those dangling toes might get caught on the steps behind him. Instead he had to hold his injured leg slightly up and forward, which put him out of balance. As a result he was always worried about either catching the heel of his cast on a step, or simply overbalancing when he was going downstairs. All it would take after that would be a minor slip with his other foot and he'd be in for a major tumble.
Tor didn't discover all that right then though, what he did do that afternoon was collapse on the livingroom couch, then lie there like a worn out dishrag. Really it was no wonder he felt worn out, he hadn't had any exercise for three weeks and no matter what the hospital nutritionist said, he didn't think he had eaten all that well. He knew he probably wasn't in as bad shape as it felt, but he was young and had always been energetic. The worst illness he'd had before had been the mumps or the measles and this felt far worse than either of those had. He didn't think he'd ever had an illness knock weight off his body, but while he'd been in the hospital he'd lost seven pounds.
Right then though, he resolved not to worry about that, in fact as he lay there he realized something else, this was the first time he'd felt completely relaxed in three weeks. He was home and no one was using any medical instruments or fancy machines to check on his body to find out what it was doing. Now he was surrounded by people who accepted him for what he was, not people who were measuring everything he did against some theoretical norm.
"Are you hungry?" his mom asked quietly, sounding concerned.
"Not really, Mom," he shrugged. "I could eat something, but mostly I'm just tired because I'm doing things in ways I'm not used to doing them. I don't know why, but using these darn crutches seems to be a lot more work than I expected. In the hospital they wanted me to use the wheelchair all the time, so crutches are something very unfamiliar and that trip to the school wore me down."
"You'll catch on to using those crutches quickly," his mom smiled. "By Monday morning you'll be all ready for a day at school."
"Yeah, but I think you're right about that diet that the surgeon recommended. They weighed me this morning and I lost seven pounds while I was in the hospital," he shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes. "Maybe what they were feeding me was just going straight through me though, since I wasn't getting any exercise. Today I feel weak and since I got tired so quickly, I think I actually lost muscle while I was there."
"Well, you're also using other muscles than you normally would. Besides, I don't think you were carrying an ounce of fat when you went into the hospital, so if you lost weight, it had to be muscle," she paused for a second. "Now to change the subject completely, I'd better warn you that young Sami Clemens has been getting off the bus here for the last while. She stays here until after supper, which is when her father picks her up. Sam took on an afternoon job in town and didn't want her spending a lot of time alone up at their place, so your father and I offered to let her stay here until he comes home."
"That's surprising. I would have thought she would have stayed with Sunny and her folks. Is there some sort of problem there?"
"I'm not too sure about that, one way or the other," Tor's mom shook her head and frowned. "I don't think there was anything wrong until the day you got hurt. I know they had quite a loud discussion when the two of them met the next day. They both showed up here wondering if anyone was taking care of your uncle Nils' horses. I don't know what their disagreement was about, but I do know that Sunny asked us to pick her up at her house when we came in to see you at the hospital after that. I suppose she heard that Sami was staying here for a few hours each day, so perhaps there may be some jealousy or something between them."
"Hmph." Tor grunted, not knowing what to say. "I don't know what to say about the girls, but since you mentioned Uncle Nil's horses, are they okay?"
"Oh, Nils came to get them when he heard you were going to be in the hospital for a while, so he took them back home. You'll have to excuse Hanna and Nils for not visiting you very much during your stay in the hospital. They came to see you early on, but you were in a coma and in isolation, since the doctors didn't know what was wrong. After that, they've been involved in purchasing some place up in the mountains that Nils has been dickering on for years. They've been busy with mortgages and bankers all this time, so we haven't even seen them. I don't know what he wants that place for anyway, you have to hike in and carry anything you want to have with you on your back when you go," She shook her head and made a face that looked as if she'd just sucked on a lemon. "There are times I think your uncle is off his rocker."
"I think I know where the place is," Tor grinned. "When I first came out here and stayed with them, Uncle Nils showed me a picture of the old mine where he first got his stake. I heard that he lost the mine claim in a poker game or something and he said he's always wanted to buy a homestead or something up there."
"What in the world would a grown man want with a worked out mine?" she snapped, then there was a knock at the door and she jumped to her feet.
