“Harris says I have to do peer mediation with you today. Someone’s absent.”
“Ronak,” I say under my breath, feeling kind of mad at Ronak even though he probably didn’t choose to get a stomach bug or strep throat or whatever.
I shove the rest of my ham sandwich into my mouth while at the same time putting away everything I didn’t eat: carrot sticks, a “fun-size” candy bar from the Halloween bag I opened (and snuck a piece into Naomi Marie’s and Brianna’s lunch boxes too).
Gruber sighs and loudly taps his foot, then says, “I’m WAITING.”
“See you later,” I say to Edie. And then to Gruber, “Fine, let’s go.”
We step outside—it’s one of those beautiful, early-fall days, bright sunshine and cool breeze.
Before we’ve even taken one full lap around the school yard, someone starts tugging on my shirt. “Could you come help?”
“Sure,” I say. “What’s up?”
“My sister needs some help.”
“Then your sister should come see us,” Gruber says, which might be true but doesn’t sound very helpful.
“Can you take me to her?” I ask. I should probably be talking in plural since peer mediators work in teams, but it’s hard to link myself with Gruber, even if it is just link-by-pronoun.
She leads us to a spot against the fence where three girls are sitting, staring at another girl, who’s crying. I kneel down and ask, “Do you need some help? I’m one of the peer mediators, and if you want, we can try to help you.”
The crier pulls an already-crumpled tissue out of her pocket and wipes her nose.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened,” I say.
Gruber’s just watching. Which I am actually thankful for. I don’t think he’d be helpful, or maybe I mean kind, with these . . . I’m guessing third graders.
No need to waste thankfulness on Gruber. “What happened?” he asks in a voice that’s not exactly nice.
No one talks.
I look at the crier’s sister, the one who found Gruber and me. “Can you tell me what happened?” I’m completely forgetting the things we were trained to do. Well, What happened? is kind of an open-ended question. But the girl who got us isn’t directly involved.
“Elle, that’s my sister,” she says with a flop of her hand in the crier’s direction.
“Just the letter L?” Gruber says. (I knew Gruber would say that.)
The crier looks at him. “It’s a name,” she says, which makes me smile. “We were playing freeze tag and I tagged Mariah, I really did, and she said I didn’t and she always does that.”
“So she was cheating,” Gruber says.
“Hang on,” I say. “Can we just talk to Mariah and Elle for a minute?” The other girls nod but don’t move, so I motion to Elle and Mariah to follow me to the corner of the school yard. Gruber just stands there until I remind him to come with us.
“Have you done peer mediation before?” I ask the girls.
They both shake their heads. They’re working really hard not to look at each other.
“There are some rules,” I say, “but it’s easy. You’ll each get a turn to talk. There’s no interrupting, no name-calling. And can we all agree that we’ll work together to find a solution?”
They don’t respond, so I continue.
“Mariah, why don’t you tell me what happened?”
She sighs like this is annoying. “We were playing freeze tag even though I wanted to play blob tag. And Elle was it. She thought she tagged me, but she missed.”
“How do you feel about that?” Gruber asks. I do not faint, but I am surprised.
“Annoyed. It’s annoying that she’s cheating.”
“I—”
“I’m sorry, Elle,” Gruber says, “but you can’t interrupt. You’ll get a turn.”
Gruber repeats back to Mariah, “So you felt annoyed because she cheated.”
“I think it might be fairer to say you felt annoyed because you thought she didn’t tag you when she thought she did. Is that right?” I ask.
Mariah shrugs and half nods yes.
“Okay, Elle,” I say. “Why don’t you tell us your side of the story now.”
“I tagged her and she said I didn’t. You already know that.”
“And how did that make you feel?” I ask.
“Like crying. So I cried,” she says.
“Like she always does,” Mariah says.
“No interrupting,” Gruber and I say at the same time. (Ew.)
I look up at the sky—not a cloud there. What am I supposed to say next? Oh, right. “Okay, Elle, what do you want from Mariah?”
