Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life

by Shelley Tougas

  “No.”

  “That’s all I need to hear.”

  Mia said, “Bundle up and meet me in the garage. We’ll drive to the museum and see it for ourselves.”

  * * *

  I gasped when I saw the black letters scrawled across the side of the building: I hate Walnut Grove I hate Lara.

  Mia stopped the car. “Whoever did it doesn’t know how to spell Laura.” Then she pointed. “You can see the footsteps through the snow. That’s why he asked you about your boot size.”

  “Everyone wears boots. It’s winter. How many people in town have small feet? Probably two hundred. Probably more!” Mom said.

  “Very true,” Mia said. “I have small feet, and I’m an adult.”

  Mom looked at me in the back seat. “Start from the beginning. Tell me everything that happened.”

  Mia put the car in the park.

  I told them about overhearing Teresa and Gloria talking about not having money to pay Julia. I told them how they said our work wasn’t good. I told them that Julia came into the museum and that I said I had a headache and I left. I told them about getting the text about the water pipe breaking and how I went to the museum and lost my temper.

  Mom sighed. “Why didn’t you tell them you’d overheard their discussion, and what you heard upset you, and that you wanted them to explain what was going on?”

  “Because I was mad and not thinking. I don’t always have the perfect words. The words I had were lazy and gossip.”

  “Oh dear,” Mia said.

  “I said I hated the museum.”

  “Oh dear,” Mia said.

  “This is why you need to choose your words more carefully.” Mom sank into the seat. “It’s too late for that lecture. Besides, where would you get spray paint? You don’t have access to that.”

  “Oh dear,” Mia said.

  “What?”

  Mia pressed her lips together.

  “Mia, what is it?” Mom’s voice sounded urgent.

  “We have spray paint in the garage.”

  “I didn’t know that! I swear!”

  In the rearview mirror, Mia’s eyes, once so supportive, seemed to darken. Mom put her face in her hands and mumbled.

  “What? Mom? What are you saying?”

  “I need to drive. I just need to drive and drive and drive,” she said. “Mia? Would you mind keeping an eye on Freddy and Rose today? Charlotte and I are going on a little road trip.”

  “But the roads are still icy.”

  “I don’t care. I’ll drive slow. I have to move. I can’t sit here another second.”

  “Okay. I’ll watch the kids.”

  The ugly words on the side of the museum faded from sight as we drove away. I’d moved all over the southeastern part of the country.

  How could the six-block drive to Mia’s house feel like the longest journey of my life?

  Everything was different.

  Everything was wrong.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  From the air, I bet the highway looked like a gray ribbon woven into a white blanket. Every couple of miles we passed a farmhouse and its grove of trees, but mostly it was Mom and me and swirling snow. When the snow-covered prairie met the sky, the blue nearly burned with brilliance.

  Mom said, “This highway is called the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway. That’s what you’d call irony.”

  “I guess.”

  “If we stay on this road, we’ll end up in De Smet, South Dakota, where the Ingalls family moved after Walnut Grove.”

  “Can we not stay on this road?”

  Mom’s laughter cut the tension, and my shoulders relaxed a little. The second I thought about Laura, the tension returned, only worse. I’d been accused of something I didn’t do, but the feeling went deeper than that.

  I felt bad for Gloria and Teresa, even though they were fake-nice, because there was nothing fake about how much they loved the museum.

  But that wasn’t the source of the tension, either. Everyone in Walnut Grove was proud of the town’s history. When they drove by the museum and saw those ugly words, they’d feel angry and sad.

  But that didn’t explain my feelings, either. They went even deeper than that.

  I realized I felt terrible for Laura. The family had had tough times in Walnut Grove. Pa couldn’t pay the bills, the grasshoppers devoured all the crops, and Mary went blind. But after living on the lonely Kansas prairie, the Ingallses had found civilization in Walnut Grove. They had a real school, a nice church, and good neighbors. Laura’s memories were happy. She loved splashing in Plum Creek and running barefoot through the prairie grasses. One Christmas, rich people in the East sent gifts to the church in Walnut Grove. Laura got a fur cape with a matching muff and a beautiful jewel box, which she kept her whole life. She loved it here, and when farming didn’t work out, and they had to move for Pa’s railroad job, she was really sad.

