by Barbara Dee
“I don’t know. Cute. Sort of.” I sat down. “Did he leave a message?”
“Nope. He said he’ll call back.”
I sank into the kitchen chair. Then I closed my eyes.
“Cassie, what’s wrong? You look terrible.”
I don’t know why, but there was something about the way Miranda looked at me just then that made me want to talk to her. Something in her eyes, maybe. Whatever it was, I opened my mouth and started telling her everything. Not just about how I couldn’t go to Lindsay’s stupid bowling party and how dorky I felt all day because of my stupid backpack. But also the big stuff: about Mr. Mullaney, and my Cat story, and the whole pointless page-counting journal. Then I told her about how I hid out in the library instead of “seeing” Mr. Mullaney when he gave it back, and how I was positive he would report me to the principal or, even worse, call Mom.
Miranda didn’t say anything. She just listened. Then she shocked me.
“You have to tell Mom,” she said.
“WHAT?”
“Listen, Cassie, I mean it. After all that’s happened since yesterday, if you don’t tell Mom about Mr. Mullaney and he calls here, and it sounds like he definitely will, she’ll never trust you again. And believe me, if you think being grounded for a month is bad, that would be a whole lot worse.”
I sighed. “Yeah. You’re right, I guess. But first I’m going to call Danny back.”
“Why? No, no, Cassie, let him call you.”
This was such an insanely Miranda thing to say that I actually laughed, despite how miserable I felt. “Oh, come on, Ran. He probably just wants the Math homework.”
She got up. “Whatever,” she said, leaving the kitchen.
So I checked the Emerson Middle School directory for Danny’s number, then dialed. As I was punching in the numbers, it occurred to me that Adam Klein probably hadn’t said anything to Miranda about my phone call yesterday. If he had, she’d have been psycho just now, not all sympathetic and actually nice. Phew. It was like I’d dodged a poisoned arrow.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Danny? It’s Cassie. You called just now?”
“Uh, yeah.” He sounded confused, kind of like how Adam sounded. Did all boys fall asleep next to the phone?
“Yeah,” he repeated. “So, uh, Cassie? Are you going to that bowling party on Saturday?”
Was this why he called? Not about the Math homework?
“I can’t, actually. I would but I’m grounded.”
“Oh.”
Pause.
“Well, too bad. See you,” he said quickly, then hung up.
I hung up too, and just stood there.
“So? He wanted the Math homework?” Miranda asked, strolling into the kitchen as if she just happened to be in the neighborhood.
“No,” I said. Then I realized I was grinning. “I think he just sort of asked me out.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Way to go, Cassandra! What did you tell him?”
“That I couldn’t, because I’m grounded. That it’s all your fault.”
She opened her mouth as if she were about to start yelling.
“Only kidding,” I said, sticking out my tongue.
She laughed. It was such a nice laugh, giggly but not too giggly, friendly but also siblingy, that before I knew what I was doing, I blurted out: “ListenMirandalcalledAdamKlein!”
“You what?”
“Yesterday, when you didn’t come home, I tried Madison’s, but you weren’t there. So I called his house; I got the number from the directory. I’m really, really sorry, Miranda, so please don’t kill me!”
She stared at me, vibrating a little. “You called his house?”
I nodded.
“And what did he say?”
“Not much. That you weren’t there, either.”
All of a sudden Miranda threw her arms around me. “Cassie, you’re a genius!”
“I am?”
“Of course you are, you idiot! Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!”
She gave me an ecstatic squeeze, which I totally did not understand, and then two seconds later she pulled away. “So? Are you going to call Mom about this teacher thing?”
It was very strange. Maybe it was because of how Miranda spared my life, or maybe it was because of Danny sort-of-asking me out. But it occurred to me right then that I was feeling a zillion times better about the whole Sir Mullvo business. “I’ll tell her, Ran. But first I’m going to try to take care of it. Myself.”
She gave a big dramatic shrug. “Your funeral,” she said.
