Elfie Unperfect

by Kristin Mahoney

  “I know, I know,” Dad said. “I took care of a baby once, remember? I can handle a kitten.”

  That reminded me. “Do not put him in a room by himself to ‘cry it out’!”

  Dad laughed. “Don’t worry. I don’t think my boss would let me keep him around very long if he made a ruckus like that.”

  He turned right, and I looked up and saw that we were pulling into the driveway in front of school. I tried to ignore the feeling of my heart dropping into my stomach by continuing to focus on Goober. My voice sounded strained as I said, “And what about his favorite mouse? Dad, did you bring his mouse?”

  Dad put his hand on my shoulder. “I have his mouse, Elf. He’s gonna be okay. And so are you. But you do need to get out of the car now.”

  I nodded at Dad and he reached over and gave my arm a squeeze.

  “You got this, kid,” he said.

  He was wrong, of course. I knew I didn’t remotely “have this,” if “this” was the strength to get through even another minute at Cottonwood. But somehow my arm did what it was supposed to do, and opened the door. I stepped out to face my first day back at my old school.

  When I walked into room 507, I noticed three things right away:

  • A small woman with glasses and short brown hair standing at the front of the room and smiling

  • On the table in front of her, a bright red fruit with long prickles (It looked kind of like a small hairy tomato, but thanks to Rhoda’s note in the Important Jar, I knew exactly what it was.)

  • Jenna sitting near the front of the room, laughing and talking with Esme Carter, who was two seats away from her

  I knew Ms. Rambutan must be assigning seats; otherwise Jenna and Esme would certainly have chosen to sit right beside each other, and near the back, as far from the teacher as possible. I looked down and saw that the desks had numbers on them but no names.

  Ms. Rambutan was carrying a big black top hat, the kind Abraham Lincoln wore. She came over with quick little steps, as though she couldn’t wait to talk to me.

  “Hello! I’m Ms. Rambutan.”

  I looked at her. I wondered if I would ever know her first name, the way students at Hampshire did with their teachers.

  “And you are?”

  “Elfie Oster.”

  “Welcome, Elfie!” She held the hat out with both hands, like it was heavy. “Please take a number!”

  Oh. That’s how the seats were being assigned. I fished around in the hat, hoping for a number that would put me as far as possible from Jenna and Esme.

  I pulled out the number 8…which, of course, was right behind Jenna in seat 4.

  “Wait,” I said to Ms. Rambutan. “Can I take a different number? I’d prefer to sit…near the back.” That was the first time I’d ever uttered those words. I was usually most comfortable in front, and of course Jenna and Esme knew it.

  “No, I’m sorry,” said Ms. Rambutan. “No returns or exchanges! Besides, this looks like a great seat for you, near these two classmates. It will give you a chance to get to know each other.”

  “She’s my cousin,” said Jenna in a voice that sounded defeated. “We already know each other.”

  “Oh my goodness! Cousins!” Ms. Rambutan pumped her fist in the air as though Jenna had just said we were Olympians. “Well, then, you’ll enjoy catching up! Have a seat, Elfie!”

  I slid into the seat behind Jenna. She turned around and leaned over the back of her chair.

  “My dad said you got a cat,” she said. It sounded like an accusation.

  “Yes. A kitten, actually.”

  “What’s its name?”

  “Goober.”

  “Is it a girl or a boy?”

  “A boy.”

  Jenna nodded. “That’s cool. You seem like a cat person.”

  That sounded like an accusation too. What did Jenna mean by that? How could someone seem like a cat person? I was about to ask her that when Elijah Harris sat down in the seat beside mine. His arm was in a sling.

  “What happened to your arm?” Jenna asked.

  “I fell off my bike, riding down Flood’s Hill.”

  “How could you ride your bike down Flood’s Hill?” I asked. “There are no paths there; it’s only grass. And it’s really steep.”

  Elijah shrugged. “I just ride on the grass. It’s fun.”

