When Shelly bounded out in a silver flash, Miranda didn’t join in the whoops and screams and was as surprised as anybody when the sound cut off. But when Shelly sang on, all alone, carried by self-confidence and determination, Miranda was one of the first to join the clapping, and the rest was history.
So was her friendship with Penelope.
• • •
Of course, Penelope’s still around.
A week after screwing up Shelly’s nursing home gig, Miranda picks up the phone at home to hear a voice from the past: “Back to eating lunch alone, aren’t you, Scott? That’s how Shelly repays her friends.” Penelope hangs up without waiting for a reply, not that Miranda could think of one.
Her former friend knows where it hurts; more than anything, Miranda dreads eating alone. Lunch period feels like the Cafeteria Table at the End of the Universe, and she’s considering asking Mrs. Jenks if she could get a library pass for that time.
Penelope spoke too soon, though: Shelly’s not perfect, but she doesn’t hold a grudge. The very next morning, she takes a seat next to Miranda as though nothing happened and asks her to manage her Youth Court campaign. That afternoon, they write the fliers—Miranda types them on the Alvarezes’ computer, and Shelly imports a publicity photo of herself with her head cocked and one hand behind her ear. They print five dozen, which Miranda hands out the next day:
Shelly Alvarez hears you!
A sympathetic ear, a caring heart,
She’s the one who’ll take your part.
Miranda also writes the campaign speech, and during the last week of October, Shelly delivers it flawlessly to the faculty meeting and the homeroom representatives. On the first Tuesday in November, all the candidates give their speeches to the general assembly of fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, with the voting to come right after.
There’s no polling data, but Miranda is confident about her candidate’s chances. Especially if you take Spencer’s reaction as a kind of reverse indicator. Other sixth-graders are running, but the chemistry between those two makes it seem like a one-on-one matchup. The more Shelly charms, the more Spencer scowls; his speeches get louder, quicker, and angrier as the campaign goes on, in spite of Jay reminding him to chill. Miranda knows Shelly will win, right up until the last day and the last speech—actually the last minute of the speech.
Shelly has been hitting all her points about how everybody deserves a second chance and she’s made mistakes in her life and knows how to be sympathetic and see both sides of an issue. The audience is eating it up, especially in comparison to Spencer’s rant about right and wrong and being impartial and making sure perpetrators get justice—who wants that?
But then: “I’m honored to be your candidate for Youth Court,” Shelly says, looking up from her notes. “I’ve learned so much by the experience, and the most important thing I learned is…I’m not the best person for this job. I’d like to resign my candidacy right now, and hereby throw my support to Spencer Haggerty!”
She smiles and returns to her seat onstage in total silence—everybody is stunned until Mr. Pearsall starts the applause. Miranda feels like a popped balloon, and Spencer looks like he’s been stabbed in the back, even though Shelly has handed him a victory: when the votes are counted, he picks up enough of hers to win a place on the court.
“I knew it didn’t mean anything to you,” he snarls while waiting in the bus line that afternoon. Jay shakes her hand and says she ran a good campaign—though Miranda actually ran it! To all of Kaitlynn’s why-why-why questions, Shelly says she didn’t feel worthy of the honor this year.
Miranda gets an honest answer, at least: “Youth Court is great for political types, but I’ve got too much to do in the afternoons. The campaign will still look great on my scholarship application.”
A résumé enhancement, just like Spencer said.
But that’s just Shelly. Next morning, she takes a seat next to Miranda on the bus and says, “Did you see National Talent Search last night?”
It’s hard to stay mad at her. She sparkles when she’s happy, and it has nothing to do with her looks—except for her thick, shiny, almost-black hair, Shelly’s not that beautiful. But she draws you, as though she’s always about to lean in and whisper, Guess what?
So in spite of her disappointment, Miranda can’t help but be glad she caught part of NTS before going to bed. “You mean with that Vietnamese girl?”
