by K. A. Holt
Taylor laughs. “I will definitely tell her that. Good night, Amelia.”
“Good night, Taylor,” I say. We smile and it feels so good to not be mad anymore.
Mom punches the button and the doors open. We walk through and, as they start to close, Taylor yells after us, “Who run the world?”
“Girls!” I yell back.
She gives me a thumbs-up. “Kick butt tomorrow, Amelia.”
The doors close, and I follow Mom through the lobby and out to the car.
A cloud of red dirt blows over my face as I lie on the ground, motionless, a slug drying in the sun.
“Peabody? Is that your name? You okay?” A girl leans over me, offering her hand. I grab it and she heaves me to my feet. “That was an epic miss, my friend,” she says with a laugh. “But at least you committed.” Several other girls are standing near us, trying not to laugh. A few more are actually laughing. The coach is off to the side, face squinched up like she’s just smelled Ratface’s breath.
“Sliding into first base is unnecessary,” the coach says, walking over, “when the first baseman has already caught the ball and is standing on the bag.”
My cheeks burn as I begin to realize that, maybe in addition to all the running and catching and throwing, I should have been learning the actual rules of how softball is played.
“Now,” the coach says, walking away, “let’s see who can throw.”
After about fifteen minutes of watching incredibly athletic girls whip softballs into one another’s gloves, I know the answer to this mystery: It Is Everyone But Peabody. I mean, it’s not like I’m not trying, but good grief. I feel like a child among Olympians.
Coach finally tells us we can take a water break. I am covered in dirt and sweat and my arms might not ever work again. My hand shakes as I lift a paper cup of water to my lips.
“Amelia?” One of Coach’s assistants, a girl who looks just like Twitch, but taller and prettier, comes up to me. She holds out her hand. “I’m Danielle, Billy’s older sister.”
I shake her hand. “I’ve been borrowing your glove a lot,” I say because I don’t know what else to say.
She nods as she looks me up and down, taking in my exhausted appearance. “And how’s that been working out for you?”
I start to laugh. “Well, I’d heard it was a magical glove that made anyone who used it the best on the team. But maybe I’ve been using it wrong?”
Danielle laughs. “It’s always made me the best on the team, so I’m not sure what to tell you.” She winks as she walks away.
I look up at the blue sky and out at all the girls running the bases. I imagine Clara out there shouting for the ball, throwing pitches, knocking home runs between the trees. She would have been good, I bet. Really good.
I crush up my paper cup, toss it into the metal trash can by the dugout, and walk over to the coach. “I think I’m going to leave now, if that’s okay,” I say, squinting up at her enormous frame.
She gives me a measured look. “If you give me time, I can turn you into a player.” She pauses and taps her chin as she looks me up and down. “Probably.”
I hold up my hand. “That’s okay.” I give her my glove. “Can you get this back to Danielle? I’m going to go home and take a shower.”
Coach takes the glove and nods. “Nice effort, Peabody. Keep practicing. And, hey, maybe think about trying out for the high-school team next year.”
“I probably won’t do that,” I say with a small laugh as I rub the growing bruise on my hip. “But thanks for your optimism.”
Coach tips her hat and I walk away, limping, but only slightly.
Mrs. Grant is propped up in her hospital bed with a little wheeled table perched over her lap. Her glasses are on the end of her nose as she reads. I wave at Taylor through the window and her face visibly brightens when she sees me. She taps Mrs. Grant on the shoulder, and she looks up and waves me in.
I’ve come straight from tryouts, so I’m still super sweaty and covered in red dirt. I don’t want to stay long, I just wanted to tell Taylor what happened.
“Well, you definitely smell really sporty,” Taylor says, wrinkling her nose as I sit on the armrest of her chair. “How did it go?”
“Great!” I say. “I was so good the coach not only added me to the starting lineup, she made me captain.”
Taylor’s mouth hangs open in surprise. Mrs. Grant sets down her book and stares at me. I start to laugh. “You should see your faces! Of course, she didn’t make me captain. I left tryouts before they were even over.” I stand up and slide my pants over my hip to show them the top of the bruise blooming from my misguided slide into first. “I’m not really cut out for sports.”
