You can’t just drop a dead sister into the conversation.
If it accidentally comes up that my sister died, everybody freezes, their mouths hanging open and their eyes wide. Then they shift around awkwardly, muttering apologies, and I have to assure them it’s okay, it’s fine, don’t worry!
Well, that’s not at all what happened today. But usually that’s how it goes: silence, shuffling, sorry, okay.
It came up more when I was younger, before I learned to steer the conversation away at any hint we might be heading in that direction. Sisters, siblings, death? Find the nearest exit, please. In first grade when we were learning graphing, Ms. Murphy told us to stand up when she got to how many siblings we had. Zero? One? Two? Chairs scraped the floor as kids stood up and sat back down, with Ms. Murphy counting. I raised my hand to ask, “What if I have a sister, but she’s dead? Is that a zero or a one?” Poor Ms. Murphy wasn’t sure either. She said Um, oh, it’s, oh, ah, your choice? Then she blinked very many times and erased that graph and switched to How many teeth have you lost? That night, she called my parents in for a conference to discuss what had happened and to apologize to them. They explained why I had seemed so factual about the situation, so Ms. Murphy wouldn’t think I was a scary unfeeling loon, and comforted her. She retired the next year.
My mom says it definitely wasn’t because I had traumatized her.
But Mom is like that, very supportive. Always on my side. Never gets mad.
My dad doesn’t get mad either, actually. To be fair, he seems generally pretty unemotional about anything that’s not the outer planets.
Except when it comes to the subject of Bret. Just the mention of my sister’s name makes both Mom and Dad kind of jolty, though they attempt to hide it. Now that I’m almost fourteen, I try not to bring up Bret anymore. You know how if you drop something on the subway tracks, you have to just leave it? You can maybe still see it, your bead necklace or phone or whatever, but too bad; you can’t ever get it back. That’s kind of what the topic of Bret is like for us at this point.
But today it came up at Monday-out-day lunch, while AJ Rojanasopondist was insisting that his brother Neal must’ve stolen his permission slip. Which didn’t make any sense, obviously. Why would adorable little Neal want to steal AJ’s permission slip?
“It’s a conspiracy,” Emmett explained, in solidarity with his best friend.
“It’s true,” AJ insisted. “Neal is evil.”
Emmett smiled at that. He has the most genuinely happy smile. It takes over his whole face.
Before lunch, Mr. Phillips had snapped his fingers and told AJ, in front of the whole class, that if he didn’t get his parents to deliver a signed permission slip by the end of the day, he wouldn’t be allowed to go on the trip tomorrow to the concert at the cathedral. So AJ spent the whole lunch period pleading with his mom on Emmett’s phone (AJ’s phone was dead, as usual) while simultaneously shoving three slices of pizza into his mouth, practically whole.
AJ Eating should be its own channel on YouTube. Everybody would watch it. I’m not kidding; it’s seriously that good. The guy barely has to chew.
He and Emmett had taken the other two chairs at the table where Sienna and I were in Famiglia, so it’s not like we could politely not listen to AJ trying to convince his mom that little Neal must have stolen the permission slip out of his binder.
“He just wants to mess me up constantly,” AJ complained to us after he said good-bye, thanks, I love you to his mom, and handed Emmett’s phone back. We all threw out our used plates and napkins. Sienna and I walked out with them into the sunshine of Broadway and stopped in front of the big group of Loud Crowd kids who were stalled there. “Neal may look sweet,” AJ continued. “But he is actually a demon child.”
Emmett, whose older sister, Daphne, is quiet and studious, said, “Ugh, demon siblings are the worst.” Then he looked at me apologetically, realizing.
“Don’t you love permission slips?” I asked, to get off the sibling topic.
“I hate them,” AJ said. “Permission slips are my enemy.”
“Gracie loves permission slips?” Riley Valvert asked, rolling her pretty blue eyes toward her Loud Crowd friends about how lame I am. “That’s so sad.”
“Permission slips are amazing,” I said. “Are you kidding?”
Riley looked blankly back at me. She is basically never kidding, so, fair point. Riley is in the Loud Crowd, but despite how beautiful she is, they don’t seem to like her very much. If she weren’t so nasty, and so pretty, I’d feel sorry for her.
“I love that my parents have to sign a crumpled scrap of paper,” I explained. “And then just that little nothing, which I fully could have forged, gives teachers legal cover to ditch school with us to go do some random nonschool thing. How is that not amazing?”
“Good point,” Beth chirped.
“Absolutely,” Beth’s best friend, Michaela, agreed. She was holding hands with David. They’ve been going out since the end of seventh grade.
“Wait, Gracie—you can forge signatures?” AJ asked me.
