Yearbook

by Allyson Braithwaite Condie

  “I stand corrected,” I said. “But I still need a new coat.”

  She smiled. “I guess you do. There are lots of sporting good stores around here. In fact, my mom works at REI, so I know they’ve got good stuff. You could get a great new tent there for camping too. One that can fit you and your dad.”

  I laughed as the bus pulled into the parking lot. “It’s going to have to be a pretty big tent.” The door screeched open and students started to pour into the aisle and out the door. I reached up and got Julie’s backpack for her. It looked a little worn. “I should take you with me when I go,” I said without thinking. “You could use a new backpack.”

  She laughed. “Yeah,” she said. “This one’s about eleven years old. It’s probably about time to retire it.”

  “Monday?” I asked.

  “What?” she asked, looking confused.

  “Do you want to go on Monday after school? My dad has the day off because he has to work this Saturday on a big project. The three of us could go. We’re not so hot at directions yet, so you could show us where the store is.”

  She seemed surprised. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Unless you have something better to do.”

  She thought for a moment, then nodded. “With any luck, my mom will be working there that day and we can get her employee discount.”

  “Now you’re talking.”

  We stepped off the bus and I heard honking right away. It was my mom, sitting in her car, waving at me happily to get my attention.

  “Who’s that?” Julie asked, laughing.

  “Can’t you guess?” I rolled my eyes and Julie grinned.

  “Thanks again,” she said. I waved to her and took off for the car before Nic or someone saw me getting into the car with my mother. The paper with Nic’s address and Julie’s phone number written on it was deep in my backpack for tomorrow. And Julie was right. It wasn’t raining. There were even a few stars in sight.

  Chapter 19

  May

  Avery Matthews

  When I went to interview Principal Downing for the newspaper article, I was a lot more nervous than I thought I would be. After all, it’s not like I haven’t been in her office a few times before, but this time it was for a legitimate purpose. Rumors had been floating around school about Principal Downing all year long—that she was on drugs, that she was sick, that she was having a mental breakdown—because she often looked like she didn’t feel so hot and because she vanished for a couple of weeks in the middle of the year. I didn’t really know what to think about any of it. Back in November, I was sure she was on something, but I might have been projecting. I admit it.

  Mr. Thomas cornered me at the beginning of journalism one day and told me, “I have an article in mind for you. It’s going to be pretty big news and you’ll need to interview Principal Downing since she’s the subject. I’m going to send you down there right now to do the interview. She’s waiting for you.”

  “Why me?” I asked. I was genuinely curious. I’m still the newest staff member and something like this sounded like an article he’d usually assign to one of the editors. I was also a little suspicious. Was this just a ruse to get me to the principal’s office? I racked my brain for something I’d done wrong lately, but the only things I could think of were minor. Nothing that would be grounds for going to the principal’s office for a suspension.

  “Principal Downing is going to tell the student body the truth about what’s going on this year, which is that she has been battling cancer. I want the article to be the best it can possibly be. I also want her to be treated with respect in the interview, which I assume you can do without any problem.” Mr. Thomas is a nice man, but he doesn’t pull any punches. I know he knows about my history with the principal’s office. “And,” he added, “she requested you.”

  That was a surprise. I wondered why on earth she would have picked me. Mr. Thomas watched me for my response. “Are there any specific questions you want me to ask her, or am I on my own?”

  “I trust you to ask the right things,” he said. “Are you ready to go now? This is the only free time she has today.”

  I made a point of bopping Dave on the head on the way out of class with the little tape recorder Mr. Thomas had given me. “Where are you going?” he asked. “I thought we were going to work on an advice column together.” That was his latest brainchild. I can’t even begin to imagine who would want to get advice from the two of us, but Dave is convinced it will be a raging success. Dave is delusional. It’s one of the things I like best about him.

  “Special assignment,” I said snootily and ducked out the door. I don’t want Dave to figure out that I have this ludicrous crush on him. I want us to stay good friends. He is not my type at all: he’s goofy, churchy, and into athletics and journalism. I’m more interested in the guys who can play guitar or bass or who are a little more alternative, a little less mainstream, a lot less class-clownish.

  If only he didn’t like Andrea Beckett. How do you compete with Andrea Beckett? You don’t. Not if you’re me, anyway. I still fight all the time, but not battles I don’t think I have a chance of winning. I’m trying to do a little more picking-and-choosing when it comes to fights I want to spend the time and energy on these days.

  “Come on in, Avery,” said Principal Downing, ushering me into her office and indicating where she wanted me to sit. She looked a little rough, but not as bad as she had earlier this year. I glanced around her office. It was the same as I remembered—big desk, lots of plants and books. It had been a while since I’d been hauled in here, which was probably a good thing. I know my parents certainly thought so.

  She saw me looking around. “You haven’t been here in a while,” she said, smiling. It was a warm smile.

  “I’ve been too busy destroying school mascots,” I quipped, and instantly regretted it. Maybe she still didn’t see the humor in that situation.

  “That was quite a day,” she said, laughing. “Poor Mr. Thomas. He was playing with fire, putting you and David Sherman together. He’s a brave man.” She settled down in her chair behind her desk. Her smile faded just a little. “Did he happen to tell you why you’re interviewing me today?”

