by Suzy Becker
“Yeah, but I’m not counting on her coming. Remember, she doesn’t do …”
“I’m coming,” Fern says.
“You’ll be there, Peanut, but it’s a party for older girls,” my mom says. “Have you thought about what you want to do at your party, Kate?”
“Things you do at slumber parties.” I’ve only been to one, after a pool party, and we were all so tired we actually went to sleep. I don’t want mine to be like that.
“It’s been a very long time since I went to my last slumber party. You’ll have to consult with your sister Robin.”
“What’s a slumber?” Fern asks.
“Slumber is sleep,” I tell her.
“A sleep party?” she says. “That sounds boring.”
Hui Zong is coming over so we can finish our Maryland project for Monday. We’ve decided to make a model of the port of Baltimore.
This is Hui Zong’s first time making salt dough and I can’t talk her out of tasting it.
While the port is baking, we make the ships, ducks, and buildings. Hui Zong cuts a lot of grass, and I suggest broccoli for the trees.
“Won’t they smell?” she asks.
“Not if we don’t cook them.”
Dad is in and out of the kitchen a hundred times. (Translation: His writing is not going well.)
It takes way longer than we thought to make the port.
We leave it in the laundry room to dry and go up to my room to work on our report.
Lord Baltimore Sr., Jr., III, and IV (played by Hui Zong) are going to tell the history, including how we Marylanders generously gave our land to make the nation’s capitol, Washington, D.C., in 1791. Then I, Kit, am going to talk about a typical day in the life of colonial Marylanders, including the Indians.
“I was thinking Kit and Lord Baltimore should have a scene together at the end,” Hui Zong says.
“Nothing romantic,” I say, just making sure. “Maybe a scene at the port.”
Hui Zong writes the first line of this last scene: “Ahh, this port we call Baltimore.”
We go on like that for two sides of a page. I write “The End.” Then Hui Zong and I do our Maryland handshake.
After dinner, Dad grabs Bob and picks. “ ‘I always tell the truth,’ Stella replies. ‘Although I sometimes confuse the facts.’ ” It’s by another Katherine, Katherine Applegate. “It’s one of yours, Kate.”
My face is red. I put that in, back when I used to tell the truth.
Robin comes in and sits on the edge of the tub while I finish going to the bathroom. “Nora was at the field hockey tournament today.” Robin is looking at me; I’m not sure why. Nora is always at the field hockey tournaments. “Nora took my horse. She had it with her.”
“Maybe she has one just like it,” I say. “I mean, she wouldn’t steal your horse and then play with it in front of you.”
“I can get Mom to talk to Mrs. Klein—”
“Please don’t. I’ll talk to Nora,” I say. “Can I please have some privacy?”
“If you’re so concerned with privacy, you and your friends should keep out of my room!”
It’s the first week of October. We have only been in school for one month. Babies are brand-new when they are one month old, but there is nothing new about school. Maybe school months are like dog years—all I know is this is going to be an extra-long day.
“Hi, Gene!” I say. I sit behind Nora and tap her sweatshirt shoulder. “I was thinking, do you want to come over today, on purpose? We can do homework, if you want.”
“Popcorn?”
“Definitely.”
Nora walks Brooke and me to our lockers.
“Robin saw her with the horse at field hockey,” I tell Brooke. “Now she thinks Nora stole it.”
“Ta-da! I’m innocent!” Brooke slams her locker shut. “Sorry. What’re you going to do?”
“Tell Nora the truth. She’s coming over after school.”
“Ooh, bet you can’t wait!” Brooke says.
“Morning, girls! New seating chart today! Upside-down horseshoe—it’s a symbol of good luck!” Mrs. Block greets us at the door. It takes a minute to find my desk. “You’re with your colonial buddy—perfect for today’s presentations!”
Colin and his mother walk in next, lugging his colonial project. “OH NO!” I say.
I go to Mrs. Block’s desk. “I left my project at home. Can I please call my dad?” Our school has a strict policy about kids forgetting assignments. “I know, it is my responsibility and I have to accept the consequences, but Hui Zong should not. It’s her project, too. Please?” Mrs. B. hands me the phone.
I have a hard time concentrating on everyone else’s report until Mrs. B. gets the call from the office.
Mrs. B. skipped Maryland while I was gone, and Brooke and Colin are literally in the middle of Boston’s Freedom Trail when I return.
I kind of want to laugh. Everyone else is, but I can’t see Brooke’s face. Then I hear her snort, and I can’t help myself. Mrs. Block helps the two of them up. “Hui Zong and Kate, you’re next. Why don’t you get ready while I make some repairs to the Freedom Trail,” she suggests.
Our report begins well. The Lord Baltimore and Kit parts go exactly like we practiced them.
Then on Lord Baltimore’s cue: “Ahh, this port we call Baltimore …”
I take off the lid and hold up the port.
“How does it feel looking out on all of this, all … all ruined by my dog?!” I am considering crying when I hear Brooke snort again.
