Izzy Kline Has Butterflies Page 4

  What? No, she says.

  Mom, James says. Put on a coat.

  Dad has already gone to the closet. He’s carrying a

  big black fur coat he must have dug up from the way

  back.

  I glance at James.

  He sometimes goes through Mom’s pockets for

  change and I bet he missed this one,

  and it looks fancy, like it might have more than just

  loose change jangling around inside.

  Are you crazy? Mom says.

  But she puts it on and they leave us and we watch

  from the window as the top on the car comes down,

  turning somehow into a chariot.

  It’s like Cinderella, I say out loud.

  Yeah, right, James says, and we just sit there, waiting.

  They are gone so long we put our own tacos together.

  I make a platter, the way Mom does,

  lettuce in one pile, tomatoes in another, shredded

  cheese and avocado slices.

  Maybe he’ll stay, I say. Maybe it’ll be taco night.

  Maybe you’ve read too many fairy tales, James says.

  I think of Princess Atalanta.

  I did really want her to settle down with Young John.

  James is right.

  The door slams, and a whoosh of cold air comes in

  with Mom,

  who throws that giant coat that used to be an animal

  on the bench in the front hall.

  Taco night! she says in a high voice that is her acting

  voice, and she’s not

  the world’s best actress.

  I look over her shoulder at James,

  who is taking great care to hang up the coat

  and who pulls out a twenty-dollar bill from the

  pocket.

  A fairy tale for him.

  Something else for Mom and me.

  Beautiful platter, honey, she says.

  I tried, I say.

  Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo.

  On the 100th day of school,

  the teachers and the principal

  and the specials teachers

  and pretty much everyone who walks by you in the

  hallway says you are one hundred days smarter.

  So we are supposed to bounce a beach ball

  100 times in the air

  and count out 100 Cheerios and string them

  on a necklace

  and take

  100 steps down the hall,

  which Quinn and I choose to do together because

  every time Quinn and I team up for something, we

  end up having a better time than when we are paired

  up with someone else.

  We end up laughing mainly because she says things like

  I’m going to count how many times my sister mutes her phone

  while she’s on with her boyfriend just so she can fart.

  I bet it is one hundred.

  Ewww, I say, and we laugh so hard I get the hiccups,

  and then we count those too.

  We never get to 100 because we are supposed to settle

  down and write a list of new things we have learned

  since the first day of school.

  How are you 100 days smarter?

  the paper says

  at the top.

  I stare at the paper and think about all that math,

  the multiplication facts, the long division, and

  all the books I have read and

  all the pages I have logged in my reading log,

  and I know I’ve done a lot of work in 100 days,

  but it doesn’t make me feel smarter,

  just maybe tired

  of answering questions.

  I’m better at choosing friends, I write.

  There is a group of people,

  a tribe.

  They never look each other in the eyes.

  They stare and smile and laugh

  out loud

  at their hands,

  which glow and reflect blue light on their faces.

  And they throw things at each other,

  still not looking,

  flipping their hair,

  picking at themselves,

  at each other.

  The females especially do this.

  And some look sadder than they should be,

  since the things they are throwing

  are snowballs,

  flung with gusto

  into the air

  at each other.

  Warlike.

  Flinging themselves

  with gusto down the hill,

  on sleds and flying saucers.

  They can fly,

  this tribe

  of teenagers.

  James woke me up by throwing snow pants

  on my head.

  Snow day!

  And Mom made hot chocolate for breakfast

  and eggs and toast when we usually have cereal

  or a granola bar.

  We watched giant flakes hit the windows

  and the ground in piles

  while Mom got ready for work.

  Later, James dragged me out for sledding with

  his friends,

  the tribe that laughs at their hands,

  two blocks from our house.

  I think of the Iroquois league—the Cayuga, the

  Onondaga, the Mohawk, the Seneca, the Oneida,

  once fighting,

  warlike.

  Until they found peace.

  Like me,

  whizzing down the hill,

  flying toward the teenage nation,

  who are looking for something in the palms of their

  glowing hands,

  a glimpse

  or a glimmer

  of hope,

  but not peace.

  They spend A LOT of time at school assemblies

  telling you not to be a bully.

  Sometimes they even start on the very first day,

  when I can’t even remember which classroom is mine

  let alone how to be an upstander,

  a word they invented for a person who stands up for

  others when others are being bullied.

  Another way of saying, a LOT to ask.

