by Lisa Graff
6.
A TUB OF WATER
As soon as Francine stepped inside the bathroom, Brendan raced off down the hall. Andre kept checking his watch, looking as excited as Ginny did on Christmas morning, but Kansas couldn’t figure out what was so great about hanging out outside a boys’ bathroom. Francine had only been inside for twenty seconds, and already he was bored.
Andre leaned in close to Kansas, jerking his head toward Natalie. “Hey, you think Brendan needs help?” he whispered. “What if Mrs. W.’s not in her office?”
“Huh?” Kansas replied. He had no idea what Andre was talking about. He was more worried about stupid Mark H., and whether or not Ricky’s dad would let him drive one of the ATVs by himself. Probably. Probably Mark H. was the best ATV driver in the whole world.
“I’m gonna go help,” Andre decided, checking his watch again. “You wait here, in case Brendan comes back.”
“Comes back from where?” Kansas asked. But Andre didn’t answer. He was already ten feet down the hallway.
“Hey, Kansas,” he called, whirling around with a smile on his face, “check out the dingbat with the tutu!” He pointed as he continued down the hallway.
Tutu?
Kansas squinted. Sure enough, there was Ginny at the far end of the hall, sitting on the floor outside her classroom. In her tutu. And she was crying.
“She’s my little sister,” Kansas told Andre as he raced past him down the hallway. “And she’s not a dingbat!” Actually, Kansas thought as he ran, Ginny was a dingbat. Like, 95 percent of the time. But only Kansas was allowed to think that, because he was her brother.
“Ginny!” Kansas said when he reached her. She was slouched against the wall, her tutu flared around her, and she didn’t look up, just kept her face buried in her hands. Kansas wanted to tell her to stop being such a baby, that she was causing a scene in the middle of the hallway and it was making them both look seriously uncool. He wanted to pick her up under the armpits and stuff her and that stupid tutu back into her first-grade classroom.
But she was crying, for Pete’s sake.
Glancing around to be sure that no one he knew was watching, Kansas crouched down next to her. “What happened?” he asked.
Ginny lifted her face from her tutu, little bubbles of snot coming out of her nose. “She said it wasn’t real,” she told him.
Kansas sighed. “Who said what wasn’t real?” he asked.
“The note.” She let out a tiny sniffle. “Mrs. Goldblatt said she knew that Mom didn’t really write it.” Sniffle.
“Is that all?” Kansas said. He put his arm around his sister and gave her a little squeeze. “Ginny, don’t even worry about it. I’ll fix it, all right?” Next to Ginny’s classroom door, a leak from the ceiling was dripping down into a tub of murky water. Drip. Drip. “I’ll just go talk to your teacher and tell her that our mom works, like, all the time, so she couldn’t—”
“No-oooo,” Ginny wailed. “That’s not …” She began gulping down air, huge chunks of it, and Kansas knew that if he couldn’t calm her down soon, she’d be leakier than the ceiling in two seconds flat, a tutu-wearing tear machine. “She said she knew ’cause of the name.”
“What are you talking about?” Kansas said, eyes darting around to see who was watching them. There were a few third-graders peering at them from over by the gym, but so far that was it. Andre had completely disappeared. But Kansas didn’t have time to wonder about that, because Ginny was wailing again.
“Mom’s name,” she said. She sniffled in time with the drips in the bucket—sniffle, drip, sniffle, drip. “’Cause you wrote Susie Bloom.”
“What else would I write?”
“Mrs. Goldblatt said now Mom’s using her maiden name. That now she’s Susie”—sniffle, drip—“Cheever.”
“What? Cheever?”
“Yeah.” Sniffle, drip. “That was her last name ’fore she married Dad.”
“I know it was her … Are you sure?”
Ginny went back to weeping into her tutu. “You think it’s true, Kansas?” she said, peeking an eye out of her ruffles.
Sniffle, drip.
“Yeah,” Kansas said with a sigh. “I guess it’s probably true.”
Sniffle, drip.
“But then … Kansas?”
“Yeah?”
“Does that mean we gotta be Cheevers?”
