The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. (11 page)

Tears sting my eyes. That bag has to be here. It
has
to.

I turn the bag upside down and shake it. Coffee grounds splatter on the cement floor, and something soaking wet lands on my foot. It’s a wad of paper towels drenched with the orange juice that Ian spilled this morning.

Where are my leaves? I shake the bag again harder. Please let me find them. Let them be stuck to the bottom or something. Just let them be here.

With one last shake, an empty bag of potato chips, stuffed way in the bottom, flutters to the floor.

That’s it.

No leaves.

I tip up the garbage can and look all the way into the bottom. Empty except for a few stupid flies.

There have to be more trash bags somewhere. I start moving bikes around, trip over my kickstand, and stumble into the metal shelves where Dad keeps his garden tools. The edge rips my shirt and scratches my shoulder so it bleeds, and the tears finally spill down my cheeks.

Dad pokes his head out the door. “Gianna?”

“Where
is
it? Where’s the garbage from this morning?” The lump in my throat is so tight I can barely find breath to speak, but I do. “I
need
those leaves.”

He takes a deep breath. “Gianna, that’s what I came to tell you. I’m pretty sure that garbage got picked up this morning.” He nods down at the pile of vegetable peels and shredded credit card offers at my feet. “That’s all from today. I’m so, so sorry.” Dad walks over and reaches to put his arm around me, but I pull away.

“Those were all of my leaves. All of them! What am I going to
do
?” I bend down to start picking up the garbage so he won’t see me crying harder.

He bends down and starts scooping up coffee grounds with the edge of a cereal box. “Were they all in that one bag?”

I nod. “Except for a few I got this morning.”

“Where are those?”

I think. “In the pocket of my jacket.”

“Can you start with those, at least?”

“I could, I guess. But it’s not going to matter. I’m never going to finish now.”

“Go on, Gee. You can start, and we’ll figure something out. I’ll clean this up.” He scoops up the soggy orange juice towels.

I stub my toe on the edge of the door on my way inside, and the sobs rise up in my throat all over again. This time I can’t hold them back.

I slam the door, plop down on the hallway floor, rub my toe, and cry.

My socks are all black from the garage floor. I’ve gone from having almost twenty leaves to having just the four I picked up this morning, and I’m not even positive where those are. They’re probably moldy too.

Finally, I catch my breath. I take my puffy face and red eyes up to my room, reach for my running jacket, and unzip the pocket. One of the leaves—the oak, I think—has gotten all crumbly, and I can’t really tell its shape anymore, but the others are okay.

I’m never going to get this done now. No chance.

I don’t know why I’m even bothering, but I pull out the fiery sugar maple, the one I know for sure. I take a deep, shaky breath and label it on an index card. I start flipping through the book. I’m supposed to sketch a map of where the tree grows. I’ll need colored pencils for that, so I find the new ones I bought two weeks ago with Nonna. It’s an amazing pack, with every cool color you can imagine. Not just basic reds and blues, but shades like scarlet tangerine and smoky indigo. Perfect autumn sky colors. Looking at them doesn’t make any more leaves appear, but it makes me feel a little better.

I flop the leaf book upside down to keep my place and hold the maple leaf by its stem, twirling it around under my light. It’s an incredible mix of colors. There’s the usual red, but also yellows and browns and leftover green and even little hints of shady purple. I wonder if it’s possible to make those colors if you’re not a tree.

I pull out scarlet tangerine and rub the pencil across a blank piece of paper, making the rough shape of a maple leaf. I choose lemon lime for the edges near the stem and shade just a little bit of deep forest near the middle. It takes half an hour, but when I finish, I’ve used seventeen different colors to come up with a leaf that almost matches the one in my hand. It’s worth keeping, so I sign it— .

Gianna Z.

I open the leaf book and find an oak leaf to sketch, since my real one is in little brown crumbles that I’ve blown off the desk to the floor.

