Ann Martin - Shannon's Story

afternoon. When I finally stood up to take a break over an hour had passed.

I looked out the window. Tiffany was still in the garden. She wasn't digging now. In fact, she wasn't doing much of anything. She looked as if she were just sitting there. And Astrid was still sitting next to her.

She didn't look as if she'd gone on a walk with Astrid and Mom. I decided that I had time to take Astrid for a good long walk before our father got home for dinner. Besides, I reasoned, if I did any more math, it was going to spoil my appetite.

Slamming the math book shut, I headed down to get Astrid's leash.

"Shannon?" My mother's disembodied voice came from the kitchen this time.

I felt a twinge of exasperation. Who else did my mom think it would be? "Yes?" I said, unhooking Astrid's leash from the back of the hall closet door.

"Where are you going?"

"Out to take Astrid for a walk," I said.

"Now?" said my mother. She came to the door, holding a stirring spoon in her hand.

"There's plenty of time before dinner," I said.

"It's your turn to set the table, you know," my mother reminded me.

"I know. I'll get it done."

"You don't want to keep me company while I finish up dinner?"

"Let me give Astrid that walk first," I said.

I closed the closet door and turned to see that my mother was frowning. "What is it, Mom?"

"You should wear a jacket," she said. "It's still kind of chilly out."

"This is a heavy sweater. It'll be plenty warm," I answered.

"You really should wear a jacket," my mother insisted.

"Mom! I don't need a jacket!" I heard how sharp my voice sounded and felt bad. But why wouldn't my mother listen to me? Why did she keep treating me as if I were eight years old, like Maria, instead of thirteen and old enough to know whether or not to wear a jacket?

I could tell my mother was about to say something else, and I braced myself, but the telephone came to the rescue with a shrill beep.

"I'll get it!" I said hastily and swooped down the hall and grabbed the receiver. "Hello?"

"Shanny?"

"Hi, Dad. How's it going?"

"I'm not going to be home for dinner.

Would you tell your mom for me?"

So what else is new, I wanted to say. Instead I said, "Okay."

"Work," said my father.

For a moment I thought he was talking about me, asking if I'd finished my homework. I almost told him that I had the math nailed down. But as he went on, I realized he wasn't talking about me at all.

"It's gonna drive me crazy. But what can I do?"

"Okay," I said again.

"Right. Well, I've got to go. See you guys later."

"Okay," I said for the third time. "Goodbye."

But my father had already hung up the phone. I put the receiver down slowly and walked back to the kitchen.

My mother was stirring something on the stove, staring off into space.

"Mom?"

She looked around. "Oh. Shannon. Phone for me?"

"It was Dad," I said.

"He won't be home for dinner, right?" asked my mom.

"Good guess," I said.

She smiled, a little smile that didn't reach her eyes. "I suppose it's some trial, as usual."

My father's a lawyer with a big firm. He works a lot. And lately, he had missed a lot of family dinners. Even more than usual. Some case he'd been working on for a long time was just coming up for trial, a big case that had even been written up in the newspaper.

He barely had time for his Rotary club meetings and board meetings and jogging and lunches and dinners with clients.

Or for dinner at home. Sometimes, he wasn't even home by the time I went to sleep.

I remembered the Fourth of July barbecue again and felt a sudden surge of disappointment. I'd wanted my father to be home for dinner. I'd wanted to sit around the table with my family and talk to them. I'd wanted to listen to my mother and father tell jokes and stories and ask Tiffany how her garden was growing and Maria if going to swim practice every day was turning her hair green.

But I guessed it wasn't going to happen that night.

"I'll go walk Astrid," I said.

My mother didn't mention the jacket again. She just said, "Don't stay out too long. Maria will be home from swim practice soon and it'll be time for dinner."

"I'll set the table as soon as I get back," I offered.

"Fine," said my mother, turning back to the stove.

I called Astrid in from the backyard, waving the leash. Astrid came racing to me with an undignified, doggy grin, wriggling with delight at the prospect of a walk.

"I'm taking Astrid for a walk," I called to Tiffany. "Want to come?"

But Tiffany, who'd turned when I'd called, was already turning baick as she shook her head no. As we left the house, I looked over the fence. Tiffany was still in her garden at the foot of the yard. I could see my mother at the kitchen window on the side of the house, moving slowly back and forth, her head down. My father was still at work. Maria was still at swim practice.

It made me feel weird. Like my family was a bunch of those magnetized marbles that roll around all over the place and sometimes come together and stick and sometimes repel each other like they don't belong together at all. It was as if we were all in the "marble-repel" mode. We might look alike, we might look as if we belong to the same family.

But right now, we didn't feel like it. I felt weird. And sort of sad, somehow.

Chapter 2.

"Big day today at school?" asked my mother.

I gulped down my orange juice and said, "Well, uh . . ."

Tiffany didn't say anything. Dad didn't say anything either because he had already left for his office.

Maria said, "We've got a killer practice this afternoon."

"You have swim practice this afternoon, too?"

Maria looked at Mom in surprise. "Of course," she said.

"The bus is here," I said and we made a break for the door.

"Shannon?"

"Uh, yeah, Mom?"

"You'll be home this afternoon, of course."

"French Club meeting, then Baby-sitters Club," I said. " 'Bye. . . ."

I hurried out of the house before Mom could ask me any more questions. She knew I had BSC meetings every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Why didn't she ever listen? Plus I hated when the bus driver sat there with the door open, waiting, while everybody watched from the windows as I ran toward the bus. Maria might like sports, but beyond soccer at school, which I happen to like a lot, I'm not into running or moving fast. I like to do things at my own speed, my own way. It is one of the things that makes me a good student — that and the fact that I like school.

It's true. In spite of having to wear uniforms (we all do at Stoneybrook Day School, from kindergarten right on up) and having major amounts of homework and a lot more rules than, say, Stoneybrook Academy, or Stoneybrook Middle School, I like learning things. And I like having teachers who know the things I want to learn.

In spite of how conservative it is, SDS is pretty good about letting you take interesting courses. For instance, this year, I was taking advanced French, accelerated math, and philosophy, I was playing soccer for my gym credit, and I was taking an astronomy unit as part of my science requirement — an astronomy unit that I had set up with four other

kids. Sometimes, if you are interested in a subject, SDS will even let you set up a unit for credit, a unit you study with just the teacher, like an independent study in college. But then, at SDS, you're expected to go to college.

SDS even looks a little bit like a college campus. It's made up of four redbrick buildings set around a grass courtyard and connected to each other and to the administration office in the front by covered walkways. The offices are in an old house (the land for the school was donated by the woman who used to live in the house), and the gym and the track and playing fields are in the back. Of course, the fact that all of the students are wearing uniforms lets you know right away that we aren't really on a college campus, even if seeing all the little kids in kindergarten didn't give it away.