Violet in Bloom Read online

  Ms. Perez glances ruefully at her figure.

  MS. PEREZ

  Well, yes.

  KATIE-ROSE

  (building momentum)

  Then you understand where we’re coming from! We are the hope of the future, Ms. Perez! Do you really want your very own students stuffed to the gills with partially hydro—

  (stumbling over the word)

  —hydrogenated curtain seed and/or soybean oil? Do you?

  MS. PEREZ

  I think you mean cottonseed oil. Not curtain seed.

  KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)

  Did I say “curtain seed oil”?

  MS. PEREZ

  You did.

  KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)

  (giggling)

  Curtain seed oil. That’s funny.

  Ms. Perez giggles, too. Then she catches herself and straightens her shoulders. She reaches out and makes Katie-Rose lower her camera. For a moment, there is the pinkish blur of Ms. Perez’s hand, and then the screen shows Ms. Perez’s flats, which are fabulous and purple, as well as Katie-Rose’s sneakers, which she has doodled on with a pen. The audio function continues to capture their conversation.

  MS. PEREZ (off-screen)

  Katie-Rose, I will take your snack concerns under consideration. All right?

  KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)

  You will?

  MS. PEREZ (off-screen)

  I’m not the one who places the snack orders, and my suspicion is that it comes down to the fact that Cheezy D’lites are the least expensive option. So there may not be anything I can do about it. Though you can certainly choose not to eat yours.

  KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)

  Well, I don’t know about that. A girl’s got to eat, you know.

  MS. PEREZ (off-screen)

  But if you wanted to give a presentation about nutrition to the class, I would say “yes” to that.

  KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)

  (happily)

  That would be awesome! Could I give my presentation to Mr. Emerson’s class, too? And Mr. Emerson is cute, by the way. Don’t you think?

  MS. PEREZ (off-screen)

  What?

  KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)

  I think you two should go out—unless you already have a boyfriend. Do you?

  Ms. Perez steps backward, her purple flats toeing inward.

  MS. PEREZ (off-screen)

  Katie-Rose, this is not . . . an appropriate topic. And, just as a life lesson, it’s never a good idea to date someone you work with.

  KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)

  How come?

  MS. PEREZ (off-screen)

  (sounding flustered)

  Okay, I think we’re done here. And let’s keep your presentation specific to our class. I think that’s best, don’t you?

  KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)

  Well, actually—

  MS. PEREZ (off-screen)

  (interrupting)

  Katie-Rose? Go to class.

  KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)

  But I’m having such a good time chatting with you! Anyway, all we’re doing in music is practicing our recorders, and believe me, becoming a master recorder player is not what I—

  MS. PEREZ (off-screen)

  (sternly)

  Now. And why don’t you hand me your camera for safekeeping if you’re not going to put it away?

  The image of Katie-Rose’s sneakers wobbles.

  KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)

  I’m putting it away, see? Here I am, putting it away, and then fine, I’ll head back to music if you insist. Although I promise you, what the world needs now is not—

  MS. PEREZ (off-screen)

  Why don’t you go on and give it to me, hmm?

  KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)

  Oh, no. No need. But thanks for the offer! Bye!

  FADE TO BLACK

  entry. She’s never written a blog entry before, but then, she’s never gone up to Max on the playground before, either. And look how well that went! She shakes her hips, throws her arms wide, and belts out a single, pop star–esque “Laaaaa!” Then she flops down on her bed and grabs her laptop. She goes to LuvYaBunches.com.

  Post an entry? it says at the top of the blog page.

  “Why, yes,” Milla replies. She selects her trademark font and names her entry: Doodly-doodly-doo!

  She pauses. Hmm. “Doodly-doodly-doo” does not a blog entry make, but she gets writer’s block all of a sudden. She knows what she wants to write about—Max!—but the prospect of typing out words and seeing them on the screen and having them be real . . .

  It makes her heart squeak.

  She could hit Exit, and no one would be the wiser. She doesn’t have to write a blog entry. It’s totally up to her. But she wants to, so she centers her hands over the keyboard and forbids herself from overthinking. Just go for it, she commands herself.

  Milla tilts her head. She’s happy, she maybe likes hamsters (because if Max likes them, they can’t be all bad, right?), and she definitely likes Max. That’s really all she wanted to say, and now she’s said it, even if she didn’t use Max’s actual name. Can a blog entry be just . . . that?

