“I don’t know. It was red.” To change the subject, I slide the bowl of quinoa toward Drew. “Want some dirt? It looks delicious.”
Drew sneeze-laughs, sending chunks of mashed potatoes shooting out of his mouth. A blob lands on Dad’s chin.
Drew and I lose it laughing.
“Something funny, you two?” asks Dad. I’m about to say, “Yeah, it’s snowing on your face,” but Dad holds up his finger, warning me, “Watch your mouth.”
“That’s physically impossible,” I giggle. “Unless you’re standing in front of a mirror.”
“Or using your phone cam,” Drew adds.
“Or have unusually large lips,” I say with a French accent.
I reach for the salt and accidentally knock over my water, then try to wipe it up with my napkin. Drew and I can’t stop giggling.
The sight of Dad’s face makes me go into hysterics. I jerk forward, doubling over in a wave of uncontrollable laughter, and BAM. My forehead hits the corner of the table.
I sit up, dazed. They’re all staring at me, goggle-eyed. Drew speaks first. “Kermit the Frog’s eye is popping out of your head.”
I rub the spot that made contact with the table. It’s the size of a Ping-Pong ball.
“Don’t move,” Mom says slowly, using her I-have-everything-under-control voice. “I’ll get an ice pack.”
Drew rushes off without asking to be excused. Mom gives me a Boo-Boo Buddy, an ice pack in the shape of a little pig we keep stashed in the freezer. I place the cold pig lightly on top of my bump. It’s throbbing, but it only hurts when I press it.
“She doesn’t have to go to the emergency room,” Drew says, sitting back down, his video camera in hand. “I looked it up. She needs ice and Tylenol. The swelling will go down on its own. It’s called a goose egg.” He takes a bite of chicken like nothing happened, then points his camera at me. I roll my eyes up into my head and stick my tongue out.
“Abby knows all about goose eggs,” Mom says, putting a Tylenol pill in front of me. I swallow it without water. “She whapped herself in the head all the time as a toddler.”
“The mystery is solved,” Drew says. I pinch him. “OW!” he yells.
“That’s enough,” Dad says, his jaw twitching. “Give me your phone, Abby.”
“But I’m wounded! Please, Dad.”
Dad’s hand swoops across the table and snatches my phone. He slides it into his shirt pocket. “You’ll get it back when you learn how to behave at the table. You got hurt because you were fooling around. You have to be more careful.” Dad takes Drew’s camera away too. Dinner is pretty much quiet after that.
Later, I’m up in my room reading Entertainment Weekly when there’s a knock on my door. “I’m not playing Xbox,” I say. Drew probably wants to play Clash of Zombies. The door opens. It’s Mom and Dad. Why are they in my room? “Did my teacher call? I interrupted him in class today, but he didn’t get mad, I swear.”
“He did call,” Dad says. I knew Tony was too good to be true. “But just to introduce himself. Is it true he lets you call him by his first name?” I nod, relieved I’m not in trouble. “Hmph. Well, Tony told us to email him anytime. I might do that.”
“Please don’t.”
Mom sits next to me and lifts the Boo-Boo Buddy, peering at my forehead. “Much better.”
“So that’s why you guys are here?” I ask. “To let me know my teacher called to say hi?”
“That,” Mom says, “and to say good job on keeping up with your English homework this week,” Mom says. “We checked online.”
So that’s what this visit is about, to show me they’re going to be “hands-on” from now on, emailing Tony and cyber-spying on me. I curse whoever invented the Internet. “Okay, well, if there isn’t anything else, I’m just waiting for my concussion to set in, so…” I go back to my magazine.
Mom takes it out of my hands. “You don’t have a concussion, poo poo poo.” I’m not sure what this “poo poo poo” superstition is all about, but Jewish women say it constantly. Basically, it’s a reminder not to get too excited about good luck, because some jealous witch out there could be saying, “I’ll get you, my pretty,” and drop a house on you. Unless, of course, you say “poo poo poo” to prevent this from happening.
“I want to remind you of the things Dr. C talked about,” Mom says. “Are you going to remember to take your meds every day and tell us the truth?”
