Anyway, the day I have chosen as my story-starter is a Wednesday at the end of the month of May. Lexie had met JBIII and me at Emily Dickinson Elementary, and now she was walking us back to Twelfth Street. Her violin was slung over her shoulder, and she had so many books with her that she had brought her wheelie cart to school that morning. She said that if she didn’t use it she might get a neck injury or become a hunchback.
JBIII tried to make conversation with my sister even though I could tell that this was one of those afternoons when Lexie’s mind was tied up with something important, probably only to her.
“You sure do have a lot of books with you,” JBIII commented. He actually seemed interested in what she might say back to him. We’d been trailing behind Lexie to avoid the wheelie cart, but now JBIII trotted along at her side.
“I have finals,” said Lexie.
“Final whats?” JBIII wanted to know.
“Exams.”
Lexie was not in a talkative mood, but JBIII didn’t seem to notice. He doesn’t have any brothers or sisters, but that wasn’t exactly the problem since frankly it’s hard to know how an eighth-grade girl is going to react to anything. Just FYI, I want to go on record as saying that when I’m in eighth grade I will be completely predictable and pleasant.
JBIII was impressed. “Wow, you already have final exams? I thought only college students had to take those.”
Lexie brightened. She’d been flicking away at her cell phone with her one free thumb, but now she clicked off the phone and turned her attention to JBIII. “Oh, no. We have finals in middle school. This is my second year taking finals. There is SO much studying involved.”
“I can imagine,” said JBIII, since studying is right up his alley.
I avoided something slimy in the street and then paused to look in the window of a bakery. I don’t like sweet things, but it is amazing what you can do with frosting. I saw a cupcake with a snail on the top, which is disgusting even if you like snails, but still sort of fascinating, and a cake in the shape of a baby buggy and another cake that looked just like Bitey—if he had orange fur, which he doesn’t, and green eyes, which he also doesn’t.
I ran to catch up with JBIII and Lexie, and we turned onto our street. We walked by people who were sitting on their stoops, since it was such a nice day, but suddenly we had to hide in a doorway because we had spotted Mrs. Mott from my apartment building. Mrs. Mott is about three hundred years old but she has a voice like a blaring tuba and she marches around New York as if she’s the queen and we are all her serfs. She could learn a lot from the motto, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”—although then she would probably never have anything to say again for the rest of her life, which actually would be just fine with me.
“Is she gone yet?” I whispered from the doorway.
“Who are we hiding from again?” asked JBIII. He hadn’t been my new best friend for very long and so he hadn’t had any embarrassing encounters with Mrs. Mott yet.
“Mrs. Mott,” Lexie told him.
“Who’s Mrs. Mott?”
But before my sister could answer JBIII, Mrs. Mott took a break from charging down the street to poke her head in our doorway and say, “For pity’s sake, what are you children doing in here? This isn’t your building.”
Well, duh.
I glanced at Lexie, who I thought was going to die from having been called a child, and I almost replied, “Hiding from you,” but Lexie clapped her hand over my mouth, glared at Mrs. Mott, and said all haughty, “I am quite sure we know where we live, thank you.” Then she hauled her wheelie out of the doorway and headed up Twelfth Street again.
Her cheeks were flaming.
JBIII and I hurried after her.
When we reached our building, JBIII’s mother was waiting to walk him across the street to his own building.
“Bye!” JBIII and I called to each other. “See you tomorrow!” Then I ran after Lexie, who was striding furiously through the lobby. I don’t think she had even greeted John. When she’s really mad she can’t speak to anyone except Valerie.
“Hi, John,” I said, pausing at his desk. I didn’t want him to think that both the Littlefield girls were rude, plus I really like him.
“Hello, Pearl. How was school?”
“Oh. You know.” I don’t usually like answering that question, but I don’t mind too much when John asks it. “Only nineteen days left,” I informed him. “Then vacation.”
“And how many days of vacation?”
“Seventy-six.” I had figured that out in February.
I caught up with Lexie at the elevator and we rode to the seventh floor. On the way I searched through my backpack for the key to our apartment. My very own key. I had only had it for a couple of weeks, and I was extremely proud of it. It had been my most important birthday present. I didn’t have a computer or a cell phone, but now at last I had a key to our apartment. I had gotten it at my tenth birthday party, which we had already had the party even though my birthday wasn’t until the beginning of summer vacation. That was why we’d had the party. Because if we’d waited until my actual birthday all my friends would have been at soccer camp or dude ranches.
I hustled past Lexie when we reached our floor and ran down the hall to our apartment, #7F, the key clutched in my hand. I opened the door slowly because sometimes Bitey likes to race out into the hallway and then he hisses when you pick him up to bring him home. But he wasn’t in sight.
“We’re home!” I called as Lexie stepped in behind me.
Mom stuck her head out of her office. My mother is a writer. She writes books for children. Her name is Adrienne Read Blackburn Littlefield, but on the covers of the books it just says A. Littlefield. I don’t know why.
“How was school?” asked Mom.
“Oh. You know,” I said. I went into the kitchen to look for a snack.
