I sit down across from Will P and pull out my cloth napkin. I lay it on the table and put my lunch on it: a turkey sandwich cut into squares in a wax-paper wrapping, mini oatmeal cookies in a small reusable container, and red grapes in a small round tin. Will P adds his lunch: a quesadilla cut into small wedges, tortilla chips in a bag, and pickles in a tiny plastic container.
“Welcome to the first meeting of the Polar Bears Book Club!” Will P announces.
I think it’s just going to be the two of us. And that’s really OK with me. I’m actually kind of happy about it. Only just then five boys start scooting into the seats next to us. The boys that like to throw things. The boys that like to fake vomit. Will B squeezes in right next to me. Will B!
“We have to share our lunches,” Will P reminds them. But instead of laying the food out neatly as we have done, the boys just begin dumping their lunches onto the napkin. Pieces of sugary cereal shower onto my sandwich. Orange slices plop on the cereal. Then someone actually puts a tuna sandwich on top of that. My red grapes are nowhere to be seen. I watch, horrified, as the boys begin scarfing up the food. They push and shove until the whole lunch is just a mushed-up, mixed-up mess. And that pretty much exactly describes me.
I look over at Will P and raise my eyebrows. Will P shrugs at me, as if to say “sorry.” There is no possible way we can have a book club meeting like this. I open my mouth to tell Will P that the first meeting of the Polar Bears is officially canceled. And a grape lands on my tongue! A grape covered in tuna fish, sugary cereal, orange slices, and maybe even pickle.
EWWWWWWWWWW!
The Polar Bears Book Club is now a food fight club. I spit the disgusting grape out into my hand and wipe off my tongue with a napkin. For a split second, I consider throwing the grape right at Will P. But I don’t. Because this isn’t his fault—it’s mine. I said he could invite friends, and I knew when I said it that I was making a mistake. Now I am sure I made a mistake.
So I calmly stand up, and with my lunch bag in one hand and my book in the other, walk away from the table. I stop when I feel something hit the back of my head. But I don’t turn around. I just keep walking. Within seconds, I hear the lunch aide blow her whistle and order the boys to clean up their mess.
My head suddenly seems swollen, as if it’s a giant balloon that is going to lift me into the sky so I can fly away from here. Then I realize it’s because my eyes are filled with tears. I sniffle them back and swallow hard. I want to go to the nurse’s office and tell her I have a bad stomachache. (It wouldn’t even be a lie. My stomach does really hurt.)
But I don’t. Because my favorite characters never run away from their problems. They face them. And when they try something and it doesn’t work, well, they try something else. I thought the Polar Bears would be a solution to my problem. But it only made my problem worse. Because the Polar Bears made it more obvious that I am completely and totally alone.
Chapter 14
An Unexpected Twist
On Wednesday morning, I try everything to stay home from school. I begin with the most reliable argument, the stomachache. This is the most reliable because:
1. It is true; I do have a stomachache, and truth has rightness on its side.
2. Mom can’t measure it like a fever or a cough or stuffy nose. (I mean, no one can deny when a stuffy nose is really and truly stuffy.)
When that fails, I move on to the next best argument, the Shun. This is powerful because it is true, and it is painful at the same time, as painful as skinning your knee on gravel.
But instead of getting a day home from school, I get a talk about friendship. (A talk isn’t like a lecture. It’s friendlier, like a “we’re in this together” conversation. But it still takes a long time and sort of feels like a lecture even if it isn’t.) Mom disagrees with my Polar Bears/Shun approach.
“Ruby, I’m so sorry this has been so hard for you. Sometimes as you start to get older, you find that you and your friends have different interests. And that might mean it’s time to find some new friends.”
Hearing her say it out loud makes my stomach hurt even more. Mom runs her hand over my curls and pulls me close to her.
“I admire you for staying true to yourself. I never want you to be the kind of person who follows along without thinking for herself. But you can’t replace your best friends by creating a new book club. Friendships take time and effort. It might be time to make some new friends, but you can’t just order them up like fast food.” She sighs. “Ignoring Siri isn’t the best way to express your feelings. It’s always better to talk about it.” Mom is usually right about friend stuff. And I know she is right about this. I just don’t like to admit it.
Plus, this talk is doing nothing to bring me closer to my goal of staying home from school today. So, I have to resort to the last possible choice on my list: tears. The tears that flow from my eyes are as large as dragon tears. And Mom holds me close. She even calls for Dad. Both of them sit on my bed and hold me tight.
“Friend troubles,” Mom whispers to Dad. But I can still hear her.
I sniffle and wipe my nose on the arm of my cupcake pajamas. Mental note to self: put pj’s into the laundry basket ASAP.
“So I can stay home today?” My voice is really, really tiny and squeaky.
Mom and Dad look at one another, and their eyes talk to each other. Then Dad turns to me and says, “Ruby, staying home would be like giving up.”
“Like running away,” Mom adds.
“And you can’t run away from your problems,” Dad finishes.
I sigh. “So I have to go.” It’s not a question. It’s a statement. None of my ideas worked, and my parents are sending me to school, even though yesterday was probably the worst, most awful day of my entire life. Maybe my parents think this is the right thing to do, but they are wrong. This is the worst possible choice they could make. And I tell them.
