Eight Keys

by Suzanne LaFleur

  This room was about Dad and me. Together.

  The only other thing in the room was a sketchbook, its pages full and puffy. It was just sitting, dusty, in the middle of the floor. Aunt Bessie probably would have had a heart attack, but I sat right down in the grime and opened the book.

  It wasn’t filled with sketches, but with words.

  I started on the first page:

  … This morning we went to your favorite playground. It took us a long time to get there because your pink sneakers were missing. Finally, Hugh found one under the couch (with sixteen dusty blocks, seven Cheerios, and one AWOL stuffed rabbit), and you discovered the other in your toy chest. How can your shoes get lost every day?

  By the time we got to the park, all the swings were taken, but you headed to the sandbox instead. Then you wanted to climb on the monkey bars, which are too high for you to reach. I helped you up there and you moved your arms from bar to bar, pretending you were moving on your own.…

  … Today it was raining, so we didn’t even have to look for your sandy shoes. You sat with your face pressed to the window, waiting for the rain to stop.

  Eventually, I got you into the kitchen for a “cooking” project. We made peanut-butter toast. There was peanut butter everywhere! You put on all kinds of toppings—Cheerios, marshmallows, chocolate chips.… You were one big sticky mess when you were done eating! It was straight to the bath after that.…

  … Today was your first trip to get a haircut. I didn’t even want to cut your hair, but Bessie told me it would grow out nicer if we got it cut along the way.

  They made a big fuss over you at the barbershop. My barber put a board across the arms of one of the chairs for you to sit on. He wrapped an old button-up shirt around you and set to work. You kept your eyes fixed on me watching you the whole time. Only when the haircut was done and I carried you over to the mirror did you look. “Pretty!” you announced.…

  … I spent most of my day in the hospital for treatment, but Bessie tells me that you had a good day. You picked up colored leaves outside and brought them in and taped them in a notebook to keep.

  I hate days when I don’t see you. They happen more and more.…

  … Today I came home after you were sleeping, and I sat by your bed for a little while, petting your hair, careful not to wake you from your dreams.

  You looked a little bigger. You were growing, after all, even in the couple of days I was gone. And you will keep growing. You will change without me.

  But I remind myself that I know you. I know your heart, and that will stay the same, so I will always know you.…

  I had to put the book down after that one. It can be hard to read with water in your eyes.

  He said he knew me, he knew me … but I was so little. Was it really true that inside, my heart was the same? From the sound of it, I wasn’t even Cricket yet. And what did the note mean? CHOOSE TO LIVE, CHOOSE TO LOVE?

  I shut the journal, even though I had only read some of it, and went downstairs. Uncle Hugh wasn’t back yet, so I headed inside the house.

  The door to Annie and Ava’s room was open. I could hear Ava, cooing, waking up from her nap. Annie didn’t seem to be around, so I walked over to the crib. Ava was tasting her foot and talking to it.

  “Hi, Ava,” I whispered. I reached out to stroke her cheek. It was soft and a little wet from being bumped by her spitty foot.

  “Go ahead. Take her out.” Annie had walked up behind me.

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Course you do. It’s natural. Put your hands around her there, under her arms, and lift.”

  I put my hands around Ava where Annie had said to. I would have laughed or gotten mad if someone squeezed my middle like that, but Ava was used to being picked up. I lifted her out, making sure her toes cleared the bars. I held her stiffly, far from me.

  Annie took my hands and helped them hold Ava under her butt and on her back, pressing her against me. It felt good, her little warm body, like a hug in which I did all the hugging.

  “Now bring her over here so I can change that pee-pee diaper.”

  I followed Annie to the changing table, and she helped me lay Ava on the thick pad.

  “She likes this, see?” Annie played “This Little Piggy” on Ava’s toes, kissing them and blowing raspberries on the bottom of her feet. Ava shrieked and laughed.

  My mother had never done that to me. Maybe Dad had?

