Almost Zero (4 page)

“No, honey. It’s clear you’ve learned the lesson: Everything we have is a gift. I’m just pleased you’ve found it in your heart to share some of your gifts with others.”

Dyamonde threw her arms around her mother’s waist and squeezed tighter than she ever had before.

Dyamonde sorted
her clothes quickly, saying good-bye to some of her favorite shirts and pants. She held up a red cardigan her mom had given her one Christmas. Dyamonde ran a hand over the soft sleeves and sighed.

I love this sweater,
thought Dyamonde.
But it’s not like I don’t
have plenty more
.
And if I love it, then Isabel will too.

Dyamonde folded the sweater and added it to the pile.

Hey,
thought Dyamonde,
now
Isabel will be as good a dresser as me!
Dyamonde wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She liked looking special. What would it feel like to see Isabel in some of her favorite clothes? Dyamonde gave it some thought.
It’ll be okay,
Dyamonde decided.
Nobody looks as good wearing my clothes as I do!

Little by little, the stack of clothes for Isabel grew. Dyamonde
folded them carefully, then pushed them into a brown paper shopping bag. She sighed, feeling pretty good about herself. But not for long.

What about Isabel’s brothers and sisters?
wondered Dyamonde.
And what about her mom and dad? They need clothes too, and I don’t have anything to fit them.
Dyamonde had never met them, but Isabel talked about her family all the time.

Dyamonde went to the kitchen for a glass of water. She sat at the table for a minute, sipping her water and thinking. Then she jumped up, grabbed her loose-leaf
notebook, ripped out a page and started writing.

Dyamonde looked at the list long enough to know that she needed a lot more people on it. The problem was most of the people she knew were at school, and the school would not sponsor a clothing drive.

But what if I collected clothes outside of the school building?
wondered Dyamonde.

The way she figured, that would probably be okay. Now all she had to do was let everybody know.

Dyamonde ripped another page from her loose-leaf and got busy.

Dyamonde’s handwriting was not the best, so she wrote it out again, slowly this time.

“There,” said Dyamonde when she was done. “Now all I need is a hundred more copies. Ugh!”

Dyamonde remembered seeing a copy machine at the library. Maybe she could—

“Dyamonde?” said Mrs. Daniel.

“Yeah? I mean, yes?”

“Finish putting those clothes away. It’s getting late.”

“Okay,” said Dyamonde. “I’m almost done.”

I’ll try the library tomorrow,
thought Dyamonde.
I better ask Damaris to read my flyer first to make sure it’s okay. After all, she did win a writing contest.

“What’s taking you so long?” asked Mrs. Daniel.

“Just have to put my shoes away,” said Dyamonde.

Shoes! Isabel needs shoes!
thought Dyamonde.
How could I forget?

“Mom? Do we have another shopping bag?”

Dyamonde slipped
the flyer to Damaris under the table during lunch on Friday.

“Read it when you get a chance,” whispered Dyamonde. “Let me know if I need to fix anything, ’cause I need to make lots of copies and I don’t want all those copies to have mistakes in them.”

Damaris peeked at the flyer, then put it away before anyone could see it.

“How are you making copies?”

“Library,” said Dyamonde. “They’ve got a copy machine.”

“Yeah, but they charge a lot.”

Dyamonde shrugged. “It’s not like I have a choice. I can’t make all the copies by hand.”

“Yeah, but how are you going to pay for them?”

“I’ll use my allowance until it runs out.”

“Oh. Yeah,” said Damaris, looking away.

Dyamonde bit her lip.
Shoot!
she thought.
I forgot
.
Damaris doesn’t get an allowance anymore. Her mom can’t afford it.

“Anyway,” said Dyamonde, trying to change the subject, “it won’t matter how many copies I make if the writing is all wrong. You’re the only writing-contest winner I know, so you gotta help me.”

“All right. Quit bugging!” said Damaris, but she was smiling when she said it. “I’ll get it back to you later.”

“Get what back?” asked Free, plopping his lunch tray down next to them.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” said Damaris. She winked at Dyamonde and they both laughed out loud, enjoying their secret for a little while longer.

“Here,” said Damaris, handing Dyamonde a piece of paper that afternoon when school let out.

“Wow,” whispered Dyamonde, reading the announcement for the clothing drive. After Damaris rewrote it, the announcement was practically poetry.

Dyamonde read the announcement again and smiled.

Now tell me that isn’t great poetry,
thought Dyamonde.

The girls raced to the public library to use the computer.

Once the announcement was typed up, they realized they could
fit three on a page. That meant three times as many copies!

Dyamonde chose the lettering, something official-looking but bold. When she was done, she hit print and waited forever for the printer to spit it out. Then, copy in hand, she dug her $3.50 out of her pocket and went to the reference desk for change.

“We need change for this too, please,” said Damaris, plunking a five-dollar bill on the counter. Dyamonde’s jaw dropped. Damaris never had that much money.

“That’s what’s left over from my poetry-contest prize,” explained
Damaris. “I gave most of it to my mom, but she made me keep ten dollars for myself. This is what’s left.”

“But don’t you want to use it for something fun?” asked Dyamonde.

Damaris shrugged. “You can’t buy much with five dollars these days,” she said. “Besides, this is for a good cause.”

Dyamonde smiled and gave her friend’s shoulder a squeeze. After that, she was all business.

“Okay. We’ve got $8.50. Each copy costs 15 cents. That means we have enough for”—Dyamonde
did the math in her head—“56 copies.”

“Times three,” said Damaris. “Remember, there are three announcements per page.”

“Right! So that makes it 168 copies. Whew! We better get started.”

Dyamonde placed the page on the copier glass and started feeding in the coins, one quarter at a time. The machine was old and cranky. It whined and clunked with every copy it spit out. The whole process took forever. Before long, there was a line of people behind
Dyamonde and Damaris, waiting their turn to use the copier.

When the reference librarian saw the long line, she walked up to Dyamonde.

“Let me help you,” she said once Dyamonde told her how many copies she needed. “Give me the original page and whatever change you have left.”

Dyamonde handed over both.

“Wait there,” the librarian told her, pointing to a table with chairs. Dyamonde nodded, stepping away from the copier so that the next person could use it. Meanwhile, the librarian disappeared behind a door marked Staff Only.

Dyamonde and Damaris sat at the table whispering, wondering how long they’d have to wait. A few minutes later, the librarian returned holding a big stack of fliers. One look told Dyamonde there were way more than the 56 copies they had enough money to pay for.

The librarian laid the still-warm stack of copies on the table and leaned down to whisper in Dyamonde’s ear.

“I threw in a few extra copies,”
she said. “It was for a good cause.”

Dyamonde’s eyes grew wide. She looked from the librarian to Damaris and back to the librarian. Dyamonde hardly knew what to say.

“Thank you,” said Damaris for them both.

“Yes!” said Dyamonde, finding her voice again. “Thank you!”

“Now,” said the librarian, “do you need some help cutting these?”

Dyamonde and Damaris both nodded. The librarian smiled, laid three pairs of scissors on the table, and pulled up a chair to join the girls.

That evening, Dyamonde called Free and told him all about her plans for a clothing drive, and about the flyer, and about how Damaris helped her with it. Free listened carefully, and when Dyamonde was done talking, Free said exactly the right thing.

“So when do I get my stack of flyers to hand out?”

Dyamonde wasted
no time. She passed out flyers all weekend, sliding one underneath the front door of every apartment in her building. Free did the same in his building, and Damaris even handed out a few at the shelter where she lived. The way she figured, if she had five dollars stashed away, maybe
somebody else had a dollar or two they’d like to give to help somebody else in need.