Gertie's Leap to Greatness (16 page)

He leaped up from the stoop. He had to find her. He ran inside and got his coat. Then he ran outside. Then he ran back inside and got his flashlight and hurried back out.

What if he got lost? What if he got cold? What if he never found Gertie? But he had to stop worrying about himself and start worrying about Gertie. What if
Gertie
got lost? What if
she
got cold?

And he walked to the street and started down his bus route. “My name is Parks,” he said to himself, “
Junior
Parks.”

*   *   *

Junior always stopped telling the story at this point. His chest puffed up, and he swung so high that he looked like he'd shoot into the air if he let go of the chains.

“And then Aunt Rae almost ran over you,” Gertie finished for him.

As the swing fell back, Junior dragged his heels in the dirt. He jerked to a stop. He gripped the chains and turned to look at Gertie. “Yeah,” he said. “But the point is that if your aunt hadn't been there to almost run over me,
I
would've been there to take care of you. I did it.” Junior smiled and began to pump his legs again, swinging higher and higher. “I feel like everything's going to be better!” he shouted. “From now on!”

*   *   *

And despite the fact that everything had gone wrong for
forever
, it seemed like Junior might be right.

For instance, Gertie was famous. Somehow, everyone knew that she had walked to Jones Street, and no matter how many times she tried to tell them that she hadn't run away from home
,
that was what everyone thought she'd done.

The first grader who sat in front of her on the bus gave her a quarter out of his lunch money. And Ms. Simms patted her on the back and told her that if she needed anything, to let her know. A sixth-grade boy asked for her autograph.

Ella Jenkins showed up at Gertie and Junior's lunch table and dropped her tray with a thud. “Tell me everything,” she said as she peeled the lid off her pudding cup. “Were you going to live in the mall? Because if I ran away, I'd go to Pensacola and live in the mall.” She licked pudding from the lid and sighed. “It's just so exciting.”

Gertie knew that they were being fickle, which meant that sometimes they liked her and sometimes they didn't, so she ignored them.

She kept the quarter.

Another good thing was that it was only a week until the play, and Gertie was a spectacular Evangelina. Even June had said that she thought Gertie was a good Evangelina. And Ewan had asked her if she would rehearse with him. They were all so impressed with Gertie.

And Rachel Collins would be impressed, too, when she saw Gertie in the play. And she
would
see her, because Gertie had been standing right by the phone when Aunt Rae had called and in a gruff voice told Rachel what time to show up. It was all settled.

Her mother would know that Gertie was wonderful and amazing and that she'd been wrong to leave her. And Gertie would give back the locket after the play. And even if her mother still married Walter and went away to live with him and his daughters, at least Gertie's mission would be accomplished. At least Rachel would know.

She was on stage, tying Evangelina's pink hair ribbon around her ponytail. People were tap-dancing around the stage in their tennis shoes, making awful squeaking, thudding sounds. Junior was practicing with the curtain.

“Mary Sue Spivey, you will be the Kale,” Stebbins said over the noise. “It's nutritious.”

Ever since auditions, Stebbins had been assigning Mary Sue different parts, but she had refused all of them. Junior was in charge of raising and lowering the curtain, which was a difficult job since he'd broken one of the pulleys. Mary Sue was the only one who didn't have a part to play.

“I will not be the Kale,” Mary Sue said now in a calm, dignified voice.

Everyone in the auditorium froze. Stebbins's eyebrows rose, and she regarded Mary Sue like she was wondering whether she should boil her or bake her. “Fine,” she said. “You will help the third graders with the set design.”

“I'm an
actress
.” Mary Sue crossed her arms. “Actresses are
not
set designers.”

Stebbins ground her dentures. Then she scribbled something on a sticky note, tore it off the pad with a flourish, and ceremoniously affixed it to Mary Sue's shirt.

Mary Sue tilted her head as she tried to read Stebbins's writing upside down.

Ewan squinted at the note. “
Under—understudy
?”

