Also by A. C. E. Bauer
No Castles Here
To Emily and Abigail, of course
Contents
Other Books by this Author
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
1. Salman Page—Rule number one: never be noticed
2. Puck—In exchange for a pie tin
3. Lu-Ellen Zimmer—A murder of crows
4. Salman Page—The most beautiful flowers on this green earth
5. Puck—The loyalty of friendship
6. Blos Pease—Nothing out of place
7. Lu-Ellen Zimmer—Birds
8. Dreams
9. Salman Page—Mr. Ho likes graph paper
10. Puck—No particular grace
11. Lu-Ellen Zimmer—Waterfalls
12. Blos Pease—Feathers
13. Lu-Ellen Zimmer—Whistles
14. Lu-Ellen Zimmer—Into the woods
15. Salman Page—Salman smiled. Lu smiled, too.
16. Blos Pease—Picture after picture
17. Salman Page—Lost
18. Puck—Make him stumble
19. Salman Page—Bruised, scratched, muddied
20. Lu-Ellen Zimmer—The school paper
21. Salman Page—Without him with someone else
22. My bedroom is paneled with dark wood
23. Puck—No sympathy
24. Lu-Ellen Zimmer—It makes the coolest graphs
25. Salman Page—Bringing in the harvest
26. Puck—Calling a bluff
27. Blos Pease—Where is Salman?
28. Lu-Ellen Zimmer—Canning
29. Salman Page—Rejects
30. Salman Page—Absence note
31. Lu-Ellen Zimmer—Big red letters
32. Lu-Ellen Zimmer—Beaten down and withered
33. Blos Pease—Something had happened to Lu
34. Lu-Ellen Zimmer—A good friend
35. Salman Page—Get well soon
36. D.B.’s at Springfalls Junior High
37. Puck—A boon
38. Salman Page—Good news
39. Lu-Ellen Zimmer—Beauty and grace
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die,
And for her sake do I rear up her boy;
And for her sake I will not part with him.
TITANIA, QUEEN OF THE FAIRIES
William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Act 2, scene 1, lines 135–137
1—Salman Page
Rule number one: never be noticed
Salman Page chose a table in the far corner of the Springfalls Junior High cafeteria, next to a mural of brown and purple swirls—ugly, but he’d be harder to see against it. He kept his back to the wall and his head down, letting his shoulder-length hair hide most of his brown face. He wanted to be, to the casual observer, a kid intent on his meal of meat loaf and mashed potatoes. A few kids sat two tables away, not talking much. This part of the cafeteria was for losers. Salman thought that was just fine.
He glanced around once before he unscrewed the silver cap from his juice bottle, wiped it with his napkin, and slid it into his breast pocket. A skinny girl approached. She was midsized with short, light brown hair and a friendly face. Salman concentrated on his mashed potatoes. The kids at the other table must know her.
“Hi,” she said.
She was talking to Salman. He raised his head slowly. She smiled and pushed her glasses up her nose.
“Are you Salman Page?”
Who was this kid?
“Salman,” he said, emphasizing the L. He wasn’t some kind of fish.
“Sorry.” She paused. “I’m Lu Zimmer, your designated buddy.”
She sat down and placed her lunch bag and a box of chocolate milk on the table.
Salman frowned. Because of a mix-up with his state files, his transfer here for seventh grade didn’t happen until two days before school started. No one had assigned him a designated buddy. When Ms. R, his homeroom teacher, had asked him whether he got along with his d.b., he had no idea what she was talking about.
“Deebee?” he said.
“It’s short for designated buddy,” Ms. R said. “An eighth-grade mentor.”
“Don’t have one,” he said.
Ms. R radiated disapproval.
“I’ll make the arrangements.”
Salman didn’t need a designated buddy. He wished Ms. R had never asked him about it.
Lu Zimmer plowed ahead.
“I’m supposed to meet with you, walk you around the school, show you how things work. That kind of stuff.”
“I’ve walked around already.”
School had started a week and a half ago. What did she expect? Lu hesitated.
“Maybe we can talk about your teachers.”
Salman was about to tell her that he didn’t need to talk about his teachers when they were interrupted.
“Hey, Lu!”
A gangly white boy with wiry orange hair and a face full of pimples lurched over, carrying an oversized lunch bag. He was very tall.
“May I join you?” he said.
Before either Lu or Salman could answer, the boy sat down next to Lu and emptied the contents of his sack onto the table.
“I heard Ms. R made you a d.b.,” the boy continued in his too-loud voice.
Lu reddened, and her smile strained.
“Salman Page,” she said, “this is Blos Pease.”
Blos turned to Lu.
“You are his d.b., right?”
“Yes, Blos,” Lu said.
Her smile was fading. Blos focused on Salman.
“Did you know Lu and I had the same d.b. last year?”
Salman gave only the slightest shake of his head.
“It is true. We used to have lunch with her, all the time.”
This last statement refocused Blos onto his own lunch. He removed the items from each of the four separate sandwich bags and lined them up in front of him.
