Señora Diaz taught Spanish at Far Hills Junior High and always tried to get Madison to practice her Spanish.
“Por favor, siéntate!” Abuela said to Madison, asking her to sit. Abuela had known Madison ever since she had been a little girl. Madison always loved to hear her tell stories.
“Buenos días, Abuela,” Madison said, taking a seat. She searched her mind for the right Spanish words.
“Qué linda eres!” Abuela cried. Madison had no idea what she had said. Just then Egg came into the kitchen.
“What did she say?” Madison giggled.
“Abuela says you’re pretty,” Egg said.
Madison smiled. “Oh.” She could tell that just saying those words made Egg a little bit embarrassed.
“Cómo está escuela?” Abuela asked Madison. She wanted to hear about school.
“Come on, Abuela, Madison and I have to go,” Egg said, wanting to leave the kitchen.
Madison ate a small cookie from a basket on the table and racked her brain for a way to say that it was good. The only phrase she could remember was, “Dónde está la policía?” from last week’s Spanish class. But no one wanted to find the police, so she said nothing. She and Egg went to his room to practice the extra-credit presentation.
In a terrarium near a large window, Gato puffed out his pink lizard throat as if to say hello. Egg’s pet gecko, Gato, was named for the word cat in Spanish. Madison always thought it was funny that Egg would name one animal after another. She liked the fact that he had an unusual pet, though.
“So let me show you what I’ve got up on the computer,” Egg said, punching a few keys. “I’ve been working on this all weekend.”
“Whoa.” Madison’s jaw dropped as the screen came into focus.
Egg had taken the flat model of the Mayflower and turned it into a three-dimensional object onscreen. Madison was thrilled. He downloaded the images so they could put them into a special presentation for class.
“Wow, you can see all the rooms inside,” she said, admiring it. “Do you think this should be our whole presentation? I thought we could hand out fact sheets, too. It’s always good to pass around something.”
“Oh,” Egg said. “You think so?”
Madison let him scan through a few more pages.
“See?” Egg pointed to the page. “It has three main masts and a poop deck that’s very high up. The middle part of the ship is curved really low into the water.”
They both gigged at the mention of a “poop deck.”
Madison glanced at the computer screen and cross-referenced it with other reading materials on the Mayflower she brought along.
“It says here that the ship was called a ‘wet ship’ because it was mostly in the water. I didn’t know that, did you?” Madison asked.
“Huh?” Egg was too busy moving objects around on-screen to be paying any kind of real attention to what Madison was saying.
“Did you know that the place where passengers slept was called the ’tween decks?” Madison asked. “Cool, huh?”
For twenty minutes. Egg and Madison pored through books and searched on the Internet for more ideas on what to write about.
“Maybe we can make a real ship to show in class,” Madison said.
“That would be so lame,” Egg whined. “Something on the computer would knock everyone’s socks off!”
“What if we brought materials and everyone could watch the computer and then make their own Mayflower?” Madison suggested. “Then we’d have both.”
“You want this to be an arts-and-crafts project?” he asked. “Maddie, we need to be high-tech. Paste is for first graders.”
“No, no,” Madison said. She shook her head no. “What about the Pilgrims? They weren’t high-tech.” Madison wanted to say that sometimes she liked making collages and crafts and what was wrong with that?
“Fine, we can make a poster, too,” Egg finally agreed.
But they were interrupted all of a sudden.
“WALTER!” Egg’s mother’s voice bellowed from the other room. “You have another guest!”
Egg ran down the stairs.
Madison heard Egg greet Drew. She could hear Drew explain that he’d just been working on his social studies project over at Ivy Daly’s house. She cringed at the thought.
Drew came into Egg’s bedroom and flopped onto a chair. “Hey, Maddie, what’s up?”
“Um … Egg?” Madison asked. “What about our meeting? We just started. Why is Drew here?”
“Well, I guess we’ll have to finish up later,” Egg said.
“Huh? Later?” Madison felt a little knot of anger work its way up her throat. “What do you mean, ‘later’?” she asked. “Can’t Drew come back later?”
“Can’t we just finish tomorrow?” Egg asked.
Drew didn’t say much of anything.
“What about today. Egg? We’ve been planning this for almost a week,” Madison said. “You promised.”
Drew interrupted. “Hey, I can come over another time. You guys are working on the extra-credit thing.”
“Nah, we were mostly done,” Egg said.
The rising anger knot was now lodged in Madison’s throat. She could feel her whole body flush, like when she got embarrassed—only worse.
“Egg, you promised,” she repeated.
She wanted to run.
“I promised not to forget any more meetings. This isn’t forgetting. It isn’t the same thing.”
“Fine, then I guess I’ll go,” Madison said abruptly. She quickly gathered her books and stuffed loose papers into her orange messenger’s bag.
