Elfie Unperfect

by Kristin Mahoney

  “I don’t know why I did that,” I said, which was the truth.

  “It’s up to the teachers to enforce the rules, Ms. Oster,” the headmaster said. “If Olivia thought Colton was doing something wrong, she could have determined the consequences. It’s her classroom.”

  For the first time, a flicker of doubt crossed Mom’s face. She knew rules were important to me, and that sometimes I tried to enforce them myself.

  “Do you think we could call Olivia in to meet with us?” Mom asked. “And maybe this boy…Colton? Is that his name?”

  Headmaster Mulligan sighed. “As you might imagine, the first day of school is very busy for students and teachers alike. And also for me.”

  “After school, then?” Mom said.

  “Olivia and I will both be in a staff meeting this afternoon. But there is a process—”

  Mom interrupted him. “Are you honestly going to make a decision as serious as expelling a student this quickly?”

  “As I was saying,” Headmaster Mulligan continued, “there is a process here by which such decisions are made. We have an honor code review board that meets as needed to review honor code infractions and determine consequences.”

  “When will that happen?”

  “I will have to confer with the review board members and find out what their availability is. This is a bit of an unusual case; we have never had an honor code concern this early in the school year.”

  Mom sat back in her chair a little. “So Elfie can stay at Hampshire? At least until the review board makes its decision?”

  Headmaster Mulligan shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Our policy is that students who are suspected of honor code infractions are suspended until the board’s decision is made.”

  “Suspended?” I had never heard Mom’s voice go so high.

  “Yes, but only until the board reaches a decision.” He saw the desperate look on Mom’s face and added, “I will tell them that we would like a timely response.”

  Before Mom could protest further, Headmaster Mulligan’s assistant knocked on the door.

  “Yes, come in,” the headmaster called.

  “Pardon the interruption, Headmaster, but you’re needed in the planetarium to introduce the new astrophysics teacher. The class is starting soon.”

  “Oh yes, I’d completely forgotten.” Headmaster Mulligan stood quickly from his desk. “I’m sorry to cut this short. We’ll be sure to let you know as soon as the review board schedules its meeting.”

  Mom threw her arms into the air as he scurried out of the room. “Okay, well, I guess that’s it,” she said, huffing in disbelief as she stood and picked up her purse. “Let’s go; get your backpack.”

  “Wait. What do you mean, ‘that’s it’?”

  “You heard the headmaster. It sounds like our hands are tied until these honor review people decide when they’re going to meet. I mean, Dad and I will do what we can to rush it along, but I’m not sure how much power we have here.”

  “So what do I do for school until then?”

  Mom sighed. “Well, off the top of my head, it seems that the obvious answer is—”

  “No. No! Do not say it, Mom. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Do not say—”

  “The first day of school at Cottonwood is in two weeks.”

  I couldn’t bear to talk to Mom during the ride home. As soon as she got in the car and said “Elfie…,” I stopped her.

  “Can we please just be quiet for now?” Today had been bad enough; I had no strength to listen to Mom tell me why going back to Cottonwood was a good idea. Luckily, Mom nodded and buckled her seat belt.

  I was hoping to run upstairs to my room as soon as I walked through the door, but Dad was waiting in the kitchen when we got back, wanting to know what happened. I somehow managed to squeak out my side of the story about Colton and the phone.

  “That doesn’t sound like stealing to me,” Dad said. “Did you explain all this to the headmaster?”

  “He didn’t give us much of a chance,” Mom said. She told Dad about having to wait for the honor review board’s decision.

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure how much my side of the story will even matter. Colton’s grandpa bought the library; they’re not going to take my word over his.”

  “What do you mean, he ‘bought the library’?” Dad asked.

  “His grandfather gave the school so much money that they named the library after him,” I explained. “It’s called the Palmer Library, and that’s his last name.”

  Mom’s face got red, the way it does when she hears something upsetting on the news. “That shouldn’t matter,” she said.

