It's Only Temporary

by Sally Warner

  “I don’t get why those football guys even care about us,” Skye said, shaking her head. “When my brother was in middle school, he and his friends never paid attention to any younger kids. They were too busy messing around and stuff.”

  “I didn’t know you had a brother, Skye,” Maddy said, her brown eyes widening in surprise. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that?”

  Because Scott was one of her syndromes, that was why, Skye thought, not meeting Maddy’s curious gaze.

  “Well,” Amanda said, ignoring both the subject of Skye’s brother and Maddy’s question, “I don’t know why they’re picking on us. Maybe they’re bored, or maybe they just hate anyone who’s different from them.”

  Scott and Maddy, Skye thought immediately. They were different, too, and they always would be, at least a little, and people would judge them – and maybe even be mean to them – because they were different.

  And it wasn’t a temporary thing for them.

  “I can do something about it,” she heard herself say.

  All the art kids looked at her in silence for a second. “Yeah, right,” Pip finally said, laughing.

  “No, I mean it,” Skye told him – and the others. “I can. Because we’re in charge of the Homecoming newspaper they’re giving out at half-time, right?”

  A couple of the kids nodded.

  “Well, you know that insert that’s going to be inside the newspaper?” Skye asked. “The one with all the football players’ individual pictures in it?”

  “Yes,” Amanda said cautiously. “I heard everyone gets the players to sign the pictures, and then kids tape them inside their lockers – as if those guys were rock stars!”

  “Like they aren’t getting enough attention already,” Pip said, outraged.

  “And the school might even put the insert in the yearbook this year – for the very first time,” Jamila reported.

  “Not when I get done with it, they won’t,” Skye said. “’Cause I’m gonna do a job on the mean guys’ pictures. You know, fix them up a little – or draw whole new ones and sneak them in. I mean, those guys are messing with us because they think we don’t have any way of getting back at them, right? So this’ll teach them a lesson.”

  “You could do that?” Matteo asked, sounding skeptical.

  “Yeah, like what are you gonna do?” Jamila chimed in. “Draw mustaches on their pictures? ’Cause that’s just lame.”

  “I can do better than that,” Skye said, sliding her sketchbook out of her book bag. Her heart was pounding as she mentally reviewed the drawings inside it: there were those really mean drawings of Scott she’d done last summer when she was still so angry with him, not that any of these kids knew Scott. But there was also that drawing of Pip that made him look freakishly flexible and thin, like some kind of mutant, and the one of Jamila wearing the world’s goofiest smile, and the one that made Matteo look like a sumo wrestler on a bad day, and the one of Amanda that made her look like she was made entirely out of twisted party balloons.

  And then there was the drawing of Maddy – made just a week after Skye had arrived in Sierra Madre – that made her look completely out of it, as if her brain was totally empty. That drawing would” hurt the most, Skye knew, suddenly ashamed. You could draw a bad picture of anyone, really – especially when you didn’t know them.

  “Let me show you a couple of drawings, just so you can get the idea,” Skye said. “But you have to back up a little, ’cause this is private. It’s like my journal.” She hurriedly selected a few harmless pages to show them, and the art kids were quiet for a moment.

  “Hey, those are pretty good,” Amanda said, surprised.

  “They’re really good,” Matteo said, leaning in close to get a better look. “But do you think you could draw those actual guys? So people could recognize them, I mean?”

  Skye nodded. “I can try,” she said. “I’ll just make ’em look a little more… interesting.”

  “Great!” Pip said, looking hopeful for the first time all day. “Revenge! This could really, really work, Skye – if you can make those guys look bad in front of everyone. We’ll teach ’em what happens when they mess with us art jerks.”

  “Teach who not to mess with whom?” Ms. O’Hare said as she backed into the room holding a cookie sheet.

  “Oh, nothing,” Amanda, Matteo, and Pip said in unison.

