29
Bashkim
TODAY IS DANIEL’S BIRTHDAY.
He’s seven. Mrs. Delain made him a cake. She asked me to put the candles on it, and I put them in a row, right across the middle. My stomach started to hurt when I put them in; I put pink candles on Tirana’s cake on her birthday. She liked them so much. She cried when I made her blow them out, so Nene said we would light them again and wait until they burned out. Of course, Tirana didn’t want to wait that long, so she just blew them out again right away. She really wasn’t doing it to get two turns, and, besides, she let me blow out one the second time. Which is pretty generous when you only have three candles. Anyway, my stomach didn’t feel that good, so I just put the rest of Daniel’s candles in quick and told Mrs. Delain I wanted to go upstairs for a while.
The older kids are still sleeping. They have to get up earlier than me and Daniel for school, but on the weekend, they just keep sleeping. Daniel is up, but he is watching cartoons. His birthday party is at two o’clock. He invited all of the kids in his first-grade class. Mrs. Delain thinks that parties need everybody. I helped write the children’s names on the invitations, because Mrs. Delain says I write just as well as she does. Daniel helped too, even though he writes like a first grader, but I guess the kids in his class are used to that. Daniel’s teacher is Mrs. Wilkes. He goes to my school, and I have seen him on the playground, but I never knew he was in Mrs. Delain’s foster home. I didn’t even know what a foster home was. Daniel has blond hair and thick glasses, and Mrs. Delain is as old as a grandma, but Daniel calls her Mom, and he has been living here a long time. He doesn’t even remember where he used to live.
I never asked him about his mom, because I don’t want to talk about family things. I don’t ask anybody why they are at Mrs. Delain’s, and nobody has asked me. Mrs. Delain doesn’t talk too much either, about that sort of stuff, anyway. She says things like “Do you want to help me make the salad?” or “Can you help Daniel with his sheets?” but she doesn’t say things about Nene or Tirana. Also, Mrs. Delain is really busy, and there is a lot to do when I am here. After school, we have chores and homework, and some nights after dinner, we have family project.
The big kids take turns choosing the projects. My favorite was Keyshah’s. She got all of Mrs. Delain’s old sheets, and we tied them together, and we made the whole family room into a fort. Jeff is tall, so he tied the sheets to the highest parts of the windows, and then we moved the furniture so that we could all sit in the fort together. Keyshah wanted to tell ghost stories, but Mrs. Delain said no, so she and Jeff and Ricky made up rap songs for Daniel and me. There was one about me: “Your name is Bashkim / You think you are mysterious / But you are a funny man / Even if you’re serious.” Usually family project is not like that, but that was a really good night, and Mrs. Delain let Keyshah leave the fort up until Sunday.
Ricky is the only person here who scares me. He got so mad at Keyshah when she wore his sweatshirt that he broke one of Mrs. Delain’s doorknobs. She said he has to pay to fix it, and he also is grounded, which means that he is always home after school. I don’t like Ricky. Keyshah’s the only one who does like him, I think. She laughed when he got really mad at her. I don’t even think she was afraid. But I think he could have hurt her. Daniel says that Ricky is not that bad, not like some other kids that have lived here.
I wonder how long I have to live in foster care. I wonder if Baba is getting better. I miss Baba, but thinking about going home with him makes me worry. At Nene’s funeral, he kept pinching my shoulder, and when he hugged me, his tears made my neck all wet. Baba does not even know how to cook, and he is too sad without Nene. How can Tirana be home with Baba all day while I am at school?
I miss Nene so much that I wish I were dead sometimes. I am not going to tell anyone this, because I don’t know what they do with boys who think that, but I just don’t want to live without Nene. The thing is, I have to live without her, because I have to take care of Tirana. I have only seen Tirana one time since the bad day. And she cried so hard when her foster mom took her in a different car than me that I don’t know if they’ll let us see each other again. Nobody tells me.
I tried to tell that lady—the lady who tells the judge what to do with us—that I have to be with Tirana, but she didn’t say I would be. Sometimes now I know why Baba was so mad at the mayor. Why does someone else get to decide where Tirana and I live? How come I am not with her, when she is just a little baby still? Nene would be really mad if she knew we were not together. She would not want Tirana to be in a foster home without me. I don’t even know where Tirana is. I don’t even know how to see her.
