“Well, I should get ready for school. Piper and I need to take a bath.”
“A bath?” says Victoria, who comes upstairs right behind Mom. “With your little sister, the dirty one who pees outside? Gross. Baths are for babies, anyway. I take showers all by myself, like a normal third grader.”
Another crummy third-grade rule.
Victoria walks into my room and sits down on my bed. “Well, I finally finished it,” she says, holding up my poster board, which isn’t blank anymore. Now it’s all swirly and bright and it says, “Magnificent Marabou Creations from ViP Fashions. Victoria Porridge, President and Designer in Chief.” And it has pictures of the fluffiest, sneeziest, most itchy-pink purses and headbands I’ve ever seen.
“Alice at the dry cleaners said I could put this up in her window, to advertise my new business,” says Victoria. “You can be my first customer! Do you prefer hot pink or dusty rose? I custom-dye all the marabou feathers myself. Quinny, wake up. Are you listening to me?”
I’m trying to.
“Accessories are just the beginning,” she says. “Soon I’ll branch out into dresses. My counselor at fashion camp helped me put together a business plan. I’m going to build a whole fashion empire and make millions!”
Wow. Victoria knows how to think big. She looks so proud of herself, for something that hasn’t even happened yet.
I show her my tap-dance shoes, because they are the most stylish things I own and Victoria is very stylish. “Those make too much noise,” she says. “I take ballet.”
Next I show her my accordion. Maybe she likes music, too. “That thing looks so heavy,” she says. “I play the flute.”
Then Victoria spots some of Piper’s books on my floor. “I can’t believe you still read picture books,” she says.
“Only to my little sisters.” I push those babyish books beneath my bed. “They’re not even mine.” (Except for sometimes, when I still look at them a little bit.)
“Well, I read real books,” Victoria says. “Chapter books and novels. My favorite one is called Ballet Shoes and I’ve read it, like, a million times.”
Before I get a chance to tell Victoria what my favorite book is, she opens my closet and pokes around in there. She turns back to me, looking confused.
“Is your mother doing laundry today?”
“I doubt it.” Daddy does the laundry in our family.
“So where’s all your new stuff?” she asks. “Didn’t you go shopping for school?”
“I did. I got a notebook and pencils and—”
“No silly, I meant clothes shopping.”
“I already have clothes. I’m going to wear my favorite green skirt tomorrow and my favorite T-shirt, which actually used to be my mom’s. She wore it the night she met my daddy at this Paul McCartney concert a long time ago, plus I’m wearing my favorite fruity kneesocks—”
“Quinny,” Victoria sighs, “I don’t mean grubby old play clothes. I mean real clothes. Brand-new back-to-school outfits.”
“You mean like school uniforms?” We had those at my old school. I hated them.
Victoria sighs again. She looks at me like maybe I’m not as smart as she is.
“You’ll see when you get there,” she says. “Your parents are driving you, right? You’re not riding that awful school bus, I hope.”
Actually, I am riding that awful school bus. “Why is the school bus awful?” I ask.
“You’ll see.”
I’ll see what? I’m so confused. We’re supposed to be playing, but this is no fun at all.
I don’t know what to say next, which almost never happens. But then I think of something. “Did you know that Hopper’s going to be in the same class as us?”
Victoria sighs again. She must have a lot of air in her head. “Didn’t know and don’t care.”
“Me neither. I haven’t talked to that boy all week.”
“Good. You know, you only played with him because there was no one else around.”
That’s one reason I played with Hopper. But it’s not the only reason.
“Now you have me,” Victoria says. “We’re going to have a great year together.”
I hope so. But it kind of almost feels like Victoria is trying to put me on a leash, and I kind of almost want to run away. Except, where would I go? Hopper isn’t my friend anymore. And I don’t know any other kids in this too-small town.
So I try to keep playing with Victoria. And I try very, very, extra-very hard to keep forgetting about Hopper, just like he’s forgotten about me.
By the time Victoria leaves, I am exhausted from all that trying. And from all her rules.
Baths < showers.
Tap dance < ballet.
Accordion < flute.
Picture books < chapter books.
