Lizzie At Last

by Claudia Mills

All Lizzie could think of was the last lines of Ring Around the Rosy: “Ashes, ashes, We all fall down.” The incongruity of the big, brawny football players dancing Ring Around the Rosy made her giggle again, but she stopped herself before the boys could give her another glare. There was probably a funny poem here somewhere, if she could think of it.

  It occurred to Lizzie, with a pang of sadness, that she hadn’t composed a poem since “For the Girl I Used to Be,” on the first day of school. And that poem she hadn’t even written down.

  The wind gusted against the bleachers again. Lizzie thrust her cold hands deeper into her pockets. “How long is a game?” she asked Alison.

  “There’re four fifteen-minute quarters, with a break at halftime, for the marching band to play.”

  That wasn’t too bad. Lizzie looked at her watch. Fifteen minutes had gone by already. “So we’re in the second quarter now?”

  Alison laughed. “No. A quarter is fifteen minutes of playing time, but they stop the clock between plays.” She pointed toward the scoreboard. “See the clock? There’s still nine minutes, twenty-three seconds left in the first quarter.”

  After all that running and falling and cheering and standing around, only five minutes, thirty-seven seconds had gone by?

  “How long does the whole game take?”

  “Oh, a couple of hours, I guess.”

  A couple of hours!

  Lizzie invented a game of her own. She closed her eyes and counted off seconds to herself: one elephant, two elephant, three elephant …

  Then she opened her eyes and checked how many seconds had gone by on the scoreboard clock. Once, just once, the two times matched. Otherwise, her count was off by as much as a whole minute. But it was always interesting wondering what she would find when she opened her eyes to check. Or at least more interesting than watching the game.

  Suddenly, partway through one of Lizzie’s closed-eye counts, she became aware that the kids all around her were on their feet, cheering, screaming, stamping.

  “Touchdown!” Alison shouted to Lizzie.

  Lizzie hoped this didn’t mean they would stop the clock for an even longer time. But it did. Would she ever be warm again? Maybe the boys stamped their feet so much to keep them from freezing.

  During halftime, most of the West Creek Middle School kids went in search of snacks at the refreshment stand. Lizzie stayed put, not eager to climb up and down the bleachers any more than she had to.

  To her pleasant surprise, Ethan and Julius stopped by to say hi. “Great game!” Julius said. “Did you see that one play Peter made?”

  Lizzie shook her head. Which one was Peter? All the players looked the same to her. Then she remembered: they wore different numbers.

  “Which number is he?” Lizzie asked, proud that she had thought of a respectable question to ask about the game.

  “Forty-three,” Ethan said. He hesitated. “We’re going to the snack bar. Do you want us to bring you something?”

  Lizzie was touched by his thoughtfulness. “No, thanks. Alison’s going to get me some hot chocolate if they have it.”

  “Hot chocolate sounds good,” Ethan said. “It’s cold, all right.”

  Then they went on down the bleachers.

  The second half was even longer and colder than the first, if that was possible. When the final whistle blew, West Creek had won, 26 to 13. Lizzie was glad because the others were glad, but most of all she was glad that the game was over.

  That night at home, lying in bed under extra covers, finally warm again, Lizzie reviewed the day. She decided there had been only four good things about that endless evening: the moment Ethan spoke to her; the moment the official clock matched her count in the clock game; the moment when she remembered, however fleetingly, what it was like to think of a poem; and the moment when the game finally ended.

  Eight

  In PAL math on Monday, Lizzie managed to let Ethan answer at least half the questions on his own, though she still came to his rescue for the tricky ones at the end of the problem set. She had promised herself she wouldn’t help, but when the moment came to turn in an assignment with a blank for one answer and a mistake for another, she couldn’t do it.

  “Wait a minute,” she blurted out as Ethan picked up their assignment to give it to Mr. Grotient. “I just thought of a way we might be able to do problem ten.”

  “How?”

  Lizzie took the paper back and showed him. He looked relieved. Apparently Ethan cared about his math grade, too. Should she also tell him that the answer he had worked out for them on problem nine was wrong? He had seemed so pleased when he wrote it down. As far as Lizzie could remember, it was the first time Ethan had ever come up with his own solution to one of the trick questions. But wasn’t it better that she point out the mistake to him now than that Mr. Grotient point it out to him later?

