“Here comes funny,” Mr. Matthews told the class as they looked at him, bewildered.
A moment later, Riley and Maya opened the classroom door just enough to each poke one bare foot inside. Right on cue, Mr. Matthews grabbed the girls’ shoes from his bag and tossed them out the door into the hall, where the girls had retreated.
“Ow,” Riley said.
“Ow,” Maya echoed.
In that moment, Riley wasn’t sure how to feel about what had happened with her dad. There was something comforting about his being there. She knew she still needed him. It was just a question of how much.
Riley seemed to be floating through space again—not quite on top of the world, but somewhere out there.
“We think we’re the center of the universe. We think everything revolves around us,” she said as the sun rose behind her, lighting up the earth. It was magnificent. “We depend on the sun for light, for warmth. Every morning. Every day. And when it’s gone, we sleep.” As the sun’s light disappeared back behind the earth, Riley added, “Trusting that in the morning it will always come back again.”
Later that day, on the other side of town, Riley’s mom and little brother walked into Svorski’s Bakery. Mrs. Matthews had recently become part owner of the place. She did it to stop a major developer—represented by none other than her own law firm—from shutting it down. She couldn’t let the place just disappear after all the years she and Mr. Matthews had spent there as kids.
“Auggie! Topanga!” Mrs. Svorski said in her thick eastern European accent.
“I’m dropping off your helper for the day,” Mrs. Matthews replied brightly as Auggie sat down with Mrs. Svorski at a round table in the middle of the bakery.
“Oooh, good. Big, strong man,” Mrs. Svorski replied.
“That’s me!” Auggie beamed with pride.
“Mrs. Svorski used to attract all the big, strong men,” the old woman told Auggie and his mom. “You know what happened?”
“What?” Mrs. Matthews asked.
“No, I’m asking!” Mrs. Svorski said with a mischievous smile.
Mrs. Matthews laughed, gave Auggie a big kiss, and started toward the door. But Mrs. Svorski stopped her before she could get very far. “Oh, Topanga, we need talk,” she said. “You need to spend more time here.”
“Well, Mrs. Svorski, how can I do that?” Mrs. Matthews asked.
“Mrs. Svorski, tell me the joke!” Auggie interrupted.
But the old woman continued to speak to Mrs. Matthews. “You quit shark lawyer job and you help turn this Old World place into place for young people.”
“But this place has been here for so long,” Mrs. Matthews said.
“Too long. Is creaky,” said Mrs. Svorski, slowly rising from her chair and walking over to one of the weathered booths. “Is tired. Knows time is up. Ding!”
“How does a bakery know that its time is up?” Mrs. Matthews crossed her arms in front of her chest, unconvinced.
“It knows. You my partner. You bring new life. I need you here,” Mrs. Svorski insisted, tapping her hand on the worn wood of the tabletop.
“Mrs. Svorski. Tell me the joke!” Auggie begged again, placing himself between the two women.
“Okay.” Mrs. Svorski looked down at the curly-haired little boy as she sat in the booth. “Is not U-krainian bakery, is my-krainian bakery!”
Mrs. Svorski and Auggie both began to laugh but then stopped suddenly. “It’s not funny anymore,” Auggie said, frowning.
“I know,” Mrs. Svorski replied. “You think I need little poochkie like you to tell me joke isn’t funny? In old country I had variety show. It was called Mrs. Svorski’s Not-So-Happy Hour.”
“Can you make the joke funny for me again?” Auggie asked, eyes wide and hopeful.
“Can you tell your mommy world is changing? Bakery must change, too.”
Auggie turned and commanded, “Mommy, do it.”
“But this place is so charming,” Mrs. Matthews insisted, taking a seat across from Mrs. Svorski at the booth and leaning across the table to look into her eyes. “It’s so…you.”
“Yeah, people come, people go. Reminds me of song I sang at end of variety show.” Mrs. Svorski smiled as she stood back up, lost in happy thought.
“Oh, here we go,” Mrs. Matthews said, grinning.
“Make new friends and treat them nice,” Mrs. Svorski sang, swaying her hips and snapping her fingers as she leaned over and stared down at Auggie. “Because you never know who is spy!”
