The Candy Smash

  "It's very nice. You did a good job." She placed her hand on top of his and patted it several times. "You're a good boy," she said, and Evan could tell that she didn't quite know who he was just then, that the memory of him was beyond her reach, hiding in one of the dark corners of her mind. "I have ... I'd like to give you something, too. I have a poem for you." She stood up, as tall and straight as a pine tree, and recited,

  i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

  my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

  i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

  by only me is your doing,my darling)

  i fear

  no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

  no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

  and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

  and whatever a sun will always sing is you

  here is the deepest secret nobody knows

  (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

  and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

  higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

  and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

  i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

  Evan's grandmother sat down and picked up his hand and patted it again. She was smiling and her eyes were shining. "That's a poem by E. E. Cummings. He's my favorite poet of all time."

  Evan stared at his grandmother as if he'd never seen her before. "I didn't know you knew poetry, Grandma!"

  "Oh, yes. It's a requirement. We have to memorize and recite a poem every year. I'm quite good at it. The best in my class." She looked down at the framed poem in her hand. "This is a very nice poem. Did E. E. Cummings write it?"

  Evan bent his head toward his grandmother.

  "Yes. He wrote it just for you."

  Chapter 16

  Front-Page Layout

  front-page layout (n) the way in which text and pictures are arranged on the front page of a newspaper so that all the space is used and the headlines catch the reader's attention

  Jessie knew in her heart that today was going to be a great day. She closed her closet door and picked up her backpack from beside her bed. Then she grabbed the grocery bag that held twenty-eight copies of The 4-O Forum. She had gotten up early this morning to finish printing and folding them. They were ready to go!

  She reached in the bag and pulled out one of the copies of the paper. She held it up so she could admire the front page. It was perfect! The headline was a grabber, the columns of type were neat and straight, and the whole page was filled, which was really important because there should never be empty space in a real newspaper.

  That had been tricky. Yesterday, when she'd finished laying out the front-page article, including all her terrific pie charts, she'd still had a box of empty space to fill. It wasn't all that big, just about three inches in the last column, but Jessie knew she couldn't leave it empty. What could she fill it with?

  Then she'd had a brilliant idea. She would put Evan's poem in that space. It fit perfectly! And she could just imagine how thrilled he would be to have his writing published in a newspaper. For everyone to see. He would probably shout with excitement. She decided to make it a surprise.

  Then she turned the paper over and looked at the back page. She had written the double article about the candy heart mystery and the secret on the bathroom wall just like a chapter from an Encyclopedia Brown book. The reader could solve the mystery because all the clues were sprinkled throughout the newspaper in pictures and articles. But you had to go to the back page of the newspaper to find the answer. Jessie couldn't help smiling when she saw the answer printed in a framed rectangle on the back page. It was a masterpiece!

  "Jessie, did you strip your bed like I asked?" called Mrs. Treski from downstairs. Monday was laundry day in the Treski household, and each child was responsible for taking the sheets off the bed and bringing them down to the laundry room.

  "I don't have time!" shouted Jessie, not wanting to wait even one more minute to get to school with her blockbuster newspaper.

  "You have plenty of time. Do it now, Missy Miss!"

  There was no point in arguing with her mother. Especially about laundry. She put down the grocery bag and dropped her backpack to the floor. Then she pulled the bed away from the wall so she could take off the blanket and sheets.

  Something fell to the floor.

  Jessie peered down into the space between the bed and the wall. There was a folded-up piece of paper on the floor. With a sinking heart, Jessie reached down and picked it up.

  It was the twenty-seventh survey, the one she hadn't been able to find on Thursday! Jessie sat down hard on the bed. The image of Langston shouting NUMERATOR ON TOP, DENOMINATOR ON BOTTOM! jumped into her mind. She had used a denominator of twenty-six for all her calculations, but now the correct number was twenty-seven! That meant that every statistic in her front-page story was wrong. The whole article was a mistake! And there wasn't time to fix it before school.

  Everything was ruined.

  Who did this? she wanted to scream, shaking the piece of paper as if it were somehow at fault. She knew that no one was to blame, but still she wanted to be angry at someone. Quickly she looked at the survey to see if she could tell whose it was.

  Jessie stared and stared at the creased paper. She didn't recognize the handwriting, but that wasn't surprising.

  Who could it be?

  She looked at the paper again. It was strange. Someone in 4-O like-liked her. What did that mean? How was she supposed to feel? It was a puzzle. But not the kind she could figure out.

  Jessie folded the paper in half and put it in her backpack. At recess she would have to recalculate the results of the survey. That was the important thing: making her newspaper a success. And it couldn't be a success if it didn't have the right numbers in it. She would think about someone liking her another time.

  When the morning bell rang, Jessie hurried straight to her cubby and put the newspapers at the very bottom, where her boots usually went. Then she covered up the bag with her coat and put her boots on top of that. She didn't want anybody getting at those papers until she had a chance to correct them.

  But when she turned to go into the classroom, she suddenly realized that in all the activity of the morning—the laundry, her excitement about the newspaper, the surprise discovery of the missing survey, not to mention the shock of finding out that someone in the class had a crush on her!—she had forgotten to go to the bathroom before leaving the house. Oh, great! This day was just getting better and better!

