The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. (9 page)

Well I’m here now, so I might as well get the leaves. Except the leaves are way out at the end of this branch, swaying in the wind.

I’m clinging to the middle of the branch, also swaying in the wind.

I decide my best bet is to imagine I’m on the monkey bars, so I dig my fingernails deeper into the bark, force myself to let go with my left hand, and move it in front of my right hand. I’m swaying like crazy, and the bark is digging into my palms. But I manage to scoot forward a few more times. The branch gets skinnier out at the end, so it actually gets easier to hold on. I’m within one scoot of the leaves when I hear a soft crackling and then—

Crack!

The branch snaps off in the middle, I tumble to the ground in a heap, and it bounces off my shoulder into my lap. I rub my barky hands together and do a quick check for injuries.

My ankle is a little sore from landing on it wrong, but otherwise, I’m okay. And I got the leaves—a whole branchful.

Then the sliding glass door in the back of the house slides open.

Mr. Randolph is standing there in a gray Navy sweatshirt and baby blue flannel pajama bottoms, which doesn’t sound scary, but it is. He has the look he gets on his face right before he screams at kids in the lunchroom. I wonder if I can be expelled for this, since it’s not actually at school. I decide not to ask.

“Miss Zales.” He slides the door shut behind him and folds his arms. His feet are bare and he has enormous toes. They’re tapping the deck planks while he talks. “Somehow, you seem to have wandered into my yard.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Somehow, you failed to notice the fence that encircles my yard.” Tap, tap.

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, you failed to notice it?” His eyes get huge, and I know yes is the wrong answer.

“No, sir. I, er, climbed over it to get a leaf for my leaf collection.” I look down at the four-foot branch I’m still holding and lift it up a little. “For science class.”

He makes a noise that’s a cross between a laugh, a snort, and a growl and comes down the back steps toward me. He stops at the base of the big tree, looks down at his rocking chair, and moves it aside. “Do you know what kind of tree this is?”

“Not yet, no.” I consider explaining about the dichotomous key that we’re using but decide it won’t help.

“Have you noticed, Miss Zales, that nothing is growing around this particular tree?”

I hadn’t. But he’s right. The other trees all have little hills of flowers around the bottom. Not this one.

“Do you know, Miss Zales, why nothing is growing here?”

I shake my head.

“I will tell you, Miss Zales. It’s because this tree is a black walnut. A black walnut looks quite attractive, like any other tree. It has lovely foliage.” He looks at the branch in my hand. “But you already knew that, of course.”

I nod. I wish he would just call the police and have me arrested.

“But the black walnut is deceiving. It looks perfectly attractive, like a fine addition to a garden. But all the while, it releases a toxin into the soil that kills off other plants; it poisons anything growing nearby.

“A black walnut, Miss Zales, is like the student who fails to show respect. He—or
she
—might look like a good person. But underneath, at the roots, he—or
she
—is spreading the poison of disrespect.” He turns and climbs back up his steps to the glass door. “You’ll leave my yard now.” He points to the other corner of the house. “By the gate.”

I nod but don’t say anything. I’m out of “yes, sirs.” I consider dragging the black walnut branch along with me, but he’s still standing on his porch, so I leave it and shuffle toward the gate.

Black walnut.

I am
so
not a black walnut.

He’s
the black walnut on this block.

The glass porch door slides open, then closes with a thump, and I stop, still ten feet from the gate.

I don’t even check to see if he’s watching. I dash back and yank a handful of leaves off the branch, then run for the gate again.

These will be easy to identify later.

I know a black walnut when I see one.

CHAPTER 10

S
brigati
, Gianna! Let’s go!” Nonna calls from downstairs.

“I’m hurrying,” I say.

But I’m not.

I stand by the window, buttoning Mom’s maroon sweater, looking out at clouds as dark as the black dress she loaned me for the funeral. What am I going to say when I see Ruby?

“I am so sorry for your loss.”

“I’m so sorry about your grandmother.”

“I’m sorry you lost your grandmother.”

