Hope Is a Ferris Wheel

by Robin Herrera

  10. I only have one memory of my dad, and it’s sort of vague. We were at the county fair, and I was on the Ferris wheel, so I only saw him from far away. The thing I remember most clearly about that day is that after I got off the Gravitron, I threw up.

  I didn’t turn in my sentences again this week.

  Why? Because when I handed them to Winter Thursday morning so she could look them over before she left, she read through them and handed them back, saying, “Do you want Social Services knocking on our door?”

  No. I didn’t. Nobody wanted Social Services knocking on their door. Social Services hated people who lived in trailer parks. It’s like they have it on a checklist of things parents can’t do if they want their children living with them.

  Winter patted my shoulder and said, “You know teachers are mandated reporters, right?”

  Yes, I knew. Teachers were always talking to Social Services about kids who had bad parents or filthy houses. Winter and I didn’t have either, but teachers and social workers didn’t always see it that way.

  “Okay, now you want to know what I see in your sentences, if I’m pretending I’m a mandated reporter or some Social Services jerk?”

  She told me what my sentences really sounded like:

  Sentence 1: Lots of fights happen in the Mackie household, and things get thrown and broken.

  Sentence 2: Ms. Mackie can’t pay bills.

  Sentence 3: The Mackies live in a derelict trailer park.

  Sentence 4: The Mackies live among a bunch of junkies.

  Sentence 6: The Mackies just really don’t live in a very good place, do they?

  Sentence 7: The Mackie children think it’s okay to play in a dump.

  Sentence 8: Ms. Mackie was a single teen mother.

  Sentence 9: Ms. Mackie makes her ten-year-old child walk to school by herself.

  Sentence 10: The thought of her father makes Star Mackie think about throwing up.

  Which meant that sentence 5 was the only good one, but probably only because Winter didn’t even know what a katzenjammer was. (I told her my theory that Mr. Savage throws in one weird word every week.) I thanked Winter and traversed my way to school, trying to at least stay in crosswalks instead of jaywalking like I usually do, so that if a Social Services person did come by, it wouldn’t look so terrible.

  As soon as I got to class, I headed for the trash can to throw my sentences away. And on my way back to my desk I swear someone stuck a foot out, because I tripped where I don’t usually trip. Everyone scowled at me, too, even Mr. Savage. Especially after I told him that I didn’t have any sentences for him.

  He was probably mad that I hadn’t even brought last week’s sentences, like he’d told me to. I’d spent a lot of last night going over my Winter notebook. Then, after doing one set of sentences, I hadn’t really felt like redoing the old set. Especially since I already knew all the words and how to use them in sentences.

  I kind of hoped he’d just walk away again, like last time. Maybe tell me to bring them next week. But, instead, what he said was, “They’re really not that hard, Star. You should be able to get them done.” I hated the way everyone’s stares felt after that, like I was too stupid to manage something as simple as sentences. Didn’t it even occur to Mr. Savage that I had done them, and I just happened to leave them at home for the second week in a row? Why did he have to suddenly assume that I was a delinquent? Especially since I’ve turned in everything except the stupid vocabulary sentences.

  I thought about retrieving and keeping the sentences as proof that I’d actually done them, but by the time recess came around, I just didn’t see the point, so I left them in the trash.

  Where they belonged.

  As soon as Mom left on Saturday for her job interview, Winter jumped out of bed—fully dressed—and said, “C’mon, Star, let’s hit the mall.” She was in such a good mood, I thought maybe Mom had been right. Maybe this was just a phase. (I still think Winter should get to go back to public school, though.)

  I pulled on tights, a jean skirt, and my worn-out pair of combat boots. They used to be Winter’s, back when she was thirteen. She used to lace them with rainbow shoelaces and paint splotches of nail polish on the toes to make them look blood-splattered. The nail polish has chipped off, but they’re comfortable and warm and keep the rain out.

