Ripple Effect (3 page)

ONLY A HALF
hour of class had gone by. Time was going so slowly. Dana looked back longingly.
She
should be the one sitting beside Janelle. Julia had moved her desk right up against Janelle’s. They were sharing a math textbook, and Julia was explaining something. Dana could have done that. She looked over at Jason, but he was talking to Mickey.

When the bell finally rang for recess, Dana jumped up and headed for the back of the classroom. Julia had gone to her locker, so Dana slid into her desk.

“Hi, Janelle.”

“Dana. How are you?”

Dana shook her head. “How are
you
?” she asked.

“I’m okay. Getting there.”

“I was at your house.”

“I know. My mom told me.”

Julia came back and stood beside her desk.

“Excuse me.” She tapped Dana’s shoulder. When Dana got up, Julia slid back into the seat and placed Janelle’s lunch bag on top of her desk. “Anything else you need, Janelle?”

“Yes, anything I can do?” asked Dana quickly.

“No, that’s it, I think. Thanks, Julia.”

“No problem. That’s what best friends are for.”

Julia smiled and took out her own snack. “I told Mr. B. I would stay in with you during recess, and he said that was a good idea. I can help you with the stuff you missed.”

“Oh. Okay. I have missed a lot.” Janelle looked up at Dana. “So, my mom said you had your first run already.”

“Yes. Oh, Nelly, it was so awesome. We—” Avery and Allie Grant came over and asked Janelle if they could sign her cast.

“Sure,” said Janelle. “Let me just see if I can find something to write with.” She began to poke around in her desk.

“Here you go,” said Julia, producing a twelve-pack of permanent markers in a rainbow of colors. “I bought these especially for cast signing.”

Janelle grinned. “Awesome.” She held them out for the twins to pick a color. “Thanks, Julia.”

“Dana,” said Julia. She motioned to Dana to come closer and lowered her voice. “I can’t believe you are talking to Janelle about cross-country. She obviously can’t run this season. That is so insensitive.”

“But she asked me…”

“Of course she did. She’s such a sweetie. But I don’t think you need to rub it in.”

“I’m not rubbing it in. I just wanted to tell her how great the team did on Friday. I got third. I’ve never gotten third in my life. I got a ribbon!” Dana opened her fist to show Julia the green ribbon rolled carefully inside. “I want to give it to Janelle,” she continued. “Neta said if we couldn’t run with Janelle, we could at least run for Janelle, and so…”

Julia smiled tightly. “Just remember, Dana, that talking about things Janelle can’t do will not make her feel better. We want to make her feel better, don’t we?”

Dana nodded. “Well, of course…”

“Besides,” continued Julia, “if I remember correctly, when Janelle ran she was always in front of you, wasn’t she? So third place isn’t really worth mentioning. You probably only placed because Janelle wasn’t in the race. She would have earned that ribbon on her own, don’t you think?”

Dana was quiet. Maybe that was true. She remembered standing beside Neta just before the race started. Neta had smiled and held her hand up for a high five. “For Janelle?”

Dana had high-fived her. “For Janelle.” She had run the whole race with this in mind—that she was running for her friend. But maybe Julia was right. Maybe it had been a stupid idea. She quickly stuffed the ribbon into the front pocket of her jeans.

Janelle inspected the colorful additions to her cast as Avery and Allie skipped away. Then she turned back to Dana. “Sorry about that. What were you going to say?”

“Mmm…nothing. I forget.”

Janelle raised an eyebrow. Dana looked away.

“Do you want to sign my cast?”

“Sure.”

When Dana asked Mr. B. if she could stay inside to help Janelle too, he said one friend was enough.

THE LAST HALF
of September was wet. It rained almost every single day. Dana’s dad was busy cleaning up gardens and raking leaves. “I see the rain’s not hurting you any, Dana,” he said one night at supper. “You’re growing like a weed!”

