Let's Pretend We Never Met

by Melissa Walker

“Why?”

  “She just sounds kind of younger.”

  I don’t say anything. I just look down at my feet.

  “Mattie, I don’t think you should go into school being friends with this girl,” says Lily.

  “Lily!”

  “I’m not trying to be mean, but you don’t know anyone else and you don’t want to have to walk in and have everyone think you’re like her. You’re not. She sounds really weird.”

  I realize Lily is voicing out loud the things I’ve been thinking in my head, but that makes me feel guilty. Agnes has been nice to me. Am I just supposed to ditch her?

  Chapter 8

  The first day of my new school life is a Wednesday, and I’m glad I don’t have to face a whole week. I look at my clothes for half an hour and end up in dark jeans and a white sweater with a cable-knit pattern. I slip Josh Jensen’s twine ring on my finger and give it a kiss for good luck, which is silly, but no one sees. For color, I add red ballet flats, and then pull on my purple puffy coat and try to avoid Mama as I walk out the door and yell, “Bye!” Daddy’s already left for work.

  But Mama isn’t having that. “Mattie, where do you think you’re going with those summer shoes on?”

  “They’re all-season,” I tell her, knowing I’ve already lost this battle.

  She holds up a finger. “Wait right there.”

  I think about making a break for it. I’ve got the door open and everything. But then she could call down to the doormen and have them stop me at the exit, which would be embarrassing.

  Mama comes back with white socks and my brown leather boots, which are actually pretty nice too. I kick off the flats and redo my footwear.

  “I wanted a pop of color,” I say, my voice sounding whiny even to me. Mama doesn’t cringe or criticize. She just goes back into the hallway and comes out with my bright-red headband.

  I smile at her and give her a hug, then I adjust my headband in the entryway mirror. My hair is halfway down my back, and the headband actually highlights that, I decide. Good.

  “I know you’re nervous, Mattie,” says Mama. “A new school is a big change. But you’ll do great.”

  “Thanks,” I say, patting her on the arm. I already gave her a hug, so that’s enough of this.

  “Want me to walk you to the bus stop?”

  “It’s right outside the building.”

  “I know,” says Mama. I notice that her hair is growing out, and it’s kind of messy—she usually keeps it really short and neat. Daddy always said she has a “classic face” that short hair looks good on, but he hasn’t said that in a while, not even on New Year’s Eve when she looked so pretty.

  “I can go by myself,” I tell her.

  “Are you going to knock for Agnes?” asks Mama.

  I nod yes. I’ve thought about this a lot, especially since I talked to Lily. I need to knock. I have to.

  “Good,” says Mama. Then she pauses, but I can tell she wants to say more. “Mattie, you’ve noticed that Agnes is . . . different.”

  I nod again, thinking about all the things I told Lily. But I don’t have to explain to Mama about the weirdness—she already knows.

  “Well,” she says. “It’s just . . .” Mama can’t seem to finish what she starts saying, and I’m in a rush.

  So I say, “I’m gonna meet all kinds of different kids here, right?”

  “True,” says Mama. “But . . . Agnes might be more different.”

  I look at the clock behind Mama. Why is she bringing this up now and making me feel all sweaty?

  “I’m going to knock for Agnes,” I say.

  She gives me a smile that looks half-happy and half-sad as I close the door. I stand still for a second—I’m more nervous than ever about whether Agnes will be weird at school. But I don’t want to go alone.

  I knock on 914.

  No answer.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  I lean my ear against the door, waiting to hear footsteps. But there’s no sound.

  Bang, bang. I knock harder.

  Nothing.

  Maybe Agnes already left. The knot in my stomach tightens. Would she go without me?

  I spring for the elevator, heading down to the lobby and waving to Doorperson Jessica as I push through the front doors and out into the winter air, which hits my face with a smack! I look to my left, where the bus comes. There are three kids there—two boys in green football jackets and one girl in a tan coat that looks like something an adult would wear, all long with buttons and a pointed collar.

  No Agnes.

  I glance at the doors to the building. I can’t go back in now.

