The Girl With 500 Middle Names
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Kimberly kind of waved at me, so I’d know who she was. Besides the green bow, she was wearing a green jumper, a green-flowered shirt, and green-flowered tights. The flowers on the shirt were the same as the flowers on the tights. I’d never seen anyone dressed like that before.
I sat down at a desk that looked so new, I didn’t think anyone had ever sat in it. There wasn’t a single word carved or inked or even penciled into the smooth, perfect top.
Kimberly leaned toward me, her bow bobbing in my face.
“That’s where my best friend used to sit,” she said. “She moved away last month.”
“Oh,” I said. So the desk had been used before. Did Kimberly mean she didn’t like me sitting there?
Kimberly kept staring at me. I didn’t think I looked that weird. Lots of other kids in the class were wearing jeans and T-shirts. It’s just that theirs all looked nicer and newer—like they’d just cut the price tags off that morning. Finally Kimberly gave me a little grin.
“I have sixty-five Beanie Babies,” she said.
“Wow,” I said.
“How many do you have?” she asked.
I wondered if regular stuffed animals counted. Probably not. I tried to remember if Momma had gotten rid of my Happy Meal Beanie Babies when we moved.
“None,” I said, just in case.
“Really?” Kimberly said, as if she’d never met anyone who didn’t have any Beanie Babies before.
I decided to pay attention to math.
Mrs. Burton was talking about subtraction. That made me feel good. Subtraction at Satterthwaite couldn’t be any different from subtraction at Clyde.
Yes, it could. Mrs. Burton was writing really, really big numbers on the board.
“Now, can anyone tell me how to subtract one hundred eighty-nine from four hundred sixty-three?” Mrs. Burton said. “Kimberly?”
“Um . . . ,” Kimberly said. I figured she was still thinking about Beanie Babies.
I reminded myself there was no one to be scared of at this school. I raised my hand.
“Don’t you have to borrow?” I asked.
“I bet that’s the name you called it at your other school,” Mrs. Burton said with an encouraging smile. “You’re right, Janie. I’m glad you know that. But the new name for it is ‘regrouping.’”
Of course. Everything had to be new at Satterthwaite.
When I got home from school, Daddy was lying on the couch of our new apartment. He turned off the TV and eased up into a sitting position.
“Sick day?” I asked.
“Uh-huh. Should have let your momma carry the dresser in. But I’ll live.” He shifted positions. “So how was glorious Satterthwaite?”
“Okay,” I said.
“Want a snack?” He shuffled into the kitchen and brought back an apple for each of us. Daddy believes in healthy food.
I took a bite, and the apple made a very satisfying crunch.
“Daddy?” I said, when I’d chewed up that first bite. “How’d Momma pick Satterthwaite as the school for me?”
“It’s where her boss’s kids go,” Daddy said. “She said if it was good enough for Mr. Hodgkins’s kids, it might be good enough for you.” He grinned, real big.
“Oh,” I said.
Daddy stopped grinning.
“Why’d you ask?” he said.
“Oh . . . ” I chewed for a little while, and decided I could tell Daddy. “I think all the other kids there are a lot richer than me.”
“How can you tell?” Daddy asked.
“They have really nice clothes. This one girl, Kimberly, told me she has sixty-five Beanie Babies. And when I was on the bus, I saw some of their houses. They’re like mansions!”
Daddy wrinkled his eyebrows together like he always does when he’s worried.
“None of those kids teased you about being poor, did they?” he asked.
“No.” I shook my head. “Everybody was nice.”
“Good,” Daddy said. He relaxed his eyebrows. “Just remember, Janie-O, money’s not everything. Lots of other things matter more.”
I was kind of hoping he’d tell me what those other things were, but he didn’t.
Chapter Four
The next day, Kimberly was dressed all in pink. She even had pink sneakers. I wore my purple jeans and a purple top, but you could tell they hadn’t come together.
I decided I should try to make friends with someone else. At the first recess, I asked a girl named Danielle if she wanted to play tetherball with me.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m going to do skip-it with Breanna.”
