Things That Surprise You

by Jennifer Maschari

  “Soap Boy and the Letter M,” Lucy says snottily. “How perfect.”

  I’m suddenly fiercely protective of Anita’s nickname for me. It was mine and now it’s wide out in the open for anyone to use. Lucy’s twisted it and made it into something ugly.

  I hear the pump of the paper towel dispenser and then the door opens and closes again. The voices disappear. My legs are limp from being in this weird crouching position, but the rest of me is on fire. I try to think about what Dr. Franklinton-Morehouse would tell me to do, but my brain’s not even functioning now. My thoughts are coming out in long ribbon strands. They’re twisting and knotting together in a way I don’t understand.

  It’s all too much right now. There are so many bad feelings that have built up inside me that there’s no more room.

  I burst out of the door back into the hallway. Then I see her.

  Hazel’s in the lobby. She’s laughing with Lucy and Annemarie. She doesn’t see me approach, so she startles when I grab her sleeve. I hold it in my fist. “I need to talk to you,” I say through gritted teeth.

  The laughter stops. “Um, okay.” She kind of gives the other girls this pinched-up face like she can’t even believe I’m doing this. I pull her over to the arcade.

  “I heard you in the bathroom,” I say, pointing my finger at her chest. It sinks into her fuzzy scarf. My whole body feels uncomfortable right now, like I’m wearing the world’s itchiest sweater. I hate how fuzzy her scarf is and how her hair’s in this perfect ponytail and how her boots are actual Uggs instead of the knock-off ones Grandma got me from Target.

  Hazel steps back like there’s electricity running through my body and I’ve zapped her. “What? How?”

  “I was in the stall.”

  “Spying on us?” she says. Her hands are on her hips now.

  I shrink.

  No. No. I force myself to stand up straighter.

  “I wasn’t spying. It’s a bathroom. I had to go.” My voice is flat. “How could you let them say that stuff about me?”

  “Em.” Hazel’s using her soft voice now. “Come on. They didn’t mean it. They didn’t know you were listening.” Those two things are not the same. “Don’t be so weird about it.” But her eyes stray over to Lucy and Annemarie, who are watching us. It’s clear to me now. Hazel’s not really caring about me or what’s happening in this moment or how very small I felt back in the theater. How very small I feel right now. She just wants to get back to them.

  “No.” I yank my hand away. My words are sharp. Pointy. “You’re weird.” They’re the wrong words. They’re Hazel’s words. I can’t seem to find my own.

  I’ve never talked to Hazel this way. Not even when Hazel and I both wanted to be mermaid number two in Miss Murphy’s Dance Academy show. Not even when we argued over what color M&M’s to be for Halloween. Never. Ever ever. “All you care about is Joey and Lucy and field hockey and your stupid Very Berry lip gloss. I hate it.”

  There’s a flash of something on Hazel’s face at first. Surprise maybe. Her mouth forms a small O. Then her eyes narrow in on me, just like the Wizard’s do in book two when he’s about to blast the gnomes to smithereens.

  “The only reason you got invited”—she starts. Her voice is building now. Each word feels like its very own exclamation point—“was because Gina couldn’t come.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m far, far away now and back in time millions of years ago. This is how it must feel, I think. The shifts are small at first. You don’t even know it is happening because all of it is occurring under the surface. Then, little by little, the divide gets bigger and bigger till one day, you look across the wide open ocean at the little speck of land in the distance and say how did that happen, even though it was happening the whole time.

  How did this happen?

  Millions of years of gigantic shifting plates or tiny moments across a few weeks.

  I open my eyes. I’m not on the shores of Africa. I’m in Movie Time 8 and Hazel has her hands crossed over her chest and I have the uneaten Red Vines that we were supposed to share sticking out of the pocket of Mina’s old coat. I focus on the little diamond pattern on the floor, the sound of the popcorn machine, the smell of nachos. I focus on anything but the look on Hazel’s face and on the girls who are Hazel’s friends, not mine, who I can feel watching from the concession stand.

  “I was so right.” Her eyes narrow. “You are a baby.”

  My mouth quivers. I can’t hold it in anymore. Giant tears begin to plop on my sneakers. Slow at first and then faster and faster. I can’t stop them. I wipe at my nose with my sleeve. Just like Lloyd Anderson.

