Somebody on This Bus Is Going to Be Famous (8 page)

“Yeah.” Shelly bites a corner off her fingernail, which doesn't really have a corner left. “In other words, it sucks.”

“I didn't say that—”

“It does, though.” She flicks Miranda's paper with her finger. “Yours sounds—smart. Mine sounds stupid.”

“Well…” Miranda can't deny it. “Mrs. Evangeline says you should write about your own experience. Since you don't have any boyfriends yet, you could write about some of the stuff you go through. Like with your Uncle Mike.”

“Write about stuff that makes me barf? No thanks. Let's just say I can't be good at everything. If you could make it a little better, at least I can turn something in and get a participation ribbon. Okay?”

“But Shelly—they're due
today
.”

“What? What about if I get an extension?”

Miranda shook her head. “Mrs. Evangeline said that's the absolute deadline, no exceptions, so she can get them printed up by December.”

“Oh yeah.” Shelly slams her head back against the seat as the bus stops to pick up Harley and Stella. Revving up again, the back wheel hits a bump. “Wait, I've got a better idea!”

Something tells Miranda she's not going to like this idea.

“What if I put my name on your poem?” Shelly rushes on before Miranda can protest. “See, you've already got your story and your description in the language arts fair and both of those are going to get ones. So you could share a teensy little poem with me and I could get a one too, because it's that good, and it would look great on my scholarship application!”

She looks so sparkly Miranda is wondering why she can't catch a spark. “But…”

“And wouldn't it be cool to share something like this? It would be like sharing clothes, only better because it's a secret, and you'd
really
be helping me out, and I could find some way to help you out too.”

But
it
would
be
wrong!
Miranda wants to say.
It
would
be
lying
because
you
didn't write it, I did, and besides I really like it and it's mine and I don't want to give it up forever which I would be doing because if you got a one beside your name for this poem nobody would be able to change it except you and I'm pretty sure you never would.

She doesn't say any of this, of course. She just feels it, like water swelling up behind a big concrete dam, threatening to spill over. It's how she felt when Penelope asked her to pull the plug—a solid lump of feeling, blocking the words
yes
and
no
. Except
no
is on top.
No
would get over the dam first. And not just a polite little
en
oh
, but a big honking
NO! NEVER! ABSOLUTELY NOT!

The words seem bigger than she is. Maybe that's why they won't come out.

“Come on, Mir,” Shelly begs. “We'll be BFFs. Please?” The bus slows down at the big curve outside of town to pick up the four Kalispell boys, whom Mrs. B calls the Brothers Calamity.

Best Friends Forever. Miranda feels the pressure of
NO!
shrinking a little. Does she mean it? Does she mean hanging out at the mall and doing each other's hair and sleeping over and maybe even vacations? That kind of friend? Or just the sit-together-on-the-bus friend? “Could we do something on Saturday?”

Shelly's eyebrows nudge together then spring apart. “Sure! You can come over in the morning and help me work out a dance routine for my camp audition DVD.”

The four Kalispell boys, Todd, Taylor, Shawn, and Shane, tumble onto the bus like a pack of wildcats, making it harder to hold Shelly's attention. “What about the afternoon?” Miranda persists.

“Uh…” The eyebrows creep together again. “I think my mom wants to take me shopping for shoes.”

“Can I go?” Miranda can't believe she said this, even after she says it.

“I don't think so. Mom doesn't like to have fun shopping. Just one store after another, bang, bang, bang, until you find what you're looking for. I think Evan's coming too. Yuck.”

Miranda finds herself doubting this. If she watched their house on Saturday afternoon, would she observe Shelly and Mrs. Alvarez leaving without Evan? And if she were still watching a few hours later, would she see them return without shoes? Shelly has friends all over the place—friends from dance school, all-city glee club, and talent camp, friends Miranda will never meet because she's not in their league. She's a bus friend, and sometimes a come-over-for-a-morning friend. And a take-advantage-of friend?

They're almost to school. “So how about it? Can I use your poem or not?”

Miranda looks out the bus window a long time before her answer breaks free and trickles down the face of the dam.

