A Whole Lot of Lucky (12 page)

The class snickers. Mrs. Fuller pinches her mouth. “Miss Simms. Do you have a clinic pass or excuse for your absences this week?”

“I'll make sure you get one, Mrs. Fuller.”

Mrs. Fuller's thin lips form a straight line. “Well, then. Enough chatting—let's get on with today's lesson.”

I risk glancing backward. Nikki Simms looks right at me. Her blue eyes are wide and innocent, but the corner of her mouth lifts in a joke, a joke between her and me. If my mom had heard Mrs. Fuller talking about getting off the plane in Rome, she would've called her Lady Fuller.
Full of herself.
Ooh—good one. If I were sitting next to Nikki, I'd pass it to her on a note and she'd smile when she read it.

Civil War: Brother against Brother
is the chapter we are to silently read.

It describes how when the Civil War started, not everyone agreed as to people having different stations in life simply due to the color of their skin or the country of their origin. “Some people ardently believed in the words of our Declaration,” the book reads, “which states that all men are created equal. And these people were willing to fight to make that equality a reality. Brothers, relatives, and friends found themselves facing each other from opposite lines on the battlefield.”

I don't think I could do that, war or not. I couldn't hurt my sister or Amanda even if the president himself asked me to.

* * *

“What do you think of Mrs. Fuller?” I ask Emily as we push the book cart through the library, my first Library Club meeting after school.

“She's okay.”

“Some people think she's kind of snobby.”

Emily shrugs. “She's okay.”

Dewey Decimal Does It Right!
A poster cheers us on. Dewey Decimal is a book with arms and legs, huge eyes and a great big smile. You can tell he loves the library by his enthusiastic strut and the way his elbow is cocked, as if he's about to say,
Oh, boy!

We're shelving fiction, which is easy, because it's in alphabetical order by author's last name. The only time I don't know what to do is when the author has two
names, such as Margaret Peterson Haddix or Frances Hodgson Burnett. Do they go under the first last name or the second last name? I don't want to look stupid by asking Emily.

What would Dewey do … what would Dewey do? I glance up at the poster.

Dewey would want readers to find the books. I place half the copies in the first last name area and the other half in the second last name area.

Done with that job, Emily and I have twenty minutes to kill. The other two members of the club, whose names I don't remember, are upstairs, lucky them. They got to file the nonfiction books and now they get to polish all the gleaming honey-colored banisters and handrails. The lemony smell wafts its way down to the main floor.

The librarian suggests that we silently read, but I already do that at home. Clubs are supposed to be exciting. Like, we're in the Library Club, we should be making plans to visit the Library of Congress, or have a famous author visit us, or even take a field trip to the downtown library.

I slap the table, waking everybody up. “I know what we should do!” I say to Emily. “We should make a display of staff favorites like on your website!”

Emily's glasses magnify the look of delight in her eyes. “I always wanted to do that!”

Mrs. Weston, the media specialist, says, “I've had the same idea!”

Even the girls upstairs call out their agreement.

All of a sudden we are in motion. We quickly declare some rules: each person picks out one book, except Mrs. Weston, who picks out one for each grade. We'll put up new favorites once a month. It takes all four of us girls to lug an unused bookcase from behind the main desk to the front. While we're doing that, Mrs. Weston prints out fancy name cards that she'll post over our selections.

So many books—I don't want to leave any out. I run around and end up with a pile of twelve books that I cut down to three by closing my eyes and pressing one fingertip to three different spines. I'm excited over my selections. Bright, colorful covers say,
Hey, I'm fun. Check me out!
One has a cat on the cover and hairclips because the girl in the book makes the cat wear fancy hairdos. My books are a ribbon of pink hijinks.

“Everyone will see what we've picked!” Emily says, dropping her own collection on the table near the display shelf. “This is going to be great!”

I'm holding one of my girly-girl books in midair when I play back what Emily just said. “Everyone will see what we've picked.” Everyone. Everyone means Nikki. I look at my selections through Nikki's eyes and see that I've picked cotton candy and rainbows.

