Two Friends, One Dog, and a Very Unusual Week, page 8
“A bomb pop!”
“An Oreo snowstorm!”
“But we don’t have any money,” Emily said.
“You don’t need any!” said Rani. “Everybody line up!”
When it was Emily’s turn, she noticed that the server seemed familiar. “Rich?” she asked.
“Hey, there, Emily. What can I get you?”
“A hot fudge sundae?” Emily answered hesitantly. “How come you’re not at the store?”
“Got a new job. Here you go!” He squirted whipped cream on the sundae until the frothy white tower began to wobble. Then he plonked on three cherries and handed it to her.
Emily took a bite. Whipped cream squished sweetly inside her mouth. The fudge was warm and the ice cream went from cold to cool to melting on her tongue.
“What about her?” Rich waved a dripping ice cream scoop at Penelope, who was still sitting at the table and coloring with what was left of her crayon. It had been worn down to a stub between her fingers.
“We had snack,” she said, staring down at her paper. Her cheeks were so red they looked sore.
Rani bounced over to the table, holding a waffle cone in one hand. In it were three scoops of ice cream: bubblegum, coffee chip, and rainbow sherbet. “But don’t you want some ice cream too?” she asked Penelope.
“It’s unsanitary. There’s a dog in the truck. My mother wouldn’t let me eat ice cream from a truck with a dog in it.”
But Penelope’s eyes had lifted from her paper.
“He’s a very clean dog,” Rani said encouragingly. “He licks himself every day. All over. Even—”
“Ewww!” Penelope made a face.
“There’s nothing wrong with my sundae, Penelope,” Emily said. “It’s really good—see?”
Penelope glanced at the dark, satiny chocolate melting into the velvety white ice cream. The red cherries had made little pink hollows in the whipped cream.
Slowly, the corners of Penelope’s mouth started to sag. Emily began to feel a little sorry for her.
She had always thought of Penelope as bossy. As grumpy. And now that Emily came to think about it, as a lot like her mother.
But now, for the first time, she found herself thinking of Penelope as unhappy. Because, really, how much fun could it be, being Penelope Pinkney every single day?
“Do you want a bite?” she asked.
Still staring at Emily’s hot fudge sundae, Penelope wrinkled her nose. “With your spoon?”
“I’ll get you a new one!” Rani skipped across the room, snagged a fresh spoon from Rich, and was back at Penelope’s side in a moment.
“Here you go!” She plopped the spoon into the ice cream.
Penelope hesitated.
Rani spun away, swooping through the room in circles. Melting blobs of ice cream flew into the air.
Emily nudged her hot fudge sundae a little closer to Penelope.
“Ice cream tastes better up here!” Rani called out. She was standing on top of Mr. Cleary’s desk. Somehow, she had acquired a second cone, which she held in her other hand. It had two scoops of chocolate fudge ripple.
When Emily looked back at Penelope, the spoon was in her mouth. Her eyes were closed. She was smiling.
“Here,” Emily said softly, pushing the sundae all the way in front of Penelope. “You can have the whole thing.”
She left Penelope and ran to the window, where Rich was just about to close the serving hatch.
“One more?” he asked, seeing Emily’s face. “You got it!”
Emily sat down at the table with Penelope to eat.
“So long!” Rich called and saluted them all with his ice-cream scoop. Otto leaped out of the truck just before Rich slid the hatch shut.
“I’ve got a rainbow nose!” Rani shrieked from Mr. Cleary’s desk. A blob of orange and purple sherbet slid down her nose and landed in her mouth.
Anson sang “You Ain’t Nothing but a Hound Dog” with his Mississippi mud bar for a microphone. Maureen Kenilworth had her cherry slushie in one hand and Dylan Okoshi’s ice-cream cone in the other, because Dylan was trying to see if she could do cartwheels from one wall of the room to the opposite one. Whenever Dylan flipped upright, Maureen fed her a bite of rocky road.
Penelope put her sundae cup to her lips and let the dregs of melted vanilla slide down her throat.
