Paper Things (10 page)

I want to tell her that as great as Gage is, sometimes we fight. But before I can say anything, she says, “Perry used to be really considerate.”

That’s when I realize that Kristen isn’t mean; she’s just sad — and maybe lonely. “Want to see something?” I say.

“Sure,” she says in a polite voice. I think maybe she just doesn’t want to head back downstairs yet.

I pull my Paper Things folder out of my backpack to show her. She clicks on an overhead light so she can see better.

“You’ve cut out lots of pretty things,” she says, handling my Paper Things like they’re made of tissue. “Imagine having a jewelry box like this one,” she says, holding up the bureau with skinny little drawers.

“It’s called an accessory tower,” I tell her.

“I used to make beaded jewelry like the bracelet in this drawer.”

“How come you stopped?”

Kristen shrugs. “Perry and I got married to be a family. Then I lost the baby. I haven’t been able to do much but think about it.”

I don’t know what to say, and so I do what every well-meaning person who tried to cheer me up after Mama died did: I say something stupid. “Maybe if you started making things again, you could buy one of these towers.”

Kristen smiles. “Before the docks, Perry was learning woodworking. Maybe he’d build me one.” She sighs and closes my folder. I wonder if I’ve made her sadder.

“Be sure to turn the light off before you get undressed,” she says, standing up and walking toward the ladder. “There aren’t any shades up here.”

As Kristen creaks down the ladder, I pull out one of my Louisa May Alcott books. I find my place and read farther, taking a few notes in my notebook. I learn that Louisa May Alcott was poor, just like the characters in
Little Women.
She wrote that story to try to earn some money, to help her family out. I wish there were something I could do to help Gage and me — something other than collecting pennies, I mean.

I also learn that Louisa liked to keep lists. She wrote one about the bad habits she wanted to give up: “idleness, willfulness, impudence, pride, and love of cats.”
Love of cats?
I wonder what Kristen would say about that. I wonder what
impudence
means. I wonder if I have it.

The list makes me think of Daniel’s bucket list. I’m certainly not going to help him with it — even though I do like the idea of bringing back the snowflakes. But I think I understand what made him write it. As much as I’m looking forward to going to Carter — assuming I still have a shot at getting in — it’s hard to imagine leaving Eastland Elementary.

I think back on the teachers I’ve had over the years, the classrooms that were mine. I think about upcoming graduation. Last year Mason and I got to be marshals at graduation — chosen because of our grades. That meant that I carried a baton and led the fifth-graders into the gym. The principal called each graduating student up to the podium after his or her name was announced, like Sasha’s older brother:
William Sorotzkin, son of Alfonse and Marianna Sorotzkin.

Who will they announce for my parents? Mama and Dad, even though they’re both dead? Janna, who I’m not even sure is still planning to come to graduation? Or will they just say
Arianna Hazard, sister of Gage Hazard
?

I close my notebook, and as I repack my backpack, I notice the paper airplane Reggie gave me the other day. I pull it out and examine it more closely. It’s made of newspaper, and it has wings that look as graceful and as pretty as a bird’s. Headlines fold in and out of the plane like ribbons with a secret code. I read the broken words to see if they create an interesting message, one for only me. They don’t seem to, but I notice the word
Jiffy,
which gives me pause for some reason. What does this word
Jiffy
remind me of?

I unfold the jiffy wing, one crease at a time, making sure I remember how to put the plane back together again. Printed inside the wing is an ad for Jiffy Lube — and now I remember: Jiffy Lube was the name of the garage where Gage might be able to get a job!

Slowly, I trace the word
Jiffy
with my ink-smudged finger and then fold the airplane back up. Whether Reggie meant it or not, I can’t help feeling that this really is a secret message.

I try to open the window. At first, it sticks, but I lean in, using my whole body to lift the frame. It pops open and lets the cool April air stream in. I hold the plane, this intricate gift made just for me, between my fingertips. I have so few things of my own. But I am thinking of wishes — wishes made on shooting stars, dandelion puffs, the flames of birthday candles. All those wishes floating off on the wind.

I close my eyes and imagine Gage telling me he got a job. I imagine our own apartment, with a room just for me. My own window, my own bed, a place for my Paper Things.

I look at that word on that wingtip one more time. Then I pull the plane back to my shoulder and let it fly.

Please,
I whisper to the wind.
Please.

I’m sitting in Mr. O.’s Language Arts class, and I can hear Keisha talking with Sasha behind me. Keisha’s one of the popular girls, and I can’t remember the last time she talked to me or Sasha. Her voice is just loud enough for me to hear.

“Is Ari using some new product in her hair? Or is that . . .
grease
?”

I try hard to hear Sasha’s response. Is she sticking up for me? But how can she? What can she say? She has no idea that I no longer have to pass the Janna test every single morning before heading out the door.

But this morning, Gage and I overslept, and I hardly had time to brush my hair before catching the bus back into Port City and all the way to Eastland. It seems like I have to wash it every day now to keep it clean. Plus, I had to throw on the same blouse that had the stain on it, so even though Mr. O.’s room is a furnace, I have my sweater buttoned up tight.

I tuck the greasiest strand of hair, the one that falls over my forehead, behind my ear and try to focus on my work. We’re supposed to be writing book responses on books we’ve read on our own, our “independent reading” as Mr. O. calls it, and I’m writing mine on the Louisa May Alcott bio I was reading last night at Kristen and Perry’s. I wonder if Mr. O. will think I’m cheating — making a book do double duty. But as much as I love to read, one book is all I’ve had time for lately.

