“I’m almost eleven,” I reminded her.
“It’s too big for an eleven-year-old,” she said.
Wowza, I thought. An amazed feeling made my skin tingle, because I had dealt with it, and I’d dealt with it even before I was eleven.
“Remembering to feed your fish, now that’s a problem a ten-year-old can tackle,” Mom said.
“I don’t have any fish.”
“But if you did.”
“I’d rather have a kitten.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I would totally remember to feed a kitten, if I had one.”
“Yes, now shhh. Remembering to do your spelling homework, that is also a problem a ten-year-old can handle.”
I made a face. Spelling homework was boring.
“But when someone bullies you like that—and that’s what Mindy was doing, Winnie—you need to get a grown-up’s help. A mom’s help, or a dad’s help. That’s why we’re here. We love you so much, Winnie.”
I felt naked in the face of all that love. Not naked as if I wasn’t wearing any clothes, because of course I was wearing clothes. But . . . teensy-tinesy, like a helpless little baby? Not that I was a little baby!
I think what Mom was trying to say, though, was that she and Dad would take care of me even if I was as helpless as a baby. That I didn’t always have to be their “big girl.” I was their big girl—not as big as Sandra, but big just the same—but I think Mom was saying that I could be their little girl every so often, and she and Dad would love me just the same.
“I love you, too,” I said. My voice was wobbly, and I blinked.
Mom pushed my hair behind my ear. “And while I may occasionally scold you for not putting your dishes in the dishwasher, you are not a disappointment to me. Never. You don’t let me down, Winnie. You lift me up. Don’t you know that?”
I nodded. I liked what she was saying, but it was embarrassing, too. “Can we talk about kittens again?”
She got up and said, “I’m going to call Mrs. Jacobs. She needs to know what’s going on, especially if Mindy is treating other girls like she treated you.”
So she did. Afterward, she told me what Mrs. Jacobs said, and I learned that there were sadnesses in Mindy’s life just like there were in everybody’s lives. Apparently Mindy’s mom, who lived in Atlanta, didn’t want Mindy anymore, and so she was sending Mindy to Florida to live with her dad.
That wasn’t exactly how Mom put it, but that was the gist of it. She said I had to put that information “in the vault,” which meant I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone.
I tried feeling bad for Mindy, but mainly I was just glad she was gone. And the fact that she left before my birthday was an extra-special bonus.
My lazy morning came to an end when Dad and his buddy Elmo came up to my room to install a floor-to-ceiling bookcase in my room. It was supposedly an early birthday present, since I loved books so much. I didn’t think furniture counted as a birthday present, but I was excited nonetheless.
Dad told me to skedaddle so that he and Elmo could do their “man’s work.”
“Will you call when you’re done?” I said. “The very minute you’re done?”
Dad promised he would, and three-and-a-half hours later—after lots of banging, cursing, and pizza-eating—he called for me to come see.
I left Ty and Sandra to finish the SpongeBob marathon on their own and flew upstairs.
“OMIGOSH, IT ROCKS!” I squealed. I took in my new bookcase, which was beautiful and empty and just waiting to be filled with delicious books. Then I took in the rest of my room, because it was different now. My dresser was against the opposite wall, and my bed was where my dresser used to be. The bookcase stood proudly in the bed’s old spot.
“You rearranged things,” I said.
“A section of the crown molding had to be removed for the bookcase to fit,” Dad explained. “Do you like it?”
“Are you kidding?” I said. I flung myself on Dad and wrapped my legs around his waist, because whether I was a big girl or a little girl, it would always be fun to tackle him. “I love it and adore it, and you are the best daddy in the whole entire world!”
“I’m glad,” he said. “Now let go, sweetie.” He tried to pry me off him, but I had legs of steel, and I knew to hook my ankles behind his back and lock them together.
From over his shoulder, I checked out my room some more. With the bookcase adding to the decor, it was like I’d been given a whole new room. It was less little-girlish, which was perfect, since I’d be eleven in six short days.
Six days. Whoa.
