by Rachel Vail
“Amazing,” Beth said.
“Pickles are very sophisticated,” Nadine agreed. “Especially for kindergartners. You were so right.”
“I’m changing my middle name to Sauerkraut,” Beth said.
“You like sauerkraut?” Nadine asked her.
“No,” Beth said as the bell rang. “But a girl can dream.”
“Ambition is important,” Holly said.
“The most sophisticated thing I like is, I guess, cake,” Nadine said.
“Awesome middle name,” I said. “Nadine Cake Green?”
“I love it,” Nadine said. “It’s a lot nicer than Edna. I don’t think my dead great-grandmother Edna would mind, do you?”
I laughed. “I think she’d be honored.”
“Me too,” said Holly.
They waited while I shoved my scooter into my locker, and walked in a clump around me to first period. Nobody was rolling their eyes that I said honored, or was slow, or that my locker was a disaster.
It was nice.
But in the math classroom, my sneakers were waiting neatly, all sparkling clean, on top of my desk. I turned to thank Ava for bringing them for me. She wasn’t in her seat.
Ava was sitting on Chase Croft’s desk, and Britney was on Milo’s. They were both leaning back on their arms, whispering to each other in their matching flowy tops. And nobody, glasses or not, could take their eyes off them.
23
“HAVE SOME MEAT,” Dad said, again.
“No, thanks,” I said. Please let me just get through this dinner and up to my room; why does everyplace have to be a test?
“You can’t just eat starch,” he said.
“Have three bites,” Mom tried, like I was a little kid.
I am thirteen, almost fourteen. Not six.
“No commenting on other people’s food choices,” I said.
“Niki,” Mom said. “Fine. Let’s just have a pleasant dinner, okay?”
Danny was happily chomping away at his steak.
“I made the steak on the grill,” Dad said. “It’s expensive.”
“More for you, then,” I tried.
“I got enough for the family,” Dad said.
“Jake,” Mom said. “It’s okay. You like it, Danny?”
“It’s a little too rare,” Danny said, with his mouth full. “I like it pink, not red on the inside. Dad likes it still mooing.”
That’s the joke Dad always makes, when we are at a restaurant. Still mooing.
Dead cow dead cow still mooing rattled around in my brain.
They’re just stressed because of Danny’s testing tomorrow, I told myself. The cow is already dead. Not mooing. Maybe I should just eat it. I looked at the pile of meat on the serving plate.
“I’m eating the broccoli and the carrots, too,” I argued instead of giving in. “Not just starch.”
“You need protein,” Dad said.
“One slice?” Mom asked.
“No, thanks,” I said.
Dad jabbed a fork into three slices of meat and flung them onto my plate.
The wet slap of the meat onto the plate
The red bleeding out from the slices into my mashed potatoes
IT’S MY PLATE EWWWW
I jolted my plate up, away from me, and dumped my food onto the table.
We all went silent.
I had never done anything like that before.
My dinner was all over the table and my stained plate lay empty in front of me.
I put my hands in my lap and stared at the table.
I never even had tantrums when I was little. That was Danny’s job. I always did what I was supposed to. Obedience is my superpower. Also my weakness.
Nobody moved as the meat juice spread across the table and dripped off. Well, nobody but Fumble, who happily lapped up the puddle.
I was at least as shocked at what had just happened as any of them, and they all had their mouths wide open. Me too. I closed mine. Closed my eyes, to stop seeing the mess I’d made of the table and also to brace for what was about to happen to me. Mom hates messes.
“Jake!” Mom yelled just as I was opening my mouth to say sorry sorry sorry.
We all turned to look at her. What?
“Me?” Dad asked. “She just . . .”
“She said no thank you!”
“She—”
“She said she didn’t want it.”
“That doesn’t excuse—”
“She said no,” Mom said. “No means no. Not everybody wants the same things. Niki, you may get a fresh plate. Let’s clean this up, Jake.”
I went over to the cabinet and got a fresh plate while Dad, beside me, got the paper towels. Fumble was enthusiastically licking the floor. Dad went back to the table and used huge wads of paper towels to clean up the mess I’d made. He dumped handfuls of paper towels full of my ex-dinner into the trash can, which Mom had brought over next to the table. Mom served me fresh mashed potatoes and vegetables on my new plate. All in silence.
The rest of dinner, no talking. Silverware clanked on plates, everybody stared at the table, nobody talked until Danny said, “Can I have more steak?”
Dad served him the last four slices.
“May I be excused?” I asked.
“Yes,” Mom said. “Please help clear.”
Dad took his plate to the sink and started washing the dishes, his broad back to us.
24
I WENT UPSTAIRS as soon as I could, straight to my room. It had been such a weird dinner, I felt like I had to tell somebody about it. But it was not the kind of thing I could text to Ava, was it? Nobody else really knows about my crazy family, though.
My brain was whirling like a potter’s wheel, swirling around so lurchingly, I couldn’t latch down any single thought long enough to think it. How to slow it down enough to get my feet solid on the floor?
Maybe I could tell Holly?
