Zoe in Wonderland (8 page)

Trouble

I
nstead of listening to the teacher, I was busy reading the book Ben had given me. Since Saturday, I couldn't keep my nose out of it. There were so many stories about people who everyone called dreamers—

Zoe had navigated the spacecraft to the planet of a distant galaxy. As captain, she landed the ship safely and her loyal crew leaped to their feet, cheering. She stepped outside the ship and smiled. It was exactly the way she'd pictured it, with its rivers and green hillsides and pastures where huge flowers and baobab trees grew.

“Are you daydreaming, Zoe?” a voice asked. I glanced up. My teacher, Mr. Summer, was standing over me.

Startled, I said the first thing that came to my mind—the truth. “Yes,” I answered.

A few of the girls laughed.

My face got hot with embarrassment.

“Maybe you'd like to share with the class what you were daydreaming about?” Mr. Summer said.

“No, thank you. I don't think so.”

Zena, a queen-bee mean girl who was sitting behind me, declared, “Probably dreaming about her
boy-friend,
Quincy, coming back.”

This time, it seemed like the entire class cracked up. “Settle down!” Mr. Summer commanded.

Zena was occasionally mean to me, but now, with Quincy gone, she was making snide remarks more and more. Quincy called her clique of friends “Zena's puppets.” I turned around to face her. “He's my best friend, not my boyfriend.”

Of course, Zena mocked me, repeating my words in her whiny voice, and the kids nearby who heard her chuckled again. And that made her keep it up. “I know that's right,” she added, “because Quincy could sure do a whole lot better than Zoe the
so-not-cute
Reindeer girl—U-G-L-Y,” Zena spelled out.

Snickering followed, filling the room, and fingers, mostly from Zena and her puppets, pointed my way.

“Settle down!” Mr. Summer commanded again.

But Zena ignored him, leaned toward me, and said, “Zoe, the U-G-L-Y Reindeer girl.”

This time, Mr. Summer must have heard exactly what she said. “That's enough, Zena!” he scolded. “Bullying and name-calling will not be tolerated.”

But it was too late to save my feelings, and the same way Jade used to make me so mad that I'd cry, I knew tears were going to be coming.

No way was Zena ever going to see me cry.

I grabbed the book Ben had given me, shoved it in my backpack, and ran to the door. But before I ran out, I turned to Zena and blurted, “BQ! BQ! BQ!” Tears began rolling down my cheeks as I bolted down the hall toward the exit doors.

“Zoe!” Mr. Summer yelled.

But I didn't stop. I didn't even look back. I kept running, and for some reason, I didn't trip over my feet.

“Zoe, come back!” Mr. Summer hollered from behind me, and I could hear him trotting toward me. But Mr. Summer is a little chubby and I knew there was no way he could catch me.

I burst outside through the doors and sprinted.
Soon, I was around the corner. I kept running for almost three blocks, until I was almost out of breath. Now what? I thought. There was a bus stop two blocks away. I had fifteen dollars in my wallet and my bus pass.

And so I got on the bus to Old Pasadena and went to the movies and read subtitles and ate popcorn and drank soda and pretended Quincy was right there beside me. And when the movie was over, I walked up and down Colorado Boulevard, looking in the shops until it was way past time for school to be out, but when I stopped to get an ice cream cone, I discovered I didn't have enough money left. So I headed to the bus stop and boarded the bus that took me back to the Wonderland.

Mrs. Warner was outside in her yard, sitting on the ground with her legs sprawled out in front of her. “I fell. Can you help me up?”

“Are you okay?” I asked as I quickly opened her chain-link gate and hurried toward her.

“I'm fine . . . just lost my balance.”

I reached for her hands and pulled her to her feet. Luckily, Mrs. Warner didn't weigh much and it was easy. “Are you sure you didn't hurt yourself? Maybe you should go to the doctor.”

“And have her threaten to put me in the old-people orphanage again? No, little ma'am. I don't think so,”
she answered as I helped her hobble over to a chair and sit down.

“Where's your family?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Gone . . . gone . . . all gone.”

“Oh,” I replied, and reached for my backpack.

Mrs. Warner stared at it hard. “What'd you do, play hooky from school?” she asked.