"That'll be Sami." she said over her shoulder as she hurried off.
Seconds later Sami looked in the door and waved. "Hi, your mom said you're really tired from trying to use your crutches too much, so I'm supposed to ask before I barge in on you."
"Oh get your butt in here," Tor grinned. "If you start getting too noisy and rambunctious, I'll just call Mom and have her send you off to help Dad feed the pigs or something."
"I wouldn't mind helping your dad, but all your folks will let me do is help your mom around the house," Sami started, then began to rattle off words at an astounding rate as she 'got him caught up' on the latest happenings in her life. Actually she didn't stop at her life though. She filled him in on what was happening around the neighbourhood and around the school, but the one subject she seemed to avoid was any mention of the Enrights. Finally Tor just asked her what was going on.
"Oh, Sunny is starting to make friends with a bunch of kids that I don't like much," she sighed and looked away. "Emily and I tried to warn her about them, but she hasn't been listening to us. She's been hanging around a bunch of the rougher crowd, the guys who act tough and the girls who hang with them."
"Let me guess - she's hanging around with some of the players from the hockey team?"
"How did you know?" she stared at Tor.
"Because one of them was in the next bed to mine in the hospital for a few days and he was bragging to her about what a great hockey player he was. Just from what he said, I think he's a goon who is only on the team because he wants to fight, but he makes himself sound like he's a younger version of Gordie Howe. I've always known that Sunny is nuts about hockey, so I'm not surprised that she became involved with hockey players and hanging around with their girlfriends or other fans. I don't know for sure, but I think she'll come to her senses when she sees him play."
"Huh, fat chance," Sami snorted. "I think she's mad at you because you told her you didn't want to play hockey this year. I mean, sure you got annoyed with her, but you still dove in and even got hurt while saving her from getting raped. In my mind that makes you a far bigger hero than some darn hockey player, so she just doesn't make sense."
"Sunny just doesn't like feeling that she owes anyone for anything," Tor shrugged. "Part of that whole deal might be my fault anyway. I sort of pulled back, because she got me so angry and since then the only time I've seen her she's been with someone else. I've never really had a chance to explain how I feel or why I got annoyed with her."
"Well, I can understand why you were 'P'd off with her. I heard her raving that day, when she was comparing you to Gretzky and all that crap – all because she likes to sit in the stands and watch you play. It sounded weird to me, as if being around you was only important because you drew people's attention and she got the reflected glory," Sami shook her head. "She just doesn't have a clue about the real world. You'd think that when you were a real hero who protected her, she'd be all over you. I mean, you got hurt while saving her from that creep. Instead of being grateful, she's hanging around with a bunch of chicken-shit wanna-be-heros who would have run like hell to get the cops instead of wading in and doing something. I told her just what I think too, that she's as nutty as a fruitcake."
Just then Tor's dad came in from doing the chores and his mom called Sami to help her set the table, so he didn't get a chance to respond to Sami's comments. She did get him thinking though, and over the next two days he spent some time considering Sunny's reactions to him as well as to other people.
Tor hadn't noticed her treating him much differently when she'd come to visit him in the hospital, but then she'd been with others every time, either his folks or her family. When he thought about it though, even her thank you to him had been stiff. Later he'd felt as if she was trying to avoid being alone with him, but he'd put that down to the fact that she had always hated to owe others for anything. Only Tor didn't feel she owed him anything since he'd have done the same thing for anyone. He was left with a question though, should he try to get her to see things his way, or should he just mind his own business and let her get involved with people he probably wouldn't care to know?
The answer to that boiled down to a very different problem though, having to hide the mental 'tricks' he'd been slowly developing. If Tor did get back to being extremely close to her, he was going to have to tell her about what he could do. He just couldn't lie to her, not if he wanted to rebuild a long term friendship which was as close as the friendship they'd had before. On the other hand he couldn't very well abandon her either, she'd been his best buddy for too long to do that. He certainly didn't want to stand by and watch her get involved with anyone who'd get her into trouble, but he had faith in her common sense and felt she'd know enough to back away from any real troublemakers.
