Up in front of the classroom, Mrs. Stanek was writing on the board, her raised arm tight in her purple sleeve. The chalk was thick and dusty, the words a bunch of loops and whorls that seemed to jump as Sam looked at them.
Never mind, he knew what it was all about anyway: the unit on the Middle Ages they were starting.
“Pease porridge hot,” Mrs. Stanek said over her shoulder. “Remember that old nursery rhyme?”
Some of the kids joined in. “Pease porridge cold. Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old.”
“It's what they ate in those days,” genius Marcy Albert said. “Peas on thick bread shaped into plates.”
“You're right,” said Mrs. Stanek. “The plates were called trenchers. After the rich ate the peas, they gave the bread away to the poor.”
Across the room, Eric caught Sam's eye. He made gagging motions with his finger to his mouth.
Sam grinned; he shaded his eyes with his hands so Mrs. Stanek wouldn't notice him glancing around. She was talking about spices now, something about people using cinnamon and cloves in the medieval days. But he was hardly thinking about mashed-up peas and bread, or spices. He had to single someone out to help him read that paper in the attic, to go through the things that might be in the box. The boys would think he was weird, so it had to be a girl.
Marcy Albert was possible. She could read, but she could talk, too. He could almost hear her. We sneaked up to his attic, can you imagine, he's looking for something but he doesn't even know exactly what. Besides, Marcy Albert wouldn't climb up the side of the building in a million years.
There wasn't anyone else he could think of except maybe that new girl, Caroline. She'd arrived a month or so ago, the door banging open in the middle of the morning. A Kleenex coiled out of her sleeve like a white snake; her hair was tangerine. Nice face, ski-jump nose, freckles, tinted glasses.
Since then all she'd done was read every chance she had, a dozen bracelets jangling as she turned the pages. She wasn't too friendly; he hadn't seen her smile once.
Now Mrs. Stanek marched around the room. “Ah, Sam.” She put a picture of a castle on his desk. “Maybe you could make one for us. There's cardboard in the closet, paper, scissors, glue—”
Nice going, Mrs. Stanek, he wanted to say; she knew he wouldn't have to read a word to cut out a castle.
“We'll have a lovely feast at the end of the unit,” Mrs. Stanek said as she kept moving.
With peas on bread?
Sam looked over at Eric and slashed his throat with one finger. Eric slashed back. Mrs. Stanek raised her eyebrows, and Eric turned the throat slashing into throat scratching.
Sam almost laughed, but he thought of the attic again, and reading the clipping. He glanced over at the new girl, her head bent over her book.
Lunchtime came. “We're all friends in fifth grade,” Mrs. Stanek said, as she always did. That meant everyone had to sit in the cafeteria the way they lined up. She never noticed the switching around on the stairs, kids sliding along the banisters, using their elbows to get where they wanted. But no one had elbows as sharp as his. By the last turn, he was in back of Caroline New Girl, and managed to slide onto the bench next to her.
He opened his lunch bag, feeling the sun that gleamed in from the high windows overhead. He glanced at her: the lunch bag on her lap, the book on the table in front of her. She began to turn the pages, reaching into the bag for a sandwich.
He cleared his throat. “I'm Sam.” Dumb, she had to know that by now.
The ends of her sandwich were ragged, the crusts torn off. It looked as if the whole thing had been glued together with purple jelly.
Sam didn't know what his own lunch was yet. Every morning he stopped at Onji's Deli next door and had a second breakfast in the warm back room while Onji made a sandwich, a meatball hero maybe, or turkey on thick slabs of rye bread. Best lunch in the school. Sam unwrapped today's, pastrami with sauerkraut on rye, a couple of pickles in a Baggie, and a bunch of salty pretzel sticks.
He knew she was looking at him. Maybe he should ask if she wanted some, but already she'd taken a huge bite of hers, jelly dripping onto her sweater. And she was smiling a little, bread on her braces. Nice smile.
She pointed with a jelly-tipped finger.
He looked down: a Gummi Bear poked out of his sandwich. That Onji!
“There are more of them in with the pickles,” she said as if she might laugh.
