Chapter 6

Friday morning, when I came down to breakfast, the first thing I saw was a little chipmunk Alcott had killed and left on the rug by the door. I don’t understand why Alcott has to kill chipmunks when we feed him twice a day. I picked up the tiny corpse and tossed it into the bushes. It made me feel really bad, and the whole day seemed to go wrong from that moment on.

To begin with, Dad and Fred almost had a fight at the breakfast table. It started when Fred said he wouldn’t be eating supper at Ms. Linsley’s that night with us. “I have other plans. Jan and I are going to a movie.”

Dad broke eggs into a bowl. “Invite Jan for supper, too, Fred—Ami, make us some toast—I’ll clear it with Forrest, Fred. I’m sure it’ll be okay with her.”

“No, thanks.” Fred opened his French book and started reading with a definite discussion over look on his face.

“Is it a matter of not enough time, Fred?” Dad turned the flame up on the stove. “What time does the movie start?”

“Dad, it doesn’t make any difference if I go to supper there or not. So, why go?”

“Well, I think it does make a difference.” Dad put the eggs on the table and sat down. “Fred, I’d like to have you there and so would Forrest.”

“She’s not interested in me,” Fred said. “That’s a purely political invitation.”

“Political invitation?” I said. “What does that mean? What are you talking about?”

“Ms. Linsley’s running for office. Four-letter title beginning with w. Rhymes with strife.”

“Wait one second!” Dad said. “Slow down, Fred. Forrest and I are just friends. Furthermore—” Dad glanced at me.

I picked up my fork and waited. Futhermore, your mother is coming back home to live. The trial period is over. It didn’t work.

“— furthermore,” Dad said, “Forrest is a fine person and I don’t want to hurt her feelings.”

“But I still don’t want to come,” Fred said. He pushed back his chair. “I’m not her friend. Okay? Can we leave it at that?”

“No, we can’t leave it at that. You were invited. I want you to come. I don’t think your reason for not coming is sufficient.”

“Are you ordering me?”

“Fred, when do I order you to do things? I would like you to show up at Forrest’s home for supper, but of your own free will.”

“Then of my own free will, I’ll pass this time.”

They kept looking at each other. Their faces are so much alike! But Dad’s face gets almost white when he’s mad, while Fred’s face flushes. Finally, Dad shrugged. “Suit yourself, Fred.” And he turned to me. “I can count on you, can’t I, Ami?”

I felt right in the middle, but I said, “Sure, Dad.” What I really wanted to say was the same thing Fred had said. I’ll pass. And more, too. You’re still married to Mom, I don’t think you should be having dates. I thought it, but I couldn’t get it out.

When I met Mia on the way to school, she said, “Ami! I have something to tell you!” She put her arm around my waist. “First, I have a question for you. Don’t rush your answer. This is a biggie. What color are Robert’s eyes?”

It was hard for me to stop thinking about Ms. Linsley and Dad. “Blue,” I said.

“Wrong! That’s what I thought, too. But they’re brown! I saw him with his glasses off in Mrs. Giordono’s office.”

“When? You didn’t tell me you saw him, Mia.” Suddenly, I got upset all over again. “Why do I have to keep saying this to you? We’re supposed to tell each other everything.”

Mia dropped her arm from around my waist. “I know, I know. Don’t yell at me. I just forgot until this moment. Anyway, it was only the other day. Remember when I was late meeting you? I walked into the office to get a late pass. And there he was, for the same thing. He was late, too!”

“You were both late?”

“Yes! Isn’t that amazing?”

“Did he say anything?”

“No. But he had his glasses off and he looked right at me. His eyes are definitely brown.”

Later, for some reason, that conversation kept going around in my head. His eyes are definitely brown. World-shaking news, Mia. What if I’d said that to her, in just that mean, sarcastic way? But I never would. It was just like the morning—I didn’t want to hurt Dad’s feelings. I didn’t want to hurt Mia’s feelings. But was that the true reason I didn’t say it? Or was it because I was too much of a coward to tell people what I really thought?

