Just Grace Gets Crafty

by Charise Mericle Harper

  I was a little surprised that Sandra Orr didn’t say fantasy, because she loves unicorns so much, but then I remembered that she believes that unicorns are real. I don’t know how she could think that, but she does. Mom says that sometimes people just believe what they want to believe—I guess Sandra is one of those.

  When the list was finished, I knew what was going to happen next: Miss Summers was going to ask us to pick a story type for our writing project. Even though I’d said mystery and science fiction, I was going to pick something different. I was picking comedy.

  WHAT SOMEONE WHO DIDN’T KNOW KIDS WOULD THINK

  That it would only take a few minutes for everyone to decide what kind of story they were going to write.

  WHAT I KNEW

  It was going to take a lot longer. I was right—it took the whole rest of the morning. If I were Miss Summers, I would have been starting to get a headache. Too many questions and too much confusion.

  THE THING THAT HAPPENED DURING LUNCH THAT WE DIDN’T SEE

  Miss Summers changed her mind about everyone learning the names of what to call different stories. She said it didn’t matter if we got the names right or not because all she wanted us to know was that we had lots of choices. I’m not sure if having lots of choices was a good thing, because it took almost another hour for everyone to choose what kind of story they were going to write. I didn’t mind, though, because sitting around waiting was a lot better than doing regular afternoon work.

  While everyone was busy picking out story ideas, I was busy too, but in a different way. I kept looking at Marie’s list, hoping I could figure out what to do with it. It was kind of like a shopping list for a new friend, but friends aren’t like groceries—you can’t just go buy one at the store. Mostly I was wishing I knew someone who liked all the things Marie did—that would be perfect—but I didn’t.

  WHAT WAS GREAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE AFTERNOON

  Miss Summers said there wasn’t time to do our regular work. So instead, we took out our pocket pals and played with them, and made notes for our stories, until the bell rang. I was really getting to like Stan. Naughty characters are fun! As soon as I thought that, I covered my mouth and looked over at Robert Walters. Did that mean I would now like Robert Walters? That we should be friends? This was not something I wanted to be true.

  Sometimes a list can help your brain get unconfused. It seems strange that your very own brain, in your very own head, would be hard for you to understand—but it happens.

  I decided to make the list in my tiny notebook. It kind of had something to do with Stan, so I decided it was okay, and it was faster than getting out a new piece of paper. A confused brain is not something you want to walk around with—it needs to be fixed as soon as possible!

  WHAT WAS GOOD ABOUT MY LIST

  Robert Walters and Stan were almost exactly the same except for three things.

  Stan was a squirrel and Robert Walters was human.

  Stan was tiny and Robert Walters was big.

  Stan was controlled by me, and Robert Walters was controlled by himself.

  The list made me feel better. Those were three pretty big differences. It was proof that there was only one way for Robert Walters and me to be friends.

  WHAT WAS A TOTOAL SURPRISE

  Sammy’s pocket pal. I hadn’t seen it before, but now that I was looking at it, I couldn’t believe it. I would have never guessed it in a million years. It was proof that people you know can still totally surprise you.

  Sammy likes strange things, so I would have not been at all surprised if his pocket pal was something weird.

  POCKET PALS THAT I WOULD EXPECT SAMMY TO MAKE

  THE POCKET PAL THAT SAMMY MADE

  Even though we were supposed to stay at our desks, I snuck over to Mimi’s desk. Sandy the sandwich was in front of her, and Mimi was writing notes in her notebook. She smiled when she saw me. She would not have done that if Miss Lois were at the front of the class, but Miss Summers was different, we both knew. She wasn’t going to get mad at us.

  Mimi thought that I had come over to see her, but she was wrong—it was Sammy I wanted to talk to. Sammy’s desk was close to Mimi’s, and I had a question I needed him to answer. I reached over and poked him on the arm. When he turned around, he was surprised to see me. I pointed to his pocket pal. “Why did you make a cat?” I asked. “You hate cats.” For a second Sammy didn’t say anything, and then he answered.

  SAMMY’S ANSWER

  I nodded and snuck back to my desk. Mimi must have thought I was being strange because I didn’t stay and talk to her. Sometimes when your brain has to think, you just can’t do chitchat.

  WHAT MY BRAIN WAS THINKING

  BEING FRIENDS

  Sammy’s answer made me think two things about being friends.

  Sometimes friends think alike.

  Not all friends like the same things.

  And then suddenly, I thought of more ways to find a new friend.

  Now I knew what was next: To find Marie a friend, I needed more information. I needed to be like a detective and learn everything about her. I was glad that I’d only used half my mini notebook for Stan—the rest could be notes about Marie. Now I was extra excited for the bell to ring. Marie was only 246 steps away. I knew that because Sammy had counted them.

  WHAT MIMI THOUGHT OF MY NEW PLAN

  Normally Mimi is pretty good about being excited with me when I have a plan because of my empathy feelings, but this time was different. Instead of saying something like, Wow, Grace, that’s a great idea, she said, “What are you going to do with extra information? I don’t know if you can really help her.” Sometimes, if you are feeling really good about something, your good feeling will still stay with you even if someone doubts you. Today I was lucky—it was one of those times.

