Finding Perfect

by Elly Swartz

  Ms. P. ignores Bridgett. “Well done, Hannah. Very unique.”

  Hannah grins and shows off her red-and-orange braces.

  I give her a thumbs-up as she takes her seat, and slip her a note that says I want a blue one.

  She crumples the note.

  7

  the opposite of pod

  “WAIT UP,” I CALL to Hannah on the way out to morning stretch. Kate said they stopped calling it recess in middle school to make us feel like we weren’t elementary school babies anymore.

  She stops. “What?”

  “I love the bracelets. You did a great job. I so want one!”

  Eye roll. “You broke your promise. You told me you’d raise your hand and order one when Ms. P. called for comments or questions.”

  I bite the inside of my mouth hard. I taste the warm blood trickling down my throat.

  Silence.

  Hannah knows me better than anyone. She knows I slept with my closet light on until fifth grade and that I’m afraid of cats, particularly those white ones with the red eyes. I can’t pretend with her. “I’m sorry. I definitely want a blue one and promise to wear it every day. I just got, um, distracted.” That’s as honest as I can be.

  “By what?” she asks.

  “What what?”

  “What was so distracting?”

  Socks. I can’t say that. “Just something dumb.” I know it’s a pathetic answer, but it’s the only one I can give.

  “So, you ignored my presentation because you were thinking about something dumb.”

  My brain searches frantically for a better lie. “I um, um, was worried about Round Two of the slam. I don’t even have the shred of an idea for my poem, and I bet Josh’s already written his.”

  She stares into my eyes. I hope she can’t see me. The real me. “I don’t care what Josh Finnegan does, there’s no way he’s going to beat you. Besides, the kid never blinks and barely speaks. I think he’s part stone,” she says, her anger slipping away.

  A smile finds my face. Then, “I’m sorry. Don’t be mad.” I look at the sandy ground.

  “I’m not mad. I just didn’t want to have to call on Bridgett.”

  “She’s harmless.” Mostly because all she cares about is herself.

  “She’s obsessed with dead people and hates me,” Hannah says.

  “She is obsessed with dead people, but she doesn’t hate you. She just doesn’t know you the way I do.”

  Hannah twirls her too-short hair tightly around her finger until the tip turns reddish blue.

  “Okay, out with it,” I say.

  “What?”

  “What’s wrong? You only do that hair thing when you’re upset. And your hair isn’t even long enough now to do it properly.” I unwrap her finger.

  “This was the thing I wanted to tell you this morning before Ms. Death showed up. This is a double-cross-your-heart-swear-not-to-share secret,” she whispers.

  I swear and we seal it with our pinky shake.

  “Okay, when my dad thought I was asleep on the couch, I overheard him talking to my gram on the phone. You know he was laid off, right?”

  I nod. Hannah’s dad was the chef at Bayside Bistro until they fired him for some fancy French chef named Pierre. I figured by now things were fine. I mean, it wasn’t like her dad moved away from her family to make swamp juice in Canada.

  “He said that money’s tight and it’s getting harder to find another job around here, and then he mentioned a job offer in Seattle.”

  I stare at her to see if there’s a just-joking behind her story, but there isn’t. “Seattle? Your dad’s going to Seattle?”

  “No. He’s not going to Seattle without me.”

  “I didn’t mean he’d leave you alone. Can’t you stay with your gram?” It’s been just Hannah and her dad since her mom died a gazillion years ago when Hannah was little.

  “No, he says we’re a pod. If he goes, I go.”

  I guess my family isn’t a pod. I wonder what the opposite of a pod is.

  Hannah continues, “Except clearly we’re not a pod since we live on land and despite the larger-than-average size of the Levine butts, we’re not whales.”

  I’m stuck on the leaving part. “Hannah, you can’t go. Seattle’s so far, it’s a whole different time zone!”

  “I know.”

  “And I’d miss you, and my missing-bucket is already full with my mom.”

  “I know,” she says again, grabbing a blue strand and going for another twirl.

  “So what did he say next?”

