Freaked Out (5 page)

“Go Betsy!” Avery whooped, and everybody but Julie and Sarah clapped.

Betsy smiled and continued to make her foul shots, one after another until she had made nine in a row. She was shooting better than Amanda, who was the star of the team. Everyone was shocked. Betsy took her tenth shot and it swished right through the net. Who knew?

“Awesome job, Betsy. Ten for ten!” Coach Porter was excited to see such a great shooter. “Let's see if anyone can match that!”

Everyone else took their turn, but no one managed to match Betsy's record. Avery was pretty happy with getting seven out of ten, and Isabel got six out of ten. They finished up tryouts that day with practicing lay-ups, and Avery noticed that Betsy missed every one she attempted. How could she be so good at free throws but so bad at lay-ups?

“Hey, Betsy,” Avery said as she headed to the locker room after tryouts, “great job on those free throws!”

“Thanks. I've been practicing. Practice makes perfect, you know. Every night, after I finish my homework, I've been shooting fifty free throws. My cousin Colleen got a full athletic scholarship to Princeton. My dream is to go there, too, and I thought maybe basketball could be my ticket in.” Betsy was kind of crazy, but her hard work did seem to pay off.

“Wow, that's cool.” Avery admired people who worked hard, tried their best, and sometimes surprised themselves. But sometimes, Betsy was over the top with her college obsession.

Overall, Avery thought that tryouts had gone really well. Isabel had played great, and Betsy was the surprise star of foul shots. Maybe a lot of seventh graders would make the team. If only Julie Faber wasn't trying out, then Avery could really forget about her party.

I
just don't get this, Matt, I don't.” Maeve was ready to throw her math book across the room. “I'm math impaired. Admit it and give up on me. Algebra, geometry, all these fractions, equations, and word problems. I hate word problems. They're so frustrating. Who cares about two trains traveling at different speeds and what time they arrive someplace? I'll just call a travel agent when I want to travel and say, ‘Get me the best schedule.'”

Good-natured Matt had been Maeve's math tutor for some time now, and he was used to seeing her get frustrated. He was also used to her being melodramatic. Her flair for the dramatic made Maeve one of his favorite students. And he was a good tutor, really patient. Maeve knew she shouldn't push him too far though—she didn't want to have to get used to someone else and have to explain all over again how math made no sense to her.

Matt made a suggestion to Maeve. “Try to relax, Maeve, maybe you're trying too hard and that's making
you block out everything. Research has shown—”

“Matt,” Maeve groaned. “I don't care what research says. What does research know about Maeve Kaplan-Taylor? Nothing. No one ever came to me and said, ‘We want to research why you can't learn math.' I'm not in their silly studies. And don't keep telling me, ‘If you relax it will come.' That's like that line in that baseball movie, ‘If you build it, they will come.' So I relax, and I still don't get it. You think a bunch of math geniuses will sit there beside me during the test and feed me answers? I don't think so.”

The verbal avalanche left Maeve exhausted. She flopped back onto the chair at the kitchen table and covered her face with both hands.

“Maeve, you've panicked over this particular test. If you just try to take a few deep breaths, take each problem slowly, and do your best, I know you can pass.”

“That's easy for you to say, Matt. You've already passed seventh-grade math and eighth and senior high and you're in college. What if I never make it out of seventh grade? I'll be stuck at Abigail Adams Junior High forever, and you'll still be tutoring me when you're eighty years old!”

“I'll have a beard and I'll hand you cheat sheets from under it. In the meantime…breathe.”

“I'm too desperate to breathe.” Maeve grabbed a carrot stick and crunched it as if she were attacking a math theorem. Why hadn't her mother bought snacks with more substance? She wanted a brownie or chocolate chip cookies. You need chocolate for math, Maeve reasoned. Suddenly, she jumped up to look in the cupboard. She thought she remembered some M&Ms.

Matt took a deep breath and turned the page to more problems. “Let's try a few more, Maeve. Practicing does make it easier.”

The numbers blurred when Maeve tried to look at them. The page might as well have been written in Chinese.

One time a teacher showed her mother and father a page of Chinese and asked them to read it. She had made her point. “When kids first learn to read, the page looks like this to them. For Maeve, some of the words still look like Chinese,” the teacher explained. “Somehow, we're still trying to understand how her brain reverses some of the letters for her. So she has to decode twice. Reverse the words back, then read the word. She has to do twice the work that most kids have to when they learn to read. It's an extremely frustrating experience.” Maeve remembered thinking,
Now they will fix me
.

