by Tish Cohen
“Zoë,” says Susannah. She’s still wearing her dark glasses. “We, the people, have an announcement.”
Behind her I can see big fat snowflakes beginning to swirl and dance in the glow of the lights lining the path. The first real snow of the season.
Maisie steps forward. “I told everyone why you did it. That you were only trying to help me. That what you said wasn’t true. Thanks.”
Then Smartin laughs and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “I guess deep inside I kinda knew you’d never love me.” I smile at him because it’s awfully grown up to admit you’re too icky for public declarations of love. It almost makes him more likable.
Laurel takes my hand and says. “You’ve been awfully good about taking care of the rest of us, for an awfully long time. And we’ve decided that it’s time we take care of you.”
Susannah, who is still wearing her dark glasses, says, “It’s time we give you a clean slate.”
“Just like you gave me,” Maisie says. She nods toward Susannah and adds, “I just found out the real reason you took me on as a client. Thanks.”
Susannah then takes my other hand and they guide me out into the falling snow and onto the path, where snowflakes twinkle and dance in the light of old-fashioned coach lamps, now lit.
“Don’t take me back to the gym,” I say, pulling backward. “There were too many. It’s probably best if we go get doughnuts. Or maybe go straight home.”
“Zoë,” Riley says, putting his hands on my shoulders. “We’re your best friends in the whole world. Are you going to just stand there, or trust us?”
“Mm. I don’t really know.”
“Okay,” he says. He looks up to the sky and twists his mouth to one side, making the cutest dimple appear in his cheek. “Here’s how much you can trust me. You know how I have to practice every day after school, no exceptions?”
Do I ever! “Yeah.”
“I’m not really a sumo wrestler.”
“I kinda figured.”
He flips up the collar of his jacket. Behind him, both Smartin and Maisie twirl in circles, eyes closed and tongues sticking out to catch snowflakes. “Wanna know what I really do?”
I nod so fast I bite my tongue.
Riley leans closer and whispers into my ear, “Ballet.”
“Bal—?”
“Shh! I’m trusting you not to tell.” He steps back and lifts his eyebrows. Then he pulls a sparkly gold chain from his pocket and fastens it around my neck, where it shimmers in the dark. “Ready to trust me now? Enough to go to the dance with me?”
Still touching the necklace, I look at Riley and nod. I step forward and follow him down the hill in the snow. As we pick our way down the path, surrounded by trees and bushes gathering snow on leafless branches, I remember something. “Wait!”
My friends stop moving.
“Susannah! I completely forgot about your hair commercial. Your big meeting was today. Did you sign?”
Susannah sniffs. “I signed.”
“What kind of commercial is it going to be?”
“It’s really not important,” she says, stepping over a fallen branch. “What’s important is I’m a working actress.”
“Does it mean you’re finally going to ditch the shades?” I ask.
“No,” she says with a sarcastic chuckle. “The shades I’ll keep.”
“Oh, please tell us,” Laurel whines. “What kind of commercial is it?”
Susannah stops. She’s silent for a moment; her long, lustrous hair is shimmering from a streetlight behind her. She looks around, pushes her sunglasses farther up her nose, and pulls a silky scarf over her head. Then she leans back toward the rest of us and whispers, “Head lice.”
By the time we get back to the dance, my heart is pounding and I’m pretty sure I’m about to faint. But before Riley opens the gym doors, he says, “Everyone remember the rules?”
They nod and Riley says, “Good. Assume your positions.”
Then they all join hands and form a circle all the way around me, like a cage. And Susannah says to me, “You’ll be totally safe.”
All of a sudden Neon Pink runs by with an armful of balloons. She’s being chased by Bloomer Girl, who’s got a balloon between her teeth. Allegra actually looks like she’s having fun. So does Pink.
“You mean,” I say, swallowing hard, “we’re going right inside? With all the balloons?”
They all nod and Maisie pops open a big umbrella. “Nothing will touch you, Zoë. We promise. You’re covered on all sides.”
Smartin says, “So you can just look around you and be amazed. It’s really quite lovely in there.”
