Chapter 8
At seven o’clock the next morning, I sat at my desk determined. Math first, then Reading. The morning sunlight was barely peeking through the trees and shimmering on the roofs of houses, but still it brightened my whole desk. Even the wind moved in whispers. A few birds could be heard twittering in the trees and two squirrels chased each other across a wooden fence.
Although it looked the same, this morning felt different from the others. I still couldn’t get over what had happened the night before. I had thought that I was the only one with bad grades. I thought my brothers had done a lot better than I had done; they acted like they did. And I was sure that Courtney was bringing home A’s.
But it hadn’t turned out that way at all. Tanya, Courtney, Clarence, Tyrone, and Kriston would also have summer school just like I would. I would go for math and social studies. I almost had to go for English, but Sister said if I did extra well on my composition with the right punctuation, spelling, words from the vocabulary list, and sentence buildup-she’d pass me and I wouldn’t have to take the class over again this summer.
I thumbed the corner of my notebook pages and sighed.
Cheri was the only one who hadn’t acted like she knew everything. She sure felt sorry for us last night I could tell.
I looked around at the peaceful reminders of my bedroom: my polished walnut desk was covered with school supplies, games and toys which I’d collected since the age of two, sat along both wall shelves; and a family of stuffed dolls was scattered across a soft beige spread that hugged my redwood bed. My small library and comic book collection filled one corner of my room with thoughts, and the view from my window was of treetops fluttering behind Courtney’s roof.
The whole house was quiet, proving that my brothers were at their desks too.
Calmly and without fear this time, I opened my math book and focused on problem number one. I was not even going to peek at the other problems until I had tackled number one.
Here goes nothing.
That night we had a serious family meeting in the living room where we reviewed out loud to our parents all of our assignments. I was surprised about how much we knew. I think they were impressed too.
Mom looked pleased, but her face was acting funny. Something was bothering her. It couldn’t have still been that letter.
Pop was smiling and shaking his head from side to side, as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Every time he shouted with joy at a right answer, shivers shot down my back.
On Sunday we ran out of homework, so our next project was to study everything we did in class. I still had the three encyclopedias that I had taken upstairs Saturday night. After I finished reading about the American Revolution and how a small group of people could have such a big effect in the growth of their country, I became curious about other encyclopedia articles. There was a Russian Revolution? Seven Wonders of the Ancient World? Seven deadly sins! What were they? I was thumbing through the pages when the phone rang.
“Justine!” Mom called from downstairs. “It’s Tanya!”
“Okay!” I hollered. I ran into my parents’ bedroom and grabbed the receiver off the dresser. “Hello?”
“You survived it, huh?” Tanya said.
Sighing, I told her, “Yeah, how about you?”
“Oh sure,” she said. “They weren’t that upset.”
I stared at myself through Mom’s mirror. “Tanya, they carried you out of the building.”
“Oh I know that,” she said. “But after the shock wore off we sat down together and went through all my work from day one.”
“Day one when?” I asked.
“The first day of school.”
“You did all that in one night?” I asked her.
“No,” she explained. “We started on September homework and got stuck on the metric system two months later.”
“Got stuck?”
“Yeah, they’ve never had the metric system.”
Dumbfounded, I glanced out the bedroom door behind me. “What do you mean they’ve never had it?”
“I don’t think it was invented yet,” she said. “Hey listen, since they can’t figure it out, and I know you can’t figure it out, why don’t we go over it together at my house?”
I thought a minute. Studying at Tanya’s?
“I know!” I told her. “I’ll call Cheri and see if we can study over there. Meet me out front and we’ll catch the bus.”
“But she’s not even going to summer—”
I hung up before Tanya could say no. Then I dialed Cheri’s number, and she said we could come over.
I ran downstairs to see Pop. We had a long discussion and I was surprised to learn that it was true; he had to learn the metric system on his own because they didn’t teach it when he went to grade school.
I was puzzled. If they didn’t teach the metric system in school then, how could I be sure that he learned all the other subjects we had to learn now? And what about the next grade? What other new things would they start teaching us?
I went upstairs and brought my math homework back down so we could go over it again. I looked at the cover of the thick textbook and wondered if Pop’s old one was thinner than mine. Maybe the books got bigger each time a new math problem was created.
“I don’t understand how you can learn this on your own,” I told him.
“You study through,” he said. “Take your time and follow the directions in the book. If it’s still not clear, find another source.”
“Another source?”
“Ask an instructor; find more books on the subject at the library.” He scribbled something down on his scrap paper. “Don’t just rely on one source if you feel you don’t understand what’s going on. Look to see for yourself. That way you build up your own skills to trust your own judgments.”
I wondered if Cheri had another source. If she did, would she share it with the rest of us?
“Tanya!” I suddenly blurted. “I forgot about Tanya!”
“You forgot about Tanya?” he asked. “What do you mean by that?”
“I told her I’d go with her over to Cheri’s so we could study together.”
“Call her back,” he said.
“I can’t. She’s waiting out front now,” I said, scooping my books off the dinette table. I dropped them into my backpack. “Can I go?”
“Yes!” He grinned. “Definitely go.”
I followed him into the living room.
“Dad!” Kriston howled, racing Tyrone down the stairs. “You gotta take me to basketball practice!”
“You have to take me to basketball practice,” Pop corrected.
“Yeah!” Kriston said. “I gotta go now!” He stuffed a pair of shorts into his backpack.
“Why do you wait until the last minute to tell me everything?” Pop criticized.