  “Well, I made you some quesadillas on the hot-plate in the teachers’ lounge,” Ms. O’Hare said, grinning, “because I know how hungry you kids get after school. But use plenty of paper towels when you clean up, okay? Because we don’t want to leave any fingerprints on anything.”

  “We’ll try not to leave fingerprints,” Pip promised, and all the art jerks knew exactly what he was talking about.

  But Skye had the distinct and suddenly sinking feeling the only “fingerprints” on this stunt were going to be hers.

  Dear Scott, Help!!! I got carried away and came up with a way to get even with the football guys, only I’m probably going to get in trouble for it. But I have to do it! Maddy thinks I definitely will get in trouble, but she says she will back me up, no matter what. That’s Maddy.

  I wish you were here to give me some advice. Remember the good old days when we were kids? Remember your Radio Flyer wagon?? I could use another ride in it about now.

  Love, Skye

  P.S. Mystery drawing number three! It has teeth at one end and what looks like a mouth at the other end. What do you think? Is someone trying to tell me something?

  16

  Special Edition

  Pip strode into the almost empty art activities room ten minutes after school ended, as the muffled thump thump of the school band’s drums floated in from the playing field. The game was about to begin, and the special edition of the Homecoming newspaper he’d just turned in to the parent volunteers would be given out at halftime.

  Skye planned to be long gone by then.

  “Did you do it?” Amanda asked in her squeaky voice. “Did they notice anything was wrong with the insert?”

  Pip shook his head. “It’s not like they would,” he told the nervous group of kids. “It’s on the inside, and Skye only changed four little pictures. Besides, everyone is gonna be too busy watching the game to check out the paper for at least another hour. It’s not like they think anything in it is really news.”

  “Those guys are going to be so sorry,” Amanda whispered, narrowing her eyes in gleeful anticipation. “This’ll teach them to be mean to us for no reason.”

  “And it’s not like they didn’t already get a lot of attention today,” Pip chimed in. “I mean, when is Amelia Ear-hart ever gonna have a special assembly just for artists? When are we going to get to walk across the stage while everyone whistles and claps? And we’re the ones with talent. All they ever did was grow.”

  “I’ve never heard of anyone clapping for artists,” Jamila said, frowning. “Even other artists don’t clap for artists, I don’t think.”

  “I wonder what Ms. O’Hare is going to say?” Skye asked, her voice tight with sudden worry – because Skye really liked Ms. O’Hare. She was like a cross between an actual artist, a cool older sister, a hippie aunt, and a grown-up friend.

  “Where is Ms. O’Hare, anyway?” Maddy asked, looking around nervously, as if their art teacher might suddenly materialize next to the cutting board or near the giant roll of butcher paper.

  “She’s at the game,” Pip said, shrugging. “I guess she loves football.”

  “I need to go home,” Skye announced, trying to keep her voice steady. “Gran’s expecting me.”

  “I’m going with you,” Maddy said.

  “Well, okay,” Pip told them. “But you guys have to come to the Homecoming dance tonight, because we can’t act like we’re scared of what’s gonna happen after Aaron and the other guys see the paper. We gotta see this thing through.”

  “Ooh,” Amanda said under her breath.

  “I am kind of scared,” Skye admitted, stunn
ed that she hadn’t thought past that triumphant moment when the mean football guys opened the Homecoming paper at half-time in their locker room and saw those drawings they – she – had done of them. When they saw how the art jerks had taken their revenge.

  But Skye did feel a little bad about having included Kee – maybe-nice Kee? secret artist Kee? – in that act of revenge, she realized suddenly. Because what had Kee done, except to choose the wrong friends?

  But that in itself was a pretty dumb thing to do. Just look at Scott.

  “I’m scared, too,” Maddy announced. “I’m extremely scared.”

  “But you guys are gonna be at the dance, right?” Pip asked everyone again. “We can’t hide out forever. We have to get this over with.”

  “I’ll be there,” Skye said, nodding reluctantly.

  “Well, my mother said I can’t go to the dance,” Maddy said, sounding matter-of-fact and more than a little relieved. “She says it isn’t appropriate for sixth-graders to go to the same dance as eighth-grade kids, because of the differences in their levels of development.”