  I shrugged. “Okay,” I said, “but I didn’t want to start life at a new school by telling on someone. It was bad enough that I grabbed his phone. This was supposed to be the place where I finally made friends.”

  Now Mom looked like she wanted to cry. “I know, honey,” she said quietly. “But this boy doesn’t sound like the kind of friend you’d want to have.”

  “We’re going to see if we can fight this, Elf,” Dad said. “Is there anyone else who knows your side of the story?”

  “Sierra,” I said. “She was the other kid at our table. She saw me take the phone. But then we left the room, and I never saw her again after that.” Sierra had seemed like someone I could be friends with; maybe she would stick up for me? But could I ask her to tell on Colton too? Not that it really mattered; her grandfather hadn’t bought the library either.

  “Okay,” Mom said. “We’re going to make some calls tomorrow. For now, why don’t you just relax. Are you hungry?”

  “No, I’m not hungry. And how can I possibly relax after the worst day of my life? Especially when you said I have to go back to Cottonwood?”

  “She does?” Dad asked.

  “I didn’t say she has to do anything,” Mom said. “It was just a thought. We have to wait and see if we’ll have an answer from Hampshire in time.”

  “Okay.” Dad nodded. “So don’t worry just yet, Elf. You might not have to go back to Cottonwood after all.”

  I had to go back to Cottonwood.

  Mom and Dad got an email from Headmaster Mulligan the next afternoon saying that “because of other commitments, the volunteers who serve on the honor review board will not be able to meet until October.”

  “October?” I said when they told me. “That’s over a month from now!”

  Dad sighed. “I know, Elf. It stinks. But we’re somewhat powerless here.”

  I threw my hands up. “Okay. Well, I guess that settles it. I’ll just have to homeschool until then.” I thought maybe if I pretended we’d never discussed the possibility of my returning to Cottonwood, Mom and Dad wouldn’t remember.

  It didn’t work.

  “Who exactly would be homeschooling you?” Mom asked. “Dad and I both have to go to work. Rhoda has her nursing school classes during the day.” Mom and Dad had both taken off to stay home with me today because I was so upset about yesterday. But I knew that couldn’t happen every day.

  “I can homeschool myself!” I said. “I’d be very good at it!”

  “Well, true as that might be,” Dad said, “it’s also illegal. We can’t leave a ten-year-old home alone, in charge of her own education.”

  “And since Cottonwood’s start date is two weeks later than Hampshire’s,” Mom said, “you could start on the first day of school there too.”

  “Lucky me,” I grumbled. “I get to have two terrible first days of school.”

  “Who says the one at Cottonwood has to be terrible?” Dad said, putting on a chipper voice.

  “I say so, all right? Don’t waste your time trying to convince me otherwise.” Mom closed her eyes and gave Dad a little head shake, which I knew meant “Don’t try to give her a pep talk now.”

 
I turned on my heel and ran upstairs.

  In my room, I crawled under my covers and thought about how my life was ruined. How was I going to go back to Cottonwood Elementary and tell everyone I’d been kicked out of Hampshire Academy on my very first day? What would Ms. Puckett think? And Principal Kleinhoffer? And Jenna. Ugh, I’d have to tell Jenna.

  All the terrible thoughts got to be too much for my brain to hold. Everything that had happened yesterday had been hard enough, but hearing that I’d definitely have to go back to Cottonwood was the last straw. My nose started running and tears began streaming down my cheeks. I put my pillow over my face so no one would hear me crying; I didn’t want my parents to come check on me.

  A while later, I heard the click of my bedroom doorknob as Mom peeked in. I still didn’t want to talk. I pretended to be asleep. But the funny thing about pretending to be asleep is that it can make you fall asleep for real, and I’m pretty sure I conked out as soon as Mom tiptoed down the hall. It was still hours from bedtime, but my body couldn’t take any more of feeling this lousy.

