stressful than Milla thought it could be, and that’s saying a lot.
Sitting next to Max? With her mom and Max’s mom across from them, so that they form a kid/mom square with bread sticks in the middle? The moms were supposed to sit at their own table. But surprise! The hostess brought them all to this one single table, and no one argued against it.
Milla doubts it makes much of a difference. With or without the moms, she would be freaking. Her breaths are so shallow and rapid that she truly might:
B) see stars and be struck with a sudden case of restaurant blindness, resulting in a nosedive onto the table or a backward chair-fall onto the hard tile floor
C) choke on the wad of breadstick that will not go down and will not go down, because she’s too busy fast-breathing to get much chewing done
D) all of the above
These are legitimate worries. In fact, she’s beginning to see stars already. Her vision is tunneling in on her, and she turns to tell Max that this was all a big mistake and she’s going to have to go now, sorry. But she can’t speak, she discovers. All she can do is focus on Max’s face, and thank goodness it’s a cute face, or think how much worse it would be!
Uh-oh. It’s moving, the face. Max’s face. He’s leaning closer, and his mouth is making word shapes, but what do the word shapes sound like?
You know this boy! Milla tells herself. Get it together! THIS IS MAX, AND YOU CAN DO THIS!
“… right?” Max says.
Milla’s chest balloons outward with relief. The buzzing in her head has subsided, and her hearing is back—hooray!
“Right!” she echoes.
Mom Abigail and Max’s mom laugh. Milla does, too, though she’s confused.
Max cocks his head. “Huh?”
Uh-oh. The head buzzing’s coming back. Fight it, fight it! Milla tells herself.
“I’m sorry, what?” she says, super polite. Then—oh, dreadful—she has to lift her napkin to her mouth and spit out the wad of breadstick. It is glue. It is sticky. It has to go.
“The poem we’re supposed to finish tomorrow,” Max says. He peers at her, but he is a friendly peer-er. A smile tugs at his lips, like he thinks she’s cute even if she’s making no sense. “I asked what you decided to write …?”
“Write,” she repeats. Klunk goes her brain as the pieces fall together. “Write. Right!” The moms laugh again, and Max full-out smiles, and Milla giggles. “Riiiiight. Okay. Yeah.” She gives an enthusiastic thumbs-up that she immediately wishes she could take back. For one, enthusiastic thumbs-ups are dorky. For two, Milla couldn’t care less about the poem assignment, to tell the truth. She likes math better. And drawing.
“Ha ha, yes, um …” She sits on her hands. “I haven’t really written the whole thing? But it’s about my turtle, Tally. Or it will be. I think.”
“Your bobble-head turtle?” Max says, and Milla appreciates his respectful tone. He is not the sort of boy who makes fun of a girl’s bobble-head turtle. He is Max. That is why she is here with him tonight.
“Yeah,” she says. “Because Tally helps me. She’s my good-luck charm, so that counts as ‘Where I’m From.’ I mean, I hope it does.”
“I think it does,” Max says. “That’s cool.”
Milla’s chest loosens even more. It is cool, and just thinking about Tally—that cutie little bobble-head turtle, just the right size to sit in the palm of her hand—has the magical effect of bringing her peace. Milla isn’t one hundred percent cured of her nervousness. That would be impossible! But … wow. She sits up straighter. She takes a sip of water, and it goes down. She doesn’t dribble.
“What about you?” she asks Max. “Do you know what you’re going to write about?”
“Computers,” Max answers promptly. “Programming, coding. HTML. I might do it as a series of haikus. Do you think Mr. Emerson would care?”
“I think he’d love it,” Milla says. “He’s always wanting us to be creative and stuff.”
Mom Abigail chuckles. “Creative and stuff,” she says to Max’s mom, as if illustrating the point that kids say the darnedest things. As if Milla and Max aren’t sitting right there across from them, with their ears turned on and everything.
Milla rolls her eyes at Max, who grins.
“But do you think a slash mark counts as a syllable?” Max says.
“What do you mean?”
Max catches his lower lip between his teeth—so adorkable!!!—and he scans the table for those silly crayons the waitress gave them. As if the waitress thought they were five years old instead of ten.
He finds one and scribbles words and symbols on the back of the goofy kids menu. “Like this. Here’s one of my haikus, all right?”
He passes it to Milla:
“Do you like it?” Max asks.
Milla giggles. It is turning into a night of giggling—which is good! “I don’t know what it means,” she says.
“Well … it means it’s written in code,” Max says. The tips of his ears turn red. “But, okay, how would you read the first line? If you were reading it out loud.”
Milla looks at him from under her eyelashes. His ears turn redder, and Milla feels an odd—but not unpleasant—fluttering in her tummy.
“Um … funny-shaped sideways ‘V’ thing—”
“That’s called a caret,” Max interrupts.
“A carrot?”
“Technically it’s a ‘less than’ sign, and the other one, which is called a ‘close caret,’ is a ‘greater than’ sign. But I call them carets.”
“That’s so cute,” Milla says.
