The Year of the Garden, page 3
“You know how to use everything,” she says. “Just like Mr. Ellis.” She runs her hand over the brown paper. “I’m bad at drawing.”
I get the can of markers off the kitchen counter. Then I look at the world map on the screen and try to draw it onto the brown paper. But I make Africa and Australia too big. Everything is lopsided, and China doesn’t fit.
“This is really hard.” Laura looks around. “Let’s play something else.”
Laura always seems so quick to give up. But she’s right. The map looks nothing like the one on the screen.
“We can make it into a map of our own world,” I say.
Laura looks doubtful. “What do you mean?”
“A made-up world.”
“What’s it called?” Laura asks.
“I don’t know.”
Laura looks out the window. “How about ‘Laura and Anna’s Secret World’?”
I think for a minute. That name is ordinary. But I like the way it reminds me of The Secret Garden. “How about putting our names together?”
“What do you mean?” Laura asks.
“Lauranna,” I say.
Laura smiles. “You’re smart.”
I write Lauranna on top of the map in fancy cursive.
Laura scratches her stomach. Then she pulls up her shirt and the scabs are still there. “The doctor gave me some medicine. And she said I better not touch poison ivy ever again.”
“You didn’t try to touch it.”
“She says I have to stay away from gardening.”
I look up. “Forever?” I can’t imagine what I would do if the doctor told me not to do something that I really wanted to do. And I can’t imagine doing the garden without Laura.
She shrugs and looks down at the map. “Let’s put our houses next to each other.”
I draw two houses in the middle of the map on the biggest continent.
“Can you draw my dog and my cat?” Laura asks.
I put them in front of her house.
“I don’t think I could survive without them.” Laura tells me how her dog and cat both sleep with her every night. “They love to snuggle under the covers with me.” Her face looks smooth and happy when she talks about the animals. “They like me best of everyone in the family.”
“How do you know?”
“They won’t sleep with David or Andrew,” she says.
The phone rings, and it’s Laura’s mom calling to say she has to come home to go to Andrew’s soccer game.
“You could ask your mom if you could stay over here instead,” I say.
“My dad says we have to go to support each other.” Laura zips up her jacket and pulls up her hood. Her face looks small inside of it. “See you later.” She puts her hands in her pockets and walks slowly down the hill.
I go out to the garden. The air is damp, but the rain has stopped. Mud has washed onto some of the stones, and a lot of the weeds that we pulled out have popped back up. I get the shovel and try to dig them out by the roots. I wonder if Laura really means that she can’t work on the garden with me anymore. Or does she just mean for now? Sometimes people say forever but they don’t really mean it.
My shovel hits something hard that sounds like metal. I move the blade around, trying to find the edges of whatever it is. Finally I get underneath it, push down, and fling the thing out of the ground. When I manage to get off the mud, I see that it looks like a big metal spike.
Ken comes around back. “What’s that?”
I hand it to my brother.
“A giant nail!” he says.
“Maybe there are more,” I say.
We keep digging around the same spot with the shovel and our fingers, but we don’t find anything else except for rocks that Ken thinks are fossils, and a soda can.
I run the giant nail under the water spigot on the side of the house. It has a head like a regular nail and a point on one end. It’s very rusty and looks as if it’s at least a hundred years old. I can’t wait to show it to Laura. That’s antique, she’ll say. I bet she’ll want to show it to her mom.
That night, Mrs. Morgan calls to tell Mom that Laura has signed up for the girls’ soccer team. The practices have already started, but there are a few spaces left. She wonders if I would like to join. She has all the forms at her house, and Laura’s dad is the assistant coach.
“I tell her,” Mom says. “Thank you so much.”
“I don’t like soccer,” I say when Mom hangs up.
“Laura’s mother is very nice to invite you,” Mom says. “You can try, see if you like it.”
I shake my head. “I know I don’t.”
“You never try, so you cannot know.”
“I know,” I say. “We played it last year.” My voice is loud and Mom turns away. She says something in Chinese, but I don’t know what.
When I see Laura at recess the next day, she is talking to a girl named Lucy and it turns out they are on the same soccer team. So are Rebecca and Allison. They have practice Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays after school, and games on the weekends.
“Our uniforms are really cool,” Rebecca says. She unzips her jacket to show me. The shirt is white with maroon stripes. On the back is the number nine and it says “Rockets” in cursive. Rebecca is number nine, Allison is four, and Laura is fourteen.
“Why don’t you join?” Laura asks. “It’s not too late.”
“I’m not good at soccer,” I say.
“That’s okay. My dad’ll teach you.”
“After you left, I was digging in the garden, and I found this really giant nail,” I say. But Laura is busy telling Rebecca that her brother Andrew is going out for the city soccer team. “He’s really, really good. My dad says all the coaches are watching him.”
“How old is he?” Lucy asks.
“In sixth grade,” she says. “He’s a forward.”
Lucy and Rebecca are really interested in Laura’s brother. They want to know what number he has on his shirt and how many goals he scored in the last game.
“You won’t believe what I found in our backyard,” I say. “I think it’s an antique.”
