I pushed the covers back and grabbed my robe and a ponytail band off the nightstand.
In the dining room Dad read the newspaper and dipped a waffle in a puddle of syrup.
“Where’s Mom?”
He bit a corner off and chewed as he turned the page. “Haven’t seen her.”
I pulled up a chair and took a waffle off the pile. “What time did she leave?”
Dad looked at me over the top of the paper. “Are you not listening? I said I haven’t seen her.”
Then I glanced over to the living room. The old quilt I used to have on my bed lay crumpled under the afghan on the couch. A pillow hung half off the side.
“Are you and Mom fighting?”
The newspaper hid his face again, and it ruffled as he turned another page. “Of course not.”
I got a plate from the kitchen and came back to the table. “Where’s the syrup?”
He sighed. “Where do you think?”
I pushed my chair back and went to search the pantry. “I don’t see it.”
The newspaper snapped. “Use your eyes, Juliet.”
“I’m using my eyes.” I pushed aside boxes of macaroni and cheese, cans of vegetables and tins of tuna. “It’s not here.”
The newspaper crumpled. He mumbled a curse word and his chair scraped against the floor. I scooted back as he stalked into the kitchen.
“I just had it. It’s right here.” He knocked things right and left and swore again.
I tucked my hands into the pockets of my robe. “Never mind. I’ll eat cereal.”
“No,” he barked. “You want the syrup, we’ll find the syrup.”
My shoulder blades bumped the refrigerator.
“Can’t even sit and read the paper on my day off.”
He knocked a box of instant potatoes onto the floor where it cracked open. Fluffy white flakes slid across the flowered linoleum. His face went purple and the vein in the side of his neck throbbed. He kicked the box and a plume of potato dust exploded in the air.
“I’ll get it!” I skirted around him and the mess to get the dustpan from the hall closet.
He cursed again and slammed the pantry door. “I don’t know where the syrup is! And I’ve got better things to do than look all over the blasted house for it!”
He stormed out of the kitchen and pounded down the basement steps to his study.
I chewed on the insides of my cheeks and swept wispy piles of dry potatoes into the dustpan. My eyes swam with stupid tears.
I should have known better than to bother him.
After I got most of the mess into the trash I picked up the empty box and wiped it over the sink. I threw it out, then wrung out the dishrag. Wet flakes clung to my hands, and stuck around the bowl of the sink. When I got all of them washed down the drain I folded the dishrag and laid it on the counter between the sink and pantry.
Right next to the stupid bottle of syrup.
* * * * *
Kitty called that afternoon.
I cradled the phone against my ear and flopped on the bed. “How was the lake?”
“Ugh.”
“Did you get to go canoeing with George?”
She moaned. “We took a wrong bend in the river. At first it was really pretty.” She told me about the acres of blueberry bushes, and a pair of deer that came out of the woods and walked down to the river to drink. “But then we got into this really fast water, and hit a tree trunk. We fell in. It was awful. Really scary. It was hours before Mom and Dad found us.”
“Oh my gosh! I’m glad you’re okay.”
“George is going to have a bad scar on his cheek, though.”
“Yikes.”
“Anyway, how was your week?”
“Lousy. And great. Kind of both.” I switched ears and rolled over onto my stomach. “Oh, I got the gift.”
She didn’t say anything for a minute. “Mm-hmm?”
“Thanks. I haven’t tried them yet.”
“The gum. You’re really going to enjoy those.”
“Yeah. They smell really good.”
“Did anything else happen while I was gone?”
I twisted the phone cord around my fingers. “There is something kind of weird going on.”
“Tell me.”
I started from the beginning, with the half-drawn sketch of Damon and what happened in the hall outside Hirsch’s class. Then I described the moss and the one about the school building that didn’t come true. “On Wednesday, I drew this picture when I was totally raging about Amica, and it halfway came true the next morning.” I told her about the dogs and the diamond necklace.
“Bizarre.”
“I know. I wish I could figure out why it works sometimes and doesn’t work other times.”
I could hear her chewing on her fingernail on the other end of the phone. “What if you do have a gift?”
“A gift?”
“Like Pam said. ‘The Power of Artistic Prophecy’ or something.”
I flipped onto my back again and the phone cord wrapped around my neck. “Hold on,” I said, and detangled myself. “That would be incredibly cool.”
“Do you think so?”
“Don’t you?”
“I don’t know. That could be an awesome power. And by ‘awesome’ I mean huge, overwhelming.”
I laughed. “You sound like Jimmy.”
“Think about it. You could control the future.”
I could control the future.
“You could really mess stuff up.”
“Thanks for the confidence.”
“Juliet, really.”
I picked at a piece of waffle stuck between my teeth. “I wouldn’t do anything bad with it.”
“What if something you think is good is really bad?”
“Come on. I know the difference between good and bad.”
Her voice went all dramatic. “What if you saved someone from dying, and that person went on to kill somebody?”
I looked over at my wall and the sketch of Damon’s DIVE PROS BRISBANE shirt. I should finish that, and draw his eyes the way they looked at me on the bike. “I don’t even know anyone who might be a killer.”
