Goodbye Stranger

by Rebecca Stead

  That night, Bridge thought about what her animal should be. A cat? A frog? She decided she would draw a Martian, with a circle body, a circle mouth, two feet but no legs, and three eyes.

  The next day, she showed her Martian to Tab and Emily, feeling shy. But Tab clapped when she saw it, and Emily said “Awesome!” And then the three of them held up their papers in a kind of circle on the lunch table, so that their animals could see one another.

  “Is a Martian an animal, though?” Bridge asked.

  “A Martian is a creature,” Tab said. “And so is a snake. And so is a bird.”

  And from then on, they were the set of all fourth graders who drew creatures on their homework. More than that, they were friends.

  The next year, Bridge, Tab, and Emily were the set of fifth graders who drew creatures on their homework papers, and they drew the same things they had drawn before: bird, snake, and Martian. Their friendship grew stronger, like a rope that thickened little by little. On the Monday after spring vacation, Emily sighed, rested her chin on the lunchroom table, and said, “Can sets have rules?”

  “Sure,” Bridge said.

  “What rules?” Tab asked, suspicious.

  “It’s only one rule,” Em said. “No fighting.”

  “No fighting?” Bridge said.

  “Yeah, just—no fighting. Okay?”

  “But we have to swear on something,” Tab said. She put her second Twinkie in the middle of the table. “Let’s swear on this.”

  Em smiled. “The magic Twinkie of no fighting?”

  They each ate a third.

  When middle school started, they were the set of sixth graders who drew creatures on their homework and did not fight. That was the year Em’s parents got divorced. The rope became even stronger.

  —

  In seventh grade, things were different. Not the rope. Other things.

  First of all, now Emily had a “body.” Bridge could see this for herself, and Tab’s older sister, Celeste, who was in high school, confirmed it:

  “Look at Emily with the curvy new curves!”

  It had happened quickly. Bridge heard her mother telling her father that Emily’s “growth spurt” made her think of those silent four-year-olds who suddenly start speaking in full sentences.

  Seventh grade had sports teams and foreign languages. Emily turned out to be not only the second-fastest runner in the grade but also one of the best players on the girls’ JV soccer team, and now even the eighth graders said hi to her. And Tab, who had always spoken French at home but almost never raised her hand at school, became kind of a know-it-all. Madame Lawrence, who was very strict, sometimes chatted and laughed with Tab before class. In French.

  Bridge was horrible at French.

  And then Bridge’s English teacher handed back the first homework assignment of the year. He had circled her three-eyed Martian and written No doodling on homework, please. Next time I will take off points.

  When she showed Emily and Tab and asked if anyone had drawn big red circles around their creatures, they looked at each other and admitted that they hadn’t drawn anything on their homework in the first place.

  “You guys.” Bridge dropped her arm so that her paper slapped her thigh. “Seriously?”

  Emily grabbed Bridge’s hand and said, “We’re still a set. We’re the set of all seventh graders who used to draw stuff on their homework.”

  “And who don’t fight,” Tab added. “Don’t forget the Twinkie.”

  “Right,” Em said. She looked at Bridge. “Forever.”

  “And ever,” Tab said.

  But Bridge understood that life didn’t balance anymore. Life was a too-tall stack of books that had started to lean to one side, and each new day was another book on top.

  MAYBE

  Emily had long legs, and her chest jiggled a little when she moved. She probably jiggled exactly the right amount. And it didn’t slow her down on the soccer field. At all.

  “Wow, she just exploded,” Bridge heard someone say after Em scored a goal during the first game of the season. But she wasn’t sure if it was Emily’s speed or her body that was exploding. She and Tab watched the kids running back and forth in the knee-high dust. It was almost October but still summer-hot.

  “So what’s with the ears?” Tab asked.

  Bridge shrugged. “They’re ears.”

  “It’s been a week. How long are you going to wear them?”

  “I don’t know.” Bridge could feel Tab studying her, but she didn’t turn her head. “Maybe until it rains?” She touched the cat ears carefully with four fingers. “I don’t want them to get wet.”

