What an interesting afternoon this turned out to be. I was sitting for the Rodowskys’ and Claudia came over. This was totally unexpected. I’m pretty sure she didn’t know I was going to be there. (After all, when was the last time she looked at the appointment calendar in the record book?) Claudia tried to hide her surprise when I answered the door. And I tried to hide my annoyance. We both succeeded. Anyway, it turns out she wants to sculpt Jackie. She had just started making a sketch of him when the doorbell rang again. This time it was Ashley! I think Claudia and Ashley had had a fight. Then they sort of had another one in front of Jackie and me. Things were getting “curiouser and curiouser.” Thank goodness Claudia filled me in on everything, or I would have died from wondering….
When Mary Anne wrote “What an interesting afternoon this turned out to be,” she sure was right. I think it was more interesting for me than it was for her, though. Once I got the idea to sculpt Jackie, my mind began working overtime. And my fingers began itching to start the project. I went over to the Rodowskys’ the very next afternoon so that I could make some sketches of Jackie to work from, since he couldn’t model for me hour after hour. Also, I wanted to ask Mrs. Rodowsky for permission to do the sculpture, and of course I had to ask Jackie himself whether he was interested in being my model.
Boy, was I surprised when I rang the Rodowskys’ bell and Mary Anne answered the door! For some reason, I just hadn’t expected another club member to be there. I don’t know why.
“Claudia!” exclaimed Mary Anne when she saw me on the stoop. The faintest of frowns flickered across her forehead.
“Oh …” I said. I was almost speechless. “Um, hi.”
“Are you supposed to be sitting?” Mary Anne asked, looking confused.
“Oh, no,” I replied. I held out my sketch pad. “I wanted to sketch Jackie. I mean, I want to sculpt him, but I have to sketch him first. Oh, and I have to ask if he can do it.”
“We-ell,” said Mary Anne slowly. “Mrs. Rodowsky isn’t here, of course, but why don’t you ask Jackie? He’s here.” Mary Anne sounded a little frazzled.
“Is it one of his bad days?” I asked.
“You could say so. He didn’t mean to exactly, but he knocked over a ten-pound bag of dog chow, and then got nail polish all over a pair of socks.”
“Gosh, what is it with socks, anyway?” I wondered out loud.
“What?”
“Never mind. It’s a long story. How did he get nail polish on his socks?”
“That’s a long story, too. Why don’t you come on in?”
I stepped inside and was greeted by an excited Jackie. “Hi!” he exclaimed. “I’m the only kid here today. Shea’s at his piano lesson and Archie’s at his tumbling class.”
“Don’t you like to take lessons?” I asked Jackie.
“Yeah, but I break too many things. Mrs. Schiavone said so.”
“Who’s Mrs. Schiavone?” Mary Anne and I asked at the same time. We glanced at each other and I could tell she was debating whether to hook my pinkie and say “jinx.” I knew because I was wondering the same thing. But we didn’t do it.
“Mrs. Schiavone’s the piano teacher,” Jackie replied. “She lets Shea come to her house because he didn’t break her metronome. Or her umbrella. Or her doorbell.”
“How did you break her doorbell?” Mary Anne wanted to know.
Jackie frowned. “I’m not sure. But it’s broken all right. It used to play ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow.’ Now it just goes ‘boing, boing, bonk.’”
I tried hard not to giggle. Jackie wasn’t laughing and he gets upset about his accidents sometimes — because they really are just accidents. Mary Anne hid her smile, too.
“Jackie,” Mary Anne said when the laughing danger was past, “Claudia came over because she wants to ask you something.”
“What?” replied Jackie.
He plopped down on the couch and I sat next to him. I explained about the sculpture and the sketches and the art show.
“You want to make a statue of me?!” he exclaimed finally.
I couldn’t even look at Mary Anne then. “Well, yes. Sort of. Except that I’m not going to sculpt all of you. Just your head.”
“Sculpt my head?” he repeated. “Will it hurt?”
“Not a bit. I won’t even touch you.”
“And I’ll be in a show? Where everyone will see me?”
“Yup.”
“Oh, boy! Oh, boy!” was all Jackie could say.
“Do you want to start now?” I asked him. “I need to make some drawings of you.”
“Is it okay?” Jackie asked Mary Anne.
“Fine with me,” she replied.
I posed Jackie at one end of the couch, settled myself at the other, and began sketching. At first, Jackie sat almost motionlessly. He didn’t smile, didn’t even blink his eyes.
