The hardest part turns out not to be getting the food. Apparently, at breakfast no one checks to see if you’re signed up — or if you’re even approved. It’s easy for me to slide in and take a tray with scrambled eggs and home-fried potatoes.
The hardest part is figuring out where to sit. I look around the room and realize that I’ve never thought about who comes to the cafeteria before school starts. Given that we all have this one thing in common, I should feel relaxed and friendly, able to sit with whoever catches my eye. But instead, I feel oddly shy and embarrassed, like everyone in this room knows that I’m not really supposed to be here and resents me for it.
I sit down at the end of one table, close enough to some kids that I don’t feel like I’m all alone, but far enough away that I don’t invade their space. Then I open up one of my Louisa May Alcott books and start to read, even though I’ve read every page of this book already. I notice then that the book is overdue and realize I’ll have to raid my piggy bank at Briggs’s place to pay the fine.
Gage and I left the car just as the sun was rising this morning — partly because we were so cold and needed to move around, and partly because Gage was afraid Chloe would catch him in her car — so after breakfast I still have plenty of time to go to the girls’ room to freshen up. I go into the handicap stall and change into a clean shirt and uniform, rolling up the stuff I wore last night and cramming it into my bag. It’s smelly and hopelessly wrinkled already, so a few more wrinkles won’t hurt it.
I head to the sink to wash my face and maybe sneak in a quick sponge bath of my underarms with wet paper towels. When I look in the mirror and see my reflection, I groan. I have dark circles under my eyes, and my hair’s a mess. I can just imagine what Sasha and Keisha are going to say about that.
Just then, someone else slips into the bathroom. It’s a girl from my class that I recognize, though we hardly ever speak.
“Hey, Hannah,” I say, turning on the water and washing my hands like I just used the toilet.
“Hey, Ari,” she says, then yawns hugely. “Oops, sorry!” she apologizes, laughing.
I keep the water running while she uses the toilet, washing my face as quickly as I can, hoping to finish before she comes out and sees me. I don’t dare wash my underarms, though; thankfully a quick whiff assures me that they’re not too bad today. Not yet, anyway.
Hannah comes out of her stall while I’m patting my face dry with paper towels. I’m about to toss them in the trash can and hurry away when she says to me, “You know how to braid, right?”
I feel heat rising from my belly to the tip of my ears. Her tone may not be as nasty as Keisha’s, but I can tell that what she’s really saying is Why don’t you braid your hair instead of letting it tangle into a total rat’s nest?
“You used to have the coolest braids,” she says, coming up to the sink next to me and washing her hands. “Do you think you could braid my hair this morning? I have a comb and a bunch of elastics in my backpack.”
I try to hide my surprise. “I’m not very good at it,” I admit. “Jan — someone else used to braid my hair, but I can try.”
I stand behind her and carefully comb the snags out of her hair, relieved to know that I’m not the only girl at Eastland Elementary with snarls. I gather her hair into sections and try my best to make straight parts. It turns out that braiding someone else’s hair is très easier than trying to braid your own, and I’m pretty happy with the results. I can tell by Hannah’s smile that she’s happy, too.
“Thanks!” she says. “My mom used to do my hair in the mornings, but ever since she switched to the night shift, she’s usually asleep when I leave for school.”
“I know what you mean,” I say. “Janna hasn’t been around lately to do my hair, either.” This is one of those statements that’s not really a lie but isn’t exactly the truth either. But I want Hannah to know that I understand what it’s like not to have a mom around to do things for you.
“Would you like me to try to do yours?” Hannah asks. “I’ll warn you, though: I don’t have a lot of experience.” She smiles again, and it’s contagious.
“That’s OK,” I say, grinning and turning around. “I can walk you through the trickiest bits.”
And then, for some unknown reason, I tell her, “I had breakfast here this morning. It wasn’t half bad.”