  “You’ve never ridden a bike on Flood’s Hill?” Jenna asked.

  I sighed. “No, Jenna. I suppose you have?”

  She nodded. “All the time. It’s awesome. Feels like you’re breaking the rules.”

  “You probably are breaking the rules,” I said. “And in Elijah’s case, also your arm.”

  Jenna rolled her eyes at me as Ms. Rambutan started talking.

  “Good morning, fifth grade! Welcome, welcome! I know most of you already know each other, since this is your last year at Cottonwood. In fact, I just learned that we even have two students in this class who are cousins!” She gestured toward Jenna and me, and everyone looked at us. Jenna slunk down in her seat. I don’t know why she was embarrassed; everyone already knew we were cousins.

  “But since this is my first year at Cottonwood,” she continued, “none of you know anything about me. So let me introduce myself. My name is Jovelyn Rambutan.”

  Huh. A teacher telling us her first name already. That’s never happened at Cottonwood.

  “My family recently moved here from Michigan. I taught fourth grade at a school there, so I’m excited to move up a grade! My husband and I have six-year-old twins, a boy and a girl. And here in front of me is one more clue about my background.”

  She pointed at the prickly red fruit on the front table.

  “Does anyone want to guess what this is?”

  I raised my hand right away, as did a few other students. Ms. Rambutan called on us one at a time, asking each of us to remind her what our names were.

  “A spiky ball,” Aliyah Marshall guessed.

  “A strawberry with a weird fungus,” said Will Haubner.

  Then Ms. Rambutan called on me.

  “Yes…and tell me your name again?”

  “Elfie,” I answered. “And that is a rambutan.”

  Esme Carter laughed. “No, that’s her name.”

  “I know,” I said. “But that’s also what that object is called. It’s a rambutan. It’s the tropical fruit of a tree with the same name, the rambutan tree. It grows in Southeast Asia.”

  Ms. Rambutan’s eyes widened.

  “Yes, that’s right!” she said. “I didn’t expect anyone to get it so quickly! How did you know?”

  “She knows everything,” Esme said.

  Ms. Rambutan looked around the room as though she were waiting for someone to dispute Esme’s statement. No one did.

  “Well, that’s very impressive, Elfie. And yes, this particular rambutan fruit came from a country in Southeast Asia called the Philippines. And that’s where I come from too!”

  “I thought you said you were from Michigan,” said Elijah.

  “Well, yes, that’s true. Good listening!” Ms. Rambutan seemed a little flustered. “But I was born in the Philippines and moved here with my parents when I was a baby. I visited my aunt there this summer and brought back this fruit, which happens to share my family name.”

  Ms. Rambutan reached into a cabinet in the corner of the room and brought out a big canvas bag.

  “I hope we try lots of new things in class this year, starting today! This bag is full of rambutans, and I’m going to give one to each of you.” She walked around and put a rambutan on every desk.

  “Please feel free to explore the rambutans! Feel how heavy they are, roll them around in your hands, smell them. And just call out what you notice.”

  People started yelling out things like “pointy,”
“prickly,” and “smells funny but sweet.” I didn’t call out anything. I’ve never enjoyed the rare occasions when teachers ask you to call out responses rather than raise your hand. It makes the classroom very disorderly. Besides, how can I be sure the teacher knows I’m giving a correct answer in such a chaotic situation?

  “Yes, yes, all good responses.” Ms. Rambutan nodded. “Now, an important question: How do you think you eat them?”

  No one, myself included, seemed to know the answer to this one. I knew from Rhoda’s note that you could eat it, but how?

  “Bite into it?” Will guessed.

  “Ew, with all those prickles on it?” Esme said. “I dare you to try.”

  Since Will was exactly the kind of person who would eat a fruit with spikes all over it, he brought it to his mouth and tried to bite it.

  “Ugh!”

  Ms. Rambutan smiled. “Did that work?”

  “No,” Will said. “It’s tough, and it tastes gross.”