The next day I showed up at school with my backpack duct-taped (“Nice look,” Brianna smirked), happy about Danny (but avoiding eye contact), and nervous about Sir Mullvo (but ready to do battle). English was last period today, which meant that first I had to get through: a pop quiz in Science, another team-drawing exercise in Art, a long boring video in Social Studies, volleyball in Gym, I don’t remember what in Health, more fun with fractions in Math. Oh yeah, and at lunch, turkey burgers that looked like cat barf. I made myself another gloppy yogurt sundae and sat down with Bess.
“Sorry I wasn’t here yesterday,” I apologized. “I went to the library. To work on my novel.”
She looked up from her fruit salad. “Yeah? The fantasy one?”
“Yeah. I’ve decided to keep writing it. You were right. I couldn’t let Mr. Mullaney win,” I said.
She grinned. “Good. Can I see it sometime?”
“Sure. Not yet, though. I’m still deciding how it should come out.”
“When it’s ready,” she said. “And maybe I’ll show you mine. But it’s really not that good,” she added quickly.
I grinned back at her. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t even count the pages.”
Finally it was time for English. Mr. Mullaney was going on and on about some stupid story in the so-called “fiction textbook” he kept handing out to us, only I’d lost the third page of it because it wasn’t even stapled together. What was the point of taking notes on a stupid story you couldn’t even read? So I quietly slipped out my journal and began writing.
Cat’s horse Starlight cantered purposefully to Valdyk’s iron gate. “Stay calm, Cat,” she told herself. “Stay focused.”
Starlight reared as she approached the gate, as if she sensed something bad was about to happen. Cat patted her, dismounted slowly, then turned to the building up ahead. Valdyk’s castle. She’d know it anywhere.
She silently entered the Main Chamber, which was strangely empty. Where was everybody? Where were the sentinels? Where were the bodyguards? And where was Valdyk?
“Ah, my lovely Catrain, so it’s finally you,” a voice sneered.
Cat spun around, her green eyes flashing.
“I see you’ve decided to do something meaningful, after all, “he said. “Welcome to my world.”
“Hello, Sir Mullvo, “Cat replied calmly. “I had a feeling I‘d find you here. I had a feeling all along.”
The bell rang. Everyone raced out to get to their lockers before the bus, but I stayed behind, pretending to pack my duct-taped backpack very slowly and carefully, like it had just had lifesaving surgery. Brianna called out, “Hurry up, Cassie, you don’t want to be late for your bicycle,” and Hayley giggled like that was the wittiest remark in the history of the English language. But I just waggled my fingers at them in a kind of Hollywood way, then walked up to Mr. Mullaney’s desk.
“Can I talk to you,” I said, not asked. “About my journal.”
He straightened his mouth. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he sneered. He got up to shut the door.
“Sixty-three,” I said. “Pretty good, huh?”
He made a face like he was eating a repulsive pustule. “Pretty bad, actually. Yes, you filled your journal with lots of pages, but all of it was empty-headed nonsense. You’re the best writer in the class. I expect a great deal more from you, Cassie.”
What?
My legs felt funny, all of a sudden. I sat
down.
“So you actually read it?” I asked.
“Of course I read it. Do you think I’d assign some writing and then not actually read it?”
“But you didn’t read my novel!”
“Wherever did you get that idea?”
“All you wrote was a ’12’. You just counted the pages.”
He clasped his bony fingers. “Yes. That’s right. I did count the pages. If I didn’t count the pages, there are students who would just hand in a paragraph and feel they’d satisfied the assignment. The page requirement is just to get the class to develop their pieces, to keep writing, to keep working.”
“But you didn’t say anything else about my story,” I said in a strangled voice. “You just gave it a page number.”
“No. You’re right. I didn’t write anything else. But that’s because it isn’t my place to comment on your creative work. The journal is supposed to be for you, not for me, Cassie. I don’t want you to write your story for a grade or a comment. I want you to write it for yourself.”
“Yeah, well, you commented on Bess’s poems!”
“Perhaps I did,” he admitted. “But we’re not discussing Bess, are we.”
My head swam. This conversation was the complete opposite of what I’d expected. One hundred eighty degrees. I sat there, totally not knowing what to say.
