Dedication
TO JEFF
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
1. The Opposite of Izzy
2. Watch Wren Fly
3. Izzy’s Left With a Mitten
4. Geez, Wren
5. Izzy and the Vibe
6. Izzy is Late to the Battle
7. Wren and the Pile of Peas
8. Izzy and the Judgment Paint
9. Wren Minus Two
10. Wren Contemplates a Crunch
11. Izzy and the Super-tragic Tragedy
12. Wren’s Fire
13. Izzy in Parenthesis
14. Welcome to Planet Wren
15. Izzy Reaches for Red
16. Wren’s Long List
17. Izzy Sees Swirls
18. Make Them Proud, Wren
19. Izzy Leaps
20. Wren and the Angry Ice
21. Izzy’s Impossibly Big Thing
22. Wren Sees the Light
23. Izzy’s Idea
24. Wren’s Key Chain
25. Izzy Makes Room
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
The Opposite of Izzy
When Izzy was little, she was obsessed with opposites. Not regular opposites, like left and right. Happy and sad. Good and bad. She wasn’t the kind of kid who occasionally walked down the sidewalk backward. Instead, Izzy blew milk out of a straw. She ate cereal with a fork. She wore her backpack on her stomach every single day of preschool.
It didn’t make any sense.
But back then, making sense didn’t matter. Izzy could color only the background of a coloring page, and her teacher would smile and say, “What a unique way to look at that picture, Izzy. You did such a nice job coloring outside the lines.”
And it wasn’t just teachers. No one in her family cared about making sense. If Izzy danced around the kitchen with underwear on her head, there was an excellent chance that her parents would laugh. Or that her older brother Nate would twirl her down the hallway.
But now Izzy was twelve. And that kind of stuff wasn’t funny anymore; it was embarrassing. Izzy no longer wanted to be different from everyone else.
She wanted the opposite.
As Izzy sat at her desk watching her friend Phoebe, she got a familiar feeling, like things were the opposite of how they were supposed to be. Only the feeling didn’t make Izzy smile or laugh. It made her worry about what was going to happen next.
“I’m not sure I get it,” said Phoebe. Phoebe was lying on Izzy’s bed. Her feet swayed in the air and her head rested in her palms. Four beaded bracelets slid halfway down Phoebe’s arm. They were the same bracelets that Daphne Toll, the most popular girl in class, had started wearing a few months ago.
There were real bracelets and there were fake bracelets. The real bracelets were made of colored stones threaded on a thick elastic band. The fake bracelets looked exactly the same, but instead of stones, they were made with heavy plastic beads. The only way to tell which bracelets were real and which were fake was to listen to the sound the bracelets made when they hit one another or a hard surface.
Daphne’s bracelets were real. Izzy sat next to Daphne in English and had to listen as Daphne clacked her bracelets together during silent reading time. Phoebe’s bracelets were fake. Phoebe’s mom had bought them in the “buy three, get one free” section at Glitz.
But Izzy had never told anyone that. And neither had Phoebe.
Real and fake. Opposites.
“Earth to Izzy,” said Phoebe. She waved her hand with the bracelets back and forth. “Hel-lo.”
“Sorry,” said Izzy. “What’d you say?”
“I said, I don’t get this sticker door. What’s the point? What were we thinking?” Phoebe nodded toward the back of Izzy’s bedroom door. It was covered with hundreds of stickers. There were heart stickers, puppy stickers, and unicorn stickers. There was a winding path of stars, fuzzy ducks wearing red rain boots, and grinning cows jumping over full moons. Around the doorknob was a swirl of whales, seahorses, and sharks. Toward the top of the door were smiling pieces of sushi, old-fashioned dolls wearing lace bonnets, and neon skulls with empty eye sockets. The bottom of the door was lined with neat rows of emoji stickers.
Izzy and Phoebe used to stare at the masterpiece that they’d created together and imagine stories about the lives of the stickers. Green neon skull and doll in a lace bonnet had a baby named poop emoji. That kind of thing.
Izzy shrugged. “We were thinking that it was fun?”
