by Beth Vrabel
A few seconds later, Ally, wearing one sparkly pink butterfly earring, had been sprinting down the street toward home. Away from her mom.
“Stop crying,” her mom had ordered when she finally caught up with her two blocks away. Mom’s face was flushed enough to radiate heat and her coffee-tainted breath was stale as it beat against Ally’s tear-soaked cheeks. “You stop crying this instant. It won’t be tolerated!” Her mother’s face had radiated solid anger. “Do you see all of these people laughing at you because you were too weak to get your ears pierced like a little baby?”
And she was right—all around Ally, grown-ups were pointing at them and whispering. “Toughen up,” Mom had whisper-yelled into her ear. “No more crying!”
That was her last girl’s day with her mom.
The necklace Opal gave her is the second piece of jewelry anyone has ever given her. It feels heavy in her pocket.
The four of them walk silently in the direction Mr. Hardy and Rex disappeared. Jason keeps glancing at Ally and smiling. He looks so different than this morning, Ally thinks. And like she said to Lilith, it isn’t just the haircut. He seems taller, maybe. Somehow she finds it easy to smile back at him, even though her heart is pounding. It’s easy to walk beside him, even though she usually has to be first.
“What’s the plan?” Wes breaks the quiet of their footsteps. “When we figure out where Rex is, I mean.”
“We wing it,” Jason suggests.
Lilith claps her hands. “I love improv! Give me the necklace.” She puts out her open palm for the locket.
Ally shakes her head. “I’m going to do it.”
Lilith keeps her hand out. “Let’s be practical. I’m the best at thinking on the spot. I’ll give her the necklace.”
Ally shakes her head and stops walking. Jason does, too.
Jason moves a half step toward her so their arms are brushing. “Ally’s going to do it.”
Lilith drops her hand to her side. “Fine. Big mistake, but fine.”
“Guys!” Wes motions them all forward, putting his finger to his lips. He points to an open door. The four of them crouch outside of it when they hear Mr. Hardy speaking. It’s not his usual you’re-in-trouble-now tone. His voice is more like a dad reading a bedtime book to a young child.
“I know it’s been hard on you, Rex, but we have base level expectations for students—”
“This isn’t school.”
“I realize that, but this is a school function—”
“Maybe for the rest of them, but not for me.”
“Will you stop interrupting me?” Now he sounds like the regular Mr. Hardy. He clears his throat. His voice dips back into the lullaby tone. “When I allowed you to join with the rest of them, I thought it’d be an opportunity for you to connect with your peers. It’s important that you don’t feel like you’re alone.”
Rex snorts.
“You’re not alone, Rex.”
“Whatever.”
“I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you this year, with your mom leaving.” Something twists in Ally’s stomach. She doesn’t want to hear what’s next any more than she wanted to see what was in the locket, but she doesn’t move. “And then so suddenly losing your brother—”
There’s a slamming sound, like a fist hitting a table or a wall. “I did not lose my brother!”
“I know he’s still with you, and always will be, but you know what I mean, Rex.”
Ally sucks in her breath. Rex’s brother died?
Mr. Hardy sighs. “And I know what happens next is… uncertain.”
“What’s your point, Teach?”
Wes glances at the rest of them. He whispers, “I don’t think we should be listening to this.”
Ally looks down. None of them move.
“The point is, Rex, you’re squandering any opportunity you have to prove yourself. Get it together!” Mr. Hardy booms.
“What opportunity?” Rex yells even louder. “What have I got? My grandma said she’d only stick around until he got better.” Another slamming sound. “None of us thought he wouldn’t.”
“I have an idea about what we can do, Rex.”
“We?” she snaps.
“Yes. We. An idea you might not think highly of at first but—”
Wes turns to the rest of them again. “Seriously, let’s go,” he hisses.
“What?” Rex gasps at whatever Mr. Hardy has said too low for them to hear over Wes’s whisper.
Lilith shifts where she’s crouched. Her metal bracelet clanks against the tile. She pulls her hand back and the bracelet tumbles from her wrist to roll down the hall with a clatter.
