“Bacon, bacon,” she said, and kissed Atticus on the top of the head. “You don’t know what you’re missing, boy.” The bacon was delicious. So delicious I forgot about Wilbur altogether.
As we ate and everyone was talking around the table, I couldn’t help but notice that Atticus wasn’t talking at all. He wasn’t his normal self. He didn’t even finish his pancakes.
After breakfast, me and Atticus did what we always do. We ran out the back door and headed out into the world.
I jumped off the back porch and rang the big black bell outside the farmhouse door. That’s what we always did first. It’s loud and you can hear it anywhere on the farm. Granny uses it to get Pop-pop’s attention when he’s out on the farm and forgets to turn on his cell phone. But today, Atticus didn’t ring the bell with me.
We started down the big hilly pasture that leads to the barn. I tried not to step on any anthills or cow patties along the way. Atticus was so quiet. I cleared my throat hoping he might get the hint and tell me what was wrong.
“What?” he finally said.
“Oh, nothing,” I said back.
“Okay,” he said.
Finally, I couldn’t take it. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” He picked up a stick and threw it down the hill.
“I know you, Atticus Brightwell! So I know something’s wrong!”
He didn’t say anything.
“Atticus!”
“I got a B on my math test and my mom was all mad about it,” he said. “That’s all.”
I looked at him funny. If he made a C, yes, Mrs. Brightwell would blow her top. But a B? Even she would probably let that one slide.
“You sure that’s all it is?” I said, and looked at him harder.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” he said, but he didn’t look at me. That’s when I knew Atticus was lying. I had only ever seen Atticus lie to one person before and that was his mother—and only when she left him no other choice.
Atticus had never lied to me.
“Come on, Charlie!” he suddenly yelled. Charlie, the chocolate Lab farm dog, started running toward us from the barn. Charlie weighs about as much as both of us put together and he likes to knock us down.
Atticus started running down the hill, his arms stretched out like wings on a plane. “Charlie,” he yelled again, making the dog run faster.
“Stop, Atticus!” I yelled. For all of his smarts, Atticus is sometimes not so smart about animals.
I saw it coming. Then I saw them both go down. When I caught up with them, Charlie was on top of Atticus licking his face, and Atticus was laughing. It was the happiest Atticus had looked all day.
While I watched the two of them wrestling and playing, I made a decision—one that Atticus would have been proud of me for making if he had known about it. I decided not to ask him why he lied to me. I didn’t want to force it out of him when he had clearly been so upset all morning. It wasn’t like us to have secrets from each other but I knew in my heart that Atticus would tell me when he was ready.
After that, it was like things were normal again. We did all the usual things we do on the farm. We fed the trout in the pond. We walked along the big creek to the waterfall. We played pirates and made swords out of big sticks we found on the trail. And we visited Frank. Frank was no longer a little calf. He was a big bull and he was not going to end up a hamburger. Atticus had seen to that. He had made Pop-pop promise not to ever sell him.
Frank usually lived in the front pasture down the hill from Granny and Pop-pop’s house. We were allowed to see him through the fence only. Atticus thinks that he can go inside and play with Frank like he used to, but I always remind him that that is a very bad idea. As Pop-pop has told us a hundred times, bulls can be unpredictable.
By the afternoon, Pop-pop found us. He drove up in his pickup truck and handed us a couple of little brown bags.
“Lunch,” he said. “L-U-N-C-H.” He winked at me. Sometimes I wish I never told him about me being a speller.
We headed for the big shed next to the barn and took our lunch into the hay house. Atticus always has his birthday party at the farm. The hay house was a big surprise that Pop-pop built for his sixth birthday. It takes up most of the shed and is made of all these hay bales stacked together with all kinds of tunnels and secret hiding places. You can climb through it, on top of it, and all around it. It’s where we always eat lunch. It’s the best place ever.
We settled into our favorite nook under all the hay with our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We broke off pieces for Charlie and watched him try to lap the peanut butter off the roof of his mouth.
Atticus reached in his pocket and pulled out an acorn and gave it to me. Acorns bring good luck.
“When did you find it?” I asked.
“Earlier,” he replied, “when I went off to pee.”
“Gross,” I said, but took it anyway. I held up the acorn and looked at it. Imagine, a humongous oak tree coming from a little thing like that.
We sat across from each other leaning back on hay bales.
“Avie?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“When do you think we’re going to get our magical powers?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “When do you think we’ll get them?”
“Well…” Atticus looked up and put on his thinking face. “It’s been over four months since we turned ten—”
“Since you turned ten,” I corrected. “Less than four months for me.”
“I just thought something would have happened by now. That we’d at least have an idea of what they were going to be.” He looked at me suddenly. “It hasn’t happened to you yet, has it?”
“Unless my power has to do with sitting in Jell-O or spilling milk, then, no, it hasn’t happened to me yet.”
“You’ll tell me, though? Right?”
“Yes, doofus,” I said, smiling. Like I’d hide something like that from him. And then I realized I had been hiding something from him. Just like he had been hiding something from me earlier that day. “Atticus,” I said, a little guiltily. “I haven’t told you everything, though.”