“It is?” Max’s face turns red to match his ears.
“Totally.” She slides his poem closer. “Let me try again.” She clears her throat. He grins. She reads out loud: “Carrot, slash-mark thing, h—”
“But you don’t say caret,” Max breaks in.
“I don’t?”
“No. The caret and the close caret, you don’t say either of them, because they’re not part of the code. Um, they say, ‘The stuff inside here is code.’”
“Inside the carrots.”
“Inside the carets.” Max pushes his hand through his hair. “And. Um. It’s just a slash.”
“The slash-mark thing?”
“Right.”
“Do I say it?”
“Well, yes. But not ‘slash-mark thing.’ Just ‘slash.’”
“Because it’s a haiku,” Milla says. “So the number of syllables matters.”
Max looks relieved. He’s so adorable in his relief that Milla wants to tease him more—to say “the letter h” instead of simply “h,” for example—but she cuts him a break. Max and Milla’s moms are facing each other, having their own grown-up conversation, but she can tell they’re keeping tabs on Milla and Max, too, and Milla doesn’t want Max’s mother thinking she’s dumb.
She clears her throat. She ignores the carrot and makes a mental note to ignore the other carrots—closed and open—that she sees farther on in the first line. “Slash h one h two,” she reads. Yep, five syllables, just as it should be. “This is a poem written”—she pauses for the line break—“in HTML!” She puts the menu down. “Awesome! Perfect!”
Max is pleased. “Yeah?”
“Five, seven, five. I love it. I don’t get it, but I love it.” She takes a bite from her breadstick and has no problem chewing. “What does ‘HTML’ mean? I’ve heard of HTML, but I don’t know what it stands for.”
“High-tech mumbo-lumbo,” Max’s mom says. Then, covering her mouth, “Oops.”
“Mom-m-m,” Max says.
“Busted,” Milla’s Mom Abigail says.
Milla lifts her eyebrows at Max. They both knew their moms were eavesdropping, even if everybody was pretending they weren’t.
Max gives her a lopsided smile. Then something catches his attention, something two or maybe three feet behind her. His eyes widen, and Milla turns to see.
First, she’s confused. Next, she’s annoyed. Very annoyed, and perhaps more so than she should be.
But really?
Really?!
“Katie-Rose,” Max says.
“Yip!” Katie-Rose chirps. She is perky in her colorful peasant top, her dark hair in its customary high pigtails. “Ha ha. I mean, yup! Hello, fellow humans!”
She raises her hand in greeting, and Milla thinks of a Native American maiden welcoming strangers from a strange land. Only they are at the Olive Garden. The Olive Garden is not a far-off land; Max and Milla aren’t strangers; and Katie-Rose is the one who doesn’t belong. Katie-Rose is not the native here.
Katie-Rose is the very unwelcome visitor.
Did she overhear Milla and Max yesterday morning, when they were talking about the Olive Garden at the pencil sharpener? She must have, and now here she is, trying to mess up Milla’s date on purpose.
Beneath the table, Milla squeezes her napkin in her fist. “What are you doing here?” she asks Katie-Rose.
“Studying the migratory patterns of the Canada goose?” Katie-Rose says. No one laughs. “Eating, you goof! Or rather, you goose!”
No one laughs some more, especially not Milla. Katie-Rose’s expression loses its animation.
“It is a restaurant,” she says. Her voice is smaller than when she first said hello, and shrinks more and more as she speaks. “That’s what people do at restaurants. Eat.”
So go eat, Milla wants to say. She glares at Katie-Rose. Katie-Rose blinks.
Charlie, Katie-Rose’s older brother, marches over and grabs Katie-Rose’s arm. “Geez-o-criminy, Katie-Rose. Come on.”
She tries to shrug free of him but fails.
“Hi, Milla,” Charlie says. He nods at Max, whom he knows because they’re neighbors. “Max.” He yanks Katie-Rose roughly, and Milla doesn’t even care. “It’s time to order, and Mom and Dad are pissed you’ve been gone so long.”
Because she’s been searching for us, Milla thinks. The Olive Garden is a labyrinth of main rooms, side rooms, and back rooms, and apparently Katie-Rose’s family ended up at a table far, far away from Milla and Max’s table.
“Bye,” Milla says.
“W-w-wait!” Katie-Rose says, stumbling backward as Charlie drags her away. “All I wanted was to say hey!”
“And you did,” Milla says. She turns to Max. She shrugs. “She did.”
“Yip,” Max agrees.
Milla doesn’t laugh right away, but when she does, she can’t stop. Her anger at Katie-Rose is turned into something much better by Max, and she can’t stop laughing even when Max groans and says, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“What?” Milla says.
“Preston?” Max says.
Milla looks, and omigosh, it’s true. Yet another Rivendell fifth grader has picked tonight of all nights to dine at the Olive Garden, but unlike Katie-Rose, Preston doesn’t notice Max and Milla as he and his family walk past them. He’s too busy looking over his shoulder, twisting his neck as he tries to catch sight of … who? Katie-Rose?
