The Whole Story of Half a Girl (2 page)

“Tell me more about the trouble you got into,” I say to him.

Dad rubs his face with both hands. “I want to help you, I do. When’s your report due?” he says, looking up, blinking.

“In a couple of days,” I tell him, but it’s actually due tomorrow.

“Is it all right if we talk more tomorrow, then?”

“Sure.” I know I’ll just end up Googling what I need for the rest. “Dad, is everything going to be okay?”

“It’ll be fine,” he says, leaning over to kiss my forehead. “Now get some sleep.”

* * *

A week later, when Natasha and I are in the bathroom getting ready for bed, Mom knocks on the door even though it’s halfway open. Natasha’s sitting on the toilet and I’m brushing my teeth. Natasha always sings in the bathroom, and she’s pretty bad, but I find myself brushing to the beat anyway as she belts out “When the Saints Go Marching In” at the top of her lungs.

“Girls,” Mom says. She only calls us “girls” when she’s mad or has bad news. Natasha stops singing. I stop brushing. “I’m afraid that next week will be your last at Community. You’ll both be starting public school in September.”

I look at Natasha and she starts crying. She gets up and flushes the toilet, still in tears. Mom hugs her and smooths her hair back. I don’t cry. I don’t believe what Mom has just said. I spit and rinse.

“I know you might feel sad now,” she says, “but it’ll be an exciting new experience. I promise.”

Natasha and I have always gone to Community. It’s different from other schools. All the classes are really small. Everyone sits around a big table instead of desks, and we call our teachers by their first names. We don’t have to raise our hands for permission to speak or go to the bathroom. This doesn’t mean everyone just does whatever they want. We have rules, and most of the time everybody listens. I’ve been in class with the same ten kids since kindergarten, and Jack’s
been our teacher for the last two years. I don’t know how to be in another kind of school—the kind I’ve read about where thirty kids have to walk in line and call their teachers Mr. This and Ms. That. I stop looking at Natasha and look at Mom. She has tears in her eyes too.

“Does this have to do with Dad being fired?” I ask. Asking a lot of questions normally makes me feel better. Dad says it’s good that I like to ask questions, because it will make me a better journalist, which is what I want to be someday. Since this whole thing happened, I’ve been afraid to ask questions. This question, though, just flies right out of me.

“Yes and no,” Mom answers.

I wait for her to say more. Natasha waits too, sticking her finger in her ear and scratching it good.

“This change was inevitable, honey,” Mom goes on.

“What’s iniv-table?” Natasha asks. Mom always uses big words. That’s her thing, being an English professor.

“It means it had to happen sooner or later. Community only goes up to eighth grade, you know that. We didn’t plan on making such an abrupt change, but Dad and I have been worried that you’re not getting enough at Community. Enough of the basics.”

I’m not sure what she could possibly mean. I have my best friend, Sam, and the greatest teacher, who takes us camping and teaches us about the world. I know how to
make sushi and take sap from a tree. I know where Saudi Arabia is. Next year we’re going to learn how to write an entire play and perform it. Isn’t that
enough
?

“So that’s the no part,” I say. “What’s the yes part?”

“The yes part is …” Mom clears her throat as she takes her pinkie nail and drags it back and forth across her lips. It’s what Mom does when she’s thinking. “That Community is expensive. We already pay taxes for the public schools, and they’re good schools.”

“And then we can go back,” Natasha says, her voice as bright as the sun. “After you guys get more money?”

Mom doesn’t look off into the distance anymore, but right at Natasha, as if it’s the first time she’s really noticing we’re both there. Her face softens. “Don’t worry about money, hon. That’s for me and Dad to think about, and we’re fine, but I don’t think you’ll go back.”

Of course I have more questions. What’s going to happen to me and Sam? How could any other teacher be as cool as Jack? I want to ask Mom, if the public schools are so good, why did she send us to Community in the first place? But I don’t ask anything else. Because I’m going to Community next year, somehow.

