Chapter 5: Superboy Move Over

The next couple of months I improved exponentially. By the end of June I could move my upper arms and hands. This meant I could feed myself, and brush my teeth, and read my own comics. I also was able to get out of bed with help and get into the little wheelchair that the hospital loaned us. Most importantly, it also meant with help I could sit on the toilet to do my business ... no more diapers!

By the middle of July, I was moving my feet and legs and by the end of July I was walking again, albeit slowly and carefully, but I was doing okay. I wanted to climb back into our treehouse, but mama told me that I wasn't to do that until I could run the length of the block and back without getting tired.

I hardly ever saw Denise and Kimbery any more. They were off in their own world during the day. Either they were in their room with their girlfriends talking about boys or fashion clothing or they were trying to be bossy with Aimee and me, trying to get us to do their chores.

Aimee and I watched a lot of TV together in our room. Mr. Owens had told mom to keep the TV, that it was an old backup they had. I couldn't imagine a family having two TVs, but we did. Only rich people had two TVs. I just wish that one of them was a color TV, as I had seen a color TV at the Owens and it was really cool. I never knew that Jeannie from 'I dream of Jeannie' wore a pink outfit until I saw it in color ... I just thought it was some blue color like Tony Nelson's uniform.

I was in love with Jeannie though, and I told Aimee that.

"Why would you want to be married to a genie," she asked me one day.

"Imagine, you never had to work or do chores, you could just blink and change clothes, or you could make lots of money just appear out of nowhere ... it would be so cool."

"I have to admit, she is pretty with that blonde hair and blue eyes," said Aimee.

"I would like to have blue eyes," I told her. "Doug Wallace in school has blue eyes and black hair."

"April Cummings has blue eyes too," said Aimee, "But you and I have brown eyes and are just stuck with it. Besides, you don't see anything any differently no matter what color your eyes are!"

The rest of the day was uneventful, we played, and then I went out in the back yard and walked over to the tree and looked up, and went back inside.

Mama came home and we had spaghetti that night. My sisters were alway glad when mama made it home, because they were supposed to stay at the house during the day and make sure that Aimee and I didn't burn the place down. Ha, it was more likely that Kim or Denise would be the ones doing something wrong. Aimee and I were pretty good compared to those two.

The next morning was Saturday and mama didn't have to go to work. Aimee and I got up and got our play clothes on and went out to eat a bowl of cereal. I had just sat down at the table and was pouring some Trix into my bowl when mama said, "Mikey, look at me."

"What mama?" I asked.

She just stared at me, and then turned to Kimberly and asked her, "Kim, what color do Mikey's eyes look like to you?"

"Mom, they're blue," she exclamined! "He has beautiful blue eyes!"

"No way," I said as I hopped up and ran into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. But the proof was there, staring me in the face, my own face ... I now had bright blue eyes.

Saturday or not, I was back at the hospital in twenty minutes. They called in Dr. Perry, and the neurologist that had worked on my brain, and they both looked in my eyes with their opthalmascopes for so long that I thought I was going to go blind.

"Well mom," Dr. Perry said, "His eyes are blue, but they look fine to the both of us. We have never heard of eyes changing color before, except mildly in older patients, but from brown to blue has us both baffled. We'll make an appointment for him to see an opthamologist, but for now I wouldn't worry about it. But to be honest, we're both baffled!"

On the way home, Aimee kept looking at me, like she knew something. I was as 'baffled' as the doctors. By the way, back then I liked the word baffled ... it sounded funny to me. Anyways, once we got home, we just played as if nothing had happened. Life went on as usual.

Later that afternoon I talked to Aimee about my eyes.

"I wonder why my eyes changed," I said.

"Really, you don't know?" she said back.

"No, why would I know?" I asked.

"I think you do," she said, "And if you don't, then you just think about it for a while longer."

She obviously knew something that I didn't, but she wasn't talking. After a while, I just gave up thinking and she and I watched TV. Every now and then I'd catch her looking at me, and then she would turn away quickly so I wouldn't see her looking ... but I knew something was up, just not what.

The next week mama announced that her summer job was ending and she was getting her bonus check and that everyone could get one thing as long as it was $15 or less. Wow, Christmas early! So we all loaded up in the car and went down to the Woolworths store. Inside Kim and Denise went straight to the clothes and makeup counter while Aimee and I went to the toys.