I shut the front door and found Tanya sitting on the steps writing. “Why didn’t you come in?” I asked her.
“I was kind of in the middle of something,” she said. “And we’re waiting for Janot. She stopped by, and I told her to come with us to Cheri’s to study, so she went home to get her stuff.”
I sat beside Tanya. “Did she get her grades back?”
“Didn’t ask.”
“Hi!” Trevor squealed, bouncing up the front walk.
Janot kept pace right beside him.
“Hi,” she said. “You guys ready?”
“Yeah,” I said, getting up.
“Courtney, we’re ready!” Tanya yelled up to her window.
“Okay, be right down,” Courtney hollered back.
“Her mother’s letting her go?” I was surprised. “I thought she was on total punishment?”
“She is,” Tanya said. “That’s why she’s coming. If Cheri can get straight A’s then there’s no reason why Courtney can’t. She needs to spend as much time with Cheri as possible.” Tanya slammed her book shut, slipped it into her bag, and hopped up. “At least that’s what her mom told me at the door.”
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Courtney, loaded with books, burst out. “’Ey, I need help over here!”
We rushed over and each carried a set.
“Jeez,” Tanya said. “How many books are you bringing?”
“Most of these are Adrian’s old grammar books,” Courtney explained, adjusting her loaded backpack. “Mom found them somewhere in the attic and wants me to keep them in my room.”
Tanya looked at one. “These old things?”
Courtney nodded.
Heading toward the bus stop, Tanya asked her, “What did your mom do after you got home Friday night?”
“Nothing,” she said, staring down at the books.
Tanya took a quick peek at me. “She didn’t tell you anything?”
“What’s there to tell?” Courtney responded. “It’s not my fault if the teachers can’t get through to their students.”
I remembered watching how the teachers had talked to the parents Friday night and I wondered what words they used to explain their kids. Would the parents be madder at the teacher or their kids?
“My mom said if my grades didn’t pick up, I was getting a tutor after school next year and on the weekend,” Janot explained.
“Aren’t they expensive?” Courtney asked.
Janot shrugged.
The bus pulled to the curb and the doors swung open. There were only three passengers on board. Where was everybody this weekend?
Tanya twirled a lock of hair on her head. “Now I can start wearing my summer barrettes,” she said. “Jerice already had on her fancy clip-on seashell barrettes all last week.”
“Only because she hasn’t gotten caught wearing it yet,” Courtney pointed out. “Anyway what’s the point of dressing up to go to summer school?”
“When we get out of summer school, I mean,” she said.
“And when will that be?” I mumbled, thinking of the long hot days ahead sitting in a classroom while everybody else was at the beach or amusement park, doing what was supposed to be done in summer.
We got off the bus and walked over to Cheri’s block. There were more people scattered around, so I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything.
“There’s your boyfriend,” Courtney told Tanya.
We peered down the path and saw the quiet guard talking to someone in front of the building opposite Cheri’s.
I stiffened.
“Hmm,” Tanya said and kept walking.
Courtney raised her eyebrows. “Oh, so now he’s not your type?”
“He never was,” Tanya answered.
The guard’s head turned. I shifted my eyes forward and raised Courtney’s textbooks onto my shoulder to block my face from him. Why hadn’t I told Cheri to meet me at my house?
Suddenly I heard keys jingling. I thought to close my eyes when suddenly he passed by, heading toward the lobby. I stopped, ready to turn around and rush back to the bus stop.
He unlocked the door and swung it open. “Last minute studying?” he asked.
Courtney looked at him. “Yes,” she said. “Cheri Simmins invited us over. Apartment 10C?”
Smiling, he held the door. Trembling, I rushed inside after Courtney and Tanya. Afraid to look back, I listened to the door shut behind me and didn’t hear any keys jingling.
I shifted the heavy books and wiped beads of sweat from my neck and forehead. I couldn’t tell if he was being polite or checking up on us.
“Did he ever speak to you guys before? That was the first time he spoke to me.” Courtney said, pressing the elevator button.
Neither one of us answered. I peered back to see if anybody was coming. The lobby was empty.
When we arrived at Cheri’s apartment, Courtney rang the doorbell.
“Look!” Tanya said, pointing at a stream of water seeping through the bottom of the door. Suddenly, the door opened.
“Hey, Cheri,” I muttered, peeking inside. Water was gushing all over their floor.
“You know your apartment is flooded?” Tanya asked.
“Yeah,” she said, wearing what used to be her fluffy, blue bunny slippers.
“You going to clean it up or what?” Courtney asked, as we tiptoed into the hallway.
“I was just about to get Dad out of the bathroom,” she explained. “He flooded the house doing the laundry.”
She rapped on the bathroom door. “Daddy?”
“What?” Mr. Simmins answered.
“Could you come out here a minute please?”
I heard a toilet seat drop and her father soon opened the door. “Aw, Judas Priest!”
Tanya leaned toward me. “Judas was a priest?” she whispered.
I shrugged.
Mr. Simmins waded down the hall and into their kitchen where the flood was higher. “For crying out loud . . . .” He examined the washing machine, threw the newspaper down, and then spun around to face us.
“Mrs. Simmins does not have to know anything about this!” he started. “If we pull together we can get this mess straightened out in about . . .” he looked around, “about a couple of hours. So let’s get cranking.”
We all stared at him.
He raised his eyebrows. “You’ll each get five dollars?”
We dropped our books and went to work.
