So on Sunday, I’m feeling pretty mopey. I finally get tired of lying in my bed, so I get up and lie on the floor instead. I slip my earbuds in and press play on the next CD.
“Hello, my friends,” he says. His voice is so calm and soothing. It kind of makes me want to fall asleep again. “It’s me again. Dr. Franklinton-Morehouse. But you knew that.” He chuckles. “We have a final step to talk about today. It’s another tool to add to your Be the Best You toolbox. What I’m talking about today is listening. Listening is one of the most important skills you can develop.
“Listening builds so many things. It builds compassion. It builds empathy. It builds understanding. Listening to others shows that we care. Not only that, though, listening to others allows us to reflect on who we are personally. When we let someone else’s experiences in, we grow in so many different ways. That, too, shapes us.
“I want you to listen. To me. To people around you. Also, listen to yourself. You have a voice inside your head. Too often, we ignore it. You often know the right thing to do.”
I sit up straight. I know what I need to do. It’s what I should have done the very first week of school.
On Monday morning, I have Mom drop me off early. I walk into school and straight to Ms. Arnold’s room. I don’t even stop at my locker.
The door is open just a smidge and there’s a new Bagel Bunch sign on the door. This bagel has an eye patch and looks like a pirate. I hear laughing and cheering and someone shouts. Lloyd maybe. “Got you again,” he says.
I take a deep breath and knock.
A second passes. Hector appears at the door. He pokes his face out and grins like it’s totally normal and he expected to see me there. “What’s the secret password?”
“Um, bagel bunch?”
“Ugh, Emily. Are we so uncreative? No. Try again.”
“Hector, let her in,” I hear Anita yell in the background.
“Fine, fine.” He shakes his head. “The secret password was asparagus.”
“How was I supposed to get that?”
“You weren’t. It’s secret.”
Hector opens the door and I walk in and suddenly I feel a little shy, like here I am, busting in on their Bagel Bunch meeting when they were probably happy with the original members.
Ms. Arnold rises from her desk. She was grading papers. “Em, we’re so glad you’re here.” She hands me a box and a napkin. “Doughnut hole?”
“We’re equal-opportunity breakfast,” Sara says.
“But we can’t change the name of the club,” Hector says. “We shall forever be the Bagel Bunch, no matter what we eat.”
“I was wondering,” I say. I take a deep breath. “I was wondering if maybe I could join.”
“Our game?” asks Lloyd. They’ve pushed all the desks together in a big rectangle. There are markers in the center.
“No, well, yes,” I say. “I’d like to play. But I mean the Bagel Bunch.”
“You have to put a bagel on your head and swear a solemn oath,” Hector says, holding his hand up like he’s about to recite a pledge.
“Really?” It sounds strange but I’m willing to do it.
“No,” Anita says. “You’re already a part of the group, Em.”
I let her words sink in.
Hector and the Unicorn Chronicles and his figurines. Anita and her dancing and dreams of space. Sara and her cat clothes. Lloyd and survival and that strange but really addicting show.
And me, self-help-CD-listening, unicorn-loving, not-at-all-perfect Emily.
As great as it would be to make the Junior Roosevelts, I already feel like I’ve made one team. I belong. I’ve belonged all this time.
“Ready to play?” Lloyd says.
I count the markers on the table. “There aren’t enough.”
“That’s on purpose,” Sara says. “It’s part of the game. Normally you play with spoons, but Ms. Arnold wouldn’t let us grab some from the cafeteria.”
“I said to be resourceful,” Ms. Arnold chimes in. She’s grinning at me. “It’s a life skill.”
“Anyway,” Anita says. “If there are seven players, you put six markers in the center. Everyone starts off with four cards. Only you can see your cards. The dealer starts passing cards around the circle. You can keep your card or pass.”
“But you can only have four cards in your hand at a time,” Hector says. “You’re trying to get four of a kind. Like four kings or four fives. Once you do, you grab a marker real sneaky-like.”
“Like this,” Sara says. She takes a marker from the center like a unicorn spy.
