Change Places with Me(27)

“How can it not?” Mr. Slocum said.

“That’s seriously not fair!” Selena stomped her foot.

“Life isn’t fair,” Mr. Slocum said.

Neither is death, it occurred to Clara. And that doesn’t leave much else.





CHAPTER 15


Clara waited on a wooden bench next to Ms. Pratt’s office. The pale October sky was turning orange, and she could see a tattered net on the basketball court outside. It was quiet except for muffled voices behind Ms. Pratt’s door.

The door opened—and out came Kim Garcia. She had on a ruffled orange shirt and sweatpants. “What happened?” she said to Clara with a worried look.

“It’s nothing.” Clara had long fingers, and she tangled them like vines. “Just a misunderstanding.”

“Well, I’m here for something completely stupid. I was in the library when Nick Winter, that idiot, knocked over a lamp, because he and Dylan Beck were goofing around, shoving each other. The librarian collected everybody’s names in case she needed to talk to us later—about the ‘incident’—and I got mad because, you know, I had nothing to do with it, so I signed a fake name. Which made them think I was losing it.”

Clara didn’t mean to, but she couldn’t help asking, “What name did you use?”

“Alison Wanda Landa. It’s actually a girl in my building. Her dad’s a dentist, Dr. Landa, and he named his daughter Alison Wanda.”

There, Kim was doing it again, acting as if nothing had gone wrong between them. Usually Clara would just not respond; sometimes she would cut the conversation short, in order to remind Kim they weren’t close anymore.

But now, for just a second, Clara felt how it used to be with her and Kim, as if no time had passed, and the entire last seven years hadn’t happened yet. “That’s the dumbest name I ever heard,” she said with some energy.

“I know, right?”

The door opened. “You may come in now,” said a woman.

It wasn’t Ms. Pratt.

The woman looked as young as a teenager herself, in a corduroy dirndl and feathery ash-blond hair with two tiny floating butterfly barrettes clipped to her head. That was last year’s big thing. Selena had worn them all through ninth grade and wouldn’t be caught dead in them now.

“You’re not Ms. Pratt.” Clara jutted her chin at the door, which clearly said MS. PRATT.

“Ms Pratt had a family emergency. I am Ms. Gruskin.” She smiled, displaying a butterfly tattoo on her front tooth. She smelled like strawberries. “What is your name?”

Clara told her.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“I was sent.”

“Won’t you come in and have a seat?”

Clara knew this office—she’d been here a few times in ninth grade and once already in tenth. Evil Lynn had insisted that Clara make appointments with the psychologist in middle school and now in high school, too. Ms. Pratt was nice enough, but of course Clara had nothing to say to her.

She sat on the couch across from Ms. Gruskin at the desk and stared at tall flowers trapped in a vase filled with stones and water. The indentation in the couch fit perfectly, as if Kim, her friend from long ago, had made a point of breaking it in for her.

“Who sent you here?”

“Mr. Slocum.”

“And he teaches—?”

“Bio.”

“Why did he send you?”

“I couldn’t cut into a virtual frog.”

Ms. Gruskin’s butterflies sagged. “Help me to understand, Clara. You know that all dissections are virtual these days. I can see being opposed to the killing of live animals—in the old days kids held chloroform over the mouths of frogs until they were dead, if you can imagine that. But these frogs were never alive, so what’s the problem?”

Clara tangled her fingers again. Music teachers often said it was a shame she didn’t want to play piano. She had the perfect hands for it.

“Perhaps if I knew something about you, Clara, I’d understand this better. When you’re not in school, what do you do? For fun.”

“Crossword puzzles.”

“That is fun! I can do the New York Times Monday and Tuesday puzzles, but once it gets to Wednesday, no thank you! Do you do sports? You’re so tall. I always wished I were taller! Do you play basketball?”

Clara was almost six feet. Basketball coaches used to pursue her, and she had to tell them she wasn’t interested. Piano, basketball—maybe her body was suited to those things, but Clara wasn’t.

“What about clubs? The school musical? I hear it’s Into the Woods this year. I love that show. Do you know the song that says ‘Children will listen’?”

“Try telling that to Mr. Slocum,” Clara said under her breath.

Ms. Gruskin cocked her head, but Clara had nothing to add.

“Tell me about your friends, Clara. In the cafeteria, do you eat at a big crowded table with lots of kids, or with only one special friend?”

“I eat by myself.” She would do a crossword puzzle and eat a poppy-seed bagel with cream cheese and three chocolate chip cookies that came in a pack. The bushy-haired kid at the scanner sometimes said things like “Why don’t you surprise me sometime, with oatmeal-raisin cookies instead? Astound me with a sesame-seed bagel! I hope my heart can take it.” Clara always ignored him.