“But I didn’t do anything,” Alex protested. He looked genuinely cowed by Maxine’s wrath. “It was just a joke. I didn’t really touch it.”
“Alex,” Ms. Singpurwalla said in her quiet, gentle voice. “Come with me.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Alex repeated. “It’s, like, doesn’t anybody here have a sense of humor?”
“Alex.”
This time Alex followed Ms. Singpurwalla out into the hallway. Through the open door of the rare books room, Lizzie saw Ms. Singpurwalla find Alex a chair. He sat down sullenly, like a small child put in time-out after a tantrum. He didn’t look defiant anymore. He looked defeated.
Despite Alex’s earlier remark about her father, Lizzie felt a stab of pity for him. He tried so hard to be the clown, the cutup, the life of the party. For the first time, she saw Alex with a sudden, sorrowful clarity of vision. It wasn’t easy being one of the popular kids, either. Maybe having to be the person others expected you to be wasn’t easy for anyone.
Lizzie focused back on the tour. “This is one of my favorites,” Maxine said, gesturing toward the next exhibit, a single piece of paper covered in a peculiar round handwriting. “It’s a letter written to her nephew by the poet Emily Dickinson. I know it’s hard to read, but I’ll read it to you: she’s included a poem in it. So we have one of Emily Dickinson’s poems written in her own hand.”
“Wow,” Tom said to Lizzie in a low voice. “This stuff is incredible.”
Lizzie couldn’t even reply. She held on to the edge of the table for support as Maxine read both letter and poem. It was incredible that she was standing less than three feet away from a paper touched by Emily Dickinson, written on by Emily, with a poem that had flowed from Emily’s pen. No typewriter for Emily. Maybe typewriters hadn’t been invented then. But Lizzie knew that even if typewriters and computers had been invented, Emily would have written her poems by hand. Even if blue jeans and tank tops had been invented, Emily would have worn white dresses. The world had no power to stop Emily Dickinson from being Emily.
Lizzie didn’t press forward to view the other exhibits. She could come back another time to see them. She lingered behind the rest, staring at Emily’s poem. It wasn’t even under glass. It was just there, on the table, as ordinary in its way as Mark Twain’s note about his laundry.
Maxine interrupted the tour to say to Lizzie, “You can touch it if you want. If you’re careful.”
It was all Lizzie could do to make herself, let herself, touch Emily’s letter. First she put out one finger and gently brought it into contact with the upper left-hand corner of the paper. She almost expected a crackle of electricity as her hand touched the paper. None came. Just a thrill so deep it made Lizzie want to cry. It made her know she’d join Mathletes and not mind what Marcia or Alex or anybody thought; it made her know that she’d write poetry again—whenever and wherever it came to her. It made her know she could be Lizzie again, at last.
Fourteen
Lizzie tried her green T-shirt with her jeans—too plain. She tried her turquoise tank top—too summery. She tried her blue sweater—too frumpy. She tried another dark green top from the Aunt Elspeth shopping trip. It was all right, but it didn’t look special enough. Even though Marcia had talked about wearing jeans and a top, they didn’t look like the right outfit for your first-ever school dance.
Maybe a necklace would help. Lizzie slipped her favorite locket over her head and studied the effect of the gold against the green of the top. That was a little better—but still not right. What seemed right for a dance was a dress—a long, white, flowing, feminine, old-fashioned, Emily Dickinson–style dress.
Lizzie pulled one from her closet and held it up in front of the mirror, trying it on with her eyes. She looked oddly familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, and so pretty that she hardly recognized herself. Quickly she stripped off her jeans and slipped on the dress. How could anyone think she looked like a nerd in her white dress? She looked like a girl in a long-ago story, like a girl someone would write sonnets to.
Did she dare wear it to the dance? Alison was a real friend now; she would like Lizzie whatever she wore. The Friday horoscope had made no mention of fashion, and even if it had, Lizzie didn’t have to do what it said. Lizzie knew she’d keep reading her horoscope, from habit, for fun, but she was through following anybody’s star but her own.
And if Marcia wanted to roll her eyes at Lizzie’s return to so-called nerdiness, well, let her roll them. Nerd wasn’t a thing you were; it was a thing other people said you were. Nerd was just a mean term people used when they were jealous of somebody for being smart and for daring to be different.
Lizzie’s mother gave a big smile when Lizzie, a bit self-consciously, appeared downstairs dressed for the dance. “Don’t you look pretty! I’ve missed my old-fashioned girl.”
“Well, here she is,” Lizzie said. Or: here she half was. She was an old-fashioned girl who wore a white dress sometimes and who loved poetry and who had just stopped by after school to tell Mr. Grotient that she wanted to join the math team. (“Great news, Lizzie!” Mr. Grotient had said, sounding as if he meant it.)
She was also a girl who wore jeans sometimes and who could talk to boys, who could sew on a sewing machine if she had to, and who was about to dance to rock music at a seventh-grade dance. Well, she wasn’t sure about the dancing part. First of all, she didn’t know how to dance, assuming that ballet didn’t count; second of all, probably no one would ask her to dance, anyway.
