A Mango-Shaped Space (12 page)
I look at her in horror. I couldn’t possibly see any more doctors. Especially one who would “clear this up.”
“That boy Roger sounded pretty concerned on the phone,” she continues. “I hope you’re not playing around with the computer instead of —”
“Mom,” I interrupt, “I’ve got it all under control. Don’t worry.” I push my way past her and head up to my room. I repeat this to myself as I climb the stairs.
Under control. Under control.
I pull my art project out from the closet and stare at it. Karen said it showed a good understanding of Kandinsky’s style, but that I went overboard in composition. All I did was paint what I saw. I stick it back in the closet and find myself wondering what Adam would think of it. I open my math book and then shut it again. I wonder if Adam likes math.
In the morning, Zack, Jenna, and I shiver as we wait for the school bus.
“I heard there’s a new driver this week,” Zack announces.
“Great,” Jenna moans. “The last time we had a new driver, we didn’t get to school until second period.”
“And that was a bad thing?” I ask.
“By the way, Mia,” Jenna says, rubbing her hands together for warmth. “You were supposed to call me yesterday. I thought we had a” — she glances at Zack and lowers her voice to a whisper — “a PIC mission.”
I whisper back, “We did?”
She pulls me aside. “The love potion?” she prompts, then rolls her eyes when she sees I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“We were going to take some of your sister’s magic stuff and make a love potion for Kimberly!”
“For that seventh-grader she likes?” I ask. “I just read her e-mail about that this weekend.”
“We’ve been talking about it at lunch all week. Haven’t you been listening?” I’m about to argue that I did listen, but we both know it would be a lie.
“We’ll do it tonight, okay?” I promise her, even though I had been planning on trying out the music-in-the-bathtub experiment. But I don’t want Jenna to be any angrier with me.
“I guess so,” she mutters. “But you’re the one who has to tell Kimberly why we don’t have it.”
By the time the bus finally lurches to our stop, I’m more than happy to get on it.
Just as I break the news to Kimberly at lunch, I feel a hard tap on my shoulder. I turn around to see Roger. He doesn’t look happy.
“Yes?” I say. The rest of my table is watching, except for Sara, who keeps her nose buried in a book as usual.
“We’re supposed to be having lunch together,” he says, smiling through gritted teeth. Kimberly whistles and Roger’s face reddens.
“The history project,” he says, “Remember?”
I think for a minute. “I remember there was something I forgot. Does that count?”
He doesn’t look amused. “Can we please go work on this now?” He gestures to a table in the last row of the cafeteria. “Everyone else is waiting for you.” He turns and sort of shuffles away. I remember he hurt his ankle in gym class last month. See? I don’t forget everything.
“I think he’s really mad at you,” Jenna says.
“Gee, how could you tell?” I ask.
“Even the tips of his ears were red,” she replies. “Were you just going to blow him off?” I know she wants to add “Like you blew me off yesterday?”
I toss my half-eaten sandwich into my lunch bag and feel myself starting to get angry. “So what if I was?”
Sara lifts her head from her book. “That’s pretty irresponsible, Mia,” she says.
“Great,” I say, pushing my chair back from the table. “I didn’t think any of you would understand what I’m going through. I’m sorry if schoolwork isn’t my first priority right now. Or even my second.”
I grab my stuff and head toward Roger’s table, but not before I hear Kimberly ask Jenna what my problem is. Like
I’m
the one with the problem.
I sit down with my group and give them a halfhearted smile. Nobody smiles back, but at least Roger nods in my direction. Jonah and Laura are in the middle of an argument. I sip my chocolate milk and listen.
“I just don’t think dropping the atom bomb qualifies. It was war, after all,” Jonah says, pushing his long hair away from his eyes. His hair is so long he could braid it like a girl’s. “Plus, besides slavery, everyone’s going to choose it.”
“So what’s wrong with something obvious?” Laura responds, after swallowing a huge forkful of chocolate cake. I can see it stuck in her braces from where I’m sitting. “It would make the research easier, right?”
“I want our project to be unique,” Jonah says. “We’ll get a better grade that way. How about the Rosenbergs?”
“Who?” Laura asks. I don’t know who they are either.
