The Sugar Mountain Snow Ball (7 page)

But other times, we chatted about stuff like the popular girls at school, and what made them so popular, and the meanest teachers and what made them so mean, and wicked cute boys, like JB Knox, except I didn't bring him up too often, because Eleanor always acted weird when I talked about my huge crush on him. I think she still thought of boys as disgusting show-offs who barged into everyone, took the best seats in class, and sometimes said awful things. Which basically described Anton Orlov from the Math Squad, who was obviously in love with Eleanor, but showed it by acting like a jerk.

JB was nothing like that. He glided through the hallways smiling at everyone he passed, the dreamiest dreamboat in all of Paris.

“Amma's still in New York,” said Eleanor, using a pen to scrape at a mound of ice on the picnic table. “Thaththa said she'll most likely stay for many more weeks.”

“But that's good, right? Or do you miss her now?”

“No, I'm not missing her.” She sighed loudly. “Perhaps, her cooking. Amma cooks much better than Thaththa. But that's not it. Well, and the way she does the laundry. She scents it with lavender water and folds the clothes precisely, but at least I don't have to iron. No, really, I'm fine with her gone for a while. More than fine.”

“Then what's wrong? I'm having one of the
luckiest
days of my life, and can feel my destiny about to explode! But I can't enjoy it if you're upset, Eleanor.”

“I wouldn't say I'm upset; just a little disappointed. But you shouldn't allow my demeanor to affect your disposition, Ruby.”

Eleanor and her giant words.

“I don't know what any of that means, but, Eleanor—I can't be happy if you aren't happy. So what is it? Why are you disappointed?”

She took a deep breath and said, “My father said, ‘
Absolutely not
.' ”

“To what?”

“Changing his mind and giving me a job at his gas station. He said going to school and studying was my job. That there'll be plenty of time for me to make money when I'm an adult.”

“Oh, is that all?” I replied, and smiled. “Don't worry, we'll think of something else.”

“Like what, Ruby? Robbing a bank? How will we ever earn the money to fulfill our destinies?”

“You
have
to try and be more glass half-full, Eleanor. I
know
our predictions will come true. We just haven't figured out all the steps to make it happen yet.”

Eleanor sighed. “I wish we could consult Madame Magnifique.”

“I know. It's so strange how she's disappeared.”

Every chance we got now, we checked for signs of Madame M, but she was nowhere to be found. Just like Eleanor had told me on the phone, the whole alley was off limits, with Dumpsters blocking the entrance, plus the poster in Wonderland's was missing, and so was the Apparition Way street sign. But the really baffling thing was that no one else had ever heard of her. It was as if she had never been there—as if she had been part of a dream.

Eleanor sighed again and then glanced around the playground.

“Where're your brothers?”

“Mrs. Petite asked if they could stay with her through dinner, so that's one of the reasons I'm feeling extra lucky, because we can do anything we want to do without worrying about the boys ruining stuff. But I'm getting super hungry . . . Mrs. Petite was baking her famous maple syrup pie, and I can't get that smell out of my head.”

“I'm a little hungry, too,” said Eleanor.

“You are?”

That surprised me, since Eleanor never seems to get hungry, and hardly eats anything when she does eat. She picks at her food and takes tiny bites, which makes me even hungrier to watch.

“Hey! Do you want to walk over to my house? You've never been, and we can eat some of yesterday's Monster Chunk cookies, the ones Mim brings home from the café!”

“Okay,” she said, and jumped up like she was feeling better already. “It is unusual we've never visited each other's homes.”

Which was exactly what I wanted her to say, because from everything Eleanor had told me about her life all these years, I couldn't wait to visit her home next. I mean, how could we have been best friends all this time and never even seen each other's houses?

This really
was
turning out to be one of the luckiest days of my life.

10

At the far end of Maine Street we turned left at Bon Hiver Lane, where I hoped we would get a chance to see that strange boy through his tall black fence.