  This year, they’ve waited until now,

  until Valentine’s Day,

  to spread the love.

  The name of the assembly is Spread the Love.

  The principal reads us a book by that name,

  and then one of the second-grade teachers I never

  had comes in playing his guitar and singing really

  loud—

  “SPREAD THE LOVE,” the song.

  And all the other teachers start singing too,

  and the whole school is clapping and singing along.

  Quinn and I just look at each other in a funny way

  because the whole thing is kind of weird.

  Love is a funny thing to spread around an elementary

  school.

  Germs is more like it.

  There’s been a stomach virus going around and they

  keep sending notices home and Mom

  keeps calling us to ask if we’ve washed our hands.

  Viruses are easy to spread around but love is not.

  Just ask Jackson “FINGER SLAMMER”

  Allen. He is a spreader of misery, and Quinn and I

  spend a lot of time avoiding him and his group of

  FOUR ANNOYING BOYS,

  germs, all of them.

  So we’re supposed to go back to our classrooms and

  make valentines for each other, which means I have to

  make one for Jackson.

  I want to write what does it feel like to have two names

  that could be last names or first names?

  I want to write does it feel the same as getting your finger

  slammed in between a chair and a table?
<
br />   But I just write Happy Valentine’s Day!

  Because of the bullying assembly.

  Afterward, at indoor recess, I look over at

  Lilly with two l’s.

  She is reading a book and even though she doesn’t

  look sad or anything, I get up and go over to her.

  Want to join our no-friend club? I say.

  Sure, she says. She doesn’t seem to care

  what the no-friend club is,

  or maybe she loves the play like I do.

  She and Quinn and I are working on our valentines

  and I say Lilly, do you still have those toys you were

  holding on to for that princess superhero from Mars?

  Huh? she says.

  Then she starts coloring again.

  Then she says do you still eat your shirts?

  Huh? I say, because I don’t really want Quinn to know

  that I ate through a lot of my clothes in kindergarten.

  Nerves, Mom would say.

  Disgusting, Dad would say.

  But I get what she’s saying, so I laugh

  and then I put my shirt in my mouth

  and get back to coloring.

  When you are part of a group and that group is made

  up of FOUR ANNOYING BOYS,

  you yourself are probably annoying.

  It is possible, Mom says, that you are NOT annoying,

  that at home you are sweet and funny

  and nice to your little sister,

  but Mom doesn’t know you like I do.

  I protect you from her and you don’t even know it.

  I tell her things like he would have told on me for

  kicking him when I was just walking normally and his

  leg got CAUGHT on my leg by ACCIDENT.

  And she says things like but he didn’t

  and

  oh, he probably just likes you a lot.

  I say

  ick.

  And also

  not true.

  Not even close.

  You liking me is worse than you hating me.

  Mom, for once in her life, is wrong.

  I have been protecting you long enough.

  Because today—

  TODAY—

  I was busy being a nice person and checking on Ezra

  when he was crying in the hallway

  and we were lined up,

  quiet and single file.

  Thinking back, he was probably crying because of

  something you and your

  ANNOYING friends did to him.

  He told me to get lost,

  which was also ANNOYING, because I didn’t even

  really want to check on him,

  except I heard Mom’s voice in my head

  telling me to reach out when someone needs

  reaching out to.

  But you.

  YOU looked right at me and said something worse

  than the ONE MILLION TIMES you have called

  me MEDUSA so far this year.

  Worse than the ONE MILLION TIMES you have

  pretended to turn to stone

  when you look at my face.

  Is Ezra crying because you’re so ugly? you asked,

  fake-pouting.

  I thought about hitting you.

  I even made a fist.

  The only thing that stopped me was the idea that

  I would definitely get in trouble, and I HATE

  getting in trouble

  more than I hate you.

  Or maybe it’s a tie.

  (And not a happily-ever-after,

  Princess-Atalanta-and-Young-John-running-in-a-race-

  in-a-fairy-tale kind of a tie.)

  Mom was not happy with you.

  She ALMOST called your mom.

  Almost.

  (to be continued)

  We have spent a lot of time making color wheels.

  I love mine so much

  I protect it between two sheets of regular paper and

  roll it up and put a rubber band

  around the tube I made.

  At Dad’s house I take it upstairs and

  lay it out on the floor to admire it.

  I wanted to wait until I was home

  with Mom.

  She would love it.

  She would like that I was so careful

  about staying in the lines.

