11 Birthdays

by Wendy Mass

  “Seriously,” he’s saying, “I don’t need to come after school. Everything’s fine.”

  “Are you certain?” she says. “Your gym teacher said things have gotten pretty bad with Vinnie.”

  “It’s fine,” Leo insists. “I don’t care anymore what he says to me.”

  “Perhaps it would be wise not to leave your poetry journal where the boys can see it or they’ll keep teasing you.”

  “Yeah, probably. But that’s not even why they’re so mean to me. It’s just stupid. It’s not like I even want to be their friend anyway.”

  Mrs. Philips puts her hand on Leo’s shoulder. “Okay, Leo. It sounds like you’re holding up fine. If you don’t let them bother you, it will take their power away.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “I’m here if you want to talk.”

  Leo nods and hurries away. Unfortunately he hurries right toward me and I don’t have any time to scramble backward.

  “Oh,” he says when he sees me. “Guess you heard that?”

  “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

  Neither of us say anything as we walk toward the courtyard. When we get there, Leo says, “Vinnie and those guys have been teasing me ever since our party last year. That’s why I had to go to the guidance counselor.”

  “But why are they teasing you? I heard you tell them those things about me. You said that’s what they wanted to hear, right?”

  “Yeah, but after my mom came to tell me you left the party, I told Vinnie I hadn’t meant any of that stuff. That I’d much rather be your friend than his friend.”

  My eyes widen. “You did?”

  He nods. “Yeah, and ever since then Vinnie gives me a hard time when he sees me. He had himself a good laugh over my poetry journal. For the past few days I keep trying different things with him. Yesterday I ignored him when he started teasing me. The day before I actually invited him to my party but he didn’t come. And today I came up with a really good zinger. But none of them worked. I don’t care if he’s not my friend anymore, but I don’t want him to be my enemy.”

  “I bet he’ll come around. Maybe he needs more time.”

  Leo grits his teeth. “I’ll never know if we can’t figure out a way to make this day stop.”

  “I already told Stephanie about not going to tryouts, so we can leave for the Historical Society right after school.”

  “Sounds good. My mom thinks we’re going for a school project.”

  “Got it.”

  We part ways and I gear myself up for another smooshed cupcake birthday surprise. I must be a pretty unobservant person not to notice Leo was getting picked on for a whole year. All I had thought about was how I felt; I had never looked at it from his side. We could have made up a whole lot sooner.

  After school Mrs. Fitzpatrick greets me with the same huge hug as last time, and I happily let her gush over me until Leo leans in and honks the horn impatiently. When she pulls the car up in front of the Historical Society, Leo asks her if she’d mind if we go in alone since it’s a school project and all. “I’ll be in the dress shop next door. I wouldn’t want to cramp your style.”

  “Your mom talks funny sometimes,” I tell Leo as we close the car doors.

  “I know. But she’s cool.”

  We walk up to the converted house and I turn the wooden doorknob. The door sticks a little, but I give it a little push and it creaks open. It looks just as it did when we were here on our last school trip. Dusty furniture, old books and ledgers, a bed, and sure enough, a rocking chair with a stuffed raccoon. I peer at it closely. It’s pretty gross, actually. Hard to believe I had missed it.

  “What do you think it’s stuffed with?” I whisper to Leo.

  He shakes his head. “I don’t even want to think about it.”

  “Can I help you folks?” a small, square-shaped old woman asks from behind the information desk. “Something particular you’re looking for?”

  I can’t tear my eyes away from the raccoon, so Leo walks over first. I hear him say, “Wow, that’s a big birthmark,” and I cringe. We’ve GOT to have a conversation about tact!

  Fortunately she laughs. “Some people think it looks like a duck.”

  At that, I slowly turn and join Leo. The woman turns toward me and the light catches the left side of her face. I gasp. I’ve seen that duck before.

  “Aren’t you my … my bus driver?”

  She smiles broadly. “I get around.”

