Chloe sighs. “I know. But I never want them to.”
We’re on day two of a three-day American Vocals finale. Honestly, I don’t really know why we bother watching the first two days of this, but we always watch all three. It’s Chloe’s favorite show.
A detergent commercial flashes up on the screen.
“Mom invited Ramon to dinner this weekend,” I say ever-so-casually.
“That’s cool.”
I’m wondering how to bring up the idea that Mom might be getting married again. “He’s pretty nice.”
Chloe stares at the silent screen. “Yeah.”
I try to imagine watching quiet commercials with Mom on the couch and Ramon in the corner. What kind of stepfather would he be? Strict? Funny? Kind? Boring? What would it be like to have him around all the time?
I just can’t picture it.
“Can you imagine Ramon as our stepfather?” I blurt suddenly.
Chloe looks at me with an Are you on drugs? look. “Not really,” she says. Then she turns the TV’s sound back on. “Oh! Pepe’s going to sing another one. I hope he messes up. Is that mean?”
“I don’t think he can hear you,” I tell her.
Chloe giggles and turns to look into my eyes. “Don’t worry, Hayley,” she says. Then she leans her head on my shoulder.
Guilt pools in my stomach. I should tell her what I heard, I think. But it doesn’t feel right. Mom should tell us in some kind of official way.
It’s funny that just a few nights ago, I thought that Chloe was freaking out because she thought our father might marry Annie. But she wasn’t. And now I really am freaking out because our mother might marry Ramon, and Chloe is trying to comfort me.
It’s a mixed-up world.
You’re thinking I should’ve said something.
But maybe I didn’t even hear Mom right. Maybe she said, “I have a sledding to plan.” As in, a sledding party.
I mean, people say that.
Right?
So why freak Chloe out?
She has enough to deal with.
Artie hums as she sews a button back onto a shirtsleeve. We’re back for our fourth afternoon of detention, repairing props and mending costumes. But you wouldn’t know it. Both Artie and Meghan are bubbling with enthusiasm.
“Audition went well?” I ask when Artie takes a breath between hums.
She smiles at me. “I think so,” she whispers. “Ms. Lang seemed happy with it. I did a lot of scenes with Jamil, who was awesome. Even Chang told me she was really impressed. Joe Jesslyn, too.”
Joe Jesslyn is an eighth grader. He’s generally known as the funniest guy in the whole school, and he’s the only person who ever got into the improv group in the sixth grade. He’s head of it now and helps Ms. Lang decide who gets in.
“Well, great,” I say, trying to sound enthusiastic. I know that if Artie gets into the improv group, she’ll be back in with Chang and her dramarama crew. Well — that’s what she wants, I guess. “Have a cupcake.” I open the plastic container I have stashed in my bag. “Just don’t let Ms. Lang see.”
“Thanks!”
“So!” Meghan says brightly as she dumps a stack of shirts onto the table. “I found a whole bunch of shirts that are missing buttons.”
“There’s a box of spares here,” I say, pulling it out. “Let’s see what we can match.”
“Remember that these costumes just have to look decent on stage,” Artie reminds us. “They don’t have to match perfectly — people won’t see them close up.”
“Got it.” Meghan sorts through buttons. “Wow, some of these are really pretty. We can use this one for that blouse,” she says, selecting a teal blue.
“Have a cupcake,” I say. “They’re gluten free.” Meghan has celiac disease, which means she can’t digest gluten. That’s a protein in wheat, barley, and some other grains. It’s sort of a pain for her, so I try to make stuff she can eat if we’re hanging out.
“These are gluten free?” Artie eyes her cupcake suspiciously. “Wow — how did you make them taste so good?”
“It’s not that hard,” I tell her.
“Hayley’s an angel of mercy,” Meghan says, taking a bite of the cupcake. “Mmmm!”
“Careful not to get frosting on the costumes,” Artie says.
Meghan gives me this heavy-lidded, raised eyebrow look, like, Who does she think she is? “I’ll be careful,” Meghan says, digging her fingers into the buttons again. “Oh, Hayley, I forgot to tell you: Maria’s totally in with her juggling act. Kyle is going to play piano. And Chang is going to do a scene with Devon, Trina, and Joe. This talent show is totally coming together!”
