Chrissa

by Mary Casanova

  If I had a magic wand like Ms. Rundell’s, I’d swirl it over the heads of the Mean Bees and say a few mumbo-jumbo words. Then poof!

  They’d disappear forever.

  As Dad drove us home, I gazed out the back window. The days were growing longer, and the sun sent pale shades of rose and peach across snowy yards.

  Dad glanced over from the wheel. “Looks like your art classes came to the rescue with the bowls.”

  “Yeah,” Tyler said. “Mine’s going to be so cool. I fit the whole solar system on my bowl.”

  “I figured that one was yours,” Dad said. He tilted his head toward the back of the pickup. “I loaded up a few more kilns’ worth while you guys were at swimming.”

  I didn’t say a word. I was too mad at Tyler. He didn’t deserve to be spoken to. Now I thought his bowl was the most stupid idea in the world. I mean, who puts a solar system on a bowl?

  A space geek.

  My brother.

  The Pawn of the Mean Bees.

  Dad pulled into Nana’s driveway. I didn’t know if I’d ever come to think of it as my driveway or my home. It just seemed as if it would always be Nana’s and Grandpa’s place, even though Grandpa was gone.

  I pictured Grandpa only a few months back, lying in the hospital bed that had been rolled into the sunroom. His bed had side rails and a button for raising and lowering the mattress. In his last days, he seemed to see and do things that didn’t make sense, such as talking to his own mother and father—my great-grandma and great-grandpa—who were most certainly long gone. But Nana had explained, “People close to death sometimes start crossing over into the next world before they’re truly gone from this one.”

  Days before Grandpa died, I sat with him one afternoon while he slept. Outside the sunroom windows, the willow tree that had turned golden yellow rustled its leaves in the wind. The maples were painted bright shades of magenta and cranberry. When he woke from a nap, I took his cold fingers into my hands, trying to warm them. “Hi, Grandpa. Is there anything you need?”

  His eyes, blue like mine, were brighter than usual. He looked at me intently and squeezed my hand. In a quiet voice, he said, “Just you, Chrissa Marie. All I need right now, in the whole wide world, is to hold the hand of my beautiful and precious granddaughter.”

  My eyes had filled then, and they filled again now, remembering him.

  Suddenly it was quiet. Dad had turned the engine off and the radio had gone silent.

  “I’m starving!” Tyler said as he and Dad piled out of the truck.

  For a moment, I just sat there in the back, too upset to say anything, too upset to move. Why did everything have to change? I missed Grandpa. I missed my old friends, and I missed how everything used to be.

  I wiped away a single tear and then climbed out. As I headed toward the house, I gulped a deep breath of winter air. Slowly I climbed the front steps, scraped my boots on the doormat, and stepped into Nana’s warm house.

  After dinner, while Dad and Tyler worked together in the pottery studio, Nana suggested I do my homework in the sunroom. While she worked at her loom, I set my school library books on the craft table. It wasn’t fair that Tyler didn’t have homework. Not only did he have an easier teacher, but he was free from the Mean Bees. If he knew them better, he wouldn’t be so quick to believe that they really liked him.

  I stared at my library books, titled Colorado, Rhode Island, and Florida. Finally, I started skimming through them to find answers to the questions on my three-page worksheet, “All About States.” Tomorrow we were supposed to work together in our clusters to share what we’d learned and help each other fill in the blanks. The last thing I wanted to do was share my carefully researched answers and give any help to the Bees. Of course, they were researching other states, too, and I’d get help from them. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. With the Mean Bees, I never know what to expect.

  After a solid hour of studying, I packed my homework into my backpack. “Done,” I announced.

  “Good,” Nana said, “because I think it’s time for some s’mores. I’ll start a fire in the living room fireplace, and you go get your dad and brother. Your mother should be home any minute.”

  I headed to the entryway, pulled on my jacket and boots, and darted out under a star-bright sky and into Maxwell Pottery.

  The two-stall garage holds one large kiln, several potter’s wheels—two electric and one kick-style—and aisles of shelves with pottery in various stages. The largest table is for kneading, wedging, and slicing clay. In one corner, plastic bags of wet clay wait to be shaped into cups and creamers, pitchers and platters.

