A Whole Lot of Lucky (3 page)

A gasp from the entire car-pool lane sucked the air off the playground, through the dollar weeds, and over the vans trembling in line, causing a silence so sudden
that the sandhill cranes who'd been foraging nearby straightened their long gray necks and turned disinterestedly in our direction.

Mrs. McCrory hopped out of her van, her face pale white. “Thank God I just had the brakes fixed!” she said, fanning herself with her hands.

I started toward my best friend when suddenly one of the teachers yanked my arm and dragged me to the middle of the crowd, where Amanda sat on the road being petted and murmured over. The teacher sliced through the air for quiet. She asked, “Is this the girl who pushed you?”

Amanda's face was red. Her knee was scraped. She was breathing so hard her nostrils flared like a bull's before it charges. She locked her eyes on to mine and I saw in them a stony glint I'd never seen before.

“Yes,” she said through gritted teeth. She shifted into a more solid position. “That's her.”

Teachers say they try to be fair. But if you are in at least fourth grade, you already know that's not true. None of the teachers even tried to listen to my side of the story. And Amanda didn't help one bit, not one single bit. She glared at me as they practically slapped cuffs on my wrists and dragged me to the office of the warden, Principal Dr. Taylor, which is how I ended up sitting here in the lobby, waiting, staring at gobs of gum stuck under the receptionist's desk and counting floor tiles (sixty-eight).

I've almost given up hope of ever seeing the outside again when the principal herself comes out to get me.

“Hailee Richardson,” Dr. Taylor says as she ushers me into her office. She sits on her throne behind the desk; I sit on a hard plastic chair. She tilts her head and says, “We've never had behavior problems with you before. What brings you here today?”

Never before have I sat in this office. It's nothing like I imagined. Instead of paddles hanging from hooks ready to discipline troublesome students, fancy diplomas decorate the walls. The plant on her desk is
not
a Venus flytrap like I've heard, but an African violet. Classical music plays softly through her computer speakers.

Still, when I look at her, I see the piercing eyes of an eagle. I fold my hands together and squeeze them. “Is my mom coming?”

Dr. Taylor leans against her high-back velvety chair. A container of half-eaten Chinese food with a plastic fork sticking out of it lies in her trash can. Everyone knows you're supposed to use chopsticks when eating Chinese (though I do use a fork myself, but you'd expect an adult to do things the right way). “I called your mother. She and I had a nice chat over the phone.”

Oh, no.

“So,” she says, shifting forward in her seat, “what happened in the car lane?”

The principal called my mom. I'm going to be in so much trouble. My eyes fill with tears.

“Hailee?”

A soft knock interrupts her, and we both turn and see in the doorway the clinic nurse and Amanda, whose knee has a big square bandage on it. “Just a scrape,” the nurse says and pats Amanda's back. “She'll live.”

A smile almost sneaks across my lips, but the daggers shooting from Amanda's eyes pin my mouth in place.
She crosses her arms and stands in the doorway even after the nurse leaves.

“Come in and sit down,” Dr. Taylor says.

Amanda scoots the other plastic chair far away from mine, then settles into it with a huff.

Dr. Taylor nods to Amanda. “Why don't you tell me what happened?”

“She pushed me! Right into the cars!”

“That's not what happened!”

“Yes, it is!”

Panic leaps in my heart. Why is Amanda saying that? I could get suspended or expelled or even sent to juvie, where girls file toothbrushes into knives and stab each other. I glance from Amanda to the principal. “I didn't push her into the road; I pushed her out of a crack.” My lips quiver as words find their way to my mouth. “Amanda's tire was stuck. I was trying to get her out of the crack because Megan and Drew were laughing at her.”

“Megan and Drew,” Dr. Taylor says. She taps her lips with her fingers.

Amanda twists in her seat and asks in a small voice, “They were laughing at me?”

“They were
recording
you.”

Dr. Taylor
tsks
disapprovingly.