Play clothes < brand-new back-to-school outfits.
Riding the bus < getting driven to school in a shiny black car.
It’s starting to feel like: Quinny <<< Victoria.
“Cheer up, honey,” says Mom. “You’ll see Victoria in school tomorrow.”
Fabulous.
And then my life gets even worse. Because I notice icky-sticky-screamy Cleo sitting on my brand-new green polka-dot backpack. And she’s holding a purple marker. And she’s trying to connect the dots!
“Cleo, stop!”
Instead of stopping, that baby hurries to scribble some more.
“Mom, make her stop!”
Mom grabs Cleo and plops her in the Pack ’n Play. “Cleo, that was inappropriate,” she says in a way-too-calm voice.
We scrub my backpack. Some of the marker comes out, but most of it doesn’t.
“Honey, I’m sorry,” Mom says. “But Cleo’s just a baby.”
I know that. I try very, very, extra-very hard to not blame Cleo for being just a baby.
At bedtime, I’m still trying. Mom helps me set out my grubby, not-new play clothes for school tomorrow morning. She helps me fill my stained backpack with pencils and a plain notebook.
When germy, babyish Piper comes by to get me for our bath, I slam my door in her face.
Then I peek out my window. Hopper’s window shade is still closed. I close mine, too.
This was supposed to be my luckiest summer ever.
But it’s the night before school starts, and I’m all out of good luck.
Thirty
Trevor and Ty are carpooling to middle school with their soccer friends this morning. But I’ll be taking the bus to third grade, just like I did to second grade.
I like riding the school bus. It’s higher up than our minivan, so you can see more. And Ms. Kray, the bus aide, always assigns me a seat near the middle, where nothing too loud or terrible goes on. But this year I’m nervous because Quinny is going to be on my bus, and she is not talking to me anymore and I am not talking to her. Everything has changed. Everything.
After breakfast, Mom walks me to the corner. We stand there and wait for the bus. And for Quinny.
Here she comes.
Her hair’s gotten bigger, like Aunt LuAnne’s Chia Pet, and she’s not wearing her watermelon barrette for some reason. Behind all that hair, her eyes don’t even peek at mine. Neither do her teeth, because her mouth is closed. She’s got her hands shoved in her pockets, but she keeps taking them out to scratch at a bracelet on her wrist.
Now she’s right in front of me. Close enough to touch.
Does she think my new haircut looks awful?
Does she miss me even a tiny bit?
I am not brave enough to look Quinny in the face, so I look her in the socks. Her socks are so long that they come all the way up to her knees. Her right sock is green with big orange dots, which I think are supposed to be orange slices. Her left sock is orange with green dots, which are apples. One of the apples has a worm coming out of it. The worm is smiling.
I’m not sure how long a person can stare at girls’ socks, but I think I might have broken the world record for it. The problem is, I don’t know what e
lse to do. We are the only kids at this bus stop. Mom and Quinny’s mom are busy yakking on about contractors and property taxes and class size. Nobody seems to care that Quinny and I are not saying a word to each other.
Nobody except me.
The school bus finally pulls up to our corner. I hug Mom good-bye and follow Quinny’s socks up the steps.
Then there is another problem. Ms. Kray on the bus always gives us assigned seats, and this year she puts me and Quinny together in a two-seater near the back. I don’t want to sit near the back of the bus. I don’t want to sit next to Quinny, either. But she scoots right into the seat, without complaining. I look up at Ms. Kray for help, but I guess she doesn’t know what my face means, because she goes back to her own seat. I hear the bus engine rumble. I have no choice but to sit next to Quinny.
Quinny buckles her seat belt. I buckle mine. She pulls her backpack away and hides it behind her feet, like she doesn’t want me anywhere near it. Then she turns her head all the way toward the window and keeps it there. I can’t even see her cheeks.
It feels like the longest bus ride ever. I’ve never been so happy to get to school in my life.
I follow the crowd of kids into the building and find my new third-grade classroom. I meet my teacher, Ms. Yoon. She smiles hello at me, but I hardly notice her face, because her belly is enormous. It’s so huge that Ms. Yoon walks like an Oompa-Loompa from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. A tall, friendly, tired-looking Oompa-Loompa. Either Ms. Yoon had a really big breakfast or there’s a baby inside her belly.
