by Meg Cabot
So was I supposed to have just let people kick dirt on him and call him Upchuck?
Was Cheyenne just supposed to have let Brittany say those mean things about Pine Heights?
Oh, why did everything have to be so complicated?
Even though I felt more confused than ever, I did have to admit it felt very grown up to be having this discussion with Mrs Hunter in this office-y place, sitting in these grown-up chairs with all these pamphlets around, and Miss Brown typing away on her computer keyboard in the background, and Mrs Hunter’s engagement ring winking in the sunlight, and Mary Kay talking on Mrs Hunter’s cellphone, saying things like, ‘But Mom, I don’t want to,’ and, ‘Mom. You don’t understand.’’
It felt so grown up that I felt like it would be OK if I asked a grown-up question.
‘Mrs Hunter,’ I said shyly. ‘Is that an engagement ring?’
I pointed at the ring on the third finger of her left hand, the one that was winking in the sunlight.
I was pretty sure I knew the answer already.
But I just wanted to know for sure.
Mrs Hunter looked surprised. Then she smiled and touched her ring and said, ‘Why yes, Allie. Yes, it is.’
I looked down at my feet. I didn’t really want to ask what I did next, because I was afraid of what the answer was going to be.
But I felt like I sort of had to. Because the dread of not knowing for sure was kind of worse than what her answer could be.
‘So,’ I said, ‘does that mean you’re going to be moving away?’
Mrs Hunter sounded even more surprised.
‘No,’ she said, ‘of course not. Whatever gave you the idea that I was going to be moving?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘because that man who threw the rocks at our windows had a suitcase. And if he was the old friend who sent you flowers—’
‘Oh,’ Mrs Hunter said with a laugh. ‘My goodness. Yes, that was David. He does live out of town, but he just got a job here for the city planning commission. So I’m not going anywhere.’
I felt as if a giant weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Really.
It was almost like I’d gotten my own cellphone and Mewsie back, all in one.
Except not, of course. All that would have been way too good to be true.
‘Well,’ I said, super relieved. ‘That’s good.’
Then the door to the office opened and Ms Myers came in.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Ms Meyers said. She was out of breath. ‘I was all the way out by the wigwams. Is she all right?’
‘She’s fine,’ Mrs Hunter said with a smile, standing up. ‘She’s talking to her mother right now. I’m afraid she wants to go home.’
‘Of course she does,’ Ms Myers said, rolling her eyes. Then she noticed me and said, ‘Oh, Allie. Hello. I didn’t see you sitting there.’
‘Hi, Ms Myers,’ I said. I wasn’t sure what to do exactly. But I felt like I should do something to try to help the situation. I was so happy that Mrs Hunter wasn’t moving – and thought I was brave, and had thanked me for being so kind . . . even if she thought I should let Joey fight his own battles from time to time – I’d have been willing to do anything . . .
Even something I really didn’t want to do.
‘Do you want me to go talk to Mary Kay?’ I volunteered. ‘Maybe I can convince her to stay.’
Ms Myers’s face brightened. ‘Would you mind trying, Allie? That would be great. You two were always such good friends, and I was just agreeing with Mrs Hunter about what a good influence you are on others . . .’
Mom may not have thought I was responsible enough to own a cellphone, but not just one, two of my teachers thought I was a good influence!
That had to count for something!
Mary Kay put Mrs Hunter’s phone down when she saw me in the doorway. ‘Yes?’ she asked in a snotty way.
The red bump on her chin was enormous. Really.
‘Hey,’ I said brightly. ‘Sorry to interrupt. But are you ready to go back now? Because I figured you’d had a long enough rest, and we’re missing all the best stuff. The horse-shoeing and the wigwam building or whatever.’
‘I can’t go back,’ Mary Kay said, her eyes filling with tears again. ‘Look at me.’
‘You look great,’ I lied. Because You should always lie and tell someone they look great when they’ve just been stung in the face by a bee. Total rule.
‘Really?’ Mary Kay sounded sceptical.
Lucky for me there were no mirrors in the back room, so she couldn’t see herself.
