Let Me Fix That for You

by Janice Erlbaum

  “Hey, Glad!”

  Sophie plants herself in front of me and gives me an air-kiss. She seems all bubbly and peppy, as usual, but close up, I can see that her teeth are clenched behind her smile and the veins in her temples are bulging. “So-oo,” she begins, wrinkling her nose adorably.

  “What. Do. You. Want.”

  Sophie’s eyes widen with alarm at my unfriendly tone. She keeps up her happy face, but she drops her voice to a low murmur. “Glad, I don’t know what to do. They want the money tomorrow.”

  If I had a smile left inside me, I’d be wearing it right now. “I know. I heard Rich mention it before the meeting yesterday morning. Right after I heard you tell all the girls how pathetic I am.”

  Sophie’s eyes widen. She stumbles back a step and clasps both hands over her mouth. “Oh my God,” she says, voice trembling. “No, Glad, that was … I’m so sorry. I only said that … I didn’t want them to know…”

  “Oh!” I interrupt. “The part about me begging to join the committee, that was a nice touch. Good detail.”

  If Sophie gets any paler, she will become translucent. “Honestly, I swear I didn’t mean it. I don’t feel that way, I swear, please, I was just trying to cover—”

  “Cover up the real reason you’d be talking to me, I know. Because people only talk to me when they need something. Isn’t that what Hannah said? Or was it Desiree…”

  “It’s not true.” There are tears in Sophie’s eyes. I wonder if anyone is looking. Then I wonder why I wondered that, because who cares if people are looking? It’s not my problem anymore. “Glad, please, I do like you, I swear. Please believe me. Please, Glad. I need help.”

  Nope. Not this time. I fell for this once already, during our conversation in the resource room. I’m not even wobbling for it now. Sophie needs help? We all need help. I’m in severe trouble right now, both at home and at school, and nobody’s doing a heckin’ thing to help me.

  “Sorry.” Not sorry, I add silently as I brush past her. “I’ve got my own problems.”

  30

  Thursday Afternoon

  I’m in the living room, getting lectured for the second time today.

  Dad’s been at it for a while already, emphatically repeating his own list of key points:

  1.  Rules are rules!

  2.  They’re not optional!

  3.  Did you think you could break a rule without consequences?

  4.  Do you think you’re above rules somehow?

  5.  You were warned twice not to do something and you did it a third time!

  6.  Nobody’s going to trust you to follow the rules now!

  7.  The exact rule you broke? “Don’t do whatever Ms. Schellestede said not to do!”

  8.  BECAUSE SHE SAID NOT TO DO IT.

  9.  Okay, you are right: people blindly followed orders in Nazi Germany, and that was wrong. But you are not in Nazi Germany, you are in the seventh grade and are simply being asked to stop concentrating on other people’s problems and keep your eyes on your own damn work!

  10.  Why do you keep doing this?

  Dad was on number five when Baxter dropped Agnes off and discreetly left. Agnes either went downstairs to her lab or pretended to go downstairs to her lab, in which case she’s listening very quietly from the kitchen. Now he’s on the big one, point number ten: Why?

  “What is so rewarding about this…” Dad searches for the words as he paces the living room. “This liar-for-hire thing you do?”

  “I don’t lie,” I insist (though “liar-for-hire” does sound kind of cool). “I do favors for people.”

  Dad’s face clearly shows that he is not having any of this, not even a tiny little slice. “Favors like helping a girl lie about her whereabouts when she’s supposed to be at band practice?”

  Damn it, Jasmine. Why’d you have to get caught? “Why does everyone keep accusing me of that?”

  Dad is not going to fall for the old “answering a question with a question” trick. “Then tell me what favors you mean.”

  “Well…,” I stall, trying to think which jobs sound the most innocent. “Like, this one guy Taye wanted me to give a box of chocolates to his crush.”

  “Okay,” Dad says, unconvinced.

  “And … this guy Sam Boyd was going to get beat up by this girl Evelyn Ferszt, so I wrote him a letter to give to her. And she didn’t beat him up!”

  “Okay. And what about Izzy, whose hair you chopped off with scissors? Was that a favor for her?”

