I was already making up in my head how great the jog-a-thon would be, and now all I could think about was whether Mr. Gallagher had read my letter. Why did it feel like time was added to the day when you waited for something? A few years ago Aunt Jean and I made a peanut butter chocolate cake. I stood at the oven and flicked the little switch so I could see inside. Every minute or so I went back to flick the switch and see if the cake was ready. Aunt Jean laughed and said, “A watched pot never boils.” I didn’t understand what she meant at the time—I was watching cake inside the oven, not a pot. But now I stared at the clock and understood completely. The minute hand never seemed to move, no matter how long I looked at it.
At the end of the day I went back to my locker one more time before leaving, but there wasn’t a note. I opened my locker and shoved my French books inside, and then closed it with a bang.
“Wow, are you okay?” I turned and saw Tesa next to me.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sometimes I have to slam the locker or it doesn’t shut all the way.” I didn’t want to explain why I was really slamming the door and what I was nervous about, because then I would have had to tell her about the jog-a-thon. Anyway, it had been less than a day since I’d left the note for Mr. Gallagher. Just thinking about that made me feel silly. I’m sure Mr. Gallagher has a lot of important stuff to do on Mondays, and he probably gets lots of notes from students. Maybe he hadn’t even gotten around to reading his mail yet. Maybe he was in meetings all day and would get to it after school was over. “Are you walking home today?” I asked Tesa.
“No,” she said. “I’m going to Sara’s. I’ll see you tomorrow, though, okay?”
“Yeah, see you tomorrow,” I said.
Jake was at the other end of the hall by his locker, and I picked up my backpack and went over to him. “Hey,” he said. “I was just gonna find you. I don’t have track today. The coach has the flu, so if you want to go to your aunt’s and talk about your project, I’m free.” Jake thinks Aunt Jean is pretty cool too. He was even coming over for her birthday dinner in a few weeks. I was glad he wanted to go to her for help.
“Thanks,” I said. “That’d be great.”
“Yeah, I figured you’d want to,” Jake said. “I told Doriane to meet us by your locker. She should be here any second.”
“You asked Doriane?” I said.
“Yeah, we’re in math together,” Jake said.
“But, Jake,” I said, “you promised not to tell anyone.”
“I didn’t tell anyone,” Jake said. “Just Doriane. I thought we said last night that we’d include her. And anyway she’s the reason you had this idea in the first place. If she hadn’t brought that article in for current events—”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, cutting Jake off. It wasn’t how it was supposed to be. After all, how would this be a project for the Dynamic Duo if Jake included Doriane?
“Katie, stop it,” Jake said.
“No, really, Jake,” I said. “It’s great and all that Doriane’s so smart and so sensitive but I don’t know why you think we need her for any of this. You can hardly even hear her when she speaks. How’s that gonna be helpful when we go to Mr. Gallagher?”
“Katie,” Jake said, his voice low, “you need to stop it now.”
Jake was talking to me, but all of a sudden I noticed his eyes were focused on something behind me, and I knew Doriane was there. I dropped my backpack and moved my hands to my face, just like a little kid. Like if I covered my face with my hands, Doriane wouldn’t be able to see me. After a few seconds I lowered my hands and turned around very, very slowly. “Hi, Doriane,” I said.
Doriane smiled the smallest smile I had ever seen. I hoped she wasn’t going to cry.
“Don’t pay any attention to Katie,” Jake said. “She’s a real jerk.” Ordinarily I’d have been mad at Jake for calling me a jerk, but this time I looked at Doriane and sort of agreed with him.
“It’s okay,” Doriane said softly. “You guys can just meet without me.”
“Doriane, seriously, don’t pay any attention to her. She didn’t mean it,” Jake said. “Right, Katie?”
“Right,” I said. “I didn’t mean it at all. I’m just in a bad mood.” It was kind of like how I could be with Julie—get into a bad mood and say things I shouldn’t. It just usually didn’t happen at school in front of anyone else.
