3. He had a cute best friend. (She sighed at that one, then crossed it off.)
4. He wasn’t as gross as many of the seventh-grade boys.
5. He wasn’t gross at all, really. He was clean and dressed nicely and didn’t smell weird or sweaty or . . . weird.
6. He possibly liked poems.
7. He possibly liked her.
8. If #6 and #7 were true, then he, Stanley Gilmer, was her secret admirer.
Soon it was 2:35.
Well, she thought. She placed her hands flat on the desk. She drummed her fingers.
I’ll just peek at the water fountain and see if he’s there, she thought.
She waited until everyone else had gone, and then slipped her backpack over one shoulder and tiptoed out of the room. She made sure the hall was clear. She craned her neck and peered toward the far end, where the water fountain was.
Stanley smiled at her nervously. He kinda sorta raised his hand.
Natasha ducked back and smushed her backpack against the wall.
“Natasha?” Stanley called.
Natasha took a second peek. Stanley was still there, his hand half raised and his expression puzzled. She pulled back and pressed herself harder against the painted cinder-block wall. Her backpack dug into her, so she slipped it off and held the strap with her hand.
“Natasha,” Stanley said.
She heard footsteps. Oh no, was he coming toward her? She closed her eyes, as if that would do any good, and then gave up and stepped forward.
“Oomph,” Stanley said as they smacked into each other. Natasha dropped her backpack.
“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry,” Natasha said.
“It’s okay. I’m sorry,” Stanley said.
They gazed at each other. Natasha twisted her hands.
She forced a laugh. “Molly’s crazy. I mean, I love her, but she is seriously crazy.”
“Oh,” Stanley said. His face fell.
“Wait—did I say something wrong?” Natasha said. She hadn’t meant to make his face fall.
“No! Just, when she asked me who I like, I guess I thought she was asking for you, maybe.”
Natasha’s breaths grew shallow. “She asked you who you like?”
Stanley checked both ways down the empty hall. He stepped closer. His eyes were sweet, like a little boy’s. “Do you want to know?”
“Do I want to know what?”
“Who I like.”
Natasha stepped backward. She no longer had her backpack on as additional padding, and she whacked her head on the wall. “Ouch.”
“I hear you. I hit my head this morning. I have a lower locker.”
Natasha tried to escape by scuttling sideways, like a crab.
“The girl above me?” Stanley went on, matching her step for step. “Claire Stuber?” Two spots of red, the exact size of quarters, rose on his cheeks. “Um, she’s not the girl I like. If you were wondering.”
“Okay.”
“But every day she leaves her locker open and talks to her friends, and every day I forget, and stand up from my locker, and bam.”
“Ouch,” Natasha said. “And you keep doing it? Day after day?”
“It’s embarrassing,” he admitted.
“You’d think you could just . . . remember.”
“You would, wouldn’t you?”
“Like, you could say to yourself, ‘Stanley, look up before you get to your feet.’”
“And then I’d stop bonking my head. I know.”
Natasha got the giggles. He was being so frank about it. “Do you really bonk your head every single day?”
“No. I might have been exaggerating.”
“Good!”
“Yeah. On Saturdays and Sundays I don’t bonk my head. Saturdays and Sundays are bonk-free days.”
Natasha’s giggles had made her feel more at ease.
“Okay . . . yes,” she said.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I want to know who you like. If you want to tell me. If you still want to tell me, even though you bonked your head.”
“Oh. Okay, sure. Only, this time you bonked your head.”
“I did?” Natasha lifted her hand to check. “I did. On the wall. Oh yeah.” She studied him. “So we both bonked our heads.”
Stanley rocked back and forth, hands deep in his pockets. He looked pleased. Then he stopped. He swallowed, grew serious, and said, “It’s you, Natasha.”
Her stomach flipped. “Me?”
“You’re the girl I like.”
“I am?”
“You’re my favorite girl in the whole seventh grade,” he said. He hesitated. “In the whole school, actually.”
