Oblivious, Charlie shrugged. “I like Sloppy Joes.” He bit off a hunk of his dripping sandwich, some of the juice dribbling down his chin. Stella looked pained.
Mo said, “My family doesn’t eat beef or pork.”
“But you eat fish,” Stella said pointing to Mo’s lunch, which looked like some kind of white fish and rice thing she was eating out of a plastic container.
That’s when I said, “It’s not so easy to make a big change like that, Stella. This cafeteria doesn’t offer vegetarian meals.”
“So? Can’t you bring your own meat-free lunch?”
“I guess,” I said. “But I’d have to convince my dad. Whenever I bring a lunch from home, he’s always the one to make it.”
Stella blinked at me. “You’re fourteen years old, Wen. When are you going to start making your own lunch?”
Everyone looked at me and I felt the blood rush into my face. “So my dad makes my lunch. What’s the big deal?”
Mo came to my rescue. “My mom made mine,” she said.
Stella rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s no surprise. After all, you’re a princess.” I could tell by her expression that she meant it to be funny, but Mo didn’t take it that way.
“I resent that!” she said. “And I doubt Wen and I are the only ones. I bet a lot of kids let their parents make their lunches. How about you, Charlie? When you bring a lunch, who makes it?”
“My mom,” he said around another mouthful of meat.
Stella looked ready to reply, maybe even to apologize, but Mo wasn’t done. She seemed determined to prove her point. She turned to Olivia, who was pulling a piece of yellow cake from her brown paper bag. “Who made yours? Your parents?”
Olivia didn’t even look up. “No, my grandmother. I don’t live with my parents.”
Mo turned back to Stella, satisfied. I was pretty sure Stella was about to say something else, but that’s when Mo’s friend Naomi Fishmeier, who was also sitting with us, butted in.
“You don’t?” she asked Olivia. “So where are your parents?” That was Naomi, ever the investigative journalist.
There was an uncomfortable silence, but I guess everyone was just as interested to hear more about Olivia because everybody waited. Olivia and I had written songs together but she never seemed to want to talk about herself. I was as curious as everybody else to hear what she had to say.
Olivia looked up. Her eyes moved from face to face around the table. Finally she said, “My mother left when I was little. I don’t remember her. My dad’s in prison.”
Charlie and I glanced at each other. Nobody spoke for a few beats. In the end it was Stella who had the nerve to ask the obvious question.
“Umm . . . so what’s your dad in prison for?”
She answered without flinching. “Armed robbery. Manslaughter too. He held up a 7-Eleven. The owner pulled a gun and my dad shot him. He died.”
Then she went back to her sandwich.
Everybody was silent after that.
STELLA:
Picket Signs and Toxic Waste
Even with all the support Mrs. Reznik gave me and my little band of misfits, I was always careful not to cross her. She was still a formidable old lady with a quick temper and a heart-stopping glare. Even Mr. Brenigan seemed scared of her.
Even so, my new friends and I felt a growing bond with the bewigged old musician. Over lunch we would talk about her.
“It’s complete crap that she’s stuck down in that basement,” I once observed over a lentil and fried-tofu sandwich. “Can you imagine spending your whole day in that depressing room? It sure seems like somebody doesn’t like her.”
Mo nodded. “Being down there is like practicing in a cave.”
Olivia, who’d been stuffing her face on a turkey leg, now said, “I hear the school board wanted to cut the whole music program this year to save money. They only kept the Marching Band because of the football games.”
“That’s what I heard too,” Wen said.
Charlie grunted. “Yeah? So why is Mrs. Reznik still here then?”
Nobody seemed to know the answer, not even Mo.
“She must have put somebody in a wrestling hold,” Wen said. It was a joke, of course, but for all anybody knew it might not have been too far from the truth. Mrs. Reznik was definitely a fighter.
In any case, the five of us felt a certain loyalty to her. Even if nobody ever said it aloud, I could tell that we all felt that the talent show was, among other things, a chance to show the administration that somebody at this school still cared about music.
