Ellie Makes Her Move

by Marilyn Kaye

  “Kiara!”

  Even though that wasn’t my name, Ms. Gonzalez had spoken so loudly and sharply I looked up. She was addressing the girl who sat in front of me. The teacher strode down the aisle to the girl’s desk and extended her hand.

  “I told you what would happen if you continued to use that in class. Please give it to me.”

  I couldn’t see the girl’s face so I didn’t know how she was reacting, but she didn’t argue. Silently, she handed over the tablet.

  “You can pick it up in the office after school,” Ms. Gonzalez told her. “And if I see you with it again in class, Kiara, I’ll call your parents.”

  “Parent,” Kiara said. “Singular.”

  “Well, I’ll be calling her.”

  “Him,” Kiara corrected.

  Ms. Gonzalez nodded, and, with the tablet in hand, she returned to the front of the room.

  I gazed at the back of Kiara’s head with interest. Naturally, I’d known many kids with one parent, but in my experience that parent was usually a mother.

  But I couldn’t let myself wonder about her life, or daydream any longer about the spyglass and Alyssa. Clearly, Ms. Gonzalez had eagle eyes, and I didn’t want her catching me not paying attention. So for what felt like the gazillionth time, I listened to a reading of “The Road Not Taken.”

  Although I was poised to leap from my desk the second the bell rang, there was no way Alyssa or I could catch Rachel. She was out of that room before either of us could leave our seats.

  “It’s okay,” Alyssa assured me as we left the room together. “We’ll corner her at lunch. She always sits alone.”

  Sure enough, Rachel was the solitary occupant of a table in the cafeteria. As we stood in line for our food, Alyssa and I discussed our approach.

  “I don’t think we should tell her about the spyglass right off,” Alyssa said. “She’ll think we’re teasing her.”

  “Does she get bullied?” I asked.

  “I never noticed,” Alyssa admitted.

  “I think we should just act like we’re trying to make new friends,” I suggested.

  Alyssa frowned. “I don’t know how to do that.”

  I shook my head wearily. “Just follow my lead.”

  As we walked through the cafeteria, I passed a table of boys, athletic types. A younger kid, most likely a sixth grader, carrying a tray of food, was walking past the table, and some jerk stuck out his leg to trip him. Another boy sitting at the table jumped up and caught the kid before he fell.

  I recognized the good-deed boy. Mike Something. He was in my pre-algebra class, and I’d noticed him on my first first day. Mainly because he had red hair, which I love.

  The smaller kid scurried away. “Hey, come on, Mike!” the jerky guy complained. He was clearly annoyed that Mike had spoiled his prank. But Mike just shook his head. “Not cool, Thayer.” Then he sat back down at the table and joined the others in conversation.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off him. A nice guy sitting at a cool-guy table. Then he looked up and saw me. And he smiled!

  Which didn’t mean anything, of course. He was just being kind. And boys who were cool would never be interested in loner girls like me. I knew I could forget about any relationship like that here at East Lakeside.

  As Alyssa and I approached Rachel’s table, I could see that she wasn’t eating school food like everyone else. She had little see-through containers of stuff—sliced fruit and what looked like a fancy salad.

  When we stopped at the table, she glanced up. And we might as well have been zombies—she looked positively frightened.

  “Mind if we join you?” I asked.

  It took her a minute to respond.

  “Why?”

  “Just for company,” I said. “I’m new here.”

  “We don’t bite,” Alyssa added.

  Now Rachel looked even more alarmed, as if she was now actually considering that possibility.

  She still hadn’t given permission for us to join her, so I made a tentative gesture of pulling out a chair.

  “Okay?” I asked.

  It was only the tiniest of head movements, but I thought I saw her nod. So I sat down, and Alyssa did the same.

  Rachel eyed us warily, and then she stuck a fork into her salad. A real fork, not a plastic one.

  Alyssa couldn’t take her eyes off the food. It did look really good. “You make your own lunch,” she said. Given her tone, it sounded like an accusation.

  “My mom makes it,” Rachel murmured.

