“Meena,” Mom gasps as we pass her. “What’s gotten into you?”
Rosie turns and waves over her shoulder. “Bye, Sofía!”
Traitor. I shake her hand loose, my stomach boiling all the way to the end of the block.
It’s not until I turn the corner toward home that I finally get an Up.
It’s recycling day! Big green bins are lined up on the curb. I run to the first one and look inside. It’s mostly broken-down cardboard boxes. The next one is empty cans and water bottles. I’m not even sure what I’m looking for until I see an egg carton sitting right on top of the next bin. I reach in and grab it. There’s only a little bit of shell inside and hardly any dried-up yolk gunk. I open and close it a few times, feeling the itchy start of an Inspiration tingling in my fingertips.
“Put it back,” Mom says, coming up behind me.
“I need it for my valentine box.”
“You’re not dragging that home, Meena. It’s trash.”
“Yeah, but it’s not litter,” I say. I’m about to explain the difference, but she gives me her I’m-not-messing-around-here look, and points back at the bin. I let out a huffy breath and drop the carton.
Rosie runs ahead of us while I drag my feet past the rest of the bins. I guess Mom wants to change the subject, because she bumps her shoulder against mine and switches to a concerned voice. “Something going on with Sofía?” she asks.
I make one of those wavy shrugs that doesn’t mean anything.
“Okay. . . .” She’s quiet. “Then, do you want to talk about this morning?”
I stick my hands in my pockets. I do not want to talk about it. The MRI was the biggest Down of my day.
“I guess we didn’t give you much idea what to expect,” Mom says. “I’m sorry. I think that made it even scarier.”
I doubt it. Even if I knew the shot was coming, I probably would have worried about it the whole time I was in the tube. “Why couldn’t they use the pictures they already had?” I ask.
“Those don’t show as much detail as the ones they took today,” she says. “It’s pretty amazing how much they can see with an MRI. Did you know that Dad had one when he hurt his knee?”
I look up at her. “When?”
“A few years ago. Remember how he wore a brace for a while? And Aunt Kathy had one just last year.”
“She had an MRI?” I ask. “What for?”
“Her back was hurting her, and they couldn’t figure out why. They wanted to make sure she didn’t have a tumor on her spine.”
“What’s a tumor?”
Mom’s feet do a little stutter, like she tripped over something, but when I look back at the sidewalk, there’s nothing there.
She doesn’t answer. “What’s a tumor?” I ask again.
Mom hesitates. When she finally responds, she sounds careful—like she’s stepping over broken glass. “It’s something growing inside your body that isn’t supposed to be there,” she says.
There’s that word again: something. That’s what they called the white smudge on the X-ray picture of my skull. I think about a something in Aunt Kathy’s back. I imagine it white and smeary, snaking up her spine, tangling around it. Just thinking of it makes me feel like there’s a clump of weeds in my stomach. “What was wrong with her back?” I ask.
“There was just some swelling in her vertebrae.”
“So she didn’t have a tumor?”
“No.”
“Do I?”
Mom blinks a bunch of times, but she doesn’t look down at me. And she doesn’t say anything else.
The worry weeds in my stomach grow into vines. They climb up through my chest and into my throat. I try to swallow them down. “Is that what they were looking for this morning?” I ask.
When she finally answers, she says each word very slowly. “They were looking for anything that shouldn’t be there.”
I turn and stare straight ahead. I keep walking, step by step, but I can feel the worry weeds spreading up my neck, all the way to the top of my head. They stop right at the place where my doctor rested her hand. This is the spot, she said. Right about here. I imagine that the spot starts to pulse, like it’s sending out an SOS.
Mom tries to put her arm around me, but I stumble ahead of her. I don’t even wonder what’s in the rest of the green bins.
When we get home, Rosie grabs Pink Pony off the kitchen counter and runs to the living room to play. Mom goes straight to her computer, but I stand by the back door in a daze. My heart is pounding, and I can’t think of what I’m supposed to be doing. Finally, I remember to hang my backpack on its hook. I take off my jacket and put it in the closet. I toe off one shoe, then the other, and put them on the rack one by one. I stare at all my nice and neat, put-away things.
