“I’m always curious to know why you do the things you do, Annie.”
“Because Miss Meadows doesn’t like me anymore, that’s why!”
“Really?”— big frown —“I was under the impression she likes you immensely.”
“She used to,” Annie says. “But not anymore. I never had a teacher who didn’t like me before,” she adds gravely. “Miss Kim used to like me. Every single day of second grade.”
“Miss Kim was a big fan,” Professor Rossi agrees.
“And do you remember Mrs. Levine? She was my first-grade teacher, and she liked me a lot. Even the time I said Pamela Miller was fat, she didn’t stay mad.” Annie sighs. “Mrs. Levine understood a little first grader couldn’t be perfect every second of the day.”
“Yes, Mrs. Levine understood a great many things about first graders.”
“Miss Meadows doesn’t understand anything at all about third graders.” Annie is getting sadder by the minute.
“Professor Rossi! Over here!” The group her father calls his Senior Writing Seminar kids are waiting under a big leafy tree. These kids (according to her father) like writing stories, and every Tuesday someone gets to read his or her story to the rest of the class.
“Hello, writers!” Professor Rossi picks up his pace and calls, “Come on, Annie!”
“But I’m in the middle of my story,” Annie mumbles as her father settles under the tree with his students. Apparently, their stories are more interesting than hers. Fine! She’ll sit under another tree, then — a nearby tree, where she can spy on her father and his dumb old class. There are five boy writers and four girl writers lounging over there. Two of the boys and three of the girls have kicked off their shoes! Annie pulls off her shoes and puts them on the grass next to her school bag. She wraps her arms around her knees, crushing her good dress. Professor Rossi waves and Annie waves back. She makes sure it is a sad little wave so he remembers Miss Meadows doesn’t like her anymore. Miss Meadows, who makes you go to the school office and sit there all by yourself during recess . . .
“Annie? Is that Annie Rossi?”
Annie squints into the late afternoon sun. Miss Meadows? Impossible. Not now. Not here at the university. Why, you never see your teacher in the world! Only in school.
“What a wonderful surprise!” And here she is, Annie’s very own teacher, sitting on the grass beside Annie, acting as if she hadn’t been mean that very morning. “I thought I recognized your father with his class over there.” Smiling of all things, and pretending to be friendly! “It must be so much fun to teach outside on a day like this . . .”
Maybe, if she weren’t so mad at Miss Meadows, Annie would be friendly back. Maybe she would even like having her teacher all to herself. But, of course, she is mad, and she intends to stay mad for the rest of her life.
“By the way, Annie, I looked over your spelling homework this afternoon and, bravo, your sentences are wonderful,” says Miss Meadows. “I was hoping you might read them to the class tomorrow. We all appreciate the way you turn your spelling homework into these catchy little stories.”
“Catchy little stories!” Annie is beginning to feel a little less mad at Miss Meadows.
“Oh, and this fell out of your notebook.” Miss Meadows digs in her school bag. “It seemed rather special, so I put it in my bag for safekeeping,” she explains. “Here, Annie.”
“My picture!” Annie gasps with relief. Don’t cry now! Not in front of your teacher!
“Cute girl.” Miss Meadows looks carefully at the picture, then Annie, then again at the picture. “She looks just like you.”
“It’s my mother,” Annie whispers.
“I thought it might be,” Miss Meadows whispers back.
Annie puts the picture in her blue school bag. It’s best not to think about her mother right now. She needs to concentrate on something else — on making Miss Meadows like her again. But how, Annie wonders, how, how, how? Miss Meadows likes children who are kind and children who show respect. Why, she is always telling the kids in room 107, “We must be respectful and kind, boys and girls!” But Annie is respectful! And extremely kind! Didn’t she make breakfast today in honor of her father’s birthday? And bring cupcakes to his office?
“Today is my father’s birthday,” Annie hears herself tell Miss Meadows. “We had cupcakes in his office. My idea,” she adds with just the right touch of modesty, “so he wouldn’t be lonely.”
“I adore cupcakes,” confides Miss Meadows. “And birthdays . . . and birthday presents!”
“Me, too,” Annie confides right back. “Only this year I didn’t give him a present.”
“Oh!”