“And control your mouth?” Dad puts in.
“Sure, no problem.” Blah, blah, blah.
“Good.” Mom gets up and opens my closet, revealing my messy hill of clothes and shoes.
“I’ll clean that up tomorrow,” I say.
She pulls a Forever 21 shopping bag off a high shelf and hands it to me. How long has that been there?
“What’s that?” Dad asks, as mystified as me.
I open it and pull out a pair of jeans in exactly the right shade of blue; an aqua tank with a red, sparkly star; and red sequined flip-flops. “Blue jeans, not too light, not too dark, like you said,” Mom says. “The star is because you want to be a star. I can return everything if you don’t like it.”
“No, no, no, I love it all!” I hug her carefully with one arm, holding the clothes in the other one. Why is she doing this? “Thank you…but I thought you liked me better in skirts.”
“I do. But you like jeans.” She kisses the top of my head.
I can’t get over it. After everything I’ve put my parents through, I’m getting presents. It doesn’t add up. But since they’re suddenly so happy with me, I ask Dad, “Can I get my phone back now?”
“Let’s not get crazy,” he says. He doesn’t seem as happy about the outfit.
“How about tomorrow?” I ask him.
“We’ll see,” Mom answers for him. “It’s nine o’clock.”
“Oh, come on, it’s the weekend,” I say. “The best shows start now. I was just about to come downstairs!” But they turn off the lights as they leave, closing the door behind them. I’m not even in my pj’s yet. This early bedtime is ridiculous. Being grounded is ridiculous.
I hear Dad as they go downstairs. “A gift? You should have discussed it with me first, especially after her behavior at dinner.”
“It’s motivation,” Mom answers. “We had a heavy session at the doctor’s. Abby needs an incentive. She won’t make any progress without rewards.”
I won’t make any progress without rewards? Really?
This outfit is a dog biscuit. Mom thinks I can’t get my act together by myself. She doesn’t think I can get through summer school without messing up, or that I can be trusted again, or remember my meds, or get anything right unless she throws me a bone.
Woof.
I guess Tony did the same thing with the stand-up comedy reward. More dog-bone giving. They have the same doubts I do, that I can’t change on my own.
My parents think they’re always right about everything, and I don’t want to encourage that, but—and it hurts to admit this—incentives will probably work for me. At the same time, what my parents and Tony don’t understand is that, deep down, I’m starting to want to change, and not just to get a reward.
Then again, getting these new clothes doesn’t stink. I try everything on. I’ll be wearing this new outfit when I do my stand-up comedy, for sure.
“What would you say if I said you could read a novel in an hour?” Tony asks on Monday.
This week is off to a good start. The bump on my head went down a lot, and I got an A on a pop quiz. I took it at the empty table. Then I moved back to my regular seat. Nobody asked me any questions about it.
“What do you think, folks?” Tony asks.
I raise my hand as high as I can and flick my hand like it’s on fire. My arm is about to come out of its socket. Pickmepickmepickme.
“Graham, what do you think?” Judging by Graham’s disinterested face and Tony Hawk shirts, he doesn’t have any opinions except on whether it’s a good day to hit the skateboar
d park. “Nah. Not possible.” He wasn’t even raising his hand. Not fair.
Mine is still up. Tony turns around. I can’t wait anymore. “You can read it in an hour!” My sentences spill out, rolling over each other. “If you’re on an airplane going through a time zone, and you arrive at the same time you took off, but you had extra hours on the plane because of the time change, you could read it in an hour since you’re in a new time zone, and you get to set your clock back.”
Sofia and her friends start talking in Spanish, and I overhear Graham say to Kelvin, “She better get that bump on her head checked.”
“Shut up, Graham!” I say.
“Settle down, both of you,” Tony says. “And Abby, please raise your hand.”
“But it was raised.”
Trina leans toward me. “You’re right. Time is an illusion.” Figures Trina would get it.
Tony holds up a book with a girl in Shakespearean clothes on the cover. The title is Mary of Stratford. “You’re going to read this book in an hour. First step, take out chapters one and two.” He gets scissors from his desk, and cuts pages out of Mary of Stratford. “Chapter one, ladies and gents. He tosses the book to Trina. She catches it. “Remove chapter two, please, Trina.”