“In the 1950s the government accused them of being spies and executed them,” Jonah says, his hair swinging around him as he speaks excitedly. “It was the first time a married couple had been executed. Also something about the first time American citizens were executed for spying in peacetime. It was very controversial.”
“Were they really spies?” asks Laura.
“It’s possible they were framed,” Jonah replies. “I think the government was trying to make an example out of them. It could be the perfect project.”
“Wait,” Roger says eagerly. “I know what we can do. So does Mia.”
I almost choke on my milk. “I do?”
“Remember in fifth grade you did that model of a slave ship for art class?”
“Roger, we already decided against slavery,” Jonah says. “What’s wrong with the Rosenbergs?”
“Nothing’s wrong with them,” Roger replies quickly. “But this is a slavery story that I don’t think many people know about.”
“No one else here knew anything about the Rosenbergs,” Jonah mutters into his soda.
“You remember my slave ship after all this time?” I ask.
Roger shrugs. “I thought it was really good. It floated and everything.”
I smile at the memory. “Only for about ten seconds. Then it fell apart, and the papier mâché clogged up the drain in the art-room sink for a month.”
“What’s so unique about a slave ship?” Laura asks. I’m tempted to tell her about the cake in her braces.
“This is a particular slave ship,” Roger answers impatiently. “Our art teacher told us about it. Remember, Mia?”
I did remember, what with history being my best subject and all. I sit up straighter now that everyone is expecting something from me. “She told us about this slave ship full of people from West Africa. They called themselves ‘Ibos.’” I pause for a second, picturing the colors associated with the date. I translate them back into numbers and come up with 1803. “The ship landed in America in 1803, and the people on board decided they would rather die than become slaves. So they sang a hymn and marched right into the water. Most of them drowned, and the slave traders were really mad.”
“So what do you think?” Roger asks, eyeing everyone in turn.
Jonah is the first to speak. “How come we haven’t heard about this before?”
Roger shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe you haven’t had the right teachers.”
“I think it’s perfect,” Laura says, stabbing her plastic fork into the last chunk of cake.
“Let’s do it,” Jonah says.
Roger beams at me as if it were all my idea. All I did was remember the story. “Okay then,” he says, crumpling up his empty lunch bag. “We can meet next week at my house to divide up the work. Any day except Wednesday — that’s when I have acupuncture on my ankle.”
I immediately think of the woman I read about on the Web site. She made acupuncture sound so amazing. She said that because of her synesthesia, her senses just came alive. Maybe that could happen for me. We decide to meet at Roger’s house after school on Tuesday. I’ll have to get Beth to pick me up. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled. Laura and Jonah start arguing about how to split up the project, so I decide to ask Roger a few questions.
“Does it hurt?” I ask. “Don’t they stick long needles in you?”
“Not only do they stick them in,” he says, “but sometimes they twist them around or attach an electrical current to the ends of them. It’s a little uncomfortable, but it doesn’t really hurt. Why?”
The gears are turning in my brain. If it didn’t really hurt, then maybe I should try it. All in the name of research, right? If I could see even a bit of what that woman saw, I could carry that image with me forever, and I bet my paintings would be amazing.
I hear Roger calling my name, but it sounds far away. All I can think of are those colors the woman described.
“Mia!” Roger says loudly, waving his hands in front of my face. “I asked you a question.”
Just then the bell rings for next period. I toss my paper bag in the trash and realize Roger is still standing there.
“Yes?”
“I asked why you wanted to know about the acupuncture.”
“No reason,” I tell him, making a mental note to come up with a good reason tonight.
“Okay,” he says, slinging his book bag over his shoulder and looking away from me. “See you later then.” Without waiting for a response, he hobbles out of the cafeteria. I walk to math class alone, wishing the day were already over. I arrive to find a crowd standing in front of the blackboard shaking their heads. The words surprise quiz today are written in huge letters. The teacher comes in and announces we have two minutes to review the basic algebra formulas from last week.