That last one sounds like she misplaced her grandmother in the garage or something. Nothing sounds right.

Nonna always does the talking. I carry the cookies. She always seems to know just the right thing to say.

“I’ll think of her every time I hear wind chimes,” she told Mr. Caprici last month. His wife had the noisiest porch in the neighborhood. She made her own chimes out of sea glass she found on their trips to Cape Cod.

“Her memory will live on in your garden,” she told Mr. LeBelle, whose wife grew roses in ten different shades. And here’s my favorite:

“He died doing what he loved best,” she told Mr. Salsbury’s wife. He was killed when a rogue salmon pulled him overboard during a fishing trip in Alaska. Nonna always knows what to say. Not me.

“Ready,
bambolina
?” Nonna’s in her funeral wear, her black jersey dress with the charcoal wool sweater. I think there are still cookie crumbs in it from last weekend.

“I guess so.” I collect my bushy hair into a fat barrette and look in the mirror. Red hair looks so undignified, like you’ve worn the wrong clothes to a formal event.

“The important thing is that you talk to her.” I swear Nonna reads my mind. She knows I have no clue what to say. “Tell her you’re sorry, yes, but then just sit with her and chat.”

“Chat? About what? Her grandmother’s going to be right there in the casket. How can she chat?”

“Gianna, it’s almost noon.” Nonna points to the clock. Calling hours started an hour ago. “By the time we get downstairs, Ruby probably will have been hugged by at least thirty strangers saying how sorry they are about her grandmother. You can say that, too. But you’re her friend. Talk to her about school and what’s for lunch in the cafeteria and your leaf project—things from
her
world. The grown-ups who work with her mom can’t give her that kind of comfort today.”

But I can. I think about that and follow Nonna downstairs. She hands me the tray of cookies, arranged on a thick white doily. Nonna opens the door, and I step in, ready to join the end of the line of people paying respects.

Except there is no line. There’s just Ruby’s mom, who looks like Ruby with shorter hair and more wrinkles around her eyes, standing by the casket. There’s a woman who might be her mom’s sister. Her eyes are clear green, like Ruby’s, and she’s talking quietly with Mrs. Kinsella near the casket. I almost don’t see Ruby at first. She’s over in the corner with her marble notebook tucked under her arm, flipping through the guest book. She’s as far from the casket as she could possibly be. A little boy with messy black hair is playing with a dump truck at her feet, making “vroom” noises. Ruby looks down and puts her finger to her lips to shush him.

“Cindy, I’m Francesca DiCarlo. Your mother sat behind me in church, and she always sang with the most wonderful energy.” Nonna has managed to set down the cookies, uncover them, and take Mrs. Kinsella’s hand in one fluid gesture.

I look over at Ruby. She squats down, her long limbs all folded up, and moves the dump truck back and forth with the kid, but she’s staring at the casket.

“My granddaughter Gianna and your daughter are good friends at school,” Nonna says, grabbing back my attention. Ruby’s mom looks at me, probably wondering why she’s never heard my name if we’re such good friends. Then she nods.

“Ruby has mentioned you, Gianna. You were lab partners last year, right? She said you let her borrow your notes after she was absent.”

“Um . . . yeah.” Ruby had missed two days of class. I’d just pushed my notes over to her when class started, so she could copy them to catch up. It didn’t seem like a big enough deal to talk about at home, especially since my notes aren’t the greatest.

“Oh, here’s another girl from school, I think.” Mrs. Kinsella looks up. Ellen steps through with her mom, who must have come right from the hospital where she works. She’s wearing white instead of black but doesn’t seem worried about it. She walks right up to Mrs. Kinsella and hugs her, while Ellen wanders over to me.

“You girls will want to talk.” Nonna gives us a little push toward Ruby and dump truck boy. He’s probably about three and reminds me of Ian at that age, full of snot and too much energy. Not quite a tree—just a shrub. The kind that looks all shaggy and bright red in the fall.

“Hi, Ruby,” I say. She turns to me and opens her mouth to say something, but the kid beats her to it.

