Azalea, Unschooled

by Liza Kleinman

  He looked up from the paper, amused. “The first phone system in Portland consisted of two telephones connected to each other?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “And the place where that coal company office used to be is right next to your pickup spot. Now it’s that restaurant with the deck that overlooks a parking lot instead of the water. You could point it out right when you start the tour.”

  Dad looked down and kept reading.

  “Two: Lincoln Park was created after the fire of 1866. The area used to have a lot of wooden buildings, but they burned in the fire. City workers decided that having a rectangle of open space in the city would help keep another fire from sweeping through.”

  “You pass right by that little park on your tour,” I explained. I pointed at the paper. “You also go right near the Abyssinian Meeting House, which is believed to have been a stop on the Underground Railroad. You should talk about that.”

  “Azalea!” Mom said, reading over Dad’s shoulder. “This is wonderful! Thank you.”

  Zenith quit pretending to ignore us and joined the conversation.

  “Where did you get all of this stuff?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Library. Museums. Books. I thought since I was collecting it anyway, I might as well give Dad a list. Something for the tour.”

  Dad looked grateful and embarrassed both.

  “Thank you, Azalea. This will be very useful, I’m sure.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  I hoped Zenith was properly jealous of me and how helpful I was. If she was, she hid it well.

  “I’m going to keep this right up front with my notes,” Dad said. He folded the paper carefully and slid it into his shirt pocket. Then he headed for the front door.

  “Have a good day!” Mom called after him.

  “Bye!” I yelled. The door shut, and Dad was gone.

  We did not have swimming that day, so Zenith and I had a lazy morning ahead of us until she had to be at school.

  Zenith packed her bag with her math book, notebook, and pencils. I drew planets on a sheet of paper. I had studied the existing planets with Mom, back when I homeschooled. I decided that as an unschooler, I would invent a few of my own. I looked through my box of colored pencils and selected an orange one.

  Then, about a half an hour after Dad had left, he was back. He stalked into the living room.

  “What is it?” Mom asked, looking up from her journal.

  I had a feeling that she was still writing down how Zenith and I spent our time, a habit from homeschool days. Yesterday’s entry probably said: Zenith created an educational adventure by exploring the urban environment on her bicycle. Azalea got glue everywhere. (I’d been trying to build a toothpick aquarium. For a while, before I tried adding the water, it had seemed like a really excellent idea.)

  “There are nails sticking out of the tire,” Dad said.

  I didn’t understand at first. I thought he was talking about the car.

  “What do you mean?” asked Mom. “The bus rolled over a nail and now it’s stuck in the tire?”

  The bus. Of course.

  “No,” said Dad. “I mean, someone took a hammer and pounded half a dozen nails into the right front tire of the vehicle. It wasn’t an accident. Someone put them there very deliberately.”

  Mom rested her forehead against the palm of her hand.

  “Why is this happening?” she asked.

  Zenith and I just stood there. I was holding my breath, and had to remind myself to breathe.

  “I don’t know,” Dad said.

  “Call the police,” Mom insisted. “This needs to be addressed. Call the police.”

  “What are the police going to do?” Dad asked wearily. “I don’t think they’re going to assign a special task force to ferret out a tire nailer.”

  “Maybe they could find some clues,” I said helpfully. In books I had read, bad guys always left clues, and usually children found them and solved the mystery.

  “There were no clues,” Dad assured me. “People don’t leave fingerprints on tires, and even if they did, no one is going to waste time on something like that.”

  “You’re certainly determined to make sure nothing gets done about this,” Mom said grimly.

  “Are you making this my fault?” Dad asked.

  Zenith cleared her throat. “It’s time for my class.”

  Mom grabbed the car keys, but she didn’t move. Instead, she asked Dad, “Now what?”

  “Now I wait until three o’clock, which is the earliest I could get a service person to come to the garage and replace the tire. And I miss a day’s work.”