“To admit I tagged her and for her to be IT. She’s never IT.”
“And Mariah, what do you want from Elle?”
“For her to be IT,” she says, a big, fat DUH in her voice.
“Mariah, can you think of a fair solution?”
“For her to be IT.”
“Other than that. Can you think of some compromise?”
Mariah shrugs.
“How about you, Elle?” I ask. “Can you think of a fair solution?”
“For her to be IT,” she says, “since I tagged her and she knows it. She always gets her way, and it’s not fair.”
Gruber gives me a look. “What do we do?” he asks.
What a shock. Gruber doesn’t remember the resolution technique Harris said would work when all else failed.
“If we can’t come up with a solution, we can try rock/paper/scissors,” I say. “Whoever loses is IT. Deal?”
The girls shrug. Then Elle picks paper. Mariah picks scissors. Mariah wins; Elle is it.
And she’s right back where she started.
Mariah walks away before we can even ask them to shake hands.
“I hope things get better,” I say to Elle. I can’t say, “I hope that helped,” because I know it didn’t.
“Everything always goes her way,” Elle says.
Before she can walk back to her friends, I say, “Well, Elle, I’m glad I got to meet you and I know that wasn’t the best help ever, but I hope if you ever need to talk to someone, you’ll find me, whether or not I’m wearing this shirt, okay?”
She smiles at me and nods.
I almost forget Gruber’s there. Until he says, “Look! Cool! That kid just shoved the other kid’s face into the water fountain! Come on, Naomi E. Let’s go!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Naomi Marie
“Memoir,” says Katherine, looking like she wants us to pretend she just said “Cake!”
We don’t.
“In fifth grade, many of you wrote personal narratives, but as you know, in middle school we are shifting to memoir. They both involve writing about your life. Does anyone know the difference?”
I do, because I did both in fifth grade, but I don’t raise my hand. Ava called me an overachiever eager beaver yesterday, and while I kind of think it’s good to achieve more, she didn’t say it like it was a good thing. I don’t think I want to be Overachiever Girl at this school.
Katherine doesn’t wait long for hands. “Personal narratives are just that—you tell a personal story, relay an event or small moment. But in memoir, I want you to think about both a memory and its meaning. There is reflection involved.” When we just look at her, she smiles. “Why don’t I just let you get to writing. As you’ve been working on your groups-and-memberships piece, you may have seen patterns in the topics that you chose, or come up with even more questions. Don’t worry—a lot of what you’re writing in your Writer’s Notebooks now will help you with your memoir piece next month. Does anyone have any questions about what we’ve done so far?”
No one does, probably because no one really understands most of what we’ve done so far. At least I hope I’m not alone. We all take out our Writer’s Notebooks and get started. Everyone except Jennifer, who’s hiding a copy of Teen Style in her binder. As I pass her desk to go over and brainstorm with Gigi, I see that it’s open to a
picture of Mona Lisa, who’s always wearing blond cornrows and booty shorts that say BABYCAKES on the butt, can’t sing, and makes Momma start speechifying every time her name is mentioned.
“She is totally my spirit animal,” whispers Jen to Ava. Or maybe it’s Amanda. All Jen’s friends’ names seem to start with A; she’s been trying to get people to say “J and the As,” which is vomitociously annoying. I open my mouth without thinking.
“I don’t think ‘spirit animal’ is a thing you should say,” I whisper, rolling my eyes. “I heard on a podcast it’s offensive.” Which I kind of think Jen is, so maybe to her that’s a compliment?
“Oh my God, are you calling me racist?” she loud-whispers, her eyes wide. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
Katherine looks up. “Naomi Marie, you can join Jennifer and Ava for quiet brainstorming or just sit down and get to work.”
“Uh, I was actually going to work with Gigi,” I stammer. I zip over to Gigi before Katherine can say anything else. We get straight to work, but I can feel Jen’s eyes trying to burn a hole in my head. After a minute, I look up.
