I wasn’t going to say more than that. Not yet. Maybe it wasn’t Charlotte Devlin. I didn’t know any other Charlottes in Brooklyn…but it was certainly possible there was a Brooklyn Charlotte I’d never met. It was a pretty popular name, after all. So I would wait for Millie’s response. I didn’t want to start a fight.
Two fights I am trying to forget
1. Zora’s fight with Amelia
2. Zach and Charlie’s fight immediately following it
Why Zora fought with Amelia
1. At lunch the day after the Giant Hole accident, Amelia asked what happened to my lip.
2. I told her about riding my bike into the hole.
3. Amelia laughed and said, “It serves you right. I can’t believe you guys still do that anyway.”
Four things that happened next
1. Zora slammed down her thermos and said, “Amelia, what is your problem?”
2. Amelia said that she didn’t have a problem, and then added, “But obviously you guys do if you still ride your bikes in circles and play that game with the pole like you’re second graders.”
3. Zora got quiet for a minute. Then she said, “Amelia, I think you’re just jealous because you still don’t even know how to ride a bike.”
4. Amelia’s eyes filled with tears as she grabbed her lunch box and ran from the cafeteria.
Why Zach fought with Charlie
1. After Amelia ran out, Zach said, “What did you have to say that for, Zora? You know she’s embarrassed that she can’t ride a bike. That’s supposed to be secret.”
2. Then Charlie jumped in: “Leave her alone, Zach. Amelia started it.”
3. Zach said, “Ugh, Charlie, you’re just taking Zora’s side because you have a crush on her.”
Five things that happened next
1. Charlie slugged Zach in the arm.
2. Zach slugged Charlie back.
3. Charlie tackled Zach to the floor.
4. From that point on, it was hard to tell what was happening. But there was definitely lots of punching and kicking.
5. Miss T, one of the lunch aides, pulled them apart and sent them to the assistant principal.
Four things to know about Mr. Hoover, the assistant principal
1. He never talks unless he absolutely has to, and he has a really deep voice.
2. He is big. “Big” meaning tall, but also meaning he has a belly that is so big that the kids joke that his neckties are parallel to the ground.
3. He is in charge of discipline at the school.
4. If you get called to his office, it almost always means you’re in trouble.
So imagine everyone’s surprise when the school secretary came on over the intercom and asked for me to come to Mr. Hoover’s office. (I think the class’s exact words were “Ooooooooh, Annie’s in TROUBLE!”)
Three things Mr. Hoover asked when I got to his office
1. Are you friends with Zach and Charlie? (Answer: Yes.)
2. Did you see their fight in the cafeteria? (Answer: Yes.)
3. Can you please tell me everything you remember that happened? (Answer: Um, okay.)
What I actually remember that happened
Everything, of course. In addition to what happened between Zora and Amelia, I also remember that…
1. Zach defended Amelia.
2. Charlie defended Zora.
3. Charlie threw the first punch.
4. Zach was kind of asking for it.
5. Charlie actually does have a crush on Zora.
6. Zora kept yelling, “Guys! Guys!” the whole time.
7. Charlie’s potato chips fell to the floor.
8. Zach put his elbow in some applesauce.
9. Zach’s Darth Vader shirt got ripped.
10. Both boys cursed.
You get the picture. I remembered a lot, as usual.
What I told Mr. Hoover I remembered
1. Charlie and Zach got into a fight.
2. I don’t know who started it.
Why I am trying to forget these fights
1. Charlie and Zach are my friends.
2. Even if they weren’t, I can’t see what good it would do any of us if I told Mr. Hoover all the detailed ways they broke the school rules.
3. The Zora-Amelia fight made me feel pretty icky. I’m glad Zora didn’t stand for Amelia making fun of us, but I was tired of her being so mean in the first place.
4. I am sticking with my plan to pretend I don’t remember stuff and keep my mouth shut. Those two fights broke out because Zora blabbed that Amelia couldn’t ride a bike and Zach blabbed that Charlie had a crush on Zora. No good can come from speaking up like that. Besides, after all that happened with Mr. Lawrence in Brooklyn, I have learned my lesson about saying too much in principals’ offices.
Three news bulletins on the Mr. Allbright–Nurse Taylor situation
1. After Charlie and Zach visited Mr. Hoover, they went to Nurse Taylor so she could bandage up their scrapes. Then Nurse Taylor walked them back to the classroom herself. (This is unusual. She usually lets kids make their own way back. Especially fifth graders.)
