Meeting Miss 405 (4 page)

Kraft Dinner used to be my favorite supper. But maybe I've grown out of it. I push the boring orange macaroni around my plate and squish my peas one at a time. Then I lick them off my fork. “Are you allergic to anything, Dad?”

He is reading at the table. We are only supposed to do that on Sunday mornings. “Dad?”

He moves his head up, but his eyes are still stuck on the pages. “What?”

“Are you allergic to something? Devin could die if he eats peanuts.”

“Mmm.”

“Well?”

He closes his book and pushes it aside. “The story is that once, when I was a baby, I threw up all over my aunt's shoulder after I had been fed a bowl of canned pears. But my uncle had just finished swinging me around his head. So who can blame me?” He pulls my supper toward him and finishes it off in one big gulp. “Until the day she died, Aunt Daisy claimed I was allergic to pears. But I haven't thrown up after eating them since.”

“Maybe one day I will eat something and be allergic and die,” I tell him. “In school, Mr. Howarth keeps Devin's EpiPen in his desk. Devin used to take care of it himself, but he kept losing it. Should we get an EpiPen for me? Just in case?”

Dad takes the dishes to the counter and dumps them in a messy heap. He bends down to open the door of the dishwasher. Then he closes it again when he sees that it is full. He pushes the dishes in the sink with a clatter.

“If the stuff in the dishwasher is clean, you have to put it away,” I say. “If it's dirty, you have to turn it on.” I get up from the table and open it again. “See? All clean.”

“Okay. I'll unload. You put them away.” Dad boosts me onto the counter.

I reach down for him to hand me the plates. “Do you think I might be allergic and we just don't know?”

“Tansy. There is absolutely no point in worrying about things that don't need worrying about. It may be better to be safe than sorry about lots of things. But right now we have more things to worry about than allergies.”

But I can't help it. As I put things on the shelves in their proper places, I make a list in my head of all the things at Miss Stella's that might make me sick.

Artichoke hearts
. They don't look like hearts at all.

Pita bread out of a package
. Parveen's
Bebe-ji
makes theirs from scratch. She calls them
rotis
. The ones in Miss Stella's fridge look very old.

Omega-3 eggs
. Do they have three yolks? Mom always says that double yolks are lucky. What would she say about three?

Bird's custard powder
. Miss Stella used to have this for dessert when she was a kid, and she said she still likes it. She'll make it for me one day.

Toasted soy beans
. She said they are good on salads. They look like nuts to me.

The dishwasher is empty, and I've put everything away before I can think of any more items for my list. Dad swings me down, and I go in the living room to do my homework.

When the phone rings, I am working on my last three math questions. Dad answers it in his bedroom. He must be listening most of the time, because I don't hear his voice very often.

“Was that Grandpa?” I ask him when he comes back. “Did you talk to Mom? I wanted to talk to her.”

He sits on the couch next to me and pulls me against him. “Mom is on new medication that makes her very sleepy. We can talk to her in a couple of days. Okay?” He rubs his chin in my hair and gently pushes me away.

Maybe what Dad needs is a Trusted Other. His friend Paul has gone away for two years to the Arctic. Is that north or south? I used to know. And Dale and Jenny were really Mom's friends, and they haven't called lately.

I do not believe that Dad tells me everything. But I guess it's okay; I don't tell him everything either. Maybe I should ask Mr. Howarth if parents can talk to the school counselor.

Each day I get more used to going to Miss Stella's after school. But I still punch the button to our intercom on my way into the building every day. Just in case.

Mom never answers.

Dad and I came up with a special system. If I see a yellow stickie on our front door when I get home, I have to go on to Miss Stella's. If there is no stickie, I know Dad is at home and I go right in. But he still does not meet me at the door like Mom would.

I have only talked to Mom twice on the phone. Once she cried. The other time she sounded very far away. I told her about exploring Miss Stella's apartment and learning calligraphy so I can get a star for handwriting
at school. I told her that I went to Parveen's house and ate Indian supper like the grown-ups while all the kids had pizza, and that we played with her auntie's wedding bracelets. All forty of them!

I told her that I miss peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for after-school snack, but that Miss Stella gives me other interesting stuff instead. But I told her not to worry. I do not have allergies. I will not fall over and get all blotchy in the face and not be able to breathe, like Devin did when he had another attack last week. Mr. Howarth saved his life again.

I even told Mom that Mr. Howarth will never be as nice as Ms. Peters from grade four. But I like him better now that he's saved Devin's life twice. I know he will save mine if I ever need saving.

I think she was listening to what I told her. But she didn't say much at all.

One day when I knock on Miss Stella's door, she swings it open wide and says, “Ta-Dah!”

She is wearing a long silky black robe over her shorts and T-shirt. When she turns around I see a
beautiful fire-breathing dragon in bright yellows and oranges on the back.

“What do you think?” she asks. Her wrinkly legs and arms are hidden in her robe. Her face is full of smiles, as if all her wrinkles were washed away.

“I love it,” I say. “Are you going somewhere nice?”

“No such luck. This is pure ornament.” She opens her arms wide again and turns around slowly. “I ordered this silk kimono from Japan months ago. At my age, there's not much to long for. But I have always wanted one, and it finally came today.”

Today is the day I get to explore her bedroom. I feel funny on my exploring trips. But I sure like them! I did the living room and the kitchen and the dining room and the bathroom. Which means I have been coming here for four weeks.