Auggie’s face fell, and he looked confused and slightly worried.
“Okay, how’s this? I’m gonna spend a little more time here, and I’ll also try to find someone to help you out,” Mrs. Matthews proposed.
“Also you change name of place,” Mrs. Svorski commanded.
“What?” Mrs. Matthews said. “No, this place will always be Svorski’s.”
“No such thing as always,” the old woman insisted, sitting back down at the booth. “Now place Svorski’s, soon place Topanga’s. World keep turning. Life go to next people. This has always been good idea.”
Mrs. Svorski smiled softly as Mrs. Matthews reached across the booth, taking both of her hands and squeezing them tightly. Neither of them wanted to let go, but of course they knew they would have to. Eventually.
Back at school, Riley and Maya headed into their new history class, clutching the tiny green papers that equaled their freedom from Mr. Matthews.
“Transfer slip! Boom!” Riley announced, plunking the paper down on the teacher’s desk.
“And boom!” Maya said, following suit.
“Greetings, new classmates!” Riley shouted as she waved at the roomful of gloriously unfamiliar students. “Riley Matthews, ready to be your friend!”
“’Sup,” Maya added. “I’m Maya. Ya don’t look me in the eyes.”
The teacher, who looked like a female version of Mr. Matthews, with her long dark curls and navy-blue suit, stared impatiently at Riley and Maya. “You two are late. You two don’t talk. You two sit there and there.” She waved Riley and Maya to empty seats on either side of the classroom.
“There and there?” Riley couldn’t possibly fathom the vast distance between the two desks.
“No, no,” Maya told the teacher. “We sit together.”
“In the middle of everything,” Riley explained. Surely this teacher would understand.
But alas, she was having none of it. “Move!” the teacher barked at them, as though she was leading an army instead of eighth-grade history.
“Eek!” Maya screamed, uncharacteristically frightened.
“Bye-bye,” Riley said glumly, throwing her arms around her best friend.
“Excuse me, were you two trying to have a moment?” the teacher asked in a softer voice, gently pulling Riley and Maya apart.
Maya nodded.
“You two don’t get a moment!” the teacher informed them, back in drill sergeant mode. “This is not The You Two Show.”
“We were told it was,” Riley said, pouting and giving Maya’s hand one last squeeze before they slunk over to their desks.
On the way, Riley and Maya looked down at the two girls seated in the front row where they would normally be. Their new classmates weren’t nearly as unfamiliar as Riley had initially thought. The girl in Riley’s spot had long dark hair and even a pink shirt that looked kind of like Riley’s, and the girl in Maya’s spot had long blond hair and a green army jacket over a bright yellow T-shirt that looked kind of like Maya’s. Even the boys who were seated where Lucas and Farkle would have been looked like cheap knockoffs of their friends—a similar checkered shirt and dark blond hair for Lucas, a turtleneck and helmetlike auburn hair for Farkle.
What is this? Riley wondered. Some sort of alternate universe?
Riley and Maya tried to settle into their new seats, but they were too far away from each other. It didn’t feel right. At all. Riley tried to lean into the middle of the classroom, far enough to get close to Maya
. But there was no way. There were too many desks and students between them. Maya did the same. But it was hopeless! At long last, Riley and Maya leapt into the laps of the students seated in the two middle desks. Much better. Much closer.
The teacher, who had been observing the entire thing, slammed a book down on her desk, scaring Riley and Maya right back into their own seats.
Then she launched into her lesson. “During the gold rush, people left the comfort of their own surroundings in the hope of finding greater riches in an inhospitable land, far from the ones they loved,” the teacher began lecturing the class.
“Excuse me,” Riley interrupted, rising to her feet.
“I will not warn you again, side person!” the teacher yelled.
Appalled, Riley sank back into her chair.
“You tell her, Mom!” the girl in the front row—the Riley knockoff—said to the teacher.
Wait. Knockoff Riley was the daughter of the knockoff female version of Mr. Matthews? Things were getting seriously weird.
“You…failed me,” Knockoff Maya said to Female Knockoff Mr. Matthews, holding up a paper with a big red F written on it.
