I hear another lamp switch on. A yellow glow seeps through the dark living room and between my arms, which are still wrapped around my head.
“Little problem here,” says Frank. He must be pointing at me, but I can’t really see much. I’m buried in the cave of my arms. The whine of engines overhead, the tat-tat-tat of anti-aircraft fire, explosions all around me. Every war newsreel and movie I have ever seen are playing in my mind at the same time.
“Oh, baby,” Mom says, kneeling beside me. “Oh, don’t cry. It’s all over. Don’t cry.”
Only I do. I cry. I don’t cry like a baby, either. I cry like the Chrysler Air Raid Siren. I cry like I’m going to explode into an H-bomb mushroom cloud. I cry in gasping sobs, like I am trapped in a cabinet and can’t catch my breath. I cry like I was just arrested for being a commie traitor. I cry like police have come to drag my mother to jail in her bathrobe. I cry like Mom when she had her bad spell and lived in the bedroom for three weeks and Grandma Mona had to come and take care of us. I cry, palms tight against my eyes.
Dad scoops me up and puts me in a ball on the sofa, while I keep crying. He tells me, “It’s okay. It’s okay,” smoothing his hand over my back. “Come on, baby. Daddy didn’t mean to scare you. It’s okay.” He rocks me back and forth a few times, and then he says, “I can’t take this right now, Lila.”
“Let me,” Mom says, sitting beside me.
Dad pulls out his handkerchief and wipes his face. I hear him blow his nose as he leaves to go out in the garage. If I didn’t know better, I would think that he’s crying, too. But Dad has always told me that good soldiers don’t cry, even soldiers who aren’t soldiers anymore. Frank follows after him.
Carol Anne’s been hiding under the dining room table, but now she slides up on the sofa with Mom and me and nuzzles into our hug.
“Breathe,” Mom says. The air seems to have knots in it, but I try to choke it in.
Each time she tells me that it’s okay, more tears burn down my face.
CHAPTER 23
Mom holds out a small square envelope to me as I’m on the way out the door to school the next morning. On it she’s written Mrs. Scholtz in her perfect handwriting with her favorite green fountain pen. I stare at it.
“The bridge club is having a little shower for the Papadopouloses’ new baby. I thought your new friend’s mother might like to join us. Just give Mrs. Scholtz’s invitation to Inga.”
“I have too much to carry,” I say, holding out my tile map. The project looks pretty pathetic in the morning light. Mom made me cocoa after the thing with Dad last night. A milkshake would have been better, but with no ice cream in the house, she said hot chocolate would just have to do. Then she helped me finish the map before bed. We glued mounds of tissues for the relief mountains and poked colored toothpicks into them to mark the locations of the Seven Wonders. I made a legend on a separate piece of paper explaining what was what. The map only shows the heel of the boot that is Italy, so I don’t exactly know where the volcano is going to go and hope, hope, hope that Owen forgets to bring it.
“Take this envelope, Marjorie. Don’t be silly. Here,” and she shoves the invitation in my coat pocket.
Bernadette is carrying her project, too, when we meet up at the end of my driveway. We look like waitresses holding our trays. Hers has papier–mâché mountains and blue aluminum foil covering the Mediterranean Sea. She has built a perfect pyramid out of cardboard and put blocks on the sites of the other Wonders. I wish I had thought of blocks because my toothpicks are looking pretty shaky in the morning breeze.
Bernadette whines that hers hasn’t had enough time to dry. “Billy and I had to paint the mountains when they were still wet. He came over to my house last night, and we worked on it together. Can you believe that Kirk didn’t give us two nights for this project? It’s not fair.” She looks at my tile with the wobbly toothpicks and says nothing.
It’s not like I think I’m going to marry Billy or anything. Grandma Mona told me that Catholic boys never marry Presbyterians. She says Catholics are all liars and all they want is to kiss you and then they drop you like a hot potato. She says Catholics can’t be trusted because they only do what the Pope tells them to do, and wherever you find four Catholics, you always find a fifth, because all Catholics are drunks. She told me that I should marry a nice Jewish boy because they are good family men. Or I should marry a sober Methodist. That was right about when Mom decided her bad spell was over and Grandma Mona should go back to Ohio.