She turns the book over in her hands. “I can’t.”
“What’s the matter, haven’t you ever had the urge to rip something to shreds?” he asks her.
“I have that urge every day,” I blurt. “I rip everything from magazines to clothes.” Tony shakes his head at me. I’m talking too much.
“Kelvin rips bean bombers,” Graham says.
“You rip some back draft yourself, bro,” Kelvin shoots back. They fist bump. Tony shushes them and tells them to come see him after class.
“Destroying a book is bad karma,” Trina says. “Schools in Africa don’t have books.”
Max raises his hand. Tony calls on him. “What if every student brings in a book,” Max says, “and then we donate it to a school or library that needs it?”
Trina decides this will even out the karma equation, so she carefully cuts out chapter two. I cut chapters three and four. Max gets five and six, and Amy has seven and eight. Mary of Stratford makes its way around the room, getting slashed, piece by piece. Tony tells us to keep what we rip, cut, or tear, and read it silently.
When we’re finished, Tony has each person stand up and explain what they read. We go in order, so Tony is first, Trina is second, I’m third, Max is fourth, and so on. When it’s Amy’s turn, people go, “We can’t hear you!” She stops and starts, stumbles over her words. I guess she really doesn’t like to talk—not just to us. It’s painful. I feel bad for her.
After Amy, it goes quickly. As each person has a turn, we piece together the murder mystery. Once in a while someone goes, “Now I get it!”
In the middle of Sofia’s turn, like a flash, the killer’s identity comes to me. “IT’S ANNE! Mary’s friend Anne did it!”
For a split second everything is still, like that moment of calm at the beach right before a wave knocks you down.
Then the class turns on me with jabs like “You ruined it!” and “What is WRONG with you?!” Kelvin sweeps everything off his table and onto the floor, scattering pages everywhere. “Thanks a lot, Spoiler Alert. That’s your new name. Spoiler Alert.”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” I plead. “I just guessed.”
“Kelvin, that is enough. Pick everything up, please. Abby, keep your guesses to yourself in the future.”
But Kelvin isn’t done. “Spoiler Alert,” he keeps saying. A few more voices call out “Spoiler Alert, Spoiler Alert.”
It feels like they’re stomping on me. I lower my head and turn to the side so my hair is a curtain. I don’t want them to see my face.
“I like knowing the ending early,” Trina says to me. “Suspense is too stressful. It’s good you spilled it. Now I can relax.”
“Spoiler Alert,” Kelvin says.
Sofia flashes her long fingernails at Kelvin. “Stop it, okay?” Her nails are manicured with a black-and-gold design. “We’re almost done with this crazy story anyway.” Her friends murmur in Spanish and nod, making their ponytails bob.
I’m about to ask Tony for the bathroom pass so I can escape, when Max, louder than I’ve ever heard him, goes, “You’re the spoiler alert, Kelvin! Abby only guessed. You said she was right. So, really, you’re the spoiler alert.” Max to my rescue?
Kelvin doesn’t have a chance to shoot back, because Tony’s razor-sharp tone cuts him off. “Kelvin, see me after class.”
Everyone is quiet after that. It turns out Anne was the murderer. I was right.
When we’re done with the book-cutting activity, Tony says, “You guys read that book in an hour. Good job!” He flings loose pages up with both hands. They rain down like confetti. “Let’s celebrate!”
Kelvin’s quad follows Tony’s lead. Graham picks up pages off the floor and throws them around. Sofia’s group goes completely bananas, hurling chapters everywhere. I halfheartedly crumple a few pages and toss them at Max. Normally, this is my kind of scene, but I’m still recovering from the “spoiler alert” attack. Trina and Amy sit back and watch everyone going crazy.
“WHAT is happening in here?” demands a shrill, high voice. It’s Mrs. Shoop, the vice principal, standing in our doorway. The chattering and page tossing dies down. Mrs. Shoop is thin and nervous and always adjusting the cardigans she keeps tied around her shoulders.