But nobody is listening.
I go over to the fence and look out at the street. I wish I was still at Sutton. There was no soccer team there, and we just played whatever we wanted.
I crouch down, pick up a few pebbles, and toss them gently. I throw one up, scoop up the others, and then catch the rock. It’s a game Mom taught me when I was little.
“That’s just like jacks,” Laura says, stooping next to me. “Without a ball.”
I keep on tossing the pebbles.
“I was talking to my aunt on the phone last night, and she said she can give us a raised garden bed all to ourselves. We can plant whatever we want.” She looks at me. “And there’s definitely no poison ivy there.”
I scoop up all the pebbles. I don’t want to plant Mrs. Shepherd’s seeds in Indiana where I can’t watch them grow. And I don’t want to give up on my backyard garden.
When I don’t say anything, Laura tucks in her shirt. “And with soccer, I won’t really have much time.”
“I want to plant the seeds in my backyard,” I say. My voice is sharp.
“Hey, Laura,” Rebecca shouts. “Want to play?” She has the soccer ball between her feet.
Laura stands up. The other girls are still huddled together. “Want to kick the soccer ball with us?”
I shake my head.
She smooths out her shirt and heads toward them. I want to say, Wait, we’re friends. We have a garden and a map of a world called Lauranna. And I found a giant nail in our backyard that’s a real antique. Do you want to come over after school so I can show it to you? But the lump in my throat is so big that my voice will not come out.
Chapter Eight
A Note
Every day at recess, Laura, Rebecca, Lucy, and Allison dribble the soccer ball. Sometimes other kids join too. Laura always asks me if I want to play, but I don’t. Rebecca is a really fast runner, and Lucy is good at kicking. Allison can keep up pretty well. But Laura has a clumsy way of running. Once she trips over the ball and falls forward. I see Rebecca look at Allison and roll her eyes. But Laura doesn’t seem to notice.
Mr. Ellis believes in homework. Lots of it. We have math story problems every day. In social studies, we have to memorize all the states in the United States so that we can label a blank map by heart and put in all the capital cities. Mom helps me make flash cards and we go through them over and over, but no matter how many times we review, I always miss Bismarck, North Dakota; Boise, Idaho; and Cheyenne, Wyoming. After an hour, I am crying.
“Sometimes take a break is good,” Mom says. “You can go play with Laura.”
“I don’t want to play with her,” I say. My voice cracks.
Mom puts her arm around my shoulders. “Sometimes a break from friend is good too.”
“She has other friends,” I say, rubbing my nose with my sleeve.
Mom tries to pull me close. “Other friends does not mean you are not a friend too.”
“Yes it does,” I say, standing up and running out into the backyard.
I grab the shovel from the garage and start turning over the dirt in our garden as fast as I can. The soil is dry now and the top layer is hard, but if I put my foot on the blade of the shovel and push down, I can do it. I make my way across the back of the garden near the border, putting in the shovel, pushing down on it with all my weight, and turning over the dirt. Each time I move the shovel, I say the name of a state and its capital. Frankfurt, Kentucky; Boise, Idaho; Springfield, Illinois; Cheyenne, Wyoming; North Dakota . . . what is the capital of North Dakota? I push the shovel down. Bismarck. When Mom calls me in for dinner, I have the soil in most of the garden turned over and I know every single capital city.
First thing in the morning, Mr. Ellis gives each of us a blank map. I fill it in with the names of the states and the capitals as fast as I can. When I am done, I see that everyone else is still working. I want to read, but then they will know that I finished before everyone else, so I keep staring at my paper.
Finally Mr. Ellis collects the maps. When Laura looks up, her face is red, even her ears, and her map is half blank. I want to tell her, It’s okay, Mr. Ellis said he’s going to do a retest next week. You can use my flashcards to study. But Laura has her head down.
When we get into groups to work on our recycling project, Laura is not in the room. I think maybe she went to the bathroom, but after fifteen minutes she is still not back. When I ask Mr. Ellis, he says she didn’t feel well so he sent her to the nurse’s office. She does not come back for the rest of the school day. I cannot stop thinking about Laura. She always asks me if I want to play soccer with the other girls but I never do. Maybe that hurts her feelings. But when she wants to quit working on the garden, it hurts my feelings too.
Our group is working on composting. The compost can is full of apple cores and banana peels. Now someone has to take it out to the big bin.
“It stinks,” Matthew says, holding his nose.
“I’ll do it,” I say, taking the can and heading out.
The sun is bright but the air is cool. I walk around the edge of the baseball field to the compost bin. I open the lid and empty the can. Inside are lots of worms. Laura would love to watch them moving around on the apple cores and orange peels. She probably knows all about worms, like what they eat and what different kinds there are. I look down the block. If you turn left and go down the hill, you get to Laura’s house. Maybe now she’s snuggling in bed with Lily and Liliana. She looked so upset after the blank map quiz. Maybe she is sobbing into her pillow.
I head back into the classroom and wait for the bell to ring.
When I get home, I go up to my room. I still don’t have a desk, so I sit on the edge of the bed, open my book bag, and take out my notebook and a pencil. I should start on my homework, but instead I write a note.
