Izzy chugged the hot chocolate, which was still steamy enough to burn her mouth. “We should get going,” she said, jumping down from the stool.
“Wait a minute,” Cookie said. “I’m not finished yet.”
“You didn’t eat your muffin!” Emily said.
Izzy grabbed the blueberry ball and a paper napkin. “I’ll eat it while we walk.”
“You haven’t even congratulated us,” her father said. He looked so disappointed, it raised Izzy’s spirits a little.
She tried to make her eyes hard and sharp as she stared back at him. “Congratulations,” she said. “I hope you like the new kid better.”
Izzy led the way over to Newbury Street. She took a bite of the muffin, but it tasted like it was made of fireplace ashes, so she dumped it in the first trash can she came to.
“I can’t believe the way you talked to your dad,” Cookie said. “I would lose my computer and my cell-phone privileges if I acted like that.”
“I don’t have a cell phone. Remember?” Izzy let her shoulders slump.
“My dad would be so upset if I mouthed off to him that way,” Pauline said. She looked on the verge of tears just thinking about it.
“Yeah, well, your parents aren’t divorced,” Izzy said.
“What does that have to do with it?” Cookie wanted to know.
Izzy didn’t answer. They wouldn’t understand.
Cookie and Pauline stopped to look in a window where the gold-painted mannequins wore tiny skirts and tight sweaters. Cookie moaned. “Ooh, I love that skirt!”
Izzy followed them inside, where Cookie headed straight for the rack of miniskirts. Izzy wandered toward a wall of richly colored cardigan sweaters. She fiddled with a price tag but didn’t really register it. The sweaters were pretty, but she couldn’t buy one anyway, and the idea of trying something on just for fun seemed silly.
In a minute Pauline was beside her. “You’d look good in this burnt sienna color. Try one on.”
What the heck was burnt sienna? Izzy shrugged. “I’m not in the mood.”
Pauline sighed dramatically. “If I just found out I was having a new baby brother, I’d be really excited about it,” she said.
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“Yes, I would! I think you’re being really bratty.”
It might not have stung so much if Cookie had called her a brat, but Pauline almost never said anything mean, so Izzy knew she really meant it. She felt the prickle of tears in the corners of her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. Instead she turned on Pauline and shouted, “Your parents aren’t divorced, Pauline! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Cookie came between them, her eyes wide. “What are you guys yelling about?”
Pauline’s eyes were brimming with tears. “Sometimes you don’t seem like the same person you used to be, Izzy. You’re always mad at somebody.”
“I’m not the same person,” Izzy said. But she felt bad about making Pauline cry. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m just freaked out about this whole baby thing.”
“Fine,” Pauline said. She sneaked her fingers up to her face to swipe at the tears she hadn’t been able to rein in, then stomped off toward a rack of scarves.
Under the spell of Newbury Street, Pauline had recovered by the time they got to the next store. “I have to have that!” she said, pointing to a pink fluffy hat with long tails that hung down on either side of the mannequin’s cheeks. “Let’s go in.”
The store carried shoes too, so while her friends tried on hats, Izzy wandered off to look for sneakers. She should have known. This place was too fancy—she’d have to find a regular shoe store somewhere. But, wait. Her eyes caught on a pair of ballerina flats that were almost like the ones she’d seen in the store in Coolidge, except this pair was even better. Oh my God, they came in silver too! Hesitantly she picked one up and turned it over to find the price sticker. The shoes cost seventy-eight dollars. Izzy almost had enough money, and she was pretty sure that either Cookie or Pauline would lend her the extra eight dollars—they always had cash. Of course, her mother would be furious, but—
“Do you have these in a size seven?” Izzy asked the saleswoman.
“Let me check.”
While the woman was in the back room, Pauline and Cookie showed up and agreed to loan her four dollars each to make up the price of the shoes. When the salewoman returned and took the shoes out of the box, they both inhaled loudly.
“I love those,” Pauline said.
“Me too,” Cookie said. “You have to get them.”
