Fish in a Tree (6 page)

T
r
o
u
b
l
e
w
i
t
h
F
l
o
w
e
r
s

It’s the night of the holiday concert, when we sing
about Santa and dreidels and Kwanzaa. The best part is getting a new dress.

I stand in front of a mirror looking at my dress and my first shoes with a heel on them. Thinking about the shopping day I had with my mom. We even went to A. C. Petersen’s for lunch. I liked how she stayed with me in a booth instead of having to go wait on other people.

I love to sing, but I don’t like our music teacher, Mrs. Muldoon. Max calls her Minefield Muldoon because you never can tell when she’ll blow up over something. Oliver calls her that, too, but he acts it out by leaping into the air and yelling, “Muldooooooon!” as he lands on the floor and rolls. He doesn’t stop, though. He goes from a roll right to his feet again. Like a cat in a cartoon.

Shay is making fun of Albert because his clothes don’t fit. “What’s with the pants, Albert?” she says. “Did you get that outfit in the third grade?”

Keisha whips around fast. “Why do you
always
try to pull people down?” she asks.

“Because some people deserve it, that’s why,” Shay answers.

“
Deserve
to be pulled down?
Really?
” Keisha asks.

Albert straightens his tie, which is the only part of his outfit that fits. He’s even wearing his sneakers with the backs cut out. “You know,” he says, “logically, if a person was to pull another down, it would mean that he or she is already below that person.”

Keisha lets out a laugh so loud that Mrs. Muldoon shoots her a look. Keisha covers her mouth and tries to squelch the sound. “
That
is perfect, Albert. Man, you really are a smart dude.” She turns to Shay. “You, on the other hand, are so low, you could play tennis against a curb.”

Shay’s eyes narrow, but before she can say anything, Mrs. Muldoon appears and tells us to line up.

For the spring concert last year, before I had a growth spurt, I had to stand in the front row. I liked when Travis called me a dime among pennies. But this year, I get to stand toward the back of the line with the taller kids, right next to Keisha. I look over at her. I love how she stuck up for Albert. She had the guts that I didn’t in the cafeteria. I wish I could be braver.

We all stand, waiting to file into the auditorium. “Oh, Mrs. Muldoon, I
love
your dress!” Shay says.

Mrs. Muldoon lights up like a bulb. “Why, thank you, Shay. Your parents have raised such a nice young lady.”

“Oh, thank you very much, Mrs. Muldoon.” Shay smiles, but when she turns away toward Jessica, she rolls her eyes. And she keeps glaring at Keisha.

I decide I won’t think about how mad she makes me and I’ll think, instead, about how all the girls get to carry a bouquet of flowers. That’s the good news. The bad news is that they have been donated by Jessica’s father, the florist. It’s nice of him, but Jessica hasn’t stopped bragging about it.

Mrs. Muldoon walks down the line, handing out the most beautiful bouquets I have ever seen. Like the ones that brides carry. Dark red ribbons that wind around the stems like a barbershop light pole. Ribbons dangle from the bottom, too. She hands my bunch to me, and I smile thinking of how much my mom will love to see me with them.

Keisha leans in to smell them and runs her fingers over the tops of the flowers. Then one of the white buds falls off and bounces off the top of her shiny black shoe.

Mrs. Muldoon is there in a second. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I just . . .”

Mrs. Muldoon grabs the flowers from Keisha’s hands.

Keisha looks up. “No.
Please
don’t. I didn’t mean . . .”

“These flowers are a
gift,
and if that’s how you’re going to treat a gift—with a complete lack of respect and gratitude—then you, Keisha Almond, will be the
only
girl
without
flowers.”

“But Mrs. Muldoon,” Keisha says, “I really didn’t—”

Mrs. Muldoon holds up her hand like she’s stopping traffic. “I
don’t
want to hear it. You will have no flowers and perhaps you will remember in the future how a lady behaves.”

“See?” Shay says to Jessica. “People
do
get what they deserve.”

I stand behind Keisha, but I wish I could see her face. I wait for her to say something back. But Keisha doesn’t say anything. Although I can’t see her cry, I hear her sniff and see her brush her cheek with her fingertips.

And I watch a mind movie of me being the only girl without flowers marching in to see all the parents. And the look on my mom’s face. How she’d be the only sad parent in a sea of smiling ones. And how I’d feel like I was less than everyone else.

