A Month of Mondays Page 22

  “Fair enough,” Dad told her. “But I think it’s time we all stop making Suze feel guilty for wanting to get to know her mother.”

  Tracie reached around Dad and ran her hand over my fuzzy new haircut. “Yeah. Okay. I’m sorry, Suze.”

  “Me too.”

  After that, we sat there watching the hockey highlights on mute, drinking our cold hot chocolate. When Tracie and I finally went to our room about two o’clock in the morning, we did something we hadn’t done in years. We slept in the same bed, holding on to each other. I’d missed her.

  Chapter 37

  With only ten minutes to go before the weekend started, I thought I’d made it free and clear. No such luck.

  “Please send Susan Tamaki to the office,” Mrs. Cameron’s all-too-familiar voice said over the intercom. She could save time by making a recording of that announcement and just play it into the microphone whenever she needed to.

  The art teacher, Peterson, nodded at me to go. Great. I had to stop getting in trouble, or Jessica and I would never get our mural done. “Will you wash out my brushes?” I asked her.

  “Sure,” she said. “What’d you do this time?”

  I grabbed my bag and coat. “I shoved Gabe into his locker for making fun of my haircut. But I didn’t shut the door or anything.”

  Jessica shook her head, laughing.

  In the hallway, I heard someone whistling “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and looked around. Sure enough, Yoda was coming down the hall with a toilet plunger.

  “Hiya,” I said.

  “Hi Sooooz Tamaki. Class is not over.”

  “I know,” I said. “I got called to the office.”

  Yoda shook his head, but he was smiling. “Again?”

  I nodded, resigned. “Again.”

  “Santa will bring you coal,” he said, laughing.

  “Definitely,” I told him.

  He went into the boys’ washroom, and the whistling started up again. A week had gone by and the school board hadn’t backed down, not after my presentation, or my outburst, or the individual apologies Farbinger had made me write to the board. Not even the editorial in the newspaper had moved those cold-hearted politicians. Yoda would still lose his job at the end of the school year when his contract was up. There wasn’t anything I could do about it, but at least SuperUnderdog had tried.

  ^^^

  While I waited on the office bench, I narrowed it down to two suspects who probably reported me—Adam or Caleb. They’d be next to find themselves in a locker. Seconds before the final bell rang, Amanda came into the office and Mrs. Cameron looked up. “You two can go in now,” she said.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered to Amanda.

  “No clue.”

  I let her lead the way. “Come in, ladies,” Farbinger said. “Come in and shut the door.”

  I gave Amanda a look, but she was watching Farbinger and missed it. Nothing good ever happens when he makes you shut the door. Not that anything good had ever happened to me in his office, anyway.

  “Sit down, girls.” We plopped onto the plastic chairs. “Miss Tamaki?” he asked. “Did you write all your letters of apology?”

  “Yeah,” I said. He knew I had, he was just being a pain. “Mr. Baker already looked them over and mailed them out for me.”

  “Right, right, just checking,” he said. “I called you in today because Miriam Dearborn, the president of the Parent Advisory Council, dropped off a letter for you both. It’s addressed to Miss Tamaki, but when she found out that you, Miss Whitmore, were originally part of the custodian project, she asked that I include you, too.”

  He handed me a thick cream-colored envelope with my name written in purple ink, and I opened it, trying not to tear the beautiful paper. Inside was an equally thick piece of folded stationery. I pulled it out carefully. Amanda tried to read over my shoulder, but since it was addressed to me, I held it at an angle so she couldn’t really see.

  I scanned the note, smiling in disbelief.

  “Well?” Farbinger asked.

  “Should I read it aloud?”

  “Go ahead.”

  I cleared my throat and read as clearly as I could, making it sound formal and important:

  Dear Miss Tamaki,

  I am sorry to have missed your presentation at the school board meeting, but I was ill. I heard it was both informative and somewhat explosive. While I was aware that the school board intended to discuss the matter of replacing the janitors, I had not realized they were planning to vote on it at the December meeting. Thanks in part to your presentation, and also to the article in the Victoria Times Colonist, many parents who were not aware of this possible change are now very unhappy. In the last week I have received many phone calls from upset parents, and, from what I understand, the same is true at most of the elementary schools in the district. Therefore, we have decided to make this the primary topic of discussion at our district-wide meeting in January. We would like to ask you to present your talk again at that time.

  Sincerely, Miriam Dearborn

  PAC President, Maywood Senior High School

  I grinned for maybe the first time ever in Farbinger’s office.

  “Wow!” Amanda said. “Cool.”

  Farbinger’s face had gone an interesting shade of purple, but he managed to choke out a congratulations, along with a warning that he hoped I could behave myself if things didn’t go well.

  “No problem,” I said. “Don’t worry. Can we go now?”

  He dismissed us and Amanda and I hurried to our lockers to get our stuff, hugging, laughing, and talking about ways to improve our presentation all the way back to her house, where we shared the great news with Heather. Steve came out of his office when he heard the excitement and gave us big hugs of congratulations.

  On my way home, I sent Caroline a text, but instead of answering, she called me back. “Congratulations, Suze,” she said.

  “Thanks…Mom.”