  “But if you’re here, then who’s driving the bus right now?”

  “I only drive in the morning,” she explains.

  “Oh.”

  “Can we focus here?” Leo asks.

  “Sorry. We’re looking for something that maybe you can help us with?”

  She opens her arms wide. “Got a lotta stuff here, and no one knows the history of Willow Falls better than me. Ask away.”

  “We need to find out more about the feud between the Ellerbys and the Fitzpatricks.”

  She looks amused. “Now that really IS going far back.” She points to a rolltop desk on the other side of the room. “That there was old man Fitzpatrick’s desk. Did all his business there.”

  “Really?” Leo says. “That was my great-great-grandfather’s desk?”

  “And that,” she points to an old-fashioned record player, “is Mrs. Ellerby’s prized possession, her phonograph.”

  “My great-great-grandmother liked music!” I say excitedly, thinking of my drum set.

  “Come look at this,” the woman says, leading us over to the far wall. The whole wall is covered in old maps and blueprints of the town. She points to one of the maps. “This is a survey of the town a little over a hundred years ago. Each little box indicates someone’s property.” We lean in to see where her finger’s pointing. Two boxes right next to each other are clearly marked ELLERBY and FITZPATRICK in tiny block letters. Little drawings of apple trees dot the area around the squares.

  “What about their feud?” Leo asked. “Do you know anything about it?”

  “The whole town knew about it,” she says. “Turned Willow Falls upside down, it did. Rumor was the townsfolk got together to do something about it.”

  “They did?” We hadn’t heard that part of the story before! “What did they do?”

  The woman leans in closer. So close I can see the duck wiggle when she talks. It’s a little distracting. “Rumor has it that they sought the help of an old woman who had special, shall we say, gifts, to help fix the situation.”

  “What kinds of gifts?” Leo and I ask together.

  The old woman looks left and right before answering, and even though we’re alone in the place, she lowers her voice. “Rumor has it on Harvest Day, the men were warned if they didn’t solve their differences, there would be consequences.”

  “What kind of consequences?” I whisper, not sure why we’re whispering.

  She shrugs, and in her regular voice says, “Whatever it was, it worked. Not right away, not until a year later in fact, but it worked. They became friends seemingly overnight and stayed that way for the rest of their days, except for the occasional squabble that all friends have.”

  “And they never told anyone what happened to make them stop fighting?”

  “Oh, they told someone,” she says, flicking a piece of dust off the raccoon’s head.

  “Who?” we both ask. “Who did they tell?”

  She opens her mouth to answer, when the door bangs open and a Girl Scout troop pours in. “Don’t touch anything, girls, I’ll be right with you. Now where was I?”

  “You were about to tell us who knows about the fight?” Leo says impatiently.

  “Right. The only person they told was — hey, put that down!” She hurries over to a Girl Scout and pries an antique hairbrush from her hands. Leo and I hurry after her.

  “Please Mrs…. Miss …”

  “You can call me Angelina.”

  “Angelina, please,” Leo pleads. “Just tell us who knows about the
fight.” He stands right in front of her so she can’t see the Girl Scout with the dripping green ice-cream cone.

  “The only person they told was Alexander Smithy, the founder of Willow Falls. He was the kind of man you could confide in. Alexander Smithy never told a soul, although many tried to get it out of him. That man didn’t talk much at all, confided everything to his journal instead.”

  “Is his journal here?” Leo asks, waving his hand at the shelves full of dusty books. “Can we see it?”

  I kick him in the shin. “How can you ask that? After a week of taking the same pop quiz, you know exactly what happened to that journal. It was stolen!”

  “That’s right,” Angelina says, nodding.

  Leo glares at me and rubs his shin. Then he turns to her and asks, “Do you know who stole it?”

  She nods.

  “Who was it?” I ask breathlessly.

  “Me.”

  For a minute, we all just look at one another.

  “Huh? You stole it?” Leo says, recovering first. “But why?”