Of course he hadn't had a chance to talk to her, so right then he was going on what other people had said about her and what she was doing. Before he made up his mind about anything at all, he was going to have to talk to her and even watch what she did around school. At the same time he wasn't about to pressure her to do anything she didn't want to do. Tor felt that she had her own life to live and he'd be a darn poor friend if he didn't allow her to make up her own mind about what she wanted out of life.
Before Sami left on Wednesday evening she made sure to let Tor know she wouldn't be around on Thursday - she had joined the group who had signed up to take Jiu-Jitsu lessons. He felt a bit jealous of her over that, but with a cast on his leg, he couldn't very well take those.
After Sami had left his folks told him about the various things that had happened around the farm. They even talked about Uncle Nils and Aunt Hanna buying the old mine or at least the property the mine was on, but none of them could understand why they wanted a place so far up in the mountains. Now Tor knew from talking to Uncle Nils earlier that year that the mining claim was worked out and that he'd owned it before, but Tor couldn't think of a reason why his uncle would spend money to buy it back. Still, he felt that both Aunt Hanna and Uncle Nils were too darn smart to buy anything that would be a waste of money, so he was certain they had a good reason for doing what they did.
Actually as the time passed that evening, he began to feel that he was left out of a lot of things that were happening and that didn't leave him in a very good mood. He went to bed that night feeling tired, but also feeling sorry for himself. It just seemed as if that screwed up foot was keeping him from doing anything he wanted to do and he had a hard time getting to sleep.
Tor didn't spend all day Thursday sitting around and moping though. One thing he did was to work out a method of doing some exercises with his right leg. He found a pair of old socks, with holes in the heels, took them outside and filled the toe end of each sock with sand, sewed that portion off to prevent spills, then sewed the two tops together. To use the weight, he sat on the edge of a kitchen stool, draped the weight over his cast with a lump on each side and began slowly lifting and lowering his lower leg by straightening or bending his knee. When the muscles in his leg began to tire, he paused and took a rest. After he'd had a short rest, he stood in an open doorway and braced his left hand on the door frame, bent his right leg back at the knee, draped the weight over the heel of his cast, then lifted and lowered his foot while keeping it behind him. The whole point was to prevent the muscles in the thigh of that leg from atrophying through lack of use. Since his shin and ankle were held firmly by his cast, there wasn't any way he could exercise that part of his leg and he knew the muscles all the way from his knee to his toes were going to suffer from lack of use.
Tor's mom caught him doing those exercises on Friday morning.
"Have you talked to your doctor about doing exercises like that?" she demanded, with a frown.
"No, but he did say I was to lift and lower the cast. I've just added a few pounds of weight to that, so the muscles that have gotten weak will recover a bit faster."
"Well, they'll X-ray your foot this afternoon before they put on your new cast, so we'll see if you've done any damage. I think you should go easy on exercising until you talk to the doctor though."
Feeling frustrated, he went back to his room and flopped on his bed, but he didn't have anything to do and he was bored. He'd easily finished all the homework he had and being outside while on crutches frustrated him because he wanted to accomplish something, but wasn't allowed to do any work. Right then though he was tired of sitting around and doing absolutely nothing. Now his mom had even thwarted his efforts to exercise, but as he lay back on his bed he decided he needed to work out his frustrations some way or other.
While he'd been in the hospital he'd made a conscious decision to stay away from using his 'new talents' so he wouldn't get caught at it. Now though he was home and at the moment he was alone. His mother was downstairs and he'd hear her if she started to come upstairs, so he felt it was fairly safe to try something, but what could he do? He couldn't 'teleport,' because if he landed wrong he'd hurt himself and he certainly didn't want to fiddle with the light switch in the middle of the day. He decided to 'lift' something, but what could he 'lift?' It had to be solid and quite heavy for its volume. A book? No. if he happened to drop that, his mom would go ballistic since she'd think he'd fallen and might have hurt himself, so she'd come rushing up the stairs. That would not be a good thing. He needed something that was heavy, but had some flex to it so if it fell, it wouldn't make a loud noise.
