by Bibi Belford
The principal stands up. Mami rushes over to me and gets all mushy in Spanish.“Mija. Mija, pobrecita. Estaba preocupado por ti. I’m worried about you. Me asustaste. You scared me.” She pats my cheek and strokes my hair from my forehead.
The principal puts her arm around Mami. “I’m so sorry,” she says.
I try to remember if I’ve ever met this principal. I look at the name plate on the desk. Dr. Hien Souriyavongsa. Huh. Nope. Doesn’t ring a bell. Principal Sorry is about all I can figure out in the fog I’m in.
“DeeDee,” she says to me. “We’ve all been very worried. We thought you ran away from school. Where were you?”
“The bathroom.” My voice sounds very small and soft. Mousy. Not at all my voice.
“We looked in all the bathrooms. We’ve had a search going on. We called the police.”
The uh-oh bucket is really overflowing now. “I was in the fifth-grade bathroom. The boys’ bathroom.” I see Noodlenose’s eyes get wide. “By mistake.”
“Well.” Principal Sorry’s mouth almost smiles. “Next time we’ll have to do a better job of looking absolutely everywhere. Now, I’ve heard everyone’s side of the story but yours. Maybe you could tell me later. Right now, Mrs. Marsh says you’re a little under the weather. At this school we don’t tolerate bullying or bully bystanders.” She raises her eyebrows at Nancy and Sherie. “Can you explain what those words mean, girls?”
They both bob their heads up and down.
Nancy answers first. “A bully hurts people with words or actions over and over.”
Then Sherie says, “And a bully bystander watches and doesn’t help.”
“Now, girls,” says Principal Sorry. “Do you have something to take care of?”
Noodlenose Nancy stands up. “I’m sorry, DeeDee.”
Sherie stands up next to her. “I’m sorry, too.”
The lady behind them turns to Mami. “It seems our girls have gotten off on the wrong foot. Nancy is having some friends for a sleepover a week from Friday and she’d love to invite DeeDee. Wouldn’t you, Nancy?”
My stomach stops its uh-oh spillover for a second. Sleepover? Did I hear that right? But Nancy’s mom is inviting me, not Nancy. Beggars can’t be choosers. That’s what Danita says.
Nancy bounces her head up and down, like a puppet. “Yes, I would,” she says in an I-will-do-whatever-you-say-so-I-can-live-another-day voice.
Mami claps her hands as though she’s won the lottery.
Holy jalepeño, I think.
“Wonderful,” says Principal Sorry. “I believe this coming Friday you three will have lunch detention together. It will be a good time to plan the sleepover.”
Mami and I ride the bus home because I’m too dizzy to walk. Mami is not happy with me. “Too much trouble, mija. Too much,” she tells me. “No make trouble.” She reaches in her purse and pulls out a phone. Not a new phone. But still, a phone. “Use for emergency. Danny fixed all up.”
“What’s my number?” I ask Mami, and she shows me.
“Call me,” I say.
“For emergency.”
“Just once, please.”
My new-to-me phone rings. Danny set the theme song from American Idol for my ringtone. I press the red circle to stop the ringing. I know Mami is thinking the same thing I am. The American Idol song makes us miss Papi.
“Where’s Papi?” I whisper, staring at the phone.
She pats my knee and shakes her head but doesn’t answer me.
My head hurts from the noisy pling-plang bell as the bus announces each stop every two blocks. I try to fall asleep. After the fourth stop the speaker announces, “Next stop. Fairview Avenue,” and we get off.
I think about asking about Papi again. Maybe Mami didn’t want to talk about it in public. Maybe it’s too shocking. Or maybe she really doesn’t know. But then my mind wanders and I start worrying about the sleepover. We both plop down on the couch, exhausted. Mami closes her eyes and I snuggle next to her. Two seconds and she’s sleep-breathing, both our bodies rising and falling.
I remember when Mami didn’t work two jobs. I remember when she sat in the community room at the trailer park and talked with her friends. And went to Parent Academy English classes at Lincoln with the other moms. Everything’s changed for her, too.
A few minutes later, Danita and Andrea come tromping in with River right behind them.
