I took a breath. “This is my dad,” I said. “He was born in California and met my mother at college and they moved here after graduation. And had me.” There, I said it.
I looked at Mae. She nodded at me and started to talk. Just like we planned.
But Elena talked quicker.
“And then he went to jail,” she called out smugly.
Everybody looked at her.
Then everybody looked at me.
It was horrible.
I looked over at Mrs. Jackson and our eyes met. In that moment (maybe the longest of my life), I could see that she understood everything. How Elena’s outburst had paralyzed me and that I couldn’t recover. How if I had been a gazelle in the wild, Elena would have eaten me by now.
Mrs. Jackson was about to intervene when someone else came to my aid instead.
“Yes, he did,” I heard Mae say. “Avalon’s dad went to jail. Like a lot of our ancestors probably did.” I looked at Mae and she smiled at me.
“Do you think Avalon’s dad is the only one?” she asked the class. “Who else has someone on their family tree who went to jail? There’s got to be somebody.”
I saw Marcus giving her question serious consideration. Suddenly, Augustus Sawyer yelled out, “My great-uncle went to jail for fighting in a bar when he was eighteen! My dad told me!”
Everybody laughed.
“See,” Mae said. “Any of us could have a jailbird somewhere back in the family tree. Even Elena.”
Mae looked straight at Elena in case she had anything to say. She didn’t.
“My dad can burp the national anthem,” Mae continued. “He should go to jail for that.”
I smiled a little. At that moment, Mae was my hero.
As the room filled with laughter, Mrs. Jackson rose from her desk. “Okay, class. Settle down,” she said. She looked over at me and Mae and winked at us. “Good job, girls.” Then she turned to Elena. Without saying a word, Mrs. Jackson flashed her a warning look. Elena pretended not to notice but I saw it. Clear as day.
We went back to our desks and I practically melted into my seat. I was so relieved it was over. And I was so grateful to Mae. She stood up for me. And Elena backed down.
At lunch, I told Atticus what happened. I wondered how he would feel about somebody else looking out for me. I wondered what he would think about me having another friend.
And you know what? Atticus thought it was great. No surprise. Atticus is just that kind of person.
NINE
M went missing the week before Christmas.
It was the first Friday morning of Christmas break and I was still in bed. I heard Mom outside moving our garbage cans to the curb. She was making so much noise.
“Avalon,” she yelled as she closed the door and came back inside.
I put my pillow over my head.
“Avalon!” I could hear her walking to my door. “Avalon James, if you don’t get out of that bed this very minute, there will be consequences.” My mom is big on consequences.
“Mom,” I whined, and took the pillow off my head. She hates whining, too.
“I called Mrs. White and said you would be there in fifteen minutes. So don’t be late. She will be watching for you, and if you don’t show up on time, she will come get you and tell me and then there will be—”
“—consequences,” we said at the very same time.
She looked at me with her don’t-mess-with-me-when-I’m-going-to-work face. “Okay?” she said.
“Okay,” I said, very unenthusiastically.
She walked out of my bedroom and then looked back in. “And no whining,” she said.
GRRRRR.
I heard her grab her keys off the kitchen counter. “See you tonight,” she said from down the hall. “And please be good.”
“We’ll be good. Won’t we, M?” M was coming with me to Mrs. White’s house. It was all arranged. As I heard Mom’s car pull out of the driveway, I rolled over toward M’s side of the bed. I thought we could cuddle for five more minutes.
“M,” I said. But I didn’t see her. She wasn’t on the bed. I smiled, though. Because M’s yellow ball of yarn was right beside my pillow.
I stretched my arms over my head. “Marm?” I called out as I looked around the room. “Where are you, M? We gotta hurry.”
Instead of going straight to look for her, I stayed in bed and closed my eyes. I sent her a message with my mind. M. Where are you? We have to get ready to go to Mrs. White’s. I concentrated even harder. M. You need to come to the bed right now.
I know it sounds weird, but I think my Infinity Year power might be that I can mind-talk to animals.
