by C. C. Payne
“Nice,” I said. And then I turned back around and continued working—at least, I tried.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap . . . Tap! Tap! TaaaaaAAAAP!!!
I turned and gave Mara the tired look I so often get.
“They were very expensive,” Mara said.
“What?”
“My earrings.”
I nodded and went back to work.
Tappity-tap-tap-tap!
I ignored Mara.
“Psssst! (tap, tap) Pssst! Fizzy!”
“Mara Tierney, are you ill?” Mrs. Ludwig asked.
I kept my eyes glued to my paper, but I heard Mara say, “No, ma’am.”
“Are you injured?” Mrs. Ludwig said.
“No, ma’am.”
“Then what is so urgent?” Mrs. Ludwig stood from her desk. “What is always so urgent? Can’t you see that Fizzy is trying to work?”
Silence.
Mrs. Ludwig crossed her arms and stared at Mara while she waited for an answer.
This went on for so long that I had time to go from being irritated at Mara and grateful to Mrs. Ludwig, to feeling sorry for Mara and wishing Mrs. Ludwig would just sit down—the tension kept growing and growing, until I was scared to move a muscle or even breathe too deeply.
Finally, Mara said in a barely audible voice, “Well . . . it’s just that I got new earrings.”
“I see,” Mrs. Ludwig said calmly. “So you’re having an emergency earring situation. Are you in pain? Do you need help getting them off?”
“No!” Mara said.
Mrs. Ludwig uncrossed her arms. “Then you—and your earrings—will move to the back table, where you’ll sit from now on. Do you understand, Mara?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
No more tapping! Ever! I thought happily, and then I went back to feeling grateful toward Mrs. Ludwig. I mean, she was sort of protecting me— Hey! Maybe she was even starting to like me!
• • •
That afternoon, as soon as we reached Zach’s house, his grandmother appeared in the doorway and stayed there. It was like she wanted us to know she was watching. Weird.
“Is she mad?” I whispered.
“Nah, that’s just her face,” Zach said.
“Seems like she’d be happy that you didn’t have to stay after school today,” Miyoko said.
Zach laughed. “She told me I’d better not have to, because there’s a lot of work to be done here. She probably thinks I took too long getting home—I’ll probably get the speech on dillydallying and durtling and whatnot as soon as I set foot inside.”
“Durtling?” Miyoko said, giggling. Apparently that word struck her as hilarious, because what started as a giggle turned into uncontrollable laughter.
Zach grinned. “She means dawdling, but she says durtling.”
“Does ‘the speech’ usually start with a smack on the head?” I asked Zach.
Zach laughed. “Only when Gran’s gotten a call from the school about my behavior while I was there.”
The screen door squeaked open and Zach’s small grandmother stepped out onto the porch.
“Later,” Zach said, jogging toward the porch.
He clomped up the steps and planted a kiss on his gran’s cheek.
She said something to Zach.
Zach responded by dumping his backpack, lifting his grandma off her feet, and twirling her around the porch.
I heard Gran say, “Stop it!” But she was smiling ear to ear. They both were.
I smiled, too.
• • •
I was still smiling as I started for the kitchen at home when I realized I’d somehow tracked mud into the house. I checked the bottom of my shoes: Sure enough, my left heel had a big clump of mud stuck to it, which had left a trail from the front door into the bathroom and back out. I sighed, slipped off my shoes, and placed them in the bathroom sink—for rinsing—later.
I cleaned the mud up with wet paper towels until there was absolutely no trace of it, and then stood to admire my work. Oh no, I thought as I looked over the wooden floor. Now parts of the floor were too clean, which only highlighted how dull and dirty the rest of the floor was. I started to leave it—after all, I had a red velvet cake to make—but then I remembered how important floors are to Keene. Ridiculous! I thought. I imagined Keene on his deathbed, saying in a raspy voice, “Remember what’s really important in life . . . floors”—so I mopped the foyer, bathroom, dining room, and kitchen, too.