How'd she know? “Huh?”

“Your mom and daddy came over earlier, asking if I'd seen you. You in some kind of trouble?”

“Probably.”

Back at the Wonderland

Four Things That Have Landed Zoe G. Reindeer in Trouble

1. Throwing a shoe at Harper, which missed him completely but went through the living room window instead, shattering it. That was last year.
   
2. Telling my third-grade teacher and class that our entire family had taken a three-month summer vacation all over Europe and Africa, when actually we'd only spent a week at Pismo Beach. That was a couple of years ago.
   
3. Trying to make doughnuts with Quincy from scratch and winding up with greasy dough plastered on our kitchen walls, cabinets, and ceiling. That was just this past summer.
   
4. Becoming a truant. That was today.
   

As quietly as I could, I crept into the Wonderland. A police car was parked in the driveway. Was that for me being a truant? They couldn't put me in jail, could they? If Quincy were here, he'd have the answer.

But I was on my own and I was getting scared and I didn't know what to do. And so, I decided to hide.

I snuck into the greenhouse, slid under one of the tables, used my backpack for a pillow, and put my head down to rest.

“Wake up, Miss!” A bright light was shining in my face. A flashlight. It was nighttime.

It took a few seconds, but my sleepy eyes zeroed in on the policeman's brass badge. Terror got inside of me. My heart pounded fast.

“Are you going to arrest me?” I asked the officer.

“Nope, not going to arrest you, Miss. Are you okay?”

I nodded and crawled out from where I'd been hiding.

The policeman helped me up, looked me in the eyes, and made me promise never to run away again. “You could have become a statistic.”

I didn't know what a statistic was, but from the way he'd said it, it didn't sound like something anyone should become, so I promised him.

“Found her!” the policeman yelled.

Suddenly, I was surrounded by other people all pointing flashlights in my direction, including some neighbors, my mom and daddy, Nana and Grandpa, Harper and Jade, Mr. Summer, even our school principal.

“But we checked in there twice!” someone shouted.

Jade scowled. “You are such a time vampire!”

“Huh?”

“You just sucked up a massive amount of everyone's time, including mine.”

Of course, Harper had to put in his two cents. “You're gonna receive a life sentence . . . grounded until the end of time.”

“For real!” Jade agreed.

Remembering the policeman's warning, I attempted to get their sympathy. “I could have been a statistic,” I said as pathetically as I possibly could.

Jade must have known what that meant, because she patted me gently on the shoulder and I saw a glimmer of niceness in her eyes, something I hadn't seen in a really long time.

Seeing Jade turn nice to me made Harper get that question mark look in his eyes. “What's that mean . . . been a statistic?” he asked.

“Kidnapped . . . or dead,” Jade replied. “Don't ever do that again!” she warned. “Grandpa had to take his heart pills.”

For once, Harper wasn't smirking.

Over and over, I said sorry. Sorry to my parents, sorry to Nana and Grandpa, sorry to the school principal, and sorry to Mr. Summer.

Mr. Summer sighed loudly. “See you tomorrow, Zoe.”

I frowned. Oh no. School—Zena—U-G-L-Y me. I didn't ever want to go to school again.

Mr. Summer must have seen the look on my face, because he informed me that because our school has zero tolerance for bullying and name-calling, Zena had received a one-day suspension, and that he had spoken to the rest of the class. “Don't worry, Zoe. There won't be any trouble.”

I hoped he was right.

And probably thinking I couldn't hear her, Nana leaned in to Daddy and told him, “Don't be too hard on her, Darrow . . . She's a delicate girl.”

Daddy looked at her for a minute as if she had told him something he didn't know. He glanced my way, then nodded in agreement.

Delicate—me?

In my room later that night, Daddy mostly listened while Mom nagged me—on and on and on until, like a car out of gas, she finally came to a stop.

Right before midnight I climbed into bed. “I promise I'll never do it again. I just didn't want anyone to see me cry. I'm really sorry.”

“You're grounded for a month, Zoe,” she said.

A month but not eternity. My sentence fit the crime.

Mom hugged me and Daddy kissed the top of my head. “G'night, Zoe . . . love you.”

