Four Rubbings

Chapter Eleven: Josie's Crappy School Day

"DID ANYONE ELSE have bad dreams last night?" I group text to Casey and Blaze.

Blaze answers, "Slept like a baby."

"As in wearing diapers?" Casey returns.

I usually know better than to text on the car ride to school, because texting on this twisty road makes me feel sick. But today I am anxious to find out if anyone else had weird dreams after our field trip to Lakefront Cemetery. I crack my window and wait for the nausea to fade, as Dad threads his silver Euro-sedan to the school Owen and I have attended since preschool: Heritage Preparatory School.

Taking us to school is one big ego stroke for my father, which makes me wonder why he doesn't do it more often. When Mom got sick, Dad signed me up to ride the shuttle to school. It was fun back then because Seth rode the bus, too. It felt like a grown-up thing to do at the time. We always sat together and talked about big things like history and weather and death, things we imagined adults had conversations about on their commutes to work. I found out more about the history of the Beaux Arts Village, the neighborhood that hosts our fair school, than is natural to know at the age of eight. But the village is ripe with historical trivia which Seth adores.

Established in 1908 by a group of architects and artisans, the Beaux Arts society purchased fifty acres of wooded forest to create an idyllic Arts and Crafts community. People were invited to join the new community, as long as they built their homes in strict adherence to the aesthetics laid out in the founding documents. With a goal to be an independent entity, no roads were paved to reach the village. A ferry system was built to shuttle people across Lake Washington to jobs in downtown Seattle. Nearly perfectly preserved more than a century later, visitors still come to explore this living history book, take in the Arts and Crafts houses and wander the last remnants of the ferry pier.

Midway through fourth grade, my ride to school got very lonely. It was the year of Seth's great rebellion. His perfect world crashed, his parents divorced, and Seth deemed his father to be the worst person in the world. The best way Seth could figure to get revenge was to fail school. But, all he really got was an angry parent and a desk in the public school down the street. And I got to ride the bus alone. No more big conversations. No more history lessons. It was sad, but Iadjusted.

When I was in fifth grade, Owen started preschool and Daddrove us to school. Not to have quality time with us, he drove us toHeritage for the opportunity to watch as his drawings became reality eachmorning. He was the principle architect in charge of our school's major renovation. The project was his first in the historicneighborhood and would bring him a slew of awards and accolades. I knew he was driving us for him, but I did not care. Having a parent at school again felt good and I accepted it under any terms.

I check the screen on my phone for a text as we pull up to the curb at school. I open Owen's car door and grab his lunch sack from the seat. I stroke the wrinkles from the back of his khaki pants and he wiggles past, racing up the front steps to the entrance of our three-story private school.

"I win!" Owen yells and his breath comes out in a puff of white steam. He throws his hands in the air and does a victory dance.

"You always win!" I tousle his hair, undoing all my earlier hardwork.

Before pushing inside the heavy front door, Owen and I turn toward the street below and send off our dad with a wave. As his car turns onto the arterial, I open the door and shepherd my brother inside.

As I walk Owen to the elementary school corridor, I take a look out the common area window wall to see if there are ducks on the lake outside, or even blue herons or eagles. Except for a runner with a dog, the park is empty.

My brother lets go of my hand before I can kiss him goodbye and runs down the hall toward a blonde girl with braids hanging down the front of her pink dress. She smiles and waves frantically at Owen.

"Have a good day, buddy. I love you. Think about cat names, all right?" I suggest.

Feeling uncharacteristically late, I make my way down the packed corridor of the high school wing at running speed. The hall is thick with the teens of Seattle's most famous residents, all busy sendingone last text, offloading tonnage from their backpacks, flirting,primping, and generally loitering. My padlock is barely open when Blaze and Casey approach.

As I say a quick hello then unzip my backpack and unearth a notebook, pencil pouch, and a slim laptop, stopping briefly toinspect my friends.

Blaze looks at me like he's gauging my mood. "You doing okay? You left in a hurry last night," he asks.

"Yep! I was just really tired," I say.

Casey shuts her locker and comes at me. "I'm going back to the cemetery today. Do you want to go?" Her hair, tied with a thin silver ribbon, swings over her shoulders.

"Yeah. I have to find Baby Sacagawea. Why are you going back?" I ask.

"I want to see if Ettore's parents have been back since last night," Casey answers. "I've got to know if they've changed all thatHalloween stuff over to Thanksgiving décor. It's sick, I know." She wraps arainbow scarf around her neck and adjusts her jean mini-skirt; her calculator slips out from the pile in her arms, dropping to the floor with a clack.

I pick up the calculator and hand it back to her, "You're obsessed, Casey! But, whatever. Has anyone texted Seth to see if he wants to come?"

"I'll do it now," says Blaze. "I'd follow along, but I've got Aikido at four." He taps in a message and hits 'Send.'

"Has the first bell rung?" I notice the necklace with my mother's ring has slipped free of its hiding place beneath my sweater. It must have slipped free when I went for the calculator. I tuck the ring safely away again.

"Not yet. You have a couple minutes. Relax, little one," Blaze says patting the top of my head. He loves to remind me how short I am. He turns his attention back to his phone.

"Hey! Did you get to keep the cat, Josie?" Casey asks.

"Yeah," I say. My mind returns to the freaky dream and my mystery text. "Hey, did any of you have bad dreams last night?"

"Don't you read your texts?" Blaze answers. "I told you; I slept like a baby."

"Oh, yeah. Does that mean you sucked your thumb?" Casey jabs, again.

She sticks her thumb in her mouth and smashes up her face. Blaze yanks her hand from her mouth, laughing. The two start to scrap and wrestle. Casey's scarf falls to the floor and they grab it at the same time, tugging it until the fabric rips. The bell rings for class and pink-faced and disheveled, Casey and Blaze break it up and turn to theirlockers.

"Seriously. No one had a bad dream besides me? We spent Halloween in a cemetery rubbing graves. It's normal, right?" I ask.My friends stare at me like I've grown a third head.

Blaze squints into my face. "Josie, you've always had bad dreams. Was something about last night's worse than all the others?"

"Yeah. It's no big thing, though," I say, my face aimed to the ground. "It was about my mom."

"Dude, that's not exactly a bad dream," says Casey.

"Well, she wasn't really herself. She came to me as a ghost, and she wanted me to let her in the house. But, I didn't do it."

My cheeks flush and I duck my head into my locker, pretending to dock my phone, praying they haven't noticed.

"That's creepy," Casey mutters. "But you didn't rub her grave, so..."

Blaze's phone dings and he checks the screen. "Seth is a no-go tonight. He's got a dad thing lined up. We're gonna be late, folks. Let's roll."

Like the kids around us, we scramble for our things and then race to our classes with a quick goodbye. I'm glad to get away from them before they see any more cracks in me that I forgot to cover up with makeup. Being me can be very exhausting.