  She hurried to the girls' bathroom in her hallway, peeked in to make sure the bathroom was empty, then headed for the second-to-last stall.

  She was about to push open the door when she noticed two shoes on the other side of it. And she recognized those shoes!

  "What are you doing in here?" asked Jessie. She really did have to go to the bathroom. This was no time to chat.

  Megan didn't answer. Instead, Jessie heard a strange noise that sounded like someone gargling.

  "Are you okay?" Jessie waited. "Why aren't you talking?"

  A sound came out of the bathroom stall that even Jessie recognized.

  "Why are you crying?" Jessie couldn't figure this out. Why would someone cry in a bathroom, of all places? "Do you need the nurse?"

  "No!" said Megan.

  "Well, I have to go to the bathroom."

  "So go to the bathroom!"

  "I only use this one. You have to come out."

  "No!"

  "Then..." Jessie didn't know what she could do, but whatever it was, it was going to have to be soon. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and then back again.

  Suddenly the door opened and Megan stepped out. Her eyes were red from crying, and there were tears on her cheeks. She looked terrible. In her hands, she had a wad of wet paper towels. "Go ahead!" she said, rushing past Jessie as if she didn't want to be seen.
br />   "Well, wait for me to finish," said Jessie, who hurried in before disaster struck. When she came back out, Megan was standing at the sink. Jessie washed her hands carefully, singing the ABC song under her breath to make sure she got rid of all the germs on her hands. Then she pointed at the door of the bathroom stall and asked Megan, "How come you were trying to wipe off the heart you drew?"

  "Who says I drew it?" asked Megan, sounding angry.

  "Because the heart in the stall looks like the hearts you drew on our lemonade stand. All weird and off center. And then you cut one like that out of paper at my house." Jessie pointed at the empty bathroom stall. "You disguised your handwriting, but you forgot to disguise the heart."

  Megan's face crumpled and she started to cry again.

  "Oh, for Pete's sake," said Jessie. "Here!" She pulled three dry paper towels out of the dispenser and handed them to Megan. "Look, do this." Jessie took back one of the paper towels and bunched it up, crumpling and uncrumpling it five or six times. "It makes it softer. See?"

  Megan took the paper towel from Jessie and wiped her eyes, then took a few deep breaths. "Can you still see it?" she asked, looking at the bathroom door.

  "Uh-huh. It's lighter, but you can still read it," said Jessie. She bent down to retie her shoe, then stood up. "I don't get it. You drew the heart. How come you're trying to wipe it off ?"

  "Because now, it's just—embarrassing!"

  "Then why did you draw it in the first place?" shouted Jessie. This kind of conversation didn't make sense. Megan drew the heart, then she got mad at Jessie for asking about it! And writing on a bathroom wall! It was crazy the way she was acting.

  Megan nodded her head. "I couldn't resist. It's like I had to write it on the wall. I couldn't stop myself."

  Jessie shook her head. "You need to exercise better impulse control." That's what her mother said to her sometimes.

  "What can I say?" said Megan sadly. "This is what happens when you're in love." She heaved a deep, shuddery sigh and stared at the crumpled paper towels in her hand. "You know what I mean?"

  Jessie stared at her. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

  "Well, lucky you," said Megan glumly. She wiped her nose with one of the paper towels. "Hey, Jess? Why doesn't Evan like me? I thought we were friends."

  "What do you mean 'like'?" Jessie thought of the survey results, and one paper in particular—a paper whose handwriting she did know, almost as well as her own.

  "You know what I mean. Do you think he likes me?"

  Jessie stiffened up. "I'm not authorized to talk about it. I took an oath of secrecy." She thought of question number four on the survey. "Besides 37 percent of the class thinks you should tell him yourself." Oh, brother. Even that statistic was wrong now. Jessie really had her work cut out for her.

  "Seriously?"

  "Well, approximately. If everyone stopped treating this love stuff like it was top secret, the whole thing would be a lot easier. It still wouldn't make any sense, but it would be easier."

  "Maybe you're right," said Megan thoughtfully.

  "We're going to be late," said Jessie. "I don't like being late."

  "Yeah, okay. Friends?" Megan stuck her hand out, but Jessie knew that Megan hadn't washed her hands after she came out of the stall, so Jessie just patted Megan on the shoulder and said, "Absolutely."

  Then they both hurried back to the classroom. It was Valentine's Day, and there was a lot to do.

  Chapter 17

  Despair Deeper Than the Ocean

  hyperbole (n) an extremely exaggerated statement

  "Evan, is Jessie absent today?" asked Mrs. Overton, holding her attendance book in her hands. Mrs. Overton had a pink heart pinned to her red sweater in honor of Valentine's Day. Near the end of the day, the kids would distribute their valentines to one another, placing the cards in the shoeboxes they'd decorated last week.

