Read Online Fleabrain Loves Franny by Joanne Rocklin - Free Book Online Page A

“Now you do it. Go ahead. Do it!”
    And Franny did. Not only her toe, but her entire left foot. She began laughing and crying at the same time.
    Nurse Olivegarten leaned very close. She smelled of perspiration, cologne, and cigarettes. “You should be moving more than some toes. You are just not working hard enough, fighting me all the way.Although it’s my professional duty to get you well, it is exasperating to work with you. Don’t you want to walk again?”
    What a dumb, dumb question! Franny closed her eyes and wished with all her heart she could jump out of bed and waltz around the room. She would be singing “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes,” that beautiful song from the
Cinderella
movie, a song that made her shiver with hope every time she heard it because it promised that dreams could come true.
    No matter how your heart is grieving
    If you keep on believing
    Grieving. Believing
. A surprising rhyme. A perfect rhyme. No matter how frightened and unhappy she felt, she would never give up!
    Franny opened her eyes. “I’ll try to work harder, I promise. I do want to walk again.”
    â€œWell, I hope I can stay long enough to make that happen,” said Nurse Olivegarten. Her olive eyes narrowed. “But my patience is wearing very thin.”

The Meeting
    F ranny was dreaming of Nurse Olivegarten’s “Patience,” a thin, dingy shawl full of gaping holes. Nurse Olivegarten poked her nose through one of the holes, flaring her nostrils. “See?” Nurse Olivegarten cackled. “My Patience is wearing thin! Wearing thin! And you’ll never, ever dance the buck-and-wing as well as I!”
    Ludwig van Beethoven’s
Moonlight Sonata
tinkled in Franny’s ear. Nurse Olivegarten wrapped her torn shawl around her shoulders and began to dance. Her long legs jerked like a giant marionette’s, each foot pointing in a different direction. It was not a pretty sight. Even Alf whined in annoyance—and that’s when Franny woke up.
    The cheerful ballerina in a sparkly, flared tutu was dancing on the face of Franny’s alarm clock, endlessly inspired by the
Moonlight Sonata
. The dancer never moved her graceful arms, held high above her head, but her leaping legs and pointed toe shoes kept excellent time. Now the toe shoe of her bent leg pointed toward the two, while the toe shoe of her outstretched leg pointed toward the twelve.Franny reached over, clicked off the musical alarm, and turned on her bedside lamp.
    Alf clambered across the bed to her. He licked Franny’s face, his tail wagging furiously.
    â€œCome closer, Alfie,” said Franny. “Lie down and let me look at your tail.”
    Alf was an intelligent mutt. He understood many words.
Come, Lie down
, and even
Tail
were among them. But the manner in which he showed his bottom to Franny at that moment had a specific purpose to it. He was not merely following her command. He was acting out a mission.
    Franny secured the bottle cap behind one lens of her eyeglasses like a monocle, then closed her other eye and focused on Alf’s hairy tail. The hairs seemed to leap out at her, each one as thick as a tulip’s stem. It was as if she were looking through a powerful microscope. Closer still, and they thickened into brown, sturdy twigs.
    And there he was, clinging to one of them.
    Fleabrain.
    He waved a long, shapely hind leg. His flat body shone in the lamplight, as brown and polished as the leather of the most expensive shoes from Katzenback’s Footwear. Sparky’s Finest apparently magnified sound waves, too, and when Fleabrain spoke, his voice was small, but Franny heard him clearly. Her ears tingled. Fleabrain’s voice was pleasant, like the ringing of chimes.
    â€œFranny,” said Fleabrain. He sighed a high-pitched sigh. “Franny. Franny. Franny. My first word heard by human ears. A word as lovely as
Ophelia
or
Juliet
or any other name penned by