  The brring-brring of the telephone interrupts her thoughts. When Mom Abigail calls out that it’s for her, she thinks, Well, there ya go. Guess a blog entry can be just that. She clicks Save, feeling proud of herself for having done something new and slightly scary.

  Downstairs, she grabs the phone from the counter and walks with it to the brown suede sofa in front of the TV. This level of their house consists primarily of one huge space called the great room, which includes the kitchen (where Mom Abigail is making brownies, mmm), an eating area, and a lounging-about area. Milla drapes herself over the arm of the sofa and brings the phone to her ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, this is Max,” Max says, and Milla bolts back up as if her spine is spring-loaded.

  “I know,” Milla says, because she recognizes his voice. Her heart whomps in her rib cage, and she glances at Mom Abigail. She appears busy with her brownie batter, which is good, because who needs her mom listening in on an opposite-sex conversation? “I mean—hi!”

  “Hi,” Max says for the second time.

  “Hi,” she replies. What will she do if they go on like this forever? Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi? Hi! From the corner of her eye, she sees Mom Abigail looking at her, and she climbs over the arm of the sofa and scooches way down into the cushions.

  “Do you want to come over tomorrow?” Max says in a rush. “To meet Stewy? Since you didn’t get to on Sunday.”

  Milla’s thoughts race. So does her pulse. Does he mean just her, or her and Katie-Rose? Because Katie-Rose lives right next door. Or maybe, just maybe, he means Milla all by herself? Since Katie-Rose already met Stewy?

  Oh dear. She has to say something, so she says, “You mean with Katie-Rose? Like that she and I could come over after school, is that what you mean?”

  Max hesitates. “Um, sure, I guess.”

  Ag! If Milla could, she would bonk herself over the head with a frying pan, because he did mean just her. Bonk, bonk, bonk. But since she is without a frying pan, the least she can do is try again.

  “Or, well, how about if I come over by myself?” she says. “Not that Katie-Rose couldn’t come over, too, like if she randomly said to herself, Oh, I think I’ll go to Max’s house. But she wouldn’t have to, necessarily.”

  “Yeah,” Max says. His voice is brighter. “She probably won’t, but if she does, I won’t slam the door in her face or anything.”

  She giggles. “Good.”

  “Hi, Katie-Rose!” Max says, acting out what he wouldn’t do. “SLAM!”

  “That would be so mean! Or what if she was a Girl Scout, selling cookies?”

  “Hi, little Girl Scout,” Max says. He raises his voice. “NO, I DON’T WANT ANY COOKIES!”

  “Slam!” Milla says. A smile stretches across her face, and she stops feeling quite so nervous. And, of course, they would never really slam the door on
Katie-Rose.

  “My mom wanted me to be a Girl Scout,” Max confesses.

  Milla’s eyebrows swoop up. “What?!”

  “I know. Don’t tell anyone.”

  “Wait. Why would she want you to be a Girl Scout?”

  “A Girl Scout?” Mom Abigail says. “Max wants to be a Girl Scout?”

  Milla pushes herself up so she can see over the sofa. Covering the mouthpiece of the phone, she says, “Mo-o-o-om!”

  “Sorry, sorry,” Mom Abigail says. She goes back to stirring the melted chocolate, and Milla sinks back into the cushions.

  “. . . is a Cub Scout,” Max is saying, “and he wanted me to be one with him, because Thomas doesn’t like doing stuff by himself. My mom said it was up to me, but that Boy Scouts don’t allow gay people, which she thinks is wrong.”

  “Wait—are you gay?” Milla asks, confused. Is it even possible for fifth graders to be gay?

  “Max is gay?!” Mom Abigail exclaims.

  “Mom!” Milla cries. She pulls one of the sofa cushions on top of her and presses the phone to her ear. “Sorry, my mom is being annoying. What?”

  “My dad’s old roommate from college is gay,” Max explains. “He’s my godfather, and he comes over for dinner a lot and stuff. But if he wanted to be a Boy Scout, he wouldn’t be allowed. The Boy Scouts wouldn’t let him in.”

  “Oh,” Milla says, thinking Max’s godfather is probably too old to be a Boy Scout now.