Artie looks up from her sewing. Her face has turned a sickly shade of green. Devon was almost her boyfriend for about five minutes … until he decided he liked Trina instead. He’s a major dramarama, too. All of Artie’s so-called friends are doing a scene together … and it looks like they forgot to mention it to her.
“Did Ms. Lang say yes to the talent show?” Artie asks.
“Joe says that he thinks he can get her to say yes,” Meghan says. She takes another bite of cupcake. “Hey! Hayley, I just got an idea — you should make some cupcakes for the show! Like they do on a cooking show!” She has a bit of icing on the tip of her nose, which makes her look kind of demented. And I’m not even talking about the words coming out of her mouth.
“You can’t bake at a talent show,” Artie snaps. “That’s stupid.”
“Artie, you aren’t doing anything for the talent show, so you can just shut up,” Meghan shoots back.
Artie looks shocked. Then she grabs her leftover cupcake and heaves it at Meghan.
“Whoa!” I shout.
I have to give Meghan credit — the girl can move fast. She ducks, and the cupcake wings right past her ear and splatters on a bust of Socrates behind her.
“Oh, no!” Artie wails, but her remorse costs her — Meghan grabs her own cupcake and tosses it at Artie’s face.
Crumbs fly everywhere, and Artie lets out a screech. She reaches for my plastic box of cupcakes, but I yank it away. Unfortunately, I yank it a little too hard, and cupcakes rain down onto the floor. Frosting first, of course.
For a moment, we all just sit there, staring at the cupcakes. I can hear our breathing, ragged and a little desperate.
“Ms. Lang is coming to check on us any minute,” Meghan says.
Artie murmurs, “We are so dead.”
I leap off my chair and hurry to the supply closet. I grab an unopened package of paper towels and toss it to Meghan. She yanks off the plastic cover and unrolls a huge wad, which she gives to Artie.
Without a word, Artie wipes off her face while Meghan gets to work on Socrates. I gather the cupcakes from the floor and put them back into the container.
“We can do it!” Meghan says as she races for the broom to tackle the crumbs.
Just then, the door swings open. Ms. Lang stands there for a moment, taking it in — cupcake crumbs everywhere, the chunk of frosting in Artie’s hair, the smeary face of Socrates.
“We, um, spilled —” Meghan begins.
“No food in the costume shop!” Ms. Lang barks. She jabs a dagger-like fingernail at a sign near the door. NO FOOD, NO DRINKS, NO GUM IN COSTUME SHOP! EVER!
“Sorry,” I whisper.
“You three can take an extra day of detention to clean this all up!” Ms. Lang shouts. Then she shoots one last glare at Artie and walks out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
I look over at my Ex-Best. Her face is red, and her eyes brim with tears.
“Artie,” I say, “I’m so sorry.”
“Please don’t talk to me,” she whispers. She takes her paper towels and begins to brush the crumbs from the table.
Meghan gets the broom.
For the next thirty-seven minutes, we clean the costume shop in complete silence, until it’s time to go home.
∗ ∗ ∗
The hallway is nearly deserted when I
walk out of the costume shop. Meghan is still tidying up, but I have to hurry. I told Gran that I’d help her with some baking at the tea shop when I got home from school.
I hear voices echoing down the hall, and when I round the corner, I see Omar talking to Kyle. Omar has his back to me, but Kyle is wearing his usual beaming smile, patiently explaining his views on the importance of recycling. Behind him, Jamil is doing a weird dance, almost like a chicken, or something. Jamil isn’t making any noise, and there isn’t any sound, or anything, and it takes me a minute to realize what’s going on. Then I notice that Omar is holding up a phone. He’s videotaping Kyle’s speech — and Jamil’s crazy dance behind him.
My blood burns hot, and I feel nauseated and dizzy. I can only imagine what they’re doing — making some crazy video of Kyle looking oblivious to a chicken dance. Then they’ll put it up on YouTube, and the whole school will get a laugh out of the clueless blind guy.
Want.
To.
Smash!!
Something!!!!!
