The 12th Candle

by Kim Tomsic

  “That sounds lovely,” Mrs. Rimmels says, and I can tell she means it.

  Ryan returns to the room. Mrs. Rimmels smiles at him and says, “Great. Everyone is here. Now please take a seat.”

  “And this weekend,” I say, “Bailee and I are going to see Star Wars.”

  Priscilla looks over a shoulder on the way to her desk. “You have tickets to opening day of the newest Star Wars movie in Denver?” Her tone accuses me of being the world’s biggest liar.

  “Nope.” I cross my arms over my chest. “To the original Star Wars.” I love the original Star Wars trilogy, because—spoiler alert—in The Empire Strikes Back, we find out Darth Vader is Luke’s father, but everyone can see Luke is a good guy no matter what his daddy did.

  “Ewwww, at the dollar theater?” Priscilla says in a low voice so Mrs. Rimmels’s hearing aids won’t pick up her meanness—she’s good at hiding her scaly side in front of teachers. “All the cockroaches there should make you feel right at home, Weed.”

  “You’re such a jerk, Godzilla.”

  “Better than a thief, Weed.”

  The skin on my neck warms.

  “. . . goes to Sage,” Mrs. Rimmels says.

  I’m between fuming and wanting to cry.

  “Sage,” Bailee whispers, “Mrs. Rimmels just said you won the Friday donut.”

  Mrs. Rimmels is smiling at me. At least I’m still her favorite.

  I stand up and walk to her desk. “Thank you, Mrs. Rimmels.”

  She pulls a Kleenex from her pocket and slips it to me. “Good job, Sage. You earned the highest grade on yesterday’s quiz. A ninety-seven.”

  Like I said, in the Contrarium Curse, my family won in the reading department whereas Priscilla was gifted with math. Bailee claims it doesn’t have to be one or the other, but like I also said, Bailee doesn’t understand the curse.

  “Would you mind handing back the quizzes before taking your donut?” Mrs. Rimmels asks.

  I happily agree and pass out the papers. I won’t mention Priscilla’s test grade because of confidentiality and because paper passer is a highly trusted role, but let’s just say Priscilla’s grade starts with the second letter of the alphabet and has a minus sign after it.

  “And Priscilla,” Mrs. Rimmels says, “would you like to hand out the permission forms for the winter solstice dance?”

  Excited chatter buzzes through the room. The winter solstice is a big deal at our school. Classes are canceled and we celebrate with a sunset dance. The Lab Rats, aka the science club, have been hanging countdown posters every day since December 1. They’ll keep hanging posters until the solstice on December 21, which is next Friday, one week from today.

  “Remember,” Mrs. Rimmels says, “we celebrate as a school. This is not a matchmaking service, so girls and boys, please don’t worry about asking each other on a date. Just come and have a good time.”

  Priscilla takes the pile from Mrs. Rimmels, and now we’re both paper passers, which would make this a great opportunity to sneak the chocolate donut onto her seat. But I’m not dumb. There’s no way I’m risking my standing as favorite student or wasting a perfectly good donut. I’ll think up a better idea later.

  “The dance is just seven days away,” Mrs. Rimmels says. “Please ask your parents to come as chaperones. We still need volunteers.”

  I pick up my donut, tear it in half, and give the other half to Bailee. When I return to my seat, I notice Priscilla has placed a form on everyone’s desktop except mine, the jerk, so I snatch the one from her spot.

  “Oh, right. It’s a free dance,” Priscilla says. “Even the street rats are allowed.”

  I ball my hands into fists and wish I could punch Godzilla right in that smug face. I may not think of my revenge today, but I will get her.

  Chapter 5

  I climb on the bus and plop my backpack on the seat next to me to save it for Bailee. We always choose the same spot, nine rows down on the right, me by the window, her by the aisle. Ours is one of the few seats without rips in the vinyl.

  Hudson comes down the aisle after me.

  “Hey, Hud.”

  “Hey, Sage.” He drops onto the bench next to Steven and across from me.

  Steven waves a book titled Fact or Fiction Weather Marvels. “Listen to this,” he says. “Goldview has more weather marvels than anywhere else in the world, but Salt Lake City, Utah, and Bozeman, Montana, have around six thundersnows a year, and so do Nova Scotia, Amman, and Jerusalem.”