  The cold air forms a white frosty stream from my mouth as I take a deep breath and let it out. This sure isn’t North Carolina.

  Then I smile, because Maeve told me that smiling, even when you don’t feel like it, can actually make you happier. And I walk toward the bus stop.

  As I get near, the boys start whispering to each other, but I don’t think it’s about me. They’re focused on something around the side of the building, and when I look closer, I can tell that it’s part of a bird’s nest on the ground near the bushes.

  I lean over to see more, and the girl in the tan coat says, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Birds are flying rats, and they have a ton of diseases.”

  I look back at her, and her ice-blue eyes make my next step unsteady.

  “Are there any babies in there?” I ask.

  She just clucks her tongue and turns around, making her long brown ponytail flick at me, so I look to the boys.

  “Just one baby,” says the taller one, who has pink cheeks and a buzz cut and big front teeth. He points a long, thin arm toward the entrance of Butler Towers. “She said not to touch it.”

  I turn. Through the doors, Agnes is emerging in streaks of color. Her pink scarf trails behind her as she skips toward us in a bright-blue jacket and yellow corduroys. Her sneakers are the same pink as her scarf, and her short hair is improbably filled with tiny barrettes in all shades of the rainbow.

  “Mattie!” she shouts. “We’re saving a baby bird! I went upstairs to see what I could find out online and to get these.” She holds up a pair of binoculars. “We’re supposed to watch the nest from afar because her mom and dad will probably come back soon.”

  When she gets to us, she moves toward the nest past the boys, gesturing for me to follow her. Then she looks down at my hand. “You’re wearing your ring!” she says, and I’m glad she noticed.

  But then I hear the loud engine of the bus and the squeal of its brakes as the door opens for us.

  “The bus . . . ,” I say.

  “Mattie, this is a life we’re talking about. A baby bird. We can’t leave her alone—we need to wait for her parents.”

  I look over at the other kids, who are all staring at us.

  “You’d better not miss your first day of school,” says the blue-eyed girl.

  The boys shrug and start up the steps, and I stand there looking back and forth, between rainbow Agnes and the big yellow bus.

  “You gettin’ on, hon?” asks the old-lady bus driver. She doesn’t look at Agnes.

  I imagine myself staying here with Agnes, missing the bus on purpose and waiting at Butler Towers to watch a baby bird. I think of Mama and her messy hair and chipped nails and half smile.

  “I can’t skip,” I tell Agnes.

  And then I step onto the bus and don’t look back.

  Chapter 9

  My teacher, Mr. Perl, thinks he’s funny. But not because of his giant square glasses or his shaved head or even his wide red tie, which are the things I find funny about him.

  “Mattie Maeve Markham, meet my minions!”

  This is how he introduces me to a classroom full of strangers. The desks are arranged in groups of five—four facing one another in a square and one on the end, hanging off. There’s a group that has just four kids at the five desks, so I join them, and guess which desk I get? The sore thumb.

  Ag
nes’s empty desk is easy to spot across the room because it has colored masking tape around its edges in a thick border, and part of me is glad that I don’t have the option of sitting near her. Would I sit in her group if I could? Now I don’t have to decide.

  I look down at the brown carpet as I walk over to my desk—it’s hard to take in twenty new faces at once, and I can feel them all staring at me. I put my backpack on the floor because I haven’t been assigned a locker yet.

  You’d think schools would understand how hard this midyear starting can be on a kid and they’d set you up ahead of time, like with a real locker and a teacher who doesn’t shout out your full name like a kook. But oh well.

  I’m half wishing I were at home with Agnes, making a new nest for a baby bird out of rainbow string or something, when the girl to my left leans over to me.

  “I’m Shari,” she says, her long brown braids brushing my desk as she whispers and points. “That’s Diego and Finn and Bryce.”

  Bryce has flaming red hair and pale skin and a laugh like a horse’s neigh—I heard it in the hallway when I first walked into school. Even sitting down, I can tell that Diego is sporty looking, like maybe he plays soccer, and his lips stretch wide across his face. Finn is the tall, skinny boy from the bus stop.

