Ice Cream Sandwiched

by Coco Simon

  Dad took me and Tanner out for dinner at the Bayville Diner. Dad liked it there because they played his kind of music, classic rock, over the speakers, and he said that they had the best hamburgers in the area. Dad didn’t cook a lot. He could grill, but he didn’t have a grill in his new apartment and didn’t usually have much cooking stuff in his kitchen, so we went out a lot when we were with him. I got a tuna melt and fries, my usual order, and Tanner got the meat loaf platter with mashed potatoes. When the food arrived, he started shoveling chunks of meat loaf dipped in potatoes into his mouth.

  “Tanner, slow down!” I said.

  “I’m hungry!” he objected with his mouth full of food. “Today, in gym, we played touch football outside, and everybody made me captain and I ran all the way down the field and made a touchdown and nobody could touch me because I am so fast and all that running made me hungry!”

  “Good job, buddy,” Dad said.

  I put down a french fry and stared at Tanner. “They made you captain?” I asked, knowing that only popular kids get picked to be captain in gym class.

  Tanner nodded and shoved another forkful of food into his mouth. “I’m the best at football. José and Carter and Brayden all say so.”

  “Are those your friends?” I asked him.

  “My best friends,” Tanner replied.

  “Your best friends?” I asked. “What about George and Mason from your old school?”

  Tanner shrugged. “I got new ones,” he said. “Carter is awesome. The other day in class he burped, and everyone was laughing, even Mrs. Young, because he said he couldn’t help himself, and it was awesome, the loudest burp you’ve ever heard.”

  “He sounds like a real winner,” I said.

  “You’ve made some friends in your new school, haven’t you, Allie?” Dad asked. “Those girls you were telling me about? Mindy . . . and Elyse?”

  “You mean Amanda, who lives in your building, not ‘Mindy,’ ” I corrected him. “And Eloise, not ‘Elyse.’ ”

  “Sorry, hon. I’m so bad with names,” Dad said. “But it’s nice that you have friends too.”

  “They’re nice, and I’ll probably go to Fall Frolic with them,” I said. “Still, it’s not the same as Tamiko and Sierra.”

  “Fall Frolic?” Dad repeated. “What’s that?”

  “Didn’t I tell you about the school dance that’s happening in two weeks?” I asked, trying not to sound exasperated. Dad frowned and shook his head.

  It was so confusing to keep track of what I told Mom and what I told Dad. It was much easier when we used to live in the same house and we just all talked at dinner.

  Tanner kept on chatting with his mouth full about José and Carter and Brayden, and while I was totally disgusted with his eating habits, I couldn’t help admiring his happy school life. He had traded in his old best friends for new ones easily and seemed to have become instantly popular.

  I sighed. I couldn’t go to my old school anymore, and I still didn’t feel like I belonged at my new school. I got to spend time with Dad, or Mom, but not Dad and Mom together. And even though I lived in two different places, neither of them felt like home yet. I was stuck in some weird middle ground.

  I picked up my tuna melt. I liked the ones they made in Bayville because they made them on rye bread, and not open-faced on English muffins like over at the Gold Star Diner. As I raised the sandwich to my lips, the word “sandwich” echoed in my head.

  Sandwiched. That was what I was. Stuck between two worlds, just like the tuna and mushed cheese inside my bread.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WORLDS APART

  Although I was sure that nothing would ever make up for my not being in the same school as Tamiko and Sierra, there were a few things about Vista Green that I liked a lot.

  One of them was the school library, which had three times as many books as the MLK library, and opened up to a garden outside, where you could eat lunch in the nice weather. Inside, you could sit on a comfy couch and read, or sit in one of the beanbag chairs. The librarian, Mrs. K., was a little prickly, but in kind of a hedgehog way—not scary at all; she’d been nice to me since my first day of school. I liked the library so much that for the first few weeks of school, I had spent every lunch period there, until Amanda had convinced me that I should sit with her and Colin and Eloise. But I still spent at least one lunch a week down there, and sometimes I helped out Mrs. K. after school.