“My name is Warren Washington Kinsella Junior.” He wipes his nose on his hand before offering it to me. I shake it and wipe it on Mom’s sweater.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Warren Washington Kinsella.”

“Junior,” he corrects. Ruby rolls her eyes, but Ellen and I laugh.

“Can I write in that?” Warren Washington Kinsella Junior tugs at the corner of Ruby’s notebook.

“No. But you can color. Here.” Ruby pulls a couple of crayons out of her pocket, tears a page from the back of the guest book, and sends Warren Washington Kinsella Junior off to draw.

“Not like we’re exactly filling up those guest book pages anyway.” She watches him leave. “Might as well use them.”

“I thought there would be more people.” I look around. “I mean, usually . . .”

“I guess other people have big families that come and hang around.” Ruby flips to the front of the guest book. “The ladies in Grandma’s Red Hat Society came right at eleven because they had a potluck lunch scheduled for eleven thirty and didn’t want to miss it. Mom’s friends from work came early too, on their lunch break. And you guys,” she adds. “Thanks.”

“I’m really sorry about your grandma,” Ellen says, and she gives Ruby’s shoulder a little squeeze.

“Me too,” I say.

Ruby just stands, picking at the corner of the guest book.

“You missed the French quiz. You can borrow my notes if you want,” I say, and immediately wish the words were attached to me on a string so I could reel them back in. Like she cares about a French quiz right now.

“Thanks,” she says quietly.

And then I don’t know what to say until I hear the big oak door open again. “Here comes somebody else.” Maybe they’ll know what to say.

Two blond ladies come clicking in on their high heels. One is a little taller, but otherwise, they could be twins. They’re both wearing suits with short skirts.

“Hmph.” Ruby’s mouth turns up, but it’s not a smile. “That’s my mom’s boss with her assistant. Does she look familiar?”

I stare at the blue eyes and model blond haircut. It does look familiar. Subtract about twenty years, and you’d have . . .

“Bianca?”

Ruby nods. “It’s her mom. Michelle Rinaldi. Watch. You’ll see more family resemblance.”

“Kinda hard to miss,” Ellen whispers. There’s a bottle of fancy spring water sticking out of Mrs. Rinaldi’s bag. That alone would be enough to make an enemy of Ellen.

But there’s more. The taller woman sashays up to Ruby’s mother and takes her hand, but not the way Nonna held it. She holds it more like you’d hold something you pulled out of the drain in the kitchen sink. Her mouth is tight and her words are clipped while she talks to Ruby’s mom. She nods curtly and struts away with her assistant tagging along behind her, never looking toward the casket once. She is mistletoe, I decide. Pretty and poisonous. Like Bianca. As Nonna would say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

“Well,” I say. “I guess we know where Bianca gets it.”

Ruby nods. “The day my pants ripped must have been the greatest day of her life. I heard she went around telling people like it was the most important news in the universe.”

“She’s a jerk, Ruby,” Ellen says. “You’re worth twenty of Bianca.”

“Thanks.”

“See my picture?” Warren Washington runs back up to us waving a colored guest book page. “It’s Ruby, and she’s smiling because she’s the bestest person I know.”

Ellen bends down to get a closer look. Ruby looks over at her mom, talking with Ellen’s mother. And I think about Ruby. I think about how quiet I was when Bianca and Mary Beth were laughing at her, and my face burns. I wonder how Ruby would feel if she knew I didn’t stick up for her much.

Nonna walks over. “Would you girls like to come say a prayer with me?”

“Sure,” I say. Ellen nods. Ruby shakes her head and starts flipping through the guest book again.

I follow Nonna, kneel next to her, and scoot over to make room for Ellen. We say a Hail Mary and an Our Father, and Nonna talks quietly into the casket. She tells Ruby’s grandmother what a beautiful family she has and how nice her voice sounded at church last week, as if Mrs. Kinsella might sit up and say, “Thank you.” When she’s done, Ellen and I both make the sign of the cross and walk back to Ruby, who’s hunched over, writing.