Thanks for Nothing (From the Files of Madison Finn, 5) (11 page)

“Miss Daly, that is unnecessary,” Mrs. Belden said.

Ivy crossed her legs with a huff. “Sorry.”

Madison continued. “Egg and I have created a model of the
Mayflower,
a ship that brought the Pilgrims to the New World. We found out some interesting facts about the
Mayflower.
”

“There were lots of trading ships at the time that were also called the
Mayflower,
” Egg said.

“And this ship wasn’t meant to carry passengers,” Madison added. “Originally. But people squeezed into the area with livestock and guns in between decks.”

Everyone gathered around the computer while Egg and Madison explained. It took a little longer than five minutes, but Mrs. Belden seemed very impressed.

“That was an excellent example of teamwork,” she told the class. “You two get a gold star for organization.”

Madison and Egg beamed. They had been greater-than-great partners, better than expected. Madison had worried for nothing. Egg had come through! After some polite applause, they sat down on the side of the room. Aimee leaned over and whispered, “Way to go.” Fiona smiled at Madison, too. She was proud.

Fiona and Daisy presented next. Unfortunately, their extra-credit project had a few loose ends—and nothing seemed to work out right. Fiona’s costume ripped, Daisy lost her place
six
times while reading the Thanksgiving Proclamation, and they sometimes talked so quickly that no one could understand a single word.

But Mrs. Belden was generous with her compliments. “Very creative, girls,” she said when they sat down again. “I like the costumes and the narration of Sarah Hale, Fiona.”

Fiona sank into her seat again, eyes on the floor.

Aimee and Ben gave the most embarrassing presentation of the morning. Aimee looked a little lost, which was very unlike the dancing, showy presenter she could be. Madison wondered if maybe, just maybe, Aimee’s crushing on Ben was the reason. Madison was getting pretty good at crush detecting. She’d never seen Aimee so distracted by someone.

Mrs. Belden had to cut off Ben when he talked for too long about Samoset and Squanto, the Native Americans who had helped the Pilgrims in Plymouth. Aimee stood by, flashing pictures and maps.

“Well done,” Mrs. Belden interrupted. “I think we all agree that was quite a history lesson, Ben and Aimee.”

As soon as they were finished. Poison Ivy and Drew were called up to present their extra credit. Both Drew and Ivy were dressed like Pilgrims. Ivy passed around a basket with corn bread in it and talked about how women Pilgrims had no say but did all the work. She even claimed to be a direct descendant of Pilgrims on the
Mayflower.

“You never told me that,” Drew suddenly blurted.

“Shhh,” Ivy hissed, and kept right on talking.

Mrs. Belden interrupted. “Is this true, Ivy? That’s a big thing.”

“Ummm … well … not really. But aren’t we all related? I mean, what’s the big deal?”

The class got very quiet. Ivy shifted from foot to foot. Drew had a blank stare on his face.

Mrs. Belden spoke up. “Please continue, Ivy.”

But she didn’t say a word. Poison Ivy Daly looked like she was about to hyperventilate.

Some kid in the back of the classroom moved, and his chair squeaked. That’s when Drew started to laugh. It wasn’t a teeny giggle, but a big snorting laugh. And it was supercontagious.

Even Mrs. Belden had to cover her mouth so she wouldn’t laugh.

Ivy glanced around the room. “May I please be excused?” she asked, and ran out into the hall.

A few moments later. Ivy returned to class with Mrs. Belden. She looked like she was sniffling, but her lip gloss looked perfect. When Ivy walked past Madison to go back to her seat, Madison couldn’t help but smile a little. It served her right for starting a rumor about her and Dan. Being in the spotlight wasn’t always so great—even for Ivy Daly.

Then Dan and Hart were the next ones up to present.

Once they reached the front of the classroom, both boys slipped trash bags over their bodies with a cutout hole for their heads. The bags had colored paper feathers, and they each wore backward baseball caps with more feathers taped to the brims.

“Today we would like to do our extra-credit project to a song,” Hart joked.

Everyone snickered.

“Yeah,” Dan continued. “Called ‘The Turkey Pokey.’”

Everyone laughed out LOUD.

“You put your right wing in, you put your left wing out, you do the turkey pokey and you turn yourself around.” It was sung to the tune of the regular “Hokey Pokey.” Mrs. Belden was smiling to herself the whole time the boys were singing.

