I feel guilty about thinking those things, especially when I think about not having Mom or Julie around at all—like Emily, who may have lost her whole family in Mexico. Sometimes it’s like I’m two different people. At school everyone thinks I’m friendly and nice, but at home I sometimes worry I’m not a good enough person.
It’s not that I want Mom and Julie to disappear completely. Even when I’m mad at them I still like knowing they’re around. I just think it might be easier living down the road with Aunt Jean instead of in the same house. I think it would be good for Aunt Jean, too. Right now she’s all alone. Aunt Jean used to be married but her husband died. I was a baby so I don’t even remember ever having an uncle. They didn’t have any kids so I don’t have any cousins on my dad’s side.
Even though she doesn’t have any kids and lives alone, she has a much bigger house than we do. That’s because her husband left her a lot of money when he died. Dad tells Aunt Jean she should travel more with all that money. She used to go to Europe all the time with her husband, but she always tells Dad it’s no fun to travel by yourself. I think Dad should leave Aunt Jean alone. Older siblings think they know everything. Julie’s a know-it-all too. She says stupid things, like Jake and I won’t be best friends for much longer because he’s a boy and there are certain things we won’t be able to tell each other as we get older. But she doesn’t understand Jake and me. Anyway, Aunt Jean says she likes it better right here in Redwood City. She volunteers at the library in the mornings and she’s usually home in the afternoons.
I took the steps two at a time up the walkway to the front door and I rang the bell three times. I started doing that when I was little so Aunt Jean would know it was me at the door.
“Just a second, Katie,” Aunt Jean called.
I slipped my backpack off my back because it was getting heavy. After a few seconds I heard Aunt Jean’s footsteps and the door opened.
“I had a feeling I would see you today,” Aunt Jean said. “I made cookies.” Aunt Jean loves to feed people.
“Oh, awesome,” I said.
“Come on into the kitchen,” Aunt Jean said. “They’re still cooling off.”
We walked down the hall to the kitchen. I think it’s probably the best room in the house, which is funny since I don’t like to cook at all. At home Mom always makes me do the dishes after dinner since Julie helps her cook, and I hate that, too. But Aunt Jean’s kitchen is different. For one thing, I don’t have to do any chores when I’m in there. And for another, there’s a big skylight in the ceiling so the room is flooded with light as soon as the sun is out. When it’s raining you can tilt your head back and see the raindrops coming down straight from above. Today the sky was mostly blue with some clouds swirling slowly across so there were shadows moving along the table. Aunt Jean brought a plate of cookies over and sat down across from me. I reached over and took one. It was still warm from the oven and I could tell the chocolate would be gooey inside.
“So,” Aunt Jean said, “tell me everything about your day.”
Usually when my parents ask me about my day, or about school, I just say it was fine. But I don’t mind giving Aunt Jean more details. First of all, I like the way Aunt Jean asks the question, like she really wants to know. And she doesn’t make things complicated like my mom does. The problem is that Mom gets jealous sometimes, because Aunt Jean ends up knowing more about me. I don’t see what the big deal is, since Mom is usually so busy worrying about Julie anyway. I swallowed the bite of cookie that was in my mouth. “Mostly it was the same as usual,” I told her. “Except this girl Doriane gave a report on a kid who was hurt in the earthquake. You know the one in Mexico?”
Aunt Jean nodded. She picked up a cookie, blew on it to cool it off, and took a bite. I filled her in Doriane’s report. Aunt Jean shook her head. Maybe she sort of understood what it was like for Emily since she had lost her husband. “You know,” I said, “when the earthquake first happened, I thought it was the worst thing I’d ever heard. But then everything just went back to the way it was before and I stopped thinking about it.”
“I think that’s natural,” Aunt Jean said.
“Yeah, but the thing is, nothing in Mexico went back to the way it was before. Things might never go back to normal for them.”
“It’s awful,” Aunt Jean said.
“I know,” I said. “When Doriane finished her report, Jake went on and on about how sensitive Doriane was for caring about the earthquake. But I think I’m sensitive too. I haven’t stopped thinking about Emily since Doriane gave her report. I mean, the same thing could have happened to me. It could have happened right here in California.”
