Zenith said nothing. She tilted her head slightly—a nod.
“And do you want to tell me that reason?”
Mom laid a hand on Dad’s arm.
“Maybe we should discuss this tomorrow,” she said shakily, “when everyone is calmer.”
“I’m perfectly calm,” Dad said, “and we will discuss it now. Zenith, why did you misbehave in such a spectacular way?”
I had begun to shiver a little. I sat down on my bed and Mom sat next to me, putting her arm around me.
“Because I figured we were going to end up leaving here anyway, so I thought I’d just speed up the process.”
“And why did you think we were going to end up leaving here?”
“Because we always do,” mumbled Zenith.
Then she grew bolder.
“No matter what I did to the bus, things were going to end the same way. You can’t make a year-round living doing seasonal bus tours. And I heard you talking about Texas, anyway.”
“I was talking about Texas,” said Dad slowly, each word an icy shard, “because someone was sabotaging my tour business.”
“That’s not true!” I shouted.
Suddenly, I was angry with Dad, not Zenith.
“There was only the one time with the spray-painting, right at the beginning. Then everything was going fine. You were talking about the llamas before the thing with the tires happened. Zenith is right! You move us from place to place and try job after job, and we never get to stay anywhere!”
Zenith nodded in agreement.
How had we gotten to be on the same side?
Dad looked from Zenith to me.
“I’m just trying to do what’s best for the family. That’s all I’ve ever . . .”
His voice caught. He cleared his throat as though he planned to continue, but he didn’t. He sat on the corner of Zenith’s desk and looked down at his hands.
Now Mom spoke. “Zenith, are you unhappy here?”
Zenith was crying again.
“No,” she said. “Not really. At first I was, I guess, but now I like my class, and going to the beach, and doing stuff with Azalea and Gabby.”
Had I heard right? Zenith liked doing stuff with me?
“I like doing stuff with you, too,” I sniffed.
“And I am too a real part of the family,” Zenith shot at me.
Mom got up from my bed and went over to her.
“Of course you are,” she said, hugging her. “Who said you’re not?”
“Azalea,” she said in a muffled voice, up against Mom.
“Well,” I said defensively, “she’s always in a bad mood about something. And she doesn’t even really unschool, because she goes to school some of the time.”
“That has nothing to do with whether she’s a real part of the family,” said Mom. “We’re a family because we love each other, not because we never get in bad moods or because we unschool.”
I imagined her saying something like this to the sweet potato lady, something firm and kind and impossible to argue with. She was probably an excellent life coach.
“I think,” said Dad, “that we need to do some negotiating.”
Everyone looked at him. He stood with his arms folded, his face tense.
“First, we all need a promise from Zenith that nothing like this will ever happen again.”
“It won’t,” she said softly. She looked around at all of us. “I’m sorry.”
“I know you are,” Dad said. “I am, too. I’m sorry you’ve been unhappy about moving, and I’m sorry that you chose this way to communicate your unhappiness.”
“What’s the rest of the negotiation?” I asked.
We had dwelt on Zenith’s mistakes long enough. It was Dad’s turn to offer something.
Dad sat heavily on Zenith’s bed. We waited for him to speak.
“The rest of the negotiation is, first, me saying that I’m sorry. I’m sorry we’ve moved around a lot. I’m sorry things haven’t always worked out.”
Haven’t ever worked out, I could hear Zenith thinking.
“I’ve always tried to do what’s best for all of us. All the different moves we’ve made, they’ve been for our family—so we can have the best possible life.”
“We know that,” Mom said, but Zenith and I said nothing.
“I guess it’s been for me, too, though,” Dad went on. “I guess some part of all that moving has been selfish. I wanted to have my own business, not work for someone else. I wanted to chart my own course.” He smiled a little. “Like an unschooler.”
“We can understand that,” Zenith told him.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I guess that makes sense.”
Dad nodded. “And I can understand how you all want to stay here.”
“All?” I asked.
“That’s right,” Mom said. “I want us to stay here, too. Dad and I have been discussing this for a while now. He and I have not entirely seen eye to eye.”
“I’m rethinking my position,” Dad said, “and I think it’s pretty clear that we have a consensus. Everyone wants to stay.”
Mom still had an arm around Zenith.
“You’re sure?” she asked Dad. “I want us all to be sure.”
“I am now,” Dad told us.
I didn’t dare look at Zenith. I didn’t move. I didn’t want to undo the moment.
“I know we can make it work here,” Mom said, her voice full of energy. “I’m getting more clients. That’ll help us through the off-season.”
“And I’m going to find a job for the winter,” Dad said to Mom, “like we talked about. Then I’ll start running tours again in the spring.”