  Even though I fell asleep early, I could have stayed in bed the whole next day. When Mom came in to say good morning, I tried faking sleep. She sat on my bed and gave my leg a little shake. I kept pretending. She cooed “Elllfieee” in her soft morning voice. I still pretended. Mom started talking anyway.

  “Okay, I know you’re awake,” she said. “I just heard your alarm going off. Also, I can tell by the way you’re breathing.”

  Was that true? I tried to slow my breathing down to seem more asleep. But Mom kept talking.

  “I’m staying home again today. I know you’re having a hard time,” she said. “And I understand you wanting to hide from the world, but you’re going to have to surface at some point.” She patted my leg and stood up. “I can make cinnamon toast, if you’re hungry.”

  I wasn’t hungry. And I didn’t want to “surface” to talk to Mom or anyone else. I was perfectly content to wallow in the depths of my covers.

  Eventually Mom put two pieces of toast and some milk on my bedside table. After she left, I stopped fake-sleeping and ate. Mom must have been lurking in the hall, because as soon as I slid the plate closer, she popped her head into my doorway and said, “One more thing. Uncle Rex just found out he got a gig tonight, and Aunt Steph is traveling again. Jenna’s coming here for dinner.”

  I have always liked the way there is a word for almost everything. For example, the little groove between your nose and your top lip is called your philtrum. A harrier is a cross-country runner. If you are supine, it means you’re lying down on your back (recumbent means the same thing). There is even a word that means “cannot be described by words.” That word is ineffable. And you could say I had ineffable feelings of doom about the news that Jenna was coming over for dinner. Annoyance was not a strong enough word. Neither was irritation. Even dread didn’t describe it. It was ineffable, the way I felt about seeing Jenna right after I got kicked out of Hampshire.

  I know that sounds dramatic. She’s just my cousin; what’s the big deal? But our whole lives, I have been good at one thing: school. Jenna has been good at everything else: sports, making friends, making people laugh, choosing outfits, braiding hair. Now Jenna would know I had failed at the only thing I was ever good at.

  When I would complain about Jenna to Dad, he’d say, “I know you guys are different, but she’s a good kid too.” Mom would say, “She is family, and you have to find a way to get along.” The only person who seemed to understand was Rhoda. If I told her that Jenna didn’t pay attention to me, or rolled her eyes when I complained about a test being too easy, or changed the best line in my Betsy Ross script, she would nod along and say something like “Urft. Jenna just doesn’t get you, does she?” (Rhoda likes using funny-sounding words like goober and kerfuffle. Urft is a word she made up, and it’s the one she uses most often. It means “That’s frustrating” or “How annoying” or “I understand why you’re out of sorts.”) And then she’d suggest we do something fun, like watch Superstars of Science or make chocolate turtle brownies.

  Rhoda was right. Jenna didn’t get me. Rhoda got me. Always.

  And then I realized there was one person I felt like talking to.

  I got out of bed and walked into the kitchen. Mom was drinking tea and working at her computer. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to work today?” I asked her.

  “I’m sure,” Mom said. “I feel like I’m more needed here right now. Keisha understands.” Keisha was Mom’s boss at the law firm where she worked. “Besides, I can check emails from home if I have to.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Okay.”

  Mom faked a hurt look. “Why? Are you trying to get rid of me?”

  Sort of? I thought. But I didn’t say that.

  “No,” I said. “I was just wondering.” I tried to think of how to say that I really wanted to see Rhoda. It’s not that Mom or Dad got jealous, exactly, when there were times that I wanted to talk to Rhoda instead of them. Mom would even say, “I’m glad you feel like you can confide in her so much.” But I knew that when really big things like this came up, they wanted to be my chief problem solvers.

  “I was also wondering…,” I said, “did you tell Rhoda about what happened at Hampshire?”

  Mom took her hand off her computer mouse and turned to look at me. “I did, hon; I hope that’s okay. I thought you might appreciate not having to tell her yourself. Also, I had to explain why we didn’t need her to come.”

