“Awwww,” the kids in the back groaned with disappointment. “Boooo!”
But Figgrotten was watching Kevin’s face in his rearview mirror. He sat back in his seat for a second and then hit the steering wheel gently with both hands in a moment of triumph. He then got out and shut the hood, and when he climbed back on, Figgrotten saw him trying to contain his own pleased smile.
The bus was clearly still not working right as they made their way slowly to school. It made a loud roaring noise the entire way, and Kevin seemed to drive extra carefully and slowly.
“Every single person has one of these,” Alvin had said, pounding on his chest, right over his heart. Figgrotten stared out the window and heard Alvin’s voice. He’d told her that for a reason.
* * *
—
The night before, Figgrotten had pulled out her journal and was turning back through the pages when the little slip of paper with Alvin’s handwriting had drifted out. She’d put it there, the Gandhi quote that she’d never really understood. But now she held it, staring at Alvin’s rickety writing. “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” She read the sentence out loud and finally she began to understand what it meant. It was about how getting even with people didn’t work. And there it was again, an example of a vicious cycle.
She wondered if she hadn’t tried to get even with some people.
And when she fell asleep, it was slowly dawning on her that yes. Yes. She had done exactly this.
* * *
—
When they finally pulled up in front of the school, Figgrotten lingered in her seat while everyone else got off the bus. She pretended she was gathering her stuff together even though it was already gathered. Finally she stood up and came down the aisle and stopped at the top step.
“Thanks for fixing the bus. You sure are a good mechanic,” she said, and just before she stepped down off the bus, she saw him smile a little and nod; then his face got super red. Just like hers.
He wasn’t stupid after all.
He was just horribly shy.
* * *
—
Mr. Stanley came into the room that morning dressed in his usual snappy outfit. Purple vest, gray tie, button-down blue shirt. And his shiny brown shoes that made a wonderful clean clicking noise as he walked.
“Good morning, class!” he said, and as always he sounded excited. “Today is a very special day. Today we will spend the morning discussing a person named Lucy. She is the oldest person in the world. And she’s about this tall and she grew up in Africa. Now, tell me, do any of you know who I might be talking about? Does anyone here know who Lucy is?”
Mr. Stanley turned toward the blackboard and wrote the word LUCY across it in big capital letters.
Figgrotten glanced around and saw that no hands had gone up. Even James sat thinking but clearly didn’t know the answer.
Figgrotten put her hand up as gently as possible.
Mr. Stanley turned, walked over to her, folded his arms across his chest, and smiled down at her. “Frances, please tell us who she is.”
Figgrotten looked at all her classmates. She could really go on about Lucy. She could tell everyone that she was found in 1974, and that an archaeologist named Donald Johanson had found her and that the song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by the Beatles was playing when they discovered her and that is why they called her Lucy, and they dug up several hundred fragments of her bones, and she had stood three feet seven inches tall and she had weighed sixty-four pounds. And lots of other things.
But instead Figgrotten just said, “She’s one of the oldest skeletons of a person ever found.” She paused and then said, “So she’s like everyone’s great-great-great-great-aunt. She’s amazing.”
And when she looked up, Mr. Stanley was still standing there smiling at her, but his head had tilted ever so slightly to one side and he seemed lost in thought.
He let out a little breath, then said, “Well, it’s good to know there is someone else who feels the way I do about her. Indeed, she was and is amazing. Today we will talk all about her.”
Figgrotten tried to contain her own smile. Mr. Stanley remained the world’s greatest teacher and the look he had given made her know he still appreciated her. Even if James knew more of the answers than she did.
* * *
—
That day at recess it was sunny out and finally slightly warmer. Fiona and Figgrotten walked out to the rock at the far side of the playground and leaned against it. Fiona tilted her head back and closed her eyes. “I’m getting a tan. My mom said I look pale as a cadaver.”
But Figgrotten was watching James. As usual he sat with his back against the wall, reading his book. “Never forget that everyone needs plenty of understanding. Just as you do. And as do I. People are very different, but they are very, very similar too,” Alvin had said.
Reaching out to Kevin on the bus had confirmed there was one more thing that she had to do. Alvin would have wanted her to.
Figgrotten told Fiona to hang on for a second and she walked over to where James was sitting.
“Hey,” she said to him. He looked up at her and squinted, as the sun was behind her. “You know, no one answered any questions except for me before you came into the class.”
James looked both confused and scared. “Oh, um,” he said, clearly not knowing how to respond to Figgrotten.
“So, you know, I wasn’t used to it.”
“Used to what?”
“Used to having someone else who knew stuff.”
“Oh…I…um…oh, but you know more stuff than I do. Like that old skeleton…,” James said, which surprised her.
“Her name is Lucy.” Figgrotten smiled. “And yeah, but no, you know a lot more.”
“I don’t think—” he started to say.
But she didn’t let him finish. “Anyway, I’m really sorry I yelled that time. I was having a terrible week and I’m sorry I took it out on you.”