  “I collect such things,” Angelina replies, ducking around Leo to keep an eye on the Scouts.

  “Do you still have it?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “Lost it years ago in a fire.”

  Leo and I hang our heads in defeat.

  “But it wouldn’t matter anyway,” she continues. “There was plenty in there about the feud, but nothing after. Unless Ellerby and Fitzpatrick kept journals themselves, the trail is cold. And the only things I’ve ever seen from those two are business ledgers. Why does this matter to you anyway? It’s ancient history.”

  “We don’t really know,” I admit. “It’s just … we’re going through a weird thing and then we learned about this feud, and the two of us had been in a fight, and well …” I drift off, not knowing how to explain the connection we feel to our great-great-grandparents. It’s more than just our names, but how could I explain it?

  “Thanks anyway,” Leo says glumly. “We better go, my mom’s waiting.”

  “See you on the bus tomorrow, Angelina,” I say as we walk to the front door.

  “See you then, honey.” She waves as she closes the door behind us.

  It’s not until I’m in bed later that it hits me. Angelina didn’t correct me when I said I’d see her on the bus. She didn’t say, “No you won’t, because tomorrow’s Saturday.” This keeps me awake for hours.

  Chapter Nineteen

  As soon as I turn off the alarm that I knew would ring, I reach into the pocket of the sweatpants I had worn to bed. Yup! The periodic table is still there, right where I tucked it last night. I feel a surge of pride that I was able to make it stay overnight. I transfer the folded notebook paper into my jeans, and begin the all-too-familiar process of my birthday morning. I freely admit that if Leo wasn’t experiencing this with me, I would completely lose my mind.

  I’m in such a rush to talk to Angelina that I bound up the bus steps before Kylie. But Angelina isn’t driving! Instead, the young guy I remember from last month is behind the wheel.

  “Move,” Kylie orders from behind me.

  I don’t budge. “Where’s Angelina?” I ask him, my voice quivering.

  “Who?”

  “Our usual bus driver?”

  “He’s our usual bus driver,” a kid yells from the middle of the bus. “Are you gonna sit down? You’re gonna make us late!”

  “C’mon, Amanda, move!” Kylie pushes me forward and I almost fall into the seat behind the driver. I stare at the back of his head the whole ride, wondering what this means. How could she not be here? Why do the other kids think this is our regular guy? I scoot over when Stephanie gets on, and tune out her gymnastics tryouts chatter.

  I practically tackle Leo when I see him in the hall. Stephanie and Ruby look on in surprise, but I don’t stop. “It’s her!” I shout. “It’s Angelina!”

  “What’s Angelina?”

  “She wasn’t my bus driver this morning!”

  He clutches my arm. “What? Are you serious?”

  Stephanie puts her hands on her hips. “You guys don’t talk for a year, and when you do, you don’t make any sense!”

  I keep talking. “It was some young guy. No one even knew who Angelina was!”

  Leo shakes his head in amazement. “And it’s not like she’s easy to forget.”

  “I know! So what does this mean?”

  “It means we have to go back to the Historical Society today. Same plan as before.”

  “Okay, got it.”

  A crowd has started to form. Leo hurries into the classroom while I face a very confused Stephanie.

  “What was that all about?” she asks.

  I bend down, scoop up the green-apple lollipop, and present it to her. “I’ll tell you tomorrow, okay?”

  “This is huge! You want me to wait till tomorrow?”

  “It’s my birthday,” I remind her. “Shouldn’t you have to do what I say?”

  “Fine!” she says, turning on her heel. “But I’m calling you first thing tomorrow morning!”

  “No problem,” I say, smiling to myself. No problem at all.

  . . . . . . . . . . .

  I’m standing at a safe distance when Bee Boy bursts through the door, right on schedule. Before he can say a word, I shove my periodic table into his hand. “What … what’s this?” he asks between sniffles. “Who’re you?”

  “You don’t know me, but I have a feeling you might need that. It’s a drawing of the periodic table. I actually learned a lot of stuff while making it. Did you know that helium is only found on the sun and lead comes from asteroids?”

