The guard reaches into one of the bags and takes out a pair of sunglasses with the store’s tag on them. Dad looks stumped at the sight. He didn’t try on any sunglasses today. “How did those get in there?” Dad asks.
The guard frowns at Dad. “Sir, I need to ask you the same question.”
“Well, I have no idea.” Dad shrugs. “Glad you caught it, though.”
We’re ready to leave, but the guard is blocking our way. “So you have no idea why you were walking out with a pair of sunglasses from our store.”
“Oh, I wasn’t trying to take them!” Dad protests. He laughs at the idea. “It’s a misunderstanding. I honestly have no idea how they got there.”
Gloria steps forward. “It was obviously an accident,” she says, annoyed. “We were trying things on, they must have got knocked into one of the bags by mistake.”
The guard gets a look at Gloria in all her glory, then he reevaluates Dad. Other people are looking, too, and I want to hide under a rack of shirts. Does the guard think Dad and Gloria are married? Do these people think this creature is my mom? Now that is a misunderstanding. I look at Sophie, my assumed sister, but she won’t meet my eyes.
Suddenly I realize how the sunglasses got in Dad’s bag.
Gloria continues her argument. I can’t tell if she knows about Sophie’s stealing problem and she’s trying to cover for her daughter or if she honestly thinks this was a mistake. “You have the glasses, we obviously weren’t trying to take them, we’re done here.” She shoves past the guard and out the door, and we follow.
Dad stops by the escalator and marvels at the experience. “That has never happened to me before. I have never been accused of stealing before. How strange.”
Gloria puts her hand on his arm in sympathy. “It’s ridiculous that anybody would think that! Things get knocked over all the time, especially when you’ve got narrow aisles like they do. That store is too crowded, that’s the problem. Stuff falling everywhere…”
Sophie stands there wide-eyed and innocent, as though she didn’t just set my dad up for a misdemeanor. Ironically, Dad turns and thanks her.
“Well, it was a pleasure to meet you, Sophie, and thank you so much. Your fee was $15 an hour, and we did two and a half hours, so I owe you $37.50. We’ll make it an even $40.” He digs out his wallet and hands Sophie two twenties.
“Thanks so much,” she gushes. “I hope you’ll love your new look.”
“And, Gloria,” says Dad, in an entirely different tone of voice, “what a great pleasure to meet you. You have my card—please let me know if I can advise you on any, uh, business matters, or anything.”
“Oh, absolutely!” Gloria presses one hand to her heart to express her sincerity. “And Gladys, please come over anytime. Sophie and I would love that.”
Yeah, Sophie would looooooooove that. I give her the evil eye, which she repels by not looking at me. “Thanks,” I say sweetly to Gloria. “That sounds great.”
Dad and I split off from the Nelsons, head outside, and walk through the parking lot to our car. He puts the bags in the trunk and slams it shut with gusto. “There,” he says proudly. “New clothes.”
He hums a jaunty little tune on the drive home. “I’m glad you’re making friends like Sophie,” he pronounces, turning on to our block. “She’s a very accomplished young lady.”
I close my eyes for a second so they don’t bulge out of my head. Deep breath in, long breath out.
“Yep.” I sigh. “She sure is something.”
19
Monday Morning
When the doorbell rings at 7:45 a.m., I am ready by the door.
“It’s for me!” I yell. “I got it!”
I told Dad that my friend Izzy is going to start coming by in the mornings to walk with me to the bus. Of course he said yes—another new friend, hallelujah! Between Sophie and Izzy, I might even have enough people for a birthday party this year. I wonder what Dad will think when he sees what I see when I open the door.
A girl I’ve never met before stands there, her chin-length hair curled and her earrings dangling. On her feet are dainty silver flats with bows on them; around her wrist is a charm bracelet. She appears to have fashioned a crude cloak out of a fleece blanket that says GO ELMHAVEN in the school colors, light blue and maroon, and she is trying very hard to cover her entire self with it.
