Ten

She nodded, and I made a mental note to pack a paper Dixie cup in my backpack, as Dixie cups were the perfect size for bamming down on top of spiders. Not to kill them! Just to trap them so that they could be relocated.

  Amanda knew how much I loved rescuing spiders, so if spiders were the problem, my promise should have reassured her. But her expression remained troubled.

  I blew out air from between my lips, making a pbbbbb sound. “Well, there are no flesh-eating viruses making their way from elementary school to elementary school,” I said. “At least, not that I’m aware of.”

  “I know.”

  “T. rexes died off a long time ago, in case you forgot, and killer ants are only in Africa.” I wasn’t completely sure of that, but close enough. “Hmm. Spontaneous combustion? Hurricanes? Harpoons?”

  “Harpoons?” Amanda said. “Do you maybe mean typhoons?”

  Ah. Yes, I did mean typhoons, but I did some quick thinking to cover my mistake.

  “What are you saying?” I said. “You’re scared of a giant windstorm, but the thought of being stabbed by a long spear doesn’t bother you one bit?”

  She looked at me like I was a loon. It was a look I got a lot, and my usual response was to play it up by acting even loonier. Why not? I liked being a loon.

  So I pumped vigorously, laughing like a maniac. “Ha ha HA! Ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha!”

  Amanda gazed at me. Not meanly, or in a bad way, but not in a particularly amused way, either.

  I stopped with the maniacal laughter. I stopped pumping in such a fling-about way, too.

  “Fine,” I said. “If not typhoons, if not harpoons, what are you scared of? Won’t you please just tell me?!”

  She shifted her focus to the far end of the yard, where honeysuckle vines twined their way up a wooden trellis. “Just . . . fifth grade is different from fourth.”

  “And?”

  “And that means things are going to be . . . different.”

  “And???”

  “I don’t know! What if I mess up?”

  “Mess what up? You get straight As. You’ve gotten the perfect attendance award every year since first grade. What could you possibly mess up?”

  She shrugged that shrug again, the shrug that made me feel powerless. In a tiny voice, she said, “Yeah, but what if I . . . mmmfffle?”

  I squinted. Ty had said mmmfffle once. It was on the day we saw Hairy Speedo-Wearing Man at Garden Hills Pool, and mmmfffle was Ty’s way of saying, Winnie, help! I can see that man’s privates!

  While I felt strongly that Amanda’s mmmfffle meant something else, I still heard it as a cry for help. I wanted to help . . . only I wasn’t sure how. I’d already tried being goofy, and it hadn’t done the trick.

  But sometimes being a goof was all I could think to do, even when I secretly suspected it might not be the solution. I held onto the swing with one hand, cupped my ear with my other hand, and bellowed, “I can’t hear you, little girl! Speak up!”

  Amanda’s cheeks turned pink. “Forget it. Seriously, just forget it.”

  “No, I refuse to forget it. And so what if fifth grade is different from fourth? It’s supposed to be!”

  “See? I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Wouldn’t understand what? If things were always the same, they’d be boring. I understand that. I also think that being different is good, and I thought you did, too. Do you not?”

  “No, I do. Mainly.” She hesitated. “But it’s easy for you, Winnie. You’re not afraid of anything.”

  “Are you off your gourd?” I cried. “I’m afraid of tons of things, you silly custard!”

  It was the second time I’d used that term, which I’d just made up today. Silly custard. Silly, silly custard. But when Amanda sighed, the back of my neck tingled, and I wondered if I was the silly custard.

  Sometimes I got the feeling that I was too silly, especially when other people wanted to be serious. It was dawning on me that this was one of those times.

  “I am scared of things,” I said. “I’m not just saying that.”

  Her expression was cautious. “Like what?”

  Well, here it was: the moment of truth. Yes, Winnie, a voice inside me taunted, knowing exactly what I was scared of and knowing exactly how embarrassing it would be to say it out loud. Like what?

  I tried to think of the best way to explain, but my brain gears got stuck, and after several seconds, Amanda turned away. For once, she was the one not giving me enough time to find the right words.