At the lunch recess, I asked Marina if she wanted to jump rope with me.
“Yuka and me are going to swing,” she said. “I guess you could come too.”
But only two swings were open.
By the third recess, I had it figured out: Danielle and Breanna were best friends. Marina and Yuka were best friends. Courtney and Nicole were best friends.
In Mrs. Burton’s class, that just left Kimberly. And why would she want to be friends with me?
I went to the monkey bars by myself. That’s where I was when a boy from my class came over to me.
“You’re Janie, right?” he said. “Guess what? Your mom works for my dad. She’s his secretary.”
I squinted up at him. The sun was in my eyes.
“Is your dad Mr. Hodgkins?” I asked.
“Yep,” he said. “He says your mom’s a good little worker.”
“Good little worker.” Those were all nice words, but somehow they sounded bad coming out of his mouth. Back at Clyde, when kids said something bad, they used bad words. Something made me want to hit this kid just for calling my momma “little.” She wasn’t little. She was—she was an entrepreneur.
Nobody hit anybody at Satterthwaite.
“My momma works hard,” I said instead. “Really hard.” And I glared, to make this kid understand that that didn’t make her a “good little worker.”
He backed away.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Bye!”
As soon as he was gone, I climbed up and did a backward flip on the top bar of the monkey bars. I never would have dared try anything like that back at Clyde.
“Wow!” said a girl below me. It was Kimberly. “How did you do that?”
I looked at Kimberly in her perfect, all-pink outfit.
“First,” I said, “you have to be really, really brave.”
I was glad that the end-of-recess bell rang just then and I didn’t have to say anything else.
Chapter Five
I may not have had the right clothes, and it was taking longer than I thought to make friends. But I was caught up in math within a week. Mrs. Burton moved me out of the lowest reading group after the first day. And I didn’t forget my homework once, even though lots of other kids did.
“I had soccer practice last night,” Josh Hodgkins whined when Mrs. Burton asked him why his wasn’t finished. “I didn’t have time.”
Mrs. Burton frowned, which was about the meanest thing she ever did.
“School should come first,” she said. “I’ll have to write a note to your parents.” She looked around the class. “Janie, would you show Josh how to do problem number five in the book?”
I went over to his desk. I decided I shouldn’t ask him why he wasn’t a “good little worker.”
“She gives too much homework,” Josh griped.
I shrugged. Josh kept complaining.
“Who cares about fractions, anyway?”
“I think grown-ups have to know them,” I said. I didn’t mind fractions. I thought they were kind of like a game. But did they give you some test when you became an adult, that had “one-eighth plus one-half” on it?
“When I’m a grown-up,” Josh said, “if I need to do any math, I’ll hire someone else to do it for me.” He looked straight at me. “What’s it to you? You probably like homework. ’Cause you can’t afford to join a soccer team or anything like that.”
Mrs. Burton picked that moment to come over and check on Josh and me.
“Are you two doing all right?” she asked, leaning over so close I could smell her perfume. Her expensive perfume.
“Fine,” Josh said.
“Great,” I said.
It got cold.
Now when we went out at recess, our breath made little clouds around our mouths. The bars of the jungle gym felt icy through my gloves.
I guess even Satterthwaite School couldn’t afford to heat the playground.
I wouldn’t have minded, except that my wrists stuck out of all my winter clothes from last year. The sweatshirts barely came down to my belly button. My winter coat—the same one I’d had since first grade—was even worse. Momma gasped the first morning I tugged it on.
“Well, that doesn’t fit anymore, does it?” she said.
I shook my head.
“We’ll have to put a brick on her head,” Dad said from the kitchen. “Keep her from growing.”
“Not my big girl,” Momma said. She hugged my shoulders, as if to protect me from any bricks. “We’re proud you’re growing, honey. I just didn’t expect winter to come on so soon.” She peered into the closet, as if hoping some nice, warm—big—coat would appear in there by magic. She sighed. “I’ll pick up my check at The Specialty Shop this weekend, and then we’ll go shopping. I’m sorry, Janie. You’ll just have to make do with this coat until then.”
