The Secret Cookie Club

by Martha Freeman

  “Gracie? Are you sick? What’s wrong?”

  “I got this letter.” I held it up as if it explained everything. “It’s from Lucy.”

  “You should go to bed early tonight,” my father said.

  I shook my head and yawned. “I have to get ready for Mr. Sterling tomorrow”—Mr. Sterling is my math tutor—“and I have to practice piano and do vocabulary building.”

  “Have you eaten?” Dad asked.

  “Uh . . . some carrots? After school.” It’s true that the carrots were really Oreos, but my father didn’t need to know that.

  “You will never get big on carrots,” Dad said. “Let me microwave something, and we’ll eat together. I think, for once, it would not kill you to skip a day of piano practice.”

  I took my backpack up to my room, then went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. When I came back downstairs, I could smell tomato sauce, and my dad was serving squares of something with bubbling cheese on top.

  “Eggplant parmesan.” My father shrugged. “Its label reported the highest calorie count of any of the boxes in the freezer.”

  We sat at the island and ate together. The food was salty and a little slimy, but I was hungry and my stomach remained calm. While we were eating, Mom came home. Usually, I am practicing piano when she comes in, and Dad spoke before she had a chance to.

  “Grace is taking a break from piano for today,” he said. “We are not going to discuss it. And she has had a lovely letter from Lucy at camp. You remember Lucy?”

  My mother would never contradict my father in front of me, so she only raised her eyebrows about piano. Then she said, “Lucy’s mother was the one wearing shorts and boots?”

  “That’s the one.” My father nodded.

  If both my parents remembered Lucy’s mom’s clothes, did everyone else remember how my parents had matched?

  Loyally, I said, “Lucy’s mother is pretty.”

  My mother’s response was to ask how Lucy was doing in school, and I told her Lucy was babysitting.

  By this time my mother had made herself a cup of tea and sat down with my dad and me. “It’s too bad Lucy has to work when she could be taking music lessons or something,” she said.

  Once when I was little I saw a show on Disney where a grandmother character called her granddaughter a “snot-nosed brat.” I was shocked! My family would never use words like that. But at the same time, it gave a name to the part of me that sometimes wants to be bad: Snot-Nosed Grace.

  Now Snot-Nosed Grace spoke up: “I think I would like to work. I would like to have money of my own.”

  As expected, my parents’ response was immediate. “Don’t we give you anything you want?” my dad asked.

  “You don’t need money,” my mother said.

  “But,” my father added, “we must not judge the ideas of other families. We don’t know everything.”

  “Don’t we?” my mom asked, and I thought maybe she was serious, but then she winked at my dad, and they laughed . . . and so did I.

  CHAPTER 8

  Grace

  Friday counted as an okay day at school. We were supposed to meet for the first time in our Walden pairs, but—luckily—art cleanup went too long and then the school day was over. I had time before chess club and could have asked Mrs. Keeran to change out Shoshi for Kelly then, but I lost my nerve. I promised myself I would do it on Monday.

  It was the next morning, Saturday, that I sat down at my desk to write to Lucy and felt bad that I didn’t have fragrant purple stationery or stickers or a pink pen or anything fun the way she did. All I had was regular lined notebook paper and a blue Bic pen. I hoped Lucy wouldn’t mind.

  Saturday, October 17

  Dear Lucy,

  Thank you very much for your nice letter. Please forgive me for not replying sooner. You are right that I am busy. But what I am busy with is more boring than babysitting for Arlo, Mia, and Levi. (Please give them my regards.)

  You said you think I must have lots of friends here, but I do not. What I do have is one enemy. Her name is Shoshi Rubinstein, and she is in my class at school, and she hates me. I did not do anything to make her hate me, except she also takes ballet with me, and Mademoiselle G, our teacher, told me I have nice posture on the same day she told Shoshi to stop slouching.

  Shoshi is unusually tall. I cannot help that. Can I?