  “I don’t know. I woke up from my pretend sleep because I couldn’t listen to him for one more second.”

  “What? Why? Didn’t you want to hear the rest?” I notice her seven bracelets. Green. Orange. Red. Yellow. Purple and white. Pink and gold. And the last one is a mix of all the colors. No pattern. Deep breath.

  Hannah stares at the ground. “I did, but I freaked out. What if I have to move?” The twirl is turning her finger the color of her hair.

  I unwind her hair again. “Fine. Even if you do leave me, which you won’t, we’ll talk every night like I do with my mom. Plus, we’ll spend all our vacations and summers together.” I hug her tight.

  “It’s not the same. Seattle’s all the way across the country. It rains there and I already have terrible hair,” Hannah says.

  “You don’t have terrible hair. It’s just short and black and blue and uneven.”

  “What am I going to do? I don’t want to move.” Hannah rests her head on my shoulder.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll think of something.” I lean my head into hers. “I promise.”

  As we walk together around the empty rock garden, Hannah says, “I’ve already decided that I’ll give my dad the money I make from the Color Me Bracelets business. Maybe it can help. Even a little.”

  “So that’s why you’re doing the business for real?”

  She nods.

  “But no matter what business I create, unless I come up with some incredible phone app—and that’s unlikely since I don’t know anything about computer programming, I hate science, and I’m very average in math—it’s not going to change anything.”

  We are quiet for a while.

  Then I say, “Hey, do you remember when Kayla from camp won five thousand dollars in that Next Great Diva singing contest?”

  “That’s not even a little funny. You know I sound like a dying cat when I sing the ‘Star-Spangled Banner.’ Don’t think a singing contest is an option.”

  “I know you can’t sing. No offense—”

  “None taken.”

  “But there have to be other contests.”

  Hannah stops walking and looks me square in the eyes. “You really are a genius.” Then she hugs me tight. When we were little we had hugging contests to see how long we could walk, eat, and play while hugging. Usually, after about ten minutes, one of us had to pee. We would fall down, untangle our arms, and giggle until we got all serious and tried again. Today, we hold on tighter than usual and there’s no giggle.

  We only let go when Gretta calls Hannah over to buy a yellow-and-orange bracelet.

  I watch the back of Hannah’s navy sweater march off toward her. A group of kids plays kickball in the field. Bridgett and Arianna opt out and huddle near the bleachers. They wave me to join them. I nod like I’ll be there when I’m free.

  The duo thinks I’m like them. They don’t know that Perfect Molly is a fake. They don’t know that she doesn’t even exist. I start to walk over to them and then look down. The rocks aren’t quite aligned. Not now. Keep walking. I look down again. Still crooked. I look around. No one’s paying attention to me. Let me just move this dusty beige one a little back and this brown one forward a pinch. There, that’s better. I stand up and brush the gravel from my hands.

  I gaze proudly at my neat line of stones.

  8

  rules of roygbiv

  THE BELL RINGS AND morning stretch is over. Hannah finds me. She loops he
r arm in mine and we head back into the classroom. She’s telling me about all the bracelet sales she just made when Greg flies into my desk and all of my newly sharpened pencils, clean erasers, highlighters in every color, Sharpies that don’t smudge, and colored pencils scatter onto the floor. My papers go everywhere. No!

  Greg stumbles as he gets up, tossing the football he just caught back over to Josh.

  “Oops. Sorry ’bout that,” Greg says.

  Sorry. Really? Now I have to reorganize everything.

  I turn to Greg and with my biggest grin, I say, “It’s cool. No big deal.”

  The lie flows out of my mouth so easily. A big fat lie. It’s me talking, but the other me. The one who kids like. The one who isn’t crazy.

  “Greg and Josh, you’ll be inside for morning stretch tomorrow. You know the rules. No throwing balls inside the school building.” Ms. P. stands statue-still at the front of the class.

  Greg looks my way, mouths “sorry” again, and then smiles, showing off his navy-blue braces that are now filled with Oreo bits.

  Gross.

  I look over at Josh. No apology.

