I have to be careful with Lisa. You could say she is my best friend, but when you hardly have any friends, best is relative. She is a friend and she is there, and if I didn’t have any girlfriends, I would stand out like a blue sunflower. She says she can tell things about a girl by the way her neck is tilted.
So when she comes up to me and asks, “What’s up with you? You’re blushing. OMG, did you get a note from a boy?” I have to straighten out my neck and say, “No way.”
Lisa’s smile is accessorized by supershiny pink lip gloss today, her hair pulled away from her face by a neat plaid headband. I’ve never seen her unhappy. I like that about her. If Lisa were a color, she would be yellow.
Also, she gave me a pair of earrings for my birthday.
Earrings. For pierced ears.
She said, “Now he’ll have to let you get them pierced.”
“You’re delusional.”
“Just try.”
What she doesn’t know about my dad could fill a book. A book Lisa would never read.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” she says in the fast and breathless way she has. Another thing about Lisa is she usually wants to be at the next place, not where she actually is.
So we sprint out of the school, talking fast about her fun plans to go away to camp and would I write her and “don’t forget our pact to have French-kissed a boy by the end of the summer, text me as soon as it happens.” She is set on this kind of kiss for some reason, as if it will change her life. She thinks it will show on the outside after it happens, make her seem older, hold her head differently.
I’m not so sure this is so, and even if it is, why would you want the world to know your business? Personally, I would rather have a boy notice the book I was reading and tell me he liked it, too. That seems like a better sign of caring about someone than a kiss some French guy invented.
Mr. Wistler, my new favorite person on the planet, says giving characters a lot of experiences makes them interesting. What I think is, this must be so in real life, too, so I’m going to try to add variety to myself this summer, and a French kiss would sure be different, which is the reason it’s on my list. It will be hard to do. How I will find someone to kiss while I’m banished to my grandparents’ house for the entire summer, I have no idea. They don’t even have a lawn boy.
Lisa meets her mother at the car line, and I head for the bus line.
It’s a party on wheels inside the bus today. Well, it’s the last day, after all. And the last bus ride, which if I were a person who says “Thank God!” all the time, I would say “Thank God this is the last day I have to ride a bus!” I would rather walk the whole way home, but no, that will never happen, because of my dad and his “concerns about my safety.” He should ride on the bus, and then he would have real concerns about my safety.
For example, people usually smell bad and are not nice to new kids, especially if you are a lowly sixth grader. When you’re a sixth grader, kids don’t have to have any good reason to bother you other than your age. The good thing about being me is I’ve learned how to find the Darts on the bus before they get me. Darts is a private word I made up.
Darts n.: kids who find a person’s weakness and go out of their way to be mean
I can use this word and insult them without them knowing. Besides, it fits. I picture their mean words flying through the air and stabbing the person they’re hurled at. Darts are not hard to pick out. They like to have an audience, and they come in sets of two or three. They have whatever is the New Thing before anyone else. They talk loudly. They think they know everything. And they don’t bring their lunch, which makes me want to ask, Where is your mother? But I don’t. I stay invisible like always.
Especially today.
There are two Darts on my bus: Mark Medina and Daryl Land. They would love to steal my iPod or make fun of my letter to Atticus or both if they knew about them. It is a good thing these are hidden in the supersecret compartment of my backpack. Daryl is the leader of a whole group of Darts. He has a green camo backpack, and his shoes don’t have laces, which I guess he thinks is cool. I think it’s kind of dorky, but I would never say this out loud.
At the beginning of the year, there was a new kid named Russell. I could have told Russell his clarinet case with a Boy Scout sticker on it was going to get him pinged with darts, but I didn’t say anything. Daryl Land called him a doofus and a wuss. Russell stood there for a moment and then pushed his way past, but Daryl shoved him right into a seat and threw his case down. Russell tried to talk, but whatever he was thinking took about an hour to say because he stuttered. This was bad for him because Daryl drowned him in insults.
It got so bad I got mad at Russell for not defending himself, for not just finding another way to go home, another ride. But I guess the difference between me and Russell is, I have a garage full of packing boxes ready to fill if we need to leave. Plus, I am a coward. I see Russell getting hurt and I do nothing because I’d rather it be him than me.
Today, Russell isn’t on the bus. You have to wonder if Russell loves summer and being off a bus more than anything in the world.
I live two blocks from where the school bus lets me off. I want to take off my sandals and walk on the newly cut grass, feel the start of summer under my feet, maybe follow the warm tar lines in the middle of the street. Plus, this will be the last time I will get to be completely alone for a while. I am tired of fighting with my dad about being sent away all summer. It is no use.
This is what happened last night.
At dinner, he’d said, “We need to start making our summer plans.” He didn’t look at me when he said it. He’d just stared at the menu. We’d gone out to eat because somebody forgot to go to the grocery store and no one wanted a can of soup.
“I guess so,” I said, trying hard to think how I could convince him I was old enough to stay at home. Since my dad is a professor, he is trained to find the holes in arguments. You have to be careful, say short sentences that don’t give too much information.
“Gramps is looking forward to taking you fishing,” he said. “And there are some new exhibits coming to the museums this year. Maybe a trip to the boardwalk in Kemah.” He closed his menu and looked across at me, eyebrows raised as if he’d asked a question. Sure, Gramps will sometimes take me along when he goes fishing with his friends. I bring a book. And museums? People have different ideas about what’s fun.
“I told you,” I said. “I don’t want to go. And you said we would discuss it.”
“Sarah, you know I have to work.”
“And I have to live!”
“Don’t be so dramatic.”
“You have to let me stretch or I will never learn anything. I’m twelve.”
“Barely.”
“What did you do at twelve?” I asked, but I already know a few facts. He got to go to all kinds of Boy Scout camps away from home and ride his bike without a helmet.
“I would worry about you being home alone all day,” he said. “I can’t help it.”
If Dad looked up worrier in my dictionary, he might change his ways.
worrier n.: a person who thinks about unfortunate things that might happen (see also: Tom Nelson)
Well, I could have reminded him about his being drunk and leaving me all alone and never making it to the mall and say, well, did you worry then? But no, I didn’t.
I just said, “I really don’t want to go this summer.”
He paid the check and we left.
When we got home, I walked in first and stayed silent as he called after me. “Sarah. Sarah, come on! It’s because I love you.”
“Whatever, Dad,” I said, trying to control my quivering voice. It was no use. I sounded shaky.
“I’m not saying you aren’t a responsible girl, Sarah,” he started.
“But you are saying that.”
I stomped down the hallway, slammed the door, and waited for him to stand on the other side. It was a long time before he spoke.
“Kiddo, I’ll try to think of something, okay? I’ll try to think of some other options for the summer, okay?”
I said nothing, let him wait.
“And I’ll make it up to you about the mall. We’ll go when Grandma gets here.”
“Yeah, if you don’t get drunk,” I’d said.
I’d thought it would feel good to throw his mistake in his face. It didn’t. It made me feel like a stupid Dart.