  So now Shoshi and her tall, slouchy friends giggle and whisper when I walk by, and I think they have a bad nickname for me, too, but I don’t know what it is. I think Shoshi is a mean girl (we learned about them in our anti-bullying unit), and I have noticed that mean girls always have lots of friends. Have you noticed this too? They clump together like lint.

  Change of topic. :^)

  I think I would like to have a job and to be in charge of something like you are in charge of Arlo, Mia, and Levi. Do you supervise their games? Do you speak to them in a foreign language, and if so, which one? Do you encourage them to exercise so they will have strong muscles and healthy hearts?

  Here are the answers to your questions.

  Yes, we are still friends. In fact, you are one of my only friends and you are 2,983 miles away. (I looked it up.)

  Now that you have reminded me, I miss my bunkmates at camp and Hannah, too.

  Thank you for remembering the Secret Cookie Club. But if you are too busy, you do not have to make me any cookies. I do not want to put you to any trouble. It is enough that you thought of me and wrote a nice letter.

  Sincerely, Your Friend Grace Xi

  P.S. If you are making Hannah’s grandpa’s chocolate chip cookies, I would like pecans in them.

  P.P.S. What Vivek gave me was not serious.

  When I read my letter over, I thought of crossing out the part about lint because it was definitely Snot-Nosed Grace talking, and would Lucy realize when she read it that I am not really the nice person she thinks I am? It was too bad we couldn’t talk the way we used to after lights-out, but Lucy hadn’t even given me a phone number, and when I checked the camp directory that Moonlight Ranch gave to our family at the end of the summer, there wasn’t a phone number there either—only an address. How strange.

  In fact, Lucy seemed so far away (well, she was) and her life so different from mine that I couldn’t imagine it. She might as well live in a grass shack on a street made of sand in a village surrounded by palm trees.

  CHAPTER 9

  Grace

  After the flag salute Monday morning, Mrs. Keeran announced we would absolutely be meeting in our Walden pairs that afternoon. So, when the bell rang for lunch, I went up to her desk.

  “Yes, Grace? What can I do for you?” Mrs. Keeran is the only African-American teacher at my school. She almost always wears her long hair pulled back and a pair of beaded clip-on earrings that match her outfit. Today they were magenta to match the roses on her cardigan.

  I had practiced what I was going to say in bed the night before. “Hi, Mrs. Keeran. Would it be okay if you changed it so I am Kelly’s partner for the Walden project instead of Shoshanna’s? I am sure Shoshanna wouldn’t mind.”

  Shoshanna is Shoshi’s real name. No one calls her that, but I did because I was making a formal request.

  “Ri-i-i-ight,” Mrs. Keeran said. “And why is it you’d like me to do that?”

  I wasn’t prepared for that question. For a moment, I stared at a Massachusetts wildlife photograph on the bulletin board behind Mrs. Keeran’s desk. It showed a black bear about to tackle a beehive. I had seen the picture every day since school started but never thought about it till now. Would the honey be worth all those stings?

  “Grace?” Mrs. Keeran said.

  “Because I hate Shoshi,” I answered, and then I felt my face flush. Why had I said that? It was the fault of the picture—it distracted me!

  “Hate is a strong word,” said Mrs. Keeran.

  “Not hate,” I said quickly. “I mean, Shoshi and I . . . we are not compatible.”

  Mrs. Keeran nodde
d. “I’ve noticed some tension between the two of you. But may I tell you something in confidence? Before you skipped a grade, Shoshanna was usually the best student in the class. I think it’s been hard on her having you here.”

  I looked at my toes. Hard on Shoshi? What about hard on me when she whispers behind my back?

  “So I thought perhaps,” Mrs. Keeran went on, “if you worked together and got to know each other, you’d learn to like each other. You’re both hardworking and serious about your studies. You both take ballet. And if you can’t learn to like each other”—Mrs. Keeran must’ve noticed me frowning—“at least you could learn to practice tolerance.”

  “Please can you switch us, Mrs. Keeran?” I knew I sounded babyish, but I was desperate.

