Ask My Mood Ring How I Feel

by Diana Lopez

  “Looks like I have perfect timing, then.” I turned to see GumWad standing behind me. He’d been at the Ping-Pong table all night. I actually forgot he was at this party. The DJ had just put on a slow song, so GumWad bowed and said, “May I have this dance?”

  I didn’t answer right away because GumWad, in my opinion, didn’t count as a guy, at least not one worthy of the Boyfriend Wish List. He was one of us, a Robin. This wasn’t the type of close encounter I was looking for, but since no one else was asking me, I said, “Sure. Whatever. Okay.”

  So I found myself in the official slow dance position again, only this time I made sure there was at least a foot between GumWad and me. We danced for a little bit. Then GumWad said I looked pretty tonight, so I said thanks. And when he said I had a great sense of humor because no one in the whole school wore T-shirts as witty as mine, I said thanks again. And I said thanks when he told me that I was a real special person to keep asking for sponsors after so many people refused, and an even more special person to look out for my brother and sister and help my folks around the house. Then he said my mood ring was purple, and I just nodded because I wasn’t paying attention to him. I was in auto-response mode, like when a friend is talking about something boring and you say “really” or “uh-huh” or “wow” but you don’t mean it. You’re just pretending. That’s what I was doing. I was pretending to listen to GumWad, but I was really watching the couples around me. Derek, of course, was dancing with yet another girl. Alejandro and Iliana were dancing for the third time tonight. But the couple who really had my attention was Lou and Paula. They were so in love. I couldn’t help staring because that’s what I wanted—a boyfriend, a real boyfriend, one who was as athletic, handsome, and popular as Lou.

  “So which one would you like better?” GumWad asked.

  For a second, I thought he was asking me which guy I liked better, but that made no sense. So I said, “What are you talking about?”

  “Which charm? I noticed you wear that bracelet—”

  “Anklet,” I corrected.

  “Oh, yeah, I get it. Because it goes around your ankle. Well, I noticed you wear it sometimes, and the other day, I saw some charms in this James Avery catalog my mom gets. Would you like the little angel with your birthstone or the little bird?”

  “Why are you asking me about charms?”

  “So I can buy one for you,” he said.

  “Why do you want to buy me one?”

  GumWad looked at the space between our feet and blushed, all embarrassed or ashamed, I couldn’t tell, but since he was avoiding eye contact, he had to be feeling something awful. And then, all these details flooded in—the card he sent on the day my mom had surgery, the Slush, the journal, the way he defended me on the first day in social studies class.

  “The presents,” I said, “the compliments, the way you’ve been super nice. It’s all because of pity, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You feel sorry for me. Admit it. My mom is seriously sick, and here you are rubbing it in my face by treating me like a person who’s about to fall apart.”

  “I don’t think you’re about—”

  I wouldn’t let him finish. “I’m not some orphan girl,” I said, “so don’t give me any handouts.”

  “I don’t think you’re an orphan girl,” he rushed to say, and he stepped forward like he wanted to hug me the way I hug Jimmy when he’s acting like a baby.

  I waved him off. “I’m not helpless. Don’t you get it?”

  And I marched to the picnic table, leaving GumWad alone on the dance floor. When I got there, I crossed my arms, refusing to talk. All night, the Robins asked what was wrong, but I said, “Nothing.” When they kept pestering me, I said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  GumWad had returned to the Ping-Pong table. Every time I glanced over, he was looking at me like I was the saddest pobrecita in the world.

  When my parents finally picked us up, GumWad sat at one end of the SUV, while I sat at the other. My parents asked about the party. Carmen and Iliana filled them in, but GumWad and I stayed silent.

  Finally, we dropped off my friends and made our way home. As soon as we walked in, we turned on the laptop to check the lottery numbers, but Mom didn’t win the jackpot, or even $532. I didn’t expect her to, but I still felt disappointed, so I sent Shawntae a text. “No jackpot for us,” I wrote. “Once and for all, you do not have psychic powers!”

