by Barbara Dee
Because, without even looking in the refrigerator, I knew that once again there was nothing planned for our meal. After Mom had cooked that cheeseburger dinner, it was like she’d said to herself, Okay, well, I’ve done that cooking business again—on to the next thing. And as far as I could tell, the “next thing” on her to-do list was more running, followed by listening to more true-crime podcasts on the sofa.
I mean, I knew Mom was doing better these days. She’d begun taking care of laundry and emptying the dishwasher again. But the only time she left the house was to go for a run, or to pick up a few things at the grocery: yogurt, milk, eggs, bread, spaghetti, Cheerios, more microwave dinners—enough food so we wouldn’t starve, but not the kind of cooking she used to do for the family. Also, there was no sign she was getting ready to go back to work. She never mentioned her teacher friends, or talked about her students or any of the Shakespeare plays they’d been studying.
Dad was pretty much the same as Mom lately—definitely better, more like himself, but not all the way back to normal. He ate dinner at home with us half the time now; when he was at the table, I could tell he was trying hard to chat with us about school. But sometimes when I looked in his eyes, I could tell his mind was wandering. And the place it was wandering to was Redwoods Village.
So yeah—it felt weird to think this way about my parents. But it hurt my feelings that they were still tuning everything out. Pushing us away. Except for Gabriel, of course.
And that day, Aiden was really upset and needed to talk to someone. By now, he admitted, the kids in his class were almost finished with their how-tos, which they’d been sharing over the past three weeks. And the thing was, Aiden still didn’t even have a topic. Ms. Felsenstein said he needed to stay inside during recess to work on it with her, but when he started crying, I guess she felt sorry for him (Did she know about Gabriel?) and let him go. Afterward, though, she told him next Friday was the Absolute Final Deadline: if Aiden didn’t do his demonstration in front of the class by then, no recess for two whole weeks.
“Wait,” I said. “You need to do a whole demonstration? You mean show how to do the thing?”
Aiden nodded. His eyes were huge. “Yeah, Zinny. That’s how we share it with the whole class.”
“Aiden, you never told me that part.” I could see how shaky he was, so I tried to keep my voice calm. But inside I was shouting at him: Why didn’t you tell me you needed to demonstrate the how-to? If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have let you consider cyborg mosquitoes, and leeches, and all that other stuff. And I wouldn’t have spent so much time joking about marshmallows!
So there I was in the kitchen, suggesting no-joke topics to Aiden (all of which he thought were boring and uncool) while at the same time scribbling dinner items Mom would be buying if she weren’t podcasting away the afternoon, when the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it!” Aiden yelled before Scarlett could yell at him to stop yelling.
I heard my little brother say “Really?” and “Whoa.”
Then he returned to the dining room grinning, carrying an extra-large-size pizza box from Thom’s Pizza.
“You guys ordered?” Scarlett asked, walking into the dining room.
I shook my head.
“There’s a note on the box,” Aiden announced. “It says ‘To Zinny’—”
“It does? Let me see.” I snatched the note taped to the box.
To Zinny,
Because you missed lunch.
See you next week,
Alfredo
“Who’s Alfredo?” Scarlett demanded, reading over my shoulder.
“No one,” I said quickly.
“There’s a boy at school named Alfredo?” Aiden asked.
“No, Aidy, there isn’t.”
“So who sent it, then?” Aiden opened the box and helped himself to a slice.
“Ms. Molina,” I blurted. “It’s from her pet tarantula. A Rio Grande gold. From Texas.”
Scarlett burst into a laugh. “Zinny, your teacher has a pet tarantula named Alfredo? Are you serious?”
“Why is a tarantula sending us pizza?” Mom had gotten off the sofa and was now standing in the dining room, looking confused.
“It’s really just from Ms. Molina,” I said helplessly. “Remember how she gave us all those plants?”
“How come she keeps giving you so much stuff?” Scarlett asked. “My teachers never give me anything but homework.”
“I bet she thinks Zinny’s a genius,” Aiden said.