  “Dad?” I called.

  He and Tyler turned from the large kiln. “Hey, the first round of bowls turned out perfect!” Dad said, pointing at the kiln window. “Want to take a look? I can’t open it yet, it’s still too warm.”

  I walked over, avoiding eye contact with Tyler. I peered in. I could tell instantly that the bowls had not been painted by Dad. Some were splotchy with hardened drips, some were muddy brown from too many overlapping glazes, but some had turned out surprisingly well. A bright red bowl reminded me of something Asian. A white bowl with turquoise flecks was surprisingly pretty. And then I saw Tyler’s bowl. It had turned out perfectly. The colors were bright and the planets actually resembled planets. I was still so mad at him that if I were Tara, I wouldn’t have had a second thought about breaking his bowl! But I knew I couldn’t do something that mean.

  As we entered the house, the living room glowed from the fire that flickered in the fireplace, and the scent of burning birch logs filled the air. Nana had set out marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate bars, and her secret s’mores ingredient—banana slices—on the coffee table. My anger toward Tyler almost softened.

  I squatted before the fire, turning a marshmallow on a wire skewer until it was lightly golden. Tyler’s went up in flames.

  “Do you have to burn it?” I asked, breaking my vow of silence.

  “The crisper the better,” he replied.

  Mom came home in time to join us, and for a few moments, life felt almost normal. She told us about one of the older male doctors who thought Mom was a nurse. “He asked me to get him a cup of coffee.” Mom shook her head. “So I did. But I brought back two cups of coffee, and I set one on the counter in front of him and one in front of me. Then I said, ‘Let me introduce myself, Dr. Tanner. I’m Dr. Maxwell, the new internist.’ He was a bit flustered at first, but then we had a good consult over our coffee.”

  Along with my family, I laughed—and it felt good. Mom always has interesting stories from the hospital.

  I placed my perfectly soft marshmallow on top of chocolate chunks and a graham cracker, slipped in a slice of banana, and then squashed another cracker on top. It was gooey and yummy, and I didn’t care if my fingers were sticking together.

  The hallway phone rang.

  For a few moments, life felt almost normal.

  Tyler jumped up. “I’ll get it.”

  “Huh, that’s not like him to expect a call,” Dad said quietly to Mom. “Must be making some new friends.”

  “Yeah, she’s here,” I heard him say. “Chrissa! It’s for you!”

  I finished the last of my s’more, licked my fingers, and reluctantly walked to the hallway. I studied Tyler’s eyes as he held out the phone to me.

  “Who is it?” I mouthed silently.

  He shrugged, but I didn’t trust him. Something smelled as fishy as the dead carp that wash up on Nana’s beach. And after Tyler’s prank at the pool, I didn’t know what to expect next.

  He continued to hold out the phone. “C’mon, Chrissa. It’s for you.”

  Reluctantly, I took the phone from his hand. “Hello?”

  “Chrissa, it’s me. Sonali.”

  I didn’t bother to say anything. She had no reason to call me. We weren’t friends.

  “I want to apologize,” she said.

  “Is your mom making you again?” I aske
d, my voice pinched as I remembered her delivering the red bag.

  “No, this is different. It’s about what happened at the pool today. I laughed when your brother snapped your goggles, but then in the locker room…well, I saw those red spots on your cheeks and I just want to say that it’s not really Tyler’s fault. We dared him. And it was supposed to be this big joke, but…it really wasn’t funny.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” My grip loosened on the phone. Sonali was so hard to figure out. How could I know if she was being sincere?

  “Today,” Sonali continued, “I heard you ask Gwen over. And she said she couldn’t. Well, I know you’re not supposed to invite yourself over, but if you want someone to come over, well…”

  Was she asking to come over? I could punish her by just telling her a flat “no.” That would leave her wounded and embarrassed for asking. And it would serve her right. But on the other hand, if she was sincere and was actually trying to be friends, then I didn’t know how to answer. “Um, let me think about it. I’ll let you know tomorrow, okay?”