‘Oh yeah,’ I said. ‘You can hardly notice it at all.’
Mrs Shiner said something on the phone. Mary Kay held it up to her ear and said, ‘OK, Mom! Fine!’
Then she hung up.
‘My mom has an important deposition,’ Mary Kay said, sitting up. ‘She says the bus is going to be leaving in an hour or so anyway, so it’s stupid for her to drive all the way out here to pick me up when I’m just going to be coming home soon anyway.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘it is kind of stupid. I mean, it’s just a bee-sting. Think what the early settlers went through in the eighteen fifties with all those locusts and stuff. Way, way worse.’
‘But this isn’t really the eighteen fifties,’ Mary Kay said, giving me a very sarcastic look. ‘I could be home, watching TV.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘But then you’ll miss out on all the Team Shawnee fun.’
‘Right,’ Mary Kay said with a snort.
We looked at each other for a minute.
‘I’m sorry’ Mary Kay said finally.
Those were the last two words I ever expected to hear out of her mouth.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry too.’
I didn’t know what I was apologizing for exactly.
But When you’ve been fighting with a friend for so long you can barely remember why any more, and she suddenly says she’s sorry, you should say you’re sorry too. That’s another rule.
‘Was the reason you stayed with me after I got stung,’ Mary Kay asked, ‘just because you’re my buddy?’
‘Well,’ I said. Why had I stayed with Mary Kay after she’d been stung? It wasn’t like she’d been very nice to me today, or any other day. Actually, she’d been pretty mean to me every day I’d ever known her.
But that didn’t matter. Wouldn’t I have stayed with anybody, under the same circumstances? Because that’s the rule? Don’t go walkabout on people who are in distress?
Only I couldn’t tell Mary Kay that, because that would have just hurt her feelings.
And she’d been hurt enough for one day.
And It’s OK to lie if it means someone’s feelings won’t get hurt. That’s a rule.
‘No,’ I answered finally. ‘It’s because I’m your friend too.’
Mary Kay looked really happy to hear this. Even though she’s never been too thrilled to be my friend before now.
Then she said, ‘Well. Let’s go then. Like you said, we don’t want to miss out on the best stuff.’
I smiled.
And we went to go find the rest of Team Shawnee.
Rule #19
If You Don’t Work Together, You’ll Never Finish Your Wigwam
It took so long to get to the stables from the administrative offices that Mary Kay and I missed Blacksmith Todd’s forge demonstration, where he stuck pieces of metal into a very hot furnace and melted it (apparently, this was quite a popular demonstration, especially with the boys).
But we got there in time to see him put the shoe he’d made from the molten metal on to the horse.
It’s hard to believe the nails going in didn’t hurt the horse. But it didn’t, Blacksmith Todd assured us. It’s no different than getting your toenails cut. In fact, horses need to have shoes just like we do.
Blacksmiths, we learned, were very important in the 1800s, like car mechanics are today, not only because they shod all the horses – which was the main way people got around in olden times �
� but because they made practically everything else back then too, like frying pans for instance. You couldn’t just go to Target or Walmart and buy one, because there were no stores like those in olden times. You had to go to a blacksmith and have whatever you wanted made.
Blacksmith Todd did his best to bring Team Shawnee together with his talk about the importance of men who had his job in olden times.
But it was clear from the moment Mary Kay and I showed up that things on our team had been severed beyond repair.
All the Pine Heights kids were standing on one side of the stable, and all the Walnut Knolls kids were standing on the other. Even the size of Mary Kay’s swollen chin – which was amazing – wasn’t enough to unite them.
It took a visit to Mistress Carol and the authentic replica of a Native American wigwam she was in charge of making us build to do that.
Because by that time everyone was so mad at each other, a total fight broke out.
You’re not doing it right!’ Lenny Hsu was yelling. ‘Hold them straight!’
‘We are holding them straight,’ Paige said, referring to the sapling branches we were holding, and that we were supposed to form into a structure that would eventually house all of us (once we covered the sapling branches with mats, which would keep out the rain we were supposed to pretend was coming).
