by Marilyn Kaye
“Just do what I tell you to do,” Alyssa ordered her. “Get your bear behind the kangaroo. Ellie, you’re in a position to block that chicken.”
Not only did she operate her own pig, Alyssa called out the moves each of us should make on our screens. For an alienated lost soul, she was really getting into it. Our animals would block an opening to keep other animals from blocking it. Then, when Kiara’s swan was very close, we’d move so she could get through.
“Do you think she’s noticed we’re helping her?” Rachel asked.
“Sure, if she’s watching closely,” Alyssa said. “Of course, she doesn’t know that BigBadBear13 is you.”
We got better and better, moving more and more quickly—all thanks to Alyssa. Rachel and I just followed her orders. And it worked—Kiara was first to get out of the maze!
“We saved her!” Alyssa crowed. And the three of us slapped hands in victory.
On the screen, the name SwanK lit up in gold with stars all around the swan. And on the message board, there was a message for us: “FunnyBunny, PigglyWiggly, BigBadBear13, thank you! And welcome to the team!”
We cheered and gave each other high fives.
“We’re her friends now!” I declared.
“Only in the game,” Alyssa reminded me.
“But once she knows who we are, she’ll like us,” Rachel said happily.
Our screens flashed with a NEW GAME sign.
“Want to play another game?” Alyssa asked. “I could get into this.”
“Rachel!” came a voice from another room.
“¿Sí, Mami?”
“¿Tienen hambre ahora, chicas?”
Alyssa and I looked at Rachel.
“She wants to know if we’re hungry,” Rachel said.
I was suddenly aware that my stomach had been growling for some time now.
We were all ready for snacks, so we followed Rachel into the dining room. I’d prepared myself for carrot sticks, but Rachel’s Mami had put out a very nice spread for us. There was a cucumber salad with mint and sour cream, pita bread, enormous oatmeal cookies that were positively yummy, and a fancy fruit drink made with mangos and kiwis.
“¡Espero que estén contentas con esto!”
“Gracias, Mami, se ve delicioso,” Rachel said.
Rachel’s mother blew her a kiss, beamed at all of us, and left the room.
Alyssa turned to Rachel. “You speak Spanish.” As usual, being Alyssa, she made it sound almost like an accusation.
“I told you, Mami’s from Mexico. Mom speaks Spanish too. Sometimes we speak in English, sometimes in Spanish, sometimes both at the same time.” She laughed. “Sometimes Mami thinks everyone can understand Spanish.”
“Have you ever been to Mexico?” I asked.
“Sure. We usually go at Christmas to see my abuela.”
“Your what?”
Rachel grinned. “My grandmother. Abuela.”
Alyssa cocked her head thoughtfully. “It’s prettier in Spanish.”
“Hey, we can sign up for a language class next year,” I remarked. “Maybe Alyssa and I should take Spanish. Then you can help us if we have a hard time with it.”
“Good idea,” Alyssa said, helping herself to another cookie.
And Rachel nodded in approval.
I suddenly felt super good. When we left Brookdale, I’d told myself I never wanted any friends again. But how could I live without these good feelings? Kiara needs this, I thought. Avatars could never substitute for real friends.
Out of the blue, Alyssa suddenly turned to me and said, “So. I saw you talking to Mike Twersky this afternoon.” Once again, her statement sounded like an accusation.
Back in Brookdale, if one of my friends liked a boy, she talked about him. I remembered countless lunch-table and sleepover conversations about crushes and fantasies. But I couldn’t do that here, not with my new friends. We’d bonded as loners, outcasts. If I admitted to feelings for a popular boy, this would be like a betrayal. He was one of “them.”
Alyssa was waiting for a response, and Rachel was looking at me curiously too.
I came up with an excuse. “Yeah. He’s in my pre-algebra class and he forgot to write down the homework.”
That seemed to satisfy them, though I could have sworn I saw a hint of suspicion in Alyssa’s eyes. I was uncomfortable. Not just with Alyssa’s expression, but with the fact that I wasn’t sharing something with my friends. I looked out the window.
