Soof (Scholastic Gold), page 6
“Well, bless your heart,” said Julie.
I watched while she dug around in one of the bins until she found what she was after—a ball of bright red yarn and another one of white.
“I thought I’d make you guys some new Christmas stockings,” she explained. “Your mom told me the holiday stuff was up in the attic. What a shame to lose all those memories.”
I’d been so busy thinking about Duck, I hadn’t thought about what else we might have lost in the fire. Christmas was a big deal in our family. On the first Saturday of December, my father and I would get in the truck and drive over to Krasner’s Farm. Once we’d found the perfect tree, my father would kneel down beside it and drag the saw over the trunk a few times, like a violinist drawing his bow across the strings. Once the saw blade bit into the bark and took hold, I’d grab onto the other end and we’d find our rhythm pushing and pulling back and forth, until finally the tree gave up and fell back onto the snow like a fainting woman in a big green ball gown. We’d throw our prize in the back of the truck along with a balsam wreath for the front door and drive home to my mother, who would be waiting with hot chocolate and gingerbread cookies.
My mother was pretty crafty all year-round, but she really outdid herself at Christmas. Every year she’d make a new kind of ornament. There were flocks of crocheted birds perched on cinnamon sticks and delicate wreaths of eucalyptus leaves, each one carefully tied with a red ribbon. One year she saved the wishbones from every chicken we ate, lining them up on the kitchen windowsill to dry. After she’d painted them silver, she glued little glass beads to the top of each one for the hooks to go through. Those were my favorites. Hanging from the tips of the branches, they caught the light, glimmering like little wishes waiting to be made.
Unlike my mother, I was not crafty at all. For one thing, I hated getting my fingers sticky. I was also not fond of glitter, but each year at school we made ornaments in art class, and my mother had saved every single one. There were cut-paper snowflakes, a giant pinecone half-heartedly dusted with green glitter, several snowmen made out of pipe cleaners, and the lopsided Popsicle stick reindeer that had ended up in pieces after the fire.
Julie was staring at me.
“Are you okay, hon?” she asked. “You look like you’re a million miles away.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I was just thinking.”
Julie started to leave, but then she hesitated.
“I know it’s none of my business,” she said, “but your mother’s really hurting right now. She’s been crying all morning. I think it would help if you could sit down and talk to her.”
I felt another spark of irritation, this one even hotter.
“Did she tell you she thinks I set the house on fire?” I asked.
Julie looked uncomfortable.
“She overreacted. She doesn’t believe that anymore, Aurora. You have to understand she was upset when she found the lighter. You know how she worries. Believe it or not it was even worse when you were a baby. Your mother recorded every sneeze and burp in that journal of hers.”
Julie wasn’t exaggerating. I’d discovered the journal on a shelf in the living room one day. It was a small square book with a weathered blue cover and a thin satin ribbon sewn into the spine to use as a placeholder. BABY’S FIRST YEAR was embossed on the cover in gold.
The first few pages were filled with details about the day I was born, including a tiny plastic wristband from the hospital with Baby girl, Franklin printed on it. There was a list of names my parents had considered before Heidi had suggested they call me Aurora. Next came a long list of milestones, each with two dates written beside it. One when I had done it and one when I was supposed to have done it according to one of the many baby books she’d kept stacked beside the bed.
I had not been an easy baby. Because I had colic, my mother spent most of her time worrying about what went in one end of me and what came out the other. My father wasn’t much help—not because he didn’t care, but because he wasn’t around. This left my mother alone with a fussy baby and no one there to tell her not to fret. Ironically, most of the worrying she did had taken place in a big oak rocking chair, which still sat in a corner of our living room. She rocked and worried and poured her heart out onto the pages of her journal, which carried her like a weathered blue boat through the rough seas of her baby’s first year.
Julie left with her yarn.
“Hey,” I called after her. “Do you know where my dad is?”
I wanted to ask him if he’d heard anything from the shelter in Rock Hill.
“He’s at work, hon,” Julie said. “Left about an hour ago.”
Great. What was I supposed to do, hang around the house all day trying to avoid my mother? Something occurred to me.
“Why’s he working on a Sunday?” I asked.
Julie gave me a funny look.
“Today is Monday, hon.”
“Monday?” I looked at the clock. It still said seven thirty. I hadn’t noticed the cord dangling off the side of the table, unplugged. “What time is it for real?” I asked.
Julie looked at her watch.
“Half past nine,” she said.
So much for my perfect attendance record. I was late for school.
I barely spoke to my mother on the drive to school. When I asked her why she hadn’t woken me up at 6:45 the way she usually did on weekdays, she explained that she’d assumed that, under the circumstances, I wouldn’t want to go.
“Under the circumstances, you assumed wrong,” I told her, giving my nose three quick taps. “In case you forgot, which you obviously did, I’ve got a perfect attendance record. At least I used to. Now, thanks to you, I have a big fat tardy.” Tap, tap, tap.
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” my mother said. “I guess I should have asked. I can speak to Mr. Taylor, if you’d like. I’m sure he’ll understand.”
The truth was, I didn’t really care about messing up my attendance record. Compared with everything else that was going on, it seemed pretty trivial.
