ten
The next morning, at seven o’clock, Vera’s mother poked her head into Vera’s room to see if she was awake, the way she always did on school days. “Rise and shine!” she said in the partly cheery, partly stressed voice she had on busy mornings.
Had she seen Little Spoon on the counter?
Had she read it?
Or not?
As soon as Vera came into the kitchen for breakfast, dressed and ready for school, she couldn’t keep her eyes from straying to the counter by the coffeemaker. The pile of drawings had disappeared.
“It’s in your backpack,” Vera’s mother said briskly. “I figured you’d need it for camp.”
Vera thought her mother’s lips quivered as she turned to the stove to dish up the scrambled eggs onto two plates. Was her mother hurt? Or angry? Or both? She certainly wasn’t handing Vera a signed permission form for comic-con to tuck in her backpack next to her comic.
“Have a good day,” her mother told her, as she pulled up in front of the elementary school to drop Vera off. She leaned over to give Vera a kiss the same way she always did.
“Bye,” Vera said. She imagined her voice coming out in tiny lettering inside a tiny speech bubble.
So that was that.
At school, one look at Vera’s unsmiling face must have let Nixie know Vera’s mother hadn’t changed her mind. At lunch, Nixie clearly did her best to avoid any mention of camp, comics, or comic-con, letting the other girls at the table talk about their favorite cat videos instead.
“We can go bowling again this weekend if you want,” Nixie said in a rush, as she and Vera headed outside for lunch recess, trailing behind the others. Nixie might as well have added, So you’ll have at least something to look forward to since you can’t go to comic-con.
“Thanks,” Vera said politely. “That would be nice.”
“Are you sure it wouldn’t help if—” Nixie began.
Vera cut her off. “I’m sure.”
At camp Brian and Buzz-Bee spent the first half hour whipping everyone else into a frenzy of excitement about comic-con. Why had Vera even bothered to come to camp today, if she was the only one left out of everything? Of course, with her mother at her office working, there was nowhere else for her to go. She was relieved when Colleen beckoned her over to help staple a big stack of pamphlets for some future after-school programs. At least Colleen seemed to understand how Vera felt.
Finally Brian said, “Okay! I can tell everyone’s too wound up to do any real work this afternoon, so…movie time!”
The campers gathered in the storytelling area, and Superman began to play. Great. When Vera’s mother came to pick her up, she’d find everyone staring at the movie projected onto the wall, looking “slack jawed and vacant eyed,” as she liked to say, the final proof that comics camp and all comics everywhere were a great big waste of time and money.
Sure enough, when Vera’s mom slipped into the room an hour later, most of the campers were sprawled on the floor in just the kind of sloppy posture her mother hated most. Vera glanced at the clock on the wall. Her mother was early.
Good-bye forever, comics camp.
Slowly Vera got up to leave. Her mother was already deep in conversation with Colleen. Then Buzz-Bee went over to join them.
Vera allowed herself one last desperate stab of hope. Maybe Buzz-Bee could convince her mother? Vera held back, just in case, hardly daring to let herself breathe.
Now Colleen was digging through her thick camp folder and pulling out a piece of paper to hand to Vera’s mother.
Now Vera’s mother was writing something on it.
Vera couldn’t make herself wait any longer.
As she approached the three of them, her mother met her eyes. She gave Vera one small nod, followed by a tremulous smile. Then Vera flung her arms around her mother’s waist and held on tight.
“Can I really go to comic-con?” she asked. “Can I really truly go?”
Her mother’s eyes glistened with what looked like tears.
“Yes, Little Spoon,” her mother said softly. “Big Spoon has had all day to think about a lot of things. So yes, you may really truly go.”
Comic-con was everything Vera’s mother had said it would be.
It was crowded.
It was noisy.
It was overwhelming.
Most of all, it was wonderful.
Brian and Buzz-Bee would have let the campers wander around by themselves. “Wander! Explore! Let it wash over you like a tidal wave!” Brian had said. But Colleen made rules that everybody had to have a buddy (Vera had Nixie, of course), and they had to stay in sight of an adult, either a teacher or one of the parents. Vera knew her mother would never take off work for a comic-con. She was just happy her mother had let her come after all.