“Yes! Ohmigosh, she was so pathetic, I would have voted three thumbs down if they let me. I wanted to put a note on the website that they shouldn’t allow…um…”
“Asians?”
“No…”
“People of other cultures?”
“No! I mean non-Claires. People who aren’t the least little bit like Claire shouldn’t be allowed to do Claire songs.”
“Oh.” Actually, Miranda thinks that being not-Claire is a mark in the Vietnamese girl’s favor, but she’d never say it.
“Can you believe her singing a slow version of ‘Saturday Night Lights’?”
“Yeah, that was pretty bad. I didn’t even know what the song was at first.”
“Exactly.” Shelly studies her fingernails and chips the bright pink polish. “Hey, are you entering the language arts fair this year?”
Miranda, who is expecting the conversation to ride on awful Claire imitators all the way to school, has to reverse her mental wheels and make a sharp turn. “Uh…I guess so. Yeah.”
“I was wondering if you could, like, help me with it? Dad said it would be a good way to build up my portfolio for the scholarship. Especially since language arts is so—artsy. So I was going to try and put together a few poems or something. Poems would be good, especially if I’m going to write my own songs.”
She leaves a pause, so Miranda says, “That’s a good idea.”
“Right, so…I was wondering if you could read some of my stuff.”
“Oh. Sure! I’d be glad to.” At least it’s something she’s good at.
They agree on a regular time to meet and read their stuff to each other: Tuesday after school, four-thirty to five. That way, Shelly can catch the last half-hour of Dance America. They’ll take turns reading and then make helpful suggestions for each other.
But by the middle of the month, they haven’t met at all. “Weren’t you supposed to come over yesterday?” Miranda asks on Wednesday morning.
Shelly claps a hand to her head. “I can barely do my regular homework—how can they expect me to pump out poems and book reports and compare-and-contrast?”
“But you wanted to enter the language arts fair. And I said I’d help, if we could—”
“I know, but I’ve been getting all kinds of great ideas on Dance America, and I have to practice them right away or I’ll forget, and then the hour’s over and I’ve got to get started on my homework.”
“We could do it on another day…”
“Um…don’t think so. Because of dance lesson on Monday, and guitar on Thursday, and voice coach on Wednesday, and Friday being the day my mom makes me stay home and help clean up for the weekend—that’ll only get worse after the baby comes. How about I just give you what I write and you can tell me what I ought to change?”
Miranda agrees to that, even though she was hoping they could discuss ideas. Mrs. Evangeline, her language arts teacher, has great suggestions that might be good for Shelly.
“Don’t ever tell me you don’t have anything to write about,” Mrs. Evangeline likes to say. “Every writer starts with the same thing you have: experience. A good writer can make an interesting story or poem out of anything.”
Miranda has been thinking she might be a good writer. Especially after writing a short story called “Yes or No?” based on her friendship with Penelope (with some details changed), that came back with an A. In the margin, Mrs. Evangeline wrote: This is exactly what I’m talking about!
Please let me help you make it even better.
So she’s been making it better, and they’ve decided the story should be her main entry in the language arts fair. “But you have time to write one or two more,” Mrs. Evangeline told her. “Why not try some poetry?”
“What about?” Miranda has an idea poetry is about boyfriends, which she doesn’t have.
“Anything at all. Look out your window.”
She didn’t mean literally, but at the moment, Miranda is thinking of poetry subjects while looking out an actual window. They’re backing up to the empty shed on Farm Road 152. She glances back; Bender is gazing at it like always. He’s kept very quiet since being out sick the whole first week of November—with pneumonia, Miranda heard. It’s funny, how everybody seems to take this stop for granted now—Kaitlynn is telling Mrs. B about this great idea she got for a project, Alice is reading, Matthew is staring into space, Spencer and Jay are arguing, and Igor is trying to pop the little kids with Halloween candy corn without Mrs. B catching him.