She made a point of reaching over to give her father a quick kiss before going outside to wait for Alison.
“What’s this?” he asked, but he seemed pleased. She didn’t think she would have hidden behind Alex in the library if she had seen her father after she had touched Emily’s letter, rather than before. In any case, she wasn’t going to hide from him again, or from herself.
When Lizzie got into the backseat of Alison’s mother’s car, Alison said, “You look beautiful! Now I wish I had worn a dress.”
In the gym, all was darkness and confusion and loud, throbbing music, the roller-skating party all over again, minus the roller skates. Lizzie realized that it didn’t matter what she was wearing; it was too dark for anyone to see her, anyway. Some girls were dancing with each other. But most of the kids were standing around in awkward clumps, waiting for something to happen.
A voice came over the loudspeaker. “Girls to the north side of the gym, boys to the south.” Lizzie tried to remember which side was north and which was south, but ended up just following the other girls across the gym to what was apparently the correct side.
“The first dance is boys’ choice. Go to it, boys!”
Lizzie shrank behind Alison, not that she had any real fear that anybody would seek her out. From nowhere Mike appeared, the boy who sat near Alison in orchestra. He mumbled to Alison something that must have meant, “May I have this dance?” With a parting glance to Lizzie of mingled pleasure and terror, Alison followed him out to the floor.
Lizzie waited. She couldn’t see any of the boys she knew. Then, across the room, still standing on the far side of the gym, she picked out a short boy who looked like Ethan and a tall boy who looked like Julius. Yes, there they were, too shy or scared or something to ask anyone to dance. She didn’t blame them. She certainly didn’t plan to ask anyone to dance when it was a girls’ choice, though she thought maybe she wouldn’t mind too much asking Tom. He had seemed so nice on the Shakespeare field trip, sharing her thrill in the treasures they had seen.
The music played on. No partner for Lizzie materialized from the shadows. Was it her dress, after all? The seconds passed, lengthening to minutes. Maybe she should declare defeat and call her parents for a ride home. Alison didn’t need her now. She had lured Lizzie to the dance and then left her all alone, a wallflower, while she danced the night away with a cute boy.
Finally the music ended. Alison returned, her eyes so sparkling that Lizzie forgave her for her betrayal.
>
“The next dance is girls’ choice,” came the announcer’s voice. “It’s your turn now, ladies!”
Neither Alison nor Lizzie moved. “I’m going to ask him,” Alison said, “but not for this dance. It’s too soon.”
“I’m not going to ask anyone,” Lizzie said. “Ever.”
“I dare you to ask Ethan.”
Lizzie refused to dignify that with a reply. “Look, Marcia asked Alex.”
“Surprise, surprise.”
Lizzie watched them dancing together. Marcia was a good dancer, Alex less so, though infinitely better, Lizzie knew, than she herself would have been. She couldn’t imagine standing out there in front of everybody, wiggling and wriggling in time to the music. If only people still danced the minuet, even the waltz. It was just as well that she was a wallflower, given that the alternative was dancing like that with a real live boy.
“Are Ethan and Julius dancing?” Lizzie made herself ask. She couldn’t find them anywhere, but Alison might have better eyes.
“Julius is. Not Ethan. He’s still standing by the bleachers.”
Lizzie was relieved by Alison’s answer.
“Do you want to go to the homecoming game tomorrow?” Alison asked. “It’s on a Saturday night this week.”
Lizzie contemplated a third interminable evening of brain-numbing boredom, enlivened by a few flashes of heart-stopping terror as she climbed up and down those shaky, rickety, all-but-falling-down bleachers. “Do I have to?” she wanted to ask Alison plaintively. And just then she found herself staring face-to-face at the answer to her own question: she didn’t have to.
“No,” Lizzie said. Just like that. “I didn’t really like the last two games very much. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a football fan.”
“Do you want to come over instead?” Alison asked. “Bring your flute and we’ll try some duets.”
Lizzie felt like flinging herself at Alison and hugging her. Instead she said, “Come to my house this time. You can bring your clarinet.”
“Great,” Alison said, and the music ended.
When the next dance began, a boys’ choice, Lizzie composed her wallflower face to an expression of cheerful indifference to her fate. Then, suddenly, Alex stepped up to her. “Dance?”
Lizzie could hardly believe it. Alex was asking her to dance for a boys’ choice, when he hadn’t yet asked Marcia? She walked with Alex a few feet onto the dance floor. Now came the part of the evening where she would have to gyrate awkwardly to the music.
“You know how I’m bad at sewing machines?” she asked.
“No! You? Bad at sewing machines? It can’t be true!”
“Well, that’s how bad I am at dancing.”
Alex seemed unconcerned by her confession. Rather than using it as a convenient excuse to flee back to the boys’ bleachers, he said, “You said you used to do ballet. Remember, with the tutu?”
“This is the wrong music for ballet.”