“(A) I don’t need you to talk to Mr. Taylor. I need you to leave me alone. And (B) don’t call me sweetie anymore.”
“Aurora,” my mother said, her eyes brimming with fresh tears, “I know that you’re angry at me about what happened yesterday. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“Blah, blah, blah,” I said and put my hands over my ears. “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”
We drove the rest of the way in silence, except for my mother’s sniffling. She could cry all she wanted, as far as I was concerned. She had lied to me my whole life, and I had a right to be mad about that.
Mr. Taylor made a big fuss when I walked into class. He explained that they’d had a special assembly first thing that morning to discuss what had happened to my family over the weekend.
“Your classmates and I were wondering if there’s anything we can do to help,” he told me.
“Do you need food?” Brian Tucker asked. “We’ve got a whole ham in the freezer at home. Nobody in my family likes ham, so I can ask my mom if you guys could have it. There might be a frozen lasagna in there too.”
I was pretty sure Brian Tucker had never actually spoken to me before, let alone offered me a frozen ham.
“No thanks,” I said. “We’re staying with some family friends in North Branch, and they’ve got plenty of food. I had Lucky Charms for breakfast.”
“I like those too,” said Brian.
“Did you get burned in the fire?” asked Kristie Minor, one of the girls who’d been playing foursquare on the playground the day I’d found Lindsey’s silver charm. “’Cause my uncle did once, and they had to take some skin off his butt and put it on his face.”
Everyone started laughing, and Mr. Taylor clapped his hands.
“This is no laughing matter,” he said to the class. “Imagine if this had happened to you. Imagine if you had lost your home and all your belongings.”
The room was silent.
“I’m sorry, Aurora,” said Kristie. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
Lindsey Toffle raised her hand.
“Do you have a question?” Mr. Taylor asked.
“Actually, it’s a comment,” she said. “My father was one of the firemen who put out the fire. I’m pretty sure he was the first one there, so I guess that makes him kind of a hero.”
I thought about the way Lindsey’s father had spoken to me when I’d asked him if they’d found Duck. We didn’t find any dog. That’s when it occurred to me: There was something I did need help with. Something really important.
“I need to make some flyers,” I said. “To put up around town. My dog, Duck, ran away after the fire, and I’m trying to find him.”
“Do you have a photo of your dog that we can put on the flyers?” asked Mr. Taylor.
I shook my head.
“I have lots of pictures at home, but we’re not allowed to go in the house right now without permission from the fire chief.”
“I guess that means the flyers will need to have drawings on them instead of a photograph,” said Mr. Taylor.
I nodded.
“What do you think, friends?” he asked the class. “Shall we help Aurora make some flyers?”
A cheer went up, and so did Lindsey’s hand.
“Will you be offering a reward?” she asked.
I hadn’t thought about that. My piggy bank was completely empty. I’d spent the last of my allowance on Duck’s red collar and a matching leash.
“What about the ham?” Brian suggested.
“Nobody wants your stupid ham,” snarled Lindsey. “They’re going to want money.”
“Mr. Taylor?” I said. “Are you going to mark me tardy for today?”
Mr. Taylor shook his head.
“Today doesn’t count,” he said. “We’re glad you’re here. Don’t worry, your record still stands.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But the reason I was asking is because I think maybe a cherry pie would make a good reward for finding Duck.”
Mr. Taylor smiled.
“Jickity-jack, that’s a stellar idea,” he said.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lindsey make a face. She’d been trying to suck up to Mr. Taylor all year, and it never seemed to work.
“Can you describe your dog for us, please, Aurora?” Mr. Taylor asked as he handed out sheets of white paper and markers to everyone.
“He’s all black with a red collar,” I said. “He weighs sixty-two pounds, and the inside of his ears smells like popcorn.”
Lindsey rolled her eyes. “How are we supposed to draw that?”
“She didn’t say you had to draw it, Lindsey,” commented Kristie. “She’s just telling us what Duck is like, right, Aurora?”
It was hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that Kristie Minor was actually taking my side against Lindsey Toffle.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess so.”
There weren’t enough black and red markers to go around, so some people drew green dogs with blue collars or orange dogs with pink collars instead. For some reason Stephanie Morris drew a unicorn jumping over a rainbow on her flyer, but Mr. Taylor made her throw it away and start over. Everyone in the class made at least one flyer. Lindsey’s was one of the best. She drew Duck in the foreground, looking over his shoulder at a house with bright orange flames shooting out of the windows. Somehow she managed to actually make him look worried.
“Thanks,” I said when she showed it to me. “It’s really good.”
“I know,” she told me. “That’s why I’m probably going to keep it, and not put it up. It might get ruined if it rains.”
“Oh,” I said. “Okay.”
“You can borrow my charm bracelet if you want though. Not to take home, I mean to wear for a little while. You’ll have to wash your hands first though, and you can’t touch any of the charms or drop it, or drag it across your desk, because it’s fragile. You remember what happened before.”
“I remember,” I said.
But I didn’t want to borrow her stupid bracelet. All I cared about was finding Duck.
