Every Shiny Thing Read online

  NOT YOUR FEARS

  The car’s old,

  like them.

  They live in Mt. Airy,

  the Northwest part of Philly.

  Driving through once,

  Nan told me Mt. Airy’s for

  the hippies and the gays.

  Mom told her to be quiet,

  Nan hissed at her like a cat.

  Now, down Germantown Avenue,

  Anne asks so many questions,

  Carl tells me about the school.

  Quaker, private.

  I don’t answer I

  listen to my old iPod mini

  Dad gave me a week after Christmas

  a few Christmases ago

  said he was waiting to make it more

  of a surprise that way. He filled it

  with our favorite movie theme songs.

  I have his big UNCLE AL'S BAR & GRILL T-shirt on

  and Mom’s old plastic red ring.

  They can take me

  to wherever they live

  but they can’t make me

  theirs.

  The Sad in Me

  The house is stone

  all wood floor and creaks,

  no carpet.

  Mom would say looks like ghosts

  live in the closets.

  Dad would ask for the TV.

  Anne shows me her craft table.

  She makes jewelry, she says.

  Silvers, golds blink from the table.

  Anne says

  they’ll paint my room

  in colors I like.

  Yellows, reds, greens, blues.

  She won’t stop asking so

  I tell her blue.

  For the sad in me rising

  swirling

  to the top.

  Staying Packed

  Their stringy dog, Seeger,

  bounds up to me, kisses my face.

  I can’t help but laugh

  as much as I try to hold it in.

  He smells like he needs a bath—

  Upstairs, tell him to scram, need to unpack.

  Thing is

  though

  he doesn’t.

  Thing is

  though

  I keep everything packed.

  Except my kaleidoscope,

  place it on the dark wood nightstand. Alone.

  Sit on the cold, hardwood floor

  pet Seeger’s soft ears

  think about Mitzi, Mr. Little, Cameron,

  all those animals we’ve had and left,

  one carpeted apartment to the next.

  Wonder if we would’ve gotten another one,

  when we moved to Brighton.

  Maybe if Mom gets me back,

  we will still move there.

  Get some other animal.

  For now, I’ll live out of Nan’s old suitcase.

  Seeger sighs, falls asleep, head on my knee.

  Into the Air

  I hear them:

  Anne says I need time to settle in

  Carl says I need to get out into the air.

  He wins.

  He doesn’t give me a choice—

  “Let’s go to the woods, put on your sturdiest shoes.”

  I look at what I have: two pairs of sneakers and some old sandals.

  I put on the dirtier ones. The ones my mom just said I need to take better care of—

  Think of the last time I was ever in the woods.

  Once, with Nan and her fisherman boyfriend.

  They got drunk, I played with my Barbies

  pretended they were lost.

  The Woods

  There is a patch of woods

  a few blocks

  from their house.

  Carl says

  sitting, walking, being

  in nature

  and just breathing

  helps him feel strong

  when he’s sad, angry.

  I look up at the colorful trees

  the sun streaming through.

  It’s pretty but

  I’m not sure what the view can do

  to help me with Mom.

  He tells me to practice deep breaths.

  Inhale, exhale

  gentle

  as a leaf

  in a breeze.

  My breath stays shallow.

  My mind only sees Mom in a cell.

  Mom without me.

  We loop back.

  On the way, Carl says there’s a room near mine I shouldn’t go in,

  that Anne’ll get to crying and

  Seeger’ll run in and won’t come out.

  To be careful.

  The leaves pulse red, orange.

  My breath only gets shallower, faster.

  Secret Room

  Carl and Anne do yard work.

  Anne says I should settle into

  my space.

  What’s the point?

  I can’t be settled without Mom.

  Instead—

  I sneak into the secret room.

  The room’s set up for a girl.

  Not a girl like me.

  Pink curtains, unicorns, dress-ups.

  Shivers run through me.

  Cassidy would say it was creepy.

  I look out the secret room’s window.

  Red, green, gold leaves fly, through the air

  spiraling, spinning.

  I jump.

  In the window across, a girl from the house next door’s looking right back.

  Long brown hair, she’s opening her window.

  To talk to me?

  Like leaves, I swirl around, make sure I close

  that door back tight.

  LAUREN

  The Scheme Team

  The deal is, yes, I do sort of need a new laptop for school, since I cracked the screen on my old one, and it was getting pretty slow. But do I need the thousand-dollar-plus MacBook Air Mom and Dad bought me? Definitely no. Plenty of people just have a netbook, which only costs a few hundred bucks.

  So my idea was:

  Step 1: Take back the Mac.

  Step 2: Buy a netbook.

  Step 3: Give the leftover money to Ryan’s old OT, Jenna, to use for extra sessions with that girl Hailey and other patients who need them.

  Not as good as getting Ry home from Piedmont, but at least it would be something.

  Mom and Dad would notice I had a different computer, obviously. And when they did, I’d explain what I’d done and say sorry for going behind their backs, but it would be too late for them to do anything about it. “Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission,” or whatever that expression is. Aunt Jill used to say it when she picked me up from school, because Mom was busy, and took me for ice cream even though it might spoil my dinner.

