The Problem with Being Slightly Heroic by Uma Krishnaswami

Author:Uma Krishnaswami
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Three

Better with Three

THE FOLLOWING MORNING MADDIE HAS to go to school. Gretchen drops her off, and Dini goes along so she can get to see Maddie’s new school. It’s middle school, since Maddie’s now in sixth grade. The building looks big, and it’s bursting with kids Dini does not know, so she feels a bit out of sorts, out of scene, and in general out of it. It’s no fun.

She’s quiet in the car, going back with Maddie’s mom, who gives her a couple of curious looks but says nothing. Gretchen will be working at home that day. “Are you going to be okay, hanging out all by yourself?” she asks Dini. “I’ll just be in the office room, so let me know if you need anything.”

“Okay,” says Dini, but really, what can she possibly ask for? Perfect dance steps would be good. Also a cake worthy of a star. Somehow she can’t see Maddie’s mom coming up with either.

Dini spends lots of time riffling through Maddie’s bookshelves and watching Dolly videos, and then some time just sort of staring into the middle distance. As it turns out, the slow pace of the day is almost a relief after the frantic excitement of the day before. At the end of it she’s feeling more in control, and her natural optimism is beginning to reassert itself. She thinks, I will pull this dance together, and it will be just fine.

She’s just wondering if the opening steps should be really fast or just dramatic and what kind of hand movements signal drama when Maddie’s mom comes in. She has segued from her accounting work to laundry, and holds a hamper of clothes that need to be folded.

“Look who just came home,” she says.

Maddie’s back, and she’s brought a visitor.

A tall girl peeks from behind Gretchen, Maddie’s laundry-carrying, prop-toting mom.

“Hi,” says the tall girl tripping into the room. “I’m Brenna. Ask me why I’ve been waiting to meet you.” She stands on one leg and spins around quickly three times while asking the question.

Dini is wobbly just watching her. Maddie laughs.

Dini does not know what to say, which is a new feeling for her. “Ask me,” Brenna persists.

“Why have you been waiting to meet me?” Dini asks, feeling a bit silly. It is what Dad would call a loaded question. What if she doesn’t like the answer?

“Tons of reasons,” says Brenna enthusiastically, stretching one hand behind her back and catching it with the other, a feat that Dini herself could never pull off. “Because you’re Maddie’s friend. And because of Dolly. Isn’t Dolly, like, a dozen reasons right there, all by herself?” She raises herself up on tiptoe and spins around again.

Dini steps back to get out of the way, and ends up sitting down with a thump on Maddie’s bed. “I guess,” she says, and finds herself blinking.

Maddie’s mom laughs. “You girls,” she says fondly, in the manner of one speaking to puppies whose friskiness is getting out of hand. “You’re—how do you say it? Stunning?” She picks an escaped sock up off the floor.

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