“And you’re sorry, right?” Jake said, prompting me. He was speaking to me like I was a baby, but I guess I deserved it. Saying you’re sorry is the kind of thing that’s easier to think than to say out loud. I never told Julie I was sorry the other night, even though I was. I nodded at Jake, but Doriane said she still didn’t want to intrude.
Jake looked like he was ready to kill me. But he was the one who invited Doriane without checking with me. Besides, it wasn’t like I’d hurt Doriane’s feelings on purpose. Jake could have shouted Hey, Doriane over my head to give me a clue that she was there.
“You really wouldn’t be intruding,” I said. “You should come. We could use your help. I’m sorry about what I said before.” I gave her a small smile and she nodded. I looked up at Jake to make sure he wasn’t mad anymore. But he moved toward Doriane and I followed behind them down the hall.
It was strange to walk behind Jake like that—to see him walking with another girl. Jake and Doriane, Jake and Doriane. I rolled their names, together like that, around in my head. It didn’t sound right; I was so used to thinking about Jake and Katie—the Dynamic Duo. We fit together. I walked faster to keep up with them.
“So, Doriane and I think we should come up with a plan,” Jake said.
“I have a plan,” I said. “I told you about it.”
“Well, now there’s three of us,” Jake said firmly. “Doriane might have some ideas too.” I could tell he was still mad about before. I wanted to point out that it wasn’t my fault, but I couldn’t really do that with Doriane right there.
“Jake,” Doriane said, “this was Katie’s idea. I think we should go with her plan.”
“Well, I already left a note for Mr. Gallagher this morning,” I told her. “I’m hoping he’ll agree to a meeting so I can tell him about the idea. If he agrees to let us have it at the school, then we need to get the word out to all the students and everyone else we know.”
“Just let us know when the meeting with Gallagher is and we’ll be there,” Jake said.
I had never heard Jake call Mr. Gallagher just “Gallagher” before, and I knew he was doing it to show off to Doriane. And of course he said “we,” to include Doriane again without even asking me. But I didn’t say anything about it. I just said, “I’ll let you know.”
“Katie thinks Gallagher might turn us down,” Jake told Doriane.
“Oh,” Doriane said, “he just can’t say no. It’s too important.” She sounded like she really meant it.
We turned the corner onto Sage Drive, which is Aunt Jean’s street. “Wow,” Doriane said softly when we got to Aunt Jean’s house. I turned to her and she looked embarrassed. “It’s just so big,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “And my aunt lives here all alone.” I reached across Doriane and Jake and pressed the doorbell three times.
“I can’t believe you still do that,” Jake said. I stuck my tongue out at him. “Baby,” he said.
Aunt Jean opened the door. “Hey, Katie. Hey, Jake,” she said.
“Hi,” I said. “This is my friend Doriane.”
“Doriane . . . the girl who reported on the earthquake. I’ve heard a lot about you. It’s very nice to meet you,” Aunt Jean said. “I’m Jean Daly.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too, Mrs. Daly,” Doriane said.
“Oh, call me Jean, please,” Aunt Jean said. “My mother-in-law is Mrs. Daly.” I always forget that Aunt Jean has a mother-in-law and a father-in-law from when her husband was alive. I’ve only met them a couple times and they are very stuffy. I could see why Aunt Jean didn’t want to be called by the same name.
“I
hope it’s okay that I came over,” Doriane said.
“Of course,” Aunt Jean said as she ushered us inside. “The more the merrier. I’m going to get some cheese and crackers to snack on, and you have to tell me everything that happened today.”
“Nothing happened,” I said as I followed her toward the kitchen. “I left a note for Mr. Gallagher but he didn’t answer it yet.”
“Well, don’t worry about it,” she said. “It’s only Monday. And I got a few books for you this morning, so we can figure out the next steps even before you meet with Mr. Gallagher.”