‘This is going to take forever,’ Cheyenne said, holding her sapling branch in place while Lenny and Scott scrambled around inside the wigwam, binding them together with string.
She was right. Also, it was totally hot out. And there were more bees.
‘You’re doing so well,’ Mistress Carol assured us. Mistress Carol had been the lady I’d seen in the parking lot who’d been dressed the strangest out of all the park people. She had on a long skirt, a corset thingy on the outside, and all her waist-length hair was flowing free. She was also wearing a ton of necklaces. ‘I can feel the positive energy coming from you, children! You’ll have this wigwam built in no time!’
‘No we won’t,’ Cheyenne said, giving Mistress Carol a sour look. ‘Because we’re going to have to leave to catch our bus in half an hour. And there’s no way it’s going to be finished by then.’
‘Ow,’ Lauren shrieked at Joey, letting go of her branch. ‘You stepped on my finger, Chuck!’
And that’s when the fighting started for real.
‘Stop calling him Chuck,’ I yelled. ‘It’s not his name!’
‘I didn’t mean to,’ Joey said to Lauren. ‘I’m sorry about your finger.’
‘Come on now,’ Mistress Carol said. ‘If you don’t work together, you’ll never finish your wigwam.’ That was a rule.
‘None of this would be happening,’ Cheyenne shouted at Brittany, ‘if you all weren’t such stuck-up snobs!’
‘Stop,’ Mistress Carol said, grabbing Brittany’s wrist, then Cheyenne’s, and holding on to them. ‘All of you, stop. Just stop a moment and stand still. Take a breath. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out.’
We all stood where we were in the skeleton of our team’s wigwam and did what Mistress Carol said. We breathed. In and out. In the distance, I could hear birds chirping in the treetops. And the far-off drone of more bees.
‘Now,’ Mistress Carol said. ‘Sit. Wherever you are. Just sit.’
Cheyenne looked down at the ground. ‘But my mother rented this period costume from New York, and if I get it dirty it will cost thirty dollars to dry-clean—’
‘Just sit,’ Mistress Carol said, and she yanked Cheyenne to the ground with her.
We all sat. Including Cheyenne. Even though she didn’t look too happy about it.
‘In the days when the Shawnee and the Pawnee and the Illini and the Miami Indians actually lived in this area,’ Mistress Carol said, sitting cross-legged with her eyes closed, ‘they all had a practice from which I believe you children could benefit. It was when the young members of the tribe – usually around your age – would go on a journey in order to find their true spiritual selves.’
‘You mean like a walkabout?’ I asked in surprise.
Mistress Carol opened one of her eyes and looked at me. ‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s Australian.’
‘Oh,’ I said, disappointed.
‘I’m talking about finding your life direction,’ Mistress Carol said, closing her eyes again. ‘Do you want your life direction to be one of petty bickering and close-mindedness, shutting yourself off to new opportunities the way you children are doing now by not accepting one another’s differences? Or do you want to open your heart and mind and let in all that this amazing world has to offer?’
Open my heart and mind, I thought.
‘I can’t hear you,’ Mistress Carol said.
‘Open our hearts and minds,’ a few of us murmured.
‘It’s funny,’ Mistress Carol said. ‘I still can’t hear you.’
‘OPEN OUR HEARTS AND MINDS,’ we all said.
‘Well, there,’ Mistress Carol said, opening her eyes and getting up. ‘Wasn’t that simple? And now I want you to stand up and work together to finish your wigwam, keeping your hearts and minds open to each of your unique differences, which are what make you such amazing individuals. Because if you can do that, you can do anything.’
I didn’t think it was going to work.
All Mistress Carol had done, after all, was make us sit on the ground while she gave a speech about keeping our hearts and minds open. She hadn’t even had us walk through a thirteen-foot-tall working model of a heart, so we could see the way the ventricles and arteries worked, or anything like that.
But for some reason, we finished that wigwam anyway.
Not that it looked very good. It looked awful, in fact. If it rained, no way would we have stayed dry. Our wigwam would have melted away.
