The Secret Cookie Club (5 page)

Grace

As of lunchtime that day, what I knew about Shoshi Rubinstein were pretty much the same things anybody else in my class would know:

(1) She wears a bra! (2) She has one older brother and one older sister. (3) She almost never wears the same outfit twice. (4) She lives in my neighborhood in a green house with white trim. (5) She has a collie dog that barks. (6) She is bad at dance but her
parents make her go. (7) She hates me for no reason.

By the time the bell rang after school, I had learned four more things: (8) She is bossy. (9) She likes using pink gel pens for notes. (10) She thinks she has artistic talent. (11) When she's mad, she yells.

I found those four things out at the first Walden meeting, which happened in the library because it's easier to work together at long tables than little desks. Mrs. Keeran had handed out a homework assignment due next week, and we were supposed to divide up responsibilities for it, then start work. It was the only class time she was giving us, so if we didn't finish, we would have to find time to meet on our own.

You can imagine the knot in my stomach when I looked up to see Shoshi stomping toward me at the table where I had sat down. The table was by the window, I guess in case I needed to jump out of it for any reason. When Shoshi sat down, she dropped her pink zebra-striped backpack on the table, and it landed with a
thump
.

Probably I am making Shoshi sound like Godzilla,
which is not 100 percent fair. Some people (not me) might even think she was pretty. She has straight light brown hair, a small nose, and green eyes. On her jaw there is a mole like a squashed flea.

“Okay, we have to work together, so let's get this over with.” Shoshi pulled her notebook out of her backpack along with a pink gel pen.

I didn't say anything.

“Cat got your tongue?” she asked.

“What? No,” I said.

“Do you agree we should get this over with?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” said Shoshi. “So what's going to happen is you find the ten facts and write them and then I do the illustrations for them. I'm good at art. Later this week, you e-mail me the facts you find, and if they're okay, then I'll start my part.”

If I had said, “Okay,” the meeting would've been over, which would've been good. But it was irritating to be told what to do. I could feel Snot-Nosed Grace wanting to speak up, but I tried to keep my voice normal. “No,”
I said. “You do five facts and illustrate them, and so will I. Then we'll read each other's to make sure they're okay.”

Shoshi scowled. “My way's better because I'm good at art.”

Besides Snot-Nosed Grace, there is something else about me that isn't entirely nice. Sometimes I have a bad temper. Most of the time it doesn't show because most of the time I am not arguing with anybody, but now I felt my temper building like steam in a teakettle. To cool it down, I took a breath. “No,” I said. “My way's better because it's more fair.”

Shoshi tipped her chair back and shook her head. “You really do think you're smarter than everyone else, don't you? Well, you're not.”

Now my temper burst out in a squawk. “I never said I was!”

“
And
you're stuck-up.”

“Oh yeah? Well, you're a bully.”

“You're a runt.”

“At least I don't slouch.”

By this time everyone from room 111 was staring, and Mrs. Collins the librarian was striding toward us. “
Girls!
What has gotten into you?”

Shoshi jumped up.
“She started it!”

And then I was on my feet too.
“No, I didn't—she did!”

Grace

The principal of my school is Mrs. Lila Barnes. Her short gray hair and black-rimmed glasses make her look serious, but for holidays she wears ugly sweaters, and sometimes for no reason she wears a light-up headband or pink high-tops covered in sequins.

It was 2:56 p.m. when Shoshi and I arrived in her office. There were only ten minutes left till the first
bus bell, and Mrs. Barnes probably didn't expect new discipline problems that day.

I'm sure she didn't expect Shoshi and me.

“I trust you two can take the long walk to Mrs. Barnes's office together without further incident,” Mrs. Collins had said. “Now go.”

And we did, me walking a couple of steps behind Shoshi, neither of us saying anything.

In the outer office, the school secretary told us to take a seat and wait. By this time, my temper had turned from hot steam to icy dread. The wait was probably only two minutes, but it was the longest two minutes of my life. I had never been in trouble before. My stomach was tied in a knot.

Of course Shoshi did not deserve any sympathy. But I did wonder a little bit if she might be feeling the same. She was sitting right here next to me, both of us here for the same reason. In a strange way, we were bound together.

The door to Mrs. Barnes's inner office opened, and she looked out at us, sitting side by side. “Come in, young ladies.”

We went, and Mrs. Barnes gestured at two orange plastic chairs across from her desk. We both sat down. The seat felt hard and uncomfortable.

“Shouting in the library? Calling each other names?” Mrs. Barnes shook her head sadly. “That's what Mrs. Collins said when she phoned. I am all ears if you would like to tell me your versions. Shoshanna?”

“What Mrs. Collins said is right, Mrs. Barnes,” Shoshi said in a voice so low it didn't even sound like hers. “I'm sorry.”

“Grace?” Mrs. Barnes looked at me.

“I'm sorry too,” I said.

“And what was this disagreement about?” Mrs. Barnes asked.

I spoke first. “Mrs. Keeran assigned us to be partners on the Walden project, and Shoshi was telling me what to do, and—”

“—That's not right,” Shoshi interrupted. “The assignment was to divide responsibilities, and we were dividing responsibilities, and then Grace started yelling.”

