Time's Up

by Annie Bryant

  When Isabel didn’t respond, Katani asked, “Um, Isabel? Are you mad?”

  There was a sniffle on the other end of the phone. “No!” she exclaimed, but Katani could tell she was crying. “It’s just…thanks, Katani. I know my mom is really special. And I was wondering why she was so happy this week. I think you helped her feel useful again. My mom used to be a very busy woman—‘all the time busy,’ my dad used to say.”

  Wow! First she made Kelley happy, and now Isabel’s mom. Suddenly it seemed like she was doing good deeds right and left. And it was all because she was letting other people help her too!

  As soon as she got off the phone with Isabel, Katani called Maeve and asked her to come over. When Maeve arrived, Katani brought her to her bedroom and handed her one of the boxes tied with pink ribbons.

  “This is for you,” Katani explained. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t introduced me to the Knitwits. You really saved me! And Sally made the best brownies in the world. I’m going to make them for the next Tower sleepover.”

  Maeve opened the box to find one of the gorgeous scarves Frances knitted in every shade of pink. “Oh, Katani, I love it! It’s GORGEOUS! Are you sure it’s an extra?”

  “I’m sure.” Katani nodded. “I want you to model it tomorrow at the fund-raiser.”

  Maeve let out a squeal. “Me, your personal model?”

  “Everyone will want one when they see you wearing it.”

  “Dahling, that’s one assignment I can handle, no problem! I better practice.”

  Maeve stood in front of the mirror and wound the scarf around her neck, tying it in a knot in the front. Then she flipped the scarf back so it hung down her back and strutted around the room, pretending to talk to various crowds of people, flinging the ends of the scarf this way and that. She tucked her cascades of red hair behind her ears, wrapped the scarf over the top of her head, then tied it under her chin and pranced around the room again until Katani begged her to stop, saying, “I think I’ve got the image.”

  Suddenly Katani looked at the clock. “Whoa,” she said, “I have to get to the post office before it closes.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Maeve told her, “for the good-luck walk!”

  Katani had already organized and paperclipped the original application, the copies, and all the attachments. Before she put it all in an envelope, she went through her checklist one final time. Then she sealed it up and announced, “I’m ready.”

  “I’m going too!” Kelley said.

  As the trio walked to the post office, Katani held the envelope to her chest just like Kelley had held her green bag the day before. A sliver of sun shone through the mass of gray clouds.

  “I can’t believe it’s really done!” Katani shouted.

  “Done, done, done!” Kelley sang.

  Today, Kelley copying her didn’t even bother Katani. She felt like she was walking on air. “I was so stressed out this week, I never thought I’d pull it all together.”

  “You just needed a little help,” Maeve told her, “from someone like moi. I’m your good-luck fairy!”

  “Mr. Bear helped too,” Kelley added.

  “Yes, he did,” Maeve said.

  “And let’s not forget the Knitwits,” Katani added.

  “But you pulled it all together, and I just know you’re going to win!” Maeve exclaimed. “I’ll be your personal model when you guys travel. I bet the great Audrey Hepburn started out modeling for one of her friends!” Audrey was Maeve’s favorite old-time actress.

  “We’re all going to Washington—all of us, and Mr. Bear!” Kelley shouted.

  “Don’t count your chicks before they hatch,” Katani warned her sister. But she smiled when she said it. Nothing was going to make her unhappy today.

  “Look, there’s Miss Pierce.” Maeve waved to a petite woman walking toward them with a bag of fruit in her arms. They said hello to Charlotte’s landlady, who rarely left the house.

  “I saw the sun peeking out, so I decided to venture out to Yuri’s for some fruit,” Miss Pierce told them.

  “Are you a vegan, Miss Pierce?” Kelley asked earnestly.

  “No.” She laughed. “I’m not. But I do love fruits and vegetables, and I hear vegans are very healthy people.”

  “Me either,” Kelley said. She had become obsessed with who was a vegan and who was not. When she heard that Patrice’s friend Shante was a vegan, Kelley really wanted to go and watch her eat. But Patrice told her it wasn’t polite to talk about how and what people ate.

