Overnight

by Adele Griffin

  Maybe this woman also was “a real piece of work”?

  Gray paused another moment, then crossed the kitchen, unlocked and slid open the door. The woman did not move. “Hello, you!” she exclaimed in a soft, curious voice. “Am I late? I saw the balloons.”

  “Oh, those are for Caitlin. It’s her birthday party.”

  “I’ve been driving around and around, looking for the party. When I saw the balloons, I guessed I was at the right place.” The woman stared at Gray expectantly.

  “Do you want to come inside?” Gray wondered if this was the right thing to ask. She was not stupid. She knew all the rules about not talking to strangers.

  The woman seemed harmless, though. She stepped delicately into the kitchen as if it were stuffed with people, not just herself and Gray. She kept her back pressed against the glass wall. Her eyes darted from counter to counter. “Oh, I don’t like it here. It’s different on the inside. I like more lights, maybe a radio. This isn’t my party, after all.”

  “Are you a neighbor?” Gray asked.

  “Yes,” said the woman. “Do you live here?”

  “No. And I need to go home,” Gray blurted out. Tears souped her eyes. “I have to pick up my sleeping bag.”

  “Of course.” The woman agreed as if she knew that already. “I think we’d better go now.” She held out her hand for Gray to take. “All set?”

  “Oh!” Gray smiled. “Are you here for me? Are you from Helping Hands?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  No. That couldn’t be right. This woman did not look like a Helping Hands person, and Gray had met quite a few of them. Last year, when her mother had been very sick, Helping Hands people had been around a lot of the time. Mostly women, but there had been one man, Brett. They all were nice, especially Ann Lee and Moira, although Moira could get impatient if Gray didn’t know the directions to soccer practice or kept her waiting too long in the Fielding parking lot.

  This woman could not be a Helping Hands lady. Also, Gray’s parents did not use the Helping Hands service anymore, now that her mother was recovering.

  Or do we use it but only sometimes because maybe Mom picked up my message and called in for a Helping Hands person for just this once this one important errand?

  “We’re going to get my sleeping bag and come right back?” Gray asked.

  “Yes,” said the woman. She snapped her fingers. “We need to hurry. I have a lot of other things to do.”

  Zoë

  ZOë WAS GOING TO win. She was the best. She knew that. Besides, the other girls did not care as much about winning. Their hearts did not flutter when the Enchanted Castle game board was opened. Their mouths did not dry up when the scorecards were laid out, neat as buttons, all in a row. Their fingers did not sweat with each roll of the dice.

  I’ll win this game, Zoë thought. Yes, yes! Because I always win this game.

  From the start, though, Zoë sensed that Kristy was trying to tip off the table to let Caitlin win. Kristy Kiss-up, that’s what Martha called Kristy behind her back because of how she acted toward Caitlin. Sure enough, when Caitlin got up to go to the bathroom, Kristy leaned forward.

  “You guys, it’s Caitlin’s birthday,” Kristy whispered, “and she never wins. Let’s let her beat us this once.”

  No, no! thought Zoë. Not fair! Caitlin had too much luck already. Caitlin was a girl who always had the right sneakers, the right hair bands and clips, even the right day—Valentine’s Day!—for her birthday. The right mother, too, because Mrs. Donnelley was perfect. Mrs. Donnelley, who wore thigh-length tennis dresses, whose legs were shiny, moisturized, and tan—even in winter—and who picked up Caitlin at school on time every afternoon. And who, glamorous as she was, never was doing anything so important that she couldn’t interrupt herself to perform even the silliest, smallest errand for Caitlin.

  Caitlin didn’t need to win! No fair!

  “Gosh, I think letting Caitlin beat us is a sweet idea, Kristy,” said Martha in a honeyed voice. She winked at Zoë and pursed her lips into a kiss. Zoë swallowed and clenched her fists and was silent.

  “That’s cheating,” countered Leticia, “and I won’t play if the game is fixed!”

  Serena sighed prettily and shook back her thick ginger hair. “I agree.”

  “Me, too,” said Zoë, relaxing her hands. Ha, ha, you lose, Martha.

  “Oh, you’re all such morons,” said Martha. “Like it matters who wins! Like it means anything!”

  “Yeah, have it your own dumb way,” said Kristy. “Here comes Caitlin back, so shut up about it.”

