Camille McPhee Fell Under the Bus ...

by Kristen Tracy

  My mother stood in the doorway, her cheeks stained with mascara. “He took the old one to the dump,” she said. “Take-It-Away Tuesday is two weeks away.”

  I looked at her and smiled. “The tofu balls sure smell good,” I lied.

  “Yeah,” she said. “We should eat.”

  Even though watching my father blow up had totally killed my appetite, I thought that eating my mother’s tofu balls was the right thing to do. I slipped off my shoes and followed her to the kitchen. The carpet felt pretty great under my socked feet. Walking down the hall, I wondered about the size of the hole and whether or not the new carpet and mattress had been worth it.

  Up and down. Up and down. That’s what life was like for me in fourth grade. And I never knew when the downs were going to show up. I couldn’t look at the calender and plan for them like I could the Fourth of July or Valentine’s Day. They just arrived. And hit me. Like a spit wad. Or a slaughterball.

  Chapter 13

  Money Matters

  I don’t know who invented money, but it was a bad idea. It’s just not fair that some people wind up in the hole. After my parents fought about my mattress, they started fighting all the time. It was as if it were the only thing they knew how to do anymore. And when I said, “Keep your domestic problems to yourselves,” they kept fighting. And when I said, “You need mediation,” they kept fighting. Sometimes louder. Sometimes slamming a door.

  After they fought, during the quiet time that followed, either my mother or my father would come and find me.

  “I’m sorry I yelled at your father, Camille. I still love you,” my mother said.

  “Camille, just because I fight with your mother, it doesn’t mean I love you any less,” my father said.

  But I was never worried about how much they loved me. I knew that. I was worried about how much they seemed to hate each other. They should not have said the things they did. “Don’t try to manipulate me, Maxine!” said my father.

  “If you wanted a tightwad, you should’ve married a tightwad,” said my mother.

  It was terrible. And I didn’t call Aunt Stella every time this happened. Because I didn’t want to make her sad. Because being a nurse all day long was already hard enough. It was a tough time. I tried to bring my dingo strategy home with me. I’d ask myself, What would a dingo do? But the truth was, I had no idea. I didn’t know much about dingoes, other than what they looked like. And my dad wouldn’t buy me a book about dingoes, because the only one we found cost thirty dollars and he said it was too much money.

  “They’re just dogs,” he told me.

  But I knew that wasn’t true. Because I had not been acting like a dog at school for the past seven months, I had been acting like a dingo. I hugged the book to my chest and fell to my knees.

  “This book would be worth every penny,” I said.

  But he said, “No way, José. Get up off the floor.”

  And I got up off the floor. And I didn’t say anything else. My dad didn’t understand how important dingo information was to me.

  During this time, school was pretty terrible too. Science kept getting more and more advanced. I was learning things about pesticides. And the “R factor,” which is the resistance a pest has to a pesticide. Finding out about these things made me very frightened of fruits and vegetables that were not organic. I made my mother wash all apples for five minutes before I would touch them. Then, in math we started dividing numbers again. Which seemed like a bad idea.

  Plus, Tony Maboney bought a new, huge pencil with an extra-firm eraser, and he never got tired of poking me. And then, when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, Ms. Golden gave her gifted reading students some terrible news. One day, before she handed out our books, she told us that she was scheduled for surgery, and that it was very possible that she was going to die. Okay. That’s not exactly what she said. Ms. Golden told us that she was going to have her tonsils removed. And that we would be staying in Mr. Hawk’s class for reading for an entire week.

  “No!” I said.

  I didn’t mean to say this. It just came out. Ms. Golden smiled at me.

  “I’ll miss you too. All of you,” she said.

  And then Penny asked, “But what about the play?”

  And I wasn’t even sure what Penny was talking about. As far as I knew, our next unit in gifted reading was about folktales. Ms. Golden had already told us all about it. She said she believed it was time that we studied “the vast history of the human past.” So we would be reading stories that were written a long time ago in other countries. Like France. And Germany. And Alabama.

  “Well, I’m very happy that everybody liked last year’s production. But this year, I’m not going to direct the play.”

  This is when I had a realization. I’d been so busy thinking about the hole, and looking for Checkers, and worrying about my wolverine parents that the fact that elementary schools had school plays and that ours was coming up had totally slipped my mind.

  “No school play?” Lilly cried.

  “There will be a school play,” Ms. Golden said. “But this year there will be a special, new director.”

  And the way Ms. Golden said the word special made me very nervous.

  But I kept my concern to myself. That day, we finished our unit on legends. We read a story about a boy named Kana who had amazing stretching abilities and brought the sun and the moon and the stars back to the sky after they were taken by a guy named Kahoaalii who obviously had some sharing issues. It was a pretty good legend. But I didn’t think it was as good as Sedna. Because that one had seals in it.

  When we got back to Mr. Hawk’s classroom, it was time for art. And I loved art. Except sometimes I spilled the glue. Even when we weren’t supposed to be using the glue. For some reason, I enjoyed squeezing the glue until it bubbled out of the bottle. Sitting at my desk, I noticed that Mr. Hawk didn’t have out any of the tubs with the art supplies in them. What was he waiting for?

  Then Mrs. Zirklezack, the Rocky Mountain Elementary School kindergarten teacher, walked into my classroom and stood beside Mr. Hawk’s dark wooden desk. She said that she had news about the school play.

  Mrs. Zirklezack clapped to get our attention. And when she did that, I thought it was very obvious that she taught kindergarten.

  “This year we’re going to do a play that I wrote.”

  I could tell that nobody in the room was excited. Last year, when Ms. Golden directed the production of Peter Pan, we were all very thrilled. Because that play had a lot of good parts. And since we were all third graders, we hadn’t gotten to be in it. Because first, second, and third grades do a chorus production, not a school play This year, even though it wasn’t likely, a lot of us were hoping that we would do Peter Pan again. That way, those of us who didn’t get a chance to be a pirate could have another shot.

  “What’s your play’s name?” Penny asked.

  I turned around and looked at Penny. I was impressed that she would ask a kindergarten teacher that without even raising her hand.

  “The play is called Nora Saves the World,” Mrs. Zirklezack said.

  “Does it have space aliens in it?” Tony Maboney asked.

  “No,” Mrs. Zirklezack said. “Nora Saves the World is a play about saving animals.”

  “This sounds very interesting,” Mr. Hawk said.

  “Are there penguins in it?” Penny asked.

  “Let’s let Mrs. Zirklezack finish,” Mr. Hawk said.

  Mrs. Zirklezack clapped again. She had such a wide smile on her face that she looked a little spooky. I could see her yellow teeth and her bright pink gums and it really surprised me that her husband was an orthodontist. Some of her teeth were pointy like vampire teeth, and if I were married to an orthodontist and had long, yellow, pointy vampire teeth, I’d have them fixed. Even if it meant that I had to have my teeth filed down. Or yanked out.

  “This is a story about salvation,” Mrs. Zirklezack said. “And yes, there are penguins in it. And there a
re camels. And gorillas. And crocodiles. And parrots. And giraffes. And lots of other animals.”

  People seated around me seemed excited to learn this.

  “How does Nora save the world?” Penny asked.

  Mr. Hawk frowned at Penny. He disapproved of all her interrupting.

  “Great question,” Mrs. Zirklezack said. “Nora lives in a world that is half sunny and half rainy. Everything is fine for a long time. But eventually, all the factories make the sunny days end. And every day becomes rainy.”

  “Is your play about global warming?” Penny asked.

  “Shhh,” Mr. Hawk said.

