Bird Legs
by
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Something came over me I’d never felt before. Something inside my very being rebelled and I just decided I should keep soaring. The way I looked at it, the trampoline was all mine and nobody around could stop me!
Miss Cline yelled at the top of her voice; “CHERYL, CHERYL, COME DOWN HERE THIS VERY MINUTE! DO YOU HEAR ME? STOP THAT JUMPING AND COME RIGHT DOWN THIS INSTANT!”
Suddenly, I didn’t hear a single word Miss Cline was saying. I just kept right on staring at my powerless gym teacher while soaring higher and higher like a rocket ship!
Miss Cline looked rather sickly.
“CHERYL! GET DOWN, CHERYL!” she yelled.
“WHAT? WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?” I yelled back. “I CAN’T HEAR YOU, MISS CLINE!
The class roared with delight!
“I SAID, I CAN’T HEAR YOU MISS CLINE! SPEAK UP! SPEAK UP!”
And then, the most surprising thing occurred. The entire class, Miss Cline excluded, of course, all began to shout together in rhythm as I jumped. Every single time I’d descend and hit the canvas, they’d all chant, “BOING” in unison, then “BOING” with every successive jump!
Soon, a whole collective series of resounding “BOING. . . BOING. . . BOINGS” was ringing throughout the gymnasium till Miss Cline turned positively red in the face!
BOY, was she ever furious.
Uh-oh. . . I was in a heap of trouble!
I would have continued to jump (the boings sounded better than applause) except for the fact that my heart rate was accelerating right along with the new heights I was achieving! This might be overdoing it. My body was telling me to stop.
The party was over.
Amid squeals of “DON’T STOP, CHERYL! DON‘T STOP NOW!” I fell to sitting position and hurriedly scooted off the trampoline as fast as I. . . .
Wait! Wait! Something was wrong! I WASN’T MOVING!!!
“WHERE’D SHE GO?” I heard Lauretta say.
“WHERE’S CHERYL?” another girl echoed.
“CHERYL? CHERYL?” rang out from other nearby voices.
If I hadn‘t been raised in a Christian environment, I’d have been tempted to utter phrases that would have made demons blush, for I was somehow anchored, swimming in mid-air--dangling helplessly underneath the trampoline on one of its insidious springs, caught precariously by the right cuff of my beautiful little white shorts--on that cute little cuff that had made such a fashion statement to my sainted Mother, that cuff that had made me stand out even further in gym class like a sore thumb. . . .
How incredibly embarrassing. How perfectly awful.
Looking down at me, unable to contain her laughter, stood my “favorite” teacher.
“HELP ME, MISS CLINE! PLEASE HELP ME!” I begged.
“I’M STUCK, MISS CLINE! GET ME DOWN, MISS CLINE! GET ME DOWN, NOW!!!”
By the time Miss Cline figured out how to unfasten me from the spring, most of the class had squatted on the floor to ogle me under the trampoline.
“She looks just like a granddaddy longlegs hangin’ from his web!” I heard someone say.
“Whoa! Talk about lookin’ spidery!” said another.
I was mortified.
As if I hadn‘t been humiliated enough, Miss Cline seized the opportunity to yank me by the hand and march me down to the principal’s office. The principal‘s office, no less!
“I tell you, Mr. Lackey,” she declared, “Cheryl just wouldn’t pay any attention to me. I kept telling her and telling her to stop jumping and she wouldn’t even acknowledge that I existed! I swear, she could have gotten herself killed!”
“Is this true, young lady?” grilled Mr. Lackey.
Obviously, it was impossible for me to deny my terrible crime of disobedience, and it was impossible for me to avoid my anticipatory punishment.
So, for the next month, every single day after school, I was forced to stay over in detention and wait for my father to pick me up an hour after school was out.
I would probably have been the laughing stock of the entire Junior High except for the fact that the following day I was slated to play in the Federation of Music Club’s exciting music contest.
I would get a superior rating.
I’d show that Sergeant Cline a thing or two. . . .
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About the Book
Some hurts are impossible to verbalize. Some hurts rack the brain, gnaw at one’s soul, and seem to reject resolution.
Yet deep inside every Christian, there’s a Comforter and Companion who wants to help us if we wait patiently on Him. With Jesus’ ever present love, we can overcome all disappointments, all derision, and ultimately, all hurts.
Follow Cheryl through page after page of ridicule and rejection until she finds, at last, a specialist who proposes a frightening way to diagnose her emaciating disease—and an earthly friend who cements her positive outlook on life.
About the Author
Cheryl Sinz graduated Athens High School in Ohio, 1962, and Ohio University, cum laude, in 1966, earning a BFA as a piano major. Following graduation, she taught and performed piano in several institutions of higher learning, including Indiana University, Bloomington, where she was awarded a piano assistantship during post-graduate study from 1967–1968. From 1970–1971, she initiated a general music program on the Outer Banks of North Carolina as superintendent for Dare County Public Schools and taught general music from Kitty Hawk to Cape Hatteras. She taught applied piano at Indiana-Purdue’s Regional Campus in Fort Wayne from 1974–1980, and Yellowstone Baptist College, Billings, Montana, 1989–1999. Additionally, Cheryl has been a private piano and theory teacher in her home for over forty years, averaging as many as forty students per week at the height of her teaching career.
She and her husband, a musician as well, live near Billings and belong to Laurel Baptist Church. They delight in camping, hiking, and traveling and are the proud parents of two sons.