“Maybe Amber should try out for the gold medal in the cookie Olympics.” Justin grins.
“Maybe you kids should play in another room while Mrs. Bradley looks at the kitchen.” Mrs. Daniels smiles and motions us out.
“It’s all right. I like seeing children in the kitchen. I’ve already got a four-year-old.” Mrs. Bradley pats her stomach. “And this one will be here in a few months. So I like the idea of a kitchen with children playing in it.” She looks around.
I debate telling her that there are dragons in the basement, ghosts in the walls, and ectoplasm in the attic.
“You’ve done a really nice job decorating.” Mrs. Bradley is looking in a cupboard, which has shelves that twirl around.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Daniels says. “We’ve really loved living here and hope that the next family loves it, too.”
I don’t want there to be a “next family” here.
I remember how we all sat around looking at wallpaper and stuff when the kitchen was being redone.
Mrs. Daniels said that since everyone in the house was going to see it every day, everyone could help decorate it. She also said that since I was practically a member of the family, I could help, too.
They didn’t pick the wallpaper that Justin and I wanted, baseball players.
Instead, there are flowers all over the wall.
Mrs. Bradley says, “If you don’t mind, I would like my husband to see this house soon.”
Soon. That sounds serious.
I can’t help myself. “I hope you don’t mind alligators in the toilet.”
Mrs. Bradley looks surprised and then she grins. “Alligators in the toilet. That’s quite a bonus.”
She and Mrs. Daniels look at each other and smile.
This is definitely not a good sign.
The grown-ups leave the room.
Justin, Danny and I continue playing cookie basketball.
We pretend that everything’s the same.
I try not to get too nervous. After all, a zillion people have seen the house and not bought it.
Maybe Mrs. Bradley’s husband will hate it. I hope I’m here when he looks at the house. I’ll be sure to mention giant termites.
Mrs. Daniel returns.
“Amber, would you like to stay for dinner tonight? I’ll call your mother and see if she wants to join us. We’ll order pizza.”
“Yes,” I say, feeling a little better.
This is something we do a lot, especially since my parents got a divorce.
I stay with the Danielses until my mom gets home from work and then sometimes we all eat together. Pizza is Justin’s and my favorite food group.
Mrs. Daniels gets on the phone.
My mother says yes.
Then Mrs. Daniels calls the pizza place. “Extra cheese, mushrooms, and sausage, please.”
Justin and I yell at the same time, “And hold the anchovies.”
Then we laugh, imagining what the guy looks like holding the anchovies.
And for a while, I forget that the house might get sold.
Chapter
Four
“Ka-thwonk. Ka-thwonk. Ka-thwonk.” Justin hops up and down as we walk out of the school.
I’m in a very good mood. I know that my finger crossing has worked because they haven’t heard from Mrs. Bradley.
I pretend that he’s acting perfectly normal. “So, Justin, what book are you doing for your report?”
“Ka-thwonk. Ka-thwonk. Ka-thwonk.” He hops around me, making a circle.
“I’ve never read that book. Who wrote it?” I tease him, trying to look him in the eye.
That’s not easy when someone is jumping up and down all around you.
For two more blocks, we walk along. I talk. Justin ka-thwonks and talks.
“I’m going to read Charlotte’s Web and then do a diorama.” I skip along.
“Diorama sounds like a disease that a boy sheep gets—Die . . . O . . . Ram . . . a. Ka-thwonk. Ka-thwonk.” Justin hops around me.
I try to step on his foot. “You’re acting so silly. You know we made dioramas when we did our reports on the pioneers. Stop hopping and talk to me.”
“Ka-thwonk. Ka-thwonk.” He jumps too fast for me to get him.
“Enough already.” I yell. “Stop that. You’re driving me crazy. WHAT are you doing?”
He stands still. “I’m practicing being a kangaroo to get ready for our trip to Australia. Mr. Cohen says that we have three weeks before we go.”
“You’re not planning on being a kangaroo for three more weeks, are you?” I shake my head. “Justin, sometimes you really are a nut case.”
Justin walks over to a tree and picks up a leaf from the ground. “No, actually I am planning to be a koala for part of the time.”
“Don’t.” I yell, just as he chews on a leaf.
Grinning, he puts a little more in his mouth.
“Justin Daniels. Stop that.” I shake my finger at him. “You don’t know what yucky bug has slithered on that leaf, or what bird has dropped something on it, or . . .”
“Stop.” Justin spits out the bits of leaf in his mouth.
I can’t seem to stop myself. I, Amber Brown, have what Mr. Cohen calls “an active imagination.”
“Or what dog came by while the leaf was on the ground . . .”
“That’s disgusting.” He makes a face.
I take a bow and continue. “Or if you’re eating poison ivy, or if you’ll catch Dutch elm disease, or whatever it was that my mom said our tree had.”
Justin shakes his head. “Amber Brown. You are such a worry wart.”
“I’m so worried that you just said that.” I stick my tongue out at him.
He twitches his nose and sticks his tongue out at me.