Nikki will think I'm a little girl. She might not say “hey” to me anymore.

Grabbing my choices, I quietly let them fall into the
book drop so I don't have to bother with them, then I search my brain and the aisles for just the right one to put under my name. Everyone will see what we've picked. This isn't just staff favorites anymore, I realize; by selecting the right books, I could be a new, cooler Hailee.

What books would Cool Hailee read? I pass up wizards and boyfriend problems and a few skulls. Cool Hailee reads cool books—nothing sweet, nothing with grandmas in it, and nothing pink. Cool Hailee also doesn't read the books everyone talks about because Cool Hailee doesn't follow the crowd.

I quickly exhaust fiction A through G. Up front, Mrs. Weston coos over Emily's selection. I'd better hurry. I round the corner to the Hs.
The Outsiders!
S. E. Hinton, who lots of people think is a guy because that's how cool this book is but really the author is Susan Eloise Hinton.

“Girls, we need to finish up or they'll lock us in!”

I grab Ponyboy, Soda, and Johnny off the shelf and hand
The Outsiders
to Mrs. Weston as she scoots us out. The four of us trade titles, talk about our selections as we head to the front of the school to wait for our rides. Everyone else pulls out a phone and calls or texts their moms.

“Do you need to borrow my phone?” one of the other girls asks when she sees me just standing there.

“She's probably already on her way,” I say, and magically Mom appears. The van loops through the parking lot and squeals to a stop in front of us. I cringe at the
squeaks, the rust, and the fact that my mom was so punctual, the first one here. As I slowly rise, another van pulls up behind her.

Mom gets out wearing her pink shirt with bleach spots and her cut-off shorts; she's carrying Libby, whose after-nap hair is teased high and sticks out at the sides. The other mom pops out in tan capris, a sleeveless white blouse, and hair and makeup that look like she ought to be out shopping on Park Avenue. Her delicate French-manicured fingernails twinkle as she waves. Mom looks like she's dressed to clean this lady's house.

I put my head down and hurry to the car. “Bye, Emily,” I say quickly, but it's too late. The baby magnet has drawn in all the other girls. They surround my mom and fuss over Libby, trying to make her laugh, and she delivers. Story of my life. I think Libby's cute and everything, but sometimes I want to keep things just for myself. When people make a big deal over Libby, it's like they totally forget about me.

When Mom finally gets us on our way home, I say, “Were you doing laundry or something before you came?”

“Just having a snack,” she says, still enjoying how everyone mollycoddled Libby.

“I mean, it looks like you ran out of clothes to wear.”

“What are you talking about? I always wear these clothes.”

“I know.” I can't help but take a sideways look and
compare her to my mental notes on the other mom. “Maybe you should get some new stuff, like capris or some nicer tops.”

“What? You don't like what I have on?” Her voice is jokey.

Mine is not. “It looks a little …” I'm hoping she'll get the idea so I don't have to finish this sentence. “Did you see the other …”

Mom's tone changes. “Did I see the other what, Hailee?”

“The moms here dress differently.” There. I said it. I'm afraid to look at her.

“Well!” She clicks the blinker on. “Maybe the other mothers are afraid of breaking a nail. You're getting a little hoity-toity, aren't you?”

Her lips wrinkle together. Her silence fills the car like an airbag and I'm pushed against my seat, unable to move because of the pressure.

You sent me here,
I want to tell her. The way she juts her jaw is a sign: Warning! Do Not Proceed! Warning! But I can't help myself. “You said Palm Middle wasn't good enough. I'm not getting hoity-toity; I'm trying to be better now and you should, too.” I quote from the school video we watched on the tour. “‘Magnolia isn't just a school; it's a lifestyle.'”

Mom's grip on the steering wheel tightens. In a low voice, she says, “I've done everything I could to give you opportunities I didn't have—”

“I didn't ask to change schools,” I say. “You put me in a rich school, then you criticize the other mothers.”

“No, I don't.”

“Ladies of leisure,” I say. “Afraid of breaking a nail. You call Mrs. Burns something and you don't even know the work she does all day.”