A year ago, my room had been completely different—and so had I. Well, kind of. Hmm. Was I the same Winnie or a different Winnie? Was there any way to know?
I thought back to my scary haunted house party, and I smiled at the memory of ten-year-old me. Then another memory popped into my mind, the memory of little me balancing a chair on my bed and slipping a letter to myself into the gap between the molding and the wall.
But my new bookcase was where my bed used to be. My gaze traveled to the bookcase, and I breathed a sigh of relief, because the molding to either side of the bookcase was still there, including the bit where my hiding spot was. Whew.
I dropped free of Dad. The sudden weight change made him stumble.
“Hey, Dad?” I said.
“Yes, Winnie?”
“Would you put me on your shoulders, please?”
“Why?”
“Just because. Please?”
He sighed and got down on one knee. “Climb on.”
I climbed on top of him and got situated. With a groan, he stood up.
“Now take me over to my bookcase.”
He lumbered across the room.
“Closer, and to the right.”
He got right up next to the wall. Even on top of Dad, I wasn’t tall enough to look down into my hiding spot. I was tall enough to pat the molding, and then the space behind the molding, where the hollow space should have been. Only there was no hollow space. It was gone.
A panicky feeling tried to latch on to my insides.
“Winnie, what are you looking for?” Dad said.
“There was a hole,” I said. “There was a hole up near the top of the wall, and I hid something in it!”
With me on his shoulders, Dad backed away from the wall.
“Wait!” I cried, but he was already lifting me up and over him.
He sat me on the floor. “Honey, we filled in that gap with caulk.”
“Did you check first to see if anything was in there?”
“We did, and there wasn’t.”
I turned to Elmo, whose expression confirmed it.
“But I put a letter in there! And also a candy bar!”
“A candy bar?” Dad said.
“They couldn’t have disappeared,” I insisted. “And don’t try to tell me roaches got it, or termites, because something would have been left.”
Dad scratched the back of his neck. “Huh. If what you’re saying is true, then that’s strange, I admit. Elmo?”
“The ceiling joists must have shifted, and the gap between the molding and the wall grew bigger,” Elmo said, as if it were all very simple. “Winnie, your letter and your candy bar must have slipped behind the wall. Then, when the weather turned cold, the gap contracted.”
“You’re saying the wall ate my stuff? Not roaches or squirrels or termites, but the wall?”
“ ‘Ate’ isn’t the word I’d use, but yes,” Elmo said.
“And today you and Dad filled in the gap. For good.”
“We don’t want drafts,” Dad said. “Our heating bill is high enough as it is.”
It was a lot to take in. I leaned against the wall—the very wall that ate my letter and candy bar—and slid down until my bottom reached the floor. “I need some alone time, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure,” Dad said. He hesitated. “Are you all right? What did this letter say, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I wrote down all my hopes and dreams,” I said. “I wrote them down so I’d remember who I wanted to be.” I felt spacey and out of it, because try though I might, I couldn’t call up much more than that.
What had I written??? Something about being awesome . . . ? Something about staying awesome no matter what . . . ?
“You know,” Elmo said, pulling me back to the moment, “a wall actually isn’t a bad place to store a letter.”
I lifted my eyes.
“Think about it. Unless your folks tear the house down—”
“Which we won’t,” Dad interrupted.
“Then you’ll always know where it is. You can’t lose a wall, you know what I mean?”
The ghost of a smile flitted through my mind. You can’t lose a wall.
“You also can’t lose your dreams, pumpkin,” Dad said. He rumpled my hair so roughly that my whole head moved back and forth like a bell.
Dad and Elmo went downstairs.
I stayed put and thought about the situation.
Would I have chosen for the wall to eat my letter?
No.
Was I given a vote in the matter?
No again.
However . . .
It was pretty cool that the letter I wrote would always be part of our house, just as my hopes and dreams would always be a part of me. The more I got used to the idea, the more I realized what a shiny and sparkly twist of fate it was.