Dana was still biking to school. When she complained that her lunch was soggy, her mother began packing all her food in snap-lid containers. When she complained that her schoolwork was getting wet inside her backpack, her mother found special waterproof folders that would
do the trick
. When she complained that water had actually dripped out of her clarinet in band class, her mother dug out an extra-large, bright-blue
rain poncho from the basement. Dana felt like a giant bird noisily flapping its massive wings in the wind. Every morning she’d look at the raindrops on the kitchen window and groan. Her mother would smile and run a hand over Dana’s hair. “You’re not made of sugar, you know. You won’t melt.”

At school, Dana would hang the poncho on the door of her half-open locker, and it would drip water all over the floor. Mr. Parker, the janitor, started leaving a mop and bucket for her so she could wipe up the puddle. She would shake the water out of her crazy, curly hair and Mickey would sing, “Dana, Dana, has come in from the rain-a.”

After school, her cross-country team would run. It was muddy, but they were doing well in the Friday races. Amber, who knew most of the runners on all of the teams and how they usually placed, thought they might even have a shot at the city championship. It was less than three weeks away, and Miss Marchand was so excited that she had them running every day. It didn’t take any persuading. The girls were excited too.

When Mrs. Murphy came to pick up Janelle in the afternoons, she would wave to the girls and cheer them on as they ran. Then Janelle would come out on her crutches. She would watch, but she didn’t seem all that interested. Instead, she’d be talking to Julia, who was usually carrying Janelle’s backpack and a big umbrella.

Dana had tried to talk to Nelly a few times at lunch, but she didn’t know what to talk about. Julia was always sending her looks that told her she was saying the wrong things. Gradually, she stopped talking at all and just sat quietly while the other girls chatted. Julia had lots to say anyway, and Janelle didn’t seem to notice. A couple of times a week, Dana noticed that Janelle and Julia weren’t even around at lunch. Amber said they were working on something together in the library. Still catching up on homework maybe? Why hadn’t Janelle asked Dana for help? When Miss Marchand asked for someone to work with the runners in grades three and four at lunch every other day, Dana saw no reason not to volunteer.

Today, though, Dana knew exactly what to talk to Janelle about. She decided to walk over to Janelle’s house right after supper so she could talk to her without Julia being around to give her one of her looks. Mr. B. had assigned a big geography project about biomes. Dana and Janelle had always worked together on things like this. During their last week in grade five, their teacher had told them about some of the things they could look forward to doing in grade six. She’d mentioned the biomes project. Janelle and Dana had looked at each other and given each other a nod and a thumbs-up. They made the best partners.

Dana had already done a bit of research and written down a few ideas. She’d taken an umbrella along in case it started raining again. When Janelle asked which topic Dana had in mind, she would hand her the umbrella as a hint. The tropical rainforest. Janelle would love it. Working on this assignment together was just what they needed to make things normal again.

She ran up the steps to Janelle’s house, leaned her umbrella against the wall and rang the bell. The door swung open. Julia.

“Hi, Dana.”

Dana took a step backward. “Is…is Janelle here?”

“Of course. We’re working on our project,” she said.

“You mean the geography project?” Dana asked.

“We’re doing the tropical rainforest. What about you? Who’s your partner?”

“I, umm…” said Dana, recovering slowly. “I’m going to do it by myself. I work better by myself anyway.”

Janelle appeared in the hallway. “Dana! Come in. Do you need something?”

“No.” Dana shook her head. “I was just running by and thought I’d stop and say hi. So, umm, hi.”

“Hi,” said Janelle. She shifted uncomfortably. “Did you—”

“Well,” Dana interrupted, “I’d better keep running. Got to get lots of practice. Bye!” She turned quickly and ran back down the steps.

“Dana, wait!” Janelle called from the door.

Dana skidded to a halt, sucked in her breath and turned back hopefully. “Yes?”

“You forgot your umbrella.”

A week later, Dana tucked the shoebox containing her diorama of the tundra under her poncho and headed for school. She’d meant to ask Dale to help her carry everything, but he was already gone. She should have walked and kept everything nice and dry under her umbrella, as her mother had suggested, but it was too late for that now. The poncho would have to do.