“Anyone could be a killer,” she said. “It’s just something to think about.”
I crossed one leg over the other knee and looked out the window. The rain slowed to a light drizzle, and a shaft of sunlight cut through the clouds. “It doesn’t matter anyway, unless I can figure out how to make it work.”
“You will.”
“You think so?”
She bit her nail some more. “I know so.”
When we hung up I grabbed the sketch of Damon and tried to fill in his face, but it wouldn’t come out. I could see him in my mind, but couldn’t get him through the pencil onto the paper.
What the heck?
This never, ever happened to me.
I gave up and tacked it back onto the wall.
A grin tore my face in half and I flopped back onto my pillow.
Maybe this is what love does to you.
* * * * *
Mark brought Ginger over again that night.
We all talked while we ate dinner, and Ginger told a joke that made everybody laugh, even Mom and Dad. Dad passed the chicken enchiladas to Mom for seconds, then she passed them to me, and everyone smiled at each other. Dad talked to Mark about colleges, and Mom asked me about the Art as History contest. I didn’t know she even heard me when I told her about it.
A couple of times during the meal I saw Ginger glance at Mark’s silver ID bracelet, then look at his face with pure adoration. I hoped she never figured out she could do better than him.
No one had homework, so after we cleared the table Mom brought out a deck of cards.
“Let’s play euchre,” Mark suggested.
Dad took the deck and curved the cards into a collapsing bridge each time he shuffled them. “Can’t play euchre with five.”
Mark kicked me under the table. “Go call your boyfriend and
we’ll have six.”
Dad stacked the cards on the table and leaned back in his chair. “Tell me about this boyfriend, Juliet.”
Ginger gave me this helpless look.
“There’s nothing to tell. He’s not my boyfriend.” I hate this family.
“But there is a he,” Dad said.
Mark put his arm around the back of Ginger’s chair and played with her hair. “Tell us, J.”
Whose side are you even on? I glared at him.
Mom leaned forward and put her elbows on the table. “Who is this boy, Juliet?”
“No one!” I folded my arms across my chest. “I thought you wanted to play cards.”
“I’d like to play cards,” Ginger said. “How about rummy?”
Mark stared at me. “Why not poker? But we bet with questions instead of chips, and the loser gives up answers.”
“Poker? Where did you learn about poker?” Mom asked.
Ginger shook her head. “I don’t know how to play poker. Pinochle?”
Dad leaned toward me. “Should we be concerned about this boy?”
I looked up at the ceiling and sighed as hard as I could. “There is no boyfriend.” I added friend at the end, so technically I didn’t lie.
“He’s one of the Sheppards,” Mark said.
Mom and Dad exchanged the longest look I could remember.
I scowled at Mark. “What do you mean, ‘one of the Sheppards’?”
“I told you.”
Mom turned to Mark. “What do you know about it?”
Ginger looked as sick as I felt.
“I know enough,” Mark said.
Everyone just sat there. Mom looked at Dad, then at Mark. Ginger looked at me, then at Mark. Dad looked at Mark, then at me, then at Ginger.
Dad picked the cards up again and started to separate the deck. “Euchre it is. Mark and Ginger, you can play together with Juliet as your partner.”
I stood up and pushed my chair back. “I don’t want to play.”
“Don’t go, Juliet,” Ginger asked.
Dad pulled out two sixes and two fours and tossed a pair to Mark. “It looks like Ginger and I are partners, and you’ve got your mom.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to play, honey?” Mom called up the stairs behind me.
When I got to my room I fell onto my bed on my stomach, grabbed my pillow and screamed into it. Then I took a deep breath and did it again.
That didn’t help. I had to get out.
I turned off the light and opened the window over the sun porch. I closed the curtains behind me and climbed onto the roof.
The damp ground gave off the rich scent of fresh rain and wet grass. Each night got cooler now, and the breeze that blew across the top of the house swept the hair off my neck and drew up goose bumps on the backs of my arms.
I drank a deep breath of the twilight wind and slid down a foot or so off the point of the roof, then lay back against the gritty shingles. The roof seeped the afternoon’s heat into my back and the bottoms of my feet, while the air around me pulled warmth off my skin.
The Milky Way swirled above as though someone stirred stars into the infinite darkness. Far below the oceanic depths of the universe, yet high above the tiny speck of me, a satellite crawled across the sky. Closer still, an airplane’s wing lights blinked in rhythm as it overtook the satellite and sped toward the horizon.
And I moved too, as the house spun with the earth, both hurtling in orbit around the sun. But I only felt the wind as it passed over me.
I’m so mad, God.
I wanted a voice to speak. I needed an answer, a response, something besides empty silence.
“Do you even hear me?” I whispered.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Our father, who gets mad about syrup.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
“I can’t even sit and read the paper in peace.”
Give us this day our daily bread.
Potato Buds on my plate. A pile of them on the kitchen floor. Did manna taste like powdered potatoes? “Thank you, God, for enough food to kick around.”
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Amica. “And then she peed her pants, right on the front lawn!” And everyone laughed.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
“He’s one of the Sheppards.”
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.
I looked up. “Is there anything for me in there, God?”
Amen.
