Meena Meets Her Match Read online

  There’s nothing like a colorful lunch to make you feel twinkly and cheerful again. That’s just how I need to feel to work on my valentine box! I shovel in the last bite of macaroni and push back my chair.

  “Where are you going?” Mom asks.

  “To my workshop.”

  She starts to stand up. “You want me to come?”

  I stare at her. “No. . . .”

  She and Dad glance sideways at each other. “Why don’t you work here?” Dad says. “We can help you bring some things down.”

  I look around the kitchen. The counters are clear. The footprints are mopped up. There’s not even anything on the refrigerator—no drawings or worksheets or report cards. This is the room where Mom usually works, and she says she can’t think straight unless everything is picked up and put away.

  But I don’t want to think straight. I want to think swirly—in colors and patterns and textures. All this clean, empty space makes me feel blank inside. “I want to work upstairs,” I say.

  “I know, hon,” Mom says with a sigh. “I just think we should keep an eye on you for a while.”

  “But I feel fine,” I say. I do. Now that I’m back home and full of the rainbow, everything feels the same as always. But they’re both just sitting there looking at me, frowning, like they think fireworks might start going off in my head again. The sparkly excitement starts to drain out through my fingertips. “Okay,” I say in a small voice.

  We all go upstairs and come back down with our arms full of supplies, spreading them out on the kitchen table. I set Raymond down next to me so he can watch. My box still has a few bare spots, so I start gluing candy wrappers over them. Mom taps away at her computer, but she keeps peeking at me over the screen. Dad loads plates into the dishwasher, but he keeps coming over to ruffle my hair.

  All the looking and touching makes the nipping feeling start up in my stomach again. Not only that, but somebody brought down my jar of Sofía’s can tabs, and they’re just sitting there on the table, staring at me like everyone else. I try making a tunnel around my face with my hands so all I can see is my box. I stare at it, waiting for Inspiration.

  Yesterday I thought the wrappers were starting to look like scales. But they just look wrinkled and messy to me now. They make my box look like trash.

  Mom takes off her glasses, closes her computer, and turns to Dad. “Sleep deprivation,” she says. “It’s the only trigger that makes any sense. What time did she get up this morning?”

  Dad flings a dish towel over his shoulder. “Not much earlier than me.”

  “Well, nothing else fits. There’s alcohol. Head trauma. Fever. Diabetes, but they checked for that.”

  Dad leans against the counter. “Maybe it was just a one-time thing.”

  “Maybe,” Mom says. She rubs her eyes.

  “What about exercise? Do we have to restrict her activity?” he asks her.

  “It doesn’t sound like it. Exercise might even help.”

  Dad nods and hooks his hand on the back of his neck. When he sees me watching him, he lets go of his neck, gives me a quick smile, and takes a step toward me.

  I grab Raymond and hop down from the table before anybody can ruffle my hair again. “I’m going to Eli’s,” I say, heading for the door.

  “Hang on,” Mom says. She pushes her chair back from the table. “I’ll go too.”

  “I can get there by myself,” I say, gritting my teeth.

  “I know you can, but—” She looks sideways at Dad and gets up. “But I haven’t had a chance to talk to Aunt Kathy all week.”

  7

  It’s cool and foggy out when we head to Eli’s. Our shoes crunch over gritty bits of sand and salt on the sidewalk. I keep Raymond tucked under my arm while the trash bag I’m carrying thumps against my back.

  Mom walks next to me in a straight line. She doesn’t veer off to look in the gutter. She doesn’t even slow down when we pass a red bottle cap or an orange twist tie, even though my fingers are just itching to pick them up.

  Of course Rosie just had to come along, even though she spent all morning there. She keeps doing that thing where she runs ahead, stops to look at something on the sidewalk and falls behind, then runs ahead again. Usually it’s kind of cute, but today, every time she runs past me, I grit my teeth so hard that they hurt.

