My wildflower project is sitting on top of my textbooks, finished and ready to be handed in on Tuesday. I titled it The Wonder of Wildflowers. I stare at the cover for a long time, daring myself to do it. Don’t be noticed. Blend in. Finally I take out a marker and cross out the title of the project and write The Wonder of Weeds.
28
On Sunday night, Krysta and I are listening to music and trying on her fanciest dresses over our regular clothes. I’m zipping up a pink halter with a giant tutu skirt when shouting erupts downstairs.
“I’m calling the police!” we hear Mayor Perez cry.
Krysta and I look at each other and then rush down the gleaming staircase in our gowns and jeans. We hear more yelling coming from the kitchen.
“You know you were trespassing?” Mayor Perez is saying as we make our way through the foyer. “You know that’s a crime?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir,” a small voice replies. I recognize it instantly. Daniel.
Krysta drags me into the kitchen, where Mayor Perez has Daniel by the shirt. “You scared my wife to death!” he yells as Mrs. Perez stands by the sliding glass door that overlooks the backyard. Her face is pale as she clutches her pearl necklace.
“Dad, what’s going on?” Krysta asks. “What’s Four-Eyes doing here?”
“You know this kid?” Mayor Perez asks. He lets go of Daniel and holds up a roll of toilet paper. His hand shakes, probably because he’s so furious. “I found this tucked under his arm. Looks like he was trying to toilet paper our bushes.”
Daniel couldn’t look guiltier, especially since he’s dressed all in black. But toilet papering Krysta’s house? That doesn’t sound like him.
He flashes me a terrified look, and suddenly I know why he’s really here. The toilet paper is just a cover. He’s here for the well. He was going to break into it and steal Amber.
“Whether you know him or not,” Mayor Perez huffs, “he can explain this to the police.”
Oh no. If the police come, they’re bound to figure out what Daniel’s really after. I can tell Daniel knows it too.
But miraculously, Krysta pipes up. “Dad! You can’t make a big deal out of this. It’ll be all over school! I don’t want anyone knowing that a freak like him was anywhere near me. Gross!”
“So you expect me to let it slide?” Mayor Perez asks in disbelief.
Krysta shrugs. “Can’t you make him do community service or something?” Her face brightens. “Like picking up trash? That would be a good punishment.”
Mayor Perez considers for a second. He nods slowly. “I suppose I could find something for him.” He turns back to Daniel. “Don’t think your parents won’t find out about this. In fact, we’re going to talk to them right now.”
Daniel casts his eyes at the floor. “My aunt,” he says. “I live with my aunt.”
“Fine. Then let’s go call her.” Mayor Perez grabs Daniel by the arm and drags him into the other room.
“Girls,” Mrs. Perez says after a minute, “the situation is under control. Go back upstairs and get out of those ridiculous outfits.” Her perfect, composed face is back.
I expect Krysta to argue, but she only says, “Fine,” and waves me up the stairs.
When we’re in her room, Krysta slams the door shut and whirls around to face me. “I can’t believe you told him!” she says in a fierce whisper.
“Wh-what do you mean?”
“You told Four-Eyes about the well.”
I consider denying it, but there’s no point. “I didn’t mean to tell him,” I say instead. “It was before you swore me to secrecy. And I had no idea he’d come here searching for it.” He must be really desperate. Mikey was looking better, and the extra Amber I gave his aunt should have helped. Something must have happened.
“If my parents find out, they’ll think I told you. They’ll kill me!” Krysta says, and suddenly I understand why she insisted that her parents not call the police.
“I’m really sorry,” I say, yanking off the pink tutu dress. It’s too big on me anyway.
“I don’t get why you would tell that freak anything.”
“He’s not a freak,” I can’t help saying. “Just because you’ve never given him a chance doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with him. He’s as normal as I am.”
Krysta laughs. “He’s not normal. He’s a loser!”
