The Battle of Darcy Lane (19 page)

That night we had one
call that was a hang-up.

Then another.

Then another.

Each ring was like a hammer to my head, a fist to the gut. And I looked across the street and saw lights on at Alyssa's—different ones than the light they'd put on a timer while they were away—and felt that sick feeling come back.

Nothing had changed.

Nothing had changed except that Alyssa had gone away.

And now she was back.

The first time, Mom picked up and said “Hello?” then hung up and walked away. The second time, she picked up the phone, hung it up, and held it. She did that the third time, too.

After that one, she looked at me. “Did something happen today that I somehow missed?”

“No!” I said. “But Alyssa's back.”

The next time the ringing started, I grabbed the phone from Mom and answered. “You don't scare me anymore,” I said. “Taylor and I are friends again, and there's nothing you can do to change that.”

We'd spent two weeks just the two of us.

We'd joked that maybe Alyssa had fallen off a cliff in Jamaica and wasn't coming back.

The line clicked dead.

“Tread carefully here, Julia,” Mom said.

“What do you mean?” I waited for the ringing to start again, thinking about what I'd say this time.

Mom just silently unplugged the phone.

Usually on the night before
the first day of school, I had a hard time falling asleep. But this time I nodded off easily, thinking happy things.

Everything was going to be fine and Alyssa would see; Mom would, too.

I hadn't only won the battle; I had won the war.

24
.

Mother Nature had clearly gotten
the memo about school being back in session because I woke up to a cool, crisp morning. Instant fall. I showered, got dressed, checked the clock in my room, and knew that Taylor would be ringing the bell in about ten minutes.

I went downstairs and had a Pop-Tart and joked with Mom about how much she was going to miss spending all day with me and how I was not going to help her grade papers this year. After I brushed my teeth, checked my hair in the mirror again, and repacked the stuff in my backpack, I looked at the clock. It was seven minutes past the time when Taylor usually came and got me for the walk to the bus stop.

Mom looked at the clock, too. “Honey, I think you're going to miss the bus.”

“But Taylor always comes and gets me.”

“Come on.” Mom took a swig of coffee and picked up her keys. “I'll drive you to the bus stop. We can just make it.”

“But what about Taylor?” I knew I sounded desperate.

“Taylor is her mother's problem,” she said flatly.

We hurried to the car and she backed out of the driveway super fast and spilled coffee on the car's center console. She sped up to the bus stop, rolling through two stop signs on the way.

We made it just in time.

Just in time to see Alyssa and Taylor strolling up to the bus doors arm-in-arm. They were wearing the same shade of lip gloss—a red color I'd never seen Taylor wear before—and matching string bracelets that looked in some vague way Jamaican clung to their left wrists.

If I was going to make the bus, I would have to bolt out of the car and run, shouting, “Wait for me!”

I popped my door open and put one leg on the ground, but then I could hear Taylor saying, “And she said, ‘Taylor and I are friends again, and there's nothing you can do about it.'”

Alyssa laughed.

The bus doors closed.

And I could . . . not . . . move.

Taylor had made last night's calls. Maybe even all of them.

My head hurt, trying to make sense of it.

Taylor had made the calls.

Taylor who'd said, “Not everybody has to be like you,” and “yes, I read, Julia.”

Mom put the car in gear again. “I'll drive you.”

“But you'll be late.” It was Mom's first day back, too.

“We don't really have any other options.”

I closed the door and let go of the door handle and exhaled and watched as houses and trees and lampposts whirred by my window. I wondered what Laney was doing right now. Whether she was already having a better first day of school than I was.

“Do you think Laney could come over again sometime?” I asked.

“Of course,” Mom said. “We'll find a way.”

When I looked over at her because of a weird sound she made, I saw tears coming out from under her sunglasses.

“Mom?”

She shook her head, pressed her lips together, and wiped tears away with one hand. “I could
kill them
.” Her voice was deep and shaky. “I could seriously
kill
them.”

I should have felt the same way. I knew that. But I didn't.

I'd beat Alyssa at her game, and it hadn't changed anything.

And nothing I could do ever would.

She would never like me, and I would never like her, and I was through being Taylor's yo-yo friend. Maybe I'd hurt
her feelings along the way, the same way she'd hurt mine. The way I'd hurt Wendy, even if she didn't know the whole of it.

It didn't matter.

“Life is so long, honey,” Mom said. “
So long.
Ten, twenty years from now, you'll barely be able to remember their names.”

I looked out the window as tons of kids milled around my school. I remembered the feeling I'd had during the Russia showdown, when I'd gotten to thirteen. The way the movement itself, the spin and the clap altogether, had felt celebratory, joyous. The way Peter had been watching so hard. The way I knew he, and maybe everybody else, was rooting for me.

Maybe I'd find someone like Laney at school this year—someone
like
me, or at least more like me than Taylor ever was and Alyssa ever would be. Grown-ups didn't have best friends that lived next door. They had neighbors. That was what Taylor and Alyssa were and that was it.

I was pretty sure I would always remember their names no matter what Mom said, but it suddenly seemed possible that in a year or two or ten I'd forget how to play Russia, have no idea whether you had to clap first or turn first or which leg you did what with however many times.

When I got out of the car and closed the door behind me, I waved to Mom and she smiled. “Oh, I almost forgot!”
She handed me her cell phone. “I was ready for a new one, and we're getting rid of the landline. It's a waste of money, really.”

I leaned back in through the door to take the phone. “Thanks, Mom.”

I knew we'd never talk about why she was really getting rid of the landline, why she was really giving me her phone. I wondered if I'd ever know what she and Alyssa's mom had talked about that night or why my mom had gotten so into the whole Russia showdown, or why she felt the need to write that note to the naked neighbors. Then I wondered whether one day Wendy and I would end up like Mom and Aunt Colleen. Whether we'd look back on all of this and laugh.

“Hey, Julia.” Peter's happy face appeared in front of me, and I wondered why everything seemed different for boys, and which of us was luckier. “Who do you have for homeroom?”

I felt twitchy in my fingers and my heart.

I felt like I was already, maybe, forgetting.

Author's Note

How to Play Russia

There is not a lot of evidence out there (on the Internet) that Russia existed as a game, and yet I can assure you that I played it for countless hours during my youth.

Below are the moves of the game, step by step, based on one lone reference I found on the Web and also on my own memory. I recall playing with a tennis ball, but a small rubber ball will also work.

If, at any point during play, you drop the ball or miss a clap or a bounce, you must start again at the beginning. The goal is to complete all the moves without making a single mistake.

Good luck!

Acknowledgments

Thanks to:

My editor, Lisa Cheng, for taking a chance on a “quiet” book in an industry that increasingly likes them “loud.” Teresa Bonaddio, for the awesome cover. And the rest of the Running Press Kids team.