“All right, Cassie. If you insist on a comment, here it is,” he said finally. “Some of your story was really rather clever. Some of it, and let’s not specify which sections, I thought was rather—how shall I put it? Uncharitable. A certain character, and let’s not specify which one, was a pretty mean-spirited caricature. But on the whole it was an excellent first effort, full of spirit, and showed a real appreciation of the fantasy genre.”
He paused. Then he looked right into my face. When he spoke again, his voice sounded quieter, like his teeth ached and it hurt to talk. “A lot of what you wrote this time was simply hostile. Occasionally amusing in a juvenile way, but hostile. What it told me, Cassie, more than anything else, is that you are seriously craving attention.”
“What?”
“I think you heard what I said. You’re too bright to play dumb.”
“Well, I’m not playing dumb, Mr. Mullaney, and I’m not craving attention, either!”
“Excuse me, but I think you are, so let me repeat my offer to you, Cassie: I am always here. If you’d ever like help with your novel, or with prepositional phrases, or finding your bicycle key, anything at all, you know exactly where to find me.”
I stared at him, outraged that he was saying this, when all I really wanted was for him to say my stuff should be in the literary magazine, like Bess’s stupid, pathetic little poems. My mouth was hanging open; I was so insulted with his offer of “help” that I couldn’t even talk.
And then it started.
I don’t know why, but suddenly all of the crying that I hadn’t done for months just came bursting out. First it was furious tears, then humiliated tears, then missing-Dad tears, then just tears-tears. I couldn’t stop it; it just kept coming out of me. Every time I thought it was stopping, it started up again. Pretty soon it was like the room wasn’t there, and Mr. Mullaney wasn’t there, and even I wasn’t there.
Mr. Mullaney looked alarmed. He obviously wasn’t used to dealing with sobbing, hysterical seventh-grade girls, so it took him about a minute too long to hand me a tissue. And then once he handed me the tissue, he didn’t know what else to do, so he got up and got the whole box of tissues and put it in front of me. Then he got up again and brought over the wastebasket so I’d have some place to throw the tissues. Then he patted my shoulder a couple of times and just sat there watching me with a worried toothachey look on his face.
Finally the tears stopped coming and I sat there hiccupping and gasping and honking my nose.
Mr. Mullaney got up again and went into the hallway. Then he came back with a little Dixie cup full of water. “Drink it,” he said, so I did.
“You’re welcome to stay as long as you like,” he said quietly. “I’m going to grade some papers. You can do your homework or whatever you want, and when you’re ready we can call your mom to get you home.”
“Mom’s at work,” I said, still sniffling. “And I’m ready now.” I grabbed a bunch of tissues. “Okay if I take these?”
“Of course,” he said. “Are you sure? I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m sure,” I said, and raced out of the building to unlock my bike.
Of course, after all that crying I couldn’t just get on my bike and go home and listen to Miranda yakking on the phone and Jackson whining about how hungry he was. I needed to be by myself; I needed time to unplug my brain and forget all about Mr. Mullaney and his stupid, infuriating, humiliating niceness. And also about the whole Journal Fiasco, which had turned out even worse than I’d imagined. Because now, instead of thinking that I was too clever and witty and creative to turn in pathetic book summaries and stupid haikus, Mr. Mullaney obviously thought that I was this insanely emotional baby who just seriously craved attention. It was all too awful to deal with, and the only thing that seemed to make any sense was moving my body, burning some energy. So I got on my bike and started to ride.
It was a damp November afternoon, and the air felt like it was psyching itself up to snow. But I didn’t care; I was exhausted and sweaty from all the crying, and the cold air felt good. At first I found myself riding down Evergreen Road, past all those big fancy houses with their turrets and their saunas and their nonbuzzing TVs. And then I thought about Bess’s calm blue bedroom, and all those shelves full of books. Maybe I’d knock on her door and see if I could hang out there for a while, maybe borrow something else.