“Huh?” Kansas hadn’t thought of that before.
“Cheever-Cleaver. Cheever-Cheetoh. Cheever-Cheetah. Blech. I don’t like it.”
“Me neither,” he said. “But I don’t think we have to change if we don’t want to.”
“Good.”
“You should get back to class, probably.”
“Mrs. Goldblatt made me come out here ’cause she said I was hysterical,” Ginny said, wiping her tears off her face with the back of her hand.
“Mrs. Goldblatt sounds like a cow,” Kansas replied.
Ginny giggled.
“Come on,” Kansas told her, hoisting himself to his feet. He held out a hand to help Ginny up too. “I’ll talk to her and explain about the note, okay?”
“’Kay. But … Kansas?”
He sighed again, hand on the doorknob to Ginny’s classroom. “Yeah?”
Ginny shifted her weight to her right foot, then her left. “Dad’s coming back, though, right?” she said. She looked up at Kansas. “Right?”
Kansas blinked.
There weren’t too many things that Kansas knew for certain. He wasn’t good at geography, he had to think super hard every time he did division, and he could barely spell to save his life. But he did know one thing for absolutely positive, and that was that their dad was never coming back for good. He’d left before, three years ago, when Kansas was just Ginny’s age. And for a whole month Kansas had waited and hoped and hoped and waited for him to come back, even though his mom had tried to tell him a billion times it wouldn’t happen. But then it did happen, just the way Kansas had been hoping for. Ginny had gotten sick and had been raced to the hospital the day they discovered her peanut allergy, and their dad had come racing, too, not far behind. At the time, Kansas had thought it was some sort of miracle.
Now, of course, Kansas knew that his dad coming back hadn’t been a miracle. A miracle would’ve been his dad staying away forever. Now things were going to be better. His mom was getting a divorce, official and everything. He’d overheard her telling his aunt Grace on the phone. And he knew, he knew, that his dad was never coming back to stay. And that was the very best thing.
But try telling a six-year-old that.
“I don’t know,” he told Ginny at last.
She smiled at him as she slipped her hand into his. “Don’t worry, Kansas,” she said. “He will.” Then she twisted open the doorknob and stepped back inside her class, face as clear as though nothing had ever upset her at all.
7.
A second pair of underwear
Francine sat in the hard wooden chair in front of Mrs. Weinmore’s desk, her toes squishing inside her wet sock. The principal was staring at her over thick-rimmed glasses, like she was a cop in one of those police shows Francine’s dad was always watching, and she was waiting for a full-blown confession. Which was pretty stupid, Francine thought, because she’d been caught lying on the floor of the boys’ bathroom with her foot in a toilet, so really, what else was there?
“Can I go back to class now?” Francine asked. The bell had rung five minutes ago, and yet here Francine sat.
“Not yet,” Mrs. Weinmore replied.
“Oh.”
Mrs. Weinmore sucked in her cheeks as she studied Francine, and then she picked a piece of lint off of her peach blazer. Francine’s mother would have said that peach was not a flattering color for Mrs. Weinmore’s complexion, but Francine figured maybe she should keep that information to herself.
Francine waited as one minute ticked by on the clock above Mrs. Weinmore’s desk. Then two.
“Can I go back to class now?” sh
e asked.
Mrs. Weinmore frowned at her. Francine took that as a no.
“Miss Halata,” the principal said at last, and she took such a deep breath after she said it that Francine began to wonder if that was the first breath she’d taken since they’d been sitting there. She let out all her air. “Miss Halata,” she said again.
“Um … yes?”
Mrs. Weinmore did not respond.
Francine went back to looking at the clock. Maybe this was her punishment—sitting in a hard wooden chair, watching the clock tick away the minutes until the end of time. It was a pretty good one.
“Quite frankly, Miss Halata,” Mrs. Weinmore piped up at last, “I’m concerned about your behavior.” She set her elbows on the table and leaned forward to look at Francine more closely. “I find it rather bothersome.”
Francine snapped her attention away from the clock. “Um, bothersome?”