Dear Laura,
I hope you feel better soon. Here are flash cards in case you want to study the capitals.
Your friend,
Anna.
I reread my note. It doesn’t sound right. I don’t even know what I want to say. I tear up the note and start over.
Dear Laura,
I hope you feel better.
What else should I write? When I watch Laura playing soccer at recess, she looks worried. And when she’s writing or reading, she looks worried too. I want to tell her, It’s okay, Lily and Liliana are waiting for you at home. We have almost the same birthday, remember? We have a land of our own called Lauranna. And we have our very own secret garden. I’ll make sure there’s no more poison ivy anywhere.
Then I remember Laura’s sweaty face and the poison ivy blisters on her stomach. Maybe I should write her that if she doesn’t want to work on the garden, there are lots of other things we can do. But instead I write:
Here are some flash cards that I made to study for the test. Maybe you would like to use them.
Your friend,
Anna
Around the border I make little cat and dog faces. Then I fold the note and tape it shut. I could take it down to Laura’s house and give it to her. But what would I say? I still don’t want to join the soccer team and I still don’t want to plant our seeds at her aunt’s farm. And maybe Laura doesn’t want my flash cards. Maybe she doesn’t want me.
I ball up the note and toss it into the garbage can.
Chapter Nine
Poison Ivy
When we get to the Shepherds’, Mrs. Shepherd is lying on the sofa and Mr. Shepherd is sitting in his wheelchair right beside her.
“Aren’t we glad to see you,” he says. “Where’s Ken?”
“He spent the night at a friend’s,” I say. I take the big rusty nail out of my bag to show it to Mr. Shepherd.
He turns it this way and that. “That’s called a railroad spike, to keep the railroad tracks in place.”
“Do you think there was a railroad track in our backyard?”
He scratches his head. “Could be. Or could be someone was using that railroad spike for something else. They come in handy, for digging, hammering. Things like that.” He gives it back to me. “I’d hold on to it.”
Mrs. Shepherd sits up. “How’s your garden coming along?”
“I got most of the soil turned over.”
“That’s not easy,” she says. “Remember, Sylvan, all those bushes and rocks? Then we added compost.” She takes a deep breath. “It surely was a process.” She sits back against the pillow. “But was it ever worth it. Sweet warm tomatoes, crispy green beans.” I can tell she is in another world as she talks. “Did I give you the seeds for the chocolate cherries?”
I nod.
“Sweet as candy.”
“The honeysuckles are hard to dig out,” I say. “And the weeds keep popping up.”
“You’ve got that right,” Mr. Shepherd says. “Some of them are as big as trees. Our neighbor over there, Mr. Smith, he helped us on occasion.”
“My neighbor Laura was helping me, but now she . . .” I think of telling the Shepherds about the soccer team and new friends and how Laura and I hardly talk at school these days. Then I say, “She got poison ivy.”
Mrs. Shepherd nods. “Some people get it bad. I know each plant has its right to this world, same as you and I. But the use of that one is hard to understand.” She closes her eyes for a minute and I can see that all this talking tires her out. “Let me tell you, it is possible to rid an area of poison ivy. First, learn exactly what it looks like. Three spiky leaves and a red stem. Sometimes it’s a vine and sometimes it’s a free-standing plant. Each time you see it, put a plastic bag over your hands and dig it out, roots and all. Soon enough, it’ll take its vines elsewhere. Plants can be stubborn, but eventually they learn when they’re not wanted.”
Mrs. Shepherd closes her eyes again. Mr. Shepherd puts his finger to his lips, and I follow his wheelchair into the kitchen. “Let me pour you a glass of lemonade, Anna,” he says. “Fresh squeezed this morning.” He puts ice into the glasses and pours the lemonade on top. “Mrs. Shepherd has spent the past two weeks cleaning out every single closet. I keep telling her she’s tiring herself out, but she seems to want to get everything in order.” He sighs. “She’s talking about how the house is too much for us now.” He takes a sip of lemonade. “I think she knows something we don’t.” I look into his eyes, which are cloudy and gray. “She wants to move into one of those high-rises—you know, with a river view. She says that way when she’s gone, I’ll have something beautiful to look at and I won’t feel so alone.” His eyes tear up. “But you never know. I may be the one to go first.”
Mom is cleaning the kitchen counter. “Mrs. Shepherd thinks ahead,” she whispers.
“I suppose sometimes that’s good,” Mr. Shepherd says. “And sometimes it isn’t.” He clears his throat. “She’s not been eating well these days. Says her stomach’s all topsy-turvy, but she won’t let me take her to the doctor.”
“Topsy-turvy?” Mom says.
“You know, unsettled.”
Mom nods. I know she is repeating topsy-turvy over and over in her head so she can remember it.
“Only thing she likes is your soup.” Mr. Shepherd turns to me. “She found a few tools for you, Anna.” He points to a box, and inside is a spade, a trowel with three prongs, and a dandelion digger.
“Thank you,” I say, putting the railroad spike into the box.