I ran to the hall closet and swiped every towel I could reach. Cheri snatched the mop. Courtney gathered a bunch of sponges from under the kitchen sink. Janot tried to help Mr. Simmins stop the flow of water by plugging the hose back up to the machine until Trevor asked why they didn’t just turn the faucet off.
We poured gallons of water into the bathtub. Two hours later we were down to rags, sponges, and the mop. Every window in the living room was wide open to air out the bottom of the furniture.
Since the water was clean, there were no dark stains on the sofas or chairs. The étagère, coffee table, and wall unit were made of glass and silver. They just needed a good polish. As I started to buff the furniture, I wondered where Cheri’s mom was but decided not to ask.
“Where’s Trevor?” Janot suddenly cried out, searching the room. “Where’s Trevor?” She leaped to her feet and hurried down the hall. “Trevor . . . . Trevor!”
Alarmed, I glanced at an open window, dropped my sponge, and raced behind Janot.
Passing the den, I saw a tiny hand reaching out from behind the door. I leaned in a little closer and followed the hand, the arm, and the shoulder until it led to the face of a toy dummy.
I jumped back. The twisted red lips, crossed-eyes, and spiked hair made me to want to throw the ugly doll out the window.
“The window!” I hissed, staring at it wide open. “Did you find Trevor?” I hollered, running out to the hall.
“No!” Janot shrieked, zipping from room to room. “Where is he?”
“Calm down,” Mr. Simmins said, forming sweat above the eyebrows. “Now, where was the last place you saw him?”
Janot shook her head. “I don’t remember.”
“Do you remember Trevor coming in the house with you?” he asked, wiping the sweat with his handkerchief.
“Yes,” Janot cried.
“What happened next?”
“Umm,” she said, “we came in, saw the flood, went to the washing machine, stopped it . . . umm, soaked the water up . . . and that’s when he was missing.” She brushed a tear away that had fallen to her trembling lips.
“Did anybody see Trevor leave the kitchen?” Mr. Simmins asked.
“All I saw was water,” Tanya said.
“He might be hiding?” Courtney suggested.
“Listen,” Mr. Simmins piped. “We’ll start at that end of the house and work our way up to the kitchen.” He marched down the hall, straight toward his bedroom.
We followed. We searched under the bed and around the dresser and night tables. Tanya pulled out the bottom dresser drawers. I guessed that Trevor could have fit in one if he had lain down.
Mr. Simmins swung the closet doors open and rummaged through them.
“Wait!” Tanya
squealed, after he had shut them. She reopened one door and removed a hatbox that had covered a small pair of sneakers.
Sighing with relief, Janot rushed to the closet and slowly carried out a sleeping Trevor.
“Thank goodness,” Mr. Simmins said, dropping down on his bed.
Just then a whistling sound came from somewhere in the room.
Everybody froze.
“Is the machine still on?” I asked.
“It’s not coming from there,” Courtney said, peering down the hall. She looked back at the bed. “It’s coming from that.” She pointed at Trevor’s nose.
We inched in closer.
Trevor had started snoring.
“He wasn’t snoring like that before,” Courtney said. “Otherwise we would’ve found him.
“You have to go to sleep with that every night?” Tanya asked Janot.
Janot sat on the bed and held Trevor in her arms, almost as if she were afraid he would disappear again if she’d let him go.
I patted Janot’s shoulder. “Let’s go up front and start our work now,” I said, understanding exactly how she felt about her little brother. I walked her back to the living room.
She placed Trevor on the couch and we put away all the cleaning equipment and spread our books out on the dinette table.
“Cheri, I’m going to the manufacturer to see if I can get a new hose,” Mr. Simmins said.
“Okay, Daddy,” Cheri said.
“Here.” He walked around the table, handing each one of us a five dollar bill and went over and placed a folded ten dollar bill inside Trevor’s pants pocket. Then he carried the wrapped up hose, still dripping wet, down the hall.
I sat in a chair facing their dinette window and saw an airplane soar into a large cloud. I watched as the craft and its cloud both slowly drifted away and wondered where all the early vacationers on board were going.
The living room and dinette now smelled as if a bleach wave had splashed down a big rinse job and then disappeared. The surface of the glass dinette table felt cool from the high winds, 10 stories up, that were blowing in the window. I took a deep breath. Maybe this was as close to an ocean breeze as I would get. Sighing, I opened my notebook to the math work.
“What’s your mom going to say when she comes home and sees this?” Tanya asked Cheri.
She hunched her shoulders.
With all the secrets that had already come out, I was pretty sure Mrs. Simmins would find out about her washing machine sooner or later.
“Think you’ll be able to make more summer plans?” Cheri asked Courtney.
“Yeah, sure,” Courtney said. “As soon as we get the stupid schoolwork out of the way, so I can use my time on something important.”
Cheri removed a blank sheet of loose-leaf paper from her binder and placed it next to her math book, which was opened to the last assigned problems. Then she picked up her pencil.
Everybody watched her.
“What’re you getting ready for?” Courtney asked, staring at the blank sheet.
“To go over the work again with you guys,” Cheri told her.
“But you’re not going to summer school,” Tanya said.
“It doesn’t hurt to be prepared,” Cheri said.
“At the end of the semester?” Janot asked.
Cheri marked her paper. “We’re going to need this stuff next year.”
“Next year?” Courtney shrieked.
“For what?” Tanya said, staring at Cheri. “You don’t do fifth grade work in sixth grade.”
Cheri sighed and told them, “It’s good practice.” Then she lowered her head.
I looked at Tanya. “She ought to know.”