And that loyalty seemed to be a two-way street. Mrs. Reznik was so determined to help us that on the last week of October with only six days to go until the Halloween Bash, she came in on a Saturday afternoon so we could practice in the music room. Unfortunately, that happened to be the same afternoon that my dear mother suddenly announced that I needed to stay home. Actually, to be honest it may not have been such a sudden announcement. It’s possible that she mentioned a couple weeks earlier that there was a reception for some venture capital people who were paying for the development of the Frankenstein plants, but if she did, I’d forgotten all about it. In any case, I was still furious. With the Halloween Bash so close, how could anybody expect me to skip practice just to babysit the step-monkeys?
“Why can’t Clea come home and do it?” I asked, suddenly frantic.
“You know why not. For once in your life, Stella, stop being so selfish! Why can’t you take a little responsibility around here without making a fuss?” My mom flashed me the evil eye, cutting off all further discussion on the subject. Then she turned away and leaned back into the mirror to carefully apply some last-minute lipstick. “When you’re trying to save the planet,” she said, using her Voice of Wisdom, “you need to make the occasional sacrifice.”
This, of course, was completely unfair. But I knew there was no point in arguing. My mom had always been something of an environmental crusader. Back when she was still a lowly researcher at a nonprofit university lab, she had on more than one occasion dragged me out of school just so I could help carry picket signs in front of toxic waste sites. In my heart of hearts, I admired that about her—how she doggedly pursued her ideals no matter the odds against her.
Still, that didn’t make it okay for her to preach to me or to stick me with the step-monkeys on a Saturday.
“Okay,” I said, “but why does that sacrifice have to be me?”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” she sighed. “I’m in a hurry and I’m getting tired of banging heads with you.”
I felt myself deflate. After all, it didn’t seem so long ago that my mother and I hardly ever fought. Before the move, we were practically best friends. Now I felt like we didn’t even know each other. Didn’t she see how important this new band was to me? Didn’t she care?
I was about to open my mouth again when she said, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m going and you’re babysitting and it’s not up for discussion.”
And that was that. I could only sit at the kitchen table, furious. As my mother tarted herself up for her big afternoon, it seemed incredibly unfair that the whole reason I had to stay at home with the step-monkeys was just so she could rub elbows with other geniuses and venture capitalist fat cats. It certainly wasn’t a good enough reason for me to have to blow off practice.
No way.
Luckily, I came up with a backup plan. As soon as my mother’s Volvo left the house, I ran up to my stepbrothers’ bedroom. They’d pulled apart the linen closet and had hung sheets and blankets over chairs to make a giant fort. I pulled up a quilt wall and stuck my head inside.
“Put on your jackets and come with me,” I said. “We’re going for a bike ride to the high school.”
They looked at me and then each other. A moment later the boys were pedaling with me down the street, shouting and cheering like cowboys on a wild cattle run.
The step-monkeys were spazoids, but sometimes they were all
right.
Problem solved.
While we practiced, the boys spent the afternoon running up and down the hallway, playing spies and banging on instruments Mrs. Reznik let them use.
Later, of course, my mother wasn’t exactly a happy camper. Practice ended up going on later than we’d planned, so when I got back to my house my mom was already home. “I don’t know what’s come over you recently, Stella—you’re out of control!” she said. “Who gave you permission to take the boys to run around practically unsupervised in the high school basement? You didn’t leave a note either, and I was worried! Can’t you ever take a moment to consider how your actions might affect anybody but you, you, you?”
Of course, even before I’d left the house I’d known my mom wasn’t going to be thrilled when she heard I’d brought Tim and Andy to practice, but at the time I hadn’t mentioned my plan because I couldn’t risk my mother saying no. I may not have been the brightest bulb in my family, but you don’t have to be a genius to know that it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission.
MOHINI:
Durga Pooja
My family arrives at the Sri Lakshmi Temple and we all pile out of our rusty old Subaru, my parents, my grandmother, my little sister Madhu and me. Madhu, who is nine, runs around in a tizzy of excitement.
