Calli Be Gold Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2011 by Michele Weber Hurwitz

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Wendy Lamb Books and the colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools,

  visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hurwitz, Michele Weber.

  Calli be gold / Michele Weber Hurwitz — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Eleven-year-old Calli, the third child in a family of busy high-achievers, likes to take her time and observe rather than rush around, and when she meets an awkward, insecure second-grader named Noah and is paired with him in the Peer Helper Program, she finds satisfaction and strength in working with him.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89823-5 [1. Individuality—Fiction. 2. Self-confidence—Fiction. 3. Ability—Fiction. 4. Family life—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.H95744 Cal 2011

  [Fic]—dc22

  2010013157

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  To Ben, Rachel, Sam, and Cassie,

  and to Mom

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 - C’mon, Calli, Chop-chop

  Chapter 2 - Noah on the Floor

  Chapter 3 - Take It to the Hoop!

  Chapter 4 - Burnt Lasagna

  Chapter 5 - Why’d You Pick Me?

  Chapter 6 - Grandma Gold

  Chapter 7 - Improv?

  Chapter 8 - Peer Helper Problems

  Chapter 9 - Okay, Muse, I’m Ready

  Chapter 10 - One Lone Leaf

  Chapter 11 - Becca’s Lie

  Chapter 12 - Noodle Colors

  Chapter 13 - CLIC

  Chapter 14 - View from the Top of the Hill

  Chapter 15 - The Calendar Crisis

  Chapter 16 - An Idea

  Chapter 17 - Stones

  Chapter 18 - On the Bench

  Chapter 19 - The Wagon

  Chapter 20 - A Person’s Not a Puzzle Piece

  Chapter 21 - The Friendship Fair

  Chapter 22 - Helping Noah

  Chapter 23 - Calli’s Passion

  Chapter 24 - Home

  Chapter 25 - Afterward

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  he way I look at it, you can divide all the people in the world into two categories: the loud ones who shout about who they are and what they do, and the quiet ones who just are and do.

  I suppose one kind balances out the other kind, like black letters on white paper, or frozen teeth from a Popsicle on a ninety-five-degree summer day.

  Except for this: if you’re a quiet person randomly and hopelessly born into a family of louds, then it isn’t a balance at all. It’s downright lopsided.

  Unfortunately, that would be me. Calli Gold, number three kid in the Gold family. One quiet. Four louds. Lopsided. Not to mention exasperating.

  * * *

  I am sitting at the kitchen table, sucking the salt from a sourdough pretzel nugget while my mom arranges pink and blue Post-it notes on the Calendar. Most of the salt is gone and the pretzel has turned to mush when I hear two bangs, several bumps, and one loud crash. My sister, Becca, has tumbled down the stairs.

  I’m not surprised, and neither is Mom, because Becca trips on the stairs all the time. It’s never anything serious, because she somehow grabs hold of the banister at the last second. I can’t see her or the stairs from the kitchen, but I hear her groan and moan.

  “You all right, Becca?” Mom calls out, still intently examining the dizzying pattern of pink and blue Post-its. She tugs at the back edge of her sweater, straightening the places where it’s gotten bunched up.

  I can picture Becca, sprawled at the bottom of the carpeted staircase, the stuff from her skating bag in a messy pile around her on the wood floor. Skates and towels and tights, and her sweatshirt proclaiming to the world that ICE GIRLS ARE SIZZLIN’ HOT. And in the middle of it, with her lips pulled into a snarl, is my thirteen-year-old sister, mad at everyone who dares to look her way.

  If Becca would ever listen to me (and she won’t, because I’m only eleven), there are three things I would tell her: (1) Zip up the skating bag. Then everything won’t fall out. (2) Socks can be awful slippery on carpeted stairs. And (3) It’s probably not smart to look out the window by our front door to see if the cute boy across the street is shooting baskets in his driveway and walk down the stairs at the same time.