A huge, soundless rushing filled Natasha up.
Stanley liked her best.
Sweet, awkward Stanley, who bonked his head again and again, said she was his favorite girl in the whole school.
His favorite.
She would not attribute it to brain damage. She would soak it in and believe it.
“Are you okay with that?” Stanley asked.
“I’m okay with it,” Natasha said, a smile creeping over her face.
“Really?”
“Really,” she said. And since he had done something brave by telling her how he felt, she decided to do something brave in return. She rose to her tiptoes, took hold of his shoulders, and kissed him, right there in the hall.
“Wow,” Stanley said when Natasha pulled back. His cheeks were redder than ever.
“Yeah,” Natasha said, marveling at the world. Marveling, specifically, at the magic of unexpected things. Good unexpected things. Good magic. She didn’t care where the magic came from (or if it was magic at all).
Two out of Natasha’s three wishes had come true, and without anything creepy involved. Not a single corpse trying to rise from the grave, not a single beast slouching toward Bethlehem, its rough hour at hand.
Just a boy, a girl, and a kiss.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
They stood there, looking at each other.
In the hall.
With nobody else around.
Natasha wanted to touch her lips, but she restrained herself. She hoped she didn’t have bad breath. If she did have bad breath, she hoped Stanley hadn’t noticed. She should have used Molly’s Altoid!
It was too late now. But she really really hoped she didn’t have bad breath at all.
The school clock ticked out the seconds. Above them, the fluorescent lights hummed. Farther down the hall, a bulb flickered, emitting a louder, harsher buzz. It brightened and dimmed in an unpredictable pattern. At one point, it seemed to go out entirely. Then it flared back on and burned brighter than before.
“So . . .” Natasha started. But she didn’t actually have anything to say, which meant that her “so” hung in the air even after she closed her mouth. It would be there forever unless she said a real sentence. Or Stanley did. It would be nice if Stanley said something.
He didn’t.
She didn’t.
She considered an offhand remark like, “Well, this is awkward, isn’t it?” But that was something a TV-show girl would say, not Natasha.
The tingles she felt earlier fizzed out. Her exhilaration at having kissed a boy—her first kiss ever—dimmed and flickered like the fluorescent light.
Shouldn’t she feel different after kissing a boy for the first time ever and having him say she was his favorite girl in school? Shouldn’t the feeling last longer than several seconds?
She cleared her throat. “So . . . you have good handwriting.”
“I do?” he said. “Thanks. Um, you do too.”
“Thanks,” Natasha said, trying to recall when he might have seen her handwriting. She’d seen his on the notes he gave her, but she hadn’t written him any notes in return.
She shook her head. She needed more. “How did you get to all those places?”
“What places?”
“You know. Out by my father’s workshop. The sidewalk outside your parents’ store.?
??
He looked at her funny.
“Well, I guess the one on the sidewalk wasn’t that hard,” she said. “But the bench at City Park? And the rope swing in our backyard?” She laughed nervously. “Do you have special invisibility powers or something?”
“Invisibility powers?” Stanley said.
Was he messing with her on purpose?
No. That wasn’t Stanley.
Had an anvil fallen on his head and given him amnesia?
No. Duh. Anyway, too many locker bonks would have been more likely.
But . . . then . . . ?
“The notes you wrote,” she blurted.
Natasha saw nothing but confusion in his eyes. “What notes?”
No, no, no, no, no. NOT good.
“The ones you left me. You know. You put the first one under the stone, on the path to my father’s workshop. You gave me the second one that same day, when we walked to school together. It was after I tripped and everything spilled out of my backpack.” She gulped. “Only I have no idea how you did it, since you were on the opposite side of the street, and since . . .”
Since the Bird Lady handed it to me, Natasha thought.
Stanley’s eyes darted sideways, and Natasha’s sense of self dropped straight out of her like a brick.
“Oh,” she said. She tried to make her jelly legs walk backward. “You didn’t write the notes.”