Hi Holly it’s Niki guess what I did tonight, I dumped my dinner off my plate!
Yeah, no. Weird. Delete. Before I hit send! Yay me!
Maybe I could text Milo. We’re friends. No reason to be . . .
Hahahaha. As if. Didn’t even type one word. Turned off my phone to stop myself.
Science test tomorrow. Maybe instead of worrying about popularity or what Milo meant when he said today, in the hallway before social studies, “I like your glasses,” I could focus on doing well in school. Get straight As. I’m wholesome and bookish? Fine. Lean in to that.
Just because Mom thinks friendship is the most important thing doesn’t mean I do. I can be independent and strong. A loner. If I am brilliant at science, maybe I could really become a meteorologist as famous and popular as Breezy Khan.
Certain people will be sorry they dumped me back in eighth grade, if that happens.
I opened the boring science textbook to chapter three and read:
The bedrock of Maine is creased with fault lines. Fault lines are breaks in the earth where rock has moved. Fault lines are typically where earthquake activity occurs. But the fault lines in Maine are older, are not geologically active, and do not move the way the younger, more active fault lines do.
The fault lines in Maine have little to do with the earthquakes that occur in Maine.
Earthquakes? We have EARTHQUAKES?
I turned my phone back on, just in case anybody might have an emergency and need to reach me. To my surprise, it buzzed right away. Holly had just texted me: Have you read the science homework yet? We have EARTHQUAKES in Maine?
I had to smile. Frick and Frack. I started texting: I was just thinking that exact
Mom was walking past my room, on her way to Danny’s, but stopped. “What’s so funny?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
&nb
sp; “You look—happy,” she said.
I shrugged. “Just texting with friends.”
Mom smiled a big, real smile. “Hi, Ava!” she said.
I didn’t correct her.
She went on to Danny’s room.
I picked up my phone again. Texted back to Holly:
I was just thinking that exact thing! This is why we probably shouldn’t do the reading—tooo stressful!!!
Holly texted back ahahahahahaha.
I hearted that because what is there to say in response?
Then I texted Hey to Ava, and hit send.
Just hey.
Hey isn’t weird. Nothing wrong with texting hey. We’re still supposedly friends, just not hanging out together at school so much.
No response.
Whatever. Focus on studying. Bedrock. Folk rock. Bedrock. Bed.
Still no text back from Ava. Fine. Maybe hey is too nothing.
I erased my notes in my notebook, which to be fair were basically just some names in cursive (Ava Milo Holly Britney Milo) and the word if. I like to write the word if in cursive. I like how it flows. ifififififif
IF
A new poem by Niki Ames
ififififififififififif
I drew abstract lines radiating out from it and then erased them. Erased the whole page. Holly is good at art. I am not good at art. I am good at:
1. Erasing
2.
I typed and deleted, typed and deleted a second text to Ava:
I’m sorry
Hey I might have a crush on somebody and need some flirting tips!
Please don’t be mad at
You should’ve been here tonight dinner with the Ames fam was INSANE and it was ME who was the crazy person for
I thought of someone to maybe have a crush on
Did you see there’s a storm coming beginning of next week
Hey do you think school will be canceled if Hurric
My brother is so
Please
DELETE DELETE DELETE.
Mom was trying to persuade Danny to do his homework.
He grunted at her.
She said, “I don’t like that kind of response, Danny.”
“Don’t touch my stuff!” he yelled at her.
Something crashed.
Oh no, not this, I thought. Not the Dance. I hate the Dance.
“Don’t! Touch! My! Stuff!!!!”
I should research earthquakes on the internet probably, so I’ll be able to add in some interesting details on the test tomorrow, get some extra credit maybe, instead of watching the Dance unfold, as, uh-oh, ayuh, there goes Mom, scurrying away from Danny’s room. Stuff is crashing—books, games, the game ball. Everything is smashing into the walls.
Fumble ran into my room, ears flattened to his head, and jumped up on the bed next to me. “Same bet?” I asked him.
Countdown to Dad stomping toward Danny’s room starting now: 10, 9, 8 . . .
There’s a thing in weather called a barometer, which measures atmospheric pressure. I don’t know how they measure that; maybe I will research that now because, 4, 3, yes, here’s Dad!
Between my phone not getting any response texts and Dad yelling at Danny to Listen to your mother, the atmospheric pressure in my house would break even the toughest barometer if we had one.
BOOM! The storm was raging in my brother’s room. Wham—something hit the wall that separates our rooms so hard, the picture of me and Ava from July, arms around each other at the beach, popped off and hit the floor.
I slipped off the bed and picked it up. There was a crack in the glass. I ran my thumb along it. Got a tiny cut.
Stop it, stop it! Mom yelled. At Dad or Danny? Hard to tell.
“Danny!” Dad thundered.
“Get out! Get out of my room!” Danny raged.
“Clean this up NOW!” Dad yelled.
I flattened myself against the wall, holding the cracked picture, sucking my bleeding thumb. I win this time, I whispered to Fumble. Yayyyy, hooray. Hooray for me.
“Jake!” Mom yelled.
Dad stomped out.