After the Elena incident, I’d been so upset that I’d almost given up believing I would ever get my Infinity Year power. But I couldn’t stop believing. Because of Atticus.
Atticus believed so much in our Infinity Year. He was so excited about his magical power. He just knew it was going to happen. And Pop-pop said that Infinity Year magic only worked if it was shared with your best friend. So if I stopped believing, I’d ruin it for both of us. I wouldn’t do that to Atticus.
So, one night, I was lying in bed looking at M, who was lying next to me with her eyes closed. I told her with my mind to open her eyes and she did. I was just goofing around but it gave me an idea. What if she could really hear me through my mind?
I started experimenting to see if it was true and my confidence grew based on empirical evidence. We learned in science that empirical evidence was something you got by observing or experimenting. I did both. My observing led me to the conclusion that, yes, M could hear me through my thoughts.
Here’s why:
1. Last week, I hid in my closet with the light out and the door barely cracked and sent out a message for M to find me. Within ten minutes, M was meowing for me. Within fifteen minutes, M was sitting on my lap.
2. Three days ago, I put out two different snacks in different bowls and placed them at opposite ends of the kitchen. One bowl had tuna fish in it, the other bowl had a chicken liver treat. M likes both of these snacks equally. I sat down in the middle of the kitchen, at an equal distance between each bowl, with M on my lap. With my mind, I told M to go to the tuna bowl first. I thought it very hard. Then I let M go. She headed straight for the tuna fish.
3. Last night, I hid her favorite ball of yellow yarn under my mom’s pillow. M hardly ever goes into Mom’s room. While we were watching TV, I looked at M and told her where the yarn was. Silently. You know, with my mind. This morning I woke up to find the yellow ball of yarn in bed beside my pillow.
If that isn’t empirical evidence, I don’t know what is.
But strangely, M hadn’t jumped on our bed yet. Why hadn’t she gotten my message?
I went to the kitchen and grabbed a Pop-Tart. Then I started looking for her. I went to the usual places: the laundry room, the laundry basket, the litter box. I even looked under the bed.
No M.
That was weird.
As I walked back to my bedroom, I looked out the window into the front yard. Where was Mr. Squirrel? For the past two weeks, this squirrel, who we named Mr. Squirrel, had been driving M crazy from outside the window. He would just tap, tap, tap on the glass until M would be driven so mad she would dive straight into the window after him. M bounced off the glass onto the floor at least five times. It was tragic. Something told me Mr. Squirrel thought it was hilarious.
Where was Mr. Squirrel? I looked out into the front yard. Mr. Squirrel was at the window every morning. Why wasn’t he there today?
Oh no.
I ran out of my room and out the front door and yelled, “M!”
I stood and waited for my cat to show up. “M!” I yelled again. I didn’t care if I woke up the entire neighborhood. Where was my kitty??
I was barefoot and my feet were getting cold. I needed to put on some shoes. I needed to mount a search.
Five minutes later, I was knocking on Mrs. White’s door.
“H
ave you seen M?” I asked as soon as she opened the door. “She’s not in the house. I can’t find her anywhere.”
“Are you all right?” she asked.
I realized that I was breathing real fast and my stomach was hurting. I ran to the side of Mrs. White’s porch and threw up my Pop-Tart into her yard.
Mrs. White came and stood beside me. We both looked down at my little pool of vomit.
“Let’s get you inside,” she said.
She sat me down at her kitchen table and poured me a glass of ginger ale.
“I think she got out of the house when Mom was taking up the garbage cans,” I said. “Mom always leaves the door open when she does that, and M never goes out. But she hates that Mr. Squirrel. She must have gone after him. We have to find her.”
“I’m sure Marmalade is around here someplace,” Mrs. White said. “That cat doesn’t look like the kind to miss a meal. Come dinnertime, I expect she’ll show up.”
How did she know? M never goes outside without me. What if she’d chased Mr. Squirrel and got lost? What if she doesn’t know how to get back to me?
