Rich (3 page)

Free sighed.
I knew it,
he thought.
There are no treasures here.

Of course, that’s when he saw it. A glass jar filled with the most amazing marbles he’d ever seen. It was a small jar, but it must’ve had twenty marbles in it, at least.

Free reached for the jar, pulled it down gingerly and searched for the price sticker.

Fifty cents! He couldn’t believe his eyes.

Free clutched the jar and went to find his friend.

“Look!” said Free, coming up behind Dyamonde. She was studying a small wooden box she’d found on a shelf. Dyamonde
turned around to see what Free was so excited about.

“Marbles!” he said. “Aren’t they great? Only I can’t figure out why anyone would throw good marbles away.”

“Maybe they didn’t,” said Dyamonde. “Maybe there’s a story behind it.”

“Yeah,” said Free. “There must be.”

Dyamonde smiled. She was trying real hard not to say I told you so. “How much?”

“Fifty cents! Can you believe it?”

“Great,” said Dyamonde. “And here’s my treasure for the day—a box for my rock collection.” She held up the box, even opened it so he could smell inside.

“Smells good. What is it?”

“Cedar. It’s a special kind of wood.”

The box was worn in places, but it had a pretty gold latch.

“I’m gonna paint it,” said Dyamonde. “Red, of course. Then, it’ll be perfect.”

“Cool,” said Free, who couldn’t stop grinning. “I wonder what
other great stuff they’ve got in here. This place is amazing!”

“But I thought you didn’t like ‘these places,’” said Dyamonde, throwing Free’s own words back at him.

“Well, that was before,” said Free. “Anyways, why are we standing here
talking
? We’re supposed to be
hunting
.”

“Go on, then,” said Dyamonde. “Nobody’s stopping you.”

Free zoomed back to the toy aisle while Dyamonde turned her attention to clothes.

Dyamonde had a funny way of shopping for clothes. She didn’t pay attention to size or style at first. Instead, she picked her way through the rack looking for the color red. Once she found something in that color, only then would she consider the style. Size was the last thing on her mind. If the piece was too small, that was one thing. But if it was a little too big, Dyamonde figured all she had to do was put a belt on it, right?

Row by row, Dyamonde made her way through the clothes section.

“Oh, well,” sighed Dyamonde
after an unsuccessful hunt. “Maybe next time.”

Dyamonde went in search of Free. She found him in the book corner, flipping through a copy of
The Way Things Work
.

“Hey,” said Dyamonde.

“Hay is for horses,” said Free.

Dyamonde ignored that. “Come on. We’ve gotta go now or we’ll never get our homework done tonight.”

Free looked up at the clock and realized they’d been in the store for almost an hour. He and Dyamonde took their goodies
to the register and paid. Both treasures were small enough to stuff in their backpacks.

“See you next week!” Dyamonde said to the cashier.

“Yeah,” added Free. “See you next week!”

As they left the store, Dyamonde thought she saw Damaris entering a building down the street.

“Damaris!” called Dyamonde.

“Where?” asked Free.

“There!” said Dyamonde, pointing. But the girl had already disappeared without ever turning around. Dyamonde shrugged.

“Guess it wasn’t her,” said Dyamonde. “Sure looked like her, though.”
Same lion’s mane and everything,
thought Dyamonde.
Oh, well.

One Saturday,
Mrs. Daniel joined Dyamonde on a treasure hunt. Only her mom didn’t call it that. She called it “shopping.”

Moms just have no imagination,
thought Dyamonde.

Anyway, when they left Second Time Around, Dyamonde spotted Damaris Dancer exiting a white
building down the street. This time, Dyamonde was sure it was the girl from her class.

“Damaris,” called Dyamonde.

At first the girl didn’t turn around.

“Hey, Damaris! It’s me!” said Dyamonde. This time, Damaris looked around. When she saw Dyamonde, she ran in the opposite direction.

That’s weird,
thought Dyamonde.

“Someone you know?” asked Mrs. Daniel.

“Kind of,” said Dyamonde. She didn’t
say anything else, and her mom didn’t ask more questions.

As they passed the white building, though, Dyamonde noticed the sign above the entrance. It read
SHELTER
.

Dyamonde knew what a shelter was. It was where people went to live when they didn’t have anyplace else. She knew that the people who lived in shelters were poor. And now she knew that one of those people was Damaris.

The following Monday,
Dyamonde caught up with Damaris in the school hall.

“Hey,” said Dyamonde. “Why’d you run away from me the other day?”

“Huh?”

“Saturday. Me and my mom were coming out of Second Time
Around, and I saw you coming out of the shelter.”

Damaris looked around, nervously twisting a strand of hair. “No, I don’t think so,” she said.

“Yes. I know it was you. You even turned around when I called your name. But then you ran away.”

