“Bears eat anything. Even garbage,” Tony Maboney said.
And then everybody started talking about the grossest sandwich a bear would eat, mostly involving trash. But I wasn’t curious about what kind of trash sandwich a bear would eat. Because I was thinking about all my grandparents. If they were still here, I didn’t think that I’d want them to go around feeding gumdrops to grizzly bears. No, I’d want my grand parents to forget about grizzly bears and spend a bunch of time with me. And maybe feed me gumdrops.
Looking around the cafeteria made me very sad. I didn’t understand how so many unfair things could happen to one person. Who decided that I shouldn’t have grandparents? My mind spun around in circles trying to find a way to make things feel less awful. But I couldn’t figure it out. Because there was no way I would ever get the chance to know them. And there was no way they would ever get the chance to know me.
I wiped my mouth with my napkin, packed up my cooler, and walked back to class.
Chapter 8
Legends
One thing that was fair about fourth grade was that after lunch, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I got to go to gifted reading. And the great thing about gifted reading was that I had to leave my classroom and sit in the back corner of another classroom where there were beanbag chairs. That’s where I always chose to sit. There were eight of us in gifted reading, and only five beanbag chairs. So some of the other kids sat on the floor. But they didn’t seem to mind. And I didn’t understand the logic of that. Because you can sit on the floor whenever you want. But you can only sit in a beanbag chair when they happen to be available.
Ms. Golden asked us to sit in our usual circle and then she brought out the book we were reading about myths and legends. We read a story called “The Sedna Legend.” It was the story of Sedna, an Eskimo sea goddess. It told about how all the sea animals came into existence. I thought it was a pretty wild story. But Polly liked it quite a bit. And so did Lilly Poe. And Boone Berry. And even Nina Hosack. Which surprised me a great deal, because the story had blood in it. When we got to that part, I thought Nina was going to pass out or start crying for the nurse. But she didn’t. She just made a squeaky sound and turned the page.
Except for the seals, I was mostly neutral about Sedna’s story. And so were the other three readers—Penny Winchester, Duncan Cole, and Jory Bennett. We liked the story okay, but we weren’t in love with it. I’d read better legends. “How the Coyote Danced with the Blackbirds” and “Why the Ant Is Almost Cut in Two” were two of my favorite legends we’d read in gifted reading. In fact, I liked them so much, I was secretly hoping we’d read them again.
“Sedna must have been so scared,” Polly said.
I rolled my eyes. And Polly saw me. And so did Lilly Poe. And she rolled her eyes right back at me. And then I felt bad.
“Who wants to summarize the story?” Ms. Golden asked. Her hair was looking extra bright and wonderful that day and I thought it smelled like sugar cookies.
“I do! I do!” Penny said.
Ms. Golden pointed to Penny and that released a flood of words.
“Sedna was a girl who went off to live with a guy on an island. But then the guy turned out not to be a guy but a bird. Then Sedna felt betrayed by this and tried to escape with her father, but the sea went crazy and Sedna’s father had to throw her into it to calm it down.”
Penny shook her head and twisted some of her long brown hair around her finger. “I know. I know. Isn’t that crazy that he threw his own daughter into the water like that?” Then she shook her head some more and kept going. “Then Sedna tried to get back in the boat and her dad was really scared and so he stabbed her hands and then Sedna’s blood turned into all kinds of sea creatures, like seals and whales.” Penny looked up at us, horrified. “Her own father stabbed her! Can you believe it?”
“My dad would never stab me,” Lilly said. “Even if it meant that our ship would sink.”
I watched Polly turn and look out the window. This was probably not the best story for her to read. Because it had a dad in it. And that’s what she was missing in life.
“I don’t think anybody’s father would really stab them,” I said. “I think that’s what makes this a legend.”
But then Jory shot up his hand and said, “Sedna’s father should have been arrested.”
Then Ms. Golden smiled at us and closed the book and told everybody to take a deep breath. We did.
“Let’s all come to the table and do some active reflecting,” she said.
