Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree (13 page)

“You’re probably really worn out from everything, ” Colleen said. “I mean you don’t look worn out, you look gorgeous, as usual! It’s just that you need to rest, so that you can change your mind and come to the dance! With us!”

“Yeah!” said Valerie.

“That’s right,” said Kaitlin.

“With us!” said Michele.

Emma-Jean thanked them for the cookies.

The girls said good-bye and departed in a flurry of pastel parkas and freshly painted nails. Their fruity, flowery smells lingered in the hallway.

Emma-Jean felt odd, like she had just returned from a long trip.

Her mother was standing in the kitchen doorway, waiting for her.

They sat down at the kitchen table.

“They seem like lovely girls,” said her mother.

“Yes,” said Emma-Jean.

“Don’t you think they would be disappointed if you didn’t return to school?”

Emma-Jean considered this.

“No,” she said. “They will not miss me. Until a few weeks ago, I hardly spoke to them at all.”

“But how about now? They said you were friends.”

Emma-Jean shook her head. “They are too complicated. ”

Her mother shook her head and smiled, an odd reaction, Emma-Jean thought.

“I’m sorry, Emma-Jean!” her mother said. It took a moment for the smile to fade from her face. “I’m smiling because your father used to say the exact same thing.”

“He did?”

Emma-Jean eyed her father’s picture on the refrigerator.

“Yes. You know, this all didn’t come naturally to him, connecting with other people. He had to work at it. And then, oh Emma-Jean, when you came into the world, we were so madly in love with you! He wanted to show you everything! I think in so many ways you were the one who pulled him into the world. Because it became so much easier for him. You remember how much he enjoyed his students? And how they loved him!”

Emma-Jean remembered the students—hundreds of them—who had come to her father’s memorial service, young men and women who leaned against each other and cried, who stood in line to tell Emma-Jean and her mother how much her father had encouraged and inspired them.

“Emma-Jean,” her mother said softly. “It was good of you to try to help Colleen when you saw her crying in the bathroom.”

“How do you know about that?”

“Mrs. Pomerantz called,” she said. “She’s called four times. She told me . . . it’s quite a story.”

“Did she tell you about the letter I wrote?”

Emma-Jean’s mother nodded. “Yes, and for future reference, forging letters isn’t a good idea, even for noble purposes.”

“I accomplished nothing. I made Colleen very unhappy. I made her problem much worse.”

Her mother leaned close to Emma-Jean so their noses almost touched.

“Listen closely to me.”

“I always listen closely to you.”

Her mother smiled and put her hands on Emma-Jean’s. “Things don’t always work out the way we want them to. We try, and sometimes we get hurt, and sometimes we cry. I guess you could say we even fall out of a tree, in a manner of speaking. But we get up. And next time we don’t go up the same tree, or maybe we go up, but hold on tighter.”

Emma-Jean’s mother stood up and carefully took her father’s picture off the refrigerator. She knelt down next to Emma-Jean and handed her the picture. Her father seemed to regard them both with love and care.

“Do you know what your father’s favorite quote was? It was by Poincaré, of course.” Emma-Jean’s mother brushed the hair from Emma-Jean’s face and leaned close to her ear.
“It is by logic that we prove, but it is in our hearts that we discover life’s possibilities.”

Emma-Jean found it perplexing that she’d never read that statement. Maybe she really didn’t know Poincaré at all.

“I’m not like other people,” Emma-Jean said.

“Yes you are,” her mother said. “More than you know.” She wiped away some of the tears that were running down Emma-Jean’s face. “Maybe it’s time you accepted it.”

Chapter 26

The William Gladstone Middle School cafeteria looked so amazing, with all the green Christmas lights and sparkly green and white streamers lights and sparkly green and white streamers and shamrocks hanging from the ceiling. Colleen herself had helped paint the big sign on the wall that said: “Welcome to the Leprechaun Dance!” The
L
and the
D
were crooked, but Colleen guessed it didn’t look too bad and that not too many people noticed.

The tables and chairs had been folded up and pushed against the wall to make room for a dance floor. Michele, Valerie, and Kaitlin were right in the middle, lined up doing some dance steps. They kept stopping and cracking up, and Colleen wished she could be with them.