I’m still reeling from the shock of hearing Smartin use a word like “lovely” when they do the most amazing thing. They move together, cocooning me as we enter the balloonfilled Winter Dance. Not a balloon can touch me; they just float by, like pastel-colored bubbles in a dream. I glance around to see everyone is still holding hands; the umbrella is still sheltering me. My friends have made a human shield all around me.
I’m perfectly safe.
The balloons are actually beautiful. There are lavender balloons floating over us, then we pass a whole archway of pink. It’s almost magical. I notice Riley smiling at me and I mouth the words “thank you.”
He grins back and goes up on his tippy toes. Like a ballerina boy.
I smile.
From my cocoon, I can see the refreshment table, covered in massive bowls of costly blueberries and big plates of Dutch cookies. And on the stage is what must be the band, with Avery on the keyboard, another kid on the triangle, and Avery’s mother setting up the microphone to sing.
Smartin leans close to me. “They were the cheapest. They actually paid us for the gig. It was the only way Brianna could afford the balloons.”
We all laugh.
Just then, as I look around in amazement, I think how much Grandma would love to see me being so brave. And even though I don’t want to ruin this moment with sad thoughts, Grandma’s words pop into my head. Don’t try to paint spots on a leopard.
Hmm.
Is it possible that Grandma has her very own set of rules thinly disguised as crazy talk? Because if you think about it, isn’t her leopard rule kind of the same as number ten, since the leopard probably has his own spots and maybe doesn’t need you, or me, to go around slopping new ones all over him?
And if that’s true, then maybe her advice about not being able to polish poodles meant that never in a million years was I going to pluck jaggedy feather stumps off a fleshy chicken. Even her advice about not building a nest on a flagpole made sense! Build your house on solid ground instead of a cliff. That’s what she meant. Except if you’re a bird. Then you’d better choose a good solid branch so you can see the cats coming.
If Grandma’s words are not so strange, doesn’t that make Grandma pretty much sane? Maybe it’s just that the rest of us are just too thick to get what she’s been saying all this time!
I burst through my friends’ arms and start to run through the balloons. Balloons crash up and hit me in the stomach, face, arms. Susannah and Riley call to me, but I don’t have time to explain. I have to get home before Mom signs the Shady Gardens papers. I have to tell her I just figured out what Grandma’s been saying!
Idon’t stop for anything, not for my coat and certainly not for the old man begging for quarters out front of the A&P. I race all the way home and don’t even stop for the elevator. Mom could be up there right now, with Jason, signing Grandma away. I run up the eight flights of stairs and arrive, huffing and puffing, at the eighth-floor landing. But when I open the heavy door into the hallway, I see it’s kind of smoky and firemen walk in and out of somebody’s apartment.
The closer I get, the more I cough and the more I realize the smoke and firemen are coming from my apartment! I rush inside to find Mom at the kitchen table talking to someone on the phone. When she sees me, she looks relieved. “Never mind, Mr. Lindsay,” she says into the phone. “She�
��s just walked in.”
“What?” I shout. “What happened? Where’s Grandma?”
Mom pulls me onto her lap and strokes my hair. “Grandma’s fine. They’ve taken her to Hillside General just to make sure. But now that you’re here, we’ll go check on her.”
“But what happened?” I look around to see a mess on the stove.
Mom sighs. “Grandma left a newspaper on the stovetop and it caught fire. When the firefighters arrived, she was asleep in her room. Thankfully, nothing happened but a whole lot of smoke.” She pauses and takes me by the shoulders, looking into my eyes. “But it could have been much worse.”
I nod.
“You can see now, honey, that the best place for Grandma is a place where she’ll be properly supervised. Where she can’t be a danger to herself or anyone else. Do you understand now, Zoë?”
I bury my head in Mom’s shoulder and breathe in her smell. My eyes slide closed because I can’t keep them open anymore. “Yes,” I whisper.
