The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. (19 page)

“No, that’s okay.” I smile back.

She kicks some dirty clothes out of her path and opens the door.

“Get some sleep.”

“ ’Night.”

She takes my backpack with her when she leaves, probably to make sure I don’t turn the light back on and work.

I climb into bed, pull the covers up to my chin, and stare at the blue-white rectangle the streetlight makes on my closet door. How can a person be so exhausted and wide-awake all at once?

I reach for the laser pointer on my nightstand and press the button so a little red light appears on the ceiling. If I swish it around fast enough, it leaves a trail of light, like the tail of a comet. I draw slow red lines on the ceiling. A figure eight. A flower blossom. It helps me calm down.

I’m going to be okay. Mom’s back from her cleaning and cooking frenzy. Nonna’s back from her walk in the rain. Right now, things are okay.

And then I remember that things aren’t. Bianca Rinaldi turned in her permission slip. She’s all set for sectionals if the team needs her.

And tomorrow is the due date for the leaf collection.

CHAPTER 23

I
don’t feel good.

My throat hurts.

My stomach feels funny too. Like I might throw up.

Or have diarrhea.

I can’t go to school with diarrhea. I’d be running to the bathroom all day.

Maybe I have Dutch elm disease.

I think I should stay home.

I’ll just explain to Mom.

CHAPTER 24

M
aybe not.

I’m hammering the snooze button into submission for the third time when Mom comes in and pulls back the covers. Her coffee mug is already half empty, but she still looks exhausted.

“Rise and shine!” Normally, it drives me crazy when she says that in her singsong morning voice, but today, she actually sounds like she just means to say hello, so I let it go.

I pull on my fringed jean skirt and a stretchy shirt with Van Gogh’s
Starry Night
across the front. Sometimes an outfit I love puts me in a better mood. These blues and golds have special magic. But I doubt even Vincent can help me today.

When I get to the breakfast table, the binder Mom got me for my leaf collection sits next to my Rice Krispies. She can’t possibly think I’m going to finish this up during breakfast. She must not have any idea how much work I have left. I finally have all the leaves, and I’ve jotted down information about them, but nothing is in order. I pick up the binder to move it out of my breakfast space. It’s heavy. Really heavy.

I flip open the cover. On the front page, typed on acid-free paper inside a laminated sleeve, is a table of contents listing twenty-five kinds of leaves.

Is it really possible? I flip it over.

Page 1: White Cedar

Page 2: Eastern Hemlock

Page 3: Wild Black Cherry

And the pages go on and on. All the way to twenty-five. Black walnut. I worked hard for that black walnut.

Every page is perfectly arranged with its leaf and the required information plus some extra berries and nuts in little plastic bags for bonus points. The pages are decorated with little leaf stickers. I look up from the project. Mom’s smiling at her oatmeal.

“I know it’s been a long week, and you really did have most of this project done.” She sits down across from me and pats the leaf binder. “I thought I’d just sort of pull it all together for you. You don’t want to turn in a sloppy project.”

“Thanks,” I tell her. I still can’t believe what she’s done. It must have taken all night. I had never planned on typing up my notes. Every page had a detailed description in twelve-point font.

My stomach stops churning and jumps for joy. It’s done. No more moldy leaves. No more dichotomous keys. I can go to school. No lecture on responsibility. No detention. No sparkly T-shirts at sectionals.

“You better get going.” Mom swallows a mouthful of oatmeal. “Dad’s going to take you in today. He has a pickup at the hospital. Hurry, okay? I think he’s already outside.”

I put my bowl in the sink and ease the leaf binder into my backpack. It’s stuffed so full it barely fits, and it makes the backpack weigh a ton.

I’m afraid to let this project leave my side, so I carry it around in my bag all day. By the time I’ve schlepped it all the way to ninth-period science class, the strap is cutting into my shoulder. I can’t wait to put it down and turn this thing in, once and for all.

“Okay!” Mrs. Loring is standing at her desk, looking like a kid on Christmas morning. “Let’s have those leaf collections. You can turn them in on the side table there.”

I’m about to go up to the front of the room to put my leaf project in the pile, but I’m mesmerized by the wild variety of the projects passing by my desk. Ellen goes up first to turn hers in—a bulging orange scrapbook full of pressed leaves. Her title page says in huge letters:

ELLEN FRANKENHOFF’S LEAF COLLECTION
CREATED ON 100% RECYCLED PAPER
NO TREES WERE HARMED
IN THE MAKING OF THIS PROJECT

Kevin Richards, whose projects always remind me of Pigpen from
Charlie Brown,
brings up his leaf binder with needles and leaves sticking out all over. A couple slide out and land under my desk as he walks by. I think they’re both slippery elm. It figures.

Mary Beth and Bianca go up together to turn in their projects. They have matching purple binders with the word “LEAVES” spelled out in silver and metallic pink on the cover. Their glue must not have been dry all the way. The glitter sprinkles a little trail behind them on the floor.

Zig is next, carrying a huge roll of newsprint when he walks by. He leans it against Mrs. Loring’s desk.

“What’s up with the mural?” I whisper as he passes me.

