by Beth Vrabel
Min and I looked at each other, I guess both wondering which of us he meant. Min smiled as though it were her and skipped ahead. “Does your mom know where you are?” I asked her.
Min stopped mid-skip. Her back was to me. Super stiffly, she turned her head. I gasped when I saw her expression. For someone in ruffles, she could make her face fierce. “If you tell her, I’ll suggest to Mom that you join my Gal Campers troupe.” She crossed her arms. “We start each meeting holding hands and singing while we gallop in a circle.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“And we have a craft hour. Lots of glitter. Even in the glue.”
I shuddered. “Fine,” I snapped. “You can come along.”
Min smiled then turned and skipped ahead.
I sighed and trudged forward.
To get to the newspaper, we walked (or, in Min’s case, skipped) about ten blocks. I guessed they were blocks, anyway. Bear Creek sort of meandered around, past a wooded area and around an old cemetery that was on the far side of the park. Min jumped when a crow cawed at us as we passed the cemetery, but Thom just called back to it with a squawk.
To get to the downtown area, we had to cross a river. Not in a hitch-the-wagon sort of way. We simply walked on the passenger side of a big metal bridge the cars went over. I tried not to be snobby about the downtown, but really? It was nothing like a proper downtown in the city. No huge lit-up billboards, cabs swerving in and out, horns honking, and people shouting. Not one whiff of the sauerkraut and ketchup smell wafting from hotdog carts. No kids standing at cross streets with coolers of ice water for sale. And absolutely no need to creak your neck to look to the top of the buildings.
In fact, the only hint that we were in downtown Bear Creek was that it was just a little busier than the rest of the sleepy town. Instead of a cab rushing past us, a man with a brightly colored jersey swerved by on a mountain bike. His legs pumped the bike up the hilly, narrow street. Even though there were way fewer people than in a city, the sidewalks were super wide. A bell rang out as a preschooler and his mom opened the door to Bear Creek Creamery, an ice cream shop across the street from where we stood.
Thom paused, then crossed the road to peer into the shop window. “Yep,” he said to himself.
“What?” I asked. It was the first time he had talked since we’d started walking.
“The ice cream lady. She isn’t smiling. She never smiles.”
Min raised up on tiptoes and peeked over Thom’s shoulder. I squinted through the glass into the pink and mint green interior of the shop. Sure enough, the woman behind the counter looked like all the ice cream inside was sour. Her mouth was a straight white line and her shoulders scrunched. Her hair was tucked into a visor, except for a slash of straight bangs across her forehead.
“Why’s she so upset?” I asked.
Thom sighed so long and heavy that it lay across my shoulders like a weighted blanket.
Min pointed to the marquee sign outside the shop, where the flavors of ice cream were listed: Jubilant Berry Compote, Merry Marmalade, Delightful Lavender, Marvelous Marshmallow, and Cheery Chocolate Cream. The sign said: All ice cream created and made on site by Miss Juliet. “How can you make ice cream like that and be sad?” she asked.
“Is she Miss Juliet?” I asked.
Thom nodded.
Inside the store, Miss Juliet put together a towering
triple-decker cone. The mom laughed and grabbed extra napkins from the dispenser next to the cash register as the little boy danced in front of the counter. But the ice cream maker never cracked a smile.
My fingers itched to take out my notebook from my back pocket. There’s a story here, I thought in my dad’s voice. I just knew if he had been beside me, he’d be firing a text to a cub reporter, putting them on a profile piece about the sad ice cream maker whose flavors were full of joy.
Ding, ding. Min held open the door. “Let’s go in,” she said. She flashed a ten-dollar bill pulled from her back pocket.
Thom grinned and pumped his fist. He should smile more often. His whole face changed, in a good way.
Mom wouldn’t like that I was eating ice cream before lunch, but she did tell me to go make friends. Wasn’t eating ice cream together something friends did? I paused, watching Thom walk up to the counter. Min was standing holding the door open. Thinking of this whole mission—finding the newspaper and putting a reporter on the park story—as spending the day with friends made something squishy happen inside my chest.
