Absolutely Almost (20 page)

W
hen I gave the note to Mrs. Rouse the next morning, all that happened was she read it, and she looked at me, and then she looked back at the note, and she said, “Thank you, Albie. You can sit down now.”

That was it.

I don't know what I was so worried about. I didn't get in trouble at all.

T
he worst thing that happens is always the one thing you thought would never, ever happen.

“Where's Calista?” I asked when my mom picked me up on the blacktop after school that day. Mom never picked me up. It was always Calista.

“Albie,” Mom said. She reached her hand out to take my backpack from me, but I didn't want to give it to her. I didn't like the way she said “Albie.” It was the way to say it that had bad news after it. “I need to talk to you about something.”

“Where's Calista?” I said. We followed the other kids and their nannies and parents out to the sidewalk, and Mom still didn't answer. “Where's Calista?” I asked again, because I thought maybe she didn't hear me. “Is she sick?”

“Albie.”

We were on the corner, next to a garbage can overflowing with garbage, and Mom knelt down to look at me while we waited for the light. She looked like she didn't want to say what she was about to say. I felt hot all of a sudden inside my puffy jacket, like I was coming down with a fever.

“Calista isn't going to be your babysitter anymore,” my mom said.

I couldn't breathe when she said that. I couldn't blink.

“Albie, sweetie. Look at me.”

“Did she get hurt?” I asked. “Did she move?” I couldn't believe Calista would just decide not to be my babysitter without even telling me. She taught me how to draw superheroes. She took me for donut days.

She said I was smart.

“Calista . . .” My mom's eyes darted across the street. The cars were stopped at the light, and she wanted to cross, I could tell, but I wasn't moving. I'd forgotten how. “Calista lied, Albie,” my mom said, turning back to me. “I don't feel safe having someone take care of you who I can't trust, so I had to let her go.”

“She
lied
?” I asked. That didn't sound like Calista. Calista wasn't a liar.

Mom sighed. “Why didn't you tell me she'd taken you to the zoo last week instead of going to school, Albie? I didn't even find out about it until your teacher called me at work this morning to ask about a suspicious note.”

My stomach had a rock in it, a real rock, hard and round and heavy.

“Calista didn't write that note!” I shouted. I saw Sage Moore staring at me as he walked by with his older sister, but I didn't care. This was worth yelling about. “I wrote that note. Calista didn't lie about anything. Call her back and tell her you want her to be my babysitter again.” I tugged at my mom's purse, trying to find her phone. “You have to.” I tugged and tugged.

“Albie, stop it!” Mom said. She straightened up to standing.

“But you
have
to!” I was crying then, and more kids were staring. Laughing too. But I didn't care about them either. I couldn't believe this was all my fault. I couldn't believe my mom fired Calista and it was all because of me, because I signed my mom's name on a stupid piece of paper. I should've signed it better. If I was better at signing, this never would've happened.

“Mom, you
have
to!”

“I'm sorry, Albie.”

That was all she said.

A
fter my mom had to race back to work, I found Calista's phone number on the list of emergency contacts on the bulletin board in the kitchen. I knew I probably shouldn't call it.

I called it.

“
This is Calista.
” It was her voice mail. “
I can't answer the phone right now, so please leave a message.
”

I left a message.

“It's Albie,” I said. “I was just calling because . . .” I stopped talking. Because actually, I wasn't so sure what I wanted to say. I'd never called Calista's phone before, and it was weird.

I looked at the fruit in the bowl on the counter. I knew I should finish talking and hang up, because any minute Harriet the cleaning lady was going to be done vacuuming in my parents' room and come out to the kitchen and be mad at me for being on the phone, because it wasn't in her job description to watch children, and it wasn't worth the extra cash.

“It was my fault, about the note,” I said into the phone. “I'm sorry.”

I wanted to say something else, but I couldn't think of anything. That was all there was to say.

I hung up the phone.

T
hat night at bedtime, Mom knocked on my bedroom door, because it was closed.

“Time for bed, Albie,” she said, even though I was already under the covers. Mom sat down on the edge of my bed. I was reading a new Captain Underpants book, and it didn't even have the fake
Johnny Treeface
title on it, but Mom didn't say anything about that. She tucked the covers up around my armpits, even though I was way too old for tucking. She leaned over and kissed my forehead.

“I love you, Albie,” she said.

“You do?” I asked. I couldn't help it.

“Yes.” She smoothed back my hair. “You are caring and thoughtful and good.” She blinked at me, and that's when I started to wonder if maybe she'd been crying earlier.

“I do the best I can,” she told me. She said each word real slow. “At being your mother. I don't always know how, but . . . I try.”

I thought that was a weird thing to say. Because I never thought before about being a mom as something you had to try at, like math or spelling. Being a mom was just something you
were.

“I only want you to be safe,” she said, still talking slow. “That's all I want for you. Safe and happy.”

I wanted to be mad at her. I wanted to be so, so mad.

“I know,” I said. I wriggled my arms out from under the covers and set them on top. “But maybe you don't have to worry about me so much all the time.”

“Oh, Albie,” Mom said, leaning over close for another kiss on my forehead. “Of course I do. I'm your mother.”

T
here was a new kid in school. Darissa, that was her name. I knew because even though she had a different teacher, she was in math club, like me.

