This Is Me From Now On (19 page)

“Yeah.” I sighed. “I should have been more focused.”

“Oh, but you
were,
Evie! You read all those massive books!”

“Well, I should've made sure we had the
diary
. So we'd have known all this stuff weeks ago. Before it was too late.” Because what an idiot I'd been, wasting all this time, obsessing about all the wrong things. Like Espee's computer screen. And Samantha's locket. And of course my non-date with Zane. I flipped helplessly through the book. Gorgeous, perfectly written words caught my eyes:
Dance. Chocolate. True love.
“Anyway, I thought Angelica was supposed to be this big suffragette. And an artist.”

“She was! I guess that was later. In 1906 she was just a teenager.”

“And a spoiled, boy-crazy, fashionista airhead.”

Francesca shrugged.

“Okay,” I said finally. “Well, I guess we have no choice. We'd better tell Espee on Monday.”

“We can't!” Francesca wailed. “Because then we'll fail the class!”

“No we won't. It's just one project. I mean, we'll get a bad grade for the quarter but we'll probably pass. You've passed all your tests and homework so far, right?”

“Not … exactly. I was sort of counting on the Attic Project to even things out.”

I stared at her. “You were basing your entire grade on a diary you'd never even
read
? Are you crazy?”

All of a sudden Francesca burst into tears. “I can't fail Spush! Daddy said he was giving me one more chance and then shipping me off to Aunt Beebee's. I
can't
go there, Evie! She hates my mother! Her house is nothing but giant TVs all over the place, and she lives on Lean Cuisine!”

By now I was used to being shocked by Francesca, but somehow the sight of her crying really shook me up. I mean, I knew that her life was sort of a disaster, actually, with her parents on different continents and the aunts fighting on the phone every night. And I could definitely see why she'd
hate living with someone who said things like
That's life for you, girls. One snag after another.
But despite all that, it was as if it had never occurred to me before that Francesca
could
cry. It just wasn't my picture of her, somehow.

“Okay,” I said, watching her wipe her eyes with a crumpled tissue she'd had in her pocket. “Well, what do you suggest we do, then? We can't analyze the diary. There's nothing to analyze.”

“I know.” She sniffed. Her nostrils were all pink now, like a rabbit's. “Maybe we could elaborate.”

“What?”

“Well, you did all that research, right? Maybe we could just …” She honked her nose. “Add in some detail.”

“Add it
in
?”

“Nothing untrue. Just a few historical facts. From, you know, U.S. history.”

I stared. “You mean you want us to pretend she wrote in her diary about the San Francisco Earthquake?”

“Well, just for the sake of this assignment. Like Espee did, when she wrote that fake love letter for the Mystery Box.”

Now I laughed, but only because I didn't know what else to do. “Are you insane? You think what Espee did is
the same thing as us inventing a document to pretend to analyze?”

“I truly don't see the difference, Evie.” Francesca smiled hopefully. “And besides, doesn't Espee always say you can learn history from stories?”

I stood up. “No. That's not what she means, Francesca. She just means history is all the stuff that
happens
to people. Or what they
think
happens to them, which is totally different from lying.” I held up the diary. “Okay if I take this with me?”

“Well, sure,” she said uncertainly. “But does that mean you're going now? I thought you said we're so behind. And that we needed to work all weekend!”

“Right,” I said. “We definitely do. But now I really just need to think.”

When I walked into the kitchen, Grace was sitting at the table with her SAT tutor. “Draw the strongest inference possible,” he was telling her.

“Grace? Can I talk to you a second?” I begged.

She looked up at me as if I'd just asked to borrow her bra.

“Okay, I mean later?” I said. “When you're done?”

“When I'm
done,
” she agreed.

I went upstairs to my room. I sat on my bed and opened the diary.

Gah. The girl was hopeless, but I refused to lie about what she wrote. I just wouldn't—not even to save Francesca from Aunt Yellowteeth. But if we didn't lie, and if we couldn't just tell Espee the truth, what exactly were our options here?

I switched on my computer. Then I typed:

I hit the delete key. Because of course that was total garbage.

About fifteen minutes later Grace walked into my bedroom. “So?” she demanded. “What's the big emergency?”

“Could you please sit down?” I begged. “It's kind of a long story.”

I told her everything. She was such a brilliant student, I figured that if anyone would know what to do, it would be Grace. And the amazing thing was, she listened really hard the whole time, never once giving me her superior smile or making some snotty comment about how irrelevant my problem was because I was
only in seventh grade
.

When I was done, she pursed her lips. “Here's my personal advice,” she said. “Read the assignment.”

“What?”

“I'm serious.
Read the assignment
. Try to figure out what Espee is actually asking.”

“I've already read the dumb assignment, Grace!”

“Then I don't think you
understand
it, Evie. Give me the assignment sheet.”

I fished it out of my backpack and handed it to her. She frowned at it, then pointed to the middle of the page:

Grace started to do her smile at me. “All right, Evie.
Now
do you see what she wants you to do?”

“Noooo.”

“So think harder.”

I laughed desperately. “I'm supposed to write an essay about what a horrible storyteller Angelica Beaumont was?”

“Exactly,” she answered. “By showing how much she missed.”