  The laptop was still all sealed up in its box, so I thought I could take it back to the Apple store in Center City and ask for a refund. But it turns out that was wrong. I looked up returns online, and they’d only put the cost back onto Dad’s credit card, which wouldn’t help anybody at all.

  So at dinner, I tried the honest approach. Dad was still at work, but Mom and I sat down at the kitchen table with tacos.

  “With Ryan away . . .” Mom said, and then paused for so long, I thought she might not finish her sentence. “I have all this extra time I’m not sure what to do with. I thought I’d try a new recipe.”

  She looked away from me and sniffled a little, but it’s because of her that he’s gone. She’s the one who heard about Piedmont and convinced Ry it would be good for him.

  “The food looks good,” I told her, and I took a deep breath. “Hey, so, about my laptop.”

  Her face lit up brighter than when I told her I made the A team for field hockey, I swear. “Can you believe how light it is? And so fast. Did you know Dad got me one, too? I just love mine.”

  I took a bite of bean and squash taco, which had a lot more spice and tang than anything Ryan would eat.

  “Well, I was actually thinking I�
�d maybe like one of those netbooks instead.”

  She leaned her head back, as if she might understand what I’d just said if she could look at me from a little bit farther away. I guess that didn’t work, though.

  “Why?” she asked.

  Then she spooned some guacamole onto her taco and held the bowl out to me, but I shook my head. She never would have made guacamole like that before. It had chunks of tomato and onion, which would freak Ryan out. He hates different textures mixed together.

  “It’s just . . . netbooks do everything I need.”

  Mom gave me the disappointed frown she used to save for when I complained about something I didn’t get to do because of Ryan.

  “Doesn’t the Mac do everything you need, too?”

  I fought the automatic awfulness that always used to rise in my gut when I did something to deserve that frown. It doesn’t mean the same thing anymore.

  “Well, yeah,” I admitted. “But, you know, netbooks are a lot cheaper.”

  Mom reached over to pat my hand. “You don’t need to worry about that, hon.”

  “But . . . I mean, don’t you ever think about what that extra money could do for some people?”

  She gave my hand a squeeze. “Of course I do. But, sweetheart, you’ve sacrificed a lot over the past few years. You deserve some nice things.”

  But what have I sacrificed, really?

  Sometimes nobody could come to my field hockey or softball games last year because Dad was still at work and Mom was busy taking Ryan to a homeschooled-kids activity in the city. But Audrey’s mom always sent my parents pictures, and Ry always stuck a good-luck note on my bedroom door—before every single game.

  And, yes. One time when Audrey and our other friend Emma slept over, we snuck downstairs to watch a movie really late at night, and Ryan ran down the stairs wearing his favorite Batman pajamas, which didn’t even come all the way down to his ankles anymore. “Mom! Dad! Lauren’s down here watching TV even though it’s lights-out time!” he yelled.

  And Emma sat there at the edge of the couch with her eyes wide and her mouth half-open as Ryan kept shouting, “This isn’t fair! This is against the rules!” And I never really wanted to invite her over again after that.

  But it was my fault, really. I’m the one who broke a rule because I didn’t want to admit that I wasn’t supposed to be downstairs watching TV that late, and I know how much Ry hates it when people don’t follow rules.

  And OK, we usually went to the aquarium in Camden when we had family days, since Ry was comfortable there and we knew exactly what time to arrive to avoid the crowds. And sometimes I wanted to go to the zoo or the movies or a Phillies game instead, and I didn’t get to. But does that somehow mean I deserve a shiny new laptop, just because I spent a lot of Saturdays looking at sharks and jellyfish and hippos?

  Before I could figure out what to say, Mom stood up, leaving a guacamole-covered taco on her plate. “Speaking of nice things, I almost forgot!”

  She walked out to the front hallway and came back with two bags: one from Lucky Jeans and the other from Urban Outfitters.

  “We barely had time for back-to-school shopping this year. I picked you up a few new odds and ends.”

  I peeked inside the bags and pulled away the tissue paper. A pair of jeans from Lucky and two shirts and a sweater from Urban Outfitters.

  “Those are the stores you wanted me to take you to last spring, right?” she asked. “Did I go to the right ones?”

  The few bites of taco I’d eaten sank to the bottom of my stomach as I remembered the weekend before the spring dance last year. I’d wanted a new shirt and jeans for the dance because Audrey had gotten a new outfit, and I got mad when Mom couldn’t take me shopping because she’d scheduled an extra OT session for Ryan.

  I picked up a purple scoop-neck shirt.

  “Pretty, right? Do you like it?” Mom asked.

  Audrey has the same exact one in blue. The first time she wore it to school, three people complimented it before we even got to advisory.

  Mom was smiling all the way up to her eyes. She never used to look at me that way—so hopeful and . . . focused. There were always five hundred distractions.

  I was getting all these things I’d wanted so much last year: Mom’s attention, new clothes from my favorite stores, and a break from eating the same four or five meals we always had. But none of it felt right at all.

  “Really pretty,” I agreed.

  I was afraid I might cry again if I said anything more.