Blos took a deep breath, hands hovering over the sandwich. He blinked at Salman and let his hands drop.
What now? Salman wondered.
Blos’s lower lip covered his upper. He stared hard at Salman. His hands kept approaching his sandwich and then retreating. Salman almost looked forward to what was going to happen next.
“Where are you from?” Blos asked.
Salman hated that question. Adults who felt they needed to make conversation, teachers who thought ethnic backgrounds were important, even the occasional idiot social worker who should have known better at some point asked: “So, where are you from?” Salman had dark skin—darker than most African Americans—angular Caucasian features, and straight, glossy hair. “You have South Asian parentage,” someone once told him. Over the years, whenever he could get to a library, he read books about India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Still, he had no idea where his parents came from. He was a foster child, had been since birth, with no known parents.
But Salman had met kids like Blos before. They stood out in every school he had been in. They liked things organized, in their place. Blos had asked the question for the same reason he had set up his lunch in a line. There was an order to things in this boy’s world. He needed to find Salman’s place in it to be able to move on.
“I’m from Bridgeport,” Salman said.
“I have a cousin in Bridgeport,” Blos said.
Salman almost felt a “Made in Bridgeport” label being stuck to his head as Blos filed Salman behind his cousin from Bridgeport in his mind. Salman grinned.
Blos now put all of his energy into eating his row of food. He stuffed the peanut butter sandwich into his mouth, followed by the
carrots, followed by a sliced apple, followed by several cookies. He was moving so fast, Salman saw it all as a blur.
Lu gave a nervous laugh.
“You have cousins everywhere, Blos.”
Lu was trying to smooth things over. She didn’t have to. Salman didn’t mind him. Everything about Blos was out in the open. He had asked a question that mattered to him, had received an answer that made sense, and now everything was okay. That was okay with Salman, too.
“I have to go,” Blos said, food still in his mouth. “I have to finish an essay for Ms. R.”
He swept the remains of his lunch—empty plastic bags and a few crumbs—into his sack and was gone.
Salman glanced at Lu, questioning. She shrugged.
“Blos doesn’t have too many friends,” she said.
Salman related to that. He ate the last bite of his meat loaf.
“I didn’t know you were from Bridgeport,” Lu said.
“I was born there.”
Found there, he thought. Didn’t stay. Why was this girl bothering him?
“I’m from Springfalls,” Lu said. “Been here all my life.”
She sounded wistful, as if she wanted to move. What did she know?
Salman stood. “Gotta go.”
“Wait,” Lu said. “We haven’t talked about your teachers.” She almost sounded panicked.
“I’ve got study hall in five minutes.”
Lu glanced at the cafeteria clock. “Can we talk after school? We can meet at the bleachers.”
She just didn’t give up. He was about to refuse but worried that Ms. R might find out. And she’d ask him—very nicely, he was sure—if there was anything she could do to help. As if.
No point in getting himself noticed.
“Okay. Just for a few minutes.”
As he retrieved his pack, his irritation grew. He didn’t need a designated buddy. Just because Lu was in eighth grade didn’t mean that she knew more than he did: she was probably a whole year younger than he was. This was his eleventh school in nine years. He had seen more teachers than she ever would.
And the name “designated buddy” was so stupid. Since when did people go about designating friends? He wasn’t going to be in this town long enough to have any friendship stick, not with the foster home he was in.
He turned left to head down the corridor and saw Lu throw her lunch bag into the trash. It arced perfectly and landed, clear center. Swish. Not bad.
2—Puck
In exchange for a pie tin
They bickered about the boy. Again. As if he were a bairn!
“Why do you concern yourself with this mortal?” King Oberon asked.
“Because I told his mother I would,” Queen Titania replied.
“You promised me that you would leave him be!”
He was jealous, my king, jealous of any creature that my queen coveted. Jealous that her affections were not his to govern. And my queen … my queen knew he was jealous. She reveled in his jealousy.
It was my fault, of course. It was always my fault. My vanity. I had decided to wear the cursed bracelet in my queen’s presence. Best if I had left it hidden.
“Puck, what have you there?” my queen asked.
“A golden circlet.”
So finely wrought. It fit perfectly on my wrist. I had traded it from a friend, a crow, for a human’s discarded pie tin. Crows love shine—and the tin shone so much more than the circlet.
“I know that circlet,” the queen said. “Let me see it, Puck.”
Her eyes narrowed. A frown creased her forehead.
“Where did you get this, Puck?”
Her fist closed over the slim band, no longer mine, I knew. My heart sank.
“I received it in fair exchange.”
This angered the queen beyond measure.
“Miserable Puck! What could you exchange that would equal this gift?”
I did not expect her anger. I thought fast. I was bound by truth—I could not tell a falsehood to my queen or king.
“The crow received a pie tin.”
That surprised her. Enough to distract her fury from me.
“Crow?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I recognized the faery gold and offered the tin in trade.”
This was truth, but an incomplete truth. I had offered the tin in trade first, then recognized the faery gold. But I had not lied to my queen.
“And where did the crow say he found the circlet?”
This I had an answer to.