  “Yes! She asked me to cut her hair!”

  I’d like to note that Izzy repeatedly made this point very clear in our meeting with Schellestede: “I asked Glad to do it. She didn’t do anything wrong. Glad didn’t break the dress code, I did.”

  This made no difference whatsoever, but it was appreciated.

  “And her coming over in the morning to walk to the bus? Was that friendship, or a favor?”

  I look at him sheepishly. “Her grandma made her wear girl stuff to school this week. So she came over to change clothes.”

  “Oh.” Dad is audibly disappointed. He was so happy to see me making friends. “And Sophie? I assume our shopping trip was some kind of business.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh. Huh.”

  Dad falls silent, but he’s not giving me the Lawyer Look. He’s not looking at me at all. He’s staring at the wall in front of him like he’s trying to read a very small sign. I sit and wait for him to say something.

  After a minute or two, he asks, “Why do you do it?”

  I don’t know anymore. It doesn’t matter anyway. I already decided I was going to stop—I have stopped, but this morning Izzy needed me. “Because … I like helping people.”

  Dad’s expression softens. “I know you like helping people, BunBun. That’s one of the best things about you. I don’t want you to think you shouldn’t help people, because you should. We all should. Everybody needs help sometimes. But sometimes we think we’re helping someone, and we’re not.”

  This is the same thing Schellestede tried to tell me. I know you think you’re helping people … I’m so frustrated I want to cry.

  Dad continues. “If a classmate of yours skips band and you help her get away with it, you’re not helping her. You’re just making it easier for her to keep skipping band. If she doesn’t want to go to practice, she should quit, but she shouldn’t be lying about her whereabouts. That’s unsafe. Nobody knew where she was or who she was with. What if something had happened to her? Do you see what I’m saying?”

  I nod, sneaking a look at the time display on the cable box. We’ve been at this for over an hour—surely we must be done here. I risk asking, “Can I go now?”

  “No,” says Dad. He stands in front of me, scrutinizing my face. “Now I want to know what kind of ‘fixing’ you’re doing here at home.”

  Okay. I was not prepared for this. A bead of sweat trickles down my back. “I’m not doing anything,” I answer.

  There’s an extended silence from Dad. He tips his head and stares at me. Lawyer Look in full effect. “I find that hard to believe,” he says finally.

  “It’s true.” I fold my arms and sulk at Dad’s mistrust. “I’m not ‘fixing’ anything at home.”

  “Look at me,” he demands. I lift my head unwillingly. “What about last night, when Mabey was late? Did you come up with her excuse?”

  Eeep, says my brain.

  “No,” I croak.

  (Yes, totally, says my facial expression. Fortunately, facial expressions are not admissible evidence in court.)

  Dad sits and looks at me in silence. I look back at him until I can’t stand it anymore, then I look away. What does he want me to say? I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not the one who came home late last night with a cheap excuse, so why doesn’t he go yell at Mabey? Hasn’t he yelled at me enough today? Especially after Schellestede already yelled at me? Haven’t I had enough of people yelling at me today?

 
I’m so mad right now. I’m always stuck in the middle. Whether it’s Dad against Mabey, or Mom against Dad, or Mabey against Agnes, or Agnes against Mom, every fight is the same. The earth quakes, and the ground underneath me cracks, leaving Mabey and Mom on one side and Agnes and Dad on the other. And I fall into the giant crevasse between them, bouncing off rocks on my way down, until I drown in the boiling lava of Earth’s core.

  I bring my fist down on the couch cushion next to me. “I’m not fixing anything at home!” I yell. “Because there’s nothing in this house that can be fixed! This whole family is broken!”

  I hurl myself off the couch, past Dad and his stupid shocked face, and up the stairs to my room.

  31

  Friday Morning

  I don’t know what’s up with Mabey today.

  I’m the one in trouble with Dad. I’m the one with detention for the next week. And I’m the one who covered for her the other night, so she wouldn’t get busted for being late. So I can’t imagine why she’s the one stomping around her room, slamming the bathroom door, and growling at me when I knock.

