Chapter 9

Saturday morning, Fred and Jan drove me to the bus station. I’m always sort of nervous on the weekends that I go to visit my mother. I mean, before I go, I’m nervous. Once I’m there, it’s different. I don’t know why I get so nervous. It’s the same way I feel when I have to take an exam. I don’t like to talk much, and I start chewing on the ends of my hair. When my mother was home, she was always trying to break me of the habit. She’d say, “Ami, honey, if you only knew—it makes your hair smell like a wet dog.”

As soon as I got in the backseat of the car, I noticed that my hair was wet and smelly. I must have been chewing it at breakfast.

“Sit closer,” Fred said to Jan. She scooted over a little on the front seat. “Closer,” he said.

“That’s close enough.”

“Not for me.”

“Well, it is for me, frogface.”

Jan is a math wizard, maybe even a genius, but you’d never know it from just talking to her. Fred says she’s the real stuff. She and Fred have been going together for almost a year, ever since Jan moved here from someplace called Roscoe, Illinois. It’s the longest Fred’s ever gone with a girl. When I told Jan that, she said, “Me, too, Ami. I’ve never gone with a guy for more than two months.” So I have this idea that they might get married. I’d really like that, although it wouldn’t be until they’ve both gone to college. Fred says Jan is going to walk off with all the math prizes and scholarships when she graduates.

“So how’re things in the seventh grade, Ami?” she said.

“Okay.”

“Anything bizarre, crazy, or foolish happen lately?”

Jan asks that every time she sees me. I finally figured out what to say. “So much, that I couldn’t tell you all of it.”

Jan laughed. “Did I ever tell you about the mathdown I was in, in junior high?”

I leaned over the backseat. “What’s a mathdown?” Then I leaned back in case she could smell my hair.

“You know, like a spelling bee, only for math. Three of us went to meet a math team from Roosevelt, our most hated rival school. Me, Donny Evvert, and Lisa Skolnick,” she said. “We were the little shining lights of the junior high math department. Everybody said we were going to cream the other team. We were so sure of ourselves! We were going to wing it, but our advisor said, ‘You kids want to go to meet Roosevelt, you kids prepare.’ So we moaned and groaned, but we prepared. Then! When we got to Roosevelt that day, we were in our usual jeans and shirts. Their team came out all dressed up. In black. Total black. Like they were going to a funeral. Guess what, they were. Ours. They whipped us so bad, we just slunk out of there.”

“How come that didn’t teach you a little humility?” Fred said. “You could use it.”

“Look who’s talking. The French chef, himself.”

“How’d you do in the French test, by the way?”

“Don’t mention it. How’d you do?”

“What do you think? Aced it.”

“Ratface! I just made it through.”

“Come to France,” Fred said. Now he sounded serious. “That’s the way to really learn French. You’ve still got time to apply.”

Jan turned around again. “Do you believe this guy, Ami? Your loony tunes brother—”

“What’s so loony about it?” Fred said.

“You want me to live your life, Fred?” Jan sounded serious, too. “This isn’t the dark ages, you know.”

I had the feeling they’d talked about this a whole lot of times before. They were edgy with each other. I scrunched back in my seat. I don’t like being around people when they’re fighting. It’s sort of like eavesdropping, only worse when it’s your own family.

“France is for you,” Jan said, “and math is for me. I can’t afford to lose three months.”

“You know it all already.”

“Oh, how can you say that! Fred, that’s stupid! Do you know everything about France?”

“Look, don’t call me stupid.”

Jan moved all the other way over to the window. Neither of them said anything. Did everybody fight? Didn’t it mean anything when you loved someone? Wasn’t that enough? Maybe they were going to break up; that was the way it started with my parents. Nobody said anything to anybody until Fred pulled up in front of the bus station. I put on my knapsack. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Tell Mom I’ll drive down to see her. Maybe next weekend.”

“Okay. Bye. Bye, Jan.” I got out.

“Ami?” I turned around. Jan had her head out the window. “Have a good time!” She threw me a kiss, which was nice, but I would have felt a whole lot better if she and Fred hadn’t had that fight.

The bus trip to New Castle takes almost three hours. I had a lunch with me and a paperback book. The last time I went down to visit my mother, a woman in a red blouse sat next to me. She put her head back and closed her eyes. “Don’t talk to me,” she said. I wasn’t even going to.

I sat down and this time a boy in blue jeans took the seat next to me. I was feeling sort of upset because of Jan and Fred, and I decided if the boy in blue jeans told me not to talk, I’d tell him to go find himself another seat.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” the bus driver said. “May I have your attention, please. Smoking only in the rear. Cigarettes only, please, no cigars, no pipes, and no wacky weeds. Thank you and have a pleasant trip.”

The bus started. The boy opened a magazine and put on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. That’s when I realized he wasn’t a boy at all, but a man—the tiniest grown man I’d ever seen. A miniman.