Harper looked regal in her princess dress, complete with tiara, long white gloves, and a sweeping train Boogie kept tripping over. Boogie’s tiny Superman cape looked so funny on him, Vera and Nixie couldn’t stop giggling. Even Nolan was speechless, with not a single fact to offer, and James looked more excited this afternoon than on all the other afternoons of camp put together.
At every booth, artists sat sketching, drawing, painting, working on comics and graphic novels right there before Vera’s eyes, despite the hordes of wildly costumed people surging by. It was as if nothing in the world mattered to them except to sit with pencils, pens, and paintbrushes and make characters come alive.
Vera understood completely.
Brian finally found the room where kids’ comics were on display, mounted on large free-standing bulletin boards flanking every wall. Where was Little Spoon? Vera hoped she was on the same bulletin board with Mistress Bow-Wow, and the flying toast, Princess Esmerelda, and Backwards Benny. Comic-con suddenly did seem like a huge and terrifying place for one little spoon to be.
Then she saw it, the one-page entry from her comic book, with the shock of seeing something so familiar in such an unfamiliar place.
A blue ribbon hanging next to it said SPECIAL MERIT.
None of the other comics—and hers was with the other After-School Superstars—had a blue ribbon, not even Harper’s. Just Little Spoon, drawn by Vera Vance, age eight.
“Look!” Nixie squealed. “You got a ribbon, Vera! Everybody, Vera got a ribbon!”
Buzz-Bee put her arm around Vera’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. Then the others—Nolan, Boogie, even James and Harper—were saying “Congratulations!” and “Good job!” and “Woo-hoo!”
Vera felt a pang of pity for Harper, who had been so sure her comic was the best.
Should she say something to her?
Saying something wasn’t as hard as it used to be.
“I thought yours was better than mine,” Vera told Harper, as the others started looking at more of the kids’ comics on display. She had to raise her voice to be heard above the din. “Honestly, I did.”
Harper brushed back her hair with a princess-gloved hand. “My mom’s going to freak out, but I don’t care. She’s the one who’s into comics, not me.”
Vera stared at her. “My mom’s the opposite! She hates comics! Well, she used to hate them.”
“My mom drew part of mine,” Harper confessed. “She kept fixing up my drawings every night after I brought them home, like nothing I ever did was good enough.” Harper paused. “I’m Little Spoon, and my mom’s Big Spoon. It’s like you based your comic on my mom and me, the way James based his on Nolan and Boogie, except you don’t even know my mom, and your comic wasn’t mean like his. It was just—I don’t know—true.”
That was what Brian had said about comics back in the first week: because comic-book characters were simple, drawn with so few features, it was easy for everyone all over the world to see themselves in them.
Vera had a strange thought. This whole past month, she had been on her own hero’s journey. Signing up for comics camp was her call to adventure. Buzz-Bee and Brian were her mentors, and Nixie, Nolan, and Boogie—even, in their own way, James and Harper—had been her helpers. Convincing her mother to let her go to comic-con had been her supreme ordeal. It had all happened just the way a comic-book version of the hero’s journey was supposed to.
Before she could think about this any more, Boogie was asking when it was time to eat, and someone else had to go to the bathroom, and the group started to head off for other comic-con adventures.
Vera gave one more glance at Little Spoon, with the bright blue ribbon hanging beside her. Then, in the doorway, she saw her mom, peering into the room with an anxious, uncomfortable gaze.
She had come.
She was there.
Nixie seized Vera’s hand and pulled her toward the door. Then, with her other hand, she grabbed hold of Vera’s mother and led them both back to the display wall.
“Vera got a ribbon!” Nixie squealed, using her head to point at Little Spoon. “A special ribbon for being the best comics maker ever! See?”
“Oh, honey!” Her mother gathered Vera into a hug, acting just as proud as when Vera had won the piano prize last year.
“Hooray for Little Spoon!” Nixie shouted.
Her mother gave Vera another hug as she added in a whisper, “And hooray for you!”