“She kidnapped you! I knew it.”
He shrugs. “She had this picture of us together, from before she went away. She said she came as soon as she could. I figured anything was better than staying with him.”
“Aren’t you mad at her for leaving, though?”
“She didn’t go on purpose,” he said quietly.
“Where was she?”
“She just couldn’t come back, okay?”
“Okay.”
We’re quiet for a minute. The tadpoles squirm inside the shirt sling.
“My dad told me she didn’t want to see me, but that was a lie,” he says. “She wrote me letters. He tore them up, but sometimes I found them in the trash. It made him really mad when I did that. He got mad at me a lot after she was gone.”
My blood runs cold. “What if he shows up again?”
“They’ll arrest him.”
I hope that’s true.
We turn the corner and the Jessups’ house comes into view. As soon as we step into their backyard, I spot Diesel throwing baseballs with Devin and Donny.
“Hurry,” I tell Billy, and we shuffle to the pond with the tadpoles hanging between us. We scrape the tadpoles out of Billy’s shirt as fast as we can, but Frankie starts barking and the Jessups see us. Diesel gets to the pond before we can leave.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
I give him the evil eye. “Why? You gonna tell me to scram?”
“No.”
Devin and Donny can’t believe it, either. “She’s trespassing! Throw her out! Aw, D! Don’t let her! She’s got the poop touch!”
But no matter what they say, Diesel shakes his head.
Sometimes I do not understand people.
Billy tugs his wet shirt over his head, and we get out of there before Diesel changes his mind. At first I wonder if he feels sorry about being so mean to me now that we’re helping Billy. Then something clicks and I realize Diesel wasn’t running me off their property to be mean. He was protecting Billy and Shailene. I know it must be true, because it makes the most sense, and Stan says the simplest answer is usually the right one.
In the back of my head, I hear Cress telling me that I’m totally wrong about Diesel.
That’s how she said it. You’re totally wrong about him.
And for the first time, I wonder if maybe I am.
29
TALKING IN CODE
The fifth grade at my old elementary school celebrates the end of the year with a field trip to the amusement park. In my year, Lee Chen drank two slushies and threw up on the roller coaster. Sometimes I think I know exactly how he must have felt. Sick, overwhelmed, and powerless to stop it. I feel that way a lot, especially when I have to do something big.
Something that matters.
I’m supposed to use Mr. Hillman’s visual organizer to plan my Living Museum essay, but the truth is, I haven’t read much about Georgia O’Keeffe. It’s not that I don’t want to be her. She seems pretty cool. It’s just that ever since I made that prop in art, this kernel of an idea has been lodged in my brain. I can feel it growing there, getting bigger every day.
I’m not sure what to do until library day, when we get to conference with Miss Rivera on our essays. I watch her go from table to table helping everyone with their problems, and I think maybe I should let her help me, too. I’m so used to never talking about Dad because it always turns into a Thing, but maybe this is when I’m supposed to talk about him.
Miss Rivera crosses to my table and plunks into a chair. She’s wearing a shirt with a cat print and a fish pin that says I Read Banned Books. “Your turn to tell me something good, Maddy. I hope you’ve made some progress on your project?”
A storm gathers in my stomach, but I remind myself that Miss Rivera said we could propose our own historical figure if we could make a case for them.
“Miss Rivera?”
“Yes?”
She waits while I sit there, my stomach full of butterflies.
Finally I say, “Did you ever want to do something, but you weren’t sure you could?”
Her eyes widen in surprise. “Well. Yes, actually.” She ducks her head a little. “I wanted to be an actress when I was younger. Very much. I still have moments of weakness when I think about what might’ve been.” She laughs, but the sound is hollow.
“Why didn’t you do it?”
“I guess I was scared.” She gives a little sigh and smiles.
I’m scared, too. I don’t know why it’s so hard to say what I want. There are other kids waiting. I need to spit it out, but my mouth is so dry I can barely speak.
