Oopsy Daisy

by Lauren Myracle

  She takes roughly half of the papers and hands them to Chance, who passes them backward over his head without taking one.

  Katie-Rose is flabbergasted that anyone would pass up the opportunity to learn how to do tricks on the trapeze. But Chance is obnoxious, and she doesn’t want him in the trapeze class anyway. All he would do is ruin it.

  “The first class is this Thursday, so I’ll come back this afternoon and collect the names of everyone who’s interested,” Josie says. “Then, over the next couple of days, I’ll call everyone’s parents to reassure them that I won’t let you die or break your arm or anything.”

  Kids laugh. They like Josie already, as does Katie-Rose.

  “Anyway, once your parents give me their permission for you to be in the class, you’re good to go,” Josie finishes. “Cool?”

  Very, Katie-Rose thinks. Because … trapeze lessons! Trapeze lessons are exactly what fifth grade is all about—or what it should be about. Not sick moms or mean girls or gross boys.

  No. Fifth grade is about FUN: Friends Until Near-death. Actually, friends until full-fledged death, not just near-death. Not that she wants to die. But then the letters would spell “fuffd,” and what the heck-a-doodle is fuffd? She drums her fingers on her desk. Fuffd. Fuh-fuh-duh. Fuh-fuh-duh, fuh-fuh-duh, fuh-fuh-duh.

  Ooo! She’s got it! FUFFD means Fools Under False Feebleminded Delusions. And what sort of delusions? Delusions about … growing up, Katie-Rose concludes. About needing to be “mature,” when it is so not time for the FFFs to be mature. Fifth grade—to steal Chuck E. Cheese’s slogan—is where a kid can be a kid, and trapezes are the absolute definition of kids being kids.

  She leans toward Yasaman and whispers, “Yaz, we have to sign up! Okay? Okay. Good!”

  “I wish,” Yasaman whispers back.

  “What do you mean, you wish? You can’t go through life wishing. You have to act!” She thumps Yasaman on the back. “So it’s settled. Yay!”

  “Ow,” Yasaman says. “And, yes, it is settled, you’re right. Just not in the way you mean. Do you honestly think my parents would let me take trapeze lessons?”

  “Why not?”

  Yasaman doesn’t answer. She fingers her hijab, and Katie-Rose wonders if it has to do with being Muslim. Are Muslims not allowed to do trapeze tricks? Are Muslim girls not allowed to do trapeze tricks? Katie-Rose has gotten vague glimpses, through her friendship with Yaz, of a world in which some Muslim girls aren’t supposed to do certain things with boys, whether the boys are Muslim are not. But Yaz is in school with boys. Der. So why would trapeze lessons be any different?

  At the front of the room, Josie rocks back and forth on the balls of her feet. “So I’m super psyched to work with you guys,” she says. “And it’s fine if you don’t have any experience or whatever.”

  “What if you’re a spaz?” Preston calls out. “What if you have super bad aim, and when you throw your fruit away, it hits someone’s head?”

  The plum, Katie-Rose thinks, growing warm. Josie wouldn’t turn down a girl for accidentally lobbing a plum at someone’s head, would she?

  “No fruit throwing,” Josie says. “But if you’re worried about your motor skills, don’t be. Learning trapeze is a great way to improve your coordination.”

  “Hear that, Katie-Rose?” Preston says. “You should join!”

  Modessa snorts. “Good one, Preston.” She kicks the leg of Elena’s chair, and Elena jumps.

  “Right,” Elena says. “Ha. Ha ha ha.”

  Oh, shut up, Katie-Rose thinks, because she could care less what Medusa, Preston, and “ha ha ha” Elena think. She is going to sign up. She’ll make sure Milla signs up, too, and since Violet’s absent, she’ll grab a spare information slip for her as well.

  Josie turns to Ms. Perez. “I guess that’s all.” She holds the remaining info sheets against her chest. “Um, can you tell me how to get to the other fifth-grade classroom?”

  “Sure,” Ms. Perez says. “Just go back into the hall, take a left, and pass the two preschool rooms. You won’t be able to miss them. They’re doing a dinosaur unit, and dinosaurs are all over the wall. When you get to the water fountain, take a sharp right. Mr. Emerson’s class will be the second room you come to.”

  Yasaman surprises Katie-Rose by jabbing her hand into the air.

  “You should walk her to Mr. Emerson’s room yourself,” Yaz says without waiting for Ms. Perez to call on her. “It’s pretty confusing.”