I didn’t realize just how tired my arms and shoulders were until I started making my cream cheese frosting. I’d forgotten to get the cream cheese and butter out of the refrigerator to let them warm and soften before I tried to beat them together with the vanilla extract and powdered sugar. I made up for my mistake with extra beating time—lots of extra beating time.
Keene was the first to arrive home. The minute he stepped inside, he announced, “Wow. It smells like heaven in here.”
I peered out of the kitchen and offered him a smile.
“Are you making lemon cake?” Keene asked.
“No, sir, red velvet,” I said, confused.
Keene nodded.
I stepped back into the kitchen and then realized that Keene was referring to the lemon-scented floor polish. He would hope that heaven smells like floor polish, I thought. Mom should probably be dabbing that stuff behind her ears, instead of her flowery perfume.
Luckily, Mom didn’t notice the lemony smell when she came home—so I didn’t have to tell her how I’d tracked mud into the house. She came rushing through the front door, saying, “I know, I know: I’m running late! I needed to get my chicken pot pie in the oven an hour ago! I’m hurrying as fast as I can!” And she was.
But she calmed down once dinner was on the table. By the time we’d finished, and Mom and Keene were eating my cake—and raving about it—I was so sleepy, all I could think about was how badly I wanted to put my head down on the dining room table and close my eyes, just for a few minutes. But I still had homework to do, a bath to take, and then a bathroom to clean. For the rest of my foreseeable life. Ugh. That thought made me want my bed. I thought about how good it would feel to slip between the sheets, lie down under the ceiling fan, close my eyes, and float away. But I knew I couldn’t. Not yet. So, I said thank you, forced myself up from the table, up the stairs, and got on with it.
Chapter 32
Mom was the first one to leave the house on Friday morning because she had an important breakfast meeting downtown. She couldn’t be late, she told Keene and me so many times that I was tempted to ask, You don’t think we make you late, do you? But I didn’t want to start a conversation that might make Mom late.
As usual, once she was gone, the house felt tense and uncomfortable, so I tried to be especially fast to get out of there. But I couldn’t find my shoes. I tiptoed around, looking everywhere. I’d just opened the cabinet underneath the kitchen sink, where Mom had hidden my shoes once before, when Keene cornered me.
“If you’re looking for the shoes you wore yesterday, they’re gone,” he said.
“Gone?” I repeated.
Keene nodded. “From now on, any shoes that aren’t put away are mine.”
“You took my shoes?”
“No, I found them—finders keepers,” he said casually, like he was just sharing the weather report.
“I’m sorry . . . I forgot . . . I . . . I was tired and . . . I just forgot,” I stammered. It was only then that I remembered leaving my shoes in the bathroom sink.
Keene nodded like he understood, but he didn’t move to get my shoes. “You wouldn’t want to wear them anyway—they’re dirty.” He made a face.
Since I don’t have a Lush Valley collection of shoes, but only a few pairs, losing one was a big deal to me. Losing a pair to Keene—for the sake of sheer meanness!—was an ev
en bigger deal to me. But I decided to take it up with Mom later.
I said nothing more to Keene, just trudged back upstairs and put on my old moccasins. But before I left my room, I stopped to add to Keene’s Dislike List:
18)Steals shoes—that don’t even fit him!—just to be mean!!!
That made me feel a little better.
Keene was pouring coffee into a travel mug when I came back downstairs. “Do you need a ride?” he asked.
“Nope,” I said, and then I was out the door, thinking, Take that! No “sir” and no ride! I thought I was punishing Keene, but it didn’t take me long to figure out that I was the one I’d actually punished: I mean, I was the one who had to walk, and I was the one who was now going to be late. To school. Again. Note to self: Punishing others by not allowing them to help you isn’t a good punishment—for them.
I hurried past Zach’s house, knowing he was long gone. And all the while, I wondered if Mr. Moss would let me into science class or send me down to Mrs. Warsaw’s office for a tardy slip. I figured the latter was more likely. Then I had an idea.