Mia came home with me after school. We made sandwiches and milk shakes and took them up to my room. After we ate, we took the archives box down from my closet. Mia still gags every time she sees Raymond Fuller’s bubble gum. “Just don’t look at it,” I said.

“I can’t help it. Don’t you ever have a feeling like you have to look at something, or think about something, and you definitely don’t want to, but you do it, anyway?”

I got out the notebook. I knew what she meant. It was like thinking about my mother.

I opened the notebook and passed it to Mia. “You start.”

Across the top of a sheet of paper, Mia wrote, SEEING ROBERT IN THE OFFICE. Then on the next line, It was an unexpected thrill. I walked in and there he was, leaning coolly against the counter. I would have recognized that flaming red hair anywhere! Mia is really good at writing our reports. If it were up to me, I would probably write something like, “We saw him. He was wearing his Prince T-shirt. We thought he looked cute.” But Mia makes everything sound better.

To my utter surprise, she continued, his eyes were not sky blue, but a deep, sad brown, like the color of autumn leaves. She bit the pen. “Anything else about his eyes?”

“I think we used deep, sad brown for Bruno.”

“How can you remember that far back?”

“Well, you always write stuff like deep, sad brown.”

“I do? That’s terrible! Uggh! I’ll never use those words again!” She chewed on the pen. “We need something different, but now all I can think of is deep, sad brown; deep, sad brown. You’re right, Ami, I’m in a rut.” She crossed out the end of her sentence and pushed the notebook over to me. “You write something about his eyes.”

The only thing I could think of was the chipmunk Alcott had killed. “What about—eyes the color of chipmunk fur?”

“That’s not very romantic. Okay, okay, let me write something else.”

I didn’t like the way she grabbed the notebook back. “Give me a chance, Mia. You can’t make up the whole thing.”

“I’m not making it up, Ami. It happened to me. I walked in the office and I saw Robert, and he took off his glasses, and I saw—”

“I know. I know! I’ve heard it now a dozen times. What I mean is, even when it happens to one of us, it’s supposed to be like it happened to both of us. You know that’s the way we do things. And that’s why you should have told me right away.”

“I said I was sorry! Do you want me to go home?”

I almost said yes. I didn’t understand why we were fighting. I didn’t understand anything. Why did I feel so awful? Because Alcott killed a chipmunk? Because Mia saw Robert without me? Because I was eating supper at Ms. Linsley’s house?

I looked out the window, at our street and all the houses, one next to the other. Mrs. Demoley was wheeling her baby twins. Vance Carley was making a huge racket on his motorbike. Nothing felt real. It was like seeing things in a movie.

I leaned my forehead against the glass. A plum tree grows right outside my window. It has a shaggy black trunk and every summer it produces tiny sour plums that no one likes. “Every morning when I wake up, I see the branches of that tree,” I said.

“I know,” Mia said.

“We’ve lived in this house for six years.”

“I know.”

“The plum tree’s grown a lot since we moved here. I wonder how old it is.” Suddenly, I thought about the tree dying, no white flowers in spring, no red plums in summer. “What if it dies? What if somebody chops it down?”

“Who’s going to do that?”

“I don’t know! All sorts of crazy things happen. It could happen while I was in school. Somebody could just come along with an ax. What if I wake up tomorrow and the tree is gone?”

“It won’t be,” Mia said.

“How do you know?”

“Ami! The plum tree will be there tomorrow morning.”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Maybe!” Mia clapped her hands to her head. “I’ve got a crazy friend, folks! She thinks a fifteen-foot plum tree is going to disappear overnight! Ami, take my word for it, little plum tree is safe. Nobody is going to harm little plum tree. Look.” She showed me what she had written in the notebook.… eyes the color of chipmunk fur.

“Take it out,” I said, “it’s awful.”

“I like it.”

“It was better the way you had it.”

“I’m serious, Ami, it’s really better your way. I’ve got to stop writing things like autumn leaves. Autumn leaves! That’s so boring. If I gave your father my paper, I bet he’d write CLICHÉ all over it!”

“Well,” I said, “if he doesn’t like autumn leaves, how come he likes Forrest?” It was such a crazy thing to say, we both started laughing.