Before this moment, the reporters at Dad’s paper and my first-grade teacher were my only real friends.
Not that I didn’t want friends. I liked the idea of them. But, in my experience, they were not all they were cracked up to be. Mom said it was because my brain worked differently—it was way more advanced and acted older than my emotions, which were standard eleven-year-old emotions.
I have something called a high IQ. Already Mom had been talking with Bear Creek Intermediate about its “gifted” program. I’m not so sure why they called it gifted; yeah, it was nice to be able to learn things quickly and figure out problems. But it’d also be a gift to be able to easily make friends, wouldn’t it?
Not that all people with high IQs were like me; another girl in my old school’s gifted class was the most popular person in the grade. This was just how my brain seemed to work: I barely had to think about things like reading and math, I spent lots of time figuring out problems (like how I was going to regain access to the park), and I overthought how to talk to people my own age. And by overthought, I mean I get stuck and end up blurting out maybe not-so-great stuff. Like that I had to leave because they were annoying me. People apparently don’t like to be told that (even though Mom and Dad both told me friends shouldn’t lie).
One girl in my old homeroom at Region 6 Charter told everyone (including me) that I was Bossy McBossalot. And Alejandro in my old apartment building said I didn’t know how to have fun. Maybe a part of me thought both comments were subjective and wouldn’t hold up to fact-checking, but another part of me said nonbossy, fun people don’t fact-check their friends. And considering fact-checking was literally the job of the reporters at the paper and, in a lot of ways, my teachers, that meant I didn’t really have friends.
Do I have friends? Are Thom and Min friends? I watched Thom look over his shoulder for me. Min was still holding open the door. For me. It was a lot easier to hang out with them when we had a mission than it was if I had to figure out how to be all friendly and nice. I sighed. Maybe I should just tell them I felt squishy and had to go home. But… Merry Marmalade.
My palms got sweaty. My palms always got sweaty when I didn’t know what to say or how to act around people who were supposed to be “friends.” If I was doing something—like working on a story—I could stay focused. I didn’t spend too much time thinking about if I was smiling enough or too big. I didn’t try to come up with what I should say next or tell myself to be quiet. I knew how to be.
Min raised an eyebrow. “You coming?”
I wished Dad were here. He always knew how to stop my palms from sweating before my squishy heart started pumping out bad ideas like run home or correct their grammar (it’s Are you coming, Min).
I pushed my reporter’s notebook farther into my back pocket, mostly just to make sure it was still there. Dad was the one who had first handed me a reporter’s notebook. It was before Jenny Speilman’s birthday party last year. I was in the backseat of Dad’s station wagon, watching Alejandro whisper something to Jenny that I knew was about me. I had from the sidewalk in front of Dad’s car to Jenny’s doorstep—about
twenty-two steps—to figure out how to be fun. I quickly came up with a plan: I’d push Alejandro to the ground, stand over him, and snarl, “See, Alejandro! See me laughing! Who’s having fun now, Alejandro? Me!” Like I said, my squishy heart sometimes has not-so-great ideas.
Dad must’ve picked up on my feelings because he had turned around in the seat and stared at me in that dad
way where you can’t look away even (especially) when you’d really like that option. “I used to get nervous before going to parties.”
I rolled my eyes at him. Dad? Nervous? Never. He was the bravest person I knew.
He nodded. “I’m serious, Nell. It wasn’t until it became my job to talk to people, to ask them questions, that I kind of got over it. I realized that talking to friends wasn’t all that different from scouting out a story for an article. People want to share their stories. If they see you’re a good listener, see that you care about their stories, they’ll like being around you.”
“How do I show them I’m a good listener?” I mumbled.
He smiled and picked up a reporter notebook from the pile in the passenger seat. He flipped it to a clean page with one hand. “Here,” he said. “Tuck this in your back pocket. Pretend you’re working for me.” He turned around in his seat and stared ahead. “I’m going to need at least two profile pieces
on people you’ve talked to at the party by the time I pick you up.”
“So… just ask people questions?” I asked.