  “Becca?” Mom calls again.

  “I’m fine,” she snaps.

  Mom taps a pen on the enormous monthly write-on, wipe-off calendar taped to our kitchen wall. Better known as the Calendar. “It’s going to be tight today,” she says, peeling off one blue Post-it note and then a pink one. Pink are Becca’s Post-its, and my brother Alex’s are blue. These tiny squares contain their activity schedules down to the minute. My mother, who calls herself the Gold CFO (Chief Family Organizer), says that without her planning, our life as we know it would fall apart.

  Mom used to be a project manager for a big food company, but for the time being, she says we are her projects. She says that managing this family is more work than her job ever was.

  Light yellow is the color of my Post-its. There are only two of them on the Calendar for this month. One is for a dentist appointment and the other is for a haircut.

  My dad says he’d like to see lots more yellow Post-its filling up the Calendar, because the Golds are busy people, and after all, I am a Gold too. Trouble is, in the past two years, I tried gymnastics, ballet, soccer, baton twirling, violin, and even origami, but I was a big disappointment in everything. Or everything was a big disappointment to me. I can’t remember which. So as of right now, I haven’t yet made my mark on the Calendar. But Dad says I will. He says I have to, because I am a Gold.

  Mom clicks the cap onto the pen and adjusts her glasses. “It’s going to be really tight today,” she repeats. Not only does Becca fall a lot, Mom often says things are going to be really tight. When she says this, the up-and-down crease between her eyebrows becomes deeper.

  “Get yourself together, Becca,” Mom shouts. She scans the pink Post-it in her hand. “We have eight minutes to get you to skating.” She turns to me. “Do you have homework, Calli?”

  “I finished it.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “All of it?”

  “Yep.” I pop another pretzel into my mouth. “At school.”

  “Don’t you have a math test coming up?”

  “We reviewed in class.”

  “Well then,” she says, “bring a book along. Or go over a few more problems for the test. I know you get a little bored at the rink, and I can’t entertain you today. I have a meeting with the other skating moms. You know I’m chairing the costume committee this year. We have a lot of crucial information to go over. Crucial,” she repeats, like I hadn’t heard the first time.

  She grabs her purse from the counter and pulls her keys from one of the pockets. Her purse isn’t a regular purse; it’s more like a miniature suitcase, with all kinds of compartments and pockets and zippers and pouches. Metallic silver, the thing wei
ghs a ton. I know. I’ve tried to pick it up.

  She isn’t one of those mothers who can never find anything in their purses, like my friend Wanda’s mom, who’s always searching for Kleenex, money, or ChapStick. Dad brags that Mom can locate something in her purse with the accuracy of a global satellite.

  “Mom?” I say, crossing my legs importantly like she does. “Do I have to go to the rink? Can’t I stay home? I think I’m old enough to stay by myself now.” I take a deep breath. “Wanda’s mom has started to let her stay by herself.”

  She puts a hand on her hip and gives me one of those unblinking mom stares, the kind that signals the asking of an outrageously dumb question.

  “No,” she says, “you cannot stay home by yourself. I don’t care what Wanda does. You know that the rule in this family is eleven and a half, no more, no less. Don’t start with me today, Calli, I don’t have time for this.” She snaps her purse closed and turns away. Discussion over.

  I sigh, sink lower in my chair, and put another pretzel into my mouth as Becca limps dramatically into the kitchen. “I think I hurt my ankle,” she whimpers. “I don’t know if I can skate today.” She drops her bag and one skate topples out, thudding across the tile floor.

  Becca never enters a room calmly. She always drops something, smashes into something else, falls, yells, whines, or creates what Grandma Gold calls a “ruckus.” Becca always seems to have a lot of injuries too.

  “Becca, you are absolutely fine.” Mom rolls her eyes and glances over at me. I can’t help it: a little giggle escapes.