  “I just needed a little fresh air. Where are you girls off to?” Miss Pierce continued.

  “To the post office.” Katani held out her envelope. “I’m mailing an application to an entrepreneur contest.”

  “If you go by Think Pink! you’ll see Katani’s scarves on display, and tomorrow they’re having a fund-raiser. They’re selling her scarves to raise money for breast cancer research,” Maeve blurted. “You could come.”

  “What a lovely idea. I’ll certainly try to make it,” Miss Pierce replied, although the girls could hear the hesitation in her voice. Miss Pierce was a very shy woman, and social gatherings sometimes made her very nervous.

  “We better hurry before the post office closes!” Katani said. “Hope to see you tomorrow, Miss Pierce.”

  Maeve’s Notes to Self:

  1. Treat self to double Swedish Fish.

  2. Work on performance draft of R & J (call Betsy again???) and check out Leonardo’s website (he is soooo cute).

  3. Try on outfits to wear to Think Pink! party—where I’ll be the MODEL!

  4. Paint nails the same pink as Katani’s scarves.

  5. E-mail Dad.

  CHAPTER 19

  Serengeti Stampede

  Charlotte was all ready to go to the Museum of Science with Nick. She had on her coolest jeans, a purple turtleneck sweater, and the comfortable leather boots she’d gotten in Paris. She decided to wear her hair down instead of in braids. In her wallet, she had thirty dollars tucked away for the subway, the movie, lunch, and in case of an emergency.

  She looked out her bedroom window at the bright blue sky and suddenly wished her mom were there for her. She slipped on her mother’s old jean jacket. The jacket was too big and slouchy for her, but Charlotte didn’t care. Wearing it made her feel close to her mother. She wished she could ask her mom if this was a date or not. Either way, though, she was sure her mom would like Nick.

  Marty ran up to her, wiggling and shaking his scruffy little body. Charlotte bent over to rub between his ears. “I already took you for a walk, little dude,” she told him.

  He looked up at her, begging.

  “Oh, you want to come with me! I wish you could go too, Marty.”

  He nuzzled in closer and wagged his tail. Marty loved an outing.

  “Actually, on second thought, you’re the big flirt with your doggie girlfriend, La Fanny. You’d definitely call this whatever-it-is a date! You better stay here.”

  The phone was ringing.

  “Hi Charlotte. It’s Nick.” He sounded kind of anxious, and Charlotte immediately wondered what was wrong. Was he canceling their date…er…non-date?

  “Sorry, but I had the time wrong for the show,” Nick went on. “The Planetarium starts at ten thirty and Omni starts at ten o’clock.”

  “Can we still get there on time?” Charlotte asked. It would be totally horrible if they missed the show!

  “Not if we take the T, but don’t worry, we have a ride. We’ll pick you up in about ten minutes, okay?”

  Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn’t getting stood up after all. “Yep, see you then,” she told him.

  When she got off the phone she told her father what Nick had said.

  “I wonder how the Montoyas will be able to leave the bakery on a Sunday morning,” Mr. Ramsey pondered. “I’d take you if I didn’t have this brunch.”

  Charlotte knew he’d planned this brunch with some other Boston University p
rofessors over a week ago. It was the only time they could all get together. She smiled and said, “That’s okay, Dad. You better make some friends if we’re going to stay in Brookline for a while. What article are you writing now?”

  “This piece is on Boston and how it’s changed over the years.”

  Charlotte was relieved. That meant they were staying in Brookline and not flying off to Switzerland or something. “Can I read it, Dad?”

  “Of course you can. I would have had you proof it for me before I sent it out to a couple of magazines if you hadn’t been so busy this week.”

  “Thanks for reminding me. I need to have my book report proofread too. Can you help me with that?”

  “You got it.”

  “I better look out the window for Nick.”

  A few minutes later, Charlotte was thrilled to see Fabiana pull up in the Montoya minivan.

  “Nick’s older sister is driving us!” she called to her dad. “I’ll see you this afternoon—in time for Katani’s fund-raiser. Don’t forget Miss Pierce is going with us!”