“I guess,” said Phoebe. “But I just don’t get it anymore. I don’t get the point.”
“There wasn’t a point.”
“There has to be a point, Izzy. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
This was how Phoebe spoke now that she hung out with Daphne and all her popular friends. Now that she wore a stack of bracelets on her wrist and sat at Daphne’s table in the cafeteria, draping her arms and legs over Daphne so that everyone could see how deeply connected they were. Now that she spun her lacrosse stick in her hand as she walked to the playing fields for practice, her ponytail held back with a navy-blue elastic headband just like every other girl on the team.
Everything had to mean something. And the most annoying part was, Phoebe never knew what anything meant. She just liked to wonder about it.
Like what did it mean that Zach bumped into her when Phoebe was putting away her iPad in science? What did it mean that Serena went to Dr. Forte’s office on Thursday afternoon? What did it mean that Mr. Blair picked Phoebe last to give her presentation in English?
Here’s what Izzy wanted to know: What did it mean that Phoebe, who’d had tons of sleepovers in Izzy’s bedroom, was looking around the room like she’d never seen it before? What did it mean that watching Phoebe pull at the frayed knees of her jeans made Izzy wonder if her splatter-paint leggings were babyish? What did it mean that having Phoebe close by made Izzy feel lonelier than actually being alone?
Phoebe sat up on Izzy’s bed and crossed her legs. Her bare knee popped through the hole in her jeans. “Should we find our moms?” Phoebe asked. “They’re probably done talking by now.”
So I can finally go home. Those were the words Phoebe didn’t say. Although they both knew that the only reason Phoebe was at Izzy’s house was because their moms wanted to catch up over a cup of tea.
Phoebe’s mom and Izzy’s mom were best friends. Sometimes Izzy imagined their moms like a drawing in a picture book: two smiling girls holding hands against a white background with the words BEST FRIENDS written underneath in thick black text. That’s all the page would say, as if having a best friend was the simplest thing in the world. As if everyone had a best friend necklace from Glitz, the kind with two jagged half hearts on separate chains that fit together to make a whole.
When they were little, Phoebe and Izzy had been best friends, too. They had half-heart necklaces. They’d gone to the mall and picked them out before their first day of kindergarten. Their moms took their picture, told them how adorable they were, and bought them strawberry ice cream cones to celebrate. Because that’s how things worked back then. Necklaces formed hearts. There weren’t real hearts and fake hearts. There were just two halves that fit together to make a whole.
Izzy didn’t know exactly when everything changed, or why. But she was certain that two simple words no longer described her and Phoebe. Their friendship wasn’t just building fairy houses, or performing dance routines on summer nights while their parents ate dinner in the backyard, or making slime creations speckled with silver glitter. It was birthday parties where Izzy was no longer the one seated right n
ext to Phoebe when Phoebe blew out the candles on her cake, school pickups where Phoebe piled into cars heading to houses that Izzy had never been invited to, and beaded bracelets and lacrosse team headbands that Phoebe wore daily and Izzy did not own.
That this change had happened slowly didn’t make it any less confusing. If anything, Izzy wished that there had been something specific, like when they were little and Izzy had stuck a heart sticker on the belly of Phoebe’s stuffed bunny named Carrot because she thought it would make Phoebe happy. Phoebe had been the opposite of happy, especially when she ripped the sticker off and discovered that it had left behind a sticky gray goo that matted Carrot’s pink fur. As Phoebe sat on the kitchen floor with tears and snot streaming down her face, Izzy and her mom had soaked Carrot in a bucket of warm soapy water until the sticker goo came off. Then Izzy and Phoebe spent the rest of the day playing animal spa, bathing their favorite stuffed animals and laying them in the sun to dry.
By dinnertime, they were begging their moms to let them have a sleepover.
Izzy almost smiled, remembering how they brought their stuffed animals ripe blueberries stacked onto toothpicks and bowed as they presented the delicate treats. But then Izzy realized that she had no idea if Phoebe still slept with Carrot tucked under her arm. If she still chewed on Carrot’s long ears when she was nervous, or threw Carrot against the wall when she was frustrated. How long had it been since Izzy had seen Carrot’s large feet and black stitched grin? Months? Maybe even a whole year?