“Chances are that it won’t,” Aunt Jean said.
“But we have fault lines here,” I said.
“I know,” Aunt Jean said. “But the really big earthquakes don’t happen that often. It’s a random event, and it happened in Mexico. I don’t want you to be too worried about it.”
“I’m not worried, exactly,” I said. “I just want to do something to help.”
Aunt Jean smiled. “We should find out what hospital Emily’s in. Maybe there’s a way to get a letter to her or some sort of care package.”
“Actually, I thought I could do something more than a care package,” I said.
“More?” Aunt Jean asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Like raising money to help somehow.”
“That’s a great idea,” Aunt Jean said. “You could have a bake sale, or even a lemonade stand. Your father and I used to have lemonade stands when we were little.”
It’s hard for me to think of Dad and Aunt Jean as little kids. I tried to picture them outside Grandma and Grandpa’s house, sitting behind a little table set up to sell lemonade, but they still looked like grown-ups in my head. “How much did you make?” I asked.
“I remember once we got twenty-five dollars and we thought we were rich,” Aunt Jean said, laughing.
“That’s not very much,” I said.
“Well, it was a long time ago,” she said. “Twenty-five dollars went further back then.”
“But even if we made twice as much, it still wouldn’t be enough. Doriane’s article said that Emily’s hospital bills are already ten thousand dollars. Even if her family can pay that, I bet she isn’t the only kid who is hurt or missing her family. There were a lot of Mexican kids in the earthquake too. Some of them must have lost everything—their families and their houses and all their money, too.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Aunt Jean said.
“And Doriane talked about how the resources in Mexico were getting all used up,” I continued. “They don’t have enough money or equipment to help everyone and rebuild things. So we have to do something bigger than a lemonade stand. The thing is, I know I want to help and I know it has to be big, but I can’t think of what it should be.”
Aunt Jean folded her arms across the table. “Something big,” she said. “Well, we need to brainstorm, then. Why don’t you grab some paper and a pen?”
I got the pad of paper and pen that Aunt Jean keeps by the phone in case she needs to write anything down. We have a pad next to the phone in our kitchen too, which Mom calls the message pad. But Aunt Jean lives alone, so she doesn’t have anyone to take messages for.
I brought the paper over to the table. “It needs to be something that would raise a lot of money, obviously,” I said.
“You could start researching on the Internet and I could get some books about fund-raising from the library,” Aunt Jean offered. “We need to make a list of our other resources too.”
“Our resources?”
“Yes,” Aunt Jean said. “You know, things we already have here that could help us.”
“You mean like people I can ask for money?”
“Sort of,” Aunt Jean said. “Like asking some of the local businesses to be sponsors of a fund-raiser.”
“That’s a great idea,” I said.
“Thanks,” Aunt Jean said. “Write it down.”
“Okay,” I said, picking up the pen and making a note on the page. “What else?”
“Well,” she said, “we could write a letter to the people we know asking for their help.”
“I could ask the teachers at school,” I suggested.
“Absolutely,” Aunt Jean said. “You should go to the principal, too. Maybe the school could host something.”
“Like have a fund-raising event at school?” I asked.
“Mmm-hmm,” Aunt Jean said. “Something you and your friends could work on together, and get the whole school involved.”
I sat back and tried to think about what the kids in my school would like. One of the great things about California is that it’s warm and sunny outside most of the time, so we spend a lot of time out on the fields behind the school and on the track. That’s why Jake is such a fast runner. He’s actually on the track team. There are mostly seventh and eighth graders on the team. Jake and Morgan are the only sixth graders, and Jake is practically the fastest kid on the team.
Suddenly it hit me: If we had some sort of race and could get people to sponsor us for running laps around the track, Jake could raise a ton of money. It was perfect—Jake and I could plan it together. “Maybe we could have a race at Hillside,” I said. “Kids could get their parents and friends to sponsor them to run around the track, and the more laps they run, the more money they get.”
“Like a jog-a-thon,” Aunt Jean said. “Now you’re talking.”
