Flying Lessons & Other Stories(18)

“You stepped away to talk to Scott in the store,” I say, “and I wasn’t thinking.”

It’s a dangerous move to bring up Scott, because Mom knows I actually like this guy. He thinks I’m an ace cartoonist.

“Well, next time you want something, all you have to do is say so,” Mom says in her distracted voice. I can hear her clicking away on the keyboard at her real estate office. “For the record, when I was in sixth grade I definitely would’ve preferred eye shadow over shoelaces. But it’s a new generation, I guess.” Clickety-click-click. “I’ll return whichever gift you don’t give her.”

“Mmkay,” I say, and then Mom’s cell phone rings at work, so I go, “Take that call!” and she says, “Hey—love you, Sam.”

Five minutes later I’ve spread my art notebooks all over the kitchen table when it hits me that Mom called me Sam. Which makes me grin so hard that I snag a lip on my braces, and I don’t even care.

Priorities: I take out my freshest green marker and try to draw Blade a good homemade card to go along with her shoelaces. But my Christmas trees are lopsided and my bubble letters are a joke.

Typical Tuesday.

So I text Henry, wanna come over for a snack my mom made cupcaaaakes last night, and both of his dads say it’s okay, and literally only twenty minutes later he has provided me with an accidental vanilla frosting smear across a black sheet of construction paper.

It’s going to make an amazing snowman.

I give in and tell Henry that I’m Blade’s Santa. Saying her elf name out loud makes her…real. (It also makes my chest go bah-boom and my left thumb twitch. As if the allergic reaction is spreading.)

“You didn’t sign the card,” Henry points out. His chin is a cupcake disaster zone.

I write, To Blade! From, GUESS WHO, and I fold the card into an origami rabbit (my specialty), which reminds me that I have to feed Sir Hop-a-Lot. And so I do.

Then Henry and I wrap the skull shoelaces in an old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, which is a big deal.

Calvin and Hobbes is my favorite.

—

The week goes on with barely any more snow. Which, boo.

But one nice thing is: in homeroom on Wednesday, Abby and Reagan and Parker separately ask me to be their gift deliverer, because I’m “so secretive.”

Which I didn’t even know about myself.

Another funny thing is: Abby got Reagan as an elf and Reagan got Abby, by coincidence. And Abby bought Reagan this lip gloss that changes color depending on your mood, and Reagan bought Abby this ring that changes color depending on your mood. Crazy, right?

Wednesday during lunch I leave the lip gloss in Reagan’s cubby, and she squeals when she finds it. And then on Wednesday afternoon I’m alone in the back hallway, by the emergency exit, and I see my next chance. I tape the mood ring to Abby’s locker, but when I back away I hear a raspy California voice say, “You are sneaky.”

It’s Blade. I get stupid. “I’m not Abby’s Santa!” I say. Which is a catastrophe. I should be playing it cool, but I’m useless when caught. “I’m just a delivery elf!”

“Uh, don’t you mean ninja?” Blade says, and I give her a huh? look and she goes: “Elves are outlawed around these parts, Sparkles.”

Bah-boom. Twitch. Bah-boom. Twitch.

I can’t tell if she’s making fun of me, but then she says, “I’m kidding,” and I giggle and pinch my elbow skin and look at anything but Blade’s face.

That’s when I notice she’s got on standard-issue Mary Janes now. Just like the rest of us.

“Aren’t those the worst?” I say.

She looks down and looks up and says, “I feel as if I’m wearing a costume.” I giggle again, and then: silence.

The period bell goes off about a million hours later.

Blade says, “Social studies,” I say, “Band practice,” and we both make yuck faces before heading in opposite directions.

But I turn back around. “Is it true you have pet snakes?”

“Snakes” echoes in the hallway, which is impressive. If I’m known for anything, it’s for how hard I am to hear. But my voice echoes three times: snakes, snakes, snakes.

She stands there looking at me like that one confused emoji. But then Blade smiles—I notice she’s got braces, too—and goes: “If ‘snakes’ is the worst they’re saying about me, that’s pretty good.”

Which isn’t exactly a no.

“Cool,” I say. And then: “I have a rabbit and I used to have a ferret!”

She gives me the thumbs-up before jutting it down the hall. “Social studies,” she says again, and off she disappears.

It dawns on me, fifteen minutes later in the middle of band practice, that Blade must have been wearing color-changing lip gloss, because as we were hanging out back there discussing ninjas and Mary Janes and snakes, her smile went from green to purple.

—

On Thursday morning I wake up in a sweat, and I hate sweating, which is why Henry and I always walk the mile in gym class.

I didn’t sleep well last night because of a nightmare. In it, I realized that if Blade was in fact wearing mood-change lip gloss, maybe she is a “makeup girl,” after all. Maybe she’d prefer the makeup to the shoelaces for a present, which I’d planned to give her, at last, today.