Wait a minute! he'd carried that darn sock weight with him when he'd come upstairs and he'd dropped it on his desk. Then he remembered that bucket of grain he'd tried to lift and how the grain had lifted before the bucket had even quivered. Oh, just a second, the sand in those socks was contained, it wouldn't scatter all over as he lifted the weight.
He stared over at those weighted socks and concentrated on 'lifting' them off the desk. 'Lifting' one weight was relatively easy, even if the other weight dangled from the first, but coordinating a 'lift' of both weights at the same time was a lot more difficult. He decided that was because he had to try to concentrate on two specific objects at one time. It was exhausting and since he was going to the hospital later, he didn't want to be too tired. He gave up trying to 'lift and move' those weights after proving to himself it could be done. Instead he 'picked up' a pencil and tried to print the letters of the alphabet on scrap paper. That was a lot more difficult than it first looked. He had to learn how to press hard enough to make the pencil write, but not hard enough to break the lead of the pencil or poke a hole in the paper. At the same time he had to move the pencil in specific directions, which was extremely difficult to coordinate. He soon realized that it was more work than he wanted to do right then, again considering that he might have to do some physical tests at the hospital.
With that hospital visit in mind, he decided he should have a shower before lunch. However he hated the idea of taping a plastic garbage bag to his leg to protect the cast - the tape would pull out the hair on his leg and he knew that HURT! He was annoyed about that because he had a nice 'shield' that let him stand inside a rainstorm without getting wet and he was certain he could modify that to protect his cast, only he couldn't use it. If he did try it he was certain his mom would find out in some way and he didn't want another chewing out. On top of that he didn't want to make her suspicious of how he'd done it.
He decided he was just being grumpy, so instead complaining, he thought he needed to cure the problem. He'd shave his leg just above his knee, then the tape couldn't pull the hair, since there wouldn't be any hair to pull. He should have expected his mom to show up and catch him at it though. He was sitting on the toilet seat, his leg covered in soap and razor in hand when she appeared. Of course, he'd forgotten to close the bathroom door.
"Ah hah, you got smart did you?" she grinned. "I was just going to come up and mention that you should have a shower before lunch, then we can head to town right afterward. I even brought you a garbage bag, but I see you have one already."
"I should have shut the door!" Tor grumbled. "Right now I get about as much privacy as a hamster in a cage."
"Yeah, you're right, if you wanted privacy you should have shut the door," she laughed and handed him the extra plastic bag, then turned away. "Do you have another clean set of shorts like those you're wearing? If you do, they'd be what you should wear after you've finished cleaning up."
"Yes, Mom. Thanks."
Tor knew he shouldn't have been so touchy, but nothing seemed to be going his way and he didn't know how to snap himself out of his depressed mood. Instead of harping on it though, he did his best to ignore his mood and just pushed himself to get ready. He finished shaving his leg, fitted the plastic bag over his cast, then showered, dressed and ate lunch. After lunch Tor and his parents headed for town in his mom's car. His parents were going shopping after dropping him off at the hospital, leaving him to be checked over and have a new cast fitted.
He wasn't excited about getting a new cast, but then this would be the third time he'd been fitted with a cast and it was all because of screw-ups. He might have been out of the hospital a few days earlier than he had been, but the first cast didn't fit right. It started to hurt him shortly after it was fitted and had to be removed after only one day. When it was cut off, the hospital staff found it had actually irritated the incision from the surgery and before another cast could be fitted, they had to wait for the inflamation to heal. So it was a Tuesday morning when he had a second plaster cast applied to his foot and lower leg. His doctor had recommended that he should be fitted with a walking cast to make it easy to get around at school, but by mistake the cast he'd been fitted with on Tuesday wasn't a walking cast. It wasn't designed for support, instead it was what they called a 'protective' cast, meant only to be used by someone in a wheelchair. Because of that second screw-up he was now going back to have the second cast removed, the wound checked to see that it was still healing properly, then have another cast fitted. He just shook his head at the sheer waste of time and materials, since this would be three casts that he'd had fitted in less than ten days.
His parents dropped him off at the hospital and he met with Dr. Kwon, the surgeon who had operated on his foot. It had been twenty-two-days since the doctor had operated, so he wanted to see if the incision was healing properly, but he wanted Tor's foot to be X-rayed again to see that it was healing internally. Not only that, but he was insistent that he needed to be there once Tor's new cast was fitted to be certain that he could put some weight on that foot and not be in pain or discomfort.