  Becca whips her head in my direction. “What’s your problem? You think it’s funny that I can barely walk?”

  “No,” I say quickly.

  Dropping to the floor, Becca shoves the skate back inside her bag, then begins the process of gathering her dark hair into a high ponytail. She spent an hour last night straightening it with a flat iron, but still, she smooths it over and over in upward strokes, even though it already seems to be completely smooth. Her brown eyes are lined with thick black eyeliner, and her lids are smothered in bright glittery blue. I want to tell her she’s pretty without that stuff, but just like with my staircase advice, I know she won’t listen.

  “Becca, can you do your hair in the car?” Mom asks, looking a bit annoyed. “We’re late as it is, and you know those coaches.…” She taps her watch. “Let’s go, before they kick you off the team.”

  Becca gives me a slight shove after she pulls herself up from the floor. “Alex and I didn’t get to stay by ourselves when we were your age,” she says. “Why should you get special privileges just because you’re the baby of the family?” She crosses her arms in front of her chest and raises her eyebrows, as if daring me to come up with an answer.

  I don’t.

  “Put the pretzels away,” Mom tells me. Then she claps her hands and says those words I dread. “C’mon, Calli, chop-chop.”

  “Chop-chop” means we have to take my brother or sister somewhere, and I get to sit in the way back of a minivan that hasn’t been washed in a very long time and watch my life whiz past through a grimy, sticky, steamed-up window.

  “We haven’t got all day,” Mom adds.

  I clip the pretzel bag, return it to the pantry, then grab my jacket and follow them into the garage. Becca is hobbling in front of me, dragging her skating bag across the dusty floor. “It might be nice if one of you could give me a hand here,” she complains, but Mom plops onto the driver’s seat and motions for me to climb in back.

  Before I’m even buckled, Mom zooms backward out of the driveway. She drives too fast, because we’re always late and rushing to get somewhere. Plus she has this habit of tacking the day’s Post-it notes to the steering wheel, and she keeps glancing down at them instead of paying attention to her driving.

  After Becca finally finishes her ponytail, she announces, “By the way, I’m out of lead.”

  “Lead?” Mom asks as the car veers to the right. “You mean the kind for a mechanical pencil?”

  “Yes,” Becca answers, “and I have so much homework tonight.”

  Mom glances in the rearview mirror. “I don’t know if I’ll have time to get your lead today. Can’t you just use a regular pencil?”

  Becca sneers. “I don’t think so.”

  “Mom?” I jump in. “I need something for school too.”

  She sighs and makes a sharp turn. “Didn’t we get you everything you needed for school back in August?”

  “Mrs. Lamont said we needed a new spiral notebook. For something special.”

  “Well, if you’re going to get her a spiral, you can get my lead,” Becca interrupts.

  “Enough, you two. I’ll see how my timing is later.”

  The clock on the dashboard says 4:57. Mom speeds up. Becca’s practice starts at five. I turn to the window and wipe in a circle with my fingers, clearing the glass. The late October sky is patched with skinny streaks of pink and purple and orange. It reminds me of rays and line segments in geometry, all those intersecting angles and shapes in sunset colors. I don’t bother to point this out to Mom and Becca, who are arguing about Becca’s supposedly twisted ankle. I know by now that I’m the only one in the Gold family who notices things like that.

  Mom swerves into a parking space and I follow her and my sister through the doors of the skating rink.

  I know by now that I’m the only one in the Gold family who notices a lot of things.

  he skating rink looks the same as it always does: dark and dull and gray. It has a mixed aroma of smelly feet and burnt popcorn from the concession stand. There isn’t a single window in the entire place, and the floor is covered in black rubber so the skaters can walk around without damaging their blades.

  Every time I’m here, I look up at the neon orange banner with the first initials and last names of the skaters from last year’s team. It hangs brightly from the ceiling. Becca’s is right in the center: B. GOLD. I can’t help thinking the banner proclaims my family’s philosophy—Be Gold … because why would you be anything else?