  “Hi, bird lover,” he says, smiling at me, and the way he says it isn’t mean or anything. It’s kind of nice. It makes me wish I’d sat near him on the bus instead of jumping into the first open seat I saw without looking around at anyone.

  “Hey,” I say back.

  “You guys know each other?” Shari whispers.

  “She’s at my bus stop,” says Finn, and I notice that his brown eyes look like a deer’s or something, all soft and open. And his teeth aren’t as big as I thought at first.

  “Oh.” Shari sits back in her seat. “Well, I’m glad you’re here—what was your name again?”

  “Mattie,” I say.

  “Right, Mattie. Now there’s another girl at the table at least.”

  “Team Four!” says Mr. Perl. “I trust you can chat with our new friend at lunch. For now, eyes on me.”

  Everyone turns to face the board, where Mr. Perl is drawing a jagged-edged rectangle.

  “This is the state of Pennsylvania,” he says. “We’re going to learn everything there is to know about our home this month.”

  Our home? My home still feels far away. But at least Finn is being nice to me, and so is Shari. Sort of. I think.

  I glance at the side of Shari’s face and wonder if she’s going to be a friend. She has pretty hair and she seems outgoing, so those are two pluses. I remember what Lily said about me being quiet, and I don’t want anyone to think that about me this year.

  But I also don’t want to get in trouble with the teacher, so I look down and open up my notebook to start learning about the great old state of Pennsylvania.

  After school, I walk past where the bird’s nest was, but I don’t see it on the ground. I hurry inside—it’s cold here!—and when I get up to my apartment I let the door slam behind me. I smell gingerbread cookies baking.

  “Mama!”

  She’s wearing her favorite blue-striped apron and her hair is pulled back in a headband like mine.

  “You look nice,” I say.

  “I had a job interview!” Her eyes are bright and she seems more like herself than she has since we got here. “It was at this beautiful downtown bakery—the space is an old bus depot.” She stops and looks at me. “Oh, but listen to me going on—how was your first day, baby?”

  I sit at the counter and reach for a gingerbread lady from the cooling rack. I bite off one arm and smile at Mama. “It was good,” I say. And I mean it. The knot that was in my stomach this morning is gone.

  Shari asked me to sit with her friends at lunch, and we talked about the TV shows we like—they’re all into the new season of America Sings!, which is my favorite. Shari and I even got shushed while we were walking together in the hallway because we were laughing too loudly after she tripped over her shoelace. I’ve never been shushed by a teacher before. Plus, Finn sat behind me on the bus home and told me a joke about a duck kissing a chicken—it made my face get warm. I’ve never had a boy pay attention to me before. Lots of things happened that usually only happen to other girls.

  Mama leans in on her elbows. “Talk to me,” she says.

  Knockknockknock.

  I stop chewing. “It’s Agnes.”

  Mama smiles and straightens up. “I know. Didn’t you just leave her?”

  “She wasn’t at school.” I’m not sure what to tell Mama. I don’t want to get Agnes in trouble. And I don’t want to talk about Agnes right now. I want to talk about my day and Shari, and I might even mention Finn if Mama keeps being cool.

  “Is she all right?” asks Mama.

  “Yeah, she just stayed home today.”

  Mama frowns slightly, but then she smiles at me. “Okay. Want me to tell her it’s mother-daughter hour?”

  I nod, saying, “Not those words, though,” and she goes to the door while I stay out of sight. Agnes keeps trying—I hear her telling Mama that I need to come down with her and see the baby bird immediately. Mama’s voice stays sweet while she says to Agnes that I’ll talk to her later.

  When she clicks the door shut, she lets out a big breath.

  Then Mama comes back and unties her apron, sitting next to me and breaking the tail off of a gingerbread cat.

  She leans in again. “Tell me everything.”