So once the old cast was cut off Dr. Kwon checked out the healing of the incision. He was actually quite happy with that area, especially considering the fact that it had been irritated by Tor's first cast. It wasn't long before Tor was wheeled off to have his ankle and lower leg X-rayed. Then while the X-rays were being developed, Dr. Kwon had him wheeled back to an examination room where the doctor had him try some gentle movements with his toes, his foot and his ankle.
Tor found that moving his toes didn't hurt, even flexing his ankle didn't seem to bother him much. If Tor was surprised, the doctor seemed astonished, because Tor could move his ankle up and down through quite a few degrees before it became uncomfortable. Attempting to change the angle of his ankle by rotating it horizontally was a different story though – anything more than a few degrees of rotation was quite uncomfortable for him. Dr. Kwon was quite happy that all of the muscles and tendons seemed to be functioning, but he did warn Tor that there would still be a period of rehabilitation in his future. In the doctor's opinion, before he'd declare Tor fit, he'd have to be able to do as much with his right foot as he could with his left.
It took a while to finish all the tests so it wasn't a long wait before the X-rays were delivered, but Tor was confused when Dr. Kwon stared at them with a heavy frown.
"I don't believe this," Dr. Kwon said quietly. "The technician did X-ray your right leg, didn't he, not someone else's?"
"Yeah, why is something wrong?" Tor asked, worried that there might be a problem with the way his ankle was healing.
"Well, I . . . I can hardly believe this. The rate your ankle seems to have healed is nothing less than astounding. I'll need to compare these X-rays to the originals, but your ankle appears to be healing at an exceptional rate. I've overseen the care of many ankle injuries before and not one has ever healed this fast. There are bone scars here that are so complete, they look as if your injury happened eight to ten weeks ago." He paused and glanced at Tor, then looked back at the X-rays he was holding. "I wonder how long it would take to get you an appointment to get a CT scan . . . not that it would make any difference I suppose."
"I don't understand, isn't healing fast a good thing?"
"Well, yes it is, but you are healing at an almost unbelievable rate. I'll have to discuss your case with your parents and your doctor. I think this phenomenon should be studied. It would mean another few weeks in the hospital, but the benefits . . ." Dr. Kwon paused when he saw the scowl that had appeared on Tor's face.
"If you think I'm going to willingly spend any more time in the hospital, you'll find that I'll fight you over it and my folks will support me," Tor snapped instantly, quite annoyed and loudly vocal. "I need to go to school, not sit around while you waste my school year by running unnecessary tests that I don't need. In my eyes, the faster I heal the better, which might be why I'm healing fast. I can't explain it, but maybe my sheer desire to be healthy and functional has something to do with the rate I'm healing. All I want is to have a normal school year and this wracked up ankle is completely screwing that up for me, but your idea of running more tests would screw me up even more. I've only met three people who are near my age since I moved to this area, which means I don't even know any of my new classmates. Now you want to study my foot, which would keep me from going to school . . ."
"What was that?" Tor's mom interrupted him as his parents walked into the room. "Who wants to keep you out of school?"
"Oh, Mrs Eklund, I was just mentioning that Tor is healing so quickly that I would like to . . ." Dr. Kwon started to explain.
"He said he wants to keep me in the hospital for a several more weeks to run some more tests," Tor interrupted him angrily. "He claims I'm healing faster than normal and he was talking about something called a CT test, then he mentioned studying my healing rate. In other words he wants to turn me into a research project."
"And how will keeping my son out of school help him heal?" His mom glared fiercely at the doctor. "Before you order any further procedures which take Tor out of school, they had better be for his benefit and not just to satisfy your curiosity. He is not a lab rat that you can use to run experiments, he's a patient who wants to carry on with his normal life. Now from what I've seen, you've done an excellent job of repairing the damage done to his leg. However, I'm certain that if we need to, we can find another doctor who is willing to carry on from this point. That's exactly what we'll do if you start making weird demands about putting him back in the hospital because you think he's healing faster than normal. I'm afraid that the fact he is healing quickly isn't an excuse to slap him in the hospital to do tests, at least not in my book."
