Chapter 1: A New Start

Savannah Georgia
August 1984

Freckles.

It was the first thing he noticed about her in spite of what girls accused boys of all the time. She was sitting in the car, so the fact that she couldn't walk wasn't obvious unless you'd been asked to help a new girl in a wheelchair. It wasn't even possible to negotiate the old school without someone to help move the chair up and down the stairs between the buildings.

Gigantic green eyes.

"Hi Fre ... er Rebecca," Tony stammered. Concentrate on the freckles, you'll get lost in those eyes, he thought.

"You are so never going to get away with calling me Freckles," she snapped.

Teeth, she has teeth too.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Tony mumbled.

He had been waiting at the curb near the school's entrance enjoying the warm, late summer sun that was beginning to beat down on the Savannah school. He had received a phone call the previous Friday from his sister that contained an unusual request. Terry was seven years older than Tony and a registered nurse. She, or rather the doctor she worked for, had a patient that needed some help. A young girl with "bad knees" recently had an operation and was stuck in a wheelchair for at least the next six weeks.

"I suppose you're the one they hired to help me around school," the redhead said.

"Hired? No one said anything about being hired. I was told you needed some help is all."

"If you weren't hired, why would you want to be stuck with a cripple like me?" she replied, a bit testily.

Well, he thought, I guess you can't expect her to be all sunshine and everything being stuck in a new school and a wheelchair. He thought for a second.

"Did you like your nurse?" he asked.

"What?"

"The nurse, at Dr. Marcus' office, was she nice?"

"Miss Smith?" she asked, looking at Tony, a puzzled expression on her face.

"Yes, Nurse Smith," he replied grinning back at her.

"Well yes, she was super-nice. She made me laugh a lot. Do you know her?" Rebecca's smile was captivating.

"Yes I do, and when my big sister Terry, that's Nurse Terry Smith, told me there would be a pretty young lady coming to school today that might need some help getting around for a while I volunteered for the job. So you're pretty much stuck with me. Now let's see about getting you into this chair. It's pretty much the knees that are a bit out of commission right now right?"

"Yes, I had an operation last week."

"Do they hurt much? Do we need to be extra careful with them or are they just annoyingly uncooperative?"

"No not much, a little when I straighten them out too much, but as long as I'm sitting they're fine."

Tony studied the situation for a second and rolled the chair as close to the car door as he could with the front of the seat facing the door. "OK, can you scoot around with your back to me as best you can?" Rebecca slowly turned using her hands on the seat backs until her back was mostly to him. "OK, I'm going to grab you under the arms now, keep your head down so we don't hit it on the door." Standing behind the chair and reaching over it he put his hands under her arms and pulled her gently back toward him until she was seated in the wheelchair. It was easier than he had thought it would be. Rebecca couldn't have weighed 95 pounds.

When he had her away from the car Rebecca looked up at her mother. "Mom, I don't think this is going to work," she said.

"Why do you say that Rebecca?" her mother replied.

Rebecca looked down at her lap. "What if, you know, I have to go to the bathroom or something?" she asked meekly.

Marj looked up at Tony who grinned back at her and winked. "Well," he said. "Terry and I did talk about this. I know they won't let me into the girl's room, but we thought that because I was acting, you know, in a professional capacity I could just take you with me into the boy's room. I'm sure the guys won't mind." Tony was fighting hard to keep from losing control of his laughter.

"You wouldn't!" she yelled as she snapped her head back around, twin laser-green daggers boring through Tony.

Tony finally lost control, so did Marj. After a short fit of laughter Tony finally managed to speak first. "I'm sorry," he wheezed. "That was just too good to pass up," Tony chuckled.

"The look on your face Rebecca; priceless!" crowed Marj.

"Really Rebecca, don't be so mad, there is someone else I want you to meet and I don't want her scared away by your red-headed temper," Tony said.

"Just what would you know about red-headed temper?" Rebecca shot back.

"Easy, my mother is a red-head. You I can handle," he replied.

The comment didn't quite put a smile on Rebecca's face but at least it wasn't a scowl.

Tony barely heard Marj mutter, "Good luck."

Tony looked toward the door and waved a young girl over. She was 5'4 and 100 pounds with long, straight, dark-brown hair. He face was dominated by bright blue eyes on top of high cheekbones. She was fresh faced and very tan.

"Rebecca," he said, "I would like you to meet the other half of your very own in-school care team and my very own little sister Tina. Tina, this is Rebecca Harris, our new friend and charge and, unfortunately for you, the new prettiest girl in the freshman class, sorry sis."

The girls smiled at each other and said their hellos.

"What are little sisters good for anyways if you can't give them the dirty work?" Tony said with a shrug.

That got him a punch in the arm from Tina and a "harrumph" from Rebecca. "OK, OK, quit picking on the guy you two. We need to stop by the office."

They did just that. Tony introduced the girls and Marj to Coach Nevill, who was also the Assistant Principal. He explained that all three students would need special passes for being late to classes as they maneuvered Rebecca around the school, bathroom breaks, lunch breaks, and whatever else came up. Marj assured him that the two siblings had come highly recommended by the office of Rebecca's doctor to do the job. It probably was unnecessary. Tony was known as a good student and, while not part of Coach Nevill's football team, a two sport athlete all the same. After assuring him that every measure would be taken to minimize the impact on their classes they headed out with pretty much a blanket hall/tardy pass for the first term.

After pointing Tina toward her homeroom history class in another building (she, after all, was new to the high school as well) Tony wheeled Rebecca to Mrs. Finch's first period English classroom. "Mrs. F! How was your summer?" he asked.

"Tony! Good to see you. You know me, still working on my PhD. Who do you have here?"

"Ah, Mrs. Finch I have the distinct pleasure to introduce a young lady new to our fair city, new to our school, and lamentably, recently on the wrong end of a surgeons knife, Miss Rebecca Harris. Rebecca, this is the world renowned freshman English teacher soon-to-be-doctor but for now we'll stick to Mrs. Finch."

"My god," said Rebecca. "Is he always this big of a suck-up?"

Mrs. Finch just laughed. "Yep, that's Tony alright."

Rebecca looked at Tony and grinned. "So, you were the teachers pet right?"

"Wrong!" Tony replied. "I'll have you know that Mrs. Finch teaches my fourth period debate class and is coach of the debate team. I'm still the teacher's pet."

Rebecca watched the interplay between the two. She definitely had never seen a rapport between teacher and student such as this.

"OK," Tony said, "we need a front row desk, preferably on the right side here." Tony wheeled Rebecca to the right-front desk and pushed the chair close. Tony helped her pivot out of the wheelchair into the desk. He leaned her satchel against the side of the desk and pushed the wheelchair behind the classroom door.

Chapter 2 »