  “Lucky you,” I commented. “I’ll bet it’s a lot better than what we’re eating. What’s in the salad?”

  “Tomato, avocado, and cucumber.” Then she said, “Organic.”

  “Organic,” I repeated. “You know, I see that word all the time but I don’t know what it really means.”

  “It’s all natural,” Rachel explained softly. “No chemicals, no preservatives. My mothers only buy organic.”

  There was a moment of silence, and it took me a minute to think of a way to break it.

  “I really liked your book report yesterday.”

  She eyed me suspiciously, and I thought about the stupid boys in the class again. But I must have looked sincere, because she seemed to relax a little.

  “Thank you.”

  “Now I want to read the book,” I added.

  She nodded. “It’s really good.”

  “Have you ever read Jane Eyre?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “That’s my favorite book,” I said.

  “Yes, it’s really good too.”

  Another silence. Alyssa was concentrating on her meal and not helping out with the conversation at all. Under the table, I kicked her lightly. She looked up.

  “What?”

  “We’re discussing Jane Eyre,” I said. “Do you have an opinion?”

  She got the message. “Oh. Um, yeah, it’s a pretty good book. But I prefer Wuthering Heights.”

  “I like that one too,” Rachel said. Her voice was still barely above a whisper.

  Alyssa was gazing at her with more interest now.

  “Why are you so nervous?” she asked bluntly.

  I wanted to kick her again, this time harder. It was way too soon to ask something so personal. Alyssa hadn’t been exaggerating when she said she knew nothing about making friends.

  “I’m not nervous,” Rachel whispered nervously.

  But Alyssa didn’t accept that. “Do kids pick on you?”

  There was another one of those imperceptible nods.

  “Because you don’t fit in.”

  This nod was slightly more emphatic.

  Alyssa nodded in satisfaction. “We don’t fit in either.”

  The wariness in Rachel’s expression was starting to fade. Encouraged, Alyssa continued.

  “So maybe you would fit in with us.”

  Was that a glimmer of interest that I saw in Rachel’s eyes?

  “We’re going over to my house after school today,” I told her. “Just to hang out.”

  “And look at something interesting,” Alyssa added. I shot her a warning look.

  “Want to come?” I asked Rachel.

  She seemed torn, and then she shook her head. “I can’t. My mother is picking me up after school.”

  “Oh. Well, maybe tomorrow?”

  Again Rachel shook her head. “She picks me up after school every day.”

  “Do you live far from school?” Alyssa asked.

  “No, just over on Patton Drive.”

  “But that’s within walking distance!” Alyssa exclaimed. “Why does your mother have to pick you up?”

  “It’s not with a car,” Rachel explained. “My parents…they worry about me. Mom insists on walking me home from school.”

  She was blushing now, and with her fair skin, her face was practically beet red. I couldn’t blame her for feeling embarrassed. It was one thing for an adult to meet you after school and walk you home when you were in elementary school. Bu
t in middle school? And it wasn’t like Lakeside was crawling with dangerous elements.

  Alyssa was clearly shocked by this news, and I tried to think of a way to change the subject before she could say anything to further humiliate Rachel.

  “Do you call both your mothers Mom?” I asked.

  “One of them is Mom. The other is Mami. She’s from Mexico and that’s how you say Mom in Spanish.”

  Alyssa wasn’t giving up on the other subject so easily. “So maybe if we asked your mom, if she met us, she’d say okay and let you come.”

  Rachel looked doubtful, and I thought I knew why. A lot of parents were probably not as open-minded as my mother, and Alyssa’s style might not inspire confidence in the parent who picked Rachel up.

  All around us, kids were getting up and carrying their trays over to the trash bins. I glanced at the clock and saw that lunch period was just about over.

  Alyssa was waiting for Rachel to respond.

  “Just think about it, okay?”

  Rachel gave her another almost imperceptible nod.

  We were all going in different directions to our next classes, so there was no more discussion. But I made a mental note to get to my locker before my last class and retrieve my coat so I could head outside directly when the bell rang. I thought that maybe Rachel’s mother might approve of me, and I didn’t want to miss her when she came to pick Rachel up.