“Albie,” Mr. Clifton said when he was introducing her to the class, “would you like to be Darissa's buddy this week?”

“Buddy?” I said.

“Sure.” He showed Darissa to her seat, the one right next to mine. “Make sure she knows where the nurse's office is, maybe hang out with her during recess, that sort of thing.”

“Okay,” I said. “I guess.”

“She's new to the city too, so maybe you can give her some helpful pointers.”

I raised my eyebrows at that. I had
loads
of helpful pointers.

Darissa smiled a friendly smile at me as she scooched into her desk.

“Don't worry,” Mr. Clifton told her before he walked back to the front of the room. “You're in good hands with Albie.”

I smiled back at the new girl. “I'll tell you everything you need to know,” I said.

O
n Science Friday, it was Betsy's turn to bring something in. She brought in a bug she found hiding under a bench in her apartment lobby. It was a “boxelder bug,” she said. She'd looked it up. It was big and mostly black with some bright red marks, and awesome gross red eyes. It was still alive, in a big empty pickle jar. Betsy had poked holes in the lid, and she had some twigs in there and grass, for it to eat, I guess.

It was pretty cool. Maybe not as cool as Darren's dad's bug that he brought in, but it was still alive, which was way better. She went through the aisles so we could all look at it, and when she got to Darren and Sage, they tried to pretend like they weren't interested, but you could tell they really were.

She skipped right past my desk. I think it was probably on purpose, since Betsy seemed like she was still mad at me.

When it was time for questions, I kept raising my hand, but Betsy didn't call on me, only Tasha in the front row. Darren kept laughing every time Betsy answered a question, and making fake stuttering noises to Sage. He was sort of quiet so Mrs. Rouse couldn't hear, but I heard it. I think Betsy did too.

I wish she would've called on me when I had my hand up. I wanted to tell her I thought her bug was the coolest one I ever saw.

Then again, maybe it was good she didn't call on me. I don't think Betsy likes things that are cool.

• • •

It happened at recess. Darren stole Betsy's bug, right out of her hands. I saw it from where I was sitting, at the bench, showing the new girl Darissa my Captain Underpants book (which was what I normally read during recess, because of not having any friends). Well, first I heard Betsy shouting, and then I saw that Darren had the bug in the pickle jar, and then I figured out that he'd taken it.

“G-g-g-give m-me that!” Betsy shouted.

Darren was holding it high over his head, and Betsy was reaching for it, but she couldn't get it. Sage and Candace and them were laughing.

“M-m-make me!” Darren said.

Betsy was trying not to cry, I could tell. Her hands were balled up into fists.

I closed my book.

I stood up.

I left my Captain Underpants book on the bench with Darissa, and I went over.

I didn't know what I was going to do—try to make Darren give the bug back, I guess. I didn't know. I wasn't sure why I wanted to help Betsy so bad, because we weren't friends anymore. She wouldn't talk to me. She wouldn't even
look
at me. But Darren was being mean, and that wasn't right. So I closed my book and I stood up and I went over there.

I was too late.

Before I even got there, Darren unscrewed the lid on the pickle jar, and the bug hopped right out. Betsy scrambled to catch it, but it was too fast. It was zoom, zoom,
gone.
Lost in the bushes.

“Oops!” Darren said. But even I could tell it hadn't been an accident.

What was I supposed to do then?

Darren and Sage and Candace and them walked away, laughing, and I picked the jar up off the grass and handed it to Betsy. It still had the twigs and grass in it.

“Here,” I said.

Betsy took it, but she didn't look at me.

She left the lid in the grass.

• • •

When we got back to class after recess, Darren's desk was on the ground, toppled over. The papers were falling out everywhere, ripped and torn. His pencils were broken in half. Everyone stopped in the doorway and gasped.

“Who did this?” Mrs. Rouse hollered at us. “Who would do such a thing? This is unacceptable.”

We filed into the classroom slowly, one at a time, all staring at Darren and his desk. He was seething angry. Everyone was staring at Darren, shouting by his desk. “What the
heck
? What the
heck
?”

I wasn't staring at Darren, though. I looked over at Betsy. Her eyes were on the wall, not on Darren and his desk. She bit her bottom lip, the way she did when she was nervous, and she just blinked.
Blink. Blink.
Over and over.

“Who
did
this?” Mrs. Rouse said again.

“I did.”

It was me who said it, even though it was a lie. I didn't topple over anything.

But I knew who did. And I didn't really think that person should get in trouble when they weren't the person who was mean in the first place.

“Albie!” Mrs. Rouse shouted. She seemed shocked. “What got into you?”

I glanced at Betsy. She seemed shocked too. “I, um . . .” I shrugged. “I was just angry, I guess.”

Mrs. Rouse made me help Darren clean up his desk, and then she told me she'd let me know when she'd decided on an appropriate punishment for me. Detention, probably, or worse.

I didn't care. If I couldn't help Betsy get her bug back, I figured making sure she didn't get detention was the best I could do.

I guess Betsy thought so too. When we were leaving for lunch, she said, “Albie?” really quiet.

“Yeah?” I said.

“Th-thanks,” she told me.

I smiled, and Betsy smiled back. She held out her hand. Inside was a whole bag of gummy bears.

I'm not totally sure, but I think maybe me and Betsy are friends again.