Hui Zong is very professional. She doesn’t miss a line. And Mrs. B. is very professional. She says, “I am impressed with how my fifth graders are rolling with the unexpected this morning.”
We change into our regular clothes. “I am so, so, so, so-to-the-thirty-ninth sorry, Hui Zong,” I say.
“That’s okay, Kate. It doesn’t change my opinion of your dog.” She makes a bad face. “And it doesn’t change my opinion of you.” She puts out her right hand and we do the Maryland handshake.
After Thomas and Eliza wrap up their Virginia report, we go to lunch.
Brooke is removing the soggy “lettuce” from her sandwich. Eliza is buying chocolate milk. My to-do list is running through my head.
“If I invited the whole pod to my birthday party, do I still need to send invitations?”
“Totally,” Brooke says. “If you want presents. Or else the parents might think it’s a Junior Guide thing, like a Fall Camp-In or something.”
“Maybe that’s what we should do, camp for my slumber party—”
“Nora?” Brooke says.
“I thought she was off the list,” Eliza says. We spot Nora eating her lunch at her usual table.
“We’re trying to get her back on.…” Brooke stops and looks at me. “Aren’t we?”
I nod. It kind of depends on what happens this afternoon, but Eliza doesn’t know anything about the horse project.
“Then we should ask her to sit with us,” Eliza says. “She is actually funny. I like being her partner in Junior Guides.”
The Nora I know would sit with us if she felt like it, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to ask.
Brooke returns to party planning. “I think you’ve got to go with a Halloween theme, Kate.” And that’s as far as we get because our table is dismissed for recess.
I am sitting behind Nora again.
“You told your mom about coming over?” I ask, and the hood nods.
The truth is about to come out. But not on the bus. “I don’t suppose I could interest you in helping to plan a party you’re not planning to come to,” I say after a while.
“Who said I wasn’t coming?”
Excuse me? “I don’t do birthday parties?!” I say, and stop myself from imitating her snoring.
“Oh, that was before,” she says.
At our house, my dad gives Nora another big greeting. And this time Rocky comes up with one, too. I stand back.
“Dad, did you notice anythi
ng unusual about Baltimore before you put it in the box?”
Rocky is sitting beside Dad and the two of them are looking at me innocently.
“He,” I say, pointing at Rocky, “ruined it.”
“I think he— Well, we paid for it. He must’ve had six bowls of water and gone out five times last night. Salt dough—nasty stuff!” My dad rubbed Rocky’s belly. “Bring the port home, we’ll restore it.”
“It’s in the dumpster.”
“Then I suggest you two make up and move on,” my dad says.
I take Rocky into the laundry room. We look each other in the eyes and I say “Never again” as we shake. Trouble with Rocky is, it’s always something, and it’s never the same thing twice.
When I go back into the kitchen, Nora and my dad are talking quietly.
“Listen, Champ, what do you think about having a haunted house for your slumber party? You’re turning ten, double digits, this could be the year.…” Nora gives it two thumbs-up.
It has a Halloween theme and extremely good potential to keep everyone up all night. “Just not too scary,” I say.
“Your dad is so different from mine,” Nora says.
“My dad is different. Period.” I hesitate. “Do you miss yours?”
“It’s easier not to,” she says, which I take to mean that she does.
“Um, speaking of easier not to … I have to tell you something.”
Nora puts Victory-Brownie on the table.
“He belongs to my sister,” I say.
“Yes! I knew it!” she says like it’s some big victory (with a small v). “I knew that wasn’t your room! Your dad said that thing about cleaning your room last week; then Robin wanted to see my horse on Saturday. But taking your sister’s horse seemed like something I would do … not you. Not perfect Kate Geller. I knew you weren’t telling the truth.”
I don’t say anything at first.
“Sorry. Mostly,” I eventually say. “The truth is, I gave you the horse because I wanted to make you feel better. I never said Robin’s room was mine. You thought it was. So you thought the horses were mine. And I never corrected you. It was easier not to. That’s the other truth.”
“It figures,” Nora says. “You’re even a nice liar.”
“Thanks?” While we’re making popcorn, I ask Nora how her New Hampshire report went.
“I hate giving reports in front of the whole class.”
“Brooke fell down during hers—”
Nora starts laughing. “How?”
“She and Colin were standing inside these big scroll-tubes unrolling the history of Boston and they both went down.”
Nora says, “I always laugh when people fall. Can’t help myself. And sometimes it’s not funny.”
We do our homework in comfortable, truthful silence until a little after five. “Girls, girls, I’m going to have to ask you to keep it down in here—a man can’t work with all the racket and goings-on!” My dad’s idea of a joke about silence.
“It’s time for me to take Ninotchka home.”
“Nora, please,” Nora says. “I haven’t been Ninotchka since I was four.” She puts her homework away and zips her backpack.
“I’ll be out in the garage coming up with a new nickname,” my dad says.
The horse is still sitting on the table.
“Victory?” I ask Nora. She moves it toward me.
“Thanks,” I say.
“No big deal,” Nora says. I put the horse in my backpack in case Robin gets home while we’re gone.