• • •

Her mother has taken a personal day off work in order to clean house. Getting off work just to do more work makes Miranda sad, and when she comes home that afternoon, the sight of boxes piled up on the dining room table makes her even sadder, because obviously she'll be helping to finish the job.

“Hey, Pumpkin!” Mom calls over the twang of a steel guitar on the radio. “Glad you're home—we can get this job done in no time!”

Just
like
I
thought
, Miranda thinks.

Her mother pops out of the kitchen, wiping her face with a paper towel that leaves swipes of dusty sweat. “This all came from the attic. I've been sortin' and sneezin' all afternoon, but finally settled on what's keepable.” She sneezes again, an explosion that seems to rocket around the walls. “I'll haul it back up, and if you can dust and vacuum while I take a shower, we'll splurge for dinner at Italian Garden, okay?”

“Okay.” Italian Garden's triple-treat pasta sampler sounds pretty good right now.

“You look a little mopey. Is anything wrong?”

Miranda shakes her head.

“Look what I found up there.” Mom picks up a large brown envelope and slides a stack of papers out of it. “My entire journalism career! Did you know I was a writer too? Started back in middle school, went all the way through senior year. I was editor that year. Since you're getting into writing, I thought you might be interested.”

She seems…excited. Like she's been waiting all afternoon to spring this surprise. And that feels sad too, but Miranda musters a smile while reaching out for the envelope. “Sure. Thanks, Mom.”

While waiting for her mother to move boxes, she reads the first two articles, each carefully cut from newsprint and taped to a sheet of white paper, all
by
Linda
Tucker, eighth grade
. The first reported on the remodeled school cafeteria, and the second complained about students throwing food in the remodeled cafeteria.

Miranda sighs. Mrs. Evangeline suggested that she write an article for the school newspaper about the language arts fair: “Not in general but specific. Give your thoughts about your favorite pieces, like a book review.” Um, don't think so. No way. In fact, she's done with creative writing for this year. Maybe for next year too.

A headline catches her eye as she shuffles papers back in the envelope:
Dear
Class
of
'85: That Wasn't Funny!
Unlike the rest, it sounds interesting. She's about to glance over it when her mother yells, “I'm hitting the shower now!”

Miranda puts the envelope aside, intending to give it another look. But she doesn't, or not for a long time.

• • •

During Thanksgiving break, she calls the Alvarez house twice but Shelly's busy: leaving early to catch the Black Friday sales, got an audition for a commercial on Saturday, going to spend all day Sunday at Grandma's—bo-ring! Those two syllables would describe Miranda's whole long weekend: Thanksgiving dinner at her Aunt Marcia's, with teenage cousins who split after the main event; the rest of the time, just hanging around. Her dad calls Friday night, but as usual, they don't have much to talk about and the conversation dries up after a few minutes. His wife probably had to remind him to call.

Shelly is sweet as coconut-cream pie on the bus Monday morning, but that's her way of showing gratitude. She never exactly says thank you for the poem. What she does say: “So, I made a list of my scholarship credits last night, with my volunteer gigs and the campaign and the language arts fair and two auditions, and Dad said it wasn't bad at all for two months. The language arts thing really helped. I have to work on the grades, though.”

“That's great,” Miranda says. And maybe it is, in a way. Maybe that language arts credit will shine like a star on Shelly's résumé, and she'll see how much it helped, and how much she owes Miranda, and how Miranda is a sweet girl and they ought to be doing more stuff together.

And maybe tomorrow, the popularity fairy will swoop down and crown her Miss BFF.

• • •

All the fair entries that got a one or two rating are published in a booklet and distributed to each participant. Miranda's copy goes into the drawer under the telephone book and quickly fades to a sore spot in her memory, along with Penelope and the Youth Court campaign. Except for one little thing. One little, very strange thing.

It comes in a Christmas card. The card shows a fireplace with stockings hanging over it and looks recycled—the envelope is too big, and a signature on the inside is scratched out. The address on the envelope is written in pencil, in careful block letters that try to look grown up. Inside the card is a folded page with a fringy edge, torn out of a booklet with a plastic comb binding.

Unfolded, the paper reveals the poem about the shed—
her
poem, over Shelly's name.