Mrs. Delain wants me to come downstairs now, because she and Daniel are decorating the table for the birthday. Mrs. Delain let Daniel choose all kinds of party stuff with horses. He got napkins with horses, and party hats with horses, and cups with horses. Keyshah and Jeff are going to blow up balloons when they come downstairs, but I try to blow up a green one first. I blow really hard, but the air just doesn’t go in, so I quit trying. Mrs. Delain has plastic forks and knives from another party she had, so I put those around the table. The cake is already sitting in the middle, and my candles look pretty good on it.
When it’s almost two o’clock, Mrs. Delain says we can start eating the pizza, and we can also start playing games. I think it’s sort of funny that we are not waiting for any of the children to get here. The doorbell keeps ringing, but it is always some of Mrs. Delain’s friends, or some of Jeff’s friends, but not any first graders. I sneak out the back door quick and walk around toward the park, to see if any kids and moms are coming, but I don’t see anyone.
When I went to Alyssa’s birthday, all the girls wore dresses, because it was a diva party. The boys didn’t wear anything special, but Mrs. Button gave us crowns when we came in. I start to worry that Mrs. Delain should have gotten something for Daniel’s friends to wear. At Alyssa’s party, Mrs. Button also gave us presents when we left, even though it wasn’t our birthdays. We all got a bag that had colored diamond squares on it, and inside there was so much candy. Nene put it in the cupboard, and Tirana and I got one piece each after dinner. It lasted a long time that way.
We didn’t make anything for the kids to take home today, but I don’t think that’s why they are not here, because how would they know that before they came? I haven’t been to too many birthday parties, and I never had one, but I am starting to get really worried about Daniel’s party. Where are the first graders?
I go back inside, and I don’t feel like eating any pizza or anything. It’s funny, though. Everyone is having fun at Mrs. Delain’s. Daniel is the only little kid, but some of the grown-ups are playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey, and Ricky says that he is going to blast the piñata all the way to Pluto. Which isn’t really a planet, you know. But I don’t tell Ricky, because he probably wouldn’t care, and I suppose he could still blast something to whatever Pluto is anyway.
I think maybe I will have some pizza, because I really like pizza, especially pepperoni. After I eat my pizza, I drink some watermelon-colored punch, which doesn’t taste like watermelon but is still pretty good. Then I go and stand by the people who are playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey, because I have never played that game before. A really fat man, who is Mrs. Delain’s friend, says I can have his turn. He has done it lots of times. It’s kind of scary when he wraps the blindfold around my eyes, and then he turns me around, which I don’t like at all, and I am just about to pull the blindfold off my eyes when I bump into the wall, and I feel the paper that has the donkey on it. I run my fingers along the edge of the paper and try to remember just where the donkey was. I’m pretty sure that I tape my tail right where it is supposed to go, and sure enough, as soon as I put it there, everyone cries out, “Bashkim, can you see? You got it!” And when I take my blindfold off, I see that my tail is too high but still close, and I am happy about that. This is a pretty good birthday party.
Now it is time for Daniel to open his presents. There is a big stack on the side table, and I see my note, looking a little bit crumpled, near the bottom. It took me a while to figure out what I could give Daniel. I don’t have any money, and I don’t think we are allowed to ask Mrs. Delain for money. Also, I don’t know how to go to the store.
So I made Daniel something that I made for my baba last year. It is an aircraft carrier with airplanes on it. I cut a box and taped it back together to look like a ship with a flat top, and Mrs. Delain let me use some paints that she had. There wasn’t any gray paint, or white, so I mixed up a whole bunch of colors. It doesn’t really look like gray, more like brown, but it still looks pretty good. I folded the planes out of white paper, and I didn’t paint them at all. I like them just white. My baba and nene showed me lots of different ways to fold planes, and I made three different kinds for Daniel’s aircraft carrier. Then I glued them down, which might have been a mistake for Daniel. It was a good idea when I did it for Baba, because he just wanted to look at my aircraft carrier, but Daniel probably would want to fly the planes. I glued them before I thought of that, and then I couldn’t really figure out what to do, so I just left them glued.