“Hey,” Izzy says miserably.
“Hey!” I try to control my face and react normally, but it’s a little like opening the door and seeing someone dressed in a gorilla costume. “Hey, come on in, you can put your stuff down here.”
I want to rush her through the house without a long interview with my dad, who will undoubtedly embarrass me. But he’s on the phone, so he just waves from the kitchen, and Izzy waves back, clutching her cloak around her with one hand. Agnes and Mabey pop their heads out from the kitchen and say hi, then go back to their English muffins.
“Let’s go upstairs,” I suggest.
Izzy and I tromp up to my room. Her clothes are hung up neatly in my closet, and she groans with relief when she sees them. Then she lets the cloak drop, and I get a look at her in the clothes her grandma bought her, and I groan, too—in agony.
There is a blouse. It is a pink button-down with a rounded collar and an embroidered butterfly on the chest. There is a skirt. It is lavender and knee length and it puffs out like a triangle. There are pink tights that sparkle, and for me, it is these sparkling tights that officially put this outfit into the category of “cruel and unusual punishment.”
“Oh. My…”
“I know.” Izzy is already stripping off the tights and ripping out the earrings. “I can’t believe I survived the shopping trip. I have never heaved so much in my life. Not even after that hot dog–eating contest last fall. I like hot dogs.”
I turn away to play a game on my phone while she gets dressed, which takes no time at all. Within two minutes, the Izzy I know is back, standing in my bedroom.
She’s in a faded T-shirt and her most weathered jeans. Her cruddy red sneakers have replaced the flats. Her curled hair is hidden under her cap. There’s still pink polish on her nails, and she smells like a petunia in full bloom, but otherwise, she’s back to looking like herself.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhh,” she says.
I have never heard such a contented sigh. It’s like a commercial for arthritis medicine, where some old person is in horrible pain until they take the pill, and then they’re all blissed out because they’re not in searing agony anymore and they can garden again.
Izzy takes the skirt and blouse and tights, those glittery horrors, and starts folding them into her softball duffel, along with her fleece cloak and dainty shoes. “I would be dying right now, I swear. You’re literally saving my life.”
The zipper strains against the fleece, but she gets it closed.
“No problem.”
I get my stuff together, and we go back downstairs. I yell “BYE!” as we pass the kitchen entryway, then we head out for the bus.
We fall silent as we walk. I’d been wondering what I could talk about with Izzy. I don’t play soccer or softball, and I don’t watch sports on TV. I’m not sure what else she likes, besides incredibly shabby clothes.
“So I’m not gay,” says Izzy abruptly. “In case you were wondering.”
Well there’s a conversation starter for you.
“Okay.”
Izzy kicks at a rock on the sidewalk. “I know that’s what people think. Everyone just assumes I’m gay. Even my dad and stepmom. I’m not anything! Why is that hard to understand? I don’t want to kiss a girl or a boy. I’m just not interested.”
Yes!
“Me neither,” I say.
Izzy’s declaration comes as an incredible relief. Lately I’ve felt like everybody else in our grade is interested in dating, except me. Liz Kotlinski has parties at her house where they play truth or dare and spin the bottle and whatever the whatever—I only know this because of the many fixing jobs th
at have resulted from those games, most of them failures. Sadly, you can’t un-kiss someone, or un–take off your shirt.
It turns out Izzy and I have something else in common: Her mom left her and her dad a few years ago. Now her dad is remarried to Ashley, and Izzy’s mom lives in Massachusetts with Izzy’s other grandma, who has dementia. Izzy only sees her mom and grandma a few times a year, and it’s always really weird and depressing.
“Do you miss your mom?” I ask.
Izzy shrugs. “I don’t think about it that much.”
Oh, me neither. I almost never think about my mom. I only spend most of my waking life trying to find a way to get her back home.
When the bus comes, I get on and stop at an empty seat near the front. Izzy hesitates just a step, then continues on without me, punching a few people on her way down the aisle and calling them jackweeds. She drops into an open seat next to Jackson.
