Georgie's Moon (3 page)

“As I was saying, there is a chart in front of the principal's office. Each student from North Ridge will be paired with a student from Glendale. It's a way to not only get acquainted but also help our newly formed town. We're calling the program Good Deeds for Glendale. I'm sure you'll find there are a lot of pleasant projects.”

She picked up a stack of papers. “Principal Gordon is giving everyone until the end of the week to find someone from the other school to work with. If you haven't signed up by then, you will be paired with another student.”

Groans rose from the back of the room.

“I know this is something new and new things often don't sound appealing. But it will be a very easy way for you to improve your English and health grades.”

Miss Horton began passing out mimeographed sheets. Georgie picked up her paper and breathed in the sharp, sweet smell of the blue ink.

“As you can see, you will be expected to turn in a joint report on the good deed you performed as a team in six weeks—the end of the first grading period.”

Georgie was listening closely to Miss Horton.

“This report will count toward half of your English grade. A log of the time you spent working on your assignment and its outcome—as well as how your relationship with your partner evolves—will be considered a health experiment and will count toward half of your health grade.”

“Wait a minute,” the boy next to Lisa said. “You mean that if we don't do this, we'll get an F for half of our English
and
health grades?”

“That's exactly right.” Miss Horton raised her head and squeezed the rest of the mimeographs against her scrawny chest.

A chorus of “That stinks!” and “You've got to be kidding me!” rang out.

Miss Horton clapped her hands. “Remember, people, attitude is everything! Think
fun
and it will be!”

Beneath
Fun
Georgie wrote in her notebook, “Think stupid and it will be!”

*   *   *

Lisa gathered her books to leave and Georgie fell into step with her.

“Hey, you're Lisa Loutzenhiser, right?”

“Right!” She was obviously pleased that Georgie had remembered her name. “How's your little brother?” she asked.

“I don't have a brother,” Georgie said.

“But—” Lisa stammered. “At the park. What was his name? John!”

“Oh, my mother babysits. I was helping her out. You'd be surprised how many people want to dump their kids on someone else.”

A girl walking from the other direction pushed her shoulder into Lisa, nearly knocking her down.

“Oh, sorry,” Lisa said, even though it hadn't been her fault.

The girl asked in a voice that was practically arctic, “So, Lisa, how does
Alan
like his new home?”

“Um, I don't know,” Lisa answered as she hurried away.

“Who was that?” Georgie asked, keeping up with her.

“That was Kathy Newman. We used to be best friends.”

“Used to be?”

“Well, yeah, you know. Things change.” Lisa stopped at her locker.

“She ran into you and
you
apologized,” Georgie said.

“I know,” Lisa said. “I—I don't want to talk about it.” She tried to work the combination, but her fingers looked clumsy.

“Need help?” Georgie asked.

“No. It's just that these new locks are kind of stiff, don't you think?”

“I didn't have a problem with mine,” Georgie said. Deep down, she suspected that Lisa was concentrating on her locker combination to give herself time to recover from seeing this Kathy person. It was a good stalling maneuver and Georgie admired her for it, so she decided to let the subject drop.

“Ready?” Georgie said when Lisa had gathered her books.

“Yes,” Lisa said. “So you're from Glendale and I'm from North Ridge.”

“Yeah. So?”

“So we could be partners. I mean, if you want to.”

“I could be partners with anyone in this building. I just moved here, remember? I don't know anyone. The last school I went to was in Illinois,” Georgie said. She stopped at the principal's office. “Hey, want to have a laugh?”

“Sure,” Lisa said.

Georgie walked over to the sign-up poster listing the options for Good Deeds for Glendale. She ran her finger down the selections: “Former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson's call to Keep America Beautiful. Probably picking up trash. Then there's Animal Care, Health Care, Tutoring—don't you love how vague they are?”

“Animal Care might be pet sitting. That could be fun.”

“It might be mucking horse crap out of a stall, too,” Georgie said, making a face.

“We have to sign up. I mean, she said they would pair us with someone if we didn't.”

