Clementine

by Sara Pennypacker

  I guess they were being polite because they said, “No, thanks, kiddo, we’re all set,” even though I could see they had a lot more to do.

  So I rode the elevator exactly three more times and then I went back home. When I opened the door, I could hear my mom still talking to my dad about the note.

  “How do you think that made her feel?” she said. “Imagine! As if our daughter is a common criminal!”

  My dad snorted and said, “Well, that is insulting. There is absolutely nothing common about Clementine!”

  And then my mom said, “That’s not funny,” and my dad said, “Yes, it is. A little,” and my mom said, “Okay, I guess it is. A little. But what are we going to do?”

  And then I quickly closed the door and went back out before I could hear the answer in case it was “Let’s trade her in for an easier kid.”

  I sat out in the lobby, waiting to get enough bravery to go up to the fifth floor and say Sorry to Margaret’s mother, and ask her for a note that said “I do not think your daughter is a common criminal.” Finally it came.

  I didn’t take the elevator to Margaret’s apartment because I couldn’t risk running into old Mrs. Jacobi. Every time I see her she hands me a five-dollar bill and says, “Run to the store and get me a box of Cheerios, dearie.” I don’t like to do it because then I have to bring it to her apartment on the top floor and talk to her while she counts the change and then hands me fifty cents. But if she asks me, I have to say yes because A) she is four hundred years old and I am polite, and B) I need the money because I am saving up to buy a gorilla and I bet they cost L-O-T-S, lots.

  Anyway, I didn’t have enough extra bravery to say No, thanks, to her too. So I walked up the back stairway—five times twelve stairs, which equals sixty—and I went to 5A and knocked.

  Margaret’s mother opened it and she just stood there looking like a magazine picture of a mother in a magazine picture of a living room.

  I said, “Hi,” and a bad surprise happened. Although I had never practiced it before, my voice sounded exactly like a common criminal’s.

  “You can’t play with Margaret today, Clementine. She’s spending the afternoon in her room, Thinking About the Consequences of Her Actions. Which is what you should be doing, too.”

  Okay, fine, she didn’t actually say the last thing. But I could tell she was thinking it hard.

  Behind her, Margaret’s brother, Mitchell, leaned out from the kitchen doorway so I could see only his head and shoulders. Then, even though he is in Junior High and Should Know Better, he grabbed his hair and pretended to yank himself back into the kitchen. And I laughed even though I knew it was his own hand.

  I do not think someone should be called “the hard one” if they make other people laugh.

  “Clementine, there’s nothing funny about this,” said Margaret’s mother.

  I didn’t tell her what was so funny and I didn’t say any Sorrys and I didn’t ask for a new note, in case I still had a common criminal’s voice. I just ran down the hall.

  This time I did take the elevator, because I was hoping I’d run into Mrs. Jacobi so I wouldn’t have to go right home. But I didn’t, so I did. And when I opened the door to the apartment, I saw that our living room looked all wrong.

  My mother was working at her drawing table. Suddenly I realized I had never seen a drawing table in a magazine picture of a living room.

  I banged the door shut hard. “Margaret’s mother always wears a dress.” I didn’t know I was going to say this.

  “Margaret’s mother works in a bank,” my mother answered, still working on her drawing. “It might be a rule.”

  “Still,” I said.

  “I’m an artist, Clementine. I want to be comfortable. I get paint all over my clothes. I have to wear overalls or jeans. You know that, right?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Still.”

  My mother put down her pencil and looked up then. “Clementine, do you sometimes wish you had the kind of mother who worked in a bank and wore dresses?”

  I nailed my mouth down so it couldn’t say Yes, maybe, sometimes, and quick looked out the window, so my mother couldn’t see my eyes thinking it.

  Then my mother got up and looked out the window, too. Our apartment is at the basement level, which is halfway underground. This means the windows are right at the sidewalk height. So we both just stood there pretending to be extremely interested in all the feet passing by. What I was really doing was trying to imagine my mother in a dress. I guess that’s what she was doing, too, because suddenly we both made corner-eyes at each other and then we burst out laughing and couldn’t stop.