  “Are you okay?” Tab asked.

  “Sure,” Bridge said.

  —

  On the last day of September, Bridge kissed her locker for the last time and Emily got a text from a boy. It had not rained. Bridge was still wearing the ears.

  The text was from an eighth grader. It said: S’up?

  “Wild,” Em said.

  “Are you gonna text him back?” Tab asked.

  “Maybe,” Emily said.

  —

  On the first day of October, Emily got a text from a boy asking for a picture.

  “Same boy,” Em said. “That eighth grader. His name is Patrick. Very cute, actually. And he plays soccer.” They were sitting against the fence after Emily’s second win.

  “A picture of what?” Tab asked, pulling at the dry grass. She was stirring up dust that made Bridge want to sneeze.

  Emily laughed. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not doing it.”

  “Send him a picture of your feet,” Bridge suggested.

  And so Emily took a picture of her dirt-covered soccer cleats and texted it to Patrick.

  Ten seconds later, he texted Emily a picture of his sneakers.

  “Ha,” Emily said, shoving her phone into her bag. “He thinks he’s funny.”

  VALENTINE’S DAY

  You should have known about Vinny. You did know. You’d known ever since that day last fall, when it was the three of you, playing one of Vinny’s games. You watched her blindfold Zoe, who sat obediently on your kitchen floor while Vinny quietly cut a slice from a banana, giggling and telling you to shush. She fed the banana slice to Zoe with a spoon, saying, “Don’t peek! Don’t peek!”

  Then it was your turn. You sat smiling on the floor, blindfolded with a pair of your own black tights, and Vinny came with her spoon, laughing. “Open wide!”

  It was a spoonful of pure cinnamon. You choked and ran to the bathroom to spit and spit and spit into the sink before you came out, smiling again, eyes watering. Ha. No big deal. At dinner that night your sister asked you three times what was wrong. Nothing, you said. Nothing. Until your mom told her you were just being a teenager.

  A week later, you asked Gina if she felt like hanging out. She hadn’t gone to your middle school, and her sense of humor made geometry bearable.

  Big mistake. Vinny’s eyes feasted on Gina’s clothes, her sneakers, her lack of purse. As soon as the four of you were in your room, Vinny clapped her hands and called out, “Tasting game!”

  This time you got the banana. And then you watched Vinny feed Gina a spoonful of black pepper. She couldn’t stop coughing and had to go home, apologizing.

  Gina was the one who apologized.

  You were the one who let it happen.

  —

  You can’t stand this freezing-cold playground for another minute. Your mom must have left for work by now. You want your bed. You want to lie down and disappear. But first you have to get home: six blocks. You don’t want to have to explain yourself to anyone, especially anyone who might see your parents later. You tell yourself that it’ll be like a game of hot lava. Vinny used to love that game when you were little. She’d shout, “The floor is lava!” and leap from your couch to your coffee table to the chair your dad had shipped all the way from Paris because he said it was the most comfortable thing in the world. No one jumped on the furniture at Vin
ny’s house.

  —

  Your old middle school is hot lava.

  Zoe’s nosy doorman is hot lava.

  The Bean Bar is hot lava.

  You cross Broadway and rush past the Dollar-Eight Diner, where the waitress still calls you French Fry because when you were little that was all you would eat.

  —

  You get to your building and decide that the elevator is hot lava, so you take the stairs.

  Breathing hard, you put your ear against the apartment door and listen for a few seconds, just in case.

  Key in the lock, turn, and push. You’re in.

  There’s no one home. You go straight to your room, shut the door, and stand looking at the bed you made two hours ago, when the apartment was full of voices and the smell of toast and news on the radio and the wet warmth that floated out from the hall bathroom where your sister had showered for too long.

  You put your feet in the middle of the rug. You lie down neatly on your bed.

  The whole world is hot lava.

  TEN THOUSAND STEPS

  Madame Lawrence spoke only French in class. On the first day, Bridge raised her hand and said, “Excuse me, but we don’t understand anything you’re saying. We don’t speak French yet.” She smiled, a little embarrassed for Madame Lawrence, who’d missed something so obvious.