They hear a chair pushing back in the room, and that’s their cue to scramble to their feet. Everyone, that is, aside from Ally, who stays pressed against the wall.
“Yes!” Lilith says in a too loud voice. “I think you’re right, Wes! That is the bathroom!”
From where she’s crouched, Ally sees Mr. Hardy’s shadow in the doorway. “What are you doing? Was I not incredibly clear that you were to wait for me in the conference room? And not wander in the hall?”
“Sir,” Lilith begins, “after eating, we needed to find the restroom. Jason has digestive issues.” She shoots him a look. “It’s disgusting.”
“It was an emergency,” Wes adds.
Jason, his face flaming, nods. “Emergency.”
“Oh, no!” Lilith puts her hands to her cheeks. “It isn’t a bathroom. It’s a conference room.” She looks at Jason.
After a second, Jason grabs his stomach. Lilith nudges him. He moans in a dying cat sort of way.
Wes shrugs. “Better out than in, man. Don’t hold it.”
“Hold it!” Mr. Hardy yells. “Definitely hold it.” He grabs Jason by the elbow. “Bathrooms are this way.” He points down the hall.
“Oooohhhh!” Lilith bends at the waist and calls out in pain.
“Are you okay?” Jason asks, dropping his hands.
Lilith peeks up at him just enough to roll her eyes. He grabs his own stomach again.
“It must’ve been lunch,” she groans. “The food was in our bags all day instead of being properly refrigerated. I need a nurse!”
Mr. Hardy’s shoulders rise and fall. He turns back to Rex. “I’ll be back shortly. Just…” He shrugs. “Think about what I said, okay?”
Rex doesn’t answer. She’s still staring at the tabletop a second later when Ally sneaks into the room.
“Hey,” Ally says.
Rex nods, still not looking up. “Why aren’t you with the others?”
“I—I needed to see you.” Now Rex makes eye contact with Ally.
Ally takes a deep breath. “I didn’t put the pieces together until after everything already happened and Wes started talking about TBN, and Jason and I remembered what we learned about Opal, and—”
“What are you trying to say, Sports Barbie?”
“Stop calling me that!” Ally’s fist closes around the locket, which is still hidden in her pocket.
“Oh, did I hurt your feelings?” Rex pops up from the chair and turns to the wall, pressing her forehead against it. For just a second—between when she popped up and when she whirled around—Ally catches a glimpse of Rex’s face. Her cheeks are wet. Even so, Rex’s voice remains hard. “Mess with your perfect little sense of self?”
“You don’t know me,” Ally whispers. Her heart’s trapped in her chest. Run, run, run, it tells her with each beat.
Rex makes a huffing sound and wipes at her nose with her forearm, still leaning her forehead against the wall. “And you think you know me?”
Ally tilts her back at the wall next to Rex. “No.” For some stupid reason, the old ladies’ trust fall sneaks into her mind. “No, I don’t think anyone knows us.” She pulls the necklace out of her pocket and holds it out to Rex.
It takes Rex a few seconds to realize what Ally’s doing. Then her hand darts toward the necklace, darts back like it might be hot, then snatches it ou
t of Ally’s open palm.
“Where did you get this?” Rex twists so her back is to the wall, too. She’s not bothering to hide the tears streaming down her cheeks now.
“I was trying to tell you.” Ally sinks to sit on the floor with her legs in front of her. Rex does the same, but keeps her knees bent, her arms cradled on them, and stares at the locket that’s gently held between her thumb and forefinger. Ally watches as Rex runs her thumb over the missing gemstone. “Opal took it. She didn’t mean to—her mind is kind of stuck in this time when she was in a jewelry store.” Ally shrugs. “She gave it to me.”
“You’ve had it this whole time?” Rex gasps.
“Since just before you and TBN fought. I didn’t realize it was yours until after.” She shifts a little, trying not to look at Rex as she wipes at her cheeks with the back of her hand. “TBN is Opal’s niece. She was trying to help her. I don’t think she meant to…”
“Did you open it?” Rex asks.
Ally nods.
“Did everyone see it?”