Well, now Maeve felt as if she was doing twice or maybe four times the work other kids do when they learn math.

“It's not fair,” Maeve said in a quiet voice.

“Most of life isn't fair, Maeve. Why can you dance and sing like a Broadway star while I croak like a frog and look like I need medication on the dance floor?” Matt laughed at his own joke.

“I guess I'll have to get through life on my talent since I have this upside down, reversible brain,” Maeve replied.

“Yeah, maybe you could do that, but you still need math so nobody steals your money. Let's try one more time.”

Matt grinned, and Maeve felt as if she'd try ten more times for him.

They worked a little longer, taking one problem at a time. Often, when Matt read the problem out loud to her, she caught on faster. Maybe her math problem was a reading problem.

“What is this problem asking?” Matt said when they'd both read it aloud.

“It's asking how much money I'd have left. Probably none, since I'd spend the remainder on a new blouse.”

“Okay, how much would you have to spend on a new blouse?”

When Matt asked something practical like that, something Maeve really wanted to know, she could figure it out.

“You like money, Maeve?” Matt asked.

“Yeah?” Maeve said, looking suspiciously at Matt.

“We can pretend all these numbers are money. Would that help you figure them out?”

“Maybe.” She tried to do as Matt said, and they did make more than usual progress that day. But Maeve still felt discouraged. Matt would not be sitting next to her at the test.

After Matt left, she sat at the table, exhausted. Finally she put her head down on her math book and actually fell asleep.

“Do you think the math will soak into your brain while you sleep, honey?” her mother said, waking Maeve by touching her on the shoulder.

Maeve came back to the real world, to the table cluttered with scribbled numbers. “I'm going to fail, Mom. Even with Matt's help. I can't possibly pass the math test
on Friday. I'm just stupid, really stupid.” Maeve broke down, crying as if her heart were broken. What a waste, a broken heart over math instead of Dillon or someone equally cute.

She didn't know how long she sat there, tears running down her face, thinking about Dillon and Riley and music and parties and dancing. All of her friends were good at math. Charlotte and Katani were practically geniuses, and Isabel and Avery got Bs and sometimes Cs. If Maeve got a C on a big math test, her family would have a celebration. The problem was she got Ds and sometimes Fs. Nobody would ever celebrate for her.

Maeve didn't even hear her mother make the phone call, but knew she must have done so when a few minutes later her father sat beside her and took her arm.

“Maeve, sweetheart, you have to calm down. One test is not the end of the world.”

By then, Maeve didn't have much crying left inside. She didn't have much of anything left inside. In fact, she realized she was hungry. How could she be hungry when life as she knew it was coming to an abrupt end?

“I—I—maybe I'm just hungry.”

Mr. Taylor hugged Maeve and gave his wife a tender smile. Maeve caught it out of the corner of her eye. A flutter of hope came over her. But it passed so quickly Maeve thought maybe it was just her stomach growling.

Her father stood up, glad he'd found something he really could do to help. “Well, that's easily fixed. Let's go get something wonderful to eat. Do you mind if Sam goes? Then your mother doesn't have to prepare dinner.”

“Why doesn't Mom come with us?” Maeve looked at her mother, who smiled but shook her head.

“I have homework, too. I can eat a microwave dinner and work right here in the math wreckage.”

“It could rub off on you,” Maeve warned. “You might never understand your contracts or whatever it is you brought home.”

“I'll take that chance.” Her mother hugged her, wiped her eyes, and said, “Run upstairs and wash your face. Put on a clean shirt. You'll feel better.”

Recovering from the major meltdown was going to take longer than Dad would wait. Quickly Maeve washed her face and got ready to go. She pinched her cheeks for some color and threw a lip gloss into her pocket. You never knew who you might run into eating out. Math was suddenly not so important.

“That's better,” her dad said when she got back to the kitchen. He put his arm around her and steered her toward the door.

Sam bounced, kicked, and punched the air as they headed for the car. “Can we have pizza?”

“Tonight is Maeve's choice, Sam. You choose next time.”

“That's not fair. It's my turn.” He crouched into a kung fu position and leaped into a fight stance.