  “Mom, I think I’m feeling Laura’s energy—for real. She’s sad about what happened to the museum.”

  “I feel it, too,” Mom said.

  “Whoever did it couldn’t even spell her name. They’re stupid and mean.”

  “Their behavior was stupid and mean. People aren’t inherently stupid and mean. And stupid is a swear word. You shouldn’t say it. Anyway, people are inherently good. I’ll always believe that.”

  Not exactly a shocker, right?

  I turned down the heater. My feet were sweating in my boots. I’d lived through months of winter, and I was still amazed I could sweat through the cold.

  Mom wasn’t thinking about the contradictions of winter weather. “If we get on the interstate, we could go west to Rapid City and into Wyoming and Montana. It would take us all the way to the Pacific coast.” Mom used her dreamy, faraway voice, the voice that told me she was making plans to move.

  “Why is everyone obsessed with going west?” My voice was so sharp that Mom took her eyes off the road for a moment to look at me. “The pioneers,” I said. “But it’s not just them. President Eisenhower started the interstate project in the 1950s to make it easier to get from coast to coast, like a modern transcontinental railroad.”

  “Sounds like someone’s paying attention in school.” Mom smiled. “There’s something about our country and the West,” she said in a dreamy voice. “It’s romantic, and I don’t mean in a boyfriend-girlfriend way, but we have this sense of pride in conquering the Wild West.”

  “When they built the railroad, men would ride the trains with shotguns and kill buffalo just because it was fun, like an old-fashioned version of a video game.”

  “That’s terrible,” Mom said.

  “Westward expansion stunk if you were Native American.”

  “I know.”

  Mom and I pulled down our visors and blinked against the brightness. The sun was dropping into the horizon, big and fat and lazy, curling up in its earth bed. “I can’t drive west with the sun like that. It’s killing my eyes. Let’s find a place to eat.”

  Mom turned the car around and drove to Marshall. We stopped at a bar and grill downtown and ordered a chicken strip basket to share. I knew I wouldn’t eat much. My stomach rumbled from hunger, but I couldn’t imagine swallowing anything.

  “What’s going to happen, Mom?”

  “Honestly, we’re almost out of money. That Chad kid’s mother was not helpful. Shorty tracked down her cell phone number, and I called her Saturday afternoon. She refuses to pay and even denies Chad threw the snowball. Shorty says I should take them to small claims court, but I’m ready to be done with all of this. I’m thinking we could go to Arizona. It’d be warm in the winter and a new environment will feed my creativity. Plus, I have to get a job, and what is there in Walnut Grove for work? Waitressing at the diner?”

  “I want you to finish the book. We all do.”

  “The problem with the book is the science. It’s too complicated. I can’t make it work, so I came up with this idea. Instead of science fiction, I’l
l make it a fantasy novel. Then I can make up anything. It doesn’t have to be rooted in science.”

  “So a fantasy novel about kids on Mars?”

  “Exactly. Maybe they get to Mars on a dragon.”

  How do you tell someone her ideas are like broccoli-flavored cereal? They don’t go together.

  You don’t. You nod, which is what I did.

  She sipped her coffee. “I thought we should finish the school year before we leave, but with this museum thing hanging over our heads, we should just go.” She looked sad for a moment. “Freddy is going to be very angry.”

  I didn’t want to feel bad for Freddy, but I did. He got to be a rock star for a couple months, and it wouldn’t be easy to leave Red Fred behind.

  “He has a lot of friends,” I said. “Like literally everyone is his friend.”

  “He can stay in touch with them. They can be friends for life.”

  “Like me and Molly Smith?”

  Mom thought a minute. “That name is familiar. Who’s Molly Smith?”