  I had a feeling that this wasn’t what Mom meant. She was probably thinking about those llamas in Texas. I knew I was, and it was a pretty safe bet that Zenith was, too. But we all acted like she was talking about the repair.

  As the three of us headed out the door, I turned toward Dad. I felt sad that no one was saying good-bye to him. “See you later,” I said, but he didn’t seem to hear.

  In the car, no one spoke. Some tiny thought picked away at me, trying to make itself heard, and then finally it spoke up in my mind, loud and clear.

  Nola.

  The whole time Nola had been away, nothing bad had happened to the bus. Now she was back from camp, and there were nails sticking out of one of its tires.

  It all made sense.

  Nola must hate me more than ever now. Since she’d been back, she’d hung around on the edges of the boat project, complaining and trying to get Gabby to do something else. If she spoke to me at all, it was to whine about the noise from the tools, or the smell from the epoxy, or whatever else was bothering her. She hadn’t ever been interested in working on the boat, it turned out; she just liked to be at the center of whatever was going on. And she liked to order Gabby around. If Zenith and I moved away, she would have Gabby all to herself again.

  After Mom dropped Zenith at school, she let me off downtown in front of Basil’s Grab Bag, a store that had a little bit of everything, though not necessarily what you needed at any given time. Gabby and I were meeting there to do some shopping while Mom did errands.

  “I’ll be back in half an hour, Azalea,” Mom reminded me for the hundredth time as she pulled over to the curb in front of the store. “Please be waiting outside for me.”

  “Okay, Mom,” I said.

  Spirit’s car pulled up behind us, and Gabby sprang out onto the sidewalk. I got out of our car and the two of us hurried inside.

  “I have a list of stuff I need,” Gabby said. “Do you think they have string here? I need a lot of it. Also, some new flip-flops.”

  But I had more pressing business. I grabbed Gabby’s shoulder as we walked past a display of beach balls and sand chairs.

  “You’ll never guess what happened.”

  “What?”

  “It’s the bus again. The unschool bus. Someone put nails in one of the tires.”

  Gabby whirled to face me. “No!”

  “Yes. Someone is determined to force us out of Maine.”

  I wasn’t quite ready to say Nola’s name. Meanwhile, I liked the way my voice sounded, kind of quivery and frightened.

  “It sounds like it,” Gabby agreed. She stared into the distance, eyes narrowed, like a detective in a movie. I wondered if this was the time to mention Nola. Then Gabby pointed toward an aisle that was labeled HARDWARE.

  “We need to look there,” she announced.

  “For string? Or flip-flops?”

  “Neither. We need to look at nails. We need to learn everything we can about them, and then we’ll go to the bus and see what kind of nails the vandal put in it, and we’ll figure out what kind of person would use them.”

  “You mean, like, based on personality?”

  An exasperated look flickered across Gabby’s face; for the briefest second she reminded me of Zenith.

  “No. Based on job. Or hobby. Are they nails a carpenter would use? Are they the kind of nails you would use to
make something small, like a box for tips, if you were a competing tour company?”

  I couldn’t take it any longer. “Or the kind you would use to build a boat?”

  “What?”

  “What if the vandal is someone we know? Someone who has access to nails because of the boatbuilding project.”

  Gabby looked bewildered. “Who on earth are you talking about?”

  I waited until a customer finished selecting a box of sandpaper and moved into a different aisle.

  “Gabby, haven’t you noticed how much Nola hates me? And it was her uncle who owned the bus. Maybe he left his keys behind when he moved, and she took them. Maybe she’s doing all this so my family will have to move away.”

  I hadn’t even told Gabby about the llamas yet. Just thinking about them made me want to cry.

  Gabby laughed. “Come on. Seriously. Who do you think is doing this?”

  I paused. I stirred my finger through a bin of bolts.

  “I think it’s Nola. Nothing bad happened the whole time she was at camp, and she comes back to town, and boom! There are nails in the unschool bus tire. And you know perfectly well that she can’t stand having me around. You know it’s true.”