“Nimue’s island.”
Cursed is the name! I knew Nimue was in the queen’s disfavor. I knew my queen and king had argued about his fondness for the enchantress. How was I to know that the circlet had been a gift to my king from my queen? And that the only way it could have found its way to Nimue’s island was for King Oberon to have brought it there?
So the queen sought revenge. Oberon’s jealousy. And I, poor Puck, I was sent to run her heartless errand of finding the one thing that angered the king beyond measure. The boy.
Pah! The boy was almost a man.
3—Lu-Ellen Zimmer
A murder of crows
Just her luck, this year—Lu finally became a d.b., but her assigned student didn’t want to have anything to do with her. She wondered whether Salman would be at the football field. Maybe, she thought, she’d be better off if he didn’t show. The last thing she wanted was to deal with someone hostile.
Not that she blamed him, not entirely. Springfalls Junior High was, well, pretty white. There were a few African American students in each grade, a handful of Latinos, and a bunch of Asians, but no one was as dark as Salman. And he was so skinny, with a hungry look around his big, light brown eyes. His well-worn clothes dangled on his frame. And he seemed older than the other seventh-grade kids. He might almost have stubble on his chin.
Maybe that’s why he seemed so self-possessed, as if he didn’t need anyone or anything. He probably figured she was just another stupid, young white kid.
Lu really didn’t know why Ms. R thought he needed a designated buddy. She had made it sound easy.
“Just do whatever your d.b. did with you last year.”
Right. Lu’s d.b. had been given a package of orientation materials over the summer, was told who Lu was at least a week before school started, and had even met with Lu on the day they received their class assignments so they could go over them together.
“He’s new in town,” Ms. R said. “You’ll be a great help.”
Lu couldn’t say no. She had volunteered late last spring, well past the deadline. She had pleaded with Ms. R—being chosen as a d.b. was something of an honor, and Lu had really hoped to meet new people, now that Frances was gone. Ms. R told her then that Lu might not be assigned anyone—the other volunteers would be chosen first. Lu should have been happy that Ms. R found Salman.
But what was Lu going to tell this boy who was so reluctant to speak with her?
Turned out, Salman was waiting for her. She counted that as a small miracle. He had chosen a spot about a third of the way up the bleachers. Not at the top, where kids might think he was out to prove something; nor at the bottom, where they might think he was timid. He was trying to be inconspicuous. At least, that’s what Lu figured.
He watched her as she climbed the steps. She smiled—just to let him know she was friendly. When she was close enough, she said hello in a quiet voice. She could be inconspicuous, too.
Salman nodded in response. She dropped her pack at her feet and placed her polished vinyl flute case beside her on the bench.
“I have a lesson in half an hour,” she said, “so I can’t stay for too long.”
He’d appreciate that she didn’t plan on wasting his time.
“Okay by me,” he said.
An awkward pause followed. She needed to break this ice.
“Salman’s a cool name. Is it short for Solomon?”
He shrugged and stared away from her, down the track, avoiding all eye contact. J
ust great. Best to plow ahead, she decided.
“So. Who are your teachers?”
He rattled off their names, one after another, in quick succession.
“Ms. Jones. Ms. Frankenfrantz. Mr. Ho. Ms. Carver. Mr. Loengredl. Ms. R.”
Lu had had all but Mr. Loengredl last year and had Mr. Ho and Ms. R again this year.
“Ms. R is really good. You’re lucky to have her for Language Arts.”
“She gives a lot of homework,” Salman said.
“Yeah, but she’s fair and funny, and she assigns really good books.”
Salman shrugged again, staring at the football squad working out on the field.
Lu didn’t give up.
“Now Mr. Ho, he can be tough….”
Salman’s gaze moved past the field, past the kids running track around the perimeter, to the fence of the neighboring baseball field. She wanted him to pay attention to what she was saying. She spoke faster.
“His labs are the worst. He wants them just so, and doesn’t tell you how that is, and you waste hours doing reports over and over until he tells you they’re okay….”
But Salman wasn’t listening. He had focused on a bunch of tall trees at the far end of the fence. No, she realized, he was focusing on a bunch of crows who flew over the trees and cawed to each other. A murder of crows.
She let her voice trail off. One of the crows, larger than the rest, broke from the flock and flew over the playing fields in their direction. Salman’s eyes were riveted on the bird.
Lu gasped. It was headed straight for them!
It circled overhead, then swooped once, twice, and for a split second, like magic, Lu was the crow, air whooshing through her wings. It landed next to her music case.
Lu’s heart raced.
The crow tilted its head to look at her with one eye, then hopped sideways onto the case and pecked at the vinyl handle.
“He likes shiny things,” Salman said.
His voice allowed her to breathe. She tried to speak, but words just weren’t coming out.
Salman whistled. The crow cocked its head, hopped twice, and flew up to Salman’s shoulder. Those claws looked sharp, but Salman didn’t wince. He fished out a bottle cap from his shirt pocket.
The bird’s head darted forward. It grabbed the bottle cap with its beak and flew off.
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