  That’s what I say to Mom when she asks me why I wear them every day instead of the almost-new high-tops she bought me. The truth is, I don’t like my high-tops because they make my feet look flat, like duck feet. But Gloria says Mom spent a lot of money on them, thinking that I’d like them, since they were just like the ones she used to wear. I didn’t want to be mean, so I told Mom I’d wear them when it stopped raining. Which I hoped was never.

  Today was a good day to be wearing combat boots, because the puddles from last night’s rain hadn’t dried up, and the clouds right above Treasure Trailers looked like they were about to explode. We jumped into the pickup, and after Winter started the engine, I noticed the gas needle hanging right above E. I remembered Mom saying a couple of days before that Winter’s gas would have to last her through the weekend, but Winter didn’t seem worried. We practically flew out of Treasure Trailers, and in the rearview mirror I thought I saw the tinfoil man’s tinfoil-covered blinds moving.

  Then Winter said, out of nowhere, “Don’t you think it’s a little weird that we’re not allowed to talk to Dad?”

  “I thought it was the other way around,” I said.

  “Yeah, me, too,” Winter said. “But I’ve been thinking. I mean, he sent me that card. Maybe he was hoping I’d, like, find him.”

  Just you? I thought, trying to remember the line he’d written at the end. Hope you and your sister are doing well. It didn’t seem like much, but it was proof that Dad hadn’t completely forgotten about me, like I’d always assumed.

  Because even though Mom wouldn’t let him talk to us, even though she said that she refused to let him walk in and out of our lives whenever he wanted, it was obvious that he did care. About Winter, at least. Mom and Gloria had never said anything, but I kind of already knew that Winter was Dad’s favorite. She’d gotten the truck, after all, and the card, and she was the one he’d wanted to see at the fair, not me.

  Mom had tried to convince me that I’d wanted to go on the Ferris wheel so much that I didn’t care about seeing him, but that wasn’t true. I remember trying to lift up the metal safety bar and crawl out of my seat, even though I was thirty feet up in the air. When I think about how close I was to seeing him, my ribs still ache.

  But when I think about that line, Hope you and your sister are doing well, it’s like I’m back on the Ferris wheel again, except it’s coming back down this time, and Dad’s waiting there on the ground for me.

  “Do you want to come with me?” Winter asked.

  I whirled my head around to face her. “To the mall?” I asked. We were practically there already. The big marquee in the parking lot blinked out a 40 percent off sale, but I didn’t catch where before it switched to the time and temperature.

  “No, silly. To see Dad. Were you even listening?”

  “We’re going to see Dad?” I didn’t care about the mall anymore. I wanted Winter to make the most illegal U-turn possible and drive us to Dad right then. “You know where he lives?”

  Winter said he’d put his address on the card envelope and that she’d memorized the street name and number. “We know he still lives in Brookings,” she added. Gloria had let that slip a long time ago.

  But that was a problem. Dad lived in Brookings, and while we used to live just outside of Brookings, we were now living about a hundred miles south of the Oregon border. On the worst highway of all time, 101. It wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t run along so many cliffs, or if it had more than one lane once in a while. It made for long, headachy trips.

  I glanced again at the truck’s fuel gauge, where the needle was still hovering over the E. We’d probably need a full tank of gas to get to D
ad and back.

  Winter agreed. She said we probably wouldn’t be going for a while, since she needed to secure some funds. I didn’t know what that meant, so Winter explained that Mom would know something was wrong if Winter blew an entire week’s worth of gas in one day.

  That’s why we were going to the mall, it turned out. We weren’t buying anything. Winter just needed a job. I offered to contribute the five dollars I had in my coin purse back home, but Winter told me not to worry about it as she pulled into a space outside the food court.

  According to Winter, the food court is a revolving door of teenage workers. We started there and walked through the entire mall, one store at a time, Winter asking for job applications and me holding the ones she’d already gotten. I could picture Winter working in pretty much any store—except Style Cuts, of course. We made sure to avoid that one and the ones next to it, even though Gloria wasn’t working that day. After all, Gloria’s always going on and on about the other stylists and who thinks who’s too fat and who thinks who’s too skinny and who thinks whose styling credentials are fake. Clearly, they are all gossips.