  Hazel didn’t say anything because she agrees with them.

  Finally, I find my voice. “Tell Annemarie’s mom I got sick. Tell her my mom came to pick me up.”

  “What about your stuff?” Hazel asks coldly.

  All I can do is stare at her boots. I can’t even think about that right now. I just want Hazel to leave and everyone else to leave and to be left alone. “My mom will get it later.” I’m doing this weird hiccup-y cry right now so the words barely get out.

  Hazel says, “Okay.” She hears me. She understands but she doesn’t. Maybe that’s it. Maybe there was a point when Hazel really stopped listening.

  WAFFLE EMERGENCY

  I grab more toilet paper from the bathroom.

  There’s a woman in there with two kids smaller than me. Both of them turn to stare. “Are you all right, honey?” she asks. She has a really kind mom voice—low and soft. It makes me want my own mom here so much.

  “Everything’s fine,” I say. It just slips out, even though it’s so clear from my snotty sleeves and bright red face that everything’s not. I’m so in the habit of saying it.

  I wait in there till I’m certain that Annemarie’s mom has come and gone. Then I sit in the theater lobby on a bright red bench underneath some glowing sign for a movie called Happy Dance! Hippos with black-and-white canes and tilted top hats wear giant grins. It feels especially insulting right now.

  I pull my cell phone out from my pocket, thankful that it’s not in my overnight bag. I call Mom first, hoping that she’s on some kind of break or something and can answer the phone. It goes to voicemail.

  “Mom, it’s me,” I say. I struggle to keep my voice steady. “I’m not feeling good and I need to come home. Can you come get me?” I press the end call button and sigh, leaning my head against the wall. It could be a while.

  And now I’m really not feeling well. I can’t stay here.

  I scroll down my contacts list and my thumb seems to stop on Mina’s name automatically. I hesitate and think of the terrible words I said in her room that one morning. How I wasn’t going to ask her for anything again. How I didn’t need her. I close my eyes. I need her so much right now. I take a deep breath, and press call.

  The phone rings once, twice and I’m thinking that this is a bad idea, the world’s dumbest idea when she picks up.

  “Hello?” she says. “Em?”

  There’s someone laughing in the background. Phoebe, I think.

  “Mina,” I say in this very small voice that I’m not sure she’s even going to hear. “Mina.”

  “Yeah, Em.” Mina’s voice lowers. “Is everything okay?” She shushes the person in the background. “What’s wrong? I thought you were at the movies?”

  “I was.” I sniffle. “I mean, I am still. But Hazel—” I try again. “Hazel—they left me. I’m here alone.” I’m doing the shuddering cry again and running out of dry toilet paper. “I need you.”

  “Oh God, Em.” Mina whispers to someone in the background. “Okay, okay. Me and Phoebs are going to come get you. I just need to rinse this hair dye out.”

  “What?”

  “But it won’t take long. Just don’t leave. Wait inside, okay? And don’t talk to any strangers—even if they offer you candy or puppies or whatever.”

  I let out a laugh. It’s short and quick but it does make me feel a little be
tter. “I know that.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Mina says. “But it made you laugh, right?”

  Mina and Phoebe arrive twenty minutes later.

  Mina texts me: We’re out front. We’ve got puppies. JK.

  They’re in Phoebe’s car, which is really Phoebe in car form. It’s this old yellow Bug with Christmas plaid seats and a bunch of bumper stickers that say things like Earth without Art is just Eh . . . and My child is an honor student at Rings Road Elementary School, which she bought off the discount table at some thrift store for a quarter.

  I have to stop myself from running to it: this little bit of sunshine in the middle of such a gray day.

  Mina jumps out and puts the seat down so I can crawl into the back. She wraps her arms around me first. She’s steady. Solid. We’re the same height now, and it feels so good to let my head sink into her shoulder.

  Mina pulls back and looks at me. “Whatever happened, Em. It’s going to be okay.”

  Tears start running down my face again. “Okay, okay.” Then I see it. What she was talking about on the phone. There’s a bright pink stripe woven through the blond. I reach up to touch it. Her hair’s still damp.

  “Just like Nightshade’s.”