  “The play is about personal strength,” Mrs. Zirklezack said. “When Nora realizes that the rain won’t stop, she decides to save all the animals of the world. After many challenging rescues, she gathers them all up in her bus. And they drive away to a sunny, safe place. I’m leaving a list of all your parts at the front of the room. Sixth graders run the factories. And fifth and fourth graders will be the animals. We start practice next week.”

  When Mrs. Zirklezack opened her arms wide, I saw little fat pockets jiggle. Because my mother taught aerobics, she had explained every boring muscle to me. So I knew that Mrs. Zirklezack needed to tone her triceps. I also knew that this was considered a “problem area” for a lot of women. She waved to us and we waved back. And then she walked away. After she left, Mr. Hawk brought out the art tubs.

  “We’ll be doing free drawing today,” Mr. Hawk said.

  This was a huge relief. Because it meant I could let my mind and hands do whatever they wanted.

  “I want to be a penguin,” Penny said, rushing toward the list.

  “I hope I’m a crocodile,” Tony Maboney said.

  “I wonder who will be cast as Nora?” Lilly asked.

  I didn’t care about that. The last thing in the world I’d want to be was Nora. In fact, I thought the whole play sounded pretty bad. I didn’t understand how the bus could drive to safety if the whole world was being rained on. Were there places that didn’t have factories that were still okay? Or was Nora planning to drive to a high elevation in the mountains? Wouldn’t there be an awful lot of snow there? And how would Nora fit all these animals onto a single bus? And wouldn’t the tigers eat all the other animals? And also Nora?

  As I looked over the list, I stopped worrying about tigers and started worrying about something else. I didn’t see my name. I read the list again. It was big. When you added up fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, there were about eighty of us. Twenty were the sixth-grade factory workers, so I didn’t have to look at those parts. I read through the animals. There were thirty different kinds that Nora saved. Two of each. Penny was a sea lion. Lilly was a dolphin. Tony Maboney was a turtle. Polly was a parrot. But I didn’t see my name anywhere. I wondered if maybe Mrs. Zirklezack had heard about me falling underneath my school bus and worried that I’d somehow mess up her bus play So she kept me out.

  I read the list over and over. But it wasn’t like I could make my name appear. Finally, I walked away. I guess I didn’t need a part. I could just sit in the audience and watch Nora pack those animals onto her bus.

  I decided that drawing a blue butterfly was the only way to cheer myself up. Digging through the art tubs for an appropriate number of colored pencils, I accidentally scratched Polly’s hand.

  “Ouch,” she said.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “That’s okay,” she said. “My cat scratches me all the time. Accidents happen.”

  “I guess,” I said.

  “I’m a parrot,” Polly said. “What are you?”

  I shrugged.

  “I didn’t see your name on the list,” Polly said.

  I shrugged again.

  “It’s probably a mistake. Maybe you should talk to Mr. Hawk.”

  I took my hands out of that tub and put them in the one next to it. And I quit talking to Polly. Because I didn’t need her telling me how to solve my problems. I didn’t need her telling me anything.

  Chapter 14

  Taking A Break

  When I came home from school, partless and carrying a picture of an extremely blue butterfly, my parents didn’t even notice that I was upset. Even when I said, “I sure am feeling upset.”

  They were at it again. My mother had bought a pot rack for the kitchen. Apparently, pot racks are really expensive, and buying one puts you deeper in the hole. When my dad came home, he walked right into it, banging his head against several pans.

  “Every penny you have burns a hole in your pocket,” he said.

  “If I had enough cupboard space, I wouldn’t need a pot rack,” my mother said.

  “You’ll never have enough of anything,” he said. “I’ve seen the way you grocery shop. You’ll load anything into the cart. Anything!”

  “I buy what we need!” she said. “Sometimes I even use coupons.”

  “Maxine, at the rate you spend money, we’ll never make it back out of the hole!”

  I thought my dad made some good points. But it would have been better if he hadn’t said them so loudly, or maybe he could have softened them by phrasing them in the form of a question.

