Nell and Her Leg’s Secret Job

Nell had a broken leg.

And she didn’t like it one bit.

She didn’t like the cast.

She didn’t like the crutches.

She didn’t like that the other children could run and she couldn’t.

And most of all, she didn’t like it when someone said:

“At least you can have a rest.”

Because Nell didn’t want to rest.

She wanted to jump. Run. Climb. Play tag. And above all, do exactly what she couldn’t do right now.

One evening she was lying in bed, looking at her leg and frowning at it.

“You’re completely useless,” she said.

The leg, of course, said nothing.

“Because of you, I can’t go anywhere.”

Silence.

“And I have to drag you everywhere with me.”

Just then, a tiny voice came from under the covers:

“Psst!”

Nell jumped.

“Who’s there?”

“Me.”

“Me who?”

“Your leg.”

Nell sat up.

“My leg can’t talk.”

“Not normally,” said the leg. “But when someone calls me useless, I have to speak up.”

“So what use are you?” Nell asked grumpily. “You’re just lying there!”

The leg was offended.

“Lying here?! I’ve got so much work to do, I’m working myself to the bone!”

Nell blinked.

“Working yourself to the what?”

“That was a bone joke.”

“It wasn’t very good.”

“I don’t have time to think of a better one. I’m repairing myself.”

And the leg explained to Nell that things were happening inside it that nobody could see.

Tiny repair workers were clearing up around the broken bone.

Others were carrying building materials.

Still others were making brand-new bone.

“So you’ve got a construction site in there?” Nell asked.

“A huge one. Only without an excavator, because it wouldn’t fit inside my calf.”

For the first time since breaking her leg, Nell laughed.

“And what am I supposed to do?”

“You’re the boss.”

“Me?”

“Of course. I repair the bone. You look after the rest of Nell.”

That sounded quite important.

The next day, Nell began noticing the things she could still do.

She couldn’t run.

But she could draw cats so funny that one looked like a potato with a mustache.

She couldn’t jump.

But she learned to get from her room to the kitchen on her crutches, and felt a little like a robot:

“Clack. Hop. Clack. Hop.”

She couldn’t climb on the jungle gym.

But from a bench, she could invent an obstacle course for the other children.

“Now around the tree!”

“Now three little jumps!”

“And now you have to look like chickens!”

“Why chickens?” the children called.

“Because I’m the race director.”

That was a very important reason.

But sometimes a bad day came along too.

Outside, the children were running.

Nell was sitting by the window.

And suddenly she didn’t care at all that her leg had some secret construction site.

“I don’t want this broken leg anymore!” she shouted.

And she burst into tears.

Mom sat down beside her.

She didn’t say, “Don’t cry.”

She didn’t say, “You have to be brave.”

She just hugged Nell.

After a while, Nell whispered:

“I want my old leg back.”

And from beneath the cast came the faintest little voice:

“I’m working on it.”

Nell smiled through her tears.

From then on, she had one rule.

When she was sad, she was allowed to be sad.

When she was angry, she was allowed to be angry.

But every evening she put her hand on her cast and asked:

“How’s it going, builders?”

And she imagined the tiny workers inside her leg.

One was pushing a wheelbarrow.

Another was wearing a hard hat.

The third was definitely drinking coffee somewhere, because every construction site has someone like that.

And day by day, something strange happened.

Nell still couldn’t run.

But she no longer felt like a girl who couldn’t do anything.

She was a girl who was healing.

And that was work too.

One day the doctor told her:

“It’s looking very good.”

Nell looked at her leg.

“Did you hear that?”

The leg was silent.

It couldn’t talk anymore.

But Nell knew what it would have said:

“I told you. We’ll get through this together.”

And from then on, whenever a day came when everything felt long and boring and miserable, Nell didn’t remind herself:

“I have to be brave.”

She told herself something much better:

“I don’t have to manage everything today. I just have to get through today.”

The End.