  SOMEONE SAYS SOMETHING YOU DIDN’T WANT TO HEAR

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll just ask the questions.” Now instead of me looking sad, Mimi was looking sad. For a long while she didn’t say anything—not even when I was asking Marie all sorts of new questions and writing down her answers. But then right before we got to my house, all the thoughts that were in Mimi’s head came out at once.

  WHAT I WANTED TO DO

  Go home and write out everything about Marie on a big sheet of paper so I could see it all at once.

  WHAT I HAD TO DO

  Shake my head and tell Mimi that she was wrong, and that what I wanted to do right now was work on the fair crafts. Sometimes even if you don’t feel like it, you have to put the things you should do in front of the things you want to do.

  WHAT MIMI DID NEXT

  Smile. “Okay,” said Mimi. “Come over after you play with Mr. Scruffers.” Mimi knows that no matter what, playing with Mr. Scruffers is always first on my lists of things to do when I get home.

  WHO CAME OUTSIDE WHILE I WAS PLAYING WITH MR. SCRUFFERS

  Augustine Dupre. I am always happy to see Augustine Dupre. Mr. Scruffers is too, but not as much as I am. After barking and a few pets, Mr. Scruffers was ready to go back to playing ball. I was lucky that I could do both things at once—play ball with Mr. Scruffers and talk to Augustine Dupre. When Augustine Dupre asked me what was new, I told her all about Marie, including all the things that Marie liked. I crossed my fingers behind my back and hoped that Augustine Dupre would tell me one of the two things I wanted to hear.

  WHAT I WANTED TO HEAR

  WHAT AUGUSTINE DUPRE SAID

  Augustine Dupre always has good ideas, so even though she wasn’t saying the exact things I wanted her to, I listened and tried not to look disappointed—plus now I kind of knew what an aviary is. Augustine Dupre likes talking, so she told me how her husband, Luke, was taking her out on a special date. She said she got a better job at the airline, so they were going out to celebrate. Augustine Dupre is a flight attendant in first class. That’s almost at the front of the plane, so it was kind of hard to imagine what a promotion would be. The only place closer to the f
ront was the pilot job. Was that her new job?

  For a second Augustine Dupre looked surprised, and then she laughed and hugged me. Normally when someone laughs at a question you ask, it can make you feel bad and embarrassed, but Augustine Dupre knows how to do it just right. If you add a hug, it changes everything. I didn’t feel one bit bad. When Augustine is extra happy, or excited, she always speaks in French. She squeezed my shoulders and said, “Tu est drôle.” I didn’t know what she was saying, but it was something good, because she was smiling.

  Finally she told me, “It means, ‘You’re funny.’” And then she told me all about her new job.

  Her new job didn’t sound as fun as her old job. Flying to France sounded amazing, but that was probably because I’d never done it. After you’ve done something more than one hundred times, it’s probably not so exciting anymore. We talked for a long time, and then I suddenly remembered Mimi. She was waiting for me.

  WHO WAS SAD THAT I HAD TO LEAVE

  Mr. Scruffers and Augustine Dupre. But I had to do it. I ran upstairs, got all my stuff, and then raced over to Mimi’s house. As soon as I got to Mimi’s door, she opened it. “I was waiting for you,” she said, “and it wasn’t easy.” When I walked into the house, I smelled why I followed Mimi and my nose to the kitchen. Mimi’s mom makes the best banana bread in the world, and her whole house smelled delicious! The bread was waiting for us on the kitchen table, and not one slice had been eaten.

  I looked at Mimi. “I’m so sorry,” I said. I tried to explain about Augustine Dupre, but Mimi waved her hand to make me stop. “Sit down,” she said. “I’m starving.”

  THE TRUE FRIEND FRESH-BAKED BANANA BREAD TEST

  After eating, Mimi and I took out our supplies and started working. I worked on my cups and Mimi made some bags, and this time we didn’t give each other any of them. Listening to music and working next to Mimi was fun, and we worked right up until it was time for dinner. The only time we stopped was to have dancing breaks, because when a good song is playing, it’s almost impossible to stay sitting down.

  WHAT I DID AFTER DINNER

  I went up to my room and took out all my Marie notes. I’m not very excited about a lot of the stuff that Miss Lois teaches us, but sometimes she’ll surprise me and show us something cool. And right now, I was going to use one of her cool things—a spider graph. When Miss Lois first said we were going to learn about spider graphs, a lot of the boys got excited, and a lot of the girls got scared. I’m not a fan of spiders, so I was one of the scared people.

  THE FIRST BEST THING ABOUT SPIDER GRAPHS

  They have nothing to do with real spiders. When Miss Lois told us that part, it was a huge relief, and it made Abigail Whitkin get right down off the chair she was standing on. And then Miss Lois showed us a spider graph.

