Every Single Second (11 page)

Instead, Angela raised her eyebrows, so pale they were almost invisible. Her head gave a tiny jerk.
Go! Run!
The door swung shut.

Astonished, for a moment Nella couldn’t move. Then, without knowing how, she was walking, she was running. The bottles of nail polish clicked together in her pocket, loud as gunshots in her ears.

Louder still was the thought inside her head:
Angela saved me.

Safely across the street, she stopped. Time stopped, too. What were they doing to her? Did they call her father? Nella’s mind blurred with fear. She couldn’t think of anything worse.

But like Nonni said, bad could always get worse. A police car pulled up. An officer went inside, and Nella watched him come out with Angela. He held the car’s back door open as she got in, her face a blank sheet.

Nella couldn’t sleep. When Vinny woke fussing, she got up and lifted him from his crib. Her mother staggered in, but Nella said she’d walk him. She was wide awake.

Up and down, in and out of the unnaturally quiet rooms. It had been the world’s stupidest idea. If only she’d stopped to think! She went back to the moment she still held the bottles of nail polish. She made herself walk to the checkout and pay. She made the two of them walk back here, where they gave each other manicures.

She tried telling herself it wasn’t really her fault.

“I never meant to get her in trouble,” she whispered in her brother’s pink ear. He grabbed a fold of her T-shirt and sucked it. “And she didn’t have to do it. I didn’t make her.”

She stopped by the front window. The streetlight threw a cone of light against the cemetery wall.

“It was her own free choice,” Nella whispered.

Vinny nestled into the hollow beneath her chin. Nella closed her eyes and made herself march back inside the store. She squared her shoulders, stepped up to the red-faced manager, and proclaimed,
I’m the one to blame, not her!

It would have been the right thing to do.

A rush of shame. She saw Angela jerk her chin sideways.
Run, Nella!

Angela was a jellyfish. A wimp. She was such a goody-goody, she was asking to get picked on. That’s what everyone said. That’s how everyone saw her.

But she had saved Nella.

All that evening Nella had waited for Mr. DeMarco to call and inform her parents:
Your daughter is a criminal.
Not only that. She corrupted Angela. Not only that. She ran away and let Angela take all the punishment
. Every ring of the phone was a hammer to her heart—but he never called.

Vinny’s warm, sleepy breath tickled her ear. Nella leaned her forehead against the dark window. The craziest thing of all was that somehow, it felt like she’d done it for Anthony. Like, if he couldn’t have what he wanted, she could. Life was unfair, so you had to snatch what you wanted. You had to break some rules.

Crazy. Crazy crazy crazy. Anthony wouldn’t want anything to do with her, once he found out. Betraying Angela was betraying him, only worse. He’d never forgive her getting his sister in such big trouble. He’d never again tease her about being his other little sister, never draw a castle and say
Here’s where Princess Nella lives
, never surprise her with a slice of Mama Gemma’s sausage-and-olive, her favorite. Never rub the scar over his eye and tell her to think for herself. Never, never.

Next morning, her head was a block of wood. Her eyes itched. She and Angela stood together beside St. Amphibalus, their seventh first day of school together. All around
them, giddy kids ran and yelled and fist-bumped. Angela told Nella she had to put the nail polish back. Nella had to sneak into the store and return them to the shelf. Nella nodded her wooden head. She said she was sorry, over and over again.

“What did your father do?”

“You know what?” Angela said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Nella recognized that stubborn voice. It was no use asking again. Anyway, Nella didn’t really want to know. Except, when you didn’t know, you imagined the worst things possible. St. Amphibalus gazed down at them. Today, his empty stare felt accusing.

“He didn’t call my parents yet,” Nella said. “All night, I was so scared.”

Carefully, Angela set the toe of one shoe on top of the other. No new shoes for her this year. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, when’s he going to? What’s he waiting for?”

Angela looked up. Her face was surprised and disappointed. “Don’t you know by now?” she said. “I’m no tattletale.”

“What?” Gravity let go of Nella. She felt so relieved, it was a miracle she didn’t float right up off the pavement. “You didn’t tell your father about me?”

