Luv Ya Bunches

  Yasaman’s mission: find out what that new girl, V, is telling Milla. Milla has been a mess ever since she got to school today, and now she and V are having a powwow in the somewhat-hidden nook by the water fountain. From the hall, Yasaman has a clear bead on them. Milla is wearing an insanely un-Milla shirt—it’s too big for her, and it’s the opposite of cute—and her normally perfect hair is draggy-saggy. V is gnawing on her lip. Not Milla’s. Her own.

  They’re whispering back and forth. Whisper, whisper, whisper.

  It better not be more lies about Katie-Rose, Yasaman thinks. Katie-Rose tried to tell Milla the truth about Tally the Turtle—there was indeed incriminating evidence on the presentation-day video, most excellent incriminating evidence that showed Modessa with the turtle—but so far, Milla’s been ignoring her. And now Milla’s out here with V, who’s rapidly becoming one of the Populars and thus isn’t to be trusted.

  Anyway, why aren’t Milla and V in class? Shouldn’t they be in class?

  Yasaman has a legitimate reason to be roaming the halls, because Ms. Perez asked her to go get crackers for morning snack.

  But Yasaman would bet a solid-gold lira that V and Milla are illegitimately roaming the halls. Or, not roaming. Fake roaming—or rather, fake un-roaming, since they’re sitting on their bums. They are illegitimately fake un-roaming, and they probably told Mr. Emerson they had some very important need to take care of, like lancing a wart or getting a Band-Aid. Or possibly getting a snack a for Mr. Emerson’s class, although no snack is being gotten.

  Extremely suspicious. Yasaman fears that V is planting more lies in Milla’s head, so that even when the truth comes out, Milla won’t be able to hear it. That can happen. Yasaman’s seen it on the Turkish soap operas her mother loves so much. A person can get so trapped in her cramped and unhappy vision of the world that she no longer sees the sun shining through the clouds.

  Yasaman meanders—la la la—closer to the water fountain. The snack cabinets are on the opposite wall, and Yasaman pretends to think very very hard about just which cabinet she will open. Will it be the one labeled PAPER GOODS? Or will it be the intriguing SPARE CLOTHES cabinet? That’s where they keep donated hand-me-down underwear for preschoolers who have bathroom accidents. The undies have RIVENDELL written in permanent marker on the elastic bands, just in case any preschooler is tempted to hang on to them forever as a keepsake.

  Nigar had a bathroom accident after those boys tortured her. Nigar never has accidents—she’s been potty-trained since the day she turned two—but she did yesterday. She had to bring her damp undies home in a plastic bag. They were her Dora the Explorer ones, the ones that say, “¡Vámonos! Let’s go!”

  After Yasaman gets the snack—if she ever does get the snack—she’ll peek into the preschool room and check on Nigar. She’ll make sure no meanie-butts are bothering her.

  “. . . which is why I followed you, so I could tell you,” V says to Milla.

  Tell her what? Yasaman thinks.

  “Tell me what?” Milla says.

  There’s a pocket of silence. A loud pocket of silence that says, I want to tell you something, but I’m scared.

  Does V know that Modessa planted Tally the Turtle in Katie-Rose’s backpack? Or, to go back even further, does V know how Tally ended up in the commons in the first place, shoved between the very sofa cushions that Modessa always always always planted her bottom on when the two fifth-grade classes got together? The way V talked when Yasaman overheard her in the bathroom with Modessa, it really seemed as if she knew something about Tally. Something she wasn’t saying. And V’s comment about how Modessa should look for Tally again . . . that was kinda weird, wasn’t it?

  And then, after that conversation, Modessa did indeed plop her bottom on that same sofa she always sat on—and that’s when things got interesting. Katie-Rose has it on film. She also captured on film the shocking moment of truth when Modessa fished beneath her bottom and pulled out not a tack, not a dried-up Carmen booger, BUT A RED-AND-ORANGE BOBBLE-HEAD TURTLE.

  There was no doubt that the turtle was Tally, thanks to Katie-Rose’s serendipitous use of macro-somethingology, which she’d turned on to show Mr. Emerson. Thanks to that, Tally the Turtle filled practically the whole screen. Other than Tally, the only thing visible was Modessa’s pale hand.