“What’s that smell?” I hear him ask. There’s an uncomfortably long pause.
I’m about to turn around and take credit for the perfume, when Izzy says, “That’s the smell of athletic ability, son! That’s why you don’t recognize it.”
High fives and arm punches for everyone. Izzy calls them all jackweeds a few more times, and I smile to myself, alone in my uncool front-of-the-bus seat.
Izzy’s friends might not know it, but I’m a jackweed, too.
20
Monday Lunch
I am ducking Sophie Nelson by hiding in the resource room.
I am also ducking Madison Graham. And Ms. Schellestede. And Taye, who’s been trying to get me to do another favor. And Rebba-Becky Lewis. Basically, I am hiding from everyone. Or so I think.
“There you are!”
Sophie plops down in the seat next to me and lowers her voice. “Hey, girl, I was looking for you all morning. Where were you?”
On the corner of Avoiding Street and You Avenue. That’s what I’d say if I felt the need to answer her question, which I do not.
“What do you want?” I ask coldly.
If she notices my unfriendly tone, she doesn’t show it. She gets right down to business in her usual peppy voice. “Okay, the thing with your dad was great, but we have to get money faster. The council’s going to need it by Friday—”
Mind = boggled. Sophie has got to be kidding me. She thinks I’m still going to help her? I’m actually impressed by how insanely bossy she is. I’m too shy to ask a waitress for more ketchup, but Sophie has no problem demanding that I continue to bail her out of trouble after she gets my dad accused of stealing, despite everything I’ve already done for her.
I cut her off. “Sophie. The thing with my dad was not great.”
“What?” Her eyes widen with surprise. “He wasn’t happy with his new look? I thought the sweater-vests were killer on him. They really broaden the shoulders, and the patterns are so fun…”
She spews more fashion blather like nothing’s wrong, but I’m not going to let her get away with playing dumb. “Sophie. There was a pair of sunglasses in my dad’s shopping bag that he didn’t pay for, and you put them there.”
Sophie looks shocked. “No, I didn’t.”
She says it so believably, I almost buy her denial. I guess I could have made a mistake—maybe it really was an accident that knocked the sunglasses into Dad’s bag. But it seems way more likely that Sophie, who steals things, tried to steal them. I study her face, and she gazes back at me innocently. Too innocently. If she tries to open her eyes any wider, she will sprain her forehead. “Sophie.”
“I swear! It must have been an accident, like my mom said.”
“Of course. Or maybe your ‘friend’ took them.”
I look directly into her eyes, but she barely flinches. If I thought the mention of her “friend” would break her, I was wrong.
Here’s a professional tip: The only way to pass a lie-detector test when you’re guilty is to convince yourself of your own innocence. For instance, Sophie can’t be caught in a lie if she believes what she says is the truth. So it looks like Sophie has convinced herself that there really is some “friend” who took the money, just like Madison convinced herself that “James” is real.
Breaking news: I am surrounded by lunatics.
“Nobody took the glasses!” Sophie laughs. “Nothing happened. Everything was fine.”
Well, if she’s going to deny reality, I’m going to deny it, too. “Okay, so everything is fine, then.”
I turn away from her and go back to my phone. We’re done here.
Sophie sits and watches me for a minute while I full-strength ignore her. Finally, she reaches out and puts her hand on my arm. “But we still need to replace the money.”
I jerk my arm away from her touch. “No, Sophie, we do not need to do anything.” If we weren’t in the resource room, I’d be yelling, but I’m forced to keep my voice down to an enraged hiss. “I did everything I could for you. I gave you a way to stall for time. I gave you an idea for making money. I even got you your first customer. Now you need to replace the money. That you took.”
Boom. There it is, out in the open: the truth. It gasps and writhes painfully in front of us like a fish on land, suffocating on the silence.
Sophie’s lips are pressed together in a tight white line. She flattens her hands on the table and looks at them, flexing her fingers to admire her manicure. Thinking.