  “Class, let’s get started with English. In your reading last night from Tuck Everlasting, who can tell me why Winnie feels reassured when she hears the music box?”

  Arianna’s hand shoots up.

  I know this, but I can’t answer. Thanks to Josh and Greg, I’m now on the floor picking up my stuff.

  “Want some help?”

  I look up. Hannah’s gathering my colored pencils.

  She’s doing it all wrong.

  “Thanks, but I’m okay,” I say.

  You can’t put the orange next to the black. It has to go between the red and the yellow. ROYGBIV, the colors of the rainbow. Red. Orange. Yellow. Green. Blue. Indigo. Violet. That is the proper order.

  Hannah has never understood that. Even when we were little, her box of crayons had the fire-engine red shoved next to the spring-grass green, the what-dreams-are-made-of black upside down against the broken, happy-face yellow.

  My stomach is tight like a double knot. Deep breath. I’ll fix it later.

  “I got it. Really.” My gritted teeth are making my jaw throb.

  Ignoring me, Hannah picks up the papers strewn around my desk and says softly, “Greg and Josh are so stupid.”

  Some sheets are upside down, others sideways—none in date order. She goes on about the boys, but I stop listening. I grab a handful of papers. September 9, September 4, September 13. Ugh! This is going to take forever. Look at this one. Poor September 5—not only is it turned upside down and backward, but it’s wet and smudged.

  Ms. P. looks over. “Girls, wrap it up. It shouldn’t take the entire lesson to clean up Molly’s desk.”

  “Yes, Ms. Piper,” Hannah and I say in unison.

  I feel awful that I’m relieved when Hannah returns to her desk and thankful she doesn’t notice. I can clean up this mess on my own. I dump the colored pencils into my lap.

  ROYGBIV.

  9

  bargus clan and the bug jar

  LAST PERIOD OF THE day turns into a free study hall when Mr. Lampert, our History Through the Ages teacher, goes home with the flu.

  Hannah slides her chair next to mine and opens her laptop. “Let’s do a search for other contests.”

  Ten of the fifty search results come up. Hannah mutters as she scrolls down the list, “Design Your Own Cereal Box. No. Greeting Card. No. Paper Airplane. No. Website. No.”

  I notice the torn papers sticking out of her backpack and zip her bag closed.

  Finally she says, “This is it!” She clicks the link to the Want to be a Teen Mogul website and reads, “Calling all teen entrepreneurs! Make money and create your own online business. It’s simple. Come up with a fantastic idea. Submit your business plan here. A panel of businesspeople, along with five former contest winners, will judge each submission. If yours is selected, you’ll win five thousand dollars and the support you’ll need to make your business an online reality. Ages twelve to sixteen by September first eligible to enter. Contest opens September fifteenth.”

  “Hannah, this is perfect. You can totally do this,” I say, giving Hannah’s hand a gentle squeeze. Even though I know in the pit-of-my-stomach-where-the-truth-sits that no amount of contest or bracelet money will likely prevent her from moving, I also know if there was a contest I could have entered that might have made it a speck harder for my mom to leave, I would have entered it, too.

  Hannah works on the application and I work on my next slam poem. I have to get it right, but it doesn’t flow. The words tangle and stick. I put the not-close-to-finished poem away and pull out my red leather journal. The last joint Mom-and-Dad gift before their solo parent performances. Only a few empty pages left to fill with Me-poems.

  These are safe.

  Hidden.

  Not to share. Not to slam.

  I sharpen a new No. 2 and write:

  Words scramble

  Words slide

  Feeling lost

  Want to hide

  Colors blend

  Colors part

  Feeling scared

  In my heart

  Before I can finish, Hannah hands me a piece of torn paper.

  “I wrote down the things I need to do to enter. Will you help me answer these questions?” she asks.

  “Sure.” I tuck my journal back into my backpack.

  Dog doodles decorate the entire left side of Hannah’s paper, and the to-do’s are less list and more random words scattered across the sheet.

  I hand her back her paper and reach for her laptop. “Why don’t you read me each step and I’ll type it onto a fresh document.”