  “Azalea!” Gabby cried. Her eyes filled. “I know you and Nola haven’t exactly hit it off, but that doesn’t mean you can go around accusing her of crimes!”

  I looked at the floor.

  “I didn’t accuse her. I’m just saying that I think a lot of the evidence points to her.”

  It seemed like a phrase Gabby would use.

  “What evidence?”

  “I already told you. She obviously doesn’t like me. Maybe she never wanted her uncle to move away. Maybe she doesn’t like that my family took over his bus.”

  The more I said it, the more possible it seemed.

  But Gabby was shaking her head slowly.

  “And the timing,” I continued. “You have to admit, it looks pretty bad for her.”

  “I can’t believe you’d think that. I can’t believe you are standing here telling me you actually think that Nola vandalized your family’s bus. Twice.”

  “I didn’t say I was sure,” I said quickly. “I just said it seemed like a possibility.”

  “Well, don’t say it again,” said Gabby.

  I followed her in silence around the store as she collected and then paid for her items. We left the air-conditioned cool of the building to wait on the sidewalk for our mothers. Everything looked shimmery in the heat, and the buildings did not seem familiar. I felt as if I were lost and alone in an unknown city.

  Spirit’s car arrived first, and Gabby hurried over to open the door. She didn’t look back at me, or wave. She left without saying a word.

  I laid low for the next few days, avoiding any mention of Gabby at home so no one would know we’d had a fight. The last thing I felt like doing was talking about it. I didn’t need to hear my whole family saying what a dumb idea it had been to tell someone that you suspected her good friend of being a bus wrecker. I already knew.

  Luckily we were pretty busy, so no one noticed that I hadn’t seen or spoken to Gabby. After we had swimming in the morning, Mom took Zenith and me shopping for desks, which she said we ought to have in our room. If Zenith was going to spend half her time solving math problems, Mom said, she should be able to sit up straight while she did it. I didn’t feel like I needed a desk, but if Zenith was getting one, I wanted one, too.

  Mom dragged us through half a dozen dusty secondhand stores, looking for two desks that sort of matched. This project took two afternoons, and it kept Zenith interested enough that she didn’t mention going to Gabby’s to work on the boat. Then it was the Fourth of July, which turned out to be Dad’s busiest day of the season. He barely had time for a break, so Mom, Zenith, and I met him at his stop with lunch and snacks. That evening, we all went to watch fireworks. We spread a blanket on the small patch of grass we’d staked out on the hill overlooking the bay. It seemed like the whole city was out there. I wondered if Gabby was somewhere in the crowd.

  I was finishing lunch a day or two later when Mom walked into the kitchen, waving her phone.

  “That was Spirit,” she said. “Good news! She’s invited us to a party she’s giving this weekend. A midsummer celebration.”

  “Like a late Fourth of July party? Or a solstice party?” I asked. “Even though both those things already happened?”

  I tried to sound casual, unalarmed. I wondered if Gabby had told Spirit about what happened. Was Spirit mad at me, too? Was a midsummer celebration really a say-good-riddance-to-friends-you-no-longer-like party?

  “It’s not for solstice or Fourth of July. Spirit says it’s a celebration of the full moon and friendship and all the energies being aligned.” Mom waved her hand vaguely. “You know Spirit. Anyway, it’ll be nice.”

  She didn’t give any sign that she knew about my argument with Gabby.

  “Is it, like, a good-bye party?” asked Zenith, reading my mind. “Like, a nice-to-have-known-you-for-a-short-time-before-you-move-on-to-your-next-place party?”

  “No one’s moving on to a next place right now,” my mother said sharply. “What makes you think that?”

  “Logic,” said Zenith. “The same set of conditions will always lead to the same outcome. It’s just a question of when.”

  Mom drew a breath to begin arguing with Zenith, but I interrupted.