His eyes got wide. “What do you mean? What’s happened?”
“Nothing, I promise. But … it’s just this feeling I have. You know, sometimes late at night, I think I can feel my power.” I pointed toward my stomach. “You know, deep in here. Can you?”
Atticus looked up. I could tell he was thinking. Finally, he said, “Yeah, I think I know what you mean. Like it’s in there somewhere but not ready to come out yet.”
“Exactly!” I exclaimed. Because that’s exactly what it felt like. “I’m so glad you’re feeling it, too.”
Atticus smiled and I exhaled. It was good to share this with him. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, though,” I said. “I wonder what kind of powers we’re going to get. I don’t really care about running fast or anything like that. I want it to be something truly magical, Atticus.”
“Like what?” he asked.
“I don’t know yet.” Sure, I wanted my Infinity power to help me with Elena or help me with my spelling, but I had a feeling it was supposed to be something more than that.
“Avie?”
“Yes, Atticus.”
“I hope mine is flying.”
* * *
By 7:30, we had been playing hearts with Caroline and Granny for about an hour when the phone rang. Mr. and Mrs. Brightwell were going to be late. Something about a carburetor.
I heard Pop-pop on the phone saying we could just stay the night but I could tell from his tone that that wasn’t going to happen.
Granny put down her cards and said she would make us some dinner. “Add up the points to see who won,” she said, and grinned. She already knew who won. Granny almost always wins at cards.
After dinner, I called my mom to let her know what was happening. She had just gotten home from the hospital. “Do I have to come get you, Avalon?” she asked. I heard her softly sighing.
<
br /> “No. Mr. and Mrs. Brightwell are coming,” I said. “But it might be awhile.”
“Okay,” she said. “Just try not to be too late.”
I couldn’t see how I would actually have any control over that—me being ten and not the one with the driver’s license—but I said I would try and hung up the phone.
It was after 9:30 by the time Mr. and Mrs. Brightwell drove up. I don’t see Mr. Brightwell much on account of he works for the government and travels a lot to foreign countries. Atticus is not sure exactly what he does so I have decided that must mean he is a government secret agent. A spy. And tonight, the spy was in a bad mood.
On the drive home, I wondered why we didn’t just spend the night at the farm. I could tell that Mr. Brightwell thought that would have been a lot easier, too. I looked at Mrs. Brightwell from the backseat. She looked tired. It must be a lot of work being her.
Then I looked at Atticus. We had had a good day. I had almost forgotten that he had lied to me.
My mom was watching TV when I got home. M and I sat with her and watched the end of some old movie she had on. About these men who dressed up like women to be in this old-timey jazz band that you could only belong to if you were a girl. It was in black-and-white and it was weird but Mom seemed to like it.
When it finished, I asked if we could have a night-night snack before bed.
“Avalon, it’s late,” she said.
“Come on, Mom,” I said, clapping M’s paws together. “We’re hungry.”
She got up off the couch saying, “You know, you’re at the age when you could make your own night-night snack.”
I frowned. She used to like making me snacks.
As she walked to the kitchen, I noticed the pile of mail on the counter. I slipped M off my lap and made my way toward the stack. Bill … bill … something from the hospital … another bill—
“There’s no letter, Avalon,” she said.
I pretended like I didn’t care. “I was just looking.”
“You need to stop looking,” she said, and dished me out a scoop of ice cream. She put the bowl on the counter in front of me and handed me a spoon. “I’m serious.”
“I know,” I said quietly. I did know. And I knew she was right, too. Why should I keep looking? Hadn’t the last year taught me anything? I hadn’t gotten any mail for a long time. Why should today be different?
I took the spoon from Mom and started eating. I usually loved rocky road, but tonight it didn’t taste so good. I silently wished that my Infinity Year power would magically bring me the letter I was hoping for.
Afterward, while I was brushing my teeth, Mom said good night, then M and I went to our room.
As I got undressed, I pulled the acorn Atticus gave me out of my pocket and put it on my bedside table. For luck. I crawled into bed and M curled up beside me. It was late and everything was quiet. I thought about my Infinity Year power and after a minute, I felt it. Just like those other times. Deep down inside, quiet and not yet reachable, but in there all right. Like it still wasn’t ready to show itself but wanted me to know that it was there, waiting for the time to be right. It made me happy that Atticus was feeling it, too.
M and I fell asleep and dreamed we were sleeping under a humongous oak tree. It was the biggest tree I had ever seen and it stood alone in an infinite sea of grass. A wind began to blow and it made the grass rise and fall like waves. Atticus was there and he was trying to tell me something. But I couldn’t hear him. The wind was too loud.
FIVE
A great thing happened today. Mrs. Jackson told me to stay behind when the rest of the class was going to lunch. At first, I thought this was the opposite of great. Like she had noticed me chewing gum at recess or accidentally-on-purpose taking all the tops off Elena’s Magic Markers and she was going to tell me off for it.
Instead, she had noticed that I’m a fantastic speller. F-A-N-T-A-S-T-I-C. Fantastic.