I sat on the school bus wondering what Josh Hodgkins would have to say about a ragged, limp, pink coat with a broken zipper. This coat belonged back at Clyde, where everything was broken.
But Josh didn’t say anything. Kimberly did.
The second day I wore that coat, she sidled up to me on the playground. Her coat was royal blue with red trim. I think I saw a picture once of a princess wearing a coat like that.
“Janie?” she said in a near-whisper. “I have an old coat at home, and my mom says I can give it to you, if I want. I mean, it’s not that old, it’s just that I got too big for it. And you wouldn’t be too big for it, ’cause I’m kind of fat, and you’re not.”
My face felt too hot and too cold, all at once. I think my tongue was frozen, but my cheeks were on fire. Kimberly was looking at me, waiting. Her face was all scrunched up, like she was really worried about what I might say.
“So do you want it?” Kimberly asked.
“No,” I said, because I didn’t. I didn’t want anyone’s hand-me-downs. Then I tried to think what Momma would want me to say. “No, thank you. I’m going to get a new coat on Saturday. My momma and I just haven’t had time to shop. That’s why I’m wearing this.” I shrugged my shoulders, moving my horrible old coat up and down. A little piece of gray stuffing fell out from the coat. Both Kimberly and I watched that stuffing drop to the ground. Then we both looked away, like something really embarrassing had happened. Like one of us had peed her pants or something.
“Oh,” Kimberly said. She had the same look on her face she got when Mrs. Burton asked her about multiplication. Like her brain would never in a million years tell her what to say next.
“Want to go teeter-totter?” I asked her.
“Yes!” she said.
That afternoon, Mrs. Burton made us do three pages in our math journals. She made us look up ten science terms. She made us write sentences for all twenty of our spelling words. I worked hard.
But I could still hear Kimberly’s voice, echoing in my ears, “So do you want it?” I could still see Kimberly’s face in my mind’s eye, looking at me like I was really, really poor.
I felt like Saturday would never come.
Chapter Six
Saturday did come, after all.
I woke up early and lay in bed imagining all the beautiful clothes Momma and I would buy that day. By tonight, I’d have dozens of outfits, just as pretty and rich-looking and matched as Kimberly’s. I’d have a warm coat that a princess—no, a queen!—would be proud to call her own. I’d have shoes that hadn’t come from Payless, with a label on the side that everybody knew. By the end of the day, I’d look like I belonged at Satterthwaite.
I smelled the coffee that meant Momma and Daddy were up and in the kitchen, reading the newspaper. I slipped out of bed, pulled on my clothes, and sprinted to the door.
“Ready to go, Momma?” I asked.
Momma was still wearing her robe. Her hair stuck out all over her head. She laughed.
“And good morning to you, too, eager beaver,” she said. “Don’t you know The Specialty Shop doesn’t open until ten?”
Three long hours later, Momma and I were sitting in Daddy’s pickup truck, heading to The Specialty Shop. Momma was humming along with the radio.
“This is going to be fun, isn’t it?” she asked as she pulled out of our parking lot. “Just us girls, shopping.”
That made me feel older, somehow, like Momma and I were the same age, two friends going shopping together. I sat up straighter.
The Specialty Shop was even farther out of the city than Satterthwaite School. It was on a quiet street with lots of trees and lots of other ritzy-looking shops: a jeweler’s, a bakery called Crème de la Crème, something called The Stanhope House.
“They say this is what shops in Europe look like,” Momma said. “Maybe you’ll get to go there someday.”
She parked the truck, and we got out. Leaves crunched under our feet. Momma held open The Specialty Shop’s heavy wood door for me.
“If you want, you can look around while I talk to the manager,” Momma said. “I shouldn’t be long.”
But something about The Specialty Shop made me want to stick close to Momma. It was the kind of place that made you feel like it might cost money to breathe in there.
We walked up to the fancy, old-fashioned cash register. Then I saw a skinny computer next to it. That was probably what they really used.
“Is Mr. Creston in?” Momma asked the woman behind the counter. She was tall and thin, and wore her hair pulled back like a ballerina’s.
“Whom shall I say is calling?” the woman asked haughtily.
“Brenda Sams,” Momma said. She had her jaw set, just like she did when she and Daddy were having a fight. As soon as the woman walked away from the cash register, Momma bent down and whispered to me, “She knows who I am. And that’s not even talking right. What do you bet she just likes to say ‘whom’?”
The woman came back and said, “He can see you now.”
Momma turned around and rolled her eyes at me. It was hard not to giggle.
I followed Momma past racks of clothes like Kimberly wore. I saw a price tag: one hundred dollars for a skirt. A plain, black skirt! Okay, so maybe Momma and I wouldn’t be buying clothes like Kimberly’s. But they’d still be nice. They’d still make me fit in at Satterthwaite.
Momma led me to a fancy carved door at the back of the store. She knocked lightly.
“Mr. Creston?” she called as she turned the knob.
He was on the phone. He held up his hand, like it was sign language for, Just a minute, just a minute, I’ll be right with you.
Mr. Creston was wearing a suit, which I thought was pretty funny for a Saturday. But he was the kind of person you couldn’t have pictured without a suit and tie. Even his hair looked rich. It was dark brown and glossy, like he polished it.
“Great! I’ll buy those shares,” he was saying into the phone. “Thanks for the tip.” He hung up.
As soon as he turned to Momma, he put on a different expression, like a mask. It made me think of the doctors coming into Daddy’s hospital room when he was hurt. Mr. Creston looked like those doctors did right before they said, “I’m so sorry. The X rays don’t look good. . . .”
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Sams,” Mr. Creston was saying. (How had I known?) “I’ve been
meaning to call you to come pick up your merchandise.”
“What?” Momma said. “I came for my check.”
“Well—” Mr. Creston looked at Momma and then at me. Then he looked back at Momma. “That’s what I needed to talk to you about. It appears that name sweaters are a bit passé now. We’re just not getting enough orders. I’m sorry. That’s why I’m returning all your samples.” He pointed to two bags leaning against the wall behind us. Garbage bags.
I didn’t know what “passé” meant, but I could tell it wasn’t good.
Momma whirled around and grabbed the nearest bag. She ripped it open. I could see sweater after sweater after sweater. Sweaters I’d been watching Momma knit for months.
“But these aren’t just my samples. Some of these were special orders!” Momma protested.
“Yes, but—” Mr. Creston shrugged. “People change their minds. And, you know, Mrs. Sams. The customer is always right.”
Momma looked at me. I thought about the beautiful new coat we were going to buy. I thought about the new matching outfit I wanted to wear to school Monday morning. Momma must have been thinking about those things, too.
“Don’t I have any money coming?” she asked. “Haven’t you sold any of my sweaters since the last time?”
Mr. Creston shook his head.
Momma turned, as if she was going to pick up the bags and walk out. They’d be heavy. There were a lot of sweaters in those bags.
Then Momma saw me watching her. She turned back around. Her face was pale, but she had two angry red spots high on her cheekbones.
“Janie, would you please go wait for me in the truck?” she said quietly.
I nodded. I knew better than to mess with Momma when she had that look on her face.
Momma handed me the keys to the truck. I all but tiptoed out. Without Momma, I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to open The Specialty Shop’s door. I had to push really hard.
And then I sat for what felt like hours, waiting for Momma to come out. I stared at The Specialty Shop’s front window, which showed all sorts of sweaters with all sorts of designs. One sweater had sheep jumping over a fence. Another sweater had berries and apples. Another sweater showed flowers growing on a picket fence. I thought probably Momma was telling Mr. Creston that name sweaters weren’t the only thing she could knit. If name sweaters were passé—whatever that meant—it looked like sheep sweaters and apple sweaters and flower sweaters weren’t. Probably Momma had convinced Mr. Creston to give her a check ahead of time, because the new kind of sweaters she was going to knit for him would be so great.