The wind whistled across the corner of the roof. Leaves swished against the shingles. I lay there and stared up into the sky until the weight of all its emptiness squeezed me into a tiny bit of nothingness, a miniscule grain of sand, the tiniest microbe no one ever saw.
The front door opened and creaked closed again. I scooted nearer to the wall outside my bedroom. Mark and Ginger walked to his car.
“No. I need to get home.”
“It’s early.”
She laughed, in a nervous kind of way. “No, it’s not.”
I slid down a couple of more inches and stretched over so I could see around the house. Ginger leaned against Mark’s car and he stood in front of her. He put his hands on the roof of the car and penned her in with his arms. He leaned down to kiss her and she put her hands on his chest.
“Half an hour,” he asked.
She smiled and shook her head.
“How long have we been going out?”
Wow. Mark sounds just like Dad.
“Almost two months.”
Mark put his forehead against hers. “I’m in love with you. I just want to get closer. But you keep pushing me away.”
“It’s not that. I love you, too.”
He cupped her jaw with one hand. “Then what is it?”
She leaned her cheek into his palm and closed her eyes. “I’m just not ready.”
“When are you going to be ready?” Dad’s voice again.
“I don’t know yet.”
Mark exhaled hard. “Get in. I’ll take you home.”
She held onto his hand when he tried to pull away. “I love you.”
“Let’s go before you turn into a pumpkin.”
They pulled out of the driveway and the tires squealed as Mark took off down the road.
I shivered, huddled against the house, and wished it would all just stop.
CHAPTER 12
I didn’t feel at all scared when I walked into homeroom on Tuesday. I wanted to see Damon again, and Bethany and Tori didn’t bother me so much. I wore another outfit that Ginger did for me, along with my favorite necklace, a heart-shaped crystal pendant on a gold herringbone chain.
I smiled at the dragons when I walked between them, and realized that I even kind of meant it. Tori smiled back, and it looked pretty real. Bethany kind of smirked, and when she looked me over I knew she couldn’t find anything wrong with me.
So there.
Damon always beat me to school, and he sat in the back row, stretched out as usual. He and Erik talked about bikes, but when he saw me he nodded and smiled. Erik turned around and waved two fingers.
This complete, happy warmth spread out from my shoulder blades and wrapped me up like a blanket. I sat down and pulled out my math stuff. Over the weekend we finished the last set of problems in the two-variable equation chapter. Next came three-variable equations. Crud.
Hirsch stood up and rapped his knuckles on the board. “Welcome back to school,” he said. “Please remove your heads from the clouds and position them in my classroom.”
He turned to the blackboard, wrote Math Attack, and drew a vertical line down the center of the board. Two people at a time would go to the front to compete in a speed-solving game. I understood how to do the problems now, but I’d never be able to beat anybody.
Pam tapped me on the shoulder. I looked back and she pointed at
Damon.
“Academic Olympics tonight,” he whispered.
I shook my head. No way.
He nodded.
I scowled and shook my head again.
“I can toss you over my shoulder,” he mouthed.
My rebel mind blasted my quivery stomach with the memory of his shoulder under the back of my head.
Erik snorted a laugh. “We need you,” he whispered.
“You do not.” I faced forward.
Hirsch turned around, smiled under his fat, wiggly mustache, and called Pam and Tori to the board. “8x + 4y = 28. 2y - x = 4.”
Pam and Tori copied the problems and started to solve. Pam worked fast, and her chalk squeaked against the blackboard. Tori acted bored and decorated her numbers with little curlicues.
“Did I mention that the winner of today’s Math Attack gets five extra points on the chapter test tomorrow?”
Tori protested, but Pam worked even faster.
“Done!” Pam shouted. “It’s x is 2 and y is 3!”
“You are correct, Miss Martz. You may sit down.”
Hirsch called the next pair to the board and gave them their problem.
Pam tapped my shoulder again and I turned around.
Erik leaned forward over his desk. “Amica’s out of the Olympics, if that’s why you don’t want to do it.”
My palms and armpits broke into a sweat. “Why is she out?”
“Mrs. Larch said it conflicts with cheerleading.”
I shrugged.
“If it’s not Amica, why won’t you come?”
I shrugged again.
“Not good enough. No one else can handle the fine arts questions.”
Hirsch clapped his hands. “Good work, Charlie. Next up, Martha and Damon.”
Damon beat Martha easily, then Hirsch called Bethany and me to the board.
On any other day I wouldn’t have tried to win. But Bethany had a harder time with math than I did, and I kind of wanted to look at least a little smart. I picked up a piece of chalk and laid it against the blackboard.
“4x - 2y = 12. 3x - y = 11.”
I jotted the equations as quickly as Hirsch gave them and started to work. Some inner math muse possessed me and I scribbled, “4x = 12 + 2y.” My handwriting didn’t even look the same. “Divide both sides by four,” I muttered as I worked. Soon I’d solved for x, then I plugged the answer into the second equation.
“Go, Juliet!” Erik called out.
“Erik!” Bethany protested and tossed her auburn hair and a flirty look over her shoulder.
I looked over at her work and found myself a full line ahead of her toward the solution. I can do this!