Tony rubs his hands together. “Good morning, Mrs. Shoop.” Her eyebrows knit together as she scans the room. Bits and pieces of Mary of Stratford are scattered across the floor and tables. “You’ll explain this, er, unorthodox process to me later, Mr. Norton, m’kay?”
“Glad to, Mrs. Shoop,” Tony says.
She points at the mess on the floor. “I expect you all to take care of this, m’kay?”
Tony chuckles after she closes the door. “Guess it’s time to clean up, guys.”
“M’kay?” I add. I get a few “m’kays” back, plus some laughs.
Before we leave for break, Tony calls me up to his desk. “Are you all right, Abby? The kids were tough on you.” I nod, glad he’s not mad at me for giving away the ending. “I was going to tell you this Friday would be a good day for you to do your stand-up comedy performance, but I think we need to put it on hold. I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“We made a deal that you weren’t going to call out or interrupt, remember?” My face falls. “Did you take your medicine?” he asks.
“Yes. I’ve been really good about remembering.”
“Hmm. You usually do well in the mornings. Why do you think you had a hard time controlling yourself today?”
I think about that. “Class was different than usual. We weren’t sitting doing something boring like workbook…we were cutting paper and throwing it, and it all felt like a mystery game, you know, with figuring out the book.”
“So you forgot about our deal? Maybe got a little too involved with the game part of it?”
“I guess so, yeah.”
“Well, if you can keep up your end of our deal all week, then I’ll pick another Friday, and we’ll be back on, okay? Look at me.” I didn’t realize I wasn’t. I lift my head. “What if, when you’re beginning to spin out of control, I touch my chin twice, like this?” He taps his chin twice. “That’ll be our secret signal between us, so I don’t have to tell you in front of the class not to shout or raise your hand.” He taps his chin twice again. “Okay?”
I tap my chin twice and nod.
The four of us are sitting at our picnic table outside during snack time. It’s been a week and a half, so by now I know what everybody eats. Amy, Max, and I buy bagels, packets of strawberry jam, and milk from the cafeteria. Trina brings fancy organic seaweed crackers from home.
Amy and I spread jam on our bagels while Trina pulls out a sketch pad and pencil case painted with mythical creatures. “Did you paint that?” I ask, amazed by
her talent.
“Yeah. I paint walls, doors, furniture. My parents are artists, so they let me.” She pulls out markers and starts drawing.
Max taps his laptop’s touch pad furiously. He makes a growling noise, taps some more. “Uch, it’s frozen. I hate when it does this.”
Trina holds out her hands. “I’ve got this.”
Max gives her the laptop but says, “Don’t bother. I broke it when I dropped it.”
Trina clicks on some icons, types, taps, then hands it back to him.
He is beyond awestruck. “How did you do that? You fixed it! It never unfreezes that fast. It takes hours.”
Trina’s already switched off and gone back to her dragon drawing. When Caitlin said Trina invented an app, I didn’t believe it, but how did she fix Max’s computer problem in two seconds? I’ve never seen her on a computer. Techies are usually glued to some device. It doesn’t make sense.
“Did you know the dragon myth was inspired by dinosaurs and crocodiles?” Max asks us.
I’m curious about Trina. “Trina, did you—”
“Watch this,” Max says, talking over me. He takes out playing cards from his backpack, flips an ace of spades playing card, then flicks it, turning it into the queen of hearts. Amy claps.
“Trina—”
Max waves his hand in my face. Now it’s the ace of spades again. “The dragon myth was an illusion. What ancient people thought they saw wasn’t there.”
“Stop interrupting me, Max! Trina, is it true—”
“Uh-oh,” Amy says, pointing at my new jeans. She never interrupts. I look down to where she’s pointing. It’s a big red blob on my thigh. Strawberry jam.
My new jeans from Mom. Stained. Ruined. A feeling of dread comes over me. “I’ve got to get this out.” I rub it with my napkin, but it spreads instead. Now it’s bigger.
“Uh-oh,” Amy says again. I bet she never spills.
“That’s not going to come out,” Max says. “I know. I do the laundry at home.”
“For your whole family?” Trina asks, tuning back in. Her eyes are foggy, like we woke her up.
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