"From what I've heard, I'd think you might find out what happened when you or the hospital did something which put my son into a coma after the operation instead." Tor's father spoke then. "What medications were given to him during that time? Did a combination of his treatments during that period cause his healing rate to increase? I'm still not happy about the explanation I've been given for the cause of that coma and I think you should start checking into that, rather than hospitalizing Tor when he is regaining his health."
Actually Ollie Eklund sounded angry and that was a bad sign. Olga got annoyed quite quickly, while Ollie's temper took a long time to grow, but when both of them got angry, things happened. Tor would have loved to have stayed around and listened to the following discussion, but an orderly came in just then to take him away and fit his ankle with a new cast.
"You must be special," the orderly said as he pushed Tor's wheelchair down the hall. "You're getting a new kind of cast that I've never fitted on anyone else."
"Oh, I didn't know that. What's so special about it?"
"This one will be made of fibreglass," the orderly chuckled. "I thought fibreglass was only used on boats until a couple of days ago. Dr. Kwon found a new medical supplier and had him show me how to apply it, but you're the first patient I'll be using it on."
"Oh my, do my parents know?"
"Oh yes, your mom signed a permission sheet on Wednesday. We're using fibreglass since you're expected to be in a cast for longer than normal and a plaster cast won't last anywhere near as long as would be needed."
"Well now, that's weird," Tor snorted. "Dr. Kwon was just mentioning the fact that I'm healing far faster than normal and now you're putting me in a cast that's meant to last longer than normal. That doesn't make sense."
"Well, it might make more sense when I show you how strong the new cast will be and how much freedom it will give you," he chuckled as he pushed Tor's wheelchair through the back door of the hospital and to a small building which sat well clear of the main building.
"Why are we out here?"
"Oh, the fibreglass resin stinks really bad when it is first put on, so until the hospital gets a better ventilation system in my normal workroom, I have to work out here with this stuff. A week ago this was a garden shed, so this is temporary, but at least I won't be fumigating the whole hospital."
Then he began to show Tor what he had to do. The whole process took almost an hour and during that time they both had to wear a gas mask in order to have fresh air to breathe, which meant their conversation was limited. What Tor ended up with was a cast which was far better than the old one though. He really liked it because it was solider and lighter than the old plaster cast. More than that though it would provide support for his weight so he could almost walk properly, even if it was with either one crutch or a cane. That meant he could throw at least one of those darn crutches away.
When Tor was wheeled back inside to the examination room, his parents stood by as Dr. Kwon checked the cast, then took several samples, blood, sputum, hair and even clippings from his nails. As usual Tor had to go into a small bathroom and 'pee' in a cup, but finally they were free to leave the hospital. Tor's mother was seething by then and insisted that they drive to the clinic where they had met the original doctor who'd given Tor a physical exam in August.
Tor was told to wait in the car while his parents went inside. They must have been extremely annoyed, because Tor never saw Dr. Kwon again. Instead the next doctor Tor saw was Dr. Wilson, the same man he'd originally seen for his physical exam in August, but that didn't happen for two weeks.
In the meantime he had gotten used to getting around on his new walking cast, in fact getting accustomed to it hadn't taken long. Inside of only a day he'd set one of the crutches aside. He had tried using that single crutch on the first day he went to school, but found it to be a real pain in the butt. It didn't matter where he went or what he did, that crutch was just too long and it seemed as if it was always in someone's way. As soon as he got home that night he went looking for something handier. First he found an old cane in the basement, but it was too short for him to use. In the long run he cut down the stick that the old codger who'd attacked Sunny had been carrying and used that as a cane. His dad called it a sheleighly, but it was really just a stick with a big knob on the top which Tor found fit his hand well. Since Tor's mom worried that the plain tip would slip on a smooth floor, he took the rubber tip off the old cane and fitted that to his stick in order to keep the lower end from slipping.
Of course as soon as he walked into school using that stick the next day, a teacher hauled him to the office, accusing him of carrying a weapon. The Principal of the school took one look at Tor's cast and asked the teacher who'd hauled him to the office if he had eyes. Tor had a hard time not laughing, but he sobered up darn fast.