If he’s a loser, that means I’m a loser. But suddenly I don’t care about that because as I hang the dress on Krysta’s chair, a piece of paper on her desk catches my eye. A letter identical to the one Miss Patel gave me.
“You entered the writing contest?” Not only that, but she’s a finalist like I am.
“What?” Krysta says. Then she sees me staring at the letter and shoves it into a folder. “Oh, um. Yeah.”
I look at her. “Why would you do that? You don’t even like to write.”
“I thought it might be fun. You know, whatever,” she says lightly.
It’s not whatever. Not to me. This was supposed to be my chance, finally, to be good at something. And Krysta had to take it away. She’ll win the contest. I know she will. Just like she’s won everything else.
“You know what’s not normal?” I say, something snapping inside me. “Being perfect! All you do is win and succeed and ace everything.”
“So what? I’m smart.”
“No! You’re magical. Smart people still get things wrong. It’s how they learn and get better. But you never fail. You’re not allowed to. You probably don’t even know how!”
“Last I checked,” Krysta says, her voice icy, “you wanted to be just like me.”
She’s right. But that’s not true, not anymore. “I’d rather have no friends than fake ones like you.”
Krysta laughs. “Are you dumping me?”
“You said it yourself. Now that I’m like everyone else, I don’t need you anymore.”
“Fine. I don’t know why I bothered being friends with you anyway. It was like trying to train a frog or something, totally hopeless. I mean, why not do us all a favor and go back to where you came from?”
The words are meant to sting, and they do, so much that my breath catches in my throat and I can’t say anything back. But really, there’s nothing left to say.
29
When I get home, Tata rushes over to me, his cheeks boiling red.
“Where were you?” he demands.
“At Krysta’s. I told you I was going over there.” I try to push past him, desperate to go be by myself in my room.
But Tata grabs my elbow. “Is that where you’ve been bringing our Amber?”
I freeze. “What?”
“I set up surveillance cameras around the house after the attack,” he says. “Including one in the basement. I saw you taking it.”
Cameras? Oh no. He must have gotten them the same night as the alarm system.
He holds up a jug of Amber. It’s more than half-empty. How could I have taken so much without realizing it?
“Tata, I can explain,” I rush to say, but he doesn’t seem to want to hear it.
“All these years I told myself we were in this country for you, so you’d be healthy and safe. But is this what we’ve really done? Turned you into the kind of girl who steals from us and lies?”
“No!” I cry, but of course it’s true. I am that kind of girl now. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
Tata shakes his head. “I don’t want to hear excuses. I want the truth. What were you doing with the Amber?”
“At first it was because Krysta—”
“Krysta. It’s always Krysta!” he cries. “I don’t understand. Why would you give up who you are to become just another monster like her?”
But that’s not fair. None of this is.
“You’re the one who brought me here!” I yell, even though I never yell, especially not at my parents. “Just because you don’t want to learn the language here or eat any of the food, that doesn’t mean the rest of us can stay the exa
ct same people forever. Maybe you’re the monster!”
The room throbs with silence. Then Tata turns and charges downstairs into the basement.
“What are you doing?” I call, running after him.
He storms past the washing machine and grabs the full jug of Amber from under the shelf.
He flips on the outside light and marches up the basement steps to the garden, a jug of Amber under each arm.
“Tata!” I call after him. “Stop!”
He’s not listening to me. Tata immediately opens both of the bottles and starts pouring. The Amber sloshes out and covers the ground. It gushes out and out and out. I stand in shock and watch it seep into the earth.
“I’m tired of this sorcery controlling our lives!” Tata is saying. “I want it all gone!”
After a minute, it is. Every last drop. The strange thing is, as I watch the Amber soak into the soil and disappear, I’m horrified, but I’m also glad.
30
Mama gives me a ride to school in the morning because my parents don’t trust me anymore. Right away things are different. When I see that Eileen is back, I rush over to ask her how she’s feeling, but she only turns away and starts talking to Ava. Across the room, Yuli gives me a sad smile before casting her eyes down. Krysta doesn’t even glance in my direction. I’ve turned invisible.
