When I got to school the next morning I saw Nick over by the window, pouring water into his hellgrammite habitat. He didn’t look up. Why had he bothered to draw the streets for Brambletown again? I’d been chewing that around and around in my mind since breakfast. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I put my backpack in my cubby and sat down.
“Hi!” Summer said. “Guess what? My tick shriveled into a tiny raisin.”
“Ugh,” Lacey exclaimed loudly. She made a face and checked to see who was watching her.
A tick raisin didn’t seem like a happy picture to me. “Does that mean it’s—”
“Yup. Gave its life for science, I guess.” Summer shook her head sadly. “I didn’t feed it. I mean, whose blood was I going to give it?” She held her palms up. “Mine?”
Lacey harrumphed and swiveled around in her seat, turning her back to us.
“What are you going to do about the assignment?” I asked Summer.
“Well, there are lots more ticks where that one came from. But listen,” she said, changing the subject, “I have to tell you about my great idea—”
“Nadie, would you step over here a moment, please?” Mr. Allen called from his desk. “You, too, Gordon.”
Whatever idea Summer had, I wasn’t going to hear about it now. I watched Gordon do his metal-boy walk to Mr. Allen’s desk, then followed him. All year long I’d thought Gordon’s robot act was weird and a little dumb. But now I got it. A robot could be friends with anyone—boys and girls—because, well, he was just a machine. I could see now that Gordon the robot was smart. Really, it was everyone else who was acting dumb.
Mr. Allen’s head was bent over Gordon’s Spark cover. “I recognize these insect sketches from your science packet, Nadie,” he said without looking up. “That’s a problem.” He tapped the drawing and frowned.
I wasn’t on the Spark editorial board anymore, so I probably wasn’t supposed to work on the cover. What if Mr. Allen made Gordon do it all over again? Today was Thursday. He couldn’t finish all those drawings in time for this issue. There’d be no Spark this week, and by next week we might not even be working on bugs anymore.
“But Gordon had such a great idea,” I tried to explain. I saw Owen watching us and lowered my voice. “I just helped him out, that’s all. It really is his work.”
“No, it isn’t,” Mr. Allen said. He looked at me, then at Gordon. He smiled. “This work belongs to both of you. It’s quite remarkable, really. You should both be extremely proud. I know that I am. This cover takes the material we’ve been working on and uses it in a whole new way. It also showcases each of your special talents.” He looked over the drawing again and cleared his throat. “I think I feel about as happy as any teacher can feel right now,” he finally said. “Thank you, Nadie.” Mr. Allen shook my hand. “Thank you, Gordon.” Gordon’s face turned a very unrobotlike shade of red.
“But Mr. Allen, if it’s good, then why is it a problem?” I asked.
“It’s a problem because your name isn’t on the cover along with Gordon’s,” Mr. Allen said, pointing to the bottom of the page. “You two had better rethink that byline. This cover shows me that we need to rethink our Spark editorial board as well. All students who can share ideas and work together should be able to do so—that’s the whole point, after all. It’s what already makes our magazine spectacular and unique.” He turned toward the window. “Nick?”
Nick looked up.
“Are you free at lunchtime to go over this week’s Spark editorial with Jess?”
Nick nodded. I saw him drum a triumphant two-fingered riff on the windowsill.
“Excellent. Yes, excellent.” Mr. Allen nodded back and faced the class. “And now, entomology enthusiasts, please return to your seats and take out your insect feed journals.”
We ended up having a big Spark organizational meeting that lasted through lunch and recess. Nearly half the class was there. Kids suggested new jobs like poetry editor, news editor, and photographer. Summer volunteered to write a pet care column. Gordon and I were in charge of cover art. Nick was back on the editorial page. Alima and Jess were going to start a new section for letters to the editor.
The busy school day went by like any other, but something had changed. Maybe it was just that heart-tingling feeling of spring breaking through, but I felt I could sense all kinds of possibilities wafting in on the breeze.
At the end of the day, Mr. Allen called me up to his desk again.
“Nadie, I was wondering something. Did you scan in all of your sketches for the cover?” he asked. “Or did you draw them with a mouse?”
“Well, I scanned in most of them,” I explained. “But Gordon did the butterfly right on the computer. He didn’t use a mouse, though. He used my dad’s drawing stylus.”
“A drawing stylus?”