  “Are you nuts?” Katie-Rose says. “No, it’s not.”

  There’s a flurry of movement, and a stabbing pain makes Katie-Rose’s eyes water. What the …? She looks down to see Yasaman’s jeans-clad leg jutting out at a sharp sideways angle, bridging the gap between Yasaman’s desk and her own. Yasaman’s black Converse is mere inches from Katie-Rose’s beat-up sneaker with its untied laces, and Katie-Rose puts the pieces together. Yasaman, for utterly no reason, just stomped on her toes!

  “Hey!” she protests.

  Yasaman does it again, and this time she keeps her foot planted on top of Katie-Rose’s, applying firm and steady pressure.

  “It might not be confusing to you,” Yaz says to Katie-Rose, only without actually looking at Katie-Rose. Her gaze, both earnest and innocent, stays on Ms. Perez. “But Josie hasn’t gone to school here for seven years.”

  “True,” Ms. Perez says.

  “I just think it would be the polite thing to do,” Yaz says.

  Ms. Perez blinks. “Oh. I suppose … I suppose you’re right, Yasaman. Josie, would you like me to show you the way?”

  “I’ll take her,” Chance volunteers, and because he’s Chance, Katie-Rose knows that he just wants an excuse to leave class.

  “No,” Yaz says. “It has to be Ms. Perez.”

  Katie-Rose eyes her friend. She wiggles her toes within her sneaker. Yasaman’s foot grinds down.

  “Why?” Chance says.

  Yasaman swallows. “Because … because …”

  “Because it’s a teacher’s job to escort visitors,” Katie-Rose tells him. She doesn’t know what Yaz is up to, but it doesn’t matter. “It says so in the Rivendell handbook.”

  “Right,” Yasaman says. She slides her foot off of Katie-Rose’s. If she, too, knows there’s no such thing as a Rivendell handbook, she doesn’t let on.

  “Well, all right, then,” Ms. Perez says. “I’m more than happy to be your escort, Josie.”

  “Um, okay, but I’m sure I could find the way on my own,” Josie says.

  “No, no, don’t be silly,” Ms. Perez says. She gives a small laugh. “It’s no problem at all, really.” She straightens her skirt and adjusts her blouse, and it seems to Katie-Rose as if she’s primping, which is just plain weird.

  Or then again, maybe it’s not. As Ms. Perez leads Josie out of the room, the back of Katie-Rose’s neck tingles. There was a time not long ago when Yasaman was stuck on the idea that the FFFs should set Ms. Perez and Mr. Emerson up. Like, as a couple.

  The idea faded, but now it seems to have resurfaced, at least in Yasaman’s earnest, foot-stomping soul.

  Is this a sign of the bras-and-lipstick sort of changes that Katie-Rose fears? She’ll follow up on this with Yasaman later, that’s for sure.

  But right now there are more pressing concerns at hand. The information sheets have reached Ava, who sits in front of Katie-Rose. Unlike Chance, Ava does take one. Then she lifts the rest above her head and wiggles them.

  Katie-Rose grabs them and slides two sheets from the stack: One for herself, and one for Violet. Then, acting on instinct, she takes a third, because sometimes it takes an outsider to see what’s best for a person.

  Plus, she really thinks it’s unlikely that taking trapeze lessons is against the rules of Islam. Why would it be? Why would Allah—who to Katie-Rose seems pretty much like God, only Muslim—care?

  Yasaman Tercan, she writes on the top sheet of her small stack. She knows Yasaman’s parents’ names, and of course she knows Yaz’s telephone number, so s
he writes all of that down, too. Easy-peasy. Next she fills out Violet’s sheet, and last of all, hers.

  With a frown, she chews on the eraser of her pencil. Should she have snagged a sheet for Milla, too? Nah, she tells herself. Milla’s no dummy. She’s sure to have grasped the epic appeal of trapeze lessons all on her own.

  Yaz and Violet will ultimately get on board, too, of course, and she’ll be queenly and gracious when they thank her. They’ll be like, “You already filled out the boring paperwork for us, Katie-Rose? But when? Where? How did you know we needed you to?”