  “For real?” I say. “They have pink lightning, too?”

  Steven nods and keeps reading.

  Ryan scoots into the row behind Hudson and Steven. He smooths down his green Lab Rats T-shirt. “You guys are coming to the solstice dance, right?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” I say.

  “Yep,” Hudson and Steven say at the same time.

  “Yo, Sage.” Hudson turns to me and wags his eyebrows. “Better watch out for me in the Noodler contest. I might win this time.”

  “You might,” I say. And he could.

  Hudson and I have a long-running art rivalry. In kindergarten, we’d compare the stickers the teacher put on our drawings, trying to decode whose art piece she thought was better. Last year, Sprouts had a “draw the bag” contest for kids to design the store’s new canvas grocery sacks. They said each artist could turn in anything he or she wanted.

  I loved hearing them call us artists, something Daddy used to call me when he lived at home.

  Anyhow, I won, but Hudson was a close second. Sprouts gave both of us a gift card and a free bag each.

  “Good luck,” I tell Hudson, and mean it, even though he’s my toughest competition and my future reputation is on the line.

  “Don’t worry about giving Hudson luck,” Steve says. “Mi hermano tiene mucho talento.”

  “Okay?” I say, laughing. “I understood the ‘talent’ part.”

  “All you need to know is that my bro is the OG,” Steven says.

  Hudson laughs and Ryan says, “Yep,” and pats Hudson on the back, which quickly turns into wrestling and nearly knocks off Hudson’s baseball cap. He turns his cap backward, his wheat-colored hair curling out the bottom. “Okay, everyone careful now. I’m taking out the XJZ2000.”

  The XJZ2000 is Hudson’s fancy phone. Even though his mom buys the on-sale apples from the same bin as my momma, he has a phone because his grandparents gave it to him so they can call him anytime they want.

  Ryan leans over Hudson’s shoulder and says, “Are you checking if Fortnite announced their new release date?”

  “Nah. I’m looking up past Noodler winners.”

  Hudson types on his phone, and more kids climb on the bus and fill up seats. And then Godzilla struts down the aisle!

  Mustard yellow, I think, because I always think in ugly colors when I’m facing a lousy situation.

  Priscilla never rides the bus, and I am not prepared to deal with her again today. I have a theory that I only have one hundred Priscilla energy units per day, and according to my theory I’ve used them all up. To make matters worse, she plops down in the seat right in front of me. This is normally Curtis’s seat, and I like Curtis. He tells Bailee and me funny jokes and never says anything about my daddy.

  Priscilla fluffs her hair and turns sideways, giving me another close-up of her fancy headband. Jada sits next to Priscilla.

  I turn to my window and scan the parking lot, wondering why Mrs. Petty isn’t here for her. Priscilla’s momma always picks her up in their fancy black Tesla, honking the horn in case everyone isn’t already looking at her shiny car.

  “Hi, guys,” Priscilla says, all bubbles and smiles. “Hey, Steven. You killed it with the Flores Report today.”

  Ohhhh. Steven. Right. That’s why she’s here.

  She hands each of the boys a bright blue envelope that’s been sealed with a gold sticker and says, “You are cordially invited to my birthday party tomorrow.”

  Hudson, still busy with his phone, says, �
�Thanks.” He slides the envelope under his leg and says, “Whoa, Sage. Check out this eighth grader in Ohio who won the contest last year! His art is really good.”

  He flashes his phone screen my way. “Says here he used Inkscape to make the color pop like that.”

  I try to keep my face neutral so he doesn’t clue in that I have no idea what he’s talking about. “Hmmm.”

  Priscilla spins around, her vinyl seat crunching. “You know about Inkscape?”

  “Sure.” My eye twitches.

  “You’re not actually thinking of entering the contest, are you?” The fake sweetness vibrates in Godzilla’s cruel voice.

  My chest tightens. I buy a second with a shoulder shrug.

  “Of course she is going to enter,” Hudson says. “Why wouldn’t she?”

  Have I mentioned Hudson is a good friend?

  Priscilla presses her lips closed and raises her eyebrows like she’s trying not to spill a big funny secret. I know she’s trying to make me feel puny. Too bad it works.