She did. She had to. Everybody had sneakers, but who else would have shoes like this?
“I’m afraid we’re out of the size sevens,” the saleswoman said. “But I brought out a six-and-a-half. They run large.” She slipped a pair of scratchy nylon socklets onto Izzy’s feet and then pushed the flat shoes into place.
“Do they fit?” Cookie asked.
Izzy got up and walked down the aisle between the rows of chairs. The shoes were snug, but shoes always stretched, didn’t they? She looked at her feet in the half mirror. She felt like a ballerina, as if she might suddenly be able to leap across a stage, graceful and light as air. These were the kind of shoes a girl wore to a dance where she met a prince! Not that Izzy went to dances. And there certainly weren’t any princes in the seventh grade, but Izzy was pretty sure these shoes would make going back to school not so bad. They would make all these changes not so bad, maybe even new baby brothers.
“I’ll take ’em,” she said.
Why had Izzy thought that seventh grade was going to be so much better than sixth? Some of the kids in her class looked about three years older than they had when school let out in June. Boys who’d been shrimps last spring had sprouted long, hairy legs and enormous feet over the summer, and Izzy felt kind of embarrassed just looking at them. But the changes in the girls were even more astronomical. Their shapes had rounded, and they’d traded sweatshirts for tank tops. Their shaggy hairdos had been tamed into actual hairstyles. Half a dozen girls wore lipstick or blush or both, and one tripped down the hallway in sandals with heels.
Izzy had worn her beautiful new shoes to school, but everybody had something new and different about them today, and no one had noticed her silver slippers. Plus the left one had started to rub against her heel in the back, and the spot burned more and more with each step she took. By third period a blister was forming, and Izzy limped into history, the only class she had with Pauline and Cookie this year.
Izzy grabbed a seat near the windows and immediately kicked off her shoes. Cookie sat in front of her and Pauline in back. The students were taking advantage of Mrs. Wagner’s well-earned reputation for lateness to talk to each other.
“Why’d you take your shoes off?” Pauline asked.
“They’re too tight, aren’t they?” Cookie said. “My mom always says you should never get the smaller size if they don’t have the one you want.”
Now Cookie was telling her this? Now, after Izzy had spent every cent she had (and some she didn’t) on size six-and-a-halfs and made her mother so mad she’d vowed not to get Izzy another pair of shoes this year, not even sneakers, “not even if your toes poke through your old ones!” Izzy suspected her mother might eventually calm down and change her mind, but in the meantime Izzy would just have to break in the silver shoes. Under no circumstances could she admit to her mother that the purchase had been a mistake.
“Some of the girls got so big over the summer,” Pauline said, crossing her arms over her small chest.
“What did one boob say to the other boob?” Izzy whispered. “You’re my breast friend.” Okay, that wasn’t original—she’d found it on the internet.
Pauline giggled, but Cookie rolled her eyes. She was a tough audience.
“Why is a push-up bra like a bag of potato chips?” Izzy tried again. “Because when you open it up, it’s half empty!”
“Izzy!” Pauline said, blushing, but Izzy got a laugh out of
Cookie this time.
“Micah got cute this summer, didn’t he?” Pauline whispered.
Cookie shrugged, but her friends knew Cookie had liked Micah for a long time. It had been funny last year, but Izzy had a feeling it was all getting a lot more serious now.
Cookie took her cell phone out of her pocket and looked at the picture of her camp boyfriend. “I got an email from Tyler yesterday.”
“What did he say?” Pauline leaned forward.
“No big deal,” Cookie said. “We’re not a thing anymore.”
Pauline’s hand flew to her chest as if she’d been hit by an arrow. “How come?”
“We won’t see each other again until next summer, if I even go back to camp, so it’s silly to be a couple. We should go with other people who live closer to us.”
Pauline nodded loyally. “You’re right, Cookie. You don’t need to get tied down to one guy.”
Izzy grimaced. Sometimes she couldn’t believe the things that came out of her friends’ mouths these days. “God, Cookie, you’re twelve years old. Why do you even want a boyfriend?”