I glanced at the clock, then explained how the stylus worked like a pen on a pad. “My dad’s computer drawing program has lots of special tools and effects. You can do all kinds of cool things with the stylus.”
“If your work is any indication, that program is a wonderful learning tool,” he said. “I’d like to have something like that in our classroom. Do you know the exact name of it?”
I shifted from one foot to the other and looked at the clock again. I’d been planning to wait for Nick at the corner of Broom and Laurel after school. I was just going to come right out and ask him about Brambletown. But instead of getting to our corner first, now it looked like I wasn’t going to show up at all.
“Why don’t I ask my dad for more information and bring it in tomorrow?” I suggested hopefully.
“Thank you, Nadie. That would be very helpful,” Mr. Allen said. “Have an imaginative afternoon!”
I raced to our corner at a flat-out run, but Nick wasn’t there. I picked up a handful of pebbles from the gutter and heaved it at the stop sign. Maybe boys and girls really just couldn’t be friends. I didn’t know anymore.
“Hello, Your Lateness,” Dad said. “Where’ve you been?”
“Mr. Allen kept me after class for a few minutes,” I said. “He asked me for information about our computer drawing program.”
“I can get that together for you.” Dad jangled his car keys. “But right now I’m off to get Zack. There’s pudding in the fridge.” He went out. “Summer’s mom phoned,” he called from the driveway. “I told her your idea was okay by me and I called the town hall to get permission. Just wait for me to come back before you get started.”
Town hall? I pushed open the screen door and stuck my head out. I heard the car door slam. “What idea?” I yelled. Dad waved as he drove away.
Mystified, I went to the refrigerator and took out a dish of vanilla pudding. I stared at the skin on top, examining the little lines and swirls. At first they looked like an abstract design, but after a while they started to look like a beehive and a swarm of bees. Great. Thanks to Mr. Allen, I now had insects on the brain. I stuck my spoon into the beehive first. The rest of the pudding quivered.
I took a big spoonful of beehive skin with creamy pudding underneath. The soft part melted away on my tongue, and I chewed the drier skin, then swallowed. “What idea?” I said aloud.
“My idea!” Summer opened the screen door and came in waving a can of yellow spray paint. “That’s what I started to tell you this morning. I mean, why let all our work on Brambletown just wash away in the next good rain?”
I looked at the can of spray paint, then at Summer’s grin. “Enormously brilliant.”
“My mom gave this to me,” Summer said. “It’s a kind of quick-dry paint that her store’s not ordering anymore.”
I got another pudding out of the fridge and traded it to Summer for the spray can. While she ate, I read the back panel. At the bottom it said “Coverage: 12 square feet.”
“Do you think this will be enough?” I worried. “Brambletown has lots of roads.”
“Don’t worry about that—come and look!” Summer pulled me outside to her bike, parked in the driveway. Contact was curled up in the kiddie trailer next to a cardboard box filled with spray cans.
“I guess old Contact’s guarding the goods,” Summer said, laughing.
I scratched the orange cat behind her ears. I felt the gentle, steady rhythm of her purr travel through me as I looked out at the chalk beginnings of what would be our new Brambletown.
When Dad came home, he helped us get started. The clerk at Town Hall had told him that since no houses had been built yet on the cul-de-sac it would be okay to put paint on the street surface. They’d have to repave it after houses were built anyway.
Dad showed us how to spray close to the ground and downwind so we wouldn’t paint ourselves or breathe in fumes. Apparently not interested in paint, Contact stayed in the kiddie trailer. Zack bustled back and forth from the house to the driveway bringing treats and water for “kitty.”
Summer and I filled in all of the chalk roads with white and pale yellow spray paint. Brambletown was taking on a bold new look. I stood up straight to stretch and admire our work.
“We have lots of other colors,” Summer said, tossing through the cans in the box. “We can use them for the shops and houses. What do you want to add first?”
“A paint store,” I said right away. “In honor of your mom.”
Summer gave me one of her wide-open smiles. I shaded my eyes and surveyed the painted roads of Brambletown. They looked solid and permanent. I was glad Summer was here. A cloud passed over the sun, and in its shadow I had that prickly feeling of being watched. I looked over at Nick’s house. His living room curtain was pulled to the side in one place. The sun came out again, flooding Brambletown with buttery light. I took a deep breath and looked back at our new roads.
“How would it be if the buildings weren’t just flat—if we made them stand up somehow?” I asked Summer.