“It’s getting late. I should get home.”
Rachel’s Mami came into the dining room just as I said that.
“Is a parent coming to pick you up?” she asked me.
“No, but it’s okay, I can walk.”
She looked concerned. “Maybe Alyssa’s parent can drop you off.”
“No, they’re both still at work,” Alyssa said. “I’m walking too.”
“It’s not far for them, Mami,” Rachel said.
“But it’s almost dark out,” her mother protested. “I’ll drive you.”
Just then, Rachel sneezed.
“Oh, Rachel. That cold’s not coming back, is it?” She reached out to feel Rachel’s forehead.
“It’s nothing, Mami, I feel fine.”
“Well, I don’t want you going outside.” Her brow furrowed. “And you can’t stay home alone while I take your friends.”
“But you don’t need to,” I told her. “It’s only five o’clock. I walk by myself after the sun goes down, if it’s not too late.”
“So do I,” Alyssa said. “Most kids our age can do that.”
I couldn’t believe she said that, right to Rachel’s mother’s face. And then I looked at Rachel. She was nodding!
“She’s right, Mami. They’re not babies. I’m not a baby.”
I was surprised. Was Rachel actually protesting?
But we were spared any battles because just then Rachel’s mom returned home, to her Mami’s obvious relief.
“Hey, how was the dentist, Mom?” Rachel called.
“He was pretty gentle, hon,” her mom said as she unwound her scarf. “And the good news is that the filling’s fixed and I won’t have that painful toothache anymore.”
“So you feel okay?” asked Rachel’s Mami, giving her wife a sympathetic hug. “I want to drive Alyssa and Ellie home, but I didn’t want Rachel to go outside. I’m wondering if her cold is still hanging on.”
Immediately, Rachel’s mom looked alarmed. “I’ll get the thermometer.”
“Mom, I don’t have a fever, I feel fine!”
Alyssa and I quickly said our goodbyes and thank-yous and left with Rachel’s Mami. She dropped me off first. “Are you going to be alone in the house?” she asked worriedly. “Aren’t both your parents working?”
“Yes, but my father works in his home office,” I assured her. I didn’t actually know for sure if he was there at that moment—sometimes he went out for meetings. It didn’t matter, I had my own key. But I could just imagine Cecilia Levin-Lopez insisting on staying here till she was sure someone was in the house.
Alyssa would have to go through the same interrogation when they got to her place, I thought. Maybe the fact that she had older siblings—stepsiblings—would satisfy Rachel’s mother.
Dad was home, and he wasn’t in a meeting. He came out of his office when he heard me walk in.
“Oh, good, you’re home,” he said happily. “You can help me make a cake.”
I was puzzled. It wasn’t anyone’s birthday. “What’s the occasion?”
“Your mother’s first day at her new job!”
I’d totally forgotten. And I felt very guilty. I knew this was a big deal for her. As I followed Dad to the kitchen, I thought about how I never paid much attention to what was going on in my parents’ lives. Unless it affected me, of course. Like, back in Brookdale, when we were all shunned because of the homeless shelter plan—I never thought about how they were feeling.
Even in that report I’d given this morning in Engli
sh—I only talked about how I had suffered. And then I remembered the pride in Mike Twersky’s voice when he talked about his father.
I must have looked troubled, because Dad asked, “Is everything okay, honey?”
“Oh, sure,” I said.
He started pulling cake-making stuff out of cabinets. “Are you feeling better about Lakeside now?”
“Yeah.” I opened the refrigerator and took out butter and eggs. “Dad…what you did back in Brookdale—”
“I know,” he interrupted. “It was hard on you.”
“Yes. But it was the right thing. You did the right thing,” I said. “Trying to give people shelter. That was important. I don’t know why people were so mean about it.”
“NIMBY,” he said simply.
“Huh?”
“‘Not in my backyard.’ People might think a homeless shelter is a good idea in the abstract, but not when it’s nearby. Not when it might affect them personally.”
“But it has to be somewhere,” I said. I took a deep breath and met his eyes. “I’m sorry I made such a fuss about moving.”