“What happened to you?” he asks. “You never came back from lunch.” Then he puts his finger to his lips when he sees Mami sleeping next to me.
“I don’t feel so good.”
“Oh.” He sounds disappointed “Maybe we can go to the library on Friday. I can’t go Thursday.” Library is our code word for bus trip.
Mami shifts next to me and opens her eyes. “DeeDee go over to sleep at her friend’s house Friday,” she tells River. Then she gets up to get ready for work.
“Not this Friday. Next Friday,” I tell River.
“Ooh. Your first sleepover, DeeDee!” yells Danita as she and Andrea head toward the bedroom.
“Callate,” I yell after her, forgetting again that I’m not speaking Spanish.
“Something crazy happened at school,” says River. “The police showed up. Mrs. Cruella went to the office.”
“It was me. I got in a fight at lunch. The whole lunchroom heard.”
“Really? Well, not me. I can’t hear anything in that lunchroom.” River sits down on the couch. “Fight with who?”
So I tell him about Noodlenose Nancy and Despicable Me Sherie and how I refused to let her or the lunch supervisor, Bull-Face, push me around. “Bull-Face totally screamed in my face, and not in their faces. It’s ’cause she hates Mexicans.”
“She hates Mexicans just like Mrs. Cruella?” River squints his eyes at me.
“I said Mrs. Cruella didn’t understand Mexicans. That’s different.”
It really bugs me when River acts all high and mighty. Bull-face is prejudiced, not me.
River stares at me, eyebrows raised.
“Do you want to hear what happened or not?”
River pretends to lock his lips and nods.
I tell him about the lunch detention and how I got invited to a sleepover at Noodlenose Nancy’s house. I have a little hiccup in my throat as I leave out the part about telling my lunch table I’m not his friend and refusing to follow Bull-face’s directions.
“You’re going to Nancy’s house? Yari’s been doing all this research because of the new SLT inclusive community mission, and she found a newspaper article about Northlake High School graduation. Nancy’s brother was the first Asian kid to attend Robert Frost. I’m the first Filipino.”
“Nancy’s got a brother?” I ask. I never knew that. But then, I never talk to Nancy because she’s a noodlenose.
“Yari’s making a PowerPoint about all the great things people say about Robert Frost. Nancy’s brother was the valedictorian. That’s the student with the highest grades.”
“I know what a valedictorian is,” I say. Boy I hate it when he gets all high-and-mighty.
“He thanked his teachers at Robert Frost for helping him achieve his dream. He got the Gates Scholarship. You know, Bill Gates? The inventor of Microsoft? I mean that’s huge. He must be a genius. And he set records in track and was the student body vice president.”
“Well, maybe Nancy’s not related to her brother,” I say, thinking that I wouldn’t vote for Nancy if she was running for bear-poop scooper.
River busts out laughing. “I see what you mean,” he says.
Mami bustles by us on her way out the door to work. “Calladitos,” she says and points to Danita’s bedroom, as if they actually might be studying.
River whispers, “Calladitos.”
I show him my new-to-me phone. He shows me how to add contacts, starting with River Ramos-Henry, complete with a selfie he adds to the screen for his contact info.
“You can always put your friends in and add their phone numbers later. Look, here’s h
ow you edit.” He touches a few spots and adds my phone number to the contact for River Ramos-Henry. Then he pulls out his expensive-looking phone and calls me. When my phone rings, his picture shows up with my phone number.
“Hi,” I say into my new-to-me phone. “You’ve reached River the Geek. I’m programming phones right now so leave it at the beep.”
He laughs and grabs my phone, deleting my number from his contact.
“I’ve had a phone ever since I can remember,” he says.
“Lucky.” Mami only has a flip phone. Danny and Danita have okay phones, but not iPhones, which they want.
River shows me the settings on his phone. “It’s sort of a life-saving device for me. I even keep it under my pillow at night in case there’s a fire.”
“But won’t you hear the smoke alarm?” I’m glad we heard the smoke alarm when my trailer burned down.
“I might not hear anything.” River taps his ears. “So it’s set on ring and vibrate. Call me.”