  It takes a few tries for her to read her own writing, but finally we make a list.

  Hannah’s Teen Mogul Application To-Do List:

  1. Write business plan.

  2. Take a picture of Hannah, making sure to highlight the blue tips and the uneven fringe bangs (Hannah added this last part.)

  3. Answer the questions on the application:

  • Why do you want to start this business?

  • How did you come up with your business idea?

  • How much money do you anticipate needing to fund your business?

  • By what means will you let people know about your business?

  • Have you implemented your business yet? If so, how successful have you been?

  • What are your plans for the money you earn?

  4. Come up with the $35 contest entrance fee.

  “Thirty-five dollars. How am I going to come up with that money?” Hannah asks as she tears off a corner of the paper and sticks her raspberry gum in the center.

  I try hard to ignore the ripped paper and the wad of chewed gum. “I saw you talking to Gretta and Greg outside this afternoon. Did you make any sales?”

  “Some.” Hannah pulls a bug jar out of her bag and then navigates around the bug guts to grab the coins and dollars stuck to the bottom.

  “You know, they’ve invented these amazing new gadgets called wallets,” I say, cringing.

  “Very funny. Look, if your little brother understood the concept of a short-term habitat, I wouldn’t have to worry about beetle guts in my jar.”

  Point taken. Ian had borrowed Hannah’s bug jar on Sunday when he collected a family of beetles. I guess the Bargus clan didn’t fare well.

  I hand her a clean ziplock baggie from my backpack.

  “Thanks.” She counts her money. “I have six dollars and fifty cents. Not exactly thirty-five dollars.”

  “You’ll sell more bracelets. I know it! You said the business was hot.”

  She nodded.

  “And once you get the money, we can ask Kate to use her credit card.” Kate’s the only non-grownup I know with a Visa card. Dad gave her the you-need-to-learn-responsible-spending speech and promptly got her a credit card with her name on it. One of the few Dad-speeches with a perk.

  Hannah dumps her
money into the ziplock baggie, tosses it into the bottom of her backpack, and opens her notebook on the desk. Scrawled all over the pages, in no particular order, are her favorite Rules to Becoming a Successful Businesswoman by E. B.

  E. B. Rule No. 3: Always have a plan.

  E. B. Rule No. 8: Be prepared.

  E. B. Rule No. 15: Market. Market. Market.

  E. B. Rule No. 9: Every business needs a set of rules.

  E. B. Rule No. 18: Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.

  E. B. Rule No. 2: Be confident.

  E. B. Rule No. 11: Don’t let people know what you’re thinking.

  E. B. Rule No. 13: Revel in your success.

  E. B. Rule No. 4: Be flexible.

  E. B. Rule No. 14: Have a designated work space.

  E. B. Rule No. 1: Trust.

  E. B. Rule No. 16: If you see a trend, embrace it.

  E. B. Rule No. 7: Understand the big picture.

  The spit rises in the back of my throat. Why is number one near the bottom and fifteen near the top? Where are numbers five, six, ten, twelve, seventeen, nineteen, and twenty? I can understand not having five, but why seven and not six? The disorder floods my brain. I look over at Hannah. She’s happily chewing on a new piece of gum while typing up her business plan based on the mixed-up rules of Emma Brown. Emma Brown, or E. B., was on the cover of Forbes at the age of twenty-two. She had created some interactive site for teens and kids that sold for millions. She’s Hannah’s role model. For everything.

  Amazingly, Hannah doesn’t care that the rules are out of order.

  I wish I didn’t care.

  10

  worst word in merriam-webster’s dictionary

  SCHOOL ENDS. HANNAH SLAMS her locker closed and walks away. The door springs open again. I run back to close it.

  I hurry to catch up to Hannah. “Hold on.” Hannah stops walking.

  “Here.” I squirt hand sanitizer into her palms.

  “What’s this for?”

  “Gretta told me that Mac went home sick. Mr. Lampert’s sick and that kid on Bridgett’s bus threw up this morning.”

  Hannah rubs her hands together and then flaps them around to air-dry.