I say, “They're always making fun of people. They call Sara Lardiss, ‘Sara Lard A—'” I stop right there before a swear word comes tumbling out. “Just because
she's”—I stumble for how to say this—“a little overweight, they call her names. And they're the ones who threw meatballs at the lunch lady last week, and look what they did to my skirt.” I pull the hem out to show her.

“They ruined that skirt,” Amanda says.

Dr. Taylor cranes her neck to see the damage. Then, nodding to herself, she says, “Those are all important things, Hailee, but we need to get to the bottom of what happened today with
you
. The teachers saw you push Amanda into the road—”

“She was trying to help me.” Amanda sits up straight. “It's
my
fault I lost my balance. Please don't get her in trouble.” She lifts her knee. “It doesn't even hurt.”

Drumming her pencil on her desk, Dr. Taylor's piercing eagle eyes dissolve into regular human eyes. “Girls, I think what we have here is a misunderstanding.” She points her pencil at Amanda. “Your bike was stuck.” Amanda's whole body nods in response. The pencil points at me. “And you were pushing the bike out.”

“Yes.”

She exhales loudly. “Go home, girls. Watch out for cracks and look both ways.” She closes a manila folder. Amanda and I stand up and begin to leave. I rise like a helium balloon, free and light, ready to float out of there until Dr. Taylor stops my escape.

“Hailee?”

I freeze.

“Maybe you're stronger than you realize.”

She makes me sound like a bodybuilder. Her piercing eagle eyes return. “Keep it in check, okay?” Then she promises to call my mom and explain what happened.

Outside at the bike rack, Amanda says, “Thanks for sticking up for me.”

“Thanks for sticking up for
me
,” I say back. It takes a second, just long enough to swing my leg over the boy bar of my bike, for me to realize there's a little hurt worming its way through my heart. “Why would you think I pushed you into the road?”

She fumbles with her handlebars. “I don't know. I just … um …”

“What?”

She lifts her eyes to me and shrugs one shoulder. “I thought you were jealous of my bike.”

Well! A strange mix of feelings hits my stomach.

“I'm sorry,” she says, “and I really do want you to keep the skirt because I know how much you like it.” She smiles. My stomach churns and my head fills with heat. She cocks a pedal. “Want to come over to my house?”

I wouldn't be jealous in a hundred million years.

“Hailee, what's the matter? Are you mad?”

I am not mad. I am not jealous. I am just leaving. My body moves on its own, toes pushing against the sidewalk for a kick-start, feet hitting the pedals. I ride past her and keep going.

“Hailee! I said I was sorry!”

Past the playground, past the field, up to the crossroad where I go left and she has to go right. I don't even stop at the sign.

“Hailee!” Her voice is at the crossroad. “I was wrong, okay? I said I was sorry! I was wrong!”

My pedals churn like my stomach. The chain rattles, whining higher and higher the faster I go. The whole bike frame squeaks and grates; the loose chain guard rasps against the links.

I hate shopping at thrift stores, I hate not having my own phone, and I hate that my mom delivers newspapers to people I go to school with.

My rear tire pelts me with gravel.

I hate this bike.

The afternoon is sour as grapefruit, which no one really likes but everyone eats when they're on a diet. Mom bangs cupboard doors shut and raises the cleaver high as she chops the heads off broccoli. “A phone call from the principal!”
Whack!
“The principal, Hailee!”
Whack, whack!
“Wait till your dad hears about this!” One final whack, then she pushes the severed broccoli heads into a pot of boiling water.

I plan to serve as my own lawyer. Though my mom has the position of mother behind her, I have the testimony of the principal. That, and the fact that Amanda admitted her knee didn't even hurt. Just look at all the trouble I've gotten into over nothing.

Mom stops clanging around for a second. “Are you even listening to me? This is important.”

For Mom, school is almost as important as church.
She barely graduated. Whenever she tried to read her textbooks, the letters would trick her and change places. So if she was trying to get through a sentence that read,
Put nuts in the pan for a nice tang,
my mom would see,
Put stun in the nap for a nice gnat.
That kind of reading put her in the lower classes, and even there she got bad grades. In math, too, because numbers know how to jump around just as well as letters do.