No one should ever feel like that.

I feel my fingertips dig into the center of my bouquet to separate the thick stems. It takes some twisting to work half the flowers out of the fancy ribbon, but I put some muscle into it. Stems crack and leaves and petals fall, spinning in the air. Landing all around my shiny new shoes.

Mrs. Muldoon has turned around to stare. Her mouth is open wide enough for a bird to build a nest in.

I hold her gaze as I hand half the flowers to Keisha. “Well, she can have some of
mine,
then.”

In the end, neither of us had flowers when we walked into the auditorium.

But we had bigger smiles than anyone else.

B
o
x
e
d
I
n
a
n
d
B
o
x
e
d
O
u
t

“Okay, my Fantasticos! As you know, today is
Fantastico Friday, and we are going to end our day with a challenge. I’m going to break you up into groups. Each group will be given a shoe box wrapped in elastic bands—which you will not remove—with a mystery object inside. Your job is to guess what the mystery object is.

“You can do anything to the box to figure it out except open it. There are four numbered boxes that will rotate from group to group. You have ten minutes with each box, so be sure that you write down your guesses. At the end, we’ll open them up to see what each object is.” He claps once, loudly. “Any questions?”

Everyone looks excited. Most glance around the room, probably hoping they will be with Albert. He’ll get every answer right.

But I end up in a group with Max, Suki, Oliver, and Jessica. I briefly consider going to the nurse. Especially when I have to stare at all of Jessica’s friendship bracelets. I wonder if each bracelet is from a different friend. I glance down at my empty wrist.

Box number one is dropped on our table. Oliver grabs it and shakes it hard. Jessica folds her arms and rolls her eyes—her response to anything not done or said by Shay. I look across the room. Shay is in a group with Albert. She’s holding the box and talking. What a surprise.

“Yeah,” Max says, taking the box from Oliver. “My turn.”

I’m surprised when Suki speaks up first. “Oliver. We all need a turn, so we must plan. Ten minutes and five of us. Two minutes each.”

I think about the nurse again. I could lie on that comfortable bed and think. I’ve come up with some of my best sketchbook ideas pretending to be sick down there.

Max has been shaking the box. He throws it into the air once and catches it. “Whatever’s inside is heavy,” he says.

Oliver says, “Maybe it’s a kangaroo.”

Jessica looks at him in disgust.

Oliver shrinks. “I was just kidding,” he mumbles.

This makes me mad.

Max hands it to Jessica, who gives it a little shake and says, “I think it’s a wooden block. Like maybe one of those alphabet blocks.”

“When will it be my turn again?” Oliver asks.

Suki is taking some kind of notes or something. Looking up at the clock, she says, “Oliver, you have twenty-five seconds of your time left only.”

Oliver takes the box back and sniffs it and tries to hear something by pressing his ear to the top.

Mr. Daniels calls from the other side of the room, “I love that, Oliver. Creative investigation!”

While I wait for my turn, I wonder why Oliver always smells like graham crackers. Finally, I get the box and put it up to my ear and tilt it. Whatever is inside rolls rather than slides. “It must be round. And Max is right about it being heavy.”

I tilt it again with my palm on the side of the box. “I think it’s a baseball,” I say, handing it to Jessica.

She does the same test and surprises me by saying, “I agree. Feels like a baseball.”

“Wait,” I say, taking it back. I tilt it again quickly and the object hits the end hard, and then lightly. “It bounces,” I say. “Would a baseball bounce?” I ask, turning to Max.

“Naw. I don’t think so. Maybe it’s rubber. Like a lacrosse ball.”

After Suki tests the box, she writes down our answer.

Then we get the second box. The second item slides rather than rolls. I can tell because it doesn’t move if the box is tilted a little but, once tilted more, will move all at once. And I can feel it scraping along the bottom. It’s weird, but I can almost see it. It’s heavier than an alphabet block, but I think it is a shape with all flat sides.

Oliver tells me that it’s cool I’m so good at this. I forget to say thank you because I’m shocked. But then I also forget to be nervous, talking to everyone and feeling like . . . like I can do this as well as everyone else, and it is the
best.
The best feeling ever.

Suki hands the box to me. “Your turn to go first.”

The third box is harder, but I guess it’s in the shape of a Magic Marker but much bigger and heavier, as it slides one way and rolls the other.

