Chapter 2

The next afternoon, I bound up the stairs of the Nutcracker School. It’s a gorgeous April day. The trees are just starting to get tiny pink buds on their branches. For the first time this year, I’m not wearing my winter coat. I look fabulosa in my new purple leotard, and I can’t wait for everyone to see it. And more importantly, I’m dying to know more about the good nothing.

My friends are gathered in our usual corner of the waiting room. Terrel, Brenda, and one of the triplets—Jerzey Mae—are clumped together talking as they put on their ballet slippers. Jessica, another triplet, is scribbling on a piece of paper. Al and JoAnn, the third triplet, are looking at a skateboard magazine. Since JoAnn recently broke her leg on a skateboard, this surprises me.

“Don’t tell me you’re getting back on a skateboard,” I say, dropping my dance bag on the bench. “Ragazza pazza. You’re crazy, girlfriend.”

“I busted my leg because I tripped on my skateboard. In my room. Not because I was riding it,” JoAnn says, with exaggerated patience. I get the feeling she’s said this a few times before. Probably to her parents.

“When she actually rides a skateboard, she wears knee pads and a helmet and stuff,” Al adds.

“Maybe you need to wear knee pads and a helmet walking around your room,” I say.

“Not a bad idea,” JoAnn admits. Of the triplets’ rooms, hers is always the messiest.

Jessica glances up from her paper. She looks me up and down. “Is that leotard new?” she asks. “It’s a beautiful color.”

I proudly turn around, displaying my fabulous, newly purple creation. “Yes,” I say. “Fresh from Epatha’s House of Dyeing.”

Jerzey Mae’s eyes widen. “Who’s dying? Is it contagious?”

Brenda shakes her head. “Hypochondriac a such are you.” Brenda talks backward a lot of the time. We can understand her, but grown-ups can’t, which sometimes comes in very handy.

“What’s a hypochondriac?” Jerzey Mae asks, alarmed.

“Someone who thinks she’s getting sick all the time,” says Terrel. “Like you.” She puts her sneakers neatly under the bench.

“Not dying dying, Jerzey Mae. I meant fabric dyeing,” I say impatiently, eager to get everyone’s attention back on my new creation. “Do you like the white streaks?”

“Nice,” Terrel says. “But couldn’t you get them to go in a straight line? They’re kind of all over the place.”

I exhale. “They’re not supposed to go in a straight line, T.,” I say. “They’re creative! They go wherever they want to! That’s the beauty of tie-dye. Straight lines are boring.”

I sit down on the bench beside Jessica.

“Whatcha doing?”

“She’s writing a poem,” Jerzey Mae says. “A sonnet.”

“A what?”

Jessica looks up. “A sonnet. It’s a kind of poem that has fourteen lines.” She starts talking about the rhyme scheme—something about A’s and B’s and C’s—but I’m stuck on the fourteen-line business.

“Why does it have to have fourteen lines?” I say.

Jessica shrugs. “It just does. That’s what a sonnet is: a fourteen-line poem.”

This sounds crazy to me. “But what if you’ve got more than fourteen lines to say? Or less than fourteen lines?”

Jessica laughs. “That’s just the way it works, E. When you write sonnets, you’re supposed to be creative inside the rules you’re given.”

I snort. “Creativity and rules don’t go together.”

“Tell that to Shakespeare,” Jessica says.

“Your rat? Why would I talk to your rat?” Shakespeare, Jessica’s white rat, once made a visit to the Nutcracker School, when the triplets’ little brother, Mason, snuck him into class, but now he’s home in his cage. I hope.

“Not the rat. Shakespeare the playwright and poet, the man that Shakespeare the rat is named after,” Jessica says. “He wrote over a hundred sonnets, and they’re plenty creative.”

I’m about to tell her that they’d probably have been more creative if they had had interesting numbers of lines, like seventeen or nine or forty-seven. But just then, the waiting room door opens, and our teacher, Ms. Debbé, comes in. She always dresses in a very creative way, and today is no exception. She’s all in bright blue, from the top of her turban to the tips of her shiny boots. Her son, Mr. Lester, stands beside her.

“What’s he doing here?” Terrel whispers. Mr. Lester teaches some classes at our school, but he usually doesn’t teach us. He spends a lot of his time working at the Harlem Ballet. When Ms. Debbé was a dancer, she danced with the Harlem Ballet. I’ll bet she thinks it’s cool that now her son is a director there.

Then it dawns on me. The nothing! I’ll bet Mr. Lester knows what it is—and I’ll bet we’re about to find out.