“Oh,” James said. “Well…I…don’t…”
“So anyway, can you please tell me what’s so interesting about that book you’re reading?”
James was still looking up at her. “My…?”
“The book, what’s the book?” Figgrotten pointed.
“Oh.” James looked down at the book in his lap and shut it and held it out to Figgrotten. She took it and read the title, Watership Down. There was a rabbit on the front.
“It’s about a bunch of rabbits,” James said. “But, well, it’s not really about that. It’s sort of—well, it’s kind of weird. But I’ve read it three times.”
Figgrotten handed him back the book. “Oh” was all she could think to say. Somehow it was a relief it was a book about a bunch of rabbits and not about something scientific that she would never be able to understand. And at least there was an outdoor element to it.
She was looking down at him now and he was looking up at her. “Well.” She shrugged. “Okay, now I know. I don’t read many books like that. I read the encyclopedia mostly. But maybe I’ll try it sometime. Anyway, if you want to come over and hang around with me and Fiona, you can.”
“Oh.” His mouth was hanging open a bit and he was still looking up at her. “Oh, okay.”
And to Figgrotten’s surprise, he shut his book immediately and stood up and followed her over to the rock. Fiona looked super confused at first, but then Figgrotten asked James after a couple of awkward moments, “Have you ever played Snapshot?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“You wanna play?”
He shrugged again. “Not really, but I guess, okay.”
For some reason this struck Fiona as funny, and the chipmunk laugh swooped out and up. And Figgrotten saw James’s startled expression at first, then she saw the laugh break somethi
ng in him and he started chuckling too.
“Okay, here’s what we do,” she said. “We all close our eyes for a second, then we open them and look around, then we close them again, and turn around. Then we ask questions and try to see who can remember what. Like ‘What color is so-and-so’s shirt?’ Or ‘What game were the kids by the picnic table playing?’ You get it?”
“Yeah, I guess,” James said, though he sounded baffled.
“Okay, ready? Close your eyes. Keep them closed. Okay, open them and look. Look…One. Two. Three. Okay, close them and turn around.”
Figgrotten opened her eyes and saw that both Fiona and James had turned around and were looking at her.
“Okay, so, what color pants is, um, Megan wearing today?”
James said, “Wait, who’s Megan?”
At which point Fiona totally lost it. Then it caught on and they all were trying to contain themselves.
“Okay, let’s try it again.”
They went through the same process and this time Figgrotten’s question was, “Okay, what was Marshall doing just now?”
This time James started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Who’s Marshall?” he said.
“Awkward!” Fiona said, which made them all, once again, lose it.
On the bus on the way home that day, Figgrotten sat once again looking at the back of James’s head. He was of course back to looking down into his rabbit book. While they were out by the rock laughing together, she’d finally seen it. She hadn’t seen it before but there was something about James’s laugh and the way he stood that made the word come into her head. Cute. And once that word appeared, she knew she’d had another thought-wrencher, because everything shifted a little, once again, from this one little thought.
That Thursday there was an early dismissal because another storm was in the forecast. And sure enough, the snow had started falling before the bus dropped her and Christinia off in front of the house. There was a note on the kitchen table from their mom, who had run out to the grocery store. So Figgrotten and Christinia sat down at the kitchen table together and opened their lunch boxes.
As she did every day, Figgrotten ate her cookies first and then her carrot sticks and then her sandwich.
“Cookies are the dessert,” Christinia said through a mouthful of sandwich.
Figgrotten shrugged. “Sandwich is my dessert.”
Her sister sighed. “I guess I should be used to it at this point.”
“Yup.” Figgrotten smiled and bit into a carrot stick. “You should.”
“Wanna watch TV?”
“Can’t. Have to feed the crows.”
Christinia rolled her eyes and shook her head. “In the storm?”
Figgrotten shrugged and slipped her jacket on.
“Well, Ben says you’re an original,” Christinia said, then tipped her head back and took a drink from her water bottle. Then she put the bottle down and burped softly.
“He said that?” Figgrotten stood frozen at the mention of Ben’s name.
“Yup. But I told him I already figured that out on my own.” She smiled at Figgrotten after saying this.
Figgrotten wanted to ask what else Ben had said about her, but she thought this might reveal that she liked him. So instead she pulled her massive hood up over her head and looked at Christinia through the narrow tunnel-like opening. “Peary!” she hissed.
“What?” Christinia stared at her.
“He was a famous explorer….Oh, never mind.” Figgrotten grabbed the bag of bread crusts her mom had left and went out the door. The fact that Ben had said this about her made her happy.
Up on the rocks that day in her massive new jacket and her “man shoes,” Figgrotten sat in the snowstorm as warm and comfortable as could be. The snow was coming down straight and soft and silent, and quickly it began to cover everything. Even the bread she put down for the crows was now white with it. Figgrotten stood up and pulled her hood off her head for a minute and whistled a second time. Then she pulled it back on and sat down, and before she could think, when she was least expecting it, one of the crows came out of nowhere and landed on her rock, inches from where she was sitting. She could have reached out and stroked his shining black head. But she froze and held her breath and stared at the bird. Her heart was whomping hard in her chest. She almost felt as though she was dreaming, but she wasn’t. The crow was right there. Right next to her.