I press River’s contact picture and his phone rings and buzzes. His voicemail message comes on, “Make it so. Live long and prosper.”
We start working on a half-finished puzzle of crayons, all lined up in rainbow rows. It’s the hardest puzzle ever. River pushes the pieces around with his fused fingers, then slides the piece he wants to the edge so he can grab it. He’s never wrong when he thinks a piece will fit into a spot. He’s so smart, it’s spooky.
“What’s the word for having guts in Spanish?” he asks me.
“I don’t know. I don’t speak Spanish.”
“Stop saying that. Now you can look up how to spell the Spanish words you need to translate the letter I wrote.”
“Okay. I will.” I almost forgot about the letters we’re sending to Mexico.
“Now, what’s guts in Spanish.”
“Maybe bella?”
River speaks to his phone. “Meaning of bella.”
His phone speaks back. “Beautiful.”
He kicks me. “Not funny.”
“Hey, Danita,” he yells. “How do you say brave in Spanish? Like gutsy?”
“Diabla,” Danita shouts back.
“Doesn’t that mean devil?” asks River.
“Exactly!” Danita pokes her head out and points at me.
Andrea walks into the hall and reads from her phone. “Activo. Desafiadora. Dinámico.”
“Do you speak Spanish?” asks River.
“No, but I speak Google,” says Andrea.
“Well, which one is the best?” asks River.
“It says here desafiadora means defiant, or standing up for yourself. Or dinámico. From the word dynamite.”
“Oh that’s perfect. Dinámico,” says River.
“Diablo Dinora is better,” shouts Danita.
“Shut up, crybaby. Chillona.” Why didn’t Danita disappear instead of Papi?
“Okay,” says River. “Mr. Hawaii calls you Diva Dee. I’m calling you Dina Dee. Short for Dinámica.”
“Funny.”
“I’m serious. Dina Dee. You’re daring and gutsy, standing up for yourself that way.”
I swallow an uh-oh down into my stomach remembering what I said about River.
Before River goes home he says, “When in doubt, be dynamic, okay, Dina Dee?”
“You’re weird,” I tell him as I close the door.
I wander into Danita’s room. “What do people do at a sleepover?” I ask very casually.
“Aw, poor widdle DeeDee wants us to help her,” says Danita.
“Never mind,” I say.
“She’s kidding,” says Andrea. “Of course we’ll help you. But it’s been a while since fourth grade, so things might have changed.”
“Dancing, maybe that video game. I forgot the name. You’re good at that,” says Danita.
“Dance Forever,” I say. I do love dancing. But am I still too pudgy? I wonder. Will they make fun of me?
“And snacks. Sometimes truth or dare,” says Andrea.
“Makeup,” offers Danita. “I’ve got some you can have.”
“And stories. Scary stories. Funny stories. Remember that scary story about the man with the hook?” Danita and Andrea scream at the same time and then giggle.
While Danita digs around in her makeup drawer, Andrea tells me the story so I can tell it at the sleepover. Then Danita makes me a prop to use with the story.
“Put it in your blanket before you start telling it. It’s better that way,” she says as she tries to catch my twitching eyelashes with her mascara brush.
I don’t think I’m going to be very good at this whole sleepover thing. Maybe I should just forget about it. Why do I even want to spend the night with Noodlenose Nancy and her sidekick Sherie? They make me feel like one of those leftover crayons that won’t fit back in the box. Then I smile, remembering what River called me. My new nickname. Dina Dee. A little pepita of determination starts to grow in my heart. Bring it on. There’s no stopping Dina Dee.
CHAPTER TWELVE
D IS FOR DINA DEE
“Carbs,” says Sherie, and she makes a nasty face at her sandwich. She pulls the meat off and stuffs the bread back into one of the four compartments on a plastic box. She opens a second compartment and eats a Dorito.
We’re at lunch detention on Friday. In the quiet and cushy conference room so the lunch supervisors can keep an eye on us. Not a huge punishment, if you ask me.
I don’t say anything to Sherie, but Doritos are carbs too, and probably way worse than wheat bread. I wish I didn’t know these things now. I really used to love Doritos before D for Diabetes.
