Keep It Real

by Laura Dower

  Madison didn’t have an answer. She shifted the subject.

  “What about Ivy dating a high-school sophomore?” Madison asked. “Don’t you think that is weird?”

  “Oh, Maddie,” Mom said with a shake of her head. “I think you’d better check your facts before you go spreading rumors. I do know from Mrs. Daly that Ivy has been spending time with a high-school boy from Dunn Manor…”

  “Aha!” Madison said.

  “But it’s not because they’re dating. It’s because the boy’s mother is also sick. Mrs. Daly told me that Ivy and he met each other at a Far Hills Hospital cancer support group. There are about five or six kids in the area who know each other from the group.”

  “Why is she keeping everything a secret?” Madison asked.

  Mom shrugged. “Embarrassed? Afraid? I can think of a lot of good reasons not to talk about it.”

  Madison wondered what she would do if she were the one with the sick mother.

  “Rowwowoorrroooooo!”

  From across the room, Phinnie came running toward Madison for no reason. His little claws click-clacked on the polished floor, and then he slid right over to Madison’s shoes.

  “Hello, Phinnie,” Madison said as she scooped him up.

  Mom put on the kettle. “Do you want some tea?” she asked Madison. “I can make a pot of chamomile.”

  Madison shook her head. “No tea for me, Mom.” She poured herself a glass of root beer instead.

  “You know,” Mom said as they sat sipping their hot and cold drinks together. “Maybe you should do something nice for Ivy.”

  “Nice? Are you kidding?” Madison cried.

  Mom frowned again. “Madison Francesca Finn…”

  “Why should I do something nice for her?” Madison replied.

  “Just because,” Mom said, “it’s the right thing to do. Sometimes that’s the only reason you need.” She took her teacup and grabbed two newspapers off the table. Then she kissed Madison lightly on the forehead.

  “I know you’ll do the right thing,” Mom said to Madison before walking out of the room.

  Madison stared up at the kitchen clock. The day had flown by. A lot could happen in one afternoon, she mused. One minute everything seemed clear, and the next minute everything seemed so fuzzy.

  That was how Madison felt right now.

  Fuzzy.

  She couldn’t do something nice for Ivy. No way! Aimee and Fiona would think that Madison had lost it. And what would the drones think?

  Madison left the kitchen, laptop in one hand and glass of root beer in the other. She marched upstairs with Phinnie.

  What would Bigwheels do in a situation like this?

  Madison logged on to TweenBlurt.com to see if her keypal was online.

  She wasn’t.

  Then Madison checked her e-mailbox to see if Bigwheels had sent any e-mails since the previous day.

  She hadn’t.

  Finally, Madison went onto BloggerBlurt to see if she could locate Bigwheels’s blog. She scanned the list of names and found it.

  Don’t Ask: The Whole Truth

  A blog by Vicki (aka Bigwheels)

  Madison clicked on the icon to enter the blog. But when the home page appeared, there was no new information. Bigwheels had not added any entries since the last time Madison had visited.

  The whole truth? Madison said to herself, rereading the name of Bigwheels’s blog. That’s not true at all.

  The phone rang, and Madison paused to see if maybe the phone was for her. But when her mom didn’t call her, she turned back to her monitor. Even up in her room, Madison could hear Mom laugh and say, “Oh, it’s you!”

  Who was she talking to?

  Madison returned to her monitor again. With no new facts about Bigwheels or her big secret, she signed out of the website and went into her personal files instead.

  Keep It Real

  Rude Awakening: When it comes to enemies and friends, I thought I saw the light. But noooo! I am totally in the dark.

  Why are neither my enemy nor my keypal the people they seem to be? Am I that tuned out to what is really going on in everyone’s life? Or am I just over-thinking everything again???

  I can be so good at that.

  “Maddie, I need you!” Mom cried from downstairs.

  Madison ran downstairs and into the kitchen. Mom was busy doing a few dishes that had been left in the sink. She looked stressed.

