I see someone coming around the corner at the end of the hallway. It’s Principal Mir. She walks toward us with her click, click, click.
“Can I help you, ladies?” she asks when she gets close enough to speak to us in an “inside voice.” The question sounds funny, like she’s working at a coffee shop and she’s ready to take our order.
“We’re waiting for Mr. Vann,” Dee Dee answers.
“Did you have an appointment?” Principal Mir asks next. She takes her pencil from behind her ear and her little notebook from her jacket pocket.
“Uh, not really,” Dee Dee says.
I want to explain that this is what we do every day. I force myself to get the words out. “Um, we come to math early,” I say quietly, “but usually the door is open.” I hope I don’t sound like I’m trying to make trouble.
“That’s fine,” Principal Mir says. She jots something down, and then tucks her notebook back into her pocket. “Just please be aware. We do have a rule about loitering in the hallway.” Then she walks away.
“I really don’t like that word,” Dee Dee says under her breath.
“What word?” I ask.
“Loitering,” Dee Dee repeats. “It sounds like toilet backward. Besides, would she rather we be loitering somewhere else? I don’t understand how we’re getting in trouble for coming to class too early.”
“Because everything is all messed up,” I say.
“Do you really think he’s gone?” Dee Dee asks.
I think about her question for a minute. Would they actually fire Mr. Vann before the end of the school year? Were things so terrible that he had to be removed immediately? Was he that dangerous? Maybe they were worried about his ways spreading, so they scooped him out just like a bad spot on a peach.
“I’m glad Chelsea’s not here,” Dee Dee says. She’s still trying to get a look into the classroom. “She would feel like it was her fault.”
Suddenly, the classroom door opens. Luckily, it opens inward or Dee Dee would have gotten bonked right in the nose. As it is, she stumbles forward into the classroom. I step back.
It’s not Mr. Vann at the door, and it’s not a new teacher, either. It’s Chelsea.
“Bonjour,” she says, completely seriously. “Bienvenue à Chez Vann. Table for two?”
“Huh?” Dee Dee says. Her jaw has literally dropped.
“So sorry to keep you waiting, but you do realize we actually don’t open for lunch until one-oh-seven.” She points up at the clock.
Chelsea opens the door wide enough to make it click and stay. Then she turns on the lights.
The classroom has been transformed. The desks are pushed together into tables for four. There is a red-and-white-checked tablecloth on each one. There are paper plates and plastic silverware, and along the counter at the back of the room, there are two huge casserole dishes and a big platter of Chelsea’s famous cupcakes.
“Why, yes,” Dee Dee says in a fake French accent. She doesn’t miss a beat. “We actually do have a reservation for two, under the name Les Calculators.” She emphasizes the last syllable and draws it out.
“Right this way.” Chelsea giggles. She hands us each a photocopied menu and leads us to a table.
There are three items on the menu—baked ziti, garlic bread, and cupcakes. There’s a note at the bottom stating that there is a 6 percent restaurant sales tax and a mandatory 18 percent gratuity.
“And please enjoy this special offer,” Chelsea says, handing us a slip of paper.
It’s a welcome coupon for 10 percent off our first visit to Chez Vann.
“We are a self-service buffet, but please do write down what you have ordered, and as far as the cupcakes go—one to a customer.”
Other kids start to arrive. Chelsea leaves our table and goes to seat another group. She gives them menus, coupons, and instructions.
Then, at exactly seven minutes after one, Mr. Vann appears in the doorway.
“Table for one,” he says seriously.
Before he sits down, he goes over to his desk and takes out a small portable radio. He turns it on and tunes it to the classical music station.
No one would believe that we had all just come from lunch because everyone’s stuffing their faces. Chelsea made the food, so of course it’s delicious. The music on the radio is a piano piece, and everyone is sitting and eating and chatting, just like at a real restaurant. Even Dan plays along. He flags Chelsea over and asks her to give his compliments to the chef.
“The only downside to this lovely meal,” Mr. Vann announces while dabbing the corners of his mouth with a napkin, “is that tabulating your check is also self-service. If your party calculates its check accurately, your meal is on the house. Discount is taken pretax, and it is polite to tip on the full check and not the discounted amount. And beware of those pesky decimals. But do feel free to round to the nearest hundredth. Real-world problems often call for a little estimation.”
Dee Dee turns her menu over, and we start calculating. She circles all of our answers and signals Chelsea that we’re ready.
“Sorry I didn’t tell you,” Chelsea says as she passes by. She puts her hand on her heart. “Mr. Vann swore me to secrecy.”
Chelsea picks up our paper and brings it to Mr. Vann, who now has a toy cash register on his desk. He looks over our calculations, then gives us a wink and a thumbs-up.
“Thank goodness,” Dee Dee says. “I don’t have any money with me.”
“So that’s why Mr. Vann needed to talk to Chelsea the other day,” I say.
“He’s not fired,” Dee Dee says with a smile. “Well, not yet.”
* * *
—
When I get home from school, I start telling Mom and Grandma Beau about Chez Vann and the baked ziti and the cupcakes and Chelsea, the hostess. I tell them how if you didn’t figure out your bill correctly, then you really had to pay. Dan, unfortunately, did not attend to precision, and ended up owing ten dollars and forty-one cents.