I glance over at Albert, who is listening to Shay talk again. Keisha is doing the talking in her group, but she is making everyone laugh. I wish I knew what they were saying.

When Mr. Daniels delivers the fourth box, he stays.

While Max tries to figure out what’s inside, Jessica constantly compliments him on everything short of breathing. Max tells us that he thinks it’s something light because it doesn’t hit the sides hard.

When it is his turn, Oliver looks up at Mr. Daniels.

“So, what do you think there, Oliver?”

I can see Oliver wants to be right. He tilts and shakes and decides it’s a quarter. Mr. Daniels nods and pats him on the back. “That’s an excellent guess, Oliver. Well done.”

“Am I right?” Oliver asks.

“You’ll have to wait and see.” Mr. Daniels shrugs.

“Can’t you just tell me now?”

“Sorry, bud.”

Oliver seems disappointed. Then he looks up at me. Holding out the box, he says, “Here, Ally. You’re the best at this.”

Jessica’s face looks like if she let out all that pressure, she’d fly into the air like a rocket to the moon.

“Ally?” Mr. Daniels asks.

“Huh? Uh, sorry. Sometimes when I think, I forget to talk.”

He laughs a little.

I hold the box in front of me with the long side almost touching my stomach. I tilt the box front to back and then side to side. This doesn’t make sense.

“What are you thinking, Ally?” he asks.

“Well,” I begin, “if I tilt it front to back, the object hits the long sides of the shoe box. But if I tilt it side to side, the object doesn’t hit the short sides.”

In my mind, I see the object must be the size and shape of a magic wand. Because it moves a lot when tilted in one direction but not when tilted in the other.

“What?” Oliver asks.

“It doesn’t make sense,” I say. I look down at the box and shake it side to side hard. I can’t get the object to hit the sides of the box. The more I shake side to side, the more it hits the top and bottom of the box. Confusing.

I look up at Mr. Daniels and his half smile and scrunched eyebrows.

“Waaaait a second.” I smile. “Would you trick us?”

“What do you mean, trick you?”

I shake it again. Tilt it some more. “The object hits some sides but not all sides. Did you tape it or tie it or something?”

His eyes widen quick and he smiles. And then he laughs. He laughs loud, bending over and resting his hands on his knees, and then he swings his head to the side to look over at me. By this time, the whole class is watching him.

“Wow, Ally Nickerson. That’s amazing. I have done this with over a hundred kids and no one—in all of those times—has ever been able to figure that out.”

He reaches over and takes the box. Taking the elastic bands off, he opens the box to show us all what’s inside. It’s two glue sticks tied together with string, and then the ends of the string are taped to the sides of the box, leaving the glue sticks hanging in the middle.

He comes over and does something a teacher has never done even once in my whole life. He high-fives me.

U
n
g
r
e
a
s
e
d
G
e
a
r
s

For homework, Mr. Daniels said we have to write a
paper describing how we feel about a short story he read today. He says there’s no right or wrong answer. He just wants to know our thoughts.

Part of my brain knows that this shouldn’t be that hard. I would be able to tell him in two minutes how I feel about it. But I’ll be celebrating another birthday by the time I get it written down. And when I do, he probably won’t be able to understand it anyway.

Travis comes in the back door, drops his bag, and takes off his steel-toed boots. “Hey, squirt.” The smell of a garage fills the kitchen. But I like it.

“Hey,” I say, trying to get the thoughts floating around in my head to land on the paper. I don’t know why the things in my brain get lost on the way down my arm.

Travis takes a carton of orange juice out of the fridge and drinks from it.

“
Hello,
Travis?
Gross.
”

He laughs at me.

“No one else will drink that now, you know.”

“Good.” He smiles. “My plan is a success.” He walks away, taking the whole carton with him.

“Travis?”

He stops in the hallway after taking another swig. “Yeah?”

I know what his answer will be, but I ask anyway. I’m desperate. “Can you help me?”

“With that book stuff you’re doing?” He points using the carton.

“Yeah. I have to write something . . .”

“Whoa, Ally. I can give you new spark plugs. Change your oil. Even rebuild your carburetor. But the writing? No can do. When it comes to that, my brain is like gears with no grease. Parts grinding together. Seriously. It ain’t pretty.”

“Please? You
have
to be better at it than me.”

