Absolutely Almost(62)

            Hannah Schaffhauser

            It was a long signature, and hard to get just right.

            I couldn’t get it perfect, no matter how hard I tried. Only almost perfect.

            Hannah Schaffhauser

            But almost was better than nothing.

            I pushed away the piece of scrap paper and looked at the note I’d printed. All ready for me to give to Mrs. Rouse, except for Mom’s signature.

            If I signed the note and told Mrs. Rouse it was from my mom, then I’d be lying. And if I got caught, I’d get in trouble.

            But if I didn’t sign it and give it to Mrs. Rouse, then Mrs. Rouse would probably call my mom to ask why I was out, and then Mom would know that I didn’t go to school, and then Calista would get in trouble. And I didn’t think Calista should get in trouble, because what she did was a nice thing, giving me a sad day when I needed a sad day. And it did make me feel better, even if Darren Ackleman still called me “dummy” about nine times every day. It made me feel better because I knew that last Monday, while Darren Ackleman was doing social studies worksheets, I’d seen a python eating a pig. And that was worth a million and a half bad names.

            I pressed my pen hard into the paper, and I signed it.





worrying.




            When I gave the note to Mrs. Rouse the next morning, all that happened was she read it, and she looked at me, and then she looked back at the note, and she said, “Thank you, Albie. You can sit down now.”

            That was it.

            I don’t know what I was so worried about. I didn’t get in trouble at all.





the worst

worst thing.




            The worst thing that happens is always the one thing you thought would never, ever happen.

            “Where’s Calista?” I asked when my mom picked me up on the blacktop after school that day. Mom never picked me up. It was always Calista.

            “Albie,” Mom said. She reached her hand out to take my backpack from me, but I didn’t want to give it to her. I didn’t like the way she said “Albie.” It was the way to say it that had bad news after it. “I need to talk to you about something.”

            “Where’s Calista?” I said. We followed the other kids and their nannies and parents out to the sidewalk, and Mom still didn’t answer. “Where’s Calista?” I asked again, because I thought maybe she didn’t hear me. “Is she sick?”

            “Albie.”

            We were on the corner, next to a garbage can overflowing with garbage, and Mom knelt down to look at me while we waited for the light. She looked like she didn’t want to say what she was about to say. I felt hot all of a sudden inside my puffy jacket, like I was coming down with a fever.

            “Calista isn’t going to be your babysitter anymore,” my mom said.

            I couldn’t breathe when she said that. I couldn’t blink.

            “Albie, sweetie. Look at me.”

            “Did she get hurt?” I asked. “Did she move?” I couldn’t believe Calista would just decide not to be my babysitter without even telling me. She taught me how to draw superheroes. She took me for donut days.

            She said I was smart.

            “Calista . . .” My mom’s eyes darted across the street. The cars were stopped at the light, and she wanted to cross, I could tell, but I wasn’t moving. I’d forgotten how. “Calista lied, Albie,” my mom said, turning back to me. “I don’t feel safe having someone take care of you who I can’t trust, so I had to let her go.”