  “He told me that you have cancer and that you want to tell the student body about it.” I started the tape recorder, fiddling with it a little more than necessary to avoid looking at her. Cancer. I’d thrown it right out there on the table. It looked like we were going full steam ahead with the interview, and this was one interview I wanted on tape for sure. I wanted to be able to go back and check the facts. There was no way I was going to mess up something like this.

  “That’s right. There are too many rumors floating around school, so it’s time to come clean. The faculty has known all year, but I need to do what I should have done at the beginning and tell the truth to the students as well.”

  I glanced up at her. She was looking right at me, which startled me for some reason. I wished I’d brought a list of questions so that I could pretend to be reading from a list. It made me uncomfortable to be quizzing her about her terminal illness. It seemed like some kind of cruel joke, but I guess she was willing since she had agreed to—and asked for—the interview. So I looked her in the eye and asked the first question that came to mind.

  “Why didn’t you tell us at the beginning of the year? I mean, I can understand why you would want to keep it private, but it seems like it would have been easier in some ways to tell everyone and then they could help you out.”

  “I didn’t tell everyone immediately for a lot of reasons. There’s a lot of pressure on someone in my position, as a woman in the administration field, which is predominantly male. I didn’t want other schools, or parents, or the students to feel as though I couldn’t operate at full capacity, or to feel that I wasn’t capable of dealing with everything if word got out.

  “And I was proud. I didn’t want to seem weak. I wanted to be tough. I didn’t want people to think I was a wimp or to
give me special treatment. I also didn’t want you students to think that I wasn’t going to be able to do my job and make you all toe the line.” A wry smile. “Finally, I think I was in denial. If I could pretend for part of the day that the cancer wasn’t really happening, that was an escape for me.”

  “What kind of cancer is it?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t too intrusive a question.

  “Breast cancer.” She said the two words quietly. I wondered how they had sounded when she first heard them applied to her condition. Had they echoed in the room, sounding louder and louder with each passing minute and taking on extra significance as she thought about them? Or had she not really heard them at first? It would be almost too much to take in, I thought. Had she been alone when she heard them? Or had there been someone to hold her hand? Had she gone home and cried? It was hard to picture her crying, but I’d be the first to know that a tough exterior might be a front for something else going on inside.

  I didn’t say any of that, but I asked another question that was still pretty personal. I worded it as carefully as I could. “And what is the . . . prognosis?”

  “Right now, it’s good. In fact, it’s in remission, as of a few weeks ago. That could change at any time, though.”

  “Is that scary?” I asked in spite of myself. Then I frowned. That wasn’t the kind of question I would really want someone to ask me. Of course it would be scary.

  She was watching me. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t really know which questions to ask.”

  “You’re doing fine,” she said. “That is a tough question, but I knew you wouldn’t be afraid to ask questions like that. I wanted this to be an honest interview with honest questions; that’s why I asked Mr. Thomas to send you. I’ve been reading your articles this year, Avery, and there’s a lot of candor in them, but there’s also a lot of empathy too. The article you wrote about the different religions at Lakeview was especially good.”

  “Thanks,” I said, not sure what to do with the praise but liking it nonetheless.

  “To answer your question,” she continued, “it is scary. It was the worst at the beginning, though. It was hard to make plans because I didn’t want to look too far into the future. It’s still a little frightening, but I’m learning to put fear on the back burner so that I can get on with living my life, however much of it might be left. Right now, I feel like there is quite a bit.”

  “You look a lot better,” I said. “Are you planning on being back next year?”

  “I’m planning on it.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Not perfect, but much better. It’s not such a struggle to get through the day anymore. It’s not so hard to put one foot in front of the other when I walk down the hall or go shopping or out on a date. Before, I had to concentrate on getting through every small task. Now, whole minutes go by where I don’t think about how I feel. It’s a great feeling.”

  Even though I don’t have cancer, I could understand how she felt. My problems were more . . . psychological, I guess, but I definitely knew how it felt to have to drag yourself through every task every day.

  I remember when I found Andrea Beckett reading my poem to herself and being shocked. Out of all the people in the school, she was the last person I would have thought would relate to how I felt, but I was wrong. Mr. Thomas had been the first to teach me that there were a lot of people carrying significant amounts of pain around with them but still managing to help others. Ms. Downing was the most recent person to teach me the same thing. It was both sad and encouraging to realize how many people were hurting but still making the effort.

  “Who helps you with your cleaning, your shopping, your doctor’s visits? All that stuff?” I wondered aloud.

  “The faculty have been very helpful, Mr. Thomas in particular. I also had some nurses when I was really sick and a cleaning lady. I don’t have any children, and my parents have passed away, so I was on my own at the beginning. What I’ve learned is that there is an invisible net of people waiting to catch you, to help you when you fall.

  “When I first became principal a few years ago, I didn’t feel that way at all. Instead, I felt like there was a very visible net of people out to get me. It seemed like every move I made, every policy I changed, upset people. Multitudes of people were ready to go up in arms about anything and everything. I’d never felt so hated in my whole life as I did that first year.