Sometimes Happy Comes in Extra Chunky
Sunlight is pouring through Grandma’s window on Sunday morning. It’s so bright it almost makes her beige flowery wallpaper look like a pretty yellow. I think the extra brightness has something to do with the sunny rays bouncing off the snow that fell last night. It covered the Shady Gardens with sparkle.
After they released Grandma from the hospital yesterday morning, we took her straight to the nursing home, where they’ll watch her better than me or Mom ever could. The room overlooking the butterfly garden had already been “snapped up,” as Mom said, so Gram got this other room way closer to the snack room. Which is good. And it’s closer to the nurses’ station, where Frisbee, the old collie, sleeps. Also good. Another thing that got snapped up is Get-me-this-Get-me-that Jason. I guess he did such a good job of locking up old people here at Shady Gardens, he got hired by some gigantic retirement home in Florida, where he can eat some other girl’s butterscotch squares. He moves away next month.
Grandma’s sitting in her brown flowery chair watching Jeopardy! and asking why Alex Trebek isn’t wearing his pitcher’s uniform. Mom and me, who are on the sofa, try to explain that baseball won’t be on until the spring. Grandma’s room isn’t nearly as dumpy-looking as the rooms in the pictures, and I’m pretty sure they haven’t made her get her picture taken to prove how much she loves it there.
Grandma also has a brand-new boyfriend, Rex. He lives two flowery bedrooms away and they’ve already been caught sharing a cigar in the game room. Mom was mad that Grandma was breaking Shady Gardens’ rules after less than twenty-four hours, but I was just glad Grandma was feeling good enough to have fun. She might even see that happy comes in extra-big chunks—chunks way bigger than sixty seconds.
“Mom,” I say, turning to face my mother, “will Grandma ever be back?”
She pats my hand. “Absolutely. She’ll come and go. Some days will be better than others. But you’ll know it when she’s here with you.”
Then Grandma looks straight at me and says, “Why don’t you have some candy, little girl?”
I stand up. “Okay. Thanks, Grandma.” I help myself to a couple of red cinnamon hearts and pour them into my mouth, where they burn my tongue with their spiciness.
As I pass her chair, Grandma touches my shoulder and stops me. “You’re welcome, Zoë.”
With a happy glance at my mom, I climb onto Grandma’s lap and give her the biggest hug I can manage without thumping her with my cast. “I love you, Gram,” I whisper. But her eyes have gone blank. She’s gone again.
Just then a tall nurse comes in with Grandma’s lunch. She smiles at us and sets the tray on the bedside table. “Lunchtime, Mrs. Costello.”
It looks like a turkey sandwich with a wilted salad and some green Jell-O. Which Grandma should like. I take the cover off the coffee cup and am happy to find it isn’t coffee, but hot cocoa. Only some of the chocolate powder isn’t dissolved and it smells like the milk’s been scalded.
Hmm. I don’t want my grandma drinking second-rate cocoa.
There really should be somebody in the kitchen watching over the food preparation. At least important things like cocoa preparation. Someone who knows that you have to add the cocoa slowly and keep stirring it until all the little chunks dissolve.
What this place needs are a few rules.
I look up at the nurse, whose tag says HILARY BANKS. “Excuse me,” I say. “Hilary, is it? I’m something of an expert when it comes to chocolate. Did you make the cocoa yourself?”
She looks surprised, but she nods.
“I see.” I take her big hand in mine and guide her out the door. “If you’ve got a moment, I’d like to take you back to the kitchen and share a few Unwritten Rules I have when it comes to making cocoa.”
“Rules?” she asks. “Are they from a cookbook?”
“No. They’re unwritten.”
“Ah,” she says as we pass Frisbee in his dog bed. “That would make them invisible.”
I sigh. I’ll wait until after I get my cocoa to tell her I prefer my rules unwritten.
On Monday morning, things are back to normal at school. Not only has Brianna apologized for photocopying the love letter and sprinkling it around the school to get back at Maisie for spilling the Brinderella beans, she’s also decided that 14 million balloons aren’t the best idea for a Snow Ball, since, in order to get rid of them, you have to pop every single one that survived the dance. She spent the whole weekend in the gym with her mother’s knitting needles.