  On Kristy’s next turn, Zoë watched as she picked up a card and rubbed her nose. She must have found one of the Queen’s treasures. Kristy was easy to read. She had so many tics and twitchy habits.

  Yawning, Kristy replaced the card in the Throne Room. Zoë, her own face blank, made a mental note of it.

  When Gray quit the game, Zoë’s victory was assured. Gray was good at Enchanted Castle. She paid attention and followed the rules.

  Zoë watched as Gray mumbled some excuse and retreated to the couch. She looked worn and sunk.

  What was wrong with Gray these days? Her mom was supposed to be cured, or at least close to cured. So it couldn’t be that.

  Zoë would not be the one to bring it up. She had learned her lesson this past fall when she had found Gray crying in the bathroom. Concerned, she had made the mistake of telling the others in the group. As a friend! As a friend was why she told!

  “Poor Gray! She was crying in the stall next to mine. What do you think’s the matter? Do you think it’s about her mom?”

  “Gray’s such a lick,” Martha had answered. “I bet I could make her cry just by staring at her.”

  Then Martha had stared at Gray all through lunch, unsmiling, unspeaking, until Gray had collapsed in tears. “Why are you doing that, Martha? Stop watching me!”

  That was how the game started. Stare-at-Gray-till-she-cried. Ignore-Gray-till-she-cried. It was sort of funny but not really. Then Martha didn’t invite Gray to her skating party. Eventually, Gray was pretty much nudged out of the Lucky Seven, but last month she had drifted back in. Probably on account of Caitlin’s influence, Zoë figured. Caitlin’s and Gray’s moms had been friends forever, so Caitlin and Gray used to be best friends when they were little.

  Zoë bet next year would be different. These days, Caitlin and Kristy were stuck together like peanut butter and jelly. And Gray sometimes acted like a lick, she was too spanky, she could be unc; all Lucky Seven words that Zoë herself had made up. It was Martha who loved to use the words Zoë had invented for the group. Zoë didn’t. Not on Gray, anyway. Gray’s feelings got hurt too easy.

  After Gray went upstairs, Martha turned to Zoë and said, “I bet she’s pigging down the cake.”

  Zoë laughed, though it made her feel guilty. Gray was small and underweight, but she was always hungry, always eating in the same rabbity, bad-habit way that Zoë bit her nails. But Zoë laughed because there was something magnetic about Martha when she was joking and friendly. Her eyes sparkled like gold firecrackers, a change that warmed her hard, flat face.

  “Gray can eat the whole entire cake and she’ll never gain a pound,” Caitlin said. “My mom always makes stuff low-fat, so that I can watch my figure.”

  Zoë thought it was cool that Mrs. Donnelley was already thinking about Caitlin’s figure. It made Caitlin seem mature.

  “I have a really good metabolism, so I can eat whatever I want,” Zoë said.

  “Ugh, Zoë, you get High Honors every single report card. Isn’t that enough? Why does everything have to be a competition with you?” snapped Martha. She began talking in an announcer’s voice. “And now, Fielding Academy’s prize for Best Metabolism this year goes to—Zoë Atacropolis! Again, folks! Amazing!”

  Everyone laughed. Zoë smiled, but only to show she was a good sport.

  Sometimes, secretly, Zoë wanted out of the Lucky Seven. Even if it was the best, the
most popular group, sometimes the group did not seem fun enough for the effort it took to stay in it. The problem was that if she dropped out, then she would be a quitter. Maybe even a loser. Two things her older brother, Shelton, would never let himself be.

  Martha was talking into her microphone fist, still acting like a broadcaster. “This is Miss Atacropolis’s sixth straight year of winning Best Meta—”

  “Hey, would you shut up, Martha?” Leticia interrupted. “I can’t concentrate.”

  The others stopped laughing.

  Martha stopped talking. She looked surprised.

  Nobody spoke. Everyone watched as Leticia drew a card and finished her turn.

  “Go, Kristy,” she said, pushing the dice.

  And so the game continued.

  Martha

  MARTHA NOTICED THAT GRAY had been gone for a while.

  “Where is Mouse?” she asked. Mouse was Martha’s special behind-her-back name for Gray, because she was so small and squeaky.

  Caitlin smirked. “Who cares? The fun is here, and the Evil Queen shall win all.”