“And then,” Lloyd says, “once someone notices, everyone tries to take a marker.” He grabs one. Then the rest of them lunge. Only I’m left without one. “It’s like Island Adventure: Uncensored, Classroom Edition.”
“Except not at all.” Sara laughs.
“It gets vicious,” Ms. Arnold says. “I’m on the injured list right now.”
“See!” Lloyd says. He nudges Sara’s shoulder. “Exactly the same.”
Hector’s face grows red. “Sorry about that again.”
Ms. Arnold laughs. “It’s fine. But fair warning, okay.” She winks at me.
It takes me one or two times playing, but I finally get the hang of it. On the third time, I raise the yellow marker in the air triumphantly.
“One of us,” Hector says, like he’s an alien. The rest of them join in. “One of us.”
My heart feels so big, like it’s going to burst.
It turns out that I’m not quite as bad at the Circle Break game as I thought. Maybe the key is finding people who actually want to let you in.
ALL THE LITTLE PIECES
On the first day of Thanksgiving break, we finish the puzzle.
“You put in the last piece,” Mina says to me. She’s still in her duck slippers and robe.
“No,” I say. “We have to do it together.” It feels like such a moment. I hold the piece up in the air. Mom and Mina and I each take a corner. “Okay, on the count of three.”
“One, two, three!” Mina cheers. We snap the piece into place and all applaud.
Bean looks proud from her place on the floor, like we’re clapping for her. “Okay, now what?” Mom asks.
I get an idea. “Hold on, you and Mina stay here.” I run into the kitchen and open the glasses cabinet next to the fridge. I stand on my tippy-toes and pull down three of the fancy goblets. I blow out the dust and rinse them off in the sink.
I open the fridge and move aside the cheeses, opened jars of spaghetti sauce, and the turkey we’ll have for Thanksgiving dinner that’s still a little bit frozen. I don’t find any sparkling grape juice, so I pull out the next-best thing. I pour a little apple juice into each glass and carry them into the dining room.
“Time for a celebration!” I say.
Mom smiles at me with the same smile she did in the dressing room right before school started. Her you’re growing up smile.
We each take a sip. It tastes better than I remembered.
Later, when Mina’s doing stats homework at the library and Mom’s baking a pumpkin pie, I go back into the dining room.
Pretty amazing! Five thousand pieces.
“I’ve got to show Hazel,” I say to Bean and I take a picture with my phone.
Emily: Look! We’re done!
Then I remember. I don’t press send. It joins all the other unsent texts. I put my phone away. The bubbly feeling I had before fizzles a little.
Being best friends with Hazel is a hard habit to break.
SNOW DAY
Snow comes early to Ohio.
Normally, the first good snow comes in January. But here it is, end of November, and when I get up in the morning to let Bean out to go to the bathroom, I see the yard has been covered in a layer of thick white. I pull Bean’s sweater out of the hall closet and slip it over her head, poking her two front legs through the open armholes. I yank on my hat and boots and zip up my winter coat right over my pajamas.
Bean and I tumble out the back door. It’s quiet except for our breathing that comes out in frozen puffs like we’re winter dragons and the crunch of our boots and feet. It’s dark, too. The only light comes from the lamp suspended above the door.
There’s this sensation you get when you’re up before the rest of the world and you feel like it’s your own. Possibility, maybe.
Bean finishes going to the bathroom and trots back to me with a little snow beard hanging off her chin. It makes her look especially distinguished, I think. The snow suits everyone.
Back inside, I shake off my boots and I turn on the news. The weather lady is cheerful because weather is happening. They cut to another person outside the school bus yard picking up snow with her gloved hand and measuring it with a ruler.
The main newscaster comes back on. She looks very warm and snug at her desk. “There are going to be a lot of happy kids waking up this morning,” she says. “For the latest school delays and closings, check out the bottom of the screen.”
A bright blue ribbon of text scrolls by, listing schools in alphabetical order. They’re on the Ps, so I’ll have to wait till they circle around again. But then my phone illuminates: a text from Hector.