“Yes. Bothersome. You’ve been attending Auden Elementary since kindergarten, Miss Halata. Five long years. And I like to think that in that time we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well. Wouldn’t you say that we know each other pretty well?”
“Um …” Was this a trick question? Was Mrs. Weinmore going to quiz her on her favorite color? What if Francine got it wrong? “Um, yeah,” she replied. “Sure.”
“I think so too. And that’s why I find your behavior this afternoon to be so out of character. Not like the Francine Halata I’ve always known. Which makes me think”—she twitched her bulb of a nose thoughtfully—“that there might be something else going on with you.”
Francine’s stomach thunked, heavy like a rock, right to the bottom of her innards. “Um … going on?” she said.
Mrs. Weinmore folded her hands under her chin. “Yes,” she said. “I think you’ve been acting differently ever since the Thanksgiving break. Am I right?” Francine didn’t move a muscle. “And I think I know why.”
Francine could feel the back of her neck burning. If her parents were getting a divorce, it was none of Mrs. Weinmore’s beeswax. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she grumbled.
Mrs. Weinmore nodded at that. “Well, perhaps you don’t,” she replied. “But I think it’s worth discussing. You know, dear, your situation is not uncommon.”
“It’s … it’s not?” Francine had heard that, that lots of kids’ parents got divorces. But she didn’t know any.
“Oh, no, not at all. As principal, I see it all the time. And it’s nothing to be concerned about. It’s perfectly normal for a girl your age.”
Francine raised an eyebrow.
“The important thing,” Mrs. Weinmore continued, “is not to forget who you are, dear, simply because you’ve fallen in love.”
Francine nearly toppled out of her chair. “In love?” she squeaked.
Mrs. Weinmore nodded again. “Infatuation, attraction, puppy love. I’ve seen it a thousand times before. A young girl develops a crush on a boy and loses herself trying to win his affections.” She adjusted the glasses on her nose. “It’s a hopeless game, dear. I wouldn’t advise it.”
Francine was pretty sure Mrs. Weinmore had lost her marbles. “B-but …,” she sputtered, “I’m not … who …?” She righted herself in her seat. “Mrs. Weinmore,” she said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have a crush on anyone.”
“I hate to argue with you,” Mrs. Weinmore replied. “But the evidence seems clear.”
“Huh?”
“Wouldn’t you agree,” Mrs. Weinmore went on, “that it seems an awfully big coincidence that your sudden shift in personality occurred at the exact same time as the arrival of a certain someone—a certain boy—at Auden Elementary?” She leaned forward just an inch. “Hmmm?”
Kansas Bloom? The principal thought Francine had a crush on Kansas Bloom? Francine squeezed her eyes shut. She was pretty sure her brain was going to explode.
“Miss Halata?”
Francine opened her eyes. “I do not like Kansas,” she told the principal.
“I see,” Mrs. Weinmore replied. “Then maybe you would care to explain why a little birdie informed me that you paid five dollars to collect these”—she pulled open one of her bottom desk drawers—“underpants from the boys’ locker room yesterday?” Mrs. Weinmore slapped the underwear on her desk. They were the same pair of briefs Francine had been carrying in her backpack just that morning—white, slightly used, with the name Kansas Bloom written on the waistband in square black letters.
“Is that why you were peeping in the boys’ room, dear?” Mrs. Weinmore went on. “So you could see your little friend?”
“What?” Francine cried. “No!” This could not be happening. Her mind raced, trying to grab at the words that would get her in the least amount of trouble. “I’m not— I didn’t— Those are the underwear Kansas put up the flagpole this morning,” she said at last. “He should be the one in trouble, not me.”
Mrs. Weinmore sighed, as though Francine had said the exact wrong string of sentences. “Is that so?” she asked.
“Um … yes?”
“Interesting,” the principal replied, in a tone of voice that let Francine know that she didn’t think it was interesting in the slightest. “It’s interesting you say that, Miss Halata, because I was hoping to trust you here. But it just so happens that these weren’t the underpants that were up the flagpole this morning.”
