The mural might not actually do anything to help us get back into the Liberty building, but it might help repair our network. We would be stronger together.
Mama and Mr. Harmon were on board for the mural, but made it clear they were counting on us for the petitions and bracelets. That made me a little sad and annoyed at the same time—the mural was my idea. But I had volunteered for the petitions and I wanted to show Mama I could follow through. Bria was going to run the bracelet sales.
The morning of the rally, Mama, Daddy, Red, and I arrived at 8:30 a.m. to set up. The sky was bright blue, streaked with ribbons of white clouds. Being back at Liberty for the first time in two weeks made me feel like I was up on those clouds, floating.
“Motherboard to Monitor,” Daddy called out, grinning. That’s what he always said when he wanted to get my or Red’s attention. “Enough staring up at the sky. We’ve got work to do.”
Mr. Harmon laid down his tarps and set up his paintbrushes and paint on the sidewalk in front of the mural while Mama and Daddy set up two tables: one with info on Liberty and the campaign, and one with all our bracelets. Red, Teagan, Isaiah, and I each took a clipboard and a stack of petitions. At the top of the forms was the “appeal” Mama had come up with:
On June 23, 2017, the power failed at the heart of our community, Liberty Arts Center. So far, the city’s Parks and Recreation Department is not making the needed repairs a priority. We know what Liberty means to the community and how much we all want it back up and running. To show the Parks and Recreation Department that you stand with Liberty, please sign this petition.
Soon, Bria, Alejandro, and Amelia arrived. I tapped my own nose and waved across the parking lot as Amelia made her way to help Mr. Harmon with the mural. Beside me, Teagan was handing Isaiah and Alejandro clipboards, too.
“Okay,” she said in her businesslike voice. “Remember: This is a busy street. People are going to be rushing to one place or another. They’re not going to necessarily have time to hear this whole thing.” She pointed at the long, italicized paragraph on the top of the page. “So I’ve come up with a nice shortened version.”
I’d already heard Teagan’s shortened version multiple times. In fact, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she was repeating it so many times for my benefit. She’s worried that I’ll stutter and mess things up, I thought.
“Gabby?”
“Huh?”
“What’s wrong?”
Teagan was staring at me. So was everyone else.
“Nothing’s wrong. Why?”
“You have this look on your face, like, I don’t know—”
“Like you just realized your treacherous uncle was responsible for your father’s death.”
Now we all stared at Isaiah. He sighed. “Has no one read Hamlet?”
“No, Isaiah, we haven’t,” I replied. “And there’s nothing wrong with me.”
“If you say so,” Teagan said, adjusting her beanie with her free hand. “Are you all good with what to say?”
Annoyance bubbled up in me like lava. “Yes, I am,” I said as calmly as I could. “I’m going to go see if your grandfather needs any help.”
I moved away and around the corner out of Teagan’s sight. The truth was, I was nervous about having to go up and talk to strangers. I didn’t know why I volunteered for a petition shift. I just knew I wanted to help in whatever way I could. I took a deep breath and, after checking to make sure Teagan was nowhere near her grandfather, went over to where Mr. Harmon stood, hands on hips, gazing at the unfinished mural.
“I think I’m going to let everyone pick his or her own color paint,” he said. “And just add on to the mural however they like. Many colors coming together to create one piece of art. What do you think?”
“Sounds perfect,” I said. As Mr. Harmon talked, I felt a little of my annoyance disappear.
Now that we had everything set up, it was time to get all eyes on Liberty. Mama, Daddy, and a few of Liberty’s regulars held up signs Mr. Harmon had made for them that said things like SAVE LIBERTY! Even Stan showed up wearing his same old navy-blue janitor pants. He held a sign that said, DON’T LET THEM KEEP LIBERTY IN THE DARK! When I caught his eye, he winked at me and waved.