“It’s a geographical depiction of my leaves and their distribution in the Western Hemisphere,” Zig says. I nod, even though I don’t get it. He can always tell when I’m pretending. “I have a giant map of the United States, with the leaves affixed to the actual locations where they’re the most common. Along with the relevant information, of course.”

“Of course.” I nod. He winks at me and heads to his seat.

Ruby walks past next.

“Oh look,” Bianca says. “Ruby made one of those poor-kid leaf projects Mrs. Loring talked about—where you don’t have to buy a binder or anything.” Mary Beth snickers.

“At least hers isn’t shedding glitter all over the floor. It’s supposed to be a leaf collection—not a self-portrait of your made-up face.”

Bianca stares at me like she can’t believe the words came out of my mouth. And I guess I can’t either. She looks up at Mrs. Loring, but she’s busy taking a late pass from Ricky Garcia, who swears it wasn’t because his project wasn’t done.

“Great project, Ruby.” I say it so everyone can hear.

“Thanks.” Ruby smiles a little and adjusts one of her index cards, which was crooked.

“Yeah,” Ellen says. “It’s cool because you made it totally yourself.”

A couple other girls in our row nod, and Ruby holds her head a little higher when she sets her project down in the front of the room. She has twenty-five leaves neatly arranged on a piece of cardboard that looks like it might have been part of an appliance box once. The information cards next to each leaf aren’t typed, but they’re printed in tidy handwriting, and at the bottom of each index card is what looks like a short poem.

She sees me squinting and leans over. “It’s haiku,” she whispers. “I did one for each leaf.”

It’s beautiful, but instead of feeling happy for her, I feel sick.

The churning in my stomach is back.

I look down at my leaf collection. Correction. My mother’s leaf collection.

The perfectly typed descriptions. The crisp pages. All of it perfect. And none of it mine.

“Does anyone still need to turn in a leaf project?” Mrs. Loring looks around the room.

As soon as her eyes leave me, I slip the leaf binder back into my book bag and kick it under my desk.

Nonna’s pulling a tray of cookies from the newly modified oven when I get home, but I don’t even stop to get one. I go straight to my room with my book bag, pull out the leaf project and plop it onto my desk. Now what?

I look at my clock radio.

2:44.

Coach gave me permission to miss practice if I run on my own later. She didn’t ask why. I think she knew.

I just hope Mrs. Loring is as understanding.

Because technically, the project was due by the end of school today. Mrs. Loring coaches soccer, so technically, her school day doesn’t end until soccer practice is over at five thirty. So technically, I still have time to make something and take it back to school and give it to her before five thirty and have it turned in on time. But what kind of something should I make?

The door opens and Nonna walks in with five perfectly round, rainbow-sprinkled cookies on a plate.

“Bad day?” She sets down the plate on my desk.

“Yeah.” There’s no use hiding from Nonna. I hand her the binder of leaves. She flips through it and frowns.

“Your mother?”

“Yep.”

“She helped you with it?”

“Nope.”

“She did your leaf collection herself?” Nonna looks down at the project in her hands and sighs. “You don’t even have to answer that. This has Angela written all over it.” She flips to the table of contents, where some leaves have subheadings for different varieties.

“I think she was trying to help,” I offer weakly.

Nonna laughs a little. “Of course she was trying to help. Just like she was trying to help when she turned into the manic chef the other night.”

“After you wandered off? Do you remember all that now?”

She shakes her head and looks down, embarrassed. “No, but we talked about it with the doctor today. Your mom took me back for my blood work.”

“Do they know anything?”

“No, Gianna, they don’t. And really, whether they decide they can call it Alzheimer’s disease in my case or not, you and I both know that I’m just not . . . here . . . sometimes.” Her voice breaks. “I’m afraid,” she says very quietly, and a tear runs down from the corner of her eye.

“Me too,” I whisper.

I reach out for her hand and hold it. We’re quiet for a few minutes.

Finally, Nonna takes a deep breath and lets go of my hand. She flips the leaf binder open to the weeping willow page, running her fingers over its fluttery leaves through the plastic. She turns a page and the gorgeous sugar maple leaf jumps out at us, shining red. It’s the one I tried to draw. I came close to that real color, too. Another page. A Norway spruce sticking out the edge of the plastic.

“Careful, it’s all prickly. I don’t like that one,” I tell her, taking another cookie.

“Sometimes, prickly is what you need to get by,” Nonna says. She flips through the paper birch and maple pages. “Sometimes you need to dive, and sometimes you need to flutter. And sometimes,” she says, turning back to the Norway spruce, “you just need to be tough and hang on.”

“You know,” I say, taking the binder and flipping through the plastic pages. “I didn’t really hate this project. I love how different they all are. They don’t just look different; they act different, too.” I bite into the last cookie, and the crumbs sprinkle onto the binder.

“Nature is an amazing teacher.” Nonna raises her eyebrows, picks up the plate, and heads for the door.

“Hey, wait—” I hold up the binder. “What do you think I should do with this?”

“Those are your leaves in there, Gianna. Your mother made her leaf collection, and it doesn’t work for you. Take the leaves back and make your own.” She closes the door behind her. I’m left with twenty-five leaves in a plastic three-ring prison and, finally, an idea for how to set them free.