  “On nine? I think maybe it’s minus 7a plus 8b.”

  Ethan studied it. “You’re right.” He erased his answer, rubbing too hard, so that the paper crinkled where he had rubbed. Lizzie resisted the urge to snatch the paper away from him and finish erasing it herself. Then Ethan added—ruefully, Lizzie thought—“You’re always right.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “When have you ever been wrong? Name one time.”

  She couldn’t. That was the whole problem with Lizzie: she was the smart girl, the brain, the math whiz nobody liked. But she would be wrong the next time they did PAL math together. It couldn’t be that hard to hand in a paper with a wrong answer on it. Other people did it all the time.

  * * *

  On Wednesday Ms. Singpurwalla announced a class trip, in two weeks, to the rare books room at the university library.

  “They have one of the nation’s largest collections of Shakespeare manuscripts and memorabilia,” Ms. Singpurwalla told the class. “A complete Shakespeare First Folio! That was the first collected edition of his plays—published only seven years after he died. Also, we’ll be able to see, even to touch—if our hands are very clean!—earlier manuscripts, from the fifteenth century, manuscripts that are over five hundred years old.”

  Although Lizzie knew the university well, from years of visiting her parents in their offices, she had never been to the rare books room. She felt gripped by the same excitement she heard in Ms. Singpurwalla’s usually calm voice. To touch a piece of paper that people five centuries ago had read and loved would be a thrilling thing. Plus, Ms. Singpurwalla said they would visit the university’s Shakespeare garden, filled with flowers and plants mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays.

  Lizzie took care not to betray her enthusiasm to anyone in the class. She was getting better at figuring out on her own what was cool and what wasn’t.

  Sure enough, as they were leaving class, Lizzie heard Marcia say to Alex, “A class trip to look at some musty old books in a library?”

  “We’re not just going to see books,” Alex replied. “Didn’t she say they had some rare Kleenex that Shakespeare had blown his nose on, or something?”

  Marcia giggled.

  * * *

  For the next PAL math day, on Thursday, Lizzie’s horoscope said:

  Be prepared to make sacrifices today to achieve your dreams. Losses now will be offset by gains later. Look for help from unexpected quarters.

  Ethan’s horoscope for Thursday (she checked his every day now, too) said:

  Business affairs take a turn for the worse. Be patient. Do not rely too heavily on others. Not all associates can be trusted.

  Their meaning, Lizzie thought, could hardly be more obvious. She would sacrifice her perfect A in math now to win Ethan’s love later. But what did they mean about help from unexpected quarters? That part didn’t fit in with the rest. In Ethan’s horoscope, business affairs meant math, and the turn for the worse meant that his math grade would drop just as Lizzie’s did. And his grade would drop because he was relying too heavily on Lizzie. She was the associate who couldn’t be trusted. That made Lizzie feel bad; it
was awful to think of herself as untrustworthy.

  As soon as their desks were pushed together in math, Lizzie felt her pulse racing with anxiety. It wasn’t enough that she leave uncorrected a wrong answer of Ethan’s; her mission was to propose a wrong answer of her own. She hoped Ethan would catch her mistake, but if he didn’t, well, at least a less than perfect grade would prove that Lizzie wasn’t always right.

  Lizzie took turns with Ethan, offering correct answers for the first few problems. Then, on problem six, she did what she had set out to do. “I think it’s 6a minus 2b,” she said. The correct answer was 6a plus 2b.

  Unhesitatingly, Ethan wrote it down. Did he trust her so much that he didn’t even double-check answers she suggested?

  “I think it’s 6a minus 2b.” She hoped the emphasis on think would give Ethan the message that it might be a good idea to take another look.

  Ethan stared at the problem again. “Wait,” he said slowly, in a tone of disbelief. “Isn’t it 6a plus 2b?”

  Lizzie felt a surge of love for Ethan as she pretended to look at number six again. “You’re right. It’s definitely plus.”

  Ethan easily changed the minus he had written to a plus. Would it be too much for Lizzie to call attention to her mistake: See? I’m not always right? She didn’t want him to think she had been wrong on purpose. She couldn’t tell if Ethan’s triumph had left him feeling proud or suspicious.

  Was one wrong answer enough to lose Lizzie the title of Brain? Anybody could make one careless mistake. On the next problem, Lizzie proposed another erroneous solution. This time—wiser already?—Ethan didn’t write it down automatically. He seemed to think about it for a minute, but Lizzie could tell he was stumped.

  “Okay,” he finally agreed, and wrote the answer. Lizzie forced herself not to offer any sudden new insights into the problem. The wrong answer stared up at her reproachfully, and she went on to problem nine.

  Lizzie gave the correct answer to nine, but, determined to abide by Marcia’s advice and, for once and for all, get Ethan to stop thinking of her as a nerdy math whiz, she proposed another wrong answer, to ten. Ethan let it go without checking it. He appeared to accept that problem ten was beyond him.

  “I’ll hand it in,” Ethan said. Was it a question? Was he giving Lizzie a last chance to be a math whiz forever?

  “Okay.”

  Ethan put their paper—two wrong, 80 percent, B−—in the wire basket on Mr. Grotient’s desk.

  * * *

  In family living, the class was still working on sewing machines. Lizzie hated them with a passion. She didn’t see why sewing machines were considered part of family living. Lizzie had lived for twelve years in a family that didn’t own a sewing machine. Not having a sewing machine didn’t make them any less a family.

  That afternoon, Lizzie was assigned to her sewing machine with Alex. It was grim to have to face her least-favorite family-living activity with her least-favorite member of her family-living family.

  Ms. Van Winkle handed Lizzie and Alex each a sheet of paper printed with triangles. So far they hadn’t been sewing on fabric, just on paper. Their goal was to sew around various shapes printed on pieces of paper, trying to make their line of stitching trace the shape.

  “Triangle Day,” Alex said glumly. “Just what I always wanted to know: how to punch a zillion tiny holes in a bunch of triangles.”

  For once Lizzie agreed with Alex’s disparagement of a school activity. This wasn’t like the remark about Shakespeare’s Kleenex. Lizzie giggled. Her giggle came out sounding more like Marcia’s than she had meant it to. Alex gave her a look, as if surprised that nerds could laugh, much less giggle.

  “Yes,” he went on, warming, as he always did, to an appreciative audience, “when I go out to get my first job, and they ask me about my skills and qualifications, I’ll say, ‘If you happen to have a sewing machine handy, I’ll show you how I can stitch around various geometrical shapes.’”

  Lizzie giggled again. Alex was funny sometimes. Besides, she wanted to postpone as long as possible the moment that she would have to do battle with the sewing machine.

  “‘Triangles, sir, are my specialty, though I’m also quite good at circles and rectangles. You don’t have a job sewing triangles? Or rectangles, either? You’ve got to be kidding. Sewing triangles is my whole life, sir!’”

  As Lizzie giggled for the third time, Ms. Van Winkle called out, “Lizzie and Alex, I don’t want to hear your voices, I want to hear your sewing machine.”

  “She has good ears,” Alex said in a low voice. “I have to give her that. Terrible lesson plans, but good hearing.”

  Lizzie hoped Marcia’s hearing wasn’t quite as good. If she hadn’t liked Lizzie and Alex doing the Midsummer scene together, she wouldn’t like them doing a sewing machine scene together, either.

  To Lizzie’s relief, Alex took the first turn at the machine. He positioned a corner of his triangle beneath the needle. Then he began working the machine, keeping up his comic patter the whole time. “Go baby, go! Whoa, baby, whoa! Stop. Turn. This is getting exciting now! One more corner! Take it down the home stretch. You’re almost there. You’re there. You went too far. Another triangle ruined, but who cares, anyway?”

  Alex was acting so friendly that Lizzie leaned over to peer at his triangle. “It looks pretty good to me. All except that one little bit at the end.”

  “That one little bit at the end, young lady, is the difference between the triangle amateur and the triangle professional.” Then, in a more normal tone, he asked, “Do you want to do one of yours, or should I keep on going?”

  “Keep on going.” Lizzie felt inspired to try another funny remark of her own. “I’m hoping that we’ll have a fire drill today and I won’t have to do mine at all.”