Scarlett lifted an Eyebrow of Doubt.
“Well, we definitely need to thank her,” Mom said.
“No, she doesn’t want that,” I said desperately. “She told me! She was very clear! Mom, don’t you want a slice?”
Mom glanced at the pie. “Maybe later,” she said. “I’m not so hungry right now.”
“Come on, Mom, you need to eat,” Scarlett said.
“I know, honey. I will. Later.”
But she didn’t sound very convincing. And the way Scarlett caught my eye, I could tell she wasn’t convinced either.
Then I thought of something. “Hey, Mom, remember how we said we’d plant some basil when it gets warmer? To put on pizza?”
“I remember,” Mom said. “I’m really looking forward to that, sweetheart.”
“Okay, but for now, how about some other fresh herbs? We have thyme and rosemary, right?”
Mom smiled. “I do love rosemary.”
“Yeah, but on pizza?” Scarlett made a face.
I ignored it. I ran outside to the garden. The herbs hadn’t grown much since we planted them—not at all, really. But they hadn’t died, either. And they smelled delicious, like rain and earth and not-far-off spring.
I pinched off a few sprigs of rosemary and ran into the kitchen. Did you need to rinse off herbs if there wasn’t any insecticide on them? Better to be safe, I thought, so I washed the tiny sprigs, quickly dried them in a paper towel, tore them up into tiny pieces, and then went back into the dining room with a fistful of herb bits.
“Madame, for you,” I said as I opened my hand over the pizza.
Green confetti rained down over mozzarella and tomato sauce.
Mom gasped. “Oh, Zinny! How wonderful!”
As we watched Mom eat the pizza, Scarlett sneaked me a small under-the-table thumbs-up.
Wednesday Night
That night when we were in bed, Scarlett asked me again about Alfredo. But I still didn’t tell her.
“Fine, be that way,” she said. Not sounding mean or angry, just sort of disappointed that I wasn’t telling her stuff. Which made me feel un-sister-ish.
The truth was, I was sure the pizza was from Luz and Jayden, because the whole thing about renaming Lunch Club was their joke. Also, I could tell they’d both felt bad about Keira’s question, and they’d obviously noticed that I’d never shown up in room 107B for a slice.
But I didn’t want to talk to Scarlett about Lunch Club. For two reasons.
One: After today I was set on quitting—even if it meant breaking the deal with Ms. Molina and therefore not hanging out in her lab.
Two: I wasn’t sure I could mention Jayden without Scarlett noticing my feelings. My sister’s crush radar was always turned up to High—and if she ever did find out I liked him, she’d never stop teasing me about it.
Besides, I figured that once I quit Lunch Club, I’d never see Jayden again anyway. So I’d be going through all that teasing for nothing.
I mean, Aiden was wrong—I wasn’t a genius. But I wasn’t stupid, either.
Three A.M.
That night I had this sort-of dream-fantasy:
I am in a diorama. No, a fish tank. Sort
of a crayfish tank, actually.
And I have everything I need to
survive—
A slice of pizza,
A sandwich bag of popcorn,
A scoop of cookie dough ice cream in
a cup,
A tube of cherry Chap
Stick,
A blue marker,
That super-tiny chair Gabriel gave me,
A sprig of rosemary,
A little covered track to run on,
Maybe some bad movies to watch
when I get bored,
Although I never do
Because it’s cozy in there—
Predictable
And safe.
But the thing is
I can’t stop hearing everybody else
Outside the tank
Swimming around
Laughing their heads off,
Making a splash-tsunami—
Shouting faraway words I can barely
hear.
Thursday
The next day, two extremely weird things happened.
Weird Thing Number One:
Before morning homeroom, I went to Mr. Patrick’s office to tell him I was quitting Lunch Club. I knew I could have waited until the following week and just not shown up, but I wanted to be done with the whole thing. Like what they tell you about pulling off a bandage—it hurts less if you yank it off fast. And I knew if I skipped Lunch Club, Mr. Patrick would probably insist on talking to me anyway. I told myself that at least this way, I’d be in charge of when the bandage came off.
