The Reinvention of Moxie Roosevelt (10 page)

Oh my god. I
loved
Beanie Weenie.

“Definitely,” I said.

Ms. Hay gave me a grin. Then her expression became more serious. “Parents still aren’t going to be able to make it?” she asked.

“Oh.Well, I think not,” I said. “It would be very difficult.” Because I hadn’t told them about the talent show. And hoped I could get away with
never
telling them.

“That’s too bad,” she said. “Well, Amish Moxie, I’ll see you in EE, then. Don’t forget to do your reading.”

“Already done,” I told her.

Amish Moxie sort of had a ring to it. How did a person get to be Amish, anyway? Was there a written exam?

“Excellent.”

She shot me the hard-to-do finger sign the Vulcans make, and headed over to the cash register.

I was inspired. I would buy my
Fabulous
magazine even if Luscious Luke himself was working the register. Fortunately, a quick scan of my surroundings indicated he had finally left. The coast was clear.

But minutes later, after checking the magazine racks top to bottom, and even looking behind the news weeklies, I still had nothing.

Well, if Ms. Hay could take her
Star Trek
novels to the checkout lady, I could make a simple inquiry.

“Do you carry
Fabulous
magazine?” I asked in my DUCKIest voice.

The checkout lady tapped a few keys on her computer.

“New issue ships in a few days. Check back.”

I thanked the woman, and sighed.

Fabulous
magazine was my best hope at temporarily checking out of my the-talent-show-is-coming reality. I actually envied Ms. Hay her
Star Trek
mania at the moment. I needed something to distract me from my life on Planet Complicated. Ideally, I needed Starfleet’s most colorful Chief Engineer Scotty to beam me out of the small mess I had gotten myself into. A girl could dream.

When
I got back to my room, Spinky was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she got permission to work in the library during study period. I deflated a little. I was so full of things to update her on—Ms. Hay’s Starfleet uniform and my unwitting entrapment in the horrifying talent show, which we hadn’t had a chance to talk about yet, the crazy and crazier Kate, the near-disastrous sea cow conversa . . .

Wait, what was I thinking? I couldn’t tell Spinky about the sea cow debacle! I couldn’t tell anyone. I sat down heavily at the empty desk. Suddenly I wanted nothing more than to tell Spinky everything.

I sighed and decided to focus on getting some work done. By the end of evening study period, I was surprised to find I’d been especially industrious, completing my American history essay an impressive three days before it was due. When the bell rang, I dashed downstairs to the phone room to lob in a quick call to my mother (no cell phones allowed at Eaton). I was e-mailing her a few times a day, but I knew she appreciated a little voice-to-voice contact. And I didn’t mind it so much either. When I got back upstairs, the door to my room was open, and I could hear laughter coming from inside.

Spinky had emerged from her own studying session, and was lounging on the still-unclaimed bed in the middle room, flanked by Haven and Reagan.

“There she is,” Spinky declared, pointing one blue-nailed, silver-ringed finger at me. “Roomie, the whole world has stopped by to visit you.”

I beamed. I didn’t think Reagan and Haven constituted “the whole world” by any stretch of the imagination, but I was flattered and pleased beyond words that they’d both decided to stop by my room. Still, I didn’t want to air the horror of my first week to everyone. It would just have to wait.

“Wow, hey!” I said, pulling up a chair and sitting opposite them like a talk show host. “I just had to call my mom.You know how it is,” I added.

Reagan nodded. “I’m on the everyday plan myself,” she said. “At least for the first week.”

“We don’t have phones at the ashram,” Haven said. “Except for in the office.”

“You live on an ashram?” Spinky exclaimed, staring at Haven with intense interest. Reagan leaned forward and examined Haven too.

“That is extremely cool,” Reagan said.

“
Extremely
cool,” I declared, wishing with deep despair that I knew what an ashram was.

“So is it—” Reagan started, while at the same time Spinky said, “What kind of—”

They laughed and broke off simultaneously, then for some reason both looked at me.

