Sincerely

by Courtney Sheinmel

  I sat on Julie’s bed and she told me to close my eyes. “Do I have to?” I asked her.

  “Yes, this is the Sunday Night Fashion Show,” Julie said. “It will be better if you see the whole outfit at once and don’t watch me get dressed.”

  “Why don’t you get dressed in the closet,” I suggested. “Then you can make a grand entrance.”

  Julie seemed to consider my idea for a second but shook her head. “It’s too dark in there,” she said. “Come on, close your eyes.”

  I decided to just do what she said. I sat on her bed and held a pillow up to my eyes. “You better hurry up,” I said.

  Julie put on some music, I guess to keep up with her fashion show theme. All I knew was it took longer for her to get ready because she had to pick the right Madonna song, and I was starting to get annoyed. Julie says Madonna is a fashion icon, and she’s also one of Julie’s favorite singers. She wants to meet Madonna more than anyone else. I think secretly she’d like to be Madonna. But she never says that out loud.

  “All right. You can open your eyes,” Julie said, just as Madonna began to sing “Vogue.” I opened my eyes and saw Julie all dressed up like she was going to a nightclub. Her skirt was black and very short. I knew Dad would hate it. Her shirt looked like it was made out of some kind of metal. I noticed that her chest looked bigger than I remembered it being. Julie started wearing a bra when she was eleven, like I am now, even though she was still flat-chested and she hasn’t grown that much since. It’s one of the things we have in common, being flat-chested. I never wear a bra, but Julie does every day. I had a feeling she had stuffed it to look bigger. She walked up the length of her room like a supermodel, and turned sharply on her toes. Her dangly earrings bounced up and down when she turned like that. She looked like she could be on TV

  “So, what do you think?” Julie asked.

  “It’s nice,” I said.

  “I got a bandana belt too,” Julie continued. “It just doesn’t match this outfit. But I can try it on with my white skirt if you want to see it. That’s what I bought it to go with.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. I was already bored by Julie’s fashion show.

  “You’re so lucky I shop, because you can have all this stuff when I’m done with it,” Julie said. “I’ll give you my old black skirt now. It would look good on you.”

  I shook my head. I had a few of Julie’s hand-me-downs in my closet even though I didn’t want any of them. She’d put them there without asking me first. She says she’s just trying to help me, but I don’t think she should go into my closet without my permission, and I hate that she wants to change me.

  “Come on, Katie. You should take my advice. I could help you dress better. I’ve got a lot of old stuff that would probably fit you, and I could show you how to wear your hair so it would look good too.” Julie reached out toward my hair, but I ducked my head. “Boys will like you better that way.”

  “Don’t do that. I’m friends with the boys with my hair just like this.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Julie said. She smiled and looked down at me like I was just a little kid. I hate when she does that.

  “I don’t want your stinky old clothes anyway,” I said.

  Julie rolled her eyes and went to turn off the music. I knew I had upset her because I didn’t want to be her project. “Get out of here if you’re going to act so ungrateful,” she told me.

  “Fine,” I said. “I didn’t want to come in here in the first place.” I moved toward the door and heard Mom shout from the hallway to Julie to get started on her homework.

  Julie pushed my shoulder as I walked past her. “You heard Mom. Hurry up and get out,” she said. “I have homework to do.”

  “I’m going,” I said. But when I got to her door I turned and faced her. “Let me know if you need me to help you with your homework,” I said hotly. Julie lunged forward, and I turned and walked out fast before she could slam the door in my face. Sometimes it’s easier to be mean to Julie than to try to get her to like me.

  Mom met me in the hall on my way to my room. “You shouldn’t distract Julie when she needs to do her homework,” she told me.

  “Julie was the one who wanted to show me her clothes. You were there,” I reminded her.

  “I need you to be cooperative, Katie,” Mom said. She looked down at me—but not as far down as she used to. I’m just a few inches shorter than her now. I remembered something one of my teachers had written on my report card in fifth grade: “Katie is attentive and enthusiastic. It is a pleasure to have her in class.” Sometimes I wished Mom could see me the way I am at school. Then maybe she would say I’m a team player and use those words to describe me too. It made me wonder if there were kids in school who were completely unpopular who went home to perfect families where no one ever fought.