Each time I'm done, I practice calligraphy on a list of my favorite things:

Kitchen

Cheese grater
. When you wind it round and round, the cheese squirms out the middle.

A loopy thing for hanging bananas on to get ripe.
Miss Stella hangs her shopping list from it with a bulldog clip.

Bulldog clips
. There are lots in the drawer and you can use them for:

1. Hanging shopping lists from the banana ripener thing

2. Closing a bag of chips so they stay crisp for next time (We use them at home now, instead of elastic bands)

3. Clipping wet calligraphy to the curtain rail to dry

4. Taking the huge ones to school to threaten Devin and Ryan with (until Mr. Howarth confiscates them)

5. Giving one away to Parveen, who wanted one but didn't know what to do with it

Dining room

Calligraphy pens
. They all have different nibs. Miss Stella says they are quite cheap, so when one fell out the window and Mr. 104 ran over it in his car, she said I was not to worry.

Two wine glasses
with colored flowers all over them. We use them for juice sometimes. I believe it tastes better that way.

Living room

A pottery frog
with a purple vest that used to hold Miss Stella's grandpa's tobacco. Now it just has a
safety pin, an old movie ticket and some elastic bands. Sometimes wine gums when she wants to save some for herself. But there haven't been any in there for ages, so she must have found another hiding place. I am addicted to wine gums now.

The purple afghan
Miss Stella covers me with if I have to stay late. She says I could use her room, but I like to fall asleep listening to the
scratch scratch
of her calligraphy. Right now she is hand-lettering a poetry book. She says the poems may not be literature, but they are special to the family of the person who wrote them, so they are just as important. It has taken her four months so far, and she has not even started the flourishes.

Bathroom

A leather pouch of jacks
. Miss Stella bought them at a garage sale and showed me how to play. The bathroom is the best place as there is no carpet there and the ball bounces higher. She is better than me. But she says she started playing more than sixty years ago. Back then, she played “five stones” with little rocks, which was the same game.

A little brush for making your eyebrows straight
. Mom had one, but I used it to paint with once and she never bought a new one.

That's all so far.

Miss Stella sways around in her new kimono to a Bee Gees tape while I have my snack. (No cd player at her house!) I know that “Staying Alive” is her favorite song because she plays it over and over again. I guess when you are as old as her, staying alive is the most important thing of all.

Dad despises the Bee Gees.

I worry that the candied pecans we made for salads might make me allergic, but my tongue is okay so far. So I put some on my plate. Oranges and pretzels are fine too.

I don't talk while I have my snack, because I know Miss Stella never answers when she is busy doing something else.

I lick the little salty chunks off the shiny brown pretzels while I take the calligraphy pens out of their roll and line them up in squares like tic-tac-toe. When I have eaten the oranges clean, I turn their nubby skins inside out and smile back at the white grinning shapes they make on my plate.

I pretend the pens are drumsticks and tap against the table while I wait for the Bee Gees to stop singing.

“Miss Stella?”

She stands still and folds her arms together so her hands disappear inside her sleeves. “Yes?”

“You should try to do two things at once sometimes,” I tell her.

“Why?”

“I think it would be more efficient.”

Miss Stella gives a little snort.

“I dance at home sometimes. But I can talk to Mom or Dad at the same time,” I say.

“Tell me something, my little chickadee,” she says in a funny voice.

“What?”

“Tell me three things you noticed about your snack. Or what it feels like to be wrapped up tight like a little mummy at night. Or the smell of the lobby as you come into the building. Or the taste of a wine gum. Can you?”

I fiddle with the pens while I think for a bit. But I can't come up with an answer. We've been out of wine gums for days!

“I like to be mindful when I'm doing things,” Miss Stella says. “It's like super concentration. Thinking about just one thing at a time. So everything is fresh
and memorable each time. Call me Super-Concentrated Miss Stella!”

“Like frozen orange juice!”

“You
are
super-concentrated sometimes, you know,” she says. “But maybe you haven't noticed. Like your snacks and your funny bedtime ritual. It is important to be mindful as often as you can.”

“Why?”

“Because it helps you be where you are and feel what you feel, without always rushing on to the next thing. And it helps you not worry about things.”

When Miss Stella hugs me, I concentrate hard on her lovely silky kimono. It feels like I'm floating in a warm bath.

I stack my glass on my plate and line the pens back up in a row. How can I be super-concentrated with so many important things to think about? When will Mom get well? Are allergies catching? Will Dad get depressed like Mom? What will happen in the school holidays if Mom is still at Grandpa's and I have to stay here?

“Let me show you something.” Miss Stella goes to the dresser where my calligraphy pages are stacked. As she flips through them, her sleeves flap like flags.
She picks up one sheet of writing and holds it in front of me. “In this one, you were just beginning and were hardly concentrating at all. I guess you thought it would be easy.” Then she picks up another. “As you wrote these words, you were telling me about having supper at Parveen's house. And here…” She pulls out another one. “You were trying to decide whether you wanted to make chocolate chip cookies or cheese straws for your father.

“But this one…” She holds a sheet of the special white paper in front of me. It just has one word on it.
Tansy
in beautiful letters with hardly a glitch. “You did not say a word the entire time you worked on this,” says Miss Stella. “You did not speak. Or look at me. I could have gone to China and you would not have missed me. See what you can create when you are super-concentrated?”