  Finally my mother wiped her eyes and said, “Oh, come on. It wouldn’t be that funny, would it?”

  And I said, “Yep, it would.”

  And then I knew it was exactly the right time to tell her my secret. “When I grow up, I might be an artist.”

  And do you know what she said?

  “Oh, Clementine, you already are! You may end up being something else, too—whatever you want to be—but you’ll always be an artist. You just are.”

  And suddenly our living room looked exquisite with a drawing table in it! But now my fingers itched to be drawing, so I put on my jacket and went to the park to find something interesting to draw.

  My dad says I am excellent at noticing interesting things. In fact, he says if noticing interesting things were a sport, I would have a neckful of gold medals. He says that’s a Very Good Sign for My Future. He says I could be a good detective, of course, but that noticing things is good for any career.

  My mom says that means I could be a good artist, too.

  Or a writer. Last year a writer came to my school and said, Pay Attention! But she didn’t mean to the teacher, she meant pay attention to what’s going on around you, so you can write about it. Then she looked exactly at me and said to notice the good stuff and write it down so you don’t forget it.

  So, even though I’m not going to be a writer—too much sitting still—I notice interesting things and write them down. I draw them, too.

  In the park, I saw something great right away: a woman eating lentils from a thermos…with a toothbrush! Even though she had a fork right there, which she was using to eat her salad!

  So I asked the lady if I could draw a picture of the lentils on her toothbrush and she said, “Sure,” so I did and here it is:

  As soon as I got home I wrote it all down and asked my mom if we could have lentils for dinner.

  “You hate lentils, Clementine,” my mother reminded me.

  “Well, I think I’ve been eating them wrong,” I said.

  So we had lentils and I ate them the new way and guess what? It worked. The lentils stuck on the bristles and didn’t slide off like with a fork. So I got lots and lots of lentils in my mouth.

  Which was a bad thing because I hate lentils.

  “I’d better not go to school today,” I told my mom on Wednesday as soon as I woke her up. “I have cracked toes.” I put my foot right up on the pillow next to her face so she could see without getting up. This is called Being Thoughtful.

  “Nope,” she said, without even opening her eyes to see if it was true.

  “Well, that’s not all,” I said. “I also have the heartbreak of sore irises.”

  “Nope,” she said again, and she still didn’t open her eyes.

  “Actually, I think I have arthritis,” I said. “Mrs. Jacobi was breathing on me in the elevator the other day, and I must have caught it.”

  “Oh, please,” she said, but this time she opened one eye. And then she made exactly the sound Polka Dottie used to make when she had a hairball.

  I grabbed the corner of the quilt and covered my head, but my mom pulled it off again. She took my head in her hands and twisted it around to see all the sides. Too hard, like I wasn’t inside it.

  “You’ve cut off all your hair!” she said. “You’ve cut off all your beautiful hair! What on earth were you thinking, Clementine?”
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  “I wanted to make Margaret feel better,” I explained. “I didn’t want her to be the only one! But I forgot: Margaret’s not going to school today. She has an appointment at the orthodentist’s to have bracelets put on her teeth.”

  Mom groaned and closed her eyes again. But she slid over and made room for me on the warm part of her sheets.

  I climbed in and took a big sniff. My mom’s part of the bed smells like cinnamon rolls. My dad’s part smells like pinecones. Right in the middle it’s all mixed up perfectly—that’s my favorite place to be. But this morning, Dad was already off to fight in The Great Pigeon War and it was fine just being on the cinnamon-roll part.

  My mom put her arm around me. “Oh. So now you’ll be the only one,” she said. “I’m sorry, honey, but you can’t stay home. You have to go and face the music.”

  So I had to go to school, which almost turned out to be a very bad mistake, because I almost had to go to the hospital with the ambulance and the sirens and everything!