"In case you don't know who this young man is Mr Yaworski, you might ask the RCMP, or my wife, who is a nurse at the hospital. Young Mr. Eklund and his friend Miss Enright captured a man who was wanted on a Canada wide warrant and Mr Eklund's ankle was almost destroyed in the ensuing battle. I'm actually quite happy that he is still here, whether he is carrying a cane or not. It could just as easily have been his neck which was broken."
"Hey, I just grabbed the guy and held on." Tor protested. "Sunny is the one who did most of the rest."
"Mr. Eklund, the RCMP report, Miss Enright's story and even the account of the accused offender all disagree with your version," Mr. Mueller, the Principal smiled. "Now I'd like to escort you to your home room, if you don't mind?"
"Do you have to do that?" Tor frowned. "I was hoping to fit in here and if you escort me to class, there's little chance that I'll be able to do that."
"I see. You think that if I walk you to class, your classmates will think you're being treated special then?" Mr. Mueller frowned.
Tor just nodded his head.
"Well, I don't to cause you any problems," the Principal smiled. "Do you know your way to your home-room?"
"Yeah, I was here yesterday, but I was on crutches. Besides, I came by to look around the school last week when I first got out of the hospital, so I know my way around and thank you for seeing my reasons for going to class alone."
The Principal just nodded and Tor hobbled away.
School was just something Tor put up with that year. Now he didn't sluff off, but with his love of reading and his ability to recall detail, he found grade nine to be extremely easy. However school wasn't the only thing that occupied his time that winter. After finishing with his homework at night he often took an extra hour to 'play' with his talents.
He learned to use his 'shield' in several ways first. For instance, if he kept the 'shield' close to his body, say within an eighth of an inch, it wasn't very noticeable. However, that eighth of an inch was virtual dead-air-space and very good insulation, so cold weather was a lot less of a bother for him. Then one evening while he was fooling around and 'lifting' several small objects at once, he was surprised by hearing his mom quietly coming up the stairs. He dropped everything he'd been 'juggling' and a falling marble would have hit his injured foot, only it passed right through the space his foot occupied. He wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't been looking directly at his foot, but he realized then that he was using his 'shield' whenever danger or pain threatened and he was doing it automatically. He learned how to use his 'lifting' ability too, first by learning to 'juggle' more than one weight at a time, then by learning to 'print' all the letters of the alphabet. After that it wasn't hard to learn how to even 'sign' his name from a distance.
He didn't seem to have any new talents develop over the winter, but what he could already do was enough to keep him amused during his spare time. Actually between school, helping his dad around the farm after he was able to walk without a cane and just being a kid in the country, he was quite busy.
As well as that, Mr. Chance, Tor's sensei for Jiu-Jitsu training insisted that if he was well enough to go to school, then he was well enough to attend training sessions. So although Tor wasn't able to do many of the physical moves because of his injury, he was still able to learn the initial holds and even study all the moves that lead to various throws. Even more importantly, he learned the various defensive postures and initial body shifts that allowed him to be prepared for almost any attack.
For the first two months of the school year Tor wore a cast and carried a cane, then for the rest of the year, he just carried a cane. It was no longer a necessity, but it stopped people from asking him about playing hockey. Somehow the word had gotten out that he'd been considered quite good at playing the game when he lived in Saskatchewan, perhaps Sunny had mentioned something. It probably didn't help that Tor went to all of Kevin's local hockey games and sat right behind the player's bench, pointing out details of the play of the opposing teams to Kevin and his teammates. Since Officer McDonald was Kevin's assistant coach, it wasn't long before he and the coach were listening in as Tor pointed out how their opponents were playing and what to do to counter it.
Tor didn't really think it was that much, just comments about what he noticed in the way of player's habits and repeated actions. All of the things he noticed seemed innocent enough, but they could make quite a difference in the game if the team could exploit them.
'Kevin, look at the way their goalie moves from right to left. He's favouring his leg on the blocker side. That means he's going to be slower if he is moving that way when he's rushed. When you have the puck, you might try to come in on the glove side and cross in front of him, then shoot a backhand shot high on his blocker side.'
