Meena Meets Her Match

by Karla Manternach

  “But I’m nine!”

  “Meena.” She presses her fingers on either side of her forehead. “You had a seizure this morning, remember?”

  My jaw clamps shut. “No, I don’t remember,” I say through my teeth.

  “Well, I do,” Mom says. “And we still don’t know why it happened, but I want to know if it happens again.”

  “So, what, you’re going to spy on me?”

  She sighs. “We’re going to monitor you.”

  “But I’m fine!”

  She opens up the covers. “I hope so.”

  I step back. For a second I just stand there, wringing Raymond’s leg in my hands. Then I give Mom my squintiest scowl and throw myself into bed.

  She pulls the blankets up over me and tries to kiss me, but I turn onto my side and make my body stiff. I hear her take a big breath and let it out. “We just want to make sure you’re okay,” she says.

  Mom goes to tuck in Rosie. My stomach boils while they do their song about three little ducks and play This Little Piggy. I’m too old for rhymes and finger games—too old to go to bed with my little sister. I just lie there in a tight ball, turned away from them, until the last little piggy goes “wee, wee, wee.”

  “Mommy?” I hear Rosie say when they finish.

  “Hmm?”

  “What’s the matter with Meena?”

  I hear the bed creak as Mom sits back down. “We don’t know, sweetie,” she says—like I’m not even there!

  “Will someone come and take her away again?” Rosie says, her voice a squeak.

  “Dad and I are going to listen closely all night long, okay? If anything happens, we’ll be ready.”

  Rosie starts to whimper.

  “Hey,” Mom says. “Shhhh. . . . It was scary this morning, wasn’t it?”

  Rosie takes a shuddering breath. “Mm-hmm.”

  “There was all that shouting, and then Meena was on the floor. It was scary for all of us.”

  I feel my stomach crumpling up, picturing it.

  “But then you know what we did?” Mom asks.

  “What?”

  “We did exactly the right things. What number did I call?”

  “Nine-one-one,” Rosie says.

  “That’s right. And when the ambulance came, what did you do?”

  “I stayed in the corner and hugged my pony.”

  I picture Rosie standing in the kitchen, watching everything, and I can’t help it. I want to go over and hug her. I squeeze Raymond tighter instead.

  “Yes, you did,” Mom says. “You listened so well. And when I told you to get your shoes to go to Eli’s, you did it quick as a flash. And when I had to hurry off to meet Daddy at the hospital, you didn’t cry or complain. You were a big helper today, Miss Rosie. Aunt Kathy said you were a big help to Eli, too.”

  “I got to feed Vernon,” Rosie says. “And pet him.”

  “Oh, I bet he liked that. Do you think you might dream about playing with Vernon tonight?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Do you think if you close your eyes, you can imagine you’re petting him right now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s give it a try. Close your eyes. Now let’s count. Nice and slow.”

  “One . . . two . . . three . . .” Rosie giggles. “His fur is soft.”

  “Four . . . ,” Mom says, “five . . . six . . .”

  Rosie keeps counting. She gets all the way up to twenty.

  “Keep going,” Mom whispers.

  Rosie starts again. I hear the bed creak as Mom stands up. Before she leaves, she rests her hand on my back. “Good night,” she says.

  That’s when I remember to be mad at her. I don’t say good night back.

  She sighs. Eventually, she heads to the door and turns out the light. I flop onto my back, kick my heel against the mattress, and glare at the ceiling. Rosie keeps counting to herself in the dark. After a while her voice gets slower and softer. She skips right over the fifties, and the sixties start to fade away. In another minute, I hear her sleep-breathing.

  She sounds just like she did when I got up today.

  Before everything happened.

  I push up the sleeve of my pajamas and pick at the edges of the Band-Aid on the inside of my arm. This morning, at the hospital, the nurse wheeled me into a little room and had me lie still under this weird, heavy apron. Someone just outside the room stood at a control panel taking X-rays of my head. After that I thought I was done. I thought they’d give me medicine for my stomachache and let me go home.