  “Wait!” I cried. I let the rest of the words tumble out despite their ridiculousness. “Flushing the toilet. I’m scared of flushing the toilet. All right?”

  Amanda’s head swiveled back toward me. We were still swinging, and we were almost—but not quite—in harmony. She searched my face as if she was trying to decide if I was putting her on.

  “Not all toilets,” I said. “Just the ones in my house. You know.”

  She gave me a small smile, because she did. I knew things about her that random people didn’t, like how she twirled her hair when she was anxious, and she knew things about me in the exact same way, including the fact that the toilets in my old-as-the-hills house were louder than any other toilets in the world. She’d flushed them plenty of times herself, so she knew all about the tidal wave that rushed and swirled into the toilet bowl, roaring more ferociously than a sea lion.

  According to Dad, it was because our plumbing system was installed before the invention of high-efficiency toilets.

  According to me, they were white porcelain nightmares. Originally, it was just the roar of swirling water that scared me. But recently a new twist had been added to the mix. Her name was the Bathroom Lady, and I accidentally invented her, and she lived in the sewer. Her most burning desire was to reach up through the drains with her pruney, clawlike fingers and grab tasty children. And if she did? You were a goner.

  As we swung, I told Amanda all about the Bathroom Lady. I told her every last detail, and Amanda giggled and wrinkled her nose, which made me giggle, too. I knew in my gut that there was no Bathroom Lady (probably), but nonetheless, it was a relief to share the burden of her.

  “So, see?” I concluded. “Whatever it is you’re afraid of, it’s not going to sound stupid compared to what I just told you.”

  “Well . . . it might,” Amanda said.

  “I don’t care. Tell me anyway.”

  She pushed her bottom lip out. The she pulled it in and pulled her top lip in as well, making her look like a prune.

  Finally, she let her mouth go back to its normal position. “It’s just that my mom said I should expect a lot of changes this year,” she said. “Like that people are going to start making rules about who’s friends with who, and girls are going to get more gossipy, and the whole issue of boys, and . . . yeah.”

  She tilted her head. “Does that make sense?”

  No, because how could anyone make a rule about who was friends with who? As for “the whole issue of boys,” well, what did that even mean? Frankly, being afraid of “the whole issue of boys” seemed as random as being afraid of the Bathroom Lady. Who was to say that either even existed?

  But Amanda heard me out about my fears. She giggled, yes, but she didn’t say, “Oh, you’re so stupid. The Bathroom Lady—what a stupid thing to be scared of!”

  I was determined to be just as supportive. “Okay, but how does your mom know all that stuff?” I asked. “Maybe that happened when she was ten, but that was her childhood. Not ours.”

  Amanda pulled her eyebrows together, maybe because I’d said the word childhood. “Childhood” wasn’t a term kids generally used.

  “I mean, are you afraid of boys? Because I’m not.” I flashed briefly on that day in Wilderness Survival Day Camp, when I went to introduce myself to that cute boy named Mars Bar and turned into a frozen corn dog instead. But that was a one-time occurrence. I banned it from my mind.

  “And Amanda, no one can make rules about who we can be friends with,” I sa
id. “Anyway, aren’t we pretty much friends with everybody?”

  “I guess,” Amanda said.

  “You and Chantelle and I are best friends, but we’re nice to everyone.”

  “True.”

  “As for gossip?” I did a nose-snortle to express my thoughts on that. I did it again, because it was fun. “Gossip is dumb.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

  I didn’t know what else to say. Maybe there wasn’t anything else to say. Maybe the best strategy was to do something instead.

  “Dismount time!” I exclaimed. “I’m going to do the razzle-dazzle-fluff-’n’-puff. Ready?”

  “On three,” she said. “One, two—”

  By the time I heard the three, I was already in the air, spazzing out and flailing my limbs before collapsing on the grass. Flushed, I scooched on my bottom toward the vines of honeysuckle at the edge of the yard. Stuck into the ground was a bee-yoo-tee-ful stepping-stone that Amanda made from a kit, with pretty stones embedded around her handprint. I plonked my booty on that bee-yoo-tee-ful thing and said, “What’s my score?”