“Yeah, but it has to be different from an ordinary jog-a-thon,” I said. “It has to be something that a lot of people will really want to come and watch. That way we can get more than just the students involved—it could be people from the local businesses, too, like you said.”
“You mean like some kind of entertainment?” Aunt Jean asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Like they have when there’s sports on TV.”
“A halftime show,” Aunt Jean said.
“Exactly,” I said. “Maybe we could get the cheerleaders to do some cheers. And different clubs could be different entertainment. You know, like the band and the chorus.”
“You’re on a roll,” Aunt Jean said. “Make sure you write it all down.”
I went back to my list and wrote: “Hillside jog-a-thon. Sponsorships to run around track. Bigger sponsorships from companies. Halftime show with school clubs performing. Cheerleaders. Band. Chorus.” I showed it to Aunt Jean. “Did I forget anything?” I asked.
“I think you got it all,” she said.
“Now I have to figure out how to convince Mr. Gallagher to get the school involved,” I said. Mr. Gallagher is the principal of Hillside Middle School. He and I didn’t exactly get along.
“You should see if you can meet with him on Monday,” Aunt Jean said.
“What if I write him a note about it?” I asked.
“You can write him a note asking for a meeting,” Aunt Jean said. “But I think this is the kind of thing you need to talk about in person.”
I knew Aunt Jean was right, but I hated having to go to the principal’s office. It’s not because I’m shy. Actually, I’m not shy at all. Some kids, like Doriane for example, get really nervous before they have to talk in front of the class. But things like that don’t scare me at all. I see all those kids every day anyway. But going to Mr. Gallagher’s office was something completely different. I was afraid he would say no just because he didn’t like me.
It all started the first week of sixth grade. During lunch we’re supposed to stay either in the cafeteria or outside near the track. But Jake had dared me to go back into school and get the chocolate from our homeroom teacher’s desk. Mrs. Brenneke kept it in there to give to us in the afternoons. It was really nice of her, but we each got a small piece and Jake said he wanted more. I wanted to show him I was brave—braver even than he was. I told him I wasn’t scared because all the teachers were at lunch too and not in their classrooms. But my heart was pounding as I went into the room. I walked as quietly and as quickly as I could over to the desk and I pulled open the bottom drawer. There was a bag full of miniature chocolate bars. “There it is,” I said to myself, and I reached in. I didn’t even hear Mrs. Brenneke come in behind me. She sent me up to Mr. Gallagher’s office. He gave me detention for two weeks and he hasn’t liked me ever since.
When my parents found out, they punished me too. My mom was really upset because Mr. Gallagher has been so nice to Julie. When her dyslexia was finally diagnosed, one of the teachers told Mom and Dad that Julie needed to be in special ed. But Mr. Gallagher didn’t think so. He set up a special program with Julie. She meets with him every week to go over her work and make a study plan, and he always makes sure she has extra time to take her tests. I didn’t know what the big deal was—it wasn’t like Mr. Gallagher was going to stop being nice to Julie because I did something wrong, but Mom said I couldn’t watch television or go on the Internet for two weeks—the entire length of detention—and Dad agreed with her.
I really didn’t want to go speak to Mr. Gallagher in person. For a second I thought about forgetting the whole thing, even though the idea was so perfect. “What if Mr. Gallagher says no?” I asked.
“Then we’ll come up with a plan B,” Aunt Jean said.
“I really hope he says yes,” I said.
“I have a good feeling about this,” Aunt Jean said.
“re you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” Aunt Jean said. She pushed the plate of cookies toward me. “Here, eat another one. It will make you feel better.” I already felt a little better because she seemed so confident, and Aunt Jean was usually right about things. But I took another cookie anyway and looked up, out of the skylight. It was starting to drizzle a little, and I knew I had to get home to let Mooner in since she’s afraid of the rain.
“I better get going,” I told Aunt Jean as I finished my cookie. I folded the list we’d made and put it into my backpack. Aunt Jean walked me to the door.
“Keep me posted,” she said.
“I will,” I promised. I walked out the door. Even though I was scared to talk to Mr. Gallagher, I was also excited because we had a plan.