I got out of my beanbag chair and sat at the small art table where we did our “active reflecting.” Ms. Golden handed us two sheets of paper. Each one had the outline of a head on it. The inside of the head was blank.
“One head is Sedna’s. And the other head is her father’s. I want you to think about how they must’ve been feeling during the storm. Using pictures, go ahead and put their thoughts inside their heads. You have some time to get started. Bring them with you on Wednesday.”
I took my two blank heads and started drawing life jackets inside both of them right away. Because I thought that’s what a person would think about when they were going to drown. I pushed so hard on my orange crayon that it started to crumble. That’s when I looked over at Polly. She was drawing something complicated. In Sedna’s head, she was drawing a man. And in Sedna’s father’s head, she was drawing a girl. I guess Polly thought that during the storm they would’ve been thinking about each other. That made sense. But I decided not to copy her and stick with my life jackets. Because my idea made sense too.
After gifted reading, we went back to Mr. Hawk’s room and studied science. I ate two pieces of thin-sliced ham while Mr. Hawk talked about hazardous waste. And how gasoline should never get spilled onto the ground. And he talked about the difference between an open dump and a sanitary landfill. I didn’t know that a sanitary landfill meant that the garbage got crushed and layered and covered with a coat of dirt.
Mr. Hawk said it was a better way to throw things away than to toss them in open dumps, because open dumps had problems with insects and rodents and were fire hazards. Also, the wind could blow the trash around, and that’s not ideal. After hearing this, I decided not to eat a third piece of ham. And for PE, Mr. Hawk said that it was okay if I stayed in the classroom, and this thrilled me very much. Because I got to watch the hermit crab. His name was Herman. And he didn’t do much. But that was okay. Waiting for Herman to do something was sort of fun too.
After class, I packed up my things and headed out to the bus. But I only made it halfway. I saw my dad’s black Mazda pickup parked in the school’s parking lot. He beeped his horn at me and waved his arm out the window. I was both happy and worried. What if he’d been home and seen the house? What if he was so mad that he wanted to turn me into a double agent and plot revenge against my mother? What if I had to choose between my parents? What if?
But my dad was smiling wide. Even from so far away, I could see his teeth sparkle behind the bug-splattered windshield. He looked happy. Clearly, he hadn’t entered our Majestic Eggplant house yet.
When I crawled into the pickup, he squeezed my knee and asked me if I wanted to go get pizza. I smiled. Ever since my mother started teaching aerobics, pizza was a banned food item in our house. So were Twinkies, nachos, whole milk, licorice, French fries, French toast, fried chicken, red meat, Pop-Tarts, white bread, white rice, doughnuts, ice cream, all gummy products, potato chips, cheese puffs, enchiladas, and egg yolks. When she made us scrambled eggs for breakfast, she only used egg whites. They looked like a pile of flat cotton sprinkled with little black pepper flakes. But when I closed my eyes and chewed them, they tasted quite a bit like eggs.
My dad had been in Seattle for a whole week. And I had missed him a lot. The longest he’d ever been gone was two weeks. My mom and dad had an agreement that he could never be gone longer than that. Because not seeing each other for three weeks wasn’t good for married people.
When we got to
the pizza parlor, my father let me order a triple-meat pepperoni pizza. The meat slices held little puddles of grease in their centers.
“We should blot it,” my father said. He wadded up some extra napkins and lightly pressed them against our pizza. Tons of grease stuck to them, turning the napkins a bright orange, greasy color.
“We’ve reduced the fat,” he said, smiling again. “Your mother would be proud.”
This made me laugh.
“So, what interesting things happened while I was gone?” he asked.
“Um nuh fuff,” I mumbled, cramming pizza in my mouth with both hands, hoping to fill it so full that it would make it impossible for me to talk.
“Yeah,” he said smiling. “I miss pizza too.”
I nodded with lots of enthusiasm. My hair bounced around my face like it was part human and part kangaroo.
“Watch it,” he said. “You don’t want to choke.”