“Well, do tell,” I said to Haven, in an exaggerated Southern accent—after two lessons with Mr.Tate, I couldn’t help it. Also, there seems to be something about a Southern accent that, when used correctly, can disguise the fact that what you’re saying really makes no sense. I’d used it in math classes all my life, and it worked like a charm here.

“There’s not that much to tell, really,” Haven said, pulling her long hair around one shoulder. “It’s a Buddhist community, mostly following the Tibetan Gelugpa tradition. My parents helped found it back in the seventies. We have about thirty acres in northern Vermont. We grow most of our own food, and sell the rest to the local organic markets . . .” She looked around at us thoughtfully. “Most of the kids are homeschooled, but my grandparents have been pushing my parents to try me here by promising to foot the bill. We get Tibetan teachers to come sometimes and do meditation retreats, which are open to the public. It’s quiet . . . We’re pretty much off the grid.”

“That. Is. Outstanding!” Reagan exclaimed.

There’s something really neat that happens when you introduce people you like to other people you like and they all really like each other. I felt like I’d filled the house at Carnegie Hall.

“
I
want to live on an ashram,” Spinky declared.

I enjoyed a quick vision of Spinky mingling with a bunch of Buddhists. They’d probably love each other.

“Well, you can come visit anytime,” Haven said. “All of you can.”

“Let’s!” Reagan said. “We should all go together!”

“I cannot promise to eat tofu,” Spinky warned.

“There’s more than just tofu. Take my word for it,” Haven said.

“I love tofu. So does Moxie,” Reagan said.

“So her T-shirt claims,” Spinky said. “I thought it was irony.”

Uh-oh. I put a scandalized expression on my face.

“I live and breathe tofu,” I said very loudly, so that it could be interpreted as a joke, or as the truth delivered with mock seriousness. “And I have the T-shirt to prove it.” We needed to get off the subject of food and my “I Love Tofu” shirt, though, because I had gone on at length about my love of corn dogs to Spinky earlier that very day.

“You should join Reagan’s animal rights group, Haven,” I said. “You guys both should.”

“I’m a total animal rights booster. Count me in,” Spinky said. She rubbed one hand over her green brush cut. “Can I be on the little rubber boat that goes between the whales and the harpooning ships?”

“You absolutely can,” Reagan said. “I’m, well, still in the planning stages here. I have to get the school to okay the club and give it some funding, for starters. But one day I will totally sponsor a whale hunting intervention, and you can be on it.”

“Captain Spinky,” Spinky said, smiling with satisfaction. “Haven, is it true you can be reincarnated as an animal if you’re bad in this lifetime?”

This got Reagan’s attention instantly, and mine too. Haven gave us a slow smile.

“There’s a monastery in Tibet where all these stray dogs go to be fed,” Haven said. “And the monks there believe all those dogs are the reincarnations of monks who were disgraced sometime in a former life.They take care of every dog that comes to them, even if they have to go with less food themselves, because they believe each animal was once like them. And that they could one day become like those animals.”

There was a moment of silence as the three of us contemplated this rather remarkable image.

“So being a dog is like a demotion?” I asked.

Haven shook her head. “Not necessarily. There’s a monk who comes to our ashram who believes that when he has achieved all the merit he needs to eradicate his bad karma as a human, he will come back for one final life as a yew tree—and that will be his reward for every other lifetime he’s ever lived.”

Reagan closed her eyes.

“That’s the most beautiful thing I have ever heard,” she said, a bit fiercely.

“It is,” Spinky agreed quietly.

“I’d be a cedar tree,” I said.

There was such a long silence that I started to panic, thinking I’d either said something unintentionally insulting, or my MEG hadn’t matched up with my DUCKI and my ARA, and everyone was now staring at me cross-eyed.

“I’d be a redwood,” Spinky chimed in after a while.

“I think I’d like to be a banyan tree,” Haven said thoughtfully.

“Does it have to be a tree?” Reagan asked.

Haven shook her head, smiling with her eyes distant.

“Then I want to be a dolphin,” Reagan said softly. “The kind that saves drowning people even though human beings are killing us with their fishing nets and their trash-dumping and their noise pollution. Even if I’m the last one left. I’ll still try to help. And maybe one day the humans would learn something from me.”