“Why don’t you stay and play Wrestle Showdown on the computer? You wanna?” Egg asked. “We can do team play since there’s three of us.”
“No,” she said firmly. “E-mail me later. We don’t have a lot of time to work on it anymore.”
“I know, I know,” Egg said, already a little distracted. He was loading the wrestling computer game and setting up the joysticks.
“Hey, Maddie,” Drew asked her on the way out. “What’s the deal with you and Dan?”
“Huh?” Madison stopped short. She made a face. “What are you talking about?”
“Ivy was just saying some stuff when I was at her house …” Drew said.
“Saying what?” Madison wrinkled her nose.
“Nothing. Forget I said it,” Drew said.
Madison had no idea what Drew was talking about. She scurried out, passing by the kitchen where Abuela, Señora Diaz, and Tía Ana sipped coffees.
“Madison, you just got here! Where is Walter?” Señora Diaz called out.
“Egg is with Drew. We’re going to finish later,” Madison explained. She smiled at Egg’s family. “See you later. I mean, adiós.”
“Adiós!” Egg’s grandmother cried.
Madison lifted the bag of Mayflower books over her shoulder and walked toward home. It weighed more than usual, so she took slower steps. There was no big rush to get anywhere right now.
As her house came into view, Madison squinted. Dad’s car was in the driveway, which seemed strange, since she wasn’t meeting him for dinner or any special occasion.
Madison crept toward the front porch entrance. She’d sneak up the stoop and take them by surprise. What were they saying? The living-room window was cracked open, so Madison could hear voices clearly on the porch without being seen by anyone. She crouched down and listened to Mom and Dad talking. This time, they weren’t just chatting about the weather.
Mom and Dad were discussing Thanksgiving. Mom was telling Dad how she wanted to let Madison go with him and Stephanie, since that seemed to be what Madison wanted. Madison listened real close.
She could not believe her ears.
Madison couldn’t remember a recent time when they’d ever been this nice while talking about the Big D and Madison—or any subject, for that matter.
“What will you do for the holiday, then?” Dad asked Mom. “I don’t think you should have to be alone,
Frannie.”
Mom quickly said that it didn’t matter and the most important thing was for Madison to be happy. Eventually Dad agreed with reluctance.
“We’ll leave it up to Madison,” he said. “She can decide what she wants for Thanksgiving.”
Suddenly, from the other side of the porch, Phinnie appeared. Madison smiled at him from afar and then he came over, wiggling. Unfortunately, he wiggled over while making the loudest snorts ever. Madison tried to move backward, but then she lost her balance.
The weight shifted in Madison’s bag, and the heaviness of all those books sent her toppling. It was her second fall in two days! Madison felt like Queen of the Klutzes.
Phin ran away. And then Dad heard. He leaned into the screen to see Madison lying on the porch.
“Maddie?” he cried out through the screen. “What are you doing out there?”
Madison sat up. “Just hanging out, Dad. What are you doing in there?”
Mom had made her way outside by then. She extended a hand to pull her daughter upright again. She helped Madison pick up her bag, too.
“Hi, Mom,” Madison said softly. “What’s going on?”
Mom crossed her arms. “Why don’t you come inside so we can all talk.”
All week, Maddie had worked herself up into a tizzy about the change in family plans for the holiday. But now Madison knew Thanksgiving would really never be the same again. Seventh grade was bringing big changes not only at school. It was making bigger-than-big changes at home.
And Madison was right smack-dab in the middle of it all.
Chapter 10
Mom v. Dad (Round Two)
Two weird things about dealing with parents who have had the Big D:
1. When they ask, “What do YOU want?” something is wrong. They don’t know what to do. It’s better to play dumb.
2. Do not eavesdrop while kneeling (very painful).
Mom and Dad expect ME to decide about Thanksgiving? It seems totally unfair, since they’re the grown-ups and I’m the kid. This is like a tug-of-war and I never liked stupid tug-of-war! At second-grade field day we played that game and I fell in the mud.
My head hurts just thinking about all this stuff.
TweenBlurt.com was busy on Sunday night. It seemed to take forever for the server to load. Madison went online to find her keypal. Bigwheels would have something encouraging to say. But Bigwheels wasn’t around, so Madison went searching for her BFFs. She ended up in the middle of a three-way online chat with Aimee and Fiona.
Before Madison logged off, she noticed her mailbox blinking with three messages.
FROM
SUBJECT
GoGramma
RECIPES
Eggaway
Project
Dantheman
SUGAR
First Madison clicked on the note with attachments from Gramma Helen in Chicago.
From: GoGramma
To: MadFinn
Subject: RECIPES
Date: Sun 19 Nov 5:28 PM
Hello, there. I miss you very much. But your aunt is taking very good care of me here.
Since you will be spending Thanksgiving with your mother, I thought you might like to make some of my favorite recipes for dinner.