  “How did you find out she liked that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. It was just a game we started to play. Wasn’t it, sweetie?” she asked Ava in a soft voice. Ava smiled back. “There, all done.” Annie sat Ava up.

  “Grab some of her toys. We’ll go to the living room.”

  In the living room she laid Ava down on a blanket on the floor.

  “Will you stay with her while I get some laundry started?” I must have looked nervous. “You don’t have to do anything, just stay here.”

  She left. Ava looked around.

  “Hi,” I said. “It’s okay.” I picked up one of the toys, a fat bumblebee with crinkly wings. “See? It’s okay.” I turned the bee a little in front of her, making the wings crackle. I moved it closer to her. She looked a little cross-eyed, trying to focus, but when I touched it to her nose and said, “Bop!” she laughed. I pulled the bee back out. “Buzz … bop!” Ava laughed again. I put the bee down and placed my hand near hers. She wrapped her fist around my pinky. I let her hold on.

  Maybe Dad did know me as a little kid. Some things seemed the same—me losing things, loving peanut butter.

  But I didn’t lose things as much anymore. Other sides of me seemed to have come and gone—like me being a chirping cricket. Maybe now I was more like the Elise Dad knew than I’d been other times.

  Kind of like how I really thought I knew Franklin and then he turned into a weirdo about Caroline. Where did that come from? Would he change back?

  How could you ever really know someone, if they could change on you?

  What did Dad mean by CHOOSE TO LOVE? What did choosing have to do with anything? Don’t you either happen to love someone or not?

  I looked down at Ava, who was looking up expectantly.

  “Sorry.” I picked up the stuffed bee again.

  Uncle Hugh came home and found me with Ava. “Having fun?”

  I shrugged. “Annie’s doing laundry.”

  “Here,” he said, lifting Ava off the floor and sitting down on the couch, settling her in his lap facing him. He made lovey-dovey faces and she responded with happy coos.

  “Uncle Hugh?”

  “Yes, Cricket?” He made a different face at Ava.

  “I found a new key and room. It’s about me and Dad together … but his note says ‘Choose to live, choose to love.’ What does that mean?”

  Uncle Hugh looked at me then. “I’m going to tell you the truth, is that okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. What I think it means is this … when your mom died, your dad was so sad, he could have just become wrapped up in being sad, but he didn’t; he chose to be a father to you. And when he got sick, he could have become wrapped up in being sick, but he chose to be a father to you. He chose to keep living, and he kept finding ways to show his love for you, no matter how hard things were.”

  While I thought about that, Uncle Hugh started asking Ava, “Do you have a wet diaper?” even though her mother had just changed it. She was laughing.

  “What is he saying to me, though? Nothing like that is happening to me.”

  “Maybe not. But in life people come and go. We don’t always have control over it. But we can control how we respond. We can keep going, keep living the best we can. We can love the people we have instead of shutting them out. We can do our best to get to know them in the time we have.”

  He turned back to Ava. “Like you, little one. How lucky we are to have you here with us. How lucky!”

  “Where’s Ava’s dad?”

  “He, unlike your dad
, was just not interested.”

  “Just not interested?”

  “Stated plainly, yes. He told Annie he didn’t want to have children and left.”

  I looked at little Ava. She was just a baby. She didn’t even know. She was still smiling and playing.

  We can do our best to get to know them.…

  Franklin was right that I didn’t know Caroline too well—but I knew enough to trust her—it was that slug Amanda I didn’t know, except that as far as I did know, she was entirely awful.

  Kind of like Uncle Hugh was saying, she was a person in my life. Wouldn’t it make sense to give it a shot, see what made her tick?

  Besides, would Caroline really be friends with someone who was only awful?

  Spying on the Enemy

  I paid attention to what Amanda did the next day.

  She squashed my lunch (not a surprise).

  She never waited for anyone; people caught up with her. Sometimes, Kate and Lindsay looked panicky when they thought she was heading off without them. That was funny.

