Breadcrumbs - Anne Ursu [2]
“Ah, this car,” her mom said, to no one in particular.
Hazel laid a hand on the gray dashboard as if to comfort it. A year ago her father had bought a new station wagon. Better for driving in these Minnesota winters, he had said. Safer for everyone. Suddenly, they, too, were charging through the snow, leaving all the little cars of Minneapolis to fend for themselves. But that was last year. Hazel did not mind, though; she had lived many years with this old car, she remembered all the dents, and she had no use for gleaming new station wagons—even if they did have antilock brakes.
As they pulled into the side street next to the school, Hazel’s mom let out a long breath and squeezed the steering wheel—though whether out of the camaraderie bent of surviving hardship or out of some desire to strangle the car, Hazel was not sure. As for Hazel, she chewed some more on her lip, because that seemed the thing to do. