Camille McPhee Fell Under the Bus ...

by Kristen Tracy

  “Piña colada?” my mother asked. Then she gasped. “Are you eating candy?”

  I bit my lip.

  “Camille! Do you understand how bad simple sugars are for your system?”

  I nodded. Even though I understood that, simple sugars still tasted very good.

  “Your blood sugar will spike and then you’ll crash!” she said.

  The words spike and crash always frightened me.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve only eaten about twenty,” I said.

  My mother brought her hand to her mouth and gasped again.

  “Get in the kitchen right now! You need to eat some cottage cheese!” she said.

  So I did.

  While I was spooning cottage cheese into my mouth, my mother came out of my bedroom holding a medium-size bag of jelly beans. They looked delicious.

  “Where did you get these?” she asked.

  But that was a hard question. Because I got them from lots of places. Sally had bought me a couple of bags before she moved. My father had brought me home some from Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, because there is a jelly bean factory there. And I’d been given a whole bunch at school from my Secret Santa. And I even bought some myself with my own money.

  “How did you accumulate this many beans?” my mother asked.

  She shook the bag in front of me and it made the beans shake in a very yummy way.

  “I’ve been saving them for a long time,” I said. “And I eat them responsibly.”

  “Twenty!” she said.

  Then she set the beans down on the counter. And walked over to me and my cottage cheese.

  “Camille, you can’t eat candy. It’s not good for you. It will make your blood sugar go up very high and then crash very low. You’ll get a headache and feel miserable. Do you understand?”

  I shoved a whole bunch of cottage cheese in my mouth and let it sit on my tongue. She went over and picked the bag back up.

  “If I didn’t love you, I’d give you back your bag of jelly beans and let you eat them all,” she said.

  Then I watched her take the lid off the trash can and dump in my jelly beans. Even after she stopped pouring them, I could hear the beans rattling their way to the bottom.

  “Doesn’t that feel better?” she asked.

  “Not really,” I said.

  “Trust me,” she said. “It will.”

  She came and sat down next to me and rubbed my back.

  “Do you have any homework?” she asked.

  “Math,” I said.

  She smiled big.

  “No advanced science?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “A little bird told me that science is going to become much less advanced,” she said. “Also, no more slaughterball.”

  She kissed my head and then got up and started flapping her arms like they were wings.

  “That’s okay, honey. You don’t have to thank me.”

  Chapter 17

  Cat Fate

  I really missed gifted reading. Because not only did I miss reading, but I also missed sitting in a bean-bag chair. Mostly, I missed Ms. Golden. So when Mr. Hawk said he had some bad news about Ms. Golden, I thought I was going to start crying in front of everybody.

  “Ms. Golden will be out for another week,” Mr. Hawk said.

  “Was there a problem with her surgery?” Penny asked. “Did they take out the wrong tonsil?”

  I thought that was a pretty good question.

  “No,” Mr. Hawk said. “She’s just taking an extra week to recuperate.”

  He sat down at his desk and smiled.

  “But I’ve got some good news,” he said. “Mrs. Zirklezack has tweaked her play to accommodate some of our class’s feedback. Also, she assigned the final part.”

  Polly turned around and smiled at me. But I didn’t smile back. Because I wasn’t sure how I felt about this.

  When we went to play practice, and Mrs. Zirklezack walked into the gym and smiled one of her spookiest smiles ever, I knew right away that I wasn’t going to like my part.

  Mrs. Zirklezack called out a list of seven names. They were all girls, and my name was the last one. Penny Winchester, Gracie Clop, Nina Hosack, Lilly Poe, Zoey Combs, Hannah Pond, Camille McPhee.

  “When I assigned the final part, I noticed that we had an odd number of animals. That didn’t work. So I changed some things. I’ve decided to make a chorus line,” she said, clapping. “You’re going to have your own musical number. You’re going to be cats.”

  Lilly squealed.

