Paper Things (7 page)

“What’s this?” Briggs points to the sprinkler at Miles’ feet.

“It’s a sprinkler,” I say with my
we’re done now
voice.

“Wow, that’s water spraying around. I couldn’t tell. I thought it was just more creases in the paper.”

He rummages through the folder, and I’m afraid he’s going to ask me about each item and every person in it.

I yank the folder out of his hands and place it at the bottom of the pile of books. He’s still clutching Miles, though.

“Give,” I say, making a grab for him.

But Briggs pulls his arm back playfully. And as quick as that, Miles tears in two.

I can’t believe I’m only holding half of him in my fingers. Miles was the first person I ever cut out of a catalog. I have played with him in our apartment on Crest Street, at Sasha’s, and Janna’s, and every place we’ve stayed since.

My eyes don’t tear up. I don’t say anything. I’m more invisible than invisible.

“I’m so sorry, Ari,” Briggs says. “I didn’t mean to —” He jumps up and opens the kitchen drawer and comes back with tape.

“Let’s fix him,” he says.

I nod, but I’m pretty sure it’s not going to make me feel better. Try as you might, there are some things you just can’t mend.

I arrive at Sasha’s around three the next day — right after her dance lesson. A visit to Sasha’s house always begins with a snack at the kitchen table. Today: kiffles, which are these
très
yummy Hungarian cookies that Sasha’s mom makes with apricot jam filling.

“Are you still working at Head Start?” Sasha’s mom — who I call Marianna — asks me.

I nod, my mouth too full of kiffle for me to speak. Flaky crumbs float down to the diamond-patterned tablecloth below. I brush them away as discreetly as possible.

Marianna blows on her tea. “Did Janna get you that position to plump up your application to Carter?”

I take my time swallowing. How can I explain how I got it without telling them about West and letting on that Gage and I no longer live with Janna — that we no longer live
anywhere,
really?

But Marianna doesn’t even wait for an explanation. “Have you submitted your application?”

“No, not yet.” But then I wonder:
How will I apply to Carter if Gage and I don’t have a permanent address?
He’d promised me that it would only take us “a week, maybe two, tops” to find a place. But it’s been nearly two months, with no end in sight. “When is it due again?”

“At the end of April,” says Marianna, jumping up to look at the calendar on the wall. “There’s still plenty of time to add new activities to your application,” she reassures me.

“Like patrol leader,” says Sasha, “or lunchroom monitor.”

I try my best to smile. Between missing so many homework deadlines and getting caught by Ms. Finch, I wonder if I’m even still in the running for a leadership role. I wonder, too, how you even get an application to Carter. Are they automatically sent to the homes of the top-ranking students — of which I’m still one, though just barely — or do you have to contact Carter to get one?

I take a sip of my water and try to appear nonchalant. “I think I might have misplaced my application, but I’d rather not tell Janna if I don’t have to. Do you know how I can get a new one?”

Marianna smiles and pushes the cookie plate toward me. “Sure, you just have to request one.”

“From Carter?” I ask, taking another cookie from the plate. Marianna likes feeding me. Sasha can be a picky eater, but I’m not.

“No, Eastland Elementary has plenty. I had Sasha pick one up from the office.”

Sasha rolls her eyes. “OK. That’s enough about Carter, Mom.”

“I was just answering Ari’s questions, dear heart,” Marianna replies. “Speaking of questions, have you started in on the student ones yet, Ari? Sasha here has been dragging her feet for weeks.”

“Student questions?” I ask.

Sasha groans while Marianna goes to a drawer in the other room and returns with a manila envelope. Inside are notes she’s kept from Eastland Elementary, copies of Sasha’s report cards, a letter from Sasha’s dance teacher. She shows me the application to Carter that she has begun to fill out. I glance down at the spaces to be filled in, and my head fills with its own questions:
What will I do if I don’t have an address? Whose name should I write for name of parent or guardian? Should Gage fill out the parent questionnaire?

Marianna turns to the third or fourth page of the application and points to the heading: Student Questions.

“Mom’s made me practice answering them over and over,” says Sasha. She gets up and moves to the kitchen counter, pretending that the edge of the counter is a ballet
barre.
“But I just don’t feel like writing essays in my free time.”

I read:

“You haven’t started on these yet, Ari?” I can tell that Marianna is just trying to be helpful, but her anxiety is making
me
anxious, too. What if I’ve already waited too long to start filling out my application? Heck, I can’t even manage to finish my introduction for Mr. O., and that’s only a few paragraphs!

“Enough questions, Mom,” Sasha says.

But Marianna doesn’t seem to hear her. Instead, she reaches for the hairbrush that’s kept handy in a kitchen drawer and begins braiding my hair — an event as common as our afternoon snack. Sasha won’t let her mother fuss over her, but I love it. “Janna does realize how important it was to your mother that you attend Carter, doesn’t she?” Marianna says.