  “En Français, s’il vous plaît,” Madame Lawrence said gently.

  “What?” Bridge said.

  “She wants you to say it in French,” Tab told Bridge quietly over her shoulder. She sat three rows ahead.

  “How can I say it in French if I don’t speak French?” Bridge said in English. “If I knew French, I wouldn’t be taking French to begin with.”

  She was careful not to look at Tab when she said this.

  “En Français,” Madame Lawrence said, a little less gently.

  The words didn’t come in French. When she tried to speak in French, Bridge felt as if someone had sewn her mouth closed, which made her angry. And when she was angry she couldn’t learn because there were too many angry words in her head. So the French homework wasn’t so easy either.

  —

  At Emily’s third soccer game, Bridge and Tab stood together in a drizzling rain.

  “You’re still wearing the ears,” Tab said.

  “I decided to wear them until Halloween,” Bridge said.

  After the game, Bridge bought two Kit Kats, one of which she dropped on her father’s desk at the Bean Bar on her way home. He was out, but he’d know the Kit Kat was from her.

  There was a new girl behind the counter. She didn’t seem at all curious about why Bridge felt free to walk into the tiny office next to the bathrooms.

  “Hi,” Bridge said on her way out.

  “Hi,” the girl said. “I’m Adrienne.” She held out her hand, and Bridge reached out to shake.

  “You work here,” Bridge said.

  “Yes,” Adrienne agreed.

  Bridge blushed. “I meant—”

  “Are you Bridge, by any chance? You look like your dad.”

  “Thanks.” Bridge realized how that sounded, blushed again. “I mean—”

  Adrienne smiled. “No, that’s right. It was a compliment. He’s super-cute, as far as dads go. You should see my dad. What is he, anyway, an Arab?”

  “He’s Armenian. Armenian American.”

  “Armenian?” She nodded. “Cool. I don’t even know where that is.”

  “Well, he was born in California,” Bridge said. “What happened to Mark?”

  “Beats me,” Adrienne said. “I guess he quit. My lucky day.”

  —

  “Mark quit the Bean Bar,” Bridge told her brother, Jamie, when she got home.

  “Yeah, bummer.” Jamie was sitting on the edge of his bed, fiddling with something on his wrist. “I liked Mark. He always gave me a doughnut. A first-day doughnut.” Their dad was more generous with the day-old baked goods.

  “There’s a new one,” Bridge said. “Adrienne.”

  “I know.” The thing he was fiddling with began to beep.

  “What is that?”

  “A pedometer. It counts your steps.”

  “What for?”

  “A contest.”

  “Seriously? Another one?”

  Jamie met Bridge’s eyes. “I’m going to beat him this time.”

  Him was Alex, who lived on the top floor of their building. He was in tenth grade, like Jamie, and they were sort of friends, sort of enemies. “Frenemies,” Em called it.

  “Nah,” Jamie said when Bridge told him that. “Frenemies is a middle-school thing.”

  “Okay, so what do you call it in high school?”

  “I guess now he’s my…” Jamie thought, and then smiled. “He’s my nemesis.”

  Alex was always suggesting some kind of competition, and Jamie was always losing. So far he’d forfeited a brand-new Call of Duty game, a vintage Rolling Stones T-shirt he’d bought at the flea market, and a baseball signed by Mariano Rivera. Bridge wondered what Jamie had left that Alex would even want. She scanned her brother’s room: books, old art projects, a few binders of ordinary baseball cards, and his action figure of Hermey the elf. Jamie wouldn’t bet his laptop, would he? Their parents would lose their minds.

  “So what’s the contest?” she said.

  “Alex and I are going to walk ten thousand steps every day. Exactly ten thousand steps.” He tapped his wrist. “This thingy counts every step, and then at midnight it downloads so we can check each other’s numbers. First one who goes over or under ten thousand loses.”

  “What’d you bet him this time?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Because I’m not going to lose.”

  “Mom and Dad won’t let you bet your laptop.”

  “I didn’t bet my laptop.”