  Another great thing about Vista Green was Ms. Healy, my English teacher. She was really enthusiastic and fun to be around, and her classroom was like a perfect laboratory for creativity. There were beanbag chairs in there, too, along with more shelves filled with books, and stacks of blank paper and jars of colorful markers that we could use whenever we were inspired. My favorite thing about the room was the border of the classroom at the top of the wall, where Ms. Healy had hung portraits of famous writers with their names underneath. The border went all the way around the room.

  And every single day Ms. Healy started the class with a “disco minute,” to get our creative juices flowing. That Tuesday was no different. We all danced around to blaring pop music underneath the swirling lights of a disco ball for sixty seconds, and then the music and lights stopped.

  “We’re all going to need to tap into our creativity today,” Ms. Healy began. “Today we’re going to learn about a form of poetry called a haiku. We’ll practice writing one, and then work on perfecting the haiku for homework. Now, does anybody know what a haiku is?”

  A few hands shot up, including mine. Ms. Healy called on Colin.

  “It’s a form of Japanese poetry, with three lines,” he replied.

  Ms. Healy nodded. “That’s right. And each line has a specific amount of syllables. The first line has five syllables, the second line has seven, and the third line has five.”

  She pressed some keys on her laptop, and a haiku appeared on the white wall behind her desk.

  “Here’s one I wrote when I took my walk this morning,” she said.

  A seagull swoops down

  Picks up a fish in her beak

  Now I want breakfast

  We all laughed.

  “So, what do you notice about this haiku, besides the syllables?” Ms. Healy asked.

  “It’s funny,” a boy named Aaron said.

  “I’m glad you think so,” Ms. Healy said. “Anything else?”

  “Well, it lets you form a picture in your mind,” said Maria. She was one of the Mean Team; although, of the three of them, she was probably the nicest. “Like, I could picture the seagull swooping down and getting the fish.”

  I raised my hand. “The last line was sort of surprising,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting the poem to end up that way.”

  Ms. Healy nodded. “That’s a good observation, Allie,” she said. “The syllable rules of a haiku might seem restrictive, but you can have fun playing with the format. Think about how the three lines can relate to one another.”

  Suddenly I was itching to write a haiku.

  “I’m going to give everyone twenty minutes to play around with the haiku form in your journals,” she went on. “You can upload them onto my homework page tonight. Write about whatever you want. Your haiku can be about something small, like breakfast, or about something more important in your life.”

  Then she typed on her keyboard again, and some soft classical music played from the speakers on her desk. Ms. Healy believed that the right music could “free your thoughts.”

  I opened my journal and stared at the blank page, thinking. There had been so many changes in my life lately; it only seemed natural to write about them. First I thought about not being in school with Tamiko and Sierra anymore. I started to write, playing around with the lines as I counted the syllables.

  My best friends are in another school far

  I miss them a lot every day all of the time

  Everything is different Nothing is the same

  I liked it, but it was kind of depressing. I thought
about the ice cream shop—that was one of the happy changes that had happened. I looked up at Ms. Healy’s haiku on the wall, and the word “swoops” made me think of the word “scooping.” Suddenly the poem came to me.

  Scooping out ice cream

  Hoping it is a big hit

  Making my mom proud

  I liked that haiku, but then thinking about the ice cream shop reminded me of the whole reason why it existed—because Mom and Dad had divorced.

  Feeling so sad alone

  My mom and dad are separated divorced apart

  I am so confused

  It was another depressing haiku, but I figured that was all right. Although, I thought maybe the third line could use some work. But Ms. Healy said it was time for us to move on, and I vowed to make some improvements on it that night.

  After school that day I didn’t go straight to the ice cream shop. Instead I texted Mom, then stopped at the beach house, got my bike, and rode it over to the library. It was farther away from the beach house than from our old house, but the route was a little safer because there was a bike lane for most of it. Two hours a week I volunteered in the tutoring program at the library, where I helped kids with reading.

