The Good, the Bad & the Beagle (19 page)

On her way to school the next day she realized everyone probably already knew about Sarah-Lisa’s party and what the girl with the overactive scissors had done there.

She imagined all the telephone calls and texts as one girl told another girl and another girl and another girl all about Veronica Morgan, the Wiccan in the sixth grade who wore her dead dog’s ashes around her neck and cut all of Sarah-Lisa Carver’s cashmere sweaters into little pieces.

Mrs. Harrison would ask Veronica what kind of person avoided assignments and purposely let another girl do all the work on a project designed for two. Regardless of the fact that Veronica wrote Sarah-Lisa and Sarah-Lisa’s mother apologies, Mrs. Harrison would ask what kind of person would destroy another person’s property. Then Mrs. Harrison would answer the question herself, kindly explaining that the kind of person Veronica apparently was was not the kind of person who belonged at Randolf. Well, getting thrown out might be better than staying. Oh God. Her anxiety was overwhelming. Sleep had been the only escape, but now she was awake.

She turned down the block to Randolf and girls who usually ran past, busy with their own lives and their own popularity, were obviously acutely aware of her.

Everyone looked at her as she walked by.

Everywhere Veronica went, the girls dispersed as if Veronica gave off a negative ionic charge. By the time Veronica got to her classroom, so many people had moved away from her she felt like Moses parting the Red Sea.

Athena whisked Sarah-Lisa out of the way as though Veronica was dangerous, as though she was going to cut them both with a pair of scissors.

If only,
Veronica thought.
If only I could cut this whole school into little tiny pieces.

At her table she unloaded her backpack trying to gauge, without looking up, who was watching her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sarah-Lisa. She hadn’t had time to replace her sweaters. Sarah-Lisa was cardigan-less, like everyone else.

*   *   *

The spring science expo was in a few weeks and Mr. Bower was beside himself in anticipation. Mr. Bower didn’t like to judge people on tests as much as on their creativity, so this project counted for half their overall grade and they had just three weeks to complete it. Each two-person team had to create a three-dimensional project pertaining to energy, power, or photosynthesis. Veronica’s heart pounded as he explained the instructions. If Mr. Bower paired her with Sarah-Lisa she would absolutely die. Writing the letters was one thing, but spending time with Sarah-Lisa was another. Veronica was going to have to do household chores until she was forty-seven years old before she’d be able to pay her parents back for all that cashmere.

Plus, she doubted the Carver family would ever welcome her in their home or anywhere near their precious daughter, so how would she and Sarah-Lisa finish their project? Come to think of it, no one would want to work with her. What an awful thought.

“Becky Shickler,” Mr. Bower said as he studied a list, “you and Tillie Allen are a pair, Liv O’Malley and Darcy Brown will work together, and Veronica Morgan, you and Sylvie Samuels will be paired.”

Veronica was shocked. Sylvie? Oh my goodness. Sylvie, who had been right there and saw her try to hit Sarah-Lisa with a Prada shoe? In reality, everyone probably had had a good view. And if they didn’t they got the verbal playback. Ugh. No. She couldn’t work with anyone. They would all avoid her and do what she’d done to Melody with the Monet project, except they wouldn’t put Veronica’s name on the final project. She was going to flunk the expo and it was half her whole grade. No pressure. She couldn’t wait to go home and go to sleep.

Conspiracies

That night, Veronica tried to act normal. She set the table and carried out the water pitcher. But she couldn’t keep her mind off being paired with Sylvie and how she might get out of it. A partnership of any kind was the enemy. A partnership would ruin her prospects of getting back on track academically. She felt so bad about how disappointed in her Ms. Padgett must have been about the Monet project. She wanted to redeem herself somehow, and if she did well in science maybe Mr. Bower would talk to Ms. Padgett. If she could work alone, she’d have a chance to work her tail off and do a decent project.

Her hands trembled. She filled the water glasses carefully, certain she was going to flunk out of middle school. Ugh. She had to convince her parents to talk to Mr. Bower and let her do the expo project alone.