• • •
As soon as I got to school, I went straight to Mrs. Sloan’s office, paused, and knocked on the open door. When she looked up, I said, “How’s Judas?”
Mrs. Sloan’s face went from smiling to confused, and then a light went on behind her eyes. “Oh yes, my cat. He’s fine, Fizzy. Thank you,” she said. “Do you need a tardy slip this morning?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I admitted sheepishly.
Mrs. Sloan nodded. “Well, come in and sit down for a minute while I look for my pen and pad.”
I sighed, stepped into her office, and closed the door behind me. I dumped my backpack on the floor and dropped into a chair at the little worktable.
Mrs. Sloan got up and moved books and piles and files around on her messy desk until she found her pink tardy slip pad. She held it up as if to say, Ta-da!
I nodded and said, “Um, there’s a pen in your hair.”
Mrs. Sloan felt around in there and wrestled the pen from her curly hair with an aha! She brought the pen and pad with her when she sat down at the table with me, but she didn’t do anything with them—like write me a tardy slip. Instead, she set them off to the side.
I knew the questions were coming, so before she could ask any, I asked one of my own: “Do you ever have overnight guests?”
Mrs. Sloan laced her hands together on the table. “Yes.”
“Do you ever wish they’d go home? Like maybe you don’t want to make your bed? Or maybe you want to leave your dishes in the sink and stay in your pajamas all day? Or maybe you want to kick off your shoes and leave them right by the front door?”
“Sure.”
“Well, that’s how it is when your parents get remarried,” I informed her. “You want your stepparents to go home after a while, or you want to go home, but nobody ever gets to go home again.”
Mrs. Sloan didn’t react, didn’t say a word, and didn’t move a muscle, but something in her eyes hardened.
I thought maybe she didn’t understand. “It’s sort of like you’ve adopted a guest, because you have to be on your very best behavior . . . forever. But actually, you are the guest.”
Mrs. Sloan unlaced her hands, placed them on the table, and leaned forward just a little. “What makes you the guest, Fizzy?”
“I’m a kid,” I said, shrugging one shoulder. “I don’t have a job or a house of my own. So I’m counting on somebody else to let me stay in their house, somebody who doesn’t have to let me stay if they don’t want to.”
“And by ‘somebody,’ you mean your stepparents,” Mrs. Sloan said.
“Right.”
“What about your parents?” Mrs. Sloan asked. “Have you tried discussing this with them?”
I gave her a look like that was just about the dumbest idea I’d ever heard. “No, ma’am.”
“Why not?”
“Because that wouldn’t be polite—it would probably hurt their feelings. My parents chose my stepparents—they love them.”
Mrs. Sloan leaned back in her chair and sighed. “Don’t you think your parents love you, too?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“If they care about your feelings anywhere near as much as you care about theirs, then I think you should talk to them. There are more important things in life than manners, Fizzy.”
I stared at her. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
Mrs. Sloan laughed and reached for her pen and pad. She wrote me a tardy slip, but before she handed it to me, she looked me deep in the eyes and said, “I’m so glad that we’re becoming friends, Fizzy.”
• • •
As soon as she saw me through the little window, Miyoko jumped up from her desk and ran to open the door, before Mr. Moss even knew what was happening.
“Thanks,” I whispered.
Miyoko smiled and we both hurried to our seats, me tossing my tardy slip on Mr. Moss’s desk on the way.
Meanwhile, Mr. Moss continued with his lesson, barely casting a glance in my direction.
Safe, I thought, and I let my guard down a little.
That was a mistake, because when the lesson was over, before he sat down at his desk, Mr. Moss turned to glower at me as he said, “Miss Russo, there are exactly eight days of school remaining, and I’d appreciate it if you were on time for every single one of them.”
I felt my cheeks heat up and tired-tears spring to my eyes as I nodded. Don’t cry, I told myself. The worst is over. The day can only get better from here.