  “Ten out of ten,” Amanda said. “A razzly-dazzly delight.”

  “Why, thank you. And now, your turn.”

  Amanda pretended to consider her options, but we both knew she’d choose statue, because she always chose statue. She would sail from the swing and land solidly on her feet, which she called sticking it. She’d lift her arms triumphantly, and I’d award her an eleven out often.

  “I’m waiting,” I prompted in a singsong voice. A pesky wasp said bzzzzz into my ear, and I shook my head. Luckily, I’d put my hair up in doggy ears, and doggy ears were like cow tails: excellent at pesky-buzzing-insect shooing.

  “Statue,” she announced.

  “Are you sure?” I said. “Are you positive? Why not try a triple flip this time? Or, I know! You could land in a handstand and then do a backbend to get to your feet.”

  “Statue,” she said.

  I smiled to myself, chalking that up as one more thing that would never change.

  “Are you going to count, or not?”

  “Right,” I said. “One . . . two . . . three!”

  Amanda soared through the summer air, her watermelon shirt a blur. Her blond hair streamed behind her, set off by the red of her red bow. She landed, stuck her chest out, and flung her hands high and wide.

  “Wh-hoo!” I cheered. “Yes, ladies and germs, you saw it here first! The amazing Amanda Wilson performing her amazing—”

  Amanda yelped. Her eyes bugged out, and she jumped around in a frenzy. “Help!” she cried. “Winnie! Help!”

  I leaped up. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  She slapped at her torso, panicked sobs and screeches making my pulse race.

  “Is it a wasp?” I said. “Amanda—what is it?”

  She couldn’t get any words out, but whatever it was, it was hurting her, and it wasn’t letting up.

  “It’s okay, you’re okay,” I said, my voice coming out stronger than I expected. I took hold of her watermelon shirt and tried to wrestle it off her, even as she grabbed the fabric and tried to pull it back down. “It’s trapped in your shirt.”

  The shirt snagged on her fancy bow. I yanked, and finally the shirt was off. A wasp flew out, head-butted the honeysuckle trellis, and plummeted to the ground. A second later, it was up once again, zigzagging away.

  “Omigosh,” I said, panting. I took in Amanda’s bare torso, which was dotted with three angry red welts. There might have been more, but I couldn’t be sure since she’d wrapped her arms around herself to hide herself. “Thank goodness I was here, huh?”

  She burst into a fresh round of sobs and fled toward her house. Like the wasp, her path was zigzaggy, because she refused to let go of her nakedness, and it threw her balance off.

  “Go away!” she cried.

  “Who? Me?”

  “Yes, you, and it was a bumblebee, you stupid-head. Not a wasp. Now go away!”

  My jaw dropped. Stupid-head? Amanda had never called me a stupid-head before. And it was so a wasp, and I saved her from it. Why was she acting like this?

  Amanda’s back door slammed shut, her house swallowing her up. I could follow, but she told me to go away.

  Slowly, I walked toward the wooden fence that enclosed the backyard. With every step I took, I expected Amanda to reappear. I expected her to sniffle and apologize and say, “Come back. We’ll make milk shakes.”

  I lifted the latch and slipped through the fence door.

  Still no Amanda.

  Bad thoughts came into my mind, and I couldn’t make them go away. Sandra would say pooey to what I was thinking. She’d remind me that August was the cranky season for wasps, and though it was sad Amanda had been stung, it didn’t mean anything.

  But I was the one who knew the whole story. Amanda and I had been talking about scary things, and then something scary had happened—right after we’d told each other that the things we were scared of wouldn’t happen, because they weren’t real.

  So what did that suggest about gossip and boys and fifth grade being different from fourth, different in a bad way? And what about the Bathroom Lady? And two weeks from now, when school started, would there really be rules about friendship?

  Sandra had warned me to stay away from wasps, and I’d warned Amanda. Even so, she’d gotten stung, and here I was walking home alone.

  Did that mean it was impossible to stay away from the things that could hurt us? If so, what bad thing would happen next?

  I shivered despite the heat of the day. I was afraid to find out.

