Two Naomis (12 page)

I wish I could get credit for the things I
think
about doing. Because up in my brain, I'm a really nice person. Super-nice. Someone who always thinks she can do the right thing.

Like whenever I finally get my room all cleaned up, I truly believe—I really do!—that I'll be able to keep it that way forever. But after just a couple of days, there's always a pile of papers on the desk and books all over the floor and five cups I didn't take back to the kitchen and dirty clothes that never made it into the hamper.

Because as Dad and I walk to the Y, I remember that all week I kept checking to see if the other Naomi got back to me about the upstairs/downstairs idea, but she never did. And she
didn't do any work on our project at all. Nothing. So I didn't either. She was the one who was all into it. I had thought we'd get it done, she'd be happy, and I'd at least be finished with that class knowing I finally chipped in and helped. But the other Naomi gave up. So I guess we'll have to hang our heads in shame when Julie asks if anyone wasn't able to get their project done in time.

“Don't forget, we're going out with Valerie and the girls after class,” Dad says. We're walking fast because we always leave home later than we should.

“And Annie and Xio,” I say.

“That's right! Annie will get to meet Valerie and Naomi Marie and Brianna!”

“Yeah,” I say.

Luckily, we make the endless light at Scary Boulevard so I'm not super-late. Just regular-late.

I'm dreading class, but at least it all ends today. Dad and I can go back to our lazy Saturday mornings! Just the two of us. I say good-bye and walk down the make-me-choke-from-chlorine-smell halls to the classroom, and as usual, I'm the last one there.

The other Naomi is wearing this really cool turquoise shirt, and as I sit down next to her, I say, “That shirt looks so good on you!” And she gives me a big smile. And I think,
Hey! Everything is really going to be all right!

Julie steps to the front of the room, and everyone goes quiet.
“I'm going to give you a few minutes right now to run through your projects, make sure everything's working, and then we'll move forward with presentations.”

A knot tightens in my stomach. “We should tell her,” I say to the other Naomi. “Before everyone starts showing what they did. Let's get it over with.” When I was little, I used to like to pull a Band-Aid off slowly (underwater, when possible), but now I believe in getting hard things over with quickly.

The other Naomi is scratching at a tiny piece of something on the keyboard when she asks, “Tell her what?”

What does she think??? “That we weren't able to finish,” I loud-whisper. “That we don't have anything to show!”

Why won't she look at me?

She says something really quiet, not at all to me, under her breath. Is she scared? “Come on, Naomi,” I say. “Let's tell her. . . .”

“But we did finish,” she says, louder now. “Or I guess I should say,
I
finished. Since you—” And then she's back to talking under her breath.

The two girls sitting in front of us turn around and give us this long stare, a silent way of saying “BE QUIET!!!” But the other Naomi is being plenty quiet now.

“What do you mean?”

She opens a project and starts playing around with it. I ask, “Hey, where are the stairs I put in?” And then I realize that it's not even our project at all. It's something completely new. Something I had nothing to do with.

“I made a new game since you didn't seem interested in it.
I thought it was fun, so I did it, and it came out great, no thanks to you.”

I feel stung. And it doesn't make sense, because she's right. I mostly didn't want to do it. But I also finally did the right thing, and she completely ignored it. “So you just ignored my upstairs/downstairs idea and created a whole new thing? What about my note? Why didn't you at least write back and tell me you were trashing my stuff?”

“What note?” she asks, but not in a nice voice. Not in a nice voice at all. It's a voice that sounds like she doesn't even believe I wrote a note!

I am biting my lip so hard, I'm scared it's going to start bleeding.

Everyone can hear her say in this super-bossy and talking-down way, “Don't worry that you didn't do anything. I got this. Just be quiet and follow my lead.”

The texting–nail polish girl in back actually stands up to get a better look at us. I try to stare her down but end up looking away.

I want to pull the other stupid Naomi's hair or pinch her or at least scream really loud, but everyone is already looking at us. Staring at us. Three people are standing now, peering around other people. You'd think that would make me be quiet, but I'm so mad! “I'm not Brianna. You don't get to be a bossy big sister to me.”

