Where'd You Go, Bernadette(13)

Warm regards,

Manjula





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To: Manjula Kapoor

From: Bernadette Fox





If it’s good enough for astronauts and cancer patients, it’s good enough for me! Call it in!



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Note from Audrey Griffin


Tom,



Here’s the check for your past work. To confirm, we’ll meet at my place Monday afternoon and pop up the hill to the house with the blackberry bushes. I understand your hesitation about entering the neighbor’s property uninvited. But I know for a fact nobody will be there.



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MONDAY, DECEMBER 6


That day, we had art sixth period, and I had gunk in my throat, so I stepped into the hall to spit it in the water fountain, which is what I always did when I was in art. Who turned the corner as I was hawking it up? Mrs. Webb, the nurse. She got all panicked that I was spreading germs, which I tried to explain I wasn’t, because white phlegm is dead germs. Ask a real doctor and not some office administrator whose only justification for calling herself a nurse isn’t nursing school but a box of Band-Aids she keeps in her desk.

“I’ll get my backpack,” I grumbled.

I’d like to point out that Mr. Levy, my biology and homeroom teacher, has a daughter who has viral-induced asthma like me, and she plays travel hockey, so he knows my cough is no big deal. In a million years he would never send me to Mrs. Webb’s office. When I get gunk in my throat, it’s easy to tell because I’ll be answering a question and my voice will start cutting out like a bad cell-phone connection. Mr. Levy will do this thing where he passes me a tissue behind his back. Mr. Levy is really funny. He lets the turtles walk around the classroom, and once he brought in liquid nitrogen and started freezing our uneaten lunch.

I didn’t feel that bad about Mom having to pick me up early, because it was already sixth period. The thing I mainly felt bad about was that I wouldn’t get to tutor at homework lab. The fourth graders were doing a debate, and I was helping them prepare. Their class was studying China, and the debate was going to be pro and con Chinese occupation of Tibet. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Galer Street is so ridiculous that it goes beyond PC and turns back in on itself to the point where fourth graders are actually having to debate the advantages of China’s genocide of the Tibetan people, not to mention the equally devastating cultural genocide. I wanted them to say that one of the pros was that Chinese occupation is helping with the world food shortage because there are fewer Tibetan mouths to feed. But Mr. Lotterstein overheard me and told me I’d better not dare.

There I was, sitting on the overpass steps in the rain. (We weren’t allowed to wait in the office ever since Kyle Griffin was sent there one day, and when nobody was looking he went through the Galer Street directory and started calling all the parents from the main office number. So when the parents looked at their cell phones, it said there was an incoming call from Galer Street. They’d answer, and Kyle screamed, “There’s been an accident!” and hung up. From then on, all the kids had to wait outside.) Mom drove up. She didn’t even ask how I was because she knows Mrs. Webb is totally annoying. On the drive home, I started playing my new flute. Mom never lets me play in the car because she’s afraid someone might crash into us and my flute will impale me into the seat. I find that ridiculous, because how could that even happen?

“Bee—” Mom said.

“I know, I know.” I put the flute away.

“No,” Mom said. “Is that new? I’ve never seen it before.”

“It’s a Japanese flute called a shakuhachi. Mr. Kangana lent it to me from his collection. The first graders are going to sing for the parents on World Celebration Day and I’m going to accompany them. Last week, I went to rehearse, and they were just standing there singing. It was my idea they should do a little elephant dance, so I get to choreograph it.”

“I didn’t know you’re choreographing a dance for the first graders.” Mom said. “That’s a huge deal, Bee.”

“Not really.”

“You need to tell me these things. Can I come?”

“I’m not sure when it is.” I knew she didn’t like coming to school, and probably wouldn’t, so why pretend.

We got home, and I went up to my room, and Mom did what she always did, which was go out to the Petit Trianon.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned the Petit Trianon yet. Mom likes to get out of the house during the day, especially because Norma and her sister come to clean, and they talk really loudly to each other from room to room. Plus the gardeners come inside to weed-whack. So Mom got an Airstream trailer and had a crane lower it into the backyard. It’s where her computer is, and where she spends most of her time. I was the one who named it the Petit Trianon, after Marie Antoinette, who had a whole mini-estate built at Versailles, where she could go when she needed a break from Versailles.

So that’s where Mom was, and I was upstairs starting my homework, when Ice Cream began barking.

From the backyard, I heard Mom’s voice. “Can I help you with something?” she said, all dripping with sarcasm.

There was an idiotic little shriek.

I went to the window. Mom was standing on the lawn with Audrey Griffin and some guy in boots and overalls.