2. Mr. Allbright gave Zach and Charlie a serious look as they walked to their desks. Then he went and talked to Nurse Taylor for a few minutes. There was lots of smiling. Even some laughing.
3. Everyone else was still staring at Charlie and Zach, but I noticed that Mr. Allbright’s face looked a little pink—and that he was still smiling—as he turned away from the door and told us to take out our math workbooks.
Four unsurprising things Mom said when I got home from school
1. How was your day?
2. How’s your lip?
3. Don’t forget to clean out your lunch box.
4. How much homework do you have?
One surprising thing Mom said when I got home from school
1. I got a call from Mr. Hoover’s secretary today, telling me that it’s school policy to let parents know when students are called to the principal’s office. And that you had to go see him to talk about an “incident” you witnessed. Do you want to tell me what happened?
My response: Not really? But Mom wasn’t having it.
Nine questions Mom had about my visit to Mr. Hoover
1. Why did you have to go see him?
2. Why did Zach and Charlie fight?
3. Who threw the first punch?
4. Why was Charlie defending Zora?
5. Why were Zora and Amelia arguing?
(Really, so many questions.)
6. What did Mr. Hoover say when you told him all this?
For about two seconds I debated lying to Mom. It would have been so easy to make something up. But as much as I can pretend to be someone else to the rest of the world—a kid who doesn’t notice much, a kid who doesn’t remember little details, a kid who just blends in and hangs out—I can’t pretend that with Mom. She just knows me too well.
So I took a deep breath, said, “I didn’t tell him any of it,” and braced myself for the next round of questions:
7. What?! What did you tell him instead?
8. Why didn’t you tell the truth?
9. They should be able to count on you to report on things like this. Don’t they know what a great memory you have?
Three things I finally told Mom
1. No, they don’t know what a great memory I have, and I want to keep it that way.
2. I hate my memory. It’s embarrassing, and it only gets me into trouble. It got me kicked out of school in Brooklyn.
3. I can never fix the problems my memory caused there, but at least I can keep it under wraps here in Clover
Gap.
Three faces Mom made then
1. Confused
2. Sad
3. Sadder
Four confidences Mom laid on me then
1. You did not do anything wrong in Brooklyn.
2. Dad and I should not have put you in a position where you had to keep our address secret.
3. I have been feeling guilty about that every day.
4. You are like me. You dwell on things that have gone wrong.
And two pieces of Mom wisdom…
1. Everyone makes mistakes, including me, as you’ve learned.
2. You shouldn’t hide the person you are from your new friends. You have a lot of funny, wise, and important things to say. And you have a beautiful memory.
Three helpful tricks Mr. Allbright taught us to make adding fractions easy
Sorry, I can’t report on these because I didn’t pay attention. Good luck to you next time you try to add fractions.
Four things I was actually paying attention to instead
1. A spider on the ceiling
2. Louis, the kid who sits beside me, drawing a bird
3. The way Mr. Allbright ended almost every sentence with “…okay?”
4. Amelia and Zora passing notes whenever Mr. A turned around. Then Zora leaned over to me and whispered that she’d thought of a way to make her and Amelia get along again. “And you’re part of it!” she said, like I should be honored.
Four things my parents still don’t know
1. Every day I throw away the carrot sticks Mom puts in my lunch box.
2. When I’m alone in my room I make faces at myself in the mirror to see how pretty, ugly, scary, or old I can look.
3. When I shoot baskets in our backyard, I quietly sing songs that I make up as I go along.
4. Zora has proposed that she, Kate, Amelia, and I become blood sisters.
Two reasons Zora wants to be blood sisters
1. She read about it in a book and she thought it sounded cool. (Basically you prick your finger with a pin, and hold your finger against your friends’ bloody fingers, and your blood will mix and make you secret sisters.)