Or;
'Their left forward who is on the ice now, number seven, he's puck happy and doesn't like to pass the puck until he has to, but he doesn't like getting checked into the boards either. The defenceman on that side should crowd him, which will probably make him dump the puck. That'll probably mean a turnover half the time, but if nothing else it will spook him. Then any pass he makes won't be accurate, since he'll be hurried and doesn't pay much attention to his teammates.'
It got to the point where most of the team would listen in as Tor pointed out the other team's habitual plays and what signs to watch for so they could pick out upcoming plays. The only person who seemed to be annoyed by Tor's opinions was Tommy Carruthers, the guy who'd been in the hospital with him. Of course the better everyone else got, the less time Tommy spent on the ice, which gave him an excuse to be annoyed with Tor.
Another reason for his annoyance was that he knew Sunny and Tor had been extremely close and Tommy was trying to make time with her, but not having much success. In fact since Emily, Kevin's sister, had taken to sitting beside Tor at the games and since Emily and Sunny were close friends, Sunny was usually close to Tor as well. That seemed to drive Carruthers completely crazy.
Then to top everything off, Tor was only thirteen and the whole team seemed to be hanging on his every word. Tommy felt that since he was almost seventeen, he should be the person giving advice, but no one on the team listened to him at all. Of all his niggling annoyances with Tor, that probably cut deepest of all.
His anger came to a head one night when Tor commented about the other team's biggest goon just after Tommy and the other guy had finished serving a penalty for unnecessary roughness. Somehow Tor's comment about the other guy set Tommy off and he lost his temper, but the area he was in was screened from the spectator seats by wire mesh and that's where Tor sat. Carruthers reversed his hockey stick and was jabbing it through the gaps in the wire, trying to poke Tor with it. Both coaches were trying to calm him down, unfortunately his screaming and flailing about with his stick caught the eye of a linesman. Tommy was ejected from the game and given a two game suspension for attacking a spectator.
That happened on a Friday night late in the season, so there was a chance Tommy wouldn't get to play again that year. Carruthers must have stewed over his fall from grace all weekend because on Monday morning as Tor walked in the main doorway of the school, Tommy attacked him. The crazy thing with that was it happened just after the school bus had dropped off the Tomlin Road group, so evin, Emily, Sami, Sunny and Tor were all coming in the door at the same time. The five of them made up over half of Mr. Chance's Tuesday and Thursday evening Jiu-Jitsu class where they were taught how to defend themselves. Which meant Carruthers' wild attack was bound to have a relatively poor result, at least for him.
His haymaker, intended to clobber Tor in the face was easily avoided. Then since his arm came so conveniently close to Tor's left hand, he was able to use Tommy's momentum to keep him moving forward and off balance. Now whether Sami hit the release bar on the door intentionally or if it was an accident is unknown, but when Tor sidestepped and released Carruthers wrist, Tommy smashed into a door which swung open quite freely. Tommy was just bringing his right hand around for balance as he went through the door. Unfortunately for him, Mr Yaworski had been following close behind the Tomlin Road group and was on the other side of that door. Tommy didn't hit Mr. Yaworski intentionally, but the two of them did collide and both of them ended up lying on the concrete stoop. To make matters worse for Tommy Carruthers, the school Principal was walking up the front steps just as it happened, so he saw Mr Yaworski being hit, then knocked down.
Kevin, Emily, Sami, Sunny and Tor all missed their first class that day, but Tommy Carruthers got a week of suspension from school. Instead of apologising and saying it was an accident, he tried to imply that Kevin and Tor had goaded him into losing his temper. Mr. Yaworski snorted at that, saying that Tommy had an awful short fuse then, because the group had only been fifteen or twenty feet ahead of him when they went through the door. Then when they were grilled about any previous incidents, Kevin put the cap on things. He mentioned that Tommy had tried to jab Tor with his hockey stick on Friday night and that he lost his temper over a comment Tor had made about an opposing player. All five of the Tomlin Road group were sent off to class after that and Tor considered the whole thing finished.
He didn't count on the fact that Tommy Carruthers had a driver's license, a car and a rifle, or that he was the sort who carried a grudge.