Damaris glanced up and down the hall to make sure no one else was close enough to hear.

“Look,” she said in a whispery voice. “Nobody knows where I live, so please don’t tell them. Please!”

“Don’t worry,” Dyamonde whispered back. “It’ll be our se-cret.” Then she closed her mouth with an invisible zipper. After that, Damaris stopped looking so scared.

Damaris avoided Dyamonde for the rest of that day, but on Tuesday, Dyamonde found her in the lunchroom with her usual pile of books and no food in sight. Dyamonde sat down next to her without asking. Free was out sick, so it’s not like he would miss her.

“Want some chicken nuggets?” said Dyamonde. “They’re extra.
Mom made me this cucumber and avocado sandwich, which I have to eat first.”

Damaris glanced at the chicken nuggets and licked her lips.

“I’m not hungry,” she said, looking back at her book.

“You sure?” asked Dyamonde. “I really need some help with these nuggets. Mom says it’s a sin and a shame to throw food away.”

“Well,” said Damaris. “Maybe just one.”

Dyamonde pushed the plate of chicken toward her, smiling.

Damaris went from being a
reader to being a magician. She made those chicken nuggets dis-appear in no time flat.

Damaris belched. “Sorry.”

“S’okay,” said Dyamonde. She burped too, just so Damaris wouldn’t feel bad.

Once they were done with lunch, Dyamonde locked arms with Damaris and practically pulled her out to the school yard for recess. Dyamonde liked to know everything, and she’d made up her mind that she was going to get to know Damaris Dancer.

“So,
you signed up for the poetry contest,” Dyamonde said to Damaris.

“Uh-huh. Didn’t you?”

Dyamonde shook her head. “I’m not very good at poetry.”

“I love it. I write poems all the time,” said Damaris. “I’d do the
contest even if there wasn’t any money to win.”

“Really?” From the way the girl’s face lit up, Dyamonde be-lieved her.

“I’ve got a bunch of poems already. Want to see?” said Damaris. She pulled out her notebook before Dyamonde could even answer. The book was filled with page after page of poems. There were hardly any blank pages left.

“Wow,” said Dyamonde.

As Dyamonde read her poems, Damaris did something funny
with her face. The corners of her mouth turned up, and the top row of her teeth appeared. Damaris was smiling! Dyamonde had never seen her do that before.

“What are you going to write about for the contest?” asked Dyamonde.

Damaris shrugged. “I have abso-tively, posi-lutely no idea.”

“Huh?”

“Absolutely, positively,” said Damaris. “I just switched the words around a little. I like to play with words. That’s what
poetry is, anyway. Playing with words.”

“If you say so,” said Dyamonde, scratching her head.

“Anyway,” said Damaris, “the contest only gives you three topics to choose from, so I’ll have to pick one.”

“What are they?”

Damaris counted them off on her fingers. “Nature. Make-believe. And home.” She whispered the last word, like it was extra-special.

“You should write about home,” said Dyamonde.

“How can I? It’s not like my family has one, remember?”

“Yeah, but you could write about where you live now.”

“What? Write about living in a shelter so people could laugh at me? No, thank you.”

“No!” said Dyamonde. “Look: where you live is different from where everybody else lives, so your poem would be different too. And everybody knows it’s good to be different in a contest.” Dyamonde was absolutely sure she was right. Wasn’t she always?

Damaris shut her poetry notebook and put it away. Her smile was gone now.

“You promised you wouldn’t tell anybody where I live,” whispered Damaris.

“I didn’t!” said Dyamonde.

“You promised!” said Damaris. “Now you want me to write about it so everybody will know? Forget it!” Damaris stomped off. Dyamonde ran after her.

“What did I do?” asked Dyamonde.

“Quit following me!” Damaris snapped.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry for making you so mad.”

“Fine,” said Damaris. But she still looked pretty mad to Dyamonde.

Dyamonde jumped in front of Damaris to keep her from running away.

“My mom says people laugh at other people ’cause they don’t know better,” said Dyamonde. “Maybe if they knew what it was like to live in a shelter, they wouldn’t laugh. You could be the one to tell them,” said Dyamonde. “In a poem.”

Damaris listened. Her angry face melted away.

“I don’t know,” said Damaris. “Maybe.”

Both girls were quiet for a mo-ment. They sat down on a bench and turned their faces up to the sun, closing their eyes.

“How come you live in a shelter, anyway?” asked Dyamonde.

With her eyes still closed, Damaris sighed. “My mom was working two jobs and she lost one of ’em. She got late on the rent, so they threw our stuff on the sidewalk and said we had to
go. Mom found another job, but it was too late. Now me and my two brothers and my mom have to stay in a shelter till we can save up enough to get a new apartment.”