“You’re sending me to school, knowing it will be misery for me. Knowing that I might possibly have the worst day of my life. And still, you’re sending me.” These are the words I say, in between sniffles.
Mom and Dad look at each other again so their eyes can talk. I hold my breath. Maybe they are changing their minds.
“Ruby, maybe I should call Siri’s mom. Get you girls together to work this out,” Mom suggests.
And it’s like a bee has just landed on me because I leap out of bed, my hands flailing in the air. “Absolutely. Not. The. Right. Choice!” I tell her. “Siri isn’t the problem. Charlotte is. And you can’t exactly call up a parent you don’t even know. Besides, I don’t have her phone number.”
“Well, that’s easy enough to get,” Dad says. “We can also talk to Mrs. Sablinsky. Maybe she can help.”
This is getting worse by the minute. “No, no, no!” I rant as I pace around the room. My hands are all sweaty, and my forehead actually feels like someone is painting it with warm water. “You don’t understand. I need to switch schools. I need to homeschool. Talking to people isn’t going to help anything. I thought you understood.” Now I start to cry really and truly for real, more for real than any crying I have done in my entire ten years of life.
Mom stands and wraps her arms around me. I stop pacing and let her hold me. My tears sink into her work shirt. “Ruby, we’re just trying to help. We have to find a solution here. And leaving school is not an option.”
Just then, Connor comes into the room, followed by Sam. Now the whole entire family is crowded into my book-filled bedroom.
“What’s wrong, Ruby?” Sam asks while Connor grabs my hand. I shrug. Having a family that cares about you helps. But they can’t go with me to school, even though I wish they could.
“Friend troubles,” Dad tells them.
“You need to do the invisible-wall trick,” Sam says.
“Absolutely. Works every time,” Connor adds.
“I
forgot about that,” Dad says.
My head slowly lifts from Mom’s shirt as I turn to look at my brothers. “What’s the invisible-wall trick?” I ask them.
“You’re having problems with people hurting your feelings, right?” Sam asks. I nod.
“Right, so what you need is a wall between you and them, so you can get through your day,” Connor tells me.
“Only you have to imagine it,” they say at the same time.
Imagining I can do. I am the Queen of Imagination.
“So pretend there is an invisible wall between you and them. You can see other people. But nothing they do can get to you. It’s stopped by the wall,” Sam finishes.
“And that way, you can just get through your day,” Connor says.
I think about this. An invisible wall between me and the Unicorns. It just might work.
I nod at them. “I’ll try it.”
Everybody in my family starts cheering then. And they all hug me at once. Even Abe manages to squeeze into the circle. I’m a Ruby sandwich. And I like it. I like it a lot.
• • •
I think about the invisible wall all the way to school.
I imagine see-through bricks stacking one on top of another to build a circle around me, like a turret on a castle. I am in the middle, and I am completely and totally safe. Nothing can harm me here. I can dance around, and no one can even say anything rude about it.
Mrs. Sablinsky is back, which is good and bad. It’s good because now our schedule is back to normal, and bad because she’s really revved up from two days sitting in a courtroom. She piles the work on us from the moment we step into the classroom. I barely have time to think about the Unicorns. (I barely have time to swallow.)
Just before lunch, Mrs. Sablinsky asks if any of the yard guards would like to take an extra shift, because Bethany is absent today. I raise my hand and sit up really tall in my seat. I resist the urge to wave my hand around and bounce up and down to draw attention to myself because I know Mrs. Sablinsky can’t stand it.
“I see one person quietly raising her hand, without shouting or waving and carrying on. So, Ruby Starr, you may go help today.”
Out of all the kids raising their hands, Mrs. Sablinsky chose me. Me! Ruby Starr!
I hurry to get a yard guard badge out of the drawer and grab my lunch. Everyone else in class is going to be watching a video on the Statue of Liberty. We have seen two of these already, and they are so old I bet they showed them when my grandma was in school. They are all black-and-white and grainy. And the sound comes out warbled like it’s been run through the washing machine. So I know everyone in class wishes they were me right now, even Charlotte Thomas.
Bethany’s partner is a girl from the other fifth-grade class. Her name is Charissa, and she’s nice but super shy. She smiles at me without using her teeth. It’s what I call a shy smile. But that’s fine by me. Any smile today is a good thing.
We help the kindergarten kids. They are so adorable that I forget about all my problems for a little while. Instead, I help push a little girl on the swing. I tie a boy’s sneakers. And I play hide-and-seek with a pair of twins in matching pink cowboy boots.
“This was fun,” I tell Charissa as we walk to the lunch tables. “I like the kindergarten yard.”
“I know. They are really cute, aren’t they?” she says. And this time, she gives me a real and true smile. “Want to sit together?” she asks me then.
“Definitely,” I tell her. I can’t wait to tell Mom that I made a new friend today. And even better, her lunch group is the group of girls I wanted to get to know better. They make room for me and Charissa. We say hi, and all of them—every single girl at the table—smiles at me.