He gazed back at me, just a little sadly. “You don’t blame me for disrupting your life?”
Maybe I did, then. But not anymore. “You did the right thing,” I repeated. “I’m proud of you, Daddy.”
I hadn’t called him Daddy for a long time, not since I was little. I could tell he liked it.
“Thank you, honey.” He kissed the top of my head. “Now start beating those eggs.”
I WOKE UP FEELING GOOD THE NEXT MORNING.
When Mom came home the night before, she was in a great mood. She regaled us with tales of her new job, the people she’d met, the stories she was going to take on. And she gushed over the cake Dad and I had made to celebrate.
Just like my father, my mother was happy to be here in Lakeside. And I was getting into that mind-set too. Back in Brookdale, before all the drama, I’d thought I was happy. I was comfortable in my clique, I wasn’t bullied or laughed at, and all was well.
But it wasn’t all that interesting. Every day was the same, and it seemed like my friends and I were always talking about the same things. With Alyssa and Rachel, I was having adventures. I didn’t even think of my new friends as weird anymore. They were special. And with them, I felt special too.
Before leaving the house that morning, I took a quick detour to the turret. Scanning the town, I spotted Kiara-the-swan on the banks of a fake lake. With her were a blue-and-yellow-striped rabbit with red ears, a green-and-purple pig, and a red bear, and they all seemed to be playing together. I couldn’t wait to tell Alyssa and Rachel!
I connected with them just before English class and announced my news.
“Wow. So…does that mean we’re her friends now?” Rachel asked.
I nodded. “Well, FunnyBunny, PigglyWiggly, and BigBadBear13 are her friends. But like Alyssa said, she doesn’t know they’re us.”
We could see Kiara herself approaching the door. Alyssa spoke in a whisper. “Should we tell her now?”
“Let’s wait till lunch,” I said. “We’ll have more time to explain and really bond together.”
Lunchtime couldn’t come fast enough for me. I had it all worked out in my head—Kiara’s surprise when she learned who had saved her in the game. Her whole new attitude toward us. We’d tell her about the spyglass, and I’d invite her to join us that afternoon in the turret.
In the cafeteria, Rachel waited with her lunch bag while Alyssa and I went through the line. Then we headed over to the table where Kiara sat alone, as usual.
She looked up and frowned.
“Okay if we sit with you?” I asked.
“Why?” she asked. Her tone was totally unfriendly, but that didn’t bother me. I knew this would change very soon.
“We’ve got something to tell you,” I said. I’d already decided that I was going to take on the leadership role in this conversation. Alyssa could be too aggressive, and Rachel was too shy.
Kiara didn’t respond, and she was still frowning. But I sat down anyway and Rachel and Alyssa took the chairs next to me.
Kiara returned to her food and didn’t even ask what we wanted to tell her. So I jumped in.
“It’s about The Amazing Maze.”
Kiara put her fork down and made eye contact. Those eyes were narrow.
“I told you to stop spying on me!”
“I wasn’t spying, I was playing. All of us were.”
She still looked suspicious, so I explained.
“Remember yesterday, when you were stuck in the maze? And three players helped you out?”
Could those eyes get any narrower? She was practically squinting. I went on.
“Well, Kiara, please allow me to introduce myself. I’m FunnyBunny.” I looked at Alyssa, and she spoke.
“I’m PigglyWiggly.”
And then Rachel softly piped up. “I’m BigBadBear13.”
Kiara’s eyes went from squints to saucers. I waited for a great big smile.
It didn’t come.
“You shouldn’t have intruded on my game,” she declared. “That was inappropriate.”
Alyssa broke in, and as I’d feared, she went hostile. “Hey, you don’t own it, anyone can play. You can’t keep us out.”
“We’re on your team now, Kiara” I said. “We could all play together.”
“But, you didn’t ask me if that’s what I wanted” Kiara said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I didn’t invite you to join my game. Or sit at my table. Please leave me alone.”