She keeps playing around with HER project on the screen, and I sit there with my mouth open. Before long I feel Julie standing right in front of us.

“I would like to talk to you both outside the classroom right now.”

My stomach ripples with scaredness as we follow Julie into the hall.

“Would one of you like to tell me what's going on?”

I think about starting when we first went to the other Naomi's house for dinner, how we had the same sneakers and Dad forced me to do this class so I'd have to spend more time with her. And then she announced to everyone that she did the whole project without me. But I don't think that's what Julie has in mind.

“We worked together on our project in the beginning, but then SHE got bored,” the other Naomi says. “So I finished it myself. And my dad said it was awesome.”

Her dad? What does he have to do with anything?

She stands tall and proud, but one look at Julie makes her all slouchy again.

“I have been very clear that this is a team project. A project for a pair to complete together. Do you remember, girls? Collaboration? Mature and generous spirits? Respect? All that is far more important to me, and I hope to you, than the projects themselves.” Julie looks right at me. “You were bored with your project?” she asks.

It's too much to explain. “I guess,” I say. “Some of it was fun.” I can't look her in the eye, but I do make myself say, “I'm sorry. I should have helped more. But when I tried to, she ignored me and did everything by herself.”

Julie looks right at the other Naomi now. “If you really did the bulk of the work yourself, or with someone other than your partner, I'm sorry to say that you can't be considered for the showcase.” And then she really surprises me by bending over a little and drawing both of us into a hug. “But DuoTek will always be here, you know. Maybe you can get together to work on a project and present it if you join us for the fall session.”

As we walk back into the room, I'm almost sure that the other Naomi is doing everything she can to not cry in front of everyone. She doesn't say a thing. She stands as straight as she can and walks back, then slinks into the seat, blinking a lot.

I wish I had made her a costume back when I studied her. She could really use a confident costume right now.

Everyone is looking at us. Every single person. Nail Polish girl is smirking. One girl who was absent for half the class is whispering with the girl next to her.

I want to protect the other Naomi—and maybe myself too—from all the people who turn to stare. But all I can do is sit there and stare back, feeling awful.

“Want my chocolate pudding?” asks Xio. She pats my shoulder. “I think you need it.”

I've spent the whole lunch period explaining why we didn't have our “celebration” on Saturday. Explaining that all my hard work didn't even matter to THAT OTHER NAOMI because she is a big lazy babyhead who doesn't do work and gets mad at people who do.

I take the chocolate pudding and the Paddington Bear spoon that Xio is holding out.

“Thanks,” I say. “I mean, can you believe her?! I was trying to make us both look good, even though I did EVERYTHING.”

Xio nods.

“She called me BOSSY!”

Xio nods.

“I was TRYING to give her some SHINE and not take ALL THE CREDIT even though I DID ALL THE WORK and she just . . . she just . . . was SO MEAN!”

Xio nods.

“Why do you keep nodding?” I ask.

“Because that's what it said you should do in my Friendship Skilz workshop when a BFF is having a crisis and keeps—needs to vent.” The bell rings, and Mikey gets busted right as he's about to throw a milk.

“When did you go to that?” I ask, forgetting how mad I am for a second. We start packing up our things and head down the hall to the classroom.

“Um . . . Saturday afternoon. After . . . you know, things didn't happen.”

“Oh,” I say. Since Mrs. Perkins isn't back yet, we lean on my desk together. “Was it good?”

“Yeah . . . I would have told you, but your mom said you didn't really feel like talking.”

“She was right.” I do now, though. “And another thing. The game I made by myself? Seriously awesome.”

Xio nods, really slowly and exaggerated this time. I start giggling.

“Hey,” she says. “Can we make a game together?”

“Sure, that would be way more fun than working with Ms. Evil. I can show you how to use DuoTek.”

“Great! Because I have an idea from the Friendship Skilz workshop and
Vocalympians!
”

This time I nod very, very slowly. And we both laugh.

Mrs. Perkins rushes into the classroom and starts talking like she's been there all along. “For this project, you will be working in teams of four. And, yes, I know—one team of five,” Mrs. Perkins adds when Margot the Correcter raises her hand. “You'll have ten minutes to work out the teams, and I don't”—she glares at us—“want any nonsense.”