“I told him about Dream Central, and that he should come and hang out with us if he wants. But to tell you the truth, I can't figure out what the deal is with him. He's kind of rude. He won't even tell me his name.”

Eleanor shrugged her shoulders and said, “Maybe he doesn't know how friendship works.”

“What? How is that possible?”

“Socially challenged individuals aren't always able to appropriately bond with others.”

“I don't know what that means, Eleanor, but you're thinking about it way too hard. Being friends with someone is simple.”

“Not for everyone.”

Sometimes I can't figure out where Eleanor gets her ideas; I mean, making a friend is like breathing air or falling asleep—something that just happens without thinking about it.

A few minutes later we turned into my long driveway, a winter paradise winding through tall pine trees laced with ice.

“Ta-
dah!
” I cried as our old blue house came into sight. “I can't believe you've never been here before. Home sweet home.”

The cat hobbled toward us from underneath the far end of our porch and rubbed up against our legs.

“That's Marilyn,” I told Eleanor. “Mim named her after Marilyn Monroe, because she used to be so glamorous and beautiful, like the real Marilyn Monroe, but that was a long time ago, before Mim married my dad.”

As soon as we entered the front door, I could smell last night's dinner—fried clams from Cap'n Smitty's Clam Shack—so now I was really hungry. The empty cardboard box was still wide open on the kitchen table.

“Hey, Eleanor! I forgot to tell you, our TV is fixed. Do you wanna watch
The Price Is Right?
It's the old version with Bob Barker, which Mim watched when she was our age. It's much better than the one on now, with what's-his-name.”

Eleanor kicked off her boots and shrugged her shoulders.

“Whatever.”

I got the bag of yesterday's leftover Monster Chunk pieces out of the fridge.

“Do you like your cookies microwaved? They get all melty, like they just came out of the oven.”

“Sure,” said Eleanor, but she didn't seem to be listening because she was staring all around our house.

After heating the cookie chunks in the bag I dumped them on the coffee table to see which kinds were left. Eleanor had neatly stacked all the twins' toys at one end of the sofa so we could sit down.

“Looks like peanut butter cream, snickerdoodle, and a couple of triple fudge pieces,” I announced, studying the pile with my expert eye.

“Interesting choices,” said Eleanor, as she sat on the very edge of the couch and squinted at them.

“What do you want to drink?” I asked. “We've got cola, root beer, orangeade, and—”

“Water is fine.”

“Water? That's not a drink. That's something you use to rinse your teeth after brushing. Don't you want a real drink, like soda?”

“I like water.”

I got up and searched for a clean glass in the cabinet, but all of them were used and sitting by the sink. So I grabbed a Wicked Big Gulp plastic cup and filled it to the top and got a can of root beer for myself out of the fridge.

As I handed the water to Eleanor, I suddenly felt really excited inside. I was so happy to have her over to my house!

But I noticed Eleanor had a confused expression on her face, and she wasn't even watching the television or eating the cookies, because she was still studying everything like she was in a foreign country.

I was about to ask her if she had an upset stomach or something when she said the strangest thing to me.

“Ruby? Why don't you clean up?”

I took a swig of soda and wiped my mouth.

“Huh?”

“If your father is away a lot and your stepmother works all the time and comes home tired, why don't you help?”

That was something I had never even thought of before . . . Mim was the one who was supposed to do that kind of stuff.

“ 'Cause I'm watching the boys, silly—remember?”

“But you said they do nothing but stare at the TV when you're home.”

I didn't know what this had to do with anything.

“First of all, and no offense, Eleanor, my stepmother isn't uptight like your amma. She lets us have fun the way it's supposed to be when you're a kid. And second of all, not everyone is in love with cleaning and organizing like you—not that there's anything wrong with that, but still, it makes it easier to relax.”