  Martha rolled her eyes. Caitlin was getting on her nerves, using too much time on her turn and cackling, “I’ll get you, my pretty!” when it was anyone else’s. Enchanted Castle sucked for anyone who wasn’t the Evil Queen, and it looked as if Zoë was going to win. Zoë, as usual.

  “Gray!” Martha shouted so loud that Serena, sitting next to her, had to cover her ears.

  “Gray went upstairs to get me some juice,” called Ty from the couch. “But that was a long time ago. Like half an hour ago.”

  “Shut up!” yelled Caitlin. “You’re breaking the rule! You butt in and say one single more thing and I’ll make Mom send you out of here to watch TV in your room forever!”

  Zoë pointed to Martha. “Your turn, Mar.”

  Martha rolled doubles and moved her princess into the Hall of Mirrors.

  “I’ll get you, my pretty!” screeched Caitlin for the thousandth time. “And your little dog, too!”

  “Caitlin, do you know how goddamn annoying that is?” asked Martha.

  The table hushed. Martha smiled. Bad words were plentiful as rocks and just as easy to throw; they hardly took any nerve at all and she didn’t know why people found them so startling.

  But they did.

  All the noise left in the room was the sound of the television, of race cars roaring around the track.

  “Girls! Ty!” shouted Mrs. Donnelley. “Pizza!”

  “I’m gonna eat all you girls’ pizza!” Ty stretched his arms. “Chomp chomp chomp! I could eat sixty gazillion slices right now!”

  “That’s it, Ty!” Caitlin sprang from her chair, knocking it over, and rushed her brother. She flung herself over the back of the couch to cuff Ty hard from behind with the flat of her hand. “Shut up, shut up, dumb third-grader vomit face!”

  “Caitlin, come back,” implored Zoë.

  Zoë was two turns away from winning, and Martha could tell Caitlin was glad for any interruption.

  “I hate you, Ty!” screamed Caitlin at the top of her lungs.

  “Ha ha ha ha ha! You’re not s’posed to say hate! I’m telling!” Ty jounced up from the couch to yank a fistful of his sister’s hair so hard that he came away with loose strands like shucked corn. “Painful, ainnit? Painful, ainnit?” he yelled, lunging for more.

  As Caitlin started screeching loud as an ambulance siren, Ty changed his mind and jumped off the couch and up the stairs. Martha watched him leap out of reach before Caitlin could bite or scratch him. She gave chase anyway.

  “I guess the game is over?” asked Zoë. “I guess I won?”

  “Nuh-uh, nobody won, stupid.” Martha despised how Zoë sort-of pretended how she didn’t care about winning when really she wanted it more than anything.

  Mrs. Donnelley and Topher were in the dining room, working on the table’s finishing touches. Topher was a hottie, Martha thought. He had not been noticing her nearly as much as she wished. She half closed her eyes and tilted her head and put her hands on her hips, but still he didn’t notice.

  Mrs. Donnelley had prepared the room with a pink paper tablecloth and pink napkins. There were pink paper plates and cups and pink plastic forks and spoons. Seven pink crepe-paper streamers tied from the chandelier looped a path to a goody bag at each place setting. Pink, pink, pink, because Caitlin was born on Valentine’s Day, which would be tomorrow.

  Mrs. Donnelley began ticking off names as the girls settled into their seats. “Serena, Zoë, Martha, Leticia, Kristy, and Caitlin, my birthday girl!” She pointed to the empty place setting and asked, “Who is missing?”

  “Gray,” Martha answered promptly.

  “Oh, yes!” Mrs. Donnelley smiled. “Where is Gray?”

  “She’s in the kitchen, getting me some juice,” said Ty. He was standing at the sideboard, scooping Valentine red hots into his mouth and pockets.

  “No one’s in the kitchen,” said Topher as he plowed through the swinging door with a soda bottle in each hand. Diet grape and diet orange.

  “I’m not allowed to drink anything carbonated,” said Leticia.

  “I’m not allowed to drink anything diet,” said Martha. This was not true, but she liked to see the anxiety pulse in Mrs. Donnelley’s face.

  “That’s why there’s lemonade on the table. My pretty!” squealed Caitlin, protected by her mother’s presence and staring Martha down.

  “I’m allergic to peanuts,” said Zoë. She reminded people of this constantly.

  “Ty, go find Gray,” ordered Mrs. Donnelley. “Hurry, hurry! And don’t eat those!”

