Parked by Danielle Svetcov

Author:Danielle Svetcov
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2020-02-03T16:00:00+00:00

JUNE 30

Cal

The Marina Pacific Middle School gym is buzzing.

“Is it me, or does it smell like French-fried armpit in here?” Jeanne Ann says, ducking behind me as we approach the crowd at mid-court.

I still can’t believe she came to the mixer. “You’d hide in a corner if I didn’t come along,” she said before we entered, but that’s not true and she knows it. She got kinda dressed up too—dressed up for Jeanne Ann. She’s wearing a clean shirt and overalls and smells like soap-dispenser soap. Also her hair is bouncier. Maybe she washed it? I try not to think too hard about what washing hair must be like in the public restroom.

We’ve brought a board game—Monopoly—which we’re supposed to play with the kids we meet, and two servings of dessert, which we just placed in the middle of the gym floor, on plates with labels. Later, there’s going to be a white elephant dessert swap.

“You won’t be trading lemon cake with these kids when school starts. Why are they having you do it now?”

She’s made this point three times since we left the van.

51 DAYS TILL SCHOOL STARTS! A duplicate countdown banner hangs over the scoreboard on the far wall. I really don’t like that banner.

I set up Monopoly while Jeanne Ann leans against a wall, looking bored already. She brought one of the library books I got her, “just in case the party’s a bust”—but I told her we’d leave before things got that terrible.

There aren’t many kids here—maybe sixty—and most have come with parents. Mom says she’d have come along if she didn’t have a shift at work that no one else could cover. I believe her. I don’t think she wants to miss this sort of thing; I don’t think our separate “spheres” stretch this far.

I walk a circuit around the gym. A lot of kids are playing SPIT, the card game. A few look up and smile as I pass. Principal Dan waves me over from a spot near the beverage table.

“Morse Man! Wound check,” he says when I reach him, bending for a look at my elbow.

“Mostly healed,” I say.

“And your friend, the non-reader—is she healed?” He is looking at me, serious.

“She’s probably read the entire library, actually.”

I watch Jeanne Ann kick her heel against the wall on the other side of the gym, nose buried in her book. Principal Dan follows my stare. “Huh. Interesting.”

“She had to sell all her books.”

“Had to?” His face goes still.

I nod. “That one she’s got, that’s from me, from the library,” I make clear, not wanting to say more.

“Well, she needs you over there, then, for moral support.” He gives my arm a pat.

“There’s a chocolate mousse layered with cherries and cream,” I report to Jeanne Ann when I’m back. “I think it might be crème fraiche, not cream, which Mac at Greenery says is way more interesting. And, someone brought bananas foster. I’m going for that one. They soak it in rum. I hope this place is flame retardant.

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