Gertie's Leap to Greatness (5 page)

Gertie put her hands on her hips and looked up at the refrigerator.

Audrey put
her
hands on
her
hips and looked up at the refrigerator, too. “Oh my
Looooord
,” she said in the most melodramatic voice ever uttered by a human being.

“You think you're mimicking me, but you're not,” said Gertie, “because I have never sounded like that in my life.”

Audrey was looking at the remote control, far above them. “We'll never get it down. Guess we'll have to play house instead, huh?”

Gertie climbed onto the kitchen counter and carefully stood. She lifted the remote out of the gray dust fuzz on top of the refrigerator and passed it down to Audrey. Feeling like she might finally be able to get some work done, Gertie went back to her room.

The capital of Montana is Helena. Helena, Helena, HELENA, Helena …
Gertie wrote it over and over until she'd filled a whole page. She frowned at it, trying to decide if it was good and stuck in her brain crevices. Helena was a nice name. She wondered if Ms. Simms's first name was Helena.

“Gertie Reece, what are you doing in there?” Her father knocked on the door.

Gertie's head fell against her book.

“Aunt Rae wants to talk to you,” he said.

Technically, Aunt Rae was Frank Foy's aunt, but Gertie always thought it sounded strange when her father said “Aunt Rae.” Old people weren't supposed to have aunts. Old people didn't need aunts.

“Why'd you let Audrey have that remote?” Aunt Rae called. “I'm coming in.”

“Aunt Rae!” Gertie jumped up so that she was standing on her bed. “You're invading my personal space!”

Aunt Rae flapped her hand in a shushing gesture. “What are you up to?” She toed some of the comic books out of the way.

“Albert Einstein didn't have these kinds of interruptions!” Gertie protested.

Gertie's father leaned over Aunt Rae's shoulder. “So?” he asked.

“So I'm studying because I'm going to be a real genius.”

Aunt Rae blinked at the sight of Gertie's bed, covered in books. “Oh. You're studying.” Aunt Rae looked at Gertie and her schoolwork a little longer, like she was making sure the sight didn't shimmer away like a mirage. When it didn't, she blinked again. She looked at Gertie's father, who shrugged. “That's good, I guess.” She rubbed her back. “I'll leave you to it.”

She turned to go but then looked over her shoulder, frowning. “What
else
are you up to?”

“Honestly,” said Gertie, “y'all act like you've never seen me study before.”

*   *   *

Gertie worked until it was time for bed, and after her father read her a chapter of
Treasure Island
and tucked her in, she worked by flashlight. She worked straight through Saturday, copying out the states and capitals and memorizing science facts and doing math sets until the fingers on her right hand had gotten stuck in a claw and her stomach snarled and her eyes blurred from staring at words and numbers and her brain felt like it had been sat on. And then she kept working until she fell asleep again.

And in her dreams Roy Caldwell whispered,
Wow, Gertie Foy is a genius with a
g
—a capital
G
.

 

7

With a
G

“Gertie.”

Genius.

“Gertie.”

“With a
G
,” she mumbled.

“Gertie!”

She moaned and peeled her face off page sixty-three of
Adventures in Reading, Grade 5
, which she had been using as a pillow.

Aunt Rae shook Gertie's foot. “Church starts in twenty minutes.”

“I should be studying,” Gertie said, stretching.

“No.”

She had inherited her commitment to missions from Aunt Rae. And Aunt Rae had only two missions in life. One was not to buy anything unless it was on sale, and the other was to drag Gertie to church on Sundays.

So Gertie decided not to have an absolute conniption today—she could use a break anyway—and hummed as she pulled her church dress over her head and blew the hair out of her eyes. She hummed as she watered her fern. She ran to the kitchen door and hummed as she tapped her foot to show her father and Aunt Rae that she was ready to get this over with.

“You look like you've been dragged behind a car.” Aunt Rae shook her head.

Gertie lifted her chin and hummed even louder. She was much too happy to worry about whether or not she looked like she had been dragged behind a car. She hadn't read through every book, but she'd read through a lot. And her head was fuller than it had ever been before. At school tomorrow,
she
would be the one with all the answers.

“Isn't it a lovely day?” she asked in her most airy-fairy voice as she climbed into the backseat and wrapped her seat belt around herself.

Aunt Rae grunted, and tugged up her skirt's stretchy waistband.

Her father settled in the passenger seat. Aunt Rae gripped the steering wheel and frowned at the clock. Gertie pretended not to notice. Normally, Aunt Rae took the long way to church. But whenever Gertie made them late, she had to take the shortcut, which took them on Jones Street.

Aunt Rae clicked her tongue and backed the car out of the yard.

When they sped by the housiest house, Gertie saw the lights on and the cars parked in the driveway. The Sunshine Realty sign was taller than Gertie and had a giant dancing sun, so it was hard to miss. But Aunt Rae didn't even glance at it. Neither did Gertie's father.

*   *   *

The First Methodist Church was a giant brick building across the street from the First Baptist Church. Gertie and Jean always met on the steps of First Methodist and waited together until they saw Junior going into First Baptist, which was where he went every Sunday. He said it was just as boring as their church, but he always got finished ten minutes earlier.

Jean was already waiting when Gertie got there. “How much have you read?” she demanded.

Gertie sat on the top step and tapped her toes against the brick. “Enough,” she said, not giving anything away.

Jean frowned. “How much
exactly
?”

“Almost half of
Adventures in Reading
, four chapters in math, twenty pages of science, and a little bit of social studies.”