“We were supposed to get a dog. . . .” Annie is grim. “That was the plan.”
“But?”
“Some people aren’t that comfortable with dogs.” Rolling her eyes to the sky.
“I assume you are a person who is very comfortable with dogs,” guesses Miss Meadows.
“Yes.”
Miss Meadows nods in a way that means she likes dogs, too, and then she says, “My father likes pictures.” (Miss Meadows has a father!) “When I was a little girl, I often made him a picture for his birthday.”
“My father likes books,” Annie says. “I wish I could make him a book.”
“Maybe you can.”
“Only grownups write books, Miss Meadows.” But even as she says it, Annie is thinking about another book, Remembering Mrs. Rossi. Grownups didn’t write that! The kids in room 222 did!
“Maybe you could write a short book,” suggests Miss Meadows. “Maybe”— thinking —“oh, here’s an idea! How about a birthday card, Annie, with a story inside? A story by Annie inside!”
A story by Annie inside! Annie giggles at the thought of it. Annie the author!
“Ah, so you like my idea?” Miss Meadows looks pleased.
Annie nods. “But . . . what kind of story?”
“Hmmm.” Miss Meadows wrinkles her nose and thinks. “Well”— more thinking —“it’s always good to write about something you know,” she points out. “Better yet, about someone . . . or maybe a whole family you know.”
Annie opens her school bag. She takes out her mother’s picture again. “Maybe a story about my family,” she says slowly, “and we get a dog . . . and . . .”
Miss Meadows blinks in the sunlight and moves a tiny bit closer to Annie. “What a wonderful idea!” She starts digging around in her big bag again. “Here, Annie, you can borrow this if you like, my favorite pen.” She puts a very green and very fancy pen in Annie’s hand. “A story this important deserves a special pen.”
Annie’s teacher is giving her a special pen!
“Just bring it back to school tomorrow.” Miss Meadows stands up and brushes off her skirt. “Now I have to go to school,” she says.
“You do?”
Miss Meadows points to Sherman Hall. “Right up there in room 303, that’s where I’m taking one of those ‘how to be a better teacher’ classes. I’m always here at the university on Tuesdays,” she says with a friendly shrug. “Always trying to be a better third-grade teacher.”
Annie wants to say, But you’re the best third-grade teacher already! She doesn’t, though. After all, she is still a teeny bit mad at Miss Meadows.
An hour past Annie’s official bedtime, she is still sitting up in her bed, still a bit jumpy for sleep. Besides, it’s important to go over everything one more time.
“Okay, Daddy. What was the best part of your birthday?” she asks. (She has already asked the same question. Several times.) “Your favorite part.”
“There were quite a few favorite parts, Annie. There’s your story, of course — which I have every intention of reading to my Senior Writing Seminar kids next Tuesday. Nobody ever wrote a story just for me before,” he adds in a serious tone of voice.
“Let’s talk about how funny my story is.”
“Oh yes. It’s quite amusing, Annie. Love that title! But beyond that, your story has
heart and, as you well know, my very favorite stories are the ones with heart.”
“And do you like how I put Mommy’s picture on the cover?” (They have already talked about the cover. Several times.)
“Yes. It’s the most wonderful picture of Mommy.” Professor Rossi does not seem to tire of saying this. “To think, she once had a dog named Miss Phoebe! And to think, you were the one who figured it out! Excellent spy work, Annie.”
“Are you sorry we didn’t have a real birthday cake, the usual kind?” Annie worries. “Did it make you sad?”
“Sad? Baloney!” He laughs. “Why, that was the best cupcake I ever ate, ever! Scrumptious!”
“I don’t know how to bake a real birthday cake,” Annie says. And then, “Nothing’s the same without Mommy.”
“I miss her, too.”
“Daddy. I forgot . . . I forgot to tell her.” Annie feels a lump rising in her throat. “At the hospital that night . . . I forgot to say, I love you. . . . Now Mommy doesn’t know!” Annie swallows and swallows, but the tears squirt out.
Professor Rossi picks up Annie’s hand. He counts the fingers on her hand and slowly folds down each finger. “Oh, you said it, all right.” He nods with conviction. “Not only that night, Annie, but as I recall — and I certainly do recall — you and Mommy were always saying, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you!’”
