Friday. Ten more days.
Ms. Hannah gave our yearbooks out in homeroom. My prepopularity photo smiled dutifully at me from page sixty-seven. Underneath, it said:
Wilma Sturtz
Science Club
You can count on Wilma.
I wondered what they’d write about me now.
There was a saying under each picture. I hunted for Ardis’s. There. Under “SGO, Debating Club, Russian Club,” her saying was “Sensitive, smart, stunning—spectacular!” And they were right.
Under Nina’s photo, it said, “A thousand points for wit and friendship.” BeeBee’s was “The next Picasso—and she’s nice too!” Jared’s was “Behind those eyebrows, the pen of a writer.” It sounded like he had a ballpoint in his skull instead of brains.
Daphne’s wasn’t any better than mine. Hers was “We expect a lot from Daphne.” Under Suzanne’s it said, “The snoop with the scoop. Beware of libel suits!”
I spent the day autographing yearbooks and having mine autographed. I asked everybody to write why they liked me. I wanted to find out how the spell made me seem to them.
In their books, I tried to write why I liked them. In Ardis’s I wrote, “My favorite because you’re honest and fun and brave!” In Nina’s I wrote, “All that’s behind your bark is a wagging tail and a wet tongue.” To BeeBee—“For putting up with a skating dummy and for not having a fit about Reggie.” To Daphne—“I like all dog lovers, especially the ones with a sense of humor.”
I held Jared’s book for five minutes before I figured out what to say. Finally, I wrote, “I like your Rules, your caricature, the amazing stuff you say—and your eyebrows.”
I had to struggle to think of things to write about everybody else, but I didn’t lie to anyone. In Suzanne’s book I just signed my name.
My book was passed around so much that I didn’t get to look through it till sixth period, when I held it in my lap while Ms. Singer went over math problems. I checked first to see what Jared had written. Under his picture were the words “See back cover.” I turned to the back and found two poems. The first one was:
She asks why I like her.
Might as well ask
Why I breathe.
Maybe tomorrow I won’t
Breathe or like her
Anymore.
Maybe tomorrow the tides
Will stop.
Maybe tomorrow will bring
No more rainbows.
Maybe tomorrow
She will stop
Asking useless questions.
It was signed, “From Jared Fein.” The next one was:
I like you because . . .
We held hands and I liked it
We kissed and I liked it
We even talked and I liked it
I like you because . . .
We held hands and you liked it
We kissed and you liked it
We talked and you liked it
I like you because . . .
You’re kind to dogs
And seals
And me
I like you because . . .
He was the poet! Now that I knew, it made the other poems even better. They were beautiful. I felt like a movie star, having poems like that written to me.
I turned to the front of the book. The pages were so full of writing, you could hardly see the photos. I found Ardis’s picture again. In the margin above her face, she had written, “You goof! I like you because you’re Reggie’s owner! And many, many more reasons. Love, Ardis.”
What reasons? I wished she had told me!
Daphne had scribbled over her photo, so I guess she thought it was bad. She wrote, “Thanks for sticking up for me.”
When I read the other kids’ messages, I was bewildered. What they wrote didn’t make sense. They thought they were writing about me, but they weren’t. A sixth grader wrote inside the front cover, “I like you because you know what I’m really like.” But I hardly knew her! Erica wrote that I never made judgments about her. Which was true, but only because I didn’t know her well enough to make them. I think BeeBee summed up what everybody was saying. She wrote, “I like you because you like me through and through.”
Then I figured it out. I was like a celebrity. People felt about me the way you feel about an actor you love. You see his movies and then you read about him in magazines. You find out he likes the same kind of music as you, or maybe he has a dog. And then you discover that his parents got divorced when he was nine, and yours did too. You start thinking, If he knew me, he’d really like me. Pretty soon you feel he does know you, and if he saw you on the street, he’d recognize you as his soul mate, and you’d fall into each other’s arms.
My celebrity status made them imagine I knew their secret, best selves. But to stay a celebrity, I had to find the old lady. And she wasn’t anywhere.
Saturday. Nine more days.
In the morning, I met Daphne in Sheep Meadow in Central Park. Her sheepdog, Samson, kept trying to herd Reggie while they played.
“It’s easy to have friends if you’re a dog,” I said. “If you don’t bite and you smell right, you’re in.”
“Yeah. Nobody says your ears are pointy so I don’t like you.” Daphne sat on the grass.
I joined her. “Are you studying for finals?”
“Yeah. This is the last daylight I’ll see this weekend.”
“Mom isn’t letting me talk on the phone,” I said. “When it rings, she picks it up and sounds like an answering machine. ‘I’m sorry. Wilma can’t come to the phone right now.’”
“At least your phone rings. I don’t know why you envy dogs. You make friends faster than they do. Everybody’s your friend.”
“Everybody at school.”
“Who else is there?”
Nobody else.
We watched the dogs. Reggie had picked up a stick and was prancing off with it, chased by Samson.
“I’m not just studying,” she added. “I’m also working on my valedictory speech.”
“What are you going to say?”
“I’ve been trying to think of a way to say how much I’ve hated Claverford without anybody knowing that’s what I’m saying.”
“Why can’t they know?”
“Because they look at the speech ahead of time.”
“They do? Who?”
“The graduation committee. Ms. Hannah’s on it.”
“Isn’t that unconstitutional?”
“I don’t know, but they do it. So I guess I better say that graduation is a turning point, something about remembering these years for the rest of my life. Junk like that.”
“Hey . . .” I was getting an idea. “Do you give your speech before or after we get our diplomas?”
“Right before. I speak and then we get them.”
“Listen. Could you put something in your speech like . . .” I thought for a few seconds. “Like ‘Although we’re graduating today, we’ll always be Claverfordians.’ Um . . . ‘Body and soul’ maybe. ‘Forever’ maybe.”
“I guess so.” She closed her eyes. “‘Claverford has marked us. We are hers forever.’”
“That’s too . . . poetic. Could you say this exactly: ‘Though we get our diplomas today, we will always be Claverfordians’?”
“It’s important?”
I nodded. Maybe I could fool the spell into thinking I would be at Claverford forever and everybody else would be too.
“‘Though we receive our diplomas today, we will always be Claverfordians.’ Is that it?”
“Perfect.” But would it work?