  Mrs. Keeran set her jaw. “Let’s give my way a try, shall we?” she said. “If you and Shoshi really can’t get along at all during the planning, we’ll see what we can do about changing partners before the field trip.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Grace

  As of lunchtime that day, what I knew about Shoshi Rubinstein were pretty much the same things anybody else in my class would know:

  (1) She wears a bra! (2) She has one older brother and one older sister. (3) She almost never wears the same outfit twice. (4) She lives in my neighborhood in a green house with white trim. (5) She has a collie dog that barks. (6) She is bad at dance but her parents make her go. (7) She hates me for no reason.

  By the time the bell rang after school, I had learned four more things: (8) She is bossy. (9) She likes using pink gel pens for notes. (10) She thinks she has artistic talent. (11) When she’s mad, she yells.

  I found those four things out at the first Walden meeting, which happened in the library because it’s easier to work together at long tables than little desks. Mrs. Keeran had handed out a homework assignment due next week, and we were supposed to divide up responsibilities for it, then start work. It was the only class time she was giving us, so if we didn’t finish, we would have to find time to meet on our own.

  You can imagine the knot in my stomach when I looked up to see Shoshi stomping toward me at the table where I had sat down. The table was by the window, I guess in case I needed to jump out of it for any reason. When Shoshi sat down, she dropped her pink zebra-striped backpack on the table, and it landed with a thump.

  Probably I am making Shoshi sound like Godzilla, which is not 100 percent fair. Some people (not me) might even think she was pretty. She has straight light brown hair, a small nose, and green eyes. On her jaw there is a mole like a squashed flea.

  “Okay, we have to work together, so let’s get this over with.” Shoshi pulled her notebook out of her backpack along with a pink gel pen.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Cat got your tongue?” she asked.

  “What? No,” I said.

  “Do you agree we should get this over with?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” said Shoshi. “So what’s going to happen is you find the ten facts and write them and then I do the illustrations for them. I’m good at art. Later this week, you e-mail me the facts you find, and if they’re okay, then I’ll start my part.”

  If I had said, “Okay,” the meeting would’ve been over, which would’ve been good. But it was irritating to be told what to do. I could feel Snot-Nosed Grace wanting to speak up, but I tried to keep my voice normal. “No,” I said. “You do five facts and illustrate them, and so will I. Then we’ll read each other’s to make sure they’re okay.”

  Shoshi scowled. “My way’s better because I’m good at art.”

  Besides Snot-Nosed Grace, there is something else about me that isn’t entirely nice. Sometimes I have a bad temper. Most of the time it doesn’t show because most of the time I am not arguing with anybody, but now I felt my temper building like steam in a teakettle. To cool it down, I took a breath. “No,” I said. “My way’s better because it’s more fair.”

  Shoshi tipped her chair back and shook her head. “You really do think you’re smarter than everyone else, don’t you? Well, you’re not.”

  Now my temper burst out in a squawk. “I never said I was!”

  “And you’re stuck-up.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, you’re a bully.”

  “You’re a runt.”

  “At least I don’t slouch.”

  By this time everyone from room 111 was staring, and Mrs. Collins the librarian was striding toward us. “Girls! What has gotten into you?”

  Shoshi jumped up. “She started it!”

  And then I was on my feet too. “No, I didn’t—she did!”

  CHAPTER 11

  Grace

  The principal of my school is Mrs. Lila Barnes. Her short gray hair and black-rimmed glasses make her look serious, but for holidays she wears ugly sweaters, and sometimes for no reason she wears a light-up headband or pink high-tops covered in sequins.

  It was 2:56 p.m. when Shoshi and I arrived in her office. There were only ten minutes left till the first bus bell, and Mrs. Barnes probably didn’t expect new discipline problems that day.

  I’m sure she didn’t expect Shoshi and me.

  “I trust you two can take the long walk to Mrs. Barnes’s office together without further incident,” Mrs. Collins had said. “Now go.”

  And we did, me walking a couple of steps behind Shoshi, neither of us saying anything.