“It’s not your fault what I did.” Angela twisted a braid around her wrist. “And it’s not your fault I’m so slow I got caught, either.”

“You mean . . . you didn’t tell anyone?”

Angela shook her head.

“Even Anthony?”

“I said—”

“I can’t believe you did that!” Angela had saved her all over again. Saved her twice. “That was so brave and nice and so . . . Thank you!”

“You’d do it for me,” Angela said.

Nella wanted with all her heart for this to be true. She wanted to be just as loyal and brave and good. On the spot she pledged to become the best friend ever born. Never again would Angela get on her nerves! From now on, if other girls were mean to her, Nella would speak right up. She’d order them to stop. She’d make up for everything. She’d be like a saint, the Patron Saint of Secret Sisters.

Victoria and Kimmy came running up, breathless. “My aunt saw the cops bring you home yesterday!” said Kimmy.

Nella’s first test of loyalty! She stepped in front of Angela, shielding her.

“I’m sorry to tell you, Kimmy, but your aunt needs an eye transplant.”

They ignored her. “What’d you do, Angela? Rob a bank?”

Angela lifted her chin. “Your aunt’s right,” she said.

Nella couldn’t believe it. Was Angela insane? Was she suicidal?

“I got lost. I was trying to find this new, cool store on the west side, but I took the wrong bus, and I didn’t know how to get home.” She was talking too fast. She was not a good liar. “So I asked a policeman, and he drove me home.”

Victoria and Kimmy traded looks.

“Cool store? What
cool store
?”

Angela hesitated.

“When you remember the name of the
cool store
, tell us. We want to be
cool
too, right, Kimmy?”

Nella and Angela watched them stumble away, giggling.

“Where’s your lunch?” Angela asked all of a sudden.

“Oh great. I forgot it.”

“This is a problem with you,” Angela said, smiling faintly.

I’ll share
was on the tip of Angela’s tongue—Nella could almost see the words—when something made them turn around. A space had opened on the playground, and strolling through it was a girl with wiry arms and legs and square black glasses. Her parents walked on either side of
her, and they didn’t look like any other St. Amphibalus parents. Her father wore a bow tie. Her mother had black hair with a dramatic white streak. Something the father said made the new girl grin. Her smile was electric. It gave Nella a strange, happy jolt.

“Who’s she?” said Angela.

What the Statue of Jeptha A. Stone Would Say if It Could

T
ime creeps.

Time sprints.

Time leaps.

Time stumbles.

My bird—rather,
the
bird—has flown away.

Now and then, time stands still.

BELL AND REM, TIME SISTERS

now

C
lem and her parents were about to leave for Cape Cod. The vacation was one step above a death sentence, according to Clem. The water was shark infested and the rays of the sun were lethal. Her parents’ friends would descend in droves. They’d eat lobster—which by the way you cooked
live
—and drink wine and ask her repetitive questions. Worst of all, she and Nella wouldn’t see each other for weeks.

The night before they left, she gave Nella a crash course in caring for Mr. T.

“Above all,” Clem said, “Gentle and Decisive.”

“GAD. Got it.”

Mrs. Patchett sailed in, bearing a pile of T-shirts she’d bought Clem. They were new but looked old, the misty, blue-green-amber colors of sea glass. In short, perfect for Clem. Who, spoiled-rotten only child that she was, tossed them on her bed without a second look.

Casually, no big deal, Mrs. Patchett gave Nella a key to the house. And a hundred-dollar bill. And profuse thanks, when Nella hadn’t even done anything yet. Nella squeaked a thank-you.

“Anybody seen my iPad?” Clem darted out of the bedroom.

While she was gone, Nella lay on the floor and looked up at the glow-in-the-dark galaxy on the ceiling. Turning her head, she noticed a drawing pad under the bed. Inside were sketches for what looked like a comic. “The Adventures of Bell and Rem, Time Sisters.”

Bell was beautiful, and Rem was a genius. No one could tell who was the hero and who was the sidekick.

Bell and Rem possessed magic sabers that could vaporize trash and atomize phonies. But their special power was controlling time. They could make it run faster or slower or stop it altogether, and needless to say this came in very handy when battling the forces of evil.