  “Yes, that’s fine. What did she say?” I asked.

  “She said she felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach, and I said that’s how we all felt too. She also said to tell you she knows what a good kid you are, and that she loves you.”

  I nodded. I thought I’d cried all the tears I had yesterday, but I started to feel more coming to the surface.

  Mom reached out and rubbed my arm. “Rhoda will come back tomorrow, okay?” I nodded again.

  I thought about asking if I could call Rhoda, but what if she didn’t answer? Then Mom might try to get me to talk to her instead, and I was really in more of a talk-to-Rhoda mood than a talk-to-Mom mood.

  There was only one thing to do. Go to the Important Jar. The Important Jar was something Rhoda started when I was about four years old. Mom and Dad had taken me to the zoo for the first time, and I couldn’t wait to tell Rhoda all about the different animals I saw. But when she arrived at our house the next morning, I couldn’t remember the names of all of them, and I got so mad. “You weren’t here when we got home!” I yelled at her. “And now I forget some of the important things I wanted to tell you!”

  Rhoda went onto the zoo’s website and clicked through the pictures to help me remember the animals I’d seen. But then she said, “I have an idea. Since I’m not here all the time, why don’t we find a way to help you remember things you want to tell me when I’m at my house and you’re here.”

  She found an empty pickle jar under the kitchen sink and made a label for it that said “The Important Jar.” I drew pictures of some of the zoo animals I’d seen and taped them to the jar too.

  Rhoda put the jar on my dresser beside a little notepad. “Okay,” she’d said. “This is the Important Jar. Anytime I’m not here and you think of something important you want to tell me, write it on a piece of paper and put it in the jar. Then when I come to your house later, you can show me everything you wrote.”

  I wasn’t so sure. “What about spelling?” I’d asked her. I was just learning how to write, and Rhoda knew I got frustrated if I didn’t know how to spell a word. (Even when I was four, I was very serious about getting things just right.)

  Rhoda nodded. “Well, my advice about spelling is to do the best you can, and I think you’d be surprised at how I’ll still be able to read words that aren’t spelled just right. Or you could ask your parents to help you. Or you could dra
w a picture.”

  “Okay,” I’d agreed. And that was how the Important Jar got started. Now it’s been on my dresser for six years and still has the pictures I drew of a tiger, a giraffe, and a panda taped to it. Anytime during these six years that I thought of something I wanted to tell Rhoda, I’d write it down and put it in the jar. And somewhere along the way, she started using it too; if I was at a piano lesson or meeting with my math coach and she thought of something she wanted to tell me, it would be there waiting in the Important Jar when I got home.

  So after I talked to Mom, I went up to my room. I wrote the following notes on little pieces of paper, folded them up, and put them in the Important Jar:

  • I can’t believe I messed up so badly.

  • Mom and Dad are being nice but I’m afraid they’re really disappointed in me.

  • I don’t want to go back to Cottonwood, or Hampshire, or any other school, ever again.

  • What is going to happen to me?

  After I put the last piece of paper into the Important Jar, I collapsed onto my bed again. I was not usually a person who took naps. It always seemed like such a waste of time. Mom, Dad, and Rhoda say I didn’t even like taking naps when I was a baby. But what else was I going to do? I wasn’t going back to Hampshire Academy. I certainly wasn’t going shopping for a first-day-of-school outfit for Cottonwood; I couldn’t care less what I was going to wear there. Hiding under my covers seemed like the only way to escape from the shambles my life had become.

  I must have fallen asleep for a while, because Dad was home when I woke up. He was peering into my room, tapping on the door, and doing the same little voice Mom had done in the morning: “Ellllfiieeee, wake up, sleepy girl.”

  I opened one eye and looked at him.

  “Wow, a nap, huh?” he said. “That’s so unlike you. How are you feeling today?”

  I shrugged.

  “Yeah, I get it,” he said. (Did he? How could he possibly get it? I wondered.)