Solving Zoe (9 page)

Zoe crumpled the white sheet into a tight ball and threw it into the trash. Then she marched up to Anya's desk.

“I need a new sheet,” she said.

“Already?” Anya asked, her blue eyes full of concern. “Zoe, I told you, I just want to see your thoughts. I don't care about the computation. Just relax and have fun with it. And if you made a mistake—”

“But I
didn't
,” Zoe replied firmly. “Someone else did. May I please just have a new sheet?”

Anya gave her one. She sat back down without looking at anybody, and completed all the problems with fierce concentration, pressing her pencil so hard that she made small indentations in the pale yellow paper.

When Math was over, she headed straight downstairs to the Girl's Locker Room, where Leg, Paloma, and Dara were getting into their shorts and Ts for Rec Arts.

“You think I have no
feelings
?” Zoe demanded. “Is that what you think, Dara?”

Dara's cheeks turned bright pink. “I never said that, Zoe.”

“Paloma wrote it, but it's what you think, right?”

“You're yelling. I don't think you want to do this here, do you?” Dara darted her eyes meaningfully in the direction of Leg and Paloma.

“I don't care! And I don't care who hears me! If they want to eavesdrop, let them!” Zoe's legs were shaking; she sat down on a bench. “Listen, Dara. Just because I don't wave my arms around, or dance around onstage, or say every little thing that pops into my head, or
show my thoughts
, doesn't mean that I'm not
feeling
anything. Or
thinking
anything. Don't assume you have me all figured out like some dumb little math equation, because you don't.”

“I never said—”

“You think I wrote those notes, don't you? Well, I didn't. I'd never do something like that. To you or anyone. I can't believe you don't know that about me by now. Or that you won't even talk about it.”

“Why should she?” Leg said calmly. “When it's so obvious you're lying.”

“But I'm not! And I wasn't even speaking to you, Leg. This is actually none of your business.”

“Oh, it's definitely my business. I got two notes, Zoe, remember?”

“Well, not from me!”

“From who, then? Your boyfriend?” Paloma said.

“What?”

“Ezra Blecker. You've been eating lunch with him, right?”

“Stop picking on—”

“No, Paloma, I really think it's Zoe,” Leg said as she tied her sneakers. “She's the one who's so angry at everybody.”

“I'm only angry because you're accusing me,” Zoe said. “And you should also stop accusing other people.”

Paloma smirked. “Let's get this straight, Zoe. We shouldn't accuse you, but we shouldn't accuse anyone else. Who
should
we accuse, then?”

“I don't know!” Zoe snapped. “Don't ask me to blame other people for you, okay? All I'm saying is, it wasn't me.”

“What about the gecko eyes?” Dara asked softly.

Leg gave Dara a questioning look, but Dara was staring at Zoe.

“You're still doing that after-school job, Zoe, right?” Dara asked.

“Well, yes,” Zoe admitted. “But that doesn't mean—”

“What job?” Paloma asked.

“Babysitting lizards,” Dara said.

Paloma made a throw-up face.

“Listen,” Zoe said to Dara.
“I didn't write—”

“You can say whatever you want,” Leg interrupted. “But everybody sees the truth, Zoe. Everybody knows that you can't deal with the fact that Dara isn't your clone anymore. And she got a big starring part and you can't even be happy for her. So why don't you just go off somewhere with Ezra and your disgusting lizards and draw your funny little pictures and leave us alone?”

Zoe turned to Dara, but her best friend was standing there very quietly. Dara didn't even return her look; she just kept chewing on her thumbnail, watching everyone with the same unhappy, slightly out-of-focus expression. What did it mean? What was actually going on in Dara's mind right now? It was impossible to tell; Zoe could suddenly read Dara no better than she could read Lucas's crazy notebook.

Without another word, Zoe got up from the bench and walked over to her own gym locker. She was cold and numb, but her legs were still working. She'd get into her shorts and her T-shirt, and then she'd go into the gym and shoot baskets, or something. And after Rec Arts was Ancient Civs, and then Zoe could escape to Isaac's. And be able to breathe, or cry, or scream, or whatever she wanted.

Her gym locker was in the middle of the locker room. As she walked toward it, she could see that there was a
yellow sheet of paper taped to someone's door. Her door. She was positive it was hers. Her heart began to race as she got closer.

In bold red letters someone had written:
Open Me.

She ripped the paper off the door and let it flutter to the floor. Then she opened her gym locker.

On the bottom shelf was a little white strip of paper, no bigger than a fortune.
Hello, Zoe
, it said.
We know it's you.