I stuffed down another slice of pizza and drank a large root beer. It worked. I kept my mouth so full that I never had to respond to questions that might have led to dangerous answers.
When we turned into our driveway, I thought I was going to hurl my pizza back up. My father reached behind him and pulled out a brand-new toilet seat.
“Think she’ll like it?” he asked. “It’s got twice as much cushion as the leading cushioned seat.”
My father was hurting my heart. He had no idea what was waiting for him on the other side of that door.
I walked behind him—slowly. He bounded up the front steps in one giant leap and threw open the door.
“I’m home!” he called, rushing inside. “What is this?” he asked. “Where am I?” The toilet seat slipped from his hand and landed upside down on the new plush carpet.
“Don’t expect life to be fair,” I mumbled.
But I don’t think he heard me. He blinked and blinked and blinked, like bugs had flown into both his eyes. Then he stood motionless. He squeezed his lips together so tight that his mouth didn’t look like a mouth anymore.
There was a new, cross-stitched sign hanging on the wall:
PLEASE TAKE YOUR SHOES OFF AT THE DOOR
SO WE CAN KEEP A SPOTLESS FLOOR.
I didn’t want to mark up the new carpet, so I went ahead and slipped off my shoes. But my father didn’t. He pulled the sign down from the wall and tossed it on the couch.
“It’s just her midlife crisis. Don’t take it personally,” I reminded him. But he wasn’t listening to me. He was exploding.
“Midlife crisis, my butt. We can’t afford this. It’ll put us right back in the hole! Maxine,” he said, charging toward the kitchen. “I refuse to live in a grape!”
Chapter 9
Peace & Bananas
That night, my parents fought long and hard. I went downstairs to the basement family room to watch TV. I didn’t love the basement family room, because it was unfinished. Basically, it was a cement floor with a rug on it. And a couch with uncomfortable springs. And the walls weren’t even solid yet. I could see pink insulation and wood beams and pipes. And every time I saw this, I felt like I was looking at my house’s guts. And that wasn’t pleasant. Also, there wasn’t much light down there. But the basement family room was the farthest away from my fighting parents that I could get. So that’s where I went.
I turned on the TV and watched a show about a wolverine attacking another wolverine. They bit at each other’s ears, clawed at each other’s bellies, and tore at each other’s throats for what seemed like hours. They showed no mercy. The wildlife expert said that the wolverine was the most ferocious animal in the wild kingdom. And after seeing what I saw, I believed this statement.
When I went upstairs to get a banana, I noticed that the way my parents fought reminded me a lot of those wolverines. They weren’t actually biting each other, though. They used words. And the words that flew out of their mouths were horrible and mean.
I took my banana and went to my bedroom. I curled up under my covers and listened. I wanted a referee to show up and stand between them and blow his whistle. In first grade, Penny Winchester and I got in a fight on the playground over a pale pink rock. I found it, but she said that she saw it first. She ended up pulling my hair. I ended up pulling hers back.
We were sent to the teachers’ lounge to talk to Mrs. Moses. The vice principal called it mediation. Mrs. Moses was very wise. She put the rock on the table in front of us and said that she was going to break it in two so that we each could have a part of it. That sounded good to me and Penny. Mrs. Moses got a hammer and held it over her head.
“I would expect that the real owner of this little, pink baby rock would want it to remain whole,” she said, looking first at me and then at Penny.
But we both shrugged and told her to whack it.
She seemed really disappointed.
“I guess I’ll cut your precious baby rock in half,” she said, bringing the hammer down hard.
She actually broke it into eight pieces and some dust. Penny took four pieces and I took four pieces and we left the dust and were both happy. I needed somebody as smart as Mrs. Moses to come over here and cut the house in half, or the toilet seat in half, or the hole in half, and fix this situation.
My parents probably would have fought all night. But then I realized something. I considered what was happening between those two to be a “grave emergency.” So I called Aunt Stella.
“Camille, it’s late,” Aunt Stella said. “Does your mother know you’re calling me?”
“No. She’s fighting with my dad,” I said.
