Abby's Lucky Thirteen

  With luck, and if I played my cards right, my mother would never know I’d been suspended.

  Jessi knows the Braddocks well and had a regular sitting job with them for a while not long after they moved to Stoneybrook. They are energetic and upbeat, and all the BSC members like baby-sitting for them. Both seven-year-old Matt (who is profoundly deaf and communicates in American Sign Language) and nine-year-old Haley (who can talk as fast in sign language as she can speak) are athletic and competitive. Matt plays for the little kids’ softball team Kristy coaches, the Krushers, and they are normally ready for any adventure.

  Until the no-television rule broke out among the parents.

  Prepared by what had happened with Claudia, Mary Anne, and Mallory the previous week, Jessi wasn’t too surprised when Mrs. Braddock told her that there were snacks in the kitchen, the phone number where she could be reached was by the phone, and that the children weren’t allowed to watch television. (The Braddocks have a special cable box that prints what people are saying on the screen.)

  Jessi said, “Okay.”

  “Haley and Matt are in the basement,” said Mrs. Braddock. “The television ban has been in effect for more than a week now, so they’re over the initial shock. But they are still not taking it well. Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” said Jessi glumly to Mrs. Braddock’s departing back.

  Sure enough, Matt and Haley were in the basement.

  “Hi,” said Jessi, signing and speaking.

  Matt looked up. He signed hello. Unenthusiastically. Jessi could see that he and Haley were playing cards.

  Also unenthusiastically.

  “It’s a beautiful day out,” said Jessi. “Why don’t we go outside?”

  Matt shrugged. Haley shrugged.

  Then Haley said, “Do you get to watch television at home?”

  “When I want to. But I don’t watch that much television. There’s too much else to do,” said Jessi. She was telling the truth.

  But Haley scowled and asked, “Did Mom tell you to say that?”

  “No!” exclaimed Jessi. She was indignant.

  “We can’t watch television at Vanessa’s either,” Haley told Jessi, referring to Vanessa Pike. “But if we went to visit Becca, we could.”

  “Becca’s not home this afternoon,” said Jessi firmly. She didn’t mention that Becca had suddenly begun to watch a lot less TV ever since she’d heard about the ban.

  “Oh,” said Haley.

  She looked down at the cards. Then she and Matt had a rapid conversation, only some of which Jessi could follow. Matt shook his head. Haley signed some more. Finally Matt signed, “Okay” and got up.

  “We’ll go outside,” said Haley, as if she and Matt were doing Jessi a big favor.

  “Gee, thanks,” said Jessi, but the sarcasm was wasted.

  They went out to the front yard. Matt signed, “Play pitch.”

  “Why not?” said Haley. Matt dashed back into the house to get the gloves and baseball.

  Haley remarked, “Life without television is stupid.”

  “Ummm,” said Jessi.

  “ ‘I mean, what are we supposed to do?”

  This, Jessi recognized, was a rhetorical question, which meant that Haley didn’t want an answer. Jessi was right. Haley stormed on, “So what if we watch a lot of television? Everybody does!”

  Not anymore, thought Jessi, remembering the Pikes and the Prezziosos and the Arnolds. And Becca.

  As if on cue, Claudia, who lived nearby, walked down the street with Mal. They had the entire Pike family (except for Mr. and Mrs. Pike) in tow.

  “Wow,” said Haley.

  Just then Matt came out of the house and saw the crowd coming toward them. He began to wave wildly.

  A few moments later the entire group had merged. And they were all complaining about the television rule.

  About two minutes after that, Shannon, Kristy, her little brother, David Michael, her stepsister, Karen, her stepbrother, Andrew, and Linny and Hannie Papadakis appeared. Kristy’s older brother Charlie had dropped the kids off to play in the neighborhood. Kristy and Shannon had volunteered to baby-sit.

  “Good grief!” said Claudia.

  Karen, her blue eyes wide behind her glasses, leaped into the middle the crowd. “Television has been banned forever at our house!” she exclaimed dramatically.

  “Not exactly,” said Kristy dryly. She came over to sit down beside Claud, Mal, and Jessi.