“Okay . . . sorry,” I said one last time.

Mom left, but Daddy Reindeer lingered in my doorway. “G'night,
my
Zoe,” he whispered.

My
Zoe? He'd never called me that before. I liked it. Must be connected to being delicate, I thought.

“Daddy, what does
delicate
mean?”

He stared up at the ceiling, took a deep breath, and replied, “Something that you shouldn't be too rough
with because it might get damaged. Like a flower that needs to be protected from the sun or cold weather . . . so it can grow and bloom.”

“Oh. Am I like that?” I asked.

“Yes,
my Zoe
. I love you. G'night.”

“G'night.”

And then the light was out, the door was closed, and Daddy Reindeer was gone.

I wanted to holler, Come back! Come back so I can ask you another question.

Am I ugly?

The Day After Trouble Day

T
he next morning at school, everyone, including me, tried very hard to act normal, as if nothing strange had happened. Of course, I got a few funny looks, but no one said anything mean. Plus, Zena had been suspended for the day.

Lucky Zoe.

But that day at lunch in the cafeteria, something puzzling happened. A new kid named Adam York, who is in Mr. Summer's class too, came over and sat down across from me, Zoe G. Reindeer.

The only person I've ever sat with during lunch is Quincy—almost always at this same small table in the
corner. And since Quincy's been gone, the only person I sit with is me.

He smiled, said, “Hi,” and started chomping a burger.

“Hi.”

As always, the cafeteria was crazy noisy, most people yapping, some people hollering, wild loud laughter, the sounds of dishes and trays. But sitting there next to Adam felt quiet—quiet like when the class is taking a really hard test and every mind is busy thinking. Quiet like when you're so nervous, everything seems to have come to a stop—including your heart.

For some reason, I began checking the buttons on my sweater to make sure they were buttoned right. My clothes kind of matched today; that was good. I wondered why I'd never really noticed him before. But then again, to me, most kids at school were like streetlights—always there but hardly ever noticed.

Why did he come and sit beside me? Why am I feeling weird inside? More and more whys kept coming, but no answers followed. My shyness was orbiting around me like a giant moon. I couldn't speak. Then, all of a sudden, I remembered something about him. He has a sister named Eve. Like Adam and Eve, I thought, in the Garden of Eden.

From her spectacular tree house in the Garden of Eden, Zoe could see clear to the horizon, where the blue sky meets the bluer ocean. African elephants, gazelles, and zebras roamed the plains. Zoe didn't need a radio because all day long the birds were singing songs. A monkey waved and handed her a banana . . .

“What's BQ mean?” Adam blurted, interrupting my fantasy.

So that was it. He was a spy on a mission—sent, in all likelihood, by Zena or her puppets. I glanced over to the table where they were sitting and waited for one of them to look our way, but their eyes stayed focused on each other.

Hmmm. Maybe he's not a spy.

“It means ‘be quiet,'” I replied.

“Oh.”

And Adam went on eating his lunch and I went on eating mine and then he was finished and he got up to leave, but before he did, he told me, “You're not ugly, Zoe.”

“Okay.”

As he walked away, I watched him to see if he was going to stop at the table where Zena's clique was
sitting, to tell them what BQ meant so they could make fun of me again—but he didn't.

He seems nice—maybe.

Before bed that night, I stared hard at myself in the bathroom mirror from the front and sort of from the sides, which is kind of hard.

Not ugly?

Does
not ugly
equal
pretty
?

I dabbed some of Jade's pink lip gloss on my lips. It tastes like bubble gum, I thought as I slipped the tube in my pocket. It was just borrowing. I'd bring it back tomorrow. Jade had so much makeup, she wouldn't miss one tube for one day, would she?

Then I used her flat iron on my hair. Was straight better than not straight, or did it just look different? Just different, I decided.

When I was finished, I opened the bathroom door to find the snox waiting outside. How does he always know when I'm up to something? How? I wondered.

Harper glanced at the flat iron and smirked. “What'd you do to your hair, Zoe?” he asked. “It looks way different.” Then he stared at my shiny lips. “Are you wearing makeup?”

“BQ, Harper. Just BQ.”