  4 TEACHERS, 2 PARENTS, 1 COUNSELOR

  Monday, my parents took us to school thirty minutes early. Carmen made her way to the library, while my parents and I headed to the office for the teacher conference.

  “Don’t worry,” Mom said. “I’ll tell them how hard you’ve been working on your service learning project.” I dropped my head. She meant well, but that didn’t stop me from feeling humiliated. How I hated being the dumb kid. For the past month, I had tried my hardest to juggle school with my new responsibilities. I was doing my best, yet here we were, walking through the counselor’s door.

  I thought wearing my TGIF T-shirt would make me feel better. It didn’t stand for “Thank God it’s Friday” like most people thought. Instead, TGIF stood for “Thank God I’m fabulous.” At least, that’s what the back of my T-shirt said. But I didn’t feel fabulous. Once again, my mood ring was black for stressed.

  We entered the office, the counselor’s desk buried beneath folders, papers, and writing supplies. Luckily, she had a large, round table in the middle of the room. Mr. Leyva waited there, as well as Mrs. Gardner; Mr. Watson, who taught science; and Mrs. Silva, who taught English.

  The counselor introduced everyone as we took our seats at the table. Then she began. “We don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily, but since it’s still early in the year, we wanted to touch base before Erica’s situation gets too serious.”

  “And what is her situation exactly?” Dad asked.

  That’s when my teachers chimed in. Mr. Leyva said I was failing. Mrs. Gardner said I was doing okay in her class but that I was often distracted. Sometimes, she had to call my name twice before she got my attention. And Mr. Watson and Mrs. Silva said that even though I wasn’t failing their classes yet, I was about to because I hadn’t turned in all of my homework assignments.

  “Is this true?” Dad asked. “You haven’t done your homework?”

  I felt too ashamed to look at him, so I kept my head down and nodded.

  “Why aren’t you doing your homework?” he asked.

  “I don’t have time,” I said, my voice small.

  “What do you mean you don’t have time? As soon as you come home, you should sit at the table and do your work. That’s what Carmen does.”

  I looked at him. I could feel the anger like hot laser beams shooting out of my eyes. I could not believe Dad compared me to Carmen in front of all my teachers when every day I worked so hard to escape her shadow. Why was she the perfect one? Why did she get all the credit? At first, I was asking myself these questions, but then I started to ask them aloud.

  “Do you really want to know why I’m not like Carmen? Do you really want to know why I can’t find time to do my homework? Do you think it’s because I’m lazy or something?”

  “Erica, settle down,” Dad warned, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t about to listen to these people talk about how dumb I was.

  “When am I supposed to do my homework? That’s all I’m asking. After I clean up the mess Jimmy makes? After I give him a bath or make him a snack? After I wash the clothes? After I go through the medicine cabinet and pantry and fridge to make a list of things we need from the grocery store? After I put away all those groceries? Or spend all my energy working on my promesa and trying to keep Carmen and Jimmy quiet so they won’t break your precious rules?”

  Dad just sighed, but Mom blurted, “This is all my fault!” Her eyes were teary, and I felt horrible because the last thing I wanted was to make her cry.

  The counselor and teachers stared at us. They probab
ly thought we were the most messed-up family in the world.

  “I have cancer,” Mom admitted, but she couldn’t go on because she was crying. And now, I was crying, my shoulders trembling, too. That’s how upset I felt. Mrs. Silva placed a box of Kleenex before us, so Mom and I could grab tissues.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Mr. Leyva asked once we settled down, and I shrugged because I truly didn’t know. Maybe I thought Mom’s illness didn’t matter to my teachers. Maybe I thought I was strong enough to handle it on my own.

  “Erica’s very independent,” Dad said. “She’s like an adult in a kid’s body.”

  “And sometimes,” Mom said, “we forget she’s still a teen. She’s so responsible at home.”

  “We don’t have to ask her to do anything,” Dad added.

  Mom put her arm around me. “We’re sorry, mija. We had no idea you were dealing with so much.”