Did Preston spot Katie-Rose being dragged backward by her brother as he trailed his family to their table?
So bizarre. But Max zips his lips, and Milla fights successfully to hold in her laughter until Preston is out of range.
“Omigosh,” she whispers. Her breath chuffs out of her.
Max shakes his head, his eyes dancing, and Milla is charmed. She no longer cares that Katie-Rose is in the same restaurant. She doesn’t care that Preston is there, either, because with Max beside her, it all just seems fun.
Then, hardly five seconds later, Preston walks past them going the opposite direction. He walks purposefully, as if on a mission, and again, he doesn’t notice them.
“What is he doing?” Max says.
“I have no idea,” Milla says.
Then Max says, “Look,” and points out the restaurant’s big glass window. Preston is on the other side of the window. Preston is outside the restaurant!
“Where is he going?” Max says.
“I have no idea!” Milla says, and she starts giggling again. What an odd night. And anyway, who goes out to eat with his family and then randomly leaves the table to wander to some other store?
He disappears from sight. The waitress drops off more breadsticks at Max and Milla’s table, and Max and Milla both take one. As they eat them, they keep their eyes on the window.
“There he is!” Milla says several minutes later. He’s clutching a shiny white bag, which he didn’t have before. Whatever he’s got in there is bumpy-lumpy.
“Is that a bag of rocks?” Milla asks.
“This is just weird,” Max says.
“He’s got to come back in the restaurant, though,” Milla says. “Right?”
“Normally, I’d say yes,” Max says. “But tonight …”
A slight breeze lifts the fine hairs that have escaped Milla’s ponytail. It’s the breeze of a door whooshing open, and Milla glances at Max. They both turn to look, and yes, it’s Preston! He hurries past their table for what’s now the third time, and he still doesn’t notice them. He goes so fast that Milla has no chance to solve the mystery of his bumpy-lumpy bag. Just that it’s … bumpy-lumpy.
“Miss?” Preston calls out to a random waitress. “Um, miss? Ma’am?”
Omigosh. Weirder and weirder, and Milla has to fight to keep her giggles inside her. Then something touches her under the table. Something warm. Something that fumbles around like a small woodland creature foraging for food—only not a scary woodland creature or one with claws. Not a woodland creature at all, but a hand.
Max’s hand! Max’s hand finds Milla’s, and he laces his fingers through hers and he squeezes. As for Milla? Omigosh, she would totally giggle if she could. But again she doesn’t, only this time it’s not to keep Preston from spotting them. This time it’s because her throat has closed so suddenly … zwoop! … that it’s formed an (almost) airtight seal.
It’s all right, though. Everything’s more than all right, and the reason she’s incapable of giggling isn’t because she’s stressed. It’s the opposite.
“Ma’am?” Preston says more urgently. Milla gives Max a delighted look. What is this nutball doing? they ask each other without words.
“Ma’am!” Preston calls, jogging up behind a waitress. The waitress jumps. Milla jumps, too, and this time she squeezes Max’s hand.
“Oh!” the waitress says. “Can I, ah …?” She keeps walking, her tray held aloft. “Can I help you, little guy?”
“Little guy,” Max whispers.
“Hee hee,” Milla whispers back. Little guy! Preston must hate that. For a millisecond, Milla wishes Katie-Rose was with them to enjoy this strange, strange play unfolding before them. Then, loving the warmth of the hand in hers, she realizes she most definitely does not.
“Yeah, listen,” Preston says to the waitress, keeping pace with her as she strides across the carpeted floor. “I was wondering if you could mumble-bumble-bumble …”
They exit the room together, Preston and the waitress. Milla glances at her and Max’s moms. They’re chatting comfortably, each with a glass of red wine in her hand. They seem to be giving Max and Milla their own space, for real this time.
“Could you hear what he said?” Milla asks Max.
Max shakes his head. “Nip. You?”
Nip? Milla frowns. Ohhhhh. That silly Max.
“Nip, me neither,” she says. “Oh well.”
“Breadstick?” Max says, offering her the basket with his free hand.
“Why, thank you,” Milla replies.
Thursday, November 11, 9:33 PM
To: Yasaman Tercan
From: Camilla Swanson
Subject: You were right!!!!
Yaz!!! I know you’re prolly in bed already, and I should be too, but I had THE BEST NIGHT EVER!!!! And I just wanted to tell you that you were right: It *does* pay off to be brave. Omigosh, you were sooooooooo right.
Anyway, dinner was awesome … and I don’t mean the food! Hee hee. The best part? We had FUN. Max and I. Despite all the weird stuff that happened at the restaurant—and plenty of weird stuff happened, believe me—we just … had fun. And laughed. And once? Well … I think his hand touched mine!!!!
Okay, fine. It did. His hand DID touch mine. You forced it out of me!!!! HE HELD MY HAND, YAZ! Under the table! And it wasn’t gross or yucky at all. It was … romantic!
That’s all. I just wanted you to know, because, ya know, you helped me.
Thank you. And I love you.
xxx,
Milla