There isn’t any way to wrap an aircraft carrier, so Keyshah said I should hide it and give Daniel a note telling him where to find it. That’s what I did. I put the present on a shelf with the towels, and I wrote a note that says: “Happy Birthday Daniel. Your present is on the towel shelf.” And then I drew some pictures on the note, so it would look better. Keyshah said I should make a lot of notes and make it like a scavenger hunt, but I didn’t want to do that. Sometimes you just want to get your present.
I’VE BEEN BACK AT SCHOOL
for two weeks. I don’t like going, even though I know that I’m at Mrs. Delain’s because everyone wants me to be at Orson Hulet. I don’t know why they think that’s a good idea, because being here isn’t the same at all. For a while, everyone was looking at me. Some of the teachers tried to talk to me and say they were sorry, and I hate that. I can’t even be at school if I think about Nene. I don’t want someone to talk to me about her.
Mrs. Monaghan is nice. She doesn’t say anything about Nene—or not anymore, not since the first day when she gave me a picture of a quoll. That’s an animal in Australia that has a pocket like a kangaroo. She said I should keep it in my pack, and if anything was making me feel bad, I could just set the picture of the quoll on top of the desk, and she would know. I could go in the closet or to Dr. Moore’s office, or do whatever I wanted. Mrs. Monaghan is like that.
I have used the quoll two times, once when Levi asked me how it felt to have my mom die, and once when the fifth graders made bread in the marine lab, and it sort of smelled like
buke
. Both times I went to the office and laid down in the nurse’s room, but I took a long time walking, because I have my own way to get there. I walk all the way down to where the kindergarten rooms are, and then I walk back to the art room, and then I get a drink at the fountain, and then I walk real slow to the office. Mrs. Monaghan gives me a pass when I go out, and I hold it in my hand so nobody ever asks me what I am doing. The nurse doesn’t ask me either, because I think Dr. Moore told her not to.
Nothing feels the same now. In science class, Mrs. Jimenez asked if I wanted to help her clean the tidepool tank on Tuesdays, but I don’t want to. In music class, we are making a play about buccaneers, and normally I would really like buccaneers, but now I don’t. I don’t like anything. I just try to be quiet, and not think about Nene, and do whatever the teacher asks. I know that Mrs. Monaghan is watching me, even though she doesn’t bring it up, and I know Dr. Moore is sometimes looking at me when she comes to class and says it is her day to observe the teacher. Dr. Moore only observes the teachers one or two times a year, and she keeps observing Mrs. Monaghan. I would be worried about that, but I can tell they like each other.
Today is a little bit better, because Daniel asked me to help him with the Lego set he got for his birthday, and I still do like Legos. Daniel got a backhoe, which is the biggest box of Legos I’ve ever seen, but it says you’re supposed to be eight years old to do it, and Daniel’s only seven. I think it’s real nice of Daniel to share his birthday present with me. Daniel doesn’t feel sad about living with Mrs. Delain. So I’m going to help him, but I won’t do any of the really good parts, because he doesn’t even know about having his own mom.
We are going to build the backhoe right after we get home and do our homework. Jeff said he won’t mind if we leave the pieces out in our bedroom for a long time. He says he might even help us if we get stuck. Which we won’t. I don’t know why I want to build those Legos when I don’t even want to clean the tidepool tank.
AFTER SCHOOL, DANIEL AND I
meet by the swings, and then we walk toward Mrs. Delain’s house. I don’t get to cross the street with Mr. Ernie anymore, but I can see him from where Daniel and I are waiting to cross, and I keep looking at him, hoping he will see me so I can wave. I haven’t talked to him since I came back to school, and I don’t know what he thinks about why I don’t cross with him anymore. I know he saw me last week, because he held both his arms out to me, but Keyshah had come to walk Daniel and me home, and she was going fast. When Mr. Ernie held his arms up like that, I almost started to cry. Maybe he knows about Nene, because lots of people in the neighborhood do, and I hear them stop talking when I go by.
Mr. Ernie doesn’t see me, and Daniel’s crossing guard says, “Pay attention” when I don’t step off the curb quick, so I stop looking at Mr. Ernie and Daniel, and I hurry up the hill toward Mrs. Delain’s. When we get home, she is talking to someone in the living room, probably someone from Child Services, because people like that come here all the time. Daniel rushes right in to her. He’s still kind of a baby, and he always hugs Mrs. Delain when he comes home. I hear Mrs. Delain ask him how school went and then she says, “Hi, Bashkim. There’s something to eat in the kitchen.”