It’s not easy talking about the truth when you haven’t told the whole truth. I go first to get it over with.
“This was my favorite sentence from The One and Only Ivan. I can’t remember exactly what it used to mean, but I’ve thought a lot about the truth since yesterday.” I cannot look at Robin.
“I think Stella is saying it’s not a lie when you believe you are telling the truth. That made me realize it is a lie when you know you are not telling the truth, even if you aren’t saying anything at all.”
“I think you’re talking about a lie of omission,” my mom says. “It’s basically a failure to tell the truth.”
“Who is Stella?” Fern asks.
“An elephant,” I answer.
“A talking elephant?”
“Sort of,” I say. “She can only talk to other animals, not people.”
“I thought the quotes had to be by people,” Robin says. “Someone who confuses facts might be a nice person, but I wouldn’t trust them with the truth. The truth is all about the facts.” She stares at me.
“The fact is it’s a school night,” my mom says. “This is a topic we can revisit on another night.”
“Wait, one question!” Fern says. And we all wait for her to say, “Never mind, I forget.”
My dad passes Bob to me. “I remember,” Fern says. “Do animals lie?”
“Great question!” My dad’s already written it down and popped it into Bob. I make sure not to pick it.
“That’s the very first one I ever put in there,” my dad says, looking at it like it’s somebody’s baby picture or something.
I put on my pajamas, then go downstairs and pretend to do my homework until Robin goes up to her room. I wait ten minutes, then follow her. The door is closed. It feels weird, but I knock.
She opens the door and I hand her the horse.
“What did she say?” Robin asks.
“Can I come in?” She lets me in and we just stand there. “She didn’t say anything.” The truth is caught in my throat, so I have to clear it. A couple times.
“I gave Nora your horse. It doesn’t matter why.
“And I should have told you before. I’m sorry.”
Robin doesn’t say anything. She goes to her desk and moves her homework so she can put her horse back.
“Are you going to tell?” No answer. “Are you going to say anything?” No answer. I leave and the door shuts behind me.
The next morning on the bus, Nora puts her backpack on her lap and says “How did it go with Robin?” before either one of us says hi.
I sit down next to her.
“She’s not talking to me at the moment,” I say. “But we’re sisters … we’ll get through it.”
“You’re lucky your sister’s like that,” she says.
When we come in from lunch-recess, everybody’s desk has the same newspaper article on it.
“Before anybody reads the article, let’s talk about the headline,” Mrs. Block says. “Why would someone protest a Columbus Day parade?”
Peter raises his hand. “It started at five a.m. It was really, really long and everyone had to watch standing up. No chairs were allowed. No candy throwing. And there were fifty speeches plus it was hot, at least eighty-five degrees.”
Mrs. Block smiles and acts like those are answers. Then she calls on Thomas. “The people who were arrested believe we shouldn’t celebrate Columbus Day because Columbus didn’t really discover America. The Native Americans were already here.”
“Exactly,” Mrs. Block says. “Now, on the of your article, you will see that I have given each of you a new identity.
“We don’t have school on Columbus Day, but 5B will be holding a very special class celebration next Friday afternoon. A celebration you will be planning and preparing together … using your new identities.”
She rolled a wagon full of library books into the middle of the room. “Please use at least one primary source and two secondary sources when you are researching your new identities. You may begin.”
“Who’d you get?” I ask Brooke while we’re waiting at the book wagon.
“Rigaberto Menchu.”
“Never heard of him. I’m Columbus!” I whisper.
Thomas Bergen is Franklin Roosevelt. I can already see this is going to be way more interesting than the egg carton ships we made for last year’s Columbus Day project.
I did not say it was going to be the best Columbus Day project ever, which
I now know is a jinx. But apparently “way more interesting” is also a jinx.
I have to drag Brookoberta Menchu out of social studies to go to band. And then I have to beg her to be Brooke, her real identity. We get to band a few minutes late and guess what? We do not need our instruments. Everyone except Nora has theirs. “I swear I didn’t know until this morning,” she says.
We are going to be counting and clapping for the next half hour, if we do not die of boredom first.
Then Brooke adds the snort, and pretty soon the three of us are laughing so hard I can’t count anymore, either.
Nora beat us to the cafetorium. I don’t know what I expected.
She is reading her book across from Mrs. Hallberg (which is better than reading in the back corner), who is arranging vegetables and dip. “Runaways!” Mrs. Hallberg exclaims as she dumps the mini-carrots and two roll off the platter. Nora puts them on the platter, never taking her eyes off her book.
Today is Brooke’s first meeting as pod president. Mrs. Staughton makes a formal ceremony out of the Passage of the President’s Notebook. We all clap for Heather’s service in September, although this guinea pig is not sorry to see her go.
Heather ends up sitting next to me, where Brooke usually sits, since Brooke has to sit by Mrs. Staughton. Then Heather ends up being my poster partner and Brooke gets to work with Nora.
“The president shouldn’t have to work with Nora,” Heather says. “There should be a law about that in the binder.”