  The art jerks digested this starchy and complicated bit of news in silence.

  “But Amelia Earhart is too poor to put on three separate dances,” Amanda told everyone. “I know, ’cause my mom’s on the PTA committee. But that’s why even the older kids aren’t supposed to bring dates. ‘It’s not that kind of party,’ quote unquote. It’s just supposed to be everybody getting together and having fun.”

  “Ha,” Pip said.

  “Well,” Jamila reported, “my mama says I’m not allowed to go to the dance, either, and I don’t even care. All that sweating and grinding! I don’t think so.”

  “My mom says grinding’s not going to be allowed at Amelia Earhart,” Amanda assured Jamila solemnly. “Kids will have to keep at least one balloon distance apart while they dance. But I’m gonna try to have fun,” she added, her eyes shining.

  “Me, too,” Pip said, sliding her a look.

  “Me three,” Matteo chimed in.

  “Well, Maddy and I have to leave,” Skye told everyone, since they clearly weren’t getting anywhere with this conversation. “So, bye.” She looked around the art activities room, wondering if there was something she was forgetting. This had been the craziest day ever.

  “Come on, Skye,” Maddy told her, uncharacteristically impatient. “My mother doesn’t like to be kept waiting for extended periods of time.”

  “See you tonight,” Amanda said to Skye.

  “Let’s meet here in front of the cafeteria, okay?” Pip suggested. “At seven thirty? So we can walk into the gym together?” He sounded nervous for the first time.

  “Okay,” Skye said, feeling sorry for him – and for herself too, she supposed numbly, because who knew what was going to happen at that dance?

  She was probably just frazzled, Skye told herself, but she kept thinking she was forgetting something.…

  But Pip was right, she knew; they had to see this through. They had to get it over with. “C’mon, Maddy,” she said softly. “Let’s go home.”

  17

  Butterflies

  “We’re going the wrong way,” Maddy observed as they walked east, rather than west, along Grand-view Avenue. “I don’t want my mother to start worrying.”

  “I just want to spy on the game for a minute,” Skye said, heading for the chain-link fence that separated Amelia Earhart’s playing field from the street.

  A school bus – for the Thomas Alva Edison football team, Skye figured – was parked next to the curb, and parents’ cars were crammed closely together, filling all the rest of the available parking spaces.

  This game really was a big deal, Skye realized, looking through the chain link at the crowd of people that had assembled, and new butterflies fluttered in her stomach. “Squeeze in between the bus and the Audi,” she whispered to Maddy, as though the noisy throng of people far across the field somehow might otherwise hear her.

  “Okay,” Maddy said, crowding in close behind Skye. “But I don’t know what we’re looking for.”

  Neither did Skye, for that matter, but she had never been to a middle-school football game before, and she was curious.

  Amelia Earhart’s all-purpose playing field had been spruced up for this occasion, with colorful bunches of balloons everywhere. The field had only one long stretch of bleachers, on the other side of the field, and half the seats were filled with Thomas Alva Edison boosters, while the other half was jammed with Amelia Earhart fans.

  The school band milled around one end of the bleachers–getting ready for halftime, Skye guessed, which was also when the newspaper would be given out. Assorted practice drum rolls and horn bleats floated their way across the field, over the heads of the players, who seemed to be waiting for a decision to be made toward one end of the field while their coaches stalked back and forth like outraged flamingos along the sidelines, and competing cheerleaders shook their pom-poms in each others’ direction.

  The panorama stretched in front of Skye and Maddy like a movie scene. The football players looked kind of small from where she and Maddy were lurking, Skye thought, almost feeling sorry for them.

  But no, the guys who’d been bullying them deserved what was going to happen, she told herself sternly. And anyway, it was too late to change things now.

  At the opposite side of the field, in front of the bleachers, were strung a few long benches where the extra football players sat, though a few players in front of the benches were stretching and running in place like windup toys.