I find my cubby, which has a door this year, so it’s called a locker. Quinny’s locker is all the way down the hall. Fine with me.
I find my desk. Quinny’s desk is all the way across the classroom. Good.
We all sit down, and Ms. Yoon tells us who she is again. Then she makes us go around and introduce our names, so the whole class can hear. A few kids are brand-new this year, like Quinny. Most kids are old news, like me. I know almost everybody here and they know me, and we all know that I don’t play with anyone except Owen and that since he moved away, I just sit and read during recess. Pretty soon Quinny will find out, too. But I don’t care, since we’re not friends anymore.
Then Ms. Yoon starts talking about school stuff. But before she can get very far, Quinny raises her hand. “Ms. Yoon, there’s a baby in your tummy, isn’t there?” she asks.
“Why, yes, Eleanor, I was just about to get to that,” says Ms. Yoon.
“Actually, everyone calls me Quinny, remember? Hey, can you still tie your shoes?”
Some kids in the class laugh at this. I’m not one of them.
“Pardon?” says Ms. Yoon.
“It must be hard for you to bend down,” Quinny says. “Can you even see your shoes?”
“Does it hurt?” blurts out a boy.
“When will the baby be born?” asks another girl.
I have a question of my own—Can you feel the baby’s heart beating in your belly the way you feel your own heart beat in your chest?—but I don’t feel comfortable asking it out loud.
“Are you going to bring the baby to school?” asks Quinny.
“I already do—every day,” Ms. Yoon says, with a tired smile now.
“What are you going to name it?” asks another girl.
“You should name it Victoria if it’s a girl,” says Victoria.
“My dog’s name is Brutus,” says a boy.
“My gerbil’s name is Sweet Potato,” says a girl.
“My chicken’s name was Freya,” sighs Quinny.
I hear the sadness in her voice. Freya. For a second I feel it, too. We worked so hard to catch that chicken. We came so close.
“All right, class, that’s enough.” Ms. Yoon chuckles. “The baby will be born later this year, and we haven’t picked out a name yet. Let’s move on.…”
Ms. Yoon starts talking about schedules and textbooks, and everybody settles down and the day goes on. We get new writing journals. We play basketball addition in math, which we did last year, too, so I already know how. We get in line to go to library.
“Hopper, look how you’ve grown!” says Mr. Brolin, the school librarian.
It’s true. Now I can reach up to the top shelf, where all the fifth-grade books are.
After library, we get in line and go to gym.
“Hopper! Wow, I almost didn’t recognize you!” says Ms. Demming, the gym teacher.
Now I can climb the rock wall without a boost. I start climbing and keep climbing. I reach the top and look out over the whole gym. Everyone looks so small from up here. So quiet. So harmless. Even Quinny.
I wish I could stay up here forever. But I can’t, because after gym we have music.
And after music Ms. Yoon takes us outside for the worst part of the day. Recess.
Thirty-one
Except for Ms. Yoon’s fabulous gigantic baby belly, I don’t love third grade at Whisper Valley Elementary School so far. Here’s why:
Riding the bus this morning with a rude boy who ignored me was a frowny way to start the day. (I’m not going to waste my breath talking about him, but his name starts with an H.)
And then we got off the bus, and the school was so big and I wasn’t sure where to go, and I wished someone would help me (the boy whose name starts with an H, for example), but no one did. All the grown-ups were busy helping the smaller kids, I noticed. The bigger you are, the more people think you know where you’re going, but that’s not always true. Finally a teacher pointed the way, and I found my classroom and it wasn’t that hard, but I didn’t know that ahead of time, so I was just a little bit scared.
And then my locker wouldn’t open right, or close right. Cubbies were much easier!
And then Victoria showed up, wearing a glittery itchy-pink top and a puffy itchy-pink skirt and my favorite watermelon barrette that I gave her by mistake. She saw my backpack and made a crinkly face.
“You can’t bring a dirty, ruined backpack to third grade,” she said. “Get rid of that thing.”