  “Not Hermey!” She grabbed the plastic elf from Jamie’s bookcase and rubbed his yellow hair protectively. He was a character from the Rudolph Christmas special. They watched it every year. Rudolph was a reindeer misfit because of his glowing red nose, and Hermey was an elf misfit because he didn’t like making toys. He wanted to be a dentist.

  Jamie smiled. “I would never let Alex have Hermey.”

  “So what’d you bet?” Bridge said, walking Hermey’s pointy boots along the edge of Jamie’s bed.

  “I told you. It doesn’t matter.”

  Bridge didn’t have to ask what Jamie was trying to win back from Alex. She knew it was the Rolling Stones T-shirt.

  DEMENTED

  Emily was leaning against her locker and smiling at her phone.

  “What’s funny?” Bridge asked.

  “More texts,” Emily said, holding out her phone.

  Tab snatched it. “Ew. What is that?”

  Emily grabbed the phone back and studied the screen. “It’s not ew,” she said. “It’s a knee.”

  “Whose knee?”

  “Somebody’s.”

  “That eighth grader?”

  “His name is Patrick. And it turns out half of JV soccer is in love with him.”

  “Even the boys?” Tab said.

  “Probably,” Em said.

  “Are you wearing eye makeup?” Bridge said.

  “A little,” Em admitted. “What do you think?”

  Bridge tilted her head. “I don’t know yet. I have to get used to it.”

  “Wait, look.” Em waved her phone at them. “This one’s cute. I promise.”

  “What is that?” Tab asked. “Your elbow?”

  “No, doofus!” Em’s voice dropped. “It’s his ankle. Cute, right?”

  Bridge rotated the phone, trying to make out an ankle. “Why did he send you a picture of his ankle? And his knee?”

  “Because! Remember? My foot?”

  “So you sent him a picture of your foot and he sent you one of his ankle?”

  “Yeah.” Em smiled.

  “The set of all people who send pictures of their leg parts,” Bridge said.

  “Yeah.�
�

  “I’m guessing it’s a small set. Maybe just the two of you.”

  “A set of two,” Em said.

  “Get that dreamy look off your face,” Tab said. “You’re being…manipulated!”

  “I am not!”

  “Let me guess. Now he wants a picture of your knee, right?”

  “So?”

  “The Berperson says that women are treated like objects and we don’t even know it.”

  “The Berperson! Give me a break. She’s a wacko.”

  “She is not!”

  The Berperson was Tab’s English teacher. Her name was Ms. Berman, but on the first day of school she had instructed the class that this year they were going to be detectives, looking for the “hidden messages” in language. Then she had written her own name on the board, crossed out the man, and written person over it. “Call me Ms. Berperson!” she said. But everyone called her the Berperson instead.

  Em used her thumb to flip back and forth between her Patrick photos: ankle, knee, ankle, knee. “Seriously, you guys, what should I send back? Should I do, like, my shin?” She hesitated. “That might be really ugly.”

  “Why don’t you and Patrick actually talk to each other?” Tab said.

  Em looked up. “Are you demented? And say what?”

  VALENTINE’S DAY

  You gather up the cat and try to make her snuggle the way she does early in the morning, when she purrs like a lawn mower and rubs the side of her face against your cheek. But she’s having none of it and hops off the bed.

  You put your headphones on and pull your sweatshirt hood up over them.

  Head hug, you think. It’s something Gina does—squeezes your head to her body with one arm, yells “Head hug!” and then cracks up.

  You listen to one of your mom’s old French songs—she’s always loading her music onto your playlist by accident. You pretend to mind, but don’t. Her songs remind you of being little, when she played them loud and said how they were about life going by too fast.

  Life was anything but fast, in your opinion. If it went any more slowly, time would probably start to run backward.

  You walk around the house with your hood pulled tight and stop in front of your dad’s cactuses. Cacti. They look soft and fuzzy, but you know if you touch them, tiny spikes will get stuck in your fingers, hurt like crazy, and be impossible to get out. So you just look at them, standing with your hands in your hoodie pockets.