In Ancient Civs there was another tiny message scrawled in the corner of Zoe's whiteboard desk:

She looked around the room; Lucas wasn't in class. Was he hiding somewhere because he knew that by now she'd read his note to Dara—and figured out that he'd written it, because who else knew that geckoes didn't blink? That's what he'd said outside Isaac's house—she was sure those were his exact words—that day he'd followed her there and sat on the steps and showed her those stupid codes.

She grabbed the Signe pen from her backpack.
No,
she wrote underneath his question. Then she smudged out her answer and wrote,

After class she grabbed her backpack and raced out the
door to find Lucas. She was just about to run down the central staircase, when she nearly crashed into Owen.

“Hello, old friend,” he said.

“Hi,” Zoe said, catching her breath. “I was just leaving!”

“I'm glad I caught you, then. Anything you'd like to chat about?”

“Now?”

“We could go into my office. Take a minute. Close the door, talk in private.”

“About what?”

“No idea?”

She shook her head. Her hair tumbled stupidly into her face.

“Think about it over the weekend,” Owen said pleasantly. “And why don't you stop by my office on Monday morning before homeroom. Oh, and Zoe? You should probably bring a parent.”

“What if I'd rather not?”

He raised his eyebrows. Immediately she realized that her question had sounded rude.
Ack! Shut up,
she scolded herself.

“I mean,” she added quickly, “is it necessary? To bring a parent? I'm really fine without one.”

“Then you're the first kid in history,” Owen replied.

 

On the way over to Isaac's, Zoe stopped at a sidewalk grocery for some fresh apples and squash to slice up for the lizards. It occurred to her then that she hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. But she wasn't especially hungry, so she just bought a bag of Skittles, nibbling half the bag before she reached Isaac's brownstone. They tasted comforting, she thought, like normal afternoons. Like
The Zoe and Dara Show,
although she didn't want to think about that right now.

At Isaac's door she stuffed the bag into her hoodie pocket and then headed straight to Iguana #3. And today there was no doubt about it: The little lizard was definitely sick. She was curled up like a teeny cat in the corner of her terrarium. Her eyes looked cloudy and she didn't seem to be moving.

Zoe ran downstairs to the kitchen. Isaac had left the name and address of the vet by his one and only phone. She found it, and was just about to pick up the phone to dial, when it rang alarmingly.

“Zoe-the-lizard-sitter? Is that you again?”

“Yes?”

“It's Walker Robbins. From the
gallery
?” He sighed,
making a loud swishing sound in her ear. “Listen, my child, did you get through to Isaac?”

“I tried. I e-mailed him two days ago.”

“Did he answer back? Did he appreciate the seriousness of the situation?”

“Um. I'm not exactly sure.”

“Because the wall is totally down now. I mean, I'm standing here looking at…air. So if you e-mail him or talk to him in the next, oh, five minutes, could you please convey to him that he needs to get his skinny ponytail on the next flight out of the desert and get home to New York immediately?”

Then he hung up.

Zoe could feel her heart start to pick up speed again. How could she tell Isaac anything? He wouldn't believe her; he'd probably just say that she was reacting emotionally, like some overheated preteen. Meanwhile, the truth was, his perfect little world was a mess, and he was off in the desert somewhere, hiding like a turtle. And leaving her to deal with everything, when she had gigantic problems of her own! Well, she'd e-mail him about the ex-wall later. And of course she'd also e-mail about poor Iguana #3. But she couldn't wait for a reply. She needed to get Iguana #3 to the vet right away. It could be a matter of—

No. Don't even think that
, she scolded herself. Just concentrate on one thing at a time. Like getting Iguana #3 out of the terrarium. But how was she going to do that? And once she did (assuming she did), how was she going to get the little lizard to the vet?

She needed help, obviously. First she tried her father's cell. No answer, and anyway the Enchanted Forest job was in New Jersey, so there was no way he could get back to New York in time. Mom had patients all afternoon, so it was no use trying her. Isadora had a cell, but if Zoe called, she'd probably just say,
Eww. Warts and salmonella, dahling.
Her only hope was Malcolm. He'd give her a hard time about it, but he'd probably come over, especially if she bowed down and pleaded. She called her home phone number, but it just rang and rang. Then she remembered that this was Friday, and Malcolm always had Math Olympiad meetings on Fridays, which meant he wouldn't be home for at least an hour. And Bella was probably off in the park with Spencer. And even if she wasn't, the thought of dealing with Spencer right now was more than Zoe could handle.

Then she spotted a familiar-looking book on Isaac's counter. The Hubbard directory. Of course he'd have one. His kid Willie was in first grade.