“Hurry up!” she pleads. “Let’s go, let’s go!”
The last day of the Durga Pooja celebration is the biggest. It’s kind of like a Hindu Christmas, where everybody gets together to celebrate and have fun. But I’m having a hard time getting into the spirit. My head’s been throbbing off and on for days. Scott and I talked last night and things seem better, I guess, but this morning I still find myself worrying. His friends avoid me, and I get the feeling its not just lingering resentment about the Bash—it’s that my new friends aren’t cool enough. Sometimes I want to scream at Scott. Why doesn’t he tell his buddies to lighten up? But of course I never say a word. I’m too afraid of rocking the boat in case he decides to dump me.
Part of me is furious at myself for feeling that way, or for even liking Scott at all. But the truth is, I can’t help it.
I’m Jell-O around him.
Before we enter the temple we all leave our shoes outside the door. Inside, the air smells of incense and there are crowds of people chatting and milling around, women in bright saris and children running and laughing. A few older men sit cross-legged on the floor, talking. We know lots of people here.
The Sinhas, a Bengali family we haven’t seen in a while, wave at us. Smiling broadly, my mom and dad lead us in their direction. While my parents and Mr. and Mrs. Sinha catch up, Madhu runs off to join a bunch of other little kids. Selina Sinha rushes over and gives me a warm smile.
“How’s high school, Monu?”
Selina is my age and one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen, with perfect skin and eyelashes as long as diving boards. She takes my hand and leads me away so we can talk privately. She just started at a new school too, and she’s excited to compare notes. Plus, she whispers conspiratorially in my ear, she thinks she has a crush on Rajesh Harbhajan, a gangly boy who at this very moment is watching us from across the room. She wants to know what I think about him.
“I don’t know,” I say. “He’s cute. Does he like you?”
She nods seriously. “He’s head over heels.”
“He is? How do you know?”
“Oh, he told me,” she says matter-of-factly. “We went out to a movie together last week.”
I stop walking. I study her face to see if she’s serious. “You did? What if your mom and dad find out? Won’t they freak?”
She tilts her head comically as if considering whether or not I’m crazy. “They know, Monu. My dad drove us.” She gives me a wicked grin. “That’s the advantage of being the last of five daughters brought up in this country. By now my parents have given up trying to turn any of us into perfect little Bengali women. They’re just happy that I come with them to temple.”
I suddenly wish I had older sisters.
Before long our two families are walking around the temple together. Unlike a church, which only has one altar, a Hindu temple has several. Ours has eight, each for a different god, each lit with oil lamps and adorned with fruits and flowers. Durga Pooja is a harvest festival, sort of a party celebrating Mother Nature. The service is informal. Uday Sharma, a skinny, gray-haired old man who loves to play checkers with my dad, is our pundit, our spiritual leader. He wears white and has long hair tied in a bun at the back. We follow him from altar to altar, folding our hands as we watch him perform the prayers, which are in Sanskrit. Behind me I occasionally hear my dad or my grandmother or Selina’s mother say “Jai Durga Maa,” which means Hail Mother Durga. As I listen, I’m feeling a little less anxious. Something about the rituals and the incense and the sound of the prayers is calming.
Afterwards we head downstairs for the buffet. While everybody chats and eats, various people stand at the front of the room to perform. Madhu and some of her friends do a dance, and an old lady I don’t know sings some verses in Sanskrit. I don’t understand a single word, but it’s lovely to hear. Eventually my dad prods me.
“Go on, it’s your turn.”
So I get up and walk to the front of the room where my bass is already waiting. The chatting quiets a little as I take my bow in hand. I smile. I’m not nervous at all. The Dragonetti piece isn’t especially difficult. I attack the opening three half notes and then the descending scale, and after that I can’t help looking up and noticing the pride on my parents’ faces.