  Katie-Rose practically blew a fuse last night when she called Yasaman and the two of them fumed over what they’d both seen. Katie-Rose could hardly form words, much less sentences. And now, by the water fountain, V seems to be having the same problem. Yasaman is now convinced that V is somehow part of this whole Tally mess.

  “Violet . . . tell me what?” Milla says.

  Violet, Yasaman thinks. So that’s what the V stands for.

  She’d like to turn around and get a look at Violet’s face, because faces say so much more than words. Instead, she reaches up and opens the cabinet labeled SNACKS. Milla and Violet don’t seem to notice that Yasaman is loitering so near them—or maybe they simply don’t care?—but Yasaman figures she’d better play it safe. She pulls down a jumbo box of Cheese Nips. She pretends to study the mile-long list of ingredients, most of which she can’t pronounce.

  “You had a bad day yesterday,” Violet states.

  “Y-y-yeah,” Milla says. “But . . . it got better.”

  “Did it? You don’t seem better.”

  “Well, I am. I got Tally back, didn’t I?”

  Violet grunts. She must find Milla’s doggedness as unconvincing as Yasaman does.

  “Um, about that . . .,” Violet says.

  Milla waits. Yasaman reads ingredients—partially hydrogenated cottonseed and/or soybean oil? in Cheese Nips? gross!—while keeping her ears tuned as tightly toward Violet and Milla as she can.

  Violet blows air out between her lips. “There’s something you should know. I haven’t told anybody else. But you should know . . . because, well . . .”

  Because you know Katie-Rose was set up, that’s why! Yasaman thinks.

  “Because why?” Milla asks.

  “I don’t know,” Violet says miserably.

  Yes, you do, Yasaman thinks.

  “Hey,” Milla says, the way a mom would to a worried child. “Hey, it’s all right, Violet. You’re my flower friend, remember? Flowers can tell each other things.”

  Yasaman holds the Cheese Nips close to her chest. Flower friends? she thinks. What is Milla talking about?

  She puzzles over it, and then in a flash, she understands.

  A violet is a flower.

  A camilla is also a flower. Sometimes it’s spelled camellia, or kamilah, which is Turkish for “perfect.” But it’s a flower all right. Yasaman’s mom paints A LOT of flower pictures, so she knows.

  And Violet and Camilla almost certainly don’t know it, but Yasaman is a flower, too.

  Violet breathes out. “Okay,” she says to Milla. “Well, what I want to tell you . . .”

  Keep going, Yasaman thinks.

  “. . . is that I have bad days, too. Almost all my days are bad days. I’ve just . . . I’ve learned the art of crying silently, that’s all.”

  Yasaman is as still as the cabinets in front of her, because this is not the confession she expected.

  Milla must be equally surprised, because she says, “Oh, Violet. Why?”

  Violet lowers her voice. Yasaman makes out the word Mom, and California Regional something-or-other, and manic-depressed. Or depressive? Something.

  Violet’s other words float back to her: the art of crying silently.

  “Violet . . .,” Milla says tentatively. “You could tell the other girls, you know,” Milla says. “Like Modessa and Quin. They’d understand.”

  No, they wouldn’t, Yasaman says to herself.

  Violet either nods or shakes her head, Yasaman doesn’t know which. Or maybe neither. Maybe she’s silently crying.

  If so, she’s really good at it, because Violet’s next statement comes out like a fresh coat of brightly colored paint. “Anyway,
it’s all good, you know? I just . . . I didn’t want you thinking . . .”

  “Thanks,” Milla says softly.

  There are shuffling getting-up-from-the-floor sounds, and Yasaman is startled, because she forgot where she was for a second. She forgot she was eavesdropping, and in her state of shock, the jumbo box of Cheese Nips slips from her hands. Cheese Nips skitter everywhere.

  Nice, Spazaman, Yasaman hears in her head. Her cheeks grow hot as she faces Milla and Violet.

  “Oh no,” Milla says, taking in the sea of tiny square crackers. She gets to her feet. “Um, let me help. Or . . . I should get a broom?”

  She leaps over the expanse of Cheese Nips as best she can, but still crunches half a dozen beneath her sneaker when she lands.

  “Crud,” she says, glancing down. “I’ll get a broom. I’ll be right back!”

  Milla jogs off. Now it’s just Yasaman, Violet, and ten squillion Cheese Nips.