“She smells, too,” Linnie says from behind Keisha — Linnie, who can’t resist being part of any conversation that Sasha’s involved in.

Is she joking?
I put my head down just a little lower, trying to smell my pits. She’s not joking. I stink. I curl over my desk, folding my arms in as close to my body as I can.

How could I help it? Gage’s phone died, so we didn’t have an alarm. We woke late, dressed, grabbed our things, and raced out the door. The bus stop was practically a whole mile away from where we slept last night. Gage kept screaming at me, “Hurry up, Ari! Run faster!” I was running as fast as I could, but my shoe has started to flap where the stitching is coming out, and it falls off easily. We made our first bus, but it was so crowded that Gage and I couldn’t sit together. I had to sit next to a woman who kept sighing because she’d had two seats to herself and now she had to hold her things on her lap, and she didn’t have much lap.

When we got to Congress Street, where our first bus route ended, Gage realized that we’d used up our bus passes. He’d have to go to an ATM to get more money to buy new ones.

“I can’t wait here!” I shouted at Gage. “If I’m late again, I’ll get detention.”

“What are your choices, Ari?” Gage had snapped back.

“I’m running,” I said. “We’ve run up to the East End plenty of times from here before.”

“Then, go!” he’d yelled at me. Those were the last words we spoke to each other this morning.

So it’s not much of a surprise that I don’t look — or smell — my best today. But I can’t very well explain the situation to Sasha and the others. My eyes start to tear, and I pinch myself on the thigh to give myself something else to focus on.

Mr. O. stops by Sasha’s, Keisha’s, and Linnie’s desks. “Are you three reading the same book by any chance?” Mr. O. asks them. It’s his way of telling them to get back to work. I’m glad. Maybe now Sasha knows what it feels like for your teacher to be disappointed in you — even though she still has three weeks left as a patrol leader.

I ignore Sasha and Linnie as much as I can all morning, which turns out not to be such a good idea. It seems to just make them higher-and-mightier. When the lunch bell rings, they’re huddled together in front of Sasha’s locker, whispering and shooting me looks. I can’t tell if they’re working up enough courage to tease me or if they’re planning a hygiene intervention (the way Sasha and I once held an intervention to try to get Linnie to talk more softly — which, by the way, did not work). Either way, I’m smart enough to recognize a gang-up.

I’m also smart enough to devise a plan for avoiding them during lunch period.

While we were madly rushing around this morning, Kristen wrapped the leftover pizza in foil and stuffed it in my backpack. And even though I was hungry on the bus, I saved it. Since I don’t have any money in my account anyway, and since I’d rather not be ambushed by Linnie and my supposed best friend, I figure I’ll just skip the cafeteria altogether.

Instead, I ask Mr. O. for permission to stay in the classroom during lunch and work on my report. “You know I don’t usually allow it,” he says. “But I’ll say yes today. You’re going to need all the time you can get.”

I gobble my pizza. When I dig deeper into my backpack to retrieve my notebook, I notice two things:

Daniel. I wonder if he’s noticed that I’m not at my best today. I wonder if he cares that my hair is gross and I smell like the boys after a volleyball game. Maybe tonight we’ll be at Chloe’s and I can shower and send Gage to the Laundromat.

I think about Daniel’s bucket list as I start to peel the orange. I can’t seem to come up with anything I want to do one last time at Eastland before going to middle school, and I wonder what that says about me.

I think of other places I’ve left. If I’d known for longer than a day that I would be leaving Janna’s, for example, what would I have wanted to do?

And just like that, I know: I would have crawled into the corner of the closet, smelled the cedar chips that Janna put in there to keep the moths away, and found the little stuffed hedgehog that everyone thought was one of my toys when they moved us out of Mama’s apartment but really was a toy for Leroy, our dog. When we first went to live with Janna, I would take the comforter off my bed and drag it into the closet with me, along with the hedgehog. I liked sleeping in that small space, hidden away from everybody — from Janna, from the social worker, even from Gage.

I was in second grade when Mama died. Every day, Janna would bring me to school and leave me in the reading corner of Ms. Rich’s classroom, where I’d curl up in a beanbag chair and read. Ms. Rich just let me stay there as long as I wanted. When I’d read every book in the reading center, she began to place books from the library near the beanbag. Eventually the books got longer, fatter, and juicier, until I was spending most of the day on that beanbag chair, lost in imaginary worlds. But then one Monday morning, Janna dropped me off, and instead of making my way to the reading center, I headed for my desk. I don’t know what had changed, but somehow I felt ready to rejoin the class.

While I was adjusting to being back at school, the guidance counselor came to Ms. Rich’s room once a week and brought me down to her office. She’d ask me questions about Mama and Gage, about living with Janna. She’d ask me how I was feeling and if I cried. I don’t think I did cry much that year. (Maybe that’s why I’m so leaky now.)

Inside the guidance office, there was a dollhouse. I longed to play with that dollhouse, to move the family members from room to room, discovering all the little treasures. It would be like a 3-D version of my Paper Things. But the counselor never said I could play with it, and I was always too afraid to ask.

I can feel a laugh rising through my body.

I pull out Daniel’s note and write:
7. Sneak into the guidance office and play with the toys.

And then I realize how foolish this would be — to say nothing of babyish. It’s all fine and good to sneak around the school, doing things you’re not supposed to if you’re Daniel and you don’t care if you go to Carter or not. (He has said as much in the presence of Mademoiselle Barbary many times.) But I do care. So I pull out a slip of paper and write: