Right as Rain

by Lindsey Stoddard

  And I’m hoping she slows down enough to realize that she doesn’t want to live away from Dad. If she slows down a little and Dad picks up the pace, like he has been at Dacie’s and getting ready for the fund-raiser, maybe they’ll be running at the same speed again. And maybe it’s not too late to be one in four.

  Chapter 33

  Poems

  I have four poems due in seventeen hours, but really nine hours because I’m not the kind of person to sneak and do their English homework in other classes just because English isn’t until the end of the day, and really three hours because I’m not the kind of person who can sleep if they haven’t finished all their homework before bed.

  It’s not that I don’t have four poems. I have eighteen if you count the ones that are just six words and don’t sing or punch, nineteen if you count Nestor’s poem that he scribbled in my notebook. I just don’t have any that I want to read out loud to my whole class.

  Dad knocks on my bedroom door and comes in. He’s wearing a dirty flannel, but the good kind of dirty, the kind that comes from working in the actual dirt, not from wearing the same shirt every day and never getting out of bed to change.

  “You’re busy,” he says, pointing to the poems in my notebook. “But I just wanted to say that you and your friends have done a great job organizing this fund-raiser for Dacie, and even if it doesn’t work, it’ll be a great day, and a great tribute to her.”

  “It’ll work—” I start.

  “But it might not. She’s losing a lot of funding, Rain. I just don’t want your hopes soaring.” He rubs the little beard growing on his face. “I can promise you one thing, though. Those gardens will be beautiful on Saturday.”

  I smile.

  “Now, write some poems,” he says, and closes my door.

  It takes me forever, even though for the first three poems I pretty much use what I already wrote in my notebook, except I add a little or change a little. I especially add to “Poem 3” because when Ms. Dacie read it this week she said she loved how some words meant two different things and how that feels like poetry to her. I think about the word hard and how it can mean hard like the floor of Izzy’s tree fort, but also hard like difficult, and I think I can make that a poem.

  Poem 1

  When you feel all jumbled, go for a run.

  It’s more than just exercise and fun.

  It empties your brain,

  At least if you’re Rain.

  Poem 2

  We’ll need the whole neighborhood.

  We’ll fill the space.

  And we’ll make change for good.

  Everyone needs Ms. Dacie’s place.

  Poem 3

  Best place to sleep is

  a tall tree fort with your friend.

  Hard can be OK.

  Ivan’s past was hard.

  Even though his life’s good now,

  he’s from that hard past.

  Find a friend who will

  go high above the ground where

  hard can be OK.

  There aren’t any other poems in my notebook that I really like except the one Nestor scribbled in there in the café, and I can’t use that one because that’s called plagiarism and I could get in big trouble for pretending I wrote it instead.

  So I start over, and this time I try no rules, even though it makes me feel kind of lost and uncomfortable. But I fill it with what I know—facts.

  Poem 4

  363 days gone

  1 Christmas

  4 gardening seasons

  3 report cards

  55 ski runs

  51 Friday family dinners

  3 pairs of worn-out sneakers,

  that have run through, run away, run to erase

  the length of 130,680 songs that I’ve counted out in my head,

  wondering,

  if maybe you could just still be there,

  at the concert,

  listening.

  The number of our memories together between now and the dirt is

  a big who-knows.

  But I won’t let those sneak off and out.

  And if they try, I promise. Promise. I’ll say no. Stay.

  Chapter 34

  Slam

  My heart rate is one hundred thirty, which is seventy beats per minute faster than usual. At least twenty-five of those extra beats are because tomorrow is June fifteenth, the worst day ever, and the track championships, and Mom is skipping work and she and Dad are going to meet us there to watch and cheer, and we have to win because maybe they’ll jump in the air and high-five and end up in a hug right as the first-ever all-sixth-grade relay team crosses the finish line.

  Another twenty-five of those beats is because Saturday is Dacie’s fund-raiser and ever since Dad popped his head in my door and said that he doesn’t want my hopes to soar, my brain has been clicking with a hundred questions about what will happen if there is no Ms. Dacie’s house. What will happen to Ms. Dacie? Will Slick Suit buy her house and what will he turn it into, and who will go there instead of all the kids who need that living room, and that kitchen stocked with cookie ingredients, and that door that’s always open?

  The other twenty beats per minute is because I’m sitting in Mrs. Baldwin’s class and she’s pulling numbers out of a hat, one through thirty-four, and when she pulls out the number that’s next to our name on the library card chart, it’s our turn to read a poem out loud.

  Even though I’m reading “Poem 1,” which is short and easy to read, and not about anything that makes my heart hurt, my notebook is still shaking in my hands as I sit and wait for her to call my number.

  Four kids have already read, so I have about a 3 percent chance that I’ll be called next, and what’s worse, if I don’t get called, my chances go up and up and up.

  I’m number thirty-four.

  “Seventeen,” she calls, and most of the class sighs and a few kids cheer and José hides his face.

  José’s poem is about his dad. It’s five lines long and each line starts with the letters that spell out DADDY. Mrs. Baldwin makes him put it up on the SMART board so we can see how he wrote DADDY down the page. It’s really good. It’s a singing kind of poem right up to the last line.

  “You aren’t always here, but you’re never far from me.”

  The class claps, and I’m 70 percent certain if José stays standing up there for two more seconds his eyes will fill up. He returns to his seat fast and the kids around him lean over and pat his shoulders.

  I wish I had written a poem about Izzy with the letters of her name down the page like that. Though I can’t think of one line that starts with Z, and I definitely can’t think of two.

  Mrs. Baldwin calls number three, then twenty-four and eleven.

  One poem is Elena’s, and it’s about moving to the United States and how much she misses her home. And even though I’ve never been to the Dominican Republic, she’s so good at imagery I feel like I’m there every second she’s reading.

  The next reader is the boy from the back row who said he didn’t like any of his poems. His name is Sam and it takes everyone saying You can do it and Come on, Sam to get him to stand up and walk slowly to the front of the room.

  “Fine,” he says. “But only so I can pass English, because I’m not doing this all over again.”

  Everyone laughs with him and chants, “For the grade! For the grade!” He wrote about missing his grandma who passed away last year. I can see Mrs. Baldwin catch his eye and nod like he can do this, and even though we can tell he’s nervous, he doesn’t stop once, and as soon as he reads his last word, he walks fast back to his seat in the last row as everyone claps and says, “Wow.”

  The next poem is from Anthony, who everyone thought might really actually read a roses are red poem, but instead he reads one about how hard school is, and it sings and punches in all the right places.

  The class cheers after each one, and I calculate that Mrs. Baldwin will go through two and a half boxes of tissues at this
rate. She wipes her eyes and blows her nose and passes the box around. I’ve only been here for ten school days, but I feel like I’m getting little secret messages from everyone in the room, that it’s OK to share something hard if you want, and that everyone has everyone else’s back.

  Every time someone else goes up, my own poem seems smaller and smaller, and after hearing about José’s dad, and how much Elena misses her home, reading a short poem about running seems stupid, even if that’s a word I’m not supposed to use.

  Ms. Dacie calls number ten. Frankie.

  She stands there in front of the class, her hands shaking her paper so much I’m not sure she’ll be able to read the words, and I remember when I first saw her sitting on the stoop when we were moving into apartment thirty-one. Even though she’s shaking and taking deep breaths before she starts her first line, she still looks as tough as she did then, tying her Flyknit Racers and glaring up at me.

  Then she starts, and her voice doesn’t shake like her paper does, not at all. She’s as confident as she is when she’s sprinting toward the finish line, and her poem sings as loud and deep as church music.

  The class is silent until the last stanza.

  “Reggie.

  She helped me be me.

  From Franchesca, who fears who she is

  To Frankie, who’s free.”