He picked them out. Eleven of them. “It's my birthday, but don't tell anyone. Mrs. Stanek will make me wear that crown thing.”
She grinned again. “So, Sam.”
“Yeah.”
“Sam as in Sam 1 Am? As in My Brother Sam Is Dead?
Samuel Morse, Sam and the Firefly! Maybe Sam Spade, the detective?”
He knew them all from books Anima had read to him. “Samson.”
“Samson was tough.”
“I'm tougher, but don't tell anyone that, either.”
“I'm a sphinx.” A quick smile and she swiped at a blob of jelly at the corner of her mouth, her bracelets clinking. “Sam what, again?”
“MacKenzie.” Something lurched in his chest. Bell.
“Hey, Sam MacKenzie, birthday kid, slide over one of those Gummi Bears. Just one won't kill my braces.”
She was the one. Somehow he'd get her to help. He grinned at her and handed her a couple.
“One thing.” She looked up at the windows the way he'd done. “Don't think I'm going to be friends. I won't be here long enough.”
He sat there chewing, pretending he didn't care whether she was his friend or not. The lunch hour seemed endless, but at last they went back to the classroom to work on the medieval project.
He glanced up at the clock: a half hour before he had to go to Mrs. Waring's Resource Room.
Five kids were writing a play, and Eric was jumping around in front with a sword.
“Calm down.” Mrs. Stanek went around the room. She stopped at Sam's desk. “I have another picture of a castle for you.”
Sam looked at it: fields, a knight in armor, and a dark castle in the mist with turrets, and a moat, and slits for windows. A castle so dark you could hardly see to copy it. He held it up. Something was wrong with it. He'd seen a castle once somewhere, and it didn't look much like this.
“All right?” Mrs. Stanek asked.
“Nothing to it.” Impossible with cardboard.
“Need some help?”
He shook his head. But Mrs. Stanek snapped her fingers. “Caroline—”
“A girl?” He curled his lip.
“We're all friends in fifth grade. Caroline?”
Caroline blinked, her eyebrows a V over her forehead.
“I'd like you to work on the castle project with Sam.” Mrs. Stanek smiled at them with large teeth, as if she were doing them a favor.
Caroline closed her book. She screeched her desk over a few feet, Kleenex floating out behind her.
“You might keep a diary of your progress,” Mrs. Stanek told her as she moved toward another group. “Write down the steps you take.”
Caroline rummaged around inside her desk and pulled out a lipstick.
A lipstick?
She ran it over her mouth, smacking her lips, then smeared most of it away with the back of her hand.
“How old are you, anyway?” he asked.
“Ten years, eight months”—she screwed up her face with its dots of freckles—“and nine days. Or so.”
“You left about ten years, eight months, and—”
“Nine days?”
“—worth of Kleenex on the floor, and you have lipstick on your braces.”
“Whatever.”
“That's what I say.” This kid was terrific. He kept his mouth still. No smile. Not friends.
She picked up the picture of the castle, turning it one way and then another. “Who knows what this is about?” But then she stood one of the cardboard pieces he'd found in the closet on end and made cutting motions. “I guess we could cut squares into the top and glue the whole mess together.”
As he looked at her, the idea came to him. Suppose they built a castle out of wood? It wouldn't have to be much, just four slabs knocked together. And then maybe—
“My grandfather has a workshop. We could build a wooden one there,” he said, almost as if he didn't care one way or the other.
And read what was up in the attic. He'd fix the pipe, or maybe Mack would be out and they'd use the pulldown stairs.
“Not work in the classroom?” she said.
“Well, some of it, I guess.” He glanced up toward Mrs. Stanek, who was watching them, looking pleased. “I don't think she'd mind.”
“One thing. Where do you live?”
“One thing.” He echoed her words, for fun. “It's on the road out of town. We'll take the school bus.”
“But how will I get home again? I live near the school.”
“A town bus goes along the road. Don't worry—”
“I can come on Wednesday, or maybe Friday.” She hesitated. “I have to babysit for my little sister sometimes.”
“Wednesday's good. Friday's good.”
Possible. Anything was possible.
Caroline's fingers went to her hair, twirling a piece in front. “Maybe.”
He grinned. “Yes.”