Hey—and did Mrs. White just call my cat fat?
I put my head down on the table. Mrs. White put her hand on my back. Her kitchen smelled of cinnamon.
“Have a sip of ginger ale,” she said. “Then I’ll help you find her.”
We looked for M for the next few hours. We went up and down the street. We knocked on everybody’s door. But no M.
By the time my mom got home, I had made up a flyer with M’s picture on it.
I put a reward of a hundred dollars on the flyer, but my mom said that was too much. I said nothing was too much for M and we had to put the flyers out that night. She said we would put them out in the morning and that M would probably come home before then.
She didn’t.
The next morning, Mom helped me make copies of the flyer and we tacked them up on signs and telephone poles all over our part of town. I waited by the phone all afternoon for somebody to call saying they had found M.
No one called.
By nighttime, I was panicking. I parked myself on a chair in front of my bedroom window and wouldn’t move. I was using every ounce of my Infinity Year magical mind power. If she was lost and could hear me with my mind, she might be able to find her way back home.
As I looked out in the dark for some sign of my kitty cat, I heard my mom come into my room and sit on my bed.
“I brought you dinner,” she said.
“Okay,” I said. I didn’t look at her. I wasn’t taking my eyes off that window.
“Avalon, you need to eat,” Mom said.
“I’ll eat later.”
I heard her sigh.
We sat there in silence for a couple of minutes. Until my mom exploded.
“Avalon, we have talked about this! So many times! What are you writing him for?”
I looked at my mom. She was holding the letter I had been writing to my dad. I had left it on the bed.
“Mom, that’s my letter!” I exclaimed. “That’s my private property.” I reached for the letter but she pulled it away from me.
“We haven’t heard from him since your birthday.”
“I know,” I said. How could I not know that?
“We are moving ahead without your father,” she then said. “That is the plan.”
“That’s your plan!” I heard myself yelling. “It’s not my plan. It’s not M’s plan. Dad messed up but he’s still my dad!”
Mom closed her eyes. She hated talking about him and we hardly ever did anymore. But I didn’t care. I didn’t have M and I didn’t have my dad. M was always, always there for me. And Dad had been there, too. Yeah, he worked a lot but he would always joke around with me. He would help me with my flashcards. He understood me.
Sometimes, I didn’t think my mother had a clue.
My mom dropped the letter on my bed. “This is making me tired,” she said, and walked out of the room.
Great, I thought as I leaned against the cold window. Just great.
* * *
The next day, Atticus came over. I was really glad to see him.
His Aunt Lori and Uncle Kevin had arrived for Christmas and that meant Michael was there, too. Along with the new baby girl who they had named Bridget.
Usually, when Michael came to visit, Atticus didn’t have to share his room. But because of Bridget, who needed the extra room, Michael had to sleep in Atticus’s room—on the top bunk. I could tell that this was bothering Atticus.
“Has he been mean or anything?” I asked as we walked down the street looking for M.
“No, he’s been okay,” he said. “He’s gotten even taller, though.”
Looking back, I think I knew that Atticus wasn’t worried about Michael being taller. He was worried about something else. But because I was worried about something else, too, I just couldn’t see it.
We looked everywhere. We went in everybody’s backyards. We went up around the school. We even looked behind the Jiffy Freeze.
It was cold. “M must be freezing out there,” I said. We were sitting on the curb outside the Jiffy Freeze.
“M has lots of fur,” Atticus said. “She’ll be all right.”
“That darn Mr. Squirrel,” I said. I hadn’t seen Mr. Squirrel since before the morning M went missing. I knew it was that squirrel’s fault.
“We’ll find her,” Atticus said.
“What if we don’t?” I asked.
“We’ll find her,” he said, and looked at me like he really meant it.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Come on,” he said, and got off the curb. “Let’s keep looking.”
We looked until it got dark. Until it was time for Atticus to go home. We never found M.
Note to self: Infinity Year power DOES NOT help find the most important cat in the world.