Mr. Morgan sat down at the table but got right back up.

“Where are you going?” his wife asked.

“I realized that this evening requires beer,” he said. Veronica looked at her father, then her mother, trying to figure out which parent would be easier to convince that she needed to work alone. Sometimes her mother was the more understanding one, but she’d been pretty tough lately—making her go to the party and write those letters. Her father returned from the kitchen with his beer. He sat down and took a long drink. Her parents conferred with their eyes.

“Veronica, your father and I have something rather difficult we need to discuss with you,” her mother said. Her father took another long drink from his beer and Veronica realized her parents were getting divorced. Why else would he need a drink? This was too much.

“Veronica lovey,” her mother said between bites of falafel, “Mary is having surgery on her hip.” Veronica must have looked terrified because her father jumped into the conversation as though he were rescuing her from imminent danger.

“It is not a tricky operation. Please don’t worry. In fact, hip replacements are so successful and so quick they’ve actually given specialists a good name. Our Mary will come out intact and dancing. They can do them in their sleep. Pass the kibbe.”

Both her father and her mother had a habit of comforting Veronica by chattering so much it was hard to follow what they were saying. Something about Mary and surgery and Middle Eastern food. But at least it seemed her parents were staying married.

“Here, darling,” her mother said. She passed the kibbe to her husband. “No, the only problem with Mary having this operation, which will absolutely be a success, you have nothing to worry about, lovey, people twenty years older than Mary have this done and handle it brilliantly. The only problem with Mary’s surgery is you. I’m not sure how you will feel about this, but you have to go to a friend’s house after school for the three weeks Mary is out.”

The hummus Veronica had in her mouth arrived in her gut with the force of a cinder block dropped from the roof of a ten-story building.

There was no way she could be with normal people. Her life was so abnormal now, all by her own doing, but nonetheless, she couldn’t possibly spend time with someone normal. She was miserable, friendless, flunking out of school, and on top of that she had so much hummus stuck in her stomach, she was probably going to upchuck to death. Mrs. Cohen and Cricket couldn’t begin to understand what she was going through.

But it turned out she was not going to Cricket Cohen’s house for the three weeks Mary was recuperating.

“Sylvie?” Veronica said, spitting water all over herself. She had just taken a large gulp, hoping to dislodge the hummus, and it all came up when she heard the news. “I can’t go to her house! I don’t even
know
her.”

It was a conspiracy. First Mr. Bower and now her parents. Where would it end? When would it end?

“Honey, you are supposed to be doing a science project together,” her mother said, as though that made everything all right.

Veronica hadn’t even mentioned the science project yet. How did they know?

“Ms. Padgett actually suggested it,” her father interjected. Veronica wanted to scream. They had been talking about her behind her back like everyone else.

“All of us have been very concerned,” her father continued. “We know you’re grieving. Your emotions have been very deep.”

“As they should be,” her mother added.

“Certainly, as they should be. Cadbury was a terrible loss and we know you are working hard with Dr. Snope.”

“We think you are doing a marvelous job, by the way,” her mother said. “You are walking right along the path of grief toward the road of acceptance. There are many detours along the way, anger…”

“Denial,” her father added. “It’s not just a river in Egypt.”

“Oh God!” Veronica said.

“Anger. It is natural for you to act out. It is perfect. It means you are going through the necessary steps of the grieving process. Denial, anger…”

“Honey, we’re so proud of you.”

“Please. Can we not talk about it?” Veronica begged.

“Veronica lovey, it is important that you do this science project. Even while you are completing the cycle of grief.”

“What do you mean?” Veronica asked. But she knew exactly what they meant. She hadn’t done the Monet project so she was being punished, put in lockup with Sylvie Samuels because no one trusted her. Oh, why hadn’t she just gone to the museum with Melody? The repercussions of that decision were apparently endless. She had ruined everything.

“You need to do your science project and you need a babysitter and—”

“I’m not a baby!”