“Does our historical figure have to be someone important? Like, to lots of people?”
“Your figure can come from any walk of life,” Miss Rivera says. “History is happening all around us. One day, the things we do may be written about in history books. What’s important is that your figure brings new information to light. We study history so we can learn from the mistakes of the past, and from the successes. Everyone is important.”
There’s another long silence as I find the guts to ask my next question. I know Miss Rivera will be nice to me. I know she won’t get concerned. But still, it’s hard.
“Does my dad count?” I finally blurt out.
As I say the words, I feel like I’m falling, and not in a good way.
Miss Rivera places her hand on my arm. It feels light as a feather, and warm.
“Of course your father counts, Maddy,” she says. “Of course he does.”
Billy and I walk into the kitchen after school and find my mom teaching Shailene how to roll piecrust. Mom’s wearing her apron and Shailene has a towel wrapped around her head, probably from another one of her long showers. There’s flour everywhere, and I can see right away that her piecrust is too dry, but she’s laughing that light laugh again, like she’s a new person.
“What kind of pie are you making?” Billy asks.
“Lemon for you,” Mom says. “And I was thinking about a chocolate mousse pie, too, seeing as it’s so warm out.” She looks at me. “Does that sound good?”
I have this weird urge to say NO, but I smile and agree anyway. I shouldn’t be jealous of Shailene spending this time with Mom, but I still don’t like what Shailene did. She kidnapped Billy, and it was scary, and I wish Mom remembered that.
They finish the pies while we do our homework.
Stan gets home at dinnertime and we eat a chicken pie that Mom and Shailene baked together. Billy keeps saying how delicious it is and moaning while he chews. It is really good, but when they ask my opinion, I say it’s just okay.
“Soon you’ll need two of these pies,” Shailene says with a wink.
Mom goes still, and Stan’s head snaps up.
“What does that mean?” I ask Mom.
A flush of warmth rushes through me.
“Mom, what does that mean?”
Shailene runs her hands over her face. “I’m so sorry. Me and my big mouth.”
“It’s okay,” Mom says. She looks at me. “This wasn’t how I planned on sharing this news, but I guess the cat’s out of the bag.” She looks at Stan. “I’m pregnant.”
My heart clenches. I try not to feel crushed that she looked at him when she said it.
His eyes go wide, and then he breaks into a huge grin and jumps out of his chair to give Mom a hug. I know this is fine, and that I gave them my blessing, but I want to leave.
“Mads,” Mom says, leaning close to me once Stan lets her go. “I’m so sorry it came out like this. It’s still very, very early. I just found out myself, and I wasn’t planning to say anything, but Shailene overheard my call with Dr. Udwadia’s office.”
“I’m really sorry,” Shailene says. Her eyes say she means it, but I ignore her.
Mom presses a kiss to my cheek and I lean into her, breathing in her warm vanilla smell. “I love you so much, Maddy,” she murmurs into my hair.
When I pull away, Stan tries to hug me, too, but I d
odge him like I’m taking my plate to the sink and keep going until I’m out on the back deck. I flop onto a lounge chair and watch the dragonflies dart across the sky. After a minute, Billy flops into the chair next to me.
“Sorry about my mom,” he says.
“So she’s your mom now?” I snap, letting some of the nastiness spill right out.
He shrugs. “She tries to be. She’s not good at this stuff.”
“Like talking?”
He laughs. “Yeah. Like talking. She’s no good at that.” We’re quiet for a while, and then he says, “Why do you hate your stepdad so much?”
“I don’t hate him.”
“Okay, but you don’t like him.”
“I do like him.”
“You don’t act like it.”
Was that true? Did I treat Stan like dirt?
Billy tosses one of Frankie’s tennis balls into the air. “He seems like a pretty nice guy.”
“He is a nice guy,” I repeat, and the words ring so true it hurts.