“What are you doing?” I screech. Omar ducks away, but he’s not fast enough. I slap the cell phone out of his hand, and it clatters across the hallway.
“Hey!” Omar shouts. “What’s your problem?”
“Hayley?” Kyle asks. He sounds almost afraid, like he thinks maybe I’ve gone nuts. Which maybe I have.
“If I see that video anywhere, I will beat you with that cell phone,” I snarl at Omar, who grimaces in fear.
“We were just kidding around,” Jamil says. He, at least, has the decency to look embarrassed. He glances at Kyle, and his dark brown eyes look worried.
“We’ve been doing this with lots of kids,” Omar explains. “Not just Kyle.”
“It’s different with Kyle, and you know it!” I shout. “And if you don’t know it, you should!” I feel like I’m channeling something. I’m not a shouter — I never have been. But this angry thing inside me has taken over. I’m shouting so that I don’t start punching.
“Would someone please explain what’s going on?” Kyle asks.
“I was just doing a silly dance behind your back,” Jamil explains. “Omar was catching the whole thing on video.”
Kyle looks baffled. “But what does that have to do with recycling?”
“Nothing,” Omar admits. “We just thought it would make a funny video.”
Kyle stands there for a moment, almost as if he’s taking the words in through his skin. Then he nods, and walks away.
“Kyle!” I call after him.
“I can take care of myself, Hayley,” he snaps over his shoulder. The hard stone floors and metal lockers make his voice a tinny echo. And just like that, the angry thing in me whooshes out of my body. It’s like I’m a teakettle, and all my hot water has turned to steam, leaving me empty.
Omar walks over to his phone and picks it up. He looks at it thoughtfully for a moment, then looks at me. “It wasn’t a big deal, Hayley,” he says.
“We didn’t mean anything by it,” Jamil adds.
“Stop talking,” I tell them.
They start down the hall, and someone touches my shoulder gently. It’s Meghan. Artie is with her. “We saw that,” Meghan says.
“I didn’t mean to make Kyle so upset.” The hallway blurs and shifts as tears spring to my eyes.
“It’s not your fault,” Artie gripes. “Omar and Jamil are jerks. I’m glad you told them off.”
“They used to be nice.” Meghan shakes her head. “Maybe they just got carried away.”
“If I did the right thing, then why do I feel so awful?” I ask.
“What were you supposed to do?” Meghan demands. “Let Omar and Jamil post a video where they make fun of a blind guy? Like, ‘Hahaha! He can’t see us making fun of him because he’s blind — get it?’ I mean — were you really going to let that happen?”
“Kyle’s just embarrassed right now,” Artie says gently. “He’ll get over it, and he’ll realize that you did what friends do.”
“What she said,” Meghan agrees.
Meghan’s eyebrows are knit together beneath her pink bangs. She looks worried. Artie, with her hazel eyes and shiny auburn hair, is wearing the same expression. “Well … I guess that if the two of you agree on it, it must be true,” I say.
Meghan and Artie exchange a look. Then Meghan cracks up. Artie allows herself this wry little half grin.
“Trust us,” Meghan says. “You did the right thing.” Then she slings an arm around Artie’s shoulder and — for just a minute — I get a flash of how the three of us might be able to get along.
We may never be friends, but it beats tossing cupcakes at one another.
I wish someone could stop those guys.
Omar and Jamil have always been funny. They used to sit at the back of the bus, rapping about homework or the food in the cafeteria.
But lately, they’ve started picking on people to get laughs. The other day, on the bus, they somehow managed to steal Jackson Jackson’s T-shirt. They yanked it right over his head and threw it out the window. Everyone on the bus started shouting and the driver stopped the bus, and JJ had to go down the aisle shirtless and into the street to get it. Half the kids were doubled over with laughter. The other half were taking pictures of JJ with their cell phones.
Here’s the thing — JJ is scrawny. He’s a sixth grader, but he looks more like a fourth grader. Not only is he puny, but he always wears these big, baggy clothes, like he’s wearing the size he thinks he ought to have on but can’t quite fit into. Or maybe it’s just a hip-hop look. Either way, he’s usually swimming in his shirts so you can’t really tell how small he is.
