“How many speeds does this one have?” I ask. I have used only one: faster than the speed of light.
“Fourteen,” he says. His lip ring twinkles.
Amanda’s has twelve. “I’ll take it.”
When we get into the van and buckle up, Dad starts the motor but doesn’t drive. “Hailee,” he starts and bends his head.
I’m about to get the biggest talking-to he’s ever given. First the vein, now the serious voice. Probably a punishment, too. He hangs over the steering wheel in the dark, engine rumbling, then he shakes his head.
He starts laughing. I start laughing. Then he laughs louder, which makes me laugh harder, and in between laughing, he gasps for air and tries to say, “Beep! Beep!” which makes us crack up, our mouths open and our shoulders shaking with laughter so hard, it’s silent.
That night, I smile in my bed thinking about it. Overall, things are going pretty well. My first day at school and I already have someone to hang with—Emily; Amanda was properly impressed with my Magnolia stories; someone likes me; and best of all, I got the Treads Silver Flash 151 bicycle with fourteen speeds. Even my cheery maple seems to have perked up, decorated on the tips with moonlit buds. Soon it will have new leaves.
Chapter 12
My second Magnolia day starts with crying and screaming, but not mine.
Mom bought Libby a fancy new car seat, but judging by the way the windows are trying not to crack, I’d say Libby does not like it. She howls and thrashes against her five-point harness baby seat belt.
“Can you make her be quiet?” Her shrieks are curling my eyebrow hairs. This can’t possibly be the best way to start my day.
Stress pours out of Mom’s mouth. “I’m driving right now. Can you do something?”
If I twist too much, I’ll wrinkle my smooth Magnolia uniform. “It’s because you’ve got her sitting backward. I don’t see why she needed a new car seat anyway.” The old one wasn’t even that old; Mom bought it from a daycare yard sale only a year ago.
“I thought it would be nice, just like you getting a new bike.”
“She doesn’t know—she’s a baby! And besides, she hates it.”
“It’s safer for her. I’ve been talking with the ladies at church and everyone’s using these backward-facing ones now. So hate it or not, she’s safer.”
Safe, shrieking Libby wails in the backseat. I press my hands so hard over my ears, if my head were a watermelon, I’d burst it. Over Libby’s crying, I yell, “Did I have a car seat like that?”
“No.” Mom checks her mirrors before turning into the entrance for school. The van has a sticker now, so we wait as the gate opens automatically for us.
Libby’s going to grow up spoiled.
When Mom stops at the dropoff for Magnolia, I recognize the expensive car in front of us—Nikki Simms. The mother’s head has a cell phone pasted to one ear. Her fingers toodley-doo to Nikki, and she’s laughing into the phone when she pulls away.
Nikki strolls the Magnolia path alone.
“Honey?” Mom says.
“Oh.” I unbuckle.
Mom leans over the console, but I bend my head, letting her give my hair a quick peck, then I check the back windshield to make sure no one saw that.
Babies like moving cars, but boy, do they hate parked vans. Libby grabs at the air and screams. I get my stuff together and finger the door handle.
“Have a good day!” Mom yells over the squalling.
Pencils fall out of an unzipped pocket, and spiral notebooks slosh from a different pouch when I bend down to pick up the pencils. The power of Libby’s howling scrambles my brain; I keep dropping things. Then she ramps up, her wailing pressing against the insides of the van. The doors and windows strain not to crack. This is a Category 4 tantrum—one-hundred-and-fifty-miles-an-hour shrieks and floods of tears.
I’m sweaty and rattled when I tumble onto the sidewalk. Libby delivers a roar so full of unhappiness and dissatisfaction, I slam the van door fast so none of it leaks out.
Poor Mom. Poor me!
After they leave, my day is immediately easier. I know where to go and I get there on time. I try to work in some of my poses as I walk: over the shoulder, which I use after tripping on a sidewalk crack; runway walk, which is extending your neck and holding your head straight like you’ve got a string pulling you up, except my heavy backpack makes me hunch forward a little; and Oh! I can’t find something, which is where I root through my backpack pretending to search for an assignment because the bell hasn’t rung yet and we’re not supposed to go into the classrooms until then.