  Hannie said mournfully, “We can only watch two hours a week. The whole week! Weekends included.”

  Vanessa clasped her hands and looked up at the sky. “I’ve missed two episodes of Cassandra Clue’s Casebook. And I know she was about to solve the mystery of the missing diamonds.”

  Mallory commented, “You can tell Vanessa’s really upset. She’s not talking in rhyme.”

  Everyone sort of snickered.

  Hannie said, “I could use some of my two hours and watch and tell you what’s happening … but then we might have to give up The Simpsons.”

  “I bet I know what happened in Cassandra Clue’s Casebook,” said Karen.

  “What!” shrieked Vanessa.

  “She was at the mine, right? And someone was sneaking up behind her?”

  “Right,” said Vanessa.

  “They pushed her in!” Karen made a pushing motion with her hands.

  “No way,” said Nicky. “That’d be the end of Cassandra Clue.”

  “Not if she fell on a ledge,” argued Linny Papadakis.

  The five baby-sitters leaned back and let the kids argue. At least it was working off some of their energy.

  Suddenly, Haley signed something to Matt, who perked up and signed back excitedly. Haley jumped off the steps and crouched down. She backed under the steps and peered out. “I’m Cassandra Clue,” she intoned. “Trapped in the mine.”

  Matt rushed forward and gave her a push.

  Haley let out a truly awesome scream. Everyone jumped and crowded forward.

  “Oh, no!” cried Karen. “They’ve pushed Cassandra down the mine!” She grabbed Vanessa by the arm. “What are we going to do, Marvella?”

  Vanessa played along. “Oh, what will we do? Boo hoo for Cassandra Clue!”

  Matt rubbed his hands together like an evil villain in an old movie. Byron sprang forward and clapped Matt on the shoulder. “Well done, Dangerous Dan. You’ll get a big reward for getting rid of that pesky Cassandra Clue!”

  Claire and Margo sat down by the baby-sitters and leaned forward, their eyes wide. Andrew soon joined them.

  Before you could say, “Mystery, mystery, who can solve the mystery?” the formerly disgruntled, television-deprived kids had started acting out their own mystery series. And they kept going until the baby-sitters practically had to drag them home.

  “Don’t forget!” shouted Karen as the actors and the audience disappeared into the dusk. “Tune in next week, same time, same place, for the True Adventures of Cassandra Clue!”

  “I’ll do it. But I don’t like it,” said Anna.

  “You don’t have to do anything,” I argued. “You just have to not do one little thing. Don’t say anything to Mom about me being suspended. That’s all.”

  “I won’t say anything. But you should tell her. Because if you don’t and she finds out, it’s going to be even worse.”

  “Don’t worry. It won’t happen,” I said with more confidence than I felt. (I had taken the suspension notice signed by Ms. Frost and Mr. Taylor out of the mailbox last Friday.)

  Anna shook her head.

  She was still shaking her head when we got off the bus in front of Stoneybrook Middle School on Monday morning.

  “Good luck,” she told me. She gave me what was meant to be a reassuring pat on the shoulder. But I could tell she was worried. I gave her my best “no problem” smile.

  “See you after school,” I said.

  Still looking worried, Anna turned and went up the steps into the school. As she disappeared through the front d
oor, I saw her fumble in her pocket, then hitch her earphones into place. I knew what she was listening to: her Torah portion.

  I patted my own pocket to make sure that my Walkman was inside it. I had some Torah studying to do, too.

  But first I had to make it safely into the public library downtown. I turned and started walking casually away from the school.

  Then I thought, stop acting so guilty. You’re not supposed to be in school. You’ve been suspended, remember?

  Suspended.

  I’d persuaded Anna not to tell anyone — especially our mother. I told Anna to tell everybody in the BSC that Mom had let me stay home from school to work on my Torah portion. I hadn’t told anybody but Anna the sordid details, of course. My fellow BSC members are all good friends, but I’m not that tight with any of them. I didn’t want them to know.

  I just had to make it through three days, and Mom would never find out.