  Sometimes I just read to them to help them get into a book, and other times I let them practice their reading skills on me while the adult teacher who ran the program helped other kids. My favorite part was connecting the kids with books that were either my own favorites or just right for them. It made me so happy when one of the kids came running in with a book we’d picked together the previous week, and said, Allie! Allie! You were right! I loved it!

  Many of the kids in the program were new immigrants to the United States. Sometimes their parents didn’t speak any English, but it made me happy to see how quickly the children learned to use the library. And if you’re feeling sad or a little alone, there’s nothing better than getting lost in a good book.

  At the library I said hi to the other volunteer I knew, and the teacher, and then gathered kids in the program. There was a new kid today about my age, a petite, pretty girl with dark eyes that were like huge brown pools. She looked super-nervous, and she kept fidgeting with her head scarf. I smiled and waved at her, and a flicker of friendliness crossed her face, but she still looked a little cautious. I wondered where she was from and what she had gone through to get here.

  “Hi,” I said softly. “I’m Allie.”

  She smiled tentatively and touched her chest. “Noor.”

  “Do you like to read?” I asked. I gestured at the books spread out on a low table. I couldn’t tell how good her English was, but she seemed to understand me. She nodded.

  “Should we read?” I said.

  Again she nodded, so we sat.

  I gestured to all the books and asked her to pick one. To my surprise, she picked one that was probably the highest reading level. I started to take it from her so that I could read it to her, but she smiled and shook her head. She opened the book and began to read, perfectly.

  I was so impressed. It was a book about horses and girls riding over the countryside in Virginia. I studied Noor, wondering how old she was. She was very small and could have been a fourth grader, but poise-and-maturity-wise she might have been an eighth grader. As she read on, it was clear that she understood everything that was happening in the book. When she had finished the chapter, she placed the book down on the table and smiled at me shyly.

  “Wow, Noor! That was great!” I said. “Where did you learn English?”

  “I am from Iraq. An American lady set up a school for girls, and we all learned reading and writing. Then we learned English.” Noor’s eyes shone with pride.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “Eleven,” she said. “I am in sixth grade at Martin Luther King Middle School.”

  “I used to go there! But now I’m at Vista Green.” We smiled at each other. “I love to read,” I said.

  “Me too,” Noor said. “Right now I am reading the Secret Sisters series.”

  “That’s a great series!” I said.

  “I am waiting to read the latest book, but the library does not have it yet,” Noor said. “I am very anxious to find out if Erin will find the hidden room in the old house.”

  “I don’t mean to be rude, but why do you need tutoring?” I asked.

  “I am always wanting to get better. Also, I brought my little brother today. He is not so good as I am, even though I try to teach him.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Little brothers are the worst!”

  She laughed and agreed. “My best friend back home also had a little brother,” she said. “He and Zayid used to get into so much trouble always.”

  “Do you miss your friends back home?” I asked.

  Noor nodded, and she looked a little sad. “I do,” she said, “but I hope to make some new ones.” She gave me a hopeful smile, and I smiled back. “Besides,” she said, “sometimes change is good. It gives you new opportunities.”

  I thought about that for a second. Change lately had been pretty bad, if you asked me. Maybe it was working out better for her.

  “Well, I don’t think you need me to help tutor you,” I said. “But maybe you could help me tutor some of the younger kids?”

  She nodded. “I’d like that.”

  “Great! Let’s go over there and see who we can help,” I said, and we crossed the room to the gaggle of kids in the picture book area. I was happy to have found another book lover. On my ride home I wondered if Noor felt the same way I did about leaving friends and making new ones. It must have been harder for her since her friends were an ocean away. Even though Sierra and Tamiko and Dad were still close by, it felt sometimes like there was an ocean between all of them and the beach house.