After announcements, Mr. O. tells us that the fifth-grade teachers had their grade-level meeting yesterday. We know what’s coming. Some of us sit up straighter, which is pretty funny. Do we think that our good posture will make our names magically appear on Mr. O.’s list of students who got leadership roles? I look around the room, trying to determine who has yet to be patrol leader — the role I really, really, really want, though I’d take any job offered to me right now.
This is the last time that these announcements will be made this year.
Mr. O. announces the library helper. It’s Matthew Stone. He pumps his fist and then relaxes back into his chair.
Some of the kids sitting up straight won’t even be applying to Carter. But maybe there are other reasons for wanting to be patrol leader. Janna always seemed to know when the new leadership roles were announced. I wouldn’t be in the house for more than a few minutes when she’d ask, “Who’s patrol leader next month?” I felt bad when I admitted that I hadn’t been chosen, like I was letting her down. Maybe others, like me, are hoping to avoid that same old question in the same old way.
I don’t think Gage thinks about me and leadership roles. I don’t think he realizes how hard it is to get into Carter. I think he just assumes that I’m smart, so I’ll go.
Joya and Ellison are chosen as math tutors, which seems especially unfair, since I’ve often been asked to show them how to do something in math.
I guess I’m not as smart as we thought I was. Or maybe I’m not as smart as I used to be.
Sunjay and Thalia are patrol leaders. The last patrol leaders of the year. Fifth grade is almost over, and I will never, ever, ever be a patrol leader.
Never.
Makes me glad that I don’t have a scrapbook.
In social studies class, kids who are finished with their reports early (thank goodness they aren’t officially due until next week) are giving presentations on their famous nineteenth-century Americans. Linnie shows us a poster she made about Davy Crockett, who was known as “the king of the wild frontier.” Next, Sunjay tells us about a man who lived more than a hundred years ago named Henry David Thoreau. I sit up taller in my chair to listen when I hear that Henry David Thoreau was a friend of Louisa May Alcott’s! He was also an author, but Sunjay is talking about how he believed in something called civil disobedience. I repeat the words in my head, trying to puzzle out the meaning, but I don’t think I quite get it. When Sunjay asks, “Are there any questions?” I raise my hand tentatively and say, “What exactly is ‘civil disobedience’?”
I hear Keisha snicker behind me, but I try to ignore her. I bet she doesn’t really know what it means either.
“Good question, Arianna,” Mr. O. says, and I’m glad I asked it. “Sunjay?”
“ ‘Civil disobedience’ is when someone breaks a law to make a point,” Sunjay says, and you can tell that he knows a lot about it. “Henry David Thoreau didn’t pay his taxes because he didn’t believe in slavery and he didn’t support the Mexican-American War. Back then, part of everyone’s tax money went to fund both of those things, so by not paying his taxes, Thoreau was sending a message.”
“I’m going to refuse to do homework because I don’t believe in it,” Joey says.
“Does it have to be a law?” I ask, ignoring Joey. “Is it civil disobedience if you break a rule?”
“Like when you hang snowflakes even though your principal has abolished the Eastland tradition?” says Mr. O. He smiles right at me.
I smile back. One proud moment lifted from my sack. “Or wear a crazy hat to protest the loss of traditions.”
“We should do that!” K
eisha says. “We should all wear crazy hats on the same day to let Mr. Chandler know that we believe in our traditions! It could be an act of civil disobedience.”
I open my mouth to say that I am already planning to do that, that I need to organize it so that I can put it on my Carter application. But everyone is too busy talking excitedly about the secret Crazy Hat Day.
Just like that, I’m invisible.
The tiredness hits me after Mr. O.’s class and gets worse throughout the day. By the time my last class — computer lab — rolls around, I can hardly keep my eyes open.
Ms. Finch teaches us how to make multimedia presentations using animation, audio clips, and video clips. The stuff she shows us is actually très cool, and I might even be able to enhance my Louisa May Alcott presentation with clips from the movie version of Little Women or an animated slide show of the various places she and her family lived before settling in Concord, Massachusetts . . . if only I could focus.
