Fish in a Tree (14 page)

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Keisha and Albert call me Madam President every
chance they get. At the end of the day, we head out the front of the school and I am just. So. Happy. Like I could fly happy.

A loud, sharp voice interrupts my happiness. “What do you
mean,
you lost? You
lost
?”

Shay is standing with her mother.

“After all that time we spent writing that speech?” she says. “Did you
look
at the audience? Did you
speak
up? And smile?”

“I did. I did all of that. The other girl just got more votes.”

Shay sounds like someone completely different. The Shay I know, always so quick to pick a fight, now has a voice that sounds like a kindergartener. “Sorry, Mama.” She brushes a tear from her cheek.

“Man,” Keisha says. “That woman is
fierce.
”

“Geez, I can’t believe it, but I feel sorry for Shay,” I say.

“Uh-uh. No way,” Keisha says. “Don’t be feeling sorry for her. It’s not an excuse to go around doing terrible things to other people.”

“Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

“Have you learned nothing?” she asks. “Of
course
I’m right!” We laugh and she gets on her bus.

All of a sudden, I’m in a rush to get to A. C. Petersen’s.

• • •

Running through the glass doors of Petersen’s, I forget that I was going to be cool about telling my mom that I’m class president. I forget about telling her like it’s any other thing. Instead, I jump up and down and say it loud enough that some of the regulars congratulate me before she does.

Her face says she’s trying to figure out if she heard me right.

“Yes!” I say, nodding furiously. “Mom! They voted
me
class president. The kids in my class! Not the teacher. The
kids
did!”

She holds her arms out and I run into them. “I’m so proud of you,” she says in a shaky voice.

I know why she’s crying. I can’t believe it, either.

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In that foggy time between sleeping and being
awake, before I even open my eyes, I already remember that I am class president. I ask myself if it was a dream, knowing that it wasn’t. Knowing by the way it feels like my insides are rising into the air even before I sit up. It’s like when you wake up on Christmas morning and remember what day it is.

I lie there thinking that I’m happy Mr. Daniels counted the votes in front of everyone. I don’t think I would have believed him if he’d just said I’d won later.

When I get to school, everyone acts the same, but I feel different. I put my stuff away and head to my desk, where I find an envelope with my name on the front. Weird.

I sit down and slide it off the desk. Glancing around, I pull a piece of paper from the envelope. I expect it will be a note from Mr. Daniels congratulating me. But it’s not.

It’s a full page of cursive writing. I recognize some of the words, like
love,
but I don’t know what most of it says. The name at the bottom is Max. I look over at him and he nods once. I look away, feeling like my face must be glowing like Rudolph’s nose.

I fold up the letter and slide it into my pocket, wishing I could read it. I think that when I get home and can study it, I may be able to figure it out. But I can’t stare at it now. I look over at Keisha, who is putting her things in the closet.

“Hey,” she says, sitting down.

“Hey.” My mouth opens to tell her about the note, but she’s not the best person at being quiet about things, and I’m afraid everyone will find out about it.

So I take a deep breath and decide it will have to wait. I don’t have a choice. I’m both happy and mad at myself. Happy about the note and mad I can’t read it. Max is cute and I like the red-and-white football jerseys that he wears all the time. And now that I think he likes me, I think I might like him, too.

“So how does it feel to be president?” Keisha smiles.

Oh yeah. Man, this may be the best week of my entire life. “Same old stuff,” I say.

“Huh. Same old stuff? Already gone to your head?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll still talk to you and everything.”

“Like you could ever ignore me.” We both laugh.

“Okay, my Fantasticos!” Mr. Daniels begins. He reminds us to put our homework in the basket and gets the class helpers working on lunch counts and stuff. And I sit up straighter. Feeling like I have a place in this class.

After Mr. Daniels finishes with the boring morning stuff, he says, “One more thing. Our new class president, Ally Nickerson, has her first student government meeting today. So, if you have any suggestions for her, please let her know. If you have ideas for changes, she’s the one in charge.”

I know that I shouldn’t smile, but keeping my mouth from smiling is like trying to keep Travis from loving cars.

The first suggestion I get is from Oliver. I’m trying to do my work and he stands in front of my desk. “I have a suggestion.”

“Okay. What is it?”