  Amanda and I made up before dinner. I picked up the phone to call her, and it was so weird, because she was already on the line! She’d decided to call me at practically the exact same time, but I picked up the phone before it even had a chance to ring!

  We both said we were sorry, my words tumbling over hers and hers over mine. We promised we’d always be best friends and that nothing would ever change that, not the Bathroom Lady or boys or anything. And fifth grade would be great and not scary at all, we both decided. It would be great because we’d make it be great.

  Amanda continued to insist it was a bumblebee that stung her, however.

  “No, because bumblebees die after one sting, and you were stung three separate times,” I said. I wasn’t just going to lie about it.

  “Actually, four. One of the stings was near my . . .”

  “Near your what?”

  “Never mind,” she said, and I knew it must have been on a naked part of her.

  “See?” I said. “The proof is in the pudding.”

  “You don’t know everything, Winnie. It was a bumblebee. They sting the worst, and I could feel its fuzziness.”

  I opened my mouth to argue. Then I changed my mind.

  “Okay,” I said, because maybe I didn’t know everything. Maybe I didn’t even need to know everything. As long as Amanda and I agreed on the important stuff, maybe I should just let the small stuff go.

  September

  Trinity’s school year started on the Tuesday after Labor Day, and by Labor Day weekend, I was a fuzzy fuzzball bouncing off the walls. In a good way! There was just so much to be excited about, first and foremost being the fact that Amanda, Chantelle, and I were going to be in the same class this year!

  There were two fifth grade teachers, Mrs. Tompkins and Ms. Meyers, and last week, they’d made their phone calls to the kids who were going to be in their classes. That’s how it worked at Trinity. At the end of every summer, the teachers called whichever kids were on their lists and said, “I’m so pleased to have you in my classroom, blah, blah, blah.” And this year, Ms. Meyers said blah, blah, blah to all three of us! It was a miracle!

  I think the news made Amanda feel a lot less worried, since she now knew that I’d be right there beside her, as would Chantelle. At any rate, she never said another word about being scared. When she talked about school, she sounded happy, and that made me happy.
’Nuff said.

  Another thing I was excited about was that Ty was starting preschool this year, so he’d be going to Trinity, too. Mom would sign him in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and I couldn’t help but grin at the thought of seeing him in the halls and waving at him and giving him high fives.

  While Ty was just beginning his long long life of school, Sandra was at the opposite end of the stick. She’d gone to Trinity for elementary school, but for junior high she switched to a fancy prep school called Westminster. Westminster had an elementary school on its campus, too—and a high school—but Westminster’s elementary school wasn’t as warm and fuzzy as Trinity, and Mom and Dad wanted us to have “warm and fuzzy” for as long as we could.

  At any rate, Westminster started on the same day as Trinity, which made for another exciting thing: As of Tuesday morning, Sandra would be a freshman in high school.

  Whoa, that sounded old. Or, no. It didn’t just sound old. Being in high school was old. I liked her being older than me, though, because of all the advice she gave me. Just last week she taught me a very helpful tip, which was that using a sweet Mommy-oh-Mommy-please voice really did work better than barking, “Hey! Lady! What’s it take to get a Coke in this place?!”

  Being a truck driver was fine, Sandra told me, and it was an excellent possible career choice. But for now I should be careful when it came to asking Mom to do things, because if Mom would launch into her I’m-not-your-servant,you-know, speech, I’d either have to get my own Coke, or—more likely—be forbidden from having a Coke that day, period.

  She also gave me the inside scoop about fifth grade. Lots of the things she told me were good, like how I was going to love science, because we’d get to dissect a real live earthworm. Only it would be dead. It would be a real live dead earthworm.

  Some of the things she told me weren’t as good, I admit it. Such as how it suddenly mattered what kind of notebooks you had, and how you weren’t supposed to bring birthday cupcakes any more. But unlike the weird and vague warnings Mrs. Wilson had given Amanda, I trusted Sandra’s advice, even the parts I didn’t like.

  Anyway, notebooks and cupcakes? Pfff, that’s what I told myself about that. No biggie. I practiced what I preached, too, because on Sunday, Mom said, “Winnie, I’m going to the drugstore. Do you need new school notebooks?”