Red, Teagan, Isaiah, and Alejandro wasted no time running up to people passing by, their clipboards at the ready. I stood off to the side, my mouth clamped shut. A bunch of girls from my hip-hop class had shown up and begun a dance line near the sidewalk. They even had a radio set up, playing the instrumental version of Silentó’s “Watch Me” song, but instead of calling out the real lyrics, they said, “Look, we stand with Liberty! Look, look, we stand with Liberty!” People couldn’t help but stop and stare at them, and they made sure to hand each person a Dream Together card and point them in the direction of one of the kids with a petition. Now more than ever I wished I hadn’t volunteered for petition duty.
I looked around. Isaiah was a few feet away and Alejandro and Teagan were on the opposite corner. No one was across the street. Perfect. I could have all the people on that side of the street to myself and, a small voice in my head whispered, If you mess up no one will notice.
I told Mama where I was headed and she insisted that Daddy cross the street with me. “Go get ’em, Gabby,” he called to me as he jogged back to Mama and the rest of the chanters.
Mama had told me to stand where she could see me, so I planted myself firmly on the corner. There were people coming from two directions. A man with two sons. Don’t bother him, I told myself. He’s busy. I said the same thing about the woman on her cell phone, and the couple holding hands. But I couldn’t say the woman a few feet away was busy. She had her hands in her pockets and walked slowly toward me, as if she had no place important to be. I breathed in deep.
“Uh, excuse me?” I said as she passed.
The woman turned, already smiling. “Yes?”
“Hi.” I waved. “Um, I … I’m out here, um I mmmean we’re out here be-be-because Liberty Arts Center, is, i-i-it’s dark. I mmmean, um, the lights went out—”
“I heard about that!”
I nodded, wishing she would just let me finish.
“Aaaand, we’re out here t-t-today because—”
“Oooh, Gabby, good idea to come across the street!”
I looked behind me, and there was Teagan, hurrying over. I waited for her to keep jogging right on past me and take up the spot on the opposite corner, but she didn’t. She stopped and stood right next to me.
“An-an-anyway,” I went on, trying to pick up where I’d left off, trying to pin the necessary words down and push through my bumpy speech. But the only words in my head were Teagan, what are you doing here?! “Anyway, wwwwe’re out here today b-b-because …” I stopped to take a deep breath.
“We’re hoping to collect enough signatures to show the city that Liberty needs to be repaired as soon as possible,” Teagan cut in. “Would you be interested in signing Gabby’s petition? Gabby, wait she’s going to—”
I was already walking away. Behind me, I heard Teagan say a rushed “Thank you!” to the woman, and then her sneakers were slapping the sidewalk as she ran to catch up with me.
“What was—”
I didn’t let Teagan finish. “Why-why-why do you have to do that all the time? Jump in and talk for me? Y-Y-You act like you have to ssssave me, like I can’t talk for myself. It’s … it’s … annoying!”
Teagan’s face crumpled. “I didn’t know—I mean, I wasn’t—” This was the first time I could ever remember Teagan searching for words. “You didn’t have to be so mean about it.”
“I need to try this on my own, okay? I’m going to collect signatures on that corner.” I pointed over Teagan’s shoulder.
“I guess I’ll collect them on the other end,” she replied softly.
I went to my corner and Teagan went to hers. I turned quickly to see that she was watching me. When our eyes met, she turned away. Probably waiting to jump in and rescue me again, I thou
ght. But I’d show Teagan—I could do this by myself. I stopped the next man who walked by.
“G-G-Good morning, sir. I wonder if you’d b-be … if you’d like to sign our petition.”
The man looked confused. “Petition for what?”
My face grew hot. “For, um, L-L-Liberty Arts C-Center? It needs, well, i-i-it’s in the d-dark and—” I stopped myself this time. “Liberty Arts Center had a power outage and it needs, um, repairs. We are out here today p-p-petitioning the city to, um, uh”—I groped around for the word— “p-prioritize Liberty’s rrrrr-repairs. Will you sign?”
“Of course. I went to your Rhythm and Views show a few years back. It was something else.”
After the man walked away, I looked down at his loopy signature on the first line of my petition. I’d done it all by myself without needing to be rescued. See, Teagan—I can do it.
After that it got a little bit easier each time. My stutter still tripped me up a bunch of times, but I pushed through and got my point across as best I could. By the time the rally was over, I’d gotten two full pages of signatures.