  “Does this mean I’m not a sea lion anymore?” Penny asked.

  “That’s right,” Mrs. Zirklezack said. “I’ve decided to omit all references to aquatic animals. In the end, I thought it was a good idea not to load them onto the bus.”

  “So I’m not a dolphin?” Lilly asked.

  “Correct. You’re all cats,” Mrs. Zirklezack said. And while all the other cats started gabbing about how excited they were about their parts, Mrs. Zirklezack began explaining the cats’ “function.”

  “Look around,” she said. And so we did. “No, I’m not talking about the Rocky Mountain Elementary School gymnasium. I’m talking about the civilized world. The cat population is out of control. I want our play to confront this issue head-on.”

  Mrs. Zirklezack began distributing new scripts. We all flipped through them to see what our parts looked like.

  “Oh my heck!” yelled Jasmine Rey, the amazingly popular sixth grader who’d been given the part of Nora. “You’re all going to die!”

  I flipped through my script until I found the page. It was true. While all the other animals boarded the bus and headed to the sunny, safe place, the cats didn’t join them. There wasn’t room. Also, when Nora tried to catch us, we ran away.

  “I want the audience to be reminded of how tragically overpopulated our communities are with unwanted cats,” Mrs. Zirklezack said.

  We were supposed to sing a song called “We Can’t Come, We Won’t Come.” Mrs. Zirklezack wrote it herself. The song started off talking about how we wished there were more room for us. But then the song ends with all the cats deciding to just play around.

  “This is depressing,” Penny said.

  “No,” Mrs. Zirklezack corrected. “You’re not depressed cats. You’re a group of sassy cats. You’re going to be happy, willful, dancing little beasts. Nora tries to catch you, but you’re so busy singing and dancing that you get left behind.”

  “I thought there wasn’t room for us,” Lilly said. “I thought that’s why we got left.”

  “That’s part of the problem,” Mrs. Zirklezack said. “But you’re also very sassy.”

  When Mrs. Zirklezack talked, she opened her arms out wide, and the little pockets of fat under her arms kept jiggling.

  “You’ll be performing on top of these white plastic buckets,” she said, holding a bucket above her head so that we could all see it.

  “Why?” Penny asked.

  “It heightens the visual drama,” Mrs. Zirklezack said. “Plus, everybody will be able to see you.”

  At first, I thought this was horrible, because if I tipped off my bucket, I knew that I would always be labeled as the hypoglycemic kid who kept falling down. That was a lot of pressure. But then I realized it might be a good opportunity to show everybody that falling under the school bus was a onetime sort of thing. I could change my reputation.

  I took my assigned bucket and looked around. By the deflated expressions on the other cats’ faces, it was clear they were disappointed with their roles.

  “We’re going to die too early,” Penny mumbled.

  “And too quickly,” Lilly added.

  When Mrs. Zirklezack handed Penny her bucket, Penny blurted out how she felt.

  “Real cats would try to live,” she said. “They’d scamper up trees or something.”

  I looked around at the other cats. A lot of us were smiling. Everybody liked Penny’s idea. We didn’t want to think of ourselves as dispo
sable cats.

  “But your deaths are symbolic,” Mrs. Zirklezack said. “You’re struck down while misbehaving.” Her eyes twinkled when she said this and I thought someone would present her with the idea that we actually should be struck down by lightning or the hand of God, but no one did, and I didn’t bring it up.

  After practice Polly came up to me and smiled. Her hair was looking less and less stringy these days, but I didn’t know why. Maybe she’d started using a volumizing shampoo. I should have told her that her hair looked good.

  “You’ve finally got a part.” She beamed. She was carrying a big, bright red and yellow parrot head on a stick. I was surprised by how great some of the animal costumes looked already.

  “Yeah,” I mumbled.

  “Cats are great! And you get to sing and dance!”

  “I guess,” I said, shrugging. “Until I drown.”