It has a name. The something in my head. The Thing That Shouldn’t Be There.
Tumor.
Is it a tumor? What if it is? Maybe that’s not so bad. Last summer I got a sliver in my finger from a splintery picnic table at the park. It was a Thing That Shouldn’t Be There too, but it wasn’t such a big deal. Mom took it out with tweezers.
Although it seemed like she was pinching and digging around the tip of my finger forever while I whimpered and squirmed and Dad tried to crack jokes.
I hold out my hands and stare. I can’t remember which finger it was. The tweezers didn’t even leave a mark.
What do they use to take out a tumor? Will it leave a mark?
Mom calls to me from the kitchen table. “Come get started on your homework, hon.”
The worry weeds branch out from my chest into my arms. I feel like I’m sleepwalking when I unzip my backpack, take out my homework, and head to the table. Raymond is there next to my craft supplies. He seems droopy, like it hurts his feelings that I don’t take him to school. He’s not even looking at me.
Mom sits down at her computer. “Spelling?” she asks. “Math?”
My chest gets tight. “Can I do it later?” I ask.
“You know the rules.” She puts on her glasses. “Come on. I’ll stay with you.”
My hand floats up to the top of my head.
It isn’t like a splinter, I realize—the something in my head. It didn’t come from the outside. And I can’t feel it. Nobody can even see it.
So what will they use to get it out?
I swallow. It won’t be tweezers.
My arms break out in goose bumps. “I don’t want to do this right now,” I say, dropping my folder on the table and taking a step back. My voice is just a squeak.
Mom glances up from her computer. “You’ll feel better once you get started.”
I think of those pointy instruments they use at the dentist’s office. I think of the big rusty saw hanging in our garage.
All of a sudden my ears fill with static, and everything starts closing in, like I’m looking through binoculars. I shut my eyes and put my hands over my ears. “I don’t want to do this!” I yell.
“Meena—” Mom says.
“Don’t make me do this!” My mind is swirling with pictures now—scissors and axes and drills.
“Honey—”
I keep yelling. “Don’t make me do this! Please, please, I don’t want to do this!”
I hear Mom’s chair scraping away from the table. I want to run, but her arms wrap around me, and I’m trapped. She squeezes so tight that I couldn’t take my hands off my ears even if I wanted to.
Which I don’t.
I can’t get away. I strain against her arms, trying to break free. Tears are burning my throat.
“I just—” I’m panting into her chest now. “I want to work on my valentine box,” I say. “Can’t I just work on my box?”
I’m stiff and shivery, gulping in air.
Mom holds me. She might even be holding me up. But she loosens her arms enough to start rocking back and forth with me. She starts taking big breaths, really big, deep, in-and-out breaths. I feel her chest moving up and down, and after a while I start to breath
e like that too. In and out In and out. For a long time we just stand there breathing and rocking. My heart starts to slow down. My body starts to slump. Mom keeps rocking.
I don’t know how long it is before I remember to hold myself up. I crack my eyes open a little. I take my hands off my ears.
Mom looks down at me with tears in her eyes. She tucks a strand of purple hair behind my ear. “What do you need from me, honey?” she asks.
I take a shuddery breath. “I need an egg carton,” I say.
She blinks, then rubs my arms up and down before she goes to the refrigerator. She empties the eggs into a bowl and comes back and hands me the carton.
“And I need you to go play with Rosie,” I say.
“I don’t mind staying here with you.”
I shake my head. “I want to be alone. I’ll stay in the kitchen, but alone. Okay?”
It seems like a long time before Mom nods, very slowly. “Okay.”
She heads into the living room, and I’m all by myself. Finally. I pull a chair to the table and set the carton in front of me. I don’t even know why I need this thing. I’m not feeling sparkly or creative. I’m slumpy and tired and colorless.
