Fish in a Tree (7 page)

W
h
a
t
I
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v
e
G
o
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I like Mr. Daniels, but he’s got a thing for reading.
Always talking about books and how great they are. Personally, I’d rather have the flu.

The last thing Mr. Daniels said yesterday was that we were going to write stories today and that it would be our chance to show him what we’ve got.

The only thing I’ve got is a plan.

With a big piece of cloth and a safety pin, my writing arm hangs in a sling. How can he ask me to write like this? I’m feeling pretty proud, I must admit. All I have to do is remember not to move it. I wish it really did hurt; it would be easier.

He sees me when I walk in and it isn’t long before he comes over to ask me what has happened. I have practiced the story all the way to school. About how I tripped over my cat on the stairs and fell.

“You have a cat?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

He nods. Then he glances down at my sling. “Is it a new cat?”

“No, we’ve had that cat forever. A regular member of the family,” I say, feeling like I’m starring in a commercial for something I’d never eat in a million years.

He has a weird look on his face when he asks, “What’s its name?”

“Whose name?”

“Your
cat.
”

I panic. “Pork Chop” pops out of my mouth.

He laughs. “Pork Chop the cat, huh? I bet the dogs in the neighborhood like that.”

I’m nervous and embarrassed. Wondering why I have to be so weird. Wondering why I now have to watch the mind movie in my head of a furry, meowing pork chop with a tail.

But when the rest of the class sits down to do their writing assignments, he says I can read a book. I stare at the letters and watch them dance and move on the bright white page. My eyes ache and my head hurts.

Mr. Daniels watches me, so I look down at the page and remember to turn it every once in a while. With my eyes closed, I watch bright movies of me flying—one of my favorite movies. In this one, I’m flying just above the water—my stomach almost touching it. Racing toward a castle filled with blue light.

I open my eyes a bit to watch the others write. I look at the page again. I even try to read some. I really do. But I can’t help wondering why Mr. Daniels keeps looking over at me.

M
i
s
f
i
t
L
u
n
c
h

I watch Albert sit at his desk and stare at the pages
of a book. I know he’s not reading. His eyes don’t move at all. I see he has a new bruise on his jaw and decide I’ll go over and talk to him.

“Hey,” I say.

He looks up.

Then something comes out of my mouth that I don’t expect. “Do you want to sit with Keisha and me at lunch?”

“Why?”

“Well, you sit alone and we sit alone—but together, too—so I thought that we could all sit alone together.”

“That isn’t a logical conclusion. Clearly, if we are all together—”

“Yeah,” I interrupt. “I know. It was a joke. So, you want to?”

“Well . . . I suppose so. I guess I’ve got to eat somewhere,” he says.

• • •

Albert leans his chair back as he shakes his empty carton of chocolate milk to let the drops fall on his tongue. “I wonder who decided that a half pint of milk was enough.”

“Why don’t you just buy two?”

He puts his chair down and stares.

“Can’t you just ask your mom for extra money in the morning?” I say, readjusting my fake sling. This thing is a pain.

“I don’t have to ask for money. It’s kind of prepaid.”

And then I realize all at once. Of course. How stupid can I possibly be? Albert doesn’t have many clothes and he gets a ticket from Mr. Daniels every morning. I guess I never thought about it before. He must get one of the free lunches. I hope I didn’t upset him, so I say, “I’m sorry.”

“About what?”

“Well, about . . . well, you know. That you get the free lunch.”

He shrugs. “There are worse things. Than a free lunch, I mean.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“It disturbs my mom, but my dad says he wants to leave his mark on mankind with one of his inventions, and she says he should get a real job. They fight about it a lot, actually.”

I’m really surprised he told me that and I decide to never tell another soul about it.

“Hey,” says Keisha, sitting down.

“Hey,” I say, and Albert nods.

“So, Albert,” Keisha says. “I watched
Star Trek
because you are always spouting off about it. The special effects are not that special. Kind of pathetic, actually. Like a first-grade puppet show.”

Albert looks horrified.

Keisha laughs as she unwraps her sandwich. “Yeah, I knew that would getcha.”

Shay’s voice arrives before she does. “Look, Jessica,” she says as they walk by. “It’s the Island of Misfit Toys.”

“Yeah,” Jessica says. “It’s like a six-legged freak.”

Shay laughs and Jessica looks proud of herself.

“Uh, those girls are like walking pricker bushes,” Keisha says, taking a bite of her sandwich. “Don’t let them bother you.”

“They don’t bother me,” Albert says.

“It doesn’t bother you at
all
that she called us misfit toys?” I ask.