  THE SECOND BEST THING ABOUT SPIDER GRAPHS

  Miss Lois was right: It makes understanding and learning things easier. When Miss Lois said the word learning, everyone in class groaned, but that was before we knew that spider graphs were kind of like putting drawing and learning together. If drawing is in the same sentence as learning, it definitely makes learning more fun.

  I had a lot of notes about Marie. A spider graph was going to make them easier to understand—plus it would be kind of fun to make.

  I took out a huge piece of paper and got started. The other fun thing about spider graphs is that the end is always a surprise. You don’t know exactly what it will look like until it is finished.

  SPIDER GRAPH OF MARIE

  When I was done, I stood back and looked at it. Each branch looked kind of like an arm reaching to the world, and the circles were like hands. Normal spider maps probably don’t have fingers, but I drew them on anyway. Now Marie’s map had hands, and they were all reaching out to find a friend.

  WHAT IS HARD WORK

  Making a spider graph. When it was bedtime, I was happy to go to sleep. My brain was tired. I flashed my lights to Mimi, but she wasn’t in her room. This was easy to tell, because she didn’t flash back. Normally when this happens, I wait a while and then try again, but tonight I was too tired. I just went straight to bed.

  WALKING TO SCHOOL

  As soon as I saw Mimi, she asked me why I’d missed flashing my lights to her. She was a little bit upset, but after I explained that I hadn’t forgotten, she felt better. I told her about my spider graph, but she wasn’t very excited. Sometimes it’s hard to be excited about something when you are just talking about it and it’s not there in front of you to look at.

  When we got to the corner, we didn’t cross the street right away, because Marie had a story to tell us about Freckles. She is good at telling stories.

  HOW TO TELL IF SOMETHING IS A GOOD STORY

  You laugh until you cry, or until your stomach hurts. Marie’s story made me do both, and we were still laughing and talking about it when we got to school.

  WHAT IS NOT AS FUNNY

  Answering the question “Why are you laughing” by saying, “The crossing guard told us a funny story about her cat falling in the toilet.” Telling the story with those words does not make people laugh. It just makes them say, “Oh.”

  WHAT WAS NOT A GOOD SURPRISE IN CLASS

  Miss Summers switched the fun and not-fun parts of our day around. Instead of working on pocket pals in the morning, we had to work on our regular boring stuff instead. “We’ll save the best for last,” said Miss Summers. I didn’t say anything, but my brain was not thinking the same thing as hers.

  LUNCHTIME

  Mimi and I sat by ourselves because Mimi wanted to talk about all the things we still had to do for the fair. It was a lot more stuff than I was expecting. We were going to be working all weekend. If I were a give-up type of person, I might have said, Forget it, it’s too much work, but instead I imagined Rainbow Tail Cozy Kangaroo sitting on my bed and said, “We can do it.”

  MIMI’S LIST OF THINGS WE NEED TO DO

  WHAT CAN SPEED BY SUPER FAST AND IS NOT A PLANE

  An afternoon in class, if you are doing something you love, and I loved writing about Stan. I never noticed this before, but when I’m writing I make lots of faces. I was lucky that no one noticed me.

  FACES I MAKE WHILE WRITING

  When the bell rang at the end of the day, I could hardly believe it. Miss Summers said we could finish our stories on Monday, which was good news for me, because Stan was caught in a trap, and that wasn’t a good way to end a story.

  WHAT WAS DISAPPOINTING

  How long it took to decorate my stuff for the fair. As soon as school was over, Mimi and I rushed home, and after throwing the ball for Mr. Scruffers, I went straight over to Mimi’s house. It was almost dinnertime, and so far I’d only decorated three things. It was hard not to be disappointed, because we’d worked the whole entire time, without even one single dancing break. When you do that much work, you expect a giant pile of stuff—not just four cups.

  WHAT I COULDN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT

  The spider graph and how I wanted to show it to Mimi, but that wasn’t going to happen, because I’d left it at home. I’d been in such a hurry that I’d forgotten to bring it over. Sometimes you can know things about other people, and right now I knew that if I went home to get the spider graph, Mimi would be mad. She was being a lot like Miss Lois, only instead of talking about school stuff, she was talking about fair stuff.

  WHAT IS NO FUN

  When your best friend starts turning into your teacher. I was glad when Mimi’s mom called us down for dinner. During dinner, Mimi turned back into herself. This was a relief. It was a lot more fun to be sitting next to regular Mimi instead of Mimi on the outside and Miss Lois on the inside. “Do you know what I want to win at the carnival?” she asked. I guessed a giant panda, but I was wrong, and then she surprised me with her answer. She wanted Rainbow Tail Cozy Kangaroo too. My first feelings were not happy ones.

  But Mimi changed my feelings with what she said next.

  Twinsies! It was a great
idea.

  WHAT I WAS GLAD ABOUT

  After dinner, instead of doing more work, we watched TV! Our favorite show, Unlikely Heroes, was on, and it was an episode that we hadn’t seen before. Unlikely Heroes is a good show for three reasons.