“Yes, they were,” Francine said. She really wished Mrs. Weinmore would stop saying “underpants.” “Kansas put them there, he did. I swea—”
“No. He didn’t. You know it, Miss Halata, and I know it. These underpants were not the ones on the flagpole.” She opened up her desk drawer again and pulled something else out. “These were.” And she set the object on the desk between them.
It was a white pair of boys’ underwear, slightly used. A second pair.
How many pairs of underwear did Mrs. Weinmore have in there?
“Now,” Mrs. Weinmore said, “I’m going to ask you one last time, and I expect you to tell me the truth. Did you or did you not pay five dollars to acquire a pair of Mr. Bloom’s underpants?”
“But—” Francine began. She was so confused. If Kansas hadn’t put his underwear up the flagpole, then who had? “But …”
“Miss Halata, the truth, please.”
Francine sighed. “Yes,” she said at last. “I did.”
Mrs. Weinmore studied Francine’s face for a long moment, then finally opened up her bottom desk drawer and dropped both pairs of underwear inside. “Very well,” she said. “Normally I would call a student’s parents to report such a stunt. Normally I would say you wouldn’t be allowed to participate in any extracurriculars for the rest of the school year.” Francine gulped. Was she being kicked out of Media Club? “But given the circumstances surrounding the situation, I’m going to let you off the hook.”
Francine felt as though her legs were covered in tiny prickles of fire ants. “Can I go now?” she asked. The only thing she wanted in the world was to get out of that chair and leave.
“Yes,” Mrs. Weinmore said. “But take this as your warning. The next time you misbehave, I promise you I won’t be so lenient.”
“Thanks,” Francine said, leaping to her feet. “I’ll remember.”
“Miss Halata?”
Francine whirled around, already halfway out the door. “Yeah?”
“I’ve found that boys tend to like you best when you act like the person you truly are inside.” She winked.
Francine hustled out the door.
When Francine got back to class, the first thing she saw were the numbers on the chalkboard. Kansas had three points, same as that morning, and Francine had two.
“Sorry I’m late,” she told Miss Sparks, handing over her pass. “I had to, um, talk to Mrs. Weinmore about something.”
“Thanks,” Miss Sparks said. “Oh, and Francine?” She held out a thin pink square of paper, the kind the office secretary used to record messages. “This came for yo
u while you were at lunch.” Francine took it and headed back to her desk.
The thing Francine couldn’t figure out was how Mrs. Weinmore knew about her buying Kansas’s underwear. Brendan had to have been the one to tell her, because he was the only person who knew about it. But why would he do that, if he was the one who stole them?
There was a note poking out from the front of Francine’s desk, and Francine knew it must be from Natalie, because it had been carefully folded into the shape of a heart, and Francine’s name was written across the front in perfect bubble letters. Francine opened it.
After we’re done training Samson this afternoon, want to do makeovers?
XOXO
Nat
Francine twizzled her mouth into a knot. There was one other person who knew about the underwear, she realized suddenly.
Natalie.
But no way Natalie would ever fink on her, not in a million years. Even if she did think Kansas was so cute she couldn’t stop twirling her hair a mile a minute every time she saw him. She’d been on Francine’s side from the beginning.
Hadn’t she?
Francine shook her head. This war had made her nutty. No way Natalie would ever rat her out.
She was just about to write a response to Natalie’s note when she remembered the other slip of paper. She unfolded the pink square, the thin paper crinkling between her fingers. It was a phone message, written in the secretary’s thin, tight handwriting.
DATE: Dec. 8
TIME: 12:11
TO: Francine Halata, Room 43H
MESSAGE: Mother called. Working late.
Francine and friend to go to father’s after school.
Father will pick up.
Francine stared at that third sentence for a long time. Francine and friend to go to father’s after school.
Francine’s dad was staying in a hotel. He’d been there for the past two weeks. Natalie couldn’t go there. It wasn’t what she was used to. She wouldn’t like it.
Francine crumpled the note into a pink ball and shoved it into her desk. Then she fished out her pencil and scribbled a response to Natalie’s note.