Now I was absolutely, positively stunned. Rachel looked like she was about to burst into tears. Alyssa stood up and snapped something that would have sent her to the office if a teacher had heard her
Rachel whispered, “I’m sorry.” She and I both got up, and the three of us went to another table.
“I don’t get it,” Rachel said mournfully. “Why does she hate us?”
“She hates everybody,” Alyssa declared. “I mean, really. I don’t know why we bothered. Have you ever seen her with other people?”
I didn’t remind her that I’d never seen her and Rachel with other people either until we came together.
“I say we just forget her,” Alyssa continued.
I frowned. “I don’t know. I just think maybe she belongs with the Spyglass Sisterhood.”
At the same time, Alyssa and Rachel said, “The what?”
I honestly didn’t know why I’d said that—it just slipped out. But it sounded right.
“That’s us, that’s our name. We’re the Spyglass Sisterhood. What do you think?”
“I like it!” Rachel exclaimed.
Alyssa shrugged. “Guess it’s okay.” But she liked it too, I could tell.
“And you really think Kiara would fit in, after what just happened?” Rachel asked.
“I just have a feeling about her,” I said. “Like, maybe she’s not really mean or stuck up. She wasn’t calling us names or yelling at us or anything back there. She was just…saying what happened. We thought she’d be okay with what we did, but she wasn’t.”
“So?” said Alyssa.
“So, I don’t think she hates us. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe she’s embarrassed. Or maybe she’s sad.”
Rachel dug into her quinoa salad and chewed thoughtfully. “You said she lives with her dad, right? That’s sort of unusual, if her parents are divorced.”
“Maybe her mom didn’t want custody,” Alyssa said. “That would make a person sad.”
“Or maybe her mom passed away,” I added. “That would make her even sadder. I wonder how we can find out?”
“We could search for her online,” Alyssa suggested. “If her mother died, there would be an obituary.”
“Hey, we’ve got internet now,” I told them. “Why don’t you guys come over after school? We could do some searching for Kiara and look in the spyglass.”
After lunch, I had pre-algebra. When I reached the classroom, I saw Mike Twersky standing
outside the door. My heart automatically started to flutter.
He glanced up as I approached. He wasn’t actually looking at me, but he said “Hi.”
“Hi,” I replied.
He still wasn’t looking at me, but he spoke again. “I wanted to ask you something.”
The fluttering increased. He was waiting for me!
He still wasn’t making good eye contact, but that didn’t bother me. From my limited experiences with boys, I knew they weren’t always comfortable looking a girl in the eyes. I didn’t know why—maybe someday I’d know a boy well enough to ask. But for now, I just waited patiently to find out what he wanted.
“Um, you said I could come over sometime and look through your telescope.”
He paused, so I interjected an encouraging “Yeah.”
“So…I was wondering if I could come over after school today. If that’s okay.”
My heart sank. I’d just told Alyssa and Rachel to come over. “Maybe later? Like, after dinner?”
He shook his head. “Well…it’ll be dark by then.”
I felt like an idiot. Of course you couldn’t see birds in the dark. And I couldn’t give up this opportunity.
“Actually, it’s okay. After school.”
“You sure?” he asked. “You don’t have something else to do?”
“Uh, well, I thought I did, but…I don’t. So, yes. You can definitely come over after school.”
He smiled. That practically took my breath away.
“Great.”
“I’ll give you my address.”
“Why don’t we just meet after the last class and go together?” he suggested.
Now my head started to spin.
It wasn’t that I didn’t consider myself worthy to be seen in public with a cute guy like Mike Twersky. I might not have been one of the cool girls here, but I did have self-esteem.
But I’d already observed that here at East Lakeside, the rules of boy-and-girl-together were the same as they’d been back at Brookdale. Boys and girls didn’t sit together in the cafeteria, or walk together in the halls, and I hadn’t noticed any couples hanging out together outside after school.
So apparently, Mike didn’t observe the traditional middle school social regulations. I liked that.
I managed to catch up with Rachel in the hall between classes, and I told her about the change in plans. Her already big eyes went huge.