  When we got back to Mr. Hawk’s class, we didn’t have time to talk about lightbulbs.

  “Tomorrow,” he said. “Don’t forget your spelling homework. Or your health worksheets. And remember that we’re in the computer lab first thing in the morning. So don’t show up with sticky fingers. We want to leave the keyboards the way we found them.”

  Chapter 18

  Double-Checking

  When I got home, my mom wasn’t there. She’d left a messy note that was hard to read.

  I punctured my inflatable ball on a shoe! I went-to buy another ball! Be back soon!

  Underneath it she’d scribbled: “I bet I’m back before you read this note!” But she wasn’t.

  My mother had recently purchased several pairs of dangerous high-heeled shoes. It didn’t surprise me too much that she could pop her ball with one of them. One thing I’d learned already in life was that anything was possible. I walked into my bedroom and opened up my jelly bean drawer. (That’s also where I kept my socks.) And I did some double-checking for a runaway bean. But there weren’t any. They were all in the garbage can. So I went to the kitchen and lifted the lid off the garbage can and tried to look all the way to the bottom. But it stank so bad that I had to put the lid back on. Also, I gagged a little.

  As I walked back to my bedroom, I heard the answering machine going beep, beep, beep. I tried to ignore that sound and got out my spelling homework. This week was a hard list: void, point, trapezoid, poison, moist, ointment, destroy, royal, and oyster. And our bonus word was employee. The reason we were studying these words was because we were learning about diphthongs. That’s when two vowels join together to make one sound.

  My mother came home carrying three bags. I looked up, but then I went back to work.

  “I thought I’d beat you home,” she said.

  “You didn’t,” I said.

  “Don’t you want to know what I bought?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Camille, you’ll find this very interesting!” she said.

  So I looked back up. She set the three bags on the table and then pointed to each one.

  “A ball. A pump. And a spare,” she said.

  I blinked. “A spare what?” I asked.

  “Ball!” she said. “In case I pop another one.”

  I frowned.

  “Maybe you should be more careful with the first ball, so you don’t need to buy the second and third balls,” I said.

  My mother made a huffing sound and grabbed the bags off the table.

  “You sound just like your father. Inflatable balls weren’t meant to last forever. You’re supposed to replace them every now and then,” she said.

  While that might have been true, my mom had only had her first ball, the one that popped, for a few weeks. And now she had two more. That seemed like a lot.

  “Is that another bag?” I asked. “A fourth one?”

  I could see a small plastic bag tucked inside one of the other bags.

  “It’s just an empty box,” she said.

  But I knew that trick. That was a half-truth.

  “But what was inside it before it was empty?” I asked.

  My mother smiled. Then she reached in her purse.

  “A new cell phone!” she said.

  This was terrible. Because my father had once told me that new electronics cost an arm and a leg.

  “Wait until you hear my ringtone,” she said.

  She hurried to the kitchen phone and dialed her cell phone number. But it didn’t make a ringing sound. It chirped. And made a pounding noise. And chirped again.

  “What is it?” I asked. “It sounds like a parakeet. And a hammer.”

  “It does not sound like a parakeet and a hammer!” my mother said. “It’s the song of the red-bellied woodpecker. That’s always been my favorite bird.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “I didn’t know you had a favorite bird.”

  “Well, I do,” she said, folding the phone shut and sliding it back inside her purse. “I love my new ring-tone. And part of the purchase price for my phone is being donated to a red-bellied woodpecker sanctuary.”

  “Oh,” I said. I was beginning to think that my mother couldn’t leave the house without buying something. Like maybe she had an illness. I put my head down and focused on spelling.

  “What are you working on?” she asked.

  “Diphthongs,” I said.

  “What?” she asked.

  I cleared my throat. “When two vowels join together to make one sound, it’s called a diphthong. Like in poison or trapezoid,” I said.

  My mother tilted her head to one side and all of her curls slid in that direction.

