by Jane Kelley
“Algebra.”
Val was better at soccer. She stared at the collection of dangles hanging from her backpack. She straightened the orange wings of the butterfly. Had Tasman found its mate? Even if he had, what was she going to do with it? Reattach it to the strap of Lanora’s book bag?
No, she decided. She carefully unclipped the rings of her own dangles and put them in the lunch bag with the uneaten grapes.
Ten
On Wednesday, Val saw Lanora in the hallway between 6th and 7th period. On Thursday afternoon, Val saw Lanora getting on a city bus. On Friday, Val saw Lanora coming out of the girls’ bathroom. Each time they met, Val greeted Lanora. Lanora didn’t respond. Val smiled anyway like everything was normal. After all, this was middle school. Plenty of outrageous things (like stuffing rolls of paper in the toilets) were normal. And plenty of normal things (like greeting someone you knew) were considered to be outrageous.
On Friday afternoon, the kids exploded out of M.S. 10. Everyone was in such a rush to escape; only the poets noticed that something decorated the sidewalk. Val came back across the street to see what they were staring at.
“Look what a child drew on the sidewalk,” Olivia said.
“Not a child. Someone too lazy to make proper letters,” Tina said.
“A prankster who hopes we’ll spend hours deciphering scribble.” Gillian pointed to a curlicue with the toe of her heavy boot.
“An egotist who’s too self-obsessed to care that no one can read it,” Helena said.
“He isn’t self-obsessed. I mean, he is. But he does want someone to read it,” Val said. Tasman must have copied the beautiful, blue markings from The Book of Dares.
“Do you know what it says?” Helena said.
“I don’t know what it says, I just know what it means,” Val said.
“What does it mean?” Tina said.
It meant Tasman knew where Val went to school. It meant he had been thinking about her. It meant there was something he thought she should do. But she didn’t need to. She touched the corner of her backpack. She had gotten rid of her dangles, too.
Just then four pairs of high-heeled boots clicked across the markings. It was the A Team. Lanora passed so close that Val could see one little curl poking out from her sleek hair.
A fifth girl ran up to them. She greeted each member of the A Team by moving her cheek close to theirs. Then they all walked back in the opposite direction. None of them looked at the poets or at Val or at what had been written on the sidewalk.
The poets watched the A Team until they had disappeared around the corner. Then Helena sighed. “I guess they don’t like sidewalk art.”
The scuffling boots had obliterated the marks.
“Can you remember what was written there?” Gillian asked Val.
Val shook her head vigorously. She was glad she didn’t have to worry about the words or Lanora’s new friends anymore.
After all, Val had plenty of other things to think about. On Saturday morning, she had to plan which Three Stooges episode to watch first. She had to make sure Drew didn’t get more than his share of pancakes. She had to decide if she should wear the Pelé shirt or the Hamm. She had to remove her shin guards from Drew’s arms and find him some other kind of armor.
At soccer practice, she threw herself into the game. She was unstoppable. She was first at the ball, wherever anybody else kicked it. She always took a shot at the goal, even when other people were more open. She didn’t mind who she stepped on as she fought. She just wanted to win win win.
And then she missed a pass. The ball went between her feet and rolled away. She had to run after it. Nothing looked more lame than chasing a runaway ball. Val kept her head down until she reached the wall.
Tasman was there. He was wearing a large hat pulled down over his eyes like a spy in the movies.
Val picked up the ball.
“I left you a message,” he said.
“I’m in the middle of practice.” She was too busy to talk to strange boys about strange things like undoing strange spells.
“Don’t you want to know why I’ve spent the last forty-five minutes watching you run back and forth in pursuit of a ball, trying to make a goal which doesn’t have the meaning that I would prefer for that word?”
“No. It’s not any of my business whether Lanora is under a spell or not. She likes being part of the A Team. So we don’t need to do anything anymore.”
“Oh.” He looked down at his fist, which was closed around something.