“Jack-o, you can relax a little,” I told him. “You can even move around if you want. I mean, don’t stand up, but —”
“How about if I get him a coloring book?” suggested Mary Anne.
“Oh, great,” I replied.
While Jackie was coloring and I was sketching, Mary Anne sat in an easy chair. At first she just watched. Then, after what seemed like a very long time, she said, “So, um, how’s Ashley?”
I shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”
Mary Anne gathered up her courage to ask me an important question. I can always tell when she’s doing that. Gathering her courage, I mean. She starts to fidget, then she starts breathing heavily, then she’s silent for a few moments, and finally she dears her throat. “Ahem.”
“Yes?” I replied.
“Claudia, I was wondering. Is Ashley your, um, best friend now?”
“She most certainly is not.”
“She isn’t?”
“No way.”
“But I thought —”
“I thought we were friends, too,” I interrupted her. “I thought nobody understood me the way Ashley did, but I guess I was wrong.” I paused. “You know what I was wishing yesterday? I was wishing I could talk to Stacey. Stacey — and the rest of you guys — understand me in other ways. Ways that mean nothing to Ashley. But Stacey’s probably mad at me, too.”
“Too?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t say anything else. I didn’t feel like telling Mary Anne about the fight with Ashley just then.
“Claudia?” Jackie spoke up. “You and that girl who wears the long dresses are mad at each other, aren’t you?”
“I guess so,” I replied. I flipped a sheet of paper to the back of my pad and started a new drawing.
“Mommy says when you’re mad, you have to tell the other person why. Did you do that?”
“I tried to.”
“You know what happens when you do?”
“What?”
“Then the other person tells you why he’s mad, then you say something, then he says something, and then …”
“Yes?” I prompted him.
“I don’t know. It’s funny, but sometimes you’re mad all over again.”
I smiled at Jackie and he shrugged.
The doorbell rang then. For the first time I noticed that it sounded like boing, boing, bonk. “Hey, did you break this one, too?” I asked Jackie as Mary Anne got up to answer the bell.
“Sort of,” he replied sheepishly.
A few seconds later, Mary Anne, wearing a huge, fierce frown, returned. Ashley was right behind her. Mary Anne didn’t utter one word. She just stood aside, folded her arms, and looked from Ashley to me as if to say, “Well? What’s going on?”
“Ashley!” I cried. “What are you doing here?”
Ashley leaned over to look at the sketch I was working on. “I saw your bike outside. What are you doing here? I couldn’t believe you were babysitting again … and I see you aren’t.”
“Nope. I’m starting my sculpture for the show. That should make you happy.”
“Not if you’re going to sculpt him,” replied Ashley, pointing.
Jackie’s eager face fell.
“Him has a name,” I told her. “He’s Jackie. And he’s one of my good friends.”
Jackie’s smile returned cautiously.
“So you lost your nerve,” Ashley went on, as if she hadn’t heard me. “You’re going to sculpt a person.”
“Right.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ll sculpt what I want to sculpt. I’ll sculpt what I do best, and I do people best even though I still have a lot to learn.”
“I’ll say. Well, you’re not going to learn it from me,” retorted Ashley, and she headed for the front door. Her parting words were, “You’re ruining your career, you know.” Then she let herself out.
“Whoa,” said Mary Anne under her breath. “Intense.”
Jackie was looking at me worriedly. “It’s okay,” I told him. “Really.”
“Are you still going to put my head in the show?” he asked.
“You bet. That is, if I finish on time.”
“Hey, Claud, you know you really stood up to her,” said Mary Anne, looking impressed.
“I guess. I mean, I know. But I don’t think it did any good. She still doesn’t understand what I’m saying.”
“She doesn’t want to understand,” Mary Anne corrected me. “And that’s a big difference. She knows you don’t agree with her.” I nodded thoughtfully.
“Are we going to see you at the next club meeting?” Mary Anne asked carefully.
“I think so. Not today’s, because I’m behind in my homework and I got a D on a spelling test. And there’s this library project I haven’t even begun yet. So I’m going to hit the books.”
“But couldn’t you come back from the library by five-thirty?”
“Usually, but … just not this time.” The problem was, I didn’t think I’d be welcome at the meeting. Even if it was in my own room.
“All right,” said Mary Anne briskly. “I’ll tell the others.”
“Okay.” I gathered up my pencils and dosed the pad. “I’ve got enough sketches for now, Jack-o,” I told him. “Thanks a lot.”
It was time to go. I had a lot to do. And I mean a lot.