“You just move around. It’s not like it matters what you do.” Alex gave a short demonstration. Lizzie tried to imitate him. He laughed. “Don’t think about it so much. Just think about the music.”
Lizzie did her best, but she was relieved when the dance was over. Still, Alex had been so nice; Alex and Marcia were both surprisingly nice when Lizzie was bad at things. But if Aunt Elspeth was right, true friends would also like her when she was good at things. Alison liked Lizzie for being smart; Lizzie thought Tom might like her for being smart, too. And Ethan? He certainly hadn’t liked her for acting dumb.
Lizzie waited through the next girls’ choice, while Alison danced with Mike. Then Julius came to offer himself to Lizzie for a boys’ choice. His klutziness was comforting. There was a good-natured goofiness to it that made Lizzie forget to care about her own awkwardness and shyness and just have fun for a change.
And for the dance after that, Tom appeared. “Miss Archer, may I have the pleasure of this dance?” he asked in a charmingly formal way. It must have been the way a gentleman in a Jane Austen novel would ask a lady to dance. Dancing with Tom was almost as enjoyable as reading Shakespeare with him in English class. If it hadn’t been so hard to talk over the music, Lizzie would have asked him what he had been reading lately. She bet he would have had an interesting answer, too.
Warm now, Lizzie went with Alison to get a drink at the refreshment table. Marcia was there before them, looking uncharacteristically subdued. As far as Lizzie had seen, Alex hadn’t yet asked Marcia to dance, though she had asked him on the first girls’ choice. Julius and Ethan were there, too, nibbling on pretzels.
Over the loudspeaker came another announcement: “The next dance is anybody’s choice. It’s a slow one, so make it a good one!”
The first slow dance of the evening: a murmur of excitement and anxiety ran through the assembled girls.
Lizzie saw Alex moving toward the refreshment table. She glanced swiftly at Marcia and saw her stiffen with tense expectancy. Alex had to ask Marcia for this one, he just had to. But he walked on past Marcia, heading unmistakably toward Lizzie. This couldn’t be happening: Alex Ryan selecting her for a slow dance, Lizzie the Lizard, poet, Mathlete. But it wasn’t Lizzie the poet and Mathlete whom Alex liked; it was Lizzie-imitating-Marcia, the girl who giggled appreciatively at all his jokes. It wasn’t the real Lizzie at all.
Lizzie had to act fast. “Ethan!” She stepped over to him before Alex could come any closer. “Will you dance with me?”
He couldn’t very well refuse. He didn’t say anything, but he let Lizzie lead the way out to the dance floor.
“Now what?” Ethan’s tone wasn’t belligerent; it was sweetly bewildered.
“You put your hand on my back, and I put my hand on your shoulder. And then our other hands go like this.”
Ethan did as Lizzie said.
“And then we dance.”
They danced.
It was almost enough, but not quite. “Ethan?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Are you still mad at me? About PAL math?”
For a moment Lizzie was afraid Ethan might jerk his hand away, but he didn’t. “I guess not. But a D! Jeez, Lizzie. If you wanted to prove a point, couldn’t you have proved it with a B?”
“That was dumb,” Lizzie said. “I told you I wasn’t always right about things.”
“Yeah, well, I should have believed you the first time.”
They swayed together to the music. A few feet away, Lizzie saw Alex dancing with Marcia, Mike dancing with Alison, Julius dancing with a pretty girl with long dark hair whom Lizzie had never seen before. Ethan’s hand was warm but not sweaty, a comfortable, strong, gentle hand. Lizzie felt his other hand barely touching the small of her back. She was glad she had worn her Emily Dickinson dress to dance her first slow dance with Ethan.
Just then, the surprising truth came to her: she wasn’t in love with Ethan anymore. She still liked him terribly much, and she would always cherish the memories of the times he had stood up for her over the past year. But she didn’t need anyone to stand up for her now. She was standing up just fine for herself. She had a true friend; Julius, Alex, and Tom had all asked her to dance; she was going to give her best to the math team; she was going to write poems again, lots of them, poems that might be in the university rare books room someday.
She thought of one now, and even though she couldn’t run to write it down, she knew she wouldn’t forget it:
Lines Written During My First Slow Dance
I waited there—
Upon the shelf—
I reached for you—
I found myself.
ALSO BY CLAUDIA MILLS
Dinah Forever
Losers, Inc.
Standing Up to Mr. O.
You’re a Brave Man, Julius Zimmerman
Copyright © 2000 by Claudia Mills
All rights reserved
First edition, 2000
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mills,
Claudia.
Lizzie at last / Claudia Mills.
p. cm.
Summary: Lizzie, who has always been considered a nerd by the other kids, begins the seventh grade determined to change her image so that she can blend in better with the popular crowd.
ISBN 0-374-34659-3
[1. Popularity—Fiction. 2. Individuality—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction.]
I. Title.
PZ7.M63963 Li 2000
[Fic]—dc21
99-047621
eISBN 9781466852839
First eBook edition: August 2013
Lizzie At Last Page 10