He takes a deep breath. “Can’t you wait until Mom gets home?”

“She left a message saying she’s closing, and I can’t tell her I need help that late. She’ll be mad.”

“Look. You know I’d love to help you out, but the whole school thing . . . It’s like asking a blind man to drive a bus. Besides,” he says, sipping again, “I’d rather eat a bag of hair.”

He’s trying to make me laugh and the picture in my head is funny. And kind of gross. But I can’t laugh. I can’t. I’m too desperate.

I must look sad because his voice is sweet. “Seriously, Al. I would help you, but I’m no better at it than you. I’m really not.”

• • •

The next morning, I am trying to decide if I should turn in my paper, knowing Mr. Daniels will probably think I spit it out in two minutes. The truth is that it cost me my whole night and a headache that was so bad, it reminded me of the Queen in
Alice in Wonderland
always yelling, “Off with her head!” Just because I thought that would be a relief.

I worry what Mr. Daniels will say about it. For now, he’s in the hallway with another kid.

“Good morning,” Keisha says. “I have something for you.” And she holds out a cupcake.

“Cupcake!” Max says.

“Put your eyes back in your head, Max. This is not for you,” Keisha says.

“Me want cupcake!” Oliver says, flailing about a bit. “Me
love
cupcakes!”

“You’re such a freak,” Shay says. “That’s Cookie Monster who talks like that.”

Oliver gets dead serious. Not a single thing on him is moving except his mouth. “If I’m talking like that, then
I’m
the one talking like that. And besides, do you
really
think that Cookie Monster would turn down a cupcake? I mean, it isn’t broccoli or nuclear sludge or something. You could tell him it’s a big, tall cookie with frosting on it. He’d suck it down like a vacuum cleaner. I bet you he would. You want to bet me?
Do
you?”

Jessica begins to speak, but Shay cuts her off with a look. “No. I won’t bet you. I don’t bet on anything. Ever. And especially not with you.”

Shay spins on her foot and leaves. Jessica scurries after her.

It takes three quarters of a second for Oliver to be onto something else. “Wait! That reminds me,” he says. “During our class party, I hid a Halloween cookie somewhere in my desk.”

“The
Halloween
party?” Keisha asks. “That was
weeks
ago.”

“Yeah!” He starts digging for it, things falling to the floor as he searches. If it’s there, it’s probably as hard as concrete.

Keisha turns back to me. “What is it with this class? They lose control over food.” She shakes her head and then pushes the cupcake toward me. “For
you
!”

“For me?” I ask. Nobody ever brings me anything. Except trouble.

“Yeah! Of course it’s for you!”

“Why?”

“Because I’m still cracking up over what you did with those flowers, that’s why.” She cuts the cupcake in half and shows me that it says
Wow
inside.

I’m happy.

Mr. Daniels walks back into the room. “Okay, my Fantasticos! Good news! All homework assignments have been passed in today. That’s worth five extra minutes of snack time.”

The boys are as excited as if they’ve heard there would be free pizza delivered, too.

I hear Keisha kind of laughing to herself. I figure it’s because of the boys all going nuts. But then she turns to me and says, “You’ve got guts, Ally. I respect that.”

I like that, too. But mostly I like that she likes it.

“Hey,” she says. “You want to sit together at lunch? I’ve been sitting with some people, but I don’t talk to them and they don’t talk to me. And you sit alone, so . . .”

A mind movie shows us sitting at the table talking and me being happy.

“Ally? What do you think?”

“Oh! Yes, that would be great. Thank you.”

• • •

After the best lunch and recess I’ve had in a long time, Mr. Daniels waves me up to his desk. He has my homework and my journal. He’s trying to look all happy and light, but I can see the seriousness underneath.

“Hey, Ally. I’m glad you turned in your homework and it’s more than you usually write. That’s great.”

I stay quiet.

“I’m just wondering how long it took you to do your homework. I’m not going to ask you to make changes or anything. I’m just wondering.”

This feels like a trap. I know it isn’t good, so I wonder if it would be better to say I did it fast on the bus or if I should tell him that I worked really hard.

“Ally?”

“It took me . . . kind of a long time, I guess. I mean, I tried to do my best on it.” I look at it. “Is it wrong?”

“It’s got some good ideas and that’s what the assignment was all about. No worries, okay?”

No worries? That’s easy for him to say.