Anyway, so what if I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d written down? Maybe people’s dreams changed over time, just like people themselves changed. Because people did change. I knew that from personal experience. So maybe my dreams had changed, too?
But I was still Winnie. I would always be Winnie, and I would always keep hoping and dreaming, no matter what. And Dad was right that you didn’t lose your dreams just because a hole in the wall was filled in with caulk. Maybe there were a few things I didn’t yet know about this world of ours, and maybe—occasionally—there were things I even got wrong. Shocking, I know.
But dreams were forever. That I knew for sure.
March
THE THING ABOUT BIRTHDAYS is that everything should go just right, at least on that one day. And so far today has been perfect, even without cupcakes to pass out during lunch. Not in fifth grade, I told Mom. In fourth grade, sure, but not in fifth. The only kid who’d brought birthday cupcakes was Dinah Devine, and that was at the beginning of the year, so she didn’t know better. That’s one problem with early birthdays: no one knows what’ll be cool and what’ll be stupid.
March birthdays are better, like mine. And this birthday in particular, because today is March 11, and today I am eleven years old. It’ll only happen like this once, which is why it’s especially wonderful that everything’s been going so well. Waffles for breakfast, crispy but not burned. At school, a heartfelt chorus of “Happy Birthday,” with me beaming at the front of the room. (Ignored Alex Plotkin’s bit about monkeys and zoos.) And now, back home in our den, I get to hum and bounce on the sofa to my heart’s content without Mom putting her hand on my shoulder and telling me to relax. Not that I could relax even if I wanted to. Because in ten minutes or possibly less, I’ll have arrived at the best part of the entire day. My party!
During art, Amanda and I had planned out the whole evening, from activities to cake to presents. Ms. Straus had let us scoot our chairs together, and we talked while we drew. Lately I’ve been liking to draw girls hanging by their knees off tree branches, while Amanda tends to sketch cheerleaders doing daring, fantastic jumps.
“I think you should do presents before cake,” Amanda had suggested as she shaded in her cheerleader’s skirt. “That way people can have time to digest their pizza.”
“Plus, that means I’ll get to open the presents sooner,” I said. I knew that sounded rude, but with Amanda I could say anything.
“What’s your top birthday present ever?” she asked. “Your very favorite thing you ever got.”
“From my parents or someone else?”
Amanda switched pencils. “I already know your best gift from your parents: your CD player. From someone else.”
I claimed the blue pencil and worked on my girl’s shorts. “Well, I love the heart necklace you gave me last year.”
She rolled her eyes like, go on.
“Other than that, I’d guess I’d say my crutches.” They were old-fashioned wooden crutches with rubber tips, and they were awesome for acting out stories about brave crippled children or amputees. I’d found them when I was helping my aunt Lucy set up for a garage sale, and she let me keep them as a thank-you-slash-early-birthday-present.
“The crutches are great,” Amanda acknowledged, “but what I got you this year is even better.” She grinned at my expression. “I can’t wait until you see!”
I couldn’t wait either, which made me think of another terrific thing about March 11. This year it fell on a Friday, which meant I got to have my party on the exact day of my birthday. Last year it fell on a Wednesday, and the following weekend I had a haunted-house birthday even though it obviously wasn’t Halloween. Mom made a cake shaped like a ghost, and my sister Sandra dressed up like a witch and stirred a pot of witch’s brew down in the basement. It was really a pot of dry ice we got from Baskin-Robbins, but the steam made it look spooky, and Dinah Devine screamed and got the hiccups and had to be taken upstairs. Then my little brother Ty wet his pants and started to cry.
Another good thing: Mom’s paying Sandra ten dollars to take Ty to Chuck E. Cheese, his favorite place in the world. He could spend eons there.
From the window, I saw a blue Honda pull into the driveway. I scrambled off the sofa and called, “Mom, get down here!” I opened the front door and ran to greet Amanda, who was carrying a medium-size box wrapped in bright green paper. “Amanda! Finally!”
Amanda twisted away with her present, which I was trying to wrest free. “Hands off,” she said.