But when I got to room 107B, the door was closed.
So I waited outside, fidgeting with my tiny chair thingy, chewing my lip, then smearing on cherry ChapStick, watching kids and teachers rush by on their way to class.
Finally the door opened, and guess who walked out: Kailani. As soon as she saw me, her eyes got huge, and she froze.
ME: Um, hi.
KAILANI: Hi, Zinny! I’m sorry—I didn’t know anyone was waiting!
ME: That’s okay.
MR. PATRICK (poking his head out the door and smiling): Hey there, Zinny, you wanted to see me?
ME: No, I just… it’s really not important.
MR. PATRICK: You sure? Because I have some free time now—
KAILANI: Don’t worry if you’re late for homeroom, Zinny. It doesn’t matter. I’ll just tell the teacher—
ME: No, yes, I’m sure. Thanks anyway, Mr. Patrick. Um.
And then I raced down the hall to homeroom ahead of Kailani, my heart hammering inside my chest, my brain spinning.
Why was Kailani in Mr. Patrick’s office? Was she in there to complain about me—what a bad friend I am, refusing to share secrets and feelings, refusing to apologize to Maisie, saying nasty things about people’s crushes?
Or maybe Mr. Patrick was asking her to be a spy, reporting back to him if I yell at people, or won’t eat pizza, or something.
I told myself it was possible the conversation was just about Kailani—but she was the kind of person who didn’t have problems. At least, not the sort of problems that needed a private meeting with a guidance counselor.
I mean, if you could be any person on earth, you’d be crazy not to pick Kailani.
* * *
Weird Thing Number Two:
At dismissal I crashed into Luz. She was blocking the front door of the school with a bunch of eighth graders I didn’t know, teen-looking boys and girls, all laughing and yelling insults at one another. From the way the other kids were circled around her, you could tell right away that Luz was popular, maybe the most popular one in the whole group.
Do all these kids know she goes to Lunch Club once a week? And Jayden too?
Luz also had the loudest voice of all the kids, and when my elbow bumped her backpack, she shouted: “Hey!”
I immediately apologized. She gave me a confused look, which was how I realized it hadn’t been a How dare you crash into me sort of “hey,” but more of a Hello there, I know you sort of “hey.” So I figured this was my chance to thank her for sending us the pizza.
“What pizza?” she asked.
“You know. The one you sent to my house yesterday.”
“I didn’t send you any pizza. You’re the mystery kid, Zin—I don’t even know your address!”
“You didn’t send it? But the note said Alfredo,” I argued.
“Who?”
Now I was blushing. “Remember that joke you made about us being al fresco—”
“Oh right, you mean during Bertha.”
“Excuse me?”
“Lunch Club name of the week,” Luz whispered behind her hand, as if we were secret agents or something. “Although maybe Jayden sent it. You want to ask him? I saw him here a second ago.”
She started looking around in a very obvious way.
Ack. “No, that’s okay!”
I grabbed her arm, but she just laughed. “Hey, Jayden! Zin wants to know if you sent her a pizza!”
“Luz, omigod, please,” I begged.
But too late. Jayden appeared from behind some tall boys.
“Someone sent you pizza, Umzinnia?” he asked, smiling.
I nodded, because I was too embarrassed to form words.
“Well, hate to say it, but it wasn’t me,” he said. “Although sorry I didn’t think of it. You never came to Mr. Patrick’s office for a slice.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t hungry,” I muttered. “After that stupid game we were playing, and everything. Anyhow—”
“So who did send it to you, Zin?” Luz traded looks with Jayden. “My guess is Keira.”
“Seriously?” I said.
“Yeah, that makes sense, actually,” Jayden said. “She felt really bad about what she said.”
Luz nodded. “Keira may not seem like it, but she’s super sensitive. Maybe we shouldn’t tell you this, but afterward she was crying.”
Oh, uggghhh. Am I supposed to go thank Keira now? Of all people? Even just having a regular conversation with her was the absolute last thing I felt like doing.