“Oh,” she said. “Are you crying?” she asked.
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“I wish I was there,” she said. “I’d give you a big hug.”
“Mom painted the whole house Majestic Eggplant and now Dad is exploding,” I said.
“That doesn’t sound good. But they can’t fight forever. Eventually they’ll stop,” she said.
I thought about telling Aunt Stella that sometimes wolverines didn’t stop fighting until one of them was dead.
“We’re trying to stay out of the hole,” I said. “But Mom bought new carpet. For the whole house. And then she sprung it on Dad like it was a great surprise. But it wasn’t.”
“Oh dear,” she said.
“I think we’re back in the hole again,” I said.
“Camille, you shouldn’t worry about money. You’re ten,” Aunt Stella said. “Do you want me to talk to them?”
“They’re too busy fighting to talk right now,” I said.
“I’m very disappointed in them. They’re adults. They need to keep their domestic problems to themselves,” Aunt Stella said.
“I think they need mediation,” I said.
Aunt Stella laughed. “Who doesn’t?”
“I better go,” I said.
“You can call me any time,” Aunt Stella said.
“But I’m only allowed to phone you if it’s a grave emergency.”
“Camille, you can call me whenever you want. Even in the middle of the night.”
“Okay,” I said. “But that’s usually when I’m sleeping.”
“What I mean is that I’m always here for you,” she said.
And hearing Aunt Stella say this made me feel very good. But it also made me cry more.
After I hung up with Aunt Stella, my parents kept fighting. It was terrible. I had to do something. My entire body was feeling quaking sad. So I ran out of my room and said, “You need mediation!”
They both looked at me. Then they looked at each other. And I thought their faces appeared very ashamed.
“Seriously. It’s very hard for me to hear these things,” I said. “You’re parents, not wolverines.”
Then I went back to my bedroom and I didn’t hear any more yelling. In fact, I heard my mother agree to help my father repaint the house. And I heard my father admit that he actually liked the new carpet. And I heard both my parents come into my room and say that they loved me, right as
I was tumbling into sleep.
The next morning when I woke up, the cushioned toilet seat had already been installed. And when I went to school, nobody made fun of me for falling underneath the bus. And Tony Maboney had a temperature and went home early and didn’t feel up to poking me in the shoulder before he left. And in the hallway, Ms. Golden complimented me on my fancy socks because they had ruffles on them. And during science, as we learned about how air pollutants affect asthma and can also make it easier for people to catch a cold or the flu, that low-hanging hornet’s wire broke and the hornet fell on me.
“It has a dangerous hind end!” I screamed.
“Ah, it broke,” Mr. Hawk said, pulling the insect out of my hair.
And it had! That hornet’s head came right off its body and landed next to my shoe. Also, I kicked it.
And so Mr. Hawk decided to replace it with a neat-looking cricket.
“Crickets don’t sting, right?” I asked. Because I was basically sure, but I wanted to check.
“Right, they sing,” he said.
“Sweet,” I said, staring up at the new bug.
My day kept getting better and better. For lunch, I ate pizza with sausage on it. And when I got home from school, the meditation wall was already repainted a soft white.
“Hi, honey!” my mom said. She had a paint roller in her hand. “I’m priming.”
“Great!” I said.
“Everything will be the color of the meditation wall,” she said. “It’s called Cotton. Do you like it?”
“Very much,” I said.
“Me too,” she said. “And so does your father.”
But I wasn’t surprised. Of course we liked the color Cotton. Everybody likes cotton. Because it’s the type of material that doesn’t itch or melt in the dryer. Plus, when you make it out of sugar, you can eat it at the zoo.
My house felt very wonderful. And then Mrs. Bratberg called and needed a mother’s helper for the next day, which meant more money for my calling card.
As I watched my mother prime the ceiling, I thought about what she’d said about life having ups and downs. Maybe she was right. Maybe life was like a series of mountains. Up and down. Up and down. Maybe somehow all the unfair things and the fair things balanced out.
Camille McPhee Fell Under the Bus ... Page 5
