“GOOD, YOU’RE BACK,” MRS. D. says. “Did you solve the problem?”
“Yes, we did,” Amanda says. “Lola made me feel better. She reminded me that Christmas is just around the corner, and I’ll get to set the table really fancy and hang a wreath and trim the tree. And she said my dog can stay at her house for Thanksgiving.”
“Oh. Did you say that, Lola?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Wonderful,” Mrs. D. says. But the wonderful doesn’t sound so wonderful. It sounds worryful.
“Lola, you’ve got a hair knot,” Timo Toivonen calls down from the reading loft.
Amanda grabs two colored pencils and sticks them right in my hair knot. “In America, we call it a hair bun,” she says.
“Now let’s come together, Candy Corns,” Mrs. D. says. “The class wanted to pause the tally mark activity so that everyone could participate.”
Inside I’m doing cartwheels ’cause I LUH-HUV tally marks.
Everyone takes a seat. On my way, Savannah shows me her book about fairy people with wings. I say I like the bald, green fairy. Bald fairies don’t get hair knots.
Mrs. D. says, “Now, Harvey, how about you?”
“I’m going to Ohio,” Harvey says. “I wish I was going to Cancún.”
Mrs. D. puts his tally mark on the board. Dilly is next, and she’s traveling to Chinatown in New York City to be with her grandparents.
Jessie stands up to make her Tally Mark announcement. “I have a spectacular surprise,” she says. “My parents, and my grandma, and even my brother, Dustin, are all traveling to—” she smiles at the whole class, “—Barbados. That’s a tropical paradise.”
The whole class oohs and ahhs. “Yay,” I say, only my yay ran out of fizz like flat root beer. Amanda’s going to Cancún, Savannah’s going to California, and Jessie’s going to a tropical paradise. All I’m going to is the kitchen to help load the dishwasher.
But then I remember how I love can-shaped cranberry sauce from scratch. And just like that I cheer myself up.
I daydream of cranberry sauce through a bunch of the alphabet.
“In Finland,” Timo Toivonen says, “we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is an American holiday.”
“So you won’t celebrate?” Sam calls out.
“Hand, Sam,” Mrs. D. says.
“We will celebrate our Finnish version at home,” Timo Toivonen says. “We call it Kiitospäivä.”
The whole class repeats it: KEY TOES PIE VA. Mrs. D. makes a tally mark under “Staying Home for Thanksgiving.”
Savannah Travers gets up. She waves to me and I wave to her. “I’m going on an airplane to Manhattan Beach, California, and I’m going to play with all my cousins!”
She gives me a big smile. I stretch one across my lips. Something in me feels wince-y. But then I give myself a pep talk because I’m going to be happy making cranberry sauce from scratch. I’m going to be happy eating two pumpkin pies. I’m going to be happy as a kid on a beach. A warm beach where kids are building sand castles right in the middle of November. Fishsticks.
Ben Wexler is traveling all the way to Lewiston, Maine.
Finally, Z! Finally me!
Mrs. D. stands up straight and puts Ben’s tally mark on the side of “Traveling on Thanksgiving.” But when she turns around, she has a big white chalk mark across her rear end.
We burst out laughing. Mrs. D. looks over her shoulder. “Oh, my!” she says, and gives her rear end a good dusting off.
I glance at the clock. It’s time for Snack. Mrs. D. will have to hurry.
“Last but not least, we have Lola. What are you doing, Lola?”
Fishsticks. I’ve been waiting all day and all night and part of another day to say, “Staying at home.” But now staying at home sounds bo-oring.
“Staying at home,” I say in the world’s smallest voice.
Mrs. D. wrinkles up her brow like a bulldog. Then she says. “Oh. Staying at home.” She adds my tally mark to the Staying At Home kids. I’m the brokenleg kid being carried by the other four.
“Who would like to tally up the marks?” Mrs. D. asks.
Hands shoot up. Not mine. Mine are two pieces of the most cooked-up spaghetti you’d ever want to see. Mrs. D. calls on Rita Rohan.
“Fifteen kids are traveling and five are staying home,” she says.
“My goodness! How exciting! Snack time!”