  “I understand,” she said, sounding disappointed. “Well then…see ya at school.”

  When I returned to the fire, I sat down by Tyler. He was roasting another marshmallow until it was blackened like soot. “Hey, nice marshmallow,” I said.

  “Thanks,” he said quietly. “And hey, I’m really sorry I snapped your goggles. I don’t know why I did it. It wasn’t very nice.”

  I exhaled. “Just don’t do it again,” I said. Then I lightly punched him in the shoulder and his marshmallow accidentally dropped into the fire.

  “Hey!” he said. “Why’d you do that?”

  “How about we call it even?”

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Fair enough.”

  The next morning at school, Sonali slid her foot toward mine under our cluster of desks. When the side of her shoe touched mine, she withdrew and I placed my foot where hers had just been. All the while, I kept my eyes on my deskwork. After a moment, I stretched my arms up and then sideways and then down toward my toes, as if I needed to loosen up tight muscles. I found the tiny note under my shoe and, like a skilled magician—no magic wand needed—eased the note into my palm in one invisible motion.

  I risked a glance at Tara and Jadyn. They hadn’t seen a thing.

  But I wasn’t going to take any chances. I waited until lunch hour and let them get ahead of me going out the classroom door. Then I opened the note, which read:

  Hi Chrissa!

  I hope you’ll say yes to my coming over after

  school Friday. Don’t breathe a word of this to

  Tara. She’d be so mad!

  The rest of the day, Sonali and I exchanged more notes. I told her I’d love to have her sleep over. Outwardly, she still acted like the other Mean Bees, as though my presence was a disturbance to the hive. Yet she seemed eager to be friends. In one note I suggested she ride the bus home with me, but she wrote back:

  Not a chance! Tara and Jadyn ride your bus.

  My mom can drop me off.

  I’ll bring my sleeping bag.

  Passing notes right under the noses of the other two was like having a delicious secret. And I felt for Sonali. I knew how hard it could be to get caught in between friendships. More than once, I’d had to sort out friendship troubles back in Iowa with Amanda and Haley.

  That night at home, I called Amanda and told her about school and how things were looking up with a possible new friend. “That’s good, Chrissa,” she said. “It was so hard for me when you left. I missed you—and still do—but it helped to start hanging out more with Haley.”

  When I hung up, I felt a little better, and yet sad, too. But when my cell phone beeped with a text message from Sonali, my mood instantly lifted. Her message read:

  Cant wait to CU 2moro!!

  When I hopped off the bus after school that Friday, I barely noticed Tara and Jadyn’s routine farewell. “Bye, Tyler! We’ll miss you! Have a good weekend!”

  As I patted one of the lions, I realized that the two Bees hadn’t gotten to me. Maybe if Sonali was willing to be friends with me, then the Mean Bees didn’t have that much power. Maybe, I thought, they have only as much power over me as I allow them. And this past week, ignoring them had worked wonders. I continued to be friendly with Gwen, but if she could never come over, I wasn’t sure we’d ever get close.

  This time, when the black Jetta pulled into the driveway, I met Sonali with a genuine smile. “Hi!”

  She nearly danced around the car, grabbing her overnight bag, a sleeping bag, and a pillow from the backseat. She kissed her mom through the driver’s window and then skipped up the steps toward me. “This is going to be fun!”

  Looking up and down the long porch, Sonali said, “This would be such a great place to play in the summertime. Or to sit and read.”

  “In the summer, when I used to just visit my grandparents, I played out here all the time.”

  “And now you get to live here. It’s so cool! I mean, Chrissa, it’s like you live in a mansion!”

  For a split second, my confidence and smile faltered. What if Sonali just wanted to come over because she liked Nana’s big house? Did she think I was rich? Was that it?

  “Chrissa,” Sonali said, stopping as I opened the door for her. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s a cool house, for sure, but that’s not why I wanted to come over.”

  I needed to hear what she was going to say.

  “I want to get to know you. Okay?”