  But when we got back to the room, the nurse said they needed to test some of my blood. And it turns out the only way to do that was to take some right out of my arm with a needle.

  I was not a very good sport.

  It was a long time before they brought me a little pink pill for my stomach, which turned to chalk in my mouth. It was even longer before my stomach finally felt better.

  I poke the Band-Aid. It still hurts under there.

  I roll onto my side and hug Raymond tighter. I just want to forget this whole day—even the parts I can’t remember. I don’t want to imagine that anything like this could ever happen again. But I keep thinking about waking up in the hospital and the medicine smell. I keep wondering if I’ll fall asleep and wake up there.

  The blue light of the baby monitor is shining on me. Somewhere downstairs, Mom and Dad are listening. I know if anything happens to me, they’ll hear it. They’ll come running.

  I’m not so mad about that anymore.

  I sit up, pick up the monitor, and hold it right to my mouth.

  “Good night,” I say.

  9

  Dad is already downstairs when I wake up on Sunday. We’re out of Rainbow Pops, so he makes oatmeal instead—the grayest food in the world. I kind of wish this stuff would end up in somebody’s face, but my arms don’t even bother to twitch this morning.

  I don’t have nearly enough color to inspire me to work on my valentine box, so Rosie and I make a school for our toys instead. I even make a clip chart. Raymond is especially good today, so I clip him all the way up to I’m Better Than You. But after I clip Pink Pony down to Now You’ve Done It, Rosie won’t play with me anymore.

  I have to do my homework before screen time.

  Nobody makes green mac and cheese.

  • • •

  On Monday morning Dad waits for me to walk to school with him and Rosie, like I’m a little kid. It’s cloudy again. The ice that looked like diamonds the other day has melted, and everything is mucky and blah.

  Kindergartners have to go straight to their room while the rest of us wait outside for the bell to ring. Dad walks me all the way to the playground before he turns to take Rosie inside. “Hey,” I call after him, thinking of something. I lower my voice when he turns around. “You won’t tell anybody, will you? About this weekend?”

  “Nobody but your teacher.”

  My chest squeezes. “You’re telling her about my seizure?” I look around to make sure nobody can hear. “Why?”

  “We need her to be part of our spy network.” He winks at me and heads inside.

  “Hey, Meena,” Eli yells as he comes running up behind me.

  “Hey,” I say, plopping down on a bench.

  “You wanna look for trash?” Eli asks.

  I give him a hard look. On Monday mornings I look for all the beautiful trash that kids might have dropped on the playground over the weekend. But Eli usually shoots baskets with Pedro before school. “Did Aunt Kathy say you had to be nice to me?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “Maybe.”

  “Well, you don’t.”

  “How about I give you five minutes?” he says. “I saw some stuff under the monkey bars.”

  I squint at him. His ears are pink, and his freckles make him look like he’s starting to rust. “What kind of things?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. Like a broken bracelet or something.”

  I make a humphy sound and kick my feet against the gro
und. “I don’t want any more rubber bands,” I say. “They don’t last.”

  “It’s not rubber bands. It’s beads.”

  Beads? I perk right up at that. Rubber bands are for crafts, but beads are for jewelry!

  We run for the monkey bars. A bunch of plastic beads are just sitting there on the ground! “That’s enough for a whole necklace,” I say. “Why would anyone leave them?”

  “They probably fell in the snow,” Eli says. “I bet nobody could see where they landed until it melted.”

  We drop to our knees and start picking them up. Every time we brush aside the wood chips, we find more beads. Some of them got trampled into the mud, and we have to dig them out with our fingers. Some are frozen in the last bits of ice, and we have to kick them loose with our heels. I grab all I can and stuff them in my pocket, breathing in the smell of the mud, feeling the wet ground soak through my jeans.

  I hear a motor rumble as the bus pulls up to the school. The bell will ring any minute. I want to get every last bead before it does. I can make a new bracelet with these, but this time I’m only making one. And if anybody happens to notice me wearing it, maybe they’ll wonder if I gave a matching one to some new best friend they don’t know about. Maybe they’ll remember that I’m not the one who started staying in every recess.