  “Ha—you’re right. I didn’t even think about that. You like it?”

  “Yeah.” It makes her outsides look braver and bolder somehow.

  “It felt like the right thing to do, you know?”

  I climb in. The heater’s going full blast, and there’s a box of tissues waiting for me in the back. Phoebe turns around as Mina closes the passenger-side door. “What’s going on?”

  I want to tell them. But the problems seem so big right now and all I can picture in my brain is Hazel staring me down and calling me a baby. “Hazel—” I start. “She called me—” I try again. “And Gina couldn’t come—” I can’t get the words out. I blow my nose into the tissue and stuff it into my pocket.

  Phoebe gives Mina a nod. “Waffles.”

  “Waffles?” I ask, but it kind of comes out like a wail.

  “Waffles,” Mina says.

  I take in a deep breath and reach over the seat to squeeze Mina’s shoulder. “I mean, is that okay?” I ask.

  She turns back and gives me the smallest smile. “Yeah. It’s okay.”

  Phoebe turns into a tiny parking lot at the very edge of town. It’s almost completely full even though it’s almost three p.m. and way past breakfast time.

  Straight ahead is a building that looks like an old-fashioned train car. On the top of it, a glowing blue sign reads EMERGENCY WAFFLES in thick block letters. Standing on top of the sign is a waffle complete with a superhero cape. An oasis in the middle of Ohio.

  “Ahh, do you smell that?” Phoebe says, locking the car.

  “Bacon?” I ask.

  “It’s the smell of all our problems going away.” She puts her arm around me and squeezes tight.

  The diner is small. We grab a booth along the windows, Mina and Phoebe sliding into one side and me into the other. A waitress comes over with menus. She’s wearing a cape, too, just like the Super Waffle on the top of the building. It’s nice to feel rescued every once in a while, I think.

  She fills Mina’s and Phoebe’s mugs with coffee. I turn mine upside down. I order a large orange juice instead and open up the menu. “Everything’s waffles,” I say, scanning down the choices. I squint a little. My eyes still ache from all the crying.

  “Amazing, right?” Phoebe says. “It’s like they’ve made the restaurant of my heart. I normally go with the Peanut Butter Surprise waffle.”

  “What’s the surprise?” I ask.

  “And spoil it for you?” Phoebe leans closer and fake whispers. “It’s M&M’s.”

  I take sneaky glances at Mina over the top of my menu. She puts hers down and picks it back up, but like it takes real effort.

  So much of this is like our last visit to China Bistro. The smooth vinyl of the booths, the hum of people in the background, the clatter and clank of dishes and glasses bumping into each other. All of the good food smells are mixed together.

  I suddenly get it, as if it’s been written on the fogged-over window of the diner and suddenly made clear. It was hard for me. But it was also really, really hard for Mina. I didn’t ask for this, but neither did she.

  When the waitress comes back and flips her notepad to a new page, I half expect Mina to push away the menu and say she’s not hungry. Instead, she takes a shaky breath and orders a waffle with fresh strawberries. Phoebs orders chocolate chip and I order the Peanut Butter Surprise, even though the surprise has been ruined.

  “So what happened?” Mina asks. I don’t like coffee but I just want to smell it. I wrap my hands around her mug and lift it to my nose.

  I tell them. I start at the beginning. Or what I think is the beginning—it’s hard to be sure. I tell them about the bookstore and Hector and the Slice. I tell them about Annemarie and Gina and Lucy with their perfect flat hair and arm bangles. I tell them about the new poster in Hazel’s room, outdoor lunch, the invitation. I tell them about the movie. About what Hazel said.

  At some point during the story, the waffles arrive, appearing on the table like plate-sized miracles.

  “Okay, first of all,” Mina starts, after I’ve said everything. She’s waving her fork around like some crazed musical conductor. “Anyone can like the Unicorn Chronicles. Adults like the Unicorn Chronicles. There are collector editions. That are expensive. Besides—me and Phoebs like it. Are we babies?” Little drops of strawberry syrup polka-dot the table.

  “Of course not,” Phoebe says. “We are extremely mature high school juniors. But that’s not the real issue here. Real talk. Are you ready for this?”

  I nod and brace my hands against the Formica table in preparation.

  “Middle school blows.”

