Rodent (26 page)

He shrugs. “You can do it.” What’s wrong with these people? Do I look like I can pull a five-character play out of nowhere?

“Actually, I don’t think I can.”

He turns my shoulders to face him. “You can. Do you want me to come over tonight and help?”

A feeling of horror fills me, and then I take a deep breath. It’s different now. Mom’s gone. No sneaking around.

“I think you should tell your mom,” I say.

He nods, probably remembering the last time too.

“And I’ll have to ask Laina.” I’ve never had anyone over since she’s been there, since
that
night.

He walks me to Maisie’s school before turning toward his house. “Call me,” he says over his shoulder. I stand for a minute and watch him go through the drifting snow. We can do these things—call each other, make plans to get together. So simple. So impossible.

As soon as Laina gets home, I ask her about having Will over to help me with the play. She gets really excited and gives me these little smiles. Which makes me want to disappear into the bedroom.

“Why doesn’t he come for dinner?” she asks, already a blur of movement in the kitchen.

“Well…” I’m about to say no. Then: “I’ll ask him.” Maybe it is time for him to meet Maisie and Evan too. No more treading water by myself.

Will does come for dinner, which isn’t as weird as I thought it would be. Probably because Mom isn’t around to call me names or throw binders at anyone. And no police are involved. Laina makes this delicious tortilla soup and her signature buns. Maisie’s a little shy with him, but Evan wants to show him every toy he owns—which isn’t very many—and
even climbs in his lap after supper. Will and Laina have a conversation about the chemistry of bread dough.

After we’ve finished cleaning up, Laina offers to take Maisie and Evan to one of those indoor playgrounds at McDonald’s. She’s right; we wouldn’t get much done with Evan climbing Will like a monkey or Maisie drawing all over my stuff.

I sit Will on one side of the sofa and me on the other, with a bunch of papers between us—all business tonight. I read him what I’ve written so far, and the new pages as I write them. He’s actually pretty good at giving feedback, and I try not to be defensive when he suggests changes. When Laina, Maisie and Evan come back after two hours, I’m about a third of the way through.

I walk Will down to the door of the apartment building so I can say goodbye without Maisie and Evan staring. The bathrobe guy must be giving the lobby a break tonight.

“Why don’t you ask Damien and Amanda to help too?” he asks, finally allowed to pull me close. “Between the four of us, we could read the parts before you hand it in. Then you’d get an idea of what it looks and sounds like.”

That’s possible. I see Damien in English every day. Will sees Amanda in his class. “Okay. I’ll ask Damien tomorrow. You ask Amanda. Maybe we could borrow the drama room at lunch on Thursday.” Not like we ever really ask.

I keep working on my play after Will leaves and long after Maisie and Evan fall asleep. Laina takes a bath, then stands behind me before going to bed. When she doesn’t say anything, I turn to look at her.

“I talked to your mom today,” Laina says.

“You did?” I almost drop my pen.

She nods. “She’s doing well. She misses you guys.”

Her words squeeze my chest. I haven’t really let myself think about it, but sometimes I miss her too—at least the good days.

Laina watches my face.

“I’m glad she’s okay.” I swallow.

As I turn back to the pages in front of me, Laina touches my elbow. “Isabelle, you should know that when she comes back, that may not be the end of it.”

I don’t know whether I should laugh or roll my eyes. Here’s Laina, trying to prepare me for the possibility my mother might drink again. As if I didn’t live that story for sixteen years. “Yeah, I know.”

She looks relieved. “I just don’t want you to be disappointed if…well, you know. These things take time.”

I nod. Before, the best I got from Mom was a cheap promise at the end of a binge. At least she’s trying now.

I expect Laina to put her blankets on the sofa, but she stays behind me. “I won’t leave you again, Isabelle, even if your mom relapses. I’ll be around.”

I nod again. “Thanks.” I try to finish writing a sentence but am too distracted by an odd feeling moving through me: an incredible lightness.