“I did not yell. But if I did, it was because you were bossing me,” I said.

“Because you were being uncooperative,” Shoshi said.

“Because your idea was bad,” I said.

“It was
not
!”

“It was
too
!”

“Young ladies?”
Mrs. Barnes raised one hand like a traffic cop. “What I am hearing is that you disagreed over how to approach the Walden project, and then the disagreement escalated, and you both lost your tempers. Is that about right?”

After a pause we answered at the same time: “I guess,” I said. “Basically,” Shoshi said.

Mrs. Barnes laid her palms on her desk, leaned forward, and looked from Shoshi to me. “Is it ever appropriate to yell in the library?”

“No,” we said.

“Is it ever helpful to call people names?”

“No,” we said again.

“All right, then.” Mrs. Barnes leaned back in her chair. “You seem to be sorry, but you did disrupt class. Because
of that, I am giving you each one after-school detention. I know you both have ballet, so we'll say Wednesday in room 213.”

Mrs. Barnes stood up after that, which was the signal for us to leave.

“Are you going to call our parents?” I asked.

“Yes, Grace,” she said. “They need to plan for picking you up after detention.”

“Mine won't care,” Shoshi said. “I walk home from school anyway.”

“You do?” The words slipped out because I was surprised.

Shoshi shrugged and looked at me sideways. “Yeah. So what?”

“Be that as it may”—Mrs. Barnes opened the door for us—“your parents will get phone calls.”

Grace

On Mondays after school, the blue Music Academy van picks me up to take me for my piano lesson. When that's over, I stay there and do homework in the study room until my mom can leave work and come to get me.

If the two minutes outside Mrs. Barnes's office were long, the time waiting for my mom that afternoon was eternal. I couldn't even concentrate on decimals.

Would Mrs. Barnes have called her already?

My parents had never been mad at me before. They didn't even know about Snot-Nosed Grace. I had always managed to keep her existence a secret.

Finally, my mom drove up in our white SUV. When she didn't turn her head to look at me, I knew Mrs. Barnes had talked to her already. Trying not to think about anything, I opened the rear door and threw in my backpack the way I always do, closed the door, opened the front, and slid in. Because I'm small, I'd had to ride in the backseat longer than any of my friends. Now I wished I could crawl back there again and hide out.

My door had barely closed when my mom spoke, still looking straight ahead. “We are not going to talk about this now. We are going to talk about it as a family when your father gets home.”

*  *  *

Most Mondays I stay downstairs and do homework at the kitchen island. That day I went upstairs to my bedroom.

My parents started decorating my bedroom on the same day the ultrasound told them I was a girl. It is pale pink
with a border of wallpaper printed in pink roses. My curtains match the wallpaper. On the walls, my parents hung framed posters of paintings of children by important artists: Mary Cassatt, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and John Singer Sargent.

I have a canopy bed with a white lace cover, a white desk for my computer, and a white rocking chair with a pink gingham pillow. My bookcase is full of hardcover books by Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, L. M. Montgomery, and Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Almost the only things in my room I chose myself are the bulletin board over my desk and what's tacked to it: a picture of a boy band I used to like, a picture of my parents from their university days, a Dora the Explorer valentine from my second-grade boyfriend, Nino, and a fortune from a fortune cookie that reads: “You will excel at everything you do.”

The most recent thing added to the bulletin board is the official Moonlight Ranch camp photograph. It was taken at the gymkhana corral. I'm standing in the first row middle because I'm short, with Lucy (tall), Emma (taller), and Olivia (tallest)
like stair steps next to me. Vivek is sitting on the fence on the end, looking off to the left, distracted.

I studied Vivek's cute face for a moment and then I pulled open the bottom drawer of my desk. It was empty except for one thing—a paper sack from the Moonlight Ranch Trading Post. I didn't bother to look inside. I knew what was there, and even on this bad day it made me smile.

I still had homework to do that afternoon, but I decided to unclutter my bulletin board instead. I didn't even like that boy band anymore, so I yanked off the picture and threw it away. Then I did the same with the valentine from Nino. He moved back to the Philippines in third grade. Why had I even left it up there that long?

After that, I stuck my hands in my pockets and walked in squares around my room—seven paces, pivot, seven paces, pivot, seven paces . . . . Then I was afraid I might make my leg muscles lopsided, so I reversed and walked in the other direction—seven paces, pivot . . . .

There is a limit to how much worrying you can do
about a single thing. After a few laps, my mind wandered to Shoshi and to the amazing fact that she walks home from school.

Our town is safe, and the school is only a mile from our neighborhood. Even so, my parents would never let me walk by myself. The idea that one of my classmates did it every day was part thrilling and part scary. It reminded me of finding out that Lucy in Los Angeles didn't have a phone or a computer. All along, I thought I was the normal one, but maybe it was me who lived a life like nobody else's, me who lived in a grass hut among palm trees.

*  *  *

When you are an only child, you know your parents very well. This was a new situation—me being in trouble—but still I could predict some things about what my parents would do. One was that my mom would want my dad to do the talking.