So once I start finding coins under the benches, at the bottom of the slide, and all around the busted water fountain, I don’t want to stop. I look at my watch and see that fifty minutes have gone by, but I tell myself, Just one more. Then: OK, really one more. And then: Absolutely, positively just one more. Promise!
I look at my watch again — holy moly, the whole hour has passed! I know I better hightail it back to Briggs’s.
I race down the sidewalk, and I’m about a block away from the apartment building when I see the airplane man and Amelia, heading straight for me.
“Hi!” I say. Amelia wriggles happily as I approach. I reach out my hand and brush it over her from the top of her head, down her tickly back, to the fur right before her tail.
“Arianna, right?” the airplane man asks. I nod. “I have something for you,” he says, and reaches into his coat. He pulls out a paper airplane. It’s long and sleek and much more elaborately folded than I expected. He holds it between his thumb and fingers on one hand so I can get a better look. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a paper airplane that appears so real.
“Wow, thanks!” I say. Then I realize that I don’t actually know his name.
“Reggie,” he says, seeming to read my mind.
“Thanks, Reggie,” I say. The deep wrinkles around his eyes disappear as he smiles.
Just then something whizzes by us and ricochets off the side of the building, nearly hitting Amelia in the head. It’s a chunk of brick — a big chunk.
“Get a job!” a guy about Gage’s age yells as he walks past.
“Did he . . . did he just throw a brick at us?” I ask, shocked.
Reggie shakes his head slowly. “Not at us. At me.” He leans down and holds Amelia’s head in his hands, then looks in her eyes. “Wonder how so much hate grows in a person that young.”
“I’m so sorry, Reggie,” I say, kicking the brick into the gutter.
“No sense worrying yourself about it,” he says, straightening back up. “I’m just glad you and Amelia didn’t get hit.”
I nod and give Amelia one last pat. “I’ve got to get going,” I tell them. “But thanks again for the plane — it’s terrific!”
Reggie gives a little salute, and I race back to the studio. I’m nearly there when I realize that I didn’t even think to offer Reggie any of the change I’d collected today. Sure, I’d been searching extra hard to make up for the money I’d given him earlier this week, but the least I could have done was give him some of what I’d found today. After all, nobody was throwing bricks at my head and telling me to get a job.
And maybe it’s because I’m so distracted thinking about the brick and Reggie and Amelia and my plane and the money I’d collected, but when I enter Briggs’s apartment and see Janna standing there, I’m not startled.
“Hi,” I say, my eyes hopping from Janna to Gage and back.
“There you are,” she says, like we had an appointment or something. She has a scarf wrapped around her neck, and she’s leaning against the counter with her arms folded. Gage is standing over some boxes on the floor, boxes she must have brought. Chloe is nowhere in sight.
“So your brother lets you walk around the city on your own, huh?” Janna asks, in her judge-y voice.
I frown. “I was just at the park around the corner. Then I ran into —”
“It’s OK, Ari,” Gage says. “I told Janna where you were and that you wouldn’t be gone long.”
Janna grunts and then looks around. “So, this is cute,” she says, a sweep of her arm indicating the entire studio. “And the decorations are certainly . . . festive. But unless there’s another room, I’m guessing you have to sleep here?” Her judge-y voice is back on, big time. “And where are all your things? Your boots and books and such,” she says, frowning at my wet and ratty shoes.
And that’s when it hits me: Janna thinks this is our place — mine and Gage’s! I try to catch Gage’s eye, to see if I’m supposed to play along, but he won’t look at me.
“This is just temporary,” Gage says. “Until we can find something better.” Well, that’s true, at least.
“Actually,” says Janna, “I’m surprised you were able to afford something in this building . . . in the West End. You must have been squirreling away money your entire senior year.”
“We’re subletting,” says Gage quickly.
I watch Janna closely, wondering if she’s buying this.
Janna nods and walks around slowly, examining the objects in the room. Most of it is Briggs’s crazy party-supply stuff, but I notice that my Louisa May Alcott books are on the table, and my piggy bank has been taken down from on top of the cabinets and placed on the kitchen counter. I also notice that the place looks a lot cleaner than it usually does — no dishes in the sink or piled on the counter, no Cheerios or dust bunnies on the floor. Had Gage known that Janna was coming by?
“The decor is . . . interesting,” Janna mutters, but the judge-y tone is gone. “And where do you hang your uniforms, Ari?”
I hear Gage’s voice in my head: “Janna rule number one hundred twenty-four: Always hang up your school uniform.” I start to walk to the drawer under the TV set, where I stuff them (that is, when they’re not stuffed in my backpack or at Chloe’s), but Gage slides over to the closet.
“In here,” he says. He opens the one closet in the studio, the one that holds all of Briggs’s work pants and dress shirts, as well as the worn costumes he brings home from One Stop.
But when Gage opens the closet, only his clothes and my clothes are hanging there, including clean uniforms. When had Gage thought to do that?
“It works,” Janna says, and turns to look at me. She reaches a hand toward my face but stops herself. “Your hair looks very pretty today.”
I’d forgotten that it was in a gazillion French braids.