  Mina lets out this snort and slaps Phoebe on the arm at the same time. “Phoebs! Not helpful.”

  “What? Do you not agree? Okay, fine. Middle school is a lot like The Hunger Games.” She must see the look on Mina’s and my face, because she puts her hand up like she’s stopping traffic. “Hear me out, okay? The arena—that’s like school. And it’s full of kids doing terrible things to other kids. I mean, there’s not tracker jackers or whatever, but there’s gym class. Or that horrible haircut I got the day before eighth-grade pictures. Or cafeteria meatloaf, and you’re never really sure who to make an alliance with or who’s going to stab you in the back. Okay—this is actually really brilliant.” She turns to Mina. “Could I do this as a paper for Mr. Renz?”

  Mina shakes her head, hiding a smile. The pink in her hair shimmers. “He’d hate it.”

  Phoebe gives a deep sigh. “I know. Because it’s not the Iliad or Tolstoy or something by some dead white man. But anyway—you get out of middle school alive, you’re doing great.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “I’d say I volunteer as tribute for you, but I don’t, I really don’t. Been there, done that once. Never again. I don’t know. Mina? Words of advice?” Phoebe stuffs a huge bite of waffle into her mouth. “I’m eating here.”

  Mina stares down into her cup of coffee and then looks up. “Middle school can be the worst. But it’s not all bad. I met Phoebe there—”

  “Excellent move.”

  Mina rolls her eyes. “And I joined choir and figured out that I really love history. Bad stuff happens. Like the gym incident—”

  “The gym incident?” I ask.

  “Oh, that was awful,” Phoebe says. Mina glares at her and Phoebe stuffs in another huge bite and points to her mouth. “Eating!”

  “But everyone’s having a hard time. Everyone.”

  “Not Hazel,” I say.

  “Even Hazel,” she says. “Nobody gets out unscathed. I’d say that you learn from it, and maybe you do. But sometimes bad stuff happens and someone who was your friend isn’t your friend anymore or the gym incident happens. And it just stinks.”

  “Middle s
chool stinks,” Phoebe says. “I’ll raise my glass to that.” She lifts her mug in the air.

  “Hear, hear,” Mina says. She raises her mug into the air and I raise my orange juice glass and we clink them together in the middle.

  We’re sitting in Phoebe’s driveway in Mina’s car, waiting for it to warm up, when Mina’s phone rings.

  Mina turns down the radio and picks up her cell phone. “Hi, Mom.”

  Oh no. My stomach sinks. I completely forgot I called her first. I take my own phone out of my pocket. Four missed calls.

  “No, she’s right here,” Mina says.

  “Tell Mom I’m sorry,” I say, the words tumbling over each other. “I must have put it on silent or something.” I picture Mom trying to call me again and again and me not answering. I hate that I made Mom worry more.

  “She turned her phone off,” Mina says. “It was an accident. Yeah. No. It was a friend thing. I’ll tell her.” She turns to me. “Mom was about to come looking for you.”

  Mina puts her mittened hand on mine. “She’s okay. We’re okay. We’re together.” She takes a deep breath. “Mom, today was a really good day.” You know what? Even with what happened at the movies with Hazel, it really was. And if there could be one good day, I have to have hope that there could be more.

  Maybe one day, the good ones will outnumber the bad.

  Mina ends the call and puts the phone back into her bag.

  “Thanks for coming,” I say. The heater’s warmed up the car now and I feel so cozy and exhausted but also happy.

  “Thanks for needing me,” Mina says. Then she plugs in her phone, chooses a song, and we sing at the top of our lungs. It feels great—like I’m letting something go.

  Maybe this is a thing to know about growing up: There are some things in life you’ve got to hold on to. And there are other things you’ve got to let go.

  The key is knowing the difference.

  I don’t let go of Mina’s hand the entire way home.

  MONDAY

  Mina and Phoebe drive over to Annemarie’s to pick up my stuff.

  Hazel doesn’t text me the rest of the weekend. I don’t know what I expected—her to text me and tell me she’s sorry? That she’s made a mistake? She doesn’t. And I don’t either. Even though Dr. Franklinton-Morehouse says to forgive, I’m not feeling ready. Everything still feels too fresh.