“It doesn’t bother
me,
” Keisha says. “That girl can flap her gums about me until the sun rises and sets again. I really don’t care.”

I wish I didn’t care. And I wish I wasn’t jealous of Shay and all that she has.

Albert is wide-eyed. “But
why
are the toys all misfits? Square wheels on a train can be fixed easily enough.” Albert has his most serious voice turned up to high. “And what’s wrong with the doll, anyway? Why is it a misfit? It seems to adhere to the standards of a typical doll.”

Wow. He is in full professor mode.

“The Charlie-in-the-box,” he continues, “is just like a Jack-in-the-box in every way but his name. Something is not a misfit simply because it has a different name.”

“That isn’t true,” I blurt out.

He looks shocked. I suppose he isn’t used to being corrected.

He holds up his milk carton. “Suppose I say this is orange juice. Doesn’t change what it is inside.”

“That’s different,” I say, thinking that the milk will feel like it’s orange juice if it’s told that enough.

“It
is
the same principle.”

I think of words like
dumb
and
baby
and think how wrong Albert really is.

“What about the cowboy?” Keisha asks. “He rides an ostrich instead of a horse. That has
got
to make him a misfit.”

“It is illogical to say he is a misfit just because he chooses to ride a different animal, provided he can carry out his cowboy duties.”

“Albert!” Keisha says. “How can you
possibly
say ‘cowboy duties’ with a straight face?”

“I don’t understand,” he says.

Keisha’s forehead touches the table, and he continues, “Especially when you consider that ostriches run faster than horses, require less water to drink, and can use their legs and feet as weapons. They are fierce kickers with sharp claws. I, for one, would trade a horse for that. That’s just logical.”

And then I think that if someone hung a sign on me that said anything, having that sign there wouldn’t make it so. But people have been calling me “slow” forever. Right in front of me as if I’m too dumb to know what they’re talking about.

People act like the words “slow reader” tell them everything that’s inside. Like I’m a can of soup and they can just read the list of ingredients and know everything about me. There’s lots of stuff about the soup inside that they can’t put on the label, like how it smells and tastes and makes you feel warm when you eat it. There’s got to be more to me than just a kid who can’t read well.

T
r
u
t
h
s
a
n
d
U
n
t
r
u
t
h
s

Keisha drops into her seat, annoyed that Mr. Daniels
has asked her to do a paper over because he knows she can do better. I’ve always hated hearing that from teachers. And then I realize I’ve never heard it from Mr. Daniels. And all of a sudden that bugs me.

Since the day of the mystery boxes, I keep thinking about how good it felt to do something right. To fit in.

That’s what I want. To feel like everyone else. To be told that the work I know is terrible isn’t good enough. I want him to tell me I can do better and see it in his face that he really thinks so.

And then I remember that it
is
the best I can do. I haven’t written in class since I had the fake sling on my arm. After three days of wearing it, Mr. Daniels told me he was going to have the nurse call my mom about my injured arm, so I figured I’d better lose the sling.

So now I’m stuck. I don’t know who to be: the one who admits that I can’t do it, or the pretender.

Finally I decide I’ll give Mr. Daniels something so, so terrible that he’ll have to ask me to do it over.

I don’t even try to spell anything correctly like I usually do. I just put a whole bunch of letters together that even I know make no sense.

I walk up and hand it to him instead of putting it in the assignment cubby.

“Thanks, Ally, but if you’re done, why don’t you put it in the cubby?”

I push it toward him a little more. “I thought you may want to check it over.”

We lock eyes for a few seconds and then he reaches out to take it from me. “Okay,” he says. He looks at it, his eyebrows scrunch up, and then he looks back up at me. He stays quiet. Thinking, I can tell.

I hear it in my head.
Do better, Ally.
And I would. I would magically do better and Mrs. Silver would carry a trophy for me so big, she’d have to carry it on her back.

“Ally?”

“Huh?”

“I said that you can just put it in the cubby, then.”

And the pictures in my head pop like bubbles. I walk away without taking it back.

• • •

As soon as we all sit down in the cafeteria, Keisha announces to Albert, “Okay. This has been killing me. All. Day. Long.”

“What?” I ask.

“Albert. So this Flint shirt that you wear every day.”

He interrupts. “I do not, in fact, wear the same shirt every day. I have five identical ones.”

Keisha’s eyes are wide. “Seriously, Albert? You bought the same shirt five times?”

He doesn’t seem to think it’s a big deal. “It’s the one I liked.”

“Well, anyway, Albert,” Keisha says. “I finally found out what the heck your shirt means. I googled ‘Flint’ and you know what I found?”

