Every Shiny Thing Read online

  Before this year, I would have. I cared about following every single rule at school, even if I thought the rule was silly. I felt like Mom and Dad worried a lot about Ry, and I couldn’t risk making them worry about me, too.

  But yesterday, when Mom and Dad thought I was staying after field hockey to make more Worship and Ministry posters, I went back to the post office and the bank because the Brian Dawkins jersey sold, too. Another $200, and nobody has any idea.

  Last time Aunt Jill was over with my little cousin Melody, who’s two and cries all the time, she joked to Mom that being around me had spoiled her because I always did what I was supposed to and almost never got upset when I didn’t get what I wanted. My face burned as I thought of the times I did get upset about not getting my way: when Mom couldn’t buy me new clothes for last year’s spring dance, when only Audrey’s mom was there to see me hit a home run at a softball game, when I said I was sick of going to the aquarium right before I went to camp and stayed home by myself instead. But Mom didn’t correct Aunt Jill or anything. She just smiled.

  And she laughed when Aunt Jill added, “You’d better hope Lauren’s not in for a case of the very delayed Terrible Twos! The Terrible Twelves, maybe.”

  I know Aunt Jill was just kidding, but . . . I don’t know. Maybe it’s my turn to break some rules.

  Sierra followed me into the empty bathroom. Audrey and I are used to changing in front of each other, but Sierra went into one stall, so I went into another.

  When we came out—Sierra in my green jeans and a green shirt, me in Ryan’s old yellow T-shirt over leggings—we grinned at each other in the mirror. She helped me pin on my Crayola sign and adjust my pointy yellow hat, and I helped her straighten her sunflower headpiece.

  Then we ran down the stairs into the gym and found seats. We’re supposed to sit with our advisories at assemblies, but everything was too chaotic, and we ended up with Mr. Ellis’s group instead. The sixth graders in costumes paraded past first, one at a time, except for the kids with group costumes, who all went together. Mr. Ellis, Ms. Meadows, and my sixth-grade math teacher, Mr. Warren, were the three judges, and they sat front and center, taking notes on clipboards.

  A group of sixth-grade girls were dressed as characters from Alice in Wonderland, and that made me think of last year, when Audrey and I had organized that Wizard of Oz group. I looked for Audrey in the crowd, to see who she was sitting with and what she was wearing with her mom’s beaded mask, but I couldn’t find her.

  The last sixth grader who paraded by was dressed as an iPhone. He’d made the costume on black poster board, with little square widgets across the front that looked just like the real ones—messaging, weather, e-mail, iTunes, and a blank one in the middle for his face. We were all supposed to applaud the same amount for everybody so no one would feel bad, but people cheered extra loud for the iPhone kid, and all three judges were smiling as they took notes. An iPhone doesn’t exactly say, “Let’s live simply,” though. I scanned the crowd for other homemade costumes but didn’t spot many people with good ones, except Jake, who was a monster, with a big old sweater pulled up over his forehead and two Ping-Pong balls painted to look like googly eyes glued on. Would it look like favoritism if Mr. Ellis picked Jake or Sierra or me for the Simplicity Prize?

  When it was time for seventh graders to go, Sierra and I ended up close to the front of the line, behind a devil and angel and in front of a bunch of boys who were just wearing their Eagles and Flyers and 76ers gear. I walked by the judges with Sierra right after me. People clapped for us but nowhere near as loudly as they had for the iPhone kid. Then, just as we’d looped around and were looking for a place to sit back down, the crowd went wild.

  “Looking good, Max!” an eighth grader yelled.

  “Yeah, Audrey!”

  Audrey?

  I turned around, and there in front of the judges were Audrey, Max Sherman, and Emma, draped in giant robes. Audrey wore the spinner costume—the one we’d started making for Sierra. Emma, carrying a measuring stick, had my part—the Fate who determines how long people’s lives will be. And Max wore Audrey’s wig from two Halloweens ago, when she was Rapunzel. He was the wrinkly old Fate with scissors, who determines when people will die.

  I grabbed Sierra’s arm to steady myself.

  Audrey hadn’t gotten her way for once, so she’d stolen our costume idea—Sierra’s, really—and twisted it around into exactly what she wanted.