Now they’re both flinching. “Do you need some ice?” Mrs. Grant asks. “Taylor, get this girl some ice!” I wave them off.
“I’m fine,” I say. “How are YOU?”
Mrs. Grant taps her chest and raises her eyebrows in a “who, me?” kind of way. I laugh. “You look pretty good. I mean, compared with yesterday when …” I make a “yikes” face.
“Oh, please tell me I didn’t look like that,” Mrs. Grant says. “I was imagining a more dignified concussion. At least with my mouth closed.”
“You scared us,” I say, remembering her on the floor. “A lot.” She opens her arms and snaps her hands at me in a “come here” way. I stand and walk closer and she grabs me up in a hug. She feels solid and warm. I hold on for a very long time.
She lets go of me first and I acquiesce. I have to get home and shower and change so I can meet Twitch at Pits ’n’ Pieces. Stupid lake. Maybe Clara will make it rain again. I look hopefully out the window facing the parking lot, but the sky continues to be bright blue and completely cloudless. Dang.
“I have to go,” I say. “But I wanted to stop by and see how you were doing. And to tell you to feel better.”
“I’ll be out of here faster than Ratface can eat a dropped hot dog.” Mrs. Grant smiles.
Taylor stands. “I’ll walk you out. Be back in a second, Gram.” Mrs. Grant nods. She’s already back to whatever it was she was reading on the little table. Taylor and I walk out into the hall, through the doors, and to the lobby.
“We haven’t really talked a lot about the prank,” Taylor says.
“I know,” I say, looking at my feet. “And we’re running out of time.”
Taylor swallows hard and looks over my shoulder, avoiding eye contact. “Lacy and Katherine and I … well …”
“It’s okay,” I say. “Do the prank with them. I’ll figure something out.”
“But—” Taylor looks at me now. Her face is a mixture of relief and something else. Sadness? Oh, it better not be pity. I feel my eyes go squinty as Taylor says, “I don’t want to abandon you, Amelia. You’ll have to do one all alone. Why don’t you just join us?”
“It’s fine,” I say. And it really is. I’d rather do it by myself than join a group that only wants me because they’d feel bad about themselves if they didn’t offer an invitation. “I have a million ideas.”
Taylor looks at me with only relief now. “Good! I mean, I’m sorry that I kind of went rogue on this, but …”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “Things got weird and Prank Day is coming up. I get it.” I do get it. I still feel a smidge of a sting that she joined a group without telling me, but having a conversation like this in the lobby of a hospital where people are waiting for surgery and crying about terrible things and all of that … it puts stuff like school pranks into perspective, you know?
“See you at school tomorrow?” Taylor asks as I make my way to the sliding glass doors.
“Yep,” I say. I walk outside and the blue sky is welcoming at first, such a contrast to the inside of the hospital. But then I remember what the rest of the day holds, and suddenly I can’t even really think about the stupid prank anymore. The lake is looming in my future. I wonder how slowly I can walk home. I wonder how slowly I can shower and change. Maybe by th
e time I’m done it’ll be dark and Pits ’n’ Pieces will be closed. I sigh. That won’t work, because then I’ll just have to go tomorrow.
I look down the sidewalk like it’s the longest pirate plank in the world.
The lake ripples in the breeze. The trees along its edges are the kind of green that seems to pulse with life. It’s a beautiful Saturday. The sun is warm on my face, and I close my eyes for a second so I can soak it up. The redness of the inside of my eyelids makes me remember Taylor’s kitchen and the Ouija board, which makes my eyes snap open. The sun glinting off the shiny silver of the Pits ’n’ Pieces Airstream is so bright I think it might burn through my corneas. The line in front of the window is about ten people deep. Dad must be loving this.
I walk past Thai Me Up, Thai Me Down—the Thai food trailer that won the Best Almost Fast Food award last year. Their line is pretty long, too. Next, I pass Leafy Queens, a salad trailer. I actually like the black bean salad they serve, but I’d never tell Dad. He thinks salads are only good for rabbits and feeding compost bins.