“Come on, let’s get started.” Courtney pulled out all of her books and spread them across the table. Janot took out her binder and a stack of rumpled papers with notes written on them.
Tanya stacked thin spiral notebooks, one for each subject, beside her pastel pencil case.
I dug out all my notes from the morning. “Pop showed me how to work the metric system,” I said to everybody, as I laid the sheets out in front of me. “It’s not really that hard.”
“How can your pop know anything about the metric system when they just started teaching it a few of years ago?” Tanya blurted. “They didn’t have it when he was a kid, remember?”
“He took it later.”
Tanya shook her head. “This is the new math, Justine. They don’t teach the new math to old people.” She flipped open her math workbook.
I stared at her. “But he said he studied it on his own.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
I stared at my sheets, wondering if I knew what I was doing or if I was falling into another pit. “He even explained how to measure it, not the same way Sister did, but the answers are still right.”
“That’s how they did it in the old school,” Courtney told me, pointing at my sheets. “You have to use the new methods now.”
The old school? I looked at the answers. How could they do this in the old school if it was the new math? And how would she know what they did in the old school? She wasn’t there.
I ran down the problems again. “See, the answers are right.” I showed her that the answers on my sheet were the same as the ones in the book.
“Anybody can copy answers,” she accused me.
“They’re not copied,” I tried to explain. “I worked these out on paper right here.” I pointed at the examples where each solution to a problem was written out step-by-step.
“But you did it the wrong way,” Tanya said. “That’s not how Sister did it on the board. She didn’t put all that extra stuff in there.”
“The extra stuff is each step to the problem written down, that’s all,” I said.
“But you don’t need to write all that down,” Tanya said. “You do the easy part in your head.”
Why were they arguing with me? Pop explained this to me all morning. Now they were trying to tell me it was wrong?
“Let’s do social studies first,” Courtney said. “Who’s got the textbook notes?”
“I do,” Cheri answered. She opened her notebook and everybody tilted their heads sideways. Her pages on the left were written in blue ink and the pages on the right were in black.
“Why’d you use two different pens?” Courtney asked her.
“I use one to write down what the teacher says in class and the other for the notes from the book,” Cheri explained.
“How many notes do you keep?” Courtney and Tanya asked at the same time.
“That depends on the class,” she told them.
Everyone stared at her.
“You don’t highlight the textbook pages?” Janot asked.
Cheri nodded. “Sure I do. But I still like all my notes in one subject close together.”
Janot nodded and blinked twice. Her forehead still crinkled with worry lines.
“I got mine highlighted,” I said, raising my social studies textbook. “I didn’t get that many notes, though.”
Cheri looked at the ruffled sheets of loose-leaf paper in front of Janot. “You take yours down on scrap paper?” she asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “The teacher reads it out so fast and I don’t want it looking sloppy when I write the final copy. I haven’t put it in my notebook yet.”
“If you know about the subject beforehand, you’ll be able to keep better notes,” Cheri told her.
“No one knows what a teacher is going to teach,” Courtney retorted.
“They give out the syllabus in the beginning of the year,” Janot told her.
“That doesn’t mean they won’t change everything around later,” Courtney replied. “Then what’re you suppose to do with an old syllabus?”
Cheri, Janot, and I exchanged glances.
“I want to start the composition,” Tanya said. “What’s a good thing to write about? Name something easy so I can be through with it.”
“We haven’t even finished social studie
s yet,” Cheri said. “Or the metric system.”
“We can get to that later,” Tanya told her. “Pick out something that we can all write about.”
“We can’t do it like that,” Cheri explained. “We each have to write about something different.”
“It will be different,” Tanya said. “We’ll take one topic and write it down differently.” She grinned.
Cheri frowned. I slumped in my seat. The composition was my only escape out of English for the summer; if I messed it up I was doomed.
“How about I make a list of things and we can all choose?” I suggested, hiding the notes for my composition under the table.
Tanya shook her head. “That’s too much writing.” She tossed her math notebook back into her book bag. “Just pick one thing and we’ll each write something different about it.” Then she opened her English book.
“That’s not fair,” Courtney said. “Why should I pick out the same great idea for everybody else to use so that they can get the same grade? We get graded on what we pick too, you know.”
“So?” Tanya said. “Even if we each did pick out something different, there’s still a chance some of us might pick the same thing. So we might as well do that now and get that part over with.”
“No,” Courtney said, closing her book and pushing it to the side. “I don’t think so.”
Tanya dropped her paper down. “Look, in here it says organize ideas to express clearly. That’s all we have to worry about.”
“Organize ideas clearly?” Courtney cocked her head. “What kind of organization do you call this?”
“It’s a simple basic principle,” she explained. “The first-”
“Don’t teach if you don’t know how,” Courtney sneered.
Tanya’s eyebrows rose. “Now I know why your mother says you don’t apply yourself!”
Courtney glared at her.
“We’re wasting time,” Cheri tapped her pencil against the table.
“All right, all right, all right,” Courtney said, waving her hands. “I’ll list four things. We’ll each choose one and write whatever we want about it.” She wrote down a list in her notebook and then tore the page into four strips. She folded them and laid them in the center of the table. “Whichever topic you pick, that’s the one you do. You go first.” She told Tanya.
Tanya picked the folded sheet farthest from her, shook it open, and read it.
“Now you,” Courtney told me.
Doubtful, I picked the one nearest me and opened it.
“Now you,” she told Cheri. “Now me.” She picked the last sheet.
I read mine. It said, “Explain why outdoor hiking is important to me.” This wasn’t important to me; it was important to Courtney.