I wiggle my ears, twitch my nose and stick out my tongue at him.
Hannah Burton and Brandi Colwin walk past us.
We can hear Hannah say, “How immature.”
“Thank you.” We both yell at the same time and bow.
“SOOOOOO immature.” Hannah shakes her head.
Brandi grins at us and waves as they walk down the block.
“Ka-thwonk. Ka-thwonk.” Justin looks at me. “Want to race?”
“Sure.” I stand next to him. “On your mark . . . get set . . . hop.”
We hop all the way to his house.
“I win!” I yell as I get to the front of his house first.
Justin stops hopping.
I repeat. “I win. You know the rules. You have to say, ‘You win,’ and then you have to burp. Come on. You know that’s the way we always do it.”
He’s not saying anything.
He’s not burping.
He just keeps staring at something on his front lawn.
I turn to see what he’s staring at.
The FOR SALE sign on his front lawn has been covered by a SOLD sticker.
All of a sudden, I don’t feel very much like a winner.
Chapter
Five
“So where’s your boyfriend?” Jimmy comes up to my desk on Wednesday morning and teases me. “How come he hasn’t been in school for three days? Did he get sick of you?”
“Leave her alone,” Brandi tells him. “You’re being so mean. Mr. Cohen told you that Justin and his mom and brother flew to see Mr. Daniels and to look for a new house.”
I chew on a strand of my hair. “They got back real late last night. It was foggy or something and they couldn’t land right away and then they missed a connection or something and they didn’t get in until three in the morning. That’s what Mrs. Daniels told my mom when we called her this morning. She said that they were going to try to get some sleep.”
“Wow. That sounds SO exciting,” Brandi says. “Their trip, I mean, not the going-to-sleep part.”
“Yea. Exciting,” I say, in what my mother calls “Little Ms. Amber’s sarcastic voice.” Justin got to go on a REAL plane before I did. Life sure isn’t fair some days . . . some years.
Mr. Cohe
n flicks the lights off and on. “Continue working on your China project.”
I reach into the desk and pull out half of a peanut butter and M&M sandwich. I made it one day when my mother overslept and asked me to make my own lunch.
When I look at the sandwich, I think about the joke that Justin told me before he went away . . . about the person so dumb that he got fired from his job at the M&M factory for throwing away every piece of candy with a “W” on it.
I find the scrapbook under an overdue library book.
Looking through it, I realize that there’s a chance that Justin won’t even be here to finish it. Soon I may even be sending postcards to him.
I try working on the scrapbook, but it’s no use. I can’t. I’m too sad.
When I grow up and remember third grade, I’m going to immediately try to forget it.
This is definitely the worst year of my life . . . the very, very, very, very worst.
I thought it couldn’t get worse when my parents started fighting more than usual.
I thought it couldn’t get worse when my parents sat down with me at the kitchen table and told me that they were going to get a divorce.
For a long time after that, I felt sick to my stomach every time I sat down at that table.
I thought the year couldn’t get any worse when my father told me that his company was moving him to France for at least a year.
Things were just getting a little better and then I found out that Justin’s father got a great new job.
Justin and I begged him not to take it. Justin even offered to take a cut in his allowance. I even offered to give Mr. Daniels part of mine.
But no, he took the job. He said that it was an offer he couldn’t refuse, that it was a great promotion with lots more money.
I think that one of the worst days of my life was when the real estate lady put the FOR SALE sign on the Danielses’ lawn.
But then things got better, because months went by and no one bought it.
I did feel a little guilty being so happy that the house wasn’t sold but, to be absolutely honest, not all that guilty.
And now it’s happened.
Mrs. Bradley saw the house and wanted it. Then Mr. Bradley saw it and he wanted it, too, and they bought it.
I was positive that the day two weeks ago when we saw the SOLD sticker on the sign was the worst day of my life.
But that was only the beginning of worst days.
Justin and his mom have been so busy they haven’t even had much time for me.
Even though I still go over there, Mrs. Daniels is always packing.
And Justin will play, but he won’t talk about how they really are leaving.
I feel so sad just thinking about Justin leaving and try to think of something good about his going. (My mom always tells me to try to find at least one good thing in even a bad time.)
It takes a long while to think of one good thing, and then it comes to me.
When Justin leaves, I can store some of my stuff in his desk. That way I won’t have to clean up my desk.
As messy as I, Amber Brown, am, I would clean up my desk every day if only Justin could stay.
I try to think of other reasons to be glad that Justin is leaving, and I can’t think of one.
Justin’s being gone for the entire weekend plus two school days let me see what it’s going to be like when he really does leave.
And I really don’t like what I’m seeing . . . or what I’m feeling.
I, Amber Brown, am definitely one very unhappy human being.
Chapter
Six
I’m halfway through a worksheet on fractions when Justin walks into class.
I’m so glad, not only that he’s back but that he can help me to understand what to do with ?⁄6 = 2⁄3.
He sits down at his desk.
I hand him the box of wooden fraction pieces. “Welcome back.”
He smiles and then looks over at my worksheet. “The answer is ‘4.’”