It’s a drippy day (“Try to include plenty of concrete details,” Mrs. Evangeline says), with the smell of smoke and wet leaves in the air. Beyond the shed’s mossy roof, Miranda can see a line of bare trees (what kind of trees?) like a gray fringe against the gray sky (Good!). The shed seems to huddle in the rain like a…like a (figure of speech here)…an abandoned tricycle? Maybe. What does it remind her of? Something that shouldn’t be alone. Something that hides and is afraid to show itself, even though the bus comes by every day and knocks on its door. No, no door, but it’s like the bus is hoping somebody will be inside even though the shed stays empty, day after day. Or else it’s afraid—
Kind of like her, maybe.
She was afraid to be herself with Debbie Hawthorne in the fourth grade and with Penelope Gage in fifth and ended up losing both of them. What’s her problem? She tries to be a good friend and go along and make the other person feel good about themselves…
The bus pauses after backing up. As though waiting for some little girl or boy to appear, who never does. Like me, Miranda thinks again. I’m waiting for me to show up.
“Hel-lo?” Shelly snaps her fingers. “Did you hear what I said? I’ve got an idea for a poem, so how about I write it and you fix it?”
“Okay.” Miranda is so deep in thought it’s hard to climb out. “Sure, whatever.”
From somewhere in the back rows, a voice shouts, “Stink bomb!”
A heavy object flies out and hits her on the back of the head. “Ow!” The object hits the floor: a running shoe.
“Igor!” Mrs. B yells. “Was that you?” The bus is at the top of the hill; she slams it into park and turns around. “Whose shoe?”
“Mine,” Jay says. “My gym shoe. He sneaked it out of my backpack.”
“I was aiming at Spencer!” Igor claims. “He was razzing me. But then we went over a bump and—”
Mrs. B points to the right front seat. “Up here.” As Igor slouches forward, muttering about how it wasn’t his fault, she continues, “This is the third time this month, buster. Next time, I’m going to pay a little visit to your folks…”
Miranda rubs her head and nods absently as Shelly asks, “You okay?” The big yellow bus groans onto the highway, and suddenly, as though the shoe had knocked an idea loose, Miranda knows what her poem is going to be about.
• • •
Igor doesn’t apologize until the following afternoon, when she’s walking to Mr. Pasternak Senior’s house to return a multi-blade paper cutter her mother borrowed from Jay’s grandma. Igor is sitting on the curb in front of Pasternak Junior’s. He doesn’t seem be doing anything in particular, but it’s a chilly overcast day, and if you’re going to do nothing, you’d want to do it someplace warmer.
“What’s the matter?” she asks.
“Nothing. I’m waiting for the trash pickup.” He rumples his clothes and throws himself back on the driveway, eyes crossed and tongue sprawling. “I’m roadkill.”
“Stop being stupid,” she snaps, still irritated about the shoe.
“Okay.” He sits up and brushes himself off. “I’m waiting for Jay to get home from track practice so we can play Horror Castle.”
“But it’s cold. Why don’t you wait at home?”
Igor stares at the gray sky as though the answer is up there. “Because…my mom’s having one of her bad days.”
“What does that mean? She kicked you out?”
“Sort of.” He lifts his narrow shoulders. “She gets over it pretty quick. She’d let me in right now if I went back. But I’m not ready.”
“Oh.” Miranda doubts the story, first because it comes from Igor and second because she likes Mrs. Sanderson, who is girlish in a way most ladies outgrow by the time they have four kids. And she’s devoted to her family, as Miranda knows from babysitting for her a couple of times.
Igor sneezes, then digs around in his jacket pocket and pulls out two Kleenexes. He stuffs the ends into each nostril so they’re hanging out of his nose like ropes of snot. “I’m having science problems.”
He probably doesn’t even know he meant sinus. Miranda heaves a disgusted sigh and continues on to Pasternak Senior’s. Fifteen minutes later, on her way home, Igor is no longer on the curb. She knew he was faking all along.