“What is it?” I begged.
“Oh, like I’m going to tell you.” She poked my shoulder. “My mom wants to talk to your mom.”
“Why?”
“She just does.”
We went inside, and I leaned on the railing of the staircase while Amanda put her present in the den. “Mom!” I yelled. “Mrs. Wilson needs you!”
“Winnie, please,” Mom said. “I’m right here.” She clopped down the stairs in her low-heel shoes. “Hello, Amanda. I like that shirt you’re wearing.”
I looked at Amanda’s shirt—white with purple stripes—and for a second I wished I’d worn something other than my McDonald’s shirt with a picture of a Big Mac on the front. Oh, well. Another car pulled into the drive, and Amanda and I dashed back out.
“It’s Chantelle,” Amanda said. She waved. “Chantelle, hi!”
Chantelle is Amanda’s and my second-best friend. We met her on the first day of third grade, when Mrs. Katcher tried to guess what everyone’s name was. Mrs. Katcher kept frowning at Chantelle and trying new names, until finally she put down her roll book and said, “Sweetheart, I give up! There aren’t any more boy’s names left!”
Amanda and I found Chantelle during morning recess and told her Mrs. Katcher was crazy. Didn’t she know girls cut their hair short, too? We told Chantelle she looked sophisticated, like a model, and Chantelle smiled and lifted her head from her arms.
Now Chantelle’s hair reaches almost to her shoulders, and today she held it back with a big, silver barrette that matched her silver earrings. She handed me a small box wrapped in shiny red paper and said, “Here. Happy birthday.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll put it inside with Amanda’s.”
Chantelle bumped Amanda’s hip. “Is it . . . you know?”
“Is it what?” I demanded.
“Yes, but shhh,” Amanda said. To me, she added, “And don’t try to worm it out of her.”
“Hi, everyone!” called Dinah Devine as she struggled out of her dad’s station wagon. She wore a bright
pink party dress, and her hair was pushed back with a matching plastic headband. Her smile stretched too wide across her face.
“Here,” she said. “Happy birthday.” She held out her present, a lumpy package tied with yarn.
“Thanks,” I said. Dinah is somebody I try to be nice to at school, but I wouldn’t have invited her to my party except Mom said I had to. Her dad works with my dad, which in Mom’s mind meant Dinah should be included.
But along with her too-wide smile, Dinah is one of those people who laughed too late when someone makes a joke, or too loud, or too long, like, “Ha, ha! That was so hysterical!” even when the joke was really dumb. And if someone says something mean, like “We weren’t talking to you,” or “You don’t even get it, do you?” Dinah never says anything back. Although one time she told our teacher, which was a mistake. Then the kids called her a tattletale, too.
Dinah’s mom died when Dinah was a baby, which was really sad. I try to remember that. But sometimes the whole mess of it wears me out.
A car horn honked, and Dinah jumped. We moved to the edge of the driveway, and Louise’s mom pulled up with Louise and Karen in the backseat. Louise and Karen are best friends, the kind who wear matching outfits to school and loop identical friendship bracelets around their wrists. Today Louise had on blue overalls and a white shirt, while Karen was wearing white overalls with a blue shirt. Karen trailed Louise up the driveway and smiled as Louise said hello for both of them.
“What now?” Louise said after we went inside and deposited their presents with others.
“Well,” I announced, “we have very exciting plans. Shockingly exciting. Right, Amanda?”
“Shockingly,” agreed Amanda.
I glanced from face to face. “I am pleased to inform you that tonight we will be performing a play written by yours truly. It is a dreadful and chilling play. It’s called The True Tale of Sophia-Maria: A Tragedy.”
Louise frowned.
Dinah looked concerned.
“Who’s Sophia-Maria?” Karen asked.
“Sophia-Maria is a girl exactly our age,” I said. “She has lustrous black curls and violet eyes, and she never did anyone a moment’s harm. But sadly, she is snatched from her home and taken to France, where she becomes a scullery maid for a horrible baroness.”
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