Rani waved wildly at Emily and crunched through the cone holding the last of her rainbow sherbet. She flung the second cone, which still had a scoop of chocolate fudge ripple, directly at Emily.
“Catch!” she shrieked.
Emily dropped her sundae on the table, jumped up, and reached out with both hands.
She found herself holding a handful of chilly, gooey creaminess.
“Throw it back!” Rani called.
Emily didn’t stop to think. She drew her arm back to throw just as the classroom door opened.
“Grown-up alert!” Anson hollered.
Penelope dropped her empty sundae cup to the floor. Anson flung the stick from his Mississippi mud pop out the window. Kids gulped down the last of their ice cream or gobbled final bites of cone as they whisked into seats at the table.
But Emily turned toward the doorway. She saw Mr. Cleary standing there, his mouth open wide enough to swallow an entire scoop of ice cream in one gulp.
Emily felt frozen in place. Except for her arm. It never stopped moving.
The melting scoop of ice cream sailed into the air. It flew toward the open door.
Mr. Cleary ducked.
Chocolate fudge ripple smacked into the face of Mrs. Pinkney, who was standing behind him.
To Emily, it felt as if years and years had passed since the horrible moment when the ice cream had hit Mrs. Pinkney’s face. But she knew it couldn’t really have been more than thirty minutes or so.
Inside Mr. Cleary’s office, she sat on a yellow beanbag chair. She’d washed her hands, but there wasn’t much that could be done about her shirt.
Next to her, Rani was on a beanbag of her own—a blue one. She had her legs stretched out straight in front of her. Humming, she tapped her toes together. Then her heels. Then her toes again.
Mrs. Pinkney was still cleaning herself up. Mr. Cleary had taken her to the teachers-only bathroom.
Emily knew she would never forget how slowly the ice cream had slid down Mrs. Pinkney’s face. Soft, melty blobs had clung to her eyebrows. The rest had slithered down her cheeks and drizzled all over the front of her blouse until it finally, finally, plopped to the floor, all while Emily had stared and Jonah Pinkney’s mouth had changed from an astonished O to a delighted grin.
“Wow!” he’d shouted.
Now Mrs. Pinkney was trying to get all that ice cream off. When she came back, what would happen then?
That was the question.
Emily had been in Mr. Cleary’s office lots of times. There had been that morning, of course, with Rani and her mother. Other times she had delivered notes from teachers and picked up papers or books that had to be taken back to the classroom. On her ninth birthday she had brought Mr. Cleary one of her dad’s chocolate-cream-cheese cupcakes.
But she’d never sat on the beanbag chairs before. The beanbags were where you sat if Mr. Cleary wanted to have a special conversation with you.
In other words, if you were in trouble.
Emily had never had a special conversation with the principal. She’d never needed a fresh start.
Her stomach felt very strange, heavy and hollow at the same time. Rani’s humming was starting to make it feel worse.
Didn’t she understand how serious this was?
Could Rani ever be serious? About anything?
“Rani!” she burst out all of a sudden. “Can you—”
Rani looked over at her like a startled puppy.
“…not hum?” Emily mumbled. She stared down at her hands. Even after soap and water, they were still a little sticky.
“Okay,” Rani said. She began to sing. “The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout. Down came the rain—”
“Rani!” Emily said.
Rani stopped singing.
The door opened. Mr. Cleary came in.
Emily’s heavy, hollow stomach got heavier and oozed down toward her toes.
Mr. Cleary sat, a little awkwardly, on a red beanbag. He had very long legs, and he had to work a little bit to get them crossed properly.
“Now,” he said. “Rani. Emily.”
“I’m sorry,” Emily said quickly. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hit Mrs. Pinkney with the ice cream. I didn’t throw it at her. Not on purpose. Really. I’m sorry.”
Rani seemed concerned. “Doesn’t Mrs. Pinkney like chocolate fudge ripple?” she asked. She started to get up. “I think Rich is still outside. I could go get her some mint chocolate chip.”