I nod. Janna knew all too well just how badly Mama had wanted me to attend Carter. How many times had Janna tried to tell me to go easier on myself, that I should only push myself to get into Carter if it was something that
I
wanted for myself? And how many times had Gage blown up and said that my getting into Carter had been one of our mom’s dying wishes, and how dare Janna try to interfere with that?

Everyone in my family went to Carter: Mama, my dad, Gage. Even Janna had gone. That’s how she knew Mama. Back when they’d all gone, though, it hadn’t been a school for the gifted. Gage didn’t even have to apply; you were automatically accepted if your parents had attended Carter. Mama always said that the happiest times in her life were at Carter — except for having us, of course. And once it became a school for the gifted, she was even more adamant that I attend. “The perfect place for my smart daughter,” she’d called it. It was like as long as she could imagine me somewhere that she knew well, somewhere that had belonged to
her,
I’d be OK.

“Enough, Mom!” Sasha cries. “Come on,” she says, pulling me out of the kitchen and down the hall to her room.

When we get to Sasha’s room, I start to take out my math folder, with a surprise for Sasha.

“Your backpack is always as fat as a Thanksgiving turkey. What do you keep in there?” Sasha says.

“Homework, for one thing!” I say, finding the folded sheet of paper I was looking for. “Let’s do your math work sheet.”

Sasha flops onto her bed. “Not now. Let’s do it tomorrow!”

But I can’t wait to show her what I’ve written. “No, really. You’ll like this,” I say. I unfold a letter, climb onto the spare twin bed, and read it aloud in my sappiest, lovey-dovey-est voice:

Sasha looks at me like she can’t figure out which planet I came from.

I keep on reading:

“Look,” I say, pointing to the numbers in my letter. “Even though they can be read the same way, the fractions and the decimals look different. But you can see the pattern, right?

Sasha just squints her eyes at me, so I go on reading.

I look up, expecting to see a sky-wide smile on my best friend’s face, but instead, she looks like Janna did whenever I accidentally walked into the kitchen with my shoes still on.

“When did you write that?” she asks.

“This morning after breakfast.”

“Instead of working on your
own
homework?”

“Well, yeah. I wanted to. . . . I thought it would be a fun way to help you understand.”

“A fun way to show off, maybe,” she says. She shakes her head like I’m the one who’s having trouble getting things. “Why do you have to do things so
weirdly
?” she asks. “Why can’t you just sit down and show me how to convert a decimal into a fraction?”

“I can,” I say, slipping off my bed and moving next to her. I tuck the words
show off
and
weird,
which have the weight and sharpness of scissors, inside an invisible pocket, where I can take them out and examine them when I’m alone.

“You know,” she says. “I’m doing everything I can to get into Carter. What would help me the most is if you would keep trying, too. I don’t want to go off to middle school all by myself, Ari.”

That’s when I realize that she is as nervous about next year as I am. “I’ll get in, Sash,” I say. “Trust me. One way or another, I’ll do it.”

Later, as we dance together in front of the TV, I think about Sasha’s concerns. What would it be like for her to get into Carter and for me to have to go to Wilson? It would probably be the end of us; no one from Carter really hangs out with anyone from Wilson. Besides, Sasha would probably make a bunch of new friends — even though I know she’s scared she wouldn’t. Me, on the other hand . . . I don’t like to think about what next year will be like for me if I don’t get into Carter and Sasha does. Not only would it mean the end of the longest relationship in my life except for with Gage, it would also be the last little part of Mama — her dream for me — gone forever.

But how am I going to keep my promise?

“Keep up!” Sasha yells, swinging her arms like the dancer on the screen.

I vow to work harder.

But for now I have to focus on making things better with my best girl. “Hey, Sash,” I say when the music stops and we have collapsed on the floor. “I have something else to show you.”

“Not another letter,” she says, following me back into her room and getting up on her bed.

“Nope.” I go over to my backpack, take out my folder, and bring it to her. “Remember these? Remember when we used to spend hours cutting things out?” Part of me knows I should have outgrown this game, and that’s why I haven’t suggested playing with them together since the beginning of fourth grade. But right now I just want to remind Sasha. I just want to make things right between us.

Sasha carefully pulls one of my teenagers from the left-hand pocket. “I remember her,” she says. “I remember how she used to go to dances and was on the field-hockey team.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Look here.” I open the pocket on the other side. “I still have all the furniture, too. And then some!”

Sasha reaches in and pulls out my yellow-flowered couch and a refrigerator. “I remember when you got this couch. I was so jealous. My couch was green-and-red plaid.”

“It’s hard to find whole couches.”

“And here’s Natalie’s canopy bed,” says Sasha. “I always wanted a bed like that. Still do.”

“Remember how you had all those twins?”

“Yes!” She falls back on her bed, laughing. For some reason Marianna got two of every Lands’ End catalog. Sasha loved cutting out duplicate kids for twins.

“Yeah, and then you gave me another catalog and I had triplets, too!” she said.

“It was so much fun,” I say.

“Yeah,” she says.

She stands, and I think maybe she’s going to dig around in her closet where she used to keep her shoe box of Paper Things. That she’ll want to build our world again.