Jean crossed her arms and leaned against a column. Gertie could see her doing some kind of calculation. When she was done with her figuring, she said, “You can't become smarter than Mary Sue in one weekend. It's not only about reading books. You have to
be
smart, too.”

Gertie's toes stopped tapping. “I'm smart!”

“You're
smart
,” Jean said with a wave of her hand. “But you're smart in other ways. You're not smart at school.”

Gertie was about to argue when Jean said, “There he is.”

Mr. and Mrs. Parks and Junior jogged across the parking lot and up the steps. They were always late.

“One,” said Jean.

“Two,” said Gertie.

“Three,” they finished together. “HEY, JUNIOR JUNIOR!”

From all the way across the street, Gertie saw Junior's face give an amused twitch. Or maybe it was more of a horrified twitch. It was hard to tell. Mrs. Parks waved at them, and Gertie and Jean turned to go into their church, which was full of noisy, bustling people gossiping before the service started.

“Besides, I don't see how studying helps your mission,” Jean said. “I thought you were trying to be the best at something.”

“I am,” Gertie said. “I'm going to be the best student.”

“You can't be the best one at school,” Jean said. “That's what I do. Junior's the jumpy one. You're the loud one.
I'm
the smart one.”

“I'm not the loud—” Gertie began, but a woman shushed her. “I'm not
only
the loud one,” she said more quietly.

“I'm just saying,” Jean said in a don't-get-all-upset tone, “that making good grades isn't easy. You're going to be disappointed when…” She shrugged.

Gertie stopped walking so suddenly she was nearly run over by the preacher. Jean hurried away to sit with her family, without even looking back.

Gertie couldn't believe it. Jean didn't think she could beat Mary Sue. She wanted to follow Jean and tell her that she was forgetting that Gertie always did what she said she was going to do. But Mrs. Zeller never let Gertie sit with Jean's family because Gertie couldn't act like a respectable human being during the service. Mrs. Zeller moved her purse to make room for Jean, who stared straight ahead.

Jean thought Gertie was just the “loud one”? Well, okay, it was true that she never had been the smart one before. But that was why she
had
to do it. She had to be a whole new Gertie when she faced Rachel Collins.

She walked slowly to where her father and Aunt Rae were sitting. “Genius with a capital
G
,” she said to herself.

 

8

That Superior Smoothness

Gertie had never given up on a mission, no matter how difficult it was. She hadn't given up on her mission to convince the cafeteria to serve rainbow toast on her birthday, and that had been extremely difficult. She hadn't given up on her mission to steal a ride on Roy's unicycle, and that had seemed impossible. She wouldn't give up now.

“What is the capital of South Carolina?” Ms. Simms asked.

Gertie threw her hand up at the same time that Jean punched the air with her fist. Then she stretched her arm an inch higher.

Ms. Simms looked up. “Gertie?”

“Columbia.”

“Georgia?”

Jean's arm bumped Gertie's on the way up. Junior cowered in his chair.

“Jean,” Ms. Simms said.

“Atlanta.” Jean smiled.

When Ms. Simms called out the next state, Hawaii, and looked up to see Gertie and Jean halfway out of their seats trying to get their fingertips a little higher, her eyebrows rose. “Anybody else?”

“Honolulu,” Mary Sue answered.

Gertie dropped her hand. Jean's teeth clicked together.

Later, they got out their copies of
Adventures in Reading, Grade 5
and opened to a story about a girl who raised a family of ducks that waddled after her.

“Roy, would you like to read?” asked Ms. Simms.

Roy didn't look up from doodling on his arm cast. “No, ma'am. Thank you for asking, though.”

“Roy!” Ms. Simms snapped.

Roy shifted in his seat and began to read, muttering more and more quietly and turning redder and redder until Ms. Simms called the next person in line. Gertie scooted to the edge of her seat, waiting for her turn, counting people and paragraphs to see which one she'd get.

“Okay, Gertie, will you read the next one?”

Gertie cleared her throat and sucked in a big breath. Then she began reading in a loud, steady voice like her father did when he read to her. She didn't stumble over any words.

When her paragraph was over she tried to keep reading—just sneak on to the next one—but Ms. Simms stopped her.

“Thank you, Gertie. Let's let Junior have a turn.”

Last of all was Mary Sue, and she read like she did everything else—better. She read in a louder, surer voice than anyone, even Gertie or Jean, and Ms. Simms let her read two
pages
. Mary Sue had gotten to read
two whole pages
, and Gertie had only gotten to read one paragraph, which was only two squinchy inches
.
Two pages. Two
inches
.

Gertie watched the back of Mary Sue's head, and she wondered why some people read better and had yellow hair and got to wear lip gloss and meet famous people and sit in the front row. And she wondered why
she
wasn't one of those people.

Jean's elbow dug into her ribs. “See?” she hissed as they put their books away. “I told you.”

“So maybe it'll take me two weekends,” said Gertie.

Ms. Simms was sifting through her papers. “I need one of you to run this to the office,” she said, and Gertie forgot about her mission and Mary Sue and Jones Street and everything.

She reached her hand so high that her bottom came out of her seat.

When Ms. Simms looked up, everyone's hand was in the air.

“I'll take it, Ms. Simms,” said Ewan, pushing his glasses up on his nose.

Junior put his hand all the way up and then almost brought it back down and then pushed it up again, like he wanted Ms. Simms to choose him but hoped she would never actually look at him.

The school secretary, Mrs. Warner, had a sister who lived in Switzerland and sent her fancy Swiss chocolates wrapped in gold foil. The chocolates were piled in a glass bowl on her desk, and whenever students ran an errand to the office, she would let them pluck one of the chocolates from the bowl.