  A plaque hangs in the gym where my brother, Alex, played travel basketball last year. It has the names of all the players on his team, plus a listing of their winning record, game by game. So that one says A. GOLD and even has a photo of the team above the names.

  Dad is very proud of the B. Gold banner and the A. Gold plaque and he tells everyone about them. There is yet to be a C. Gold banner or plaque or even a small ribbon anywhere in town, but Dad says my time is coming and I will soon find my passion.

  Becca flounces over to her teammates and throws her bag on the floor. They look like identical copies of each other, with their huffy expressions, black eyeliner, glittery eye shadow, and high, straight-haired ponytails. While Becca starts getting her skates on, Mom and the other skating mothers take over a few tables near the concession stand. They spread out their folders and papers, sip from cups of coffee, and talk on their cell phones. They look serious, because as Mom says, synchronized skating is very important business. I wonder if all these mothers were once project managers too.

  A few of them are wearing their black satin jackets with SYNCHRONETTES MOM sewn in loopy letters on the back. That’s the name of Becca’s team: the Synchronettes. When the girls and the moms and the coaches all huddle together in their matching jackets before a competition, they look like a small army ready to take on the entire world.

  The usual skating rink siblings are here: Jeremy and Jordan, the five-year-old twin boys who race to the fountain, then shoot water at each other through the spaces in their teeth; the black-haired kid who wears black jeans and a black hoodie that says DEATH RULES, and never talks to anyone; and the little blond toddler who always has food stains on her face and wails nonstop.

  The coach of the skating team marches over and I hear her shout, “Let’s go, girls. We have a lot to get through today!” Becca says this year’s coach is brutal. Her name is Coach Ruth but the girls call her Coach Ruthless. Becca never looks very ha
ppy when she’s coming here or when she’s on the ice, so I’m not sure why she skates. Wouldn’t it be better to find something she really likes to do? More of my advice she’ll never listen to.

  As the girls parade off after Coach Ruthless, I wander over by the area everyone calls the arcade. It’s really just three old, beat-up video games. There are one of those unwinnable prize machines with the crane, a hockey-foosball game that barely works, and a car-racing game with an accelerator that’s permanently stuck to the ground because Jeremy and Jordan jam wads of gum behind it every week.

  I’m watching the screen of the racing game, which keeps showing a car that veers off the track, rams into a wall, and explodes, when I realize I forgot to bring a book. I’m going to have nothing to do for an hour and a half. A mixture of mad and sad comes over me, but then something unusual catches my eye. I see a kid lying completely still under the hockey-foosball game. He’s small and skinny, maybe about seven or eight, wearing a dark blue winter jacket and jeans.

  I know all of the skating team’s little brothers but I’ve never seen this kid before. I walk over to the hockey-game table and circle it a few times to see if he stirs. Finally, I crouch down and take a close-up look. He’s still lying perfectly motionless and I’m not even sure if he’s breathing. Behind his gold-wire-framed glasses, his eyes are closed. His hair is kind of messy, like he never combed it this morning. Uneven spikes of light brown stick up in lots of directions. No one else seems to have noticed him. I feel a little worried. What if he fainted or got sick? Where is his mom, or dad, or babysitter? And why is he wearing a winter jacket? It’s not even that cold out.

  “Excuse me,” I say softly. “Hey? Are you okay?”

  No response.

  “Are you sick or something? Did you hurt yourself?” I gently place my hand on top of his jacket.

  No answer. Maybe he just fell asleep.

  “Do you want me to get someone?” I ask. “Is your mom here?”

  Nothing.

  I decide to tell Mom about the kid. When I reach her, she’s deep in conversation with one of the other skating team mothers. I wait politely at her side until I can’t stand it anymore. “Mom,” I say quietly. She looks at me sort of vacantly. “Mom, there’s this kid …” I point in the direction of the arcade.