  “But now, I’ve never felt so loved. I’ve learned that there are people willing to help, to give, even when they don’t know what’s wrong. People like the students who gave me a piece of gum when they heard me throwing up in the bathroom one day. I’d been too weak to make it back to the office bathroom when the nausea hit; I was so humiliated. They didn’t know what was going on, but they did the best they could to help a little bit when they found me in trouble.

  “There are people like the night-shift nurses who brought me crushed ice that they picked up from the Pizza Parlor on their way to work because ice was all I could eat and they knew I liked that better than the cubes they had at the hospital. People like Mr. Thomas, who takes me out to dinner once in a while when he can tell I’ve had a hard day. Sometimes he bakes me a batch of cookies because they’re one of the only things that taste really good to me right now. I want the student body to know that they are surrounded by people like that, and that they are people like that. All people have a great potential to be good to one another.” It was quiet for a few minutes. She had tears in her eyes, but her voice had been firm throughout the whole thing.

  I stared out the window, blinking a lot harder than usual. “I think the students are going to be really supportive,” I said. That made her smile.

  Just then her secretary came in and said, “There’s a parent here to see you, Ms. Downing.”

  I snapped off the tape recorder and stood up. “Thank you, Ms. Downing,” I said. “I’ll drop by a copy of the article for you to approve before I turn it in to Mr. Thomas in case there’s anything you want to change.” I started to leave, not wanting to overstay my welcome, but she called me back.

  “Avery?” I turned around. “Was there anything else you wanted to ask me?”

  I shook my head. “You said it all perfectly. I want to get it down before I lose the feeling I had when you were saying it.”

  She looked surprised, then pleased. “All right. And you don’t have to worry about having me approve the article. I know you’ll do a good job. Just make sure Mr. Thomas remembers to send me a copy of the paper in that red wagon of his.”

  I grinned back at her and ran up the stairs to the journalism room to start typing.

  Chapter 20

  May

  Ethan Beckett

  When I was younger, I used to imagine myself receiving the greatest honors imaginable. Back then it was always some sports championship. I spent a lot of time in my backyard single-handedly winning the World Series or the Super Bowl and a lot of time at the basketball standard in the driveway doing the same with the NBA Finals. Then when I got into soccer, it was the World Cup where my last-minute heroics saved the day. And lately, ever since State, I have to admit that I’ve been dreaming about holding that first-place trophy next year. But I don’t know if I’ll ever have a greater honor than Julie Reid asking me to baptize her.

  When her parents finally gave her permission to be baptized, she called us all up and we went out for ice cream to celebrate. We drove to the temple grounds to sit and talk and it was then that she asked me to baptize her and Dave Sherman to confirm her. We were both in shock, in a good way. Of course, we both said yes.

  Later, Dave and I were talking. “This just makes my mission even more real,” he said. “It’s not so far away. Hopefully I’ll be baptizing and confirming people all the time then. This is really something else. I’ve got to be ready for this.”

  I felt the same way. Knowing that I was going to baptize Julie made me think about everything I did in a different way. I didn’t want to do anything th
at would make the experience less than perfect for her.

  Mikey, Julie, and I all drove to the chapel together on the day of Julie’s baptism. Julie’s parents would be coming later with Mikey’s parents. Initially, they had given Julie permission to be baptized but hadn’t planned on attending. Julie told them that she wanted them to be a part of it and finally they agreed.

  “Are you nervous?” Mikey asked Julie as we pulled into the parking lot.

  “Not really,” Julie said. “Actually, I feel calm.”

  I looked over at her. She did look calm: calm and peaceful and serene.

  That was good, because I was terrified. I couldn’t get all of the details of the baptism straight in my mind. I didn’t want to mess up the words, so I kept saying them over and over in my head. I kept reminding myself to completely immerse Julie in the water so that we didn’t have to do the baptism again. I’ve had to repeat the sacrament prayer in church before and it was embarrassing. This would be a hundred times worse if I messed it up because it would affect Julie too.

  “Is Mr. Thomas here yet?” Julie asked in a whisper as we entered the room.

  “There he is, kind of sitting on the side,” Mikey said quietly. “It looks like his dad came with him. I’m so glad he agreed to accompany me during my song.”

  “I know. I really wanted to invite him to my baptism, but I wasn’t quite sure how to do it. I’m glad you thought of this. You’re a genius!”

  Mikey laughed softly. “Well, he seemed like the obvious choice, since he came up with that new arrangement of ‘Come Thou Fount’ for us to sing at the choir concert.” She grew serious. “It’s great that he’s here.”

  I saw the new guy at school, Julie’s friend Tyler, standing awkwardly at the back. He looked really uncomfortable in his khakis and button-up shirt and tie. I was going to go over to say something to him, but Andrea, who was sitting near the back, gestured for him to sit next to her. I saw relief wash over his face. I was impressed that he’d come. When Julie told me she’d invited him, I had been skeptical. “Do you think he’s really going to come?” I’d asked her. “I mean, no offense, but if I were him, I don’t know that I would want to go to someone’s baptism at a strange church.”