“Ha!” sneered Knockoff Farkle.
“I saw a goat give birth,” said Knockoff Lucas to Knockoff Riley. He even had a southern drawl like Lucas!
“Hi,” said Knockoff Riley shyly to Knockoff Lucas.
“Hey,” said Knockoff Lucas.
What the heck? We really are in some sort of alternate universe, Riley thought.
“Waitaminute!” Real Maya suddenly exploded, leaping up from her desk, clearly on the same page as Real Riley.
“Students number six and seven,” fumed Female Knockoff Mr. Matthews, looking from Real Maya to Real Riley.
“That’s us?” Riley asked, glancing at Maya.
“I believe so,” Maya replied.
“Students number six and seven?” Riley was horrified.
“Hey, at least she’s talking to us,” Maya offered.
“Yesss?” Riley batted her lashes at Female Knockoff Mr. Matthews.
“Get out!” the teacher bellowed, pointing to the door.
“Fine,” Riley replied as she stomped over to Maya and put her arm around her best friend. “Well, at least we get a dramatic exit!”
The girls tossed their hair and waltzed out with as much dramatic flair as possible. Alas, nobody seemed to be paying attention to them. That really hammered home just how alternate this universe was—a universe where Riley and Maya didn’t seem to matter at all—and Riley could feel her world crashing down, down, down.
Once again, Riley seemed to be floating out in space. This time she was near the moon, with the earth far behind her, distant and small.
“Here’s what’s funny,” Riley said. “If you’re standing on the moon, you’d think the earth was revolving around you, instead of the other way around. It’s really all about perspective.” Suddenly, the earth spun right by her. It was enormous. Then the other planets spun by, one by one. Then the sun came along, and the earth looked like a tiny speck by comparison. All at once, Riley could see the entire galaxy—and then other galaxies—and she almost couldn’t see the earth, or really anything, at all. “It’s hard not to believe you’re the center of everything,” Riley observed. “Until something shows you you’re not.”
Even without Riley and Maya there, Mr. Matthews was determined to continue teaching his history class.
“Our Town by Thornton Wilder,” he said, holding up a small book. “My favorite play.”
“You can’t teach English!” Farkle complained.
“It’s all about the history—” Mr. Matthews continued.
“There ya go,” Lucas said, smiling at the teacher.
“—of people just like you and me,” Mr. Matthews said. “Mostly about not taking what we have for granted. And a girl who gets a chance to take one look at the life she left behind.”
As Mr. Matthews opened the book, preparing to read an excerpt, Riley and Maya snuck in through the door. They placed their transfer slips on the teacher’s desk and crept into the chairs at their usual desks in the front row.
“‘Just for a moment now we’re all together,’” Mr. Matthews read purposefully, without acknowledging that the girls had returned. “‘Just for a moment we’re happy. Let’s really look at one another.’”
Mr. Matthews glanced up from the book and took notice of Riley and Maya, in their seats, hands folded like model students. The girls, like many of the other students in the class, exchanged meaningful looks, acknowledging each other.
“Well, hello, girls,” Mr. Matthews said. “You’re back?”
“Yesss.” Maya widened her eyes and forced a tight smile, clearly trying not to show the defeat on her face.
“As bad as this is…” Riley began.
“Everything else is worse,” Maya concluded.
“Well, welcome back, ladies.” Mr. Matthews smiled. “You’re just in time for today’s lesson.”
“Did we miss anything?” Riley was suddenly concerned.
“Nah, we’re just putting everything back in place. The real lesson begins right”—Mr. Matthews paused for a moment, then snapped his fingers—“now.”
Riley still had no idea what “real lesson” her dad had been talking about as she and Maya entered Svorski’s Bakery, their favorite after-school hangout. “Face it,” Riley said to Maya. “There’s no escaping him.”
“He’s everywhere,” Maya agreed. “How we gonna rule the school if everywhere we go…”
“We run right into my”—Riley turned around and bumped straight into Mrs. Matthews—“mother? Mom! What are you doing here?”
“Is my-krainian bakery,” Mrs. Matthews told her, and then spun around to look at Auggie with big, expectant eyes.
