Authors: Rainbow Rowell
them. ‘You get the top bunk,’ he
said, ‘and Ben has to sleep on the
floor with me. Mom already told
us, and Ben started to cry.’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ their
mom said softly. ‘We all just have
to readjust.’
There wasn’t room in this
room to readjust. (Which Eleanor
decided not to mention.) She went
to bed as soon as she could, so
she wouldn’t have to go back out
to the living room.
When she woke up in the
middle of the night, all three of
her brothers were asleep on the
floor. There was no way to get up
without stepping on one of them,
and she didn’t even know where
the bathroom was …
She found it. There were only
five rooms in the house, and the
bathroom just barely counted. It
was attached to the kitchen – like
literally attached, without a door.
This house was designed by cave
trolls,
Eleanor
thought.
Somebody, probably her mom,
had hung a flowered sheet
between the refrigerator and the
toilet.
When she got home from
school, Eleanor let herself in with
her new key. The house was
possibly even more depressing in
daylight – dingy and bare – but at
least Eleanor had the place, and
her mom, to herself.
It was weird to come home
and see her mom, just standing in
the kitchen, like … like normal.
She was making soup, chopping
onions. Eleanor felt like crying.
‘How was school?’ her mom
asked.
‘Fine,’ Eleanor said.
‘Did you have a good first
day?’
‘Sure. I mean, yeah, it was just
school.’
‘Will you have a lot of
catching up to do?’
‘I don’t think so.’
Her mom wiped her hands on
the back of her jeans and tucked
her hair behind her ears, and
Eleanor was struck, for the ten-
thousandth time, by how beautiful
she was.
When Eleanor was a little girl,
she’d thought her mom looked
like a queen, like the star of some
fairy tale.
Not a princess – princesses are
just pretty. Eleanor’s mother was
beautiful. She was tall and stately,
with broad shoulders and an
elegant waist. All of her bones
seemed more purposeful than
other people’s. Like they weren’t
just there to hold her up, they
were there to make a point.
She had a strong nose and a
sharp chin, and her cheekbones
were high and thick. You’d look
at Eleanor’s mom and think she
must be carved into the prow of a
Viking ship somewhere or maybe
painted on the side of a plane …
Eleanor looked a lot like her.
But not enough.
Eleanor looked like her mother
through a fish tank. Rounder and
softer. Slurred. Where her mother
was statuesque, Eleanor was
heavy. Where her mother was
finely
drawn,
Eleanor
was
smudged.
After five kids, her mother had
breasts and hips like a woman in a
cigarette ad. At sixteen, Eleanor
was already built like she ran a
medieval pub.
She
had
too
much
of
everything and too little height to
hide it. Her breasts started just
below her chin, her hips were … a
parody. Even her mom’s hair,
long and wavy and auburn, was a
more
legitimate
version
of
Eleanor’s bright red curls.
Eleanor put her hand to her
head self-consciously.
‘I have something to show
you,’ her mom said, covering the
soup, ‘but I didn’t want to do it in
front of the little kids. Here, come
on.’
Eleanor followed her into the
kids’ bedroom. Her mom opened
the closet and took out a stack of
towels and a laundry basket full of
socks.
‘I couldn’t bring all your
things when we moved,’ she said.
‘Obviously we don’t have as
much room here as we had in the
old house …’ She reached into the
closet and pulled out a black
plastic garbage bag. ‘But I packed
as much as I could.’
She handed Eleanor the bag
and said, ‘I’m sorry about the
rest.’
Eleanor had assumed that
Richie threw all her stuff in the
trash a year ago, ten seconds after
he’d kicked her out. She took the
bag in her arms. ‘It’s okay,’ she
said. ‘Thanks.’
Her mom reached out and
touched Eleanor’s shoulder, just
for a second. ‘The little kids will
be home in twenty minutes or so,’
she said, ‘and we’ll eat dinner
around 4:30. I like to have
everything settled before Richie
comes home.’
Eleanor nodded. She opened
the bag as soon as her mom left
the room. She wanted to see what
was still hers …
The first thing she recognized
were the paper dolls. They were
loose in the bag and wrinkled; a
few were marked with crayons. It
had been years since Eleanor had
played with them, but she was still
happy to see them there. She
pressed them flat and laid them in
a pile.
Under the dolls were books, a
dozen or so that her mother must
have grabbed at random; she
wouldn’t have known which were
Eleanor’s favorites. Eleanor was
glad to see
Garp
and
Watership
Down
. It sucked that
Oliver’s
Story
had made the cut, but
Love
Story
hadn’t. And
Little Men
was
there, but not
Little Women
or
Jo’s Boys
.
There was a bunch more
papers in the bag. She’d had a file
cabinet in her old room, and it
looked like her mom had grabbed
most of the folders. Eleanor tried
to get everything into a neat stack,
all the report cards and school
pictures and letters from pen pals.
She wondered where the rest
of the stuff from the old house
had ended up. Not just her stuff,
but
everybody’s.
