I Am the Wallpaper (6 page)

Smiley Quahog stood on my desk, watching me as I wrote.

Everybody in our second-grade art class had made a Smiley Quahog. Mrs. Lachapelle had brought in quahog shells from the beach, and every kid got one and glued on
a set of plastic eyes, a foam nose and cork feet. Azra had added yellow yarn for hair and a pipe-cleaner arm with a little plastic sword. He was a swashbuckling clam. Mine had disappeared years before, but Azra had kept hers, and she repaired it whenever parts fell off. For years we had been giving Smiley Quahog back and forth to each other as a joke gift.

I continued:

Frank Sinatra glared at me disapprovingly when I climbed back on the bed.

“What are you looking at?”

He narrowed his eyes.

“What do
you
know?” I asked. “You’re just a dumb ferret.”

From the pages I’d printed off the Internet I read about Zen, about how it’s more of an attitude or philosophy toward life than a religion. Zen says everything in the universe is connected in a kind of cosmic way, but we all get so focused on our own little worlds that we lose track of the big picture. Zen masters say that to really understand, we have to stop thinking so hard and just
feel
. They use little stories or riddles called koans to help open their minds. Koans don’t always make sense, like “What is the color of the wind?” But meditating about them really hard is supposed to help people become enlightened.

Anyway, that’s what I got out of it.

To me, the idea was kind of exciting. Didn’t Azra say that thinking too hard was one of my problems? But recognizing a problem is the first step toward solving it, right?

The New Floey was already well on her way to enlightenment.

I concentrated on the color of the wind until my eyes felt heavy and I nodded off.

The sounds of loud running footsteps and shouting woke me. I’d been dreaming that Calvin and I were Zen masters in long yellow robes. We were dancing. In my dream these
loud footsteps became the sounds of other dancers clomping around. They weren’t very good dancers, or maybe they were just rude, because the music was soft and slow but their footsteps weren’t.

I opened my eyes.

Another pair of eyes stared back at me. They were big and blue and very close to my own face.

I screamed.

“What are you doing?” my cousin Tish asked.

It took me a few seconds to recognize her. Finally, I said, “What are
you
doing?”

“Looking at your weasel. He looks old.” Frank Sinatra was curled up on my stomach. He eyed my cousin suspiciously. “Aunt Grace said I could come in and say hello. We’re going to be roommates.”

I glared at her. Now that I
finally
had my own room it was so unfair that I, the New Floey Packer, had to share it with anyone, let alone a ten-year-old. This was definitely a setback.

Tish walked over to the other bed and bounced on the mattress. After a few bounces she said, “It’ll do, I guess.”

I sat up but didn’t say anything.

She studied my black-and-white
French Kiss
and
Paris at Dawn
posters. “Those are nice. Have you had lots of boyfriends?”

I almost didn’t answer. Finally I said, “No.”

“Hmmm, that’s too bad. Someday I’m going to have truckloads of them.” She said that without even a hint of a smile. There was definitely something creepy about this
pale, fat girl. She hopped up onto my bed. “This is nice. I wish I had a princess bed like yours.”

I wasn’t sure what a princess bed was, exactly, but I didn’t like the sound of it. “It’s not a princess bed.”

She bounced again, and then out of the blue she threw herself backward with her arms spread out and her chubby legs dangling over the edge of the bed. She kicked her feet up and down. The sudden commotion did not please Frank Sinatra. He jumped off the bed and shot behind my chest of drawers.

“This is going to be great,” she said. “I’ve never shared a bedroom with anyone, especially not somebody like you. Will you tell me what it’s like to be a teenager?”

“I haven’t been a teenager for all that long. I don’t think I’m the best source of information.”

“Probably not,” she agreed. “I’d still like you to tell me what you can, though.”

That’s when I noticed Richard standing in the doorway, watching us. Seeing him again brought back the horrible memory of what I had learned the day before: this kid had seen the birthday picture.

“Hello, Floey,” he said, smiling nervously at me.

“Hello, Richard,” I said. “Tell me, where
is
that photograph?”

From his face I could see that he knew exactly what I meant.

Then Tish said, “What’s
this
?” I turned to see what she was holding. It was my diary. I’d left it on my desk and now she looked like she was going to open it.

I leapt off the bed. “Don’t touch that!”