  “That was someone on the phone from work,” Mom explained. “I need to ask you a big favor. Tomorrow, can you go to your dad’s after school instead of coming back here? I won’t be home until late. He can drive you back after dinner if you want, or you can stay there. I know you’re seeing him Sunday, too…”

  Madison didn’t answer. She just stared at Mom in wide-eyed confusion.

  “Well?” Mom asked.

  “Why?” Madison asked.

  “What do you mean, ‘why’? I just told you,” Mom said.

  “What?”

  “Madison…” Mom was getting testy at all the word games.

  Madison stared silently. She wanted to say, “Mom, tell me the truth. What’s going on? You’ve been sneaking around doing something and making me hang out with Dad a lot lately, and that has to mean something…” But she didn’t speak up. Not yet.

  “Maddie, I think you have an active imagination,” Mom said with a wide grin. “If I had something to tell you—I would.”

  “Fine,” Madison said, even though she felt very unfine.

  Mom was dressing up in fancy clothes, acting nervous and scattered, and taking strange phone calls.

  In the pit of her stomach, Madison worried that Mom—like Bigwheels and like Ivy—was keeping a very big secret.

  Chapter 9

  ON FRIDAY MORNING, MADISON’S head felt like a wheel. It was spinning.

  For one thing, she’d come to school in a super-grouchy mood. It was pouring outside, and her pants had gotten wet. After their conversation the night before, Mom and Madison had hardly spoken at breakfast that morning. As requested, and grudgingly, Madison would be heading to Dad’s after school.

  Madison walked into FHJH on the early side and headed for the lockers. She scanned the hallway searching for Aimee and Fiona, but they hadn’t arrived yet. Madison plucked her books out of the locker and stuffed her orange bag with everything she needed for her classes. She took her time.

  “Hello, Maddie,” Mrs. Wing, Madison’s technology teacher, said as she walked by.

  “Hi, Mrs. Wing,” Madison replied, briefly shaking off the sleepy, woozy fog inside her head. They talked about technology class and the school website. It had been a week since Madison had even set foot inside the tech lab.

  “I really need your help early next week to update our website,” Mrs. Wing said. “Can I count on you?”

  Madison nodded. “Of course,” she said.

  “Egg and Drew and Lance will be coming, too,” Mrs. Wing said.

  Madison held back her laughter. Lance barely knew how to operate a computer, as far as she could tell. But he always volunteered for everything.

  Egg and Drew, on the other hand, were like team leaders. They knew everything.

  By the time Madison and Mrs. Wing had finished speaking, the morning sequence of bells had rung, and kids flooded the corridors. Everyone said their hurried good mornings and headed for their homerooms.

  “Fiona!” Madison cried when she saw her BFF.

  “Maddie!” Fiona said. She came over and gave Madison a BFF squeeze. “Where were you last night? I tried calling you!”

  Madison gave her a quizzical look. “You did? Oh, I guess I missed the call. Or maybe Mom forgot to tell me.

  “Well, Mom and Dad downloaded all this new stuff on our computer since Dad got the machine fixed. I wanted you to come over and see it. I guess it was a little bit late. Maybe you can come over today?”

  “Can’t,” Madison said. “I have to go to my dad’s.”

  “Didn’t you a
lready go to your dad’s once this week?” Fiona asked.

  Madison nodded. “I did, but…well…Mom has another date.”

  “Date?” Fiona’s eyes lit up. “She has a boyfriend?”

  “No,” Madison said right away. “Well, I don’t know, exactly. Maybe she does…I’ve been thinking she does…She’s acting different. She says it’s a business date, but I don’t…I don’t know if I believe her…”

  “A date! That is major news!” Fiona declared.

  Aimee came over with her backpack still on her back. “Morning, everyone,” she said with a smile.

  “Aim, Maddie’s mom has a date tonight,” Fiona whispered.

  “Really?” Aimee said. “Whoa.”

  “No!” Madison cried. “You guys…This is how rumors get started.”

  Fiona tried to convince Madison that she should forget going to her dad’s house after school that day. Instead, she should come to Fiona’s and hang out until it was time to go home. Or maybe she could even sleep over?

  “I guess I could check with my dad,” Madison said.