I ran over to Grace and gave her a big hug. She was a little surprised by that, but even sort of hugged me back.

“Just try not to type so loud,” she teased. “I've got a ton of work.”

“Well, so do I,” I said, sticking out my tongue.

Then I sat down at my computer.

I worked all afternoon, and after supper, and almost the entire Sunday. When it was done it was twelve typed pages (minus the bibliography), the longest essay I'd ever written. I was especially proud of the introduction:

As soon as the whole thing was printed out, I brought it over to Francesca's house and rang the doorbell. No one answered, so I stood there in the cold wind, listening to the
obnoxious Big Ben chime. Finally I heard some scuffling in the entry. “Topaz, you naughty little imp!” Samantha was shouting. At last she opened the door and beamed at me. “Evie. What a lovely surprise. I hope you're not here for Frankie.”

“Why not?”

“Because she isn't here.” She made this graceful sort of won't-you-come-in movement with her arm, and the next thing I knew I was in her living room, which had been vacuumed and aired out, even though the sofa was still full of rabbit fur.

“Please have a seat,” she said sweetly. “Would you like a latte? I have a new machine.” She waved toward the kitchen.

“No thanks. Um, where is Francesca, exactly? Because we're working on this project—”

Samantha held up a perfectly manicured hand. “Frankie is off to the beach house with Mimi. As of seven this morning.”

“The beach house? But it's freezing out.”

“I know. Not my choice for a getaway, but try telling that to Mimi. Especially when she blows in here to rescue her daughter.”

“From what?”

“Who knows. Frankie called Paris Saturday morning and said she needed rescuing. She was crying so much, it was hard to understand. Something about a basement or a cellar.”

“You mean an attic?”

“Yes, that's right. An attic. And she kept saying what a dreadful friend she was, and how she'd let you down. Anyway, she finally convinced Mimi, who took the first flight out of Paris and whisked Francesca off to the beach house.
In my car.
”

“I'm sorry.”

“What for?
You
didn't steal my car!”

“I know. I'm just …” I had no idea what to say next, so I stood up. “Do you know when Frankie will be back?”

“Impossible to say. Maybe they'll stay there forever, for all I know! Mimi gets these wild impulses—” She fluttered her hand. “On the other hand, my sister gets bored very easily. So they could be back in a week or two. I really haven't the faintest idea what's going on.”

I put the Attic Project on the coffee table. “Well, when you see her, can you give this to her? We worked on it together.”

“You mean for school?” She sighed sharply. “Oh, yes,
school.
And I'm supposed to tell them something about Frankie's whereabouts, I suppose. Well, what do you suggest I say?”

“I don't really—”

“Wait right there.” She stood up from the sofa and floated up the stairs. A minute later she returned and handed me some stationery. I immediately recognized the pale green Trident color and the monogram.

This is what she'd written:

She read it over my shoulder. “Do you think that will do?”

“I'm sure it's fine,” I said seriously.

“Well, then, can I ask you an enormous favor, sugarpie? Could you possibly hand it to someone over there for me? I'd pop by myself, but I've got a huge audition tomorrow.”

“No problem.” Just then one of the rabbits scampered past my feet and almost threw me off balance. But I didn't fall. “Well, see you.”

“Eventually,” she said, waving good-bye.

The next morning I went to school early so I could slip Samantha's note in Espee's mailbox. (Don't ask me why; I guess I just thought that if any teacher on the Hard Team could deal with it, it would be Espee.) As soon as I got to Morning Homeroom, Lily ran over and gave me a big hug. “I'm so glad you talked to Nisha,” she told me. “That was really, really important, Evie.”

“Then you're not mad at me anymore?”

“I was never really mad to begin with,” she said sweetly.

I could have answered something like,
Well then, why weren't you talking to me?
But by now all I wanted was for
the weirdness to end. So I kept my mouth shut and smiled back at her.

And then magically, everything was normal again. I sat with Nisha and Lily at lunch and we spent the period giggling about Can You Please Pass the Syrup. They didn't ask very much about Francesca, and I really didn't want to talk about her. And it wasn't only because I was still keeping a lot of that sort of private. I also just needed a break from everything Francesca-related, to be honest.

The day went by quietly. I didn't even see Theo talking to Espee in the hall. And then, in Spush, the Attic Projects were due.

I handed in ours, along with the diary, exactly the way Espee told us to. For a title I'd written “ANGELICA BEAUMONT'S EARTHQUAKE.” And under that I'd written “BY EVA JANE WEBBER AND FRANCESCA PATTISON,” even though Francesca had done basically zero work.

Then, like everybody else on the Hard Team, I waited nervously to get it back.

Three days later, Espee walked slowly into the classroom carrying a big cardboard box, which she carefully put down
on her desk. “All right,” she said. “I have your Attic Projects to return to you, but first let me explain my system. I don't believe in writing directly on your work, because I think it's disrespectful. So I'm giving you my comments in a sealed envelope addressed to both members of the team. I hope you'll open your envelopes in private, and not discuss my comments with anyone but me. Any questions?”

No one was stupid enough to raise their hand. So then she started handing back everybody's project, each with a white envelope paper-clipped to the essay.