“Does he have to come?” she implored her father. The idea of walking into a restaurant with a Mutant Ninja Turtle was not her idea of a relaxing dinner.

“Sam,” her father spoke sharply. “Behave yourself. We are taking your sister out to cheer her up.”

Looking at the defeated face of her brother, Maeve said, “I guess pizza sounds good.”

In the car, Maeve stared out the window. Life wasn't only not fair, it was strange and more often than not, totally confusing. She had been so upset about math a minute ago, and now she was listening to Sam blather on about tae kwon do class to her dad. Maybe she would be okay for the test.

Sisters

Isabel's life wasn't running smoothly either.

“You promised, Izzy. You promised me a long time ago!”

Elena Maria, Isabel's older sister, stomped her foot and paced around the kitchen. Her dark eyes flashed fire. Usually the way Isabel handled Elena's hot temper was to leave. But she couldn't. This involved her. And besides, she had to help set the table.

“You can't back out now. I told the Fergusons I'd baby-sit. Then I had a conflict and you promised me you'd fill in. My reputation is on the line here.” Elena Maria banged a plate down on the kitchen table as if to emphasize her point.

Isabel didn't remember ever promising that she'd baby-sit. Normally, she wouldn't mind filling in, but the job happened to be the same night as Julie Faber's party.

“I'm sorry, Elena, but I'm going to a party that night. It's going to be ‘the party of the year.' I have to be there. Why don't you ask one of your friends to baby-sit?” Isabel felt bad for Elena Maria, but she was starting to get annoyed at her sister's whining.

“All my friends have plans that night. I've already called around. So you have to keep your promise. Isabel, this is really important to me.”

“You promised the Fergusons in the first place, so I think you're the one who has to keep your promise, Elena.” Isabel was getting a little confused with all of the promises. All she knew was that she
had
to go to the party.

“Come on, Isabel, it's only a seventh-grade birthday party,” Elena Maria said. “Listen, I'll do the dishes for two weeks if you just baby-sit for me. It's not even a hard job. They only have two kids.”

“Yeah,” Isabel raised her voice. “The Fergusons—escapees from the zoo.”

“They're not that bad, Izzy. Maybe you could get one of your friends to go with you. It'll be fun!” Elena Maria had a way of sugar-coating her words until Isabel said yes, but Isabel wasn't caving this time.

“If it's going to be so fun, then why don't you baby-sit?” Isabel knew that would set Elena off again, but she'd had enough. She
hated
baby-sitting the Ferguson twins. Everyone did. They were so spoiled. Just because they had starred in a famous commercial about eating cereal and had their own fan club, they thought they were TV stars. And TV stars can do anything they like according to Jamie Ferguson. Stay up all night, eat too much candy or soda, no problem. Talk back when they please, and run through the house like a pair of hyenas on too much caffeine—par for the course. The Fergusons should come with a warning label:
Don't baby-sit these kids!
Isabel got a headache just thinking about baby-sitting them again.

Mrs. Martinez came into the kitchen and the girls stopped their bickering instantly. They continued to set the table in silence. No one wanted to upset Mrs. Martinez.

“Isabel, my dear little sister, could you please get the silverware?” Elena Maria's voice dripped with honey.

Isabel wanted to throw the napkins she was carrying in her dear older sister's face. Instead, she made a face, which made her feel better for the moment.

“What is all this fighting? I could hear you yelling all over the house. You should respect each other, girls. How many times have I told you that?”

“Sorry, Mama,” Isabel said. Isabel felt bad that their silly argument had upset their mom. Ever since their mother had gotten sick, the girls tried not to argue. Isabel was glad to see her mother using her walker rather than her wheelchair. That meant she was feeling stronger.

“
Sí, lo siento
, Mama.” Elena Maria sent Isabel a fierce look that said, “Don't worry Mama about this.” As if Elena Maria hadn't been the one to start the fight in the first place.

Aunt Lourdes came into the kitchen to see if the cheese on the casserole was browned. She pronounced it perfect and lifted it out of the oven. “
No problema
, Esperanza. It is normal for sisters to fight sometimes.”

“Did you and Mama ever fight?” Isabel asked.

Aunt Lourdes set the casserole on the table and laughed. “Oh, yes, we fought, almost every day. Your mama is a feisty one, let me tell you. There was this one time….”