That night was Christmas Eve and Mom and I were finally decorating our Christmas tree. It was awful. Dad wasn’t there to put up the ornaments and M wasn’t there to pull them down. Mom and I barely talked. We were still mad at each other about the letter. Christmas was the next day and I didn’t even care. I just wanted my M back.
Christmas came and it was official: the worst in history. I got a gift from Santa, a gift from my mom, and a gift from Grandma Grace that had come through the mail. Nothing from Dad—but that wasn’t even what made Christmas so bad. The gift I wanted was for M to come home. I kept looking at her stocking on the mantel. I knew what was inside it. A new collar, a ball with a bell inside, and a little jar of catnip.
At bedtime, Mom put M’s stocking on the pillow beside me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”
I wasn’t sure if she was sorry about M or sorry about the fight we had. Maybe she was sorry about all of it. I tried to smile but I couldn’t. “Merry Christmas,” I said. I picked one of M’s fur balls off my bedspread and rolled it up in my hand.
“Tomorrow will be a better day,” Mom said.
As she switched off my light, I turned over and looked out the window. It was so dark and so cold out there.
Darn that Mr. Squirrel.
TEN
The day after Christmas, I woke to a knock at my window. It wasn’t Mr. Squirrel. It was Atticus.
I rubbed my eyes and got out of bed. It was cold and I could tell from the light outside that it was really early. I opened my window. “What are you doing here?” I asked.
He looked at me and didn’t say anything, but I could tell something was very wrong.
“Get in,” I said, unsnapping the screen on my window. He crawled inside and I quickly shut the window behind him. It was freezing out there.
“What’s going on?” I asked. I turned to see him pulling my bedspread around him. His face was all red and he was shivering.
“I rode my bike over,” he said through chattering teeth.
“You rode your bike over!” That was crazy. His house
was miles away. “Are you okay?” I asked, and sat down beside him. He was clearly not okay.
“I had to get out of there,” he said.
“You had to get out of your house?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said.
Then it hit me. “What did he do? What did Michael do to you?”
“He didn’t do anything,” he mumbled.
Huh? This wasn’t making any sense. I looked at Atticus like I was deciphering a puzzle. Finally, I asked, “Atticus, what’s wrong?”
He didn’t answer. He sat on my bed, still as a stone, and wouldn’t even look at me. So, I sat there, too, and waited. Which is hard for me. Because I’m Avalon.
“Remember when we went to the farm before Halloween?” he said. I thought back. Yeah, I remembered. Something had been wrong with him that day, too. Also, it was the day he had lied to me. I had not forgotten that.
I nodded.
“My mom was really upset that morning and I didn’t know what to do.”
“I remember. It was about a test or something, right?” I asked.
“No, Avie. It wasn’t about a test,” he said. “I lied to you.”
So he really did lie to me. I hadn’t imagined it. It hurt a little for him to say it out loud.
“Oh. Okay,” I said, trying to act like it wasn’t a big deal. “So you lied to me—”
“I never lie to you,” he exclaimed. “I never do, Avie. And I’m so sorry because friends don’t lie to each other and we are friends. Infinity friends. It’s just there’s something I’ve never told you and if I don’t tell you now, it will be like lying to you all over again. And I don’t know who else to tell, but I can’t tell anyone because nobody can know. I don’t know what else to do. I can only tell you, Avie. I can only tell you.”
He stopped. He was all out of breath. He was almost shaking.
“Okay,” I said. “Then tell me.”
He looked at me and said, “I wet the bed.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I’m ten years old and I wet the bed,” he said, and dropped his head. “It’s not like it happens all the time anymore. It even stopped for a while last year and I thought it was over, but it came back again. And it makes my mom so crazy. It really freaks her out. But I can’t help it, Avie. The medicine doesn’t even help. And then it happened again this morning—and I totally freaked out. I covered everything up but what if Michael finds out? Oh, gosh, what if he finds out? I had to get out of there. I just couldn’t be there. I couldn’t … I just couldn’t, Avie.”
The Infinity Year of Avalon James Page 8