Mary Sue snatched the note off and read it for herself. Her mouth fell open. “I can't be the understudy! I'm—” Mary Sue started to argue, but Stebbins turned her back on her. “Stop! Stop! You—you're—you're a—a horrible old woman!” Mary Sue yelled at Stebbins's back.

Junior gasped, and the curtain fell.

“Oh.” Stebbins's voice floated through the curtain. “My feelings. They are so hurt. How
will
I carry on?” Her voice rose. “Mr. Parks, get that curtain under control.”

When they began the rehearsal, Gertie-Evangelina pranced about and threw fits and pretended to be gravely ill while Mary Sue sat in the folding chairs with her hands in her lap and her eyes on the floor. Which was what she deserved, Gertie told herself. But for some reason, she found it difficult to prance and pretend to eat sweets while Mary Sue looked so squished.

Mary Sue was a seat-stealer, Gertie reminded herself. She was a horrible person, and everything was working out just like it was supposed to.

*   *   *

“Gertie, will you please take this to Mrs. Warner?” Ms. Simms asked during math class later that afternoon.

Gertie looked up from her math sheet. Mrs. Warner. The secretary. Mrs. Warner was the secretary in the office. Ms. Simms was asking her—
Gertie
—to take a note to the office. She slid her chair back and put her trembling hands on her desk and pushed herself to her feet.

Jean glanced at her. Junior's mouth dropped open.

“Always the girls who get to take notes,” Roy muttered.

This was it. She was
that
kid, the kid who got chosen to take notes to the office. She was the kid who would get a chocolate. The special kid, the something-extra kid, the eat-my-dust kid.

Ms. Simms handed her a note written in big, neat teacher handwriting. Gertie held the paper by the edges so she wouldn't smear the words. She walked to the door, feeling her classmates' eyes following her.

She skipped down the halls, the note waving from her hand. When she went by a classroom, she stopped skipping and walked, book-on-her-head straight, past the doors, like she was very grown-up, like
ooh-la-la
and
how-do-ya-like-that
, while her heart pounded from skipping.

Junior had been right. Things were going to be wonderful from now on. Oh, Junior was right about everything! She could've kissed him if he weren't … Junior.

Gertie got to the office in no time at all. She thought about turning around and walking back to the classroom and then turning around and walking back to the office, just to make the whole experience last longer. But she wanted to do a good job, and she knew that Ms. Simms would think that doing a good job meant walking the note to the office only once. She pushed through the door.

The printer spat out sheets of paper, and Mrs. Warner's fingers clacked away on a keyboard, and on the desk sat the glass bowl of Swiss chocolates.

Gertie placed the note right beside the chocolates.

“What've we got here?” Mrs. Warner slid her glasses off her head and peered through them. “Approval forms,” she muttered. “Signatures.”

The phone rang.

“All right,” she said, picking up the phone. “Thank you, dear.” Mrs. Warner wedged the phone between her cheek and her shoulder. Then she waved her hand at Gertie as if she were shooing a fly.

Gertie didn't move.

“Carroll Elementary,” said Mrs. Warner in a bright voice. “Louise speaking.”

This wasn't how it was supposed to go. She was supposed to get a chocolate now. She had delivered her note—she hadn't even walked down the hall twice—and now Mrs. Warner was supposed to pick up a gold-foil-wrapped chocolate and drop it in her palm. If she didn't, then Gertie would have to walk back to her classroom
empty
-
handed
. Everyone would ask where her chocolate was and what did it taste like, and when they realized that she didn't get one, that she was the first person ever to take a note to the office and
not
get a chocolate, they would know she was … was …

The printer groaned and clicked and chewed up a sheet of paper.

The chocolates were waiting. Gertie was waiting. Mrs. Warner swiveled in her chair to examine the printer.

Gertie gulped in a breath through her mouth. She wasn't going to get a chocolate. It didn't matter that she was a state-capitals-and-math genius or that she'd gotten the best part in the play, because after everything Gertie had worked for, she still wasn't
that
kid—the kid who got the chocolate. She wasn't the kid who wore fancy lip gloss or had fluffy yellow hair.