Mom makes sure we’re dressed for bed and heads to Natasha’s room to read her a book. I go to my room and sit at my big dark wooden desk. It used to be Dad’s until he got a bigger one for the study. The top is covered in glass and
Dad let me have his ink blotter, his stapler, and his old leather organizer, where I keep all my pens, pencils, and markers. I even have an old-fashioned fountain pen that you fill with ink. I always feel important when I sit there, like I’m the president of my room.

Right in the middle of the desk is my summer reading list, which Jack handed out today. It looks like any ordinary printout we’d get from school. But now it’s the saddest piece of paper I’ve ever seen. I start reading the titles from the top:
The Black Pearl, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, The Giver, True Believer, A Wrinkle in Time
 …

My throat catches on
A Wrinkle in Time
, one of my favorite books. Just like that, I tear the list into tiny pieces and throw them into the air. The pieces twirl and float and finally come to rest on my beige carpet.

I climb into bed. My bed is under a big window, and if I keep the curtains open I can look up and see the whole sky. On a clear night, the blinking of all those stars against the blue-black makes me feel small in a good way. My problems could never be as big as the night sky.

chapter three

Saturday comes just like it always does, but it’s not just any Saturday. It’s a Sleepover-at-Sam’s Saturday. Normally I’d be bouncing off the walls with excitement, but instead I feel like a pile of wet newspaper. In the afternoon, Mom drops me off at Sam’s house, waves to Sam’s mom, Sadie, and drives away. When I see Mom’s red Honda turn out of their driveway and disappear, I have to stop myself from running after her.

Sadie slices off huge hunks of her homemade raisin challah bread, slathers them with butter, makes me and Sam two plates with cold glasses of milk, and then goes off to work in her studio in the attic.

Sadie’s like a second mom to me. She’s a tiny lady with short spiky red hair the same color as Sam’s, and she wears long skirts and big chunky silver necklaces and bracelets that she makes herself. She sells her jewelry to stores, even really
fancy ones in New York City, which then sell her stuff for like a million dollars. She gives me and my mom jewelry all the time as presents. My favorite is a little silver cat pin with emerald-green eyes that she made last year for my birthday.

Sam and I take the challah and milk to her room. It’s quiet since Asher, Sam’s little brother, is at a friend’s house. And Sam’s dad, Ben, is at the café he owns. He’s there a lot. Sometimes on weekends Sam and I get to help behind the counter and do stuff like make people smoothies or fill up their water.

We sit cross-legged on Sam’s pink shaggy rug eating the thick, buttery bread, and of course it’s amazing. Sadie makes it every Friday for Shabbat dinner. Going to Sam’s for Shabbat dinner is one of my favorite things to do. The smell of just-baked bread goes so nicely with our singing, prayers, and lighting of the candles. Mom only makes Shabbat dinner if my grandparents are visiting. We don’t do a lot of what other Jewish families do. I guess that’s because Mom’s Jewish and Dad’s not. I don’t even know if we count as a real Jewish family any more than we count as an Indian one.

I focus on chewing and wait for Sam to say something. Just being in Sam’s room makes me feel better, though. Everything is a different color. The bunk beds are blue. Her rug is pink. The walls are green. Her dresser is yellow, all painted by Sam and Sadie. It’s like living inside a rainbow.

“I can’t wait for summer,” she says.

I nod and chew.

“It better stop raining or we won’t be able to camp.”

More nodding and chewing on my part.

“What’s wrong?” she says. “You haven’t said much.”

Once I meet her eyes I think I’m going to cry. Then I swallow a raisin the wrong way. While I cough, she smacks me on the back.

“Sonia, what’s going on?” she asks after I finally stop coughing.

“I’ve got to tell you something,” I say, my voice scratchy. “It’s not good.”

“Did someone die?” she asks.

“What? No. It’s just—it’s just that my parents said I can’t go to Community next year.” Then I exhale as if I’ve been holding my breath for a long time.

“What? Why?” she says, her mouth full of bread.

“My dad got fired from his job.”

“Really?” Sam says.

“So anyway, I don’t think we can afford Community anymore. But don’t worry, I’ll figure something out.”