  That I took extra time with a very fine black Sharpie

  to fill in my own copyright line, as if

  I were an art company that specializes in making

  color wheels for fourth graders

  to help them learn about primary and

  complementary colors.

  She would love that.

  I have a friend who would like that, my dad says from

  the doorway,

  startling me.

  He has two paperweights in his hand—

  one is a heavy glass circle

  that says University of Pennsylvania

  in etched white letters.

  The other is a heavy and smooth black stone from

  I don’t know where.

  He bends down and puts one on each side of the

  color wheel,

  which fights to roll back up again.

  Her name is Stephanie.

  She’s an art teacher, he says.

  An artist.

  Okay, I say.

  I stare at the warm side of the wheel

  because my art teacher,

  whose name is definitely NOT Stephanie,

  taught us that some colors have to do with our moods.

  The warm ones are for happiness. The cool ones, for

  sadness.

  Pessimism, she said.

  I try not to look at the cool blues

  because I am an optimist, Mom says.

  Always looking at the bright side.

  There are some things Mom doesn’t need to know.

  There are some things that can be a secret forever

  because they are special to two people and only two

  people.

  I stopped Mom from calling your mom for a reason.

  The reason is Quinn.

  I didn’t even know that Quinn had seen

  what happened,

  but she must have, even though she was at the way front,

  the line leader.

  Well, Quinn bent over,

  and no one knew why but the line moved along

  without her,

  without its leader,

  until,

  somehow,

  YOU tripped over the foot she must have only stuck

  out because she was tying her shoelace

  (and not because she wanted to trip you).

  Well, you flew

  across the hall and smack into Ezra,

  who must have ALSO had enough of you

  because he made a fist.

  And well,

  hating you and hating getting in trouble are

  apparently

  not a tie for him

  since you ended up bent over too,

  and not because your shoelace was untied.

  And maybe I even saw a tear.

  Quinn’s eyes lit up and mine might have too,

  which is terrible,

  and I’m sorry.

  And that is why I didn’t let my mom call your mom.

  It’s all right to cry.

  We are even.

  When I grow up I do not want to be in charge of a

  whole bunch of kids who do not listen

  unless the principal is the one talking.

  Even if they make funny faces

  behind the principal’s back,

  everyone listens when she talks,

  everyone listens when she says boys and girls in a way

  that sounds nice when you’re in kindergarten and first

  grade but that, by fourth grade,

  starts to sound a li
ttle annoying.

  When I was in second grade I won a bookmark design

  contest—

  Reading takes you places,

  I wrote

  on the side of a rocket

  on its way to the moon.

  Well, I got to make the morning announcements as

  my prize.

  I was nervous so I stared at a sign—

  The princiPAL is your PAL!

  to distract myself.

  I think I didn’t know then,

  in second grade,

  that there was another way to spell principal.

  That a principle was something else entirely,

  something that might also take you places.

  I think now that the sign isn’t about spelling at all.

  I think maybe our principal thinks this sign

  makes her seem friendly.

  Like calling us boys and girls with a wide grin

  and clenched teeth.

  Two whole years later, I stare at the sign while I wait

  to read from Free to Be…You and Me

  over the loudspeaker

  and to distract myself from Jackson Allen’s sweat.

  He is standing too close to me and we just had gym

  and he won a million races and

  his sweat is contagious.

  My clothes feel itchy.

  Free to Be…You and Me is part of the whole school’s

  theme this year,

  not just the fourth grade.

  Not just the fourth class.

  Other grades aren’t doing a play

  but a collage,

  or a video,

  or a poetry collection

  of things they learned from Free to Be…You and Me.

  It is a school-wide endeavor.

  There is a bulletin board outside the main office to

  prove it.

  Almost every last fourth grader has gotten a chance to

  read from our show

  over the loudspeaker.

  Once a week the teachers choose another group to go.

  This time it is Jackson Allen,

  three other ANNOYING BOYS,

  and me.

  I stare at the PrinciPAL sign and ignore the

  sweating boys.

  We each take a line and then we read—

  read, not sing—our part.

  I am last.

  I say

  I might be pretty;

  you might grow tall.

  And all together,

  in unison,

  we say

  but we don’t have to change at all.

  I have just said,

  in front of everyone,

  I might be pretty.

  My head fills up with pressure.

  Like his sweat, Jackson’s hot red cheeks are contagious,

  spreading to mine.

  He snorts.

  This is my punishment, I think,

  for feeling happy when he got hit

  by Ezra

  in line