Behind Pits ’n’ Pieces, Twitch is adding wood to one of the smokers.
“Hey,” I say. He’s sweaty and wearing big gloves to protect his hands from the mesquite splinters.
“Hey,” he says. “You’re late.”
“Well, technically, I didn’t break the window.”
He gives me a frowny look, but then smiles. “Nice try, Peabody. Last I remember, you’re the one who couldn’t catch.” He stands up straight and his eyes get big. “Oh! How were tryouts?”
I start to laugh. I can tell from his ridiculous face he already knows. “Did Danielle tell you?”
He reaches under his crooked helmet and scratches his head—he’s trying so hard to pretend he doesn’t know anything. “Uh,” he says. “No. I just … how did …” He looks more and more uncomfortable the more I laugh.
“It was awful!” I shout at him. “Twitch. You should have seen it. I flopped around like a Muppet.”
Now he’s laughing, too. “Danielle said you had a lot of heart.”
I punch him in the shoulder. “That’s what they say about people who are TERRIBLE,” I snort.
“It is indeed,” he says, punching me back, but much softer than I punched him.
“What!” Dad yells out the little back door of the trailer, “is going ON out there?! Amelia! Come help me! I’m drowning in here!”
Time slows to a pinpoint as we all hear what he just said.
I swear I can hear the lake laughing.
Dad blinks once. Twice. And time goes back to normal again. “Can you just get up here and help me?” he asks, voice softer now. “If we’re this busy now,” he mutters under his breath, “I can’t even imagine how it might be if we win that contest.” His brow is wrinkled. It’s the first time I’ve seen Dad look really stressed out in a long time.
I nod and run up the stairs after him. Only then does it strike me that for the few minutes Twitch and I were talking I completely forgot that we were even at the lake, and what the lake means.
But now, as I stand beside Dad, filling cups with barbecue sauce and looking out the windows onto the lake, it’s like I’ve been taken back in time. Of course, Dad didn’t have the trailer then. We were just normal people having a normal birthday party at the lake, like the people I can see today, down by the water’s edge tying balloons onto a picnic table and setting up coolers.
I wore my yellow swimsuit, the one I thought made me swim faster. Clara was wearing a two-piece with big red flowers on it. Her hair was jet black and scraggly at the ends because neither one of us had had haircuts in ages. Her skin was so brown from all the days we’d spent in the sun, it made the colors of her swimsuit pop.
“I hate you!” I screamed at her. “I never want to see you again!”
Those were my last words to my sister, as she stuck her tongue out at me and zoomed away on the boat full of her friends. Those were the last words she ever heard out of my mouth.
“Pulled pork sandwich and potato salad.” I hear a familiar voice, and it snaps me back to the moment. It’s Desiree, Twitch’s friend from the woods. She’s wearing those giant hoop earrings again and they shine in the sun. Gathered around her are Maureen and Henry and Jake. Everyone from the boat that day. Everyone from the woods.
“Hey, Amelia,” Jake says, running his hands through his curly hair. “Twitch said you guys were going to be up here today. We thought we’d come up for lunch. And, you know …”
“For support,” Maureen finishes for him. “The lake can be, I don’t know …”
“Kind of hard to deal with,” Henry finishes for her.
Desiree nods.
Twitch comes around from the back of the trailer and sees them. “Heeeeeeeey!” he shouts. “You came!” They all awkwardly group-hug. Dad looks at me and at them. The line behind them is really long.
“Go out there for a second,” Dad says. “But then get back in here.” He swipes really quickly at his bright eyes. I guess Dad must remember them from that day, too. How could he not? It’s a day emblazoned on all of our brains. Every detail. Every second. Seared in there forever.
I run out the back of the trailer and around front and join in the awkward hug. “I can’t believe you all came out here,” I say into the pile of armpits surrounding my face.
“We’re all in this together, kiddo,” Desiree says. “At least, now we are.” She tightens her arm around my shoulder and it feels really, really good to feel really, really sad with other people. Isn’t that weird? How can a person feel good and sad at the same time? It’s like these guys have created some kind of new way to feel inside of me. Happysad. An accidental gift.