  And behind them sat Aaron, Cord, Danko, and Kee, helmets in their laps. Although she was staring across the width of the field, Skye could see them as clear as anything. It was as though her vision was suddenly super-powerful.

  “That’s the offense sitting on the bench,” Maddy informed her. “I guess Thomas Alva Edison is about to score, that’s what the problem is. Our defense is trying to stop them.”

  “How do you know all that?” Skye asked, astonished, turning halfway around to stare at her friend.

  Maddy shrugged. “I watch a lot of football with my dad,” she explained. “It’s a very interesting game.”

  Skye turned her gaze back to the field – and then the butterflies stopped fluttering for a moment. “Oh, no,” she whispered.

  “What?” Maddy whispered back.

  “They’re handing out the newspaper now” Skye said. “To the players on the sidelines, anyway. Too early! Too early!”

  And the scene unfolded in what seemed to Skye like slow motion: the floppy stack of newspapers – complete with inserts – made its way down the football players’ benches. Win or lose, receiving this newspaper – getting this honor – was supposed to be the players’ supreme moment of glory, Skye realized, suddenly feeling sick.

  The Amelia Earhart players – including Aaron, Cord, Danko, and Kee – opened the papers casually, not wanting to seem too eager to see their own faces.

  And then the guffaws rippled up and down the benches as other players saw the insert for the first time. Many of the boys got to their feet, trying to catch a glimpse of the look on the faces of the four players Skye had drawn.

  And in spite of how far away she stood, Skye could see Aaron’s head bend low over the opened paper as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  Cord threw the paper onto the grass in front of him, disgusted.

  Danko sat perfectly still, staring at the ground.

  And Kee seemed to be looking straight across the field at Maddy and Skye.

  He couldn’t actually see them, could he?

  “Quick,” Skye told Maddy. “Behind the bus!”

  “But then we’ll be in the street,” Maddy pointed out, her brown eyes wide with alarm. “And we could get run over.”

  “Just do it,” Skye cried, and the two girls virtually oozed around the bus in their attempt to escaped Kee’s steady gaze.

  Skye peeked around the corner of the bus one last time. The crowd in the bleache
rs was murmuring now like a single giant beast, curious about what was happening down on the sidelines – but the fistfuls of newspapers now being handed out in the stands soon filled everyone in. Skye could hear the laughter build from where she stood.

  And Aaron, Cord, Danko, and Kee just sat there.

  Dear Scott, Well, I drew the cartoons of those football guys, and we sneaked them into the newspaper, all right. Now everyone has seen them. And it’s hard to explain, but I feel really bad about the whole thing.

  But tonight I have to go to that dance. I have no choice.

  (One of the boys I drew – Kee Williams – is probably the mystery artist! And maybe he’s not so bad, after all. But I can’t turn back the clock.)

  I can’t believe this is happening to me! Wish me luck tonight. Love, Skye

  HI SKYE, WE ARE ONLIN AT THE SAME TIME, HAHAHA! ONLY I AM WORRIT ABOT THAT DANCE, YOU SHOUD TELL GRAN MABE OR JUST STAY HOME. WHY DO U HAVE 2 GO??? U ALWAS HAVE A CHOCE. ALMOST ALWAS ANYWAYS. WRITE ME WHEN U GET BACK I WILL WATE UP 2 HEAR. I HATE THOSE GUYS EVEN KEE LOVE SCOTT

  18

  The Turkey Trot

  “You look absolutely adorable, Skye,” Gran said, beaming her approval.

  “Thanks,” Skye said, fidgeting with the square neckline of the one dress she’d brought with her to Sierra Madre.

  “You’re going to have the greatest time,” Gran promised.

  “If you say so,” Skye said, trying not to sound too gloomy.

  “You seem to have made lots of new friends at Amelia Earhart,” Gran pointed out, sticking to the McPhee family tradition of focusing on the positive, no matter what. “You’ll have to invite them over sometime,” she added, smiling.