But without anybody watching me, it seems like there’s more air in the room, and my skin feels relaxed again instead of prickly and spied on. So I just keep breathing and waiting. Once or twice I look at Raymond to see if he has any bright ideas.
And after a while I need some paint.
I use white—which is weird for me. It soaks into the gray cardboard fast, making it clean and bright. I even paint the inside. But it’s still only halfway dry when I start globbing You-Must-Be-Crazy Glue on the front of each egg-bump. I open up my jar of can tabs. I stick one in each blob of glue, then run to the bathroom for some of those tiny hair bands. I pick out all different colors and glue them right on top of the tabs.
I don’t know how long I work, but this time I know I don’t space out. I remember the smell of the paint and the feel of the glue turning hard on my fingertips. I remember the bright swirl of wrappers on my box and the crinkle they made when I smoothed them out. I even remember singing about the wheels on the bus going round and round. If Mom is peeking at me sometimes, I don’t notice her until my box is almost finished. By then, it’s dark out. The windows are black and steaming up. Mom is at the stove, dumping broccoli into a pot.
“Is it dinnertime?” I ask.
“Almost,” Mom says. “How’s your box coming along?”
I sit back. “Wanna see?”
She gives the pot a stir and comes over and laughs. “It’s not a box. It’s a beast.” She leans in closer. “Oh my goodness. Are those teeth?” She makes a little gasp. “Are those braces?”
I grin. “With rainbow rubber bands.”
Mom shakes her head and smiles.
“There’s more,” I say. “Can you bring me a valentine?”
She picks up a piece of mail from the counter. “How about a water bill? Will that do?” She holds it out.
I shake my head. “You do it.”
“Do what?”
“Feed him.”
Mom looks at the box again. Then she lifts open the egg carton teeth and sticks the envelope in through the slot I cut. There’s a little thump when it lands at the bottom of the box. The lid drops closed like a chomp.
Mom laughs. “It eats valentines,” she says. “That’s awesome.” She ruffles my rainbow hair. “You’re really something, you know that?”
I smile at my box. He looks like he’s smiling back at me.
I bet he’s good enough to win.
16
I dream about my valentine box that night. And as soon as I wake up the next morning, I realize he isn’t ready to take to school. If he’s going to eat valentines, I need to cut a trapdoor to get them back out. Plus, I need to make him some wings, because it turns out that guy can fly!
My arms don’t jerk even once while I’m getting ready for school, which is an Up. Dad makes pancakes for breakfast too. That’s another. Plus he adds leftover fruit salad to the batter, so I get the whole rainbow at once!
I’m feeling good and colorful by the time I get to school. Right away I spot someone’s box on the ground by the basketball hoop, even though our party isn’t until tomorrow. It’s just a shoebox slopped with red paint, which makes me laugh. I’d know that box was Pedro’s even if you lined up a mile of valentine boxes. He’s as lazy about decorating as I am about handwriting. I spot him playing horse with Maddy and wave until he sees me. “It’s graded on effort,” I yell at him, pointing at his box. “You didn’t put in any effort!”
“Yes, I did,” he hollers back, dribbling the ball while he pivots away from Maddy. “Look inside!”
I open the lid. Instead of leaving it plain, he slopped paint in there, too. Not bad, considering this is Pedro we’re talking about. I grin and give him a thumbs-up. He gives me one back and makes a break for the basket.
Eli gets to the playground next. At first I think he’s carrying a bundle of firewood, but when he gets closer, I can see it’s his box! He glued sticks all over the sides and made it look like a log cabin.
“You like it?” he asks, holding it out to me.
I run my hand over it, feeling the bumps of bark. “You’re the only kid I know who would cover your box in nature,” I say. I lift the lid. The inside is lined with pine needles. “Are those from your yard?” I ask.
“Yep.”
“Nice,” I say. I stick my nose in and take a deep, Christmassy breath. “And very fragrant.”
“Plus, after Valentine’s Day, I can make it into a habitat.”
“For what?”
He shrugs. “Whatever I find next.”