  In the outer office, the school secretary told us to take a seat and wait. By this time, my temper had turned from hot steam to icy dread. The wait was probably only two minutes, but it was the longest two minutes of my life. I had never been in trouble before. My stomach was tied in a knot.

  Of course Shoshi did not deserve any sympathy. But I did wonder a little bit if she might be feeling the same. She was sitting right here next to me, both of us here for the same reason. In a strange way, we were bound together.

  The door to Mrs. Barnes’s inner office opened, and she looked out at us, sitting side by side. “Come in, young ladies.”

  We went, and Mrs. Barnes gestured at two orange plastic chairs across from her desk. We both sat down. The seat felt hard and uncomfortable.

  “Shouting in the library? Calling each other names?” Mrs. Barnes shook her head sadly. “That’s what Mrs. Collins said when she phoned. I am all ears if you would like to tell me your versions. Shoshanna?”

  “What Mrs. Collins said is right, Mrs. Barnes,” Shoshi said in a voice so low it didn’t even sound like hers. “I’m sorry.”

  “Grace?” Mrs. Barnes looked at me.

  “I’m sorry too,” I said.

  “And what was this disagreement about?” Mrs. Barnes asked.

  I spoke first. “Mrs. Keeran assigned us to be partners on the Walden project, and Shoshi was telling me what to do, and—”

  “—That’s not right,” Shoshi interrupted. “The assignment was to divide responsibilities, and we were dividing responsibilities, and then Grace started yelling.”

  “I did not yell. But if I did, it was because you were bossing me,” I said.

  “Because you were being uncooperative,” Shoshi said.

  “Because your idea was bad,” I said.

  “It was not!”

  “It was too!”

  “Young ladies?” Mrs. Barnes raised one hand like a traffic cop. “What I am hearing is that you disagreed over how to approach the Walden project, and then the disagreement escalated, and you both lost your tempers. Is that about right?”

  After a pause we answered at the same time: “I guess,” I said. “Basically,” Shoshi said.

  Mrs. Barnes laid her palms on her desk, leaned forward, and looked from Shoshi to me. “Is it ever appropriate to yell in the library?”

  “No,” we said.

  “Is it ever helpful to call people names?”

  “No,” we said again.

  “All right, then.” Mrs. Barnes leaned back in her chair. “You seem to be sorry, but you did disrupt class. Because of that, I am givin
g you each one after-school detention. I know you both have ballet, so we’ll say Wednesday in room 213.”

  Mrs. Barnes stood up after that, which was the signal for us to leave.

  “Are you going to call our parents?” I asked.

  “Yes, Grace,” she said. “They need to plan for picking you up after detention.”

  “Mine won’t care,” Shoshi said. “I walk home from school anyway.”

  “You do?” The words slipped out because I was surprised.

  Shoshi shrugged and looked at me sideways. “Yeah. So what?”

  “Be that as it may”—Mrs. Barnes opened the door for us—“your parents will get phone calls.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Grace

  On Mondays after school, the blue Music Academy van picks me up to take me for my piano lesson. When that’s over, I stay there and do homework in the study room until my mom can leave work and come to get me.

  If the two minutes outside Mrs. Barnes’s office were long, the time waiting for my mom that afternoon was eternal. I couldn’t even concentrate on decimals.

  Would Mrs. Barnes have called her already?

  My parents had never been mad at me before. They didn’t even know about Snot-Nosed Grace. I had always managed to keep her existence a secret.

  Finally, my mom drove up in our white SUV. When she didn’t turn her head to look at me, I knew Mrs. Barnes had talked to her already. Trying not to think about anything, I opened the rear door and threw in my backpack the way I always do, closed the door, opened the front, and slid in. Because I’m small, I’d had to ride in the backseat longer than any of my friends. Now I wished I could crawl back there again and hide out.

  My door had barely closed when my mom spoke, still looking straight ahead. “We are not going to talk about this now. We are going to talk about it as a family when your father gets home.”

  * * *

  Most Mondays I stay downstairs and do homework at the kitchen island. That day I went upstairs to my bedroom.