I’m surprised to see Daniel sitting in his seat as usual. Part of me thought he’d be in so much trouble that his aunt would ground him in his house for life. But something is clearly wrong. All morning his eyes never leave his desk, and when we file out of the room to go to gym class, he looks at the floor the entire time.
The snickers erupt the instant we start playing basketball. Krysta’s team isn’t even on our side of the gym, but the other kids laugh at me when I don’t catch the ball fast enough or when my pass goes off target. It’s obvious that the extra Amber is fading from my body, and now that I don’t have anyone to protect me, the other kids taunt me the way they do Daniel.
Toward the end of class, Eileen’s throw misses the basket, and the other kids on her team groan in disappointment.
She seems stunned for a second. Then her eyes swing toward me. “Maybe I wouldn’t have missed if some people weren’t stealing our Amber and making everyone else weaker.”
She and the other kids shoot me dirty looks as the teacher blows her whistle. Then the torture ends, at least for now.
When we get back to our classroom, Miss Patel is standing at Mister Whiskers’s cage, her eyes wet with tears.
“Class,” she says in a wobbly voice, “I have some sad news. Mister Whiskers has passed.”
The kids around me gasp, and Eileen even lets out a scream. We all stare at the empty cage where Mister Whiskers had been that morning.
“He lived a long, long life,” Miss Patel tells us. Even though it’s true, it doesn’t make anyone feel better.
As the day goes on, I catch some of my classmates glaring in my direction. Even though it doesn’t make any sense, I can’t help thinking that they’re blaming Mister Whiskers’s death on me.
I realize how stupid I’ve been. I thought using Amber would make me like everyone else. But Amber can’t change the way people see you. And without Krysta at my side, the target on my back is too big for other kids to ignore.
* * *
After school, I run across the playground to catch Daniel before he flees home.
“Wait!” I say, grabbing his arm. “Daniel, come on! I need to talk to you!”
“I have to go. Aunt Flora is waiting for me.”
“Are you grounded?” I ask. That makes two of us.
“Not exactly. But thanks to the mayor, I’ll be picking up trash around town for the rest of my life.” He shakes his head. “I have to go.”
“Why were you trying to steal Amber from Krysta’s family?”
“Keep your voice down!” he says in a harsh whisper. “Who says I was stealing anything?”
“I’m not stupid, Daniel. Come on. Tell me what’s wrong. It’s Mikey, isn’t it?” He still doesn’t answer. “It must be pretty bad for you to trespass on the mayor’s property.”
Daniel lets out a long breath and stares at the ground again. “My aunt will kill me if I tell anyone. But… but I don’t know what else to do.” Then he sighs and says, “Come on.”
I hesitate for only a minute. I know Tata is expecting me to come right home. I know he’ll be angry that I’m breaking his rules yet again. But I need to go with Daniel.
When we get to Daniel’s house and go up to Mikey’s room, the door is half-open. Inside, the lights are off and I see Mikey in his bed, asleep under a stack of blankets. There’s a bandage around his head and dark circles under his eyes. The web of red bruises has spread so that it’s even on his neck. Aunt Flora is curled up in an armchair in the corner, dozing under a light blanket, as if she’s been keeping watch for a long time.
Daniel waves me away from them, and we tiptoe downstairs.
“What happened to him?” I ask softly when we’re back in the kitchen.
“Mikey was running around the house yesterday, like he always does, and crashed into a table. He cut his head and lost a lot of blood. We gave him all the Amber we could get, but…”
“You need to bring him to the hospital,” I say.
“We can’t.”
“You have to. Look at him!”
“No!” Daniel says in a harsh whisper again. “You don’t understand. No one can know, okay? Mikey’s not even supposed to be here!”
“What are you talking about?”