His eyes widen.

“It’s a place in Michigan, a kind of rock, something people use to light campfires, what arrowheads are made of, and a kind of sneaker.”

Albert doesn’t say anything.

“Albert? Did you
hear
me? What is with the Flint shirt? That just makes no sense . . . No sense whatsoever.”

Albert fidgets.

“Hey, Albert,” I say. “You okay? You know, Keisha didn’t mean any harm. She just . . .”

“I am quite aware of her intentions.”

I worry. “What are those?”

“To find out why I wear this shirt.”

Funny how my brain wants to make things complicated and his just cuts to the simplest thing. Well, the simplest thing with a bunch of fancy words and mile-long sentences.

“The meaning of my shirt is not any of those things.” He closes his eyes before he takes a deep breath. “Flint is an immortal genius from
Star Trek.
Season three, episode nineteen. It is titled ‘Requiem for—’”

Keisha laughs, interrupting him. “Albert, are you
kidding
me?”

Albert clears his throat and glances at the clock.

“Albert,” I say, poking the side of Keisha’s leg, and she—by some miracle—stops laughing. “Go ahead. I want to know.” After that day of being mean, I want to be extra nice. “So, Flint is a smart guy?” I ask.

Albert readjusts himself in his seat. “Flint goes away to his own planet. He puts up invisible barriers so that others won’t sense life-forms there. He creates robots to protect himself and keep him company. They are . . .
predictable.
”

“Sounds super weird if you ask me,” says Keisha. “Why wouldn’t he live on Earth with people?”

“He had once lived on Earth. He left to be alone. He
wanted
to be alone.”

Keisha falls forward, dropping her arms on the table. “Why the heck would a man leave Earth with everything here to go off and sit on some rock in space all by himself?”

Albert hesitates. “Well . . . he says it’s to ‘retreat from the unpleasantness of Earth and the company of people.’” Then he looks up right into my eyes. “I can see that. I can see why someone would want to avoid being with other people. A great number of them are not very nice to me . . . and, well . . .”

“Listen, Albert.” Keisha’s voice has softened. “I didn’t mean . . .”

Albert interrupts. “I was not implying it was you who is not kind to me.”

I’m relieved.

“But there are others who are not kind,” he says.

N
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S
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Just as I thought, my mother smiles when she
sees Albert, Keisha, and me walk into Petersen’s. She seats us in a booth right in the middle of the restaurant and takes our order. Keisha sits next to me and Albert fills a good part of the seat across from us.

“So,” Keisha begins. “Thanks for inviting us for ice cream.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Must be cool to come here every day,” she says.

“Is the ice cream free?” Albert asks.

“My mom doesn’t let me have ice cream more than once a week. And it isn’t free, but we get it for half off, I think,” I tell them.

Albert fidgets a bit. “So, do either of you ever miss Mrs. Hall?”

“Our old
teacher
Mrs. Hall?” I say. “She was okay, but I like Mr. Daniels way more. He’s nice.”

“He is,” Keisha says. “Goofy, but in a good way.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“I do not think he is a trusting person,” Albert says.

“Mr.
Daniels
?” I ask.

Albert rubs his palms on the top of his jeans. “He inquired about my bruises. I think he hypothesized that they came from my parents. Then I had to speak to the school psychologist.” He shifts in his seat. “My parents rescue insects and arachnids from our home, taking them outside rather than killing them. It’s illogical for my parents to save spiders and hit their own son.”

I look over at Keisha. Hoping she knows what to say. She doesn’t.

I take a deep breath. “Well, Albert, even I’ve wondered where all those bruises come from.”

His voice is quiet. Like a boy. Not a robot version of one. “There’s a group of boys. I meet them many days after school.”

“You
meet
them?” Keisha asks.

“Well, no,” he says. “They meet
me
.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

He nods once and then stares at the floor.

“Can’t you tell anyone?” I ask.

Albert shrugs.

“Well do you at least hit them
back
?” Keisha asks.

“I don’t believe in violence. And anyway, it seems to me that big kids would get the blame in a fight. No one’s going to think a big kid like me didn’t start it, so they would assume I give the punches, not receive them.”

He stares at his vanilla ice cream and then looks up. Maybe a little happier. “This reminds me of ice cream on Ellis Island.”

“You may have a skull full of brains, but,
again,
Albert . . . no sense,” Keisha says.

“When the immigrants came to America through Ellis Island, they would sometimes get ice cream for a treat. But they didn’t recognize ice cream. They thought it was butter, so they spread it on toast.”

We laugh.