  “I didn’t forget. Have fun, sweetheart.”

  “You, too, Dad.” Charlotte kissed her dad good-bye and ran out the door into the crisp morning air.

  Charlotte was grateful that Fabiana acted like she was just picking up a friend instead of like she was picking up her brother’s date. The three of them talked about school and how busy they were. Charlotte asked how her leading role in My Fair Lady was going and Fabiana asked her about The Sentinel. As they were leaving Brookline to get on Storrow Drive, Fabiana put on an ABBA CD. They cruised alongside the Charles River, the sun shining on the icy top with ABBA blasting.

  “You know, Charlotte, Nick knows every single line of this album,” Fabiana teased.

  “No way!” Nick shouted.

  But he couldn’t stop himself from singing along. Fabiana and Charlotte laughed.

  “Well, if I do,” Nick claimed, “it’s only because you play it nonstop!”

  They all sang along to “Take a Chance on Me.” Charlotte couldn’t help reading in to the lyrics about taking a chance on someone you’re crazy about. But then she quickly decided she wasn’t going to worry, date or non-date! She was just going to have a good time. Still, she couldn’t help thinking how cute Nick looked in his Red Sox long-sleeved T-shirt and down vest.

  It definitely broke the ice having Fabiana with them. When they pulled up in front of the museum, Charlotte asked her if she wanted to join them, not wanting the fun to end.

  Fabiana glanced at Nick, then said politely, “Thanks, Charlotte, but the Omni shows make me too dizzy. I’d just be sitting there with my head between my knees the whole time.”

  Charlotte laughed and thanked her for the ride.

  As she and Nick started for the museum, Nick said, “Let’s hurry, I like good seats!”

  Charlotte raced in with him. They ran past the gift shop and the cafeteria, past the Discovery Center with a line of baby strollers outside. When she saw the line of people waiting in front of the Omni, she asked, “Don’t we get our tickets up here, Nick?”

  “I already got them,” Nick said. “Online.”

  “Oh,” Charlotte answered, trying to hold back her surprise. That was so thoughtful of him. A smile spread over her face as wide as a half moon. “That’s really great. Thanks.”

  Nick handed in his printed tickets and they walked in to Africa: The Secret World of the Serengeti. Once she was sitting down, Charlotte understood how Fabiana got dizzy in here. She felt like she was hanging over a mountainside looking down at all the seats below them. As soon as the movie started, though, Charlotte forgot all about her lightheadedness. The scenes of the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania where she used to live were so spectacular, but it was so odd that it felt like another lifetime that she had been there.

  The lush grassland before them suddenly exploded into pounding hooves, showing the annual migration of zebras and wildebeests. Nick and Charlotte jumped in their seats as tens of thousands of hooves stampeded across the plain, shaking the ground like an earthquake. The whole theater seemed to shudder with the force of the animals running. The zebras were a mass of vertical and horizontal stripes, making it difficult to see where each individual zebra began and ended.

  “That’s awesome,” Nick whispered.

  “Zebra stripes are their self-defense. They confuse their predators that way,” Charlotte whispered back. She hoped she didn’t sound too much like Betsy Fitzgerald. She was just so excited, she couldn’t stop herself as the camera swept over the miles of grassy plains, bush, and woodland that used to be part of her own landscape.

  “Did you know that something like 750,000 zebras migrate each year, and about one and a half million wildebeests?” Charlotte whispered again.

  Thousands of wildebeests, which were like large antelopes with cow horns and long wispy beards, thundered across the grasslands too.

  “I can’t believe you actually lived there. I have to visit Africa someday,” Nick whispered back. “Maybe we can go there together,” he told her shyly.

  Charlotte’s heart skipped a beat, and she smiled at Nick.

  From a sky-view, the migration looked like a river flowing across the earth. In some places the animals ran in clusters, and in others they stretched out like ribbons. Charlotte and Nick watched the swollen rivers the animals had to cross and the snapping, hissing feeding frenzy of jackals, hyenas, and crocodiles.

  “Wow,” Nick said in a low voice, “this is way better than those old romantic movies Maeve is always making us watch.”