  “Do you want me . . .?” Violet starts, while at the same time Yasaman says, “You don’t have to . . .”

  They both stop.

  “Milla’s getting a broom,” Yasaman says.

  “Yeah, okay,” Violet says. She gives a forced smile and pivots on her heel.

  “Wait!” Yasaman calls.

  Violet turns.

  Yasaman’s mouth goes dry, because she doesn’t know what to say. All she knows is that she has to say something. She swallows. “Katie-Rose didn’t steal Camilla’s turtle.”

  Violet’s eyes go wide. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I mean that Katie-Rose didn’t steal Tally the Turtle,” Yasaman says.

  “Hey, all I know is what I’ve heard—which is that Ms. Perez found it in Katie-Rose’s backpack.”

  “But Katie-Rose didn’t put it there.”

  “Well, I didn’t put it there!”

  “I know you didn’t,” Yasaman says. “But . . . you helped.”

  It’s a guess, but a good one, and Yasaman knows she’s hit pay dirt when Violet takes a small, maybe even unconscious step backward.

  “What makes you say that?” Violet says. “How do you know?” Then, realizing she’s given herself away, she wraps her arms around her ribs. She rises on her toes and looks past Yasaman, probably checking to see if Milla’s on her way back yet.

  “Listen,” Yasaman says. “I’m not going to tell on you.”

  “Good, because there’s nothing to tell.” Violet’s voice is slightly hysterical.

  Yasaman bores her eyes into Violet’s. “Just . . . make it right.”

  Violet shifts her weight. She looks away first.

  “Don’t let Katie-Rose take the blame,” Yasaman adds.

  Footsteps sound from far away. It’s Milla.

  “Mr. Emerson was like, ‘Was there a natural disaster?’” she calls from the end of the hall. “I told him, ‘Pretty much!’”

  Violet smiles. To Yasaman she looks like a beautiful, fragile icicle that is so so close to shattering. There’s the sense of the two of them hovering in an unfinished moment, but Milla is seconds away, and Yasaman isn’t going to drag Milla into this. Modessa has dragged Milla into enough.

  There is one thing, though. Yasaman steps close to Violet, who startles, and puts her hand on Violet’s arm. “I’m a flower, too,” she whispers. “Like you and Camilla.”

  Violet’s eyebrows go up.

  “My name, Yasaman. It’s Turkish for ‘jasmine.’”

  “Oh,” Violet says faintly.

  Milla reaches them with a broom and a dustpan. Also, she’s put on her lime green sparkly scarf, the same one she’s been wearing for the last couple of days. It doesn’t do much to improve the hand-painted blue shirt, but it does make her look more Milla-ish.

  “He said you should go on back to class,” Milla says to Violet. “I told him I’d stay and help Yasaman.”

  “Um . . . okay,” Violet says. Her gaze flies to Yasaman. Are you really not going to tell? she silently begs.

  Silent crying, silent laughing, silent asking, Yasaman thinks. So many silences.

  Just make it right, her eyes say back to Violet.

  Violet hesitates, then gives a quick, almost imperceptible nod. As she strides away, Yasaman telepathically repeats her commandment: Make it right.

  fifth-grade classrooms join on the playground after lunch. The rain has stopped, but the sky is gray and the ground is slooshy. Right now, the teachers are saying the ice cream social is still on. But if it starts raining again before two o’clock, all bets are off.

  “V!” Quin says again. “I’m talking to you!”

  Violet bristles. And guess what? I’m ignoring you, Violet replies in her brain. So go away.

  Quin marches over to the metal fence that surrounds the playground, grabs Violet’s arm, and says, “Modessa needs us. It’s an emergency.”

  “What is?” Violet says.

  “It’s Milla. She isn’t wearing Panda colors.”

  Violet mock-gasps. Milla isn’t wearing Panda colors? The horror!

  “Uh-huh,” Quin says. “Now do you understand?”

  Modessa is over in the preschoolers’ play area. Since the preschoolers don’t usually have recess at the same time as the older kids, Modessa has the spot to herself. She’s wearing a snow-white shrug over a snow-white tank top, and Violet thinks how awesome it would be if someone just happened to pour a bucket of mud over her.

  Modessa nods curtly when she sees Violet. “Good. We need to strategize.”

