A Joint Decision | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: A Joint Decision | Previous Challenge Entry
By Donna Powers
12/07/17
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You asked me why.

It all started when my best friend Kenny walked up to me and said, “Hey, Billy. I’m gonna break into Old Lady Connelly’s house Saturday night. Are you in?”.

Kenny was always dreaming up wild ideas. I referred to them as the Kenny Mysteries. This one sounded way off. I answered, “Why do you want to do that, Kenny? That poor old lady never hurt anybody.”

“That’s not what I heard,” he whispered. “I heard she killed somebody. And I heard she keeps the dead guy’s skeleton up in her attic closet.”

“No way.” This was too much – even for Kenny. “That haunted house thing is just a rumor.”

I heard she’s crazy. She never comes outta that house, and she’s got about 14 cats.”

“So what? If a skeleton is up there; maybe it’s from one of the cats.”

“I wanna see for ourselves,” he answered, with a grin.

I knew that grin. Once Kenny grinned that grin, I knew I wouldn’t get any peace until I agreed to whatever insanity he’d cooked up. I didn’t want to go. Who knows what might’ve happened? Most of all, I worried what would happen if Kenny was right. I asked him what we’d do then.

Kenny had had an answer. (Kenny always had an answer.) He said, “Well, if it’s true, we’ll call the cops. But before that… we’ll get to see a real skeleton!”

Kenny’s eyes had been as bright as fireworks.

I tried one last time to stop him. “Kenny, it’s just not right. If we break in, that’s trespassing. What if she does call the cops?”

“She’s an old lady, Billy. We’ll tell the cops we heard screams from her house and went in to check on her. The cops’ll believe us. After all; we look like Boy Scouts!”

“We are Boy Scouts, Kenny. And I’m telling you; this doesn’t seem right.”

“Right, smight. Don’t be such a wussy, Billy.”

So, I went. I know… I know. Maybe I figured I might talk Kenny out of it.
But I didn’t, and we went.

We got in through a back window, and it opened way easier than I’d expected. We snuck around in the dark, downstairs and finally – when we got the courage to tiptoe upstairs, we opened the attic door and went upstairs.

I held my breath. I didn’t know about Kenny, but I was scared. I was sure the noise of the stairs would wake the poor lady scream. But to our surprise, she was wide awake – and sitting in the attic.
And … she really did have a real human skeleton in that attic closet.

Believe it or not, she had about 6 of them.

You see, she was a retired anatomy professor who had also drawn pictures of bones for doctor textbooks. The years alone had made her confused, and she was convinced she was still an anatomy professor. So, instead of being upset we’d broken in, she thought we were students in one of her classes. She told us to sit down and get out our notebooks. She then lectured us – with actual bones – about way more than we ever cared about or wanted to know about knee bones.

So, in the end, that particular chapter of the Kenny Mysteries turned out to be no big deal – and we ended up seeing and learning some cool stuff about knees.

Kenny took it in stride and went on to cook up scheme after hapless scheme; leading us into endless mischief. I don’t know if he even remembers that bone lecture in Mrs. Connelly’s attic.

But I never forgot it. There was something about that real knee bone; seeing it move open and closed like a rusty gate. She made us touch it and hold it next to our own knees. Touching that real knee bone and moving my own knee took hold of something inside me I can’t explain, and I went on to pay more attention in science class.

Little by little, my grades began to improve. By the time we got to high school, Kenny had written me off as a terminal egghead – and I joined the Science Honors programs and began earning credits toward my college Biology major.

As you can see, I followed that dream to med school, internship and now here I am.

So that’s why I’m applying for this fellowship in your knee surgery program.

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