  “I can’t believe she did that! Can you believe she did that?” I said.

  Sierra shrugged, her shoulders pressing up into the bottom of her flower headpiece.

  “Sit down!” somebody called to us. “We can’t see.”

  So Sierra and I plopped down right where we were, in the middle of a bunch of sixth graders. And that’s where we were still sitting when the eighth graders finished parading through and the judges stood up to announce the results.

  Ms. Meadows stood up first and named the Alice in Wonderland crew the “Best Group Costume” winners. The sixth-grade girls jumped up and down, squealing, and then ran up to help themselves to prize candy. They’re only a year younger than us, but they looked like little kids up there, bouncing around and hugging. I focused all my attention on the slightly crooked bottom of my Crayola sign to block out the memory of Audrey and me last year, leading the rest of our friends up to claim M&M’s and Starbursts for our group costume prize.

  Then Mr. Warren awarded the iPhone kid the prize for “Most Original Costume,” and it was Mr. Ellis’s turn. Ms. Meadows and Mr. Warren had used a microphone to talk loudly enough for everybody to hear them, but Mr. Ellis just projected.

  “First of all, I want to thank the members of Worship and Ministry. They’re working on some terrific initiatives to help us embrace simplicity, and the first step is today’s Simplicity Prize, for a costume that’s homemade instead of purchased. Worship and Ministry group, please stand so we can recognize you.”

  I stood and pulled Sierra up with me. Then she yanked me back down, but not before Jake caught my eye and gave me a giant grin.

  “This is a tough decision,” Mr. Ellis went on, “but since I’m a history teacher, you won’t be surprised to know that I have a soft spot for Greek mythology.”

  Oh, no. No, no, no, please no.

  “So the inaugural Simplicity Prize goes to Audrey Lee, Emma Walker, and the very lovely Max Sherman, a.k.a. the three Fates!”

  Everybody clapped and hollered as Audrey, Emma, and Max went up to claim their prize—Mariah’s homemade brownies. The three of them twirled and curtsied and held the brownies up in the air like trophies. I rubbed the soft fabric of Ryan’s old shirt between my thumb and index finger, the way he must have done a million times when the shirt still fit him, even though what I wanted to do was to bang my fists against the gym floor. It was just so unfair.

  Why is everything so unfair?

  I yanked off my construction-paper crayon hat, but Sierra reached over to take it from me before I could crumple it up.

  She took my hand and squeezed. I squeezed back, hard.

  After the assembly—after the dance elective kids performed the “Thriller” dance and Mr. Ellis’s advisory won the toilet-paper mummy-wrapping contest—I marched over to Audrey.

  “Maybe it’s better to let it go?” Sierra said as she followed me.

  But there was no way I was just letting Audrey get away with what she’d done.

  Audrey was standing with Max, who was eating his Simplicity Prize brownie and holding either Audrey’s or Emma’s. He shifted both brownies to one hand and reached out to touch the top of Sierra’s headpiece.

  “What kind of flower are you? A daisy?” he asked.

  Sierra ducked away, and I rolled my eyes. “Daisies have white petals, Max,” I said. And Sierra obviously doesn’t want you flirting with her, I wanted to add.

  “Easy there, Loco,” he said. That’s what he started calling me last spring, Loco, as if he's calling me “crazy,” since my
first name sort of starts with a “Lo” sound, depending on how you say it, and my last name starts with the letters Co, even though that’s not how the o sounds in Collins. And almost everyone who’s from Philly says Lauren with a “La” sound, too.

  “Um, the Gerber ones can be yellow, I think,” Sierra said.

  “But she’s a sunflower,” I told Max. Then I turned to Audrey. “And you’re wearing Sierra’s costume! The Fates were her idea!”

  Audrey pretended to examine her robe and the string dangling from her hands. “I don’t see her name on it anywhere. And I had to make most of it by myself after you two just left!”

  “Only because you picked a fight with us!”

  “Ladies, ladies,” Max said, stepping in between us with his mouth full of brownie.

  I leaned around him so I could look Audrey right in the eye. Aunt Jill was so right about her: always, always needing to get her way. “When we wouldn’t give you every little thing you wanted, you stole our idea and found other people you could boss around.”