Not everybody has their box ready today, but enough kids show up with theirs that I start to notice a trend. It seems like every box matches the person who made it. Lin’s is wrapped in tinfoil and looks like a rocket, because she loves anything to do with outer space. Aiden made one that’s covered in real candy hearts and gumdrops, because all that kid eats is sugar. I wonder if my valentine box matches me.
I wonder if Sofía’s will match her.
I try not to look like I’m waiting for Sofía. When I see her walking with her mom way down the sidewalk, I get very busy looking through the wood chips with Eli, chewing on the strings of my hoodie. By the time I turn and sneak a peek through my rainbow hair, I see something pink bobbing toward the playground. The sun glares into my eyes, and I can’t get a good look. Then the bell rings, and I lose her in a crowd of kids pushing into the building.
I follow everyone inside. While I’m shoving my coat into my cubby, I catch a glimpse of pink and the back of Sofía’s head disappearing into the classroom. She’s setting her box on the project table when I get in there. She steps back, and all I can see at first is a whole bunch of pink feathers. Then I finally get a good look, and my heart starts to beat harder.
It’s a flamingo. She made her box into a flamingo.
It’s got a long, curvy neck that must be some kind of hose covered in pink fluff, although I don’t know why it doesn’t just flop over. The whole feather-box looks like it’s hovering over the table, because it’s balanced on these skinny legs that seem to be—
My stomach squeezes.
Coat hangers.
Seriously? When am I going to start using those things? They’re a miracle product!
The rest of the class is starting to crowd around Sofía’s box. I can’t help it. I move closer, too. That flamingo pulls me over like a magnet.
“If you don’t have a job to do,” Mrs. D says, “please take your seats.”
One by one everyone else moves away from the table. Before I go, I quick lift up the lid of Sofía’s box to see if there’s anything inside.
Of course there is.
She lined it with tissue paper and glitter. There’s even a velvety pink pillow at the bottom for the valentines, like the kind a princess dog would sit on.
I g
o to my desk. Lin collects all our worksheets. Aiden sharpens the pencils. But I can’t stop staring at that flamingo. Deep down in the pit of my stomach, the lava starts to bubble.
My box has to be better than that.
He has to be.
Mrs. D fills out the lunch slip and hands it to me. I head right into the hall without even waiting for Sofía. I go straight to fifth grade, take the slip off their door, and turn around.
She’s right behind me. Her poufy flower headband is pink today.
I guess she matches her box too. They’re both tall and pink and perfect.
My stomach is almost boiling up into my throat now. I want to yell. I want to kick something! But instead I smile at Sofía with just my mouth, very calm. I bet if she looked closely, she’d see steam leaking out through my teeth.
“I like your flamingo,” I say. My voice is shiny and soft like melted butter.
She doesn’t say anything at first. She just looks at me with a crinkly forehead. Then her forehead smoothes out, and she smiles. “Thanks,” she says. I can see the rainbow rubber bands on her braces.
I walk to the fourth-grade room. I get their slip, come back to the hallway, and scowl at her. “My box eats flamingos,” I say.
I move down the hall. I pass the third-grade room, knock at second, and get their slip. But when I try to head to first grade, Sofía is standing there with her arms crossed.
“Why are you so mean to me?” she says.
I try to go around her.
She blocks my way. “I never asked to do Lunch Patrol, you know,” she says. “I’m only doing it because Mrs. D told me to.”
“Whatever,” I say. I know she’d never do anything with me that she didn’t have to. Not anymore.
“It’s true!” she says. “It’s not my fault you need help.”
“I don’t need help,” I say, gritting my teeth.
Sofía’s next words shoot toward me like arrows. She points her chin out. “What’s the matter with you anyway?”
“Nothing’s the matter with me,” I snap. I push past her and storm into first grade without knocking.
I’m getting that underwater feeling again. My throat is starting to close, and I can’t get enough air. My hand is shaking when I get the lunch slip, and by the time I get back to the hallway, my ears are roaring with static.
Meena Meets Her Match Page 9