  Ty shook one more handful of red hots into his mouth and galloped out of the dining room. Mrs. Donnelley turned a proud eye on the table.

  “Doesn’t this look wonderful? As soon as Gray is here, we’ll be perfect.”

  Martha smiled a tiny closed-lips smile, and her heart flipped pleasantly. She had a feeling that something was going wrong. Gray really should have come back by now.

  In a few minutes, everyone was shouting for Gray.

  Everyone except Martha.

  She stayed in her seat as the room emptied.

  As soon as she was alone, Martha switched her goody bag for Serena’s bag, which was stuffed fat as a pincushion with the most candy. To make sure Serena didn’t trade back, Martha opened the bag, selected a heart-shaped chocolate, and dropped it into her mouth. The chocolate smeared on her fingers because the Donnelleys’ house was too warm.

  The heart tasted plasticky but was liquid on the inside. Martha let the chocolate muddle over her tongue and bleed down her throat, warm and thin and sweet.

  Nice, nice enough.

  Mr. Donnelley came home.

  “I’m home!” he shouted. He kicked the front door shut with his heel, twisting the corner of the carpet runner as he did so, a rude guest in his own house.

  Martha, nauseated from having eaten three more chocolate hearts, had slid out of her chair when she heard his car in the driveway. Now she leaned against the dining room door, half hidden by it, watching.

  The family rushed Mr. Donnelley from all sides as if he’d just caught the pass in a football game. Nobody saw Martha.

  “Daddy, my friend Gray is missing!” yelled Caitlin.

  “Daddy, Topher says we should call the cops!” yelled Ty.

  “I’ve been trying the car! I’ve been trying your cell phone!” Mrs. Donnelley nearly tripped and fell as she rushed down the stairs. “Go, go on, Caitlin, Ty. Leave me to talk to Daddy alone.”

  Martha hardly dared a breath. She made her eyes stony and unblinking. On their mother’s push, Caitlin and Ty slipped away into the kitchen and then could be heard outside, shouting for Gray again.

  Now it was just the three of them.

  Mr. Donnelley’s arms were weighted with his overcoat and his briefcase, so Mrs. Donnelley could not touch him. Her hands twisted together and she spoke in a jabber.

  “One of the girls has wandered off. You know
Gray. Into thin air. I was up in the attic, cobwebs all over me, on any chance she might have—”

  “Maybe she’s asleep somewhere in the house. By the way, we lost the appeal.”

  “Honey, I’m so sorry.”

  Mr. Donnelley handed over his overcoat with a grunt. “Do you mind? I’m dead on my feet.”

  “Yes, you look exhausted.” Mrs. Donnelley took the coat and opened the hall closet. “I’ve searched the house top to bottom, the attic, everywhere. Topher is trying to keep the girls from running down the street. It’s chaos. And I can’t get hold of the Rosenfelds.” She selected a heavy wooden hanger from its bar and hung the coat, smoothing it carefully into place with the others. “Should we call the police? What should we do?”

  “Let me shower and change. Then I’ll decide.”

  Martha thought Mr. Donnelley resembled an old professional wrestler. He was big and ruddy and balding, with the same wide clown mouth as Caitlin. Bad luck for Caitlin.

  After Mr. Donnelley went upstairs, Mrs. Donnelley spied Martha. A wisp of frown crossed her face, though her tone was pleasant as she asked, “Martha, sweetie, do you have any idea where Miss Gray might have wandered off to?”

  Martha pretended to think. “Maybe she walked home? She seemed…depressed. She didn’t want to play Enchanted Castle with us. Gosh, I hope she didn’t try to walk along the highway!”

  She watched this bright new fear touch down in Mrs. Donnelley’s eyes. Martha enjoyed the game of digging to the secret fears inside people.

  In fact, today had been a great day for secrets. Today, Martha had caught hold of her best secret yet. And it had been Mrs. Donnelley’s fault, sort of. Mrs. Donnelley, who, earlier this afternoon, after directing all the girls out of the minivan and Topher’s car and instructing them to put their overnight and sleeping bags in Caitlin’s room, had exclaimed, “Oh, gosh! The mail! Darn! Could someone run down and get the mail?” She had pointed to Martha. “Sweetie? Do you mind?”

  Martha did not mind. She had run outside again, all the way down to the edge of the lawn, to the mailbox tied with bobbing pink balloons, and collected the mail.