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” she’ll say breezily. “Friends know what’s best for each other, and honestly I was happy to do it. Yes, I’m just that awesome.”

  it. Her dad, who came home early, is in the kitchen getting dinner ready, and Violet is sitting with her mom in the TV room, the two of them sharing the big purple armchair. Yes, the chair is meant for one person, and yes, Violet is squished, especially since she made a point of contorting her own body in order to leave her mom the most room possible. But the squishiness doesn’t matter, not one bit. That’s how glad Violet is to have her mom back.

  Another gladness? Her mom smells like her mom again. In the hospital (the, um, mental hospital, though Violet prefers to delete that first part), her mom smelled weird. Not awful, but not good. It was as if the real smell of her still existed, but deep deep down, practically buried by the scent of hand sanitizer and hospital air.

  The idea of being buried is not a happy thought, and Violet shoos it from her mind. Good-bye, bad thought, she says silently, just the way her therapist taught her.

  “Don’t make a big deal out of what you consider to be ‘bad thoughts,’” Dr. Altebrando encouraged Violet back in Atlanta. It was two weeks after her mom had her breakdown.

  “Just acknowledge the bad thoughts, no more and no less. If you fight them, they’ll fight back, pushing harder to get in. But if you allow them to pass on through”—Dr. Altebrando splayed her fingers and smiled gently—“they’ll get the message.”

  “When?” Violet asked.

  “Eventually. It will take time, but they will stop coming around.”

  Dr. Altebrando promised she was telling the truth, so Violet tried to take her advice. Months later, she’s still trying. Is it getting easier? She thinks so … but having her mom back home again, while awesome, is also surprisingly stressful.

  She doesn’t want anything to go wrong. She, Violet, doesn’t want to do anything wrong.

  “Boo?” her dad says. In one hand is his Coke, and in the other is the phone, which he jiggles in front of her. “It’s for you. Didn’t you hear me calling?”

  Violet hesitates, reluctant to interrupt this moment with her mom. But—oh no. Her mom misreads the situation and rises from the chair.

  “I’ll just give you some privacy,” she says. “Girls your age need their privacy, I certainly do know that.”

  Violet tugs at her.

  “Mom, wait. You still have more songs to hear.” That’s what they’ve been doing, snuggled up in the purple chair. Violet’s playing songs for her mom on her iPod, introducing her to new artists and bands she thinks her mom will like. One aftereffect of her mom’s extended … absence … is that she’s fallen behind on all sorts of stuff. Music is just one example.

  Violet’s mom sinks back down, but her dad is still standing before her with the phone, so fine. She takes it. Her dad plants a quick kiss on her head, and another on the top of Violet’s mom’s head, then disappears back into the kitchen.

  “Hello?” Violet says into the phone.

  “HI!” Katie-Rose says, her voice big and loud. “GUESS WHAT? I’M WITH MILLA AND YAZ! WE’RE IN MILLA’S MOM’S VAN, AND GUESS WHERE WE ARE?”

  Violet switches the phone to her outside ear, the one farthest from her mom. “Um, getting a ride home from school? Listen, you’re kind of yelling. You’re kind of bursting my eardrum, Katie-Rose.”

  “Oh. Sorry,” Katie-Rose says, taking it down a few notches. “We are on the way home from school, but Mrs. Swanson isn’t dropping us off at our own homes. Yet. We’re, like, five blocks from your house! Isn’t that awesometatiousful?”

  Awesometatiousful is a word Katie-Rose made up, and it means exactly what it sounds like: when something is even more full of awesomeness, and tatiousness, than the regular garden variety of “awesome.”

  Violet’s heart beats faster. “Why?”

  “Why what? Why is it awesometatiousful?!” Katie-Rose huffs. “Why do you have to ask, you silly potato?”

  “No,” Violet says, sensing her mom watching her. “What I mean is, why are you … you know … what you just said?”

  “Huh?”

  “Forget it.”

  “You weren’t at school, and we missed you,” Katie-Rose scolds. “Why weren’t you, by the way? Are you sick?”

  “No, I just wanted to stay with my mom. Just for today.”

  “Ahh,” Katie-Rose says. “Thought so.” To the others, but also to Violet, since Violet’s ear is right there waiting to be bursted some more, Katie-Rose bellows, “I was right! She just wanted time with her mom!”

  It sounds so simple when Katie-Rose says it. Like it makes sense, even, so Violet doesn’t explain how hard she had to fight to get her dad to let her, or how worried she was about her mom being alone. Like, what if her mother wasn’t able to find the cereal? Or if the hot water ran out like it does sometimes?