Besides, sending a pizza to my house didn’t make up for what she said about Gabriel.
“So you’re coming to Bertha next week, right?” Jayden was asking. His dark eyes weren’t smiling anymore, and his voice was soft. Serious.
I shrugged.
“Zin, you have to,” Luz said.
I shrugged again.
Friday, Lunchtime
“Hey there, Zinny,” Ms. Molina greeted me from her laptop. She was eating a peanut butter sandwich this time; the smell hit me as soon as I walked into her classroom. But I wasn’t hungry; I’d grabbed a hummus wrap from the lunchroom first.
“Any cool plans for the weekend?” She was smiling.
“Not really,” I admitted.
“No? Nothing fun going on with friends?”
I rested my backpack on a chair. “Maybe. I guess. I don’t know.”
“Zinny,” Ms. Molina said, putting her sandwich on the desk. “It’s not good to be alone all the time. I used to see you with Kailani and Maisie. What happened between you girls?”
I honestly didn’t know how to answer. It wasn’t like there was one scientific variable you could point to and say, Oh, so that caused the end of the friendship. My friendship with Maisie and Kailani just sort of wore out, like an old sneaker.
Sometimes there wasn’t a scientific name for things. Or a reason, either.
So I just shrugged.
“Well, what about the kids in Lunch Club?” Ms. Molina asked. “Maybe one of them is free this weekend.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said.
To change the subject, I quickly made my way over to the crayfish tanks.
Cray-Z was super active, climbing over pebbles like he was training for the Crustacean Olympics. Crayola was exploring her castle, Ray was swimming, Ashleigh was eating shrimp pellets, while Sugarlumps was sitting on the bottom of the tank, just sort of waving his claws for exercise. As for Clawed, he was hiding.
Although actually… where is he, exactly?
Suddenly I had a hollow, icy feeling in my stomach. Like my insides had turned into empty refrigerator shelves.
“Ms. Molina,” I called out.
She chewed her sandwich. “Everything okay, Zinny?”
&n
bsp; “No,” I said. “Clawed isn’t here!”
Immediately she was by my side. “Don’t worry, he’s probably hiding under something. He could be molting; sometimes they hide under things just before they do. I hadn’t noticed anything, but—” She stooped to press her face right up against the tank. “Well, that’s odd,” she finally said.
I searched her face. “He’s missing, right?”
“I don’t see him,” she admitted. “But I know I saw him a little while ago, because I specifically remember thinking how fast he ate his shrimp pellets.…”
Ms. Molina’s voice trailed as she examined the outside of the tank.
“What are you looking at?” I asked.
“The air-hose line,” Ms. Molina said. “It looks a bit displaced.”
“What does that mean?”
She slipped her finger under the tube. “It’s possible Clawed escaped from the tank. Crayfish are drawn to aeration, so maybe—”
“He climbed out of the tank? Through the air-hose line?” I squeaked. “But how could he? It’s so narrow!”
“It’s possible the tank cover wasn’t on straight, or there was too much of a gap at the air hose. Crayfish are notorious escape artists; sometimes it’s a mystery how they get out! Anyway, the important thing is to find him now, okay? As quickly as possible.”
She kept her voice calm and teachery, but I could see worry in her eyes.
The two of us began searching the classroom, not speaking. Ms. Molina focused on tall things—taking books out of the bookshelves in the back of the room—while I crawled around, searching under desks and on the floor of the closet where she kept lab supplies.
Soon kids started trickling in for science class. And of course, as soon as they saw Ms. Molina and me, they knew something was up.
“What’s going on?” Aspen demanded.
“All right, folks,” Ms. Molina said, wiping her brow with her sleeve. “One of our crayfish guests has escaped his tank. We need everyone to search—”
“Is it Cray-Z?” Li-Mei cried.
“No, it’s Clawed.”
Aspen shrieked.
Yeah, a lot you care, I thought. Feeding him hot dogs!
“Aspen, please stay calm,” Ms. Molina said in a no-nonsense sort of way.