She pulled out all of my spelling quizzes and showed me how I had never gotten a word wrong. Then she looked me right in the eye and said, “Our classroom spelling bee is in two weeks. You should win it pretty easily. So, I’m thinking we should start getting you ready for the school bee in January.”
I must have looked pretty dumbfounded, because my mouth just hung open and I couldn’t say a thing.
“Are you all right, Avalon?” she asked.
All right? I was doing somersaults inside. The school bee! In January! Hooray!
I had a profound realization. Everyone had been wrong about Mrs. Jackson. She was not the worst teacher in the fifth grade. She was the greatest teacher there had ever been in the entire history of the world.
“You really think I can win?” I finally asked.
“Here in the class, yes. I don’t think you have a chance to win the school bee. Harinder Singh is a formidable speller. I expect he will win again this year. But the second-place finalist will go with him to the regional bee in April.” She smiled and all her wrinkles crinkled up. “I think you have a chance at that.”
Hari Singh. The regional bee. It was like a dream coming true. Could it be possible that my Infinity Year power was about spelling after all?
“And you’re just in fifth grade, Avalon. In a couple of years, you might be as good a speller as he.”
I smiled. I was starting my professional life as a speller. And Mrs. Jackson was going to help.
She gave me a hall pass to go to the lunchroom by myself. I walked through the hall feeling completely happy and free. I couldn’t help but think of my dad.
My dad is the reason I can spell like I do. He used to say that I came by it honestly, that I was a chip off the old block. We used to play spelling games and he was so proud when I got words like shambolic and pomegranate right.
Right now, my dad is neither happy nor free. He’s the third reason I’m somewhat famous at my school. Because my dad is in prison. Has been for nearly a year. That’s why he’s never around. That’s why I never talk about him. That’s why last year was the worst year of my life.
Dad worked at the car dealership in town. He was the manager there and I used to go down on Saturday afternoons and hang out with him in his office and watch all the excitement of people coming in to buy cars. When it was really busy, I’d go help Vidal and Roberto in the detail department. I’d clean the inside windows of the just-sold cars so they wouldn’t have to.
It was fun being there. My dad was important and everybody was nice to me.
Nobody knew that my dad was stealing.
My mom never told me all the details, but I read about it in the local paper. Something about cars being sold to people they shouldn’t have sold them to. My dad and two of his salesmen went to prison last fall.
My dad wasn’t a thief. At least, I didn’t think so. Some days I wake up, and for a second, I don’t remember what’s happened. Then it all rushes back. My dad would have grounded me for stealing so much as a pack of gum. He would have made me take it back and apologize in person. That’s just the kind of guy he was. I thought. But it turns out, he wasn’t. How could he have done this?
The year before had been so different. My dad had been really happy. The dealership was selling more cars than ever, and it was all because of him. My dad was making plans. He wanted to buy us a bigger house. He wanted to take me to see the ocean.
Then he went to the owner, Mrs. Prescott, and asked for a raise. After that, he didn’t seem very happy anymore. I remember thinking how he seemed kind of mad all the time.
During the trial, I went to live with my Grandma Grace in Tennessee. My mom said it would be better for me.
It was so not better for me. I didn’t know anyone there. School was a nightmare and I really missed Atticus.
I was gone for sixty-one days. I counted each of them off on my Cats of the World calendar. I missed two very important things:
1. Seeing my dad before he went off to state prison for the next four years.
2. The fourth-grade classroom
spelling bee.
We haven’t visited my dad once in prison, so that means it’s over a year since I’ve seen him. I’ve spoken to him on the phone two times. He called last Christmas and on my mother’s birthday. Mom gave me the phone both times. She had stopped talking to him before I was shipped off to Tennessee, before the trial. On the phone with him, I tried to sound like everything was normal but it wasn’t. He didn’t sound like himself. And I guess I didn’t sound like me, either.
During the whole time, he’s sent me only four letters. The first one was pretty long and told me how he would beat this thing and come home soon. The second one was shorter and talked about how the prison food was so bad. The third one, well, the third one just sounded sad. He wrote that he wanted me to come visit but by the end of the letter said it was probably a bad idea. The last letter wasn’t really a letter but a birthday card with a stupid store-bought message inside. At the bottom of the card he wrote only four words—Love you kid, Dad.
I send him a letter every week. I think he must feel bad, so I hope my letters cheer him up. I get the stamps from Mrs. White and I always mail the letters from the mailbox at the top of our street. My mom doesn’t know I’m writing him. Mom is still really mad at my dad. If she found out I was writing him, I bet she’d be really mad at me, too.
The only person I ever talk to about this is Atticus. He never asks me about it, though. He knows it’s something I don’t want to talk about unless I want to talk about it.
The thing about the school spelling bee is this: The spellers invite their families to come and watch. They sit in the audience and cheer. My dad would have loved to see me up there. He would have yelled louder than anyone.
But since he’s not here and my mom will probably have to work, there won’t be much of a cheering section for me.
That’s the thing.
At lunch, I told Atticus what Mrs. Jackson said about my spelling and how she thought I might have a chance to make it to the regional bee.
“That’s awesome,” he said, leaning over from his table. “Can I have a french fry?”
The Infinity Year of Avalon James Page 4