Hector: Snow Daaaaaaaaaa
Hector: aaaaaaaaaaay!!!!
Hector: (Mom just got the call from school!)
Emily: Hooray!!
Hector: (you’re a poet and didn’t know it—ha ha)
Emily: Ha ha
I put my phone down on the couch and run into the kitchen. This is cause for celebration. I open the fridge. Mom’s bought cinnamon rolls that come in one of those airtight cans. I heat up the oven to 350 and open the rolls with a satisfying pop.
I wait for the good cinnamon smells to wake Mom and Mina up: that’s the best kind of alarm clock. Bean and I go into the dining room. We’re starting a new puzzle. Mom bought it at the store, special. It’s of a bunch of greyhounds wearing Santa hats.
Bean hears a rustling upstairs and runs out of the dining room to discover who’s up. After a moment or two, Mom pokes her head in the door. Her hair’s sticking up on one side. “Morning,” she says. “You’re up early.”
“And I’m making breakfast,” I say. “It’s a snow day!”
Mom raises her hands in the air like she’s a boxer. She cheers. “Whoo-hoo. That’s exciting. I bet Mina’s off, too.”
She leaves and then I hear the sounds of the coffeemaker and mugs clanking together.
I hear the shuffle of Mina’s slippers next.
She’s got the robe I gave her last Christmas wrapped around her. It has tiny smiling donkeys on it. She sits down and takes a sip of my juice. “Phoebs just texted me,” she says. She looks out the window. The snow is still coming down in big, fat flakes. “I bet Dr. Oliver won’t want me to come in today either.” She sniffs the air. “Cinnamon rolls?”
I nod. Mina looks to Mom, her forehead crinkled. “I’d like to have one.”
“Then I think you should,” she replies. “We’ll all eat together.”
Mina relaxes at this. “But I’ll still have to go into the bank,” Mom says. She has her cup of coffee now. “Do you girls think you’ll be able to handle things here okay?”
“I’m in high school. And Em’s in sixth grade. Practically an adult.”
Mom squeezes her arm. There’s something to hold there now. “And I’m your mom. It’s my job to worry.”
“I know.” Mina puts her arm around me. “You be careful, too,” she says to Mom.
“We’ll all just worry about each other,” I say.
“Let’s go sledding,” Mina says all of a sudden, sometime in between Good Morning America and The Price Is Right. It’s just like Mina to have a great idea at the right moment. More and more bits of the old Mina are shining through.
I look out the window. Large flakes have started to fall again. I remember the crunch of the snow beneath my boots from earlier. Thick, wet packing snow. The best kind for sledding.
“Why don’t you text your friends?” she says, standing up and stretching out after being curled up on the couch all morning. “I’ll call Phoebs. The roads shouldn’t be so bad now. Darby Creek, you think?”
Dad used to take us to that park years ago—me and Mina and Hazel. It has the steepest, slipperiest sledding hill in Columbus and is only a little drive away. There’s a little piece of me that’s sad when I think about it. Sad that it’s not going to be me and Hazel this time. But a bigger part of me is happy.
I text Hector and Anita: Sledding?
They respond at nearly the same time: YES!
I grin. I know just where the sled is. I run down the stairs into the basement and find it right next to Mom’s think-about pile. I’m glad we didn’t give it away. The silver runners still shine.
We pick up Phoebe first. She’s wearing a beret. It’s not the most practical choice, but it makes her look very French and very Phoebe. “I’m a Francophile now,” she says dramatically when I ask her about it.
“Since when?”
Mina laughs. “Since we got a new exchange student in school two weeks ago.”
Phoebe shoves her arm. “Hey, I’ve always appreciated the French. Their cheese. Their bread. Their freestanding towers.”
“And their boys . . .”
Phoebe turns around in her seat and waggles her eyebrows at me. “What’s not to like, right? Phoebe and Jacques does have a very nice ring to it. Let’s study abroad in college, Mina. Two girls, making their way through Paris.”
