The Summer of Broken Things

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  But—me, cheerleading? That would be as ridiculous as a pig cheerleading. As ridiculous as, uh, me running.

  And Avery acts like she wants to ruin Washington, DC, for me.

  When her dad gets off the phone and says we can’t go to Madrid until tomorrow night, he announces, “So we have almost twenty-four hours. I’ll have to do some work, but that shouldn’t hold you two back. I can arrange some sort of tour for you. What would you like to see?”

  Avery kind of whines, “Dad! We’re not going to do some stupid organized sightseeing tour. And remember? I was just here for the eighth-grade DC trip. I just saw everything!” She turned toward me. “You probably did too, on your eighth-grade trip, right, Kayla?”

  “Uh . . . what eighth-grade trip?” I repeat, like an idiot.

  “Not all schools have them, Avery,” Mr. Armisted says gently.

  “Oh,” Avery says.

  My face, which was just starting to cool down, gets hot again.

  “And, anyhow, it’s not possible to see everything in Washington, DC,” Mr. Armisted says. “This is probably where I should quote some famous line about how cities are ever-changing, and you never see the same thing twice, but . . . I was a business major, so I don’t happen to have anything like that memorized.”

  “That’s okay,” Avery says. “Mom would know the quotes like that, so that would make it like she was here too. And you know she hates flight delays. So let’s not think about it.”

  I’m not really listening. I’m biting my tongue to keep from saying something really stupid, like, Wait, are you talking about, like, a field trip to Washington, DC? Your eighth-grade class took a field trip to an entirely other city? Hours and hours away? I thought that kind of thing only happened in movies and on TV!

  Then I almost said something even stupider: Well, we had some field trips. Back in, oh, I don’t know—first grade, maybe?—we got to walk over to the Crawfordsville Fire Station.

  The Crawfordsville Fire Station only has one fire truck. And all the firefighters are volunteers who also work other jobs, so no one was there that day. Our elementary school principal was married to the fire chief, so she was the one who told us everything. And she just kept saying how safe we all were, having a fire station nearby.

  I’d sound like a fool saying any of that. Maybe on this trip, I should just keep my mouth shut the whole time.

  When I tune back in, Avery and her dad sound like they’re really arguing. About . . . the Holocaust Museum?

  “That is the one thing we didn’t get to see,” Avery says. “You know how the teachers said it was just because of a mix-up with the tickets, but everybody knows—”

  “Avery, it’s not an everybody-knows situation,” Mr. Armisted says. “If the teachers told you there was a mix-up, that’s what happened. The school wouldn’t have let a handful of overprotective parents prevent everyone from going.”

  “Except that they did,” Avery says. “You know Tristan and Alexandria’s mom runs the PTO, and Serena’s parents donate a lot of money to the school. And they probably said it wasn’t fair to treat their kids differently, to single them out. So going to the Holocaust Museum was canceled for everybody.” She flips her ponytail over her shoulder. “Kayla, see, what happened was, some parents of kids in my class thought their precious little babies were too sensitive to have to deal with going to the Holocaust Museum, and so—”

  “Avery, regardless of what happened back in April, I just don’t think . . .”

  Avery smiles sweetly at her father, then at me.

  “Kayla, you don’t have a problem with going to the Holocaust Museum, do you?” she asks.

  What? I’m supposed to have an opinion? I’m supposed to solve their argument?

  “Um . . .” I swallow hard. “I’ve never been in Washington, DC, before. So anything’s fine.”

  “See?” Avery says triumphantly. She puts her hands on her hips, challenging her dad. “Kayla doesn’t mind.”

  I don’t know much about dads—I mean, dads who walk and talk and are capable of telling their kids, Yes, you can do that or, No, you’re not allowed. But I think I see a glint of anger or irritation or maybe just sorrow in Mr. Armisted’s dark eyes—which, now that I think about it, are the exact same color as Avery’s, with the exact same flecks of gray circling the iris.

  “Fine,” Mr. Armisted says, turning his palms up in resignation. “We’ll tour the monuments tonight, all of us together. Then the two of you can see the Holocaust Museum tomorrow morning while I work at whatever Starbucks is the closest. And then, if there’s time—and we’ll make sure there is—Kayla can pick whichever of the Smithsonians she wants to see. Air and Space? Natural History? The National Gallery?”

  “Don’t go trying to tell Kayla what she should choose,” Avery says.

  “Don’t you, either,” Mr. Armisted retorts.

  I don’t know much of anything about dads and daughters. Grandpa and Mom don’t count, because, well, Grandpa’s old and Mom’s a saint.

  But something is really wrong with the way Mr. Armisted and Avery talk to each other.

  Avery Gets Her Way (Until She Doesn’t)

  There would have been jokes.

  I know it’s awful, but if I had gone to the Holocaust Museum with the rest of my class on the DC trip back in April, some kids—okay, let’s be honest, some guys—would have started cracking jokes the minute we walked in the door. They wouldn’t have let the teachers or parent chaperones hear, but they would have purposely whispered stupid, immature things behind certain girls’ backs, just to get us to whirl around and hiss, “Stop it! Can’t you ever be serious? Don’t you know how many people died in the Holocaust?”

  Tristan Chambers, Alexandria’s twin, would have been one of the worst. Yeah, Mr. Mommy’s Boy isn’t too sensitive to make fun of people dying. We read Night and The Book Thief in language arts class leading up to the DC trip—when we still thought we were going to the Holocaust Museum—and once Tristan figured out Death was the narrator in The Book Thief, he was always saying, “I’d be on Team Death. I’d love helping that dude!”

  Mrs. Chambers should worry about Tristan, but not because he’s too sensitive. I think he just likes to shock people; it’s not like he really wants to kill anyone. But isn’t talking about wanting to kill people bad enough?

  The thing is—and this is awful too—it kind of would have helped to have the guys making jokes, so we girls could squeal and tell them how stupid and immature they were. It would have helped to have Lauren and Shannon and my other friends around me, almost psyching each other up: I hear it’s really hard seeing the room with all the shoes left behind. . . . My sister said on her DC trip two years ago, all the girls came out crying. And, since everyone was crying, it was like a bonding experience or something. Like, it made them really care about each other, not just about the people in the Holocaust. . . .

  Is that what I wanted—some bonding experience with Kayla? Is that why I wouldn’t back down when Dad tried to talk me out of going to the Holocaust Museum?

  I don’t think so. Kayla and I are like apples and oranges, oil and vinegar, uh . . . Wonder Bread and quinoa. We’ll never bond. It’s just, Dad was trying so hard to get me to back down; that’s what made me refuse.

  And I did want to see the Holocaust Museum. I wanted to see if I could handle it.

  I’m sure I could have, if we’d come on the eighth-grade trip, with its jokes and bonding.

  Kayla and I are quiet as we stand in line in the lobby.

  “This entire museum is about the Holocaust?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  Her shoulders sag, as if walking here from the Metro stop already defeated her. Dad walked with us, and then he went on to a Starbucks ten minutes away. The walk was nothing, but Kayla’s hair is plastered to her face with sweat, and she’s even panting a little.

  So was Dad.

  Just because he insisted on wearing business clothes, instead of shorts and a T-shirt, I
think. That’s stupid when it’s eighty-five degrees out.

  He says he didn’t pack shorts and a T-shirt, because once we get to Spain, I’ll see: Nobody there considers that appropriate attire for an adult male.

  At least I made sure Kayla had something to wear besides those stupid jeans.

  Dad forgot to tell her that you should always pack a change of clothes in your carry-on, and because so many flights were canceled it would have taken hours to get our checked luggage before we went to the hotel. We didn’t want to wait. So we stopped at Target, and Dad was too embarrassed about telling Kayla to buy spare underwear, so he left me to take care of her, and I said, “Here, let’s get you a sundress or shorts and a tank top or something like that too, because it’s going to be too hot for jeans tomorrow. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not sleeping in the same clothes I wore all day, so let’s get some T-shirts and jogging shorts too. . . .” And then at the checkout counter, Kayla was just standing there in a daze, and when Dad asked her what was wrong, she said in that small, pathetic I’m an ant, so don’t step on me voice she has, “You’re really going to spend more than a hundred dollars for stuff we wouldn’t have needed if we’d just waited a few more hours at the airport? Really, it’s okay. I can make do.” But—this was me being a hero—I would not let her put anything back.