Cookie gave Izzy’s look of disgust right back to her. “Look around, Izzy. All the girls want boyfriends. That’s what middle school is about.”
Was it? Oh God, Izzy hoped not.
“Well, some might want girlfriends, I guess,” Pauline said, and Cookie nodded, willing to concede that point.
Just then Mrs. Wagner appeared and rapped on her desk. “Let’s settle down.”
Cookie and Pauline sat up straight and faced front. But Izzy let her body slump in the seat. They were wrong. Not all the girls wanted a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. Izzy certainly didn’t want either one. Boyfriends never seemed to last long anyway, and then you felt like a big loser when they dumped you. Izzy didn’t intend to be that girl hiding in a bathroom stall boo-hooing over some guy who’d liked her for three days and then decided she wasn’t good enough for him. She had better things to do with her time.
* * *
Pauline and Cookie stayed after school to go to the activities fair. They wanted to sign up for drama club and dance committee and a bunch of other stuff that didn’t interest Izzy. Besides, she’d promised her mother she’d walk to Hopkins Elementary and pick up Oliver. Not that he couldn’t walk home alone. It wasn’t that far and he knew the way, but her mother was worried about him starting at a new school.
“He likes you so much, Izzy,” her mother had said. “He’ll talk to you if he’s having any problems.”
If he was having problems? Of course he was going to have problems. He was a new kid, short for his age, geeky, and to top it off, his mother had just killed herself. His chances of fitting in were zero to none. But Izzy didn’t say any of that to her mother. Maybe because there was a part of her that also hoped Oliver would have a good day today; that a group of other short, geeky kids would immediately befriend him, and he would magically turn into a normal, happy fifth grader.
That morning, when she and her mother had dropped Oliver off, Izzy had pointed out the bench where he should sit and wait for her after school, but school had been out for fifteen minutes by the time she got there, and Oliver was not on the bench. This didn’t seem like a good omen, but Izzy walked over to the bench anyway, as if her approach might make her cousin suddenly appear.
As she was looking around, Ms. Appleby, her third-grade teacher, came down the front steps and waved to her. Izzy ran over.
“It’s nice to see you, Izzy.” Ms. Appleby wore the smile Izzy remembered, full and bright, but suddenly it collapsed into a droopy line. “I was so sorry to hear about your poor cousin. I hope he’ll be okay here. All the teachers know what happened, and we’re going to do our best to help him.”
Not another one of those sad faces! She felt like saying, “He won’t be okay if you act like the world just ended. Treat him like any other kid.” But Izzy knew nobody would. Maybe nobody ever would.
“I’m supposed to meet him here to walk home, but I don’t see—” But just then she did see him. He was sitting crouched on the ground in a nook between the chain-link fence and the playground slide, his knees pulled up to his chin, his head resting on them.
“Oh, never mind,” Izzy said. “There he is.” She hoped her voice sounded normal, as if there were no reason to worry about a little boy folding himself up into a tiny bundle underneath the playground equipment.
Ms. Appleby turned to look. “Oh dear. Is he all right?”
Izzy was afraid Ms. Appleby might walk over with her and make a big fuss, which would be the opposite of helpful. “He’s fine. He always does that. You should go on home.”
Ms. Appleby looked uncertain, but finally she gave Izzy a little smile and walked off toward the parking lot.
Izzy ran to her cousin. “What are you doing back here? I told you to wait on the bench.”
Oliver lifted his head and stared at her. His face was as pale and flat as a bleached sheet. As he got to his feet, Izzy reached out to help him, but he shrugged her off irritably. Without a word, he started walking toward the sidewalk, Izzy behind him.
“Did something happen?” Izzy asked as she caught up to him. “Did somebody say something to you?”
“What do you think?” Oliver mumbled.
“Who? What did they say? Is that why you were hiding?”
But Oliver kept walking, silently.
“Just tell me, will you?”
“Why? You can’t do anything about it.”