But right now she was working up her nerve to talk to Laura Gilroy.

The past two days she’d avoided Laura in school, rushing out of Spanish right when the bell rang, going to extra math help during lunch, sneaking into the teachers’ bathroom when she absolutely had to go. She kept expecting Laura to corner her, to wave the stolen file in her face or drag her into Mr. Tucci’s office. But Laura barely looked at her. Was this some new form of slow torture?

It didn’t matter, really, because now Colleen was going to make things right. She didn’t want to be afraid anymore. If she was afraid, then zombie Colleen might be able to sneak back into her life. She couldn’t let that happen. She had to face up to Laura, who would be horrible and mean. But Colleen would just have to take it.

Colleen gathered up her nerve and made her way through the crowds of seventh graders, sweaty in their green T-shirts and hats. Laura was standing at the edge of the dance floor, swaying to the music. She was staring at Will Keeler, who was with his friends, jumping up and trying to pull the shamrocks from the ceiling. Laura’s eyes were all dreamy. In better times, Laura had confided in Colleen that she and Will Keeler were meant to be together. She’d told Colleen about her plan to make things official tonight, at the dance. “Won’t we make the most perfect couple?” Laura had said.

“Yes!” Colleen had said, even though she wasn’t exactly sure Will Keeler liked Laura. Will Keeler was really cute, but he seemed more interested in basketball than in girls.

Colleen stepped up, took a deep breath, and tapped Laura on the shoulder.

Laura whipped around. “What?”

“Laura,” she said, “I wanted to say sorry for all that happened . . .”

Laura looked at her in her mean way, like Colleen was a fly on Laura’s salad. But Colleen didn’t back away.

“Things got a little out of control, and . . .” Colleen paused because her heart was beating like crazy and it was hard to breathe.

“What?” Laura said.

“And I know you’re upset. But Emma-Jean didn’t really understand. And when you meet with Mr. Tucci, and show him the file, you should maybe explain that. Or I will.”

Laura rolled her eyes and laughed, like Colleen herself was the stupidest joke she’d ever heard.

“Guess what, Colleen. You guys got real lucky. Because there was a leak. A pipe burst over my locker, and everything got wrecked. Including the file.”

“A leak?”

“That’s right. That load Johannsen was trying to fix a pipe, and he botched it. Like a million gallons of water poured into my locker.”

“Oh my gosh! That’s awful.”

“I’m over it, okay? I never really wanted to go on the ski trip. I heard that Kaitlin’s condo’s a real dump, anyway. And Emma-Jean Lazarus is a big ole freak. She’s hopeless.”

"But . . .”

Laura waved her hand at Colleen. “I’m sick of the whole thing. So let’s just say it’s over, okay? Done.” She brushed her hands together like she was brushing away dirt. “We’re friends again.”

She looked back over at Will Keeler.

“You’re sure?” Colleen said, trying to smile.

Laura waved her hand again. “Yeah.”

“Well, great! So I guess we’ll talk later, okay?”

“Yeah,” Laura said without looking at her.

Colleen started to walk away. She had done it! Everything was okay! Now things could go back to normal, the way they were, before that morning when she met Emma-Jean Lazarus in the bathroom.

Colleen stopped short, her sneakers squeaking on the tile floor.

Wait! The way things were before? When Colleen cared too much about everything? When she was always afraid of making someone mad, or doing something wrong?

Is that what she wanted?

Before she could answer herself, she had rushed back over to Laura. Colleen wasn’t thinking. There was something controlling her, not the zombie. Something brand-new, good and strong. Something brave.

“No!” she said to Laura.

“Excuse me?”

“I take it back,” Colleen said. “I’m not sorry about what happened.”

“What is with you?” Laura snapped.

For a moment Colleen lost her nerve. What was she doing? Where was Kaitlin?

But then something amazing happened. Before her eyes, Laura Gilroy turned into a chimp. Colleen stared. Then she leaned right into Laura’s personal space so Laura had to take a step back. Colleen stuck out her chest and bared her braces, just a little.