A while later I’m back in my seat and, for a joke, my dad leaps up onto the stage and starts pounding on a dholak, a kind of drum, which prompts a bunch of little kids to jump up and dance. The thing is, my father has about as much rhythm as a drunken octopus and everybody knows it. But he’s having fun.
“Sit down and stop playing the fool!” my mom calls over to him. But she’s smiling as much as everybody else.
Everyone laughs, including Selina and me.
And now a sudden realization hits me: My headache is gone. All the stress weighing on me earlier seems to have evaporated. How long has it been since Scott or his friends even crossed my mind? Or my Latin exam—which I didn’t do as well on as I’d hoped—how long since I fretted about that? Or even about Lemonade Mouth and how we still sound shaky, especially on the newest songs, even though the Bash is only a few days away? Instead I’m sitting at this long rowdy table clapping and cheering my dad on. And suddenly I feel a surge of gratitude.
Because I love my family. And because, for the first time in ages, I’m laughing like I don’t have a care in the world.
OLIVIA:
A Queasy Feeling About Something Gigantic,
Unambiguous and Personal
Dear Ted,
Nancy’s the same. This morning she picked at some tuna and even ate part of an egg, but the vet still thinks it’s only a matter of time. Got your card. I set it by her bowl. I’m glad you agree with Brenda and me about this. After all, she’s not in any pain and seems happy so we didn’t have the heart to have her put down just yet. (What a strange, cold phrase. “Put” seems so neutral, so everyday—like setting a cup on a table. And exactly what do we mean by “down”? The direction suggests something creepy. What a trivial, vague and detached way to describe something so gigantic, unambiguous and personal.) In any case, we’re doing everything we can to make sure her final days are filled with the things she loves. We’ve been putting on her favorite videos, carrying her around in a basket and taking her on walks. Brenda’s even letting her sleep on her pillow.
In the meantime, we’re trying not to think too far into the future.
You’re always in my heart,
Olivia
P.S.
On top of everything else, this Friday is the big night. In four days I’m supposed to sing in front of a huge crowd at the Halloween Bash. To hear Stella talk, she’s already convinced we’re going to blow everybo
dy away, and she goes on about the Talent Show like we’ve already won it. Now she’s even suggesting that we sign up for Catch A RI-Zing Star, the battle of the bands WRIZ holds every winter. But she’s way ahead of me. I’m still sweating about the Bash this weekend.
With all this anxiety, Nancy, the band, plus the pressure of constantly being around Wen while trying not to let him see that I like him, I feel like I’m about to lose my lunch practically all the time.
What was I thinking two and a half weeks ago? Joining this band was a horrible mistake.
CHARLIE:
An Unexpected Goodbye
1 afternoon an odd thing happened in the basement it was Tuesday and we were practicing in the Music Room. All of us were worried because there were only 3 days left before the Bash and we still didn’t have enough music and we were still making mistakes on the songs we had. Mrs. Reznik wasn’t around. Maybe she went upstairs to the Office or outside to have a cigarette or something. I don’t remember. Anyway we stopped for a break and Olivia went to get a lemonade and when she came back she just stood in the doorway looking red-faced and bothered.
“What’s the matter?” I asked her.
“They’re taking the Mel’s machine away.”
At 1st I wasn’t sure what she meant. “What? Who?”
“2 guys in green uniforms” she said. “Some of the A.V. kids are there watching.”
Why would anybody take away the lemonade machine? It wasn’t broken or anything. Wen and Stella were fiddling with their instruments and Mo was sitting on the floor squeezing in some homework during the break. But now everybody looked up. I had a sudden uncomfortable glimmer. Something didn’t feel right about this. All at once the 4 of us set out into the corridor with Olivia to see for ourselves and sure enough when we got to the top of the stairs 2 muscle-guys in matching green outfits had the Mel’s machine strapped to a trolley. They were wheeling it down the hallway toward the freight elevator. Lyle was there along with 2 other A.V. Club kids, Steve Gelnitz and Dawn Yunker. The 3 of them looked like they couldn’t believe what was happening either.
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