“My own parents’, sure,” I said. “Yours, not so much.”
“But maybe you could try—”
“It is kind of random,” Emmett interrupted. “Permission slips, and off we go?”
“Right?” I seconded. “I want to marry permission slips.”
“Ew,” Riley said, rolling her eyes again, this time to Michaela, who shrugged.
“So do I,” Emmett said. I love Emmett. He is simply the best. He helps everybody out. “We could have a double wedding.”
“Perfect,” I agreed.
“AJ, you always forget everything,” Beth teased, poking him in the ribs.
“Well, my mom said she’d e-mail in a fresh one,” AJ said, wiggling away from Beth’s tiny tickling fingers. “But if she doesn’t manage it, Gracie, maybe you could . . .”
Since AJ kept talking to me, the Loud Crowd was stuck walking back to school with us. Usually it’s just me and Sienna, sometimes Emmett, occasionally AJ. Sienna and I don’t really hang much with the Loud Crowd. Sienna is quiet and shy, but like the Loud Crowd girls, she is very pretty and also good at sports; I’m neither of those, but I’m easygoing and fun, which is also like them. We’re just not involved in the jostling-for-popularity competition, and we don’t go to parties or get asked out or stuff like that.
“Oh, sure,” Riley said, rolling her eyes yet again. “Like Gracie could forge convincingly.”
I heard Sienna groan. Riley is like a rash to her. But Sienna is nice to everybody, and nobody wants to get into it with Riley.
Riley sighed dramatically. “Well, I know what you mean, AJ, about demon siblings. My sister and I are constantly up for the same parts when we, you know . . .”
“When you what?” Emmett asked. Wise guy. Though I did appreciate it.
“Oh. We’re auditioning for commercials downtown.”
“Are you?” Emmett asked, all innocent.
“And print media.” Riley shook her shiny dark hair off her face, not even mocking herself, just doing it. “Sometimes they want both of us.” She and her even prettier older sister are trying to break into commercials and modeling, a fact she manages to mention Every. Single. Day. “But my sister is being such a pill about going on open calls lately. Gracie’s lucky she doesn’t—”
“Riley!” Sienna snapped at her.
“What?” Riley rolled her bright blue eyes dramatically. Eye-rolling: Riley’s one facial expression other than blankly flawless. “She so is. Admit it, Gracie. Ugh. Only child? I wish!”
Emmett turned his back to Riley and said, “So anyway, Gracie . . .”
“It’s okay,” I told him.
Just ahead of us, Michaela and Beth giggled at something together. Riley sped up so she wouldn’t miss out, nudging past Ben to wedge in next to Beth. Hallelujah.
“Let’s just get back,” Sienna said. “Hey, Gracie, are we still going to visit the new tortoises Thursday? Your mom said okay?”
“Yeah, definitely.”
“Yeah, Sienna’s right,” Riley said over her shoulder, oblivious to the fact that we’d moved on to the much more enjoyable topic of tortoises. “We better hurry. If we’re two seconds late, they act like we killed somebody.”
Now Emmett groaned.
“What?” Riley asked. “Oh, because Gracie? You guys act like Gracie is all delicate or something. Have you ever met anybody less delicate?”
“None taken,” I said.
Riley shrugged and went back to whispering to her friends.
“Is she trying to be nasty or is she actually an incurably terrible person?” Sienna growled, quietly enough so Riley wouldn’t hear, as we crossed Broadway at 110th.
“Maybe she just has gas,” I whispered back.
“Ha!” Ben said. “Gas!” I guess he heard me. I shrugged at him.
“She just, ugh.” Sienna gritted her teeth and watched her sneakers hit the pavement.
All of us got stuck together in the median, while uptown and downtown traffic flew by on either side.
“I don’t know why everybody has to be so careful,” Riley murmured, still on the edge of calm, her graceful hands resting on her narrow hips. “Gracie said herself that it’s okay. Right, Gracie?”
Everybody looked at me.
“Oh!” I quickly said. “It’s fine! Anyway—”
“See?” Riley interrupted, smiling so pretty. “I mean, it’s not like she even knew her sister. She didn’t kill her. So I don’t see why it’s such a thing.”
The light changed. Riley linked her arm through Beth’s and whispered something to her as they crossed the street ahead of us.
Sienna touched my arm to hold me back from stepping off the median and into the street, letting some space grow between those people and us. “You okay?”
“Sure!” I smiled. “She’s just . . . being Riley. It’s fine. Anybody have gum?”
Emmett and Sienna both instantly handed me their packs. “Thanks.” I took one from each and shoved both pieces into my mouth as we crossed the street. “Bet I can blow a bubble as big as my face before we get back,” I said.
“Bet,” Emmett said.
He won, but not by much.