Your uncle here showed me how to attach a file to this message, so I hope that works. Write again and tell me all about your other classes.
The volunteering job sounds like fun, too.
Love, Gramma
<
<
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The second e-mail was from Egg.
From: Eggaway
To: MadFinn
Subject: Project
Date: Sun 19 Nov 5:33 PM
U R gonna be so psyched. I added these noises to the Mayflower presentation. Now when you put the mouse on the ship, you can hear seagulls and water noises and surf. Mariah helped out. Hope that’s OK. BFN.
The final message was from Dan Ginsburg, and he’d marked it high priority.
Priority: HIGH
From: Dantheman
To: MadFinn
Subject: SUGAR
Date: Sun 19 Nov 6:09 PM
My mom just told me that Sugar was sick and might need surgery. Will you be coming to the clinic tomorrow? I know u said u might show up. I think Sugar would like to see a friend. C U in school.
Sugar the schnoodle was sick? The pooch was alone in the world, without a family to love and protect her. Madison knew Dr. Wing was the best veterinarian in Far Hills, but Madison was sadder than sad about Sugar.
She grabbed her math notebook and plopped down in her plastic purple chair. She wanted to catch up on studying so she’d be able to go to the clinic tomorrow after school. Sugar would need her.
Monday morning Madison was still feeling a little sad. She looked everywhere to find Dan before homeroom, but the halls were too busy to track him down. Science class at the end of the day couldn’t come soon enough. She’d see Dan there.
The science lab room was abuzz with chatter. Mr. Danehy wasn’t always great at keeping order in the classroom.
Madison heard the whispers but didn’t think much of it at first. Then she looked up to find an entire row of kids staring.
Staring right at her.
Shifting in her chair, Madison tried to act casual. But people were still staring, and she didn’t know why.
“Hey, Finnster,” Hart said. He was sitting a stool away. “What’s the deal?”
Madison was utterly perplexed. “The deal?”
But Hart didn’t answer. This time, it was her lab partner, Poison Ivy Daly, who spoke up.
“Everyone says you and Dan Ginsburg are going out.”
“What?” Madison blurted. “Everyone who?”
“You know.” Ivy snapped her gum. “Everyone.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Madison said. But “everyone” was still staring. And now everyone was talking.
Mr. Danehy smacked his palm on the chalkboard at the front of the room.
“Eyes on me! No talking!” he commanded.
Everyone hushed, even Madison. She was squirming in her seat.
Ivy started to laugh. Then her drones, Rose and Joan, laughed.
Mr. Danehy waved his hand in the air. “Just what is so funny, Miss Daly?”
Ivy sucked her laughs back in. “Nothing, Mr. Danehy.”
&n
bsp; Madison bowed her head and made a wish that by some magic scientific power, Mr. Danehy would force Ivy out of her chair and out into the hallway.
She looked around.
Had everyone heard Ivy’s rumor?
Madison’s stomach lurched. Had Hart Jones even heard the gossip? What did her crush think?
“What’s the matter, Madison?” Ivy taunted in a low voice from where she was sitting. “You didn’t think anyone saw you on your ice cream date? I saw you and your boyfriend, Dan.”
Madison looked around the room again. Dan was across the room. He smiled in her direction.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Madison snapped. Her face was red-hot. Embarrassment and anger boiled inside like lava ready to burst. “He’s my FRIEND,” she said firmly, glaring at Ivy. “Not that YOU know anything about having a real friend.”
Ivy didn’t answer. She just tossed her head. “Don’t get so huffy, Madison.”
After class, Madison rushed out the door. She went directly to Mrs. Wing’s classroom, where she was supposed to meet Egg.
“Hi,” Madison said quietly. “Egg, can I ask you something?”
“Look at this!” he showed Madison some of the extra-special effects he’d added to the computer. The cursor was a Pilgrim hat.
“Egg … did you hear anything weird lately? About me?” Madison asked.
“Huh? What?” Egg shook his head.
Madison shrugged. “Nothing. I just heard this rumor in science class and … well … about me and Dan”
Egg laughed out loud. “Are you joking?”
“So you didn’t hear Ivy Daly spreading any rumors?” Madison asked a second time, just to be sure.
“Ivy Daly is a dork,” Egg said. “Don’t worry about it. No one ever believes her, anyway.”
Madison smiled. “Thanks, Egg. I’m really sorry for being upset.”
“That’s okay,” Egg said. “But before we practice, tell me what are we going to say again? You’re way better than me at presenting.”
The next half hour they reviewed facts and planned who would say what during the presentation. Then they went upstairs to the media center. The librarian, Mr. Books, let Egg print out a few pages with the color laser printer. He’d downloaded pictures of cartoon Pilgrims, and Madison and Egg glued the pictures on their poster of the Mayflower.
Thanks for Nothing Page 7