  I’m the one who kept playing and swinging and looking for beautiful trash, even when I had to do it alone.

  I almost have all the colors now. If I can just find a yellow one, I’ll have every color in the rainbow!

  The bell rings. Eli gets up off the ground. All around us, kids start running for the door.

  I see a yellow bead! There, in a chunk of ice. I try to pick it up, but it’s frozen to the ground. I pound my fist against it, but it doesn’t come loose.

  “Are you coming?” Eli asks.

  I look over my shoulder. The grades are lining up by the door. “Just a second,” I say. I stand up and start hammering the ice with my heel. Whack! Whack! Whack!

  “Meena—”

  The playground monitor starts calling classes inside. “First grade!”

  “I’ve almost got it.”

  “Second grade!”

  “We’re gonna get in trouble.”

  “Third grade!”

  “You go. I’m coming.”

  Eli hangs back for a few seconds, then hurries toward the school.

  I switch to the other heel.

  “Fourth grade!”

  Whack! Whack!

  “Fifth grade!”

  Crack! The ice chunk breaks loose. The yellow bead is frozen in the middle of the hunk, so I jam the whole thing into the pocket of my hoodie, grab my backpack, and run for the door.

  The playground is empty now. The last of the fifth graders have disappeared inside. The monitor is leaning against the open door with her arms crossed. “Better get a move on,” she says.

  I hurry down the hall. Kids have hung things up in their cubbies and are heading into their classrooms. My jeans are soaked, and mud falls in clumps off my shoes, leaving a chunky trail behind me. But my pockets are full of rainbows, and the ice makes a nice solid thunk against my stomach. I round the last corner. Maybe if I walk just a little bit faster, I can make it to class before—

  The late bell rings.

  Mrs. D is standing by our door.

  I stop in my tracks. She’ll clip me down for this. Mrs. D is a pretty nice teacher and all, but she does not believe in rainbow emergencies. She heads toward me. Her forehead wrinkles. She looks down at my shoes, and her mouth forms a thin line.

  Then something weird happens. She looks me right in the eye and gives me her first-day-of-school smile. “I’m so glad you’re here, Meena,” she says in a shiny voice. “Why don’t you just leave your shoes in the hall before you join us.”

  She knows.

  She waits while I unpack my things and pull off my sneakers. My face heats up, and the skin on my arms gets that prickly, spied-on feeling. I duck my head and slip past her into the room.

  I keep my head down when I get to my desk and take out my homework. Lin is going around collecting worksheets. She must be the Homework Handler this week. Aiden is whizzing pencils through the sharpener, so I guess he’s the Pencil Police.

  Everyone gets a new classroom job on Mondays. They’re nothing to get excited about. My last job was Line Leader. But it turns out even in third grade you don’t really lead the line. You’re just the first to follow the teacher. And when you try to pass, she says your name in a stern voice and tells you there’s no running in the hall.

  When we’re all in our seats, Mrs. D says, “Raise your hand if you’re eating school lunch today.” Only a few kids put their hands in the air, because it’s creamed turkey day. She writes a number down on a slip of paper. “Who’s taking this to the office?”

  I check the jobs board, and it’s me! I’m Lunch Patrol! I’ve been waiting all year to do that job. It’s the only good one. You get to go around to every single classroom and collect all the lunch slips for the office all by yourself. That job doesn’t even exist until you’re in third grade, because I mean, would you trust second graders to wander around the school without a teacher?

  And I get to do it in my socks!

  I hurry over to Mrs. D. She starts to hand me the slip, but at the last second she doesn’t let go. “Um, Mrs. D,” I say, “I can take it from here.”

  Now she’s starting to chew her bottom lip. She looks just like Mom and Dad did when they were peeking through the doorways at me. She grips the slip tighter and peeks over my shoulder. “Who did Lunch Patrol last week?” she asks.

  Oh, no No, no, no.

  Sofía raises her hand. Her flower headband is blue today.