  Nobody should have to sleep in the same clothes they wore all day. Or walk around in hot jeans in eighty-five-degree heat. And that sundress I found for her was really cute. Even if it was just from Target.

  And . . . now I’m feeling a little guilty even thinking about jogging shorts and sundresses when we’re standing in line at the Holocaust Museum.

  Maybe I’m thinking about jogging shorts and sundresses because I’m a little scared about going in here. Maybe I am too sensitive for this place.

  We move up, and it looks like maybe we’ll make it onto the next elevator. Kayla picks up some kind of brochure—no, it’s one of those deals where you assume the identity of someone who experienced a historical event, so it’s more real to you.

  Kayla keeps her head down, reading silently. She flips the papers over.

  “This girl died,” she whispers. “She was only sixteen. The same age as me.”

  “You’re not supposed to read the final outcome until you’ve gone through the whole museum,” I say, because I’m paying attention now. “You’re supposed to wait.”

  “Oh,” Kayla says. “Sorry.”

  She starts to put her identity card back, then tucks it into her purse instead.

  Even though I’ve just told Kayla it’s cheating to look ahead, I kind of want to check out everyone’s fates before I pick a card. Because it seems like it could be a bad omen if I get someone who died too. I’m pretty sure I would have found a way to survive, if I’d lived in Europe during World War II.

  I’m not Jewish, I think. Not gay. I can’t remember the other types of people the Nazis killed. But I know none of them had labels that apply to me. I would have survived, regardless.

  Still . . . would I have been brave enough to help other people? If I’d known Anne Frank, would I have hidden her?

  I don’t pick any of the cards. The elevator door opens. Kayla and I manage to squeeze in.

  When it opens again, we spill out into a big, dark, crowded room. It’s hard to see the displays because so many other people are gathered around them. I try to stay by Kayla, because Dad would be mad if either of us got lost. And it would be even scarier to be here alone. But Kayla navigates this room like some big dumb ox. She waits and waits and waits behind people until they move away from each display, and then it seems like she is trying to read every single word written on the walls.

  Every single depressing, awful, unbearable word.

  We are going to be here forever.

  And I already feel like I can’t quite breathe.

  “Was there anybody Hitler didn’t hate?” Kayla whispers. “I thought the Holocaust was just about Jewish people. Not, like, Gypsies. I didn’t even know Gypsies were real. I thought they were just in stories.”

  “Shh,” I say, because I think “Gypsies” is one of those words you’re not supposed to say. Kind of like how you’re supposed to call Native Americans “Native Americans,” not “Indians.”

  Who knows who could be standing near us, overhearing?

  I’m having this weird reaction to the darkness and the crowds and the pictures from eighty years ago. I’m okay as long as I just look at the people around me—real, live people, not dead people in pictures. But if I glance up at one of those pictures, oh, those eyes . . .

  In the first section, the eyes are awful because they’re so normal. Ignore the old-fashioned hairstyles and clothes and just look at faces, and these pictures could be of anybody, anytime. The kids in the pictures could be my friends.

  They could be me.

  Then, in the next section, the eyes are awful because they stare out of terrified faces, skeletal faces, helpless faces. Accusing faces. Faces that still ask, even after all these years, Why won’t anyone help me? Why doesn’t anyone stop this?

  I grab Kayla’s arm.

  “We’re taking too long,” I say. “It’s a big museum. We have to move on so we’ll be done in time to meet Dad for lunch.”

  “Oh. Okay,” Kayla says, startling. See what I mean? Big, dumb ox.

  We rush past the next several displays without looking, and I can almost breathe right again.

  Then we get stuck behind a woman in a wheelchair.

  She’s maybe in her twenties—an adult, anyway, but still young enough that she could almost pass for a teenager. She’s pretty. She’s got long dark hair, pulled back in a ponytail that bounces against the back of her chair. She’s also got friends walking on either side of the wheelchair, like wingmen, and it’s really the three of them who are blocking us.