  It happened in the principal’s office, when my teacher sent me there to have a little chat about sitting still.

  When I walked in, Principal Rice made the hair-ball sound, too. “Clementine!” she gulped. “What have you done? You’ve chopped off your hair!”

  I was glad she’d answered her question so I didn’t have to. “Wow,” I said instead. “Clementine and Rice! We both have food names!”

  Mrs. Rice sealed her lips tight like she was afraid her teeth were going to run away. Then she opened up the note from my teacher.

  “I can’t help it,” I said, before she could start the little chat. “I’m allergic to sitting still.”

  “Nobody is allergic to sitting still, Clementine,” she said.

  “I am,” I said. “My brother is allergic to peanuts. If he eats one he gets all itchy and swelled up and he can’t breathe right. If I try to sit still I get all itchy and swelled up and I can’t breathe right. So that means I’m allergic to sitting still.”

  Mrs. Rice squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her forehead. I happen to know this means This idea is so bad it’s giving me a headache, because it’s the face I make when my mother tells me to visit Mrs. Jacobi. The face never works for me.

  “Plus,” I explained, “if my brother eats even one tiny peanut he might have to go to the hospital with the ambulance and sirens and everything! So if I sit still for even one minute…Uh-oh!” I gave my body an extra little jiggle just to stay safe. “Phew!” I said. “That was close!”

  Principal Rice sighed like a leaky balloon. “Clementine, do you think when you’re in class you could just try to wiggle a little more quietly from now on?”

  I asked my body about this and it said, “Sure,” so I told it to Mrs. Rice. “Sure,” I said.

  “Good,” she said. “Now, as long as you’re here, how about we discuss your hair?”

  Thinking about my hair made me think about Margaret. Thinking about Margaret made me remember about her getting bracelets on her teeth. I want bracelets on my teeth more than anything. But then I had a bad thought: what if they had pointy edges?

  I didn’t want to have any pointy things stuck in my mind to worry me all day, so I looked out the window, because the only way to erase pointy things is with round things, and clouds are good for that. Right away I saw a cloud that would make a wonderful tattoo: it looked exactly like a dog, if dogs had only two legs—on the top, not the bottom. I am not allowed to have tattoos yet—which is unfair—so for now, I just draw things on my arms so I don’t forget them. But I didn’t have a pen. I looked around the desk to see if Mrs. Rice had a tattoo-drawing pen, and suddenly I realized something very suspicious: I had never seen Mrs. Rice’s arms! They were always in principal sleeves!

  “Do you have a tattoo?” I asked. “Can I see it?”

  “What?” Mrs. Rice asked. “Clementine, we were talking about your hair!”

  “That was a long time ago,” I reminded her. I added a kind smile, because it’s not her fault she has trouble paying attention.

  As soon as I got home, I started watching for Margaret’s feet. From my kitchen window I can see the sidewalk in front of the lobby doors. Since I have memorized all the shoes of everybody who lives in our building, I always know who’s coming in or going out. I might be a detective when I grow up.

  I waited and I waited and I waited, which is the hardest thing in the world. Especially when you have a hot head, which I did, because my mother made me wear my winter hat so she didn’t have to look at my chopped-off hair. Finally I saw Margaret’s purple sneakers, and I ran up to meet her in the lobby.

  “Let me see.”

  Margaret pulled her lips out of the way so I could see all of her teeth.

  Margaret’s mouth was the most beautiful place I have ever seen. It was even more beautiful than Disneyland, Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, which I am going to visit when I am ten. Every tooth had its own sparkly silver bracelet and there were little blue bits sprinkled around like tiny presents.

  “They’re rubber bands,” Margaret said. “Every month I’ll go in and get them changed and they’ll give me different colors. Whatever I want.”

  That gave me such a good idea.

  I pulled off my hat to show Margaret that she wasn’t the only one, and that made her happy. Then I told her my good idea. “You can pick the color of my new hair. Whatever color you want. You can draw it on my head.” That made her even happier.