Gertie turned away from the chocolates and started toward the office door. Lifting her hand to the doorknob took all her strength. She opened the door, but she didn't step through it.

Because, sometimes, a person just had to say
no
.

No. No, siree, Gertie Reece Foy wouldn't take it anymore. She. Would. Not. Take. It.

Gertie let go of the doorknob and turned back to the office. The secretary's wide back was to her. She was beating the printer with her fist. Gertie lifted the glass bowl off the desk, turned around, and walked out of the office.

 

23

Ger-tie! Ger-tie! Ger-tie!

With every step Gertie took down the deserted hallway, the bowl of chocolates in her hands grew heavier and heavier.

What had she done? What if one of the teachers walked up and saw her? What if Mrs. Warner noticed that the chocolates were missing and she chased Gertie down and tackled her and chocolates went flying everywhere?

Gertie stopped walking. She was a
thief
. She was a
criminal
. Her whole future—down the toilet, floating with the goldfish and bobbing with the Barbie heads.

She started to turn around to take the chocolates back. But it wasn't fair! She had earned these chocolates fair and square. Who was the smartest girl in the fifth grade? She was. Who was the best Evangelina ever? She was. Who had delivered the note in record time to Mrs. Warner?
She
had!

But if she walked into the classroom with the bowl, Ms. Simms was sure to ask questions, and would she give Gertie a chance to explain? No way.

Gertie looked at the chocolates and tried to figure out what she should do with them.

One-handed, she stuffed her shirt in the waistband of her jeans. Then she pulled her shirt collar out and poured the chocolates down her front. The foil wrappers scratched her belly. She placed the bowl on the floor, right against the wall so that anybody who saw it would think to themselves,
Oh, here's a lost bowl,
and they wouldn't suspect a thing.

When she stood up, the chocolates rustled against each other and made a loud
shrr-shh
. She would have to walk very slowly so that she didn't rustle.

She opened the door and crept to her desk without looking at anyone. She sat carefully and picked up her pencil and started working on her math problems, but it was impossible to concentrate on math when she had a lifetime supply of chocolates in her shirt.

“Why are you lumpy?” asked Junior out of the corner of his mouth.

Gertie's ears burned. “You can't just ask a person that,” she hissed. Now everyone was going to think she was lumpy.

“Why
are
you lumpy?” Jean whispered. It was the first time in weeks that she'd spoken to Gertie, but Gertie ignored her.

Numbers swam in front of her eyes. Her pencil scratched an answer that might have been right. The heater clicked on. An awful thought came to her. What if the chocolates all melted and got squishy and covered her shirt? And then Ms. Simms would want to know why she had brown lumpiness all over her?

Jean was eyeing her stomach. Gertie leaned forward to hide her lumpy middle.
Shrr-shh.
Junior jumped.

“Ms. Simms,” whined Mary Sue, “I can't concentrate because it's so noisy.”

Sweat slipped down Gertie's neck.

“Everyone, please be considerate,” Ms. Simms said without looking up.

Gertie leaned over her work until her neck began to ache. But she couldn't move. If she moved again and Ms. Simms heard it, she would want to know why Gertie was rustling.

Taking the chocolates had been a bad idea. The only thing to do was eat them as fast as possible so that she wouldn't get in trouble. After what seemed like forty-five years, Ms. Simms announced that it was time for recess.

Gertie waited until everyone else had run for the playground before she stood up. Then she walked carefully to the very back of the playground where no one ever played. Junior followed her. She looked around. When they were alone, she pulled her shirttail out, and all the chocolates spilled onto the ground.

“Here,” she said, tossing one to Junior. The chocolate bounced off his chest. “Help me eat these.”

Junior picked up the chocolate and turned it over in his hands. “Where did … Oh no,” he said. He dropped the chocolate. “Oh no, no, no.” He took a step back.

Gertie's fumbling fingers tore the wrapper off one. She shoved it in her mouth and started chewing like it was her job.

“What were you thinking?” Junior put his hands on his head.