  To her astonishment, Alex laughed. Had he forgotten that she was the Lizard, the loser, a girl no boy could ever like?

  Alex kept the jokes coming as he completed three more triangles. Lizzie kept responding with appreciative giggles, till she felt almost giddy with the silliness of the afternoon. Once, Ms. Van Winkle came by to check on them, but Alex’s triangles were really quite neat and accurate, so there was nothing she could say in criticism.

  Too soon it was Lizzie’s turn. Awkwardly she positioned her own paper in place. She poised her foot above the floor pedal, dreading the moment when the power would leap on and the needle would race forward. Her B− in math wouldn’t be her first low grade of the trimester. All her sewing machine assignments so far had come back marked with C’s.

  Lizzie still hesitated. She couldn’t make herself do it, she just couldn’t.

  “What’s the matter?” Alex asked, not unkindly.

  “I hate sewing machines. I’m not—very mechanical.”

  “I’ve noticed,” Alex said dryly.

  Lizzie giggled. If you were going to have to show a boy how bad you were at machines, it was better to do it with a giggle. At least, that was her working hypothesis.

  “Just do it,” Alex advised. “Five, four, three, two, one, ignition, blastoff!”

  Lizzie touched her foot to the pedal. The machine roared and the needle shot ahead uncontrollably, overshooting the corner of the triangle, speeding across the middle of the adjacent triangle, racing off the edge of the page.

  Then she remembered to lift her foot from the pedal. The machine stopped. Lizzie stared in despair at her ruined paper. She waited for the usual mocking remark from Alex. She deserved it, whatever it was. It was one thing to be unmechanical; it was another to be completely and irredeemably hopeless with machines.

  Alex gave a low whistle. “Good thing we’re not in driver’s ed.”

  Lizzie asked Ms. Van Winkle for a new sheet of triangles. More nervous than ever, she positioned her paper for a second try. This time she bent over the paper more closely, concentrating with all her might. Again she touched the pedal; again the machine roared. Suddenly she felt a terrible tug on her scalp, which made her give a small yelp of pai
n as her foot jerked off the pedal.

  She looked down in horror. It was true. She had sewed her hair to the page.

  Alex was laughing, and Lizzie could hardly blame him. This was beyond ridiculous.

  “Don’t pull,” he said as he leaned over and, with remarkable gentleness, eased Lizzie’s hair from the tight stitching.

  If only it had been Ethan.

  “Thank you,” Lizzie murmured.

  “You really are pathetic,” Alex said. But it didn’t sound like the kind of thing he usually said to Lizzie.

  It sounded like the kind of thing he usually said to Marcia.

  Nine

  Alison stopped Lizzie on the way to orchestra on Friday morning. “Do you want to go to the game tonight?”

  “Sure,” Lizzie said, trying to make her voice sound hearty and full of school spirit. At least this time she didn’t have to ask, “What game?” This time she knew about downs, and “First and ten, do it again,” and “Push ’em back, push ’em back, WAY back.” She was ready.

  The weather would be warmer this time, too. In fact, the day was summery, with temperatures in the upper seventies. It was hard to believe that just a week ago people had been talking about snow. Lizzie liked the unpredictability of Colorado weather. Lately her horoscope had been right more often than the weather forecast. For today it had read:

  This is a bad day to make important decisions. Postpone them if you can. Instead, reconnect with friends and family around outdoor activities.

  Lizzie tried to think of important decisions she had to make. She couldn’t come up with any: all the better. And she’d reconnect with Alison (a friend) around the football game (an outdoor activity). She should reconnect with her family, though. She hadn’t spent much time with her parents lately, since she was busy with roller-skating and football games, as well as homework. She hadn’t written to Aunt Elspeth, either.

  After school Lizzie drifted upstairs to the two extra bedrooms that served as her parents’ home offices. Both her parents usually worked at home on Fridays. Her mother’s office was neat; her father’s was messy. Both were lined with bookcases, overflowing with books, but her father’s also had piles of books on his desk, on his couch, and on the floor. The Archers had a cleaning lady who came once a week, but she had strict instructions not to touch Lizzie’s father’s office.