  “So what do we know so far?” Ms. Rambutan asked. “Is this a fruit, like an apple or a strawberry, that you can just bite into?”

  “No,” Jenna said. “Maybe it’s more like an orange. We probably have to peel it first.”

  Ms. Rambutan nodded again. “How would you do that? Don’t answer yet…just start trying.”

  Jenna started to dig into the rambutan with her fingers. Elijah began poking his with a pencil. I didn’t know what to do. I attempted to pull off the prickles one by one, but they wouldn’t budge. I successfully severed some of them with my thumbnail, but that wasn’t getting me any closer to the inside of the fruit. Why hadn’t I looked up this fruit after I read Rhoda’s note? Not that I ever could have known Ms. Rambutan would actually bring them into class, but still, I should have done more research. I wasn’t used to being unprepared. I shouldn’t even be here anyway. I should be at Hampshire Academy using a high-powered microscope, not at Cottonwood trying to crack open a stupid prickly rind.

  I started to feel very warm. Something wet splashed onto my rambutan, and I realized—to my horror—that it was a tear. I was crying over a tropical fruit.

  Ms. Rambutan must have noticed because she came over to my desk.

  “Everything okay, Elfie?” she asked.

  “Yes, it’s fine. Can I please go to the bathroom?”

  “Of course. Would you like Jenna to go with you?”

  Why in the world would I want Jenna to go with me? Oh, right, because we’re cousins. Ms. Rambutan must think that means we’re close.

  “No. No, thank you. I won’t be gone long.” I didn’t want Ms. Rambutan to think I was one of those students who went to the bathroom unnecessarily and wasted time there. So many other things had gone wrong this year. I needed my new teacher to like me.

  “It’s all right.” Ms. Rambutan handed me a tissue. “Take all the time you need.”

  I couldn’t go into the bathroom. There were at least four girls in there, washing their hands and laughing. One of the other fifth-grade classes must have been doing an art project, because the girls had paint all over their hands.

  But I knew I couldn’t go back into Ms. Rambutan’s room either. Not yet. I felt like I was having a hard time catching my breath. I did the only thing that made sense, even though it was something I never would have done before. I opened the back door of the school and stepped outside. As soon as I heard the door click behind me, I had a sinking feeling. I gave it a quick pull to see if it was unlocked. It was not. I slunk to the ground and leaned against one of the big windows that looked out over the playground. To get back in, I’d have to go around to the front door and ring the buzzer. Then everyone would know that I’d broken a rule and left the building without a teacher’s permission. Only an hour into my first day and everything was going wrong. Maybe I’d be expelled from this school too.

  The door clicked open. Great. A teacher must have discovered me already. Or maybe it was Assistant Principal Eastman or Principal Kleinhoffer, and then my expulsion would happen even faster.

  I looked up. It wasn’t a teacher, or Assistant Principal Eastman, or Principal Kleinhoffer. It was Jenna.

  “Why are you out here?” I asked her. “Now we’ll both be locked out.”

  “I was looking for you in the bathroom, and I saw you out here through the window.” Jenna reached down, picked up a rock, and wedged it between the door and the doorframe. “There, now it won’t close,” she said. I wondered how she knew that trick. I had a feeling it wasn’t her first time leaving the building without permission.

  “Here, want one?” Jenna held something out to me. It looked like a small shiny egg.

  “What is it?”

  Jenna laughed. She could tell I didn’t trust her.

  “It’s a rambutan! This is what they look like on the inside. They’re actually pretty good; try it!”

  “What if I’m allergic? Ms. Rambutan didn’t ask any of us that.”

  “She actually did, after you left. And she has our medical records. You don’t have any allergies anyway.”

  “How would I even know if I’m allergic to this? I’ve never been to the Philippines. Or any part of Southeast Asia.”

  Jenna rolled her eyes and held the fruit closer to me. “Oh, Elfie, just try it. Everyone else in the class did, and no one died.”