Daddy came back across the street to get Teagan and me and said, “Great job, kiddo!” when I showed him my petition pages. Teagan just gave a weak smile. We didn’t say anything to each other as we crossed the street. She didn’t say anything to me when we walked around the corner of the Liberty building and saw the finished mural, either.
The mural was gorgeous—colors on top of colors, melding together into three giant hearts. I don’t know if Mr. Harmon meant it this way, but to me, the three hearts represented the dance and visual arts departments, and our little poetry group. The chaotic colors on top of one another made me think about how we were so on top of each other in the rec room, and I let out a little laugh. Like Red’s poem, the community had taken something chaotic and made it into art.
But the mural wasn’t the only thing on the wall. All around the mural, people had taped up big paper hearts and written on them. Each heart finished the sentence, “I love Liberty because …”
“What do you think?” Amelia asked, coming up beside me. “We were talking about what we loved about Liberty while painting, and everyone’s statements were so beautiful, I thought we should write them down.”
“They’re amazing,” I said. I slowly walked down the wall, reading each heart.
Because Liberty is full of art and history! That was Ameila’s handwriting.
Because the arts are what make us human! Mrs. Blake.
Because I get to dance tap and hip-hop at the same time! Sharday, one of the girls in the dance line.
Because I meet people here who are different than me. Delilah, one of Mama’s senior dancers.
“Pretty neat, huh, cuz?” Red joined us by the mural. “I’ll admit I abandoned my petitions post for a while to come see what was happening over here. Not that I didn’t get an awesome amount of signatures.” He handed me his petition sheets.
Alejandro gave me his, too, and then Isaiah said, “Here you go,” and handed me two stacks of petitions. “Mine and Teagan’s.”
I glanced up to see Teagan staring at the mural a few feet away, a sad expression on her face. Had I really been that mean?
I pushed the thought away and clipped everyone’s sheets to the top of my own clipboard. They all had more signatures than me, but that was okay.
“Hey, guys!” Bria came running up. “We sold forty bracelets! Looks like we’ll be making more!”
“I got one!” Amelia said, holding up her wrist. The blue matched the sky above, the same color as our ballet costumes for Rhythm and Views. My stomach did a little flip flop. Mama told me yesterday that we needed to hear from the city before any decisions were made. I was trying my best to believe the show would go on.
“Looks like they’re starting to clean up,” Amelia said. Mama was doing her director thing, telling everyone what needed doing.
“I can help with the paints,” I said.
“And I’ll help take down the info table,” Teagan said. She booked it across the asphalt and toward the parking lot. A tiny part of me wanted to chase behind her, but what would I say if I did? I’d meant what I’d said earlier, even if it came out a little bratty.
Alejandro and Bria tackled one end of the mural cleanup. Red, Isaiah, and I tackled the other, beside a ladder with an open jar of paint on one of the steps. I placed the clipboard with the petitions on the ground beside me.
“Your mom said we needed at least two hundred signatures to convince the city to make Liberty a priority, right?” Red said as he plucked a dirty paintbrush off of the ground and tossed it in a plastic bag. “How many do you think we have?”
I crouched down and spread out the pages of the petition. Each page had twenty numbered lines. There were thirteen pages with all twenty lines full. My heart did a happy skip.
“More than enough!” I said, standing up. It took me a minute to do the math in my head. “We’ve got two hundred sixty if we only count the pages that are completely full of signatures. When we add in the signatures on the half-full pages, we’ll have even more.”
“We thought we couldn’t do it—” Red began.
“‘How far that little candle throws his beams!’” Isaiah declared.
I was so happy, I couldn’t even roll my eyes at Isaiah yelling out Shakespeare quotes that made no sense. I felt like I could jump. Soar. I prepped and did a double pirouette turn.
“You know, I can do that, too,” Red told Isaiah.
This time, Red didn’t have a garbage can to break his fall when he lost his balance. He fell into Isaiah instead, who said, “Many accidents are caused by imitation.”
“Shakespeare?” Red asked.