“Then you’ll still have your own business, even if you work for someone else sometimes,” said Zenith. “Just like I still unschool even if I take a class sometimes.”
Dad smiled. “I guess that’s true. I hadn’t thought of that.”
Then his smile faded, and his voice grew stern again.
“We still need to talk about your actions, Zenith. You cost us a lot of money, and frightened everyone.”
“I know,” Zenith said softly.
“You’re going to work off your debt by helping me. That means taking tickets for me before tours, cleaning the bus, whatever needs to be done.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, then.”
We sat for a while longer, but no one had anything else to say. We all said good night, and Mom and Dad left the room.
Zenith and I got into our beds. I lay in the dark for a long time, listening to Zenith breathe. Although I was exhausted, it was hours before I slept.
The next morning was quiet. A steady rain fell, so Zenith and I couldn’t go swimming. It would be a bad day for tours, but Dad went out anyway.
I wanted to chatter to Mom and Zenith about how we were going to stay here—about how we didn’t have to move away ever again, maybe—but they didn’t seem to be in the mood for it. They were each holding their thoughts to themselves.
Partway through the morning, the doorbell rang. I sprang up before Zenith could, and opened it.
It was Gabby and Spirit.
“Gabby!” I shouted. She was exactly the person I wanted to see. Wait until she heard what Dad had said about us not moving. And wait until she heard about Zenith and the bus! So much had happened since we’d seen each other the night before.
But Spirit was standing right behind Gabby, looking like they were there for a purpose.
By this time, Mom had come into the room. “Hello!” she said, sounding surprised. “Come on in! We had such a good time at your party last night.”
I could see that she was trying to compose her face, to look like everything was normal.
“Wasn’t it cleansing?” Spirit asked. “We can’t stay—we’re on our way to Gabby’s art club—but we wanted to drop this by. You left it at the house last night.”
She handed Mom a sweater.
“I didn’t even realize I’d left it behind! Thank you,�
� Mom said. “Are you sure you don’t want to come in and have some coffee?”
Gabby and I looked at each other hopefully, but Spirit shook her head. She didn’t turn to leave, though. She studied all of our faces.
“Something is different here today. The energy. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Zenith said quickly from behind a book. She was settled into a chair in the corner.
Gabby and I looked at each other again, and her eyes opened wide, questioning. I widened mine back: you’ll never believe it.
“It’s the bus, isn’t it?” Spirit demanded. “Gabby told me about how someone put nails in one of the tires and whatnot. Did it happen again?”
“No,” Mom said, looking at the floor. “We’ve resolved that.”
“It was me,” Zenith said then.
We all jumped a little.
She laid her book on the table next to her and stood up. She fixed her gaze on Spirit.
“I did a stupid thing and I’m really sorry, and it’s over now.”
“Oh, Zenith,” said Gabby sadly. She looked at me, her chin trembling, and then back at Zenith. “Don’t you like the unschool bus?”
“It’s okay,” said Zenith. “I guess I do.”
“Why on earth would you have done such a thing?” Spirit asked.
Zenith paused a moment. I saw a thought play across her face, a sort of dare she was giving herself.
“It was kind of a math thing,” she said.
Spirit drew herself sharply upward; this was what came of attending school!
“I mean,” Zenith continued, “that I was sort of experimenting with an equation. I thought I knew what all the pieces would equal; I thought the outcome was already set. But I was wrong.”
No one said anything for several seconds. Gabby looked like she was going to cry. Mom put her hands on her hips, as though she planned to take control of the situation, but she remained silent.
Then Spirit leaned forward and laid a palm against Zenith’s cheek.
“There are all kinds of ways to learn a lesson,” she said.
Chapter 12
Unschool Cheer
I didn’t know which was more surprising—that the boat was ready, or that Mom and Dad were letting Zenith and me take part in its inaugural sail.
Of course, they had crammed us into life vests, and we weren’t actually venturing into the ocean. That had been strictly forbidden. Instead, the boat was to be launched in a pond a little ways from Gabby’s house.
August was drawing to a close, and the early-morning air had a bite to it. We had agreed to launch the boat early, so Dad could be there before he started work for the day. This late in the season, he said, every tour, every passenger, every dollar counted. There would be another wave of tourists in the fall, the September and October leaf-peepers, but then that would be it for the year.
Dad had already lined up his job for the off-season: he was going to cook in a health-food restaurant. When tour season came back around, he hoped to keep working there part-time. Mom had taken on three more clients. The sweet potato lady, it turned out, had a lot of friends.
We drove to the pond, and when we pulled into the small parking lot, we could see that Gabby’s family was already there. So were Nola and Charlie and their mother. Otherwise, the pond was deserted. A damp fog hung over the water. I was glad I’d worn jeans and a sweatshirt, and I didn’t even mind the life vest. It was an extra layer.
