Eight Keys (18 page)

On Sunday morning, I found another key.

This one was on my dresser next to some clean socks Aunt Bessie had dropped off. Was it from her? I doubted it, for some reason. It could have been there for days.

After this one there would be just one more key. And maybe then I would learn who the mysterious key-giver was. Who would send a key from California? The person who left all the rest of the keys had to be someone who could get in the house—or somebody already in it. Unless the keys were coming from Somewhere Else … through a time warp or by angel messenger or …

I pushed those thoughts out of my mind to deal with later and headed outside.

This room looked like the library, except smaller, without the desk.

Why would Dad give me
another
room full of books? But the room had books from floor to ceiling anyway, with the
exception of a mirror sitting on one of the shelves. I scanned some of the titles.
Taoism. Native American Myths. The Historical Jesus
. Nothing interesting. I pulled one off the shelf. It looked like hard reading.

The message on the floor said, BELIEVE.

The books were all things to believe in.

The mirror was kind of a weird addition. I stared at my reflection.

And suddenly, that made sense, too.

I was also supposed to believe in
myself
.

At lunch, Franklin walked by our table, looking for a place to sit. Caroline waved at him. He waved back but kept going.

Caroline turned to me. “What are you working on?” She looked at the loose-leaf paper and mechanical pencil I was hiding under the table.

“The poetry assignment,” I said. Our usual paragraph assignment had turned into poems for the rest of the unit. “I’m really sick of writing poems. I just don’t get what they should be about.”

“What have your other ones been about?” Caroline asked.

“Dumb things. Springtime. Winter.”

“Do you really care about winter?”

I shook my head.

Caroline looked over a few tables, where Franklin was eating a sandwich (probably bologna with yellow mustard) and talking with Diana, who was in an orange sweatshirt with a black cat on it, looking like Halloween.

Then Caroline started reading, letting me do my homework. I liked having her just sit next to me while the thoughts whirred in my head.

I decided to finish my homework at home and started to eat. My peanut butter sandwich that was not flattened or smooshed or crushed or hurt in any way. It still stuck to the roof of my mouth and in my throat just as much.

I looked around for Amanda. She was several tables away, laughing with Kate and Lindsay and a couple boys.

“What’s Amanda’s deal, anyway?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Caroline said. “She wasn’t always like this.”

“I saw her with her brother once. He and his friends weren’t that nice to her.”

“No, they aren’t.”

“But just because someone is mean to her doesn’t give her the right to be mean to other people.”

Then a funny feeling squirmed inside me.
Like I was to Franklin?

The truth was, it wasn’t just the not-fessing-up in the principal’s office that was wrong between me and Franklin. I hadn’t been nice to him all year. I called him names. I didn’t like to do things with him the way I had before because I was worried about what other people would think. He embarrassed me, even though I should have been happy to have such a good friend. I really hadn’t been a good friend to him for a long, long time.

• • •

I took a deep breath and dialed.

Mrs. White answered. “Hello?”

“Hi. Is Franklin there?”

“Oh, hi, Elise. Let me go see if I can find him.”

I waited. She would know exactly where he was; she meant “Let me see if he wants to talk to you.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “He’s doing homework right now and doesn’t want to be interrupted. Maybe try him tomorrow?”

“Uh, okay, thanks,” I managed to say. “Bye.”

“Oh, and Elise?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for calling.”

I hung up.

A Lifetime Supply of Questions

When Mrs. Wakefield said it was time to have someone share her poem, I expected her to call on Caroline. She called on her almost every week.

“Elise, come up and share with us.”

I was so surprised I stayed in my seat staring at her until Caroline poked me in the back.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read my poem in front of everyone, but I stood up and took my paper from Mrs. Wakefield. It shook a little in my hands. I cleared my throat.

“Great job, Elise,” said Mrs. Wakefield.

“I don’t get it,” said a boy named Greg.

“Elise, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your poem?”

I thought. “I guess it’s about things being different than they seem. And about … losing track.”

“I think this poem is very interesting because it includes so many elements,” Mrs. Wakefield said. “There’s loss, self-reflection. Those are just a couple of them. Great work, Elise.”

I sat down and glanced at Franklin. He didn’t look up from the rocket ship he was designing on his gridded notebook page. I wondered if he’d even listened.

I read Mrs. Wakefield’s comment on the paper:
I hope you share more of your great thoughts with me!

Caroline beamed at me. Then she flicked a small piece of paper from the top of her desk to mine. I opened it.

It said,

See?

I smiled back.

• • •

Uncle Hugh and Aunt Bessie were happy when I showed them what Mrs. Wakefield had written. And that night it was easier to sit down and do my homework. I kept my math paper smooth and nice, and did all my graphing in sharp colored pencil. When I got it back two days later, there was a big check plus on it.

And when we had to recite a poem for Mrs. Wakefield, I practiced and practiced and remembered every single word.

Then a
really
good thing happened and that was that I studied enough for the next science test to get a ninety-five.

After that, my work didn’t scare me anymore. I just did it, and things started to go well more often.

And then one day I came home to the library, and on my desk was the last key.