  It took us an hour and a half to get through all the stores, and then we sat down in the bookstore café so Winter could fill out the applications. That took another two hours. I looked for a book about clubs and didn’t find any, not even in the Dummies section. I doubted Dad would be impressed when I told him my club had only two other people in it.

  Maybe I was worrying too much, though. I’d only had one meeting, and clubs always start out small before getting bigger. Someone would probably join next week. Genny might have some friends who could come, and then I could finally make some friends, even if they were fourth-graders.

  Satisfied, I left the self-help section and instead went and read the backs of all the Stephen King books. (He’s a writer like Winter, but his stories are less bloody.)

  When Winter finished, we went back through the mall, dropping off the applications. Most people said, “We’ll call you,” while shoving the application into a drawer under the cash register. A few people looked over what Winter had written and asked, “Can you come by tomorrow for an interview?” By the time we left the mall, it was raining. Anyone who says California is nice and sunny has never set foot in the state.

  Not that I cared that much, because before long we’d be back in Oregon anyway.

  I stayed up late on Tuesday preparing for the club meeting. Mom kept telling me to go to bed, but she was staying up late, too, trying on different pairs of pants and skirts and blouses and earrings. She had another interview, to be a receptionist at a radio station. Every five minutes she’d turn to me and ask if something made her look too old. Then she’d say, “Don’t answer that. You should be asleep.”

  I filled five whole pages of my club notebook with questions and conversation topics and trivia. Some of it wasn’t even trailer-park related, but I was hoping that no one would notice.

  And I was right!

  No one noticed, because Genny and Denny were the only two people who showed up.

  Genny got ready to take the minutes, and I considered pulling out my notebook for about half a second before Denny’s glare switched from his desk to my face.

  That’s when I just gave up and plunked my head down on my desk.

  “What about a different club?” Genny suggested, while my head was still down. The cool wood was kind of refreshing. “I mean, we both like trailer parks,” she said, and I didn’t have to look up to know that Denny was rolling his eyes, “but it’ll be hard to talk about them for a whole year.”

  “That’s a good point,” I told the desk. “Put that in the minutes.”

  Genny’s pencil scratched against her paper, shaking the desks a bit.

  “A drawing club could be good,” she said. “I know some girls who like to draw. Denny, do you know anyone who likes drawing?” Denny didn’t reply, or else I didn’t hear him. “Or how about a writing club?”

  “We can’t do a writing club,” I said. “My sister started a creative writing club at her old school, and it got her into trouble. Now she has to go to Sarah Borne.” Denny made a weird sound, like a snort-grunt, so I picked my head up off the desk and asked him what was so funny.

  “Nothing,” he said, and actually looked like he meant it.

  “Our brother goes to Sarah Borne, too,” Genny told me. “He got picked on at his old school. It was so bad, he’d cut class all the time, so he failed everything.”

  “Half brother,” Denny said, like that didn’t make them real brothers at all. “And he got picked on because he wore makeup.”

  “It was eyeliner,” Genny said. “Oh, and nail polish. And he has a lip ring.”

  I couldn’t picture this so-called brother. I kept seeing an older Denny, but an older Denny would never wear makeup or nail polish or any kind of ring. “Can we take a field trip to your house?” I asked. “I have to see this to believe it.”

  Genny pumped her fists like this was a great idea, but Denny stood up so fast his chair flew backward, making Mr. Savage glance up from his stack of papers.

  “You’re not allowed to come to our house,” he said, grabbing Genny’s arm, “and neither is your sister!” He stomped out of the room, dragging Genny, who looked as confused as I felt. After the door closed behind them, Mr. Savage raised his eyebrows at me for an explanation.

  “Um. He had to go. Suddenly.”