  “She was the first, best, and only friend I ever had. And we were going to write to each other, and it never happened. Not even once.”

  “Why didn’t you write to her?”

  I wasn’t surprised she didn’t remember. I said, “It was when you lost all your contacts. She promised she would send me a letter, but she never did.” My eyes stung with tears. “She lied to me. She forgot all about me.”

  “I’m so sorry, honey.” Mom leaned closer to me. “But you don’t know that she forgot.”

  “Yes, I do. I never got a letter. And I never sent one because I couldn’t.”

  “Maybe the same thing happened to her. She could’ve lost our contact information. Or maybe the mail carrier lost the letter or delivered it to the wrong apartment. Maybe when I brought in the mail, it slid out of my hands. Maybe it accidentally got put on a stack of paper we threw away. Maybe she wrote to you after we moved. We only stayed in that apartment three months.” I wiped my eyes with a napkin and blew my nose. “Charlotte, don’t think for a second that she forgot you. Because, my dear, you are unforgettable.”

  I shrugged.

  “We all assume things,” Mom said. “It’s human nature. But I want you to promise me you will assume good things first. Not bad things.”

  “You really think the letter got lost?”

  “It’s much more likely than her forgetting you or lying.” Mom squeezed my hand. “It’s entirely possible that Molly is somewhere right now—maybe Utah, maybe Maine—and she’s talking to her mom about you. She’s sharing a wonderful memory. That’s how the universe works. You two are connected forever. Do you feel the spark right now?”

  I paused, waiting for the spark.

  Nothing. Not even a tingle.

  Was it worth telling her no?

  Probably not.

  “I’ll try to feel the spark later, okay? Mom, I don’t think Freddy is going to see it your way. He has more than twenty Mollys. Besides, if we leave now, everyone will think we’re running away because I vandalized the museum.”

  “Life isn’t about what you’re running from, it’s about what you’re running toward. Make sense?”

  “Not even a little.”

  “I don’t care what other people think. You know you didn’t do it. I know you didn’t do it. Anyone who knows you knows you didn’t do it.”

  “That’s the problem, Mom. Nobody knows me. Only you and Freddy and Rose know me. Nobody in the whole world really knows me.”

  I figured the conversation was getting to her because she started chewing on her fingernail. She wasn’t a nail chewer. Finally she said, “Can you try to think of it like this? You get to reinvent yourself every time you move. That was the exciting part about moving when I was a kid and my father was in the military. I’d pick someone new to be in each place we lived. Once I was a Goth kid. I wore black every single day. Sometimes I’d be the smart kid. In Atlanta, I joined the drama club. In Boston, I played volleyball and hung out with all the jocks.”

  “I don’t want to be reinvented. I don’t even know how to do that. I’m … I’m…” I searched for the words to describe myself. “I’m me. Just me.”

  Mom stared out the window until the waiter brought the bill.

  * * *

  When we got home, Freddy and Rose were already in bed. I scrubbed my fingers until they ached to get rid of the ink stains. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep. I told myself Monday would be fine. Everyone had learned about the vandalism Sunday, but the name of the prime suspect probably wouldn’t spread until Tuesday, maybe even Wednesday. I must have drifted off to sleep because suddenly Freddy was tapping my shoulder.

  He whispered, “Come out to the living room so we can talk.”

  Before I even sat down on the couch he was asking questions. “What happened? What’s going on?” You’d think his voice would be like, My poor sister, how can I help? But it wasn’t. His voice was like, What did you do?

  “I don’t know what happened.”

  He didn’t need Twin Superpowers to know I was innocent.

  Right?

  I was a person he’d known for twelve years, a person who’d never broken a law or any rules other than staying up too late or not doing my homework. Yes, I snorted and sighed, and sometimes I assumed bad things first, but I was not a vandal or a destroyer. Not now. Not ever.

  “I have friends for the first time in my life, and now everyone’s going to think we’re a bunch of criminals.”