“We could do that.” I hear the smile in Mina’s voice.
When we get to Hector and Anita’s they must be waiting at the door, because they are already running out by the time Mina honks the horn. They smoosh into the backseat with me—Hector in the middle because he’s the smallest. He doesn’t complain.
“Mina Murphy!” Hector says, reaching into the front seat for a high five. “Girl I don’t know!”
“That’s Phoebs,” I say. “Phoebe, this is Hector and Anita.”
“Your hat is awesome!” Anita says.
“Merci beaucoup,” Phoebe replies.
I whisper in an extra-loud voice so everyone can hear, “She’s French now.”
The hill is extra crowded today. It seems like everyone had the same idea as we did. There’s something about a first snow that feels exactly like the first day of summer. Maybe it’s the closest to magic we’ll ever get.
In all the bustle, Mina still manages to find a place to park. We tumble out. We’re marshmallows in our puffy coats and extra socks. Hector looks around wide-eyed. “Remember when Ice Apocalypto turned the entire unicorn underworld into his ice kingdom? This looks exactly like that.”
It really does.
I pull our sled from the trunk and Anita grabs their circular flying saucer they brought along. “Race you to the top,” she says, and she runs flying up the right-side hill, her braids bouncing behind her. Hector and I follow behind. The path has already been worn down by the feet of other sledders, but it’s still a lot harder to run on snow.
We finally reach the top, breathless. The entire hill stretches out before us.
Anita bounces from one boot to the other. “I’ll go first,” she says. I laugh. I’m not surprised. Hector holds the back of the saucer for her as she positions her bottom in the middle. She grabs hold of the two side straps. “Gimme the biggest push.”
“Ready,” Hector says. I place my hands on Anita’s back. “One, two, three!” We both dig our boots into the snow and heave.
Anita lets out a delighted scream and goes careening down the hill. Mina and Phoebe, who have almost made it to the top, stop and watch and wave as she goes flying by. When she gets to the bottom, she leaps up and raises her arms into the air triumphantly. Hector and I clap.
“You up next?” Hector asks.
“Let’s go together,” I say. I climb onto the sled first. Hector slides in behind me and puts his hands around my waist. I grab onto the rope looped on the f
ront to steer. We inch the sled closer to the drop-off with our feet. “Here we go!”
We start off slow. But then, suddenly, we start to pick up speed. “Wahoo!” I hear Hector call behind me. The wind whips in my face and through my hair. I’m grinning so hard that my cheeks hurt from the effort. I picture Nightshade running through the night with Starlight by her side. I bet that this is how she feels.
I pull up on the rope to slow us down near the bottom.
“That was awesome!” Hector says. “Awesome.”
We take turns after that. Mina and Phoebe. Me and Anita. Hector takes a turn with everyone. On our final ride down, we hook the saucer to the back of the sled, and we all ride down together. I hold my hands up the entire time.
When we get back into the car, I catch a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror. My eyes are red-rimmed from the cold and tears streak my windburned face. I have looked the same way so many times this year. But today, it’s for the best of reasons.
LETTING GO
The house is drafty and dark when we get home.
We strip off our wet clothes at the door and change into our pajamas because it’s that kind of day. Mom left a lunch plate for Mina in the fridge, everything pre-portioned out. I make a peanut butter and banana sandwich, and we sit together at the table.
Mina eats slow but she finishes everything.
“Want to build a fire?” Mina asks. It feels like the cold has soaked down into our bones.
“Do you know how?” I think of the stacks of split logs out back that have sat lonely since Dad left. We haven’t had a fire in a long time.
“Sure,” Mina says. “I saw Dad do it a bunch of times.”
Bean and I settle into the family room while Mina grabs a few logs and smaller sticks from outside. She stacks them in the fireplace.
Then she sets balls of newsprint in between the logs. She rolls one of the pieces up like a hot dog and lights the end. She sticks it up into the chimney. “You have to make sure the flue is open,” she says. “Or else all the smoke will come into the house.”
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