  I slowly took the rambutan from Jenna.

  “Just watch out for the pit,” she said.

  I took a bite. Jenna was right. It did taste good, like a slightly sweet grape.

  “Did Ms. Rambutan tell you to bring this to me?”

  “I asked her if I could, and she said yes.”

  That was a surprise. “Why are you being nice to me?”

  “I saw her give you a tissue; I thought you might be upset,” Jenna said. “Did you cry? I’ve never seen you cry before.”

  “Of course you’ve seen me cry before. We’ve known each other since we were babies.”

  “You know what I mean. Baby crying isn’t the same as crying now.”

  I shrugged. “I guess I don’t get upset that often.”

  “Or you do…but you just don’t cry,” Jenna said.

  I sighed. “Okay, thanks for the rambutan, Jenna. You can go back inside now.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I should have known you couldn’t be nice to me for more than about twenty seconds before you start picking me apart.”

  “How was I picking you apart?”

  “By saying I don’t cry, like it’s not normal. Then saying you know I get upset a lot anyway.”

  “ELFIE!” Jenna said my name so loudly that I jumped. “You might not cry much, but you sure are sensitive. I was trying to be nice and bring you a piece of fruit and see if you were okay, and now you’re yelling at me to go back inside.”

  “I wasn’t yelling. You’re yelling.”

  Jenna spoke more softly. “You won’t even give me a chance to help you. I don’t think you realize that other people might understand how it feels to be upset about something.”

  “You don’t have any idea what this is like,” I said. “I’m not even supposed to be at this school right now.”

  “Okay, you’re right.” Jenna’s voice was rising again. “I don’t have any idea what this very specific problem is like. And I know it’s not easy for you. But I have problems too, you know.”

  I snorted. “What problems do you have?”

  “Jeez, Elfie, how self-absorbed can a person be? You’re literally part of my family, and you haven’t noticed what’s going on?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Jenna looked me squarely in the eyes. “When was the last time you saw my parents in the same room together?”

  I thought about that. “I don’t know; not that long ago?” Actually, now that I thought some
more, it really had been a while. In fact, I couldn’t think of when Aunt Steph had last been at our house. Christmas?

  “I don’t know either,” Jenna said. “And technically I live in the same house with both of them. But they’re never together anymore. In fact, they’ve decided to split up. Didn’t your mom tell you?”

  “What? No!” I was shocked. I couldn’t believe Mom hadn’t said anything. “I guess she thought I had enough to worry about, what with everything that happened at Hampshire….”

  “Right,” Jenna said. “Your world fell apart because you don’t get to go to a fancy school and you’re stuck at Cottonwood with losers like me.”

  “That’s not what I said, Jenna.”

  “You don’t have to say it, Elfie,” Jenna said. “It’s so obvious to everyone that that’s how you feel. But maybe once in a while you should try to realize that other people have problems too. Problems that might be even bigger than yours. And life can stink for us too, even if we are just losers.”

  Jenna flung the door open and stomped back inside. Not until I heard the door click behind her did I remember her trick about using the rock as a doorstop. I was on my own to find a way back in.

  Mom was waiting at the corner when I got off the bus that afternoon, which was weird, because I’d been expecting Rhoda.

  “How was the first day?” Mom said. She reached to take my backpack, which was also unusual. Mom was a big believer in kids carrying their own loads. Especially her own kid.

  “Why are you here?” I asked her. Rhoda was supposed to meet me at the bus stop, like she did every day after school. Baking with her was the only thing I’d been looking forward to all day.

  “Wow, nice to see you too.” Mom gave a nervous little laugh.

  “Sorry. I just mean, where’s Rhoda? I thought she was coming today.”

  “She had a doctor’s appointment.”

  “She didn’t tell me that. She said she’d be here on my first day.”

  “She must have forgotten, honey; sorry. But it works out well because now I get to be here after your first day. Which I would love to hear all about.”