I heard him as he passed my door in the hall, growling, “I am so sick of being the bad guy here.”
The Dance. The usual. It’s fine, it’s what happens, don’t worry, I reminded Fumble. I put my earbuds in and blasted some music. Whatever. I just wanted to think about something else, escape this all for a little while. Math. At least there are answers, one right answer for each and every problem.
More crashes from next door. Volume up, math book open, sitting on the floor of my closet.
I was getting a headache from my earbuds and every song felt too much like commentary on my actual life, plus still no texts, so I turned off my phone. Which left me in the dark, with no more music. I pulled out my eraser and imagined, what if I were a math genius, or a writer, or an artist, and I could just make amazing things come out every time I wrote them, in ink, and I never felt the urge to erase a thing because everything worked? Right away, first try.
SMASH.
My mother hates messes, hates when I write on my sneakers but tough, CRASH I wrote on them anyway. If If If If, I wrote, marring their newly clean sides.
If is what I wrote but not what I was thinking, which was:
I like the feel and the sound of my erasable blue ballpoint pen gliding on my sneaker’s rubber side-sole. I don’t like hearing my brother cry, or, gods please forgive me, the sound of my mother consoling him.
25
THE SCIENCE TEST was fine. Ms. Finch said that after we turned in our papers, we could do whatever we wanted.
I would like to move to the Bahamas, in that case, please, I thought on my way back to my seat.
I glanced around the room. Madeleine was hunched over her paper, still writing and writing. Britney was making funny, panicked faces at everybody. Ava, her finished paper still on her desk, was pretending to cough but was actually laughing.
Milo, walking past me to hand in his paper, bumped my chair with his foot. It startled me so much in the quiet of the room, I jumped.
“Sorry!” he whispered.
“It’s okay,” I said.
My eyelashes kept tapping the lenses of my glasses with every blink. Maybe mascara isn’t worth it if you have glasses, I don’t know. Mom had forgotten about buying me the hypoallergenic kind, so, good thing I stole her old one. I wasn’t mad, of course. She had bigger problems than my eyelashes to worry about. Testing tomorrow.
In gym, Ms. Andry said, “Stand with your best friend.”
I was next to Holly, Nadine, and Beth already. Holly and I shrugged at each other and it was fine, fun, playing catch with weighted balls. Each catch was a thud in our arms, and took both hands.
“I try to play catch with Danny,” I told her, after I almost bobbled a catch. “But he always ends up not wanting to throw the ball back to me. He wants to pretend it’s a pizza or a cake and have a party with it instead.” I heaved the ball at her.
“Ugh,” Holly said, catching it. “I love it. A cake?”
“Seriously?” Nadine said. “Turn all the balls into cakes? He’s got my vote.”
“It’s interesting,” Milo said, behind me. “Like instead of goodbye, it’s cake!”
“Goodbye?” I asked.
Milo was blushing. “Catch is stressful!”
“To you?” I asked. “You always play catch.”
“And it’s always stressful!” Milo said. “You want the ball, right? That’s the point. You’re like, Here! Here! Throw it to me! But when you get it? You don’t get to keep it. Right away, you’re supposed to throw it back. All those goodbyes . . .”
“I never thought of it like—”
“Hey!” Ms. Andry said. “Did I say it�
�s time to chat? No, I did not. No chatting!”
Milo never gets in trouble with teachers either. We turned back to our partners.
When the bell rang and we were putting the weighted balls away, Holly said, “Let’s eat lunch outside today, yeah? With everybody. It’s a nice day.”
“Okay,” I said.
“You’re smiling like the cat who ate the canary.”
“The what?” I asked. “Ew! Why would the cat do that?”
But she was right. I was smiling. It felt nice on my face.
It wasn’t till we were on our way out that I realized I hadn’t even been watching the Squad out of the corners of my eyes, that whole time.
26
“GUESS I’LL RIDE my bike to school,” I told Mom in the morning.
“What?” she asked. “I thought you hated your bike.”
“I just, I know you have a lot to deal with today,” I said.
She looked up from the Cream of Wheat she was making for Danny.
“It’s okay. He’ll be okay, whatever happens,” I said.
“I just don’t want him to feel like there’s something wrong with him,” Mom whispered.
“But what if there is?” I asked.
“What? There is nothing wrong with him, Niki.”
“I know. But if there is, I’m just saying if. Maybe they could find it and help . . .”
“Don’t. You. Dare. He is my CHILD.”
“I’m aware.”
Her eyes opened wider.
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “I was trying to be supportive. Sorry.”
“I don’t want him to feel judged,” Mom said.
“I know.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to take it out on you. I’m a little tense.”
“I know. It’s okay,” I told her. “I am too. I was trying to reassure you. Sorry.”
She held out her non-stirring arm to me. “You’re the finest kind, Niki.”
I stepped close and let myself be folded into her hug. “You are, Mom.”
The Cream of Wheat smelled good, buttery. But I wanted to get going before Danny came down, and if I’m completely honest, I wanted to not run the risk of Milo or Robby seeing me wobble on my bike. They ride every day, and I, well, don’t.