“It would be great!” she said. “We could skate or bike around them like we were in our own little town.” She pursed her lips. “Do you have wood and stuff to make them with?” she asked.
“No,” I told her. “I have another idea. I’ll be right back.”
I walked across the cul-de-sac and up Nick’s driveway. My legs felt quivery like the pudding. As I raised my hand to ring the bell, the door flew open.
“Hi,” Nick said.
The familiar smell of his mom’s lemon furniture oil made me gulp. “Do you still have any of those plastic grocery crates?” I asked.
“You mean the ones from the store? We have lots in the garage,” he said.
“I thought—I mean—I was wondering if you think they’d make good buildings for Brambletown.”
“Yes, they would,” he said. He rubbed the top of his head. “Do you want me to help you bring them over?”
“No,” I said.
Nick looked down at the ground.
“I want you to help us build Brambletown.”
He grinned. “Okay.”
“Okay.” I grinned back. And that was that.
A thousand pounds of rocks—gone.
We carried four stacks of crates out to the cul-de-sac, making a couple of trips. Dad gave us a drop cloth and we decorated two of the crates in a crazy rainbow pattern. I sprayed Brambletown Paint and Decorating in purple letters next to the crates.
“Cool,” Nick said. I wondered what Mrs. Fanelli would say when she saw him. He looked pretty much like a rainbow himself.
“Ready for a test run?” I asked.
We got our skates and followed Summer as she towed Zack and Contact around the new-and-improved Brambletown in the bike trailer. Remembering my unplanned skating visit to Summer’s neighborhood, I practiced stopping—a lot.
“One more loop, Zack, and I have to go home,” Summer warned. “It’s going to get dark.”
“Kitty’s already night-night,” Zack said from his passenger seat.
Summer took Zack and Contact for another spin around our town. Nick and I took off our skates and sat on the curb.
“I’ve been thinking about some other things we could add to Brambletown,” Nick said. “Maybe even a ramp—it could be like a bridge or something.”
“I like that,” I told him.
Summer stopped her bike in front of us. “Last stop, Rostraver Station,” she called out. “All human passengers must exit.”
Zack climbed out. He leaned his curly head back in to give Contact a kiss. “Night-night, Kitty,” he said.
“Come back tomorrow,” Nick told Summer. “We’re going to have a lot of work to do.”
“Deal,” Summer said. She pedaled away down the street.
“Want some pudding?” I asked Nick.
A little while later, Nick and I were talking over our plans at the kitchen table. Dad was unloading the dishwasher. Zack cooed to a toy truck wrapped in a towel. He’d named it Contact. All of a sudden we heard Mrs. Fanelli’s frantic voice.
“Nick! Nick! Where are you?”
Nick jumped to his feet. His mother burst into our kitchen and ran straight to Dad. She grabbed Dad by the arms. “My Nick is not home!” she cried. “Where can he be? I have looked everywhere!”
“I’m here,” Nick said.
Mrs. Fanelli whirled. She pulled Nick to her and hugged him. Then she pushed him back. A tear spilled onto her cheek. “Tuh!” she exclaimed, flinging the tear away with her hand. She turned and hurried out of the house.
“I guess I should have left her a note or something,” Nick said. “Now you guys don’t get any dinner.”
“Your mom was too upset to think about that,” Dad said. “We can manage on our own for once.” He opened cabinets and scratched his head. He looked in the fridge. “Eggs?” he asked me.
“Eggs, tuh!” Mrs. Fanelli snorted, banging back into the kitchen. She set a pan of lasagna, an antipasto platter, and a layer cake on the table.
Dad held up his hands. “Really, you don’t have to—” he began.
“Don’t argue with me, Dan Rostraver,” Mrs. Fanelli said. “Nick, time to go.”
Nick followed his mother out the door and down the path.
“Good work,” Dad said after they’d gone.
“You mean for finding Nick for Mrs. Fanelli and getting us dinner?” I asked innocently.
Dad smiled. “I mean for finding Nick,” he said. “Your friend Nick.”
I took a sweet cherry tomato from the antipasto and popped it into my mouth. The good news—and the bad news—was that Nick and I would have to go back to pretending not to be friends in school. I picked a hot pepper from the platter and turned it around by the stem. Now Summer and Nick were friends, too, and I wasn’t so sure Summer was good at that kind of pretending.
I closed my eyes tight and took a bite of fire.