A bad spell isn’t getting the word Massachusetts wrong on a test. A bad spell is when a person starts crying and doesn’t want to open the curtains. After Grandma Mona left, Mom told us not to worry, she wasn’t ever going to cry again, which we all knew wasn’t true, but we went along with it to try and make her be happy again.
Bernadette and I walk, holding our tile projects. I try not to be upset because Billy O’Brien came over to Bernadette’s house. I don’t know what it is about Billy. He just makes my insides skip around, and for a second I let myself think about what it would have been like to build my project with him in my kitchen. Before I can imagine us laughing and stirring up papier–mâché, I think about Mom and how she laughed until she cried last night when she found the piece of burned toast in her apron pocket. I think about Dad and the broken lamp. Carol Anne, who practically lives under the dining room table—and Frank.
Right then I know Billy O’Brien will always be the boy who delivers our paper but who never comes inside the house, which is probably a good thing. Still, it might have been fun. Instead I had to be paired with Owen Markey.
By the time we arrive at school I have managed to lose three toothpicks. Fortunately, I packed spares in my pocket. I hang my coat on the hook in the back of the classroom and put the tile on my desk.
When I return to my coat and dig around in the pocket for the spare toothpicks, the invitation comes out, too. The square white envelope drops silently to the floor. I look around to see if anyone notices, but luckily everyone is busy setting up their projects along the window ledge. I walk away from the envelope.
So far, no sign of Owen. The first bell rings. The first bell means everyone should be in school except the safety patrol, and they have three minutes to hightail it in before the second bell. Since Owen was kicked off the safety patrol last fall for chasing leaves instead of helping kindergarteners cross the road, he’s supposed to be here.
I sigh with relief, hoping he’s come down with something really sickening overnight, like the plague of Egypt. Some disease with spots and a fever and swollen glands that would keep him and his Mr. Wizard volcano home for the rest of the week. I wish the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World never existed. I want to forget this project and go back to diagramming sentences, which I can do all on my own, with no one watching me.
I put the tile on my desk and use the legend to replace the toothpicks to match the Wonders, attempting to fix what the wind had messed up on the walk to school before adding it to the other projects on the window ledge.
“Where’s your partner, Margie?” asks Bernadette. Before I can say, “I hope he’s in the hospital,” the door opens and in walks Owen, carrying his mountain on its own tile.
“No fair,” Bernadette squawks. “Owen and Marjorie used two tiles.”
Billy, Mike, Sammy, and the other boys don’t seem to care about the second tile. Instead they crowd around Owen saying things like, “Cool” and, “Neat,” and Sammy even whistles. Owen comes over and carefully slides the mountain smack in the middle of the Mediterranean I have carefully drawn on our official tile. He drops the spare tile on the ground.
“Hey,” I say. But Owen doesn’t hear me. He’s talking to the growing crowd of boys gathering around my desk and the mountain.
“Wait. Wait,” he says. “Wait till you see the best part.”
“Is this the volcano from the Mr. Wizard show?” asks Sammy.
“Soda and vinegar, big deal,” says Billy.
&nb
sp; “Wrong-o,” Owen says. “This is a fire volcano. I stuffed it with ammonium dichromate from my chemistry set and added smashed-up sparklers.”
“Cool,” the boys say in unison.
Right then is when I know I should shout for the teacher. Right at that moment, I know I should scream. But part of me is too scared to speak and a little part of me wants to see what ammoni-whatever-it-is does to sparklers.
Owen shrugs his coat off and flings it to the side before reaching into his pocket. “This is so cool, you won’t believe it. Too bad it’s not dark in here.” In one hand I glimpse a silver Zippo lighter, in the other he holds the end of a string fuse that leads to a hole in his mountain. “Stand back,” he orders. “Silence.”
Mrs. Kirk, who’s bent over the trash can looking for something, stands straight up when she hears the silence. The unmistakable click of a lighter brings her running.
“What’s going on here,” she says as she rushes over, making her way through the jungle of kids, swinging her arm like a blunt machete. “Did I hear a lighter?”