  “So that’s why I decided not to be one.” He pauses. “We still buy the popcorn, though. My mom says it gives her a moral crisis every time, but I like it.”

  “Is it the cheesy kind that comes in a big tub? And the tub has army guys on it?” Both of Katie-Rose’s brothers are Boy Scouts, which is how Milla knows about the army guys. The cheesiness reminds her of Yasaman, and she says, “You should check if it has trans fats before you buy any more.”

  “Okay,” Max says. “So . . . do you want to come over tomorrow after school?”

  “Hold on,” Milla says. She unearths herself from the sofa. “Mom, can I go to Max’s house tomorrow?”

  “Is he a Girl Scout?” Mom Abigail asks.

  Milla thrusts her eyeballs hard at her mom to say, Omigosh, Mom, will you hush?!

  Mom Abigail’s lips twitch. “If you’re willing to ride your bike over, sure.”

  “My mom says yes,” Milla tells Max.

  “Cool,” Max says.

  Milla figures it’s time to get off the phone, but there’s something she’s still confused about. “So, do Girl Scouts not not allow gay people?”

  “Huh?”

  “Girl Scouts. Can Girl Scouts be gay?”

  “Oh. Yes, but they can’t be boys.” He laughs, and it’s such an adorable laugh that Milla can’t help but laugh, too. “Plus, they wear skirts.”

  “You would look good in a green pleated skirt!” Milla says. Then, “Well, no, you wouldn’t.” They laugh harder.

  After they hang up, Milla goes back to her room, where her laptop waits on her bed. When she wakes up the screen, she sees a message from Yasaman in her LuvYaBunches.com inbox. Sweet!

  She clicks on it. When the screen opens, there’s no text. Just a frog. It’s staring at her.

  “Hi, frog,” Milla says.

  It keeps staring.

  Now why would Yasaman send me a frog and nothing else? Milla wonders.

  Not that she minds receiving a frog. She’s in such a good mood that Yasaman could send her a picture of a napkin, or a water buffalo, and Milla would be like, Yay! A water buffalo!

  Then she remembers seeing Yasaman in the media center this morning. She said she was working on something for their website. Speckles? Spoockles?

  Milla runs the cursor over the frog, and the frog opens its mouth. She moves the cursor off, and its mouth closes. Hmm. She double-clicks on the frog, and a bit of froggy magic happens:

  “Hello!” the frog says in a computerized voice. “I hope you is hazzing a good night!”

  Milla grins. It’s like a LOLcat, but instead it’s a LOLfrog! A LOLfrog that talks!!!

  “I is!” she types back, since she doesn’t know how to make talking frogs. “I is hazzing a very good nite.”

  spreads that Modessa won’t be coming to school today—and not because she’s sick. According to Quin, Modessa isn’t coming to school because she doesn’t want to apologize to Cyril for poking him on the playground yesterday.

  Well, for making Quin poke him.

  Well, for encouraging Quin to poke him. Quin is a big girl and can decide on her own whether to poke someone or not. But Modessa, as Quin’s best friend, has a lot of power over Quin, and she uses it in a bad way.

  Yasaman doesn’t want to be that sort of friend. She thinks it’s important to be kind to everyone, even Quin. Unless Quin is a jerk to her, because an exception to the kindness rule is that a person is allowed to stand up for herself. If Quin calls Yasaman “Spazaman,” for example, Yasaman can respond with a clever retort. If she thinks of one. Violet is much better at clever retorts than Yasaman, and in situations requiring clever retorts, Yasaman always wishes she could borrow Violet’s brain.

  When time for morning snack rolls around, the day’s not-so-greatness continues. The snack is Cheezy D’lites, and Katie-Rose sighs loudly when Brannen, the snack helper, places a serving on her desk. She clears her throat and looks pointedly at Ms. Perez, who stops in the middle of raising a Cheezy D’lite to her mouth.

  “Oh, that’s right,” she says. “Katie-Rose has something she’d like to say. Katie-Rose?”

  To Yasaman’s amazement, Katie-Rose stands up, throws back her shoulders, and launches into a lecture about how unhealthy Cheezy D’lites are. How they’re made with trans fats, and how trans fats are linked to heart problems, cancer, and obesity. Also how the fake orange color is bad, because it poisons your brain.