  “I don’t know if I feel like going to a party,” I mumbled.

  Mom put a hand on my forehead. “Don’t you feel well?” she asked, her face full of concern.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m getting sick.”

  Mom touched her lips to my face expertly.

  “You don’t have a fever.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Is there something wrong?”

  “No. I’m just going to go lie down.”

  I went into the bedroom and shut the door.

  A few minutes later, Zenith came in.

  “What’s this about, Azalea?”

  “Nothing. And I could ask you the same thing. What was that about with Mom, and the logical outcome?”

  “You know exactly what I meant. There was never any chance we were going to last here. We’ll be lucky if we even get to see the boat finished.”

  I had been lying on top of my bed. Now I pulled the quilt over myself up to my chin. “It’s almost done. We just have to paint it.”

  Except that I wouldn’t be painting any boat. Not with Gabby not speaking to me. It looked like Nola had finally gotten what she wanted: Gabby, all to herself.

  “I’m sure there will be plenty of llama barns for us to paint in the near future,” Zenith said. She paused. “So what is it, anyway? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Yes, it’s something,” said Zenith. “You’ve been moping around for, like, two days. And you haven’t been talking about Gabby. Did you have a fight?”

  “No,” I said, but my voice got thick and my face crumpled.

  “You told her that idea of yours about Nola, didn’t you?” Zenith asked. But her voice wasn’t mean and knowing. It was kind, and a little sad.

  “Yeah.”

  “Listen,” said Zenith. “Don’t say that to her again. Just drop it.”

  I nodded.

  “And don’t get all upset. Fights happen. Mom and Dad fight. You and I fight. But it doesn’t last forever, right?”

  “Right,” I said, wiping my nose with my wrist.

  Zenith made a face and handed me a tissue from a box on her dresser.

  “So this one won’t, either. I bet you’ll patch it up right away at the party.”

  “Thanks,” I told Zenith. “I hope you’re right.”

  “I’m on a streak,” she said.

  Chapter 10

  Unschool Reunion

  Spirit had told her guests to come at around eight-thirty, so we could all be together when darkness fell and the full moon made her glorious appearance in the sky.

  Aft
er dinner, Zenith dressed carefully, pulling on a skirt and running a brush through her thick, straight hair. I ran a brush over mine, too, being careful not to get the bristles in too deep, so they didn’t get caught in the tangles.

  I didn’t feel like getting dressed up. I didn’t even feel like going. I wondered if Gabby would talk to me. Even worse—I wondered if she had told Nola what I’d said. I imagined the two of them, huddled together, whispering about me, following me with glaring, angry eyes when I walked past. I almost hoped that Zenith was right—that we would move again soon.

  Except that wasn’t what I wanted at all.

  Dad drove us all to Gabby’s, with Mom directing. He had never been there before.

  It took us a while to find a place to park on the street, because there were so many cars. Spirit must have invited a lot of people over. We had to walk to their house from a ways down the street, and when I pointed out the house to Dad, his eyebrows lifted.

  “Wow,” he said. He turned to Mom. “I see what you mean.”

  “About what?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “He means that Spirit has a lot of money,” Zenith told me.

  I thought about this.

  Rich people, as far as I knew, had servants and long, fancy cars, and ate food off silver trays with covers that the servants removed. Spirit, Gabby, and Gibran didn’t live that way. On the other hand, I’d never heard anything about Spirit having a job, and they did have that large house filled with beautiful things, and that silent car. Was this another way to be rich—a sort of secret way? And how did Zenith know?

  I wondered what else everyone knew that I didn’t.

  The front door was open, and we could hear voices and laughter from inside. Normally I went in through the back door, but there seemed to be some kind of party rule in place. We entered the house and wove through the crowd, looking for Spirit. I looked around for Gabby but didn’t see her. Maybe she was purposely avoiding me, watching me from some distant corner, sharing jokes and secrets with Nola.