He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says, “When my parents tried to send us to live with my aunt, they couldn’t get approval for Mikey. He wasn’t born here, and he needed too much Amber. But we brought him anyway, smuggled him in. We had to, Mira. He needed Amber or he would have died.” He closes his eyes, and I can see he’s fighting back tears.
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Mikey is here illegally? How does he go to school? Then I remember what Krysta told me, about fake papers and forged ration cards. I’d imagined those were only for criminals. But Mikey isn’t here to hurt anyone or take other people’s rations away, the way the people at the protests have been claiming. He’s a regular kid who wants to go to school and play like everyone else. Like Henryk would have.
“If we bring him to the hospital and they figure out he’s not supposed to be here,” Daniel goes on, “they’ll send him back home to my parents for treatment. Then we won’t be able to give him any more Amber. Without that he’ll…” He doesn’t say the word, but I hear it anyway.
“No,” I say. “It doesn’t matter how Mikey got here. He’s here now, and we’re… we’re going to find a way to help him. No matter what.”
“How?” I can hear the desperation in his voice. No wonder he tried to break into Krysta’s well, even though there was little chance of him succeeding. But magic isn’t what Mikey needs right now. He needs a miracle.
31
Tata isn’t there when I get home. His tool bag is missing, which means he must be out on a job. I barely have time to feel relieved before I head to Mama’s study.
“I need your help,” I tell her.
She’s frowning at some work she brought home. “Can you ask your dad when he gets back?” she asks, not even looking at me. “I’m in the middle of something.”
“No. It’s important.”
She must hear the sharpness in my voice because her eyes snap up. “What’s wrong?”
“You said you’re making better Amber that’s stronger than the regular kind. I need some of it. Now.”
“Wh-what are you talking about?”
“My friend is in trouble, and it’s the only way to help him. Please, Mama. Can we go to your lab and get some for him?”
Mama rises to her feet. “I’m sorry, Mira, but the new kind of Amber isn’t ready yet. It won’t be for months. Even if it were, I couldn’t simply give you some. Who is this friend? What’s wrong wi
th him?”
“He—he’s sick.”
“Has he been to the doctor?”
“You don’t understand. He can’t. The new Amber is the only way!”
I realize that I’m shouting as Tata appears in the doorway. “What’s the matter?” he asks, unbuttoning his coat.
Before I can answer, Mama says, “Her friend is sick and needs Amber.”
“Why can’t he go to a doctor?”
Of course my parents want an explanation. I warned Daniel that this might happen, so he gave me permission to tell my parents everything if I needed to. I have no other choice. The words rush out of me as I explain everything.
“So this is why you were taking our rations. Stealing them,” Tata says. “First for yourself and then for a boy who’s not even supposed to be here?” The disappointment in his eyes is so sharp that it stings. “Why didn’t you come to us?”
“I didn’t think you’d understand! Now Mikey’s really hurt and he can’t go to the hospital and he needs help!”
“All right, calm down,” Mama says. “We’ll figure out what to do.” She turns to Tata. “Maybe you could go take a look at him, at least.”
But Tata is shaking his head. “We can’t get involved with something like this. It’s too dangerous. Why should we risk our lives for people who haven’t followed the rules?”
“Because he could die!” I cry.
Mama lets out a soft gasp and then covers her mouth with her hand. I can tell she’s thinking of Henryk. There are tears welling up in her eyes, as there are in mine.
“You’re always telling me to blend in, to avoid getting noticed, to stay away from troublemakers,” I go on. “Then you tell me not to lose who I am. How can we be ourselves when we’re always hiding? When we’re too afraid to do anything?”
Tata doesn’t say anything for a long time, and I think I’ve lost. Finally he lets out a long sigh. “I suppose a sick child is a sick child, with or without papers,” he says softly, wiping my tears away with his thumb. “And I suppose I am still a doctor, even if no one here calls me that.” He starts buttoning his coat. “All right. I’ll go see if I can help, but you’re staying here.” Then he hurries off to get his medical bag from the basement.
The Wonder of Wildflowers Page 9