  She didn’t raise her hand in any class we had together, but she did reply when Mr. Fleming asked her a question. She said, “What makes you think I would know?” What a stellar, polite student. Just what every teacher must dream of. He made her go to the principal’s.

  When we had a quiz in language arts, she went to the bathroom and skipped it. Mrs. Wakefield accepted her blank paper into the pile, but I bet she’d give it a zero—I’d watch when we got them back.

  In gym, we played volleyball. She wouldn’t even touch the ball when it came to her. The sporty girls looked annoyed, but no one said anything.

  And it wasn’t just me and Franklin she called names. I counted at least five other people. Not one did anything back to her.

  She seemed completely rotten, but in control. She had started that control on day one by showing that she could be mean to people. No one had the courage to stand up to her, so she could have anything she wanted. She held everyone else in place, beneath her. I was pretty sure that Amanda didn’t have any more to her than I already knew.

  Franklin, determined to hate Amanda, didn’t exactly understand what I wanted to learn, but was willing to help. “The problem is,” he whispered to me when we were partners in social studies last period, “that you already know what she’s like at school. If you really wanted to learn something about her, you’d have to be with her somewhere else.”

  I nodded. I’d have to do some better sleuthing.

  The next day Caroline picked me to be her draft-editing partner in language arts. We had to swap rough drafts, read them, and give each other suggestions.

  Caroline likes to get her work done, so I made sure we finished before I started a conversation. I also made sure that Amanda couldn’t hear us.

  “What’s going on after school today?” I asked.

  “Do you want to hang out?”

  “No, I was just wondering what was up. Are … you know … people doing anything?”

  “What people?”

  “You know, Amanda, Kate, Lindsay …”

  “Not today. Amanda gets picked up by her brother a couple days a week and no one hangs out on those days.”

  “I didn’t know she had a brother. I’ve never seen her get picked up.”

  “She has him meet her on the other side of the soccer field at the lower parking lot.”

  I knew the place. A grove of trees and a couple rocks that kids used as benches.

  “So what are you doing after school?” Caroline asked me.

  “Just getting picked up.”

  It wasn’t really a lie; if I stayed to spy on Amanda, I’d eventually have to call home to get a ride.

  After last period, I told Franklin I wasn’t going home on the bus. At our locker, Amanda quickly got her things and slammed the door.

  “See ya, Scabular.”

  I opened the locker and grabbed a couple of books, hoping they were the right ones, and crammed them into my backpack. Then I scooted after her, careful to stay a good distance behind as she left the building.

  The soccer field was more challenging because it was a big open space. I decided not to follow Amanda and ran along the school grounds in the other direction instead. I lost sight of her, but when I came out at the lower parking lot, she was waiting there. I stayed hidden in the trees.

  It felt mean, spying. But what I wanted to know wasn’t bad. I was looking for another side of her. Maybe if I saw a side of her that was nice, things would be different at school. Maybe she wouldn’t be so hateable.

  Amanda sat on a rock bench, tugging her jean skirt down so her legs wouldn’t touch the cold stone. Her jacket didn’t seem warm enough, because she waited with her arms crossed tightly across her chest. Maybe her feet were cold, too, because she was tapping them even though no one was around to admire her shoes.

  Eventually a car full of teenage boys pulled up. Amanda stood, straightened her skirt, and adjusted her backpack on her shoulders.

  “Hurry up!” the driver called. Her brother. He had hair in his eyes and a sleepy expression. Jake and Alec looked a lot nicer than he did.

  One of the boys in the back was hanging out the window smoking a cigarette. As Amanda approached, he blew smoke at her. “Want one?”

  “No,” Amanda said. It sounded like she was trying to make the “no” strong, like she was a little afraid of him.

  “Your sister’s an infant,” the boy called to the driver.

  “She won’t tell on you, don’t worry,” Amanda’s brother said back. “She’s a—”

  He called her something that I knew I wouldn’t be repeating in front of Aunt Bessie, or even Franklin, for that matter. As the boy in the back slid over to make room for Amanda, he called her something even worse.

