A Mango-Shaped Space

by Wendy Mass

  “So my head will face north. It has something to do with the magnetic pull of the North Pole bringing you power while you sleep.” She says this as though it makes sense. “I’m sure Zack will help you move yours after.”

  “But you’ve always said Zack’s superstitions are ridiculous,” I remind her as I move away from the bed. Away from the strange objects. Away from the stranger who calls herself my sister.

  “I used to say that,” she admits, and begins placing the candles around her room. “But now I know there’s some truth in them.”

  “What truth can be found in crossing your fingers until you see a dog?” I mutter, inching toward the door.

  “Wait a second,” she says. “I’m going to dye my hair tonight, so can you stay out of the bathroom?”

  Apparently Beth hasn’t changed that much after all. “What color this time?” I ask.

  “If you must know,” she says, taking out her ponytail holder so her hair falls perfectly down her back, “it’s going to be red. I found out that redheads are closest to nature. You might want to consider —”

  “Oh no.” I cut her off. “I’m close enough to nature as it is. The bathroom’s all yours.” I consider informing her that there’s hardly any red in nature and that maybe she should try green, but I figure, why start something?

  “You’re dripping on my carpet,” she says. I quickly step out of the room, and she shuts the door behind me.

  “Hey!” Beth reappears in the hall two seconds later. This time she’s waving her diary in the air. “Did you read this while I was gone?”

  The old Beth was definitely back. I suddenly wish I had read it. I assure her I did not and run down the hall to my room before she can interrogate me further. I quickly throw off my wet clothes, put on some sweats, and creep down the stairs. The darkest clouds have passed, and only a light drizzle falls now. Just in case, I grab an umbrella and figure the back door is my best chance of escaping unseen. But as I round the corner to the kitchen, I run right into my mother. There are just too many people in this house!

  “It’s getting dark, Mia,” she says, in that special tone that only mothers can achieve. “Where are you going?”

  I hesitate. “To the cemetery?”

  “You can go tomorrow,” she says, taking a bowl of salad out of the refrigerator and handing it to me. “Grandpa isn’t going anywhere.”

  I try to argue but quickly get the mother glare that goes along with the mother tone. The glare and the tone together are unbeatable. I sigh and give up, grimly aware that the painting is probably completely ruined by now. I rest the salad bowl on the counter and turn to leave before I’m asked to set the table. The unmistakable sound of claws against a metal screen door stops me.

  I open the kitchen door and Mango strolls in. He is barely wet. Staying dry in the pouring rain is one of those cat tricks I’ll never figure out. Instead of apologizing for running off, he heads straight for his food dish and waits for me to fill it.

  “Please set the table when you’re done, Mia,” Mom says, stealing a glance my way. I know she’s watching to make sure I don’t spill any cat food. Even though I’m a pretty neat person, I’ll never be as neat as my mother. She even uses a fork and knife to eat pizza. It’s embarrassing. She and Dad are complete opposites that way. I wouldn’t exactly call him a slob, but sometimes he trails the outdoors inside with him and Mom has to follow behind him with a mop.

  “If the storm passes, I hope to get in a little telescope time,” she adds, searching in the back of the cabinet for something. “Do you want to look at Cassiopeia with me? One of the stars in the system is going supernova. When it explodes it will be twenty times brighter than usual.”

  “Maybe.” I have trouble getting excited about a star going supernova. It’s an astronomer’s way of saying dying. Talk about sad on a grand scale. But I know Mom misses being around all her science buddies, and she likes having company in the yard.

  “It looks like I have to go to the store to get some spaghetti.” Mom slams the cabinet door in exasperation, causing a large brown ring to appear, which reminds me of Beth’s old hula hoop. When she was six she won $25 in a contest by hula-hooping longer than any other kid in town. Beth likes winning things.

  “Why don’t we just have hamburgers?” I suggest as the circle fades away. “We have some in the freezer.”

  “It’s Beth’s first night home,” Mom tells me, grabbing her keys from the hook by the door. “And she won’t eat hamburgers.”