But when it was done, we could all fit inside it. It was kind of cool, crouching inside our wigwam, shoulder to shoulder, looking out at Honeypot Prairie through the branches we’d twisted together ourselves.
It was kind of like being inside the SpaceQuest planetarium. Except it wasn’t a planetarium. And it didn’t have a Dinosphere.
But we’d made it ourselves. Without killing one another. While keeping our hearts and minds open to each of our unique differences, which are what make us such amazing individuals.
I doubted we could have learned that in a planetarium.
When Team Shawnee got on the bus, we were all feeling like one big happy family.
‘Give me your cell number,’ Dominique was saying to Lauren.
‘Ooooh, give me yours,’ Lauren was saying.
‘I’m going to have a sleepover,’ Brittany was saying, ‘and you’re all invited.’
‘I can’t wait,’ Cheyenne squealed.
‘Wait,’ Scott was saying to Joey. ‘I thought you said it was faux fur.’
‘No,’ Joey said. ‘I just said that so the girls wouldn’t get upset. It’s real fur. My uncle shot and skinned it when he was a kid.’
‘Sweet,’ Paul Schmitt said. ‘Can I touch it?’
‘No,’ Joey said. ‘Hands off the hat.’
‘Oh no!’ Mary Kay caught a glimpse of her reflection in the rear-view mirror of the bus. ‘That’s how I look? I look awful! Allie, why didn’t you tell me?’
She burst into tears and wouldn’t speak to me any more.
I guess some things don’t really ever change.
‘Allie, Allie,’ Sophie cried, pulling me down next to her as I was going down the bus aisle. I’d been heading back towards the same seat I’d shared with Rosemary on the way to Honeypot Prairie.
But Sophie had other ideas for me.
‘Will you talk to Erica, please?’ she begged.
‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What’s wrong with Erica?’
Erica was sitting next to the window, crying uncontrollably.
‘It was j-just,’ she sobbed, ‘so w-wonderful!’
‘What was?’ I asked her bewilderedly.
‘The whole thing,’ Erica said. ‘The field trip! Mrs Hig
ginbottom. Master Baker Sean. Mistress Carol. The horses. Didn’t you love it? I don’t want it to end, ever! I wish I could go back in time and live in the eighteen fifties!’
I guess I could understand why Erica had had such a good time. I mean, she hadn’t had Brittany, Cheyenne, Patrick and Paul Schmitt on her team. Not to mention Mary Kay.
I wondered what Honeypot Prairie must have been like from Erica’s point of view. Obviously totally magical – like Narnia – if she was crying that hard because she didn’t want to go home.
‘See?’ Sophie whispered to me, shaking her head. ‘I told you. You have to talk to her. She’s nuts. I mean, it was fun, but not that fun.’
I was relieved someone else had some perspective on the whole thing.
‘Oh my gosh, you guys,’ Caroline said, her head and shoulders popping over the seat-back in front of ours. Elizabeth Pukowski joined her. ‘Was that amazing or what?’
‘It was certainly . . . interesting,’ I said.
‘Interesting?’ Caroline echoed. ‘It was fantastic! Wasn’t that the best bread you ever had? I’m going to get a cookbook so I can learn how to make bread like Master Baker Sean.’
‘Well,’ Sophie said, ‘I’m totally taking a first-aid course in case anyone is ever stung by a bee like that again, and needs medical aid. That way I’ll be ready. Like Mrs Hunter was.’
Caroline looked at her strangely. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Oh, right!’ Sophie cried. ‘You weren’t there! Well, that friend of Allie’s, Mary Kay – ’
And she started telling Caroline and Elizabeth all about Mary Kay’s bee-sting.
I was sitting there kind of zoning out, thinking about all the strange things that had happened during the day and how different they must have seemed from other people’s perspectives, when all of a sudden someone said my name, and I looked up and it was Mrs Hunter.
‘Here,’ she said with a smile. ‘You forgot this.’
And she handed me my backpack.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Thanks so much!’
I couldn’t believe I’d been so irresponsible as to forget it.
‘I think you’ll find there’s a surprise inside the front pocket,’ she said with a wink before going to take her seat, ‘for being such a help today.’