But that day, with his shirt off, you could see the bones in his chest. When he walked down the aisle, I saw his spine, like a row of buttons down the center of his back. When he got back on the bus, his face was burning red, and he looked like he was about to burst into tears. I don’t know if he was humiliated or furious or both.
I would’ve been both.
JJ sat in the front of the bus and didn’t speak to anyone for the rest of the ride. He hasn’t been back on the bus for two weeks.
The thing is, I don’t actually believe that Omar and Jamil are mean. They just don’t know when to stop. They’ll do anything for a laugh.
Which, when you really think about it, is kind of terrifying.
It’s almost five o’clock and nearly pitch-black as I make my way down the hill into town. My brain is still buzzing from the whole Kyle scene. I feel horrible that I’ve embarrassed him. I didn’t mean to. I wonder if I should apologize, and if so, what I should say.
Snow has been piled into the center of the street, creating a wall along the median so that you can hardly see the shops on the other side. Most of the businesses shovel their walks thoroughly, but I am still careful as I pick my way along the concrete. You can go sprawling if you hit a patch of ice.
I look up at the Academy of Music marquee, which screams into the darkness with brilliant red lettering. Tonight! METROPOLIS — FULLY RESTORED! The poster by the door shows a black-and-white mechanical man surrounded by Saturn-like rings of light. Some silent movie, I guess. I’m surprised by how many people are in line. I mean, if I wanted to hear people not talk, I could go to the library for free.
The crowd is mostly older, but I spot Marco in the middle of the line.
Warmth floods through my cold body. “Marco!” I shout, waving. It strikes me that luck has sent him my way. After all, Marco is Kyle’s friend. Maybe he’ll have a good idea about what I should say to him.
Marco looks over and waves to me. I hurry to join him. The line is fidgety, but not moving forward; they haven’t opened the doors yet.
“Hey!” I say, and I’m aware that I’m beaming wider than usual as Marco grins back.
“Are you here for the movie?” Marco asks.
“No, I — what is it?”
“What is it?” Marco repeats.
The person in front of him turns around. It’s Ta
nisha Osborne, our class Know-It-All. She’s wearing a green knit cap with earflaps and an enormous pink flower plastered on it. Long black braids stick out from the sides. The close-fitting cap emphasizes her large brown eyes fringed with black lashes, and, honestly, she looks prettier than I’ve ever seen her. “It’s the Fritz Lang classic,” Tanisha says. “One of the most important movies ever made.”
“Oh,” I say. “Have you seen it?”
“Four times, but never on the big screen.” She looks up at the marquee reverently.
“I’ve only seen it once,” Marco says. He pulls a couple of M&M’S out of the bag he’s holding and crunches them. “It’s amazing. When Tanisha told me it was coming to the Academy of Music, we got tickets right away.”
We got tickets? They’re here together? “Oh,” I say again, feeling like an idiot. Would you like to buy a vowel? I seem to have an O. “I didn’t know you were into silent movies.” I’m not even sure who I’m saying this to — Marco or Tanisha. I didn’t know anyone was into silent movies.
“I love classic cinema,” Tanisha says in that way she has that always makes people kind of want to slap her.
“I’ve gotten really into it ever since I’ve been using the video camera,” Marco explains. “Some of the techniques in these old movies are really amazing.”
“Marco has an incredible eye for capturing images in a frame,” Tanisha says.
“She’s teaching me,” Marco explains, and then I remember that Tanisha is Marco’s math tutor. And apparently now she’s his video tutor, too.
Marco holds out the bag of M&M’S, and Tanisha yanks off her glove and dips her fingers in. She pulls out a couple of candies and pops them into her mouth. For some reason, this makes me feel a little sick. I can’t believe I didn’t even realize that Marco and Tanisha were becoming friends. Well, why shouldn’t they? “Want some?” Marco asks, offering me the bag.
“No, thanks,” I start to say, but my voice gets caught in my throat. I clear it and try again, but at that moment, the line starts to move forward.
Marco moves up beside Tanisha, who pulls a pair of tickets out of her pocket. “Sure you don’t want to join?” he asks, looking back at me.