“Why I think getting a driver’s license is important?” Tanya read and then looked at Courtney. “I don’t.”
“You do if you want to go somewhere,” Courtney clarified, turning to the composition page of her English book.
“If I want to go somewhere, my grandmother takes me.” She looked at my sheet. “What did you get?” She took the sheet before I could answer. “I’ll do that one, you do this.” She tossed over the one she had.
I stared at it. “I don’t know anything about driving.”
“Tch! All right, we’ll do a new topic,” Courtney peeled the torn ridges off her notebook and grabbed her pen. “We’ll each write about all the summer vacation plans we talked about earlier, but we’ll write them down like we’ve done them.”
My mind started feeling cloudy. I couldn’t get a clear picture of what we were doing. “Can’t we decide for ourselves what to write about?” I asked.
“We all wanted to do this, Justine, remember?” she said. “We sat back there and planned it together.” She pointed down the hall toward Cheri’s room.
“Yeah, but. . . .” I looked down at my work. This wasn’t going right. I sulked as Courtney and Tanya started writing at the top of their papers. I felt a distance growing between me and others again, the same one I had felt between Pop and me on report card night, but this time it was between me and the two of them. Was this what studying together was going to be like?
“How’d your pop tell you to do your outline?”
Courtney asked me.
I glared at her. “Why, so you can destroy that too?”
“Tch! I’m just asking a question. How’d he say to do the outline?”
“He said ‘after the Roman number in the top left-hand corner, write the introduction paragraph but in a short way, and then list the meanings with capital letters, and then list and number all the facts,’” I told her.
“He’s wrong,” Tanya announced.
“Huh?” My jaw dropped.
“Look, see, you write the Roman numbers right next to the capital letters.” She crossed off each line on my outline paper and marked it again. “Then write one, two, three, four underneath for each sentence.” She held the sheet up in front of me. “Like this.”
“Nooo, nooo,” Courtney protested, shaking her head. “The capital letters come first, then the Roman numerals.”
“The Roman numerals go in front of the capital letters!” Tanya said crossly.
“My dad told me it goes like this,” I said, taking the sheet.
“Things have changed since our parents went to school, Justine,” Courtney said, snatching the sheet back from me. “That’s why we have to work together.” She threw it face-down on a pile of books.
I looked around the table. How could I work like this? I looked over at Cheri’s blank paper. She hadn’t written one thing down since we started.
“You write down the capitol letters,” Courtney explained, “and then the Roman numerals . . . like this.” She placed the sheet in front of Tanya.
Tanya brushed it away and rolled her eyes. “You want to flunk this assignment, that’s your business.”
I picked up my sheet and looked at what Tanya had scratched off and Courtney had written down. What if they were both wrong? What did it hurt for me to find out for myself? I just wouldn’t tell them.
With all these books and papers piled on the table, they couldn’t even see the glass tabletop. So, I held my outline paper on my lap under the table, crossed out Tanya’s marks, and rewrote everything down the way Pop had told me. I’d have to check for myself later to see if it was right.
Then, out of the corner of my eye I saw Cheri watching. I covered the sheet fast, but she was already smiling. She peeled off a strip of loose-leaf paper and wrote something on it and slipped it to me under the rim of the table.
I unfolded it and read, “If you want, we can work on this tomorrow morning before class. You, me, and Janot only, depending on what time she has to be at her school.” I smiled back and wrote, “Can you show me how to do the outline first?”
“Sure, it’s easy,” she wrote back. “Exactly the way your dad did it.”
I beamed, feeling secretly confident all of a sudden. Was this how Courtney once felt? I wondered. I would have asked but she was still arguing with Tanya.
“Because that’s not the way it’s supposed to be done!” she yelled.
“I’m telling you, Sister explained . . . .” Tanya ranted.
I folded the note and placed it in my book bag’s side pocket and leaned back in my chair. My chest didn’t feel like it was holding bricks anymore and my head seemed to clear.
Cheri didn’t look at all worried. What was she thinking? Whatever it was, she wasn’t sharing it with the rest of us. Staring at her thumbing through her history book and remembering the events I described in my encyclopedias, I wondered if I could travel through time with her. I looked down at my book bag at the fake math paper I’d planned on turning in earlier.
Suddenly I realized that I had my own directions. I didn’t have to go with Cheri; I could go my own way. We could still work together, though.
“You keep looking for the easiest answer!” Courtney shouted.
“I do not!”
Tanya shouted back. “I look for the right answer!”
I looked at Janot. Her worry lines increased as her eyes swung back and forth between Courtney and Tanya. She rested her head in the palm of her hand, as though she was about to cry. They must have blocked her head with so much doubt by now that she couldn’t think straight either.
I tried to signal her, but she wouldn’t look my way. I tore off a corner of the math paper and scribbled a note about the before-school meeting with Cheri. Then I balled it up and watched Tanya with her back to me.
“It doesn’t matter what I put,” she said, “as long as I put.”
“But that’s not. . . . You can’t just throw down answers, they have to make sense!” Courtney told her.
I cringed and pushed my fake math work farther down inside my bag.
Tanya leaned toward Courtney to emphasize her point, and I tried to toss the folded note to Janot while Tanya had her back to us. But then Tanya suddenly stood up straight, and I hid the note under the table.
“It says here to ‘state a purpose, not run down a whole list of facts!’”
Courtney sadly shook her head at Tanya. “The blind leading the blind,” she remarked.