  “You only care about Julie,” I told Mom. I went into my room, which is right next to Julie’s room, and closed my door. I flopped onto my bed, thinking about my fight with Julie. I knew it was stupid to fight about clothing, and I shouldn’t have said what I had about Julie’s homework. She gets upset when she thinks I’m smarter than she is, and she would never ask me for help. Besides, I really don’t know anything about seventh-grade work anyway. I really only said it to get back at her for thinking there is something wrong with my clothes and my hair. I knew the fight was mostly my fault. I’m just not very good at apologizing. Anyway Mom would have gotten mad at me if I’d gone back into Julie’s room.

  I decided to concentrate on my jog-a-thon idea instead. I was sure Jake would think it was a great project for the Dynamic Duo to organize. I just hoped Mr. Gallagher would agree. I tried to imagine how my meeting with Mr. Gallagher would go, but when I thought of going into his office, I remembered the way his face had looked when I’d been sent there by Mrs. Brenneke. I decided to call Jake. I reached for the phone and dialed. After a couple rings Jake’s mother answered.

  “Hey, Mrs. O,” I said. Jake’s last name is Oxman, but I always call his parents Mr. and Mrs. O.

  “Hi, Katie,” Mrs. O said. She knew it was me because I’m the only one who calls her Mrs. O, and also because she knows my voice since I call their house a lot. “I’ll get Jake for you.” I heard her calling for him and he picked up. The phone clicked as Mrs. O hung up.

  “What’s up?” Jake asked.

  “I have a great idea,” I said.

  “What is it?”

  “You have to promise not to tell anyone,” I said. I wasn’t going to tell anyone else from school just yet. I didn’t want anyone to know about it, besides Aunt Jean and Jake, before I spoke to Mr. Gallagher about it.

  “Okay,” Jake said.

  “You promise?” I asked. “I’m only telling you because you’re my best friend. I didn’t even tell my parents yet.”

  “You never tell your parents things,” Jake said.

  “Come on, do you promise?”

  “Yeah, of course I promise,” Jake said. “Tell me what it is.”

  “All right,” I said. “I want to do a fund-raiser at Hillside. A jog-a-thon. The students can get people to sponsor them for how many times they run around the track, and the more times they run around, the more money they’ll get.”

  “What’s the money for?” Jake asked.

  “For the people who were in the earthquake in Mexico,” I said. “Remember, I reported on it a few weeks ago and then Doriane reported about it.”

  “Of course I remember,” Jake said.

  “Well, Doriane said they were running out of resources and needed money to rebuild things and help everyone, and that’s when I had the idea to do something at Hillside,” I said. “What do you think?”

  “It’d be pretty cool,” Jake said.

  “And it’s going to be bigger than an ordinary jog-a-thon,” I said. “I want there to be a halftime show, with maybe the band and the cheerleaders doing cheers. And I want to get local businesses to give sponsorships so we can raise even more money.”<
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  “I’ll help you with it if you want.”

  That’s exactly what I’d hoped he would say. “Definitely,” I said. “The first thing I have to do is talk to Mr. Gallagher. I spoke to my aunt and she said I should write Mr. Gallagher a letter to see if he’ll meet with me. Aunt Jean is going to get books about fund-raising from the library, and I’m going to go over there after school tomorrow so I can read up on everything too. You could come to the meeting with me if Mr. Gallagher says yes.”

  “You should ask Doriane to help you too,” Jake said. “After all, she’s the reason you had the idea.” Why did Jake have to keep bringing up Doriane? She may have done the report, but it was my idea to have the jog-a-thon.

  “I know, I know,” I told him. “She’s very sensitive.”

  “What, are you jealous?” Jake asked. He laughed to himself, and I felt stupid.