  “So what if we’re in the hole!” my mother said.

  “Are you kidding me? When we’re in the hole, we’re always juggling bills and we can’t enjoy life,” my dad said.

  “What’s so bad about juggling bills?” my mom asked.

  “It’s too stressful. Our mortgage payment sits on top of me like an actual house. When you spend and spend, I feel like I have to work more and more,” my dad said.

  I walked to my bedroom and shut the door. I even put my head under my pillows. But I could still hear them. I hated it when they talked about our mortgage payment.

  “Maybe you should work more,” my mother said.

  “Maybe I will,” my father said.

  “I need a break from this!” my mother said.

  I threw the pillow off my head and sat up. I couldn’t believe my mother was saying this. Married people don’t take breaks. She knew that. You’re either married, separated, or divorced. Was she asking for a separation? By now, I was breathing very quickly. But I wasn’t overly worried, because I knew that my dad was a level headed and fair-minded person. He would smooth things out.

  “A break sounds fantastic!” he said. “I’ve got a trip planned to Seattle and Portland. I’ll tack on Alaska and be gone four weeks. How does that sound?”

  I pulled open my door and ran out into the hall. Four weeks? He’d never been gone that long before. Two weeks was the limit. Had he forgotten that? Every thing felt wrong. Instead of saying what he was supposed to say, he was saying crazy things. I mean, four weeks? He should have said, “Let’s calm down and talk about this. I love you. I love Camille. We don’t need to take a break. It’s dollar cone day at the Yogurt Shack. Let’s go get some.” Then everyone was supposed to hug. This was all wrong!

  My father lugged an enormous brown suitcase out of the closet. I went into my parents’ bedroom and watched him jerk open drawers. He gathered clothes and stuffed them inside the suitcase. Seeing his underwear and socks piled up in there made me very sad.

  “You don’t need this!” I said, trying to throw his clothes back out of the suitcase. “Just go for two weeks. Or don’t go at all.”

  “I need to go,” he said.

  “Then stick to the limit and come back after two weeks,” I said. “Please.”

  “I don’t think that will be long enough,” he said.

  “But maybe you can still fix things.”

  But my father shook his head.

  “Fix things!” I cried.

  He zipped the suitcase closed.

  I didn’t know what else to do. My father walked over to me and kissed the top of my head.

  “I love you, Camille. But your mother’s right. We both need a break.”

  I knew he was planning to go away again. But not like this. Not when he was angry. Not for a whole month!


  “Maybe you need to talk to somebody. What about mediation?” I asked. “You should contact Mrs. Moses. She’s great.”

  But my father kept walking away.

  “I don’t think your vice principal can help us,” he said. “Maybe when I come back, we can sit down and talk to somebody.”

  “Let’s talk to somebody now,” I said.

  My father shook his head.

  “I need to get on the road,” he said.

  As my father pulled his suitcase out to his pickup, I stood at the living room window and watched. I could feel my heart beating deep inside of me.

  My mother came up behind me and stroked my hair.

  “I hate this,” I told her. “Why does it have to be like this? Is it that hard to stay out of the hole?”

  My mother turned me around and kissed my forehead.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m doing the best that I can. But I am what I am.”

  That night, when she tucked me into bed, it was very hard for me to keep my tears from flooding out of my eyes.

  “Don’t cry, sweetheart,” my mother said. “I love you.”

  “I know that,” I said. “I just wish life had more ups and less downs.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “That would be nice.”

  I sniffled hard and she got me some tissues.

  “Is there anything else you want to talk about?” my mother asked.

  I shook my head.

  “You haven’t talked about school lately,” she said.

  “It’s pretty much the same,” I said.

  “What are you learning about in science?” she asked.

  “Cells,” I said.

  “What about cells?” she asked.

  “We’re studying the structural difference between plant and animal cells,” I said.

  “That sounds extremely advanced for fourth grade,” she said.

  “I guess,” I said.