The Heart and Mind of Frances Pauley

by April Stevens

  Finally, when she was able to control herself, she rolled over and tried to breathe, but her breath was all stuttery and tears kept rolling down the sides of her face and into her ears.

  She looked around her room. There were her trees and her Lucy poster and her pictures of the life cycle of the duck-billed platypus. There was also the picture of Margaret Mead that she’d printed out in the library at school last year. It was of the anthropologist standing among a tribe of almost-naked people. She couldn’t have looked more different from all those people. Her heavy skirt and buttoned-up jacket, her glasses, the sturdy lace-up shoes. Not to mention her walking stick. But it was the expression on her face that Figgrotten stared at. She didn’t exactly look happy. Figgrotten thought for a minute and it came to her: Mead looked determined. I am going to be determined, Figgrotten thought. I’m determined to never speak to Christinia ever again. It was the only way she began to feel a little better, making this plan to never talk to her sister ever again. It’s over, she thought.

  Figgrotten’s eyes now fell to the floor where the crumpled card with her name on it lay. She stood and picked it up and smoothed it open and stared down at her handwriting. She’d been younger when she’d named herself this, and her handwriting was that of a first grader, not a fifth grader. Suddenly her old writing made her horribly sad. She slipped the wrinkled card into her journal and slid the little book under her pillow, and then she lay down on her side with her knees tucked up near her chest and her hands clasped together under her chin. It was what people who prayed did, she thought. She was not exactly a prayer, but she was a hoper. And now she fell asleep hoping that she could stick to her plan and never have anything to do with her horrible sister ever, ever again.

  The next morning Figgrotten stood waiting for the bus. She had her hat pulled farther down on her head than usual in an attempt to cover her eyes, which were still swollen from crying the night before. It was a sharp, cold morning, and to keep from freezing, she jogged in place a bit, watching the little puffs of white breath go out into the air in front of her. Not once had she ever missed the bus the way Christinia sometimes did. In fact, she went out ten minutes early each morning so she could breathe in some nice outdoor air and check out the birds. She knew now that certain birds were a sign of certain seasons. Some were passing through on their way north or south. Some only came and stayed in the summer. Some were there year-round, like the crows.

  Today she had her eyes out for her crows. Somehow, setting her mind on doing this helped her get out of bed and kept her from going over the awful interaction with Christinia. So far there’d been no sign of the crows, though. She wondered where they were when they weren’t around. How far did they fly off? Mainly she wanted to know if they had certain patterns she could depend on. She stood looking up into the pine trees behind her house, and while she stood there, she heard the school bus approaching.

  When the bus pulled up and the door opened, there was Alvin with his hat on, smiling at her. “Good morning, Miss Pauley. Any birds this morning?”

  Figgrotten smiled, shrugged, and climbed up the steps, but something sad felt stuck in her throat and she couldn’t quite talk.

  “Where’s that sister of yours?” Alvin was craning his neck looking toward the house.

  “I think she’s sick today,” Figgrotten heard herself say, which was pretty much a lie. The words just came right out of her mouth. But as Alvin began to pull away, Figgrotten caught sight of the front door opening, and before the bus lumbered around the corner, she saw her sister run onto the front lawn frantically waving. Someone else must have seen this too, because they yelled from the back and Alvin slammed on the brakes and opened the door.

  “Oh, no, not sick. Just late!” he laughed.

  When Christinia climbed on, out of breath, Figgrotten slid down low in her seat and kept her head turned toward the window. She refused to even look at her sister. Christinia had told those girls she was adopted? Figgrotten felt a lump starting in her throat, and her eyes began to burn as if she was about to cry. So she sat up and took a deep breath and tried to think of Clark, purring and lying upside down in her arms.

  When she looked up a minute later, there was Alvin looking hard at her in the rearview mirror, as if he was trying to make out something in the distance.

  “Now, Miss Pauley, did I ever tell you that I went to a great big school in New York City when I was a boy? Oh, it was a terrific school, as many schools were back then. I had a few teachers who made all the difference in my life. One of them was a French teacher who wore very elegant suits every day. It turned out his family owned the foremost suit-making business in Vienna, and so there he was, wearing these suits every day. Impeccable and elegant. So out of place in that setting. Teaching all these little kids French. I remember knowing that despite how rich he was, he wanted to be a teacher, and this made quite an impact on how I felt about him.”

  Figgrotten nodded and sat listening to Alvin. She loved it when he talked about his life. She imagined him as a little skinny kid with his Greek fisherman’s cap on.

  “Do you still know how to speak French?” she now asked him.

  “Mais oui,” he laughed. “Mais oui, but yes! For your information.”

  “Mais oui,” Figgrotten echoed. She sat back in her seat and looked out the window and tried not to think about Christinia.

  A few minutes later, when James climbed on and sat down behind Figgrotten again, she felt herself stiffen. If he had spoken to her, she was pretty sure she might have told him to bug off. Or to get a life. Or, worse than anything, she might have said nothing, giving him an icy stare that would have said it all. Just like Christinia had taught her. A glare that could make everything inside a person droop and feel dreadful. She disliked James, though she wasn’t sure why, other than he clearly knew he was smart but didn’t know how to use his smartness in a way that didn’t make other people feel bad.