That’s when I remember that Charissa and I are still wearing our yard guard badges. We are supposed to return them to the classrooms as soon as we finish our shifts.
“Charissa, I’ll take your badge for you. I’ll be right back,” I tell her. The aides on the yard let me cross back over the red lines. I go to Charissa’s class first. The door to Room 16 is open, so I leave the badge in the drawer. No one is around when I get to Room 15, and the door is closed. I imagine Mrs. Sablinsky has gone to the teachers’ lounge to eat her lunch. For a split second, my mind wanders, and I think about what Mrs. Sablinsky eats for lunch every day. I bet she eats something really sensible, like peapods or trail mix. This is what I am thinking about as I open the door to Room 15. I don’t notice at first that Mrs. Sablinsky is still in the room. But then I hear her speaking. I stop in my tracks as I see she is having a meeting with someone. There is only one reason someone has to stay in at lunchtime to meet with the teacher.
You have to be in some kind of trouble.
So I know I shouldn’t be here, even though it isn’t my fault that I’m here. I am bringing back the yard guard badge, and this is an acceptable reason to return to the classroom. Only now I’m not sure what to do. How I wish I had that invisibility cloak right about now!
I also wish I could un-hear what I am hearing. Because Mrs. Sablinsky hasn’t noticed that I am in the room so she is still talking. She is sitting at her desk on the other side of the classroom. And the student standing in front of Mrs. Sablinsky with her back to me is none other than Charlotte Thomas.
“I’ve called your father to talk about this, but I want to let you know that I am going to recommend a special teacher to help you with your reading once a day. I don’t know how your other school didn’t catch this, but you are behind. Maybe two grade levels. We need to catch you up before sixth grade. So you’re going to have to work extra hard, but I know you can do it.”
Charlotte has a problem with reading. Two grade levels behind means she is reading at a third-grade level. My heart opens just a tiny bit. Enough to understand that Charlotte might not be as perfect as she pretends. Suddenly, everything makes sense.
That’s when Mrs. Sablinsky notices me. Her head lifts as she sees me.
“Ruby, we are having a private meeting in here.”
Charlotte turns around, and even from the other side of the room, I can see she is crying. Her face is all red, and her eyes look puffy.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Sablinsky. I didn’t know. I was returning this.” I hold up the badge to prove to her that I am not some kind of snoop.
Mrs. Sablinsky sighs. She always sighs when she talks to me. “Very well. Put the badge away, but be quick about it. I need to finish speaking to Charlotte.”
That’s when I open my mouth and speak without thinking. I know it’s one of my worst habits, and it usually gets me in a lot of lowercase t trouble. But I do it anyway.
“I can help Charlotte.”
What? I can’t believe I have just spoken those four words. What in the world is wrong with me?
Mrs. Sablinsky tilts her head to the side, and for a split second, she reminds me of Abe, when I’m asking him to do something and he isn’t quite sure what. He tilts his head to the side, like tilting helps his brain to work better or something. That’s exactly what Mrs. S does.
Then I look at Charlotte. Her eyes are all watery, but I can still see surprise in them. Her mouth flattens into a straight line, and I can tell she is worried about this. And that she doesn’t like it one bit. For some reason, this makes me speak up even louder.
“I will be her tutor. If she wants.”
Chapter 15
Making Changes for Real
So that’s how I end up in the library at lunch introducing Charlotte to Mrs. Xia. I take Charlotte to the shelf of books that holds my absolute favorites, the ones I was so proud to finally finish all on my own.
“Charlotte, I want you to meet some of my best and truest friends. They will be your best friends too. If you let them,” I tell her with a grin.
Because something truly amazing has happened to me today. I am no longer afraid of Charlotte Thoma
s. I am no longer jealous of Charlotte Thomas. I now understand that she hates books because she can’t really read them, not all by herself. So she has never been able to get lost in a story or become best friends with a main character. She has never been able to fall asleep dreaming of a new ending to her favorite book, one where she becomes the lead character. She has never finished a book just to reread it all over again. And this has made me want to help her. Because I know I can. I didn’t need the invisible wall after all.
“How can books be your friends?” Charlotte asks. She still looks surprised to be here in the library, with me of all people.
“Well, it’s not the books so much as the characters inside the books,” I explain. “When I read a book to myself, I can hear the character’s voices in my head. And they come alive to me. So it feels like they are real, and that I know them. It’s like no one else in the world can see them exactly the way I do, because I imagine them and no one else can see inside my imagination.”
I am in the empty white room again. The three doors are before me: one red, one blue, and one green. This time, I open the red door. Inside is a fire pit full of anger. I open my mouth and scream. All the mad feelings I have about Charlotte explode from inside me. I am a fire-breathing princess, half human and half dragon. Fire arcs from my mouth to join the fire inside the room. It blends in and disappears. I am left open and ready to fill my heart with something else. Compassion.
I take one of my favorite books off the shelf. It is a story about a girl who rescues a dog from the pound, but then the dog rescues her right back.
“I think you might like this one,” I tell her. “We can read the words together, and I’ll help you when you can’t get one.”
Ruby Starr Series, Book 1 Page 10