“I think we should be able to bring candy for snacks. Like piles of it. Like dump trucks backing up to the school with the warning beeper going. And then it would dump, like, a huge pile of candy in front of the school and the kids could use shovels to collect it, because that rule they made this year about healthy snacks is dumb and took away the only thing about school I liked and—”

“Oliver?” Mr. Daniels interrupts.

He looks up.

“You have a question?”

“I’m giving my advice to the president. I have an idea.”

He half smiles. “Okay, then. Well, finish up and get back to your seat.”

Oliver looks back at me. “Okay? Can you do that?”

“I’ll try?”

He looks disappointed.

Suki interrupts. “I disagree. The healthier snack rule was good. It is bad for your body to fill with candy.”

He looks over at her. “Stop acting like you’re a grown-up. Geez.”

Other kids give me suggestions, too.

Just before lunch, I hear Shay complaining that if she’d been elected, she’d have started a horseback riding club at school. For a second, I feel bad, and then I realize she couldn’t possibly do that. Horses? Where would we get horses?

I think about starting a Fly to the Moon Every Thursday club. And a mind movie plays in my head of a silver rocket with blue stripes flying to the moon with Keisha, Albert, and me strapped in. Albert calmly explains the energy required to lift the rocket. Keisha is screaming, she’s so happy, and I’m laughing because I’m happy they’re happy.

I’m pulled out of my movie by Shay, who’s standing in front of me. “Everyone agrees. You should go crawl into a hole and never come out.”

“Since I won the election, I guess not everyone feels that way.”

And I’m surprised that instead of saying something back to me, she just stomps off.

• • •

At the end of the day, as we are getting ready to board the buses, Shay tromps up to me with her shadow, Jessica, right behind her. “So, did you get the letter?”

Why is
she
asking me about that?

A little voice in my head warns me. “What letter?”

Shay glances behind her and turns back. “You know. The
letter.
”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

She is impatient. “The letter . . .” She drops her voice to a whisper. “From Max saying you should meet him for lunch. You never showed. He is really disappointed.”

Oh. “He is?”

She glances behind herself again. “So, do you like him?”

“Why did he want to see me at lunch?”

“Ally. You can’t just ignore something like that. It’s
rude
 . . .”

I see Max coming but don’t say anything.

She continues. “He really likes you, so you should answer Max’s letter. And say the thing in it that he says to. Okay? Will you tomorrow?”

“What letter?” he asks.

“Max? Oh, hi,” Shay says, stumbling over her words.

“What letter? You said my name.”

I never thought I’d see Shay unable to talk.

“Actually,” I say, “the love letter Shay says you wrote to me.” I hand it to him. “Thanks very much, but I’m busy.”

“Um . . . wait. I never . . . I didn’t actually . . . ,” he says to me, trying to be nice. Then he looks at the letter and at Shay and Jessica. And he doesn’t look so nice.

Jessica turns pale. But not as pale as Shay does.

Whatever was going to happen at the lunch table is something I’m lucky to have missed. It’s the first time ever I’ve been grateful not to be able to read.

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Mr. Daniels calls me up to his desk. “Here. I have
something for you.”

I’m excited. Until I see it’s a book. Not like I hate them like I used to. But they still scare me.

I stare at it. Hoping he just wants to book talk it. Not actually read it.

“I’d like you to read this.”

I open my mouth to speak, my mind already rolling out multiple excuses.

He puts his hand up. “Listen, Ally. I know it won’t be easy. I know it will take time. But the thing is . . .”

My excuses become harder to say.

“I think you can read this one. And I want you to try.”

I reach out and take the book, which has a picture of a kid holding a goldfish bowl.

I flip through the pages. The book isn’t long, as far as chapter books go. That’s a relief.

I look up at him and hold his gaze. Normally, I’d be giving him all kinds of reasons I can’t do this. But the thing is, Mr. Daniels could hand me a book as heavy as a boulder and I’d try to read it.

Just because he asked me to.

• • •

“Okay, we are going to begin a unit on persuasive writing,” Mr. Daniels says. “So I’d like you to tell me, if you could have an unlimited amount of any single object, what would it be? It can’t be magical, have special powers, or anything like that. Just an ordinary, everyday type of object.”

“Well, obviously”—Shay speaks slowly, like she’s talking to a little kid—“wouldn’t everyone just choose money?”

