All the Answers (26 page)

Still, there were times when Ava wondered things, like if the latest PET scan was right when it showed Mom's cancer was really, truly gone. How Gram really felt when she skipped dinner or went to bed early one night. What it meant when Jason Marzigliano's friend Noah looked at her from the percussion section during jazz band.

But Ava didn't miss the way the pencil made her need it. Like every answer gave her more questions to worry about. Like she couldn't live without it. And pencils don't last forever. Eventually, the sharpener would have ground this one down so tiny it couldn't be sharpened any more. Ava could imagine herself scraping desperately away at the wood with her fingers until they bled, trying to get the last bit of lead to give up its answers. And then what? She didn't miss that desperate, panicky feeling.

“Mostly, I'm glad it's gone,” she told Sophie.

Sophie nodded. “Maybe Mrs. Yu misses your grandpa.”

“I bet she does. We all do.” They were quiet for a few minutes. Then a shout burst out from the front lawn, and when Ava looked up, Mr. Finnegan was jumping up and down pumping his arms in the air. Ethel had just pooped in his square.

At noon, the world-famous invent-your-own-sandwich bar opened, and Dad manned the counter, helping everybody
assemble the lunch of their dreams. They ate their peanut butter-and-marshmallow sandwiches and roast-beef-mustard-double-cheese submarines and listened to the middle school jazz band play “On the Sunny Side of the Street.”

Miss Romero had ordered the sheet music for the whole band right after Ava's audition, and they'd been practicing ever since. Ava had loved playing the song at her spring concert at school. She wished Grandpa had been there to hear it, but it was enough to have her mom there. The concert had been just a week after Mom's last chemotherapy treatment, so she'd worn a bright-orange scarf over her bald head. But Ava didn't mind—it made it easier to find her there in the audience, crying and smiling while Ava belted out the notes.

Scoo-ba-doo-ba-doo-wahhh …

Today, playing at the festival, Ava knew those notes by heart, so she didn't have to keep her eyes glued to the music. She could take in the crowd.

Mom was there, sitting cross-legged in the grass near Mrs. Yu. She'd taken a break from the store to listen. Her hair was growing back now, and she looked healthy and strong. If you didn't know her, if you hadn't seen her in the hospital or right after, you'd never guess that she'd been sick.

Ava took a quick breath and started the next riff.

Scoo-ba-doo-ba-doo-wahhh …

The sun was warm on her black hair, and the breeze tickled her fingers on the keys. She played her smooth Johnny Hodges
notes up into the sky, for Grandpa and Grandma Marion, and out over the crowd on the general store lawn.

She played for her teachers and neighbors and classmates. She played for the Cedar Bay residents with their hidden-away memories, for Gram and Mom, for Emma carefully Magic-Markering name tags in her booth. For Dad and Marcus serving some of the weirdest world-famous sandwiches around. Seeing them all there filled her up.

Ava closed her eyes for the last, long notes.

Scoo-ba-doo-ba-doo-wahhh …

Everyone clapped and it broke the spell. Ava opened her eyes and took it all in.

Did she miss the pencil?

Sure.

Sometimes.

She still worried too much and wondered about things she couldn't know now.

She'd never have all the answers again.

But she had the ones she needed most.

Like Ava, I am thankful for the family, friends, and colleagues who fill my world with joy, conversation, laughter, and cookies, even when I can't find all the answers I'd like.

Lots of questions pop up while you're writing a book, and I appreciate the people who helped me with those. Thanks to Angie Miller and her goats for their advice on Ethel and Lucy. Martha White and Tom Schirmer offered great thoughts on what might happen if one tried to use a pencil, magic or otherwise, in a casino.

Thanks to the Wakarusa Dime Store in Wakarusa, Indiana. I stopped there on my way to the airport after speaking at the All-Write Conference a few years ago, enjoyed some jumbo jelly beans, and have been thinking world-famous thoughts ever since. I'm also grateful for the Adirondack Extreme Aerial Adventure Park in Bolton Landing, New York. When I signed up for your sweat-and-stress-inducing obstacle course, I didn't
realize I was doing research, but that stomach-dropping swinging logs challenge provided me with the exact inspiration I needed to finish Ava's story when I got home.

Remember the book Ava finds in her school library?
What to Do When You Worry Too Much: A Kid's Guide to Overcoming Anxiety
is a real book that actually does have a giant tomato plant on its cover. It's written by Dawn Huebner and was a great help to me in writing
All the Answers
. It's also a terrific resource for anyone who feels like Ava sometimes. School guidance counselors can help a lot, too.

Thanks to my critique pals and beta readers, Linda Urban, Loree Griffin Burns, Liza Martz, Eric Luper, Laurel Snyder, Jenna Ward, Bethany Ward, Meghan Germain, Michelle Germain, and Ella Messner. My agent, Jennifer Laughran, believed in Ava from the start and encouraged me to write this book, and my editor, Mary Kate Castellani at Bloomsbury, pushed me to ask the hard questions to make it a stronger story. Many thanks to cover illustrator Gilbert Ford and designer Nicole Gastonguay, and the rest of the amazing Bloomsbury team as well: Cindy Loh, Beth Eller, Linette Kim, Linda Minton, Ilana Worrell, Melissa Kavonic, Lizzy Mason, Courtney Griffin, Erica Barmash, and Emily Ritter. I'd tackle an adventure course of doom with all of you any day of the week.

And finally, to my family, Tom, Jake, and Ella, with much love—thank you for being the amazing, smart, funny people you are, for asking impossible questions, and being the answer to everything, all at once.

The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z.
Sugar and Ice
Eye of the Storm
Wake Up Missing

Copyright © 2015 by Kate Messner

All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means, (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published in the United States of America in January 2015
by Bloomsbury Children's Books
Electronic edition published in January 2015
www.bloomsbury.com

Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Bloomsbury Children's Books, 1385 Broadway, New York, New York 10018

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Messner, Kate.
All the answers / by Kate Messner.
pages cm
Summary: Twelve-year-old Ava finds an old pencil in her family's junk drawer and discovers, during a math test, that it will answer factual questions, so she and her best friend Sophie have a great time—and Ava grows in self-confidence—until the pencil reveals a truth about her family that Ava would rather not know.
[1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Questions and answers—Fiction. 3. Pencils—Fiction. 4. Family life—Fiction. 5. Self-confidence—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M5615All 2015 [Fic]—dc23 2014009072

eISBN: 978-1-61963-375-9

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