I felt a sharp sensation rush through my skin when she said that, remembering how I had looked up to her not long ago.
“How are you going to state your purpose with no facts, huh?” she argued. “How about that?”
“You have to state it first.” Tanya threw back at her. “Then look for your facts to put in.”
I tried aiming the note again behind Tanya’s back.
“Look,” Courtney said, getting up. “I’ve had it with your crazy short cuts. Either we do this my way or forget studying together!” She thrust her books into her backpack.
While she was bent over, I flung the balled note hard at Janot. It passed the top of her head and flew out the open window behind her.
Cheri lowered her head on the table and started to shake with laughter. Janot hadn’t noticed a thing. I sighed and got ready to tear another piece of paper when I noticed that because of all the paper and books on the table, I couldn’t see the floor through the glass top. I rolled my eyes toward Tanya’s back, and flipped my pen up in the air to look like an accident. It landed by Courtney’s feet.
Tanya, still arguing, picked up the pen and placed it on the table. I frowned at her and then dropped my assignment pad. I bent down and went under the table, shaded by the papers and books, and wrote another note. I tapped Janot on the knee and held the note up in her lap.
A book was suddenly moved and a circle of light shown through the table to the floor. I looked up, but a sheet of paper still covered me in my tracks. I slithered back up into my chair and saw a small grin form on Janot’s face.
We all leaned back and relaxed. It was agreed.
“All right, I’ll prove it,” Courtney said. They both stopped arguing and the tips of their pencils started wiggling fiercely above the table, when the whistling sound returned.
We gazed over at Trevor who lay flat, dozing, out on the couch.
“So it just goes on and off like that?” Tanya asked Janot.
Ignoring her question, Janot, Cheri, and I buried our heads into our books.
I called Cheri again that night for more tips. I wrote down everything she told me: scan over all work first to get an idea where it’s going; make a question outline to know what to look for; use signposts, like chapter titles, section headings, table of content, which stick out; mark down important points that are underlined, printed in italics, or otherwise presented in an unusual way.
I could find a million ways to study but it wasn’t something hard, just a lot of work. Cheri suggested some books in the library on how to study. When I got off the phone, I packed my library card inside my book bag and looked at my new notes. I smoothed the sheets out and placed them under my pillow so they would be close by. I never wanted to feel that lost again. I figured out that you could study difficult material in the same way you studied the easy assignments. It just took longer to get the answers when the questions were hard.
The following week I finished most of my assignments faster than I had expected, and I didn’t even rush through them. Taking my time, I caught on quickly. I had looked at the clock when I finished each subject and was surprised over how fast I had gotten done.
I could’ve had this work done a long time ago if I hadn’t blocked my head with all those doubts. It felt good to be on track for a change.
Jammed with school during the day and homework at night, I thought Friday would never arrive. The first week after report card night was always the hardest, but eventually everybody recovered.
Warm sunshine and the cool breeze caught my attention again. Everything looked so clear in the bright sun. The colors of nature were getting sharp all around. Flowers, birds, and butterflies scattered colors all along the streets. The clear air allowed my view to open up again beyond our neighborhood, except for the fuzzy sky up ahead.
Riding home on the bus, I looked forward to Saturday and Sunday: no teachers for two whole days and all this pent up energy just waiting to burst. So many ideas were buzzing inside my head.
I pictured myself racing Terence’s two-wheeler (Kriston broke mine) full speed up and down the street, coasting hills, and feeling the wind against my skin.
Since I wouldn’t be able to go to the beach this summer, maybe I could find a lawn sprinkler that would turn the street into an outdoor waterfall. Then I could ride the bike under it.
“A storm’s coming,” Tanya alerted. “Look.”
I smeared my face against the window as we approached Alexandria. Thick, dark, bluish-gray clouds drifted overhead. Branches on trees shook wildly and reached out to the east. Leaves circled the ground in bunches. By the time we reached our stop, flashes arced in the distance.
“Look!” Courtney cried. “A bolt of lightning!”
Wondering if that bolt had hit our school, I glanced up at the clouds.
“I don’t see smoke,” Tanya said. “I don’t think it hit anything.”
Stay away from trees. Stay away from trees, my mind kept repeating once I got off the bus.
The soft taps of raindrops slapping against the pavement echoed in my ears.
“It’s started; let’s go!” Tanya shouted. She hustled down her street while I raced behind Courtney.
Suddenly thunder clapped and every kid outside started running.
I placed my book bag over my head. Cool raindrops ran down the back of my hands and into my sleeves.
“Bye Justine!” Courtney hollered, bursting through her front door.
I skidded to a stop on our front lawn and peered back down the street at Terence, Kriston, and Terell trying to beat the storm home. I went inside and threw my book bag down. This was not how you started a weekend.
By Saturday morning the storm had passed. The night had been wild. I watched the flashes from my bed until they put me to sleep. Mom once said that I could sleep through a hurricane.
I jumped out of bed and went to the bathroom.
Being the only girl in the house besides Mom, I always winded up changing the empty roll of toilet paper. I didn’t understand how they used it up so fast. I had decided that I would get my own box of tissues and keep it in my room, just for emergencies.
Boy, there was nothing like being prepared.
I got dressed and scampered downstairs to pop open a can of biscuits. The house was quiet. Birds and katydids chirped outside the window. Somebody’s TV set was blaring a cartoon program. I wondered if I would be allowed to watch cartoons over the weekend.
I opened the fridge door and looked inside. The bag of poison ivy was gone. I saw a bowl of sliced fruit in its place. I set it on the kitchen table and grabbed a spoon out of the drawer.