After lunch, Emily introduces me to the media specialist, Mrs. Weston, who seems impressed when I start listing all the books I’ve read since Christmas. When she hands me the sign-up sheet for the Library Club, I see that I’ll be the fourth member. I hesitate with the pen for a moment. Why are only three other people listed? Are Library Club members losers?
Panic buzzes in my head. I’m in a new school, but I’m at the same place—dorksville. The uniforms make us look alike, but they don’t disguise our statuses. How is that possible? Emily’s okay, but I can already see that people think she’s a nerd. And I’m hanging around with her. I cap the pen shut and lay it on the desk.
Mrs. Weston says, “Oh, you’re going to fit right in. Sometimes we read the same book and have group discussion; sometimes we’ll watch the movie after we read the book and talk about which one was better.” Okay, I do like doing that kind of stuff. “And sometimes, I pull you out of class to read books to our kindergarteners.”
It does sound fun. I uncap the pen, hold my writing hand over the form, but I can’t make myself sign.
Mrs. Weston taps a blank line on the form. “Right there. And then one of your parents’ names and a phone number where they can be reached.” I like the way she does her hair. It’s kind of flippy.
Mrs. Weston smiles. I sort of smile back; then I realize she’s waiting for me to fill out the form.
Three members.
I don’t want to be a loser. I glance down at the signup sheet, and then I make my first important decision at Magnolia.
Chapter 13
“Mom! I joined the Library Club!” I say, climbing into Mom’s van after school. Libby naps in her backward seat. Thank God.
I almost didn’t join. But then my brain said, You know you love this library. Wood floors, curved banisters, green comfy chairs—and don’t forget the Starbuck’s! My brain was right. I decided the people who hadn’t joined the Library Club were the true losers and I added my name to the list.
The Silver Flash waits for me like a horse in its stall. The old red bike leans against the wall like an old man on a cane. For a second, I feel sorry for it. It was a loyal bike and even though it is the ugliest tomato red with rust to match, and sounds like a cat hacking up hairballs, cost the same as a school lunch, and doesn’t have hand brakes or speeds, it served me well. But like I said, that feeling lasts only a second. The Silver Flash is so much easier to love.
I would pay more than a dollar and a pack of Smarties to ride the Silver Flash. But I will take the high road. Amanda can ride it for free.
“Really?” She is humbled by my generosity. She shoots me a serious glance and goes, “I’ll be careful.”
We’re riding to Matthew’s game at the high school this afternoon. I’ve got money in my pocket and plans to spend it—the snack bar at the baseball fields has just about everything. I sit on Amanda’s driveway, the cement rough and warm against my skin, and watch her ride my bike. My freckles start to get hot. I wish they would connect; then I would be really tan.
The garage door roars open and I shriek.
Running footsteps, then, “What?”
I look up into Matthew’s face and feel mine turn a million shades of I’m-so-embarrassed.
He tilts his head. His shaggy, curly hair falls to the side in waves. “You okay?”
I nod dumbly.
Somehow, in his black jersey and gray bas
eball pants, he’s taller; his eyes are greener; the muscles in his arms are bigger. He leans down, brings his face closer to mine. My heart pounds. My eyes close.
He swats a lovebug off my cheek.
“You better move off the driveway,” he says, pulling open the driver’s side door of their van. Matthew has his learner’s permit. “We’re about to back up. I’d hate to ruin my perfect driving record!” He climbs in.
I stand, move into the grass. Nerves jangle across my cheek where he brushed it.
Mrs. Burns comes out. “Hi, Hailee! Where’s Amanda?”
I rotate like a zombie and point. Mrs. Burns shades her eyes and squints. “Okay. See you at the game!”
Matthew blares the horn as he passes Amanda, who shouts, “Matthew!” Then to me, “I hate when he does that!” as she rides up the driveway. “It startles me.”
I think of his face so close to mine, his fingertips touching my cheek, and even though it was a swat instead of a stroke, my heart knocks around in its cage like a super-bouncy ball. “He startled me, too.”