  At first, Yasaman is surprised, but impressed. She had no idea Katie-Rose was planning this. But the longer Katie-Rose talks, the more theatrical she becomes.

  “People in the medical community call trans fats the silent killer,” Katie-Rose says ominously. She pauses. “That’s what I call them, too.”

  Yasaman sinks lower in her seat.

  “Do we want to welcome the silent killer into our bodies?” Katie-Rose says. “Do we want to open our mouths and say, ‘Come on in, silent killer!’? No! No, we do not! And that is why, on moral and nutritional grounds, I hereby reject the evil known as Cheezy D’lites!”

  By now, Yasaman is fully blushing. Yes, she wants to reject the evil known as Cheezy D’lites. But must Katie-Rose be so dramatic?

  Apparently, she must. Thrusting her fist into the air, she cries, “All in favor of banning Cheezy D’lites from now till eternity, say aye!”

  No one says aye. No one says anything. Yasaman knows she should say aye, especially since Katie-Rose is making this grand gesture for her. But couldn’t Katie-Rose have passed around a petition instead? Or made an informational brochure and posted it on the Put It Here board in the hall?

  Katie-Rose tries again: “All in favor, say aye!”

  “Aye,” Yasaman says in the barest puff of a whisper.

  Quin snickers, which breaks the seal for the rest of the kids to snicker, too.

  “If you don’t want your Cheezy D’lites, just give them to me,” Preston says.

  “Yeah,” Quin says. She’s acting surprisingly confident given that her puppet master, Modessa, isn’t there. Yasaman is struck by the thought that maybe Quin is a real girl after all. A real fake girl, of course, and obnoxious as all get out, but maybe Quin is actually benefiting from not having Modessa there every minute of the day.

  “Cheezy D’lites are awesome,” Quin goes on, popping a Cheezy D’lite into her mouth. “They’re, like, all-American. Anyone who doesn’t like Cheezy D’lites should move to New Zealand.”

  Color rises in Katie-Rose’s cheeks. “I’m sure they have Cheezy D’lites in New Zealand, too. They might call them somet
hing else, but I’m sure they have them.”

  “See?” Quin retorts.

  Katie-Rose turns to Yasaman, and Yasaman feels ill. She hasn’t eaten her pile of Cheezy D’lites—and she’s not going to—and yet it feels as though she’s swallowed a brick of cheese-flavored wrongness.

  “All right, everyone, settle down,” Ms. Perez says. “Katie-Rose, that was a . . . stirring presentation. You’ve given us a lot to chew on.”

  “Like Cheezy D’lites,” Preston says, chortling.

  Ms. Perez presses her fingers to her forehead, as if she should have seen that coming. To Katie-Rose, or maybe to everyone, she says, “Just remember, everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion.”

  “And we all agree that Cheezy D’lites rock,” Quin says. “Anyway, if you got rid of Cheezy D’lites, what would happen to all the people in the Cheezy D’lites factories? Do you want them to be jobless?”

  Katie-Rose frowns, and Yasaman can see she hasn’t considered this. Yasaman hasn’t, either. “They could make something else.”

  “Except I’m sure it’s not that easy,” Quin says. “I’m sure they’ve got special machines and everything, specifically for making Cheezy D’lites. And if all those workers lost their jobs, what would happen to their children, huh?”

  “They’d be homeless,” Chance says. He grins. “Homeless and cold, all because you don’t like trans fats. Don’t you think that’s a little selfish, Katie-Rose?”

  Katie-Rose is flustered. “No, and it wouldn’t be just me making them homeless—not that they would be. Yasaman’s on my side. Right, Yasaman?”

  Yasaman’s throat tightens. She nods, but she knows it’s not enough. How foolish she was to think she could change the world! She’s not brave enough to be a fighter, even for a cause she believes in.

  “I agree with you, Katie-Rothe,” Natalia says from her desk in the front row. She twists to face the class. “Cheethy D’liteth are groth.”

  Gratitude floods Yasaman’s body. She smiles at Natalia, and Natalia smiles back, somewhat primly. She bends down and comes back up with a big ziplock bag, which she plunks onto her desk. It’s full of shiny white buttons, the kind you pin to your shirt.