It wasn't till after high school that she heard of dyslexia, which is the medical word for the way her brain mixes up the letters and numbers. By then, she was on her own and paying her rent by working as a waitress. That's how she met my dad.

I flick a Cheerio across Libby's tray and she chases it with her hand.

“Yes, I'm listening to you,” I say, making a Cheerio tower. Libby knocks it down and eats the pieces.

“You've got to take these things seriously.”

My honor roll ribbons flutter as Mom opens the refrigerator for ingredients. A handprint I painted in third grade is held to the freezer part with magnets. I used fluorescent paint and silver glitter and filled every square inch with color. Even though the corners are curling, Mom keeps it up there. She thinks it's pretty.

“Mom?”

She lays down the cleaver. “Yes?”

“I need a new bike.” I push Libby's Cheerios around so I don't have to see Mom's reaction.

At first, she doesn't say a thing, just picks up the cleaver and starts chopping again. Then, in an even voice, she says, “We need a lot of things around here. Go upstairs and do your homework.”

I didn't have my snack yet, but I know better than to argue with her after hearing that tone of voice.

My pale pink walls don't cheer me up as much as they usually do. I toss my backpack to the floor and lie on my bed, staring at the popcorn ceiling and the one cobweb in the corner I keep forgetting to knock down. The more I don't clean it up, the worse it gets. It's grown an extra tentacle since the weekend.

Below it, my memo board is so loaded with pictures, you can't even see the quilted purple fabric underneath. When I get new pictures, I stick them right over the old ones. Sometimes, I pick a spot and slide off the top picture, and then the next, and then the next one after that. It's like going back through time. There's even a picture of Amanda and me in diapers, playing together. I keep that one buried, but I know exactly where it is.

I hate being in fights with people. Today I've had three: Amanda, Mom, and you have to count my dad, too, because in about two hours, he's going to hear all about it.

I roll onto my side. The swamp maple that's as tall as our house waves its cheery red leaves at me. The branches stretch across my window, sometimes holding a squirrel or a bird for me to get a good, up-close look. People
always talk about fall colors—that's a northern idea. Sometimes, the truth of a thing depends on where you're looking at it from. For instance, in Florida, red leaves pop from our maples around Valentine's Day. I ask you, could that be any more perfect?

Also, birds don't fly south for the winter; they fly north for the summer. This has nothing to do with my cheery maple, but I just thought I'd mention it.

* * *

Mom shouts from downstairs she's taking Libby out in the stroller. Her voice has forgotten she was mad at me. Still, I answer back without opening my door.

I've finished my decimal multiplication homework. I read chapter twenty-three in social studies. I answered questions one through thirty (odd numbers only) in science. All that's left is PE, which of course there's no homework for; language arts; and Family Science, which is really home ec but they changed the name so it wouldn't sound old-fashioned and so boys would take it.

As I wrangle with my backpack trying to fit everything back in, a shred of lined notebook paper floats out. I know what it is without looking, but I pick it up anyway. Amanda's bubblegum print, fat and happy with hearts over the i's.
Can you still spend the night Friday? My mom will get doughnuts!

I've spent so many Friday nights at her house that I
don't remember which one this note is talking about, but when I read the words, I hear Amanda's voice in my head. I would like to point out, before I go any further, that I had been thinking about Amanda earlier, so it wasn't seeing the note that made me get the phone and punch in her number.

Her phone rings and rings and rings. I hang up and dial again. Then I hang up and block my number, but she still doesn't answer. I hit redial. Hang up. Redial. Hang up. Redial. Hang—

“Hailee!” Irritation scratches across the air waves and into my ear. “What are you doing?”

“Why didn't you answer?”

She huffs into the phone. “If you must know, I was in the bathroom.”

Hmm. Well, I guess certain things can take a while in the bathroom. “Okay,” I say.

She breathes into the phone, then asks, “Well?”

“Well, what?” I hadn't prepared a speech.

“Well, why did you call?” she asks. “Hurry up, too, because I've only got a couple of bars.”