He wore shiny, polished moccasins. Each little foot was about half the size of one of my sneakers. He pushed his glasses up on his little nose, coughed, and patted his mouth with his little hand. He acted just like anybody normal, but then I had this strange thought. What if he came from outer space? What if he was a representative of some other species? A tiny, very smart species come to find out about us giants, who were doing so many dumb things on earth. All of a sudden he put down his magazine and said, “Where are you going?”

I jumped. “N-New Castle.”

“New Castle. Nice town. They hear me. Right on the edge of my territory.”

My skin prickled. Hear me? Territory? Was I right? Were there other tiny aliens? A whole band of little peoplelike beings, all with their own territories?

“Since we’re seatmates,” he said, “we might as well introduce ourselves.”

I thought, He has a nice voice … talks like anybody else …

“I’m Harley Juster.”

… good-looking, all that dark hair.… It looks normal.…

Harley Juster’s eyebrows went up. “And your name is—?”

How embarrassing. He was reminding me of my manners. “Ami. Ami Pelter.”

He put out his hand. It was a perfect little man’s hand. Short fingers, pink nails, dark hairs growing along the knuckles. We shook hands. My big hand swallowed up his little hand.

“Why’re you going to New Castle, Ami?”

“To visit my mother.” I hoped he wouldn’t ask why my mother lived one place and I lived someplace else.

“So what do you do, Ami?”

“I go to school.”

He nodded and smiled. He looked like he was waiting for me to say something else. Suddenly I got it. “What do you do, Mr. Juster?”

“Call me Harley. I work in radio, Ami. Do you ever listen to WYME?”

“Yes.”

“I’m surprised you don’t recognize my voice.” He thrust his neck around inside his collar and said, “Boys and girls! It’s hit time with—”

“Oh!” All of a sudden I knew who he was. “You’re—”

“— haaard-hitting Haaarley!”

“You’re famous!”

“Well.…” He smiled.

We talked all the way to New Castle. He told me how he got into his radio career. He said he’d been working in radio for almost twenty years. “You don’t just get your own show because you want it. You have to pay your dues. I’ve done all the little jobs, I’ve done everything, and never made much money, either. It’s the glory you’re there for, in radio, not the money. I persisted because it was my dream to have my own show, and finally I got it five years ago.”

“That’s wonderful, Mr. Juster.” Now that I knew he was famous, I felt sort of shy, but at the same time he was so nice it was really easy to talk to him. Just before we got to New Castle, he asked me if I’d like to make any special request for his show on Monday. At first I thought about Mia and me and Robert. Then I had a better idea. I asked him to play “I Still Love You,” by The Secrets and say it was for Fred and Jan.

“Special friends?”

“My brother and his girlfriend.”

“Very good, and you want the usual? Dedicated to Fred and Jan from Ami?”

“Could you say, from a secret friend?”

Harley smiled. “Sure.”

“New Castle next,” the bus driver called. “New Castle coming up fast, folks.”

I started getting my things together. Then I thought of something else. “Would you mind giving me your autograph?” I found a piece of paper and he wrote, “To Ami, a new friend. With all best wishes from Harley Juster.” I thanked him and we shook hands.

I stood up as the bus pulled into the station. I saw Mom through the window. Tallest woman in the crowd. I get my size from her. She’s taller than my father, just like Jan is taller than Fred. Come to think of it, Ms. Linsley is taller than Dad.

When Mom was living home, I never thought about what she looked like. She was there, she was my mom. Now, whenever I see her, it’s just like looking at a picture of someone I recognize, someone I know that I know, but who I don’t remember all the little details about, and yet I do remember. I know that sounds strange. But that’s the best way I can explain it.

Also, Mom does look a little different now because one, she cut her hair, and two, she lost some weight and changed the way she dresses. She used to just wear jeans and T-shirts or old shirts of my father’s around the house. “I’m comfortable,” she used to say. But I guess she can’t dress that way now that she’s got a job. Or maybe she doesn’t like to, anymore. Today she was wearing wide, green corduroy slacks and a light purple blouse, one of those Indian-looking blouses, with embroidery around the neck, and long silver earrings. She looked beautiful! She was standing with her hands in her pockets, watching the people come out of the bus.

She saw me right away. “Ami!” She came forward, a big stride, a big smile, her arms out. “Ami!”

“Hi, Mom.” We hugged; it was sort of awkward, arms and elbows. My throat was tight and my smile felt tight, too. We both started talking at once. “I had such a great trip, I met this neat man—”

“Are you hungry?”

“—works in radio—”

“We could go out. Pizza or—”

“—and he’s so small, really teeny, but after you talk to him for a few minutes—”

“—or go to my place, whichever you—”

Then we both stopped at the same moment. Mom leaned over me and sniffed. “You’ve been biting your hair.” She hugged me again, harder, and then she stood back and looked at me. “Oh, it’s so good to see you, honey. I’ve missed you a lot.”

All of a sudden, tears came up into my eyes.

We walked to Mom’s car, holding hands.