  “Yeah!” Aimee said. “Change your plans! You have to hang with us today, Maddie! And then tomorrow we’re all going over to Egg’s to work on his blog.”

  “Oh, yeah! I almost forgot!” Fiona said.

  Madison looked at Fiona and then back at Aimee. She listened to their banter as if she were watching a tennis match. Why was this the first time she’d heard about any of this?

  “So, is everyone going to Egg’s house on Saturday?” Madison asked.

  “I doubt it. It’s a last-minute plan. Egg and Drew just decided last night, and Egg told me about it when we were messaging last night.”

  “Hart will be there…” Fiona said with a grin.

  “So will Ivy!” Aimee said.

  “What?” Madison’s face turned pale.

  “I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” Aimee said. “Duh.”

  Madison told Fiona she’d check with her dad about changing the plans. Then she said good-bye and headed for her homeroom. Unfortunately, Madison and her BFFs had been assigned to different homerooms.

  The halls thinned out as Madison walked along. She didn’t see Egg anywhere. Because the homerooms were organized alphabetically, Diaz and Finn were in the same one. Madison wanted to find him and ask why she had been the last one in their group to find out about the Saturday get-together.

  Madison kept her eyes peeled for Ivy, too, since she was also a D (for Daly). All morning long, in the back of her mind, Madison had been rehearsing exactly the right thing to say when she saw Ivy. She needed a way to bring up the subject of mothers…or getting sick…or something. Was that possible to do without sounding too forced? Would Ivy ever tell Madison what was really going on in her life—would she peel back the perfect veneer that she’d used in her journal?

  Homeroom was chaos. Almost no one was sitting down. A cluster of kids stood by the windowsill watching the rain. It was pouring.

  Madison sat at the table with the other kids and waited for the final bell to ring. She didn’t take her eyes off the front door of the classroom.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  Madison said her good mornings to all of the familiar faces: Hilary Klein, dressed in matching colors, as usual; Fiona’s soccer buddy, Daisy Espinoza; and, of course, Lindsay Frost, who was really one of her BFFs—and way more than just a basic friend-friend.

  Poison Ivy Renee Daly did not appear.

  Madison was perplexed. Where had the enemy gone? Now that Madison knew the real deal about Ivy and her mother, she hoped that Ivy would talk about it a little. It seemed unlikely that she’d spill all the beans, but Madison was willing to settle for any information she could get.

  And so, here was Madison…ready to talk…while Ivy was missing.

  The homeroom dismissal bell rang, and kids walked off to their first classes. Madison headed to Mr. Gibbons’s room. Maybe Ivy was late for school and Madison would see her in English class instead? That sounded right.

  But Ivy did not appear in Mr. Gibbons’s class, either.

  Why was Ivy absent? Had something happened to Mrs. Daly?

  Mr. Gibbons stepped up to the board and wrote out the journaling assignment for the weekend.

  Journaling #6

  Topic: Write about something you have lost.

  “That’s it?” a kid called out from the back row.

  Mr. Gibbons raised his eyebrows. “Deceptively simple, I’d say.”

  Madison traced circles in the margins near where she’d written down the topic. Doodling was a good way of thinking through things. Then she realized she was doodling more than just shapes. She’d doodled a name.

  Ivy.

  Madison quickly crossed out the name and sat up straight in her chair.

  But it was very clear.

  Madison had lost Ivy somewhere along the way. And it bothered her. And right now, at that very moment, in the middle of seventh-grade English class, Madison Francesca Finn was worried about her long-lost friend—er, enemy.

  How was she supposed to feel about that? Why was it that you could hate someone so much one instant and then suddenly feel like you cared about them the next?

  Stop thinking so much! the voice inside Madison’s head bellowed. Get back to work!

  Mr. Gibbons had moved along to the next topic. The students now read passages aloud from a short-story collection.

  With the teacher distracted, Lindsay passed Madison a note.

  Are you going to Egg’s tomorrow? the note asked.

  Madison scribbled back.

  I guess so.