We settled in the den after Aunt Jean finished slicing the cheese, which is my favorite thing to eat besides chocolate chip cookies. She showed us a pile of books she’d gotten from the library. “I’ve read through some of these,” Jean said. “A lot of it doesn’t really apply here. But there are some good ideas, like how to formulate letters and write up proposals. You can model your letters to the local businesses on the examples in this one,” Aunt Jean said as she handed me a book from her stack. I opened it up to the table of contents. There was a whole chapter called “Letters, Proposals, and Grant Applications.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“And I’ve been thinking about the halftime show,” Jake said. “I’ve got a lot of ideas for it.”
“Great,” Aunt Jean said. “Let’s hear them.”
“I definitely think we should see about having a band play. But not the school band, like Katie said. I think maybe a famous band.”
“I don’t think we’d really be able to get a famous band to Hillside,” I said.
“What do you think, Doriane?” Jake asked.
“Well,” she said softly, “I think Katie is probably right.”
“Oh,” Jake said.
“It wouldn’t hurt to ask anyway, Jake,” Aunt Jean said.
“Yeah,” Jake said. “I’m gonna write a letter.”
“I thought of something else,” Doriane said.
We waited for her to say what it was, but she was quiet. Finally Aunt Jean said, “We’d love to hear your idea.”
“It’s okay if you don’t like it,” Doriane said.
“Doriane,” Aunt Jean said, smiling, “it may be the best idea yet, but we have to hear it first.”
“Yeah, let’s hear it,” Jake said. I wished Aunt Jean hadn’t said the part about Doriane’s idea being the best.
“Well,” Doriane said, “we keep saying how we should have businesses sponsor people. I was thinking we could give it a special name, like a ‘Super Sponsor,’ if a company or even a person wants to pledge a certain amount. Maybe we could even put a sign up thanking those companies at the race itself. Companies like to have their names up places, so it might get them to donate more.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Aunt Jean said. “I read about that in one of these books. It’s called signage.” Doriane beamed back at her.
“You know,” Jake said, “if those Super Sponsors sponsored people on the track team, we’d get a ton of money. I bet we could each run like a hundred laps.”
“I was reading some articles on the Internet about what’s happened in Mexico,” Doriane said. “There’s this hospital they set up for the orphaned kids. It’s not a real hospital. They set it up in a warehouse or something, because the real hospital was destroyed. I bet they need the money there.”
“I think that would be a great place to send the money,” Aunt Jean said.
“Mr. Gallagher has to say yes,” I said.
Aunt Jean suggested we get some other things done before we even met with Mr. Gallagher, like come up with a draft letter to potential Super Sponsors, and decide which local businesses and people to write to. We also decided to write up a sponsor sheet and present Mr. Gallagher with a list of ideas for the halftime show, besides the band. Aunt Jean and I looked at the samples in the library books and started dictating a letter to the Super Sponsors. Doriane took it all down. Her handwriting is small and neat, and she can write as fast as Aunt Jean and I can talk.
Doriane handed me the letter. I saw that she had signed it from all three of us and put my name first and her name last: “Sincerely, Katie Franklin, Jake Oxman, and Doriane Leib.”
“Mr. Gallagher could still turn us down, you know,” I said. “After all, he didn’t even answer my note yet.”
“He was probably just in a meeting,” Doriane said. She seemed confident for the first time, and I started to believe it too.
It turned out that Doriane was probably right. When I got back to my locker after lunch the next day, there was an envelope hanging from it. I took a deep breath and pulled it down. The envelope wasn’t sealed, but the back flap was tucked in. That’s how Mom closes envelopes whenever she gives cards to Julie or me on our birthdays or Christmas. She does it because she hates the taste of the glue on the backs of envelopes. Maybe Mr. Gallagher felt the same way. I pulled up the flap and pulled out the note.
Dear Katie,
I would be happy to meet with you to discuss your idea. I am free Friday afternoon at 3:15. Please let Mrs. Sutton in my office know if you are able to stop by then.
Sincerely,
Joe Gallagher
Six
I READ MR. Gallagher’s note again and again over the next few days, and decided it was a good sign that he’d used the word “happy” in his first sentence and also signed the letter with his first and last name. Not only that, he’d also used his nickname instead of writing out “Joseph.” Usually teachers and principals don’t even like kids to know that they have first names, let alone nicknames. I think it makes them feel more important.
