All the Answers (7 page)

There would be no just trying on the Adventure Course of Doom, Ava decided. But there was only one way to get Sophie to stop asking and go home.

“Fine. I'll try.” Ava's twinge of guilt at the lie grew into a giant stomach pit of shame after Sophie hugged her before she ran out the door.

Ava waved. She promised herself she'd make it up to Sophie with extra pencil time tomorrow.

After Sophie left, Ava went to her room and did her math homework without any pencil help. She made a new poster with Mrs. Galvin's forgiveness quote on it and doodled what she hoped were some forgiving-looking owls in the white spaces. One turned out pretty good, but the other two resembled penguins again. And their expressions looked more surprised than forgiving.

Ava put the new poster up on her bulletin board next to the other quotes and the dream catcher she had made at craft camp in fourth grade. Then she popped a saxophone reed in her mouth, found her jazz tryout music, and discovered an orange sticky note on top, with a note from Miss Romero.

Didn't have this in my library,
but I borrowed it from a friend for you.
Remembered how much you love Titanic!

There were stars on the sticky note, like this was the song Miss Romero really wanted Ava to play. The thing is, they'd only talked about the
Titanic
once, when Ava was reading a newspaper article about a
Titanic
artifact exhibition before her music lesson. Miss Romero had said, “Oh, do you like
Titanic
?” And Ava had answered yes. She'd meant the ship and the story of the iceberg, not that sad movie they made, but Miss Romero started going on and on about Leonardo DiCaprio then, and Ava couldn't get a word in edgewise.

So now she had this music for “My Heart Will Go On.” Ava put her sax together and tried playing it. She was pretty good at sight-reading, and this song wasn't hard, but the whole time she was playing it she kept picturing all those actors and actresses floating around in the sea with their shivery blue lips. Ava tried to clear her mind and feel the music, but once her brain got going on something she couldn't turn it off.

Ava stopped halfway through the song and flipped through the rest of the music. Nothing else had stars, but maybe there was something Miss Romero would like as much as the frozen bodies song.

Ava leaned over, pulled the pencil and legal pad from her backpack, and scribbled:

Which jazz tryout song does Miss Romero like best?

“Thelonious Monk's ‘Straight, No Chaser,' ” the voice answered.

Ava found that one, but there was too much black on the page, too many quick notes. She played the first few lines.

Ba-da-ba-do-BA, ba-da-ba-da-ba-do-BA, ba-da-ba-do-BA, ba-da-ba-do-BA-WAH …

Knowing Miss Romero, Ava understood why she'd like this song. To Ava, it felt too frantic and panicky.

Ava put her saxophone down and sighed. Maybe she'd stay home the day of those tryouts. She checked the date Miss Romero had scribbled on that Post-It note—November 12. That was the day of the field trip, too. Ava's heart lightened a little. It was a bonus if you could avoid two awful things with one sick day.

It wasn't that Ava didn't want to be in jazz band. She loved the feeling of playing with a group because everyone sounded big and rich and brave, playing together. But aside from the what-to-play problem, there were older kids in jazz band. What if she wasn't good enough to play with high school musicians? What if she showed up to try out and they laughed? What if she threw up on her saxophone before she even had a chance to audition?

Ava tried the Thelonious Monk song once more, but she had already what-iffed herself out of enjoying the practice time even a little. It was getting late anyway, so she started taking her saxophone apart.

“Ava?” Mom appeared in the door with a laundry basket in her arms. “Get ready for bed, all right? I'll be back to read.”

“Okay.” Ava put her music away, brushed her teeth, and got into her pajamas. “Ready!” she called after she climbed into bed. Mom came back, laundry free, and flopped into bed next to her with their book.

When Ava had learned to read chapter books herself in second grade, she'd told her mom she didn't need a bedtime read aloud anymore. Mom said that was too bad because she still needed it, so Ava should move over and make room. Five years later, Mom hadn't changed her mind, and Ava was secretly glad. It was the only time she really had Mom to herself, with no phone pressed to her ear.

“Were you reading ahead?” Her mom frowned at the bookmark.

“Maybe a little.” Ava reached over and flipped back a few pages in
The One and Only Ivan
, about a gorilla who lives in this crummy shopping mall exhibit with an elephant. “We were here, where the new elephant comes.”

Ava snuggled into her pillow and listened. She liked Ivan. He worried a lot, too. Being a gorilla in a shopping mall was a lot like being a kid. So much was out of your hands, and if you were a worrying kind of person, that just made you worry more.

Mom finished the chapter, closed the book, and looked at Ava. “You okay tonight?”

“I'm all right.” She paused. “I don't like it when you and Dad argue about election stuff.”

“We weren't arguing. We were
debating
.” Her mom laughed a little. “Honey, we've been canceling out each other's votes every November for eighteen years. I promise it's nothing to worry about.”

“I know.” That wasn't true, though. It
was
something to worry
about, and Ava did. She kept thinking about what would happen if her parents got divorced. “It's hard to stop worrying once you start.”

“I know. I guess today was kind of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.” Mom smiled a little. “But some days are like that.”

“Even in Australia,” Ava added, true to the book they'd read together when she was little.

“Night.” Mom kissed Ava's forehead and stood up. “Have a good sleep.” She turned out the light and left.

