Annie's Life in Lists

by Kristin Mahoney

  5. She didn’t think it was weird that I remembered everything about everyone.

  I have done pretty well with my vow to keep my observation and memory powers to myself here. But sometimes I forget. Like one day Amelia asked me if she could borrow a pencil, and I said, “Sure, but I only have regular yellow ones.” She asked me why that would matter, and without thinking I said, “Well, I know you only use round ones.”

  “No I don’t,” she said, her eyes getting narrow. Then she turned away and borrowed a pencil from Kate instead. A round one.

  FEBRUARY

  Three things a person wonders before her first Valentine’s Day in a new school

  1. Do fifth graders even do anything for Valentine’s Day here?

  2. If they do, what do they give each other? Cards? Candy? Pencils?

  3. And if my class does celebrate it, should I give something to everyone? Or just the girls?

  Three people who answered my questions

  1. Mr. Allbright, who sent home a letter that said, “If you are going to bring in valentines, make sure you have one for every student in the class.”

  2. Zora, who said, “Yes, bring them! And don’t forget candy. Mr. A will probably give us pencils, but kids give each other candy.”

  3. Kate, who chimed in on Zora’s advice: “Most kids just bring in a little candy bar for each person in the class. You can write the names on the wrappers and then you don’t have to do cheesy cards.”

  Four things I got for Valentine’s Day at school

  1. Eight mini packs of Skittles

  2. Seven packets of Fun Dip

  3. Ten miniature chocolate bars

  4. Two pencils

  The pencils were from Mr. Allbright. They were round, which I think I saw Amelia noting with satisfaction.

  Four surprising things about Valentine’s Day at school

  1. Everyone actually brought something. Even the boys. (By fourth grade at my old school, half the boys weren’t doing the valentine thing anymore.)

  2. Charlie just gave Zora a small bag of Skittles, like he gave everyone else. Guess he didn’t want to be too obvious about his crush. Or maybe the crush is over?

  3. Mr. A let us eat candy.

  4. It was kind of fun. (No one said a word about pronouns, state capitals, or word problems all afternoon. We doodled on paper hearts and talked to our friends while we munched on chocolate. All in all, not a bad school day.)

  One thing about Valentine’s Day that was not particularly surprising. Or fun.

  1. When Amelia saw the little packets of Red Hots I was giving everyone, she said, “Oh, you like those? I think they’re way too spicy. I’m surprised you didn’t give Zora a personalized present. Seems like you always remember everything she likes.”

  “I’ll take them,” Zora said. “I actually love Red Hots. That’s something else you can remember.”

  Three things I felt like doing in that moment

  1. Hugging Zora

  2. Breaking all of Amelia’s perfect pencils in half

  3. Fleeing the classroom. How did Amelia know I remembered stuff about Zora? I was being so careful about not showing my memory. Did Amelia know I actually remembered stuff about everyone?

  One thing I did instead

  1. Turned to Zora and said, “My dad melts these and makes red-hot candy apples. You should come over and do it with us sometime.”

  Zora’s eyes got wide and she said she definitely wanted to try that. Amelia was behind me, so I couldn’t see her eyes, but I could feel the lasers they were shooting through the back of my head.

  What I didn’t mention was that Dad had barely cooked at all since we’d moved here, so I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to make good on that offer anytime soon. Even though he’d been so excited for our big kitchen, he’d been working too much to use it. When the weather was warmer, he was always out at the job site. Now that it was winter, the construction had slowed down, but his office hours were longer because he and the other engineers had to plan for spring. I knew the red-hot apples might have to wait.

  Two valentines waiting for me at home

  1. A box of chocolates from Grandma Elaine

  2. Heart-shaped earrings from Aunt Pen, with a note that said, “Your mom told me about your book challenge. Here’s some extra motivation!”

  Two things I should have said after Mom handed me those presents

  1. Wasn’t that nice of them?

  2. Happy Valentine’s Day, Mom!

  One thing I should not have said

  1. Well, isn’t it nice that someone in this family gave me something for Valentine’s Day?!

  I should not have said that. But I did.

  Two things Mom did next

  1. Jerked her thumb in the direction of the dining room

  2. Stomped into her office and slammed the door

  Two things I found in the dining room

  1. Flowers from Dad

  2. A book of poems from Mom

  Two things I said after I knocked on the office door

  1. Sorry about that.

  2. Thanks for the book.

  Mom just mumbled “You’re welcome” and said she had to call a client. I stood by the door for a while, but I never heard her on the phone. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d hung out with her in her office and watched her work.