  It was only the third time I’d said that, and it always stuck in my throat a little. I was hoping if I said it enough, I’d eventually lose count. It would be kind of weird to know when I called her Mom for the forty-sixth time, or the three-hundred-and-twelfth. She’d been pretty good about remembering to call me Suze, so I was trying to return the favor. Plus, it was kind of nice to have a mom.

  “Everything still on for tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Yep,” I said. “See you at four o’clock.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  And she kind of sounded like she was.

  ^^^

  The line at Escape From New York Pizza snaked out onto the sidewalk, so Amanda, Leigh, and Jessica decided to wait outside while I went in to pick up our order. Most of the customers were there to get slices, but Caroline had ordered two whole pies for us. That’s what they call pizzas in New York, I guess. Pies. Weird.

  I wasn’t sure if I could cut the line and go to the register or what, so I waited. On my left, two guys with tattoos running all the way up their arms tossed giant rounds of snowy-white pizza dough high into the air. I wondered if they ever dropped them. Ahead of me, a guy with dreadlocks and multiple piercings ordered two black olive slices, and the guy behind the counter scooped them up and slid them into the oven.

  “What can I get you?” he asked me.

  “I’m picking up an order to go,” I said. “One mushroom, one cheese for Walker—or maybe Tamaki.” I wasn’t sure whose name Caroline had used.

  He took two white boxes off the top of the oven and motioned me to the register. I got five root beers to go, because you have to have root beer with pizza, and was trying to balance them on the boxes when Leigh saw me through the window and rushed inside to help.

  “Your mom just went around the block again about two minutes ago,” she said. “She should be back any time.”


  We waited in the street, and the second Caroline came to a stop, we piled into the car. Traffic was totally stuck behind her, but no one honked because this neighborhood was always busy.

  Back at her house, we spread out on the living room floor and dug in.

  “Oh, my gosh,” Amanda said. “You’re right. This is the best pizza ever.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “That place looked kind of dingy,” Leigh said, her mouth full, “but they really know how to make pizza.”

  “Jess was scared to go in there the first time I took her,” I said.

  She blushed. “I was not!”

  “You so were. But we love you anyway.”

  “We used to go there when I was in high school,” Caroline told us.

  “Really?” we all asked.

  “Don’t look so surprised,” she said. “I was young once. It’s been there for over thirty years.”

  “No wonder,” said Amanda, stuffing her face. “Mmmmm…so good!”

  The pizzas were huge, but the five of us ate most of them anyway. Caroline didn’t have a TV, so I wasn’t sure what we’d do for the rest of the night, but I had seen a bunch of board games in the wardrobe. Maybe we’d be old fashioned and play Monopoly or something. Whatever we did, the night was already way better than the sushi sleepover.

  ^^^

  I’d barely closed the washroom door behind me when it burst open, and Amanda and Leigh threw themselves inside.

  “Hey,” I said. “A little privacy, please?”

  “Why?” Leigh said. “Are you going to stink up the place?”

  “Shut up.” I punched her shoulder. She grabbed my hand and we wrestled for a minute, laughing, until Amanda told us to break it up.

  “We’re here on a mission,” she said.

  “Leigh is not touching my hair,” I told them.

  “What hair?” she asked, and I punched her again.

  “We have decided,” Amanda told me, in that imperious voice she sometimes uses that makes her sound like a teacher, “that we love Jessica, and she is now going to be your best friend, which makes her one of us.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” Leigh said. “She’s way funny.”

  “So we’re going to be the four musketeers,” Amanda said.

  “You in?” Leigh asked me.

  “Duh,” I said. “She was my friend first. Of course, I’m in.”

  Leigh grabbed Amanda’s arm, avoiding her broken finger, and my hand and pulled us out of the washroom. “I need to brush my teeth,” I protested.

  “In a minute,” Leigh said. “Let’s go tackle Jessica first and tickle her until she pees. It’ll be the initiation.” She dragged us through the hall and back to the living room.

  “Hide, Jess!” I warned her. “Bury yourself in your sleeping bag!”

  Unfortunately for Jessica, she only had time to look up at us, totally confused, before we all jumped on top of her.

  Chapter 38

  Leigh, Jess, and Amanda slumped against each other, half asleep in the backseat of Caroline’s car the next afternoon, while she drove us home. My stomach still felt a bit queasy from all the doughnuts we’d eaten for breakfast. Or maybe it was the double mocha.

  After we’d dropped them off and were in my apartment parking lot, Caroline said, “Do you want to go to Vancouver with me during your holiday break?”

  “What? Really? Cool. I’ve never been there before. Except like twice, and both times were for Tracie’s hockey tournaments, so they don’t really count.”

  “We won’t do anything hockey-related,” she said. “I promise. I do have to go for a morning meeting, but I thought we could take the ferry over the night before, and as soon as I’m finished, we can do some Christmas shopping.”

  “Okay!”

  “Ask Tracie if she wants to come along too.”

  “I will.” I would, but we both knew not to get our hopes up. Still…you never knew with Tracie. Eventually she might give in.

  “See you, Mom,” I said, getting out of the car. “And thanks for a great night.”