“Ari, would you mind staying for a few minutes at the end of class?” Ms. Finch asks quietly as she walks by my workstation. My heart plummets. Did I actually shut my eyes? Is she still mad at me about sneaking into the lab that one time?
I’m wide awake for the rest of class, but now it’s anxiety rather than tiredness that keeps me from focusing on the lesson. When the bell rings, I stand by the door and wait for everyone to leave. Daniel gives me a searching look, but I tell him that I want to ask Ms. Finch something about today’s lesson.
Thankfully, he doesn’t offer to stick around. “OK. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says, and heads off.
When it’s just me and Ms. Finch in the room, she walks over to her desk and retrieves a paper bag from the bottom drawer. “I was thinking of you recently, Ari,” she says, opening the bag.
I’m holding my breath, wondering where this is going.
“You see, I bought my niece a new pair of shoes, but they didn’t fit her. I swear that girl grows six inches each time I see her! Anyway, you’ll probably think I’m crazy for saying this — and I might be way off base — but for some reason they reminded me of you. If you like them and they fit, you’re welcome to have them.”
She pulls a pair of plaid Top-Siders from the bag. They are without a doubt the cutest pair of shoes I have ever seen in my whole life! She hands them to me.
I hold them in both my hands, aware that my mouth is hanging open but unable to close it. Ms. Finch was giving me a free pair of shoes — of really cute shoes. Why me? Surely lots of girls in her classes might like these shoes and might be the right size for them. Was it because she’d noticed that my shoes were falling apart? Were these pity shoes? Or did she really mean it when she said they reminded her of me?
“Try them on,” she says.
My fingers barely work as I pull off my old shoes, and I wonder if everyone has noticed how ratty they are. Slowly I slip one foot into the Top-Siders, then the other. I wiggle my toes around. They are the perfect size.
Maybe this is an act of charity, and maybe Gage would want me to say thanks but no thanks. But looking down at my feet in these brand-new, très cool shoes, I decide I don’t care why Ms. Finch is giving them to me. I’m just grateful that she is.
And suddenly I’m crying.
“What’s wrong, Ari?” she asks, her voice gentler than I’ve ever heard it before. “Why are you crying?”
“That’s just what I do,” I say, sniffling and smiling through my tears. “I cry when I’m happy. And these shoes make me very, very happy. Thank you, Ms. Finch.”
Now it’s Ms. Finch’s turn to get a bit teary. “You’re very welcome, Arianna.”
“What should I . . . ? If someone asks . . . ?”
“Tell them a friend gave them to you,” Ms. Finch says. “It’s the truth.”
I give her a big thank-you smile, then tuck my old shoes into my backpack. I turn to leave but stop myself. “I’m sorry about that day in your class, the day I was working on my bibliography.”
“Oh,” she says, brushing my words away. “I may have overreacted. I shouldn’t have taken your actions so personally. I realized that after you left. That’s why I passed your homework on to Mr. O’Neil.”
It was Ms. Finch who turned it in?
I want to rush over and hug her, tell her that she saved my life, but before my new dazzling feet can move, she’s behind her desk, glasses on, back to work.
I feel like Cinderella in my new shoes. During dismissal, kids tell me how cool they are and ask where I got them. Tell them a friend gave them to you. It’s the truth. So that’s what I do. I wish Sasha and I still did our partway walk home; I would have liked for her to see them. But I’ll wear them tomorrow and every day after, so I suppose she’ll see them soon enough.
My new shoes are also a big hit at Head Start. Juju keeps rubbing her hands on them like they’re magic or something, and Carol tells me I look very fashion-forward.
The one person who doesn’t love my new shoes is Gage.
“You could have used the money in your piggy bank to buy shoes,” he says as we’re walking to Chloe’s. I think about my piggy bank and wonder how much money is in there. Would there really be enough for a new pair of shoes? I start daydreaming about all of the apartment stuff I could buy with that much money: silverware, towels, sheets . . .
“Anyway, I like them,” I say to Gage, ignoring his bad mood. “And they’ll keep my feet warmer than my old shoes.”