“Friends,” Mr. Taylor said, when we were finished drawing, “part two of this project is to take your flyers home this afternoon and hang them up where people will be sure to see them.”
I looked at Lindsey to see if she was listening, but she was busy playing with her bracelet.
At lunch, Joanne Kriskowsky asked if she could sit next to me.
“You can have half my sandwich, if you want,” she said.
In our rush to leave the house that morning, my mother had forgotten to pack me a lunch, and I didn’t have money to buy a hot lunch. Other kids kept coming over and offering me food too. Brian Tucker even gave me his Fruit Roll-Up.
I knew I should have been grateful to everybody for being so nice to me, but I didn’t feel grateful—I felt nervous. I was used to eating lunch alone. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I sat there tapping and scratching and jiggling my legs under the table. After lunch, when everyone finally went outside to the playground, I hurried down the hall to Mrs. Strawgate’s office.
“Aurora!” she said, jumping up from her chair when she saw me. “I’m so glad you stopped by. I’ve been thinking about you.”
She asked me a bunch of questions about the fire and about how I was feeling. I liked Mrs. Strawgate—she always had real flowers in her office, and she was a good listener. But the reason I had come to see her now was because I had a question of my own.
“What’s the difference between a secret and a lie?” I asked.
She thought about it for a minute.
“That’s a very interesting question,” she said. “Off the top of my head I would say a secret is something private that you keep to yourself, and a lie is something you tell someone else even though you know it isn’t true.”
“What if somebody does both—keeps a secret and tells you a lie? What’s that called?”
“Complicated,” she said.
I couldn’t concentrate in class that afternoon, so Mr. Taylor told me it would be okay if I wanted to skip my lessons and work on making more flyers instead.
Sometimes when I was really focusing on something, I made sounds with my tongue—clicking and clucking. I didn’t realize I was doing it, but when a couple of kids complained that I was distracting them during silent reading, Lindsey Toffle took it upon herself to ask Mr. Taylor if he could please move my desk out into the hall. He smiled politely and told her that if she was having trouble getting her work done, she was free to move her own desk out into the hall.
Some of my previous teachers would get annoyed with me when I couldn’t sit still in class. Knowing that they were watching made me even jumpier. Mr. Taylor wasn’t like that. He kept a basket of fidget spinners on his desk. Kids were allowed to borrow them whenever they wanted, and sometimes Mr. Taylor even used one himself.
Before we left that afternoon, Mr. Taylor told us that our only homework assignment for the night was to put up the flyers.
“Jickity-jack, let’s bring Duck home!” he said, and everyone whooped and hollered.
Even though I was worried about Duck, and mad at my mother and basically feeling pretty bummed out in general, it made me feel good to see people putting those flyers into their homework folders. Maybe, just maybe one of them would do the trick.
My mother wasn’t there yet when I got outside, so I sat down on the curb to wait. Twenty minutes later, she finally showed up.
“Sorry I’m late,” she told me. “I had to pick out new shingles for the roof, and it took longer than I expected. How was school?”
I shrugged. “We made flyers to help find Duck.”
“That’s wonderful,” she said.
We drove for a while in silence. Then to my surprise, my mother pulled into the Dairy Queen and turned off the engine.
“Do you have homework to do this afternoon? Because I was thinking maybe we could both use some ice cream,” she said. “My treat.”
“Mom, I’m not stupid,” I told her. “(A) We both know the only reason you want to take me out for ice cream is so that we can talk, and (B) I don’t want to talk to you. I want to put up flyers. That’s it. The end. No more.”
“Suit yourself,” my mother said, “but I’m going to grab a butterscotch sundae for the road. I’ll be right back.”
Since she was getting ice cream anyway, I decided I might as well get a Dilly Bar. There was no drive-through, so my mother suggested we eat our ice cream inside instead of in the car. The guy behind the counter was slower than a snail, and even though our order was pretty simple, he messed up twice.
“Thanks for the ice cream,” I said to my mother as we sat down opposite each other in a booth. “But this doesn’t mean we’re going to talk.”
“Okay,” she said. Then she plucked the cherry off the top of her sundae and popped it in her mouth.
On the way in I had noticed a bulletin board covered with ads and notices about yard sales and penny socials happening around town. When I had finished my ice cream and washed my hands in the restroom, I went out to the car to get one of my flyers so I could put it up. Lots of people came to the Dairy Queen. Maybe one of them would have seen Duck.
My mother kept her promise and didn’t talk to me while we were eating, other than to ask if I wanted another Dilly Bar, which I didn’t. As we were getting back in the car, her cell phone buzzed. It was a text from Julie, and when she was finished reading, her eyes were sparkling.
“I guess one of those flyers of yours must have worked,” she told me. “Julie says she just got a call.”
My heart leapt.
“About Duck?” I cried.
She nodded.
“Let’s go get your dog.”
“Beep-beep-boppity-bip kapow!” I crowed.
“No translation necessary.” My mother laughed. “I may not be fluent in Beepish, but I’m pretty sure that means you’re happy Duck is coming home.”
“How much farther?” I asked.
“It’s over on the other side of town. We should be there in about ten minutes.”