  Two reasons I think Mom likes to hole up in her office

  1. She can get away from Ted and me when we’re snippy the way I just was.

  2. It’s easier to keep secrets from your kids when you aren’t around them.

  Either way, I guess I’m not the only one who needs space these days. Finally I turned and went up to my room. I took Aunt Pen’s earrings with me so I could hold them up and imagine how they’d look once my ears were pierced.

  Four thoughts about getting my ears pierced

  1. It’s time already! (I haven’t done a scientific survey, but I’m pretty sure about 90 percent of girls my age have pierced ears. At least, that’s the statistic I keep giving Mom, and I’m sticking to it.)

  2. Once I’m allowed to take out my first little piercing studs, I want to get peace signs. Or pandas. Or both.

  3. I wonder how much it will hurt.

  4. But I don’t really care. Mom says I’ve always had a high pain threshold, which is good for someone who has as many mishaps as I do.

  Four unexpected mishap-related injuries (yes, these have all happened to me)

  1. Jam your finger on a basketball

  2. Staple your thumb

  3. Chip a tooth while opening a plastic container with your mouth

  4. And, most recently…trip while holding a pencil with the tip pointing up, causing you to jam the pencil into your arm

  Twelve things that happened after I jammed the pencil into my arm

  1. My arm started bleeding.

  2. Mr. Allbright told me to go to the nurse.

  3. He told Amelia to go with me.

  4. Amelia stood up to come with me, but she looked a little unsteady.

  5. “I just don’t do so well with blood,” she told me as we stepped into the hallway.

  6. I told her she could go back if she wanted and I could go to the nurse’s office by myself.

  7. She said, “No, I’ll be okay.”

  8. By the time we got to the nurse’s office, Amelia looked pretty green.

  9. Nurse Taylor cleaned off “the puncture site,” as she called it, and gave me a Band-Aid while Amelia watched from the doorway.

  10. Nurse Taylor told me that I would have a tiny gray mark on my arm…for the rest of my life. “It’s like a little tattoo,” she said. “See, I
have one on my hand from when I was in third grade.”

  11. And with that, Amelia leaned over Nurse Taylor’s sink and threw up.

  12. Nurse Taylor sent me back to the classroom with a note for Mr. Allbright explaining why I was returning and Amelia wasn’t. I gave him the note because I had to, but I promised myself that I wouldn’t share this story with anyone else. I already knew Amelia wasn’t crazy about me, and it wouldn’t help matters much if I blabbed about her getting sick (even if it would have been fun to share an Amelia upchuck story).

  Four questions Kate asked me when she came over after school that day

  1. Why didn’t Amelia come back to class after she went to the nurse with you? (Answer: Um, I think she went home.)

  2. Why? (Answer: Well…I think she spilled something on her Thursday skirt.)

  3. What’s a Thursday skirt? (Answer: You know…the skirt she wears on Thursdays.)

  4. What are you talking about? (Answer: Never mind. Do you want a snack?)

  Kate gave me a weird look for a second, but luckily the food seemed to distract her. I’d been so focused on keeping Amelia’s vomit secret that I’d almost let it slip that I’d memorized her outfit rotation (and that I privately thought of her tan skirt as the “Thursday skirt”—well, every other Thursday, but you know what I mean).

  Nine things I have observed since moving here that I am pretending not to remember

  1. Zora’s brother Marcus (age thirteen) watching The Fresh Beat Band by himself one day when I was at their house

  2. Kate’s collection of My Little Pony board books

  3. Zach taking one of Charlie’s cookies at lunch one day and slipping it into his coat pocket while Charlie was looking the other way

  4. Amelia’s outfit rotation

  5. Zora’s habit of sticking her tongue out while she writes

  6. Zora’s initials inside a heart on the bottom of Charlie’s sneaker (either the heart is old, or the crush is still going)

  7. Mr. Allbright checking his hair in the mirror every Friday after the last bell rings

  8. Mr. Allbright laughing and chatting with Nurse Taylor by her car last Friday afternoon

  9. Amelia losing her lunch in the nurse’s office

  I know it might just seem like good manners that I don’t repeat these things, but come on—how tempting is it to tell someone about my Allbright-Taylor theory? But I learned my lesson, and I’m keeping my mouth shut.

  Five things I worry would happen if I told anyone about any of the above

  1. Whoever I told (probably Kate or Zora) wouldn’t be able to keep the secret.

  2. I might get someone in trouble without meaning to.

  3. I might get myself in trouble without meaning to.

  4. People would think I was a weirdo for noticing and remembering so much.

  5. I’m already “the new kid”; I don’t want to be “the freaky spy kid,” too. I’m really ready to just be “a kid.”

  But there is one thing I’m REALLY tired of keeping my mouth shut about

  1. The severance letter

  It’s getting to be too much. The more Ted and I watch Dad try to figure things out in Clover Gap, the clearer it is that even though he tried to psych us up about living here, he actually never wanted to leave the city. We must have left only because he couldn’t find another job in New York.