  “Hey!” Max protested.

  I wasn’t finished yet, though. “You don’t deserve the Simplicity Prize, and you don’t deserve me and Sierra.”

  Audrey gasped, and Max snapped his fingers and said, “Oh, no, she didn’t!” in a high-pitched girly voice.

  I took off out the gym door, with Sierra trailing behind me. I was right, and Audrey was wrong—I knew it. But somehow I felt worse after telling her so, not better.

  Trick-or-treating is legendary in Mt. Airy, where we live. You have to walk down a bunch of blocks from our house to get to the really busy part, but Audrey and I have always gone, every year.

  I’d told Sierra all about Mt. Airy Halloween—how many people are out, how much candy you can get—but after what happened at the assembly, I wasn’t in the mood to go. And Sierra said she’d stay home with me.

  “What would cheer you up?” she asked as we ate Chinese takeout in the kitchen.

  We’d already ordered exactly what I wanted for dinner, and Mom had gone overboard at CVS, so we had a pretty unlimited supply of Halloween candy to dig into, but none of that was making me feel any better. I wasn’t sure what would.

  If Ryan were here, he would know. Ryan doesn’t always understand other people’s emotions, but somehow he’s the best at figuring out how to fix things when you’re sad. He sometimes needs Mom to tell him when I’m upset, but then he’ll announce, “I’m going to cheer you up,” and he really will.

  The best was in fifth grade when I’d worked so hard practicing because I wanted this solo in our chorus concert. After I found out I didn’t get it, Ryan let me pick the toppings on the pizza Mom ordered that night and choose the two best pieces.

  Then he found the song on YouTube, listened to it until he learned it, and then played it by ear on our piano in the living room while I sang. He called Mom and Dad down to hear, and he told them, “Please listen to Lauren singing her song. You should applaud when it’s over, but for Lauren’s singing, not for how I play it on the piano.” He even had Dad record it, so I could listen again anytime I felt sad.

  “You’re smiling,” Sierra told me now. “That’s a good sign, right?”

  I felt sort of bad for Sierra, stuck inside on Halloween trying to make me feel better. So I said, “I’m good, yeah. And we can trick-or-treat together next year, I promise.”

  But she looked down at her Target brand sneakers and blinked too many times, and I realized: Sierra might not live here anymore next Halloween. She might be back with her parents, or whichever of them she used to live with. She probably hoped she’d be back with her parents, even though if I were choosing parents, I might pick Anne and Carl, with their old car and their hippie clothes and their easy smiles. Anne and Carl wouldn’t have sent Ryan to boarding school. They lost their own daughter, back before I was born, so they always appreciate everybody else’s kids. And they don’t care about MacBook Airs and designer jeans and iPhones. I’m not sure they have a single TV in their whole house. They know what’s important.

  The idea of losing Sierra before next Halloween made my throat tighten up the way it does when I have a stomach bug and am about to throw up, and Dad had the living room TV blaring so loudly, it made my brain throb. I grabbed a bunch of Halloween candy and stood up.

  “Let’s go down to the basement.”

  It’s my favorite part of our house these days because it reminds me of Ryan. Especially the calming corner Jenna helped us set up, with the old living room furniture and Ry’s fish tank and lamps that aren’t too bright.

  “Whoa,” Sierra said when she saw the fish tank.

  It’s pretty big—fifty-five gallons, instead of the five-gallon one he has at school—and it looks extra nice right now because Mom and Dad hired someone to clean it while Ryan’s away, and the guy was just here. So the glass was clear, and the plants were bright green and stripped of the mossy algae that sometimes grows on them.

  “It’s my brother’s,” I told her. “He researches the different kinds of fish that can live together, and he sets up the plants and rocks so they can all have their own little places to hide if they need to be by themselves. He loves it.”

  Sierra took a seat on the couch that faces the tank. “They’re pretty,” she said. “I like the red and blue ones.”

  “Cardinal tetras, they’re called,” I told her.

  “It’s relaxing, isn’t it? Watching them?”

  I sat down next to her. “Yeah. It calms Ryan, watching them float around. And the sound of the water does too, I think.”