The turkey getup was Dan’s idea. He wanted to celebrate the bird that—in his words—“got wicked gypped every Thanksgiving.” Dan had a true animal-lover side to his personality. Meanwhile Hart decided it would be funny to dress up and “talk turkey,” too. They presented random facts about turkey symbolism and turkeys from other cultures and explained how Native Americans turned turkey feathers into beautiful cloaks.

“This was a highly original presentation, boys,” Mrs. Belden said as the bell rang. Extra credit had been a lot more fun than anyone expected.

That night, Madison sent Egg an e-mail message.

From: MadFinn


To: Eggaway


Subject: MAYFLOWER PRESENTATION


Date: Tues 21 Nov 4:52 PM


We had the best presentation. You are so awesome and I am soooooo sorry for not believing we could do it. Thanks 4 all ur work, Egg. BTW: my mom says she wants to see it sometime, so maybe you can come over? I hope we r still good friends. TTFN. <:>== (p.s. That’s a symbol for a turkey ha ha!!)


Madison noticed she had another e-mail in the box. It was from Dad, and he’d sent it to Stephanie, too. It looked serious.

From: JeffFinn


To: MadFinn


Cc: Stephie8


Subject: Thanksgiving Feast


Date: Tues 21 Nov 5:02 PM


Maddie, I wanted to call to talk to you, but the phone has been busy, so I sent this instead. We need to talk about Thanksgiving again. I want to make sure you know everything because we have some big plans. Things have changed a little. But I know you will love it.


Stephanie’s family has kindly extended an invitation to their home in Texas, and I would like to go with her and bring you along. Isn’t that exciting? You’ve never been to Texas before! What do you think? We would have so much fun. Stephanie has an enormous family with lots of kids your age.


Call me soon so we can talk. I love you!


Madison reread the e-mail and caught her breath. No, she’d never been to Texas before. And she didn’t want to go now.

She didn’t want to go
ever.

“T
IME FOR SCHOOL,” MOM
said, tugging the comforter off Madison’s bed.

“No,” Madison said, curling back into her pillows.

Mom sat on the edge of the bed. “Would you please talk to me? What is going on?”

Madison hadn’t said anything last night to Mom about Thanksgiving because she figured Dad would. But Dad probably knew Mom wasn’t going to like the arrangement one bit.

Thanksgiving was tomorrow. It was enough to make someone want to stay under the covers forever.

How
would Madison break the news to Mom about Texas?

“Mom,” Madison said quietly. “Can we talk?”

Mom frowned. “Is something wrong, honey bear? Are you sick? You haven’t really been yourself for the last—”

“I don’t want to spend Thanksgiving with Dad!” Madison blurted.

Mom leaned backward with a quizzical look on her face. “We’ve been through this already, Maddie. It’s really okay with me. I understand. Being in this house will be hard over the holiday.”

“You don’t get it, Mom,” Madison insisted.

“What don’t I get?”

“Spending Thanksgiving with Dad doesn’t mean being with him only. It means spending it with Stephanie, too.”

Mom stroked Madison’s forehead. “You like her, Maddie. She’s a nice person.”

“You still don’t get it. It means being with Stephanie and everyone in her family. And I don’t want Thanksgiving with her family, and that’s where Dad’s going. He wants me to fly to Texas to be with him. Ugh.”

This was definitely news to Mom. But she kept her cool.

“I see.” Mom nodded. “Well, Maddie, I think Dad is trying to make you feel included. And I think Stephanie has a big family. Dad probably thought you’d enjoy an adventure. You were very vocal about not wanting to stay in this house or even in Far Hills. Remember?”

Madison nodded. She was the one who had started the Thanksgiving tug-of-war. Madison had made such a big deal, and now here she was going back to the original plan.

“Have you told your father how you feel?” Mom asked.

“Not exactly,” Madison shrugged. “He’ll be mad at me.”

Mom laughed. “Maddie, your dad won’t get mad at you. I think you need to call him. Come on. We have time before school. You need to do this now.”

Madison dialed Dad’s house.

Dad was silent at first, and Madison got worried about what he might say next.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he finally said. “I had no intention of putting you in the middle of this. I guess we just all want to be with you. I think you should stay at home with Mom, and I’ll see you when we get back. How does that sound?”