  Four things Dad seems clueless about in Clover Gap

  1. Building fires in the fireplace

  2. Taking care of house stuff like kitchen drains, clogged gutters, and leaky ceilings (basically anything the building super did for us in Brooklyn)

  3. Driving (Because Dad grew up in the city, he walked or took subways everywhere and almost never had to drive. Since we’ve lived here, he’s had a couple of near misses with parked cars and telephone poles. Mom usually drives if we have to go anywhere far.)

  4. Waving (I know this sounds like a dumb one, but everyone waves at people they pass on the street here, whether they know them or not. Mom thinks it’s nice. Dad thinks it’s weird and he claims he never remembers to do it. Then Mom says he’s just being rude.)

  So we’ve been starting to think he never really wanted to move to Clover Gap, and that we came here for some reason they aren’t telling us…like because Dad lost his job.

  I finally went to Ted and told him I thought it was time to confront Mom and Dad about it. Just then, Mom walked into Ted’s room.

  Three things Mom asked after she plopped onto Ted’s desk chair

  1. Have you guys finished your homework? (Our answer: Yes.)

  2. Whose turn is it to set the table tonight? (Ted’s answer: Mine.)

  3. And then, maybe because we seemed weirdly cooperative: Everything okay with you two?

  Three things Ted said then

  1. Why didn’t you tell us Dad lost his old job?

  2. Annie thought us moving was all her fault. Because of Mr. Lawrence and the dry cleaner.

  3. And if Dad lost his job way back in February, what was he doing all those months when we thought he was going to work?

  Places we all looked next

  1. Ted: at Mom

  2. Mom: at me

  3. Me: at the floor

  Then Mom started crying.

  Four times I have seen my mother cry

  1. When her grandma died

  2. My preschool graduation

  3. When Ted and I fought for three solid hours one day after we’d all been snowed in for almost a week

  4. When she heard that I thought we moved because of me

  “Annie, I am so sorry. We really have to talk,” she said once she stopped crying. So that night after Dad got home from work, we did.

  Seven things Dad talked about at dinner that night

  1. We did not move because of me.

  2. He lost his job in Brooklyn because his engineering firm was having money problems. They hadn’t booked enough projects, and they had to let people go.

  3. He didn’t tell us because he didn’t want us to worry.

  4. He still spent a lot of time going into Manhattan and looking for a new job, or meeting friends who might know about job leads…which is why we didn’t clue in to the fact that he was actually unemployed. (He admitted that he also went for a lot of long walks and saw a couple of movies.)

  5. It’s true that he and Mom (okay, mostly Mom) had thought of moving out of the city, and luckily he finally found the highway job out here. (But the pay is less, and his bosses aren’t sure if they’ll keep Dad on once the highway is finished. So we still need to be careful about money.)

  6. Small-town life is definitely proving to be an adjustment for him, but he is trying to focus more on the good things about it, like growing flowers in the yard and inviting people over to grill. (This wasn’t the most convincing evidence, given that it was February, but I could tell he felt like he needed to give examples, maybe to convince himself as much as anyone else.)

  7. Please don’t keep your worries from us (like thinking you caused the family to move). We always want you to share what’s on your mind.

  One pretty smart point Ted had after that

  1. But you guys didn’t share what was on your mind. Why do you expect us to tell you stuff when you didn’t tell us about losing your job?

  Two things Dad admitted

  1. I’m sorry.

  2. You’re right.

  Three things I asked Dad after Mom recruited Ted to help her clean up in the kitchen

  1. Why did you pretend you wanted to move here just for fun? (Answer: Moving out of the city is something your mom has really wanted to try for a while. I thought it was important for her that we all try to like it.)

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sp; 2. Did you know I thought the whole move was all because of me? (Answer: I honestly had no idea. If I had, I never would have let you go on thinking that.)

  3. So, you’re trying to be happy in Clover Gap for Mom…but you don’t actually like it? (Answer: Some days yes, some days no. But there were good days and bad days in Brooklyn too. I still want to like it here, and that’s half the battle.)

  “I want to like it here too,” I said. “Most days now, I think I do.”

  “Well,” he said, reaching over to tuck my hair behind my ear, “thanks for saying so. Knowing that goes a long way toward helping me like it.”