Albert looks confused. Not something I see too often. “The first thing I thought of was antibiotics.”

“Really?” Mr. Daniels steps forward, putting his hands in his pockets.

“There are many who can’t afford medications, so I would like to give them out to people who need them. All over the world.” Then he seems to be thinking out loud. “I wonder if antibiotics would help or hurt alien life-forms?”

“Well,” Shay sputters, “if you had an unlimited amount of money, you could buy the medicine, right?” I catch her rolling her eyes at Jessica.

He shrugs. “I’d rather just have the medicine.”

“Scotch tape!” Oliver yells. “I’d want Scotch tape!”

Most of us laugh along with him. “And why is that, Oliver?” Mr. Daniels asks.

“Because it’s awesome, that’s why. People don’t think how tough life would be without Scotch tape.”

Mr. Daniels nods. “You may have a point there, Oliver!”

“Or Elmer’s glue. I love Elmer’s glue. If I had barrels of it stored up in the garage, I could cover my hands with it every day. And then peel it off. I love doing that. And it grosses out my mom. I tell her it’s skin.”

Shay makes a noise.

“What?” Oliver asks her.

“That’s ridiculous,” she says.

“What’s ridiculous?” he asks.

“The opinions of others are to be respected,” Mr. Daniels says, but Shay and Oliver talk right over him.

“Wanting tape and glue,” Shay says.

“No it isn’t, because I would also use them with paper to make notes for my little sister. They make her feel better.”

“Make her feel better?” Mr. Daniels seems concerned. “Is she ill?”

“Oh, not anymore. But she had something that was called . . . well . . . it was long. It had five syllables and she had to go to the hospital a lot to sleep over. And when she’d go, I’d visit her and bring cards. And they made her happy. My mom says I was the one who helped her get better.”

“I see. Well, Oliver, you get huge creativity points today.” Mr. Daniels musses his hair. “You’re one of a kind, you know that, Oliver?”

Suki raises her hand. “Grandfather says everyone is unique. Special. Unlike all others. That makes us each great.”

“I like that, Suki!” Mr. Daniels says. “And
you
are indeed great!”

She remains seated but bows a bit. “
Thank
you, sir.”

Mr. Daniels bows back and then stands up straight. “In fact, you’re all great, my fantastic Fantasticos!”

Albert raises his hand and Mr. Daniels nods toward him. “Excuse me, but just because something is unique, that doesn’t mean it’s good. After all, E. coli, a dangerous bacteria, is unlike all others.”

“Point taken, Albert, but I do like that people are all different. What if we all looked the same, thought the same, had the same beliefs?”

“That sounds boring,” Keisha says.

“Indeed it does,” he says.

I think that I wouldn’t mind being more like everyone else. But then I think . . . I wouldn’t want to draw like everyone else. And I wouldn’t want to act like Shay. Or Jessica.

All of a sudden, there is screaming. It is Oliver. “Ant murderer! Ant murderer!”

“What is it, Oliver?” Mr. Daniels asks.

He points at Shay. “Ant murderer!”

“All I did was step on a dumb ant. What is he so freaked out about?”

“You had no right to kill him. He was just walking by.”

“You think it was a
him
? It’s just a dumb ant. Who cares?”

“
I
care,” Oliver says, getting down on all fours with a tissue to check on the ant, which is clearly dead. He cleans it up with a tissue and slips it into his pocket.

“You’re going to keep it?” she sputters.

“Well, I’m not going to just throw him in the garbage. I’ll bury him at home.”

She begins to laugh.

“Shay,” Mr. Daniels says. “There will be none of that.”

She stops.

“We are all different. You care about some things and Oliver cares about others. We have to work to accept each other. Even though we may not agree.”

“Yeah!” Oliver yells.

“And Oliver,” Mr. Daniels says, “I think you have to cut Shay a break here. It’s pretty common for people to step on ants.”

“
So?
”

“Oliver?” he asks, and waits.

Oliver turns to Shay and mumbles, “Sorry.” And climbs back into his seat.

“Thank you, Oliver.” Mr. Daniels wanders over to Oliver’s desk. “I’m glad you apologized. Now that you have”—he leans over and rests his hands on his knees—“I’d like to add that you have one of the kindest hearts I know. You care so much about everything. Always looking out for others. And that, my fine young fellow, is going to make for a great man someday.”