Dad even drives us to Home Depot so we can get better materials. The three of us wander the aisles and stare at shelves full of things like drywall compound and joist hangers.
Some bald guy in an orange apron seems to know what we need and directs us to the building material section, where we find supplies to build a house but not a desk-evator.
A different bald guy, also wearing an apron, approaches Brian. “Need some help, son?”
“Yeah,” Brian cracks. “You know where I can buy one of those aprons? They’re totally cool.”
The guy says they’re not for sale.
“Too bad. I really wanted one.”
“You could apply for a job here,” he says. “Are you sixteen?”
“I will be. In four years.”
I pull Brian’s sleeve and he waves to the guy. “Okay, bye! Nice talking to you. Let me know if the situation changes!”
After we drop off Brian at his house, Dad gives me a pep talk on the ride home. Stuff like, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” and “Winners never quit and quitters never win.”
“Dad,” I say. “This isn’t sports, and it’s not about winning or quitting. There are two and a half weeks until Invention Day. At this point, it’s about a miracle.”
When I walk into the kitchen, Erin’s sitting at the counter with her laptop. I open the fridge like I always do, hoping for something new and exciting, and then Erin says, “Mom, can you ask Ethan to close the refrigerator? It’s blowing cold air on me.”
I shake my head.
Erin’s been speaking to me only through Mom or Dad. As in: “Mom, could you ask Ethan to pass the potatoes?” And, “Dad, please remind Ethan that it’s his turn to take out the garbage.”
Even Mom and Dad are rolling their eyes at this. But they’re sticking to their Parenting 101 philosophy and being very patient and calm, saying stuff like, “Erin, perhaps you could ask Ethan directly.” She’s not listening.
After I shut the refrigerator, Erin does this little huff, closes her laptop, then stands.
I spin around. “Is this all because I talked to Romanov? You’re acting ridiculous.”
She raises an eyebrow. “You still don’t get it.” She turns away, then looks back at me and lifts her chin. “And you know what? I didn’t think you could do it.”
“The desk-evator? You didn’t think I could make the desk-evator? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Oh, that’s what you’re calling your invention? Interesting name, at least. But you don’t have what it takes.”
I go back and forth between wanting to shout that she’s wrong—she’s never been more wrong in her life—to admitting she’s right, but in the end, I just emit some sort of nonhuman sound.
We stand there glaring at each other for a few seconds. Then, finally, I tear down to the basement and punch the trifold display board, still propped on the sofa. The middle section, where you’re supposed to explain your invention and how it solves the problem, is blank. On the floor is the mess of random stuff we’ve been using to try to make the desk-evator. I kick the pile and everything scatters.
I don’t know who I’m madder at right now: Erin . . . or myself.
• • •
She and I keep up the glaring and staring in the morning and on the bus. The whole day at school, I keep thinking the worst part of all is that I know in my heart this is a great idea. But what good is a great idea if you can’t make it happen?
In LA that afternoon, Delman’s explaining different types of reading strategies we need to “employ.” His monotone voice is putting everyone in a trance. “Make connections. . . . Draw on background knowledge. . . . Interpret information from the text. . . .”
The room is boiling, and I’m way beyond ESD. It’s pretty much full-body paralysis at this point. Petrificus Totalus.
Erin’s scribbling notes, but everyone else is barely awake. Zoe’s eyelids are fluttering and her head is rolling from side to side. She was chewing gum, but now the wad is sort of suspended on her bottom lip. When her head drops forward, the gum falls out of her mouth and plops onto her desk. But she doesn’t even wake up.
Suddenly Delman claps his hands several times and everyone jumps. “Pop quiz!” he says. “Right now!”
I force my eyelids open with my fingers, then reach into my backpack for a pencil. Grover Delman marches to his desk, picks up a stack of papers, then starts passing them out, facedown.
When everyone has one, he says, “You all should know this material by now. We’ve been going over it for days. I expect very few mistakes.” He looks around the room. “You may begin.”
I flip over my paper and read the first question. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Erin click her mechanical pencil to push up the lead, then hunch over her quiz. Her hand moves down the paper at lightning speed.
I shift in my chair, stretch my arms, crack my knuckles. Delman gives me a warning-type look. I answer question one, start number two. I’m on the third question when Erin puts her pencil down, turns her quiz over, and folds her hands on her desk. Her legs are crossed and she’s sitting straight and still as a statue. I want to grab Zoe’s gum and throw it at her.
Mean Secretary walks in and looks menacingly around the room at us. I’m surprised she was able to peel her butt from her chair. She hands Delman a folder, then walks out.
I go back to the quiz, but things are happening, you know? My legs are tingling, my brain is cloudy, and my hand is cramping. What I wouldn’t give for a desk-evator right now. I could take the quiz while standing up and all would be good in the world.
Delman announces, “Three more minutes.”
There’s nothing else to do except randomly circle answers. I hear his loafer footsteps coming toward me. Soft little taps of doom.
“Finish up,” he says, then stops next to my desk, crosses his arms, and looks down at my quiz.
Teachers like to do that, the hovering thing, and today I’m the victim. The point on my pencil breaks and I can’t even answer the last two questions.