In the hallway behind me I could hear Lexie giving Mom a much longer answer to her question. Something about an A on a paper and an A on a test and an A on a quiz and also an A on a pop quiz.
“Plus,” Lexie continued, “Dallas invited me to a movie on Saturday.”
Dallas was Lexie’s boyfriend. Lexie got all A’s and she had a boyfriend.
Lexie headed for her room and closed her door. What a surprise.
Mom went back in her office and closed her door, too. She was working on a new book, something about a girl whose best friend moves away. This was interesting because my best friend, Justine, had moved away in January. She hadn’t moved far—just to another neighborhood—so we still got to see each other sometimes. But Lexie thought that the move had been good for me. Justine was only in first grade and Lexie felt I should branch out and find a friend who was my own age, which is how I had gotten JBIII as my new best friend. (But Justine was still my old best friend.) I wondered if the girls in Mom’s book were a first grader and a fourth grader like Justine and me, and then I wondered how I felt about that. I decided it would be okay as long as the characters weren’t named Justine and Pearl. And maybe it would be a good idea if they didn’t live in New York City, either.
We only had a little homework that day, and I did it in a hurry, sitting at the desk in my room and repeatedly sliding Bitey off of the worksheets I was filling in. Then I got bored for a while, but then, after only half an hour of boredness, our front door opened and in walked my father and Daddy Bo.
“Hi, Daddy Bo!” I cried, running to him. I threw my arms around his waist. I didn’t bother to throw my arms around my father since I had just seen him that morning.
“Pearl!” said Daddy Bo. “My gem of a granddaughter.”
Lexie came out of her room then, not running, but still everyone could tell that she was happy to see Daddy Bo, too.
We all sat in the family room for a while and talked. Nobody had to do anything about dinner since Dad and Daddy Bo had picked up take-out food at Hong Fu, which is Chinese food, which I love, except for the tiny red things that you
have to watch out for because some of them make your eyes water.
“So,” said Daddy Bo as I leaned into his side. He and I were sitting on the couch, along with Bitey. Mom and Dad and Lexie were sitting in chairs. “Tell me about your summer vacation plans.”
Now that’s the kind of question I like to answer. “Camp first,” I told him. “For the month of July.”
“Camp Merrimac again?”
“Yup.” Camp Merrimac is a day camp that Lexie and I have gone to for lots of summers. It’s in New Jersey—not the part that smells bad and has smokestacks, but the part where there are fir trees and lakes and owls—so we take a bus there every day. It’s an arts camp. You have to pay attention to the word “arts” because in this case, “arts” doesn’t just mean painting desert islands and folding up origami cranes; it means other kinds of art as well, which I guess is why the camp brochure says “arts” not “art.” Like for instance, music is an art and so is dancing and so is acting. So Camp Merrimac is perfect for both Lexie and me because my big sister can concentrate on her music and I can do arts and crafts. Plus there are regular camp activities, like swimming and going on field trips and tromping around in the woods with your bug journal.
“And is Justine going to camp with you?” asked Daddy Bo.
I nodded. “It will be her second year. Guess who else is going—JBThree. His first time.”
“You’re going to have quite a summer,” commented Daddy Bo. “Camp in July and your big trip in August.”
I was impressed that Daddy Bo had such a good grasp on our plans because, not to be mean, but sometimes he’s a little bit forgetful.
My father cleared his throat then. “Speaking of our trip,” he said, “your mom and I have a surprise for you girls.”
I couldn’t imagine how our trip could get any better. My family and I were going to visit the Wild West. We were going to fly out to Wyoming and see ghost towns and geysers. Then we were going to take a train to Arizona and ride donkeys in the Grand Canyon. We were going to see redwood forests and stay in giant hotels in national parks. I planned to buy a cowboy hat.
“What is it?” I cried, leaping to my feet. “What’s the surprise?”
Mom and Dad smiled at each other, and Daddy Bo said, “I’m going with you.”
Now I began jumping up and down like Justine used to do when she was excited. “Really?” I exclaimed 4x, because I just couldn’t believe it.
Lexie was grinning. “Excellent!” she said.
“But Daddy Bo, are you allowed to ride horses?” I asked suddenly. I hoped I didn’t sound rude, but, well, Daddy Bo is on the rickety side, and in the fall he had had an accident and broken his shoulder.
“No,” admitted Daddy Bo. “I can’t go hiking, either. But that’s okay. I’ll still be able to do plenty of things. Can you believe I’ve never seen the Grand Canyon?”
We all started talking about what we hoped to do on our fabulous trip to the Wild West. Mom set the food from Hong Fu on the table, and we ate sweet and sour chicken and moo goo gai pan, which I’m still not sure what it was even after eating it, and vegetable chow mein. And everyone except me ate hot and spicy shrimp with garlic sauce. And all the time we talked about the Wild West and what a great summer it was going to be.
So this is the part of the story that’s like the sunshiny day. Now get ready for the alarming part.
3
I. My dad got fired.
A. My family was shocked.
Since I’ve already mentioned that something alarming is about to happen, and let’s face it, since you know what that alarming thing is because it’s right there in my outline for Ms. Brody, I’ll just cut to the chase (as my mom would say).