My first instinct is to hide in the bathroom, but then I’d definitely fail. If I take the quiz, then I may be able to squeeze by with a D. I hurry to my desk and fling open my math book. Memorizing the formulas was the one thing I totally could have done if only I’d paid attention. I reach into my book bag for a pencil, and my fingers fall on the Magic Markers I use in art class. I pull them out, and an idea forms in my head. I’ve never cheated on anything before, but I can’t fail another math test. It would be too humiliating. And summer school would be too horrible for words. I only have a minute left now, so I quickly pull off the caps on the markers and start drawing a rainbow on my jeans. Only it’s not really a rainbow. The colors stand for the letters in the equations. Maroon is
x
, gray is
y
, and light blue is
z.
Yellow is
a
, brown is
b
, and red is
c.
That should do it. All I have to do is put the colors in the right order, and I can tell at a glance what the formula is.
Twenty minutes later the short quiz is over, and the teacher grades them at her desk. We’re supposed to be reading ahead in our math books, but I can’t help sneaking glances at her. When she’s done, she stands up and passes them back to us.
“Excellent, Mia,” she says, placing my paper lightly on my desk. She pauses for a second before moving on to the boy behind me.
I finally got my big, beautiful sunflower-yellow A. I’m so proud of myself that I forget to be ashamed.
“C’mon, Beth, other people have to use the bathroom too. If we miss the bus, you’ll have to drive us to school.” I’m banging on the bathroom door while Zack leans listlessly against the wall next to me. “You’ve been in there for an hour.”
“I’m shaving!” she yells out. “Do you want me to cut myself?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?” I reply.
A minute later the door opens, and before I can get in, Zack suddenly springs to life and beats me to it.
“Better work on those reflexes,” Beth says as she walks past me, her hair wrapped in a towel.
This is one of those times when being an only child would be really, really good. There’s no way I’ll have time to shower now, so I might as well check if Adam responded to my e-mail about the acupuncture. I throw on my clothes and hurry downstairs.
DEAR MIA
,
THE ACUPUNCTURE SOUNDS GREAT! IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A GOOD FAKE SYMPTOM, ALLOW ME TO SUGGEST AN EARACHE. THE ONLY THING I’VE EVER DONE TO TRY TO ENHANCE MY SYNESTHESIA WAS TO GET REALLY DRUNK ON EGGNOG ONE CHRISTMAS. I LEARNED MY LESSON, THOUGH, WHEN ALL I SAW FOR THE NEXT FIVE HOURS WAS THE INSIDE OF THE TOILET BOWL. YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY GO, NO MATTER WHAT, EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO SNEAK AROUND BEHIND YOUR PARENTS’ BACKS. I CAN WRITE YOU A FAKE DOCTOR’S NOTE IF YOU WANT.
LEMME KNOW
,
ADAM
The fake doctor’s note sounds a bit extreme, but there’s no way my parents would let me go if I asked. I’m very lucky to have Adam to write to, not only because he’s the only one who understands me, but because I seem to be fighting with everyone in my family. Just yesterday Zack declared I was acting all superior because I told him I was too busy to help him study for his vocabulary test. I told him that maybe, just maybe, my brain actually
was
more superior than his and that my colors are an advancement in evolution. He said that more likely I’m some kind of a throwback, and now he’s been calling me the Missing Link. I don’t think it’s very funny.
“Mia,” my mother calls out as I’m leaving the small office. “You have a phone call.”
I quickly delete the letter, run up to her room, and take the phone. “It’s Jerry,” she says. I can’t imagine what he wants, but I’m just relieved it isn’t my math teacher calling to accuse me of cheating. I say hello.
“Hi, Mia. Your mother said you’re about to leave for school, so I’ll make this fast. The funding just came through to bring a group of synesthetes together over Thanksgiving weekend for a few days of comparing notes. We’ll have group discussions, and basically you’ll all get to learn from one another. You’re one of the lucky ones, since you live only a couple of hours from here. Do you think you’d like to participate?”
My eyes widen. “Definitely!”
“Good. Why don’t you put your mother back on the phone, and I’ll give her the details?”
“Okay,” I say. “Hey, can I bring someone with me who might be a synesthete too? His name’s Billy Henkle.”
“Of course. Have his parents contact me.”
“I don’t really know how to reach his parents,” I admit.
“But you know his last name, right? Just look in the phone book.”
What on earth is wrong with me that I didn’t think of that before? I feel like a huge idiot as I hand the phone back to my mother.
“Who’s Billy?” Mom asks, holding her hand over the mouthpiece.