  Figgrotten was quieter than usual in class, and twice when Mr. Stanley called on her she had to be reminded what he was talking about. She kept staring out the window, going over her fight with Christinia. She did notice, however, that James once again had his hand up a lot but was also blurting out the correct answers to lots of the math problems. Figgrotten could feel how impressed Mr. Stanley was with each of his answers, the way he always had been with her, and this only made her sink down farther in her chair.

  During recess that day, Figgrotten didn’t go out onto the playground. Instead she sat alone at a picnic table against the building and watched the other kids playing. The only other girl who was alone was mousy old Fiona Peterson. Figgrotten watched her as she walked along the perimeter of the playground dragging a long stick and singing to herself. If a gust of wind blew through the place, she was pretty sure Fiona would just go hurtling off into the air. She was that wispy and boring. Figgrotten scrunched up her nose and looked around. Only then did she realize that James wasn’t out on the playground either. He was sitting cross-legged not far from her, with his back up against the building, but he wasn’t looking too lonely. He was slumped over a big book that sat open in his lap, fully engrossed, clearly not giving a hoot about any kid out on that playground. Once again Figgrotten felt a stab of something unpleasant go through her. Something a little mean. It bothered her to see him sitting like that outdoors. She was alone too, but she wasn’t alone like him. If someone had come and talked to her, she would have talked back to them. But no one would go up to James when he was reading a book. It was stupid. He was stupid.

  * * *

  —

  “Mr. Stanley,” Figgrotten said, suddenly standing up. “Can I go to the bathroom?”

  “Yes, you may.” Mr. Stanley, who was standing by the door, gave her the correction gently and handed her the little wooden block that said GIRLS’ ROOM on it.

  “Frances,” he said, “just checking in with you—is everythi
ng all right today? You seem a bit distracted.”

  Figgrotten nodded.

  “Well, okay. If there is something bothering you, you can let me know. You know that, right?”

  “Okay,” she said softly, and turned and went down the hall.

  She couldn’t very well tell Mr. Stanley what was bothering her. She couldn’t tell him that her sister was evil and horrible and mean. Or that James was stupid for thinking he was so smart. Or that she wanted to be home, up on her rocks, not here at school. These weren’t things you talked about with your teacher.

  Figgrotten didn’t actually need to use the bathroom, so once she was in it, she killed time by looking at herself in the mirror, which, to be honest, was something she rarely did. Not that she had an aversion to what she saw, more that she’d already seen plenty of herself, so what more was there to see?

  Today her hair was in a particularly interesting shape, which was most likely due to her having slept under her blankets last night and then putting her hat on immediately when she woke up. Her hair was half flattened against her head and half sticking out in a triangular shape at the bottom. Figgrotten eyed it but didn’t so much as reach up to try to rearrange it. She didn’t quite understand why it mattered what she looked like, although she knew she was somewhat alone in this particular view. Besides, there were okay things about the way she looked. She had large brown eyes and nice eyelashes, and when she smiled, she had two dimples like little parentheses around her mouth. She could be worse. She could have a lopsided face with one eye on her forehead and another down on her chin. Her mother often told her she was a “hidden beauty,” which Figgrotten did not like. She was certain it was the kind of thing you said to someone who wasn’t, in fact, beautiful.

  Suddenly, while she was standing looking into the mirror, the bathroom door burst open and two seventh-grade girls came in, chatting loudly. When they saw her, they both stopped; then one of them, Figgrotten wasn’t sure which because she’d turned away, made a loud gagging sound like she was about to throw up, after which they melted into uncontrollable laughter.

  “Oh, gross!” the other one said.

  Figgrotten had a horrible dipping feeling down through her belly. Her mouth fell open to say something, but this time words just clumped in her throat and she felt her eyes start to burn once again, like she was about to cry. Then she did what she knew she shouldn’t do, but somehow, in a moment of terrible weakness, she just turned and fled. Out of the bathroom and down the hall she ran, and then, without thinking what she was doing, she turned in to the nurse’s office. The school nurse, Mrs. Bellamy, was a plump woman with a sweet, soft voice. She was so wonderfully kind that all the kids, including Figgrotten, adored her.

  “Frances,” she said when Figgrotten stepped into her little office, “I rarely get the pleasure of seeing you in here. Now, do tell me what’s the matter, sweetheart.”

  Figgrotten opened her mouth but once again found that her words had slipped away, and for the third time in twenty-four hours her eyes filled with tears.

  Mrs. Bellamy tilted her head to one side and almost seemed about to cry herself.

  “Oh, dear girl,” she said softly. “If you’d like to tell me what’s bothering you, I might be able to help.”

  Figgrotten shook her head. She couldn’t.

  “Would you like me to call your mom?”

  Figgrotten nodded and sat down and Mrs. Bellamy put her big warm hand on Figgrotten’s forehead and then shook her head. “You’re cool as a cucumber.” She took hold of one of Figgrotten’s hands while she dialed the phone.