“I could,” Stanley offered anxiously. “If you want me to.”
Natasha picked up her backpack. “No. Thank you, but no, and—”
She turned and ran down the hall, her shoes slapping the floor.
“Natasha?” Stanley called.
Her eyes blurred as she pushed through the heavy school doors. She ran all the way home, her breath pulling and heaving in her chest. Her heart pounded. Her legs ached.
She stopped outside the house, leaning over and propping her hands on her thighs. Her backpack dangled in front of her. She thought she might throw up. And her stupid eyes with their stupid tears . . .
Deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
Again.
Again.
Slowly, she straightened up.
You can cry when you’re in your room, she told herself. She smoothed her hair. She adjusted her shirt. She prepared a cheerful Hi! for her aunts, but she didn’t end up using it. Her aunts weren’t there.
She slipped off her shoes, cast aside her backpack, and padded upstairs in her socks. Ava’s door was open, but Ava wasn’t there, either. Darya’s door was cracked, but not fully closed. Natasha hesitated, but a quiet approach and a peek inside told her that Darya’s room was empty, too.
Huh.
Had the whole family gone somewhere without her? Well, not Papa. She’d heard sounds coming from his workshop, strings being plucked and hollow wooden knocks. Not that Papa would go out, anyway. Papa didn’t go out. Papa didn’t go anywhere.
Her gut clenched, not only because of Stanley and the notes and the kiss. Because of something bigger. Something deep and complicated and tangled up with Papa and Mama and things she didn’t like to think about.
She hurried past Darya’s room to her own, stopping short when she reached the door. It was closed, which would be fine if she was the one who’d closed it. But she wasn’t. She clearly remembered leaving her door open that morning, because the sunlight was so buttery and not meant for secrets or small spaces or closed doors.
She heard murmurings from inside. For one long beat, she was immobile. Then she twisted the knob and burst in.
Darya and Ava turned their heads simultaneously. They were side by side on her bed, lying on their stomachs. In front of them was a notebook, spread open and filled with neat handwriting.
Her handwriting.
Her journal.
Her sisters.
Were reading.
Her journal.
Being angry didn’t come naturally to Natasha, but her entire body shook when she cried, “Get out! Get out!”
Ava scrambled to a sitting position, her eyes wide. “But Natasha—”
“No,” Natasha said. She strode across the room and snatched her journal.
Darya sat up and held her hands in front of her. “Okay, you’re freaking out,” she said, slowly and deliberately. “Yes, we read your stories. Every single one of them, right, Ava?”
Ava was pale.
“And maybe we shouldn’t have,” Darya went on. She splayed her fingers through the air in a gesture that meant nothing, but somehow conveyed that shoulds and shouldn’ts didn’t matter. “But we did, so that’s that, because we can’t unread them, can we?”
Natasha wanted to strangle her. “Get. Out.” She pointed to her door. “Now.”
“We will. Relax. It’s not as if we’re planning on living here,” Darya said.
Natasha lasered Ava with her gaze, and Ava startled and scurried out of the room.
“You too,” Natasha told Darya.
“Did you just growl at me?” Darya said. “Oh my God. Dramatic.” She rose from the bed and shook out her hair just so. “I was going to tell you something about your stories. Don’t you want to know what I was going to say?”
“Not in the slightest.” Spots of light swam in front of Natasha’s eyes.
“Fine,” Darya said. She backed toward the hall, keeping her gaze on Natasha. “I’m going to tell you anyway, though. Natasha, your stories are—”
“Mine,” Natasha said. “My stories are mine, and this is my room, and my life. And I want you out.”
Something flickered in Darya’s eyes. Doubt? Bewilderment? Hurt?
No, because Darya didn’t get hurt. And if by a fluke Natasha had hurt her, then great. She deserved it.
Darya lifted her chin and exited Natasha’s room. At the doorframe, she turned around. “They’re good. You didn’t finish most of them, which was annoying, but even so, they were good. Really good.”