“You stayed at Sasha’s last night,” she says, her judge-y voice back. Janna used to hate it when Marianna would do up my hair or sew a little flower onto my clothes. She thought it was Marianna’s way of telling Janna that she was a better mother.
“I wanted to give Gage and Chloe a date night,” I say, which is partly true.
“Well,” Janna says, pulling on her coat, “I’m glad you’re doing so well.” But she doesn’t sound especially glad. “This should be everything,” she says, nodding at the boxes on the floor.
“Janna —” I start before she makes it out the door.
She turns.
But I don’t know what to say. “Thanks for bringing my stuff,” I blurt lamely.
She nods and jets away.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve had this theory that when each person is born, he or she is given an imaginary sack with the same number of happy moments, same number of horrible-news moments, same number of please-let-me-die-now embarrassments. So, while some people may have a bunch of bad moments all in a row, in the end, we’ll all have experienced the same number of ups and down. We’ll all be even.
Sasha tells me that that’s a ridiculous way of thinking. “Think of people who are starving, or who live in countries where there is war, or whose parents are divorced,” she says. “They suffer more.”
But I like to think that even these people, whose hardships seem to come all at once, might get to experience the same number of joys in their lives as everyone else (and sometimes those feelings of joy pop up smack in the middle of hardship). And on the flip side, people whose lives seem perfect might also be suffering in ways we don’t see, or might face hardships down the road.
But maybe Sasha is right. Maybe that is a ridiculous way of thinking. Yet sometimes, when it feels like all my troubles are piling up — Mama getting sick and dying, Janna and Gage fighting all the time, having to bounce from place to place with Gage and maybe missing out on the chance to go to Carter — it helps to think that there are only so many bad times in my sack. That sooner or later the good things will have to take over.
Anyway, this is what I’m thinking about as Sash
a, Linnie, and I are going through the cashier line with our hot-lunch trays — that is, Sasha and I are carrying trays; Linnie brings her lunch to school, but she goes through the line with us ’cause she hates sitting alone — when the cashier stops me and says that I don’t have any money left in my account. “Tell your mom, dear, that she forgot to send in this month’s check.”
Linnie leans over. “She doesn’t have a —”
Sasha pulls Linnie toward our table to shut her up.
“Today I can give you an IOU,” the cashier says, waving me through, “but don’t forget it tomorrow.”
“It’s not like Janna to forget to send the payment,” Sasha says when I join them. She sounds like Marianna.
Normally Sasha’s comment would make me smile, but my head is cloudy. It’s the second day of April.
Holy moly.
I sip slightly warm milk through a straw and wonder about my empty lunch account. Janna never forgets first-of-the-month responsibilities. (Rule number 28: Pay before play.) I always knew when it was a new month, because envelopes were on the counter, ready-to-be-mailed envelopes with checks inside — checks for bills, checks for school lunches and Girl Scout dues (Am I no longer a Girl Scout?), checks for the newspaper delivery man and the Fresh Market next door that lets us say, “Charge it, please.” No new balance means that she’s no longer paying for my hot lunches.
Seeing Briggs’s apartment must have convinced Janna that we’re doing all right on our own. But we’re not! Not really. Until Gage finds a real job, he can’t afford to pay for my lunches. What am I supposed to do?
In the midst of my despair, another depressing thought hits me: April second. That would have made yesterday April Fools’ Day. I feel the long tug of missing. Missing the days when everyone at Eastland Elementary marched through the school hallway wearing crazy hats. (Last year, Janna showed me a picture of my mother in elementary school wearing a handmade hat with wild pipe-cleaner shapes zinging out in all directions, and I made one just like it.) Missing the days when Gage would play April Fools’ jokes on me. (One time he put salt in the sugar bowl and nearly fell over while he watched me take my first bite of oatmeal.) Missing the days when I didn’t have to wonder where my next meal was coming from or where I was going to sleep each night or if Girl Scouts was no longer something I could put on my Carter application.
That’s what I’m pondering when Linnie says, “GT prowl. Watch out!”
I look up and see Mademoiselle Barbary, our Gifted and Talented teacher, in the double doors of the cafeteria.
I lower my head and take a bite of my Tater Tots.
“She’s coming,” says Sasha.
I wish the approaching Mademoiselle were an April Fools’ joke. When you’re in kindergarten through third grade, being a GT kid is solid. You get to go to a special room and participate in projects, like making a time capsule or learning French. But when you’re in fourth and fifth grade, it means getting pulled away from your friends at lunchtime to discuss “the unique problems of the gifted child.” Lately it’s been even worse because I’ve fallen into the category of “underachieving gifted child.” Now I feel like she has her eyes on me all the time.
“What are your aspirations?” Linnie says, imitating Mademoiselle.
I can’t help myself. I look up. That’s when Mademoiselle gives me a little come-with-me wave. Aaagh. I say good-bye to my friends, pick up my tray, and follow her.
Seven of us sit around the big wooden table in Mademoiselle Barbary’s room today: Daniel, Sam, Gracie, and I have been in this group since it started. She asks us if we are being appropriately challenged. “I am,” shoots out Daniel, who is sitting next to me. We all nod, We are, too! (We learned last year that if you say that the work is too easy or that you’re bored, you’ll get tons more work to do — on top of the homework that the other kids get.)
