TO DO: Think about aliens in big fancy houses (and posers)

NOT ONLY DOES rain mean no practice, but rain on Wednesday means Thursday’s practice—the last practice before the meet on Saturday—was gonna suck. Too bad to even think about. And I had no time to think about it anyway, because no practice also meant I didn’t have an excuse not to go straight to Becca’s after school.

I met Maddy in the north wing, walked her to the car as usual. Well, it was more like a run to the car, because the rain was coming down hard. Maddy climbed in and I jumped in the passenger seat.

“Practice is canceled,” I blurted at Momly, wiping water from my arms.

“I figured,” she replied, smirking. I kicked something on the floor. A plastic bag. Fresh clothes and stuff that she’d packed for me anyway. Just in case.

“So, if it’s okay with you, I think I’m just gonna go over the girl, Becca’s, house to work on the group project now. That way I don’t have to stay long.” Momly didn’t say nothing to that, just nodded. “Can you please, please, please come get me in two hours.”

“Two hours, got it,” she confirmed. “But do you know where she lives?” I just pointed from the window. The big house directly across the street. Momly looked, let her mouth hang open for a second before catching herself. “Wow. Um . . . well, I guess I’ll just drive you on over there.”

And just then Becca, Taylor, and TeeTee appeared in the doorway of the school, but because of the rain, they didn’t come out. And if they were planning to wait the storm out, they would never get to Becca’s house, which meant there was no reason for me to go. Plus, we’d never get any work done.

“There go the other girls in my group right there,” I said, the words like glue on my tongue, only because I knew what Momly would say next. But, like I said, it was raining. Hard. And we all had to get to the same place.

“Oh, well then, I’ll just take all of you!”

Momly beeped the horn and waved Becca, Taylor, and TeeTee over. They didn’t come. Not at first. Momly’s sweet face can definitely come across as stranger-danger if you don’t know her. But then she cracked the window enough to be heard and shouted, “I’m Patina’s auntie!” and the girls came running to the car.

Maddy got up front with me, something that Momly would never, ever allow any other time, but it was only, and I do mean only, because we were going right across the street that Momly let it slide. Didn’t matter to Maddy. She was in the front seat, and she was happy. Smashed in the back was basically my worst nightmare. I’m kidding. But seriously, it was wild to know that Becca, Taylor, and TeeTee were crammed into Momly’s car, which is basically like my car!

“Seat belts, everyone,” Momly sang. I yanked the seat belt around Maddy and me, strapping her tight to my chest. I couldn’t even turn around to look at Becca and them. Not because the seat belt was too tight, but because it was all just too weird. I wasn’t embarrassed or nothing. I take that back. I was a little embarrassed, only because Momly was playing her talk radio, and Maddy decided to try out some small talk by asking if any of them gave their dogs massages or kissed them on their mouths.

“Maddy,” I snapped as she turned halfway around to get a good look at the girls.

“What? I’m just askin’.”

“I don’t have a dog,” Becca said, cheery.

“Neither do we,” TeeTee said for her and Taylor.

“Well, y’all got mothers?” Maddy followed up.

“Oh, that’s enough, Madison,” Momly tsked, putting an arm across both me and Maddy as she came to a red light.

“I’m just asking,” Maddy repeated.

“Of course we all have moms. Why?” Taylor asked, which stung me a little. Because we all don’t have everything. Some people have mothers, some don’t. Some have dads, some don’t. Some got two moms. Shoot, some even have to be moms before they actually are moms. The light changed and Momly rolled across the street so slowly that cars were honking their horns and zooming around us.

“Oh, okay. I just thought maybe you didn’t because you got all that makeup on, and my mother says that if—”

“Okay, I think we’re almost there, right, Becca?” I cut Maddy off before she got me cut off. Even more cut off.

Becca laughed. T-N-T, not so much.

“Yep, this is me right here on the left. The one with the open gate.” Becca pointed to the most giant-est house I ever seen up close. Momly pulled in, pulled up around this big fountain, to the front door.

As everybody got out, I leaned back in and reminded Momly, “Two hours. Please. Just two hours.”

“Two hours,” she repeated slowly, putting two fingers up. And Maddy, who had now climbed back in the backseat, also put two fingers up, but held them up to the window at Becca and the girls—a peace sign.

INSIDE BECCA’S HOUSE:

(1) A whole lot of space.

(2) A big piano Becca called “that old piece of crap.”

(3) A chandelier that looked like the ceiling was raining diamonds.

(4) Paintings. Pictures of paintings. Paintings of pictures. And pictures. Of Becca. Looking goofy.

(5) A movie theater that Becca said no one ever used.

(6) Big furniture made from the same kind of leather as my uncle’s favorite jacket.