“Pulled pork and potato salad!” Dad yells from the window, holding a paper plate full of food. “One for everyone.” He hands plates down to me, and I hand them to Clara’s friends. My friends, now. Henry pulls out some cash, but Dad waves him off. “Just tell everyone you know it’s the best barbecue you’ve had in your entire life.”
“Deal, Mr. Peabody,” Jake says, mouth full of sandwich. They all make their way to a picnic table nearby as Twitch and I walk back around the trailer.
Twitch smiles at me as I go up the little stairs. “I thought they might help the day go by a bit easier.”
“Well, you thought right,” I say, smiling back.
And it works. Every time I look out the window and see the lake looming, I also see Maureen and Desiree, Jake and Henry, camped at the picnic table playing cards, goofing around, or waving back at me and Twitch. I still don’t love being at the lake, but I’ve stopped feeling the horrible dread and gloom that I did on my way over here.
Finally, Dad puts out the CLOSED sign, and Twitch and I help clean up everything for the night. “If the day of the TV show goes anything like today, we have first place in the bag,” Dad says. He pulls at his beard, and his eyes look out over the water. After a minute, he snaps back to reality and says, “Winning that contest could really change things.” For just a blink of a second his eyes seem kind of sad, then he brightens and smiles at us. “Who’s ready for bed?”
“It’s eight thirty, Mr. Peabody,” Twitch says.
“Exactly,” Dad answers, and we all laugh as we head to the car.
“Hey,” I say, knocking on Mom and Dad’s bedroom door. Mom is in bed with her glasses on and a bunch of paperwork spread around her. She looks up. Her laptop is on her lap, and its glowing screen reflects in her glasses. Dad must be downstairs watching TV.
“Hey, Amelia. What’s up?” She slides a bunch of papers out of the way and pats the bed next to her. I sit down, awkwardly at first, but then I lean back on her inclined pillows next to her and I have a flash of memory from when I was little and used to climb into bed with Mom and Dad after a bad dream. Without even thinking about it, I tilt my head until it rests on her shoulder. She tucks my hair behind my ear, like she used to, and pushes her glasses up onto her head like they’re a headband.
“Seriously,”
she says, “what’s going on?”
For a second, I want to tell her about the letter. I want to tell her about softball. I want to tell her about the art project in the woods. I want to tell her everything. But there’s so much to tell I can’t find the words. I don’t know where to start. I don’t even really know why I suddenly want to tell her all this stuff right now. That’s not why I came in here. But with my head on her shoulder, and her Mom smell reminding me of when I was little and when things were simpler, I don’t know. I guess … I’m just really, really aware all of a sudden of how tired I am. Not like in a sleepy way, but in an everything way. I feel like I’m always swimming upstream. I’m always trying to push my way through things instead of just being carried along. I want things to be easy again, like they were when Clara was alive. Back when I didn’t even know things were easy.
“I’m thinking about my prank,” I say, which is about one-ninety-ninth of all the things I’m thinking about. “Do you know who’s in charge of deciding how public art gets money?” Mom turns to face me, making me have to lift my head from her shoulder. She blinks. I don’t think she thought this is what I was going to ask.
“Well,” she starts. “Grace McNeil oversees the distribution of public funds, but she’s not the one who makes the final decisions. Often there’s a town vote if the funds are going toward something that isn’t already a budget line item.”
I hear her words, but they don’t make a lot of sense, so I start over. “I have some friends who made this really cool art project. They’re trying to figure out how to, like, protect it and turn it into something the whole public can enjoy. I was thinking maybe I could use their art as part of my prank. Or something.” The truth is, I haven’t really thought out much of anything. But I would like to help them get the money they need to preserve their art. “How can they turn their art into something for everyone?”
Mom scrunches up her face. “Unsanctioned public art? Is that what you’re getting at? This sounds a little bit like you’re talking about vandalism. You know vandalism is against the rules for Prank Day.”