Sylvia walks by me on the way to her locker before first period. She smiles like she’s got some big secret. “Hi, Zoë. Seen Riley yet?”
“No. Why?”
“No reason.” And she hurries to homeroom.
Then Maisie and Laurel pass by. “Hey, Zoë. Have a nice weekend?” They say it together, like they planned it.
“Yes,” I say. “And why didn’t you guys take my phone calls? I was dying to know what happened at the dance after I left.”
They giggle. “You’ll see,” says Laurel. And they walk off like a pair of figure skaters.
Just as I’m about to swing into homeroom, Riley pops his head out of a janitor’s closet. “Psst! Zoë, in here.”
I check my watch. “But it’s almost eight forty-five. I don’t want to be late.”
“Drop your rules for once and get in here.” He grabs my arm above the cast and pulls me into the tiny room, which is filled with rags and hoses and bottles of cleaner and…Avery?
“Congratulations, Zoë,” Avery says, sitting on an upsidedown bucket with his keyboard on his lap.
“What’s going on?” I ask, dropping my books onto a shelf full of sponges. “Congratulations for what?”
Riley just smiles and pulls out a gold crown. He lifts it high in the air and lowers it onto his head.
“You?” I squeak with joy. “You were crowned Snow Ball King? Did you get to dance with Susannah?”
He shakes his head and pulls another crown from the shelf behind him. It’s all gold and sparkly plastic with fake rubies and diamonds glued all over the front. It’s beautiful. He says, “I haven’t had my royal dance yet.” Then he pushes my hair away from my eyes and sets the crown on my head. “My Snow Ball Queen had to leave early.”
“You mean…me? They elected me?”
Grinning, he nods. “We elected you.” He puts one arm around my waist and the other one around my cast. Avery starts playing something really awful on his keyboard. Really awful and really romantic. He keeps hitting the wrong keys and stopping to whisper-curse, and at one point he knocks over a few mops, but I don’t care.
I’m dancing with my king.
As we sit with our instruments on our laps, waiting for our music teacher, my head—or maybe it’s my heart—is still buzzing from my royal dance. There are three things I can’t get out of my mind (and I never, ever want to!):
the smell of bleach,
Avery’s pinching his pinky finger in the keys, and
>
the feeling of Riley’s arms wrapped around me as we swayed back and forth.
Five minutes after Mrs. Day should have started waving her baton, a youngish older guy with shaggy brown hair and faded jeans walks up to her music stand and smiles.
“Good morning class. I’m Jet Rankin. Your regular teacher, Mrs. Day, had to leave the country indefinitely on an urgent family matter. So it looks like I’m going to be your music teacher until she returns.” He blushes and wavy hair falls over one eye. “Put down your instruments for a bit. I want you all to introduce yourselves. Tell me who you are and what you’re all about.”
He doesn’t have to ask me twice! I drop my trumpet with a clatter.
From the saxophone section, Susannah puts up her hand. “Can we start with you? Who you are and what you’re all about?”
He laughs and runs a hand through his hair. His teeth are nice and white. “Sure, but I’m a pretty dull guy. I’ve been teaching for thirteen years, I love kids, and I’m what my mother calls ‘an organizer.’ So if you find me polishing and putting away your instruments for you, don’t be alarmed.”
Am I dreaming?
“It might sound strange, but nothing gives me more pleasure than doing things for other people.”
Just as I’m wondering if his wife knows how lucky she is, Laurel blurts out, “Like your wife?” You gotta love Laurel.
He leans forward and laughs again. Then he rubs his stubbly chin and sighs. “No such luck. I’m still single.”
Single? I sit up a little taller. Then I remember Unwritten Rule #12, the newest of all the rules. I can’t remember it exactly, but it had something to do with leaving my mother’s love life alone. Forever.
A smile spreads across my face because a new rule just popped into my head. Unwritten Rule #13. Which is, Rules Were Made to Be Smashed Beyond Recognition.
Jet says, “Before I turn the floor over to you guys, does anyone have any questions? Suggestions for the class?”