  That night, back at Mom’s house, I put a load of laundry into the washer and then settled down to do homework. I stared at the three haikus in my journal and tried to decide which ones to send to Ms. Healy. I typed the first one into my laptop.

  My best friends are far

  I miss them all of the time

  Nothing is the same

  I still liked my haiku, I decided, but I knew that Tamiko would say I was being a little dramatic. “We’re still right here!” I could imagine her saying. A haiku popped into my head, and I sent it to them both in a group text.

  Sunday Sundae girls

  Nothing can separate us

  Best friends forever!

  Tamiko responded right away with a big red . I waited for a response from Sierra, but I didn’t get one. I wondered if they were together and Tamiko had responded for both of them.

  Are you with Sierra? I texted Tamiko.

  No, she responded. A few seconds later she added, She’s probs too busy signing up for 500 more clubs and then regretting it.

  I was surprised by Tamiko’s snarky response, but I was a little annoyed at Sierra too. I tried to shake off the feeling. I knew that Sierra was probably busy with one of her many commitments, but still, when a friend sends you a sappy haiku, it deserves some kind of response, doesn’t it?

  Just then Tanner banged on my door. “We gotta call Dad!” he said. When we were at Dad’s house, we called Mom to say good night. When we were at Mom’s house, we called Dad. I got out my phone, and in about two seconds Dad’s face appeared, like he had been waiting for us. After a few minutes of talking about the rest of the week, Tanner ducked out to brush his teeth. “Any big plans tonight, Dad?” I asked.

  He laughed and panned the phone around so that I could see the empty apartment. “Pretty quiet here,” Dad said. “Too quiet without you two!” I thought I heard a little bit of sadness in his voice. The apartment did seem very, very still. I had just assumed that he liked all that quiet, but maybe he really did miss us too.

  I blew him a kiss, ended the call, and took the phone downstairs, since Mom didn’t let me keep the phone in my room at night. I thought about the empty apartment and imagined Dad wandering around. I thought about Sierra out doin
g something and me not knowing what. Why, I wondered, couldn’t everything be the nice, familiar way it used to be? Change might have been working for Noor, but it was definitely not working for me.

  CHAPTER SIX

  POETRY, SLAMMED

  Sierra finally did answer my text the next day, with a poem of her own.

  Roses are red,

  Violets are blue.

  I love my friends,

  And they love me too!

  That made me laugh, and I forgave her for not getting back to me right away.

  But as soon as the bus arrived at school, the fuzzy feeling faded. I looked out into the sea of straight hair, skinny jeans, and backpacks. This time I noticed that a lot of the girls were wearing fur-lined boots that almost looked like bed slippers. Some girls wore light brown boots, while others wore dark brown boots, but they were clearly all the same style. It was bizarre that everyone was wearing furry boots, since the weather outside was beautiful. I hadn’t even brought a sweater to school. Maybe the boots were meant to be “in season” regardless of weather. I wished I could ask Tamiko about it.

  Since I had had the realization that I was going to school among clones, I had been feeling kind of weird. So that day at lunch I decided to duck into the library and get lost in the book I was currently reading.

  When I walked in, Mrs. K. was seated at her desk. She looked up at me through the funky rectangular glasses perched on her nose. She was the most colorful librarian I’d ever met, and today she had on a silky orange blouse and a necklace of chunky sapphire-blue and silver beads.

  “Good afternoon, Allie. Did you come here to read, or can you shelve some books for me?” she asked.

  “Can I shelve after I finish my sandwich?” I asked.

  “Yes, you may,” she replied. “Sandwich, then shelve. But please be sure to wash your hands first. We must not get the books dirty.”

  The way Mrs. K. spoke, you might not think she was a friendly person. That was just how she was. She always got to the point pretty quickly. But she was also very nice. She had never once said anything about me spending my lunch period in the library. It was like she knew I was looking for a safe spot to hide out, and she always welcomed me in.