All the Answers (5 page)

“I'm serious! That stuff happens in fairy tales all the time. And remember the story Mrs. Barnaby talked about in language arts last year? That Faust guy who wanted unlimited knowledge and traded his soul for it? What if this is like that?”

Sophie bit her lip, but she didn't laugh again. “Ava … take a good look.” She held up the pencil. “It's not going to hurt you. It's just wood and lead and paint. But it can do something amazingly cool. Can you please stop worrying and enjoy it?”

Her words echoed in Ava's head.
Can you please stop worrying and enjoy it?
Ava had heard those words before. Spoken in Dad's voice, when she was afraid to try out for all-county band last year. In Gram's voice, when she'd splurged on a whale watch on a visit to Boston and Ava spent the whole trip in the cabin, tightening her life vest and blinking like crazy. In Mom's voice, when Ava was too nervous to stay overnight at Sophie's birthday sleepover just last month. Ava owed Sophie some fun.

“Okay.” Ava took a deep breath and took the pencil. “What should we ask it first?”

“Ask it if any boys like you!” Sophie grinned.

Ava made a face. “What if it says yes? I'd never be able to look at them again.” Ava knew plenty of girls in their class had crushes on boys and even boyfriends—if you counted holding hands on the way to lunch—but it seemed like those girls were on the other side of some strange invisible bridge. Sometimes, Ava thought Sophie was halfway across. “I'll ask it about boys who like
you
if you want.”

“Okay!” It seemed like that was what Sophie wanted anyway, so Ava flipped to a new page on her legal pad and started writing:

Do any boys like

“Hold on!” Sophie leaned in, reading over her shoulder. “If you say ‘like,' it might start listing boys who just sort of like me like a friend instead of boys who
like
me like me.”

“So what should I ask?”

“How about …” Sophie looked up into the leaves just as one started fluttering down. She caught it, then turned back to Ava. “Let's try this… . What boys, if any, have romantic-type crushes on Sophie Chafik?”

Ava wrote that.

The voice gave a slightly disgusted sigh, then rattled off nine names. Ava tried to write them down, but the voice went too fast.

“What's it saying? What's it saying?” Sophie was bouncing.

“Hold on!” Ava held up her hand, then finished writing. “I didn't catch them all. I've got Robbie Henderson—you knew that, right?”

Sophie nodded. “Who else?”

“Craig Thomas, Jake Phillips, Howard Filion—”

“Eww!” Sophie recoiled. “He picks his nose in social studies.”

Ava laughed. “Apparently, he's thinking of you the whole time.”

Sophie fell over backward and kicked her legs in the air dramatically a few times, then popped back up. “Who else?”

“Shaun Gerstein …” Ava looked down at the page. “And Jason somebody? His name was too long, and I'd never heard of it.”

Sophie's mouth fell open. “Jason
Marzigliano
? Ohmygosh, tell me it's Jason Marzigliano.”

“Soph, you're drooling. I'm not sure.”

“Ask the pencil to repeat it.” Sophie gestured toward the notebook. “If it's Jason Marzigliano, I am going to flip. Literally.”

So Ava wrote:

Could you please repeat the full name of the boy named Jason who has a crush on Sophie Chafik?

The voice sighed again, then enunciated every word. “Jason. Randolph. Mar-zig-li-a-no.”

“Well?” Sophie was leaning so close Ava could smell the candy bracelet on her breath.

“It's him,” Ava said, then couldn't help adding with a giggle, “and his middle name is Randolph. Jason
Randolph
Marzigliano. Who is he?”

But by then Sophie had flipped. Literally. She'd taken off running across the green and done a round-off back handspring. Then she plopped back down next to Ava. “Jason Marzigliano is that new kid who moved here from California. With the sort of shaggy brown hair? He does gymnastics, and he is unbelievably cute and I just cannot believe this!” She bit two more beads off her candy bracelet.

Ava laughed. She had to admit this pencil was kind of fun. “Let me try.”

“Are you going to ask which boys like you?”

“No!” Ava tapped the pencil on her palm. She didn't want to know about boys, but she couldn't think of anything that seemed
pencil worthy. “Maybe I'll ask it … what's for lunch in the school cafeteria next week.”

“Ava, that's the boringest question ever! Go on the website if you want to know when meatloaf day is. Ask it … ask it what Katina D. is doing right this very second!”

“Oh, that's good!” Ava started writing. “It'll probably say she's in the recording studio.”

“Or shopping for red cowboy boots! Or kissing her bass player in the rain!” Sophie squealed.

Ava finished the question and held up her hand for Sophie to be quiet.

“Right now,” the pencil-voice said, “Katina D. is taking a nap.”

Ava told Sophie, who let out a frustrated sigh. “Well, that's not going to make any headlines. Ask it what she did last night.”

Ava asked and listened. “Oh! This is better. She went to dinner at some fancy French restaurant with Michael Jupiter. He's a singer, too, isn't he?”

“A singer?! He has the number one song on iTunes right now. And …” Sophie drummed the ground with both hands. “He's supposed to be going out with Tiffany Whittinger, the actress. This is awesome! It's a scandal!” Sophie got up and started pacing around the tree. “Ohmygosh, we should call one of those supermarket magazines with all the celebrity news and tell them. They'll do one of those splashy headlines with a photo on the front page, and we'll be famous!”