  Chapter 10

  Agnes couldn’t save the nest for the baby bird—it was too broken—but she got a strawberry carton and filled it with a soft washcloth and then some pine needles and leaves for the bird to rest on. She tucked it up in the tree near where the nest was, and the parents did actually come back! Even so, Agnes keeps saying she wants to wait until she sees the baby bird fly. She’s got a stakeout position with binoculars, and I think she maybe stays there all day. Doorperson Jessica even brought her a folding chair to sit on. “I’m observing like a scientist,” Agnes said, and she showed me a giant chart she’s making about the birds’ feeding patterns.

  This all means that she isn’t at school for the whole three-day week. I guess her mom is okay with that. So am I.

  I sit with Shari and her friends Emily and Robin again at lunch on Thursday and Friday. Finn tells me he has an uncle in North Carolina who’s a Wolfpack fan. They’re a rival college basketball team—my family roots for the Tar Heels—but it’s fun to have something to joke around about. Plus, I think he likes that I know about sports.

  Diego and Bryce are really nice too, and it seems like I might have some friends who are boys, which is something else I haven’t had since, like, kindergarten. It makes me feel older, and cool, to have a mix of girl and guy friends. Maybe when you’re the new girl it’s easier for boys to be friends with you. There’s no one here who knows that when I was in first grade I got sick on Halloween and barfed all over my ruby-red Dorothy shoes.

  Now I’m eleven. I wear soft sweaters and jeans and boots and my hair is long and maybe even as pretty as Shari’s on good hair days. She tells me her parents are from “the islands,” which sounds really cool, and she has, like, twenty separate braids that swish and swing. I’ve watched how she flips her hair over her shoulder, and I’m starting to do it too, but in my own way so it doesn’t seem like I’m copying.

  The only bad part has been Marisa, the girl with the ice-blue eyes from the bus stop, who kind of turns her head away from me whenever I’m near her. I’ve noticed that Shari says hi to her in the hallway, but it doesn’t seem like they’re actual friends, so I can mostly just ignore Marisa. I’m glad too, because she has this dark look on her face that hovers like a rain cloud.

  On Friday—after telling us about Andy Warhol, this artist who grew up in Pennsylvania and went on to be a really big deal by painting pictures of cans and famous people—Mr. Perl asks if anyone knows where Agnes has been this week. I don’t say anything. B
ut when the rest of the class files out to go to the art room, I stay behind and tell Mr. Perl that Agnes is watching over a baby bird, and that I’m helping. I did sit with her to watch a feeding yesterday after school—it was kind of neat. Agnes said the parents were bringing the baby insect larvae.

  Mr. Perl smiles and tells me he’ll send Agnes’s work home with me.

  Later that afternoon, when the bell rings, I pretend to study the calendar on the wall of the classroom so I can wait until everyone leaves before I collect Agnes’s papers.

  “Let’s not let her fall behind,” says Mr. Perl as he hands me a big brown envelope. “That Agnes is special.”

  When I get back to the apartment I hear Mama talking on the phone. I freeze in the entry.

  “. . . can’t stay at home every day.”

  Pause.

  “I respect that, and the doormen are certainly responsible people, but I don’t know that it’s—”

  Pause.

  “I’m glad she’s seeing someone, and I understand that she needs her own time, but Agnes isn’t an adult, and I’m concerned that—”

  Pause. Agnes’s mother is an interrupter.

  “Okay, then. Okay. Good-bye.”

  I peek around the corner. “Hi.”

  Mama is still looking at her phone like it confused her, but she snaps out of it quickly.

  “Oh, honey, I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Was that Mrs. Davis?”

  “Yes,” says Mama. But then she puts down the phone and asks if I want a snack, so I know she doesn’t want to tell me what they were saying.

  Knockknockknock.

  I think Agnes can hear when I get home. Mama lets me bring my yogurt squeeze pack with me and when I hand over Agnes’s homework, I tell her that my mom talked to her mom about her missing school.

  She doesn’t even care.

  “It’s okay, Mattie,” she says. “My mom understands. She’s very present.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask.

  “It means that when she’s working, she’s focused there. But at home she’s all about me. She has good balance, and she’s making sure I do too.”