In the white space left by the slope of the diamante shape, more block lettering:
I
lik
this. Thank yu.

Kaitlynn knows she will be famous but isn't sure what for.

On different days, she's a famous lawyer, senator, screenwriter, explorer…“Talk show host,” her dad says. “No, wait—talk show hosts have to let somebody else do the talking sometimes.”

Okay, so she does talk a lot. But that's only because she thinks a lot, and her ideas don't stick around unless she talks about them.

Ideas are like puffs of wind until she dresses them up in words. Or like a garden spider spinning away, around and around until the web is done and it signs a zigzaggy thread just below the middle. Once, after watching a spider at work in a corner of the front porch, she decided to give it superpowers and call it—her!—ZZZorinda. The idea popped into her head, just popped! Like a flashing fish out of a pond: Zip-Zap Zorinda!

ZZZorinda could fly, of course, and read minds and pick up distress calls from hundreds of miles away. She could defeat any bad guy with the tools in a utility belt cinched around her tiny, tiny waist and always finished by wrapping him up in a neat web and signing it with a ZZZ.

There were tons of adventures waiting to be had by a superhero spider. Kaitlynn wrote her first ZZZorinda story the very next day: Chapter One. She hasn't got to Chapter Two yet, but not for lack of thinking about it. Or talking about it.

Her mom says, “Not now, Katy. I'm trying to balance the checkbook.”

Her dad says, “Very interesting. Did you happen to see where I left my hammer?”

Her brother Simon (age seven) says, “But how does she fly without any wings?” (She just does.) “But
how
? Why don't you make her an insect? Insects have wings; spiders don't. How about a ladybug?” (A ladybug can't wear a utility belt around her waist!) “Why not?” (A ladybug doesn't have a waist!!) “You could give her a utility jacket then. Or apron.” (Whoever heard of a superhero with an
apron
?!) “I like it. Lots of pockets. You can put all kinds of stuff in an apron.” (Just forget it, okay?)

Her brother Steven (age two and a half) says, “Coo!” meaning cool. At least he doesn't argue over details. Her dog Flicker says “Arf!” because Flicker always likes her ideas.

The problem is, Kaitlynn is having ideas so thick and fast that it's hard to stick with just one. And it's impossible to write them all down. Zip-Zap Zorinda shares space in her head with Flicker the Wonder Beagle, Dolly the philosophical goldfish, Kaitlynn the first female president of the United States, Kaitlynn the on-the-spot reporter for the nightly news, and Kaitlynn the first human on Mars (using a fuel formula she invented herself). (Even though Kaitlynn the eleven-year-old fifth-grader doesn't know anything about chemistry. Or physics.)

And here's a new one: Kaitlynn the angel of the slums. Ever since she had to do a project about Mother Teresa of Calcutta for social studies, she's been inspired to make the world a better place. She begged her dad to take her to the nearest slum so she could pass out sandwiches and blankets, but he says they don't have slums in Centerview. Bummer! (As her dad likes to say.) She may just have to wait until she's old enough to move out on her own, and then she'll definitely find a slum.

Because Kaitlynn is not just a thinker. She's a doer. Like organizing the Hidden Acres Lightning Bug Festival in June or the Secret Society of Flower Bombers last winter, when she and her friends sneaked around the school and left flower stickers on the light switch covers and window frames. She thought of it as a way of brightening up the institution, and besides, it was fun to figure out ways to plant the stickers without getting caught. But “defacing property” was the way Mrs. Lewenhaus, the principal, put it when she announced over the PA system that whoever was doing it had better quit, now. The SSFB (there were four of them at the time, Misty, Andie, Sophie, and Kaitlynn) decided to suspend operations.

Their next idea (also Kaitlynn's!) was selling homemade Mother's Day cards at school. But they made the mistake of selling the cards before they made them, didn't get them all finished, and had to give some of the money back but couldn't remember who they'd taken it from. The other girls decided this was Kaitlynn's fault (even though she's an idea person, not a keep-tracker-of!), and they ended up paying out more than they took in, especially when people like Bender insisted he'd ordered a card from one of the girls but he wasn't sure which one. People like Bender you didn't argue with. So even though it wasn't all her fault that the Mother's Day idea didn't work out, Kaitlynn lost some friends over it, namely Misty and Andie.