  On Saturday morning, I was using my new Mac to start my history essay comparing the Great Depression to the financial crisis of 2008. I didn’t want to disappoint Mr. Ellis—not after the way he’d looked at me at Worship and Ministry. But I couldn’t come up with anything smart.

  I kept checking my new phone for a video message from Ry. He sent me tons when I was at camp over the summer, so I’ve been making them for him a couple of times a week since he left for school. At first, he always sent one back right away. But now he keeps taking longer and longer to reply.

  Mom said she just talked to him while I was at school yesterday, and he was excited about a project he and some other kids were doing with a science teacher, something about calculating the optimal percentage of nitrogen-rich raw materials they should put into their school compost piles. But, seriously, compost? I can’t believe Ryan could possibly be excited about something as gross and smelly as compost piles full of people’s half-eaten, rotting food.

  And Mom said Ry had sent me so many messages over the summer because he was home without much going on, and the fact that he isn’t sending as many now is a good sign because it means he’s busy at school.

  But I’m not so sure. Because what if he’s just faking being OK, and he knows he couldn’t fake it with me?

  I went back to my document, typed a sentence, deleted it, and looked out my window, as if I’d find a decent thesis statement dangling next to the red and yellow leaves on the tree branch that waved up and down in the breeze.

  Instead, there was a girl around my age, with straight blond hair, looking out the window that’s always dark. Amy’s window, Mom and Dad call it. Anne and Carl have taken in kids before—a little boy last year and an even littler boy the year before that. But never a girl, until now.

  I tried to smile at the girl, but she didn’t see me. I pulled open my sticky window, and her eyes widened when it creaked. Then—poof! She was gone. As if I’d spooked her.

  I wanted to know her story. And how long she was going to live next door, and if maybe she’d start going to my school, like the little boys had. I could hear Anne and Carl in the yard. They’d probably invite me in to meet her if I went out to say hi.

  My phone buzzed with a text from Audrey, asking if I’d meet her at Starbucks.

  Need some Scheme Team time! she said.

  The Scheme Team is what Audrey’s dad started calling us when we were little because we always came up with big plans together. Some of our plans didn’t exactly work, like our attempt to start a cooking camp for preschoolers in Audrey’s kitchen when we were ten, or the time we constructed a miniature obstacle course on Audrey’s driveway and invited all the kids on her street to enter a Hamster and Guinea Pig Obstacle Course Race for a five-dollar entry fee. But we pulled off a neighborhood talent show the summer before fifth grade and got eight of our friends to dress up in The Wizard of Oz costumes last Halloween. And it always felt our schemes had a chance.

  I looked over at my bedside table, at the framed photo of Mom, Dad, Ryan, and me from my lower school graduation: Mom, Dad, and me all looking straight at the camera, and Ryan looking down and to the side but smiling his real smile.

  I wasn’t sure who I missed more—Ryan or the old version of me who believed I could make anything happen, at least when I was at Audrey’s quiet, orderly house. Our house is just as calm as hers now, but I’d given up on my big idea in less than twenty-four hours.

  Please??? she added, and I s
napped my new laptop shut. I needed a break anyway.

  Sounds good. Leaving now, I wrote back, and she replied right away with five smiley faces and two hearts.

  The Starbucks in C Hill, she added.

  It made me a little sad that she thought she had to say that. Yeah, things have been kind of off lately, and we haven’t gone there for a while, but it’s the only one within walking distance. Right on the Ave., across from . . .

  I stopped.

  Maybe the laptop thing was a no-go, but that wasn’t the only way I could do something good.

  Mom had already nagged me until I wore the shirts and sweater she got me, but the jeans still sat inside crisp white tissue paper in the bag, with their $139 price tag attached.

  I grabbed the bag, yelled a quick goodbye to Mom and Dad, and waved to Carl and Anne as I passed their yard. I could meet the new girl later.

  I walked as fast as I could, but when I peeked into the Starbucks, I spotted Audrey from behind, already in line with her straight black hair in a ponytail.

  This would only take a minute, though. It was important.

  I crossed the street and opened the door to the consignment shop. Aunt Jill had taken me there once, and she’d picked out new black pants for work and a dress to wear to a wedding.

  “Best store I’ve ever been to,” she told me. “You get all the last-season gems these Chestnut Hill ladies get rid of to make room for their brand-new wardrobes.”

  There wasn’t anybody at the counter, so I stood there at the front, guessing how much they’d give me for the jeans and picturing the look on Jenna’s face when I went to the OT center to deliver an envelope stuffed full of cash.

  I remembered one time when she was at our house last year, a few days before Audrey’s family’s annual Christmas party. Mrs. Lee had asked Ryan if he wanted to play some Christmas carols on the piano during the party, and Ry had said yes, but I could tell he was nervous about it. Sometimes Jenna helped Ryan get ready for overwhelming stuff by making lists and schedules ahead of time, so he’d know exactly what was coming. So I asked if they wanted me to write up a list of everyone I knew who would be at the party and the schedule of what usually happened in what order, since Ryan and Dad hadn’t stayed very long the last couple of years.

  Jenna gave me a huge smile. “What a thoughtful suggestion, Lauren. You’re such a helpful sister.”