The Right Moment

That night Veronica hid her flashlight and all her colored pencils in bed. After her parents turned off the lights she set up shop. She copied Esme’s Rainbow Bridge story for Sylvie. She made each line a different color and it took a long time.

The next day after school, they met up as usual. Veronica wondered when the right moment would present itself. She had an idea that there would be a perfect time for giving the story to Sylvie. She considered handing it to her when they were waiting for the light on the corner of Ninety-Sixth and Third. But there was so much traffic and it was so loud she thought better of it.

When they got to Sylvie’s building and Sylvie was busy in the lobby opening the mailbox with her little key, Veronica fished the story out of her backpack. And while they stood next to each other in the elevator, watching the numbers light up as it climbed, Veronica worked up the courage to hand it to Sylvie.

The minute the story was out of Veronica’s hand she knew it was the dumbest thing she’d ever done in her whole life. How could she have compared a dead animal to a dead mother? How could she have used so many bright colors and glitter? What was wrong with her? No wonder she had no friends.

Veronica watched Sylvie read the story, wondering if their short friendship was over. But when Sylvie was finished reading, she hugged Veronica.

“Oh God, I thought you were going to hate it. It feels corny now—like a greeting card.”

“Yeah, but I’m corny.”

“Oh God,” Veronica said again. She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“There has to be somewhere they go,” Sylvie said. “It can’t be the end of my mom. I don’t believe in heaven exactly, but there has to be somewhere they go. I think they are waiting for us.”

“I hope so,” Veronica said. She hadn’t thought she would see Cadbury again, but that was the point of the Rainbow Bridge, after all. “Maybe they’re together.”

“Maybe my mom is playing with your dog,” Sylvie said. The elevator reached the ninth floor and the doors opened.

It was nicer to imagine that Cadbury was waiting for her instead of focusing on how miserable she was without him. Maybe behind Sylvie’s deadpan personality was a glass that was half-full.

After eating and cleaning up, the girls examined the leaves of the healthy plant.

“Why does Auden Georges always get such good grades?” Veronica asked. “I read her Monet paper. No offense, but I thought it was boring.”

“It was. All her work is. But what it lacks in creativity it makes up for with accuracy. Teachers like that. Go figure.”

Sylvie had gone to school with Auden Georges since kindergarten, so she should know.

“Time to make our freshly contaminated water,” Sylvie said. Veronica and Sylvie had developed an actual recipe, which they measured and made fresh each day. As research scientists, they had to be consistent.

“I bet her parents beat her if she doesn’t do better than everyone else. Why else would she cry when she doesn’t get a perfect grade? She is worse than Melody that way,” Sylvie said.

Veronica doubted Sylvie had any idea how important doing well on this project was for her credibility. Auden Georges didn’t have to worry about credibility. Her English accent always made her credible. But Veronica was in a full-blown credibility crisis.

“I feel like a murderer,” Veronica said, pouring the poison water on the closet plant. It was Friday and Veronica hoped the closet plant would die over the weekend so when they handed the project in on Monday their results would be crystal clear. It made her feel mean. She had hurt the plant’s feelings daily and robbed it of all nutrition. She was a plant murderer. That was how badly she wanted a good grade.

“Wow, your sketches are so good, Veronica,” Sylvie said.

Veronica had to agree, even though what Sylvie was admiring were just the minisketches. She’d made bigger, better ones for the graphic novel presentation.

“Can I see them for a minute?” Veronica handed the sketchbook to Sylvie, and Sylvie flipped through it, making the pictures of the plants come to life. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Sylvie said.

“I don’t know, what are you thinking?”

“A flipbook!” Sylvie flipped each page with her thumb and their entire experiment sprang to life before their eyes. Veronica had been very careful to measure exactly equal quadrants on her paper and had put her illustrations inside each quadrant. By cutting the pages into four squares and attaching them, they could make their graphic novel into a perfect flipbook. Veronica was psyched.

Sylvie kept flipping the pages.

“That is exactly my life this year,” Veronica said as the closet plant died again and again before her eyes.

“It is?” Sylvie said.

“Yup. I was all alive and vital and then people ignored me and were mean and I wilted.”

“You have a funny way of looking at things,” Sylvie said.

Veronica was incensed.

“I remember you from the first day,” Sylvie said. “Your parents were so friendly and you just stood there looking at me like you hated me. Sort of like you’re doing right now.”

Veronica did nearly hate Sylvie right now. “But you didn’t say anything to me,” she said.

“You didn’t say anything to me either. And you had everything a person could want—two parents, for starters, who were taking you to school. My dad hasn’t had time to take me to school in years.”

Veronica remembered that morning too. But the way she remembered it, Sylvie wasn’t the new girl. Veronica thought it was up to Sylvie to be nice and say hello first. When Sylvie didn’t, she assumed Sylvie didn’t like her. But Mary always said things weren’t as they appeared, and obviously there was a whole other side to the story that Veronica hadn’t even considered. The side that was not her side. Oops. She didn’t ponder that side as often as she should.

Sylvie got up and returned with a dilapidated Barbie doll. She put it on the coffee table for Veronica to examine. Its face was filthy, it was missing a leg, and its hair, what was left of it, was matted and tangled. The doll had lots of empty holes along its scalp where tufts of its hair were missing. It was a mess.

“I just had an idea,” Sylvie said. “Do you have any Barbies?”

“I don’t know if I still do,” Veronica said. “Why?” Part of her didn’t even want to talk to Sylvie. She was so embarrassed by her assessment of their first meeting.

“Our experiment shows what happens to a plant when it is not treated right, right? Well, we could hypothesize that people are the same way. If you treat a plant badly and ignore its needs it dies, so the same would happen to a person. If you mistreat a person it ends up like this Barbie.”

Just like me, thought Veronica. “Oh, Sylvie, I love it. If I can’t find a Barbie, I will buy one and it can be the happy, popular Barbie who is treated well and yours can be the sad misfit Barbie. Can we somehow implicate Sarah-Lisa Carver in this theory?” Veronica asked.

“That is hilarious, Veronica. You threw a shoe at that girl and cut her sweaters to bits and you want her to be the mean one?”

“Okay, fine! I won’t implicate Sarah-Lisa. I’ll take a more humanitarian approach. But I still want to make little Randolf uniforms. What if I made little uniforms?”

“You don’t mind working over the weekend?”

“I want to work over the weekend!” Veronica said.

“Me too,” Sylvie said.

They sealed the deal with another hug. It was awesome.