“You did a mean thing!” she said, softly at first. But then her voice got stronger. “You tricked Kaitlin into inviting you skiing. You knew it would hurt me!”

Laura Gilroy seemed to shrink, and Colleen felt herself getting bigger.

“You’re . . .” Colleen fumbled for the right words, searching for the perfect thing to say. “You are not nice!”

Oh gosh! Had she really done that?

Colleen hurried away, her heart thumping, leaving Laura with her mouth hanging open.

Who was the alpha chimp now?

Chapter 27

Earlier that day, Emma-Jean had awakened just after dawn to the smell of curried eggs. With great haste, wincing from the pain in her rib, she put on her robe and slippers, unlocked Henri’s cage, and ran down the stairs so fast that her bird had to dig his claws into her shoulder to keep from falling.

A familiar leather suitcase and Pittsburgh Steelers duffel stood in the hallway.

And in the kitchen, bent over the stove, was Vikram Adwani.

Emma-Jean had a great many questions to ask him, about his mother’s health, about his trip home, and his future plans. These questions and others were arrayed in her mind. Emma-Jean opened her mouth to talk but then Vikram turned around and their eyes met and he very gently put his arms around Emma-Jean. She pressed her cheek against his heart.

Her questions vanished from her mind.

“I fell out of a tree,” Emma-Jean said when they finally parted.

“I know. Your mother called me.”

“She did?”

“Yes.”

“How is your mother? Is she recovered?”

“Yes,” Vikram said. “In fact, it was my mother who urged me to return. She was most concerned about you.”

“Oh,” Emma-Jean said.

Of course Emma-Jean had not forgotten the letter she had sent to Vikram’s mother. She was suddenly struck by a most fantastic hope that the letter had gotten lost on its journey across two oceans and the vast African continent. She pictured it tossing in the waves of the Arabian Sea, the address rendered illegible by the salt water.

“My mother has expressed a strong interest in meeting you and is planning to visit in June,” Vikram said, looking at Emma-Jean most intently, as if he were trying to decipher the fine print on an important document. “She says to tell you that you and she have much to discuss.”

“Yes . . . well . . .” Emma-Jean said. “She knows of my interest in India.”

“Of course,” Vikram said. “Perhaps that’s what she wishes to talk about.”

“Of course,” Emma-Jean said, with less than perfect certainty.

“She sent something for you,” he said, hurrying into the hallway and returning a moment later with a bundle wrapped in many layers of tissue paper. He handed it to Emma-Jean. “She hopes very much that you are pleased with this. We worked on it night and day.”

At that moment Emma-Jean’s mother came into the kitchen, saw Vikram, and exclaimed, “Your flight arrived early!”

Vikram smiled and her mother’s face lit up with an expression as bright and pure as the sunlight streaming through the kitchen window. Her mother began questioning Vikram about the details of his mother’s recovery. Emma-Jean took her package and slipped out of the kitchen, Henri fluttering after her.

She went upstairs and sat on her bed, ignoring the pain in her rib. Carefully, she unwrapped her gift, slowly peeling away the many layers of tissue paper.

It was her quilt. Emma-Jean shook it open, and stared in shock.

All around the edges of the quilt, the frayed and unraveled squares had been removed. In their place were squares of brightly colored sari silk, dozens of different colors, sewn together with tiny, even stitches. The new squares looked nothing like the old ones. They did not in any way fit the pattern her father had created.

And yet the effect was striking, a ribbon of jewels.

Emma-Jean hesitated a moment, and then slowly, carefully, she wrapped the quilt around her shoulders. And there it was, the old feeling of comfort.

Emma-Jean leaned back on her bed. She could hear the clanging of pots downstairs and Vikram’s low voice. Her mother’s tinkling laugh floated up the stairs along with the smell of frying garlic and curry.

And then Emma-Jean sensed something else, an unfamiliar feeling, a kind of effervescence rising from somewhere deep inside her. It was as if some of the dazzling brightness of the quilt’s new squares was flowing through her veins.

She sat very still, wondering what the feeling was, hoping that it would not subside.

Henri flew over and landed on her shoulder. She leaned her cheek against his.

Emma-Jean hugged the quilt tighter.