  “Trapezoid is on your spelling list?” she asked.

  I nodded. My mother slapped the table.

  “If your teacher wants to keep assigning advanced material, he should just go back to the sixth grade where he belongs.”

  I kept working. Even though my mother’s slap made the table wobble.

  “I like Mr. Hawk,” I said.

  “Well, he and I might need to have another discussion,” she said.

  I quit working and looked up. My eyes grew very huge and I shook my head.

  “Camille, it tortures me to watch you struggle like this,” she said.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Absolutely. As a parent, I want to do anything I can to help you. It’s a mother’s animal instinct.”

  This surprised me very much. Because I had never thought of my mother as being a “mother animal.” I’d only thought of her as being a fighting wolverine.

  “Well, if that’s true, why don’t you call Dad,” I said. “Because not having him here makes me struggle a lot.”

  She took a deep breath.

  “Camille, that’s not what I meant,” she said. “I meant I could fix things with Mr. Hawk.”

  “But I don’t think there’s anything there that needs to be fixed,” I said.

  “That man is treating you like you’re twelve,” she said. “His actions could impact your development.”

  I set my pencil down.

  “I don’t worry about that,” I said. “But I do worry about how well I’ll develop without Dad around.”

  “Camille, your father and I are going through a rough patch. Things are going to have to work themselves out,” she said.

  “Maybe a phone call could help that,” I said.

  “No,” my mother said.

  But then, like magic, the phone started ringing.

  “Aren’t you going to get that?” I asked.

  My mother walked to the kitchen phone and pulled it out of its cradle.

  “I’m doing fine,” she said. “Yes, I have seen the Visa bill for this month.”

  I gathered up my homework. I hated to hear them go through the Visa bill. I decided to go downstairs to watch some television and maybe do some looking at our house’s guts. Upstairs, I heard yelling. And the sound of my mother’s feet as she paced through the kitchen.

  Downstairs, on CNN, they showed a big crowd of people in Japan. This made me a little bit ex
cited, because they said that it was “live” television. And I thought I could look for Sally and possibly see her live. I stood very close to the TV. But nobody looked like Sally. The whole crowd appeared to be people I didn’t know. I thought about turning the channel. But I decided to look harder.

  Then, in the corner, I spotted somebody who looked familiar. Could it be? Was it her? The person who looked familiar stood next to a tree. Which was exactly where I would expect to find Sally Zook. Because she loved trees. In the summer, she climbed them all the time.

  “Turn around!” I said to the television. Because I wanted to know if the person really was Sally.

  Whoever it was looked happy. Though I couldn’t see her actual face. But I could see that she was carrying a purple purse. Then she started walking away. Right off the screen. Seeing this made me think of a lot of questions for Sally. Why aren’t you writing me? Don’t you miss me? And when did you get a purple purse? And what do you keep inside it? I stared at that crowd in Japan until the screen changed.

  CNN switched to a picture of a turtle that had two heads. It was so ugly I turned off the TV, climbed the stairs, and went to my room. I felt so sad. I heard my mother still going over the Visa bill.

  “The charge I made at Kmart was for a hot glue gun,” she said. “We needed it.”

  I put my pillow over my head. And then I closed my eyes. And waited for dinner.

  The next day, when I got to school, I arrived ready for Technology. It was not my favorite class, because it involved following directions exactly. And I enjoyed only following directions somewhat.

  “Please sit at your assigned computer,” Mr. Hawk said.

  This meant that I had to sit next to Nina Hosack.

  “Today we’re going to be sending e-mails to other students,” Mr. Hawk said. “Go ahead and open up your accounts.”

  So I used my mouse to click what I needed to, and got into my account. “Today you’re going to be sending an e-mail to the person on your right,” Mr. Hawk said. I looked at Nina and nodded. But when I looked to my left, which is the direction my e-mail would be coming from, all I saw was a wall. Because I was the last person in the row.