  My last class was a study period. I decided to go to the media center. We didn’t have the Wi-Fi hooked up yet at home and I wanted to check my email. Not that I was expecting to hear from old friends back in Brookdale. If they weren’t speaking to me, they wouldn’t be writing or messaging me either. But it wouldn’t hurt to check.

  When I walked into the media center, I saw right away that all the computer stations were occupied. So I wandered around and hoped someone would finish whatever they were doing and I could grab a place.

  Then I recognized the back of one person’s head—because in English class, I sat directly behind her. Kiara was leaning forward, her face practically attached to the screen she was facing. I paused and couldn’t resist looking at it too.

  She was playing some kind of game. I didn’t recognize it, but then, I wasn’t big on online gaming. There were times when I was bored and played single-player games, the kind where you shoot at stuff or match shapes and colors. But I would get to the point where I couldn’t get through a round without spending money and I didn’t have a credit card, so I just gave up.

  What Kiara was playing didn’t look like anything I’d seen before. Animated animal characters were moving around what looked like a labyrinth. Kiara hit a key, and a lightning bolt struck a bear and sent it to the other side.

  I coughed loudly. She didn’t react. So then I said, “Hi.”

  She turned. Her expression wasn’t exactly friendly.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I was just wondering how long you’ll be using this computer.”

  “For the whole period,” she replied, and turned back to the screen.

  “Oh. Okay.”

  On the screen, a bird crashed into a swan, and Kiara groaned. Frantically, she hit some keys.

  “What are you playing?” I asked.

  She didn’t even turn to me this time. “I don’t think that’s any of your business. And please stop spying on me.”

  “I wasn’t spying,” I protested. “Just looking.”

  “Same difference,” she said.

  “Sorry,” I said, and backed away. Then I spotted an abandoned station and hurried over there.

  As I’d expected, there weren’t any emails, and I’d been unfriended and unfollowed so much on social media that I didn’t even bother. I thought about actually doing homework, but I wasn’t really in the mood. I couldn’t stop thinking about Kiara.

  AFTER SCHOOL, I RECOGNIZED RACHEL’S mother waiting outside the building. She was the same woman I’d seen through the spyglass when she was walking with Rachel. I realized then how much she looked like her daughter—pretty, curvy, and with Rachel’s curly blond hair, only hers was cut shorter. I didn’t approach her, though. She would wonder why I knew who she was, and I didn’t want her to think I’d been spying on her.

  Spying. I hadn’t really thought that was what I’d been doing, but of course it was—that’s why the telescope was called a spyglass. And it was what Kiara had accused me of doing in the media center, when she caught me looking at her game on the computer screen. Maybe spying wasn’t a nice thing to do. But since the spyglass was showing me stuff that wasn’t really there—didn’t that make a difference?

  But even if Kiara thought that was what I was doing, why did she react like that? Did she really not want to be friends?

  Okay, true, I’d thought I wouldn’t want any friends here at Lakeside, that I would be a loner and avoid any contact. But now, with Alyssa in my life, and maybe Rachel, I had to admit it was a good feeling to not be completely on my own. From what I’d seen of Kiara, she was definitely a loner. I guess I just couldn’t figure why she wouldn’t want that good feeling too.

  I saw a warm smile cross Rachel’s mother’s face and I knew without even looking that Rachel must have emerged from the building. She walked directly to her mother, and I moved to intercept her.

  “Hi, Rachel!” I said brightly, with the biggest smile I could muster.

  “Hi,” she said softly. It dawned on me that she might not remember my name, so I turned to her mother.

  “I’m Ellie Marks. I’m in Rachel’s English class.”

  The woman looked slightly surprised, and I got the feeling that no other student had ever spoken to Rachel in front of her here. But she smiled pleasantly.

  “Hello, Ellie, I’m Jane Levin-Lopez, Rachel’s mom.” Then she turned to Rachel. “Ready to go?”