  “Huh? Since when?” I ask, following her down the hall.

  “Since now, apparently,” Mom says, her voice strained. “She says she will no longer eat anything with a face. Or anything that once had a face.”

  I’d never thought of meat that way. And I didn’t want to start now. I ask my mother to take me with her, figuring I can convince her to stop at the cemetery on the way home. As we drive to the supermarket she reminds me that I still need to get my notebooks and some new clothes for school.

  “I still have a week,” I point out. I’m not a good shopper. I’d rather be outdoors than cooped up in a mall any day.

  “Don’t wait till the last minute as usual,” she warns. “You’ve already outgrown a lot of your fall clothes from seventh grade. Once school starts you’ll be too busy to get anything.”

  I’m utterly dreading eighth grade. It means having to learn a foreign language, not to mention pre-algebra, a class I’m destined to fail. No matter how hard I try, I can never keep up in math class, and trying to learn Spanish will be even worse. The problem is clear to me. It has to do with my colors. The word friend is turquoise with a glow of glossy red, but the word amigo is yellow with spots of brown, like an old banana. I just can’t get my brain to connect the two words.

  As we stand in line to pay for the spaghetti, I finally agree to go shopping for school stuff the next day. Satisfied, my mother turns and strikes up a conversation with the woman behind us. Her son shyly peers out from behind his mother’s skirt. He reminds me of Zack at about five years old.

  “Hi,” I say softly, leaning down to him. “What’s your name?”

  “Billy Henkle,” he answers in a shy whisper. “What’s yours?”

  “Mia Winchell,” I tell him.

  He giggles and comes out from behind his mom a little more. “Mia is a pretty name.”

  “Thanks,” I say, flashing him a Winchell smile. My family may not be blessed with height, but we have good teeth and try to show them when we can.

  “It’s purple with orange stripes,” he announces, his voice more assured now. “I like it a lot.”

  Still smiling, I shake my head and say, “No, silly, it’s candy-apple red with a hint of light green.” And then what he said hits me. My smile slowly disappears, and my heart starts to pound.

  “Wait, what did you say?” I ask him.

  Before he can answer, his mother turns around and rolls her eyes. “Don’t pay any attention,” she tells me. “He has an overactive imagination.”

  Billy steps back behind her skirt and peeks his head around. “Mia is purple and orange,” he whispers. “Not red and green.”

  I am too stunned to speak. I am too stunned to move. My pulse is beating in my ears. My mother has paid for the food and is already heading toward the exit. I force myself to follow her but can’t resist turning around before the door shuts behind me. I hear Billy’s mother scolding him for making up stories. The laughter of my classmates pops into my head. Freeeek. They made me question the first eight years of my life, and now this little boy is making me question the last five. If he isn’t lying, if he really sees my name that way, then everything I thought I knew about myself is wrong.

  Chapter Three

  I can’t sleep. I toss. I turn. Mango tosses and turns with me. Had I misunderstood Billy? Was his mother right? Does he just make things up? After all, my name isn’t even remotely purple and orange. The sun streams through the blinds and brings no answers, only more questions. Why does
the only person in the world who might see things the way I do have to be five years old? Maybe everyone sees this way at five and I didn’t outgrow it. Should I try to find Billy again? What would I say to his mother? All these feelings are rising inside my chest like the foam on the top of a shaken-up soda can. Bubble, bubble, gurgle.

  I give up on the idea of sleeping and decide to rescue my painting before anyone else wakes up. I completely forgot to ask Mom to stop last night on the way home from the market.

  The grass is still covered with dew so I have to be careful not to slip. When I reach the cemetery I stop short and slide about a foot. I’m not alone. I forgot that Jenna and her father come every Wednesday morning. Right now they’re talking to Mrs. Roth, whose family lives on the other side of the valley. The Roths have lived here since the 1800s, and half of the tombstones in the cemetery belong to their ancestors. They’re the only Jewish family I know, and every year, they invite the other families in the valley over to light the Hanukkah candles with them. Sometimes they’ll call us to say that Mango is in their yard so we won’t worry about him. I think he has a crush on one of their female cats. Mrs. Roth steps away to wander among the graves, stopping every few feet to put small rocks on top of her family’s headstones.