This room was probably the strangest of all, besides the room that had had nothing in it, of course.

There were no books or pictures, no journals or scrapbooks. There
was
a message. It said QUESTION.

A million pieces of paper with what looked like single sentences written on them were taped all over the walls.

I looked closer. They were all questions.

Some questions had quotations and a name underneath, and some were on their own, as if anyone could have asked them.

There were too many to read all at once. And they made me a little sad, thinking of all those family moments I had forgotten.

But mostly I felt confused. I had opened every locked
room. I thought all my questions would be answered, but instead I’d found a million more.

“Elise, come to my desk, please.”

Oh, super-great. I hadn’t been in trouble at school in a long time.

But when I got to Mrs. Wakefield’s desk, she handed me a note and said, “Caroline is absent today; her mom called and asked that you bring her homework, if you can. Here’s her address.”

“I can,” I said. Phew. That was not scary after all.

When I sat down, nosy Amanda peered at the note.

“I’ll bring Caroline her homework,” she said. “She’s my friend.”

Mrs. Wakefield overheard and said, “Caroline’s mother wants Elise to do it. Please don’t worry, Amanda; it doesn’t concern you.”

See, Amanda
, I thought.
Caroline is done with you
.

I paid attention to all the assignments that day so I would be a good homework-bringer. I didn’t know who Caroline’s locker partner was, so I couldn’t get her books. But maybe she had some of the right ones at home already anyway, or I could lend her mine.

After I called Aunt Bessie to ask for a ride home later, I walked to the address on the paper. It was on Main Street, the
same as Leonard’s store. I remembered Caroline saying it was over the deli.

I let myself in the lower door, which was open, walked up the stairs, and knocked.

Caroline’s mom answered. Her soft-looking clothes made me think of Aunt Bessie. “Oh, hello. You must be Elise.” She gave me a big smile.

“Yep. I have Caroline’s stuff.”

“That’s right … she said specifically to ask for you. I don’t know why she couldn’t just call someone, but here you are. She didn’t come out all day, except to make a tuna fish sandwich at lunch. Why you’d eat stinky tuna in your bedroom, I don’t know, but it’s her room.”

Caroline’s mom seemed like the opposite of Franklin’s mom. If Franklin’s mom didn’t understand having a friend stop by when you were sick or eating tuna fish in your room, then it wouldn’t happen.

She let me into the apartment. The living room, dining room, and kitchen were all open to each other. Caroline’s sisters played on the living room floor. They were maybe two and four, wearing pajamas in the late afternoon. They looked like mini Carolines.

“Her room’s the last one down the hall. She’s still resting.”

I went to the end of the hall and knocked on Caroline’s door. “It’s Elise.”

“Oh, come in!”

I opened the door. Caroline was dancing around in a white sweatshirt and pajama pants. She hopped over and shut the door behind me.

“Here’s your homework list.” I felt confused. This Caroline didn’t look sick or resting.

“Thank you.” She set the list on her desk. Then she looked at me with an expectant face.

“Okay, well, feel better?”

“Elise,” Caroline whispered. “I have a secret.”

“What is it?”

“It’s asleep on my pillow.”

I looked over at her bed. There was a tiny gray-striped kitten, curled up.

“Oh, cute!”

“Shhh, shhh!” Caroline hissed. “Secret!”

“Oh, right,” I whispered, suddenly understanding the mystery of tuna-in-bed. “Can I hold him?”

“Sure.” Caroline scooped up the kitten and handed him to me. We both sat on the bed.

“He’s sweet and sleepy,” I said. “Where’d he come from?”

“I rescued him. Found him outside, just dumped by the road. There were other kittens with him, but …”

I guessed they didn’t make it. The look on Caroline’s face … “Where does he go to the bathroom?”

“I have a little box for him in the closet.”

I let the kitten go and he stumbled over to Caroline’s lap. “I wasn’t really sick today. I just wanted to stay with him.”

“Um … how long can you keep him secret?”

“That’s the thing. Probably no time at all. I’ve got to get him out of here. No room for extras at our house. Says Dad, anyway.” She looked at me. “You guys have space. You could have a kitten.”

“Can’t. Uncle Hugh’s allergic.”

“Oh.” Her face fell.

“I do know someone … who has never had a cat but is completely obsessed with them. She’d probably take him. Or at least find him a good home.”

“You sure?”

I nodded. “Positive.”

When Franklin saw me standing in front of his locker, he rolled his eyes and put a scowl on. I handed him a note. “You don’t have to talk to me. This is for Diana. Tell her to be there today, after school. You can come, too, if you want.”

“You want to hang out with Diana?”

“No, just … you’ll see. Just see if you can get her there … in front of the deli.”

Franklin shrugged. “Sure, whatever.”

After school, when Caroline’s mom took her sisters to their swimming lessons, Caroline and I put the kitten in a box and brought it down to the sidewalk. I wrote
Diana
on the box.

“Bye, Tommy,” Caroline whispered to the kitten. “I’ll miss you.”

“Maybe you can go and visit.” She seemed sad, so I slipped my elbow through hers as we walked upstairs.