Still 9 Hours

Odessa’s tenth birthday was approaching, and she found herself wondering if this was what it meant to grow up. Did the world just get more and more mysterious? More confounding? More bewildering?

There was the attic floor, of course, and then the door with no handle under her desk. There was how your best friend could step out of the way and let you split your head open, yet continue to be your best friend. There was the way two people could smile at each other, and then one could go and remarry somebody else.

She wished she could just live in Dreamonica, where she got to make every decision—how many puppies, how big a mansion, even what color hair and eyes she had.

And speaking of eyes, there was Sadie Howell, who had turned her attention to Theo Summers, big-time.

Odessa could not compete with those pale blue eyes; she couldn’t even match their shade when she designed her online self.

Smile, blush, giggle. Smile, blush, giggle.

That was Sadie Howell. Hovering over Theo’s desk. Sitting next to him at assemblies. Running up to him at recess.

Smile, blush, giggle.

Odessa couldn’t believe this sort of thing worked. It made Sadie look kind of dumb, or—as Uncle Milo liked to say—one fry short of a Happy Meal.

But Theo seemed to fall for it. Without his shaggy hair to hide behind, Theo had no choice but to stare right back into Sadie’s eyes.

All this time Odessa had thought the secret lay in math! If she could show Theo how good she was at solving equations, he’d see that she was worthy of his love.

It seemed so stupid now. Maybe Odessa’s Happy Meal was the one missing the fry.

She needed a plan. Solutions to mysteries didn’t fall from the sky. They didn’t materialize out of thin air or show up in the bottom of a box of Honey Nut Cheerios. Library books didn’t unravel mysteries, and you couldn’t buy answers with a one-hundred-dollar bill. Asking the grown-ups in your life a whole bunch of questions wasn’t any help either.

She needed to do something.

Odessa decided to start with the mystery that seemed the most solvable: the door with no handle in her attic. She needed to open that door. She needed Uncle Milo, because for one thing he was handy, and for another, if the door opened onto a secret world or an alternate universe, he was the person she’d want to take with her when she abandoned her old life for a new one.

But Milo hadn’t come around in a while, and when Odessa asked Mom why, she smiled a goofy smile.

“He’s been busy.”

“Doing what?”

Uncle Milo was famous for doing nothing.

Mom grasped Odessa’s hands and leaned in close, barely able to contain her excitement. “He’s been spending time with a nice young woman named Meredith.”

Meredith? Meredith?

Odessa immediately pictured this Meredith with pale blue eyes.

Smile. Blush. Giggle.

“He’s bringing her to dinner,” Mom said. “Saturday night.”

Dinner was always better when Uncle Milo came over, but Uncle Milo always came alone.

Meredith? Odessa anticipated the evening with a combination of giddiness and dread.

She felt downright griddy.

What if Meredith didn’t like children?

What if she was a sour-faced adult with no sense of humor? What if she smelled funny or had horse teeth?

Or what if she was nice and friendly and pretty like Jennifer, but still a stranger who didn’t belong in the family?

Saturday morning was haircut day. It had been three months since the last visit to Snippity-Do-Dah, which only meant that Odessa’s long, straight hair was a little longer and a little straighter. Oliver’s short hair had grown shaggy, though not in a cute-shaggy way like Theo Summers’s—more in an I-just-crawled-out-from-under-a-rock-shaggy sort of way.

Odessa liked Snippity-Doo-Dah because they gave out lollipops, and not the tiny kind you could crunch your way through in two seconds. Their lollipops lasted.

Odessa stared at herself in her mirror. She pulled long strands of hair over her face and then folded them up to just above her eyebrows, so she could see what she’d look like with bangs.

Cute.

She turned her head away and then whipped it back around to the mirror, trying to catch herself off guard. She wanted her knee-jerk reaction.

Still cute.

She picked up the phone to call Sofia. Sofia would have an opinion on bangs. She was full of opinions. She would have an opinion about bangs in general, and about bangs on Odessa, but Odessa put the phone back down.

She didn’t totally trust Sofia. And she was still a little mad at her. Sofia didn’t know about the “Odessa liked you shaggy” comment or that she’d had a fit on the school steps, so she probably thought everything was fine between them.

But what about her reaction when she thought Odessa and Theo were hiding a secret boyfriend-girlfriend relationship? It was as if she couldn’t believe Theo would ever like Odessa in that way!

Odessa had gone back and fixed all that, but still, she knew … even if Sofia didn’t. That made it hard to trust her, though they were still best friends in real life and in Dreamonica.

It was complicated.

In the car on the way to Snippity-Do-Dah Odessa said, “I’m getting bangs.” It felt good to have made this decision without Sofia’s approval.

“Oh, honey,” Mom said. “Are you sure?”

“Its just bangs, Mom,” Odessa shot back. Bangs were easy. Simple. Bangs were not at all complicated.

“Well, it’s up to you, I suppose, but I just want to make sure you’ve given it some thought.”

Sadie Howell had bangs. Odessa couldn’t go to Snippity-Do-Dah and ask for pale blue eyes, but she could ask for bangs.

Big mistake.

When she got home Odessa rushed to her room to see what she could do about her new, not-so-fabulous look. She stared at the mirror that only an hour ago had told her bangs were a good idea. Cute, even.

Stupid mirror.

Odessa grabbed her green crushed-velvet headband. Her favorite. She wore it most days anyway, so maybe nobody would notice if she used it to hold those horrible bangs up off of her forehead. But her hair just poked out and looked weird.

She had only nine falls through the floorboards left. Five fingers on one hand, four on the other. You don’t need to be a math whiz to understand that nine is not a large number.

Odessa had a feeling there were important things to do with these opportunities. She wasn’t sure what, exactly, but she knew she needed to make them count.

Should she use one to undo a haircut?

Probably not. After all, hair grows back.

But Odessa couldn’t afford to look not-so-fabulous. There was Sadie Howell. And Meredith was coming for dinner.

Bangs mattered. Bangs were important.

*

Back at Snippity-Do-Dah, sitting in the bright yellow swivel chair, Odessa looked at herself in the mirror.

Bangs. How stupid!

“Just a little off the bottom,” she said. “Thank you very much!”