Zenith and I ran down to the edge of the pond, where Gibran and Charlie had the boat sitting on the wet silt. They were both barefoot, with their pants rolled up, discussing how best to push the boat off into the shallow water. Gabby and Nola stood next to them.
“The water’s too shallow,” Nola pointed out.
I was glad to see that everyone else had life vests on, too, not just Zenith and me. Nola’s was orange, and I bet she was annoyed about that.
“It’s going to just sit on the bottom when we all get in,” Nola added.
“Then maybe we won’t all get in,” Charlie said.
I liked the idea of leaving Nola on the shore, but I knew he was just joking.
“It’ll be fine,” Gibran said. “We just have to wade out a little deeper. She’s right that it’s too shallow here.”
Nola glowed with pride. Then she saw Zenith and me. “Zale! Zenith! You’re here!”
“Hey, Nola,” I said.
We hadn’t exactly become friends, but almost. I knew Gabby would never tell her that I’d thought she was the unschool bus vandal. I still felt kind of guilty about it; Nola wasn’t that bad, once you got used to her. She wasn’t that great, either, but I was learning to live with her.
Farther up the beach, Mom and Dad stood with Spirit and Nola’s mother. Mom waved, and I waved back.
“Azalea, get your shoes off,” Zenith ordered, pulling off her own.
I kicked off my sandals and rolled up my jeans.
“Are we ready?” asked Gibran.
“Ready,” we all answered.
The boys pushed the boat off the muddy bottom of the pond so that it floated on top of a foot or so of greenish, weed-clogged water. All of us cheered, including the parents. The boat had passed the first test—it floated.
I had to admit, it looked good. We had painted it white, with its name in dark blue letters: The Unschooner. That was Zenith’s idea; she’d had to explain to me that a schooner was a type of sailboat.
Bugs skittered over the water’s surface, and I tried not to think about them as I set a foot in the pond. I yelped a little; the water would warm up later in the day from the sunshine, but now it was an icy shock to my skin. Gabby and Nola yelped, too, as they waded in, but Zenith acted like all she ever did was start the morning bare-legged in a cold, dank pond.
“I guess Gibran’s better at unschooling than I thought,” admitted Gabby. “I can’t believe we actually built a boat that works.”
“It floats,” corrected Nola. “We’ll see if it can hold people.”
“Not just any people,” I added, sliding a glance at Gabby. “The Intrepid Society of Unschool Adventurers.”
Gabby laughed, shivering a little.
The boys pulled the boat deeper and then motioned for Gabby to climb in. She hesitated for a moment; the water was at least waist-deep for her, but she bravely waded out, soaking her shorts. Then she grabbed on to the side of the boat and struggled a little. I remembered her trying to do skin the cat at the park. Gibran grabbed her waist and heaved her up into the boat. It rocked crazily, and Gabby screamed, but with delight in her voice.
“Just sit still,” Charlie told her.
She settled into the seat at the front of the boat.
He turned to me. “You, next.”
I grabbed the side of the boat, and it rocked toward me.
“Careful!” said Charlie. He hoisted me over the side and I slid next to Gabby on the seat.
Next came Nola, her pink sweatpants pushed up as far as they could go. Gabby and I each grabbed one of her hands and pulled her in. She jammed herself in between us on the seat.
Zenith, Gibran, and Charlie stood in the water.
“Who’s going to row?” asked Zenith.
“We can take turns,” said Charlie. “You want to go first?”
“I’d like that.”
She pulled herself up into the boat and settled herself facing backward in the rear seat: rowing position. Then Charlie climbed in and crouched down on the floor—already wet from our feet—in the middle of the boat, between the two seats.
“Here we go,” said Gibran.
He grabbed the back of the boat and shoved it farther out into the pond. His T-shirt ballooned around him in the water beneath his life vest. He heaved himself up into the boat and plunked himself down next to Charlie. The boat pitched for a minute or two, and I held my breath. Then we leveled, and Zenith slid the oars beneath the surface of the pond.
From the shore, the grown-ups cheered, and all of us waved to them except fo
r Zenith, who was busy rowing. Sunlight filtered through the damp air. A bullfrog belched. No one, not even Nola, spoke. We listened to the slap of the oars against the pond.
In a little while, we would switch rowers, and the boat would respond wildly to the shifting weight. I would grip the side of the boat with one hand, and Nola’s arm with the other, watching the cold sludge at our feet roll back and forth. When the rocking settled, Nola would ask crankily where we were headed, and Gabby would remind her that the journey itself was the important part.
This would all happen a few minutes later, when the sun was slightly higher in the sky. For now, we sat quietly. We glided over the water. The boat held steady.
Azalea, Unschooled Page 10