What kind of person takes someone else’s kid to do fun stuff every weekend? Someone like Stan. I don’t know what I’m holding out for. Dad isn’t coming back. Ever.
I don’t want to hang out with him. It’s not like he’s my real dad or anything!
That’s what Stan heard me say when Mom brought up the whole idea of me and Stan spending time together. He acted like he hadn’t heard it, but his face was pink, so I knew he did. And the worst part was that I didn’t even mean it, not the way it sounded.
I didn’t hate Stan. I just didn’t want to lose Dad.
Lying there next to Billy, listening to the tree frogs chirping in the trees, I start thinking that maybe the first step to getting rid of that barrier is fixing things with Stan.
After a while, Stan joins us on the deck. He has his little red notebook as usual.
“Did you know you can talk in binary code?” he asks.
This is such a Stan thing that I almost laugh.
“Like computers?” Billy says.
“Yes. Exactly like computers. Each letter in the alphabet has a number, and that number can be made from an eight-digit sequence of zeroes and ones. Each place has a value starting with one and doubling with each place. For example, the letter A is equal to the number 65, which is 01000001 in binary. So if I say 01001000 01001001, that means ‘Hi.’ Neat, huh?”
Billy’s mouth hangs open. “That is so cool,” he says.
Stan looks at me with hope in his eyes.
I smile. “It’s very cool.”
That night, after I snuggle up to Croc and tell Dad about my day, I spend some time looking up how to say things in binary, only a few letters. Then I give Dad’s picture a kiss and text him, “010000100 01111001 01100101.” It’s not good-bye forever. Just for the night.
30
MIRACLE MUD
Next to our house, Cress’s house is my favorite place to hang out. There are Bollywood posters and decorations from Carnival, and the kitchen always smells like a delicious blend of coconut and spice. They keep snow cones in the freezer, but her dad will put hot sauce on your pizza if you aren’t looking. When we walk in, he’s shouting at a soccer match on the TV, so we go straight to Cress’s room, where she has a box of mud masks waiting on her bed.
“Miracle Mud,” I read off the box as she grabs some washcloths.
“It’s amazing,” she says. “You can feel it pulling your skin tight.”
“Why would I want to pull my skin tight?”
She makes a face. “It cleans your skin. I did one with Mia and my cousins, and all this gunk came out of my pores! It’s there, you just can’t see it.”
I look at my face in her mirror. Do I even have pores?
Meanwhile, Cress grabs a bowl of warm water and gel pads that look like superhero masks for our eyes. She lays everything on her desk in a neat row.
“First we have to wash with warm water,” she says. “It’s important to relax the skin and open the pores before you do the mask.” She hands me a washcloth and dips hers into the bowl of warm water, wringing it out carefully before pressing the wet cloth to her face.
I do the same thing and stand there with the hot washcloth over my eyes, feeling silly. It is nice and warm, though, and breathing against the fabric makes me sound like Darth Vader.
“How long do we stand here?”
“Two minutes,” Cress says.
I breathe louder against the fabric. “You underestimate the power of the Dark Side.”
She giggles. “You are so weird.”
“You’re the one making me do this!”
She thumps my arm, and I try to thump her back, but she dodges me. Once our washcloths have cooled, we use the sticks that came in the box to apply the mask. The mud is slimy and black, like tar, and it sticks to everything. Soon I have it on my clothes and in my hair.
Cress tries to wipe the mud out of my hair. “Seriously, Mads? It’s not that hard.”
“Well, I’ve never done it before.”
“Whose fault is that?” Cress says, which stings a little. Normally I don’t mind joking about how much I hate this kind of stuff, but I don’t like that Cress is so into it now. Her room has changed, too. The turtle pictures that were around her mirror at our last sleepover are gone. In their place are long strips of photo-booth pictures with Cress and Mia and their cousins.
“You have to get used to it,” Cress says.
I’m not sure I want to get used to it.
“Did you bring the clue notebook?” she asks. “Maybe my mom can help us.”