Mrs. Perkins never wants any nonsense, and I'm glad. We only have art once a week, and the kids who fool around just mess things up for us all. Last week, Maria V. was my partner, and she drank all the milk with food coloring from our liquid paintings. Mrs. Perkins told us it wasn't poisonous, but since then Maria's been way more annoying than she used to be.

We shuffle around to figure out teams. Xio and Chris Williams jump over to me right away, which gives me a warm, sunshiny feeling; I really need that now.

“Who else?” says Chris, looking around. He tries to make his voice deep and growly. “We must choose wisely.”

Xio nudges him. “It's like this. . . .” She clears her throat and growls, “We must choose wisely.”

“Whoa!” he says. “How'd you do that?”

“She can go high too,” I add. “Like glass breaking.”

“I got skills,” says Xio. “And I take vocal gymnastics class.” She sings what I think is supposed to be a scale, waving her index finger around the whole time. A few people look over, including
Jenn Harlow, who rolls her eyes and whispers to her minions. The same old same old. I swallow the lump that's in my throat and turn away.

“Come on, guys, let's get this done,” I say. “I don't want to look like we're slackers.”

Yasmine is headed our way, and I smile. She's reliable and not bossy. She'll have this on lock. They'll all see. I can COLLABORATE as good as anyone else. Better, even.

“Come on over, Yazzy,” I say. But as she walks toward us, Jenn grabs her arm and drags her away. What's up with that?

“Five minutes!” calls out Mrs. Perkins.

I march over to Jenn's group. “Hey, Yazzy,” I say loudly. “Did you want to be on our team?”

She looks at me, then at Jenn. “Um . . .”

Jenn steps forward. “Yazzy's going to be with us,” she says. “My friend Drea is in this workshop? Where you make computer games?” Uh-oh. Even though she's ending every sentence with a question mark, we both know exactly where she's going with this. “And she said they had final presentations? And there was this
one
team?” She pauses.

“This one team what?” I ask.

She sighs. “She said it was sooooooo random. This
one
team was the
only one
that didn't show anything, and she felt sooooo sorry for them . . . especially the bossy one who thought she knew everything but was obviously clueless.”

I put my hand on my hip, but then I put it down so I don't look that interested. “Really?”

“Yeah,
really
,” she says. She rolls her eyes. “Oh, come on, Naomi, you can't play it off. She told me the whole story, and as soon as she described the bossy girl, I knew it was you. And, like, some other girl named Naomi too, which is so weird, like you.”

I just keep looking at her, and I don't blink. I can feel my face heat up again as I remember how it felt to be just sitting there doing nothing after all that work. Like I didn't even matter. Again. Like I was being erased. Like I'm not me anymore.

“She said you were trying to cheat or something, and I'm not surprised. That's why I think Yazzy should be with people who do their own work.”

I start to say, “I always do my own work!” but I stop. I stand there for another beat so they know that I am me and I am right here. Then I turn and walk away slowly, probably in a way that Momma might call grown. I can hear them whispering behind me.

When I get back to Xio and Chris, they ask what happened. “Jenn is using her powers for evil again,” I say, and leave it at that.

Xio raises an eyebrow. “Should I say something?”

“It's no big deal,” I say. And it isn't. I know what I did, and what I can do.
Shine your light without dimming anyone else's.
“Come on, we've got like a minute left.”

“Maybe we can just be three?” asks Chris. “Or . . .”

We all glance over at Mikey and shudder.

There's a tap on my shoulder, and I turn to see Yazzy.

“Can I work with you guys?” she asks.

I want to ask why, and what about Jenn, but I don't. “Sure,” I say. “There's room for one more.”

“Thanks,” she says. “Jenn thinks everyone should do the work for her. You always have good ideas.”

“We've all got skills,” I say.

Mrs. Perkins claps. “Time's up. Mikey, if you don't have a team . . .” She looks around the room. “Join Naomi's group.” She looks at me like she expects me to complain.

“I like to be called Naomi Marie now, Mrs. Perkins” is all I say.