  Charlotte nodded as the screen suddenly turned black with an ominous rain cloud that burst, flowing in thick columns. Charlotte wanted to reach out and grab Nick’s hand, but instead she said, “You can’t believe the smell of the earth after it pours like that. It’s so…pungent. And it falls so hard, only the land right under the rain cloud gets wet.”

  Next thing Charlotte knew, the movie was over and the lights were back on. Nick didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get out of the theater, so Charlotte stayed put too.

  “Where exactly did you live?” Nick asked.

  “Just north of the Serengeti. The south is really a dust bowl in the dry season—until it rains, and then everything turns green like magic and the most beautiful yellow flowers grow everywhere and there are these sparkling clear pools of water.”

  “Sounds so incredible,” Nick said.

  “It’s really magical. I kept thinking about my friend Shadya during the movie. I’m going to e-mail her tonight. It’s so hard to keep in touch.”

  Nick nodded. “You know what? We should plan a trip to visit her when we graduate from high school or something.”

  “I bet she would love to see us. She’s a very nice girl.”

  Not wanting to be the last ones out of the theater, they finally headed out. They heard music coming from the famous Museum of Science musical stairs and bolted in that direction.

  “Wildebeest mania!” Nick yelled, running up and down. Each stair chimed a different tone when he stepped on it.

  “Sounds more like a hippo!” Charlotte teased, jumping from stair to stair to hear the different tones they would play. “You know, they can run as fast as humans!”

  “Charlotte, you know so much, you should write a book about the Serengeti.”

  “Well, my dad already did.”

  Nick smiled. “Oh, yeah. Hey, how about this?” He bopped up and down as he rapped “Take a Chance on Me.” “Is this how it goes?”

  “No, like this.” Charlotte tried to move her feet to the melody of the silly ABBA song while Nick rapped until they both almost collapsed, laughing.

  “I’m starving,” Charlotte said when she caught her breath. “Are you?”

  “Big-time. Let’s grab lunch.”

  They raced down the musical stairs, this time with Charlotte in the lead. In the cafeteria they decided on pizza, which Charlotte insisted on paying for, even though Nick took out his wallet.
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  “No way,” she said. “You got the tickets. I’m getting this.” This way it seemed more even-Steven and not so weird. Anyway, she was having way too much fun for this to be a date! First dates were supposed to be awkward and nerve-racking, and Charlotte felt fine. In fact, she felt fantastic. Nick made her laugh, and she could talk to him like a friend. He even liked to talk about books. The date-non-date was perfect.

  As they looked out over the partly frozen Charles River with the Prudential Building on one side and the Green Line train on the other, Nick said, “You know, watching that movie makes me want to be a world adventurer.” Pausing between bites of pizza, he made a flying gesture with his hand. “I mean, I could get on a plane right this minute. I feel like I was meant to travel the world.”

  “I know what you mean,” Charlotte agreed enthusiastically.

  “Well, I guess I better call Fabiana,” Nick said finally, slurping down his cold drink.

  “Before she comes, let’s look at the Omni schedule and pick out another movie to see,” Charlotte suggested, suddenly forward. Was Nick having as good a time as she was? She couldn’t believe she’d gotten up the nerve to ask him on a date—oops, non-date!

  “Great idea,” Nick agreed.

  Charlotte slowly let out her breath and brushed her sweaty palms on her pants.

  CHAPTER 20

  In the Stars

  As Katani walked along Beacon Street with Kelley and her grandmother toward Think Pink! she couldn’t believe that it was only a little over a week ago that she’d read about the contest in T-Biz. She smoothed her straight black wool miniskirt and pink cashmere sweater and laughed out loud remembering how she’d thought she could do it all by herself.

  “What’s so funny?” Mrs. Fields asked.

  Katani threw up her hands. “How could I have ever have thought I could knit twenty scarves myself on top of everything else for school and the contest? I must have been crazy!”

  “Crazy, silly, Katani,” Kelley hummed. She was carrying Mr. Bear inside a basket Katani had decorated with tiny pink ribbons and a sign that read SUPPORT BREAST CANCER AWARE-NESS WEEK.