  I see that the next display is an exhibit about how the Nazis hated people with disabilities. How the Nazis went to hospitals and mental institutions and killed the patients there.

  Instinctively—because I am a nice person—I step forward and angle my body between the display and the woman in the wheelchair. She shouldn’t have to see that display. But she’s rolling right toward it.

  “Excuse me,” she says, as if I’m being rude.

  I take a step back. What else can I do? The woman rolls up to the display and turns her chair around.

  “Take my picture,” she tells her friends.

  And then she smiles.

  I can’t help it: I grab Kayla’s arm again.

  “Did you see that?” I mutter to Kayla, because she’s the only one I have to talk to here. It’s not like I’m going to text Shannon and Lauren about this. They wouldn’t believe me. “Why would she want that picture? Why would she want to remember that display? Why would she even want to look at it?”

  Kayla turns, and even in the dim light of the museum, her eyes are fierce. Just like the eyes of the woman in the wheelchair.

  “Because she can,” she says. “Because the Nazis lost. Because she’s here, and the Nazis aren’t.”

  Too late, I remember that Kayla’s dad is in a wheelchair too. He might be, anyway. He was a soldier who got injured really bad. He’s some kind of hero, I guess. Maybe he can’t even sit up very well. Maybe he’s one of those disabled people who has to stay in bed all the time.

  “Oh, sorry,” I say quickly. “Sorry. I forgot about your dad.”

  Kayla’s face goes hard.

  “If you want, I could take a picture of you with this display,” I say. “So you could show it to your dad.”

  “That’s okay,” Kayla says. “Never mind.”

  She clips off her words the same way the woman in the wheelchair did, saying, Excuse me. As if they think I’m some stupid little kid who would never understand anything.

  As if I’m the big, dumb ox.

  Kayla, About to Fly Far, Far Away

  We are finally on the airplane that’s going to take us to
Europe, and it doesn’t feel like an airplane.

  It feels like a boat. It’s that big. There are eleven seats in every row; there are so many rows we have to board from the middle of the plane.

  Even Avery is looking around in awe.

  Except for our visit to the Holocaust Museum, the whole time we were touring Washington, DC, Avery was all like, “Yeah, yeah, I saw this before. My friends and I already did this back in April, when I was here on the eighth-grade trip. . . .”

  We had to go to the same pizza restaurant she’d gone to then. Of course she—and her friends—already saw the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the Martin Luther King Memorial, the Air and Space Museum . . .

  And of course the pizza tasted better in April, the stars shining over the Jefferson Memorial were brighter in April, the weather wasn’t as hot and humid, the Air and Space Museum wasn’t as crowded . . . (And I’m sure back in April she never once said anything like, Dad, it’s not fair you made Kayla pick this museum. I bet she really wanted to go somewhere else.)

  I didn’t know enough about any museum to pick anything. That’s why I asked Mr. Armisted, “What’s your favorite?”

  I guess I should have asked Avery if she had a favorite too. But then Mr. Armisted would have complained, Avery, you need to let Kayla make up her own mind. It’s not fair if you make her choose what you want.

  I don’t think either Mr. Armisted or Avery are happy people. How can they not be happy when they have so much money? Enough money to spend a hundred dollars at Target like it’s just a dollar or two?

  Enough money to go to Spain? Enough money to take a stranger to Spain with them?

  Because that’s what I am: a stranger. I don’t know anything about these people. I don’t understand them. I’m not like them.

  Because of how Avery and I used to play together, all those years ago, I thought we were connected. I always felt so special when Mom consulted me about the best Christmas presents for Avery. Then when we drove back to Crawfordsville after exchanging gifts, I always wanted to stop at the nursing home to show everyone what I got: one of those fancy American Girl dolls one year, a toy laptop with educational games another year . . . Back then, I don’t think I even understood that those were expensive gifts, or that Avery’s family was rich. I was just proud to be able to say, “Avery gave this to me. Avery’s my friend from far away.”