But I was wrong. That afternoon, my locker jammed between gym and math class—and I couldn’t go to math without my math book. I just couldn’t. So I had to go down to the office, where they paged the school janitor. By the time I finally got my book and made it to Mrs. Ludwig’s room, class was halfway over. The lesson was finished and everybody, including Mrs. Ludwig, was working quietly at their desks.
Both Miyoko and Zach looked up and smiled when they saw me.
I smiled back.
But Mrs. Ludwig didn’t smile. She gave me a disapproving look over the top of her glasses and held out one hand.
I gave her my—excused—tardy slip.
She looked it over, unimpressed, set it aside, wrote on a notepad, Page 265, section A, problems 1–30, tore the paper free, and handed it to me, all without uttering a single word.
I settled at my desk, turned to page 265 in my math book . . . and had no idea how to do the problems on that page. I flipped backward, read the lesson, and stared at the example, trying to figure it out. But I couldn’t.
Then I looked around the room, trying to tell if anybody else was having trouble, but everyone was working steadily. No one looked lost. Like me.
“Keep your eyes on your own paper, Fizzy Russo,” Mrs. Ludwig said.
My heart kicked and began to race. “Oh no . . . I wasn’t . . . I . . . just don’t know how to do these problems.”
“Is that so?” Mrs. Ludwig said sarcastically, like What a shocker.
I gulped and nodded.
“Then perhaps you’ll be on time for our lesson tomorrow.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
Mrs. Ludwig went back to grading papers.
Nope, she still doesn’t like me, I thought, feeling disappointed somehow.
Christine Cash took her paper up to Mrs. Ludwig and they did some whispering. Then Christine went back to her desk, got her chair, and moved it next to Mrs. Ludwig’s at her desk, where they continued working together.
I wanted to move my chair up there, too, and have Mrs. Ludwig whisper math secrets to me. But since I obviously wasn’t welcome, I stayed where I was, staring at my math book, willing understanding to jump off the pages and into my brain. But it didn’t. So, after that, I just sat there trying not to cry, be
cause getting a B on an assignment is one thing, but an F? I mean, at least a B says, Hey, I tried. Whereas an F is so far from perfect, it pretty much says, Who cares? Not me. How could I defend an F? Just the thought of trying made me feel sick.
When the bell rang, I got out of there as fast as I could. When I neared Mrs. Sloan’s office, she came farther out into the hall to meet me, putting her warm, plump arm around me, and saying, “Come on, Fizzy. Come with me.”
I shook my head and whispered, “That’s okay. I’m fine.”
“Please. Come,” Mrs. Sloan insisted.
I slumped into my usual chair at the worktable as Mrs. Sloan closed the door. “It looks like you might be having a tough day.”
“I’m okay,” I said, even as my chin quivered and tears rushed to my eyes.
“Did something happen in Mrs. Ludwig’s room?” Mrs. Sloan guessed.
My head snapped up. “Why? Did she say something about me?”
Mrs. Sloan smiled. “No, but I just saw you come from her room.”
“It’s not Mrs. Ludwig,” I said as Mrs. Sloan sat down with me. “I mean, she’s not helping, but she’s not the real problem.”
“What’s ‘the real problem’?”
I didn’t answer.
After a minute or so, Mrs. Sloan nodded as if I’d spoken. Then she said, “I’ve given your words this morning a lot of thought, Fizzy, and I want you to know I understand.”
“You couldn’t,” I said, “not really.”
Mrs. Sloan folded her hands in her lap, took a deep breath, and said, “My mother died when I was a young girl and my father remarried rather quickly. It was . . . difficult.”
I was so relieved to hear this, to know that someone—anyone—understood, that the tears spilled out over my eyelashes and down my cheeks. But I ignored them and asked, “Did it ever get easier?”
“Not for a long time,” Mrs. Sloan answered honestly, “but yes, it did get easier. And better.”
I wiped my cheeks with my hands and then wiped my hands on my jeans. “When?”
“For me, things got easier slowly as I came to know my stepmother, as I learned what was important to her and what wasn’t, what she wanted from me and what she didn’t. But even then, things were still often tense between us. Until I moved out of the house.”