“Soph?” Ava held up the pencil. “We don't have a photo. Or anything else for proof. I don't think they'd be impressed if we said our magic pencil told us.”

“Hmph.” Sophie plopped back down on the grass. Her excited ideas got ahead of the rest of her brain sometimes. “Good point. But it's still fun for
us
to know. Ask it other stuff about her!”

So Ava asked the pencil what Katina D. had for dinner (escargot and steamed salmon with asparagus), who else knew about the date (no one, but that's going to change tomorrow because a waiter with a cell phone took their picture), and whether Michael Jupiter kissed her good night.

“Yes. Twice.” The voice did not sound excited about this. But Sophie and Ava collapsed in helpless giggles.

“It's like we have a secret spy camera on the whole
world
!” Sophie said when she caught her breath. “This pencil is the best thing that has ever happened to anyone
ever
.”

“It really is.” Ava flopped onto her back in the grass and looked up at the sun shining through the maple leaves. She had so many ideas for what to ask the pencil now. Where Katina D. bought the cool earrings she'd worn in the “Wash the World Away” video … what she liked to eat for dessert … what her favorite color was … what Michael Jupiter's favorite color was. What
anybody's
favorite
anything
was!

“You got all quiet.” Sophie leaned up on her elbow to look at Ava. “You're not worried about the pencil wanting your first-born child again, are you?”

“Nope,” Ava said, grinning. “I was just thinking about all the things we need to ask it tomorrow.”

Sophie nodded. “We should make a list.”

“Ava! Mom says dinner's ready at the house!” Marcus called from the store entrance.

Ava stood up and brushed off her jeans. “You make a list at home tonight, and I'll make one, too.”

“Perfect!” Sophie hugged Ava and took off, cartwheeling over the lawn in the direction of her house.

Ava walked home and thought about what else she wanted to ask the pencil. She could ask anything about anybody—secrets about Hollywood stars, her favorite authors, her friends, her family. It was going to be a seriously long list.

Ava meant to save the pencil to use with Sophie after school on Wednesday, but she didn't quite make it to the last bell. She pulled it out of her backpack twice during the day. The first time was right before lunch.

“You don't have to go to the library again, do you?” Sophie asked, balancing her lunch bag on her knee at her locker. “Come eat with us in the cafeteria. I miss you!”

Sophie's gymnastics friends, Maya and Lucy, were already waiting for her down the hallway. “Umm … let me check really fast, okay?” Ava told Sophie. She headed toward the library but then ducked into the girls' bathroom and took out the pencil. She didn't want to waste time finding paper, so she ripped a paper towel from the dispenser and wrote:

What do Sophie's gymnastics friends think about me?

Her hand was shaking as she finished the question mark.

“They don't know you very well, but they like you okay,” the pencil said. “Maya thinks you're really nice but kind of quiet, and Lucy likes your sneakers with the bright green laces.”

Ava looked down at her orange basketball shoes and smiled. Last summer, her cousin Shanika had visited from New York City and taught her how to lace them this fancy way that looked like a ladder. Lucy thought that was cool, and Maya thought Ava was nice. So Ava went to lunch instead of sneaking off to the library. It went pretty well.

The second time Ava pulled out the pencil was right after she finished running the mile in gym class. Mr. Avery asked her why she didn't try out for the cross-country team and if she planned to do track in the spring. Ava told him she didn't know, but when she got to the locker room, she took out the pencil and wrote:

Does Mr. Avery think I'd be good at running track?

“Yes.” The pencil sounded like it wanted to add a sarcastic “obviously” to that answer, but it refrained. Ava wrote:

Who else is going to try out for the track team?

But there was no answer, and then she remembered the whole dumb free-will thing. She'd have to think more about track.

After school, Sophie came home with Ava. Sophie wanted to get right to the fun questions, but Ava said they had to do homework first or they'd never get to it. So they did their English vocabulary page and then asked the pencil where they could find goldenrod galls. It told them, and they snipped a bunch from
stalks in the field behind the store. Then Sophie ate pizza with the Andersons. She and Ava were headed upstairs with the pencil when Ava's dad said, “Everybody ready for family night?”

Wednesday was family night at Cedar Bay Nursing Home. Every Wednesday after dinner, attendants wheeled the residents down the long yellow hallway to meet with family members. Everybody sat in folding chairs, drank warmish, watered-down lemonade, and ate cookies while they waited for the seven o'clock show, usually some local church choir or little kids' ballet class or high school string ensemble.

Nobody talked much on family night. A few of the residents couldn't speak because they'd had strokes. Some, like Ava's grandpa, could talk but were too sad or grumpy to say much. Others had dementia and didn't know what was going on around them. When the dementia people did talk, it didn't always make sense.

Mr. Clemson, who was a firefighter a long time ago, worried about imaginary burning buildings. “Get down!” he'd hollered at Ava when she walked by during family night once. “Stay low and head for the exit!”

Mrs. Grabowski, who had a stroke two years ago and couldn't talk at all, always wore a pale purple pantsuit and tapped her feet to the music. Her white sneakers were too clean ever to have seen grass.

Mr. Ames spent family night slapping his knee enthusiastically, though never quite in time to the music. Mrs. Raymond, who wore pastel sweatshirts with cuddly animals embroidered
on the front, tipped her head back and forth to whatever song was playing. And Mrs. Yu sat perfectly still except for her mouth. She always looked like she was chewing, even though she never ate the cookies.