  I tighten my grip on the trash bag. Water trickles into the drain, and the sound makes me feel like we’re walking into yesterday. It almost feels like I could walk right back to the spot before any of this happened, and maybe this time it wouldn’t.

  My aunt Kathy opens the door before we even make it to the front stoop. Rosie runs right past her into the house. Aunt Kathy is wearing the fuzzy purple sweater I love, and she opens her arms and pulls me into a big plushy hug that smells like angel food. Even though it feels good to be wrapped up in that purple softness, it starts getting a little too tight in there. Aunt Kathy gives me one last crush before I pry myself away. “Where’s Eli?” I ask.

  “Waiting for you,” she says.

  “Is it safe?”

  “As safe as it gets. I think he made Rosie help him clean up this morning.”

  That makes me smile a little. Eli’s room gets pretty stinky sometimes. But when I get to his doorway, all I smell is wood shavings and kibble. Rosie is already sticking her fingers through a cage, trying to pet Eli’s rabbit. “Anybody wake up dead today?” I ask, dropping my trash bag by the door.

  Eli looks up and grins. “No, but Rosie just about pet the fur off Vernon,” he says, nodding toward the rabbit, who’s keeping too far back for Rosie to reach. Eli goes back to dribbling something into a glass tank. “What the heck happened to you?”

  I bounce the toe of my sneaker on the floor and shrug. “What you heard.” I know Aunt Kathy must have told him, but I don’t want to talk about waking up in the hospital or about the test or about all the looking and touching since then. Eli and I might play tag and hunt for trash and build things together, but we don’t talk about stuff like that. I hold out Raymond instead and say, “They gave me this.”

  Eli looks at Raymond. He nods. “Cool,” he says, and goes back to feeding his gerbil. I know he’d never blab to anyone about Raymond because he still keeps a scrap of his baby blanket under his pillow. He won’t tell anyone about this morning, either. The nice thing about Eli is that if I don’t mention going to the hospital, he’ll pretend it never happened, just like I pretend he doesn’t get tears in his eyes during that show when the lion catches the gazelle.

  I let out a breath and look around. It’s like Eli’s own personal nature center in here. There are cages and tanks and aquariums all over, some with glowing lights or bubbling water. Eli is allergic to cats, and Aunt Kathy isn’t ready for another dog yet since their cocker spaniel died last year, but for some reason she’s okay with pretty much every other kind of pet. He’s got a turtle and a lizard and a hermit crab. He’s got mice and hamsters and something called a chinchilla. He’s even got an ant farm.

  I mean, an ant farm? The boy can’t have a puppy, but Aunt Kathy lets him keep a box of bugs on his dresser? What’s up with that?

  “You want to feed Henry?” Eli asks.

  “I do!” Rosie pipes up.

  “She can do it,” I say. “Henry peed on me last time.”

  “He won’t if you don’t pick him up.”

  “I don’t care. I’m holding a grudge.”

  “Fine, then feed Lizzy.”

  Rosie sprinkles little cut-up carrots through the top of the hamster cage while I shake a can of fish pellets into the big aquarium. Lizzy swims out from behind her hiding place and scoops them into her mouth. (Or his. I don’t know how you’re supposed to tell.) When she’s not eating, she spends all her time lurking in the fake weeds, ready to ambush. She’s blue and feathery and glistens, but don’t let that fool you, because Eli says if he put another fish in with her, she’d kill it.

  When we’re done, I grab the trash bag and we head for the kitchen.
Eli stops at the fridge, grabs the milk, and chugs the last of it. He hands Rosie the empty jug and slides open the back door for her. I’m just about to follow them out when Mom stops me. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  I stop with my hand on the door and turn to where Aunt Kathy is pouring her some tea. “Outside,” I say.

  Mom frowns. “Were you planning to tell me?”

  “Why would I tell you?”

  “So I know where you are.”

  I blink at her. “I’m at Eli’s. Which you already know, because you followed me here.”

  “But you’re going outside now.”

  “So?”

  She rubs her forehead. “I’d like to be able to see you.”