“Still not funny,” Auggie said from the table where he was sitting with Mrs. Svorski.
“Not funny?” Mrs. Matthews frowned, defeated, as she looked at Auggie and Mrs. Svorski. “I’ll tell you what’s not funny. This place loses a dollar fifty on every bulochki.”
“I bake with love,” Mrs. Svorski explained, setting her teacup down on its saucer. “How can you put price on love?”
“Awww…watch me!” Mrs. Matthews replied, jabbing a price pin into the big sweet bakery bun on the table in front of Auggie. “Four ninety-five!”
“Oooh, ka-ching!” Mrs. Svorski smiled, impressed.
“Bakery window!” Riley whispered loudly to Maya, narrowing her eyes and pointing to the large cozy seat by the door. “Bakery window right now!”
Maya laughed as she followed her best friend and plopped down on the giant old cushion. “That’s nice,” Maya said, continuing to giggle awkwardly. “Your dad’s at our school, your mom’s at our hangout. That’s nice.”
“You’re laughing at me?” Riley demanded.
“Inside I’m crying so hard,” Maya explained.
As the girls continued to despair, Mrs. Svorski handed a metal container to Riley’s little brother. “Auggie, this is for you,” said the old woman. “Is flour shaker. From Ukraine. Antique. Like me. You take now. You are little baker.”
“What should I do with it?” Auggie, wide-eyed, asked in wonder.
“Keep safe,” Mrs. Svorski told him. “Treasure always. Very important what’s in there.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Svorski!” Auggie could not have been more excited.
“Thank you, Mrs. Svorski,” echoed Mrs. Matthews, deeply touched by the exchange.
“Oh, thank you, Topanga,” Mrs. Svorksi said, running a hand along Mrs. Matthews’s long brown hair before turning to pat the little boy on his chin. “And Auggie.”
In the window seat, Riley still couldn’t get over the complete disaster her life had become. “I can’t escape them, Maya! My parents are constantly circling me. Like planets.”
Just then, two giant hands and a face appeared in the window above Riley’s head. “Hello!” Mr. Matthews smiled before bounding into the bakery like an e
ager, happy puppy. He pulled Riley up out of the window seat and gave her a big hug. “Riley, I haven’t seen you for twenty minutes. Did you miss me? ’Cause I missed you!”
Mr. Matthews looked over and grabbed Auggie by the hand, pulling him into a group hug. “Auggie, come here. I missed you, too, bud.”
While her family enjoyed their afternoon reunion, Mrs. Matthews got back to bakery business. “Mrs. Svorski, I have someone who I think could be a perfect manager for the bakery when I can’t be here.”
“This person knows way around food game?” Mrs. Svorski asked, looking unsure.
“Absolutely. She’s also very colorful. She really gets into whatever she’s doing.”
“Sounds like good woman.”
As they both turned to look toward the door, in walked Katy Hart, Maya’s mom. She was not only a waitress but an actress—and, wearing an old-country housecoat and apron and a tattered pink kerchief in her messy blond hair, she was ready to play her new role to the hilt.
“Sorry I’m late,” Mrs. Hart said in her best eastern European accent, leaning dramatically against the doorpost. “My donkey died on way here. Ahhh!” she continued, walking into the bakery and inhaling deeply. “Smells like being back in kitchen in Ukraine, waiting for Tato to come home, hoping he has not lost last finger in field mower.” She paused for effect and then, eyes downcast, concluded, “Oh, no. He did.”
Maya watched her mother’s performance, dumbfounded. Could this really be happening? But not everyone was unhappy about Mrs. Hart’s presence.
“Poor Tato,” Mrs. Svorski empathized. “He can never win at paper, rock, scissors. You always know rock is coming.”
Mrs. Hart nodded as she and Mrs. Svorski looked deep into each other’s eyes and then, pounding their fists, chanted in unison, “One, two, three—rock!”
As they knocked their fists together, Mrs. Svorski turned to Mrs. Matthews and said, “Oh, I like her.”
Satisfied that the performance was just about over, Maya dragged herself out of the window seat and over to Mrs. Hart. “Mom,” she said.
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