“They’re going to expel me, aren’t they?”
She asks this normally, without excess emotion, as if she’s asking, Is this nail polish bluish purple or purplish blue? Just confirming a minor fact: She’s going to get expelled from school. And she’s going to lose all her friends. Obviously, Sophie didn’t consider the consequences when she took the money.
I don’t want to consider them, either. “I don’t know.”
Sophie continues looking at her hands, still eerily calm. “They could arrest me.”
The idea makes me shudder. I wish I could say, Oh, no, that probably won’t happen, you’ll be okay. But I think Sophie might be right. Unless she can replace the money, she could be charged with theft. In which case, the school will probably call the police.
“This will follow me for the rest of my life.” She looks up from her nails, finally, and her eyes are watery. She tries to smile, but only one corner of her mouth lifts. “Thanks for trying to help, Glad. I’m sorry about the sunglasses.”
All right, fine. I know I shouldn’t feel sorry for her, but my heart sinks at the thought of Sophie in handcuffs. I’m scared for her—more scared than she seems for herself. If Sophie gets arrested, her life is basically over. I don’t know if I can live with that on my conscience.
“Okay, you’re right. Fashion consulting won’t get you the money fast enough. There has to be another way to get it.”
My mind starts grinding. If I were in danger of being arrested, what would I do? No question, I’d go to my dad. Even though he’d kill me. “Why don’t you ask your mom?”
Sophie shakes her head. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” I think of Gloria’s many shopping bags—surely she has enough money to keep her daughter from getting arrested. And it’s obvious that she would never say no to Sophie.
“I don’t know if you heard, but I’m her whole life.” Sophie smiles sadly at the backs of her hands. “That’s what she’s always telling people, and it’s true. She has no life of her own. Every single thing I do, she’s standing there watching, waiting for me to do something she can brag about. She’s like, ‘Oh, Sophie got invited to two parties at the same time this weekend.’ I’m like, ‘Mom, the gas station guy doesn’t care.’ But she wants me to have this perfect life, so I have to be perfect.”
A mom who’s too involved in her daughter’s life. Hmmm. I try to imagine what this must be like.
Sophie’s eyes shine with tears. “Please, Glad. Please help me figure out how to get this money.”
Sucker, party of one.
“I will, if I can,” I say honestly.
“But I don’t know what I can do. Everybody in the world is trying to figure out how to get money. But I’ll think about it some more. That’s all I can promise.”
Sophie nods. She takes in a deep breath and lets it out. “Thanks,” she says. “You’re a good friend, Glad.”
I don’t know if she means I’m her good friend, or if I’m just “a good friend” in general, the way Izzy is “a good batter,” or Evelyn Ferszt is “a good reason to fear for your life.” But she’s right: Carolina has nothing on me. Dance squad captain Carolina Figgis, with the friends and the clothes and the looks and the attitude, has been Sophie’s BFF for ages, the two of them involved in all the same activities, sharing their most precious memories. And she still can’t touch me.
Right now, I’m the best friend Sophie has.
21
Monday After School
I’m sitting with Harry on a bench outside school, reviewing his case while he waits for his ride.
Harry’s distracted, though, and he won’t stick to the subject. He interrupts me in the middle of my analysis of his adversaries. “Where were you at lunch today?”
“Business,” I tell him.
He nods, looking off into the distance. “I thought maybe you were sitting with your new friends again, but I didn’t see you at their table.”
Har-har, I’m about to say, but he’s not kidding.
“They’re not my new friends.”
“Ah.” Harry clears his throat. “Well, I wanted to ask…”
A burnout eighth grader named Declan passes our bench, shooting a look at Harry like an angry boss who caught his employee goofing off. Harrison, I want that report on the North American explorers on my desk by tomorrow morning!
I stare back at Declan with a look that says, I know what you keep in your locker, and if you even think about coming over here, I’ll make sure Ms. Schellestede knows, too.
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