Today the stairwell at Chloe’s is crowded with a bunch of guys, spillover from some party happening in the apartment below hers. The strong scents of their shaving creams and hair gels cover the usual smell of pee.
“Hey,” says a guy about Gage’s age, but he doesn’t say it to Gage — he says it to me. He takes a drink from a can of beer.
“Hi,” I mutter, my eyes on the stairs in front of me.
“Hey, how old are you?” another guy asks as we climb the stairs.
“Don’t answer,” says Gage softly.
Chloe greets us in the doorway, seeming really excited to see us. Like usual, I slip inside the apartment to give them a moment. Neither Nate nor Cody is home. The apartment seems empty without them. I hear Gage say, “I want to, Chloe, but I can’t. I don’t want to leave Ari alone with those creeps downstairs.”
“She doesn’t need someone to watch her. She’s old enough to be a babysitter, Gage. And it’s not fair to keep asking me to pass things up or to go alone.”
I hate that I’m the reason Chloe and Gage are fighting. I don’t want them to break up. Gage is trying to come through for Chloe, to come through for me, to come through for Mama.
Stay together always. That’s what Mama said. That was the promise. But I think that both Gage and I know deep down that it’s not the promise that’s making us hold on to each other so tightly.
It’s the fear of letting go.
I can’t hear what Gage is saying, but I know he’s upset.
Quickly I step into the hall. “Sorry to interrupt,” I say, “but I just remembered that Sasha invited me to stay at her place tonight. Would that be OK?”
Chloe looks at Gage, hopeful. But Gage frowns. “It’s a school night,” he says.
“I know,” I say. “But Marianna said we can work on our Carter applications together. I could really use the help.”
“Gage . . .” Chloe pleads. I try not to feel hurt by how badly she wants me out of their hair.
“Chloe and I could have plans tonight,” he says slowly, and Chloe’s face splits into a wide grin that makes it all worth it. “We’d have to leave soon, though,” he says. “I wouldn’t have time to take the bus with you to Sasha’s.”
“That’s OK,” I say quickly. “I can have Marianna pick me up here. I’ll tell her Chloe was helping me with my Carter application.”
“Thanks, Ari,” Chloe says. “You’re a trouper.” She brushes by me to get her purse and her phone.
“I can’t believe I didn’t remember earlier,” I say, “but she asked me
a couple of days ago and I sort of lost track of what night this is.”
Gage is looking at me like he doesn’t know whether to believe me or not.
“Call Marianna and make sure she can pick you up,” he says.
I hold out my hand for his phone.
“Use the landline,” says Chloe, pointing to the telephone on the kitchen counter. “You’ll save minutes.”
I pick up the phone and dial. “What’s the address here?” I ask at some point in the phone call.
The call that I made to convince Gage.
The call that I faked.
’Cause I was just talking to the local weather recording.
As Chloe and Gage head down the stairs, I hear a guy say, “Hey, where’s the little one?”
Gage says something I won’t repeat, and one of the guys says, “Hey, easy, man. We’re just having a little fun.”
Then I hear Chloe say, “Forget them, Gage. We don’t have time for this,” and they’re gone.
The silence in the apartment takes me by surprise. Even though I’d expected them to leave, I still can’t quite believe that my plan worked. Gage will be mad when he gets home and finds that I’m still here — that I lied to him about staying at Sasha’s and faked the call to Marianna — but I know he and Chloe need a night out together. I know he’ll eventually forgive me.
Although I can hear voices from downstairs, I feel a million miles away from anyone. The rooms are cavernous. I can see why Chloe wants more furniture, to make it feel more homey. My mind goes to where it usually does when we stay at Chloe’s — to spreading out all my Paper Things. But I can’t do that tonight. I can’t bear to pull them out and see them ruined.
Then I remember that I haven’t had dinner. I look in the freezer to see if there are any Hot Pockets. Nope. Only ice and something wrapped in foil — hamburger, maybe. The fridge has a Tupperware container of leftovers, but when I open it, I see white mold growing on the top.