  Jenna joins me at my grandfather’s grave. She looks tired. Even her freckles look tired and pale.

  “I saw your painting,” she says. “Interesting choice to leave it out in the rain.”

  I look down at it and sigh. The colors have run together quite a bit, and Mango now looks more like a blob with eyes than a kitten. Grandpa’s face is still surprisingly intact, although the canvas has creased around him.

  “Serves me right,” I say, picking up the painting carefully so it won’t rip. “I let the rain sneak up on me.”

  “Do you think you’ll be able to fix it?” she asks.

  I shake my head. I’m sure I’d be more upset about it if my mind wasn’t still focused on meeting Billy last night. I have to force myself not to blurt out the whole story.

  “It’s a shame,” Jenna says. “You worked so hard on it. It looks like it was really good.” She squints at it and asks, “Is that a rat on your grandfather’s shoulder?”

  “Why would I paint a rat on my grandfather’s shoulder?”

  “How would I know? Maybe he liked rats.”

  “It’s not a rat, Jenna. It’s Mango as a kitten!”

  “Oh,” she says, trying not to smile. “Sorry ’bout that.”

  Poor Mango has been reduced to a rat. Good thing he isn’t around to hear it. “I have to run,” I tell Jenna. “My mother’s dragging me out for school supplies.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I regret saying them. Not here, at the cemetery. The last thing I want to do is remind Jenna of one more thing her own mother can’t do with her anymore. “Why don’t you come with us?” I quickly add.

  She shoves her hands into her pockets and shakes her head. “I’m going to spend the day with my dad. Neither of us slept too well last night. Our air conditioning is broken.”

  I look over at Jenna’s father, who is standing by his wife’s grave. He is rocking back and forth on his heels, a Chicago Bears cap shielding his eyes.

  I don’t know what to say now. We both stare at the ground.

  “I should get back to him,” Jenna says. “I’ll call you later.”

  “Hey, if you want to sleep over tonight you can.”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  I watch her walk away. These visits are hard for her, no matter what she says. Or doesn’t say. I hurry back to the house thinking of all the things we keep from other people. Even our best friends.

  School starts in a few days, and I’m trying to squeeze every last drop out of summer. Literally. I’m squeezing lemons for the lemonade stand Zack and I set up on our street corner.

  “Why don’t you just use lemonade mix like everyone else?” Beth asks as she passes through the kitchen and into the pantry. She returns with a few sandwich bags and a Magic Marker.

  “This is a quality establishment,” Zack replies, carefully stirring in the sugar with a long spoon.

  “What are the bags for?” I ask as Beth lays them flat on the counter. Zack stops stirring to listen.

  “If you must know, I’m sorting herbs for a big project I’m working on.”

  Zack and I raise our eyebrows at each other.

  “If you turn me into a frog, I’m telling Mom and Dad,” Zack says, holding the spoon in front of him like a sword.

  Beth grunts and turns her back to us. We continue making the lemonade and leave her to her sorcery.

  When we are alone again, I ask Zack, “Does the yellow of this lemon remind you of anything?”

  “Huh? Like what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Like the letter a or the number four?”

  He stops midstir. “What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind.”

  He stares at me as if I’m crazy but cuts the next lemon and starts squeezing. I just had to make sure.

  Three hours later we return to the kitchen. We’re hot, sunburned, and only four dollars richer. Mom reminds me we have to leave for Mango’s vet appointment in fifteen minutes. It takes ten minutes just to find him hiding under my bed. He pretends not to understand me when I explain that the visit is only a routine checkup. I finally spray him with water, and he runs right into the cardboard cat carrier with the picture of a kitten in a spaceship on the side. He no longer gets sick in the car; instead, he complains loudly the whole way into town. Each high-pitched meow sends Sunkist-orange coils dancing in front of me, but I don’t mind.