The bird didn’t seem to notice her. It sat tilting its head one way and then the other, then suddenly it rocked back and cawed so loudly that Figgrotten jumped a little inside her coat. But then she kept still even as the three other birds dropped down to the ledge below, where the bread was, and began picking at it. Only when the crow sitting beside her flew down to join them did she let out a big breath and relax a little. She wondered if her new brown coat with the fur-lined hood was the reason the bird had sat so close to her. Was it possible the crow hadn’t realized she was a human? Unlikely, she thought, seeing that crows were so smart.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had imagined her experiment would lead to her whistling all four crows straight down to her. She’d even pictured them landing on her shoulders or head. But she pretty much knew that wasn’t going to happen now. That was the thing about wildlife. It really was wild. And that was what she loved about it. But at the same time, her experiment hadn’t been a complete bust. She knew the crows knew her and trusted her now. In fact, maybe they had run their own experiment by having the one land next to her, and the results, with her sitting so quiet and still, were just as they had hoped.
Later, once the birds had devoured the crusts and had flown up into the pines, Figgrotten climbed down off the rocks and went into the house. She shook off the snow that covered her and hung up her coat in the kitchen.
“A crow landed right next to me,” she said to Christinia, who was watching a music video on TV.
“It what?”
“This crow landed right next to me on the rock!” Figgrotten said, shouting a little above the music.
Christinia turned and looked at her and blinked. “Cool,” she said, then turned back to the TV.
Figgrotten went up to her room and sat down on the floor. She looked around at her posters and feathers and branches. Her sister’s reaction to the crow was to be expected. Her “rock world,” as Alvin used to call it, was just that. Her world. Just like the card she had tacked on her door bearing the name Figgrotten. Though Christinia had crumpled it up that time, Figgrotten had smoothed it out and put it inside the first page of her journal. Not exactly hidden, but not where everyone had to see it either. She could hang on to who she was and still be part of the world, which she could now feel tugging at her. It came as a little longing to cross paths with Ben in the hallway, a longing to hear Fiona’s chipmunk laugh, and even as a pull to go sit with her sister in front of the TV.
She looked up at her poster of Lucy and remembered Christinia telling her it was creepy to have it up there, and suddenly she thought maybe it was a bit creepy. Maybe she should take it down. She sat for a long time staring at all the different bones. Each one a spectacular find. But to have come across the little skull? The archaeologists on the dig must have gone berserk when they found it. This thought made her happy and she stood up and walked over to the poster, and instead of taking it down, she planted a kiss on the top of Lucy’s skull.
Maybe, she thought, the branches should go. After all, they were dead and they were sort of making a big mess of things. But she needed to think about it first.
She then went downstairs and plopped onto the couch next to her sister.
“Can’t we watch a show about something real?” Figgrotten asked.
“Nope,” Christinia said. “We’re watching this.”
The fact that Christinia said “we’re” i
nstead of “I’m” made Figgrotten settle deeper into the sofa and focus on the girl wearing super-short shorts dancing across the screen.
It wasn’t her “cup of tea,” but as Alvin used to always say, “Don’t forget that you’re not always there for the tea.” She remembered him saying this to her one day last year. He was looking at her in his rearview mirror, smiling. And here Figgrotten was now, not forgetting it. Not forgetting Alvin and all he had given to her. Not ever.
She crossed her legs and focused on the TV screen, but a few moments later she realized her eyes had wandered away from it and she was looking out the window at the white wintery world, the snow drifting down in big, slow, floating flakes.
She imagined being out in the nice cold fresh air, up on her rocks, waiting for the crows to come back, but she stayed right where she was, in the company of her sister, surprised to see her own foot jiggling a little to the beat of music.
Carrie Hannigan and Lee Wade, your support and understanding of Figgrotten were, in turn, support and kindness for me. Each of you, equally, nurtured this book until it stood on its own two feet.
Deep gratitude to the following people for their guidance, friendship, patience, and laughter:
Sara, Sheila, Kari, Nora, Tory, Judith, Michael, Tammy, Elizabeth, Mary Kay, Ellen, Jackie, Valorie, Olive, Eliza, Alex, Marcia, Steph, Jeanne, Katie, Jacque, Gregg, and Gina.
And of course, thank you to my family: Sam, for always being one step ahead of me; Willa, for your insight and your beautiful empathetic heart; and Sandy, lifelong editor, encourager, stabilizer, and best friend.
April Stevens is the author of two children’s picture books, Edwin Speaks Up and Waking Up Wendell. Both books received two starred reviews, and Waking Up Wendell was named a Bank Street College of Education Best Children’s Book of the Year. She is also the author of the acclaimed novel for adults Angel, Angel. April lives in Connecticut.
The Heart and Mind of Frances Pauley Page 12