“Like what?” Sam asks, and chews fast now, swallowing hard. “Because you have to. We can’t go to different schools. We just
can’t
.”

“I know. I just haven’t thought of anything yet.”

“We could buy a bunch of lottery tickets,” Sam says.

“Are you serious?”

“Sort of. I have thirty bucks saved up. What do you have?”

“No.” I shake my head and wipe some butter off my mouth. “I can’t let you do that. We’re just going to waste our money.”

“I got it! Duh,” she says as she stands up, breadcrumbs dropping to the ground. She points to the ceiling. “Apply for financial aid!”

I’m not even sure what financial aid is, exactly. I open my mouth, but before I say anything Sam goes on.

“That’s what we do, although we may not have to anymore, now that my mom makes jewelry for Angelina Jolie.”

“She does?”

“Well, Angelina bought a necklace that my mom made in some store.”

“Wow,” I say, wondering which necklace it was.

“But if you don’t have enough money, you just fill out some forms and then the government gives you the amount you need.”

“That’s it?” I say.

“That’s it,” Sam says, and then she bites her lip. “At least, I think that’s it.” She plops herself down and takes another bite. We both chew in silence for a few seconds.

“But what if that doesn’t work?” I ask.

Sam is quiet for a moment. Then she speaks. “It has to work. My cousin had a best friend and …” She trails off.

“What? Tell me.”

“Well, her friend moved to the next town and switched schools,” she says, sitting back down. She looks at me hard. “And now they’re not friends anymore.”

My chest feels tight. “That wouldn’t happen to us,” I say quickly.

“I guess not.” She picks up the stuffed pink bunny she’s had since she was a baby and throws it across the room. It lands in a pile of dirty clothes by her closet.

“It’s not my fault, Sam,” I say.

“I know,” she says, twisting one of her red curls over and over into a knot.

We try to have fun after, but now Sam’s the one who acts quiet and weird. She doesn’t look me in the eye. Sadie makes turkey burgers out on the grill and afterward we have s’mores, but Sam suddenly doesn’t feel like camping out, even though it stops raining. So we watch
E.T
. for the millionth time and go to sleep after barely talking. We don’t even use the spy pen-flashlights.

Mom picks me up late the next morning, the sun already blazing down like it’s the middle of July. I hug both Sadie and Sam extra hard, but Sam’s arms don’t hold me as tight as mine hold her.

“Jeez, Sonia, we’ll see you again,” Sadie says after my bear hug.

“Did you have fun?” Mom asks after we drive quietly for a few minutes.

I nod, looking out the window.

“You seem down.”

“Did you know that Sam gets financial aid to go to Community?”

“A lot of people do,” Mom says in a low, calm voice.

“So why can’t we?”

Mom drives slowly. I can see her turning my words over in her head. “Sam said you just fill out some forms and the government gives you money.”

Mom laughs. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

We turn into our driveway and come to a stop in front of the garage. For some reason Mom never parks in the garage and Dad always does.

“You really love it there, huh?” she says, taking the keys out of the ignition and turning toward me.

“It’s more than just school to me. I can’t leave it. What about the sixth-grade play?” I tell her. “I’ve been waiting forever to be in that play.” The play is one of the biggest things that happens at Community because the sixth graders write it and perform it themselves.

“Let me talk to Dad,” Mom says. “But don’t get your hopes up.”

A ripple of happiness shoots through my body. Mom is good at convincing Dad to do things. She was the one who convinced him to take us to India last year. You’d think it would have been the other way around, but for some reason
Dad didn’t want to go. He said the trip would be too hard on us, that Natasha and I were too young. But Mom said it was important to visit while we were still kids so that India would feel like a part of us as we grew up. She pointed out that my Indian cousins had been going every year since they were babies, and that we had already taken a big trip to Israel and that worked out fine. When he gave in and we were finally in India, he seemed to forget that it had been her idea. He kept saying things like, “Look around, kids. This is a part of who you are.” So if Mom thought I needed to stay at Community, she would make it happen.