  "Nope. She's here somewhere." The kids in 4-O had all settled down to their morning work, but a few desks were empty. Evan noticed that Jessie, Megan, Chaz, and Sarah were all missing. He was glad Megan was out. Evan didn't want to have to deal with his friends making jokes about Megan and him on Valentine's Day. Plus, he didn't want to see the hurt look on her face when he ignored her. All in all, it was good that she was absent. Even though there was a part of him that felt disappointed.

  A few minutes later both Jessie and Megan walked into the classroom and took their seats.

  "Girls, you're late," said Mrs. Overton, then stopped when she caught sight of Megan's face. "Don't let it happen again, okay?"

  "Mrs. Overton?" said Jessie. "Can I stay in at recess and work on my newspaper? I need to fix a few things before I hand it out. It's a special Valentine's Day edition."

  "Ooooh," said Scott Spencer, and some of the boys laughed. Evan stared at his morning work paper. He was not going to get involved in this conversation.

  "Jessie, are you going to tell us about the survey?" asked Rachel.

  "Yeah, we want to know about that. You promised," said Taffy.

  Jessie smiled and faced the class. "Yes. The full—and accurate—results of the survey will be included on the front page of the newspaper. Along with some special features. First, a sweet mystery will be solved"—Jessie looked straight at Megan when she said this—"and there will be a poem by a surprise poet."

  Evan watched as Jessie turned her gaze on him and flashed him a smile.

  "What survey?" asked Mrs. Overton.

  "A love survey!" shouted Scott Spencer. And the boys started making kissing noises and whooping it up.

  "Jessie?"

  "It's just a survey I handed out. All the kids answered it. Mrs. Feeney said it was okay!" Evan listened as Jessie's voice got squeaky in the way it did when she was nervous.

  Mrs. Overton stared straight at Jessie, then tapped her pencil on her desktop. "I want to see your newspaper before you hand it out, okay? I'll look at it during recess. Meanwhile"—she turned her attention to the whole class—"I wanted to update you on the boxes of candy hearts that I collected from you on Friday."

  "Confiscated!" shouted Scott Spencer, whose mother was a lawyer.

  "Private property," called out David K.

  "Power to the people!" yelled out Malik, then shrugged his shoulders to show he was just goofing around.

  "Excuse me," said Mrs. Overton, lifting one eyebrow in the way she did when she was warning them to settle down. Evan always marveled at this technique. He'd never met anyone who could lift one eyebrow as high as Mrs. Overton. "As I was saying, I spoke with Mrs. Fletcher and she in turn spoke with the superintendent, and it has been decided that because we do not know the source of the candy, we cannot allow you to have the candy."

  "Oh, come on!" shouted several of the kids in the class.

  "It's just candy, for crying out loud!" said Ray.

  "And it's Valentine's Day," said Salley.

  "Yeah!" shouted most of the class in agreement.

  "Enough! As I said, it has been decided." Mrs. Overton looked severely around the room.

  Good, thought Evan. No more stupid candy hearts.

  Jessie raised her hand. "Mrs. Overton, what if we did know where the candy came from? Would that make a difference?"

  Mrs. Overton looked at her, perplexed. "Jessie, do you want to talk with me privately?"

  "No." Jessie's face had that blank-slate look that left most people confused. But Evan knew that something was going on inside Jessie's head.

  "Well," said Mrs. Overton. "I suppose it might make a difference if we knew who left the candy. Or maybe not. It would depend."

  Just then a voice came over the PA announcing that an assembly for the lower grades had been canceled. When the announcement ended, Mrs. Overton told them to break into their rainforest groups. They were going to continue working on their group projects.

  Evan looked around the room for his group and found them gathering at the back table. But his mind wasn't on the great kapok tree as he joined them.
He was wondering why Jessie had looked straight at him when she mentioned the surprise poem in the newspaper? Was it a poem that Evan particularly liked?

  And then an awful thought came to him. What if it was the framed poem he had given to Grandma? Jessie must have noticed it on Grandma's dresser and copied it to put in the paper. For everyone to see. Evan's head sank into his hands, and he groaned.

  Chapter 18

  Kill

  kill (v) to not publish a story or newspaper that is ready (or close to ready) for publication

  It didn't take a super detective to figure out that Mrs. Overton was not going to let Jessie hand out her newspaper to the class. Jessie didn't understand why, but there was something about this love stuff that made people act crazy. One look at Mrs. Overton's face when she'd heard "love survey" told Jessie that Mrs. Overton was going to put an end to this extra credit project before it even happened. She was going to kill the Valentine's Day issue of The 4-O Forum, and Jessie couldn't bear that thought. All her hard work—counting up the surveys, writing the articles, digging through the boys' trash—all for nothing. She would never have another front-page story like this one. A story that everybody would want to read. It was her one chance to be a star reporter, just like her dad. Even if her statistics were a little bit off, it was now or never.

  "Well," said Jessie to the empty classroom. "I guess it's time to break some eggs." So while Mrs. Overton met with the principal to try to figure out what to do about the canceled assembly, Jessie walked out to the hallway and retrieved the bag of newspapers from her locker. Then she put on her hat, scarf, mittens, coat, and boots and headed out to the playground. I'll be like one of those old-fashioned newsboys, she thought, and imagined standing in the middle of the playground, shouting, "Extra! Extra! Read all about it!"