Three
JULIE SPENT MOST of the weekend at Val’s, which meant they spent the whole time shopping at the mall. Julie babysits just so she can have money to shop, plus she spends her entire allowance on clothes and jewelry.
On Sunday evening I came in from walking Mooner. (By the way, I know Mooner is kind of a dumb name for a dog. When we first got her, she was scared of all of us. She used to hide in the corner of the den with just her butt sticking out, like she was mooning us. So Mooner it was.) As soon as we got inside, Mooner ran into the kitchen to get a drink of water. She always drinks right after getting back from a walk, as though she’s getting ready to have to go back out again. Mom was sitting at the table working on the crossword puzzle from the morning’s paper. She looked up when she saw me. “Hey, kiddo, how was the walk?”
“Fine,” I said. I looked at the newspaper on the table and remembered the article about Emily. I thought maybe I would tell Mom about my idea for a jog-a-thon, but just then I heard Julie’s key in the door.
Mom got up and walked into the foyer. Julie’s arms were filled with shopping bags. “It’s getting dark,” Mom said. “You should have been home hours ago.”
“I said after lunch and we had a late lunch,” Julie said.
“Well, it’s practically dinnertime now,” Mom said.
“It’s not so late,” Julie told her. “It just seems later because it still gets dark early.”
“Julie, it’s April,” Mom said. “Not February. You can’t use the sun setting early as an excuse!” Julie tried to squeeze past Mom to go upstairs, but she was carrying a bunch of shopping bags and Mom stayed planted in front of her. “You know the deal,” Mom told her.
“Yeah, yeah, I know the deal,” Julie said. “I’ll do it now, okay?”
The deal is that Julie is supposed to spen
d one day each weekend on her schoolwork. The other day she can shop, or go over to a friend’s house or babysit. I don’t have a deal like that with Mom since I do my homework on my own and I usually get good grades. But sometimes I wish Mom would obsess a little bit about my homework. I’m not sure what’s worse: being the one Mom doesn’t pay much attention to, or being the one she pays too much attention to. Somewhere in between would be the perfect mother. I have a feeling that’s what Aunt Jean would be like if she had kids.
Julie tried to move past Mom again, and this time Mom turned and let her pass. “Hey, Katie, wanna see what I got?” Julie asked me.
“Julianne,” Mom said in her warning voice.
“I’m just going to show her my clothes. I’ll start working in five minutes,” Julie said.
“Five minutes. That’s it,” Mom said. Julie rolled her eyes and I followed her up the stairs.
Julie and I sort of look alike—we both have greenish brown eyes and long blond hair. Our hairlines come to a point on our foreheads—widow’s peaks, which Julie told me is supposed to mean you’re pretty. I once asked Jake if he thought Julie was pretty, and he said yeah, but she was too much like his older sister. She used to boss him around too. The thing is, Julie’s kind of the prettier version of me. Her eyes are bigger, her hair is thicker and shinier, and her widow’s peak is just a little bit pointier. I try not to let it bother me. Anyway, you can still totally tell we’re sisters. That is, until you get to our rooms, which are completely different. Julie’s room has clothing hanging everywhere—clothing on hangers on every doorknob, shirts draped over her desk chair, and a pile of sweaters at the edge of her bed. Somehow she manages to sleep on her bed without cleaning her clothes off. She also has pictures of fashion models taped onto the wall behind her bed, which she uses as inspiration when she gets dressed in the morning. My room is much more ordinary-looking. I have a bulletin board above my desk and a bunch of bookcases against the walls. There’s a Berkeley pendant on the wall, because that’s where Dad went to college. Sometimes he takes Jake and me there to watch football games. Next to that I have a collage that Aunt Jean made of pictures she took of Jake and me, and I have a picture that Sophie sent me of her and her sister. Aunt Jean says it’s nice to have photos around, and I agree, but Julie thinks I should get some new posters and make my room more exciting. She always offers to help me decorate, but so far I’ve told her no. I think it’s funny how the same two parents can have two kids with completely different personalities.
Sincerely Page 15