  I scowl at her, then back out the door and slide it closed. Mom shifts her chair right in front of it and crosses her arms.

  “What’s she doing?” Eli asks.

  I feel my face get hot. “She’s just mad because I glued her keys together,” I say, which is not really a lie, because I did do that once.

  Okay, twice.

  I turn my trash bag upside down on the back porch and dump out all the milk jugs I’ve been collecting. Our igloo is more than half finished. We started it over Christmas, while Sofía was still visiting family. I was hoping she’d have a chance to work on it with us when she got back.

  But she’s never even seen it.

  The igloo is in pretty good shape, considering it’s taken us almost six weeks to get this far. There’s just enough shelter on the porch that the wind can’t knock it over, and real snow won’t make it collapse. We built it by stacking rows of milk jugs in a circle. The lids point in toward the middle, and the white, flat bottoms show on the outside. Since milk jugs are skinny at the top, when you stack them on their sides, the walls start to curve in the higher they get. If we pack them tight enough, they’ll curve together to make a roof!

  At least I hope they will.

  “Do you want to stack or tape?” I ask, setting Raymond inside the igloo.

  Eli pulls on the roll of duct tape and releases a stretchy, plastic sound. “Tape,” he says. He tears off a piece, folds it over so it’s sticky on both sides, slaps it onto a jug, and hands it to me.

  I stack the first milk jug, making sure it sticks to the one next to it. I have to let Rosie do the next couple, but after that she gets distracted and starts kicking a jug around in the grass. Even if she dents that one up, we should have enough to finish the igloo in a week or two, depending on how much milk the neighbors drink.

  When we’ve stacked and taped all the jugs we have, the igloo comes up as high as my chin. We crawl through the gap we left for the door and plop down on the cold wood boards of the porch. This is my favorite part, because from the inside you can see all the different-colored lids pointing at you—blue for skim, green for low fat, red for whole. The air is chilly, but it’s already warming up from our breath, and before I can stop myself, I think how much Sofía would like it in here.

  At least she would have before. She always liked being tucked into small spaces. We used to hang out in the big orange tube slide at school to catch our breath after playing tag. When I went to her house, we used to pretend her hall closet was our apartment. We’d sit on the floor with the door closed drinking strawberry milk and eating sweet buns with pretty crisscross tops. If Sofía were here, she would have brought the empty jugs from her milk. We would have had pink lids too.

  I hug Raymond close to me and look around the igloo at all the colors. We don’t have any pink at all. One whole color is missing—one of my favorites. My stomach aches a little at the thought.

  But if Sofía doesn’t want to play anymore, maybe she’d just think this place was stupid.

  “What do you want to do?” Eli says. “We could pretend we’ve just set up base camp, and we’re getting ready to climb Mount Everest.”

  I glance out at his yard. It’s brown and mucky, and there are only a couple of wimpy patches of snow left. Rosie is twirling a stick around to make a hole in one of them. “It doesn’t look like a mountain,” I say.

  “Fine, then let’s pretend we’ve been camping,” he says, “and wolves chased us into the woods, and we’re lost.”

  I look toward the little knot of trees at the edge of the yard. It’s not exactly a forest—just a few pine trees and some scraggly bushes that nobody ever mows under. I crawl out the opening of the igloo and peek through the sliding-glass door. Mom is looking back at me, her hands wrapped around a mug. She takes a sip and gives me a little wave that makes my skin prickle.

  I grit my teeth. I’d like to get lost. I’d go where nobody could find me and get rid of that prickly, spied-on feeling.

  And just then Aunt Kathy sets a little pitcher on the table. Mom turns away from the window, picks it up, and pours something into her mug.

  I don’t even think before I head for the trees. The ground squishes under my feet as I hear Eli tramping behind me. I feel the watery air in my lungs. Rosie squeals a little and runs after us with Pink Pony, sensing something exciting. When we make it to the pines, I lean against a trunk, clutching Raymond to my chest and panting. I can see Eli’s swing set and clotheslines through the bushes, but I can’t see his back door from here. Which means Mom can’t see me.