  Madison flipped the note into the air, and it landed back on Lindsay’s desk. Lindsay gave Madison a thumbs-up before burying her nose in her own book. Madison turned to her notebook—and her doodles—again.

  Madison began writing on the newest journaling topic. It was a list.

  Things I Have Lost

  My favorite blue mittens in first grade

  A flash drive with like 100 files!

  Mom’s aquamarine earrings that she loaned me for a birthday party at Aimee’s

  What else?

  My mind?

  Arrgggh.

  Mrs. Gillespie came by the house on Saturday to pick Madison up. She had stayed with her dad after all, and gone home early the next morning.

  Aimee didn’t have dance class. “My teacher is sick again this week, and her replacement had a conflict,” she explained sadly.

  Fiona and Chet sat in the backseat. Mrs. Gillespie was making one more stop, to pick up Dan Ginsburg, another one of their good friends. It seemed to Madison that everyone was headed over to the Diaz house for the unveiling of Egg’s new blog. Actually, the blog was really just a good excuse for everybody to hang out together. Señora Diaz, Egg’s mother, had suggested that Egg invite a crowd over for do-it-yourself-tacos and games.

  Madison was looking forward to seeing Hart, of course.

  The weather hadn’t improved much since the day before. It was still raining off and on. The wipers on the Gillespie car made a terrible squeak. Madison sat back in her seat and watched the rain beat against the windows. She was glad that her dad had let her spend the evening with Fiona instead of with him—and that her mom had allowed her to join everyone at Egg’s house. Hanging with friends was putting Madison in a better mood even if it was raining outside.

  For some reason, Madison hadn’t thought much about Ivy or Mrs. Daly since the previous day, but now that she sat in a car filled with her classmates, she began to worry again. She wondered what had kept Ivy out of school on Friday. The temptation was great to share what she’d learned with the rest of the group, but Madison kept her lips zipped. Mom had made Madison promise not to tell anyone, even the BFFs.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Madison told Aimee as they drove along. “Usually you’re so busy on Saturdays with dance and all that.”

  “I’m glad you’re here, too,” Che
t said from the back of the car. “Or else we’d have no ride.”

  Everyone laughed, even Mrs. Gillespie.

  “I just wish there was something I could do for my teacher,” Aimee said. “It’s hard seeing her sick like this.”

  Madison wondered how it felt for Ivy to watch her mom get sick. What would everyone in the car have said if they had known the truth about Ivy’s situation? Would it make a difference in the way they treated Ivy?

  Would it make a difference to Madison?

  The car pulled up to Egg’s house a little after noon.

  “Welcome to my world,” Egg said as he opened the door. He made a weird noise.

  Fiona leaned over to Madison. “Walter’s cute, and I like him a lot, but he can be really, really embarrassing sometimes,” she admitted.

  Madison smiled back at her. “He can be really embarrassing most of the time,” she said with a loud laugh. “But don’t forget, he’s just being Egg.”

  Señora Diaz strolled out of the kitchen wearing an apron with the words MI COMIDA ES EXCELENTE on it.

  “Buenos Días!” Señora Diaz said. “How are you all doing?”

  Almost everyone in the room had Señora Diaz as their Spanish teacher at FHJH, so stepping inside her home always felt a little awkward at first. She put everybody at their ease almost immediately, however. Gradually it began to feel like being around a friend—or at least a cool mom—and not a teacher who would grade you or quiz you. The room was packed with smiling faces that included those of Madison, Aimee, Fiona, Chet, and Dan. They moved into the kitchen to begin the tacos.

  “Where’s Hart?” Madison asked.

  “Hart’s on his way, with Drew,” Egg said. “They had some family thing last night.”

  “Did you hear what happened to Ivy?” Dan asked.

  “No, what?” Madison replied.

  “I heard that she got her belly button pierced.”

  “I bet it looks hot,” Chet said.

  “Come on!” Aimee said.

  “You have a one-track mind, Chet,” Fiona grumbled.

  The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Hart and Drew. Everyone said their hellos. The topic of discussion stayed the same.

  “I think Ivy is going to be kicked out of school,” Aimee said. “What do you think?”