Nella flipped the page. Rem and Bell were at St. Ambidextrous School, where they were forced to assume ordinary identities.

Bell: I know we’re superheroes. But sometimes I wish we were cool and popular, too.

Rem: Are you by any chance implying I’m not cool?

Bell: You know what I mean!

Rem: You are cool. And someday you’ll be popular. You’ve got what it takes. But I’m doomed to life as a weird gerd-neek.

Bell: But I thought you liked being that way.

Rem: Even superheroes can’t have everything.

Across the bottom of the page, Clem had written:
What do we get to choose? And what chooses us? Another mystery of the universe.

Nella heard Clem coming. Quickly she shoved the comic under the bed and sat up. Clem burst in, waving her iPad. When she flopped onto the rug, her bittersweet citrus smell skewered Nella.

“Approximately 3,025,000 seconds till I’m back.”

“Why don’t you just say
forever
?”

SEIZE THE DOUGHNUT

then

C
lementine Patchett. St. Amphibalus had never seen the like.

She’d moved here from New York City, where she lived in something called the Village. Before that, she’d lived on a houseboat in Amsterdam. For lunch she brought fish tacos or something foul called kimchi, and apparently she had a hedgehog for a pet. She rode a boy’s banana bike, and over her uniform wore floppy flannel shirts from the thrift shop. One day during science, when Mrs. Johnson was explaining about the solar system, as if they hadn’t been learning about the solar system their entire school lives,
Clem raised her hand. In a helpful voice she said maybe our solar system wasn’t the thing to focus on, considering the big picture. Considering it was just an infinitesimal part of a single galaxy. Among countless galaxies. All of which were drifting apart even as they sat here.

Mrs. Johnson tapped the board, but there was no stopping Clem.

“It’s just unbelievably cool. The universe is constantly expanding.” Clem held up her hands and slowly moved them farther and farther apart. “Think of blueberries spreading in a pancake on a griddle. A griddle without any edges.”

“Wait!” Kimmy said, alarmed. “When’s that going to stop?”

“Umm, never?”

Not exactly a comforting thought, yet thrilling, in a cold-water-in-the-face way. Watching the new girl with her goofy bandanna and electric smile, her thick glasses and spiky hair, Nella felt like she was waking up. It was like she’d been waiting for this to happen.

After they got over their initial curiosity, the other kids steered clear of Clem. She was so strange, and someone said she wasn’t even a Catholic. Victoria subjected her to the usual eye rolling and head shaking, but Clem acted like she didn’t even notice.

Meanwhile, Nella labored at being Angela’s loyal, true
friend. Since the day she rode home in a police car, Mr. DeMarco had clamped down even harder, which should have been impossible but wasn’t. The only places he allowed her to go were church, school, and Nella’s house, and that was only because Anthony convinced him Nella was trustworthy and good. They did homework together, and Nella did Angela’s nails, even though she had to take the polish off again before she went home. Angela played video games with the boys. She was a butterfingered bumbler, which made them love her all the more passionately. For weeks she staggered around, bent over Vinny as he gripped her fingers. His first, mini-Frankenstein steps were from Mom’s arms into Angela’s.

“I was afraid you and Angela were growing apart,” Mom told Nella. “But you’re like sisters, aren’t you?”

Anthony got a job at a warehouse on the west side. The company made him cut his hair and wear a black shirt. He worked all night and slept the day away. Angela said she had a vampire for a brother. Nella never saw him now, and she was glad.

I won’t tell.
How many times had she and Angela promised each other that, doing their secret, four-pinkie swear? Nella kept remembering the face Angela put on for the scowling man in Value Variety: blank, impossible to read. Statue smooth.
Do whatever you want,
said that face.
Don’t think you can scare me.

She’d been faking, Nella knew. Beneath that outer calm, her heart had to be pounding like a drum.

What if everyone was faking some way or other?

One day Clem came to school with three dozen Franny’s doughnuts. It was her birthday. Mrs. Johnson was not pleased. She tapped her foot, frowning at the big white boxes. The Aroma of Doughnuts made them all shamelessly drool. In the silence, they heard Mrs. Johnson’s stomach growl.