Natasha slammed the door in Darya’s face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Night fell.
Natasha refused to come down to dinner.
“What am I supposed to tell Papa?” asked Ava from outside Natasha’s door.
Natasha didn’t answer. Papa probably wouldn’t notice, anyway.
“You are in there, aren’t you?” Ava said.
I don’t know, Natasha said silently. Am I?
She knew she was being a baby, but her sisters had read her journal, her personal private journal. They’d read her stories, which were basically her dreams.
Ava’s footsteps retreated. Minutes later, an exasperated Darya rapped on the door. “Natasha, I had to set the table and get everyone’s drinks and put the bread in the basket. All of those are your jobs, and I don’t like doing other people’s work.”
And I do? Natasha thought. They were Natasha’s jobs because she was Natasha. Good old reliable Natasha. As for Darya, Natasha couldn’t think of a single chore that was regularly assigned to her. How in the world had Darya managed that? How had the others let her?
On the other side of the door, Darya sighed a sigh that was very much meant to be heard. “I don’t know why you’re so upset. Your stories are good, Natasha. Is this your way of fishing for compliments?”
“Please go away,” Natasha said stiffly. She closed her eyes, angry at herself for responding. Her plan had been to never talk again, and she’d failed within fifteen minutes.
And she hadn’t called Molly, which she’d promised she would, because she sucked.
She sucked, her sisters sucked, life sucked.
She flung herself backward onto her bed and stared at the ceiling, which tonight also sucked.
I hate you, ceiling, she thought, and was shocked by her own venom. She amended her sentence with, No, wait, I don’t!
A memory came to her. It was summertime, and Mama and the aunts were sitting on a quilt, talking. Ava and Darya weren’t there. Maybe they were back at the house with Papa. Maybe they still took naps. But Nat
asha was in the yard with the grown-ups, her head in Mama’s lap. She remembered gazing at the sky and feeling so proud that she was having a picnic with Mama and Aunt Vera and Aunt Elena while her little sisters stayed away.
Natasha remembered little of the grown-ups’ conversation, only that at some point Natasha had rolled onto her side, and Mama had scratched her back, and Mama’s voice had changed from lilting to solemn, possibly even afraid. Natasha hadn’t liked it, and her discomfort burned the next part of the exchange into her brain.
“‘Hate’ is a strong word,” Mama had said. “Does anyone really deserve to be hated?”
“Mosquitoes,” Aunt Elena said.
“The evil kings and queens in those fairy tales you’re so fond of,” Aunt Vera said. “The parents who kill off their children. Surely you hate them, Klara.”
Mama’s hand grew still on Natasha’s back. Natasha wiggled, wanting the back scratch to continue.
“I don’t think I do,” she said.
“Because they’re characters in a book?” Aunt Vera said with a snort.
“No, even if they were real, I don’t think I would hate them,” Mama had said. “I’d hate the things they did, but that’s different.” She’d said more, trying to explain her position, but the words had gone over Natasha’s head.
Hate is a strong word had stuck with her, though. So did something else.
“We all make mistakes,” Mama had said, as if she were pleading. “But isn’t it possible to forgive the person, if not the action?”
“Not hardly,” Aunt Vera had said with a snort. “Some mistakes are unforgivable.”
Surely that wasn’t where the conversation ended, but that’s all Natasha remembered. That, and how quiet Mama had grown. She never did return to scratching Natasha’s back.
Darya rattled Natasha’s doorknob. “I’m going to sit here until you come out—unless you want me to get Papa? Do you want me to tell Papa you’ve locked yourself in your room like a convent?”
“Like a nun,” Natasha said.
“What?”
“I think you meant . . . never mind.” Natasha felt weary. “Sure, Darya. Go get Papa. We both know how that’ll work out.”
Natasha heard Darya slide down the door and land with a soft thump. She heard Darya shift about, maybe digging her heels in for traction, and then she heard Darya bang the door with the back of her head. The thunk of skull against wood was unmistakable.