  “Mrs. Pauley, good afternoon, it’s Darlene. Frances is here and I think she’d like you to come pick her up.” There was a pause; then she said, “No, I don’t think so, but I think she isn’t feeling perfect.” Another pause. “Yes, yes…see you in a few minutes. No need to rush.” Then she put the phone down and sat for a minute still holding Figgrotten’s hand. Figgrotten was trying to keep herself together, but she was unable to stop the tears from sliding down her face, and her breath was all hiccuppy. She was so grateful to Mrs. Bellamy for calling her mom so quickly without too many questions.

  “Frances, I just hope and pray someone was not unkind to you.” Mrs. Bellamy shook her head and sighed. “Because I rarely see tears like this that aren’t from some kind of hurt in here.” She pointed at her heart, then sighed and stood up. She walked to the water cooler and got Figgrotten a little paper cup of ice-cold water, which Figgrotten drank and which, for some reason, made her feel slightly better.

  It took only a few minutes for her mom to get to the school. She came into the nurse’s office with an alarmed look on her face and held Figgrotten’s hand as they walked out of the building.

  The car felt so quiet. So warm. Figgrotten sank down in the seat and looked out the window.

  “Oh, Frances,” her mom sighed. “Please tell me what happened.”

  But Figgrotten shook her head. She couldn’t talk.

  “Honey, it’s very important not to bottle up your feelings. It really can make things so much worse. So I hope we can talk about all this later when you feel up to it.”

  For whatever reason, these words made the tears now pour from Figgrotten’s eyes, and her mom reached across and took her hand and a few minutes later they were home.

  As always, being up on the rocks, in the cold air, would make her feel better, she thought as she climbed the zigzag path. That and being by herself. It didn’t matter at that moment that Alvin said everyone needed people. Figgrotten knew for her it wasn’t true. Not now, anyway. Now she needed to be alone. Once she got up there, she closed her eyes for a second. It was so quiet, just a little breeze hushing through the pines. Nothing could have felt more comforting after such a terrible, dreadful twenty-four hours.

  She put some bread crusts down for the crows and whistled, though her whistle was weak compared to the day before. Then she sat down and opened her math book, but she couldn’t focus on her work. She wasn’t sure what was more upsetting, Christinia telling her eighth-grade friends she was adopted or the stupid seventh-grade girls in the bathroom. But suddenly it felt like everyone thought she was weird. Not just her horrible sister. And somehow this made just being herself a whole new thing. A thing that made her stomach twist into a knot. Both incidents kept replaying in her mind. Over and over again.

  Later the crows arrived, dropping one by one off the tree to eat the bread. Again Figgrotten put down her pencil and leaned her chin on her hand and watched them intently. So far she wasn’t sure her experiment was working. She had the feeling they were showing up only when they saw the bread. She wasn’t sure her whistle was making an impact. Their blackness shone against the white snow. She’d never thought this before, but now she saw that not only were they intelligent, they were truly magnificent creatures. They were so beautiful and brilliant that somehow just seeing them lifted something up inside of her. She sat watching the way they worked together, three of them landing and picking at the bread, one of them staying up in the tree listening and standing guard. Then that one flying down and another one flying up and taking over the lookout job. After a bit, she sighed and went back to her math, focusing hard on just the problems at hand, each with one answer, nice and neat, without any feelings involved. It made her realize this was one thing math was good for.

  The crows started waking her up every morning that week. They would sit up in the pine trees behind her house and make a big old racket, cawing back and forth to each other. She’d climb out of bed and stick her head out the window and see them up in the swaying branches of the pine trees, bobbing in the cold wind. She was pretty sure they had never done this before, and she had to wonder if this new habit of theirs had to do with her feeding them.

  The bottom line was that animals were mysterious. You could never read their minds. She sure wished you could, though. She wished she knew w
hat Clark was thinking. Like when he would sit on the back porch and just stare out in front of him. Kind of like he was in a trance. She’d wonder, What the devil is he thinking?

  Sometimes she wondered what went through certain people’s brains as well. Fiona Peterson was one of these people who, for some reason, Figgrotten would wonder about. She was so quiet and so mousy, but there was something about her that was different too. Figgrotten knew Fiona was smart, because she always had the right answers when Mr. Stanley called on her, and finished all her tests before most kids. But Figgrotten hadn’t a clue what went on inside her.

  Then there was James. She definitely wondered what he was thinking when he blurted out answers without being called on, and when he sat with his book out on the playground. Did he ever think about anyone but himself? It didn’t seem that way. But who knew?

  Sometimes she even wondered what went through Alvin’s mind. Especially that morning, as he seemed distracted, his mind off in the distance. It was as if he was trying to figure out a problem inside his head and couldn’t get it. She’d been watching him in the bus’s rearview mirror at moments when he seemed lost in thought.

  “There was a full moon last night, Alvin,” she told him at one point, knowing this usually could get him going on some subject.

  But he just nodded and said, “Oh, is that so?” And then she saw him grimace as if someone had just pinched him.

  A few minutes later there was a commotion in the back of the bus and two of the big kids started wrestling. They even fell off their seats for a second and rolled around in the aisle. Everyone was screaming and clapping and laughing. But the weirdest thing was, Alvin didn’t seem to notice.