On Friday afternoon I sat next to Jake on the bench outside Mr. Gallagher’s office. Doriane was on the other side of him. I wished it were just Jake and me. It wasn’t that I minded Doriane being there, but Jake was sitting just the tiniest bit closer to her than he was to me. It made me feel sort of small. Didn’t he remember that I was the whole reason we were there? “Hey, Jake,” I said, so he had to turn and look at me. But then I didn’t have anything to say. Luckily that was when Mrs. Sutton’s phone rang.
“Yes, Joe,” Mrs. Sutton said, and I knew she must have been speaking to Mr. Gallagher. She paused for a few seconds, and then said, “Okay, I’ll send them right in.” She hung up the phone and looked up at the three of us. “You can come right back, kids,” she said.
We got up, and Mrs. Sutton stood and held open the swinging door for us. Mr. Gallagher’s office is in the back behind the secretaries’ desks, and he stood up when we walked in, and shook each of our hands. When he shook my hand, he said, “That’s a strong handshake.” My dad says it’s important to have a strong handshake, and I knew he would be proud. “Have a seat,” Mr. Gallagher said.
We sat in the chairs in front of Mr. Gallagher’s desk, and he walked around the desk and sat behind it. He didn’t look mad at me at all, but I decided to say something nice just in case he was thinking about Mrs. Brenneke’s chocolate. “Thanks a lot for meeting with us today.”
“My pleasure,” Mr. Gallagher said. “I was very impressed by your note. I understand you want to have a fundraiser here at Hillside for the victims of the Mexican earthquake?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And these are your partners in crime?” Mr. Gallagher said, nodding toward Jake and Doriane.
Did he think Jake and Doriane had had something to do with the stolen chocolate? Doriane didn’t have anything to do with it, and I didn’t know he knew about Jake. “Not in crime,” I said quickly.
“I didn’t mean crime literally,” Mr. Gallagher said. “It’s just an expression.”
“Oh,” I said. “Right. Yeah, they’re my partners.”
“Okay, then,” Mr. Gallagher said. “Your note said you had a lot of ideas, so let’s hear them.”
“Well,” I said, “we thought we could have a jog-a-thon at Hillside.”
“We could hold it on the track,” Jake piped up. I didn’t think it was right that he inte
rrupted me, but we were in front of the principal so I let Jake keep talking. “Kids would get sponsored for the number of times they run around the track,” Jake continued. “We even thought we could have businesses sponsor the kids on the track team for more money—you know, because the kids on track will run the most laps. That way we can raise even more money. Also, we thought about having a halftime show, like they do on TV. I’m going to make a list of famous bands and try to get one of them to play.”
“Or we could have the middle school chorus or band, or maybe even the high school band,” I said. “I don’t think we could get a famous band.”
“We could try,” Jake said.
“Anyway,” I said, “we want to have the jog-a-thon as soon as possible. They need all the help they can get in Mexico.”
“You’re right about that,” Mr. Gallagher said. “But this is a very big project, and there aren’t even two full months left of the school year.”
I realized he was about to say no, which wasn’t fair because the jog-a-thon seemed like the most important thing in the world. I had already imagined exactly how it would be, and now it was going to be taken away. The three of us sat quietly. Not even Jake could think of anything to say. Finally I took a deep breath. “Mr. Gallagher,” I said, “we know this is a big project. But it has to be big in order to make any kind of difference, and we’ll work as hard as we need to work to do it. They set up this hospital in Mexico to take care of the kids who are hurt, and it’s not even a real hospital because the real hospital was destroyed in the earthquake. I think everyone should try to help out, including Hillside. If everyone tried to do something to help, then we could save a lot of kids.”
“How much do you want to raise?” Mr. Gallagher asked.
“It has to be at least ten thousand dollars,” I told him.
“That’s a lot of money,” Mr. Gallagher said.
“I know,” I said, “but the article Doriane brought into class said that’s how much it costs for just one kid’s medical bills.”
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