“That’s all there is to it,” Dad said. “Well, that and listening to their responses. Asking follow-ups. You know the drill, Cub.”
I gulped but got out of the car and had tucked the notebook into my back pocket. It wasn’t until I was at the doorstep that I realized he hadn’t given me a pen. But that was okay because maybe Alejandro would’ve said something mean about people who took notes at a party. (You know who wouldn’t be featured in my profile pieces? That’s right. Alejandro.)
I even remembered what I had said to Jenny as I passed by her. “Happy birthday, Jenny!” Just like that. And she had smiled back at me.
You know the drill, Nellie, I told myself now as I stood
outside the ice cream shop.
I could keep thinking of the mission—find the newspaper; give them a tip to cover the park story; wait for the investigative journalist to uncover what’s going on; return to the park. Alone. Friendless and lonely, go back to the swing to contemplate how life brought you to boring, dull Bear Creek.
To be honest, the mission didn’t seem quite as important when my mind spat it out that way.
Maybe getting ice cream would be a way to scout out more information about a second story—one about Miss Juliet. This is just story research, I told myself as I stepped through the door. I’m researching stories and I’m hanging out with my friends.
WE STOOD IN FRONT of the creamery’s counter, gazing at the giant tubs of swirly, delicious ice cream.
“What’ll it be?” Miss Juliet asked. Her face was made of
lots of straight edges. Straight line of bangs across her forehead. Straight cheeks hanging like messenger bags on either side of her face. Her eyebrows were straight dark brown slashes. Her mouth was a thinner, slightly pink line.
“Which one’s your favorite?” Thom asked.
Miss Juliet flinched. But after a moment, she said, “I hear the Merry Marmalade is good.” My mouth watered as I looked down at the tub she pointed to with her metal ice cream scooper. It was full of creamy vanilla with little streams of orange throughout.
“You hear it’s good?” I repeated, my fingers itching again for my notebook.
“I’ve never tried it,” Miss Juliet said with a sigh. Somehow the lines of her face got even deeper.
“The little spoons for samples are right there,” Min pointed out. “Why don’t you try some?”
Miss Juliet shook her head. “I lost my sweet tooth.” She reached for the basket of tiny spoons and gathered some Merry Marmalade on one, which she handed to Thom.
His eyes closed as he tasted it. “Mmm,” he said, and then slipped the spoon into a plastic baggie tucked in the pocket of his hoodie. Miss Juliet glanced at Min and me with a raised eyebrow. Both of us nodded, and she scooped up more onto two new sample spoons.
My eyebrows scrunched together as she handed me mine. It even smelled divine. “But don’t you make the flavors? It says so on the sign.”
Miss Juliet’s chin popped up a little. “I make every ice cream sold in the creamery.”
“I’ll have two scoops,” Thom said.
I popped the spoon into my mouth and gasped. It tasted like going to the carnival with Dad, when we would get orange popsicles, only somehow sweeter. “Same,” I piped in.
Min nibbled her bottom lip, then asked for a sample of the Cheery Chocolate Cream. Then a sample of the Delightful Lavender. Then Jubilant Berry Compote. Miss Juliet gave her a sample of Marvelous Marshmallow before she could ask for it. She finally ordered a scoop of Lavender and one of Chocolate Cream. Maybe Min was smarter than I thought.
Soon we settled to eat our ice cream at one of the bistro tables in the shop. Miss Juliet closed tubs and wiped down the top of the counter after ringing up Min’s payment.
“Are you lactose intolerant?” I blurted when Miss Juliet turned her back to clean off the scoopers.
“My mom has that!” Min said. “If she eats cheese, she has to go to the bathroom for an hour. It’s disgusting. Then we have to open windows, though Dad says we shouldn’t mention it because it makes Mom self-conscious. We had pizza two days ago, and I don’t think I’ll ever be the same after what I’ve experienced.” She put down her spoonful of chocolate ice cream.
I shook my head at Min. To Miss Juliet, I said, “So, are you allergic to ice cream?”
Miss Juliet stilled but didn’t turn around. “No,” she said, her voice quiet. “That isn’t it.” She then went through a door to the back of the shop.