But as I babble on about the tablecloths and the radio and the toy cash register, I realize no one is saying anything. No one is laughing. No one is asking questions. The quiet is back, louder than anything.
Mom is sitting at the table and staring out the window with that blank look on her face. She has her hands clasped around a mug. She looks like a painting if you printed it out in black-and-white. Like when the color cartridge is empty and you have to print using only the black ink. It’s just different tones of gray.
“That sounds great, sweetie,” Grandma Beau says distractedly.
It takes me about seven seconds of elapsed time to figure out that Mom has restarted her treatments. I don’t know how she made the decision, and I don’t know when she made it. All I know is that she didn’t tell me first.
Grandma Beau hands me a big envelope off the kitchen counter. The return address is my dad and Katie’s. I rip it open as loudly as I can. Mom doesn’t even seem to notice.
Inside the envelope, there’s a page of Care Bear stickers, a pencil with a huge pink feather where the eraser should be, and a tiny notepad made out of cool origami paper. On the first page, it says, “Couldn’t resist the Care Bears. Would you care to visit us again? Love, Dad and Katie.” The handwriting is Katie’s.
“When were you planning on telling me?” I ask. I cross my arms in front of my chest. I feel my foot tapping against the floor. Like I’m the parent and my mom is in big, big trouble.
“Tell you what?” Grandma Beau asks.
I keep looking at Mom, waiting for her to answer.
She turns her head from the window, like she’s slowly coming into focus, like she’s just now realizing that I’m home, that I’m here.
“It just came today, Mika,” she says, vaguely pointing at the envelope. “Your father didn’t know you had time off from school, and
when I told him you had…what’s it called?”
“April vacation,” I snipe. “It’s always called April vacation. You know it’s called April vacation. It’s been on the calendar since September, and that’s not what I mean.”
“Well, you know we’ve been chatting with your father,” Grandma Beau chimes in, “about some medical decisions.”
I know Grandma Beau is just trying to help, but I don’t want her to explain my mom to me right now. And I don’t want her to tell me what I already know. I want Mom to explain herself.
Plus, I hate it when Grandma Beau starts calling my parents “your mother” and “your father.” Like I’m the one responsible for this whole mixed-up mess.
“And then when we telephoned your father to tell him that your mother had decided to resume…”
“You told him?” I say. For some reason, this makes me the maddest. “You told him?” I say again. “You decide what to do and you don’t tell me?”
“Mika,” Mom starts. But I don’t let her finish.
I run to my room and slam the door. I throw the stupid envelope on the floor and plop down on my bed. I make my hands into fists and stick my fists in my eyes. I dig my elbows into my knees. I don’t even feel like crying. I just feel like…
When I start seeing weird shapes, I move my hands. It takes a moment for my eyes to focus. I stare down at the floor.
The rug in my room is full of little things that should not be in a rug—two pieces of dried-up rice, one of those teeny-tiny safety pins, a square of old Scotch tape, something that looks like cat hair even though we, of course, don’t have a cat. There are still some specks of tiny gold glitter from my Christmas stones, and even a shriveled-up grape that must be left over from the Calculators’ meeting about a million light-years ago.
I slide down to the floor and peel up the piece of tape. I try to use it to pick up the rice and the mystery hair, but the tape is too old. It’s lost all of its stickiness.
Then I get an idea. I take the sheet of Care Bears stickers out of the envelope. I pull them off as fast as I can. I don’t care if they rip. One by one, I slam them against my dirty rug. They pick up most of the disgusting stuff. I use every last sticker, and then ball up the whole linty mess and throw it against the wall. It just comes back at me. I throw it again, this time against the door.
The confusing thing is, I like the idea of going to Florida again. I like the idea of swimming and going to the museum with my family membership. I like the idea of talking to Katie about normal things and small problems, like shoes and friends and school. I like the idea of talking to Katie, period.
Plus, Katie’s carpet doesn’t have enough crumbs to feed a pet parakeet. My dad and Katie’s house is clean. It’s messy because people live there and they have big dogs and they do things besides stare out the window. But it’s clean because someone takes care of it. Someone takes care of things.
Katie’s house is clean and it smells like lemons and anyone who’s sick is called a patient and gets left at the hospital when my dad comes home from work.
Our house is neat, but that’s because nothing moves, nothing changes.
I hear a knock at my door. Mom opens it a crack before I even say she can.
“Mika-Mouse?” she says softly into the open space.
She opens the door a little more.
“It’s just…,” she starts, but her voice cracks. “I don’t want to look back and think there was something else I could have done.”
I don’t want to tell her that I understand. I understand how bad things now can turn into good things later. I don’t want to tell her anything. I just want this all to be over.
I am tired of playing the game in my head that says if I get mad, something bad will happen. Something bad already happened, and I am mad. I’m mad at everything, and mostly I’m mad at Mom. I’m mad at her for getting sick.
I slide over and push the door closed with my foot.
“Mika,” Mom says from the other side.