“Okay,” Delman says. “Time’s up. Please pass your quizzes forward.”
I give my quiz to the kid in front of me, then look at the clock. Still twenty minutes to go.
I’m gonna die in here one day.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Love and Grate
ZOE
On Saturday afternoon Erin and I are working in her garage on our experiments, but I’m finding it really hard to concentrate. Ethan (and Brian) are playing football on the grass. A few feet away!
Have you noticed the way his hair curls on the back of his neck? Or how his eyes crinkle into two lines when he laughs? It’s so cute. And the way he goes, “Hi, Zoe.” I could almost melt. What am I saying? I do melt!
Ethan calls, “Go long!” and makes a throw from the street. Brian misses the ball and it bounces onto the driveway, then rolls into the garage.
“Careful!” Erin shouts. “We’re doing something critically important here.”
“Yeah,” Ethan says. “Doesn’t sound like it’s going too well.”
Erin grits her teeth and actually growls.
“Um, I’ll get the ball,” I say. I hurl it to Ethan.
He grins as it goes right to him. “Wow, nice throw! Perfect spiral! Where’d you learn to throw like that, Zoe?”
I press a hand to my heart. Oh my God. “My dad, actually. He played football in high school.”
“I didn’t know that. Cool! You like football?”
“Yeah! I’m a big Bears fan.”
Erin taps a Sharpie on the table. “Zoe! I asked you to hand me the eyedroppers.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“Are you with me here?”
“Of course!” I find the eyedroppers under a pile of papers, then hand them to Erin. “Anything changed since yesterday?” I ask.
She shakes her head sadly. “No. Nothing’s working yet. But something will, I just know it.”
I look over the
row of small orange pots with the seedlings of invasive plants we placed into soil. We’d hoped one of the substances would stop their growth, but so far, they’re proving to be indestructible. Every single plant is growing wildly.
“We have more elements to start testing today.” Erin looks at her list and points to some bottles and jars. “Sea salt, vinegar, peppermint, vanilla. We need to try as many as possible, don’t you think?”
“Definitely.” I steal a look at Ethan. That blue shirt really brings out his blue eyes. And the adorable sloppy way his shoes are always untied . . .
Erin clears her throat.
“Hi,” I say.
“Focus.”
“I am.”
She puts a seedling into a new pot, packs it with soil, and then I add a few drops of vinegar. I’m labeling the pot with a Sharpie when I hear Ethan shout, “Heads up!” and a second later, the football slams into the middle of the table.
I gasp. Everything goes flying. Ethan and Brian rush into the garage and Erin screams as several of our pots fall over onto their sides. A pitcher of water spills. I try to grab the eyedroppers but they roll off the table, hit the garage floor, and break. In a few seconds, our Invention Day project, our entire experiment, is a mess of wet papers, scattered seedlings, and overturned pots, with dirt covering everything in sight.
Erin makes a little sobbing noise as she brings her hands to her cheeks and stares wide-eyed at the table. She slowly turns to Ethan. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you? To get me back. Because of what I said . . . that I thought you couldn’t do it . . . that you don’t have what it takes.”
Ethan grabs the football. “No, I swear! It was an accident!”
She starts to cry, then angrily brushes away her tears. “An accident? I don’t think so. You were aiming for the table.”
He swallows, doesn’t answer.
I put my arm around her. “It’ll be okay. We can fix it, Erin.”
“No.” She sniffles. “Look at this. We can’t.”
Brian picks up a sheet of paper, shakes it, and lets water drip onto the floor. “It’s my fault, really. I was the one who missed the ball.”
Erin drags the back of her hand across her nose and looks at Ethan. “You know how important this was to me. You know how much I wanted to take first this year. Beat Marlon. And you sign up on a whim, when this isn’t even your thing, and fool around with that junk in the basement like this is all one big joke?”
Ethan starts picking up the pots and brushing dirt off the table. “I’m sorry. Look, it’s not so bad. We’ll just clean up a little.”
“Don’t bother.” Erin walks toward the door to their house, then turns around. “This is it. You and I. We’re done.” She goes inside. The door makes a little click sound that echoes through the garage.
Ethan slaps his hand onto his forehead. “It wasn’t on purpose, I swear!”
I kneel next to the broken eyedroppers and pick up the glass pieces, then put them into the garbage can. “I know.”
“I’m really sorry, Zoe,” Ethan says. “I totally blew Invention Day for you.”
I shrug, then sigh. “Nothing we were doing was working anyway. It was a good theory, though.”
He gives me a sad smile. “Same thing’s happening to us.”
Brian says he’s sorry too, then awkwardly shuffles his feet. “Uh . . . Maybe I should go, let you and your sister work this whole thing out.” He backs away, then turns and hurries down the driveway.
“I’ll get some paper towels,” Ethan says. He goes into their house and comes back a minute later.
Then it’s just me and Ethan in the garage. He tears off some paper towels and starts wiping the table. I realize I’ve never actually been alone with him before. Erin or Brian or someone else is always around, or we’re in school with a hundred other people.