  “Okay, then.” He went back to his papers, humming, scratching his beard with his pen, and I went to pick up Denny’s chair.

  Honestly, I didn’t care that Denny hated me so much, since the feeling was pretty mutual. But how could he hate Winter?

  He’d never even met her.

  Star Mackie

  October 2

  Week 3 Vocabulary Sentences

  1. These sentences are complicating my life a bit, so I’m going to sit here on my bed and just find stuff in my trailer to write about.

  2. Mr. Savage, your weird, old-fashioned words that haven’t been used for a hundred years make me want to defenestrate my dictionary. Why is that even a word, when you can just say, “I’m going to throw my dictionary out the window”?

  3. If I stretch out of my bed a bit, I can see to the back of the trailer, where Mom has hung a glimmering crystal in the window. The same window I may end up throwing my dictionary out of.

  4. Our trailer is immobile, because it never moves, despite having wheels. For some reason this trailer has only two wheels, which are in the middle, so we have to prop our home up with cinder blocks to keep it from becoming a seesaw.

  5. I don’t know if I would call anything in our trailer lavish except for maybe the collection of fancy soaps in the bathroom. Mom won them in a raffle, and no one is allowed to use them. They just sit on the bathroom sink looking pretty.

  6. I presume that if I used the fancy soaps, my hands would smell good and feel like a bed of fresh-picked rose petals. I would also be grounded.

  7. Therefore I would regret using the fancy soaps, since the grounding would last longer than the good-smelling hands.

  8. I promise this will be the last sentence about fancy soaps, but it’s your fault for choosing the words: I would ruefully promise my mother that I would never again use the fancy soaps.

  9. There’s a picture on the fridge that Mom calls Gloria vs. the Ultimate Donut. It was the ultimate donut because it weighed three pounds and also because it was the only donut Gloria could never finish.

  10. My sister and I share a wardrobe, kind of. I get all her old clothes, but mine wouldn’t fit her. Have you ever read the book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? I haven’t, but why are a lion and a witch sharing clothes? How does that work?

  I really wanted to turn in my sentences this week. They turned out pretty good, and I made extra sure they did not include things about junkies and dads and bills.

  I had them out, ready to hand to Mr. Savage as he passed my desk. But before he got to me, he was in front of Meg A
nderson—the fourth-grader who was always cleaning out her desk and who always had her homework ready—and she told him that she’d left hers at home.

  “Meg, I’m disappointed,” he said, which didn’t sound bad, but judging by how red Meg’s ears turned, she didn’t like hearing it one bit.

  “Yeah—well—but—” Meg said, her ears turning redder with each word. Then she pointed to me and yelled, “Star didn’t turn hers in either!”

  I gasped, and it was the only sound in the room. Mr. Savage turned his beard in my direction, and I knew from the way he clenched his jaw that I was in trouble. Before I even had time to point at Meg and remind him that she was the one who left her stupid sentences at home, Mr. Savage stomped his way over to my row.

  “This is not acceptable,” he said. We all shrank down in our seats. I don’t think we’d ever seen Mr. Savage mad before. “Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe the vocabulary words don’t seem that important. Maybe because I’ve been letting certain people get away with not turning them in, week after week.”

  I hated how he’d said that, get away with, like I was some kind of juvenile delinquent. And I hated that everyone in the room knew who he was talking about, because they all turned in their seats to look at me.

  “So, everyone else who doesn’t have sentences today, raise your hands,” Mr. Savage said.

  At first, no one did. Maybe it was out of fear. I thought, for a second, that it was just Meg Anderson who’d forgotten, and that she’d actually forgotten, because even smart people forget things sometimes. Like the one time Winter left her pepper spray in her locker, and the next day happened to be the day the principal searched it.

  I was still planning on handing Mr. Savage my sentences, with one of those smiles that says, See? I’m totally not a delinquent like you think I am, even though I haven’t redone the last two weeks yet, and then—