  There was one other small problem: Mom was at home all week. She’d taken the week off to get ready for the big Bat Mitzvah weekend and the onslaught of friends and relatives who were going to start arriving on Friday. When we’d come down to breakfast that morning, Anna and I had found Mom elbow deep in cookbooks at the kitchen table. She was still there when we’d left. She just reached the muttering and making notes stage.

  Anna and I knew she was about to do some amazing cooking. It would be a feast. A celebration.

  Too bad I didn’t feel like feasting or celebrating. Too bad I was practically a criminal, an outcast.

  Too bad I probably didn’t deserve to become a Bat Mitzvah….

  Stop that, I told myself.

  I’d reached the library. I pushed open the door and scoped the area for Claudia Kishi’s mother, who is head librarian at the Stoneybrook Public Library. The coast was clear. I walked in, pretending I was a college student, and headed for the back corner of the library. I found a chair and a desk and turned the chair so I had my back to any passersby, like nosy adults or librarians.

  I unloaded my backpack. I took out my Torah study book, plugged in my headphones, and began to go over my Haftarah.

  Time passed. I began to get sleepy.

  I switched off the recording and decided to work on my speech for a while. Anna had hers almost ready. Mine consisted of a bunch of lines, most of them crossed out or so badly written over that you couldn’t read them anyway.

  My speech was about the future. Becoming, in the eyes of the members of the synagogue and the members of our family, an adult.

  I sighed. Right at that moment, the future looked pretty grim.

  I looked at my watch. Practically lunchtime. At school everyone would be headed for the same table in the lunchroom. Kristy would be making gross cafeteria jokes. Mary Anne would be turning green. Claudia would be laughing. I wondered what Claudia was wearing today. I wondered if Stacey …

  Puh-lease! I stopped myself. It sounded almost as if I were missing school. Even worse, it sounded as if I were missing the school lunches!

  Hunger. That was it. I reloaded my pack and headed back downstairs.

  The main floor of the library had filled up. College students were wandering around with armfuls of books. Older people were reading newspapers and magazines at the long tables. I thought I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Kishi in the children’s reading room and I ducked out the front door in a hurry.

  Because Mom was camped out in the kitchen this week, I hadn’t even been able to make a sandwich to bring with me to the library, something that would have been less risky than venturing out.

  Oh well. I smiled. I guess I could suffer through one fast food feast.

  By the end of the day, I was burnt out on the library. I’d Torahed, I’d mitzvahed, I’d struggled unsuccessfully with my speech, and more successfully with my homework. One thing about being on suspension — I wasn’t going to fall behind in any of my classes, particularly math. (I was going to call some classmates to get the homework assignments while I was out.)

  Anna had orchestra that afternoon, but I didn’t have anything to do until the BSC meeting. I headed home to dump my books, relieved that the first day of suspension was over.

  Mom wasn’t there. But sacks of groceries were lined up along one cabinet and a note on the refrigerator told me that she’d gone back out to do some more shopping.

  I retired to the safety of my bedroom and stayed there until it was time for our BSC meeting.

  “How’s it going?” asked Mary Anne. She gave me a funny look. She must have thought it was so wild that my mom was letting me stay home from school.

  I snapped my fingers. “Like that,” I replied, then changed the subject to baby-sitting.

  Since I couldn’t go to soccer practice the next afternoon, I took a baby-sitting job at the Rodowskys’, a safe distance from my neighborhood. They hadn’t been caught by the dreaded television ban as far as any of us knew, but I figured it would be easy to get Shea, Jackie, and Archie outside to play some soccer.

  I congratulated myself on my foresight and planning. I didn’t allow myself to think about being devious and sneaky.

  * * *

  The next day I went back to the library. Included in my planning and foresight was a predawn dash to the kitchen, to pack myself a lunch. I’d also made sure to eat a big breakfast. This was not hard because, since Mom was home and on a cooking roll, she met us with fresh juice, pancakes, and all the trimmings as we stumbled into the kitchen. The groceries were bursting out of the cabinets and the refrigerator was crammed. But the stack of cookbooks had been reduced to about half a dozen, plus several official-looking lists with things checked and circled and starred in different colors.