  She smiled. “You’re welcome. It was fun to have you all there. But just so you know, sometimes we’ll still have to eat sushi, too.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “Just not raw fish,” we said together.

  ^^^

  I took the stairs two at a time and unlocked the apartment door. When I dropped my bag in the hallway, I barely missed Sammy who shot inside after me, as usual. “I’m home!” I yelled.

  Tracie answered from the bedroom. “Suze? Is that you? Don’t come in here.”

  “Why not?” I moved closer to our door. “What are you doing in there?”

  “Nothing. Don’t come in.”

  “Okay, but you come out, because I have something to show you.”

  Tracie had stayed Friday night with her friend Emma, and then I’d been at Caroline’s, so I hadn’t shown her the letter from Miriam Dearborn yet. She opened the door a crack and stuck her head out. Her face was all red, and her hair was a mess.

  “What exactly are you doing in there?” I asked, raising one eyebrow.

  “Nothing. Just don’t come in, okay?” She closed the door again.

  “Do you have a boy in there?”

  “What?” she yelled. “No! Of course not. I just need a few more minutes alone.”

  “Okay, but hurry up.”

  I went out to the kitchen to get some juice, but I kept wondering what she was up to. She’d said she was alone, but I wasn’t so sure. Why was her face all flushed? And what about her hair? Maybe she was exercising. I’d just decided to go outside and see if I could catch a guy climbing out our window onto the landing when she came into the kitchen. “Okay, you can come in now.”

  I was still suspicious as I walked into our room, and I looked around for a booby trap just in case. Lately she’d been pretty nice to me, but I had just spent the night at Caroline’s. I half expected a bucket of water to fall on my head from above. I seemed to be in the clear, though. Our bedroom was tiny, so it only took me about half a second to see what she’d actually been doing. And it was really, really nice.

  “Oh, my God!” I said, stunned.

  My bed had been made up with a gorgeous powder blue-and-white flowered comforter. It was folded back a little so I could see the matching sheets. There was a fluffy pillow with a sham, and two decorative pillows piled on top. It looked those people from HGTV had paid us a visit.

  “Where did all this come from?” I asked.

  “From me,” Tracie said, grinning. “For ruining your other comforter. And look, you can take the cover off and wash it. Or change it for a different color if you don’t like this one.”

  “Tracie. It’s perfect! It’s so…you didn’t have to…I can’t believe…” I couldn’t even finish my sentence. I threw my arms around her. “Thank you so much!”

  “But wait, there’s more,” she said. “Take your shoes off and lie down.”

  The first thing I noticed when I pulled the sheets back was the sag in the middle of my mattress was gone. And the lumpy spot up where my shoulder goes was smooth and flat. I climbed onto the bed and fell into a dream.

  “It’s a new mattress!” Tracie yelled, her excitement bubbling over. “It’s just one of those ninety-nine-dollar specials, but it’s got to be better than your old one.”

  “But how could you afford this?”

  “I used my savings.”

  “But that’s for university!”

  She shrugged. “If our mother can afford a therapist and to live in Oak Bay, she can probably pay for university. I thought I’d let her buy my affection.”

  “You’re so bad!” I said.

  She laughed. “Yep.”

  “Caroline invited you to go to Vancouver
with us for a couple of days…to Christmas shop.”

  She shrugged again. “You never know.”

  “Really?”

  “I’ll think about it, but I’m not saying yes.”

  We were making progress! I jumped out of bed and hugged Tracie again. “Thank you for this.”

  She hugged me back and ran her hand over my super short hair, petting me like a cat. “That feels so cool,” she said. “Now, what did you want to show me?”

  “Oh, right.” I ran out to the hallway and got the letter out of my bag. In our room, I perched on my new bed while Tracie looked over the letter.

  “You rock star, you,” she said, hugging me.

  “Yep. And don’t you forget it.” I flopped back onto my new mattress and she lay down next to me. “I bet people who don’t have sisters have boring lives,” I said.

  “Oh, no, don’t tell me you’re becoming Sentimental Suze,” Tracie teased. I shoved her off the bed and she landed on the floor with a thump. “Hey!”

  “How’s that for sentimental?” I asked, hanging over the edge and looking down at her. “And don’t you even think of trying to sleep with me tonight.”

  “Why would I want to sleep on your mattress when mine’s so new it still has the wrapper on it?” she said. Tracie shoveled her ragged comforter out of the way and flopped back on a brand-new mattress of her own, the plastic crinkling under her. I threw one of my decorative pillows across the room, and she snagged it out of the air and tucked it under her head. I’d never get that pillow back again. Oh, well. Sometimes you gotta share the wealth.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you so much to everyone at Second Story Press. Your enthusiasm and kindness is much appreciated, as is the charming cover.

  Thank you to my mother who has been with me (and Suze) every step of the way. Also big helpings of thanks to Cheryl Tradewell and Mark Shaw for research assistance, and Alexa and Eileen, fellow Brouhahas. I must include Will Barry here, too (for no other reason than he’s an awesome kid and a reader).

  Michael Bourret, agent extraordinaire—merci beaucoup—I finally got some French in my book, just for you (and not just in the acknowledgments).