  As my mother drives past the supermarket I think of Billy again. Maybe I could go back to the store and ask the clerk if she remembers the Henkle family. Would it do any good? The fact that he might be crazy doesn’t make me any less crazy.

  The noise from the vet’s crowded waiting room pours out into the street. As I push open the glass door, a tiny dog with a pushed-in face yips at me in black streaks. Three cats hiss from the relative safety of their cages. I put Mango’s carrier on my lap to comfort him. He pokes his nose through one of the round holes on the top, and I pet it while we wait to be called. After signing in, Mom sits down next to me, her nose crinkling up at the smell that always fills the vet’s waiting room.

  The front door opens, and a boy from school named Roger Carson walks in. He’s leading a golden retriever on a tattered leash while his parents follow behind. I don’t know him very well, but all during grammar school he wore two different-colored socks. I glance down at his feet. Both of his socks are white today. He doesn’t notice me. He won’t take his eyes off his dog. The dog looks really old. It can barely hold up its head.

  The Carsons gather around their dog, petting it, not looking at any of us. I notice that Roger and his parents and the dog all have various shades of blond hair. I’ve heard that pets often look like their owners. I glance at Mango and decide that theory must not be true with cats, since my hair is neither gray nor white. In a flurry of activity, the vet’s assistant comes out and ushers Roger’s family into the examining room ahead of all the other people who are waiting. Roger’s dad asks Roger if he’s sure he wants to be here. Roger nods without lifting his head, and the door closes behind them. A minute later I hear whimpering and a bright-blue wail. The whimpering is the dog. The wail is Roger.

  “You said it wouldn’t hurt him!” he cries, loud enough for us all to hear. “But he’s in pain. He’s twitching! You said he’d just go to sleep and not feel anything!”

  “He’s only responding to the needle going in,” Roger’s father says, his deep voice coming through the wall. The vet adds something in a soothing voice, but I can’t make out her words. Roger’s sobs, however, are loud and clear and as blue as a swimming pool.

  I hug Mango’s box tighter, horrified. My breath catches in my throat. All the people in the waiting room draw their pets closer too. My mother reaches over and puts her hand on mine. I
close my eyes. Spirits of dog heaven, I offer the soul of Roger’s yellow dog. A good dog, and much loved. We sit without moving until Roger and his parents come out of the room, their faces wet and red and puffy. No dog. Roger clutches the empty leash to his chest in a tight ball. He notices me this time and his eyes widen. I open my mouth to say something but can’t find the words. He gives me a small nod, like he knows I’m trying to say Oh my God. My throat feels all closed up.

  My mother and I don’t talk much on the way home. Mango was very brave when he got his shots. The doctor seemed a little concerned that he was still wheezing. She gave me a new kind of medicine to give him each night to help strengthen his lungs. She warned me it might make him tired.

  “That dog was very old,” my mother says, breaking the silence between us. “And probably very sick.”

  “I know,” I say, picturing that empty leash as the town fades into country outside the car window. “But still.”

  “I know,” she says.

  On Monday, when the school bus pulls up in front of Harrison Middle School, I pray that the first day of school has been canceled because of an earthquake, tidal wave, or avalanche. I’d take any of them. I’m supposed to be one of the big shots this year — the eighth-graders rule the school. But I don’t want to rule anybody. And I definitely don’t want to take pre-algebra and Spanish. Zack bounds down the steps of the bus, thrilled to be in middle school at last. It’s supposed to be the reverse. I’m the one who’s supposed to be excited to be in the highest grade, and Zack’s the one who is supposed to be cowering in his seat. I glare at his back as I grudgingly follow him off the bus. Jenna and I stand at the bottom of the school steps watching everyone check each other out. Maybe I should have paid more attention to my clothing selection. I glance down at my white shorts and blue T-shirt. It might not be fancy, but at least everything’s clean. And I did pull my hair back in a barrette. I’m surprised that Jenna is wearing a dress with tiny pink flowers on it. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen her in a dress. Her sandals even have small heels on them.