Then my brothers scurried down, plunged into the kitchen, and grabbed four different brands of cereal boxes from the cabinet.
“How come you like that junk?” Tere
ll asked me.
“’Cause it’s good for you,” I said.
“Yeah?” Tyrone said. “Well let me get some.” He waved his spoon in my direction.
I knocked it away before it touched my bowl and accidentally flung an orange slice across the table.
I sneered at Tyrone. “Why do you have to be so stupid?” I grumbled with a mouthful.
“I’m ya’ brothaaa!”
I snatched a sponge off the cabinet.
“Hey,” Pop announced, rushing in. “Your Mom’s still not feeling right, so I’m taking her to the doctor. The morning is yours, but-” he hesitated, “when I come back, the finished schoolwork comes out. Is that clear?”
“Yes,” we chorused.
With a look of warning, he left the kitchen.
“Hey Pop,” I called, chasing after him. “Will you be gone long?”
“Probably an hour or so,” he said, arranging his wallet.
Even if it was only to the hospital, I could pretend that I was going someplace fun. At least it would be a change from being stuck in the house and school all week.
“Can I come?”
“Baby you’d be bored all morning.” He brushed my cheek. “Besides, you think I’d leave them alone in here again after the stunt they tried to pull?” he asked, pointing toward the basement.
“What stunt was that?”
“Never mind,” he said, clumping up the stairs.
I strolled back into the kitchen. I washed my bowl out and set it on the drainer. I turned the hot water off and ran my hands under cold flowing water, which poured out in one smooth motion, not like the lawn sprinklers showering droplets everywhere.
The water faucet would become a refreshment for me, connecting the kitchen to an ocean of cool, clean running water, splashing its way into the sink. And the refrigerator, with its ice cold drinks and snacks waiting, would provide the prize of the summer kitchen, as the stove provided the prize of the winter.
I turned the water off and went up to my room, flinging the last of the cool drops onto my face.
I straightened the finished homework papers on my desk, stacked them inside my binder, and opened my bedroom window wider, so I could clearly hear the birds chirping in the bushes down below. Butterflies floated from dandelion to dandelion alongside the house.
I turned toward my dresser. I opened the bottom drawer and rummaged through the folded clothes. I pulled out my bathing suit and laid it on top of my winter blouses.
I fished for my favorite terry cloth shorts and top that Mom made for me and tried them on to make sure they still fit. They felt a little tight but I would not tell Mom.
I folded them and placed them back in the bureau. Then I went through all my drawers and moved all my summer clothes up to the top. The corner of my closet was already cleared for my book bag and school jumper. I opened the closet door and pulled all my summer outfits to the front and placed all my winter clothes in back.
Later, when my friends came over, we sat on the front steps eating ice cream. Occasionally, a warm breeze rushed past, stirring the bushes in front of the house.
“I can’t wait till summer school’s over,” Courtney said, dripping chocolate ice cream onto the pavement.
Ants were scurrying to retrieve it.
“Yeah,” Tanya agreed. “The only good thing about regular school is when all the holidays come.”
Cheri sighed. “I miss Christmas,” she said. “Decorating the tree and making fancy cookies.”
“I like Halloween,” Tanya said, taking a bite out of her cone. “Spooking people out.”
“My favorite is Thanksgiving,” Cheri said, licking honey vanilla off the tip of her thumb. “That’s the start of the whole Christmas season. Everybody’s so bright and cheery.”
“Which one is your favorite, Justine?” Janot asked.
“The one I’m celebrating whenever Mom stops having all these babies,” I muttered as I watched Terell, racing away from Clarence, bust up what was left of my skates.
“Did you talk to them about your assignment?” Tanya asked.
“Nope.”
“What’re you waiting for?”
“What if they had a perfectly good reason for having so many kids?” I asked. “How can I prove it to Sister Bernadette if I can’t even prove it to myself?”
“Maybe you should write it another way,” Cheri said.
“Like how?”
“How about the way you feel about having a new baby,” she said. “You’ve already had plenty of practice.”
I finished eating my vanilla ice cream and thought about her suggestion. How did I feel about the new baby?
“Can you see yourself as a mom?” Courtney asked, finishing the last of her cone.
“I don’t think so,” Cheri replied.
“Can you see yourself getting married?” Courtney challenged, brushing crumbs off her hands.
Everybody, except Tanya, stared at her.
“For what?” I asked. “I already live with married people.”
“Sometimes I like to pretend,” Janot said.
“Me too,” Trevor added.
“I wonder what makes people fall in love,” Cheri wondered, gazing into the sky.
Waiting for an answer, the rest of us looked at Tanya.
She didn’t notice.
“I sure would like to know why some girl would marry my brother,” Courtney remarked.
Watching mine chase each other in the middle of the street, I sighed and went into the house.
How did I feel about the new baby? Whose room would he be staying in? Kriston and Terell’s or Austin’s? Who would he get along with the most? Would he get along with me?
I headed for the kitchen and saw Mom bent over in the refrigerator. “Are you still going to the hospital?” I asked her.
“You see me dressed don’t you!” she snapped and slammed the door.
Stunned, I jumped back and watched her rip open a can of sardines.
Oh no, she was in her mood swings again. Every time she reached her last month, she got excited and short-tempered. Because that baby was so late in coming, I guessed she was upset about still being pregnant.
She stormed out of the kitchen and knocked Tyrone aside as she passed him in the hall.