  “Would you go along with Meena, please?” Mrs. D says.

  Sofía jumps up. When she smiles, I see new rubber bands on her braces. They’re all different colors now. She already had the only good job in the class last week, and now she gets to do it again?

  I grit my stupid, straight teeth. If I can’t have braces, I wish I could at least color over the white. Only it turns out markers don’t stick to teeth. They just turn the inside of your mouth purple—even permanent markers, which is false advertising I think.

  I turn back to Mrs. D. “I can do it myself,” I say.

  She gives my arm a pat. “Just let Sofía show you the ropes, okay?” She lets go of the slip.

  I don’t need Sofía to show me any ropes. And I don’t need Mrs. D sending her to spy on me! I spin around and stomp into the hall.

  “Not so fast,” I hear Sofía say.

  But I am not slowing down. I would have waited for the Sofía who smeared paint and made me a bracelet and launched herself off the top of the swings when the playground monitor wasn’t looking.

  But this Sofía stopped playing with me after three years together. This Sofía has to be the best at everything, no matter who she leaves behind.

  So if she thinks I’m waiting for her now, she’s crazy.

  She catches up anyway, halfway to the fifth-grade room. “Did you get in trouble or something?” she asks.

  I don’t look at her. I just say, “No.” My voice sounds like a rubber band stretched tight.

  “Then how come Mrs. D won’t let you go by yourself?”

  “How should I know?”

  The door of the fifth-grade room is closed when we get there. I look through the window and see the teacher at the board. “So, the first thing we do—” Sofía says.

  She’s not the boss of me. I push open the door and walk right in. “I’m here for the lunch count,” I say, sticking my chin out.

  The teacher sighs and lowers his dry-erase maker. “It’s taped to the door,” he says. “So you don’t have to interrupt my class.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Got it. Sorry.” I back out of there and quietly pull the door closed behind me. I check for the slip.

  Sofía is already holding it.

  I glare at her and head back down th
e hall. I stomp to the fourth-grade room and check the door. It’s standing wide open, and there’s nothing taped to it, but I don’t know if I’m supposed to barge in. Sofía is catching up! I start clearing my throat until the teacher notices me, walks over—

  —and hands the slip to Sofía!

  Are you kidding me? Now Sofía has two of them!

  No way is she getting any more. I may not be good at spelling, and I may lose my homework inside my own backpack sometimes, but I can collect the dumb lunch slips.

  She starts heading to second grade without me. I hurry in front of her, the ice in my hoodie pocket thumping against my stomach. “You’re not Line Leader, too,” I say over my shoulder. I rush past the third-grade room. I notice Mrs. D hung our President Portraits across the hall, but I don’t have time to stop and look at those—and I don’t want to see my scribbled-on picture anyway. I walk right up to the second-grade door. I knock nice and loud, then run right in and get the slip.

  Now I have two. I’m tied with Sofía!

  When I get to first grade, I don’t even knock. The teacher looks at me like she’s kind of annoyed, but I don’t care. It’s three to two. Now if I can just get the kindergarten slip, I’ll win. I hurry to the last door and see the kids all sitting in a circle on the rug, singing. I reach for the handle.

  “Meena, wait,” Sofía whispers loudly behind me.

  I burst through the door. The kids stop singing and look up. I spot Rosie and give her a little wave. She’s so excited to see me that she actually jumps up, runs over, and almost plows me over. “Hey, squirt,” I whisper, giving her a quick hug and shooing her back to the rug.

  Her teacher is sitting cross-legged on the floor with the other kids. “What’s up, Meena?” he asks, tilting his head at me.

  I stand straight and tall. “I’m here for the lunch count,” I say, looking right at Rosie. She’s never even seen me do this job before!

  But she just blinks and looks at her teacher.

  “This class doesn’t stay for lunch,” he says. “They’re only here for the morning, remember?”

  “Oh!” I feel my cheeks getting hot. “Right.” Rosie looks from me to her teacher and back again, crinkling her forehead. I shift between my feet. “How about the milk count? You need any help with that?”