“Really?” Annie whispers. “Do you promise?”
“Promise.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Daddy”— more worries —“what if I stop remembering Mommy?”
“We’ll always remember Mommy,” he says. “We always will, and there is another promise. Now sleep, Annie. Tomorrow’s school. Unless, of course, you’re still planning to quit school.”
Annie yawns. “Maybe I’ll go. Miss Meadows needs me,” she explains. “She needs me to read to the class.”
“Okay, then, I will see you in the morning.” Professor Rossi bends down and kisses Annie on the top of her head, and then on both cheeks.
“Daddy?” Two more yawns.
“Yes, Annie?”
“You have to have one best thing about your birthday,” she says. “One favorite thing.”
“YOU.” Professor Rossi turns off the light. “YOU are the best thing, definitely.”
Annie sinks into her fluffy pillow. “Happy birthday,” she says. “Good night!”
The window is open a crack, and the moon is right where it should be. There! In front of Annie’s window! A big yellow half-moon, and she goes to sleep in the light of the half-moon.
Annie Rossi is trying to do a perfect handstand on the beach. Feet up! Stay up! Feet up! It is her fourth try this morning, her tenth try this week — her hundredth try this summer! “Maybe you’re just not a handstand kind of girl,” her father had said (several times), and perhaps he meant to be helpful. But his words had deeply offended Annie. Why can’t she be a handstand kind of girl? Her friend Helen is quite accomplished in this regard. Helen lives next door every summer on Pineapple Street, and this summer she is ten. Whenever she does a handstand, her feet stay right where they should, high in the air, and she never flops over like Annie, who is still only 8¾. (Helen is also quite good at floating on waves. And backbends.) Annie knows she should be pleased to have a friend who is so accomplished, but deep down it annoys her.
Feet up! Stay up! Feet up . . . Yes, she’s doing it! Then thunk. She flops into the sand. At this moment, however, nothing can spoil Annie’s good mood — not even a thousand bad handstands in a row! After all, the sun is out. The sea is calm. Her bathing suit is pretty. And best of all, she has just met the brand-new baby on Pineapple Street. (The brand-new baby happens to be Helen’s brother — which, Annie supposes, is just another accomplishment for Helen.) His name is James, and now that Annie has seen him with her very own eyes, all she can think about is James! All she wants to talk about is James!
“Did you see his little feet, Daddy, did you?” Annie drops to the sand beside her father.
“Mm-hmm.” Professor Rossi is scribbling away in his brown notebook. (He’s been doing that a lot on the beach this summer.)
“And how about those toes!” Annie exclaims, sprinkling sand on her father’s long toes. “I’ve never seen such tiny toes before.”
Professor Rossi looks up. “I seem to remember inspecting your toes, Annie, the day you were born.”
“You did not!” Annie giggles.
“Ten fine toes.” Professor Rossi chooses his words, pretending to be ever so serious. “I found them very interesting,” he says, waving his pencil in the air.
“What about Mommy? Did she inspect, too?”
“Mommy?” Professor Rossi’s eyes are wide. “Why, Mommy was the inspector general,” he declares. “She was the boss of counting, Annie, and we counted everything that day — toes, fingers, ears . . .”
“And Mommy knew I was perfect. And she carried me all the way home . . . in my yellow baby blanket.”
“Oh yes, Mommy knew a perfect baby when she saw one.” Professor Rossi smiles briefly. Then he goes back to his notebook, back to being boring.
A nice new baby to play with, right next door! What could be better than that! Well, a brother of my own — the thought suddenly occurs to Annie — that would definitely be better. And the more she thinks about it, the more she wishes James could be her baby brother, not Helen’s. It makes her mad somehow. Some people have all the luck — people like Helen.
Annie has been told many times, of course, and in many different ways, not to be jealous of someone else’s good fortune. But it seems to her certain people (such as Helen Cooper) have tons of good fortune, while certain other people (such as Annie Rossi) do not. Helen Cooper is allowed to walk to town without a grownup! (Annie Rossi is not.) Helen Cooper is allowed to swim out to the second buoy! (Annie Rossi is not.) Helen Cooper has a subscription to Movie Star magazine! (Annie Rossi does not.) And now this, a baby brother. It just isn’t fair. Annie lets out a very long sigh so that anyone nearby (such as her father) knows it isn’t fair. But he is scribbling away and crossing out and scribbling and crossing out. Her sigh goes unnoticed.