Could it be the butterfly, Val wondered. No, she decided. It was something smaller.
“Come on, Pelé! We can’t play without the ball!” Jo called to her.
“Don’t interrupt her. She’s talking to a B-O-Y,” Beck said.
Val heard her teammates laugh. She turned to go.
Tasman grabbed the ball and threw it back toward the team. Then he stood in front of Val to keep her from running after it.
“I’m shocked. Admittedly I only know you in the most superficial way. And I don’t know Lanora at all. But I never would have thought you’d be the type of person who abandons her friend when she’s in trouble.”
“I just told you. She isn’t in trouble. She likes those girls,” Val said.
“Does she really? Do you like those girls?”
Val shook her head.
“And if you don’t, then how could they be worth anything? Because you like everybody. Well, almost everybody. After all, you’ve just said that you don’t like them.”
Val wiped her face on her shirtsleeve. She wasn’t used to people paying this much attention to what she said.
“I wasn’t able to find the item you were looking for. But I have something else.”
He opened his fist. In the center of his palm was a blue button with only one hole. Two stick figures were indented in the ceramic. One child crawled in one direction. The other in the opposite direction.
“What is it?” Val said.
“It’s an amulet. From the First Intermediate period. About 2000 B.C.”
She had been about to touch it, but she pulled back her finger. “It’s so old.”
“Yes. They were often buried with the dead, to protect children.”
“Why do you think Lanora needs protection?”
“Don’t we all? I mean, the rest of us. You don’t, but you can keep it for her.” He grabbed her hand and pressed the stone into her palm. Then he closed her fist over the amulet.
She stared at her fist. “I can’t take this from you. It’s probably really valuable.”
“The Captain has dozens. He’ll never know it’s gone.”
The stone grew hot in her hand. That seemed significant, until she realized it was just taking on the warmth from her body. “Won’t you get in trouble?”
“When you say ‘get in trouble,’ you’re implying that I’m not already in it.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“The human condition is, alas—”
Tasman was interrupted by someone shouting. It didn’t sound like the typical boisterous behavior of kids in the park. Val turned to see what was going on.
A man walked unsteadily along the path, mumbling to himself. He wore a ragged blue sheet draped like a toga across one shoulder. It was tied around his waist with a piece of an extension cord. His hair was like a writhing nest of snakes. He carried a pink plastic wand with a star on the end. He waved this wand at the children who gaped at him because they were too young to know they shouldn’t stare. It was almost funny. Almost. Sometimes in New York City, you had to laugh so that you wouldn’t cry. Val wondered what Tasman thought about the beautiful absurdity of that man with the child’s wand.
But Tasman was gone. He had disappeared as completely as if he had never been there. Val opened her hand and stared at the amulet.
The man with the wand bent over to peer at it, too. “Protecting the dead?”
“What?” Val was surprised. How could a man like this possibly
know what it was?
He pointed his wand at her accusingly. “What about the living?”
Eleven
Lanora luxuriated in her bed long past nine, glad she didn’t have to get up and seize the day. She smiled as she stretched. She whispered the word “Saturday,” as if it were a foreign language.
Ten years from now, her pajamas would be silk and her sheets would be silk and her comforter would be made from the softest down. When she awoke, the sun would be shining through the ivory gauze of the floor-to-ceiling drapes. She would smell deliciously flavored coffee brewing in a very smart pot that sensed the moment she wanted it. She would pour a cup of that deliciously flavored coffee and take it out onto her terrace. She would hear the sound of birds singing. The wind would toy with a set of chimes. She would sit on her bamboo chair and sip and smile, and be glad that everything in her world was the way it was supposed to be.
Lanora brushed her hair slowly and firmly. The bristles invigorated her scalp. A few curls had reappeared right along her hairline. She didn’t want to blow-dry her hair today, so she smoothed it back into a ponytail. She put on her robe. It wasn’t silk, but it had red piping along the lapels.