Dana was a little unsteady, riding one-handed. She just needed to take it slowly and carefully. When she was halfway down the driveway, the front of the poncho suddenly flew up in the wind, completely blinding her. She careened down the drive and, before she could stop herself, crashed headlong into a row of recycling bins. She flew off her bike, landing on a stack of soggy newspapers. The shoebox shot out of her hand and went skidding down the sidewalk.

Dana jumped to her feet, yanked off the poncho, balled it up and threw it into one of the boxes. Breathing heavily, she surveyed the mess. Everyone else put one blue box out. The Davis family always had three or four. Her mom was a recycling fanatic and didn’t let a single piece end up in the trash. Grumbling, Dana righted the boxes and gathered up all the cans and bottles that had spilled out over the sidewalk and onto the road. She chased after the cardboard pieces that had escaped and were cartwheeling in the wind.

With her shoebox once again stuffed under one arm, Dana got back on her bike. She could feel water spraying up behind her the whole ride in. She squished into class just ahead of the bell and plunked her dripping diorama on the shelf. The iceberg she’d made so carefully out of sugar cubes was melting. The gelatin river was running. Everything she’d made was completely biodegradable, and that’s what it was doing now. She pulled down a sheet of paper towel and tried to dry things a little.

Mickey came in, took one look and started to laugh. “Dana, Dana,” he sang, “has a skunk stripe stain-a.”

Dana was angry. She wheeled around. “Mickey!”

Just then Jason appeared. His timing was perfect again. He really was her knight in shining armor.

“Maybe you’d better give it a rest with the jingles, Mick,” he said. He glanced over at the shoebox and winced. “Global warming?”

Dana sighed and then smiled. “It’s a big problem.”

“So I see. Still biking in?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Cool. I just wanted to tell you…”

Dana held her breath.
What did he want to tell her? That he didn’t care if she was a muddy mess? That he thought she was the cutest girl in grade six anyway?

“You forgot to take the elastic band off your ankle.”

Dana let her breath out again like a leaky balloon. “Oh,” she said. “Thanks.” She reached down and
slipped off the elastic band. She looked at the puddle that had formed at her feet. She looked at her soggy shoebox. She looked at Jason walking away with Mickey and then at Janelle chatting with Julia, all the while playing with the elastic band in her hand. Suddenly, it snapped.
Ouch!
It was supposed to have been a really strong one. But she guessed things could only stretch so far before they broke. Water dripped out of Dana’s hair. Her eyes stung as she busied herself with her diorama.

“Okay, everyone,” called Mr. B. “Time to find your seats. Dana, are you okay back there? Do you need any help?”

Dana shook her head. She cleared her throat and wiped her face. It had just been a really bad morning. That’s all. Things couldn’t possibly get any worse. She took a deep breath and tried to smile. Like her mother always said, if crying wasn’t going to do any good, she might as well laugh. Besides, there was no time for tears. Dana had noticed something when she’d confronted Mickey. She was taller than he was. That meant she was almost taller than Jason. She’d have to do something. Fast.

It rained all day. When Dana ran up the steps and into the house that afternoon, she almost crashed into her mother taking off her boots just inside the door. Dana was surprised to see the blue poncho hanging on one of the hooks in the hallway.

“Oh, Dana, you’re home. I just got in too. It’s a soaker, isn’t it? Why in the world aren’t you wearing your poncho? I found it in the recycling.”

Dana described her encounter with the blue boxes. She didn’t say anything about how the rest of the morning had gone.

“Oh no.” Her mom laughed and gave her a hug. “Are you hurt?”

Dana paused, then shook her head.

“Why don’t you go and get dried off. I’ll make some tea.” Her mother disappeared into the kitchen.

Dana looked over at the poncho hanging on the hook and wrinkled her nose. Maybe her problems were not going to go away as easily as she thought.