  Very organized, our mother.

  My Haftarah portion was going along great. My speech was still dead in the water. Sitting in the library all day was making me very restless and I stood up several times to flip through books with odd titles and to stretch. No one came to the section of stacks where I was hiding out, but I had a close call in the bathroom downstairs when I was pushing the stall door open. Mrs. Kishi entered.

  I ducked back inside and considered sitting down and pulling my feet up so she couldn’t see any part of me. Then I realized I was being truly paranoid. Mrs. Kishi wasn’t going to recognize me by my shoes and socks. She wasn’t going to start beating on the door and shouting, “Fugitive from school! Abigail Stevenson, come out with your hands up!”

  Still, my heart pounded hard until Mrs. Kishi left. And I waited a long time after that just to be safe.

  That afternoon Shea, Jackie, and Archie Rodowsky were instantly ready to go outside and play soccer — or any sport, for that matter. Their dog, Bo, was also more than ready to join in, slamming the soccer ball with his nose and yelping hysterically. Jackie is seven and known, with affection, among the members of the BSC as the “Walking Disaster.”

  But we didn’t have any disasters this time, unless you count Shea kicking the ball into Bo’s old doghouse (which, as far as I can tell, Bo never uses since he stays in the humans’ house most of the time) and Bo and Jackie going in after it at the same time.

  I closed my eyes as Bo went in headfirst, barking happily, and Jackie slid in feet first. Would the splinters in the doghouse pierce the ripped jeans Jackie was wearing? Had Jackie had his tetanus shots? Would we have to go to the emergency room?

  As I opened my eyes and ran forward, the whole doghouse rocked, then tipped over in slow motion, onto its back, so the door was facing straight up.

  “Cool,” said Shea. Archie laughed.

  Just as I got there, Bo’s head and then Jackie’s popped up through the open door. Jackie was laughing and so, I think, was Bo.

  “Cool,” said Jackie, echoing his older brother. He looked up at me. “That counts as a goal, right?” he added.

  We gave him the goal.

  Jackie has the makings of an excellent soccer player.

  For a little while, I forgot all my troubles.

  And when I got home that
night, my soccer gear in my bag and my cleats slung over my shoulder, I was able to answer truthfully, more or less, when Mom absently asked how my day was.

  “Soccer was fun,” I replied. I managed to ignore the sharp look that Anna gave me.

  Two days down and one to go, I thought the next morning as Anna headed into school and I turned in the direction of the library.

  I’d survived. I’d made it. Plus I was all caught up on my homework and everything else, except my Bat Mitzvah speech. Not including all the sneakiness and deception I’d been employing, one could almost argue that I’d taken my unjust suspension and made something positive out of it.

  This called for a celebration. And much as I liked the library, another day there was not my idea of celebrating. I shoved my hand in my pocket. I had the money from baby-sitting the day before, plus some.

  Impulsively I turned in the direction of Stoneybrook’s shopping area. I spent the rest of the morning ducking in and out of stores. None of the merchants seemed to notice that I was not in school, or maybe they didn’t care.

  In the early afternoon, I found myself outside Pizza Express. We had pizza delivered from the Express a lot, but I’d hardly ever actually eaten pizza in a restaurant. Why not? I thought, and pushed the door open.

  I’d just settled down in a booth by the window with a deluxe slice of cheeseless veggie pizza and a large Coke when I saw a face peering through the window that made me lose my appetite.

  I froze, pizza halfway to my lips, as if by not moving, I might become invisible.

  My mother wasn’t fooled for a moment. Her face disappeared from the window and I watched with a sinking heart as she marched to the door of the Express, jerked it open, and marched in.

  She slid into the booth across from me and folded her hands on the table in front of her so tightly that her knuckles were white.

  “How’s the pizza?” she said.

  I gulped. I more or less dropped the pizza on the plate. “Uh, hi, Mom.”

  We stared at each other. Finally I said, “So. I guess you’re wondering why I’m here.”