  He unfolds the paper and looks up in surprise. “How did you know I needed this?”

  “Call it a hunch,” I say.

  He examines my work, a pleased expression on his face. “Um, not to be ungrateful or anything, but did you have to use a purple pen? It’s a little, um, girly.”

  Mr. Collins opens the door before I can defend my use of color. I quickly turn to a nearby locker, and twist the lock like it’s my own.

  “Have you collected yourself?” he asks.

  “I … I found it!” the boy replies, holding up the paper. He hurries back into his class with a grateful nod in my direction. I am flooded with a sense of accomplishment. I did it! But as good as it feels to have been able to help this kid, I doubt this is the reason Leo and I are in this situation. I look at my watch. Three more hours until we get some REAL answers.

  . . . . . . . . . . .

  As soon as Mrs. Fitzpatrick is safely inside the dress shop, we run up to the door of the Historical Society. I try to turn the knob, but it won’t budge. We both lean our shoulders against it, but nothing happens. “Look!” Leo is pointing to a sign on the door that says CLOSED FRIDAYS.

  “But that’s not possible!” I cry.

  “You’re right,” Leo says, leaning back against the locked door. “There’s definitely something going on here.”

  For the first time since I knew I wasn’t alone in this, a feeling of dread and hopelessness comes over me. It almost knocks me over.

  “Are you okay?” Leo says, holding on to my arm. “You look like you’re going to faint or something.”

  I slide down onto the sidewalk, and Leo joins me, our backs against the door. “It’s just, I don’t know. I feel like she was our last hope.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “And what if she was lying? Maybe that journal didn’t really burn in a fire, and she just wants to keep it from us?”

  Leo doesn’t answer. Then he jumps up and says, “C’mon.”

  “Where are we going?” I stand up and hurry after him. He ducks around the side of the old house and into the alley separating it from the dress shop next door. “Leo, wait. What are you doing?”

  He keeps going. “We’re going to get that journal.”

  “How? It’s closed!”

  “Like this,” he says, pointing to a window in the back of the house. I gl
ance around us, but no one is nearby. Trees and bushes make things pretty private. Still, there’s a tiny parking lot back here, and at any minute someone could pull in. Leo reaches up and pushes up on the window. I had totally expected it to be locked, but it slides up smoothly. “Ready?” He laces his hands together and bends down for me to step on his hands. “Me? I have to go in first?”

  He looks up at me. “Would you rather give me the boost?”

  I shake my head. I’m not that strong. With one last glance around me, I put my hands on his shoulders for balance, and step up. He practically catapults me through the window. It’s a good thing there wasn’t any furniture on the other side or I definitely would have broken it. As it was, the floor could have been a little softer. I’m gonna have bruises for sure. I brush myself off and lean out the window. Leo is jumping and trying to grab onto the ledge. His hands keep slipping off. I watch his efforts for a few minutes, then call down, “Um, Leo? How about I go open the front door and let you in?”

  “Oh, good idea!”

  A minute later we start searching the place. I open all the drawers — nightstands, desks, file cabinets. Leo checks the bookshelves and the back room. He even opens the mini-fridge but only finds a half-eaten salami sandwich. He comes back out, his hair a mess from sticking his head under the rugs. I’m in the process of checking the drawers of his great-great-grandfather’s desk.

  “Nothing, huh?” he asks, joining me at the desk.

  I shake my head. “It’s empty.” But when I go to close the bottom drawer, it doesn’t line up evenly with the rest. I push on it with all my strength, but it still doesn’t close all the way. This isn’t good. Angelina’s bound to notice. I wiggle it around, thinking maybe it’s caught on something. Hey, maybe it’s CAUGHT ON SOMETHING.

  “I’m gonna try taking it all the way out instead,” I tell Leo excitedly. “I think something’s jammed back there!” I pull it as far as it will go, but it won’t come all the way out.