She settles on the sofa, shifting on the flat cushions. Then, from under a blanket, Laina calls, “Will seems nice.”

I smile.

* * *

I wave Damien over before Ms. Furbank starts. “I need to ask you a favor,” I say, motioning him closer. He rests his elbows on my desk and leans in. Zara cranes her neck to stare at us. “I’m entering a play in the drama competition, and it’s due on Friday. I’m going to try to finish it tonight.” I swallow.
Try
is the operative word.

He nods, his eyes on mine.

“Can you meet with me, Will and Amanda to read it through at lunchtime tomorrow?” One of us will have to read two parts.

His eyes light up. “I’ll supply the props too.” He slides back to his desk before I can tell him what kinds of props we need. Not that Damien’s props would likely correspond anyway. I suspect I’ll be poisoning the mother while wearing a tutu and a shark-tooth necklace.

At lunch, Amanda comes to sit with Will and me in the cafeteria. It’s nice, having two people to sit with, out in the open. Amanda tells me she’s in too.

When Laina gets home that evening, I tell her about the rehearsal with Will, Damien and Amanda. She gets that excited look again, probably at the prospect I might actually have friends.

“If you have something left over, can I bring them some cupcakes or something?” I say. I don’t know why, but asking her makes me shy. Maisie and Evan practically dive-bomb her, checking for desserts, as soon as she walks in the door. Now I’m doing the same.

“Leftovers? I think I can do better than that.”

“Don’t go to any trouble…”

She’s already pushing me out of the kitchen.

“Only” —I feel bad for saying it—“I don’t think names should be written on them.” I picture handing out special cupcakes for everyone with their names written in fancy pink gel.

Laina laughs. “I was sixteen once too, Isabelle.” Then she gets to work, hands and measuring cups flying.

I finish the first draft of the play just before midnight. Laina insisted the light over the table didn’t bother her and pulled a blanket over her head on the sofa. Both of us still avoid Mom’s old room. For one second I contemplated working in there, but I knew my brain would stop functioning for sure.

On my way out the door the next morning, Laina hands me a white box, taped shut. I don’t know when she had time to finish whatever this is. The apartment smelled good when I woke up.

“Try not to tip it,” she tells me. I’m curious, but I’m too busy chasing Evan and Maisie to peek.

I catch Mr. Drummond before his class starts. “First draft done,” I say, waving the papers in the air.

“Never doubted it,” he says. From his face, I can tell he means it. He actually believed I could pull it off.

I ask him if I can use the photocopier in the office to make copies for the rehearsal today and also if I can borrow the staff fridge for this white box I’m carting around. I don’t
think it’ll survive my locker. I already see some oily-looking marks on the cardboard.

He’s on the phone to the office before I’m out the door. The admin assistant looks only mildly annoyed at having to help me with the photocopier. Then she guides me to the staff room, which has two couches uglier than ours, and shows me an empty shelf in the fridge.

When the lunch bell rings, Damien and I leave Ms. Furbank’s class and meet Will and Amanda in the hallway. As we’re turning toward the drama room, another body joins us. Nimra.

“Hey.” I smile. “You’re coming too?”

“Damien asked me,” she says, falling in step with the rest of us.

“The old crew.” Damien shrugs. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“I don’t.” It feels right, all of us together, heading to the drama room again. Now there are enough readers for every part too.

“What are you guys doing?” a voice calls behind us. We stop and turn. Zara. She probably sensed an unauthorized gathering of two or more people and came to crack down.

Everyone shifts, staring at me or at the floor. Zara and I lock eyes. I don’t know what to tell her other than the truth.

“We’re going to practice a play I wrote,” I finally say.

“Oh.”

When it doesn’t look like she’s going to raise hell, the rest of the group turns and starts to walk away. I watch her,
noticing that her jaw and shoulders look stiff but her eyes are different. A little sad.

“Do you want to come too?” I ask. I’m probably going to regret this.

“Yes,” she says, striding to catch up. “I mean, I should probably be there. I’ve had lots of experience organizing things.”