• • •
What is it?
A little shelter built of worn gray boards,
A friendly bench to sit on, a sturdy roof to keep off the rain.
The bus rolls sadly by the empty bench—
Who is it?
“It doesn’t rhyme,” Shelly says, the day after Miranda has finished her poem and typed it up. Shelly finished hers too; it’s in the notebook on her lap.
“Mrs. Evangeline says poetry doesn’t have to rhyme. In fact, sometimes it’s better if it doesn’t.”
“How come you centered it like that?”
“Because it’s a kind of poem called diamante. That means ‘like a diamond.’ So the middle line’s the longest, and the beginning and end are the shortest.”
“Oh.” The bus stops to pick up Pat and Pat, the Henderson twins, who edge down the aisle to the middle seat.
“Do you…um…do you like it?”
“Like what?” Shelly is staring at the top of Alice’s head. Alice is on the seat directly in front of them, bent over a book as usual. Her pale hair gleams like spun silver in a low beam of sunlight. “Oh, the poem? I guess so. I never thought too hard about who’s supposed to be waiting at that shelter. Now you’ve got me wondering.”
That’s a good thing, Miranda decides. She would have liked Shelly to say something nice about the poem itself, but maybe it’s good that the poem makes her think about something besides dance music and costumes. “Where’s yours?”
“Here.” Shelly opens the notebook and thrusts it at her. “I haven’t had time to work on it much.”
Miranda scans the page, over which Shelly’s sprawling print seems to sprawl more than usual:
You are my everything, my everything.
I long for the day when you give me your ring.
You are pizza and candy and diamonds and boats.
Your roses, roller skates and root beer floats.
When I'm thinking of you I go all catatonic
On Friday please call me I'll meet you at Sonic.
“So?” asks Shelly. “What do you think?”
“It’s…got real stuff in it. That’s good. Mrs. Evangeline says you should write about what you know.”
“You mean like Sonic? I got the idea when my dad and I stopped for cherry limeades after guitar lesson yesterday. So that’s good?”
“Uh-huh. What’s ‘catatonic’?”
“I forget. I asked Dad what rhymes with Sonic. What else is good?”
“Well…in the fourth line, you’ve got three words that sta
rt with R. That’s called alliteration.”
“Cool!” Shelly beams. “I’m a poet and don’t know it! What else?”
“Um. It rhymes.”
“Yeah.” Shelly bites a corner off her fingernail, which doesn’t really have a corner left. “In other words, it sucks.”
“I didn’t say that—”
“It does, though.” She flicks Miranda’s paper with her finger. “Yours sounds—smart. Mine sounds stupid.”
“Well…” Miranda can’t deny it. “Mrs. Evangeline says you should write about your own experience. Since you don’t have any boyfriends yet, you could write about some of the stuff you go through. Like with your Uncle Mike.”
“Write about stuff that makes me barf? No thanks. Let’s just say I can’t be good at everything. If you could make it a little better, at least I can turn something in and get a participation ribbon. Okay?”
“But Shelly—they’re due today.”
“What? What about if I get an extension?”
Miranda shook her head. “Mrs. Evangeline said that’s the absolute deadline, no exceptions, so she can get them printed up by December.”
“Oh yeah.” Shelly slams her head back against the seat as the bus stops to pick up Harley and Stella. Revving up again, the back wheel hits a bump. “Wait, I’ve got a better idea!”
Something tells Miranda she’s not going to like this idea.
“What if I put my name on your poem?” Shelly rushes on before Miranda can protest. “See, you’ve already got your story and your description in the language arts fair and both of those are going to get ones. So you could share a teensy little poem with me and I could get a one too, because it’s that good, and it would look great on my scholarship application!”
She looks so sparkly Miranda is wondering why she can’t catch a spark. “But…”
Somebody on This Bus Is Going to Be Famous Page 7