Mr. Cohen comes over, hands him a worksheet and says, “Welcome back. How’s it going?”
“Great.” Justin reaches into his knapsack and pulls out a pencil with Alabama written on it. “This is for your collection, Mr. Cohen.”
Great? Great? Great, I think. Here I spent all of this time missing him and he says things are going great.
Justin smiles. “A lot happened.”
Leaning down, Mr. Cohen quietly asks Justin, “Later, would you like to tell the class about what’s happening? You certainly don’t have to, but if you want to, it might be fun to share.”
“Sure.” Justin nods.
As Mr. Cohen walks away, I wish that he hadn’t said that to Justin. I want Justin to tell me first, not to have everyone find out at the same time.
I look over at Justin.
He is doing the math work very quickly.
I look down at my math and then start chewing on my stub of a pencil.
It would have been nice if Justin had given me a new pencil, too.
Finished with his math, Justin picks up my paper and checks it out.
He finds two mistakes, shows me how to do it correctly and then helps me finish up.
Fractions are not my favorite thing.
In fact, they are one of my least favorite things. The only things I hate more are 1) Brussels sprouts, 2) watching kids pick their noses and eat the snot and 3) having people I love leave.
Mr. Cohen flicks the lights off and on. “Take a minute to finish the problem you’re working on and raise your hand if you want me to come over and explain anything. You can finish this up for homework.”
People finish up.
Since Justin and I are already done, we play tic-tac-toe.
I win.
We enter the win on a scorecard that Justin keeps in his desk.
We’ve been keeping track since the beginning of the school year.
I’m ahead. Two hundred and twenty to one hundred and ninety-nine.
The lights flick off and on.
“Clear your desks. Get ready to pay attention. Justin is going to tell us about his trip.”
Everyone gets ready, and Justin goes to the front of the room.
I’m sure that he’s not going to tell them everything, that there will be some stuff that he’ll just tell me.
Justin begins. “We left very early on Saturday morning.”
He’s wearing a brand-new sweatshirt, one that says “Alabama.”
Personally, I don’t like the sweatshirt.
I wish he had on a sweatshirt that I know.
He continues, “The airplane trip was really fun. Before the plane took off, the flight attendant let me go up front and see the cockpit and meet the pilot. They gave me wings to wear.”
“Like an angel,” Jimmy calls out. “So where’s your halo?”
“Jimmy.” Mr. Cohen uses his teacher “cut it out” voice.
“Wings.” Justin points to the pin on his sweatshirt. “And then we sat down and the plane went up and this lady in front of us threw up into the barf bag. . . .”
“Ewwww,” “yug,” “gross” and “yea” are a few of the comments from the class.
The comment from Mr. Cohen is “Justin. Continue, please—without all the gory details.”
Justin continues.
He talks about meeting his dad at the airport, about the motel they stayed at, with a game room, swimming pool, room service and everything.
Then he tells us how Mr. Daniels had been looking at lots of houses, and they all went around to check out the ones he liked best.
And they found one that they all liked.
They picked it out the first day.
I thought buying a house was supposed to take a long, long time.
Justin tells us how big the house is, how he and Danny are going to have their own rooms, how his mom said that he could put up baseball player wallpaper in his room and how there was a special area in the backyard with a basketball hoop.
Brandi gives Hannah’s arm a shove.
“What’s that for?” Hannah rubs her arm as if she’d been run over by a bulldozer. “I just asked a simple question.”
Brandi looks over at me.
I stare ahead as if nothing’s bothering me.
To prove that I’m not upset, I repeat Hannah’s question. “Any other kids there?”
Justin nods. “Lots. Next door, the family has five kids, two old enough to babysit for Danny, one my age, Jon—they call him Junior—and one Danny’s age, Jim Bob.”
“Twins?” Tiffany Shroeder asks.
“No.” Justin explains. “A lot of people there have two first names.
Great, I think. Next thing, we’re going to have to start calling him “Justin Bob.”
Justin goes on.
He tells us about the university where his dad works, how there’s a great game room there and how there’s lots of stuff to do.
Then he tells us about the school they visited, the school that is going to be his NEW school.
He goes on about how they not only have desks, but they have their own lockers, about how it was just built a few years ago, about how instead of just one third grade like we have at our school there are four third grades, how you don’t have to bring your own lunch because there’s a cafeteria that serves complete meals, how the school even has air conditioning.
Justin keeps blabbing on.
I keep waiting for him to mention the very important thing that his new school and neighborhood doesn’t have—ME.
But he never does.
Chapter
Seven
The Danielses’ house looks like a cyclone hit it, then a tornado, followed by an earthquake and finally a meteor fell on it.
“What a dump.” Mrs. Daniels looks around her kitchen.
There’s stuff all over the place. Pots. Pans. Dishes. Boxes of food. Spices.
The place is a real mess, kind of like my bedroom usually looks but not at all like the Danielses’ house looks normally.
But I guess there’s no more “normal” because everything’s getting packed.
Amber Brown Is Not a Crayon Page 2