  Kids are clapping and cheering, maybe because it sounds so good with all those fs flying, or maybe because they knew Reggie too.

  “Beautiful,” Mrs. Baldwin says.

  Frankie sits back down in the desk next to me, and kids from the row behind are patting her shoulders and saying that they miss Reggie, but they know she and Reggie are best friends forever. And it seems like there are thirty-three voices in Spanish and English that are telling little stories about Reggie. Remember when . . . and laughter. Even Amelia pipes up and says, “And the f-f-faucet in science c-class. Mr. R-Roberts’s f-face!” Everyone cracks up, and I wish I knew the whole story.

  I pat Frankie’s shoulder too and smile. She smiles back, even though I live in apartment thirty-one.

  Then Mrs. Baldwin calls number thirty. No one jumps up to read, and Mrs. Baldwin calls it again.

  “Who is thirty?”

  But before I remember that number thirty is Amelia, and it’s my turn to read her poem, Amelia leans over and whispers, “I g-got this.”

  “Amelia, I’ll read—”

  “I w-w-want t-to.”

  The whole class hushes, and Mrs. Baldwin nods her head.

  From the first word, I know that Amelia isn’t reading about her fifth-grade graduation anymore. She switched, and that’s a fact because I have her fifth-grade graduation poem memorized.

  The one she’s reading is a series of rhyming punches that makes the class go “Ohhhh,” and she has to wait until everyone quiets down to continue on. She stutters through each line, but somehow that makes it better because the whole poem is about her voice.

  “And j-just b-b-because I

  D-don’t say it s-s-smooth

  Doesn’t mean y-y-y-you have to be r-rude

  And j-just b-because my b-brain and t-tongue fight w-wars

  D-doesn’t mean m-my voice is l-l-less than yours.”

  The class goes wild, and Amelia is half laughing and crying all at the same time and she holds up her hand to quiet us down because she’s not done.

  “Yes, I w-wish I s-sounded slick l-like butter,

  B-but alas, I h-have a st-st-stutter.”

  The class whoops and hollers again and Amelia takes her seat, and three girls hug her and say that she is such a good poet, and she is. Even the boys who laughed at her ten days ago are clapping for her, and something tells me that they won’t ever laugh at someone else like that again.

  I’m about to lean over and pat Amelia on the shoulder too, but Mrs. Baldwin calls number thirty-four.

  “Rain! Rain! Rain!” Frankie starts chanting, and before I even know how I got there I’m standing in front of the whole class, my heart beating one hundred forty beats per minute, and all the extra beats are for this moment, and even though I want to start reading, it’s like my voice doesn’t work, and instead of reading, I’m wondering if this is how Amelia feels all the time.

  I stand there silent for twenty seconds, holding my notebook tighter and tighter, and every second I’m standing there I’m receiving secret little messages, everyone rooting for me, saying it’s OK. And I remember what Mrs. Baldwin said about which poem to read aloud. Something that makes you feel brave.

  My fingers flip a few pages forward in my notebook, past “Poem 1,” and I start.

  “‘Poem Four,’” I say.

  I read each line slowly, and the whole class is silent. I don’t look up from the page at all until I say the last line.

  “And if they try, I promise. Promise. I’ll say no. Stay.”

  No one cheers right away or whoops and hollers like they did for Amelia, and I think I’m such an idiot and I should have forgotten about being brave and just read “Poem 1” and I don’t know what I was thinking, and now I have tears running fast down my cheeks and everyone is staring.

  Then all at once I hear clapping, lots, and when I look up I see Amelia standing and then Frankie. Then others stand and clap loud and cheer and Mrs. Baldwin blows her nose and passes the tissue box around the class. I’m not the only one with tears falling off my chin.

  The clapping doesn’t stop when I sit back down. I feel hands on my shoulders and Frankie sneaks me a secret team handshake.

  And in this minute, I don’t feel so much like a one-and-only.