Nancy carefully extracts her food from a box with dividers, the same as Sherie’s. “Have you ever seen a bento box?” she asks.
“No,” I say. And before I can stop myself I say, “I’ve seen a bent toe, though.”
“Is that a joke?” Nancy asks. “Oh my gawd. Sherie, did you hear that? So funny.”
I swallow my smile, and pretend to concentrate on my school lunch.
I’m not supposed to drink chocolate milk, or eat pancakes and syrup, but when you’re in detention they deliver the lunches instead of allowing troublemakers to stand in the lunch line. And I guess they never checked my menu choices. I’m supposed to eat the chef ’s salad and the chicken sandwich. I don’t want to make a big deal about it, especially in front of my two new “pals,” as Principal Sorry called us when she escorted us to the office. “I hope this will be the beginning of you gals becoming pals,” she said. I almost barfed.
“That syrup smells soooo good. Are you going to eat all those pancakes?” Nancy eats dainty bits of food from each compartment. Instead of a plastic water bottle, she drinks flavored fizzy water from a metal can.
“I love the smell of your fizzy water,” I tell her. “Are you going to eat every grain of that rice?” I can’t help myself. I’m being daring. River would be so proud of me.
Sherie makes a snort, as though she’s trying not to laugh but can’t help herself.
“And, are you saving that bread for an art project?” I take Sherie’s bread from Sherie’s box and pretend I’m making pottery.
Then they both laugh. For real. Laugh out loud. Because I’m funny.
And then we talk. Really talk. About the sleepover and how Nancy’s mom is going to order pizza from the most expensive pizza place. And Nancy asks if I can eat pizza, and if I can’t what can her mom make for me? I ask if she has the Dance Forever game and she has the latest version, so that’s going to be great, if I can stop worrying about being a gordita.
Sherie makes us promise not to laugh if she brings her Snufflebunny and we laugh right then, right in her face. I have a tight squeezy pinch in my stomach, which might be nerves, or joy, or maybe the three pancakes.
“So, DeeDee,” says Nancy as she clicks the covers closed on the compartments of her bento box. “How does your neighbor even eat without fingers?”
Pinch. That spot in my stomach again. I put my hand over the spot. I rememb
er the first time River ate with me in the hospital. I remember how I stared at him. Now, it’s not weird. It’s just the way River is.
Why is Noodlenose so curious about River? I hate it. I don’t know how to answer her. I roll my hands together the way River does. It’s hard to breathe. As if taking a breath would break my lungs. I want to be Dina Dee. But they’re waiting for me to say something funny. And they just started to like me. And River has lots of friends.
I make my hands into lobster claws. “Chop, chop. Chopsticks,” I say.
My two new friends copy me. “Chop, chop. Chopsticks,” they shriek. And they laugh.
Pinch goes my stomach.
•
It’s not only my stomach that goes pinch when Mrs. Marsh checks me after lunch.
“Oh, DeeDee, you know better,” she tut-tuts when I list the food I ate. I have to pee on a little strip and drink a bottle of water.
I wander back to class. River sticks a note in my hand when I walk by his desk. “Library postponed,” it says. Not again. He always has things to do.
•
My phone is for emergencies. That’s what Mami says. But what kind of emergency? I text River on Saturday:
Emergency. WRKing on Papi’s LTR. Need string cheese.
He texts back. Come over and dance for it, Dina Dee.
On Sunday I text River. Emergency. 50 degrees. Tryouts soon. Sk8BRD?
River texts back. I’m at church.
Fudge buckets. I forgot. I go practice by myself in the speed-bump parking lot.
•
On Monday my language arts group goes really well. We just started reading TOD, Tale of Despereaux. Which I pronounce des-per-row, thanks to Yari and her French lessons. Her pom-pom is in the bottom of my book bag and I’m planning to put it back. It’s okay that she likes River more than me. I like River more than me, too. And he’ll be a good SLT member. This have a friend, be a friend thing really makes me think a lot.
So, back to TOD. It’s another book with an animal main character. A mouse. And he saves the princess. Mrs. Cruella wants us to compare the characters’ motivation in all the books we’ve studied.