Phoebe rolled off Izzy’s bed, examined her nails, and sighed. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“One sec,” said Izzy. She swiveled her chair so that her back was to Phoebe and glanced at the drawer of her desk. Her half of their jagged heart necklace was inside. But there was something else inside, too. A stack of papers that Izzy didn’t want Phoebe, or anyone else, to see.
“Come on, Iz,” said Phoebe. “I’m starving.”
A piece of striped washi tape was stuck across the panel of the drawer, sealing it shut. The top edge of the tape was beginning to curl away and Izzy was tempted to reach out and fix it. But there was no way to do that without Phoebe noticing. Phoebe would wonder what the tape meant.
And even Phoebe was smart enough to know the answer.
Izzy stood up and followed Phoebe out of her bedroom toward the back stairway. As they walked, Phoebe dragged her hand with the stack of beaded bracelets along the white hallway wall. Izzy almost told Phoebe to stop. Izzy’s mom was always reminding Izzy and Nate to be careful about leaving fingerprints on the walls. But she worried that Phoebe would just roll her eyes. And Izzy had no clue what she’d do then.
Thankfully, Phoebe raised her hand to flip her hair and gather it over her shoulder. The hair flip was a classic Daphne move. Izzy had tried to draw the motion on paper. The key to getting it right was in the head tilt and upturned eyes. But the faces Izzy drew always looked deep in thought, as if they were pondering the mysteries of the universe.
The opposite of what the expression looked like in real life.
They were almost to the bottom of the stairway when Phoebe stopped and pressed one finger to her lips. Izzy nodded. Phoebe’s hunched shoulders and wide grin made Izzy feel like they were still little and wearing their jagged half-heart necklaces. Izzy was relieved that she hadn’t said anything about fingerprints. This moment wouldn’t have happened if she had.
Leaning with their backs against the stairway wall, they heard Phoebe’s mom say, “I’m so sorry. That’s really tough.”
“We’ll figure something out,” said Izzy’s mom. “I’m working on a few ideas.”
“How’s Greg handling it?” asked Phoebe’s mom.
“You can imagine,” said Izzy’s mom.
Silence.
What would her mom figure out? What ideas was she working on? Izzy leaned forward to peek around the corner. But Phoebe pressed Izzy back against the wall, as if they were about to hear something interesting and she didn’t want Izzy to ruin the moment.
Greg was Izzy’s dad. He fixed whatever was broken in their house—rattling pipes, flickering lights, loose-hinged doors that scraped the hardwood floors. Izzy’s house was super old and her parents had spent years fixing it up. They’d torn down walls, ripped up tile, and peeled off wallpaper. Izzy’s mom once spent an entire week polishing the doorknobs and window locks to restore their original color. So maybe that’s what her mom was talking about?
But as the silence in the kitchen continued, Izzy began to worry that her mom was talking about something way more serious than home repairs.
Suddenly Phoebe jumped from the stairway to the kitchen floor. She landed with a thump.
“Phoebe,” said Phoebe’s mom. “You scared me.”
“What were you guys talking about?” asked Phoebe.
“Nothing,” said Izzy’s mom. She stood up from her stool and pressed her fingers against the corners of her eyes. Was she about to cry?
“Mom,” said Izzy. “What’s wrong?”
“Um, I think I might be getting a cold. It’s terrible timing.” Izzy’s mom reached for a tissue. But instead of blowing her nose, she crumpled the tissue in her hand.
Izzy’s mom was starting an interior-design business. Her first potential client was coming over that afternoon to see their house and get a sense of her mom’s style. All afternoon she’d been plumping pillows, refolding blankets, and straightening picture frames. Even then, Izzy’s mom stuffed the tissue in her pocket and looked around the kitchen like she was searching for a spill to wipe clean.
Phoebe picked a red grape from the ceramic bowl in the center of the island. She peeled off the skin before popping the grape in her mouth.