“This bike,” she says, leaning it back to me, “is nice.”
“Yours is nice, too,” I say, because it is nice, for a bike with only twelve speeds.
I swear Amanda is secretly racing me as we wind through town to the field. Anytime I get a little ahead of her, she catches up and then I have to pedal harder to keep my position. Black, mushy lovebugs flit across the road searching for girlfriends. They splat against my fenders, dotting the Treads Silver Flash 151 with their buggy guts.
Stupid lovebugs. Stupid, stupid lovebugs.
* * *
Amanda and I mill around the fields with our cotton-candy cones. Boys tower over us with their high school bodies, and girls their age pretend not to see them, but then there they go, flipping their hair and giggling even louder until the boys pass. Then they huddle and laugh again.
We take our time getting to the bleachers. The broiling smell of hamburgers on the grill drifts over the sidewalks and we filter through the people aiming to get their food before the game starts. Music pumps over the loudspeakers; every bass note vibrates inside me. Some people we say hi to and some we don’t.
“Oh, gosh,” Amanda says.
“What?”
She gestures with her cotton-candy cone toward the bleachers.
Some of Palm Middle School’s popular people sit on the first two benches. Avoid! Avoid! My eyes detect an opening on the other side, but then someone rolls up in a wheelchair, closing the gap. Old people sit in camp chairs right in front, forming a scowling fence of too many years in the sun and the deep creases to prove it. They look like alligator wrestlers.
“Over here, honey,” Amanda’s mom shouts and waves from the back row of the bleachers.
Some of the popular girls wrinkle their eyebrows, then titter.
Amanda covers her face with her hand. “Oh, my God. Why does she have to be so embarrassing?”
It would be wrong to disturb the man in the wheelchair, and just plain scary to bother the alligator wrestlers. The only way to our seats is through the popular people. Amanda realizes this the same time I do, and she trudges reluctantly toward that side.
These girls don’t look up or move their knees or do anything a normal polite person would do to let you get by.
Amanda shifts uncomfortably in front of them as I stand behind her. “Um … excuse me?”
The two closest girls lean apart ever so slightly without a glance in our direction.
“Thank you,” Amanda says and slips through.
One of the girls rolls her eyes.
For a second, I’m afraid to pass through their invisible barbed-wire fence, but what else can I do?
“Excuse me,” one of them says as I follow Amanda’s path.
“Oh, I’m”—about to say I’m sorry, but then something overtakes me. Something powerful and strong, because though they are the popular people, they’re not my popular people anymore.
I fix my face into a happy expression. “Oh, hi, Maggie! Hi, Natalie!”
Their faces go into shock. A mere citizen has broken the rules by speaking to them. The fence goes down. I rattle my way up the bleachers, stomping on each step and calling out names as I pass. “Hi, Morgan! Hi, Kayla! Hi, Stephanie!”
“Hailee!” says Stephanie, whose corn-silk-colored hair goes almost to her waist and has been the envy of every girl since kindergarten. She twists her whole body around. “Don’t you go to Magnolia now? How is it?”
Stephanie Mills is asking me a question. Hanging around with Morgan and Kayla and sometimes even Megan, Stephanie isn’t supposed to be nice. She’s supposed to push people in the hallways and call them losers. I check my mental notes. Nope, no record of Stephanie Mills doing anything at all like that. I may have to open up a new folder for this strain of popular beings.
Her smile and open eyes wait for my answer. Morgan and Kayla stare up at me, but their mouths are forward slashes—grimaces that disapprove of Stephanie talking to me.
“Magnolia is great!” I settle next to Amanda, who’d better shut her mouth before bees fly in there after the cotton candy. Remembering that Stephanie is in drama, I add, “They have a whole building just for theater classes.”
“Wow,” she says in a respectful tone. “I would love that.”
I smile because I can’t think of anything else to say.
Kayla tugs on Stephanie’s arm.
“Well, good luck,” Stephanie says to me.
“Thanks!” I wait for her to turn back to her friends before I whip around to Amanda with my oh-my-gosh face.
Amanda’s got hers on, too. “I can’t believe you talked to them!”