The lighter has disappeared.
A small flame zips along, gobbling up the fuse.
“You can’t,” she screams. But it’s too late.
The mountain erupts, spitting sparks straight up in a plume of smoke. Owen’s face opens in a wide smile. The stream of fire continues to burst from his asbestos mountain, casting a warm light on his proud face.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Mrs. Kirk shrieks. “Everybody out!”
We jump back, but no one heads towards the door. Everyone’s eyes are fixed on the flying sparks. By the time Mrs. Kirk throws Owen’s coat over the mountain, it’s already started to fizzle out.
The class erupts with applause. I’m not sure if they’re clapping for the volcano or Kirk’s heroic coat move.
“Whose desk is this?” she demands. She’s all red in the face and the last thing in the world I want to say is whose desk it is.
“It’s Marjorie’s,” Bernadette says.
“Marjorie Campbell, principal’s office. Owen Markey? Was this your idea?”
“It’s asbestos, Mrs. Kirk. It’s okay, it won’t burn.” Owen scrubs the air with his hands, trying to calm her down.
“Oh, yeah? See your classmates? See their clothes. Guess what?” She grabs Owen by the shirt collar and hisses into his ear. “They burn, Mr. Markey. Kids burn, do you understand?” At that moment, I’m glad Mrs. Kirk doesn’t have control of the Zippo lighter. I’m afraid she might demonstrate just how easily kids burn, specifically Owen. “The lighter. In my hand. Now.”
Owen slowly reaches into his pocket. “It’s my dad’s. You can’t keep it, he’ll kill me if it gets lost.”
Mrs. Kirk snatches the lighter away from him before he has a chance to put it in her hand. “Mr. Hawkins gets to kill you first. Principal’s office.”
“But I didn’t do it,” I complain.
“Did you know about this?” Mrs. Kirk asks, her eyes burning into me.
“Not exactly,” I say. “I mean—”
“You mean nothing. Why didn’t you say something? Don’t you know better than to stand by while someone does something dangerous and not say anything? He could have set the whole school on fire! What’s the matter with you, Marjorie?
“And you!” She still has Owen by the collar.
We are heading for the classroom door when Mrs. Kirk’s lace-up high heel slips on a small white envelope. “Yipe!” she barks, and almost goes down flat. “What’s this?” She steadies herself and bends to pick the envelope up, reading it in a glance. “Scholtz!” she bellows. “Inga, take this out of my hand. Now.”
Inga rushes over.
“I swear you kids are trying to kill me. Here.” She jabs the envelope into Inga’s hand.
Mrs. Kirk shoves Owen and me into the hallway. “Wait here for one minute and do not move.” To the rest of the class, “I will be back in a couple of minutes. Do not touch anything and do not set the room on fire. What did I say?” she screams.
“Don’t set the room on fire,” the class yells back.
I follow Kirk’s clomping shoes down the marble hallway to the principal’s office. This is my first trip to the office because I am actually in trouble. I’m not sure what happens in the principal’s office. Whatever it is happens to Owen on a pretty regular basis. He always comes back, so I figure Mr. Hawkins isn’t going to actually kill me. Still, I wish I could melt away and not be noticed, but that isn’t going to happen, either.
The words I hear rumbling like faraway thunder in my head are Mrs. Kirk saying, “You mean nothing.” As I walk along, shoulders slumped, I think her words just about sum up my whole life. A big zero.
At least the invitation was delivered. But I couldn’t even do that.
Mrs. Kirk’s right. I am nothing. A nobody. Big fat zero. A circle with air inside.
I hold her words in my clasped hands as we sit in the principal’s office. At the end of the day, I tuck the words into my hat with my ponytail and carry them home with me. These are the words that I hang on the hook by the back door with my coat when I get home.
I mean nothing.
I trudge up to my room wearing the words like a heavy sign around my neck.
“Marjorie,” Mom calls up the stairs. “Be a doll and run down to the basement and give those pillowcases a stir, will you? And don’t let that bleach water splash on your skirt.”
“No,” I scream back. “Make Carol Anne do it.”