  “We don’t want you to fail school because of us,” Dad said.

  “That’s why we’re here,” the counselor explained. “Now that we know what’s going on, we’ll be able to help.”

  “I can see how pressure at home is affecting your work,” Mr. Leyva said, “but in math, at least, another factor is interfering with your success.”

  “What factor?” I asked, already thinking of “factor” as a math term.

  “I’ve discussed your work with your other teachers,” Mr. Leyva went on, “and we all agree that you’re a divergent thinker.”

  “Oh, no,” I moaned. I didn’t know what “divergent thinking” meant, but it had to be some kind of learning problem. The last thing I wanted was for Carmen to find out I had a problem with learning.

  “It’s not bad,” Mr. Watson said. “In fact, being a divergent thinker is a benefit in many classes.”

  He went on, and I listened patiently as my teachers explained how I saw lots of possibilities when faced with a problem or task. Mr. Leyva discussed how I wrote six pages to explain elements that might affect the solution to a word problem, and Mrs. Gardner and Mrs. Silva shared how my in-class writing assignments often went beyond the prompts, sometimes going in “new and startling directions.” They said that divergent thinkers didn’t do well on tests that had one answer, “like IQ tests,” the counselor explained. “And multiple choice tests in science,” Mr. Watson added. Divergent thinkers were far more comfortable with essay tests that asked open-ended questions, which, I learned, was a question with no right answer. That part was true. I hated multiple choice tests. I could figure out a way to make every choice correct, so I never finished on time.

  “Divergent thinkers have lots of imagination,” Mrs. Silva said.

  “The problem with math,” Mr. Leyva explained, “is that it makes more sense to people who are sequential thinkers.” He turned to me. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t do well. You just have to recognize what is and isn’t important when you work through the problems. I know you don’t want to hear this, but working with a good tutor will really help.”

  “I don’t mind working with a tutor,” I said, “as long as it’s not Carmen. I am the older sister, and I wouldn’t want to upset the natural order of things.” Everyone laughed at that. Maybe they were starting to understand how hard it was to live with a genius sister.

  Together, we made an intervention plan. Mr. Watson and Mrs. Silva were going to let me complete the missing homework assignments. Mrs. Gardner wanted me to move to the front of the class, so I could pay more attention to her lectures. Mr. Leyva was going to tutor me himself, Mondays and Wednesdays, before school started. And my parents were going to make sure I didn’t work too hard at home.

  We had just finished our discussion when the nurse peeked in. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but Carmen told me you were here. She isn’t feeling well and would like to go home.”

  “What’s the matter?” Mom asked. “Does she have a fever?”

  “No, but she says her body aches.”

  Dad said, “She was fine this morning.”

  “Maybe it’s just nerves,” the nurse said. “In any case, she’s insisting that she’s too sick for school.”

  I shook my head. Carmen wasn’t sick. She probably wanted to skip school because she was embarrassed about the party. Someone probably teased her this morning. They must have said something really mean because Carmen never missed school. One year, my parents made her stay home because she had the flu. Instead of being grateful for having people who cared for her, she blamed them for ruining her perfect attendance record. Another time, we got a “bad weather” day due to an ice storm. This meant we got to stay home. All the students celebrated the extra day off. Meanwhile, Carmen wrote a letter to the school superintendent and to the editor of the Express-News. She used a lot of big words, but her message was very simple—bad weather days are a dumb idea. “If you can get the TV stations to announce the day off,” she wrote, “then you can get them to present our lessons. That way, we won’t have time away from school.” If you asked me, Carmen wasn’t sick at all. She probably just wanted attention.

  Even though the intervention plan sounded like a good idea, I still felt bummed. How was I going to finish my promesa when I had to catch up on my classes? Even if I didn’t do any chores, I would still need every night this week to catch up.

  I was going to try my best to focus on class, so as soon as I stepped into Mrs. Gardner’s room, I took a seat at the front, telling Patty that I needed to concentrate when she asked why I was moving. GumWad came in late, so I didn’t have a chance to explain. Then again, I didn’t want to talk to him because I was still mad about the way he felt sorry for me.