“I can’t believe I did, either!” I can’t believe Stephanie talked back. She’s never talked to me before. But actually, I’ve never talked to her, either. I guess I’ve never looked at it that way.
The game starts and it’s kind of boring until it’s Matthew’s turn to bat. He takes a couple of practice swings, then steps up to the plate. The pitcher nods to the catcher, then winds up and burns one into the mitt.
“Stee-rike one!”
Matthew steps back, loosens his shoulders, and readies himself. He swings hard. The sound of the bat hitting the ball sends all the players into motion.
“Foul ball! Strike two!”
Matthew’s coach yells from the dugout, “You’re swinging at high balls! Don’t give it to them!”
“Come on, Matthew!” a girl shouts.
Amanda and I lean over to see who’s rooting for her brother. Halfway across the bleachers, a girl whose prettiness is in the middle sits with her eyes fastened on Matthew.
“Who’s that?” I ask, but Amanda shrugs, stuffs a knot of cotton candy into her mouth, and focuses on the game. I perform a laser scan on the girl. Age: same as Matthew’s. Rank: I’m guessing normal person, since she’s sitting with only one other girl, probably her best friend. Prettiness: a little more than in the middle, now that I look at her.
She leans forward and bites her lip as if his next swing will decide the fate of the entire galaxy, including planets we haven’t even discovered yet and all their moons.
Matthew bends his knees, brings the bat behind his shoulder. I hold my breath as the pitcher lets go a fast one, and then crack! Matthew’s off! His feet turn up red clouds of clay as he rounds first base and stops at second. Everyone cheers. I spy on the girl, and she’s clapping and smiling with her friend.
Amanda’s finished her cotton candy and hands both of our sticky wands to her mother. “Thank you!” Amanda says.
“Oh, brother.” Her mom smirks.
The next batter hits Matthew to third.
“What’re the popular people like at Magnolia?” Amanda asks. Points at popular heads. “I still can’t believe you said hi to them.”
“I’m already friends with the most popular girl in school,” I say, maybe even loud enough for Palm populars to hear me. “Her name’s Nikki.”
&nbs
p; The catcher misses the next pitch. Matthew starts down the third-base line until the catcher charges him back. The other coach yells, “When he does that, when he starts to run again, FINISH HIM!”
I’m not even a player and I’m scared to move.
“Matt!” Matthew’s coach stands near third base. He taps the brim of his baseball cap, touches his nose, tugs two times on one ear, and slides his fingertips across his stomach. Matthew nods—he has decoded the secret message.
Every single back on our side straightens; all pairs of eyes lock onto the field; hands clasp and fingers touch lips. As the catcher crouches, Matthew leads off. He is not afraid.
Everyone is silent.
The next batter drives the ball across the infield. The shortstop catches it, stumbles, and the ball shoots into the grass. Matthew sprints home and, as the outfielders chase and drop the ball, Matthew’s teammates cross the plate right behind him. Our side lights up like fireworks, shooting from our seats, whistling and cracking high-fives. The girl cheering for Matthew raises her arms over her head and claps hard.
The visiting coach clutches the chain-link wall of his dugout. “East Panthers!” A colonel commanding his troops. “If they start that merry-go-round again, SHUT THEM DOWN!” He could win wars all by himself with his yelling. It’s his words, his loudness, the granite set of his face when he blasts out his orders.
I glance at the scoreboard and see we’re down by six runs. Maybe our coach should start yelling, too.
The game goes on and Amanda presses me for more details about Nikki. What does she look like, how old is she, does she wear makeup—I answer all her questions as though I’ve known Nikki all my life instead of just two days.
When Matthew comes to bat again, he strikes out. He jogs to the dugout with a determined look on his face. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to strike out in front of all these people. But as he passes the next batter, his teammates clap him on the shoulder or say “Good try.”
Even when the game is over and we’ve lost, Matthew is fine. He jokes around with friends as Amanda and I walk our bikes alongside Matthew and their mom through the parking lot. As he opens the trunk of the van and throws his bag in, that girl and her friend catch up.
A Whole Lot of Lucky Page 8