Last Summer with Maizon (6 page)

Margaret's mother bent down and hugged Maizon. “Be good,” she said as Maizon and her grandmother made their way toward the train.

“Mama,” Margaret said as they watched Maizon and her grandmother disappear into the tunnel.

“What, dear?”

“What's the difference between a best friend and an old friend?”

“I guess ...” Her mother thought for a moment. “I guess an old friend is a friend you once had and a best friend is a friend you'll always have.”

“Then maybe me and Maizon aren't best friends anymore.”

“Don't be silly, Margaret. What else would you two be? Some people can barely tell you apart. I feel like I've lost a daughter.”

“Maybe ... I don't know ... Maybe we're old friends now. Maybe this was our last summer as best friends. I feel like something's going to change now and I'm not going to be able to change it back.”

Ms. Tory's heels made a clicking sound through the terminal. She stopped to buy tokens and turned to Margaret.

“Like when Daddy died?” she asked, looking worried.

Margaret swallowed. “No. I just feel empty instead of sad, Mama,” she said.

Her mother squeezed her hand as they waited for the train. When it came, they took seats by the window.

Ms. Tory held on to Margaret's hand. “Sometimes it just takes a while for the pain of loss to set in.”

“I feel like sometimes Maizon kept me from doing things, but now she's not here. Now I don't have any”—Margaret thought for a moment, but couldn't find the right words—“now I don't have any excuse not to do things.”

When the train emerged from its tunnel, the late afternoon sun had turned a bright orange. Margaret watched it for a moment. She looked at her hands again and discovered a cuticle she had missed.

M
argaret pressed her pencil to her lips and stared out the classroom window. The school yard was desolate and gray. But everything seemed that way since Maizon left. Especially since Maizon hadn't written even
once
since she left. Margaret sighed and chewed her eraser.

“Margaret, are you working on this assignment?”

Margaret jumped and turned toward Ms. Peazle. Maizon had been right—Ms. Peazle was the crabbiest teacher in the school. Margaret wondered why she had been picked to teach the smartest class. If students were so smart, she thought, the least the school could do was reward them with a nice teacher.

“I'm trying to think about what to write, Ms. Peazle.”

“Well, you won't find an essay on your summer vacation outside that window, I'm sure. Or is that where you spent it?”

The class snickered and Margaret looked down, embarrassed. “No, ma'am.”

“I'm glad to hear that,” Ms. Peazle continued, looking at Margaret over granny glasses. “And I'm sure in the next ten minutes you'll be able to read your essay to the class and prove to us all that you weren't just daydreaming. Am I right?”

“I hope so, ma‘am,” Margaret mumbled. She looked around the room. It seemed everyone in 6-1 knew each other from the previous year. On the first day, a lot of kids asked her about Maizon, but after that no one said much to her. Things had changed since Maizon left. Without her, a lot of the fun had gone out of sitting on the stoop with Ms. Dell, Hattie, and Li'l Jay. Maybe she could write about that. No, Margaret thought, looking down at the blank piece of paper in front of her. It was too much to tell. She'd never get finished and Ms. Peazle would scold her—making her feel too dumb to be in 6-1. Margaret chewed her eraser and stared out the window again. There had to be something she could write about quickly.

“Margaret Tory!” Ms. Peazle warned. “Am I going to have to change your seat?”

“Ma'am? I was just ...”

“I think I'm going to have to move you away from that window unless you can prove to me that you can sit there without being distracted.”

“I can, Ms. Peazle. It helps me write,” she lied.

“Then I take it you should be ready to read your essay in”—Ms. Peazle looked at her watch—“the next seven minutes.”

Margaret started writing frantically. When Ms. Peazle called her to the front of the room, her sheet of notebook paper shook in her hand. She pulled nervously at the hem of her maroon dress she and Maizon had picked out for school and tried not to look out at the twenty-six pairs of eyes she knew were on her.

“Last summer was the worst summer of my life. First my father died and then my best friend went away to a private boarding school. I didn't go anywhere except Manhattan. But that wasn't any fun because I was taking Maizon to the train. I hope next summer is a lot better.”

She finished reading and walked silently back to her desk and tried to concentrate on not looking out the window. Instead, she rested her eyes on the half-written page. Margaret knew she could write better than that, but Ms. Peazle had rushed her. Anyway, she thought, that is what happened last summer.

“I'd like to see you after class, Margaret.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Margaret said softly.
This is the end,
she thought. One week in the smartest class and it's over. Maizon was smart enough to go to a better
school
and I can't even keep up in this class. Margaret sighed and tried not to stare out the window for the rest of the day.

When the three o'clock bell rang, she waited uneasily in her seat while Ms. Peazle led the rest of the class out to the school yard. Margaret heard the excited screams and laughter as everyone poured outside.

The empty classroom was quiet. She looked around at the desks. Many had words carved into them. They reminded her of the names she and Maizon had carved into the tar last summer. They were faded and illegible now.

Ms. Peazle came in and sat at the desk next to Margaret's. “Margaret,” she said slowly, pausing for a moment to remove her glasses and rub her eyes tiredly. “I'm sorry to hear about your father ...”