  Amanda looked small. She slammed the car door and her brother started to drive away.

  I felt a sinking in my stomach. I didn’t know if Amanda had a nice side or not, but she definitely had a scared side. She had to be with people who treated her badly. I knew what that felt like, thanks to her.

  Then my stomach dropped another full roller-coaster-ride level: as the car drove away, Amanda saw me, hiding behind a tree and watching her. Her mouth fell open, but closed quickly into a smirk as she narrowed her eyes at me.

  She was saying, You’re dead meat. Big-time.

  “Do you have any … enemies?” I asked Leonard.

  “Well, let’s see,” he said thoughtfully, stroking his chin. “Rehl’s Hardware, across town. Does that count?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “Does Rehl’s Hardware bother you every day you come to work? And make it so you’re afraid to come in? And so that you can’t fall asleep at night just thinking about the morning?”

  He thought some more. “Just a couple weeks ago, a guy came in with a receipt for a hammer he’d bought here and a sales ad for the same hammer at Rehl’s, and he wanted to know why my hammer cost forty-nine cents more and could he have his forty-nine cents back?”

  “Did you give it to him?”

  “Yep.”

  “And that’s the worst of it?”

  “Pretty much. There’s enough people in this town for two hardware stores, so I stay in business, Rehl’s stays in business … things seem okay.”

  I was quiet, sitting on the counter. What would Amanda do to me tomorrow?

  “What’s the matter, Cricket?” Leonard asked. “Have you made an enemy?”

  “No.” I hadn’t done anything wrong, so I hadn’t made her my enemy. She’d picked me out. But this afternoon I’d made things one hundred times worse. Even though I’d seen her a little scared, I was even more scared of her. I was terrified.

  In the morning, on the bus, Franklin said, “Lise? Lise? Lise?”

  “What?” I jumped.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I … I couldn’t do my math homework last night. I forgot my math book.”

  Franklin nodded. He took out his own math b
ook, a binder, and a sheet of paper. He fished a pencil out of his constellations pencil case.

  “Here.” He handed everything to me.

  I could have hugged him. But instead, I whispered what was really wrong: “Amanda’s going to kill me.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “She can’t really. It’s against the law.”

  Franklin is too literal sometimes. There were loads of other ways your life could end in middle school.

  • • •

  Amanda was at our locker. I said, “Good morning.”

  “Good morning, buttwipe.” She slammed the door and left.

  I hesitated before putting my lunch up on the locker shelf. She hadn’t hung around to smash it.

  The morning went okay. Thanks to Franklin, I didn’t get in trouble for not having my math homework. Amanda ignored me.

  But at lunch, she and her friends giggled in my direction and headed straight for the cafeteria. That put a funny feeling in my stomach. I walked toward my locker.

  On the floor in front of our locker was a big mess. My peanut butter and jelly sandwich was there, smeared across the ground in streaks of purple and brown. And on top of the gooey heap was one of my extra gym sneakers. A piece of paper stuck out of the sneaker, the words visible from several feet away: SCAB SANDWICH.

  For a minute, I couldn’t think about anything but the hand-clapping song: So she made me a scab sandwich … mustard on top … eagle eyeballs … and camel snot …

  Then I heard people around me start to laugh. My red face gave away that the sandwich was mine.

  “Elise? Elise?”

  Caroline.

  “I—I need to clean my sneaker,” I stammered. I reached down and freed it from the sticky sandwich. I flipped it over to see all the grooves filled with goop. I crumpled the note.

  In the bathroom, I wet a paper towel and carefully wiped out the rubber ridges of my sneaker.

  Caroline came into the bathroom and washed peanut butter off her hands. She must have cleaned up the sandwich. That made me want to cry or hug her, but I concentrated on not being upset. I couldn’t open my mouth, because the lump in my throat was growing bigger and bigger and carrying me dangerously closer to crying.