Now that December's here, she's getting winter ideas. It's too bad the language arts fair is over because she has another inspiration for a story that might be even better than ZZZorinda. She got a one on ZZZorinda for the Language Arts Fair, but the evaluator had some suggestions Kaitlynn didn't get. Like, “This story could be even better with more description: give the reader an idea how ZZZorinda flies.” That's a Simon kind of suggestion!

But she still got a one, and so did Shelly, and so did Miranda (two ones, in fact). “Congratulations!” she tells her fellow ones after boarding the bus on Friday afternoon the day the booklets got passed out.

“For what?” Shelly says. She's a little snotty with Kaitlynn as always, being a whole year older and a shooting star. But not so popping with ideas.

Kaitlynn holds up her copy of the booklet. “We all three got ones.”

“Oh sure. I forgot.” Shelly kind of rolls her eyes. “What'll you do with yours, Mir?”

Miranda's face seems headed for one expression before it settles on another. “We got one extra copy for my Aunt Marcia.”

“Good idea.
Definitely
an Aunt Marcia thing.”

Miranda changes the subject. “Did you see
Let's Dance
last night?”

“Are you kidding? With Becci Greenbaum and that football guy from the Eagles? He looked like he was about to pick her up and run for a touchdown.”

They laugh, and Miranda says she thought Becci was going to trip over her own shoes, and Shelly says it wouldn't be the first time, and Kaitlynn would have changed seats, except afternoon seats are assigned. She was going to tell Shelly that her poem about the bus shed had inspired another story: “The Mystery of the Empty Shelter.” It's only a bare sketch, though. She needs some material to fill it out. And just like that, an idea pops!

• • •

On the Monday morning ride, she waits until Mrs. B has turned around at the mysterious shelter and rumbled back up the gravel road and is looking both ways on the highway. Then she quickly moves back to the seat in front of Bender. “I have an idea.”

“Sit down, Kaitlynn!” Mrs. B calls back, even though she already has.

“About what?” Bender growls. He sure has been a sourpuss lately.

“About how you can find out who lives back there.”

That gets his attention. She's pretty sure the stop still bothers him, even though he pretends not to know what she's talking about. “Back where?”

“You know. The mystery stop. Here's my idea: you send them a letter. We know the address: 508 Farm Road 152. The number's on the mailbox.”

“But there are three mailboxes,” he objects. “How do you know that's the right one?”

“Because the other two have names on them. The middle box used to have a name, but it's been scraped off. I think whoever lives there just moved in over the summer and they haven't put the new name up yet.” This strikes her as outstanding detective work. “
Or
they don't want anybody to know who they are.”

His head is on the back of the seat and his butt hangs over the edge with his legs stretched out. Slowly, he pulls them in. “What's this letter supposed to say?”

“I haven't got that far yet.”

Bender snorts.

“What about this: ‘I know you're there. You can run but you can't hide.'” He stares at her, eyes narrowed. “Then sign it, ‘a friend.'”

“What kind of ‘friend' would write a note like that?”

“Well, think about it: if the note just said, ‘Hi, my name's Bender, what's yours?' they'd probably throw it in the trash.”

“Yeah, well…if
I
got a note that says ‘You can run but you can't hide,' I'd call the cops.

“What about…” Ideas were still popping! “What about a p.s. that says…uh…‘If you want to talk, tie a red ribbon on the bus shelter.'”

“And then what?”

“I don't know! You expect me to come up with the whole story right from the start? Wait till you see a red ribbon, and then decide what to do.”

Brakes squeal as the bus stops for Pat and Pat. “What's in this for you?” he asks.

“I just got the idea when I was looking through the language arts fair book—I have a story in there, you know? It got a one—and I saw Shelly's poem about the bus stop. I thought it was really neat because only a few people would know what she was writing about, and they're all on this bus. So that gave me the idea about writing a story about the mystery and call it—”

“Okay, okay. Why don't
you
write the letter? Wouldn't that be ‘really neat'?”

“But
you're
the one who wants to know. I'm just a little curious. And if I can't find the truth, I'll make something up. But you really want to know.”