“Gianna! What are you thinking?” I didn’t even hear the door open. Stealth-Mom is staring at the colored pencils as if she just walked in on me running an organized crime ring out of my room. “Dad told me about your leaves. Why on earth aren’t you at least getting started with what you have?”

I slam my honey-nut brown pencil onto my desk. “Because all of my leaves are in yesterday’s garbage except for these.” I hold up the pile, and more oak bits crumble to the floor. “That’s why.” My eyes burn, but I blink fast. With Mom, tears always make things worse. I swallow. “And then I thought I’d draw some of the leaves I had because . . . you know . . .” When I say it out loud, it even sounds dumb to me.

A tear gets out.

Mom darts out of the room and is back in two seconds with a handful of Kleenex. “Wipe your face and get your shoes on. I’m taking you out to collect leaf specimens.”

“What?” It’s after four o’clock. “Aren’t we going to eat soon?”

Nonna steps into the doorway. “Where’s the salad dressing, Angela?”

“In the fridge, Mom, where it always is.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out in a big huff. “And leave it there for now. Gianna has work to do on her leaf project.”

I catch Nonna’s eye while Mom unpacks the Crafty Cat bags and starts lining up plastic sleeves and stickers on my desk. Nonna shrugs her shoulders, just the tiniest bit. She knows Mom better than anyone, well enough to know when there’s no stopping her.

“But I’m getting hungry,” I say.

“I’ll pack you a snack,” Nonna says, and turns to Mom. “Where are you going to take her?”

“I have no idea, frankly, but she needs to get moving on this project. Do you realize she’s had almost a month to do this? A month, and here we are . . .”

“Let’s walk the Frost Trail,” Nonna says quietly, and pulls Mom toward my door. “We haven’t been there in ages. I’ll come too.”

“You’re not really in any shape for a hike, Mom.”

“Hike, schmike. It’s paved most of the way. I’ll be fine. And I like reading the poems along the trail.”

“Nonna, I really don’t want to go on a hike. I’ll just go out around the block.”

“Nope.” Nonna picks up my sneakers from the floor and pushes them into my chest. “Get your shoes on. Your mother’s right.”

Mom walks out the door and nods, happy to be right and have someone tell her so.

At least she’s done nagging for now. But Nonna’s supposed to be on my side. Always. How could she have turned on me like this? I plop down on the floor to put my shoes on.

“Pssst!” She pokes her head into the doorway again. “You’ll be better off on the Frost Trail. They label the trees with little markers so you won’t have to identify them later.” She disappears but comes right back. “Don’t tell your mother.”

I finish lacing my shoes. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

CHAPTER 13

T
he Frost Trail is only six miles outside of town, but we never come here anymore, now that Ian and I are old enough to climb real mountains. This one’s more of a nature path, really.

“Here.” Mom hands me a shoe box full of plastic zipper bags and markers. She pulls my leaf identification key out of her purse. “You’re going to do it right this time. Identify and label them as soon as you find them, and then seal them in the bags, and you can put them into the binders neatly when we get home.”

Somehow, this trail was more fun when I was little and my zipper bags were full of graham crackers instead.

“Come here, Gianna.” Nonna points to a big wooden sign at the trailhead:

Robert Frost lived and worked within a mile of here. The
fields and forests were inspirations for his poems and
are mentioned in many. A leisurely half-hour walk will
acquaint you with Frost country and some of his works
that are located in appropriate settings. To enjoy this
trail, please take your time and leave nothing but footprints.

“Let’s
go
.” Mom squeezes past us. “There are a lot more trees once we get in a little ways. Hurry up. It’s almost five. It’s going to start getting dark soon, and we still need to fix dinner for the boys.”

We left Dad and Ian playing Star Wars LEGO Attack. Dad kept watching to see when Mom left. I bet he’s already brought out the hidden potato chips. Somehow, he and Nonna both deal with Mom better than I do. We’re just so different.

I watch her power-walking along the boardwalk. I stay back with Nonna. Mom doesn’t stop to read the first poem posted along the trail, but Nonna does.