“Can I help you with something?” I whisper in my nicest mean voice. Her face is really red.
“That’s so wrong, what you did,” she whispers back. “What’s wrong with saying ‘spirit animal’? Hello, it’s like right here in the magazine. And it’s a Native American term, actually.”
“First of all,” I say, and I try to whisper even lower than her, “just because it’s in a magazine doesn’t make it right.” I try to steady my voice. “And what do you mean by ‘Native American term’? I don’t remember the name of the podcast, but—”
“You just want to be offended about everything,” Jen says. She turns to Gigi. “How do you deal? She’s so annoying.” She glances at me. “And I trust Teen Style over you. Podcast, yeah right. You’re just—”
“Just what?” I ask.
“Yeah,” says Gigi, not whispering at all. “Just what?”
“Jennifer, Gigi, and Naomi Marie,” Katherine calls out. “If you can’t control yourselves, please let me know now. And if you’re finished with your work, you can help others in the community. Are any of you finished?”
We all shake our heads. I glance over at Gigi, who looks like she’s about to cry. I feel bad because she got called out for backing me up, but it felt good to have someone have my back like that. I turn and see Naomi E. staring at us with wide eyes.
“Sorry,” I say to Katherine. I look down at my paper. Jen doesn’t apologize; she just smirks and goes back to her magazine. She reads it for the rest of the period and never gets busted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Naomi E.
Naomi Marie, Brianna, and I have our stuff spread out all over the kitchen table. The pineapple we had for after-school snack is long gone, but my left arm keeps landing in little puddles of its stickiness.
I’ve only crossed off one thing on my assignment pad. Math. And it was hardly anything—reviewing for a quiz. I have so much more to do.
I’m staring out the window at the small patch of colorless sky. I’ve been sitting like this for fifteen minutes, trying to think Creative Writing thoughts. Groups. Memberships.
I caught a quick glimpse of Naomi Marie’s list of her different communities, where she belongs. I don’t know how many pages it was, but definitely more than one. And it’s definitely due tomorrow, and I am still struggling to get the list under Groups I Belong To beyond these three: family, Drama Club, school/student. I mean, I’m friends with Annie, but that doesn’t make us a community. And I guess I could count Peer Mediation, but that’s just a class I have to take. I’m not sure what Katherine means.
Valerie walks in, and Brianna jumps out of her chair. “We are all doing homework TOGETHER!”
Valerie puts her stuff down and comes over to say hello. Then she reaches for the rag by the sink and runs it under the faucet. At the table, we lift our notebooks and pens and Brianna’s crayons as Valerie mops up the sticky spots the pineapple left behind.
“Sorry, I meant to do that,” Naomi Marie says.
Valerie nods in a way that means “don’t worry about it.” “What are you working on?” she asks, looking at Naomi Marie and me.
“Your kind of assignment, Momma,” Naomi Marie says. “We listed our different groups and memberships, and now we’re working on where they intersect, where they don’t, that kind of thing.”
Actually, I’m still working on the first part, but I don’t announce that.
“I don’t know what other homework E has, but once I finish this, I’m done.”
“Did you just call me E?” I ask.
Naomi Marie smiles. “Just trying it out. Never mind.”
“Are you really almost done?” I ask. “And none of your teachers gave any homework?!”
“Oh, they did,” she says. “I had extra time at the end of math. It wasn’t a lot, so I just finished it then.”
Already done!
I want to be done!
I was supposed to hang with Annie after school, but this is due tomorrow and I also have so much to read for science, a really long, not-a-lot-of-pictures chapter about lunar cycles and calendars and clocks, so I had to cancel. Annie sounded as disappointed as I am.
“Do you have a minute, Momma?” Naomi Marie asks. “I wanted to talk to you about what I heard about that Cran-stock guy you and Ms. Starr were talking about. I heard some high school kids say—”
Brianna cuts her off. “And did I tell you that today we did art and we had to spread newspaper on top of the other newspaper but it didn’t matter because when I spilled the gold glitter it knocked over the red glitter and a little of the blue and it went everywhere but I cleaned it all up, even though the colors got mixed, but rainbow glitter is the best glitter, right?”
“Hang on,” Valerie says. “One at a time.”
And even though this is how it is here—everyone does homework together at the kitchen table, and everyone talks the way I guess normal families do—I say, “If you don’t mind, I think today I’m going to try writing in our room, M.”
Naomi Marie looks confused, then laughs. “Yeah, okay. I get it. Like I said, I won’t call you E again. You don’t have to leave!”
I smile and say, “I think it might be easier for me to get my work done in our room.” I gather up my stuff and go into the room I share with Naomi Marie.
Ugh, I’ve really let it get messy, and I know Naomi Marie hates that. I gather up the clothes that missed the hamper and stuff them in. And shoot, the three shirts with a book on top of them are all wrinkled now, so I add them to the hamper. I pick up my sneakers and rain boots and put them in the closet; and when I see Naomi Marie’s shoes lined up neatly, I kneel down and try to make mine look better, but it’s hard because we have more shoes than closet floor space.
I sit on my bed and pull the comfy red blanket onto my lap, under my notebook. My head starts to clear a little. Quiet is good. This was smart. How can you write when it’s not quiet?
A quiet room is a good place to think about these things.
Where do I feel like I belong?
My mind tries to sneak back into our old house, where I lived with my parents and then with just my dad. And then into the backyard, in my garden. Oh. Garden. I’m a gardener, does that count? I write it down because it’s better than nothing.
But no. This isn’t about what we used to be. It’s about what we are now. Where do I belong NOW? Where do I feel comfortable?
Ouch. That’s a very hollow feeling, realizing there’s no obvious answer.
Maybe that’s the problem. Right now, I’m still figuring it all out. I belong to two families—and one of those is just Mom and me. Does that even count? I cross out Family and write down Family with Mom and Family with Dad, Valerie, Naomi Marie, and Brianna. That turns one answer into two.
Are we supposed to have pages of groups, like Naomi Marie?
There have to be others, but I ca
n’t think of them.
Ugh.
Turns out it’s not that much fun thinking about how I don’t really have places where I feel like I belong. I’d rather think about lunar cycles and finish up Creative Writing later (and that’s really saying something). I get my science book from my backpack.
Valerie sticks her head in the doorway. “Is everything okay?”
I nod. “It’s hard for me to focus sometimes when it’s not quiet,” I say. In my whole life, the only time it wasn’t quiet when I sat down to do homework was when I did it at Annie’s house, and on those days I always ended up doing most of it once I got home.
“Okay,” she says. “Whatever I can do to help you get your work done, I will always be happy to do.”
I smile. “One thing that always helps me get my work done is a plate of cookies.”
Valerie laughs. “Nice try.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Naomi Marie
Minute steaks for dinner, with sour cream mashed potatoes and roasted brussels sprouts. Dad made almost the same thing when Bri and I had dinner with him last week, which is kind of weird, but I’m not complaining. It’s comforting, and I could use a little comfort food today. Naomi E. must have been really mad at me for calling her E; she didn’t come out of our room until it was time to set the table. And I couldn’t get a minute alone with Momma, so I’m waiting to bring up the Jen Incident. I’m trying to be patient; I don’t fake-cough once while Brianna tells a long story about how even though she chose Water Table at Choice Time, Artie knocked the water table over, so she had to do blocks instead, which wasn’t her choice, so it’s not fair. Not Fair is, like, the little-sister slogan.
Tom gets up to take out the Ben & Jerry’s so it will soften a little.
“What flavor?” asks Naomi E. I can see her fingers crossed under the table. I know she hates Cherry Garcia just as much as I do.
“Americone Dream,” he says, and we all cheer.
Seems like the perfect opening.
“So the other day at school, somebody said ‘spirit animal’ and I’m pretty sure that’s not cool, but . . .”
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