I quickly pulled my notebook out of my back pocket. I yanked out the pen I had jammed through the wire ring and flipped one-handed to a fresh page. Across the top, I wrote the word WHO in capital letters. Below it, I wrote, Miss Juliet, owner and ice cream maker at Bear Creek Creamery.
“What are you doing?” Min asked. I ignored her.
“Nellie? Nellie? Nell? Nellster? Nellieson? McNellieface?”
I sighed. She wouldn’t stop; I knew that from the hour and a half that we had spent up in her treehouse when Mom and I first moved in and all I wanted was for her to know that I did not want to talk. But talking is Min’s favorite thing. I muttered, “I’m taking notes.”
“On what?” Thom asked.
“A potential story.” I looked up for a second. “When we go to the newspaper to ask the crime reporter about whatever is going on at the park, maybe I could swing by the features desk and pitch them a profile piece about Miss Juliet.” I kept my voice low so Miss Juliet wouldn’t hear me.
Both Min and Thom tilted their heads as if I had started quacking like a duck instead of saying short, easily understood words. “I think there’s a story here, so I’m taking notes. You know, scouting out the big five.”
“The big five?” Thom echoed.
I nodded and turned back to my notebook. Thom scooted closer, and I felt Min hovering over me, reading what I wrote upside down.
“The first is who.” I pointed to where I had written WHO? and Miss Juliet’s name. “Now, I just need some descriptors.”
I scribbled:
• Parent-aged
• Thin and tall
• Straight-line face
• Doesn’t smile
“Add seems sad,” Min whispered.
“That’s implied by doesn’t smile,” I muttered, but I added it anyway.
“What are those little dots for?” Thom said.
“Dad calls those bullets. He says not to waste time writing whole sentences in a notebook. Just note observations in the moment or as soon as possible, because reporters who don’t take careful notes make mistakes.” My mind spat out Dad’s real words in his voice. (“Trust your notes, not your memory, Nellie. I don’t know how many times I have to tell that to cub reporters before they believe me.”)
Then I drew a slash across the page to make a division. I wrote WHAT? right under the slash and added: Makes delicious ice cream that she never tastes. Names them fo
r happiness/joy but seems sad all of the time.
Min nodded. “Underline sad,” she whispered. I ignored her.
Another slash on the page and then the next question. WHERE? Bear Creek Creamery, the ice cream shop downtown. And then I added more bullets with a description.
• Small, cozy shop with pink tabletops and mint green stools
• Smells like sugar—maybe from the ice cream cones?
• Bright and clean
Thom tapped his finger on the next line. “Add seems like it should be happy.”
After I did, I glanced around, taking in more detail, and then added:
• Only picture on the wall is an old photo of a little girl and a woman, both of them holding bowls of ice cream.
“Maybe the little girl is Miss Juliet!” Min said. But I thought the photo looked too old for that. Miss Juliet seemed about my mom’s age, and I had seen Mom’s childhood photos. They weren’t black-and-white like the one on the wall. I added, Miss Juliet? and made the question mark extra big so I’d remember that I doubted it.
Another slash then, WHEN? I wasn’t sure how to answer this one. It’d take time to research when Bear Creek Creamery began and when Miss Juliet started to make ice cream. It’d probably take even more research to figure out why she was so sad or who was in the picture. In both of those cases, I’d have to talk with her—ask her direct questions. I shoveled a melty bite of ice cream into my mouth. It dissolved almost right away, filling my mouth with so much deliciousness I didn’t even mind leaving the WHEN unfinished. I just flipped to the next page for the final question.
The big one, as Dad used to call it. Across the top of the page, I wrote WHY?
Thom pulled in a big breath. “We’re going to need a lot of ice cream, I think, before we can answer that one.” Min
giggled and clapped.
Maybe a part of me—a small part—didn’t like that Min and Thom were kind of acting like they were going to pitch this profile piece along with me. But a bigger part of me—one that I thought Dad would be proud of if I told him about it later—was warm and happy that they wanted to work on it, too.