When I finally pull away, half of Lexie is missing. “You changed your hair,” I say when I realize her long curls have been clipped into short spikes. “But—but why—?”
I can’t believe it. Cut the way it is now, Lexie can’t wear her hair any way but one. I try to put on a white lie of a smile—because I don’t want to hurt her feelings. But I must have shock and disappointment smeared all over my face, because Lexie’s smile gets awfully droopy, suddenly.
“I think it’s cute,” Victoria says as she tosses her own perfectly combed, silky hair over her shoulder.
Lexie turns toward Victoria, trying to put her wide smile back on. But it kind of looks like a vase that’s been broken and glued back together—wobbly, crooked, and about to fall apart all over again.
“Mom and I took her to my hairdresser yesterday,” Victoria says, looking at Lexie’s spikes admiringly.
“That’s where you went?” I say. To get rid of her shine? I think, my own mouth drooping.
“Don’t you love it?” Victoria asks.
I stare at Lexie, feeling sad because her hair makes her look prickly and dangerous and not like herself at all.
My stomach is a teeter-totter as I finally turn toward Victoria and ask, “What are you doing here? You don’t—go to Hopewell—”
“Hey, Auggie!” Mr. Bradshaw shouts, interrupting us as he walks up to my side. “Harold and I just passed by your mom’s old billboard, and it made me start thinking of her all over again.”
Weird Harold walks beside his dad, his hair extra-crazy from their bicycle ride. He’s carrying a jean jacket that could completely swallow him in one gulp. Probably, I figure, it’s his dad’s coat. Smart Harold Bradshaw is always trying to take care of his dad, making him take cod-liver oil to ward off colds in the winter, that sort of thing. This morning, he stares in a disapproving way at his dad’s old rope sandals, at the feet that shouldn’t be bare, not now, not in the cooler fall weather.
Victoria eyes Mr. Bradshaw, then me, and shares a look with Lexie. The look itself is like a secret passed between them.
“See you, Auggie,” Victoria says, turning. I’m not sure if she means, Nice to see you, or See you later, but the way she says my name—it rings through the air in such an awful way. It sounds like the noises the sea lions at the zoo make when they bark for their dinner.
I’m still trying to remember how to make my mouth work as Ms. Dillbeck ambles in. She’s kind of like a walking eggplant—same color, same shape. She leans against me a little, so that I have to start moving forward, help her toward a seat. Irma Jean follows, and I wind up getting smooshed into a chair of my own, surrounded by a few Pikes, Gus, and Ms. Dillbeck.
I glance about, wondering what happened to Lexie. I feel like my whole body’s been scrubbed with a stiff wire brush when I realize she’s across the room, beside Victoria.
• • • 11 • • •
I don’t hear a single full sentence of Chuck’s sermon. Mostly, I’m staring at the back of Lexie’s spiky hair and Victoria’s silky straight mane. The longer I stare, the more Victoria starts to look like a storm cloud, filled with winds strong enough to knock a friendship down.
At the end of the sermon, right when I’m expecting everyone to stand, Chuck points to the man sitting next to Victoria and announces, “Mr. Cole has asked if he could have a moment of your time.”
Chuck steps aside, and lets Victoria’s dad stand in front of us all. He’s wearing a suit, but he looks comfortable in it, like maybe he’s the kind of guy who wears suits all the time—even to the Fill ’N Sip for a bag of ice.
“As some of you are probably aware,” Mr. Cole begins, “Reverend Taylor has already begun the task of seeking funds to renovate the Hopewell Community Church. In appealing for funds, he and I came into contact with each other. I’m on the city council, after all. As an extension of the city council—and as a result of the recent storm—I’ve helped form a new committee. The House Beautification Committee. And that’s why I came to introduce myself today.”
I glance at Weird Harold. I can practically feel him bristle on the other side of the all-purpose room. He crosses his arms over his chest, and shakes his head beneath a ball cap that says I’M NOT WHO YOU THINK I AM. He’s suspicious. Already.
“Following our recent storm, the House Beautification Committee would like to make sure that the sections of Willow Grove that were hit the hardest are rebuilt in a way that preserves the charm of our city. We want Willow Grove to continue to be the beautiful city it’s always been.
“My daughter, Victoria, a junior member of the committee, has a few handouts,” Mr. Cole goes on. Chair legs squeak as Victoria jumps to her feet, as though she’s been waiting all morning for this very moment. “We simply want to remind everyone of some of the existing ordinances of Willow Grove as we all rebuild those structures hit by the storm,” Mr. Cole says, grinning at us as Victoria passes out the papers like a teacher’s pet.
My heart is as scraped and hot as a rug burn as she heads toward the section where I’m sitting. I try to seem completely unfazed when she hands me a printed sheet. But the truth is, I can barely even read the handout through my tears:
ATTENTION
RESIDENTS OF SERENDIPITY PLACE
A Neighborhood in Willow Grove, Missouri
A property is in violation of city codes if:
1. Any structure present on the property (including, but not limited to, a house or outbuilding) is not being adequately maintained or is deemed to be a fire hazard.