Madison felt warm all over. Once again, Dad had said exactly the right thing to make her feel better.

When she hung up the phone, Mom leaned in for a giant hug.

“So does this mean it’s just you and me again?” Mom asked.

Madison just smiled.

The day was a lot brighter. And it wasn’t just that the rain had stopped. Madison hadn’t realized just how much the whole Thanksgiving decision-making process had been clouding her days. Now that things were settled, she was feeling much better.

On the way to her first class, she caught a glimpse of herself in a display cabinet outside the history department. She smoothed her ponytail down in the glass reflection.

It took her a few moments before she even noticed the display on Thanksgiving. Around the borders of the glass window were acorns and pumpkins. Different teachers had posted artwork and papers. But in the center of the entire display was the
Mayflower
poster Madison and Egg had created together.

There she was—right there in the middle of everything. Extra credit turned into extra recognition. Madison felt really proud.

The second bell rang, and Madison caught up with Aimee and Fiona. “Where have you been?” Aimee asked. “I looked for you on the way to school. You haven’t been walking much this week, have you?”

“Mom gave me a ride again,” Madison said. She didn’t feel like going into more detail about Thanksgiving and Mom and Dad and everything else that got messed up. Aimee didn’t ask any more questions.

Later in the day, Mom surprised Madison by picking her up and driving over to the clinic. Dan hitched a ride with them, too.

Eileen was busy working at the front desk in a new T-shirt that read
BE A VEGETARIAN.

Madison and Dan went into the paneled office and entered data into the database. Then they joined Eileen and a few other volunteers to hang special decorations. Madison hung up one poster that read
SAVE THE TURKEYS.
Eileen even hung up a funny turkey mobile with a moving turkey wattle (the icky red jiggly thing under a turkey’s chin).

“I saw a wild turkey last week,” Dan said as he hung up a turkey poster. “It was so big. I wonder if someone got him for the holiday?”

“You mean … ate him?” Madison laughed.

They both made an “eeeeeew” noise and laughed some more.

“I am so glad I came to volunteer here, Dan,” Madison said. “I know that sounds really sappy, but I am. And I’m glad we got to be better friends.”

“Yeah,” Dan said. “It’s been cool having you around. The animals really like you.”

“Thanks.” Madison reached out and petted Sugar’s paw. It was dangling out of her cage. “Is that what you think, Sugar?”

The schnoodle made a low noise that Madison took as a qualified “yes” to her question.

Dan grabbed a few leashes off the Peg-Board at the side of the room.

“Hey,” he said, tossing a leash to Madison. “Let’s take her for a walk. I’ll get some of the others.”

Madison put on her scarf and her jacket. She gently lifted Sugar out of a cage and hooked on her leash. Dan let out some of the other animals, too: the yellow Labrador retriever, a miniature dachshund, a Jack Russell terrier, and a Yorkie terrier.

They walked up and down in front of the clinic a few times and then crossed over to walk on the other side of the street.

“HELP!” Madison laughed as the dogs swarmed around her. The leashes were getting tangled quickly.

Dan laughed, too. “This would make a funny picture.”

“Good thing no one has a camera,” Madison said.

They walked around the block. Dan wasn’t talking too much. Madison didn’t know why.

“What do you guys do for Thanksgiving?” Madison asked.

He shrugged. “You mean me and my mom?”

“Yeah,” Madison said.

“This is a weird time of year. My dad died around this time two years ago.”

Madison was amazed at how honest Dan was being, like they’d been friends forever and ever.

She took a breath, “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, me too.” Dan smiled. “He was a cool guy.”

“Did he like animals, too?” Madison asked, leaning down to pet the top of Sugar’s head.

Dan thought for a minute. “Yeah, I guess so. We always had pets. I remember this duck that lived in our yard.”

Madison wanted to ask more questions about Dan’s dad, but she didn’t know how. She started asking about his mom instead.

“Your mom is so cool,” Madison said. “Especially the T-shirts she wears.”

“Yeah,” Dan said. “She has a ton of them, right?”

When they walked back inside the clinic from exercising the dogs, Eileen was hanging a red-and-orange streamer across the waiting area. It really brightened up the place.