I glance at the supplies on the shelves across the table. How I wish we could play with clay for a little while. “Invent something!” Mademoiselle Barbary used to say.
“Are you sure?” she says now. “I just looked over last quarter’s grades, and some of you are not living up to your potential.”
I look around the table, wondering if she’s addressing anyone other than me.
“Often bright kids don’t do as well as they could when the subject matter isn’t interesting,” she adds in her I-know-how-it-is voice.
Still no one speaks up. I start to feel sorry for her.
“Less than one quarter left, and we’ll no longer be students at Eastland,” Gracie offers. It’s hard to say whether she’s suggesting that our gifted problems won’t matter much in a couple of months (after all, “everyone’s gifted at Carter,” as Sasha likes to say) or just stating a fact, but Mademoiselle is happy to run with it.
“How do you all feel about leaving Eastland?”
“I’ve started a bucket list,” says Daniel.
“A bucket list?” Mason says. “The things you want to do before you die?”
“No. Not that. This is a list of things I want to do before I leave Eastland,” says Daniel.
Mademoiselle presses her hands together like she’s saying a prayer. “Excellente! Tell us one thing on your list.”
Daniel pulls a small notebook the size of a passport out of his back pocket and thumbs through it. There seem to be lots of lists and some sketches, too. He finds the page he was looking for. “ ‘Talk to one person at Eastland that I’ve never spoken to.’ ”
“Magnifique,” Mademoiselle says. She reaches for paper and suggests we each make a list and share them the next time we get together. Usually we come up with all sorts of excuses for not doing the extra tasks Mademoiselle assigns us, but for some reason, everyone seems really excited by the list idea — shouting out stuff they’d put on their list.
I lean over and ask Daniel if he’s picked the person he’ll talk to. He shakes his head and pushes his little notebook over so I can read the whole list.
1. Talk to one person at Eastland that I’ve never spoken to.
2. Jump from the top of the bleachers into the pile of gym mats.
3. Free Gerald.
I laugh after reading number 3. Everyone at Eastland knows about Ms. Finch’s turtle, Gerald, even if they don’t have Ms. Finch. She’s had him forever, and he’s grown so much that he almost doesn’t fit in his tank. Everyone’s just a little afraid of Gerald, even though he’s not a snapper. Even Ms. Finch is afraid of him, which is why his tank is dirty all the time.
4. Cover the halls with paper snowflakes.
I realize that I’m not the only one missing the Eastland traditions. I grab Daniel’s pencil and write “while wearing a crazy hat,” after this item. He smiles.
I continue reading:
5. Get everyone to sing kindergarten songs in the cafeteria.
6. Skid from one end of the math hall to the other (after Mr. Grogan polishes the floor).
7.
8.
“How come seven and eight are blank?” I whisper. Mademoiselle glances at us. He points at the paper to keep me reading.
9. Be brave.
10. Persuade Arianna Hazard to do 1–9 with me.
I look up and give him my you’ve-got-to-be kidding look.
He takes back his pencil and writes: You can fill in seven and eight.
“No way,” I mouth.
Then he writes:
You might only go to four more schools in your whole lifetime. That’s only four last days, ever.
I think about that for a moment. I reach for the pencil and write:
That’s if I go to college.
He writes: Of course you’ll go to college.
I force a smile, though what I’m thinking is that I might not if I don’t get into Carter. I’ll think about it, I write.
Daniel smiles and crosses off numbers 9 and 10.
Gage picks me up from Head Start and calls Briggs.
“Hey, Brigster,” he says. “What’s up?” I know
he’s hoping that Briggs will tell us to come by tonight. While he talks, I travel in ever-widening circles on the sidewalk, looking for pennies.
The conversation drags on, but still no invitation. Gage tries harder: “So, do you have plans tonight?”
And then Gage’s voice gets louder. “You’re kidding! He can’t do that, can he? Are you going to listen to him?
“All right,” he says. “Yeah, sure, I understand.”
“No studio tonight?” I say when he gets off the phone.
“Briggs’s landlord says he’s been violating the lease — that three people are living in the apartment instead of just one.”
“But we’re not living there!” Now I’m as mad as Gage.
“You and I know that, but tell it to the landlord.”
“Does that mean we’re never going back?” I want to ask him what we’ll do about the stuff we left there — our clothes and the boxes from Janna — but now doesn’t seem like the time.
“No,” says Gage. He starts walking — to where, I don’t know, but I follow. “It just means that we have to be a lot more scarce.”
“Chloe’s?” I ask hopefully when we get to the bus stop.
Gage shakes his head. “She has a friend from out of town staying with her tonight.”
“Lighthouse?” I say, less hopefully.
“I hope not,” says Gage, and boards the bus.
As it turns out, we’re staying with Perry and Kristen. Gage met Perry down at the docks, and Kristen is his wife, even though they are hardly any older than Gage.
Right now we’re sitting in their living room in South Port, which is not really in Port City. It’s a whole different town, miles and miles from my school.
Paper Things Page 6