“No,” Isaiah replied, shoving Red off of him. “Me.”
“Face it, Red,” I teased. “You just don’t have the skill.”
This time I did a fouetté turn, thrusting my leg out as I spun.
“Gabby, watch out!” Red cried.
It was too late. I’d kicked the ladder. I spun back around just in time to see the can of dark blue paint fall off the fourth step. Right onto the signed petitions.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
The next few seconds happened as if they were a movie. I watched them, but I wasn’t really a part of them. Red and Isaiah dropped to their knees and frantically shook the pages of the petition, trying to shake the paint off. Teagan and Bria raced over to see what had happened, followed by Mama and Daddy. No one seemed to notice me standing there. I backed slowly away and then broke into a run until I reached the side of the community center, out of sight. Then I sat down in a patch of grass and dirt, the same words playing on a loop in my head.
This is all your fault.
It wasn’t long before I heard footsteps on the sidewalk. I looked up, expecting to see Mama looking down at me, or Red, or maybe Teagan. But it wasn’t any of them. It was Amelia.
“Hey,” she said. “Room for one more?”
My patch of grass was but only so big, but I moved over and pressed myself against the wall so Amelia could sit beside me. Amelia was always so perfect. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her make a mistake. I made sure the knees of my old jeans didn’t touch the knees of her clean, crisp white ones. I didn’t want my ability to make a bad situation worse to rub off on her.
“I know that I ruined—”
She held up her hand for silence. “We finished the mural. It’s beautiful—”
“Why did I think I could ever be in charge of anything in the first place?”
Amelia went on, as though I hadn’t spoken. “And we got a lot of donations toward the Dream Together campaign. I’m hearing between eight hundred and a thousand dollars.”
“I ruined everything.” Tears pushed at the back of my eyes.
Amelia sighed. “You did not. No one is mad about the petition. We’re just all excited about what we accomplished today.”
“B-B-But—but it’s not enough, is it?” I yanked a handful
of grass from the earth and tossed it on the ground in front of me. “It’s llllllike we’re ta-ta-taking one step fffffforward and then taking two steps ba-ba-ba-back!”
“But we still took that one step, and that matters. It’s like dancing, Gabby. You can’t have a dance if you never take the first step. Like today. I saw you struggling to talk to those strangers, but you took one step and then another, and before you knew it, you were collecting signatures left and right.”
“Yeah, and then I spilled p-paint all over them,” I muttered, yanking up another handful of grass. “Sometimes it’s not even worth it to work through my words. I sh-sh-should have just worked on the mural.”
“Can I tell you something, Gabby?”
I shrugged. Amelia took that as a yes and went on. “The other night, when your mom and I were running rehearsal, you got up to share a poem with Red. I should have been watching the senior girls, but I was watching you. I saw that you were scared, but you recited the poem anyway. That’s pretty big.” She nodded, as if confirming something to herself. “You kind of inspired me that day.”
My head snapped up. “What? Me inspire you?”
“Yeah,” Amelia replied, laughing. “I struggle with my words, too. I’m dyslexic. When I read, it seems like the words on the page play tricks on me, changing directions, letters moving from one place to another. But I fight. Just like you.”
I stared at Amelia, beautiful Amelia, who Mama said was flawless. Even now, after hours in the sun, helping people paint, Amelia’s bun wasn’t the slightest bit messy, her pink-tinted lip gloss unsmudged. I didn’t even see any paint on her hands. I had always thought everything came easily to Amelia, but I guess I was wrong. Without really knowing it, I moved away from the wall, little by little, until my knee was touching hers. She didn’t seem to mind.
“What are we going to do now?” I asked.
Amelia looked at me. I looked back at her. We shook our heads. Then we sat there, Liberty looming over us, big as the question neither of us could answer.
The next day, Monday, I tried to clear my head and not think about all of the problems with Liberty. But the one thing I couldn’t stop thinking about was Teagan. Even though I knew what I’d said to her at the rally had to be said, maybe she was right: I didn’t have to be so mean about it. That night, I went to my room, climbed up on my bed, and FaceTimed her.
Gabriela (American Girl Page 6