We’re on opposite sides of the table, and we reach for the pitcher at the same time. Our hands touch. The hairs on my arm bristle. Then my heart thumps wildly and I get sweaty and tongue-tied and nervous and can barely look at him.
This is how it is when you’re in love, you know. I’ve been reading.
I sneak a glance. He’s looking at me, too. Oh! Should I tell him I love him, right here and right now? Maybe he feels the same! What if he does?! But is this a good moment, with what just happened? Help.
“Uh, Zoe?” he says.
“Yes?” I feel a little light-headed and sort of sway a bit.
“Are you okay?” He reaches out an arm to steady me.
“Um, yes, I’m fine. What did you want to say?”
He scratches the back of his neck. “Maybe you could talk to Erin for me? She’s not gonna talk to me. This is bad. Worse than the waffles.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Tell her I feel horrible about what happened, and I can, like, get whatever you need to fix your project. I’ll pay for it and everything.”
“Okay . . .”
“So you’ll talk to her?”
I nod. “Sure. Anything else?”
He sighs. “Just—”
My heart leaps. “Yes?”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“Of course.” Then this pops out of my mouth: “Maybe when Erin isn’t mad at you anymore, we can all go to a movie or something. . . .”
He shrugs. “Maybe.”
Wasn’t exactly the answer I was hoping for, but I’ll take it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
What’s Done Is Done
ERIN
There are no accidents, only some purpose we don’t understand yet.
Have you ever heard that saying?
I think it fits this situation perfectly. Except for one major difference. I do understand the purpose. My brother wanted to ruin my Invention Day project. I called his bluff—told him he couldn’t make his little desk-evator—and he retaliated because he knows I’m right.
No, I’m not being dramatic. I mean, how would you feel if that happened to you? Several weeks of work, over. Everything I planned, all of our theories, my detailed research notes—gone. Impossible to repair. It would take days just to reconstruct everything! And truthfully, I don’t have the heart. It was crushed the moment the stupid football hit the table.
How can we go on? I’m afraid that Zoe and I will have to withdraw from Invention Day. Marlon will win. Again. And every day for the rest of the year, I’ll have to live with that.
And Zoe, the ridiculous way she’s acting around my brother. I can’t even go there.
Am I really done with Ethan, like I said in the garage?
What do you think?
ETHAN
I swear, I didn’t make a bad throw on purpose. I didn’t aim for the table. I didn’t secretly hope Brian would miss the ball, either, even though I know his skills need work. Is that what you think? No, no, no.
I could tell Erin those things a thousand times, but she wouldn’t listen, and even if she did, she wouldn’t believe me.
Yeah, I was mad because of what she said, sure, but it was an accident. Honest, times a million.
She looked completely crushed. Like all the air went out of her lungs. I’ve seen her look like that only a couple of other times. One was that day we missed the flight coming home. Another was when Romanov won last year’s Invention Day.
This is worse than both of those put together.
So now we’ve gone from bonding over tomato soup to living in opposite galaxies to grating turning into hating.
I could try to fix it, like I told Zoe. Put everything back in order, get them new supplies, all that. But I know my sister. She’d say something like, “It’s over. What’s done is done.”
She always makes everything so much more than it is. Even if it is.
BRIAN
Did I intentionally miss the ball? Is that what you’re hinting at?
Erin’s not my favorite person in the world, sure. That’s pretty clear. But even I wouldn’t stoop that low. Really. I wouldn’t miss the ball on p
urpose. Hey, did you hear me? I said I wouldn’t do that.
I’ll tell you this, though. I don’t want to say she deserves it exactly, but maybe this’ll make her see that not everything goes so perfect all the time.
Like me being one of the shortest guys in seventh grade. And the fact that I may never get Jamie Pappas to like me. Mom embarrassing me wherever we go. And puking on that roller coaster, then having everyone in line yell at me because they had to close the ride down.
Things happen, right? Deal with it. Crack a joke and be the first one to laugh. That’s my strategy.
Gram had to move in with us now because she can’t live by herself anymore. She tells the same stories over and over about when she was a girl in Poland and life wasn’t so great there. It’s impossible to follow where she’s going with the stories. There’s no beginning or end. Just a long, long middle.
Sometimes, though, she does seem to wrap it up, usually by putting down her teacup and clutching my hand and saying, “We didn’t know, but it was a blessing in disguise.”
And I go, “Glad it worked out, Gram.”
So here’s what I think about Ethan and Erin. The ongoing Marcus vs. Marcus battle. What happened with the football was a blessing in disguise. Maybe it was a good thing, you know? Because now it’s all finally out in the open. No more pretending. They can’t stand each other and that’s that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Seagulls, Continued
WESLEY
Mom calls again on Sunday night. I won’t talk to her. When Dad hangs up, he says that if I don’t want to talk to Mom or him, maybe I’d like to talk to “someone.”
I pull on the hood of my sweatshirt. “I don’t need to do that.”
After I say that, his face looks sad and defeated, like I punched him in the stomach. I hate when he looks like that. He didn’t used to look like that.
So I go, “Dad. There’s this teacher at school I talk to, okay?”
Ethan Marcus Stands Up Page 8