“We weren’t prying,” Ally says. Rex pops open the locket with her thumbnail and quickly closes it again. “Is that your brother?”
Rex nods. “August.” She gasps as she says it, making the name sound more like just. “He…”
“My mom left last year,” Ally blurts out. “She never talked to me or anything. Just didn’t come home from a business trip a couple months ago. Her stuff’s still in the closet. I know my dad talks to her on the phone sometimes.” Her heart beats like crazy, like she’s finishing a sprint instead of whispering on the floor. It makes her voice shaky. It makes her say almost every thought, like her heart’s overflowing its filter or something. “I took her pillow. It’s softer than mine.”
Rex doesn’t say anything. Ally continues, “I don’t think my mom likes me all that much.”
Rex laughs. Her head falls back against the wall.
“It’s not funny,” Ally says as Rex laughs even harder. “I’ve never said it out loud before.”
Rex leans a little to the side, knocking Ally. “Well, do you like her all that much?”
Ally shakes her head. She’d never admitted that before, either.
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” Rex says.
“Yeah.” At least she has her dad, she thinks. He pushes her to do more, be stronger, and he can be a jerk, but she never wonders if he likes her, if he loves her. Does Rex have anyone?
“This was my mom’s.” Rex holds up the locket for a moment, before snapping the chain around her neck. She tucks it under her shirt. “She left it on a dresser with some change and scraps of paper before she bailed.”
“How long ago?” Ally asks.
Rex shrugs. “Summer before seventh grade.”
“Is that when August…?”
Rex winces when Ally speaks the name. She shakes her head. “No, that was a couple months later. He was… he’s older than me. He took care of me. I found out at school.”
Ally nods. Ally remembers the sound of her roaring in the hall that day outside the cafeteria. Some kids had started calling her T. rex after that. Ally had never stopped them. Her heart hammers again, wondering what she’d do if something happened to Dad. “What happened to him?”
Rex grits her teeth, shakes her head. She tucks the locket under her shirt, against her chest. After a second, she asks, “Why are you here, Sports Barbie?”
Ally’s startled out of her thoughts. “I’m giving back your locket.”
“No!” She laughs again. “Why are you here? Like what could you have possibly done to get all-day detention? You’re like, school jock or whatever.”
Ally opens her mouth. Maybe she would even tell Rex.
But just as she starts to speak, the sound of the rest of the group coming down the hall stops their conversation. Lilith says, “I agree, Mr. Hardy! It is amazing that our symptoms just vanished like that. It’s a miracle!”
“It’s certainly something.” Mr. Hardy sighs.
Mr. Hardy’s mouth opens and closes a little when he walks in the room to see Ally and Rex smiling at each other. “What’s going on here?”
Mrs. Mitchell’s clicking steps echo down to them. “There y’all are!” she booms.
Mr. Hardy crosses his arms. “Yes, here we all are. I assume you have your residents all accounted for and under control as well.”
Mrs. Mitchell’s nostrils flare and she crosses her arms just like her brother’s. “Yes, of course, I do.” She turns to the rest of them, plasters on a smile, and slaps her thighs like she’s calling to puppies. “Now, I have some exciting news! It’s craft and games hour!”
The five kids groan.
1:00 p.m.
WES “The Flirt”
All the trays are gone from the cafeteria. The faint aroma of tuna and peaches is the only hint that lunch had happened. Wes glances at the big black-and-white clock hanging on the wall. It’s only one o’clock. No wonder old people want to live here, he thinks. If I were running out of time, I’d want to go where each hour feels like a year, too.
The tables are now filled with clusters of people playing cards, putting together puzzles, painting on canvases, or crocheting. At one long table, the residents each have a pool noodle cut into thirds. A big foam ball is in the middle of the table. Wes recognizes the two old men who had duked it out over the ping-pong game glaring at each other from opposite sides of the table.
“Okay,” Mrs. Mitchell says. She’s looking a little rougher than this morning. Her hair is plastered to her shiny forehead and pink lipstick is smeared at the corners of her mouth. Her folksy drawl isn’t quite as warm as it was when she first welcomed them all. “So, um, pick a table and help the seniors.”
