When (v5) - Rebecca Stead

We watched him rush all the way back to Broadway and disappear around the corner.

“That was weird,” I said.

“Yeah,” Marcus agreed. “And it’s the second time it’s happened.”

The First Proof

“What did I tell you?” Jimmy said at lunch that same day, happily slapping the counter with both hands. “They never think you’ll actually count the bread. Never in a million years would they think you’d count!” The bread order had come up two rolls short. I’d counted it twice to make sure.

Jimmy swaggered over to the phone with a huge smile on his face.

“You just made his day,” Colin whispered. “Maybe his whole week.” He was folding slices of ham and laying them out neatly on little squares of waxed paper.

I watched Colin’s fingers as they picked up each piece of ham—he didn’t just smack them in half like I saw Jimmy do. Colin sort of bent each slice into a pretty fan shape. Once I started watching, I couldn’t stop. It was hypnotizing, somehow.

“I talked to Annemarie last night,” I said. “I think she’s coming back to school tomorrow.”

Colin nodded. “Good.” It was hard to imagine him sneaking around and leaving a rose on anyone’s doormat, but I guess boys will surprise you sometimes.

“Hey,” he said suddenly, “you know what? I’m sick of cheese-and-lettuce sandwiches.” He glanced guiltily at Jimmy, who was still on the phone talking about his missing rolls. “Want to go get a slice of pizza?”

We acted like everything was normal, making our sandwiches and wrapping them up like we planned to eat them at school. And then we ran to the pizza place down the block. It was crazy, but we felt like we were doing something wrong. We rushed back to school stuffing pizza into our mouths and crouching down low when we passed Jimmy’s window so he couldn’t see us. Somehow we became so completely hysterical that we were still having what Mom calls fits of helpless laughter when we got to school.

We must have sort of burst into the classroom, because everyone looked up from their silent reading to stare at us. Julia rolled her eyes.

“You’re late again,” Mr. Tompkin said. And then the whole feeling dissolved and we went to find our books.

I sat with my book open on my desk, thinking about the note in my coat pocket: 3 p.m. today: Colin’s knapsack . Your first “proof.” I had to get a look inside Colin’s bag, to find whatever would—or wouldn’t—be waiting for me.

At three on the dot, I went to the coat closet and grabbed my knapsack to go home. Colin’s was just a few hooks away. I could hear him talking to Jay Stringer in the back of the room, near Main Street. Julia was standing with them, trying again to convince Jay about her stupid tinfoil UFO and how it was going to fly up and down the street on a stupid invisible wire. She still hadn’t gotten her project approved.

I reached over and unzipped Colin’s bag. There was his denim-covered binder stuffed with falling-out papers, a paperback, and the cheese sandwich he hadn’t eaten at lunch, soaking through its paper and smelling like pickles. Nothing unusual.

I felt around the bottom of the bag and touched some keys on a ring, resting in a pile of dirt, or maybe crushed leaves. I tipped the bag toward the light and saw that it wasn’t a pile of dirt—it was a pile of crumbs. Bread crumbs.

I patted the back of the bag, felt a lump, reached behind his binder, and pulled out two of Jimmy’s rolls. They were flaking all over the place. Colin must have grabbed them straight out of the delivery bag when nobody was looking.

Things You Give Away

I dropped the rolls back into Colin’s bag, pulled my coat on, threw my knapsack over one shoulder, and took the stairs two at a time. There was a mob of kids outside like always, pushing and laughing and standing around talking, even though it was still freezing and had started to rain. I took a minute to look for Sal, like I always do. No sign of him. I wound Mom’s scarf around my ears, turned north, and started walking up the hill to Annemarie’s.

It didn’t make sense. Not that Colin had taken the rolls—in fact, that was just the kind of thing I expected from Colin. But my brain was yelling all kinds of other questions at me: How could anyone possibly have known that Colin would take the rolls? And when had the note been put in my coat pocket? It didn’t occur to me that you could have left it there the same day you put the first note in my library book about the squirrel village. I didn’t get that at all, until much later.

And why me? I jumped a gutter full of rainwater and took the last steps to Annemarie’s building. Why was I the one getting notes? Why did I have to do something about whatever bad thing was going to happen? I didn’t even understand what I was supposed to do! Write a letter about something that hadn’t happened yet?

“Miranda,” my brain said. “Nothing is going to happen. Someone is playing with you.” But what if my brain was wrong? What if someone’s life really needed saving? What if it wasn’t a game?

Annemarie’s doorman waved me in. Upstairs, her father answered the door with an unlit cigar in his mouth and asked me whether I wanted some cold noodles with sesame sauce.

“Uh, no thanks.”

“Fizzy lemonade, then?” He helped me tug my wet coat off—the lining was all stuck to my sweater.

So I walked into Annemarie’s room balancing my lemonade and an ice water for her, along with a dish of almonds that her father had somehow warmed up. Warm almonds sounds kind of yuck, but in reality they taste pretty good.

Annemarie was still in her nightgown, but she looked normal. “My dad won’t stop feeding me,” she said, taking a handful of nuts. “And he won’t let me get dressed. He says pajamas are good for the soul. Isn’t that so dumb?”

I sat on the edge of her bed. “Is that the rose?” It was on her bedside table in a tiny silver vase, just the kind of thing they would have at Annemarie’s house.

She nodded and looked at it. The rose was perfect—just opening, like a picture in a magazine.

“I tried to draw it,” Annemarie said. She held out a little spiral pad of heavy white paper. She’d sketched the rose in dark pencil, over and over.

“Wow,” I said. “I didn’t know you could draw like that.”

She flipped the pad closed. “My dad shows me tricks sometimes. There are a lot of tricks to drawing. I can show you.”

But I knew I could never draw like that, for the same reason I couldn’t do Jimmy’s V-cut or get my Main Street diagrams to look good.

“Hey,” I said, “maybe your dad left you the rose.”

“Maybe.” She frowned, and I felt a little piece of myself light up. “He says he didn’t, though.”

“But it would explain how the person got upstairs, why the doorman didn’t buzz you.” I could feel my lips making a smile. “Your dad is so nice. It has to be him.”

I was miserable, sitting on the edge of her bed in that puddle of meanness. But I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want Annemarie’s rose to be from Colin. Maybe I couldn’t stand for her to have so many people, and to be able to draw and cut bread on top of that. Maybe I wanted Colin for myself.

Annemarie’s dad stuck his head through the doorway. “Anybody need a refill?”

“No thanks,” I said, even though my glass was empty and my back teeth were packed with chewed nuts. “I have to go.”

“Stay for five more minutes,” he said. “I put your coat in the dryer.”

So I had to sit there, thirsty, and then I had to put on my dry, warm, but still-dirty coat and take the elevator down to Annemarie’s lobby, where the lamps glowed yellow and the doorman remembered my name. It had stopped raining.