As she walked to the kitchen, she heard music playing in her mom’s bedroom. The sorrowful songs all sounded the same. A female voice complained how he’d done her wrong.
Lanora sighed and tightened the belt on her robe. She decided to fix a special brunch for her mom. She got two matching blue mugs, the sugar bowl, and the cream pitcher. It was important never to put the milk carton on the table. She looked in the cupboard for something she could make that wasn’t cereal. She spread peanut butter on slices of bread, trimmed off the crusts, and cut them into triangles. She garnished the plates with orange wedges. Then she arranged everything on the table in the most pleasing way.
“Oh, look what you’ve done. This is so pretty.” Emma sat across from her daughter and stirred sugar into her tea.
Lanora smiled. She was glad her mom noticed. Not everybody did.
“It’s nice you don’t have to rush off to school, isn’t it? And I don’t have to go to work. We can sit here in our robes.” Emma’s lavender robe was faded and her slippers had worn toes. She said she didn’t need new ones, but Lanora suspected that Emma wanted to wear the things Lanora’s father had bought her.
Lanora was never going to cling to the past. She was going to create the best of all possible lives. Excellence was out there. All she had to do was make it.
“It’s going okay? School?” Emma said.
“Oh, yes. It’s going quite well.”
“You like your teachers?”
Lanora raised one eyebrow. This was something she was practicing.
“You don’t like your teachers?” Emma said.
“I prefer my friends.” She smiled as she said the word because, of course, that word meant something different to someone like her mom.
“The three girls you told me about?”
Lanora stirred her tea. Actually there were four now. Another girl had started hanging around the A Team. Her name was April. Lanora had been surprised that April joined them. April was not A-caliber material. She was so shallow, in fact, that Lanora wondered whether April presented another kind of test, just like the so-called shopping. Alicia had watched Lanora quite closely when Ariel had asked April if she had any plans for the weekend and April had said, “You know.” And then they all smiled, as if they did know. So Lanora had smiled, too.
If there were a competition for intelligence or taste or strength, then Lanora had no doubt which of them would win. But she didn’t want to ride into battle today. She didn’t care what the others were doing. She deserved a treat. These empty hours were a blank canvas.
“Saturday,” she whispered to the rim of her mug.
“What are you going to do today?” Emma said.
Lanora nibbled around the perimeter of her sandwich to preserve its shape for as long as possible. What should she do? Visit the castle in Central Park? She always loved climbing the tower, but it was only three stories. Even if you considered the height of the cliff, it wasn’t nearly exhilarating enough. Maybe Times Square? The wild lights throbbed with energy. But so many tourists went there. Lanora didn’t want to be annoyed by people who had no idea where they were going. Rockefeller Center? Lanora loved the golden statue of Prometheus being given the gift of fire. But that was too near to her father’s office. Sometimes he worked on Saturdays. And even if he weren’t actually there, that part of the city still belonged to him.
“Are you going to see Val?”
“Val?” Lanora put down her sandwich.
“You do still see Val, don’t you?”
“Of course. All the time.” That wasn’t a lie. Lanora did see Val in the halls at school and sometimes on the street. Those encounters were never easy. Sometimes when she saw her, she wanted to run up to her and hug her. Sometimes she wanted to grab her hand and drag her to the Bower and tell her everything, every thought, every feeling. But she couldn’t. No matter how tempting, Lanora had to stick to her plan. She had to treat Val like a relic from an ancient civilization. A piece of the past to be put in safekeeping until it was useful again.
She washed the dishes and went to get dressed. She decided to wear her black-and-yellow jacket. It was her favorite even though it wasn’t at all appropriate for school.
The phone rang as she was buttoning her blouse.
“Oh, it’s you,” Emma said.
Of course. Lanora’s father wanted a progress report. He wanted to hear about her test scores and the praise scribbled in the margins of her essays. She had a different kind of triumph in mind. She intended to rule the world—at least her corner of it. She put on her jacket, smoothed her hair, and walked past her mom.