  “Of course I’m not jealous,” I told him. “Anyway, I better go. I have to write to Mr. Gallagher.”

  “Okay,” Jake said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I was still thinking about Jake’s new obsession with Doriane when we hung up. I told myself that he would get over it soon enough. I just couldn’t imagine that Jake and Doriane would have anything in common. She was too quiet, and I don’t think she cared about track at all. She probably wouldn’t even want to run in the jog-a-thon anyway. I pulled open my desk drawer to get a piece of paper to write to Mr. Gallagher. I knew I had to concentrate, because the letter had to be exactly right. That way Mr. Gallagher wouldn’t just think of me as the girl who’d tried to steal Mrs. Brenneke’s chocolate. I picked up a pen. Here goes nothing, I thought, and I began to write.

  Dear Mr. Gallagher,

  I’m writing to you because I hope I can meet with you about an idea I had for our school that has to do with the earthquake in Mexico. I have Mrs. Katz for social studies, and we talked about the earthquake in class when we did our current events reports. One thing we learned was that there aren’t enough resources in Mexico to fix everything that was damaged and help all the people who were hurt.

  I know a lot of kids at Hillside are really sad about what happened in Mexico. The idea I have is about how our school can help the people who were hurt in the earthquake. I thought we could have a school fund-raiser and send the money we raise to Mexico.

  I really hope I can meet with you about this because I have a lot of ideas for the fund-raiser that I’d like to talk to you about in person. My locker is number 917, if you want to leave me a note.

  Sincerely,

  Katie Lyn Franklin

  P.S. Thank you for reading this letter.

  I added the part saying thank you because I wanted him to think I was polite. I looked over my letter to make sure my handwriting was neat and nothing was spelled wrong. It looked pretty good, so I folded it up and put it in an envelope. I printed “Mr. Gallagher” on the outside and put the envelope into my backpack so I wouldn’t forget it.

  There was a knock on my door. “Come in,” I said. Dad poked his head into the room.

  “Dinner’s just about ready,” he said.

  “I’ll be right down” I said.

  Dinner was already on the table when I got downstairs. Mom had made lasagna. It’s this thing Mom does whenever one of us is upset—she makes our favorite food for dinner and thinks that fixes things. Like when Dad had a problem at his office, Mom made steak, or when I broke my arm last year, she made lamb chops. Lasagna was one of Julie’s favorite meals. The food thing didn’t really work on Julie, though. Whenever she was upset about school, she didn’t eat much. I sat in my usual seat, in between Mom and Dad and across from Julie. Julie barely looked at me for the whole meal, and I knew she was still mad. When I’m done having an argument with someone, I just forget about it and move on. But Julie is different from me. She stays mad much longer. I thought about telling everyone about my idea for the jog-a-thon, but if Julie was upset, she would just tell me it was stupid, so I didn’t say anything at all.

  After dinner I helped clean up, and then Dad and I went into the den to watch television. Julie wasn’t allowed to watch with us because she still had homework to do. She gave me a dirty look as she walked past the den to go upstairs. I sighed out loud, and Dad turned to me. “Everything all right, Katie-Katie?” he asked. He always calls me Katie-Katie. There’s an old song about someone named Lisa-Lisa. Lisa is Mom’s name and Dad used to call her Lisa-Lisa, so when I was little, I started calling myself Katie-Katie, and Dad just kept on calling me that. Mom didn’t like being called Lisa-Lisa because the name of the song is actually “Sad Lisa.” So Dad hardly ever calls Mom Lisa-Lisa anymore.

  “I’m kind of tired,” I told him. It was true. All of a sudden I felt exhausted.

  “Why don’t you go up to bed?” Dad said, and I nodded. I kissed him good night and headed upstairs.

  I got into bed and tried to imagine how my meeting with Mr. Gallagher would go. I wasn’t as scared since Jake would be there, and Mr. Gallagher had never found out that Jake had also been involved in the plot to steal Mrs. Brenneke’s candy. Besides, everyone at school, including Mr. Gallagher, knew how great Jake was at track. I pictured us both in the chairs across Mr. Gallagher’s desk from him. My head felt heavy and I closed my eyes, hoping everything would work out the way I wanted it to.