Like
the
furniture and the toys, and all of
her mom’s plants and paintings.
Her grandma’s Danish wedding
plates … The little red ‘Uff da!’
horse that always used to hang
above the sink.
Maybe it was packed away
somewhere. Maybe her mom was
hoping the cave-troll house was
just temporary.
Eleanor was still hoping that
Richie was just temporary.
At the bottom of the black
trash bag was a box. Her heart
jumped a little when she saw it.
Her uncle in Minnesota used to
send her family a Fruit of the
Month Club membership every
Christmas, and Eleanor and her
brothers and sister would always
fight over the boxes that the fruit
came in. It was stupid, but they
were good boxes – solid, with
nice lids. This one was a
grapefruit box, soft from wear at
the edges.
Eleanor opened it carefully.
Nothing inside had been touched.
There was her stationery, her
colored
pencils
and
her
Prismacolor
markers
(another
Christmas
present
from
her
uncle). There was a stack of
promotional cards from the mall
that still smelled like expensive
perfumes. And there was her
Walkman.
Untouched.
Un-
batteried, too, but nevertheless,
there. And where there was a
Walkman,
there
was
the
possibility of music.
Eleanor let her head fall over
the box. It smelled like Chanel No.
5 and pencil shavings. She sighed.
There wasn’t anything to do
with her recovered belongings
once she’d sorted through them –
there wasn’t even room in the
dresser for Eleanor’s clothes. So
she set aside the box and the
books,
and
carefully
put
everything else back in the
garbage bag. Then she pushed the
bag back as far as she could on
the highest shelf in the closet,
behind
the
towels
and
a
humidifier.
She climbed onto her bunk
and found a scraggly old cat
napping there. ‘Shoo,’ Eleanor
said, shoving him. The cat leaped
to the floor and out the bedroom
door.
CHAPTER 5
Park
Mr Stessman was making them all
memorize a poem, whatever poem
they wanted. Well, whatever poem
they picked.
‘You’re
going
to
forget
everything else I teach you,’ Mr
Stessman
said,
petting
his
mustache. ‘Everything. Maybe
you’ll remember that Beowulf
fought a monster. Maybe you’ll
remember that “To be or not to
be” is
Hamlet
, not
Macbeth
…
‘But everything else? Forget
about it.’
He was slowly walking up and
down each aisle. Mr Stessman
loved this kind of stuff – theater
in the round. He stopped next to
Park’s desk and leaned in casually
with his hand on the back of
Park’s
chair.
Park
stopped
drawing and sat up straight. He
couldn’t draw anyway.
‘So, you’re going to memorize
a poem,’ Mr Stessman continued,
pausing a moment to smile down
at Park like Gene Wilder in the
chocolate factory.
‘Brains love poetry. It’s sticky
stuff. You’re going to memorize
this poem, and five years from
now, we’re going to see each
other at the Village Inn, and you’ll
say,
“Mr
Stessman,
I
still
remember ‘The Road Not Taken!’
Listen … ‘
Two roads diverged in
a yellow wood
…’”’
He moved on to the next desk.
Park relaxed.
‘Nobody gets to pick “The
Road Not Taken,” by the way, I’m
sick to death of it. And no Shel
Silverstein. He’s grand, but you’ve
graduated. We’re all adults here.
Choose an adult poem …
‘Choose
a
romantic
poem,
that’s my advice. You’ll get the
most use out of it.’
He walked by the new girl’s
desk, but she didn’t turn away
from the window.
‘Of course, it’s up to you. You
may choose “A Dream Deferred”
– Eleanor?’ She turned blankly.
Mr Stessman leaned in. ‘You may
choose it, Eleanor. It’s poignant
and it’s truth. But how often will
you get to roll that one out?
‘No. Choose a poem that
speaks to you. Choose a poem that
will help you speak to someone
else.’
Park planned to choose a
poem that rhymed, so it would be
easier to memorize. He liked Mr
Stessman, he really did – but he
wished he’d dial it back a few
notches. Whenever he worked the
room
like
this,
Park
got
embarrassed for him.
‘We meet tomorrow in the
library,’ Mr Stessman said, back at
his desk. ‘Tomorrow, we’re
gathering rosebuds.’
The bell rang. On cue.
CHAPTER 6
Eleanor
‘Watch it, raghead.’
Tina pushed roughly past
Eleanor and climbed onto the bus.
She had everybody else in
their gym class calling Eleanor
Bozo, but Tina had already moved
on to Raghead and Bloody Mary.
‘Cuz it looks like your whole head
is on the rag,’ she’d explained
today in the locker room.
It made sense that Tina was in
Eleanor’s gym class – because
gym was an extension of hell, and
Tina was definitely a demon. A
weird, miniature demon. Like a
toy demon. Or a teacup. And she
had a whole gang of lesser
demons, all dressed in matching
gymsuits.
Actually,
everyone
wore
matching gymsuits.