Mr. Cleary sighed. “I think we need—”
But he didn’t get a chance to finish.
Emily had never thrown ice cream at a grown-up before. She had also never interrupted the principal. But she did now.
“Rani!” she nearly yelled. “You can’t go get her mint chocolate chip!”
Rani patted her red backpack. “Sure I can. I have plenty of—”
“It’s not because of money!” Emily said, just as loudly as before. “Rani, you can’t do stuff like this. All the time! You’re breaking the rules all the time! I keep trying to help you. But you don’t listen to me! You don’t listen to anybody! And now we’re in trouble! Rani, haven’t you ever been in trouble before?”
Slowly, Rani’s face changed from cheerful to baffled to anxious. She shook her head.
“Emily,” Mr. Cleary said gently.
“I’m in trouble too!” Emily wailed. “And it’s your fault! I’m in trouble because of you!”
Rani turned to Mr. Cleary. “Is Emily in trouble?” she asked.
Mr. Cleary sighed again.
“Here at Henrietta Minnow, we try not to talk about being in trouble,” he said. “But I think there’s something more than ice cream going on right now.”
Rani began to look a little hopeful. “Chocolate cake too?”
Emily groaned. There was a knock on the door.
“Yes, come in, please,” Mr. Cleary called.
Mrs. Pinkney opened the door, holding Jonah by the hand. Her blouse was still damp and covered with sticky brown splotches.
Behind her, Emily could see her own parents.
Emily and Rani were sent into the hall. Penelope was already there, on the bench next to the office door. She had a smear of fudge on her chin.
Mr. Cleary nudged Jonah out after them.
“Why don’t you three take Jonah to the playground?” he asked. “No, no, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he said to someone inside the office. “They’re very responsible girls—”
“Responsible!” exploded Mrs. Pinkney.
Mr. Cleary quickly shut the door.
Without a word, Penelope got to her feet. She took Jonah’s hand and marched down the hallway toward the door that led to the playground.
Because she didn’t know what else to do, Emily followed. Rani trailed behind.
Outside, Jonah’s eyes widened at the sight of Rich’s ice cream truck, still parked by the gates. Otto sat nearby, as if waiting patiently for something, and Mr. Hayes, the custodian, was talking to Rich through the window.
Jonah started toward the truck, but Penelope snagged the sleeve of his bright red T-shirt and steered him toward the sandpit instead.
Jonah cast one mournful look at the truck, plopped down in the sand, and started to dig a series of slow, deliberate holes. He took a green plastic figure from his pocket, a froglike man with webbed feet, and dropped the toy into one of his holes. He buried it. Then he dug it up again.
Emily sat down on one of the tree stumps that had been arranged around the sandpit and stared at Jonah. They were supposed to watch him, after all.
Penelope sat too. Rani stood, fidgeting with the straps of her backpack. “I think I’ve had about enough education for one day,” she announced.
She turned on one heel and began to walk slowly toward the playground gates. Atop the flagpole, her orange scarf still waved merrily in the breeze.
Emily couldn’t believe it. How could Rani still not understand what to do? She took one small step in the other girl’s direction and then hesitated.
“You should let her go,” Penelope said.
Emily studied Rani’s shoulders, slumped under the weight of her backpack. For the first time the load seemed too heavy for such a small girl.
“She’ll just get you in trouble if you go after her,” Penelope told her. “More trouble.”
Rani was already halfway across the blacktop. Rich waved and drove off. Mr. Hayes trudged back toward the school building.
“Rani!” Emily called. She jumped up. “Stop!”
Emily hurried to Rani. She grabbed one of her friend’s arms with both hands, tugging her back toward the sandpit. “You can’t go,” Emily said firmly.
“I can’t?” Rani asked. She sounded lost. “Why not?”
“Because—” Emily’s explanation got stuck in her throat. She tried again, pointing at the school building. “Because they’re talking about us.”