There was a long silence.

“So here we are—three future trees and a dolphin,” I declared.

For the second time in several minutes, as soon as I spoke I thought I’d made a major blunder, somehow saying something so inappropriate and offensive that no one would ever forgive me.Was I crazy to think I could keep it together with my varying personalities when these three very different girls were in the same place at the same time?

But then Spinky and Reagan started to laugh, and Haven joined in with her bell-like little giggle.

“Captain Spinky is happy,” Spinky said, leaning back. “Captain Spinky is going to save as many whales as she can.”

Reagan sighed.

“More power to you. They are such magnificent creatures, so intelligent. One day I think we’ll look back at our history and be absolutely appalled that we ever took part in slaughtering them.”

Reagan’s laughter had faded, and I noticed her eyes filling with tears. I felt something tug in my heart to think of this intense girl feeling so deeply. I decided to temporarily abandon my ban on classical music references, because I knew she’d love what I was thinking.

“There’s this composer named Alan Hovanhess,” I said suddenly, “and he wrote a symphonic piece called ‘And God Created the Great Whale.’ I heard it performed at Avery Fisher Hall once when I was little, and I swear, it was like I could actually feel the whales’ energy in the music. It’s like he found this unique combination of instruments and rhythm and tone that
were
the whales.”

“Seriously? I have to hear it! Is it on iTunes?” Reagan asked eagerly.

“I have the CD. I’ll lend it to you.”

I went into my room and found the CD right away, because I’m very strict about keeping my music alphabetically by composer. When I went back to the middle room and handed it to Reagan, she took it carefully and stared at it like it was a winning lottery ticket.

“Moxie, thank you so much,” Reagan said.

I actually blushed a little. “You’re totally welcome,” I said.

“Y’all are some seriously good people,” Spinky announced.

And that included me. I, Moxie Roosevelt, and my new friends, were some seriously good people. Spinky Spanger said so.

“Hey guys, you know what?” I asked. “Let’s—”

There was a knock on the open door and I looked up to see Kate Southington standing in the doorway. I felt a wave of dismay. Kate looked as unhappy to see our bonding session as I was to see her. She stood, seeming uncertain what to do, a slight scowl on her face.

“Hey Kate, come on in,” Spinky called cheerfully.

Or don’t, I thought.

“Hey Spinky,” Kate said. Apparently nobody else in the room rated a mention.

I felt sulky, then guilty, then finally summoned the will to be nice.

“I can get a chair from the other room,” I offered.

“No thanks,” Kate said.

She preferred to stand in the middle of the room, like an art installation that demanded attention.

There was a brief silence.
Nice
, I reminded myself.

“So what kind of tree are
you
, Kate?” I asked, shooting Haven a quick smile.

Kate looked at me, lips scrunched. “What?”

“What kind of tree are you? I mean, will you be? What kind of tree would you pick? Actually, it doesn’t have to be a tree. You can be anything you want. Your choice. You’re a blank slate.”

Kate’s scowl deepened into full hostility, and I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.

“See, we were all just talking about . . . Haven said that . . . Well. Never mind. I guess you had to be there.” I gave up.

Ugh, she was awful! Like a Béla Bartók concerto—unpredictable and to my ear downright unpleasant. My attempt at niceness was officially over.

“Spink, I just came to see if you wanted to show me the old tunnels, the ones you and I were talking about? You were going to show me where they are.”

Spinky half sat up.

“Oh, yeah. You mean now?”

“Yes,” Kate said firmly.

There was a pause. Obviously no one else was going to be issued an invitation. I certainly didn’t want to go anywhere with Kate Southington anyway.

“I should probably start getting my notes together for my presentation to the dean,” Reagan said. “I have to do the pitch for the club in a few weeks, and I need it to be a slam dunk.”

“Okay then,” Spinky said, standing up. “The tunnels it is.”

Reagan and Haven stood up too, so I followed suit.

“Catch you all later then,” I said in a cheerful voice.

Haven flashed me a peace sign and glided out of the room. Reagan took a step toward the door, then turned and walked over to me, surprising me with a brief but intense hug.