There it is: the regret.

The drama room is, of course, unlocked and empty. This time we meet near the stage, and I hand out a copy of the play to everyone.

“This is a first draft,” I explain. “I’ll probably have to make some changes before I hand it in tomorrow. Feel free to offer suggestions.” I say the last part more quietly, hoping Zara misses it.

Before I have a chance to assign parts, Zara asks, “Which is the main character?” She scans the pages.

“You should be the mother.” I smile.

Everyone else picks a character. Will ends up as the sibling who plots the murder, which is pretty funny. While they’re reading through their parts, and Damien’s looking for props, I jog down to the staff room to pick up my white box. No one even turns to look at me as I slip in and out.

Now that there are five readers, I can just watch and listen. I make notes on my copy as they go through it, underlining parts to change, parts to keep. The others make some suggestions too. Once, Nimra stops us and says, “That line isn’t very clear. Does my character know what’s going on or not?”
Zara takes that as her cue to critique every second sentence. I manage to keep from tackling her and only snap two pencil leads against the page before switching to a pen.

Damien—playing an evil friend—reads all of his lines in an accent that’s somewhere between English and Australian. “I’m probably an exchange student from the
UK
,” he explains.

I was right about the props being unrelated. Zara actually agrees to wear a pilling bathrobe, which kind of works. Will ends up holding a light saber, and Amanda has what looks like a fox tail pinned to her jeans. Damien’s wearing the Stetson this time, and Nimra nearly kills herself in a pair of four-inch platform shoes. The poison itself is in some kind of plastic gourd. It’s all good.

When we get to the end, Nimra, Zara and Amanda make a few more suggestions—most of them good.

“You should have the mother come back from the dead,” Damien says. “Kind of a zombie twist.”

I laugh. “I’ll think about it.”

While they’re putting the props away, I pull the tape off Laina’s white box and lift the lid. It’s one of those cakes made out of cupcakes, in the shape of a comedy and tragedy mask. Most of the icing is chocolate, with the exaggerated expressions done in white icing.

“Wow,” Amanda says. “Where’d you get that?”

“My aunt made it for us.” In that moment I see all of the people who came together for me, who helped me pull this off. Mr. Drummond, who pushed me forward and saw things in me that I didn’t see. Will, who was always there when
I needed him. Laina, who put her life on hold to look after us, so I could actually do things normal teenagers do. And this fabulous cake. Then Amanda, Damien, Nimra and even Zara, who showed up without a second thought. Even the admin assistant, who helped with the photocopies and showed me where to store the cake.

We’re finishing our cupcakes, licking icing off our fingers, when the drama teacher comes in. “What’s all of this?” she asks Damien, probably the only face she recognizes.

“Hi, Mrs. Murphy,” Damien says. He has a chocolate smear on his cheek. “We were just practicing a play for Isabelle.” He points at me. “She’ll be handing it in tomorrow.”

“Wonderful!” Mrs. Murphy smiles over at me. “Actually, Mr. Drummond told me about you. I look forward to reading it.” She has this great bohemian look to her, like all her clothes came from a market in Mexico.

I silently add her to the list.
Thank you, Mrs. Murphy, for (unknowingly) lending us the drama room on many occasions
. I leave a cupcake on her desk.

“Let’s bring one to Mr. Drummond too,” I say to Will. He’s standing at the door and reaches for my hand as I join him.

It doesn’t matter if the drama department picks my play or not. I’ve already won.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Jocelyn Brown and Marina Endicott for their mentorship and for telling me to keep writing. Their advice and encouragement were invaluable to me. Thanks also to Sarah Harvey for her guidance and direction as an editor and for seeing something special in Isabelle.

Many thanks to Alissa Takahashi and Jenna Hardy, my then-teenage consultants, for answering a string of bizarre questions! Thanks also to Calvin Takahashi for humoring me with his police-related advice.

Thank you to Mike, Liam, Maia and Anna for the daily adventures and ongoing support.