When (v5) - Rebecca Stead

“Let’s go,” Mom said coldly, and I said, “Thanks for having me,” and Annemarie’s dad smiled at me, but only because he’s the nicest person on earth.

The elevator opened right away, so there was no awkward waiting. On the way down, I knew I should apologize, but I just waited for Mom to jump all over me. Instead she burst into tears.

Which made me cry. So we both cried through the lobby, past the doorman, and out into the sunlight, where we magically stopped. She took a deep breath and looked at me. “I was scared,” she said. “When you didn’t come back, I got really scared. Don’t ever do that again.”

I nodded.

“Okay,” she said. “What now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe a movie?”

So that’s what we did. We went to the movies, and ate candy and popcorn, and held hands for a few minutes on the way home.

The laughing man was at his regular post, doing his kicks into the street. When he saw us he yelled, “Smart kid!” But having Mom there made it different, like walking down the street with a blanket wrapped tight around me.

Richard was leaning up against our building, reading a newspaper.

“Hey!” he said. “We had a plan. Did you forget about me?”

He made a sad face, and Mom said, “Oh, no! How late am I?” and then she looked at me and we both started laughing.

Richard said, “Seriously. Would it kill you to give me a key?” And Mom shrugged and said it was only three-thirty and she didn’t much feel like going upstairs anyway. So we turned around and went to eat at the diner, which was full of people just waking up and having breakfast.

Things You Realize

It was 1979—a new year, a new decade, almost, but school was still just school. Jay Stringer was still a genius, music assemblies were still boring, and Alice Evans was still too shy to admit when she had to go to the bathroom. The fourth grade’s violin performance had only just started, and already Alice was squirming in her seat next to me. Jay was on my other side, somehow reading a book while listening to the world’s worst music.

I located Sal’s blond head a few rows ahead on my right. I stared at the back of it for a while, trying to see if I could make him turn around with the sheer power of my brain waves, but it was hard to concentrate with Alice doing a Mexican hat dance in her chair. I tried to make a face at Annemarie, who was on the other side of Alice, but Annemarie seemed fully absorbed by the music. She’s extremely non-judgmental that way. So I went back to looking at Sal.

Directly in front of me was Julia. She was obviously as bored as I was—her head kept bobbing around. And then she turned and looked at Annemarie. I glanced over and saw that Annemarie’s eyes were still on the stage. Julia watched Annemarie. And I watched Julia watching Annemarie. And what I saw were eyes that were sixty-percent-cacao chocolate, a face that was café au lait, and an expression that was so familiar it made my whole body ring like a bell. Julia’s look was my look. My looking at Sal.

And suddenly I knew three things:

First, it was Julia who had left the rose for Annemarie.

Second, Julia cared about Annemarie, but Annemarie didn’t see it. Because I was standing in the way.

Third, Alice Evans was about to pee in her pants.

I turned to Alice. “Hey,” I said, “I have to go to the bathroom. Be my partner?”

Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean. It’s like how turning on a light makes you realize how dark the room had gotten. And the way you usually act, the things you would have normally done, are like these ghosts that everyone can see but pretends not to. It was like that when I asked Alice Evans to be my bathroom partner. I wasn’t one of the girls who tortured her on purpose, but I had never lifted a finger to help her before, or even spent one minute being nice to her.

She stopped squirming and looked at me suspiciously. “You have to go?” she said. “Really?”

“Yeah.” And in that moment, I wanted nothing as much as I wanted Alice to feel safe with me. “Really.”

I leaned forward in my seat and waved my arm up and down so that Mr. Tompkin turned to look at me from his seat at the end of the row, and I spoke over the laps of Jay Stringer and Colin, who were sitting between us.

“I have to go to the bathroom.” These words felt like some kind of sacrifice, a precious offering to the universe. I didn’t know why, but Julia’s look had given me this total determination to get Alice Evans to the bathroom before she wet herself.

“Now?” Mr. Tompkin whispered.

“Please!”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine.”

Mr. Tompkin tilted his knees to one side to let us pass, and Jay Stringer and Colin put their heads together and then Jay laughed. My mind processed that—if Jay was the one who’d laughed, then Colin was the one who’d made the joke. A joke about me, maybe. I grabbed Alice’s hand and pulled her after me. And then we were running up the aisle.

Things You Beg For

As soon as Alice went into the bathroom, I ran down the hall toward the office. There were so many things I wanted to do but couldn’t, like hug my mom, or be less jealous of Annemarie, and I didn’t want this to become one of them. But I had to work fast.

“Miranda?” Wheelie looked up at me doubtfully. “Aren’t you supposed to be in assembly?”

“Yes, I am in assembly—I mean, I was, and I’m going right back. Alice is in the bathroom. Can I have a piece of paper?”

“No, ma’am! I don’t have paper to be just giving away.”

“Please—just a little piece. A corner of a piece!” If I didn’t do this now, I never would.

Wheelie sighed. Then, still in her chair, she kicked her way over to the next desk, where there was one of those pink message pads. She ripped off the top sheet, folded it, folded it again, and then carefully ripped the paper along the first fold, and then along the second fold. “Hurry,” my brain said. “Hurry.”

“Here.” She held out a quarter of a pink message slip and looked at me with a face that said “I hope you won’t be coming around here looking for another handout anytime soon.”

I picked up a pen from the counter and scribbled on the little pink square.

“I thought you left me.” Alice was standing in front of the bathroom looking all wounded.

“Me?” I said. “No way.”

She smiled. People seemed to like the new me.

We squeezed back into our row past Colin and Jay Stringer, who whispered and laughed again. Annemarie leaned forward and gave me a where-were-you shrug. I mouthed “Bathroom,” and she nodded and settled back again.

I folded my pink square a couple of times. Then I leaned forward and dropped the note into Julia’s lap. I hadn’t had much time—it was just the one word: TRUCE .

And underneath I’d written my phone number.

Things That

Turn Upside Down

That afternoon, Sal brought Colin home after school. I saw them up ahead of me, taking turns on Colin’s skateboard. One would ride, and the other would bounce Sal’s basketball—they were circling each other and laughing and racing around and I wanted to be part of it so much that my heart almost broke watching. I decided to stop off at Belle’s.

Belle picked up the economy jug of chewable vitamin C she kept behind the register and shook it at me. I nodded, and she tipped four of them into my hand.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Not much.”

“Got some time for the story?”

“Sure. Where were we?”

“Aunt Beast.”

“Right. Aunt Beast. So Aunt Beast’s planet is perfect—it smells great and the food is wonderful and everything is soft and comfortable. But Meg can’t stay there. She has to go back and save her little brother. They left him behind, with IT, remember?”