  Chapter 35

  June Fifteenth

  From where our team is gathered and huddled on the outside of the track, I count nineteen different team uniforms, and that’s just what I can see from here. I know there are more teams around the back of the bleachers, which reach up and up almost as high as the buildings around them.

  One team has matching maroon-and-white warm-up suits and gym bags and water bottles and even their maroon-and-white sneakers all match, and they’re those fancy track shoes that have a low profile and probably weigh 6.3 ounces. And I’m wondering if every runner on the team really wanted that exact pair, because I’m 100 percent certain that Frankie wouldn’t race in anything but her Nike Flyknit Racers, and I wouldn’t trade in my Ultraboosts for anything. But they look fast, matching like that. Really fast.

  I’m also 100 percent certain that our uniforms aren’t even new, because when Coach Okeke handed me one on the day I joined there were no tags and he told me I should probably wash it first. I wonder if it was Reggie’s.

  I wiggle my toes and feel Guthrie’s guitar pick, which I slid into my shoe this morning.

  I watch my mom and dad step up and up the bleacher stairs and sit down halfway to the top, right in the middle. They don’t leave a seat between them, and I’m thinking that’s a good sign. Plus, my mom’s wearing white and my dad’s wearing navy, and I know they planned it that way because those are my school’s colors, and they look like a team. And I’m thinking that’s another good sign too because today is June fifteenth, and to get through a day like today, you’re going to need a team. At least that’s what Dr. Cyn says.

  “I have to warm up,” Frankie says, and she bounces off toward the far gate, bringing her knees high to her chest and varying fast steps with slow steps. Ana joins her.

  Our relay is the last event of the whole meet, but Frankie and Ana are both running the 100m before then, so Coach Okeke is talking them through a visualization technique as they stretch.

  Because Amelia and I are just last-minute substitutes for the relay, we couldn’t register for other races, but I wish we could have because waiting through thousands of meters of races and dozens of long-jump flights and shot-put grunts until the girls’ 4x100m relay feels like watching seeds grow as soon as you cover them with soil.

  My brain is running sprints between my parents, trying to read their lips and their faces to see
what they’re talking about, and Ms. Dacie, and if we’ll raise enough money at the fund-raiser tomorrow. And exactly what I was doing at this time last year, before that night.

  It was a regular day of school. We were reading The Bridge to Terabithia in Ms. Jenna’s class, and she cried at the end. Ms. Jenna cried at every book we read that year, but this cry wasn’t a happy cry, it was a sad, life-is-not-fair-and-we-can’t-always-fix-it cry, and I remember thinking this isn’t how things are supposed to go in books. Jess and Leslie were supposed to be friends until they were ninety-two and magical places are supposed to keep you safe forever and kids aren’t supposed to die.

  Before my brain can replay 10:43 and the flares sparking up from the blacktop of that night, I get up from my spot in the grass next to Amelia and join Frankie and Ana warming up, running easy between two cones beside the bleachers.

  But Coach Okeke says, “Rest your legs, Rain,” and points back to where I was sitting next to Amelia.

  “I’m good—”

  “Rest your legs, Rain.” He points again and looks at me like he means it.

  I sit back down next to Amelia. “T-t-trying to erase your-b-brain?” she asks. “It’s J-June fifteenth. Y-you said—”

  “I know what I said.”

  It takes one second for me to feel bad. Amelia’s just trying to talk to me because it must be obvious that I need it, and she wrote this whole powerful poem about her voice and here I am shutting her down, but her asking me anything isn’t helping me erase my brain.

  “Sorry,” I say. “Yeah. Trying to erase my brain.”

  Frankie and Ana are lining up behind their lanes for the 100m, and our whole team stands up to cheer.

  There are two girls next to them from the maroon-and-white matching school, and four girls from other schools in the next lanes. The maroon-and-white matching girls stretch and bounce on the toes of their fancy track shoes, and their ponytails bob up and down. Frankie and Ana stretch and bounce too, but before they take their mark they give each other the secret team handshake. The matching maroon girls don’t have one. They just crouch into position and look straight ahead.