Bingo! She can tell he's thinking, even while he sticks his hands in his pockets and hunches back into the corner. “It's a stupid idea. Get outta here.”

Kaitlynn turns around happily. It's one of her best ideas yet. She can't wait to see what comes of it.

• • •

Meanwhile, Christmas is coming! The goose is getting fat; please put a penny in the old man's hat. She tries to put a quarter in the Salvation Army hat—that is, kettle—every time they go to Walmart, but usually she can't get her coin purse out in time or her mother is in a hurry or she ends up with no change because there are so many other things to do with the money. For instance, she had to get one of the cute little teddy bear ornaments Shelly and Miranda made out of pompoms to sell for Shelly's camp fund. Mrs. B shuts down the operation when Shelly tries to peddle them on the bus. “No solicitation!” she says.

But back to the Salvation Army: it's too bad people have to make up their minds about whether to give to the needy while walking in and out of a store. People need time to think about those less fortunate and what their pitiful Christmas might be like with only a few cheap presents around the tree—if there even is a tree!—and a pot of beans on the table with maybe a bratwurst and a two-liter bottle of 7 Up. Hungry little children going to bed on Christmas Eve asking if Santa would come that night or were they too poor, and their sorrowful mom weeping into her pillow while their dad searches the Dumpster behind Toys“R”Us for any broken toys he might be able to fix… It's enough to bring tears to Kaitlynn's eyes just thinking about it.

And then, she has an idea!

On the second Wednesday in December, she steps in front of the littles to be first on the bus, a plastic kettle in hand. Actually it's a witch's cauldron left over from Halloween, disguised with a wreath of holly around the lip. She takes a seat at the front of the bus directly behind Mrs. B, who says, “You can't sit there, Kait—”

But Kaitlynn quickly pulls a Santa cap out of one coat pocket and a string of jingle bells out of the other, crams the cap on her head, and grabs the bells by the knot in the string. Mrs. B opens her mouth again then closes it, as though deciding to hold off until she knows what's going on.

As the littles file by, Kaitlynn holds the kettle in one hand and bounces the string of bells with the other. The littles don't say much, just look puzzled, even her brother Simon.

The bigs are another story. Spencer stops in the narrow aisle. “I thought there was no solicitation.”

She doesn't say anything, just keeps ringing.

“Logjam! Move on, there!” Mrs. B. calls.

Shelly rolls her eyes, Miranda shakes her head, Matthew passes by without expression. Alice glances at her and shyly smiles, Bender growls, Jay grins and drops in a gum wrapper, Igor swerves and pretends to throw up in the cauldron—that is, kettle.

Kaitlynn expects this. She just keeps ringing her bells, not saying a word—which in its way is even more remarkable than the steady jing-jing-a-ling that soon gets on everyone's nerves.

“Knock it off, already!” Bender yells from the back.

“That's enough, Kaitlynn,” Mrs. B agrees as she turns left on the highway.

Kaitlynn smiles, stops ringing, and continues to hold the kettle on her knees. And doesn't say
anything
. At every stop, for Pat and Pat, Alison and Payton and Stella and Harley and the Bittmans and the Brothers Calamity, she holds out the kettle, and even jingles a little bit before the yells from the back drown her out. No big confrontations or questions, though—probably because everybody thinks this is just one of her ideas and tomorrow she'll have another.

Only, when tomorrow comes, it's the same idea.

Same kettle, same front seat, same no-talking and bell-ringing until Mrs. B tells her to stop. And no money.

This time, though, Mrs. B asks her to wait a minute while everybody else gets off at Harrison Elementary. “I'm not sure we're allowed to do this, Kaitlynn.”

Kaitlynn guesses her meaning. “You mean ask for money? Like Shelly?”

“Right, but Shelly is raising money for herself. Is that what you're doing, or is it for your church or for Girl Scouts?”

“No! I got this idea because it's hard for me to give to the Salvation Army at Walmart because my mom's always in a hurry so we walk by too fast and I was thinking it would be good to have our own kettle and if it's on the bus we'd have plenty of time to think about what we could put in, like the quarter we were going to use to buy ice cream at lunch but—”