“Are you girls hungry?” asked Izzy’s mom as she scrubbed an invisible spot on the counter. “I have some frozen cookie dough in the freezer. I was going to put it in the oven later to give the house a homey smell, but I can do it now.”
“Good idea,” said Phoebe’s mom. “What do you say, Phoebe? Want to stay for some cookies?”
Phoebe reached for another grape. “No, thanks. I’ll eat at my sleepover.”
“Oh,” said Izzy’s mom. “Okay.” She glanced at Phoebe’s mom.
Phoebe’s mom shrugged, but just barely. As if maybe Izzy wouldn’t notice.
Izzy hated how clueless they thought she was. About the cookie bribe. The shrug. The sleepover at Daphne’s house that Izzy already knew about because she’d heard girls talking about it at school. The fact that Phoebe was suddenly not hungry even though she said she was starving a few minutes ago and kept reaching for grapes.
Izzy knew their moms wished that she and Phoebe were still babies so they could plop them down on a soft blanket with some squeaking toys and continue talking. But life wasn’t that simple anymore. Phoebe had places to go. And Izzy was not invited.
Izzy pressed her forehead against the cold glass of her bedroom window and watched as Phoebe and her mom backed down the driveway. When Izzy moved her head away, there was an oval shape where the warmth of her breath had clouded the glass. With her finger, Izzy drew a heart in the condensation. Then she slashed the heart in half with a zigzag streak.
Sitting down at her desk with a clean piece of paper, Izzy reached for the tin container where she kept her Sharpies. The tin was a deep teal color with delicate white butterflies etched on the sides. Her mom had bought it at a tea shop in London before Izzy was born. The sides were dented, and one of the butterfly’s wings had worn completely off. But it was Izzy’s favorite possession. She loved that the tin was the perfect size for her Sharpies, and the pinging sound each Sharpie made when she dropped it inside.
Izzy chose a violet Sharpie and drew a flower with different circles of looping petals. But her hand slipped when she tried to add detail to the stem. Izzy tore the page in half and tossed it on the floor.
She looked at the window. The condensation had evaporated, but her fingertip left smudged streaks on the glass. Great. Now
she was stuck with one jagged heart in her desk and another one on her window.
Phoebe would probably love to know what that meant.
Izzy didn’t want to think about Phoebe. That was a mistake, just like her hand slipping. Only there was no mess-up pile for bad thoughts. Bad drawings she could tear in half and throw away. Bad thoughts got trapped inside Izzy’s head. It wasn’t like she could just ask Phoebe why she was ditching her all the time. Phoebe would look at her like the answer was so obvious that it couldn’t even be put into words. And then Izzy would feel even worse.
Izzy grabbed a fresh piece of paper and her black Sharpie from the butterfly tin. She drew a simple stick-figure girl. On top of the figure’s straight-line neck, Izzy drew a round head with long hair and wide eyes. She added eyebrows, a navy elastic headband, and rosy cheeks. Next, in alternating colors, Izzy drew a stack of bracelets around the stick figure’s wrist. Picking up the black Sharpie again, Izzy added a large bubble coming from the stick figure’s mouth with the words: WHY DON’T YOU GET SOME NEW FRIENDS?
Izzy almost left it like that, but there was too much blank space on the page that needed to be filled. She chose the brown Sharpie and drew a jagged mountain edge beginning at the stick figure’s feet. Toward the top of the mountain Izzy added some wildflowers. But as her hand moved down the mountain, Izzy found herself turning the wildflowers into sharp-tipped spikes.
There was no denying it: the stick figure looked like Phoebe. And one gentle push would send her crashing right over the mountain’s spike-filled edge.
When the drawing was done, the letters in the word bubble highlighted, and the mountain decorated with gray rocks and occasional sprouts of green grass, Izzy lifted it to eye height. The light from her bedroom window brought out the paper’s texture and gave the scene depth, as if the mountain was surrounded by a wintery haze.
And finally, the thoughts in Izzy’s head settled like flakes in a snow globe. They were still there, but they were quieter, as if some of the hurt and loneliness and fear that things would never get better had escaped into the crisp, saturated lines of her Sharpies.
Stick With Me Page 1