Ava got up and turned the light back on. Because she had the pencil now. She didn't have to wonder if her mom was telling the truth. She could check. She flipped to a new page on the yellow legal pad and wrote:

Are my parents going to get divorced?

The pencil didn't answer. Ava's throat got tight. What if they were and the pencil didn't want to tell her? She tried again:

Will you please tell me if my parents are going to get divorced?

“No,” the voice said, and Ava felt relief wash over her. But then she realized she wasn't sure what question it was answering.

Did you mean no, my parents are not getting divorced, or no, you won't tell me?

“No, I can't tell you.”

Why not?
Ava wrote.

“Because your parents have free will like everyone else,” the voice said crisply.

Stupid free will again. Didn't the pencil understand she
needed to know so she could get some sleep? How could she make it answer? Ava bit the top of the pencil, thinking, then quickly took it out of her mouth. It was probably a bad idea to bite something that talked. The pencil already seemed impatient with her; nibbling on it wasn't likely to improve their relationship.

Finally, Ava had an idea. Sophie's parents had gone through a whole lot of lawyer stuff before they got divorced. It took months before anything really got done. So Ava wrote:

Have my parents been to see a lawyer to talk about getting divorced?

“No,” the voice said.

There. There was her answer.

Ava put the pencil down, got in bed, and pulled the covers up to her chin. She could cross one worry off her list.

For now.

When Ava came down for breakfast Friday morning, Dad was scribbling on a big piece of paper. “Give me more,” he urged Marcus and Emma. “If we keep brainstorming, something amazing is going to come up.”

“Are you giving up on the world-famous Mountain Man Sandwich?” Ava asked.

“Nobody seemed excited about it,” Dad said. “I don't understand. There's a place in Rochester that has a world-famous garbage plate—that's what they call it, for real. It's nothing but a burger and home fries and macaroni salad covered with hot sauce, and they do great. How is a
garbage
plate better than a Mountain Man Sandwich?” Dad shook his head. “Anyway, let's move on. Who has a new idea?”

“World's Biggest Pineapple!” Emma shouted, dribbling orange juice down her HELLO MY NAME IS POLYESTER name tag. Dad wrote that down.

“Pineapples don't grow here,” Marcus said. He poked at his phone for a few seconds. “Plus there's already a World's Biggest Pineapple in Australia.”

“I want to go there!” Emma wiped the juice off her name tag. “They have koala bears.”

“Most fruits and vegetables are spoken for,” Marcus said. “Castroville, California, has the world's largest artichoke. Ellerbe, North Carolina, and Strawberry Point, Iowa, bath claim they have the largest strawberry. I guess the North Carolina one is a building painted red with black seeds, and the Iowa people say that doesn't count, so their statue is the biggest. And Gaffney, South Carolina, has the world's largest peach at the top of a water tower.” He squinted at his phone. “It looks like somebody's butt.”

“Peach butt! Peach butt!” Emma sang, then collapsed in a fit of laughter.

“Come on, you guys … focus,” Dad said. “Any ideas, Ava?”

“World's biggest … I don't know.” Maybe she could ask the pencil later which “world's biggest” and “world-famous” things were available. Though that seemed like the kind of question the pencil might have issues with. The pencil had a lot of issues.

“Let the kids get ready for school,” Gram said, clearing dishes. “Busy day for you guys?”

“We're playing recorders in music class,” Emma said.

“That'll be fun,” Gram said.

“World's biggest sap bucket!” Dad exclaimed, writing furiously. “I bet nobody's got that.”

“We can look it up later,” Ava said, then turned to Gram. “I have a vocab quiz in English.”

“And I've got a physics test,” Marcus added.

“Well, good luck,” Gram said. “I'll say a prayer for you both.”

“I don't need a prayer, Gram.” Marcus stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulder. “I'm prepared.”

“I'm sure you are.” Gram blew him a kiss. “So you go answer questions. I'll be here praying, and between the two of us, we'll have it covered.”

Ava laughed. She didn't know any other families that were so weird about religion. Her parents believed in God but didn't go to church or talk about it much. Her aunt Jayla in Vermont was a Buddhist or something. Gram was Gram. And Marcus had proclaimed himself an atheist last year. Ava loved going to church with Gram because the stained-glass quiet felt so calm, but she still wasn't sure what she really believed. Maybe she'd ask the pencil which religion was actually right.

Ava loaded her backpack with her books and folders and the bag of goldenrod galls. She slipped the pencil into the smallest pocket, put on a jacket, and headed out to meet Sophie.

“
Mehhh!
” Ethel screamed as Ava ran past. She splashed into a puddle and sighed. Quiz days were bad enough without having a soggy sneaker.

Sophie was waiting at the bottom of the driveway, twirling around with her purple umbrella. “I have the best idea ever.”

“What's that?” Ava was pretty sure it was about the pencil. The pencil seemed to have taken over most of Sophie's brain.

“We can open up our own business, like we're psychics, and we'll answer questions and tell the future and—”

“But we're not psychics.” Ava pulled her hood over her head. It was starting to rain. “And the pencil doesn't tell the future anyway.”

Sophie jumped up onto the curb and walked on her tiptoes. “We won't have to tell the future; we'll just
know
things, like who likes who and where lost homework assignments are and stuff. It'll be fun!”