  I use Dad’s bathroom instead, then get dressed and go downstairs for breakfast, exchanging good mornings with Dad and Agnes. Dad seems slightly less mad at me today, or maybe he’s just distracted by Agnes, who’s in the middle of telling him about a new math term she learned.

  “Zepto,” she explains, “is a prefix meaning ‘ten to the negative twenty-first power.’”

  “Oh, that’s handy,” says Dad, before taking a big sluuuuuurp of coffee. “Now I can stop saying ‘ten to the negative twenty-first power’ all the time, and just say ‘zepto.’”

  His phone rings, and he rises from his seat as he answers. “Hey, Baxter. What’s up … Oh, sorry to hear it…”

  Mabey clomps into the kitchen, grabs a glass and plate for herself, puts an English muffin in the toaster, and slumps into her seat at the table. She’s wearing the same sweatshirt she slept in, her hair is up in a sloppy bun, and it’s kind of obvious that she didn’t shower.

  Dad ends his call and joins us at the table. “Well, Baxter is sick, and I have an appointment after work tonight. So, Mabes, I need you to pick up Agnes from school and walk home with her.”

  “Why do I have to do it?” she whines.

  “I’ll do it,” I offer.

  “You have detention,” Dad reminds me sternly. Oh, right.

  “I can walk home by myself,” Agnes suggests.

  “No, you can’t.” Dad shuts this right down. He’s a little overprotective. Mom used to let me and Mabey walk places when we were Agnes’s age, but Dad reads way too many news stories about missing kids, and he doesn’t feel comfortable letting a nine-year-old walk through our totally safe, boring suburb, especially on the busier roads. “That’s a forty-five-minute walk, at least. I’d like you to be accompanied.”

  “Why can’t you do it?” Mabey complains.

  “I have a meeting.” He turns to me. “With Gloria Nelson, in fact.”

  I nearly spit-spray my juice all over the table.

  Dad continues. “Sophie’s consulting idea got Gloria thinking about starting her own business. She has a few questions about incorporating. So we’re going to grab a quick bite. I’ll be home by eight thirty at the latest.”

  A meeting? A quick bite? Well, at least he’s not all dressed up and singing, like it’s a date. Because he might be home a lot sooner than he thinks. Today is deadline day for Sophie—she’s supposed to hand over the cash at lunch. If it doesn’t go well, she might need her mom pretty badly. She might even need a lawyer.

  I feel a little ill at the prospect of Sophie’s downfall. It triggers me into Fixing Mode before I even realize what I’m doing. Maybe I could go with Sophie when she confesses to the council? Or … maybe Harry could help somehow! That’s a great idea. Why didn’t I think to ask him sooner? I bet he could think of something …

  The stern, internal voice of reason interrupts me. NO HELPING, it says. And especially NO HELPING SOPHIE.

  Right. We already did that, and she sold us out. Sorry, Sophie, but you’re on your own.

  I say bye, take off, and walk to the bus stop alone. I’m glad Izzy’s not hiding how she dresses anymore, but selfishly I wouldn’t mind if she still had a reason to come over and change and walk to the bus with me. I wonder how it went for her after school yesterday. If I got lectured and grounded and had my phone taken away, I can only imagine what kind of punishment Izzy got when she came home looking like she got in a fight with a lawn mower.

  I board the bus and take a third-row seat. When Izzy gets on one stop later, she’s wearing jeans, a T-shirt, a baseball cap, and a huge grin. She stops dramatically at the front of the aisle, whips off the hat, and the whole bus goes nuts.

  Izzy is bald.

  Not all the way bald, but close—there’s less than a centimeter of fuzz on her scalp. She dips her buzz-cut head as she starts down the aisle so people can rub it. When she gets to me, she stops and sits for a minute. “Hey, jackweed. Sorry I ruined your work.”

  “How’d it go?”

  “Well, Grandma flipped out, so there was a couple hours of her yelling at me. My dad’s punishing me until she leaves. And Ashley made me swear I’d get some new clothes.” She sees my dismay and laughs. “Not different-style clothes. Just, like, new jeans and T-shirts.”

  “So … everything’s okay?”