“That's okay.” Margaret fidgeted.

“No, Margaret, it's not okay,” Ms. Peazle continued, “not if it's going to affect your schoolwork.”

“I can do better, Ms. Peazle, I really can!” Margaret looked up pleadingly. She was surprised at herself for wanting so badly to stay in Ms. Peazle's class.

“I know you can, Margaret. That's why I'm going to ask you to do this. For homework tonight ...”

Margaret started to say that none of the other students had been assigned homework. She decided not to, though.

“I want you to write about your summer,” Ms. Peazle continued. “I want it to express all of your feelings about your friend Maizon going away. Or it could be about your father's death and how you felt then. It doesn't matter what you write, a poem, an essay, a short story. Just so long as it expresses how you felt this summer. Is that understood?”

“Yes, ma'am.” Margaret looked up at Ms. Peazle. “It's understood.”

Ms. Peazle smiled. Without her glasses, Margaret thought, she wasn't that mean-looking.

“Good, then I'll see you bright and early tomorrow with something wonderful to read to the class.”

Margaret slid out of the chair and walked toward the door.

“That's a very pretty dress, Margaret,” Ms. Peazle said.

Margaret turned and started to tell her that Maizon was wearing the same one in Connecticut, but changed her mind. What did Ms. Peazle know about best friends who were almost cousins, anyway?

“Thanks, ma'am,” she said instead, and ducked out of the classroom. All of a sudden, she had a wonderful idea!

T
he next morning Ms. Peazle tapped her ruler against the desk to quiet the class. “Margaret,” she asked when the room was silent. “Do you have something you want to share with us today?”

Margaret nodded and Ms. Peazle beckoned her to the front of the room.

“This,” Margaret said, handing Ms. Peazle the sheet of looseleaf paper. It had taken her most of the evening to finish the assignment.

Ms. Peazle looked it over and handed it back to her.

“We're ready to listen,” she said, smiling.

Margaret looked out over the class and felt her stomach slide up her throat. She swallowed and counted to ten. Though the day was cool, she found herself sweating. Margaret couldn't remember when she had been this afraid.

“My pen doesn't write anymore,” she began reading.

“I can't hear,” someone called out.

“My pen doesn't write anymore,” Margaret repeated. In the back of the room, someone exaggerated a sigh. The class chuckled. Margaret ignored them and continued to read.

The class stared at her blankly, silent. Margaret lowered her head and made her way back to her seat.

“Could you leave that assignment on my desk, Margaret?” Ms. Peazle asked. There was a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

“Yes, ma'am,” Margaret said. Why didn't anyone say anything?

“Now, if everyone will open their history books to page two seventy-five, we'll continue with our lesson on the Civil War.”

Margaret wondered what she had expected the class to do. Applaud? She missed Maizon more than she had in a long time.
She would know what I'm feeling,
Margaret thought. And if she didn't, she'd make believe she did.

Margaret snuck a look out the window. The day looked cold and still.
She'd tell me it's only a feeling poets get and that Nikki Giovanni feels this way all of the time.
When she turned back, there was a small piece of paper on her desk.

“I liked your poem, Margaret,” the note read. There was no name.

Margaret looked around but no one looked as though they had slipped a note on her desk. She smiled to herself and tucked the piece of paper into her notebook.

The final bell rang. As the class rushed out, Margaret was bumped against Ms. Peazle's desk.

“Did you get my note?” Ms. Peazle whispered. Margaret nodded and floated home.

Ms. Dell, Hattie, and Li'l Jay were sitting on the stoop when she got home.

“If it wasn't so cold,” she said, squeezing in beside Hattie's spreading hips, “it would be like old times.”

“Except for Maizon,” Hattie said, cutting her eyes toward her mother.

“Hush, Hattie,” Ms. Dell said. She shivered and pulled Li'l Jay closer to her. For a moment, Margaret thought she looked old.

“It's just this cold spell we're having,” Ms. Dell said. “Ages a person. Makes them look older than they are.”

Margaret smiled. “Reading minds is worse than eavesdropping, Ms. Dell.”

“Try being her daughter for nineteen years,” Hattie said.

“Hattie,” Margaret said, moving closer to her for warmth. “How come you never liked Maizon?”

“No one said I never liked her.”

“No one had to,” Ms. Dell butted in.

“She was just too much ahead of everyone. At least she thought she was.”

“But she was, Hattie. She was the smartest person at P.S. 102. Imagine being the smartest person.”

“But she didn't have any common sense, Margaret. And when God gives a person that much brain, He's bound to leave out something else.”

“Like what?”

Ms. Dell leaned over Li'l Jay's head and whispered loudly, “Like the truth.”

She and Hattie laughed but Margaret couldn't see the humor. It wasn't like either of them to say something wrong about a person.

“She told the truth . . .” Margaret said weakly.

Ms. Dell and Hattie exchanged looks.

“How was school?” Hattie asked too brightly.

“Boring,” Margaret said. She would tuck what they said away until she could figure it out.

“That's the only word you know since Maizon left. Seems there's gotta be somethin' else going on that's not so boring all the time,” Ms. Dell said.