(7) No dog.

(8) A scraggly cat named Carl, that didn’t wear clothes or look like it had ever had a massage a day in its life.

(9) Me and the two other girls, who were taking selfies like they ain’t never been nowhere.

(10) The familiar smell of sugar.

“This is Granny,” Becca said as we popped into the kitchen for a moment. An old lady dressed like an old lady was baking cookies.

“Hi, girls,” she said, scooping batter from a bowl. “Sweets will be ready in a short while.” The old lady’s voice was like Momly’s if it had a whole bunch of cuts in it.

“We’re going to be upstairs doing work, Granny.”

“Okay, well then, I won’t bother you. They’ll be down here. Chocolate chip, oatmeal, snickerdoodle, and peanut butter. You girls help yourselves.”

“She made all that?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s her hobby. We don’t even eat them. She just likes to make them and then give them away to our neighbors. I like cupcakes better. What’s your dad’s favorite recipe?”

I don’t know if it was the sugar smell, or the buildup from earlier, or what, but I just . . . said it.

“He passed away.”

Becca looked me in the eye. Straight in the eye. “I’m . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It was a long time ago.” And now, relieved I got it over with, I changed the subject without actually changing the subject. Another one of those small-talk tips I picked up from Momly. “Where your folks?” I really asked because the house was so quiet. No TV. No radio. No noise besides pans being slid into the oven, and the weird giggles of T-N-T holding their cell phones in the air, posing.

“Where they always are. At work,” Becca shot back. “Come on.” And with Taylor and TeeTee trying for the millionth time to get the whole chandelier in the shot, I followed behind Becca as we walked up one of those round-and-round stairs to her room.

Here’s the thing about hair-flipper bedrooms, they basically only come one way. I mean, I had never actually been in one in real life, but I had seen them enough times on TV to know that they’re all bedazzled in pink and purple. They look like candy shops. Like doll houses. Like living inside of a strawberry cupcake.

But as we entered Becca’s room . . . uhhhhh . . . blackness. Not like Black History Month blackness. And not blackness like I passed out from the overload of girlyness in Becca’s room. I didn’t. Though I did feel like I was gonna black out from shock, because if Becca’s house was a castle, Becca’s room in this house was the dungeon. The upstairs dungeon. Everything . . . eh-ver-ree-thing in her room was black. The walls, the closet doors, the lamps and lights, the desk, the ceiling, everything. It was like Becca was really a YMBC or something. Like she was really a button-bagger!

As I tried to hide my shock, Taylor and TeeTee finally came busting in the room all squeals and smiles, which quickly turned into gasps and frowns. Their faces were stuck, half-melted. Terrified. Meanwhile, Becca pulled a chair from behind her door, another from the desk against the wall, and plopped down on her bed like none of this was a big deal.

“Okay. Let’s get to work on Miss Frida.” She clapped her hands together, excited.

Silence. From me and T-N-T, whose struggle-faces looked like they were trying to swallow their own tongues. Me, well, all I kept telling myself was, two hours. Just two hours, Patty.

“Yeah, let’s get to . . . work,” I finally said, and before I could grab one of the chairs, TeeTee and Taylor had already snatched them, positioned them right next to each other, and right next to the door. So I sat on the bed. Take it easy. No big deal. All-black room . . . no problem. No problem at all. Don’t really mean nothing. Nope. Not at all. Not. At. All.

Funny thing is, the group work went exactly the same as it did in school. Me, basically trying to manage it all while T-N-T, who were usually distracted by paint on their nails, were now distracted by paint on the walls. So while me and Becca were digging around on the Internet for more details about our Mexican artist friend, Taylor and TeeTee were whispering to each other, until finally Becca said, “Are y’all gonna help?”

“Oh, yeah,” Taylor said, shocked that she got called out.

“We just had a question about it all,” TeeTee added. I don’t know what Becca thought was coming next, but I thought it was going to be about Frida. Turns out, the “it all” they had a question about had nothing to do with the project. “What’s the deal with . . . um . . . all this?” TeeTee waved her hands around like she was swatting flies.

“What do you mean?” Becca asked, in that honest way she was always asking something.

“I mean, this.” TeeTee repeated the wave.

“Look, I’m not trying to be mean, but it’s just . . . a little weird,” Taylor jumped back in. “It’s like at school, you act one way, and it’s not all . . . um . . . goth-y like this, but really you . . .”

“She’s what?” I asked, cocking my head to the side. I don’t know where it came from, but something about the way they were talking rubbed me wrong. The same way I felt when people tried to mess with Ghost. Or Sunny. Or even Lu. But Becca didn’t need me.