  Gigi comes down the bus aisle and pauses for a moment when she sees Priscilla and Jada. Then she rearranges her face. “Hey?” She says it to Jada and Priscilla before taking the seat in front of them. Priscilla leans forward and whispers something to Gigi. Gigi laughs all low and with short bursts. It’s not her real laugh. I remember her real laugh was high and stretched out.

  Back in fifth grade, Gigi used to sit next to Bailee and me. I’d sit by the window, Gigi in the middle, and Bailee on the outside. The three of us loved it. We’d squeeze in and I’d duck so Mr. Melvin, the bus driver, wouldn’t know there were three in a seat. Nowadays, she sits several rows in front of us and barely says hello.

  Curtis gets on the bus next and sits in the row behind me, since Priscilla stole his seat. And here’s the thing: He doesn’t grumble or anything. Instead, he smiles like the more the merrier. Curtis is easygoing like that.

  Priscilla reaches past me and hands an envelope to Curtis before she giggles at me again.

  “What did I miss? What’s so funny?” Ryan asks.

  Priscilla tosses her hair. “Well, you guys know this,” she says to the boys. She turns to me. “But you may not, Sage.” She clears her throat and speaks slowly like I’m in preschool. “Noodler is a technology giant.”

  “Duh,” I say, because everyone knows that’s always a good comeback.

  “Do you even own a laptop?”

  The puny feeling spreads through my stomach. “Of course I do.”

  Gigi darts a look over her shoulder but doesn’t call out my lie.

  “That’s a start. How about a tablet and pencil stylus or a subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud?” Priscilla says. “All good artists use Illustrator, you know.”

  Hudson is nodding, saying yes for me, expecting or maybe hoping I have one of those things. But I don’t. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to participate in a contest for a tech giant.

  Priscilla turns to Jada. “She’s either a thief or a liar.” She makes sure to say this loud enough for the whole bus to hear.

  I stare out the window at the tops of heads making their way down the sidewalk. I wish I lived close enough to get off the bus and walk home.

  “Don’t, Priscilla,” Jada whispers.

  Priscilla tsks. “What? I’m just saying it feels suspicious if she really has Creative Cloud. It costs over fifty dollars. My cousin told me so, and she’s a real artist.”

  The news about what I don’t have for the competition piles on my chest, brick by brick. Fifty dollars is an impossible number.

  “Per month,” Ryan says. “My dad subscribes.” He doesn’t say this in a snotty way, but more factually.

  “She doesn’t need Illustrator,” Hudson says. “Procreate is a great program, and so much cheaper.”

  I stay still, trying to keep the worry from choking my heart. How come I don’t know about these art programs?

  They continue talking about technology I'll never be able to afford and using words I’ve never heard like Wacom and Creative Cloud and iPencil. Okay, I’ve heard of an eye pencil, but the only one I’ve ever seen is the blue kind Miss Tammy uses too much of before her shift at the café.

  Suddenly, Bailee plops down next to me. “Hey?” She hesitates before whispering, “What in the mustard yellow is going on?” I taught her the color thing.

  My struggle to spit out a quick answer is enough for Godzilla to realize she has successfully unnerved me. She seizes the moment and blasts her best condescending voice. “It’s common sense, Sassafras. You can’t go entering a technology giant’s art contest without using technology. You know Noodler is not looking for a crayon drawing, right?”

  The flush burns across my face, and I manage a shrug that comes out as an awkward twitch.

  Bailee squeezes hand sanitizer from the keychain looped on the end of her backpack. She rubs her palms, waiting for me to defend myself as I usually do, but when I stay silent, she says, “Sage could draw with a piece of bark in the dirt and it’d still be the best thing anyone has ever seen.”

  “True that,” Hudson says.

  My insides lift to a little less slouchy.

  Priscilla rolls her eyes. “Whatever. I’m just saying this isn’t a Sprouts Farmers Market grocery store contest. This is Noodler. I mean, geez, you understand that, right? Noodler!” Then she says, “They probably do background checks. I don’t think they’d like a convicted felon in their contest. It ruins their brand and all, you know?”

  I want to snap some witty comment back, but so much shame has slipped under my skin that my mouth dries.

  “Sage isn’t a felon,” Bailee says.

  Priscilla seizes this moment to spit out the words she knows will hurt me the most. “Well, her father is.”