“Your mother doesn’t actually mean you are a baby, she just means you shouldn’t be alone every afternoon.”

Alone every afternoon was exactly what Veronica wanted. Alone for the rest of her life would be even better.

“You hate me!” she said, and ran down the hall. “You hate me!” She slammed her door because at that moment Veronica hated her parents. And Sylvie. And herself. And Cadbury for dying.

Part 5

For the Love of Science

Veronica could not understand why everyone was in love with Mr. Bower, but she could not deny that her classmates acted like a bunch of first-rate ninnies around him. They fawned and giggled and whispered so much that Mr. Bower spent most of his science periods deeply saddened by his students’ disinterest in scientific notions. They were only interested in his newly acquired beard and what he may or may not have done over the weekend.

The situation was ironic because if one of the girls who was in love with him enjoyed science, Mr. Bower might actually marry her. But he would never think of them as marriage material as long as they weren’t able to pay attention to science. Veronica wondered if he had assigned these projects as a way of getting the girls to concentrate on each other—and maybe even science—for a few weeks, instead of on him.

“It is so handsome the way his hair sticks up on the top,” Coco whispered to Darcy Brown.

“For the love of science!” Mr. Bower declared. “Will you please focus!”

Darcy Brown looked at him like she was going to melt off her stool right onto the floor.

Veronica caught Sylvie rolling her eyes right at Darcy. That was one thing about Sylvie. She really didn’t care what other people thought. Sylvie was her own best friend.

Mr. Bower finally gave up trying to address the class as a whole and went around table by table, gauging the status of the projects. He had handed out sheets during the last class on which they were supposed to have jotted down ideas that interested them. All the girls probably wanted to write down his name on the sheet because he was the only thing that really interested them.

When Mr. Bower got to Veronica and Sylvie’s table he asked them if they had met and talked about their ideas. The answer to that question was no. There was an awkward silence.

“Not yet,” Sylvie said.

“All right, well, let me hear your ideas,” Mr. Bower said.

Ideas? Veronica had no ideas at all. She had only begun to wrap her brain around the fact that she had to do the project with Sylvie in the first place. That was as far as she’d gotten. In fact the sheet of ideas they’d been given to consider as possible projects was still in her folder, unread since their last class.

“I’m interested in a project with plants,” Sylvie said. “Like what if we had two plants and we treated one plant really well and gave it clean water and sunshine and plant food and the other plant was left in a closet or something?”

“That’s excellent!” Mr. Bower beamed. “To speed up your results, you could go further and actually feed one plant contaminated water and repot it in bad soil.” Sylvie looked thrilled. It seemed like a stupid idea to Veronica, but it was obviously an idea that she was going to participate in since she had no ideas of her own. Whatever bad fate lay in store for a plant kept in a closet, out of the light, Veronica was sure hers would be worse. At the very least they would both wilt and die.

“Veronica?” Mr. Bower asked. “I’m asking you a question.”

“What?” Veronica said, startled.

“How do you feel about the contamination idea? I don’t want to interfere with your vision,” Mr. Bower said.

“Fine,” Veronica said. She had no vision, so nothing could interfere with it.

When class was over, Sylvie said, “I guess we should meet in front of school at dismissal.”

Veronica agreed, then excused herself to go to the bathroom, too nervous to talk further.

Mistaken Identity

After last bell, Veronica went outside half expecting Sylvie not to be there. But Sylvie was by the front door, waiting.

“I thought we would go get the plants first,” Sylvie said. She was standing in a sun patch acting perfectly normal, like doing time with Veronica Louise Weirdo Morgan was no big deal.

Veronica followed Sylvie down Madison Avenue like a dog on a long leash, while the other Randolf girls hung around outside the building catching the first warm rays of sun. In a million years, Veronica would not have predicted she would ever be following Sylvie Samuels home.

They walked over to Lexington, and two blocks from Paws and Claws, Sylvie led them into a plant store. Veronica hung back, trying to figure out how she could run down and say hello. But then she remembered there would never be a reason to go to Paws and Claws again.