Eleanor sat quietly with her face scrunched like she was trying to figure out what I was talking about. I continued to watch
The Price Is Right
and picked through the pile of cookies all on my own, since Eleanor didn't seem that hungry after all. They were playing one of my favorite games (the one where Bob Barker asks the contestant to arrange five numbers to guess the correct price of a brand-new automobile) when I heard a bang.

“Sorry!” came Eleanor's voice from the kitchen.

I walked over and peered over the counter just as she scooped up a bunch of packages from the floor.

“Oh, don't worry about that. Boxes fall out of the cabinets all the time. Are you looking for something else to eat?”

She didn't say anything as she tried to shove the cartons back inside. Then she opened the cupboard next to it and stared.

Mim kept our kitchen well stocked, so we had almost every delicious snack you could think of. I was pretty sure Eleanor's mother never let her have anything fun to eat.

“I know, it's hard to pick,” I said as I walked around and stood next to her, “but you can have anything you want.”

I grabbed a Caramel Crunchy from the middle shelf, unwrapped it, and took a bite.

“
Mountains of sugar
. . .” Eleanor mumbled under her breath.

“Mountains of Sugar?” I asked Eleanor. “Never heard of that one. What's in it? Toffee, chocolate, peanuts?”

Eleanor took a deep breath and then blew out a long puff of air like she was blowing up a balloon.

“Do you eat this every day, Ruby?”

“Eat what?” I asked between bites.

“All of this?”

She made little circles in the air in front of the shelves.

I paused a second and swallowed.

“Do you mean
food?
”

Eleanor frowned at me like I had given the wrong answer at the exact same time Bob Barker told the woman on TV that she hadn't won the automobile, and the “too bad” music came on.

“Oh,
too bad
, Doris, but thanks for playing!” said Bob.

And that's when Eleanor really lost her mind.

As if it weren't strange enough that she didn't recognize food when she saw it, out of the blue, Eleanor tiptoed over to the television, clicked it off during a commercial for diapers, and said, “Let's clean.”

I couldn't figure out what had gotten into her.

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Housework goes faster when you do it with another person.”

“But Eleanor, I wanna do something
fun
. You've never been to my house before, and we've been suffering in school all day.”

“Cleaning is the sort of activity that isn't fun until the end. The results are the reward.”

What was she talking about? I was beginning to think her mother had brainwashed her.

“Eleanor, I don't think you understand that some people—or, probably, most people, or at least most
normal
people, like me—just aren't cut out to be fussy neatniks like you!”

Eleanor put on her serious face.

“Ruby. What if I promised you that getting organized would help you achieve your dreams?”

This sounded like a trick to me.

“Which dream?”

“Every dream you've ever had,” she replied. “Even your dream of becoming an Outer.”

That's when one of those idea-lights went off in my brain, telling me to listen to Eleanor. Because even though I saw no connection between becoming an Outer and cleaning the house—and I hated cleaning more than just about anything—Eleanor was basically
successful at everything she ever touched, and more talented than anyone I knew.

We started with the kitchen, since we were already there, and I had to admit, it was pretty messy. We wiped down the cabinets and counters and appliances, which ended up smelling as good as they looked, not sticky like they usually were. After loading the dishwasher and pressing the button, she washed and dried the extra dishes piled in the sink, while I swept the floor around Marilyn, who seemed annoyed by all the commotion.

“Done in exactly twenty-six minutes,” said Eleanor. “Next, we'll do that area by the couch.”

“The family room, too? I think the kitchen is enough. Besides, you don't want my stepmom to die of shock when she walks through the door.”

All this work made me tired, so I grabbed another Caramel Crunchy from the cupboard.

“It will only take a few more minutes, Ruby.”

Eleanor isn't a bossy person, but when she gets something in her head, it's practically impossible to stop her from finishing. So while Eleanor sorted piles of old newspapers and catalogs to recycle, I gathered up Charlie's and Henry's action figures and all the matching parts, like the tiny ninja swords and miniature ninja shields. As I dug around in one of our built-in storage drawers looking for an extra plastic container, Eleanor leaned in behind me.