2. Any land within property boundaries (including, but not limited to, lawns, gardens, or undeveloped lots) is shown to have a significant overgrowth of brush or weeds, or grass measuring more than ten (10) inches.
3. Any land within property boundaries contains items or materials deemed to be a threat to public safety.
4. Any structure or land within property boundaries is found to be in violation of city health codes.
The owner of an offending property will receive one (1) warning notice, and a forty-five (45) day conditional grace period, during which the owner will be required to improve the condition(s) of their property.
If a property owner fails to comply, the grace period will be deemed null and void; said owner shall be fined $10–$100 a day for each of the prior forty-five (45) days and every day that it remains in violation thereafter.
The amount of the fine will be based on the severity of the offense(s).
Thank you,
The House Beautification Committee
(Making our city beautiful, one house at a time.)
“But Serendipity Place didn’t get hit by the storm,” Weird Harold shouts, even as his dad tries to shush him. “Not like our church did. Our neighborhood looks exactly like it did before. And what’s this about yards being overgrown? What does that have to do with storm damage?”
“You’re worried the committee will make you clean up your room,” Irma Jean teases.
Laughter spreads, loud enough to cover anything else Weird Harold tries to say. Chairs screech, too, as everyone stands and starts to leave, off to a Sunday brunch and the ambrosia salad or the fried chicken leg they’ve started to daydream about.
I finally get up, start saying my good-byes and helping Ms. Dillbeck out of her chair. I catch sight of Victoria—even though I don’t see Lexie, I can see the red spikes of her hair sticking up above Victoria’s head, the way a shark fin sticks up out of the ocean. Lexie and Victoria are walking side by side toward the exit. I decide, right then, to only miss three things about Lexie:
1. Her long red hair that she could twist into a million never-before-seen hairdos.
2. The way our laughter used to sound like it needed each other, the way piano notes need each other to form a chord.
3. The way she liked to wish with me as we stared up at my mom, the brightest star in the sky.
• • • 12 • • •
“Dear Mom,” I scribble in my notebook, then tighten up my fac
e as I wait for the words to start flowing. I think if I were to tell her some of what’s happening—with Lexie or the church or school—it might be different, somehow. Maybe she’d show up, and I’d find out that a mother’s shoulder feels different than a grampa’s. That it’s softer and stronger all at once.
But I’m not quite sure how to cram all this into a letter, so I put my notebook down, and set up the TV trays in the living room: one in front of Gus’s chair and one in front of mine. We play tug-of-war over what we watch during dinner. When I win, we watch game shows. When Gus wins, we watch the news.
As I lay our silverware out, the station’s already tuned in with the help of our duct-taped rabbit ears. The news. I wrinkle my nose, disappointed, until halfway through my corn bread and beans, when Chuck’s face fills the jerky screen.
“Our church family will be having a huge rummage sale,” Chuck says. “The money from the sale will be put toward rebuilding Hopewell. We’re taking donations for the sale, which can be dropped off at any time in a bin I’ve set up in the parking lot of the old Montgomery Elementary School. As the church pastor, I’m also seeking donations on a larger scale—from construction companies and the like—anyone willing to provide building materials, or their time. This is going to be an enormous project. Our recent storm hit Hopewell harder than any other building in Willow Grove, and it’s going to take time to secure funds for a renovation. But I’m confident we’ll meet our goals, with a generous community like ours.”
He smiles at the camera, and even though I can feel Gus brightening beside me, I accidentally let out a low, wordless grumble.
“What’s that all about, Little Sister?” he asks.
“Things don’t get fixed,” I say. “When something’s broken, it’s broken.”
“Everything that gets broken can be fixed,” Gus tries to assure me.
“With what?” I snap. “Glue? Tape? With some stupid mismatched patch?”
I hadn’t meant to let my sourness leak out, but now that I have, I can’t hold any of it back, not anymore. “It’s like—” I go on, “like when something’s old.” Finally, I say the word like I’ve been feeling it the past few days. Like it’s a scaly, nasty patch of dead skin. “When something’s old, it’s never new again.”
“Nothing wrong with a thing being a little old,” he says.
I grimace.
“Poor folks have poor ways, Little Sister,” he insists, using the same words that I’ve heard hundreds of times, but have never really thought about until now. “Folks around here,” he goes on, “they might not have a lot of money, but they’ve got pride. Everybody keeps their houses tidy. There’s not one linoleum floor in this entire neighborhood that I’d have to think twice about eating off of.”
That much is true. Every single day, somebody’s mom is outside beating rugs or hanging sheets or scrubbing windows, big streams of white soap running down her arms. But I don’t want to admit he’s right. I shake my head hard enough to make my braids ripple like tall grass in the breeze.
“Little Sister,” he starts.
“Why do you call me that?” I blurt. “I’m not your little sister. I’m nobody’s little sister.”
He leans back in his chair, eyes me suspiciously. “I call you that,” he says softly, “because you’re mine, every bit as much as your mom was. Child number two. A little sister.”