  Rachel hesitated, and that encouraged me to speak up.

  “Um, I was wondering if Rachel could come home with me.”

  Now Rachel’s mom looked puzzled, so I quickly came up with a reason.

  “To work on English homework together.”

  It was only a little white lie. We did have an assignment in English—to prepare oral reports on another Robert Frost poem we’d been given. But Rachel and I hadn’t talked about working on this together.

  Now her mother’s brow furrowed. “Where do you live, Ellie?”

  “Not far.” I told her the address.

  “Do I know your parents?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so. We just moved here.”

  “Will there be an adult at home?”

  “Oh, sure.” I should have said “probably,” since there was a chance Mom could be at another interview and Dad could be out at a meeting.

  She didn’t look convinced, so I elaborated.

  “My mother hasn’t started working yet, and my father has his office at home. He’s a lawyer,” I added. I thought that would sound respectable.

  Rachel’s mom didn’t seem reassured. Still, she didn’t reject the proposal outright.

  “Well, you live on the way to our house. We could stop there and I could meet your parents.”

  Wow. She was really protective. I tried to act like this was a natural request, and just hoped someone was home.

  “Sure, we can do that.” I glanced at Rachel, and she actually nodded, like she wanted to come!

  Just then, Alyssa joined us. In her usual socially alienated manner, she didn’t greet us. She just stood there, and my heart sank. One look at her skull earrings and Rachel’s mother might think her daughter was being lured into something unpleasant. I could only hope that since I looked so boringly ordinary, that would make up for it.

  Rachel finally spoke. “Mom, this is Alyssa. She’s in our English class too.”

  I thought I saw a flash of apprehension on the woman’s face. To my surprise, Alyssa actually made a small effort to be less alarming.

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said, and it was audible! And she punctuated th
is with something closer to a real smile than I’d ever seen on her face.

  Rachel’s mother still didn’t look convinced, but then Rachel piped up.

  “Mom, I’d really like to go with them.”

  Ms. Levin-Lopez looked slightly surprised, and then her expression softened.

  “Well…we’ll see.”

  No one said much along the way. I commented on how mild the winter had been so far, and Alyssa said something about how we’d still get a snowstorm before it was over. But that was about it, and we walked the rest of the way in silence.

  When we reached my house, they joined me on the steps. It was a relief when the door opened without my having to use a key. Someone had to be home.

  “Mom? Dad?” I called.

  My mother came down the stairs. “Hi, honey.”

  I beckoned for the others to come in.

  “Mom, you remember Alyssa. This is Rachel, and this is…”

  “I’m Jane Levin-Lopez,” Rachel’s mother said, extending a hand to shake.

  “Lisa Marks,” Mom said, and shook her hand. “Happy to meet you.”

  “Your daughter invited mine over to do homework together,” Ms. Levin-Lopez said. “I just wanted to make sure there would be an adult in the house.”

  “Of course. And I’m very pleased that Ellie’s making new friends.”

  I winced. I could almost hear “I told you so” in her words.

  Mom offered Rachel’s mother coffee, but she said she had to get home.

  “I do graphic design, and I’ve got a job due at the end of the week.” She looked at her watch and then spoke to Rachel.

  “I’ll pick you up at five-thirty,” she said, and Rachel nodded. Then Ms. Levin-Lopez went into her handbag and took out a business card, which she handed to my mother.

  “This has my phone number, if there’s any problem.”

  With one last affectionate-but-worried look at her daughter, Ms. Levin-Lopez left. My mother addressed us all.

  “You girls must be hungry. There’s no cake left, but help yourselves to whatever you can find in the kitchen. I’ve got some phone calls to make.” She went back upstairs.

  Rachel looked at me in awe. “She lets you fix your own snacks?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  Rachel didn’t answer. Alyssa and I exchanged looks, and I was sure we were both thinking the same thing—that either the Ms. Levin-Lopez we’d met or the other Ms. Levin-Lopez prepared everything Rachel could eat. I wondered if we could find anything organic in my kitchen.