  Chapter 6

  All aboard?” Mr. Melvin counts the number of elementary kids up front and us in the back.

  “Yep!” someone shouts.

  “Alrighty.” Mr. Melvin cranks the door closed and turns on what he calls his Funky Friday Tunes, and we start moving.

  “You okay?” Bailee whispers.

  I sit perfectly still and make a small sound, enough for Bailee to know I don’t want to talk in front of everyone.

  Bailee gives my arm a we’ll-talk-later squeeze and turns around to listen to Curtis tell jokes. Hudson messes with his phone, and Steven and Ryan talk basketball. Priscilla noses in on the basketball conversation, not only to impress Steven, but also because in the Contrarium, she took the sporty skills.

  My cheeks sting and my ears buzz. I stare out the window at passing cars and gold, leafy trees. Godzilla continues yapping, and now she’s loud-whispering to someone about her felon comment, because she likes to remind everyone that her daddy is president of Goldview First National Bank, whereas my daddy was convicted of trying to rob that same bank.

  Godzilla sucks.

  Nobody on the bus with two ears is surprised by the bank news. My daddy’s conviction is already a month old, plus Goldview is small and people like to talk.

  But Priscilla bringing it up mortifies me all over again. I have to remind myself about the Noodler contest, and how I’ll go from infamous to famous. Infamous to famous. It keeps me from crying.

  I wish I could tell everyone that the jury got it wrong. My daddy didn’t do it. He couldn’t have. He wouldn’t do that to me and Momma. But I don’t say anything, because if I move a muscle, I might crumble.

  It wouldn’t matter anyhow, because no matter what I say, it doesn’t stop the gossips in town. For the record, it’s a lie when people say my daddy carried a gun. He’s never owned a gun. It’s a lie when they say he tried to break in at night and was caught because of a silent alarm, when the truth is, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and that could happen to anybody. The gossips even claim Momma and I were with him. I’ve never been to the bank at night, so that just shows how wrong they are.

  Godzilla is the worst gossip of all. It’s like she’s on a mission to convince e
veryone I’m a thief “just like my daddy,” and so kids in my class keep a close eye on their lunch money. Now she’s poisoning the bus crowd, too.

  I wish everyone could know my daddy is a whole lot more than what he’s accused of. He’s the one who read all the Harry Potter books with me, who took me yard sale shopping on Saturdays, who made my breakfast every morning—fancy things like frittatas and cinnamon French toast. Daddy is who I could talk to when things were rough, like when Ryan threw a snowball in my face when we were in fourth grade, and the snowball was icy and scraped my cheek, and I cried. Naturally, we didn’t tell Momma because Ryan didn’t mean to hurt me, and Momma would’ve made a stink.

  Daddy is the one who I could tell my secrets to—things Momma wouldn’t understand. Now that he’s in prison, I keep secrets inside. And nobody cooks breakfast. Today, all I ate was the powdery bottom of an empty cereal box, because Momma forgot to buy groceries. Again.

  I sniffle. The bus picks up speed.

  “Sage?” Bailee whispers.

  “Not now.” I squeeze my insides, trying to push down the welling emotions. Red and gold leaves flash by the window, and a new lump grows in my throat. This will be the first birthday my daddy misses. When he was home, he’d paint a special birthday card for me with watercolors. He was really good at painting, but he’d say I was the best artist in the house, possibly the best in town!

  He loved to hang up my drawings. By the time I was in third grade, Daddy had plastered my art over every inch of the refrigerator. Momma laughed and said, “Carl. You have to pick your favorites.”

  That’s when Daddy and I started visiting the Saturday-morning yard sales, hunting for frames. He didn’t care if a frame already had something in it. He’d lay my picture right on top of the old painting and tell me I was good enough to have my art in the Louvre, which is a famous museum in France. I didn’t care if what he said was true or not; he loved my pictures and he loved me.

  The bus bumps over the railroad tracks and wobbles me back to the present, Priscilla still yakking, Bailee now reading and turning a page in her book, Jada fluffing her ’fro. I twirl the end of my ponytail, staring out the window as we pass McGuckins Hardware Store. Daddy and I bought nails there, and he hammered them all over the walls at our house so he could line my framed pictures up and down our hallway.