“Goth-y?” She was for-real confused. “Oh. You wanna know about the black.” She smiled, totally unfazed. Becca reached behind her back and snatched the curtains closed. Then she got up and slapped the light switch on the wall. And then blackness went to darkness . . . and the whole universe appeared.

Stars and planets and whatever other things be up there in space popped out of the black, glowing green, all around us.

“What . . . is all this?” I asked, looking up at the ceiling.

“This is as much of the galaxy as you can fit in a bedroom. And that”—she leaned over to see what was directly above my head—“well, that looks like the Gemini Twins.” She tried to get me to see what she was talking about, but it all just looked like a bunch of stars to me. “Constellations. Like connect the dots, except with stars, you know?” I didn’t know. But I still thought it was kinda cool.

“I ain’t never seen all these stars up there. I mean, I seen a few, but not like this.”

“They’re all up there. Each one connected to another in some weird way. It’s amazing.”

“Wild,” I corrected her.

“Not that wild,” she corrected my correction. “At least not to me. My folks are rocket scientists. This is pretty much as normal as it gets in this house.”

“Rocket scientists?” Taylor finally found her words again.

“Well, they’re really called astronautical engineers, basically the same thing.”

“That’s a real job?” TeeTee came right behind her. I can’t front, I was thinking the exact same thing.

“I hope so. If not, I don’t know where my parents are all the time.” Becca laughed, but only a little. There was something about her face in that moment that was weird, like something invisible was pinching her underarm. I knew that face. Saw it in Ghost. And some people say they saw it in me. Shoot, it was probably the face I made at lunch. The might-be-sick face.

So I pointed at a cluster to my left. Becca hopped up. “Oh, that looks like Pegasus.” And that did it. No more Frida. Becca was off, spazzing around her room, pointing out different star clusters and planets, explaining why we can’t see all of them where we live, straight up nerding out, and I was into it. But I guess T-N-T . . . not so much. They were basically just sitting there texting, and I figured they were texting each other talking trash about it all, but when Taylor blurted, “My mother’s here,” I realized who they were really texting.

“Already?” Becca asked, still not tripping about the way the girls had treated her. It was like nothing really bothered her, which I admired. “But you didn’t even have any cookies.”

“No, um, no . . . that’s okay,” TeeTee said, as if the cookies were going to be black too. Honestly, I was so caught up in her room that I’d forgotten all about the cookies.

“Yeah, it’s cool. We just . . . have to go. Sorry,” Taylor said, not seeming sorry at all.

“Well, let me walk you down,” Becca insisted.

I checked the time and knew that the two-hour mark was coming, and one thing about Momly was she was never late. She was the most on-time person in the world. So it made sense for me to head downstairs too. And halfway down the fancy round-and-round steps with the crystal chandelier hanging over us like ice frozen in the air, my phone buzzed. It was Momly. She was here.

Becca opened the door, and Maddy was outside talking to someone.

“Mrs. S, what are you doing here?” Maddy squealed, as me, Becca, Taylor, and TeeTee came through the door. Maddy was standing at the passenger-side window of the other car in the driveway. The one that came for T-N-T. At least I thought it had come for T-N-T, but why would Maddy’s teacher be here for them?

“I’m here to pick up my daughter, Taylor.” What? Daughter? Taylor? “And this is my sister, Mrs. Dorsey. She teaches at the school too. Fourth grade.”

“Hi, Madison. I’ve heard so much about you. Hopefully, you’ll be in my class in a few years.” Wait a minute. Taylor Stein. TeeTee Dorsey. Bestie-cousin-sisters. And daughters of . . . no way . . . teachers? Teachers. Tuh. Well, well, well. T-N-T. Regular girls.

I looked at the queen hair flippers, but guess what? They wouldn’t look at me. Just shot off the step and trotted over to the car. And that’s when I knew they knew they were caught. Gotcha! I could tell they knew what I was thinking. They knew I knew they’d been fronting this whole time. Ain’t no teachers rich, and I knew that because at Barnaby, they told us all the time. They don’t pay me enough to teach you and babysit you. Now I got why T-N-T were acting all weird in Becca’s house. Taking selfies at the piano and all that. Chandelier shots for days. I turned back to Becca. It was like she hadn’t even noticed. She just waved at them, while at the same time Maddy waved me over.

“Patty, it’s my teacher, Mrs. S!” she said as I walked toward the car.

“I see! Hi, Mrs. S.” I tried to keep my cool. “Happy early birthday. Taylor says y’all got plans tomorrow. Hope you have a great time!”

And before I got in the car, I looked up at the sky. Still cloudy. But I looked for stars anyway. Of course, I didn’t see none. But now, for some reason, it felt good just knowing there were more up there than I’d ever known.