“I think this is like that. Those boys just think I’m a fighter, so they . . . well, fight me.”

“No, Albert,” Keisha says. “They think you
won’t
fight. They think you’ll just keep being their punching bag.
That’s
why they fight you.”

His eyebrows scrunch up.

“
Albert.
This is no joke,” Keisha says. “They leave nasty marks on you! Don’t your parents get mad? My mother would hunt down anyone who did that to me.”

“My father is busy with his inventions and my mother has other things to worry about.”

“You should ask them for help,” I say. “I think Keisha is right.”

He shrugs. “I don’t want help. I should be able to solve this.”

“Albert!” Keisha says, her dark eyes wide and angry. “You
can
solve this. Just don’t let those boys pound on you! You said you’re bigger than they are.”

“Yes, I call them the fire ants. A group of small beings that can become overwhelming.”

I laugh, but I’m sad on the inside.

“No, seriously, Albert.” Keisha is downright mad now. “Teach them a lesson. Hit them back!”

“I don’t think it is within my nature to hit someone. I will not meet violence with violence. I won’t stoop to their level.”

“Stoop to their level?” I ask.

“If I act like them, I am no better,” he says.

“Well, I say this is like trying to give Jell-O a spine,” Keisha says.

Albert squints, which makes me wonder if he’s actually mad. “Some of the most lethal creatures on earth are invertebrates.”

“Don’t throw that science at me,” Keisha says. “All I know is that you need to stick up for yourself. If you just let them do that, it’s like telling them it’s okay.”

Albert stays quiet.

Keisha’s voice is no longer soft. “I just don’t get it, Albert.
What
in the
world
would it take for you to fight back?”

Albert looks upset. I know Keisha is trying to help him, but I think it’s like throwing him an anchor for a life jacket.

“So, Albert. You’ve always liked science?” I ask, trying to get another conversation going. But Keisha gasps and looks at the ceiling—frustrated with Albert.

“Yes,” Albert says. “But, Ally, I would like to ask
you
a question.”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“Shay is not kind to many people. But I have observed that she is the most unkind to you and I don’t understand it. Do you know why?”

“Yeah,” Keisha says. “She really does seem to have it in for you.”

“Yeah, well . . .”

“Oh, is there a story?” Keisha says. “I just love a good story.”

“There’s no story. I won the art award last year. She was mad about that.”

“Oh no. There’s more of a story, all right. Now, spill it.”

“Let’s just say she holds grudges.”

“Spill it. Use the word
grudges
and there has got to be a really
good
story!”

“Well . . . on my second day here last year, I’d bought a bag of cheese crackers at lunch. I was assigned to sit next to her, which she wasn’t so happy about. I was almost done with my sandwich when she grabbed the bag of crackers from the table and ripped them open and ate them.”

“Are you kidding? She
did
that?”

I nod. I really don’t want to finish this story.

“She is
un
be
lie
vable,” Keisha says, shaking her head.

“Anyway, I kind of had this habit of doing things without thinking. Well . . .” I pause. “I used to do it even more than I do now. So, when she took a piece of cake out of her lunch box, I reached over, sunk my fingernails through the frosting, grabbed a hunk, and stuffed it in my mouth.”

Keisha hangs over the table laughing while Albert looks like I stuck him with a pin. “You
did
that?” he asks, wide-eyed.

“And then . . .” Uh, I really don’t want to tell them this. “While I licked the frosting off of my fingers, I asked her, ‘So how do you like
that
?!’”

I cringe when I think of Shay’s face. Total surprise followed by looking at me like I was a disease on two feet. And somehow, deep down inside, I knew I’d pay for that forever.

But Keisha is still laughing. “That is the
best.
More people ought to put that girl in her place. She walks all over everybody.”

I kind of think out loud, “She thought I was a freak.”

“She deserved it. Just taking your food like that? Are you kidding?”

“Well, the thing was,” I say, and then I stop because I can’t quite push out the rest. “I was mad that she’d eaten my crackers. But, when lunch was over, I reached into my jacket pocket and found mine.”

Keisha laughs loud and long while Albert raises his eyebrows. “Wait,” Albert says, “she didn’t actually eat yours?”

I shake my head.

“So she thinks you grabbed a hunk of her cake for no reason?” Keisha asks.

“Uh, yeah. Kind of. Yeah.”

Keisha’s laughter gets even louder just as my mother is looking across the restaurant, giving me “the look.” Keisha leans against me and says, “Okay. I admit it. That is the
best
story I’ve heard. In. My. Whole. Long. Life. Ally Nickerson, if I didn’t love you already for that flower thing you pulled, I think I may love you for that.”