“Read it out loud, okay?” I ask, and she leans in to read the neatly typed verse, posted at the edge of a marshy clearing.

It’s called “The Pasture,” and it reads like an invitation. A guy going out to rake leaves from the spring in the pasture invites somebody to come with him. Maybe it’s his wife or his son. “You come, too,” he says, like there’s no hurry at all.

“I bet that guy doesn’t have a leaf collection due on Friday,” I say.

“No, I’d imagine not.” Nonna squints off into the woods as Mom disappears.

“Look, another one right here.” I set my shoe box and leaf key down on a weathered wooden bench and step to the railing at the edge of the marsh. I had to stretch up on my tiptoes to see over the top last time we were here. I was only six or seven, but I remember the electric blue dragonfly hovering over the swamp grass. Everything was so green and bushy then. It must have been July or August.

Now the plants are all brownish and rustly dry, like they’re whispering secrets. The poem posted there is called “The Secret Sits.” It’s about how we humans have to go around guessing at everything while the world keeps its secrets.

“What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t get it.”

“That’s what it means,” Nonna says laughing. “That there are things in this world we just don’t get.”

Nonna walks on down the boardwalk, but I stay and look out at the whispery marsh again. I try listening harder. Maybe the tall grasses know Nonna’s secrets about getting away from earth. I wish they’d tell me how to keep her here.

“Gianna!” Mom’s hiking boots clunk on the far end of the boardwalk, so I jog ahead to meet her.

“Where are your leaves?” she asks.

“I haven’t got any yet. We were just reading the poems.”

“Where’s the box?”

“Oh. Back there.” I whirl around to run and get it from the bench, but I don’t go quickly enough to miss hearing her sigh.

When I catch up, we cross a wooden bridge that looks like it ought to have trolls under it and then walk up a steeper part of the path into shadowy trees.

“Are you doing okay?” Mom asks, and she slows down to wait for Nonna.

“I’m fine, Angela. I hiked this trail with you in my arms plenty of times. I think I can hike it now.”

“Could you still do it carrying Mom?” I ask, and even Mom laughs.

She helps me identify a gray birch, a red spruce, and a hemlock, and labels them with neat block letters in permanent marker on the plastic bags. During breaks, Nonna reads us poems: “The Road Not Taken,” “Going for Water,” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

“That’s the only one that doesn’t fit,” I say.

“How so?” Nonna asks.

“Well, the place, I mean. The poem about the road less traveled is right where a trail splits off. The one about mowing is in a low area with lots of tall grass. The one about going for water’s at the edge of the stream. But this one,” I gesture toward the mess of bushes and weeds and pine trees behind the “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” plaque, and I shake my head. “All this has nothing to do with the poem.”

“Not today, maybe,” Nonna says. “But imagine this spot in another season when the pine boughs are drooping with snow.”

I squint at all the green. “Maybe,” I say. “But it’s hard.”

“It is hard,” Nonna says. “But you’re an artist. You should know there’s more to a story than the part happening right now.”

“Here.” Mom hands me another couple of leaves. “They’re from this tree right behind you. Use your leaf key to identify them. I’m going to try and find us a spot to rest that’s out of the wind.” She zips her jacket and walks ahead.

“Or you could just use that,” Nonna whispers and points to the sign at the base of the tree. I write “beaked hazelnut” on another plastic bag and zip the leaves inside.

When Nonna and I catch up to Mom, she’s brushed all the dead leaves off a long wooden bench, sheltered on three sides by big old trees.

“Get a few leaves and join us,” Mom says pointing up at a branch that still has leaves hanging on.

“I have this one.” I pluck a leaf and hand it to her. “It’s a white oak. I’m going to go on ahead, okay?”

“That’s fine,” Mom says. “We’ll be along soon.”

I flip through the plastic bags in my shoe box while I walk, and I have to admit Nonna’s idea was awesome. I have eighteen leaves from this walk alone, added to the four I think I still have at home.