2. She’s hoping it will make us all get along better.
Two reasons I predict this will not go well
1. Kate thinks the idea is bonkers and says we can get diseases.
2. Amelia, as I learned during my pencil-lead incident, is terrified of blood.
Three directions Zora gave in the secret note she passed us about the blood-sisters meeting
1. Meet at Pond Fort today at 3:30.
2. Bring a safety pin. (I’ll test everyone’s pin and use the sharpest one.)
3. Keep this secret. I’ll bring the Band-Aids.
Three things Zora brought to the blood-sisters ceremony
1. A safety pin
2. A box of Band-Aids
3. A tomato
Seven things that happened before I shut down the whole production
1. Zora welcomed us to the blood ceremony and asked us to sit down.
2. At the word “blood,” Amelia turned a shade paler.
3. Zora asked us to pass her our safety pins.
4. Amelia’s hand was trembling as she passed hers over.
5. Zora opened the first safety pin, drew back her hand, and jammed the point into the tomato as hard as she could.
6. Tomato juice shot out and squirted Amelia in the eye.
7. Amelia screamed, covered her eye, and lay back on the pine needles.
Two things on my mind at that moment
1. Blood makes Amelia throw up.
2. Amelia doesn’t want anyone to know that blood makes her throw up.
Four things I did to deflect everyone’s attention
1. Grabbed the tomato from Zora and threw it in the pond.
2. Said, “I thought I saw a worm in that tomato.”
3. Put my finger to my lips and said, “Be quiet for a second!”
4. Whispered, “Did you guys hear that? Do you think that was a bear?”
Three more things that brought the ceremony to a speedy end
1. Amelia said, “Maybe it was a bear?”
2. Kate said, “There’s no bear. But let’s do something else. This is kind of dumb.”
3. Zora said, “What the heck did you throw the tomato for, Annie?” And before I could answer, she sighed and added, “I’m going home.” Amelia said, “Wait! I’ll come with you.”
Two questions Kate asked me after they left
1. Why did you really throw that tomato? (Answer: I didn’t think anyone wanted to do the blood-sisters ceremony, and I was trying to get us out of it. I still didn’t say anything about Amelia’s fear of blood.)
2. Why didn’t you just say that sooner? (Answer: I didn’t want to make Zora mad.)
Kate admitted that I was right, that Zora was the only one who wanted to do it. “I think we should have told Zora that,” she said. I didn’t say anything. I thought she might be right, but I didn’t know how to do it. And what I’d said was true: I didn’t want to make Zora—or anyone—mad. Throwing tomatoes was about as brave as I could be for now.
Five things I hope I’m brave enough to try someday
1. Hot-air ballooning
2. Riding a donkey to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
3. Swimming with dolphins
4. Flying a helicopter
5. Traveling to outer space
Three people I had emails from that night
1. Grandma Rose, with a collection of cute kitten pictures someone had forwarded her
2. Aunt Pen, with a list of fun things we could do at the beach this summer
3. Kate, with a corny joke about a mama and baby tomato
One person I did not have an email from that night
1. Millie
She still hadn’t responded to my email asking about Charlotte Devlin. Which was pretty much leading me to one conclusion: Charlotte must be her NBF.
Three answers I gave the next day when Amelia stopped me in the bathroom at school and asked, “Why did you really throw that tomato?”
1. I didn’t want to do the blood ceremony.
2. I knew no one else did either.
3. You don’t have to admit it, and I still won’t tell, but I know blood makes you sick.
One thing Amelia said then that kind of shocked me
1. Thank you.
Four things I did later in the day when Zora cornered me on the playground and asked why I threw the tomato
1. Took a deep breath.
2. Said, “I didn’t see a worm.” (Zora: “I know.”)
3. Added, “Or hear a bear.” (Zora: “I know.”)
4. Blurted out, “I knew no one but you wanted to do the blood-sisters thing. But I think everyone was afraid to tell you they didn’t like your idea.”
Four things Zora did in response
1. Narrowed her eyes for just a second.
2. Sighed (again).
3. Said, “You guys should have just said so.”
4. Asked if I wanted to go jump rope.
Five things I thought about for the rest of the day
1. I disagreed with someone and she didn’t stop being my friend.
2. The person I stood up to was brave and popular…and still, she didn’t stop being my friend.
3. Amelia seemed to dislike me a little less.
4. You aren’t exactly blending in when you speak up the way I did. But what if it’s okay not to just blend in all the time?
5. Maybe Mom was right. Maybe I should start trying to use my v
oice.
MAY
Three options I had for last Friday night
1. Stay home and watch a movie with Mom and Dad. (Ted was hanging out with Marcus. He “aced” the audition and got picked as the drummer in Marcus’s band; now they practice whenever someone’s parents will let them.)
2. Stay home and fall asleep reading a book in my room.
Annie's Life in Lists Page 11