  “What’s the problem?” Violet says. She wants out of Quin and Modessa’s clique, but she’s not sure how one does such a thing without drama and complicated-ness, which she has had enough of already. “So Milla isn’t wearing Panda colors. Who cares?”

  Modessa presses her lips together. “I do.”

  “Me, too,” Quin chimes in.

  “A, the shirt she’s wearing is hideous,” Modessa says, ticking points off on her fingers. “B, she’s not giving Katie-Rose the cold shoulder like she’s supposed to—”

  “Yeah,” Quin interrupts. “She’s not being friendly toward her, but she’s not being unfriendly, either. She’s being nothing.”

  Modessa glares at Quin. “And C, she’s not acting appropriately thankful for everything I’ve done for her.”

  Violet has gotten caught up in Modessa’s fingernails instead of her arguments. They’re pink and pearly and don’t fit with the gloom of the day. Black would be a better fit for Modessa, or deep dark purple. Deep dark purple would be much more fitting for a Gorgon.

  Violet smiles bitterly.

  “She’s laughing,” Quin accuses. “Modessa, V is not taking this seriously.”

  “Taking what seriously?” Violet says. She glances from Quin’s face to Modessa’s and remembers. “Oh. Bad Panda. Right.”

  Her thoughts dart to Katie-Rose, and what Yasaman said about not letting her take the blame for stealing Tally. Guilt splashes over her, and she decides it’s time. Time to wash her hands of these girls, and if it leads to drama, it leads to drama. Strangely, that shift to acceptance makes her stand a little taller

  “I think you’re overreacting, Modessa,” she says.

  Quin sucks in her breath. She honestly does, and it makes a spitty sound as it passes over her teeth.

  Modessa regards Violet in a way that makes Violet nervous. “And I think you’re underreacting.”

  “Well, I’m not,” Violet says. It’s not much as far as comebacks go, but it’s something.

  “I think you’ve lost sight of what’s important,” Modessa goes on. Her voice is dangerous, and even though Violet wants out—she does, she wants out—it’s impossible not to dread the process. Modessa’s not dumb, and her meanness tells her things sometimes that others might not pick up on. “In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if you’ve been fooling us this whole time.”

  “Um, okay,” Violet says. “You got me. Bye.”

  She turns to leave, but Modessa’s next words stop her cold.

  “Li
ke, wasn’t it funny how you told me to look for Tally . . . and then there Tally was?” Modessa says.

  Violet swallows. She doesn’t face her. “It was . . . lucky, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I’m going to call Milla over,” Modessa goes on. “I bet she’d think it was lucky, too. How you and me talked about Tally, and not five minutes later Tally shows up?”

  You and I, Violet thinks, because her mom’s love of language extends to proper grammar. How you and I talked about Tally, you jerk. But her heart is beating hard, because if Modessa tells Milla that Violet had Tally all along, or knew where Tally was, or whatever Modessa decides to say based on the slight clues she has . . .

  Milla will cry again. Milla won’t let Violet explain. Milla will hate Violet—it could happen—and Violet doesn’t want to be hated. She wants to be loved.

  “Modessa, don’t tell Milla,” Violet says, using every bit of control she has to try and keep her voice level.

  Modessa laughs, and Violet closes her eyes. She sealed her fate by letting Modessa know she cares.

  “Here’s a thought,” Modessa says, and she’s done one of her head-spinning reversals, because now she’s buddy-buddy peaches and cream. “I’ll call Milla over—it’ll be fun. And when she comes, I want you to take her scarf and throw it on the ground. Since it’s not Panda colors.”

  Violet turns around. “What? No.”

  “Milla! Could you come here, please?”

  Milla glances up from her Wordly Wise assignment, which Violet knows she didn’t finish before lunch. Too much Cheese Nip clean-up to do. Milla closes her workbook, leaves it on the concrete steps, and gets to her feet. She smiles at Violet and waves.

  “Aw, she likes you,” Modessa says.

  Violet’s gut clenches. “Why are you so worried about whether she bows down to you or not?”

  “I’m not worried,” Modessa says. “But I rescued Tally the Turtle for her, and if she were a good friend, she’d be grateful.” She cocks her head. “She should be grateful to you, too, right? For sharing your . . . funny luck?”

  She says it so innocently, like a little baby, a little blonde baby, only her hair is actually a mass of writhing snakes. And they will strike.