  Suddenly Jake and I were on the island in the middle of the reservoir. I was sitting between the trees and Jake was walking toward me. I heard a low rumble. I scrambled toward the base of a tree to stand next to the trunk, and when I turned back, I couldn’t see Jake. Everything was shaking and pieces of trees were falling down all around me. Then, as if I were suddenly up in the air and watching the island from a distance, I watched the entire island shake and disappear underwater. I knew Jake was still on the island. “Jake!” I screamed, and I opened my eyes.

  Four

  MY FACE WAS hot and my heart was pounding, but I saw that I was still in my room. The bookshelves loomed large and dark but not at all scary. “Just a bad dream,” I said to myself. I flicked on the light next to my bed. Someone knocked on my door and it opened before I even said, Come in.

  “Are you all right?” Mom asked.

  I sat up in bed and pulled my knees up to my chest. My hands felt sticky. “I’m fine,” I said.

  “I was just walking down the hall and I thought I heard something,” she said.

  I shook my head. “Maybe it was the wind,” I told her.

  “Maybe,” Mom said. “But it doesn’t seem too windy out tonight.”

  “It could have been Mooner, then,” I said.

  Mom nodded. “Do you need anything before I go?”

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  “Okay, kiddo, don’t stay up too late,” Mom said.

  “Fine,” I said. I didn’t tell her that I’d already been sleeping. I waited until she closed the door before I turned the light back out.

  The next morning I rushed through breakfast so I could get to school early. I wanted to make sure I had time to go to Mr. Gallagher’s office before homeroom. Mr. Gallagher’s office is in a separate building from my homeroom classroom, across the parking lot where kids get dropped off by their parents or buses. It’s a small building with just Mr. Gallagher’s office and the nurse’s station inside. The nurse’s station is right past the benches when you first walk in, and you can go straight into it on your own, but it’s not so easy to get to Mr. Gallagher’s office. Across from the nurse’s door, there’s a counter that takes up the whole width of the room. One of the secretaries behind the counter has to let you in through a swinging door in order to get to Mr. Gallagher’s office in the back.

  I crossed the parking lot and hurried up to the building, but when I got inside, I slowed down. What if they wouldn’t let me behind the counter to leave him a note? Would I be able to give it to them to take to him? Would they make me explain my whole idea before they agreed to take the note for him?

  “Can I help you?” one of the wo
men behind the counter asked. I think her name is Mrs. Sutton. I remembered that she was there the day Mrs. Brenneke sent me up to Mr. Gallagher’s office, and I hoped Mrs. Sutton had forgotten about that.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I have a note I wanted to leave for Mr. Gallagher, if that’s all right.”

  “Is it for the suggestion box?” Mrs. Sutton asked. She tipped the pencil that was in her hand toward a box on the far side of the counter.

  “No,” I said. “It’s just a note. It’s kind of personal.”

  “You can put it in his mailbox, then,” Mrs. Sutton said.

  “I don’t know his address,” I told her.

  Mrs. Sutton smiled. “No, dear, not his home mailbox. All the teachers have mailboxes over there.” She pointed her pencil again, this time toward the wall beside the nurse’s station. “There’s a box there for Mr. Gallagher, too.”

  “Oh, thanks,” I said. I smiled back at her and walked over to the back wall. There were open mailboxes that looked like miniature cubbyholes against the wall. Each one had a teacher’s last name printed across the bottom. I had never noticed them before, but I looked them up and down until I saw the one marked “Gallagher.” I saw that there were a couple of papers already in his box, and I slipped the envelope I was holding between the papers so mine wouldn’t be on top. I called “Thanks” to Mrs. Sutton again and crossed my fingers as I walked out the door.

  Five

  USUALLY I TAKE all my books with me for all my classes, but that day I purposely went back to my locker between each class to check if there was a note on my locker door. Each time the front of my locker was bare.