“Right. So we sign up.” Georgie grabbed the pencil that was swinging from a string and wrote under Health Care, “Georgia Collins and Ringo Starr.”

“Ringo Starr!” Lisa laughed.

“Too well known?” Georgie asked. She erased the name and said, “Wait, I read that his real name is Richard Starkey.” She penciled it in.

Then she asked, “How do you spell your last name?”

“Umm, L-o-u-t-z-e-n-h-i-s-e-r.”

A boy stood next to Georgie, looking at the poster. He said, “What kind of name is that?”

Georgie answered, “Spanish. Geez, I can't believe you didn't know that.”

The boy shrugged and left.

Lisa laughed. “Thanks! I hate the attention my last name gets.”

“No problem,” Georgie said. “Just remember, when someone says something you don't like, snap right back. It throws them off guard.”

What was it about this girl that made Georgie want to toughen her up?

“What's your favorite song?” Georgie asked.

“I guess it's ‘Bridge over Troubled Water,'” Lisa said.

“Oh! Good one. Simon and Garfunkel.” Georgie thought a moment. “Instead of Paul Simon or Art Garfunkel, we'll combine their names.” Then she wrote: “Lisa Loutzenhiser and Simon Garfunkel.”

“Oh, Georgie! I can't do that!” Lisa said.

“They probably won't even catch on,” Georgie said.

“But I don't understand,” Lisa said. “We'll still have to do the project, right?”

“I suppose.” Georgie sighed. “But we won't have to work with a real partner. There'll be no one to rat on us if we don't want to work on it every week. And best of all, it'll be fun to see if they figure it out.”

Lisa squeezed her books tight and tried to act cool about the whole thing. Georgie could tell it was a struggle.

“I don't think I'll do that. No offense.” Lisa erased “Simon Garfunkel.”

Well, Georgie definitely didn't want to be stuck with some dud friend. She decided to throw out a little test to see if Lisa was the type of person she wanted to be around.

“Let me guess,” Georgie said. “You're one of those rule followers, aren't you? Teacher's pet. That kind of person?”

Lisa twisted the string around the pencil. “No, I'm not a rule follower
all
the time.”

“So, what about this time?”

Lisa hesitated a couple of seconds, then wrote Richard Starkey over the erased spot next to her name. “Loutzenhiser and Garfunkel are both unusual names. We'll have to switch imaginary partners to not draw attention.”

Georgie smiled. This time for real.

4

The worst part of Georgie's day should have been the best—going home. It was 3:45 and the babies would be waking from their naps. It would be another two hours before the last monster went home.

She took a deep breath at the back door and walked into the kitchen.

“Hi, sugar!” Mom called. “How was your day?”

Georgie followed her mother's voice into the living room. A couch was positioned at one end, the television at the other, and on each side Mom had squeezed in two cribs. Georgie looked in at Mom, sitting in the middle of the floor with babies swarming over her like ants on a dropped cookie. “Probably not as exciting and fun-filled as a day of babysitting,” she said dryly.

“Oh, we had a fine day! Jennifer said her first word! Of course, I can't tell her mommy. She'd be so upset that she missed it. I'll wait until Jennifer says it at home.” Mom picked up the baby and blew raspberries on her tummy, then said in baby talk, “She'll have such a surprise, won't she, Jenny-girl?”

“Yuck,” Georgie said. She walked back into the kitchen and reached above the cabinet, where she kept her snacks hidden from the little kids.

John jumped out from under the kitchen table. He was wearing a metal strainer on his head as a helmet. “Pop! Pop! Pop!” He fired his cap gun at Georgie, who ignored him. “You're dead!” he yelled.

“You're wrong,” she said without looking at him.

“I'm not!” he said. “I shot you! Now fall down!”

“One, I knew you were there. Two, your aim was off. If that had been a real gun, you would have missed me. And most important of all is three, which is that you just have a junky toy gun, so I'm not dead and I'm not falling down,” she said. His lower lip stuck out. What a sissy.