“I love you too, Mommy,” he sang out, watching her wobble. He glided into the kitchen and grabbed a can of soda out the fridge.
I wandered down the hall and into Pop’s den.
Crouched behind his desk, he heard me coming and raised his head. “Hey baby,” he said. “You see my address book anywhere?”
“No,” I grumbled. “You ask Mom?”
Smiling, “Come here,” he said and wrapped me in his arm. “Just be patient.”
I sighed.
“Look,” he said, “Your brothers invited some friends over from school to get an early start on a science project they’re planning for next year.” Notice how he called them “your brothers” and not “my sons”?
I glared. “Why would you—”
He placed his hand over my mouth. “This is an important project they need to spend plenty of time researching. They won’t have any time left over to nag you.”
After the mess they created last time, how could he think to leave them alone again? Even if it was for a school project.
“Oomph,” I mumbled, and he moved his hand away. “Will you help me with my English assignment?” I asked. “It’s my composition, remember? Could I ride with you and Mom and we could work on it in the van? It’s real important!”
“You have all your material ready?”
I rubbed my chin. “All my stuff is upstairs.”
“Get everything ready and we’ll work on it as soon as I get back, okay, sweets?” He kissed my cheek and sent me off.
I sighed, following the sound of screeching kids back outside, and wondered how this situation was going to turn out. My brothers couldn’t handle being by themselves. Didn’t my parents know this yet? Terell had someh
ow already punched a hole in the basement step; the huskies wound up loose in the living room; and Pop didn’t trust Tyrone in the kitchen. What more would it take for Mom and Pop to figure out that they were trouble?
All this time I had been doing great, keeping up with my studies, not getting into trouble with Tanya, and now my parents had to pull this. I’d probably get blamed for everything again.
“They’re bringing the crew over,” I said, squatting beside Courtney and Janot on the front steps.
“Who?” Cheri asked.
“My brothers.”
Just then Tyrone sprinted out of the house, leaped over our heads, and dashed up the street.
“Why?” Cheri asked.
“To bug me.” I sighed. “Who’s staying?” I asked, doubtful.
They looked at me as if I was crazy.
“Oh come on!” I pleaded. “You know I can’t leave my room unguarded.” I waited. “I don’t have locks on my door.” I raised my hand at the house. “And you’ve seen what already happened.”
“Look,” Janot started, “I’m sorry, but I’m not going through any more with your dingbats.”
“My dingbats got friends coming,” I tried to explain.
“Sooo whaaat?” she fired off. “You think their friends are any better?”
I stayed quiet, because I suddenly remembered: The one time Janot stayed overnight at my house, she was carried up to our attic while she was still rolled up in her covers. Everybody knew that when Janot slept she was dead to the world, even more than I was.
I woke up, or rather she woke us up in the morning as she screamed from the roll-away bed to which the boys had tied her. She hadn’t slept over at my house ever since even though the incident had happened years ago.
“Okay.” Hopeful, I turned to Cheri. “What about you?”
She cocked her head at me and wrinkled both eyebrows.
I couldn’t believe they were deserting me like this.
“I’ll stay,” Courtney said.
“So will I,” Tanya added.
Cheri glared at each one of us. “O-kay, I’ll stay.”
“I’ll stay too,” Trevor said.
Janot got up quietly and walked away.
“Humph,” Tanya chuckled. “I guess that’s that.” She jumped to her feet. “What have you got to eat?” she asked me.
“Don’t know,” I told her.
We paraded toward the kitchen.
Through the living room window I could see my parents getting into the van. I waved, but they didn’t see me.
In the kitchen, Tanya rearranged the fridge and found a plate of cold cuts. “Who wants some?” she asked.
“Not me,” Courtney said. “I don’t eat loose meat.”
“I’m surprised it’s in there,” Cheri said, “with your brothers around.”
“Maybe your mom has it,” Courtney told me. “You know, being pregnant.”
After I had grabbed five cans of soda off the shelf, Tanya placed it back inside and shut the door. I pulled a box of crackers out from the cabinet. Our mouths then got busy.
“Hey, you guys, listen,” Cheri said.
“To what?” Tanya said. “I don’t hear anything.”
“That’s what I mean,” Cheri said. “Where’d everybody go?”
We glanced around the dinette. No yelling, no loud scrapes against the sidewalk, no balls hitting the pavement or somebody’s window, no dogs barking.
I shuddered. The trouble was starting already, and this time Clarence was with them. I stared at the ceiling, waiting for the roof to cave in or the house to explode. Then I looked over at the dinette window.
A neighborhood full of kids was not supposed to be quiet unless somebody, or everybody, was up to something.
“Justine,” Cheri cried. “That’s it. I’m ducking out in the basement.” She snatched five crackers off the table and left.
The rest of us waited. Then I clutched the box, Trevor’s hand, and swooped toward the basement.
After everybody was in the staircase, I shut the door and ran my fingers along the wall. “Somebody go down and pull the light switch,” I said.
“SHHH!” they told me.
Frowning, I squatted on the steps and bit into another cracker.
“SHHH!” they told me again.
I hunched over, still holding Trevor’s hand, and listened. Was the front door locked? If it was, the only thing left for them to destroy would have been the neighborhood, and nobody could hold me responsible for that.
All of a sudden, footsteps started tapping lightly above the ceiling.
My heart pounded.
Just then sneakers squeaked by and shadows bobbed underneath the basement door. I was still trying to remember if the front door was locked when suddenly the door in front of me slowly cracked open.
I picked Trevor up and stepped down into the darkness.