“Leave me alone,” I mumble. “I have homework.”
I barely talk to my mom over the next few days, except to tell her that, yes, I have done my homework, and, no, I don’t need her to help me pack for Florida. It’s like her quiet is contagious and now I’ve caught it.
And just when it feels like nothing is ever going to change, I wake up this morning and it’s like we skipped spring and went right to summer. It’s warm as toast and all the trees seem to have gotten their buds overnight.
At lunch, everyone heads straight outside. Even Dee Dee, Chelsea, and I barely make it to math on time.
Most of the class is late. If I had to express it in a fraction, I would estimate that about two-thirds of the kids straggle in after the bell, all panting and sweaty.
As Dan rushes in, Mr. Vann starts drawing a huge chart on the board. He writes Monday in the box in the top left corner. Then he turns around and waits. When it’s finally quiet, he looks up at the clock on the wall and writes 1:12 p.m. in the next box.
“I challenge you, dear thinkers,” he announces, “to produce a word in the English language that rhymes with data.” He pronounces the first syllable so that it rhymes with day.
Everyone starts muttering, trying to come up with something. No one bothers asking why we’re trying to think up rhyming words in math.
“Beta,” Dee Dee blurts out.
“Not incorrect,” Mr. Vann answers. “But I believe I did specify a word in the English language, and as beta comes to us originally as the second letter of the Greek alphabet, I am going to rule: BUZZ!” Mr. Vann makes a loud sound like the buzzer that tells you you’re wrong on a game show.
“Can I please go to the nurse?” Dan says as he raises his hand. “I think I ate a bad clam at lunch. Get it? Ate a…It rhymes with data.”
“I’m sorry you’re not feeling well, Dan,” Mr. Vann says. “Hall pass is by the door, but…”
Mr. Vann waits a beat. Then the whole class buzzes.
“You cannot think of a word that rhymes with data because data is all around us,” Mr. Vann says. He spreads his arms out wide and turns in a slow circle.
Dan throws his hands up. “Okay. How does that make any sense?”
“Chelsea,” Mr. Vann says next. “Weather report, please.”
Chelsea takes out her phone and taps the screen a few times. “Mostly sunny. High: sixty-eight. Low: fifty-two,” she says.
Mr. Vann turns back to his huge chart. He writes mostly sunny in the box to the right of 1:12 p.m. He writes 68 degrees Fahrenheit in the next box, and 52 degrees Fahrenheit in the last.
“We shall see,” Mr. Vann says mysteriously. “We shall see.” Then he sends us to our groups to generate some data of our own.
The Calculators meet up in our regular corner.
“So what should we do?” Dee Dee asks.
“Maybe something about April vacation?” Chelsea suggests. “We could make a survey about what people are planning to do and then graph it.”
Dee Dee shrugs.
“You’re right,” Chelsea says. “Boring. Except for Mika. She gets to go to Florida again.”
“Lucky duck,” Dee Dee says.
“How about some data on what it would take to bring you guys with me?” I say. I know the idea is not very rational, practically imaginary, but it would be super fun.
“I think your basic credit card would do it,” Dee Dee says. “Or a loan.”
“The only things you should take out a loan for are houses, cars, and college,” I say without thinking. It’s one of my mom’s rules. Anything else, she says, is really a “want” and not a “need.”
“But what if you have an emergency?” Chelsea asks.
“You should have a rainy-day fund,” I answer. “At least, that’s what my mom would say.”
“But you can’t plan for everything,” Dee Dee says with a shrug. “I mean, chaos theory and all that.”
And even though Mr. Vann says that data is all around us, the Calculators can’t seem to think of any at the moment.
* * *
—
When I get home from school, Grandma Beau is at the sink, washing dishes. I drop my backpack on the table.
“Where’s Mom?” I ask.
Grandma Beau turns off the tap, wrings her hands on a dish towel, and turns around.
“She’s resting,” she says. “Bit of a difficult spell.” Grandma Beau balls up the dish towel in her hands. Then she comes over to the table and pulls out a chair for me. She sits down. I do, too.
“Mika,” she says matter-of-factly. But she doesn’t say anything else.
I’m waiting for her to tell me that my mom is trying her best and that I need to be patient; that Mom’s job now is to take care of herself and to get better, and our job is to help her do that; and that these things take time. But then Grandma Beau’s shoulders crumple and she starts crying quietly. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my Grandma Beau cry before.
She looks up and takes a deep breath. “Mika, listen,” she says. “Your mother found a bump.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about. “What?” I say.
“A bump,” Grandma Beau repeats, like saying it again will explain what she means.
“What?” I say again. And suddenly I feel like I’m shouting. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Near the scar. It’s like a lump. It’s most likely nothing.”
We haven’t gotten to probability in math yet, so I don’t know the exact meaning of most likely, but the look on Grandma Beau’s face tells me that it is more likely a something than a nothing.
So even though they scooped out the bad spot on the peach, and then they scooped it again, there’s a chance that a little bit of the badness stayed behind. And now it’s a bump, or a lump. I don’t know what the difference is. Maybe one is a surface and one is a solid.
Solving for M Page 12