“But they don’t need us to do that,” Rani said. “They can talk all they like without us. Grown-ups are good at talking.” She brightened up a little. “Once when I was in Alice Springs, I met a man who had been talking for seventeen hours straight. They had to set up relays of people to listen to him.”
“He’d have to stop talking to eat,” Penelope pointed out. She’d left her seat on the tree trunk and moved closer to them.
“Nope, he didn’t. He switched to using sign language and got someone to hold a sandwich up to his mouth,” Rani answered cheerfully.
But when she looked at Emily, the cheerfulness slid off her face.
“I don’t think I can manage it, Emily,” she said soberly. “All the rules and the education at the same time. Let’s go roller skating instead. Or hang gliding maybe.”
Emily shook her head.
Maybe Rani would never understand that kids lived in a world made by grown-ups. And that meant kids had to live by grown-up rules.
Even if you lived in an attic with a loft and a slide and a trampoline and a great big dog, that didn’t mean that the rules weren’t there. Sooner or later, every kid would have to deal with them.
“We have to stay,” Emily said as patiently as she could. “We don’t have a choice. They’d be really worried if they came out and we weren’t here.”
Rani shook her head just as patiently.
“Grown-ups are good at worrying too,” she said.
The door to the school banged open, and Mrs. Pinkney came striding out. Emily’s parents and Mr. Cleary followed.
“I’ve fulfilled my responsibilities, that’s all,” Mrs. Pinkney said, each word as crisp as the clack of her heels on the blacktop. “Penelope, let’s go. Where’s Jonah?”
Penelope, Emily, and Rani turned to the sandpit. The empty sandpit.
Where was Jonah?
“He never wanders off! Never!” Mrs. Pinkney insisted. She clutched her purse and scanned the playground in all directions. “He must be somewhere! I’m sure he’s somewhere!”
“Everyone’s somewhere,” Rani agreed. Emily shook her head at her.
The doors of the school could only be opened from the inside, so Jonah definitely wasn’t in the building. And they’d already searched the playground for him.
“Janice, we’ll find him,” Emily’s dad said steadily. “You three didn’t see him go anywhere?” he asked, turning to Rani, Emily, and Penelope. “Was he near the gates?”
Emily remembered Jonah playing in the sandpit, but nothing after that. He was so quiet. So small. So easy to overlook.
Miserably, she shook her head. Penelope did the same. Rani was humming “Itsy Bitsy Spider.”
Emily’s dad turned back to Mrs. Pinkney. “Is there any place nearby that he likes to go? Anything special that might catch his eye?”
There was a pause. Mrs. Pinkney shook her head. Then Penelope spoke up in a low voice.
“I think he…wanted some ice cream.” She suddenly seemed aware of the smudge of fudge on her chin and rubbed it away with her thumb.
Everyone’s head turned toward the street. The school gates were still open. But Rich’s truck was nowhere in sight.
Rani reached out a hand, as if she meant to pat Mrs. Pinkney on the arm. “You don’t have to be so worried,” she said. “Because—”
Mrs. Pinkney swung around to face her. “Stay out of this!” she snapped. “Haven’t you done enough?”
Rani’s smile vanished. Her hand dropped.
Emily’s parents hurried to the gates to look up and down the street. Mr. Cleary ran inside, gasping something about police. Mrs. Pinkney sat down on a tree stump and burst into tears.
Emily had never felt sorry for Mrs. Pinkney before. And she had never felt sorry for Rani before either. She had no idea what to do.
Her mother and father ran back from the gates. Emily’s mom sat down next to Mrs. Pinkney and offered her a tissue from her purse. Her dad pointed at Rani and Emily and Penelope.
“Stay on the playground, all three of you,” he said, and he strode inside after Mr. Cleary.
Rani seemed restless. She wandered away, past the climber, putting some distance between herself and the sandpit and Mrs. Pinkney. Then she sat down on the bottom end of a slide.
“There really is nothing to worry about,” she said, lifting her gaze to Emily’s face.
Emily just shook her head again. Rani never worried about anything. How could Emily possibly explain that there were some things actually worth worrying about?