  I swallowed and straightened my shoulders. “I didn’t do it.”

  “One of the cans of spray paint is missing from the garage.”

  “You obviously need your second hearing aid, because I said I didn’t do it.”

  “The cops think you did and now everyone is going to think we’re bad people.”

  I sprang off the couch. “Freddy, if I had decided to spray-paint the museum, you know what I would’ve written? I hate Red Fred.”

  I marched into my room and slammed the door. I didn’t care if the noise woke up everyone in the house.

  PART THREE

  On the Banks of Dumb Creek

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  I got ready for school but waited in the bedroom until I heard Freddy and Rose say good-bye to Mom. Then I put on my gear and grabbed a granola bar to eat while I walked.

  Mom hugged me. “Everything will be fine.”

  “I’m trying to assume a good thing. Maybe they caught the real criminal overnight.”

  Mom’s face didn’t look optimistic. “Charlotte, we have to face the possibility that the cop has already made up his mind. His energy was entirely negative.”

  Then I got a brilliant idea. I burrowed in the trash and picked through pizza wrappers, tissues, and a bag of microwave popcorn. “Charlotte…,” Mom said like she thought I was losing my mind.

  Finally I found the leaky pen. “See this pen? The black stuff on my hands was ink. You have to call that cop and tell him.”

  Mom sighed. “I don’t know, hon. The cop could say you broke the pen after the fact as a way to explain why you had black stains on your fingers. I think this is a man who looks for guilt, not a man who looks for innocence.”

  “I should’ve showed you when he was here, but I didn’t think about it.”

  She took the pen and dropped it back in the trash. “Forget the pen.” Then she put one hand on each of my shoulders and turned me so I was facing her. “Charlotte, you’re the bravest person I know.”

  “Really?” I was afraid to look her in the eye.

  “‘You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think.’ Do you know who said that?”

  “Laura Ingalls?”

  “No.”

  “Dr. Seuss?”

  “No. Winnie the Pooh.” I looked up. She was smiling.

  She hugged me again. “Remember I believe in you.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  * * *

/>   I barely slid into my desk before the bell rang. One by one, heads turned and looked at me—everyone except Freddy, who stared at his notebook. How could they know already? It’d been one day. One! Maybe I was paranoid. Mom says if you look hard enough for something, you’ll find it. I took out my folder and a note someone had stuck in my desk fell to the floor. It said, Hey Lara, spell much? You must live on the Banks of Dumb Creek!

  I knew people would hear right away that the museum had been vandalized. If you drove through town, you’d see it. But it should’ve taken at least two days for everyone to know I’d been accused. The school building had been open only thirty minutes, and already the kids in my class knew.

  I avoided eye contact, including Julia and Emma and Bao. I remembered what Julia had said about Emma and Bao having her back when everyone gossiped about her after the robbery at Shorty’s gas station.

  Would they have my back now?

  I didn’t want to take the risk. Because if the answer was no, if they didn’t have my back, I would literally collapse. I couldn’t take one more slap right now.

  Mrs. Newman was about to speak when a voice came over the intercom. “Mrs. Newman, please send Charlotte Lake to the office.”

  Have you ever been paged to the office?

  It was the most humiliating moment of my existence. It was the opposite of being invisible. My face flushed red. Heads turned; people stared. Without making eye contact, I left the classroom and walked to the office as slowly as possible. I considered hiding in the bathroom, but eventually they’d come looking for me. It was better to face Mr. Crenski and tell him what I’d told the police officer.

  The secretary gave me a cold look when I entered. She pointed to Mr. Crenski’s office. “He’s waiting for you.”

  Everyone in school laughed about Mr. Crenski’s size. He was shorter than all the teachers. In a town of ironic nicknames, Mr. Crenski’s friends probably called him Giant. But he didn’t feel short to me. His energy felt big and angry and mean. As I waited for him to finish his phone call, I replayed Mom’s words over and over. The bravest person. The bravest person. The bravest person. Finally he hung up.