“I'm sick of you talking about these other people like they're something special. Do you know—”

I whip around so quickly, my seat belt locks. “They
are
special. They're special to me. And just so you know, Amanda's mom
never
calls
you
‘Lady Richardson.'”

Mom stares straight ahead as she drives. I sit in the stew of her anger—what I thought was her anger—until she says, “I'm sorry. I shouldn't call Mrs. Burns that.”

“You shouldn't call any of them that,” I say.

The very last molecule of anything positive drains from her face. She looks tired all of a sudden. “That's enough, Hailee, okay?” But her voice is quiet and has no energy behind it.

We ride in silence the rest of the way home.

“Eeeew!” With gloved hands, I pick up a snot rag caught in the weeds along Culver Street. I never realized how many litterbugs live in Palm Hill until I agreed to help Amanda clean up two blocks of Culver. It's her first community project; she has to do at least three to be considered for the Compass Club next year.

Amanda throws some fast food wrappers into the trash bag. “Thank you so much for helping me.”

At Magnolia, we're required to be involved in extracurricular activities and one sport. The Library Club is my activity, and I came to Magnolia too late for sports, which, even though I don't have a favorite, would beat trash picking any day.

Soda cans and beer bottles pop up like prairie dogs along the side of the road. Some of the bottles are smashed, so I pick up different-colored shards the same
way I pick up sea shells—carefully. Dragonflies helicopter above us. Lovebugs pepper the air. I keep an eye out for fire ants.

Candy bar wrappers, potato chip bag, a sneaker. How does someone lose one sneaker? Were they running and a shoe fell off and they were like,
Oh, well, I can't be stopping for a sneaker.

As we ramble along the roadside, picking up things people know they shouldn't be throwing out their car windows, we talk about Palm Middle. Amanda's been eating with other people. I'm glad, because I wouldn't want her to be alone. We chat about her new lunch table, which includes Becca and Tanner Law.

“So,” Amanda asks, “do you like him?”

Pile of dog poop.
That
is not litter and I am
not
picking it up.

“Do I like who?”

Amanda sighs, all exasperated. “Do you like Tanner?”

I completely forgot to think about him. I shrug my shoulders. “I don't know yet. Is that what he talks to you about?” I do like the idea of being on someone's mind.

“Well, he talks about other stuff, too,” Amanda says.

The sheen on her arms is speckled with dirt and something purple. Wisps frizz out from her ponytail, sticking to her red face. She will be tan tomorrow. I will be burned with more freckles. Or I will be less
white with darker freckles. Either way, I'm frying. My skin crisps like bread in a toaster.

The whole time we work, cars whiz by, there being no stop sign on this stretch, but then a white convertible slows as it passes. The brake lights flash, and the car backs up.

Nikki Simms leans out from the backseat. Darkened eyelashes, shiny lips. An older, bored version of her sits in the front and some guy is driving.

“What are you doing?” Nikki asks.

I'm standing here, covered in sweat and garbage, and wearing rubber gloves. Just stamp
Loser
on my forehead.

“Community service.” She'll never be my friend after this.

Amanda steps up. She knows who I'm talking with, I can tell, and now I wish I hadn't let her believe Nikki and I were such good friends. She says, “I'm applying for the Compass Club, and one of the projects was neighborhood cleanup. Hailee's helping me.”

Nikki gives me the once-over. “Cool.”

“Are you done yet?” the older girl asks. She's got to be Nikki's sister. She takes a drag from a cigarette and flicks the ashes into the gutter.

Nikki drains a soda can and holds it out. “Allow me to contribute to the cause.”

I can't tell if we're being made fun of or not, so I trudge up with the trash bag and she tosses the can.

Amanda moves right in. “Are you Nikki?”

I could die right now, except I see a trace of Nikki's lopsided grin. She could've beaten me up, but instead she helped me. People move out of the way for her. The Pantheon is to your left.

A long plume of smoke pipes from the front of the car. “I'm getting hot,” the sister says.