“Thanks, sweetheart.”
She just assumes I’ll just go along with what she asks. Everyone assumes I’ll just go along. That’s what nothings do. They just go along. I feel my hands going into fists as I start down the two flights of stairs.
I clomp down to the first floor and then down the wooden basement stairs and into the laundry room. In the white metal bucket that used to be Carol Anne’s diaper pail stands a wooden broomstick that I use to swirl the soaking pillowcases.
I am mad enough to kick the bucket across the floor, but I stir the milky looking mixture of soap, bleach, and pillowcases slowly and stand the broomstick in the corner before heading for the stairs. Coming out of the laundry room, I can’t avoid looking into the area that’s been converted into Frank’s bedroom. He has a gym bag on his bed. He’s stuffing in a pair of jeans.
“Are you running away from home or something?” I try not to sound too excited.
“Don’t be sticking your nose in where it don’t belong, Squirt.”
“Doesn’t. I guess Dad might want to know if you’re going somewhere,” I say, reaching for the handrail to pull myself up the basement stairs.
“I’m going to take the bike over to Jackson to visit my brother, like it’s any of your business. And you’re not going to tell your dad about my plans. You got that? Better to ask for forgiveness than permission. I’m just going to go up there and check on Charles, make sure his head’s straight and be right back.”
“And I’m not going to tell Dad that you’re taking a motorcycle to Jackson? Ha. That’s what you think.” I jump the first stair on my way up.
“I guess your pop might want to know that you and your mom hid a box of those missing books in your bedroom, too, now wouldn’t he? Or maybe I should just go straight to the police.”
I am a statue.
He pulls a green book out of his gym bag and shoves it toward my face. “Look familiar?”
I am a statue with a heart pounding like ten thousand drums.
“This Hemingway guy’s hep. Doesn’t talk over your head, ya know what I mean?” He jams the book back in his bag. “Didn’t think I could read, did ya.”
I blink.
“Yeah. I know a lot more than you think I know, so don’t go acting all smarter than thou on me.”
“You’ve been in my room?” I lean forward as I throw the words at him in a hoarse whisper. I wish I had something else to throw. He was under my bed?
“You were under my bed?”
&nbs
p; “Hey, it don’t take a college professor to put two and two together. I was standing next to the dining room window, having a sandwich, when you and your mom pull in the drive and proceeds to carry a heavy box up to your room. I think, how come they don’t ask for help with that box? How come, if grocery bags weigh more than a roll of toilet paper, I’m called to carry them in from the car? And here she comes, leaning back so as to fall over, carrying a box looks like it weighs a ton and a half? Big mystery, right?
“And then I hear that a box of books has gone missing from the library. And don’t you know, both a these things, they happen on the same day. So, yeah. I thought I’d take a look’s all. Maybe read one, just for kicks. This here’s the third book I took. This Hemingway, he’s a guy’s guy. Damned sight better than the stinking Jane Austen they keep trying to cram down my throat at school.” He looks at me, a wicked smile pulling his mouth to one side. “Don’t let a bird fly in that open mouth a yours. He might crap all over.”
I pinch my mouth together so nothing incriminating slips out. Frank’s been under my bed. Three times! He knows about the books?
Three times?
“Got nothing to say now, do ya? Didn’t think so. Now go upstairs and be a good girl or I’ll blow your secret to kingdom come.”
CHAPTER 24
“It wasn’t that bad,” I answer honestly. At Bernadette’s sleepover, all the girls want to hear what happened when I was sent to the principal’s office. Like being president of the student council or on the safety patrol, the principal’s office is a spot reserved for boys. I am the first girl I ever heard of to be sent there.
How can I tell them about how Mr. Hawkins sat down right beside Owen and asked him what happened? How Hawkins wanted to know about the ammonium stuff and how Owen got his hands on it. How Hawkins asked what else Owen liked to cook up with his chemistry set and if he ever tried mixing this chemical with that one to make crystals. Hawkins made a pretty big deal out of telling Owen that he didn’t ever want him to bring a lighter to school again, and that was really the worst of it. Owen promised, scout’s honor, no more lighters.
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