Paper Things

Score Cards

    I sit up taller in my wobbly desk chair and try to tune back in to Mr. O. talking about supply and demand. At least, that's what he was talking about five minutes ago, before my mind drifted back, once again, to the night we left Janna's.

    Janna, our guardian, had been on the phone with someone, tidying up the living room as she talked. "My daughter has always excelled," she said.

    Gage had been passing through the kitchen, searching for his phone charger. I'd looked up from the breakfast bar, where I was studying the Pottery Barn catalog, to see if he'd heard Janna. Sure enough, I saw him give a little shake of his head.

    He'd turned to me, but I'd quickly looked down, as if the decorative pillows needed my full attention. I didn't know if he was mad that Janna was bragging on me, that she had called me her daughter, or that she was pretending that nothing was wrong (probably all three), but my feelings were too much of a mishmash to give him the conspiratorial smile he was expecting.

    When Janna hung up, Gage asked, loudly enough for her to hear, "Are you packed?"

    I'd nodded, this time not daring to look a Janna. I hadn't packed much: my school uniforms, socks and underwear, a couple of weekend outfits, pajamas, a picture of our mother when she was a girl, and my Paper Things. The shoe box I kept my Paper Things in wouldn't fit in my duffel, so I'd carefully placed them in a double-pocket folder that I found in Janna's decks. Gage said I should pack only the essentials--that we'd come back for the rest later. But I'd overheard Janna tell Gage that "the rest" were things that she had purchased and therefore belonged to her.

    "Is there laundry in you apartment building?" Janna asked Gage. "Are you going to make sure that Ari has clean clothes for school?"

    I kept my head down but sat perfectly still. I'd asked lots of my own questions about our new apartment, but so far my brother had been vague with his answers. Mostly he'd said, "Wait till you see, Ari! You'll be able to decorate real rooms in our place."

    "Who do you think did her laundry before we came here?" he said, and then bolted upstairs to his room before Janna could say anything more. 

    "I should call Legal Services," she said, more to the air than to me. "I don't care that he's you brother. I don't care that he's nineteen. I'm sure they would agree you should stay put." She paced, but she didn't call. Gage said that she couldn't call, because if the truth came out about how she'd treated him and how she was trying to keep up apart, she'd lose any chance she had of ever getting me back. Not that he planned on giving me back, he'd been quick to reassure me.

    By the time Gage had returned downstairs--with my duffel bag and his back pack in tow--I'd finished with the Pottery Barn catalog and stood by the sink, as if waiting for a bus. As soon as Gage was within earshot, Janna turned to me and said, "Who do you  want to live with, Ari?"

    I'd been dreading that moment. For days the two of them had been battling, fighting to claim me, like I was a goldfish and not an eleven-year-old person who has her very own feelings.

    But I was ready for it. I'd been practicing my answer; "I wish---"

    "Don't do that to her!" Gage shouted, getting up in Janna's face. "Don't put her on the spot like that. You know she doesn't want to hurt you. But I'm her family! Not you. Me!

    "Your mother wouldn't want---" Janna started.

    "Our mother said to stay together," Gage shouted. "Always! 'Stay together always!' Those were her exact words."

    Janna had folded her arms and pursed her lips. It was a look that Gage often imitated to make fun of her--though I could tell that he was way beyond being amused at this point.