  “Those markers are still in my room. Let’s go,” she said.

  “Is your mother still mad?” I asked.

  “Yep. But she’s going to a movie with Alan this afternoon.”

  Alan is Margaret’s mother’s “special friend,” which is the grown-ups’ word for boyfriend.

  So we went up to her apartment. Mitchell was there, watching TV. When he saw my hair, he grabbed his chest and fell off the couch, pretending to have a heart attack. Then he smacked his forehead and said, “You guys are unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable,” even though he is older and doesn’t have to be so nice to us. I think he likes me.

  Margaret glared at him. Then she jabbed her elbow into my side and so I glared at him, too, even though I didn’t know why we were doing that. I’m not so sure Margaret is the easy one in that family.

  She dragged me into her room. “I can’t wait for summer,” she growled. “My mother’s finally going to get rid of him.”

  “You mean baseball camp? He wants to go, Margaret. That’s not getting rid of someone.”

  Margaret gave me her I’m-in-fourth-grade-and-you’re-not look. “Good-bye and good riddance,” she muttered.

  Then she got out my mother’s markers. They were all still there and they looked exactly the same, with none of the caps chewed up. I don’t know how Margaret does that. She picked a bright green one and colored my hair and then drew some curls on my forehead and neck.

  “No pointy lines,” I reminded her. “Just round ones.”

  Thinking about pointy lines made me wonder about Margaret’s bracelets again. “How do they feel? I bet they’re full of pointy parts.”

  “Nope, they feel like heaven,” Margaret said. “No pointy parts at all. They’re as soft as rabbit ears. Baby rabbit ears. Too bad you can’t have them.” She kept her lips stretched out of the way to show me her teeth the whole time she talked, so it was kind of hard to understand her.

  But I did.

  “I’m getting them, too,” I said. “Next week.”

  Then I pulled my hat back on and ran down to my apartment quick to make this be a non-lie.

  “I need bracelets on my teeth,” I told my mom. “They’re beautiful and they feel wonderful.”

  “First of all,” my mother said, “they don’t feel wonderful. Not in the beginning, anyway. Margaret’s mother stopped in earlier, asking if we had any medicine left over from when your brother was teething. She told me Margaret cried all the way home.”

  That Margaret.

  “Well, I still want them. N
ext week.”

  “And second of all, you don’t need them. Your teeth are straight enough.”

  Which is the most unfair thing I have ever heard.

  “I can feel them bending,” I said. And suddenly I could. “So we’d better make that appointment.”

  Then, before my mom could get to third of all, which is usually the worst one, we heard my brother waking up from his nap.

  “I’m coming, Radish,” I called to him.

  “Go for a wok?” he asked, when I came into his room.

  “You’re lucky to have me for a big sister,” I told him. I have to remind him of this every day, because he forgets. We went into the kitchen and I got out the wok. “Nobody invented this trick for me when I was little.”

  Then he climbed into the wok and grabbed the handles and I gave him a really good spin. He went whirling around, bumping into the cabinets, and then he got out and walked wobbly until he fell over, which he thinks is the funniest thing in the world.

  “Again!” he yelled.

  But I didn’t spin him again, because he throws up on the second ride and somebody has to clean it up which is N-O-T, not me. This is called Being Responsible.

  He came over to me and pulled off my hat and pointed to my head. “Green?”

  And I thought about something.

  First Margaret had straight brown hair, and we didn’t look alike. Then we cut it off and colored it red, so we sort of did. Then she got bracelets on her teeth, which meant we didn’t look alike. But soon her teeth would be straight, and we would. Except now I had a green head.

  What if we never looked alike?

  What if we did?

  Thursday morning I woke up with a spectacularful idea. I am lucky that way—spectacularful ideas are always sproinging up in my brain. The secret thing I know about ideas is that once they sproing into your head you have to grab them fast, or else they get bored and bounce away. So I called Margaret and told her I had a good surprise for her and we needed to sit in the backseat of the bus.