My face flushes under my mask. “I forgot it. Sorry.”
Cress frowns, but she doesn’t say anything else.
When the timer on her phone buzzes, it’s time to peel our masks off. The mud has dried into grayish-blackish plastic. Cress rubs at the edge of her mask and starts peeling it off like a layer of Saran Wrap. I try to do the same thing, but it feels like I’m ripping my skin off.
“Ow! Ow, ow, ow!”
“What’s wrong?” Cress says, coming closer.
“It hurts so much! Am I bleeding?” I half expect to see red on my fingertips.
She makes a face. “It’s not that bad.”
“Bald spot! Broken dishwasher!” I curse, hopping around like I can somehow get away from the pain if I keep moving. “This doesn’t hurt you?”
“Seriously, Mads. Calm down. You probably have more hair on your face than me.”
I freeze. Hair. On my face?
A sick feeling gathers in the pit of my stomach.
I don’t like the way Cress is looking at me, like I’m such a wimp when this hurts enough to make my eyes water. “Just help me get it off,” I say, trying not to cry.
Eventually, we pull the mask free, but my face is red and blotchy. Cress’s skin is a smooth, even brown. She doesn’t even look sorry. She frowns like she’s mad at me.
“I guess I’m not very good at mud masks,” I say. “Sorry.”
She bites her lip. “I’m trying to help you be a little more normal.”
My face gets even hotter. “You’re the one who’s doing weird stuff.”
“Excuse me?”
“Like, wearing makeup and your whole new look and flirting with Diesel Jessup!”
Her eyes go wide. “That doesn’t make me weird. I like Mia’s makeup tricks. I like my hair, too. I’m tired of little-kid poufs. And you’re the one with the boyfriend. I see Eric getting on and off at your stop. I’m not clueless, you know. You could have told me.”
I stare at her, and all I can think is, What happened to my best friend? Because this is not her. “What is up with you?” I finally say.
“Me?” She shakes her head and turns away to clean up the mess from the mud masks.
I want to do something that will snap us back to reality, where she is a genius and I am awkward, but we get along like peanut butter and jelly. Only I don’t know how to do that.
The rest of the sleepover is the same as
it always is. Cress’s dad cooks stewed chicken and rice for dinner. After her mom gets home, we play board games together. Mia is out with her friends, and I’m glad, because maybe that means Cress and I can get back to normal.
I want everything to go back to the way it used to be.
All night, I try to crack jokes, but Cress doesn’t laugh. I want to tell her about everything that’s going on, about Mom having a baby and what I’m planning to do for my Living Museum project, even the truth about Billy and Shailene, but it feels like a barrier is growing between us now, cutting us off from each other the way the Miracle Mud sealed our skin from the air.
When we lie down to sleep that night, for the first time ever, that’s exactly what we do.
We just go straight to sleep.
31
THE PLAN
I get back from Cress’s house earlier than I’ve ever gotten back before. I’m kind of looking forward to hanging out with Stan, but it turns out he has to go to work for a big code conversion, so we won’t get to visit the Arboretum. I should be thrilled, but instead I kind of miss our goofy trip. I guess any routine can become something you count on over time.
After Stan leaves, Mom and Shailene huddle in the dining room, sorting through the huge pile of papers. “Once we get all of this organized, we’ll see what Renée has to say. She must know someone who’s willing to work pro bono.” Mom looks at me. “Can I help you?”
“You mean Renée, Cress’s mom?”
“Yes,” Mom says. “She’s going to connect Shailene with a family lawyer who can represent her if she needs to go back to court.”
“If I can afford it,” Shailene says. There are bundles of cash on the table, but I’m still stuck on the part where Mom has told Cress’s mom about Shailene and Billy.
“If you told Cress’s mom, why can’t I tell Cress?”
“Because Renée is an adult. She isn’t going to say anything that could cause problems.”
Every Missing Piece Page 12