  “Violet, your mother is an adult,” her dad said. “She knows how to fix breakfast for herself.”

  “But—”

  “Sweetie, she can take care of herself. She really can. She took care of you for years and years, now, didn’t she?”

  His sentence hung there. It just … hung there, and the look on her dad’s face was one Violet never wants to see again.

  “I totally understand,” Katie-Rose says to Violet, bringing her back. “You wanted to be there for her.”

  “Yes,” Violet says. How nice it is to be understood—and really, does she need to give Katie-Rose all the details?

  “You wanted to be with her just like we want to be there for you! Yay! So we can meet your mom! Double-yay!”

  “Wait—what?” Violet presses the phone hard against her ear. She shrinks into the purple chair, curving her body into a C.

  “… so I said, ‘Oh, it’s fine. Why wouldn’t she want to see us, her best friends in the world?’ I mean, right?”

  Violet opens her mouth. Nothing comes out.

  “Yoo-hoo!” Katie-Rose says. “It’s your turn to talk now, Violet!”

  “Katie-Rose, give me a sec,” Violet says. Katie-Rose is right that the four flower friends are, and always will be, the best of besties. It’s just that Violet thought Katie-Rose understood how she was feeling, but she doesn’t, and now Violet feels bowled over. Sometimes Katie-Rose can be like a steamroller, relentlessly moving forward regardless of what she has to run over to get there. A cheerful steamroller, the sort that would grin at toddlers from the pages of a picture book filled with honks and loud noises, but a steamroller nonetheless.

  “Katie-Rose, you’re smothering her,” says a farther-away voice. It’s Milla. Violet hears rustling, and then an indignant “Hey!” from Katie-Rose, and then Milla is on the line.

  “Hi, Violet,” Milla says. “How are you?”

  “I’m good,” Violet says. “I’m, uh, really good.”

  “Oh, good!” Milla exclaims.

  It’s a lot of “goods” all at once. Both girls giggle.

  “Tell her ‘hi’ for me,” Yasaman chimes in. She’s sitting next to Milla, probably. Or no, she’d be sitting in the back seat of Milla’s mom’s van along with Katie-Rose, and Milla would be in the front passenger seat. Violet can see her friends in her mind, and it makes her heart ache.

  “Yaz says ‘hi,’ too,” Milla says. “We’re all super excited to meet your mom. Is it so great, having her back home?”

  Violet nods. Then, remembering that
nods are silent, she clears her throat. “It is. Yes. Totally. How are you?”

  “I’m fabulous, thanks for asking,” Katie-Rose says, who apparently yanked back the phone. “I’ll be even more fabulous—haha, impossible, I know—once we get to your house. We’ll be there in two minutes, ’kay?”

  “No!” Violet cries.

  Her mom flinches, and Violet sucks in a deep breath. Violet’s mother is not to be startled. Violet’s mother is not to be disturbed in any way.

  She exhales. She breathes in and out again for good measure. When she’s pretty sure she’s reined in her emotions, she says, “What I mean is, not today, but thanks so much for asking. Rain check?”

  Violet’s mom taps her. “Who is it, Boo? Is it one of your friends? Does she want to have a playdate?”

  Playdate? Did her mom just say playdate? Violet is ten. Ten-year-olds don’t have “playdates.” Does her mother not know her anymore?

  “You should go, baby,” Violet’s mom continues. “Goodness, don’t stay home because of me.”

  “I heard your mom’s voice!” Katie-Rose squeals, her excitement suggesting that she just spotted a woodland fawn or an endangered dolphin. “What’d she say?”

  Violet presses the entire phone to her chest, smothering the listening part and the talking-into part. “It’s Katie-Rose,” she tells her mom. She scrambles for a plausible lie. “She, um, wants to practice mental telepathy. We do that sometimes. You know, to see if we can send messages to each other using our minds?”

  Violet’s mom pulls her eyebrows together.

  “It’s fun!” Violet says, too cheerily. “It’s just that right now isn’t the best time, because … because it doesn’t work if you’re in the middle of something else. Which I am, because you and I are hanging out and listening to music and … yeah.” She makes herself hush, afraid of overselling it. She and Katie-Rose have never practiced ESP together. They’ve never even tried.

  She brings the phone back to her ear. “So another time. Okay, Katie-Rose?”

  “But we have a present for you!” Katie-Rose says. “It’s more for your mom, but you’ll like it, too. It’s a butterfly bush!”