  I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Okay. It’s just—”

  “I know,” Sonali said, stepping inside. “We got off to a bad start. My mom talked to me all about it on the drive over. When something goes wrong, it takes time to get over it. And I mean, with everything, I haven’t been exactly—”

  Her words hung there. “Forget it,” I said, gesturing her inside. “Nana will holler if I let too much heat out the door. Let’s take your stuff up to my room.”

  After going through a basic show-and-tell of my room, we sat cross-legged on the floor with a few of my dolls. I learned that Sonali has two older sisters, who are both in college, and that her mom’s parents came from India. She has a dog named Tofu that likes to eat toilet paper rolls. We laughed and then I told her how Keefer likes to take faucet-drip baths.

  While I was giving Sonali a tour of the house, a hand-knit scarf hanging from a peg in the sunroom caught her eye.

  “Did your grandma knit that from llama wool?”

  “No,” I said. “Um…I did. But that scarf is knit from sheep’s wool.”

  She looked at me wide-eyed. “Is knitting hard?”

  “No. It just takes practice.”

  “Could you teach me?”

  “Sure!” And within minutes she was holding two wooden needles with a skein of blue yarn. Her loops were way too tight, but she was definitely getting the hang of knit and purl. I couldn’t believe how much we already had in common. We’d barely gotten started, however, when Dad called from the kitchen.

  “Chicken fricassee! Come and get the world’s finest in home cooking!”

  It was just the five of us—Nana, Dad, Tyler, Sonali, and me. Mom was still at the hospital.

  Just as we started passing bowls and plates, all made by Dad, a phone buzzed from out of nowhere.

  “Oh, that’s my cell phone!” Sonali jumped up. “I left it in my coat pocket. I’d better check it.”

  If she’d grown up in my family, she’d know that answering phones during dinner is not allowed—unless it is the hospital calling Mom. Emergency calls only. All other calls, Dad always says, can wait.

  My fork was midway to my mouth when Sonali returned. She stood awkwardly in the kitchen doorway, her shoulders twitching slightly. “Um, that was, uh, my mom. She’s coming to pick me up.”

  “But why?” I asked. “I thought you were spending the night.”

  “Um, someone—I mean, our relatives are coming from out of town, um, for pizza. Sorry, Chriss
a. I have to go. Sorry.”

  I went from feeling as light as a helium balloon to feeling the air whoosh out of me. “You’re not kidding?” I asked, as I fell toward earth.

  “Go ahead and eat,” she said. “I’ll go get my stuff and wait at the door for my mom. She’ll be here any sec. Uh, thanks for the dinner, Mr. Maxwell, but I can’t stay.”

  I stared at my plate. I couldn’t believe it.

  Then, before I knew it, the front door shut with a click and a car’s lights shone from the driveway.

  “Well, that was odd,” Nana said. “And here I thought you two were having such a nice time.”

  “She’s not very good at lying,” Tyler said.

  I tried focusing on my food and bringing it to my mouth, chewing carefully so that I wouldn’t choke. “Odd” wasn’t the word for it—more like “suspicious.” Either Sonali had lied, or she’d planned this all week long with the Mean Bees, getting my hopes up only to walk out on me when I was starting to feel safe. But then again, Tyler was right. Sonali wasn’t very good at lying—or at being a loyal Bee. I still believed that she had truly intended to sleep over, but something had changed her mind.

  I drank my milk in one long gulp and set my glass down with a thud. Everything about what had just happened stunk. There was only one probable reason why Sonali had lied.

  It must have been Tara who’d called.

  With a little help, I managed to get through the weekend. Students and a few teachers showed up Saturday morning, as scheduled. The kids were interested in Dad’s pottery studio, but Cosmos and Checkers were the biggest hit. When Sonali showed up and acted as if nothing had happened, I avoided her—like a bad case of the flu—by talking to other kids in the barn about the llamas.

  When it was all over, I hid in my room for the rest of the day.

  Sunday afternoon, when I sat down in the kitchen for milk and peanut butter cookies, Nana asked, “Okay, now that everyone’s gone, what’s with the moping around? You’re spending so much time in your room, I barely see you. It’s getting a little lonely in my sunroom. Even Keefer wonders where you’ve gone.”