I feel even worse than before, because now I’ve hurt Gus. I think I can hear his heart cracking inside his chest.
“Where’s all this coming from?” he asks.
“It came from the fact that they shut down Montgomery and sent me to Dickerson,” I say. “It came from the fact that Victoria Cole’s in my class, and she’s on the House Beautification Committee with her dad. And she—” But I can’t finish: She’s got Lexie. The sting is too fresh.
I steer around that to go on, “. . . and her hair is straight and she’s like a magazine picture, and we live in a neighborhood that’s—old.” I don’t say anything about wishing Old Glory would stop picking me up in the afternoon with a wrecked car attached to her back, or how I think it’s a little embarrassing now that he’s a trash hauler. I’ve hurt him enough already.
“Well,” Gus says. “Maybe we could do our own renovations.”
A tiny ray of hope appears inside me, the same way a little stream of light pours from the hallway through my bedroom door’s keyhole at night.
Gus must see that burst of light right away, because he instantly warns, “Remember, we’re not the kind of people who can go hire some ritzy interior decorator.”
“I don’t care so much about the inside,” I say. “I care more about what’s on the outside.”
Sure, Gus and my teachers and Chuck like to talk about how the outside of a person doesn’t matter as much as the inside. But all Victoria’s passed judgment on are my outsides—my clothes, my grampa, Old Glory. If I ever want her to think of me differently, the outside is what I’ve got to fix.
“Think about it, Gus,” I say. “Somebody who doesn’t know us, who’s just passing by, they look at the front of our house, and maybe they think we’re run-down people. If anybody’s inside our house—well, then, they know us. They know we’re not run-down.”
Gus smiles and nods in agreement before he offers me a big helping of his hearty pumpkin pie laugh.
• • • 13 • • •
I’m way too old for my wagon. Too old to be heading down the sidewalk dragging the red Radio Flyer Gus gave me back when I was about four.
But I don’t care. I can’t waste time feeling a little silly, not when I’m on a mission. I’m in such a rush, I forget about keeping a safe distance between myself and the wagon, and yelp a couple of times when it nips at my heels.
I look for Chuck first at Hopewell, but the building is boarded up and deserted. The broken fragments of wood and plaster and glass the storm tore off have been swept away from the lot and the sidewalk. But the church still stands like a broken twig.
I head straight for Montgomery and find Chuck in the parking lot. He looks like half a person, the way he’s bent over the lip of the donation bin, sifting through the contents. He looks like the legs-only part of a man, still wearing his black-and-white high-tops.
The squeak of my wagon wheels makes Chuck pull his head from the bin. “Hey, Auggie,” he says. When Chuck says my name, it doesn’t sound awful at all—it sounds chewy and sweet, like saltwater taffy.
He looks at my wagon, points, and says, “That’s empty.”
All I can think is, Not for long.
• • • 14 • • •
“Auggie!” our forsythia bush hisses when I get close to our backyard chain-link fence. I drop the handle of my wagon and wipe the sweat from my face. It’s been a long walk back from Montgomery, hauling such a full load.
But I’m starting to think maybe my load was too heavy—because now I’m hearing things.
“Auggie!” the bush shouts again.
I squeal and start to back away.
“Don’t be afraid,” the bush hisses. “It’s me! Look!”
I tiptoe up to the bush. When I lift a branch and peer inside, I realize that Weird Harold is standing at the chain link, too, but on the opposite side, in his yard. The lenses of his glasses shimmer in between the forsythia’s yellow limbs. Today, his cap says DON’T TRUST THE NEWS.
“What are you doing with your face in that bush?” I ask, but Weird Harold gives me a, “Shhhhhh,” and puts his finger to his lips.
“This is the only way we can relay secret messages,” he says. “I warned you. You and Gus and Irma Jean and Chuck—everybody at Montgomery. I said it was weird that they were interested in this neighborhood, even though it looks the same as always. None of you would listen. You laughed at me. Now, it’s all coming true.”
“Warned us about what?”
“The House Beautification Committee. Look at what I found in our mailbox,” he whispers, stretching his arm through our shared bush to show me
a notice:
ATTENTION
MARTIN BRADSHAW
An Individual Residing at 778 Joy Boulevard
Willow Grove, Missouri
The property located at the above address is currently in violation of the following ordinances mandated by the city council and enforced by the House Beautification Committee:
1.) Properties shall not have more than one (1) standardized rain barrel. This rain barrel must be covered with committee-approved mosquito screen.
2.) Vegetable gardens shall be confined to backyards, to preserve the curb appeal of all adjacent properties.
As the owner of this property, Mr. Martin Bradshaw shall have forty-five (45) days to address these issues.
If the condition of the property does not improve in that time, the House Beautification Committee will enforce fines for the prior forty-five (45) days and every day this property remains in violation thereafter.
The amount of the fine will be determined by committee vote and will be based on the severity of the offense(s).
Thank you,
The House Beautification Committee
(Making our city beautiful, one house at a time.)
The Junction of Sunshine and Lucky Page 4