“What is it?”

“None of your business.”

She looked hurt but she put it down. “I wasn’t going to rip it or anything.”

“I bet I know what it is,” Richard said. “I bet it’s a diary.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s any of your business what it is.” I snatched it off the desk. I was obviously going to have to hide it somewhere.

“Then I must be right!” he said, raising his arms into the air triumphantly.

That’s when I lost it. I put my face right up close to his and said, “Listen to me. This is my private life and you have invaded it. As long as you have to be here, we need to get a couple of things straight, Richard. First, you stay out of my room. And second,
you both better keep your grubby little hands off of my private things! Got it
?”

Richard blinked, his silly grin gone.

Then I heard my mother’s voice. “Florence Abigail Packer! Is that any way for you to welcome your cousins?”

I turned and there she was in the doorway, looking even angrier than I was. “But, Ma—!”

She put her hand up to stop me. “There will be no more such talk in this house, young lady.” And that was that. Once “young lady” comes out, there is nothing I can do. “I’m putting lunch together,” she said, then turned and left us to go back to the kitchen.

As soon as she was gone, the obnoxious little boy smirked.

I wanted to pop him one, but I knew I’d never get away with it. Not here and now, anyway. If this was how it was going to be, I would have to deal with him later.

“Got it, creep?” I whispered, even closer to his face than before.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s your private life and your private things. I got it.”

Then I left the room as quickly as I could. I had to get out of there. I went out the back door and walked around to sit on the front steps. I opened my diary again.

And then the phone rang.

“Floey, it’s for you!”

In my emotional state, I forgot to ask who it was. That’s why I was caught off guard when it turned out to be Wen. I’d been ignoring him for days.

“How are you doing, Floey?”

“Um, great,” I said. “Just great.”

I hated that I felt uncomfortable talking to him. He was supposed to be one of my two best friends in the world.

“Long time no hear from,” he said. “You haven’t been returning my calls. You okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “I guess I’m just a little depressed.”

“Really? Why?”

I thought about it for a moment. “Because I was dumped.”

“You were? How can that be when you’ve never had a boyfriend?”

“I did,” I said. “I was keeping it quiet. It doesn’t matter now anyway. It turned out this guy didn’t like me the way I liked him.”

“You’re kidding, Floey. Really? Who was he?”

I let him wait a few seconds. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s too painful.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear about that. I really am. I feel bad for you. Listen, I called because I wanted to say goodbye before I leave.”

“Leave? Where are you going?”

“You forgot, didn’t you? I have Wind Ensemble Retreat in Hartford. Remember? The van’s picking me up in half an hour.”

“Yeah? I guess I did forget. What’s a Wind Ensemble Retreat?”

“Do you really want me to tell you, or are you just going to make fun of me?”

“I’m probably just going to make fun of you,” I admitted, falling back into my normal comfortable self with him, but only for a moment. Wind Ensemble Retreat. Sounded like some artsy musical thing. Very Wen.

And then I had a moment of unhappy intuition. “Is … is Kim Swift going too?” Kim, I knew, played the flute.

“Yeah,” he said. “She’s going.”

Figures.

Of course, I had Calvin now, sort of, but that didn’t mean that the Wen-and-Kim catastrophe didn’t still hurt. I thought of asking him what was going on between the two of them, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I guess I realized that once I heard the news directly from him, my real unhappiness would begin. I didn’t think I was ready for that. Not just yet. Besides, he wasn’t offering the information, so who was I to push him?

“So,” I said. “When are you coming back?”

“Thursday. Everybody needs to be back together by early Friday morning for the parade. You going to come watch?” Every year, the school band marches in Bristol for the Fourth of July.

“I guess so.”

Then there was a long silence during which I wanted to hang up. But eventually he broke the quiet with small talk. Very forced.

“So, are you doing anything fun for the Fourth, after the parade?”

“Not really. We’ll probably have a barbecue.” Actually, we have a block party before the fireworks every year with our neighbors. It’s a big deal on our street. But I didn’t want to get into it right then.

“Yeah? Is Azra going?”

“Maybe.”

He waited for me to invite him, but I didn’t.

“Well, maybe I’ll stop by too then. Would that be okay?”

Oh, great. Was he thinking of showing up with Kim? Wouldn’t
that
be lovely.