  Today, some students were scheduled to show their projects. Luckily, I had an extension till next week because the race was on Saturday. A few of my classmates had poster boards with pictures showing what they did, and others, like GumWad, went high-tech with PowerPoints. He had a few slides about animal shelters, including one with a graph showing how many pets were euthanized each year. Then he had pics of the dogs he found and the happy reunions with their families.

  Finally, it was Patty’s turn. She walked up to the front of the class.

  “I picked up trash,” she said. “Trust me, it’s not hard to find garbage. It’s everywhere.”

  She stared at us as if waiting for us to ask a few questions, but no one’s hand went up. Was that it? Her whole presentation? This was the worst presentation so far. I thought for sure Patty would fail, but then she turned to Mrs. Gardner, who nodded and went into the storage closet. When she came back out, she handed Patty some mobiles.

  “So this is what I did with the trash,” she explained. “I used wire hangers to hang stuff from them.”

  One had origami birds made from scraps of newspaper and magazines. “It’s called Birds,” Patty said. Another had strings of bottle caps. She held it up. “This one’s Bottle Caps.” A third had aluminum cans that were squished flat. Patty said, “Cans,” as she shook it, making them clink against one another like chimes. The last had three clear plastic bottles. Inside one were small blue things she found—buttons, string, a plastic petal, but mostly candy wrappers. In the other two were red and yellow things. I expected her to say “Plastic bottles,” but instead she said, “I call this Primary Colors.” Then she said, “The whole point is that trash doesn’t have to be ugly. You can find a way to make it nice.” She paused a moment, stared at us again. “And I guess there’s a recycling message here, too.”

  This was definitely a new side to Patty. I was so impressed that I beamed, making my mood ring blue for joyful. But the blue didn’t last long because when I went to my next class, I remembered how far behind I was and how I had only a few days before the race. Sure, Mrs. Gardner would be pleased by how many sponsors I’d found, but my personal goal was five hundred. I had to reach it.

  So I felt a little preoccupied at lunch. I just stared at my plate while the Robins went on and on about the weekend.

  “I think I have two b
oyfriends now,” Iliana said. “Alejandro and Alan, the boy I met at the hospital. Do you think it’s bad to talk to two boys on the phone if they haven’t officially asked me to be their girlfriend?”

  “Apparently not,” Patty said. “Derek talks to a bunch of girls at the same time.”

  “Tell me about it,” Shawntae said. “I scratched him off my Boyfriend Wish List as soon as I got home.”

  “Join the club,” Patty said.

  “We’re all deleting him,” Iliana added. “Right, Erica?”

  “Sure, yeah. Derek’s off my Wish List.”

  “So what’s up with Roberto?” Patty said. “He moped all during social studies. And instead of eating lunch with us, he’s hanging out with the Ping-Pong crowd from the other night.”

  “I guess they’re his new friends,” Shawntae said. “I should have predicted he’d leave the Robins. But I guess I’m not a psychic after all. I’m just like everybody else. Normal.”

  “Oh, brother,” Patty said. “It’s not the end of the world. I’m in that ‘everybody else’ category, too, but you don’t see me down in the dumps.”

  Iliana said, “Shawntae, you couldn’t be normal if you tried. Who else wears pumps every day? Who else can get a bunch of kids on the dance floor? You’re a natural-born leader. Isn’t she?” She nudged me, but I didn’t say a word. “You’re going to be the first black woman mayor of San Antonio, remember?”

  “I guess,” Shawntae said with a bummed-out voice, but then she brightened up. “At least my service learning project went well.”

  “It was awesome,” Iliana admitted. “A whole other class came to listen.”

  “Thanks to the invitations, the other social studies teacher decided to join us,” Shawntae said. “So I presented in front of two classes!”

  “Weren’t you nervous?” Patty asked.

  “Are you kidding? I was so nervous, but I kept it under control.”