“I'll be in my room,” she called, and slammed the door, drowning out whatever Mom was saying. Why couldn't her mother be like other women? If she wanted to work, fine, but do it someplace else. It was getting so Georgie couldn't even eat an apple without checking for teeth marks and spit.

She threw her books on the bed and stretched out. Her room was the only place in the house where she found any peace, because it was the only room that was off-limits to the brat brigade. Georgie loved her room. It was painted a nice, solid blue. She'd had to fight Mom on that one.

“Oh, Georgie, blue is a boy's color,” she'd said.

But Dad had been home when they'd moved in and he'd said, “Blue's a fine color. And how can it be just a boy's color when it's the color of my girl's eyes?”

Georgie had smiled at him, her blue eyes looking into his identical ones.

“You two!” Mom had said. “Do I get my way with anything around here?”

Dad had wrapped his arms around Mom. “Darlin', you can always have your way with me.” He'd nuzzled her neck. Mom had giggled. Georgie had acted embarrassed, but she wasn't really.

“And I want to paint a map of Vietnam here.” Georgie had spread her arms across one wall.

“Now, why would you want to do that, Captain?” Dad had said.

“So I can mark where you've been from your letters.”

His eyes had crinkled in the corners and he'd shaken his head. “I don't know, hon. Seems like a lot of work. Besides, who'd want to stare at a place where all that fightin's going on when they're fallin' asleep?”

“I would,” Georgie had said. “Because that's where you'll be.”

“Well, it's your room. It's up to you,” he'd said.

Later, after she'd outlined the country on the wall, he'd bought a can of pale yellow paint. He had helped her paint it, then written in the names of the cities and places that he knew.

Georgie looked at the map now. If she squinted, North Vietnam looked a little like a kite and South Vietnam, a wide ribbon blowing, trying to break free. She had glued little red stars to the places Dad had sent letters from. And every night she watched the news. They always showed the war. Each night she searched the faces of soldiers on the television screen, always hoping for a glimpse of her dad. She marked the places mentioned on TV in silver stars because she knew American soldiers had been there, even if she didn't know whether Dad was one of them. She had more silver stars than red, many more, but she tried not to think about that.

*   *   *

She was just finishing her homework when Mom knocked on the door.

“Sweet pea? Coast is clear. You can come out now.”

Georgie stretched, then stuck her head out the door. “Are the curtain-climbers gone? Even John?” Sometimes John's mom worked late.

“Even John.” Mom laughed.

Georgie followed Mom into the living room.

“Now we can talk.” Mom patted the couch. “Come sit beside me.”

“I'm kind of hungry.” Georgie walked toward the kitchen. “How about we eat?”

Mom sighed. “Georgie, it's your first day in a new school. Bear with your mean old mom who just wants to know how it went.”

“It went fine. Just dandy.” Georgie opened the refrigerator door.

Mom came into the kitchen. “Okay, how about you help me cook? We'll talk at the same time.”

Georgie rolled her eyes, but took the onion Mom handed her.

“Did you make any new friends?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I mean, one girl seems okay.”

“Anything … else happen?”

Georgie knew Mom wanted to know if she'd seen the guidance counselor. She'd expected to get the third degree when she came home last week with her books. When Mom didn't say anything, Georgie knew that Mom hadn't expected her to be called in so soon. She'd decided then and there that Mom would have to beg before Georgie would tell her that, yes, she had visited the guidance counselor like a good girl.

“Nothing worth mentioning.” She gave the onion a good whack, chopping it right in two.

“I swear, Georgia Francine, you are as hardheaded as your daddy.”

“Thanks!” Georgie said.

Mom stopped stirring the ground beef in the skillet and put her hands on her hips. “Did you or did you not see the guidance counselor today?”

“Nope,” Georgie said.

“No?” Mom looked worried.

Georgie shrugged. “I saw her last week.”

“And?”

“And … I liked her glasses.” Georgie smiled at her own reply.

“You think you're mighty clever, don't you, young lady? Georgie, talking things out can be good for you. I just thought if you didn't want to talk to me, maybe you'd talk to her.”