Our happiness about Daddy Bo and the trip to the Wild West lasted exactly one week. It ended the next Wednesday when Dad came home from work. He came home an hour earlier than usual, which should have been a clue that something was wrong, because one thing about my father is that he likes sticking to a routine. But it was his last day of work before summer vacation, so I thought maybe he just wanted to get an extra hour of relaxation in.
Here’s why my dad gets a summer vacation: He’s a teacher. Well, actually he’s a professor. Well, actually he was a professor. I’m not sure what he is now that he’s been fired. But for my whole life up until the first week of June this year, he taught economics at a college in NYC. Frankly, I’m not sure why anyone would want to take economics, let alone teach it. If you look through a college catalogue it’s one of the most boring classes listed. Don’t sign up for it unless you really want to know all about the production of goods and services and how this production affects business and finance. But apparently a lot of students did want to know about those things, and they signed up to take my dad’s class, and he was one of the most popular professors at the college.
I guess he wasn’t popular enough, though. Or else maybe everyone finally figured out how boring economics is and they stopped signing up for the class even though my father was teaching it. At any rate, on that Wednesday when Dad came home early, instead of looking happy about the beginning of his summer vacation, which I’d like to point out was almost three weeks before the beginning of my summer vacation, he looked stunned, and not in a good way. He looked like I probably did last Christmas when Justine told me she was moving to a different part of the city and we wouldn’t be going to the same school anymore.
“What’s the matter, Dad?” I asked as he sat down on the couch and put his head in his hands.
I was doing my homework in the living room because Lexie was practicing the violin in her bedroom, and sometimes it’s better to be far away from all the screeching and plucking.
But Dad didn’t answer my question. He just said, “Is your mother in her office?”
I was going to give him a smart answer since where else would Mom be, but his expression was scaring me. “Yes,” I said.
Dad disappeared into Mom’s office and closed the door behind him. He didn’t come out for a very long time, and when he did he looked grim, like he’d looked when Daddy Bo was in the hospital. Then Mom came out of the office and her eyes were all red.
“Pearl, please go get your sister,” said my father.
I knocked on Lexie’s door, and even though Dad hadn’t told me to say this, I called, “Family meeting!”
“What, right now?” said Lexie. “Dad isn’t even home.”
“Yes, he is. And he wants us in the living room.”
We gathered in about two seconds.
“Everything all right?” Lexie asked my mother, looking at her red eyes. She was probably wondering if Mom was having trouble with her characters again. Sometimes they misbehave (according to Mom) and then my mother gets crabby and it’s a good idea not to bother her with questions about my allowance or whether she’ll let me go to a movie with a PG-13 rating.
Mom nodded but didn’t say anything, so Lexie turned to Dad. “You called a family meeting?” She flopped next to me on the couch.
“Not exactly,” replied Dad. “Pearl said we were having a family meeting. I just need to talk to everyone.” He removed his glasses and polished them on his shirt. With his glasses off I thought he looked like a little boy. He blinked at us and put the glasses on and then he was himself again. But not really, since something was wrong.
Bitey jumped into my lap and for once let me hold him and pat him without swatting at my hand.
“Well,” said my father. He’d been sitting down, but now he stood up. “I have some bad news.”
“Is it Daddy Bo?” cried Lexie. “Did something happen to Daddy Bo?”
“No, no,” said Dad. “It’s—well, I was fired today.” He looked around at Mom and Lexie and me, and then he sat on the arm of my mother’s chair and rubbed her shoulder sadly.
“Oh, no,” said my sister, and her hand flew to her mouth.
“What does this mean?” I asked.
“It means Dad doesn’t have a job anymore,” snapped Lexie. br />
“I know what ‘fired’ means,” I replied. “Duh. But what does it mean?” I was pretty sure that Dad had been fired because everyone had realized how boring economics is. But maybe there was another college where the students hadn’t caught onto the boringness yet and Dad could teach economics there. Or maybe he could teach something else at his old college. On the other hand, if Dad wasn’t working maybe he would have more free time. Even on his so-called summer vacation he was always preparing lectures and writing articles, but now, well, suddenly I had very nice visions of playing game after game of Boggle with my father and going to PG-13 movies with him and riding our bikes in the park. This was why I wanted to know what being fired meant for our future, but I had forgotten that when Lexie is nervous she covers up by turning into an old-timey schoolmarm.
I stood up, faced Lexie, and curtsied. “Excuse me, ma’am. What I meant to say was, ‘Father, what are the implications of the firing incident?’”
I didn’t get an answer to my question, though, and I was kind of relieved, because even I knew I was being smart (okay, rude). No one was paying attention to me. This was because my mother had put her arms around my father and (get ready for something really scary) my father had started to cry a little. He didn’t wail the way Justine used to do, but his eyes got watery and he couldn’t speak.
My mom led Dad out of the family room and back into her office.
“Wait!” cried Lexie, and now she jumped to her feet. “What does this mean?” she called after them.
I sat on the couch with Bitey in my lap. He was sound asleep. “It means he doesn’t have a job anymore,” I told my sister.
Lexie scowled at me, went to her room, and closed the door. At least she didn’t slam it.