So I pulled up to her driveway and got off my bike and rang her doorbell. But nobody came to the door except Rudy, who barked and barked like I was this intruder or thief or vandal or something. He was barking so loudly that I started to think all the nosy neighbors on the block could hear him. Pretty soon they’d start to think I was a criminal too, and maybe even call the police. So I got back on my bike and kept going down the street, once just barely missing some stupid little kid on a scooter.
I’d only ever been on Evergreen Road that one other time, when I visited Bess, so I wasn’t exactly sure where it led, but that didn’t even matter. I liked not knowing; it felt good just to ride. After a while I ended up on Sycamore Street, which took me past the library and my orthodontist’s office. I could have taken a left and been on Main Street, which would have eventually turned in to ratty old Shady Woods. Instead I took a right, which put me on Emerson Drive.
Emerson Drive was the main road of Emerson. It was the only road that was wide enough to allow trucks, and it was always noisy and full of traffic. To tell you the truth, it wasn’t much fun to ride a bike on, but at this point I wasn’t thinking about fun. I just wanted to keep moving; I just wanted to travel. I felt like if I stopped, I would have to think, and all the thoughts I could possibly have would be angry, or humiliated, or sad.
So I kept pedaling.
But of course it’s impossible to have no thoughts for very long: Pretty soon they creep back into your head, even if you try to kick them out.
And the thought that kept creeping back into my head was this: Maybe this is what happened to Dad.
Maybe one day something bad happened, or not even something bad, maybe just something stupid or embarrassing, and he started moving, and he couldn’t stop. Maybe he didn’t intend to go to Florida; maybe that’s just where he ended up (if that’s where he even was). Maybe once he got there he felt so bad about running away in the first place that he couldn’t retrace his steps and just come back.
Of course, Miranda would say, he could have called once in a while.
Actually, he did call, Miranda. Five times, remember? Three times in August, but you kept hanging up.
Yes, I did, Miranda would say. Because I was mad. But if he really loved us, he would have called back!
>
Well, maybe he was scared to call back. Or maybe he thought it would be better for Mom to forget him, to start over with a new husband.
Okay, Miranda would say. But that’s Mom. What about his kids? What about us?
I couldn’t answer that.
Except to think that maybe his plan was to let some time pass and then recontact us when we were ready to give him a second chance. When we’d answer the phone without hanging up.
You’re just mindlessly defending him, Cassie, Miranda would say. You’re just making up fairy tales.
But I’m traveling too, I would answer. See? I think I might understand just how Dad feels. Or felt.
A big smelly truck honked its horn at me, and I swerved to the right, almost falling off my bike. My heart was pounding from all that pedaling, and the sky was getting grayer and thicker and meaner. So I decided to take the next street and get off Emerson Drive, maybe rest for a second or two to catch my breath.
Bradley Avenue, which led to the park. Well, why not, I thought. It was where kids went in Emerson. There was a lot of skateboarding there, and also a lot of standing around and laughing. Plus a lot of other stuff, I bet. Miranda told me that Emerson Park was where all the high school kids went when they went on “dates.”
Not that I expected to see Danny there. Running into Danny by “accident” wasn’t even remotely on my mind. First of all, it was a nasty, miserable day and nobody else would be crazy enough to be out in the park. And second of all, Danny had told me he never even rode his bike in Bradley Park. Besides, it was starting to get dark, and who would be stupid enough to be out riding at night?
Well, me. I was. And I also did it that time I went to CVS for the cat food. Of course, then I didn’t have any choice; now I was choosing to do this, and it felt, well, great. Because for once in my life no one was interrupting me, or making me feed them, or yelling. And sure, I’d promised Mom I wouldn’t go riding again at night, but this was different. And anyway, she was at work; she wouldn’t even have to know.
So I just kept pedaling.
It was definitely better to be on normal, quiet Bradley Avenue, and pretty soon I was at the park entrance. It’s funny how familiar it seemed, even though I hadn’t been there since last spring. The lights were coming on, and I could see the playground area where I used to play in the sandbox when I was little, and the baseball field where Jackson had his fourth birthday party. And beyond that was a volleyball court where sometimes on a Sunday morning Dad and I would toss beachballs back and forth, cracking each other up with the worst possible knock-knock jokes.