  “Well, I mean, Grandma’s cutting me out of her will. And I’m probably not getting a birthday card with twenty dollars in it this year. She’s super-mad at my dad—it’s a good thing she leaves tomorrow.” She runs a hand over her fuzzy head and grins. “Anyway. I’m sorry you got in trouble for helping me. What’d your dad say?”

  I condense the three-hour lecture for her. “He’s taking my phone away for the weekend.”

  “Oh. That sucks.” Izzy rises again so she can join her pals in the back-of-the-bus squad. “Are you gonna go to the dance next Saturday?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What? You gotta come!” She slugs me in the arm and continues down the aisle so the rest of her jackweed friends can feel her head. “Later, Champ.”

  I don’t see Sophie outside before school. I guess she got smart and decided to be absent today—that’ll give her until Monday to see if she can raise the money somehow. But then I see her going into second-period English, pretending to smile, looking like she’s going to pass out any second. Desiree and Hannah are chatting with her, oblivious to her distress, and I realize that I am the only person in the world who knows what she’s going through right now.

  I can’t seem to stop looking over at her, as the class reviews apostrophes and when to use them. Mr. Cruea reminds us that you use an apostrophe and the letter s to indicate possession (e.g., This is Sophie’s problem). You also use an apostrophe s to contract the word is (e.g., Sophie’s in a world of trouble).

  Once again, I’m too good at what I do. A light blinks on, and the words start coming to me. Fifteen minutes later, when class is nearly over, and Mr. Cruea is ready to rip out his own hair in frustration because Olivia Kurtzweil keeps asking if apostrophes make words plural, I have come up with the perfect story for Sophie to give the council.

  The truth.

  Dear Student Council Members,

  I made a very bad mistake and I regret it. I have no excuses. I made the wrong choice, I lied about it, and I have to tell the truth now. For the past year, I’ve had a problem I’ve tried to hide. I take things that aren’t mine. I could tell you all the reasons I’ve told myself to explain why I did it, but I won’t. I’ll just tell the truth. I took the money for the dance. I am so sorry for betraying your trust. I will repay every dime as soon as I can, and I will accept whatever consequences I’ve earned with my behavior. I’m very, very sorry for letting you down.

  I catch up to her in the hall after class. “Hey, Sophie.”

  “Hey.” She’s startled that I’m talking to her, but she hangs back from Hannah and D
esiree to hear what I have to say. We step into a corner and I give her the note.

  Sophie holds her breath and her eyes fill with tears as she reads it. When she’s done, she presses it to her chest, closes her eyes, and exhales heavily. It looks like she’s saying a silent prayer.

  “I thought they might go easier on you if they understand why you did it,” I tell her.

  Sophie opens her teary eyes and looks at me with pure gratitude. “I can’t believe you did this for me.”

  Yeah, well. I can’t fully believe it, either. “I wanted to help.”

  “You did help,” Sophie insists. “You have no idea, Glad. I couldn’t have gotten through these last two weeks without you. I never told anybody about my … taking things. But you knew the truth about me and you still stuck by me. That’s the only thing that’s been giving me hope. If you could accept me, maybe other people can, too.” She dabs at her eyes with the back of one wrist. “I never should have said we weren’t friends. You’ve been such a good friend to me.”

  The second bell is about to ring. Hannah calls to Sophie from down the hallway, “Come on, witch!”

  Sophie takes my hand and squeezes it in hers. “Will you come with me? When I tell the council? I don’t think I can do it alone.”

  Desiree and Hannah are watching closely now. Is Sophie Nelson actually holding my cootie-covered hand? On purpose? It’s just because she feels sorry for me, though. Right?

  “I’ll meet you in the hall by the caf,” I say. “We’ll do this together.”

  “Thanks.” One more squeeze before she drops my hand and rushes off to catch up with her girls. Then she turns and calls to me down the busy hallway, for everybody to hear: “Glad! You’re an awesome friend!”

  Two periods later, I’m on my way to meet Sophie when Taye catches me in the hall and falls in step beside me. “Hey,” he says. “I’m really sorry about … what I said the other day.”

  You mean when you called me a freak? I’m sorry you said that, too.