“Maybe I can. I could tell somebody…”
When Oliver finally spoke, his voice was louder than she’d ever heard it. “Who are you going to tell? My teacher? The principal? Your mom? So they can make a big deal out of it and then I’ll be even more of a freak?”
He was right, of course. Once you brought the adults into it, the bullies usually just got worse. It was like poking a wasps’ nest with a stick. But there must be something to do.
“Tell me what happened, Oliver. I promise I won’t tell any grown-ups.”
They were a few blocks away from the school by this time, but still Oliver checked all around them before he spoke. “It was Liam. He told everybody about my mom. He said Dad was crazy too, and so was I, and they should all stay away from me.”
“That little jerk!” Why had her mother invited him to their house, anyway?
“He called me Looniver. And then some other kids did too.”
Izzy could tell that Oliver was fighting hard not to cry. She laid a hand tentatively on his shoulder, but he shook it off. Well, okay, she wouldn’t like that either. You can’t give in to it. You can’t let the idiots make you cry. She was glad Oliver knew that.
“I’m sorry about…what happened to your mom.” Somehow the words she’d been careful not to say popped out of Izzy’s mouth. She’d been careful not to say any of those dumb, obvious things adults said when people died. I’m so sorry for your loss. But she really did mean it. She’d suddenly felt the full and heavy weight that her cousin had to carry around, and she was very sorry about it.
“I know,” Oliver mumbled.
“Do you think about her much?”
He stared up at her. “Are you kidding?”
“No.”
“I think about her every minute. I never don’t think about her.”
Whoa. Izzy had not expected him to say that. Was that even possible? “Hey,” she said, trying to sound upbeat, “tomorrow after school you’re going to talk to Cassie, the therapist, right? Maybe you could tell her about Liam and his friends. She might have some ideas about what you could do.”
“I’m not telling her anything! I don’t even want to go!” Oliver yelled. Izzy was so surprised by his anger, she stopped walking for a minute, then had to run to catch up.
“Oliver, you should talk to her. She might be able to help you.”
“I don’t need any help,” he said, which was so obviously not true that he snorted after he said it. “Or at least I don’t want any help. I can help myself.”
“Well, sure, but I think you should give Cassie a chance too. I went to see her a couple of times after Mom and Dad got divorced.”
Oliver glanced up at her, his eyes narrow with suspicion. “And then you felt better?”
“Sort of. A little.” Okay, that was pretty much a lie. At first she’d liked having Cassie to complain to, since she didn’t like talking to her mother about the divorce, but Cassie wasn’t a miracle worker. She couldn’t make Izzy’s parents get back together, and she couldn’t force Izzy’s dad to pay attention to her, so what good was she? Could Cassie have said or done something that would have stopped her dad and Emily from having a baby? Of course not. All Cassie wanted to do was talk about how Izzy felt about everything. She felt bad, okay? Really, really bad.
“Anyway,” Izzy continued, “it’s not going to hurt you to talk to her. Anything you tell her, she’s not allowed to tell anybody else.”
“Not even your mom?”
“Nope. Not even her. That’s how therapy works.”
Oliver was quiet until they were almost to Izzy’s house, and then he said, “How do you know it’s not going to hurt me to talk to her? Everything hurts.”
For once, Izzy had no answer.
Before Oliver and Izzy had even climbed the porch steps, her mother flew through the front door.
“You’re late!”
“Only a few minutes,” Izzy said.
“I was worried. After the day I’ve had, a few minutes seems like an hour. Did school go all right, Oliver?” She lifted his school bag from his shoulders as if that was what was weighing him down.
Oliver nodded, and Izzy held her tongue.
“Thank God for that. Later on I want you to tell me all about it.”
“So, what else happened?” Izzy asked. “Is something wrong?”
Her mother glanced at Oliver. “Well, I came home at noon to see if I could get Henderson to eat some lunch, but he’d…well, he’d locked himself in his room and wouldn’t answer me when I knocked…which worried me a little bit.”