“Well, goodbye,” announces Annie, brushing sand off her legs.
“Goodbye?”
“Yes.” She stands abruptly. “I have work to do.”
“No kidding! You’re actually going to make your bed today?”
“No, Daddy. I’m talking about important work, because the Coopers need my help with the baby.”
“Ah.” Her father looks up from his important work and nods. “They certainly did look a bit frazzled over there. Newborns have a tendency to wreak havoc, as I recall, in an otherwise normal household.”
“Havoc, havoc, havoc!” Annie laughs as she races up the beach. She can’t wait to get another look at that baby.
The Coopers have a porch and a door that creaks, just like the Rossis. Unlike the Rossis, they have a dog — Al. As a rule, Al spends his days running up and down the beach, in and out of the ocean. He barks often and happily. (He especially seems to enjoy barking at Professor Rossi.) At this moment though, standing next to Annie on the porch, Al is absolutely quiet. His nose is pressed against the screen door, and no part of him moves, not even his tail. Annie kneels down and puts her arms around Al, and together they look in the house. It is very dark inside.
“Hello?” Annie calls. “Anybody home?”
“Hi.” Helen appears on the other side of the door.
Al scrambles to his feet. He begins to scratch at the door and whimper.
“I’ve just been holding James,” Helen whispers. “He likes when I hold him.”
“Can I hold James?” Annie whispers back, through the screen.
“Only family members get to hold him today. He’s a newborn,” Helen explains in a voice that makes her sound unmistakably wise.
“How about tomorrow?” Annie offers. “I could come over in the morning to hold him if you w
ant. I could be here at seven.”
Scratch, scratch, whimper (this, from Al).
“Cut it out, Al.” Helen flicks two fingers on the screen. “There’s a baby in here.”
“I guess he wants to play with James.” Annie smiles so Helen remembers they are good summer friends — best summer friends! “Can we come in?”
“Not now. James is sleeping,” Helen explains in her new wise way.
“I won’t make noise,” promises Annie.
“I know. But you might have germs.”
Germs! Annie sincerely hopes she doesn’t have germs of any kind. Of course, if anyone would know about this sort of thing, it would be Helen. Just yesterday, she was plain old Helen. But now, Annie realizes, she seems to know all kinds of important things. And if she says Annie has germs, well, she probably does!
“I better go,” Helen says from the other side of the door. “In case James wakes up. He likes if I’m there when he opens his eyes.”
“Do you want to come down to the beach?” Annie smiles. “My father could take us swimming.”
“Maybe later.” Helen turns to go. “I’m a big sister now,” (as if Annie needs reminding), “and you know what that means. I have responsibilities.”
“I have responsibilities,” Annie tells Al in a tone of voice that sounds very wise. They are sitting on the Rossi’s front porch, the two of them, in the hammock. Annie is looking at pictures, trying to decide which ones to put in her summer scrapbook. When she comes to a picture of Helen doing a cartwheel on the beach, Annie chooses not to put it in her scrapbook. “We don’t like Helen,” she whispers cheerfully to Al.
Suddenly, the sun disappears behind a cloud. Professor Rossi is still on the beach and still going scribble, scribble, scribble in that old brown notebook. But now he looks up and waves to Annie. Annie waves back. “Hello!” she calls across the sand. “I bet you want to go swimming!”
Her father waves again. A wave that means, Not just yet, Annie. I’m doing something important . . . Anyway, that ocean is looking a little too choppy right now for swimming. . . .
Grownups! The most boring people in the world certainly are grownups. Scribble, scribble, scribble, all summer long. And they won’t even let you see their boring old notebooks — they won’t even let you peek — grownups and their big-deal secrets! “Some things I write are not for sharing, Annie. At least, not yet.” Well, fine. Because it just so happens, she has secrets, too. Good ones! Annie rolls and rocks the hammock and starts to count her secrets:
Remembering Mrs. Rossi (9780763670900) Page 4