Without stopping to think, she grabbed the directory and looked up Lucas Joplin. As she was dialing, it occurred to her that she was calling Signe's house, but this was an emergency.

“Lucas!” she shouted into the phone. “It's Zoe. I'm at my pet-sitting job. Remember where that was? Can you get over here this minute?”

“What for?” he asked slowly. “I thought you told me—”

“Just come, okay? Please?” She forced herself to breathe. “One of the iguanas looks funny to me, kind of pale and folded up. I think it's really sick.”

“So why are you calling me? I'm not a herpetologist. My expertise is in—”

“Codes. I know! But didn't you say there were lizards all over the place in Guatemala, or wherever you were?”

“Well, yes, there were lizards, Zoe. But there weren't iguanas. There were skinks and salamanders—”

“OKAY. Whatever there were, do you think you could please just help me with this?”

He paused thoughtfully. “How? You should probably take it to a vet.”

“I'm going to, Lucas. But first I need to get it out of the tank.”

“And that's why you're calling me?”

“You're used to them. Didn't you tell me they crawled all over you when you were sleeping?”

“Well, sure. But I never
touched
them. I was asleep. And eventually they crawled off.”

“Oh, never mind!” Zoe exploded. “I'll do it myself!”

She slammed the receiver down. What did she expect from crazy Lucas, anyway? Of course, she wasn't done with him yet. There was a whole other conversation they desperately needed to have, about the anonymous notes, among other things. But she couldn't waste time being angry with him right now. Right now she had to save Iguana #3, and who even knew how much time she had.

She ran back upstairs with her backpack. She unzipped it fast, and dumped her binders and crumpled-up doodles and Prismacolor pencils onto the floor. Isaac would probably have been furious about the mess, but who cared? She'd clean it up later. Down the hall from the lizard rooms was a tiny bathroom. She swiped a fluffy white towel from the wall rack and then walked softly into Iguana #3's room.

“Okay, little girl,” Zoe crooned, aware she sounded a bit silly, and not caring in the least. “I'm going to take you out very, very gently, and then give you a little ride to the vet in this nice, soft towel. Okay? You trust me? You won't bite or give me bad diseases?”

She clenched her teeth and slowly inched the towel into the terrarium. When she reached the corner where Iguana #3 was huddled, Zoe opened her hand and gently grasped the lizard, who didn't resist at all. Then she slowly pulled her hand out of the terrarium, and carefully dropped the towel-swaddled lizard into her backpack. She zipped it fast, leaving a tiny hole for air.

Then she strapped on her backpack and headed out the door, clutching the vet's address in her hand.

The day was cold, the first real autumn weather of the year. Zoe shivered inside her hoodie, zipping it right up to her throat, and pulling the purple hood over her hair. Probably this was the wrong temperature for lizards, she thought. But didn't it get pretty cold in the tropics at night? Anyway, Iguana #3 was bundled up in the towel.
That should keep her warm,
Zoe told herself, trying to walk as quickly as she could without jostling the backpack.
Which should be squirming,
Zoe thought. Why wasn't it?

Finally she reached the vet's office, almost five blocks from Isaac's brownstone. The receptionist smiled up at her when she walked in the door.

“May I help you?” she asked pleasantly.

“It's an emergency! I'm helping Isaac Wakefield—”

The receptionist immediately got up from her chair and gestured for Zoe to follow her into the back room. A minute later a calm-looking woman with a long brown braid walked in. “You have a lizard? One of Isaac's?”

Zoe nodded. “You're the vet?”

“I'm Dr. Kravitz. Where is it?"

“In my backpack. Could you please take her out? I'm a little—”

Dr. Kravitz smiled. “Sure, no problem.”

She walked behind Zoe and unzipped her backpack. Then she pulled out Iguana #3 and carefully placed her on the examining table.

“She won't eat,” Zoe said. “And she isn't moving very much. And her color's funny; I can't explain it, exactly.”

“Hmm,” said Dr. Kravitz. “How long have you noticed this?”

“A few days.” She watched as the vet touched the lizard's back. “I don't know anything about lizards,” Zoe added. “But I have this definite feeling that something's wrong.”

Dr. Kravitz nodded. “Well, it's good you came in, then.”

“Then I'm right? You mean she's really sick?”

“Maybe. We'll have to see.” Dr. Kravitz crouched down and looked into the lizard's eyes. “What a pretty girl. Which one's this?”

Zoe almost said Iguana #3. But she couldn't. Because suddenly it seemed cruel and wrong that the little lizard didn't have a name.

“Ruby,” Zoe replied, wondering where on earth she'd gotten that from.