  It sort of calms me, too, lately. Except looking at the fish tank also reminds me that it’s been a little while since I got a video message from Ry. He sent one more after I filmed the fish the other week, but it was a video of him petting one of the horses and brushing its long brown mane, and he was smiling and he sounded pretty happy and everything . . . but I can’t imagine he really was. I was in those horse stables over Family Weekend, and I know how gross they smelled. And he hasn’t responded to my last message, when I showed him my Halloween costume and played him part of the song we’re singing in music class.

  I guess I should have specifically told him to send me another one back, because he might not realize I’m expecting him to. But I never had to say that when I was at camp. He did it on his own because he wanted to.

  Mom keeps saying it’s different now that he’s the one away, but I still don’t know.

  Sierra and I tore into fun-size Twix bars, Snickers, and Milky Ways, leaving the wrappers in a pile on the floor.

  “What are those two doing?” she asked, pointing at the two big angelfish, who kept swimming right at each other and then darting away.

  “They hate each other,” I said. “They’re both males. There used to be a female one, and they used to fight over her.” Then I laughed. “I told Ry I thought maybe they could put aside their differences and be friends after she died, and he was like, ‘I need you to stop anthropomorphizing my fish, please, Lauren.’”

  That was after he’d been working with Jenna for a while. She was helping him figure out how to speak up and say what he needed before he got really overwhelmed. It’s still really hard for him to do it—Jenna said it’s a process to develop that skill—but that time, he did. Mom was there, and she was so busy praising Ryan for asking for what he wanted that I don’t think she even heard me ask what the word meant.

  “Anthropo-what?” Sierra asked.

  “Right?” I said. “It means treating them like they’re human when they’re not—I had to look it up.”

  “Ryan sounds smart,” Sierra said.

  “He’s super-smart,” I told her. “He loves science and history, and he’s so amazing at music that he can hear a song and then play it on the piano without reading music.”

  Sierra crinkled a Twix wrapper between her fingers. “That’s really cool. Maybe I’ll get to meet him someday.”

  “When he comes home at Christmas,” I said. Almost
two whole months away.

  “Yeah,” Sierra said. “Christmas.”

  She flinched as those two male angelfish swam right at each other again, and I realized—that might be awful for her, the idea of being here for Christmas instead of wherever she usually is.

  So I handed her the last Snickers and changed the subject. “What did you dress up as for Halloween last year?”

  She wasn’t wearing the flower headpiece anymore, but she still had on my green jeans, rolled up a little so they wouldn’t be too long, and her green T-shirt. They were close to the same color but not quite. I wondered how many spots away from each other those two greens would be if they were in Audrey’s giant box of markers, still organized by shade because she hasn’t used them enough to mix them up.

  “I didn’t dress up last year,” Sierra said.

  But there was something about the way her eyes darted around that made me wonder if she was telling the truth. I followed her eyes to the right of the couch, then the left, and caught a glimpse of something shiny on the ground, just peeking out from behind the leg of the end table.

  I walked over, leaned down, and picked up Mom’s ring: swirly strands of silver coiled into a thick band, with a big honey-colored stone rimmed with gold. She always wears her wedding rings on her left hand, but she used to wear this one on her right sometimes. Audrey’s mom has a bracelet that looks like it: coiled silver rimmed with gold, and two stones in the center. And Mom went all shrill and gushy when Dad gave her the ring for her birthday once. That means it’s expensive. But she hasn’t worn it for ages. She must have lost it a long time ago. She’s probably stopped looking for it by now.

  I thought of Audrey’s cuff bracelet stashed at the bottom of the blue plastic bin on the other side of the room with the three hundred dollars from the jeans and the jersey, just waiting to be delivered to Jenna.

  Sierra hugged her knees to her chest and leaned into the arm of the sofa.

  She has to know the unfairness of everything as well as I do—better, even. It was her idea that Audrey stole, and I saw the way she froze when we first walked into Audrey’s house and again when she saw our big TV in the living room, and our dining room with Mom’s crystal candlesticks sparkling. And even though she won’t talk much about her parents or where she used to live, I looked up Uncle Al’s Bar & Grill from that shirt she wears, so I know what town she’s from. “An impoverished area” is how Mom would describe it.