  “We’ll never find our way back,” I moan. “Nobody will find us until the coyotes have licked our bones clean!”

  “Never mind the coyotes,” Eli says, jumping right in. “We won’t last the night if we don’t get that fire built.” He starts piling up twigs. I pick up pinecones and add them to the heap. Rosie scoops up some pine needles and sprinkles them on top. Eli rubs a couple of sticks together and makes snapping and crackling sounds. We hold our hands in front of our pretend fire. The wind whooshes through the pines, and I can almost feel the heat of the flames.

  Then I hear the back door slide open. “Meena?”

  Rosie starts to get up from where she’s crouched down over our pile. I grab her arm and pull her back down. “Are you crazy?” I hiss. “It’s a bear. Don’t let it see you!”

  Rosie’s eyes get wide. She looks excited, but scared, too. Her eyes dart from me to Mom and back again, her cheeks pink.

  “Meena!” Mom says, louder now. I can see her through the bushes, looking around the yard. She turns her head this way.

  “Let’s run for it,” I whisper to Eli.

  “What? Why?”

  “Shhh!” Rosie whispers loudly. “It’s a bear.”

  “Come on.” I tug at his arm. “Now’s our chance!”

  “But you’ll get in trouble,” Eli says.

  “I don’t care! I just want to—” But it’s too late. Mom is coming right toward us. Her steps are long and powerful. “Stay down,” I hiss.

  Eli ducks his head. Mom stops on the other side of our bush, puts her hands on her hips, and glares at me through the branches. “Meena,” she says.

  “We’re lost in the woods,” Rosie chirps happily. “You can’t see us!”

  “Meena’s jacket is bright orange,” she snaps. “Satellites can see her. And if you’re all going to hide from me, we’re leaving.”

  She holds out her hand. Rosie takes it and skips along, her pigtails bouncing, while Mom stalks across the yard.

  Traitor.

  I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to sit around where everything reminds me of this morning and everybody looks at me like I might burst into flames.

  But Eli is squinting hard in my direction. He looks from Raymond back to me, like he has X-ray eyes that can see right through us. “That’s not because you glued her keys together,” he says.

  I get up, brush off the pine needles, and stomp across the yard.

  8

  I spend the rest of the day working on coloring books with Raymond.

  People are always giving me coloring books—“Since you like art,” they say.

  I hate coloring books. I hate how they don’t give you any say in where to put the color. They just tell y
ou where, and then trap it there inside the lines. Every page is like a little color prison.

  So when I’m in a really bad mood, I get out a coloring book and a black pen, and I change all the pictures. I give the horses scales and fins. I draw extra arms on the princesses. I add monsters the book characters can’t see in the background, coming to gobble them up.

  By the time Dad calls us for dinner, I’ve finished redoing three whole coloring books, and I’m finally starting to feel better. I might even want to make something after dinner instead of just wrecking it. But as soon as we’ve taken our dishes to the sink, and Mom has sent Rosie to get ready for bed, she turns to me and says, “You too, Meena Zee.”

  I can’t even believe my ears. “I have another hour,” I say. “I was going to work on my box.”

  “Not tonight.”

  I look at Dad. Once in a while, when Mom tells me to do something that isn’t fair, he gives me a let-me-talk-to-her wink. Then I go into the other room for a minute, and when they come in, Mom has changed her mind.

  Dad doesn’t wink.

  I grab Raymond, stomp up the stairs, and slam the bathroom door. Mom props it open again and stands there with her arms crossed until I finish brushing my teeth. I’m so mad getting into my pajamas that at first I don’t even see the thing sitting by my bed.

  “What is that?” I ask, when Mom comes over. It looks like a walkie-talkie with a little blue light.

  “A monitor,” she says.

  I remember it now! It sat by Rosie’s crib when she was little. There was another one in the kitchen with a little screen so they could watch her while she slept. “That thing is for babies,” I say.

  “That thing is for safety,” Mom replies.