I looked down at Cleo’s marker scribbles on my backpack. I thought: ruined is kind of a mean word. Especially the way Victoria said it. Cleo was probably just trying to draw a tree.
“I can’t get rid of it,” I told Victoria. “Mom and Dad just got it for me.”
“Tell them you want a new one. Duh!”
And then Victoria introduced me to all the pretty friends, who belong to her very much, and their names were Kaitlin, Kaylee, and McKayla. Their backpacks were clean, and their clothes were mostly itchy-pink birthday-party clothes, and their hair was mostly skinny, and their mouths mostly whispered. I noticed they were all wearing BFF bracelets, too.
“I thought you were from New York City,” said one of those pretty friends. She looked at me from head to toe, like she was searching for something she couldn’t find.
“I am. I mean, I was.” I felt a tiny droop of sadness make me shorter.
Those girls all looked at me like they didn’t quite believe me.
“That T-shirt’s really old,” said another pretty friend.
It used to be Mom’s from the night she met Daddy. That’s why it’s special.
“Your socks don’t match,” said the third pretty friend. “It looks like you got dressed in the dark.” And everyone giggled. Except me, because I was the one they were giggling at.
“Well, it looks like you guys got dressed in a bubble-gum factory,” I said, not because I was making fun, but because it was plain old true. I’d never seen so much itchy-pink in my life.
Then all those pretty girls looked at me a certain way, and I have never seen girls look at me like that before. It was not pretty. And Victoria smiled, but not in a nice way, either.
Then the bell rang and the classroom part of school started, and I finally got to meet Ms. Yoon and her fabulous gigantic baby belly. I had tons of curious questions about that belly, but I only got to ask a few since we had to rush on to regular-typical stuff like writing and mat
h.
And now writing and math are over, so we’re lining up to go to library.
And that’s my first day of school so far.
So far, so bad—except for Ms. Yoon’s fabulous gigantic baby belly.
Library is when you have to be all quiet, which is not one of my strengths. It is one of Victoria’s strengths, I notice. She knows how to be quiet, even when she is talking. Everywhere we go, from library to gym to music, she and those pretty girls whisper into one another’s ears. I don’t know how to whisper very well. My talking always comes out too big. Whispering is for secrets, and I’m not good at keeping those, either.
Everywhere we go, Victoria also keeps an eye on me. From library to gym to music, she tells me where to sit and what to do and who’s who and what’s what. All I have to do is obey her and my life will turn out fine. But my body is full of this strange, shaky feeling. Like I’m wearing my sneakers on the wrong feet and my right earlobe is heavier than my left. I rub the skin on the side of my head, right where my watermelon barrette used to be. I think maybe I am having a sad hair day.
In the hallway after music, Victoria hooks her arm through mine and pulls me along. “Come on, we always start by meeting at the sycamore tree,” she says. “Then we’ll work our way over to the blacktop for jump rope and hula hoops.”
It takes me a second to figure out what that girl is talking about.
Recess is next.
Thirty-two
I’ve been going to school since kindergarten and I still don’t understand recess. It’s too loud and too fast. It’s too crowded and too rough. And there’s never enough shade.
My friend Owen didn’t like recess, either, so we would always play together, away from all the trouble. But then Owen moved away in second grade, so from then on I just sat on the steps at recess and read a book. Some of the playground grown-ups tried to stop me at first. They tried to get me to play tag with the other kids, but I didn’t want to. Trevor and Ty chase me around at home all the time. Who needs more of that at school?
Reading on the steps was my kind of fun. So I sat there for second-grade recess and I read The Great Brain Book and Why Don’t Your Eyelashes Grow? and all the Harry Potter books and The Art of Juggling and Dr. Frankenstein’s Human Body Book and Have a Nice DNA and Blood and Guts: A Working Guide to Your Own Insides. (Grandpa Gooley was amazed by all my reading. “Hopper, you’ll make an outstanding doctor one day,” he told me. “Or possibly an Olympic swimmer.” The reason he said that last part is because we were at the pool during this conversation, and I’d just beaten him in the fifty-meter freestyle.)
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