“See you later,” she said when she was halfway out the door.
“Wait. Your father wants to talk to you.”
“Why? We’ve only had two weeks of school. I haven’t gotten any grades yet.”
* * *
Lanora walked briskly down Broadway. She hadn’t decided on a destination; she would know it when she got there. In the meantime, she enjoyed the sensation of purposefully striding along, passing everyone, crossing streets even when the sign said DON’T WALK.
And then a little troop of fairies skipped across the sidewalk. Their dresses were made of gossamer dragonfly wings. Their hair was pinned up with remnants of the Milky Way. Their feet danced in slippers made from rose petals. They twirled until their skirts lifted them above the ground.
Lanora clapped her hands with delight. She extended her arms to the fairies. But their minders herded them across the plaza and into the opera house.
“Hurry up, girls. We don’t want to be late for Sleeping Beauty.”
She sat on the rim of the fountain. When she was seven, her father had brought her and her mom to the ballet at Lincoln Center. She was so excited to see magic come to life. She barely even noticed all the times he slipped away from them in the dark.
Something glittered on the ground. She picked up a crystal earring. It would have been perfect for the Collection of Magical Devices. She wondered who had the red velvet box. Was it at Val’s? Or was it in her own closet? She held the earring up toward the sunshine. Its cut edges made sparkles dance across her other hand.
Then she saw them. The A Team. With April. All four girls were looking at her. Lanora quickly dropped the earring.
They said, “Hi, Lanora.” Like, we see you. You may have thought you fooled us. But now we know you are someone who picks up trash and pretends it’s a star.
“You dropped your earring,” Alicia said.
Anna kicked it closer to Lanora’s foot.
Lanora made her mouth smile at them even as her eyes searched out details. Why were they there? What could she find against them? As usual they were immune to criticism. That was how they lived their lives.
“Don’t you want it anymore?” Ariel said.
&nb
sp; “Maybe she wants new earrings,” Alicia said.
“Earrings are easy to get,” Anna said.
“Even she could get earrings,” Alicia said.
Lanora stood up. She rose to that challenge. “Are you going ‘shopping’ now?” Lanora said the word in the special way.
“No,” Alicia said. Like how could Lanora be so dumb.
“We have tickets to a show at Lincoln Center.” April showed Lanora the colorful rectangles. She spread them out so that Lanora could easily count. One, two, three, four.
Lanora looked down at her feet so she wouldn’t have to watch them walk away. There was the crystal earring. She stepped on it as hard as she could. She wanted to smash it into nonexistence. So that it would never again tempt anyone to pick it up and imagine it could be transformed into something else.
It didn’t break.
“Who cares,” she said.
People passed by. No one said, “I care.” No one said, “You have to care.” No one warned her that when she stopped caring, that was the beginning of the end.
Twelve
Someone was in the closet. Mau opened one eye. She could hear the sound of a crate being dragged along a shelf. Had she miscalculated? Was it time for Tasman to put food in her dish? Her nostrils quivered. Sadly, no. The smell was not of kibble but of old straw, dried-up mouse droppings, and dust from the desert. She wondered why he was opening one of the Captain’s boxes. She decided to go find out. She jumped down from the shelf and padded over to the closet. The door was shut. She scratched at the outside.
Tasman quickly opened it. “Be quiet,” he hissed.
Mau came inside. It was dark. The boy hadn’t turned on a light. His arm was inside the crate. Mau heard the rustle of straw as his fingers patted different objects. He got quite excited and pulled something out. When he saw it was a vase, his arm drooped with disappointment.
“It isn’t here,” he whispered.
Mau blinked. She didn’t care about his futile search. After all, the bag of food was there. She rubbed against it. He didn’t give her a handful, as he often did. The boy was not usually immune to her demands, like the Captain. She swatted Tasman’s leg. He didn’t even look at her. Clearly something was not as it should be. Mau sat down and stared at him until he looked at her.