The five of them glance at each other, then rush toward the pool noodle table, taking seats in between the seniors.
“The idea is that you each take a table,” Mrs. Mitchell snaps. “Not all take the same table!”
“You weren’t clear on the instructions,” Lilith points out. She holds the pool noodle like a bat.
Mike, the old man Jason had been paired with earlier, pauses by the table. Jason gets up from his seat. “You can have my chair,” he says. Mike shakes his head and goes over to an empty table with a jigsaw puzzle on it. Jason pushes back from his seat and follows Mike.
“There,” Lilith says.
“Yes, well”—Mrs. Mitchell throws up her hands—“whatever.” She sinks into one of the armchairs lining the cafeteria.
“Okay,” says an activity leader at the head of the table. “Remember our rules: keep the ball going around the table. Don’t be a ball hog. No hitting anyone—I’m looking at you, Henry and Alfonso; we don’t want a repeat of this morning’s ping-pong fiasco.” Henry shakes his fist and Alfonso cracks his knuckles. “And…”
“Have fun,” the seniors around the table say, but in the same singsong, slightly mocking way a classroom would say Good morning, Mr. Hardy. Wes snickers.
The nurse then takes the foam ball and bounces it onto the table.
The ball dribbles toward a lady who’s holding her foam noodle bat with two hands. Her tongue is out and her eyes narrowed as she waits for the ball. Just before it gets to her, Alfonso leans in and whips it toward Henry.
“This is what I’m referring to—” the activity leader begins. Henry pelts the ball back at Alfonso.
“Hey!” says Lilith, who’s on the other side of Henry. “You almost hit me!”
“Can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen, girl,” Henry bellows.
“Ugh!” Lilith runs her hands over the length of her hair, trying to smooth it. The static electricity from the noodles makes it frizz up around her head instead.
“Ugh,” Alfonso mocks.
“Seriously?” Lilith snaps.
“Seriously?” Henry sing-songs.
Lilith slaps her noodle on the table and gets up to join an old man watching television at the back of the room. “Hey, Frank,” she says.
“Becky?
” the man says back.
“No, Lilith. Remember? I met you at lunch. You said I have a lovely singing voice, just like your granddaughter Becky.” Lilith hums a little.
“Becky can sing real pretty, too.” Frank nods. “She’s coming to visit me soon.”
The whole table’s attention shifts when the back cafeteria doors are thrown open with a clatter. Grace stomps in with Hubert hanging back from her. She strides to the table, pushing her sleeves up as she goes. No longer does she look like a blushing newlywed.
Slowly Hubert, limping and seeming a decade older than this morning, trails her. “Come on, Gracie,” he says. “It’s better this way.”
“Don’t you think that should be my decision?” Grace lowers herself into Jason’s vacant seat.
Hubert stands across from her. “You don’t understand,” he says. Wes half stands, and Hubert shakes his head at him.
Henry pops out of his seat and says, “Sit down and play, or get going, Hubert!”
Hubert glances at Grace, then takes Lilith’s just-vacated seat. He picks up the noodle.
The activity leader grabs the ball. She stares at Henry and Alfonso. “Last try, gentlemen. Let’s play fairly, shall we?” She gently tosses the ball back on the table. Henry sighs as it rolls toward a man who weakly knocks it away.
“Good job!” the seniors around him say. “Way to go!”
Alfonso mutters something under his breath.
The ball rolls toward a woman on Ally’s right. It stops right in front of the woman, who can’t seem to close her hands around the noodle. She grips it with both hands but it slides down her forearms when she tries to raise it. From the head of the table, the activity leader says, “Girl, girl?” Ally’s head jerks away from the old woman’s when she realizes the attendant is talking to her. “Help her out, okay?”
Ally swallows. For a moment, she pauses then reaches out like someone charged with scraping up gum from under a desk. She moves the noodle and closes the woman’s hands around it so she has a better grip.
The woman smiles, licks her lips, and swings her arms. The foam ball rolls a few inches away. “You did it!” the woman on the other side of the batter says. Ally shudders.
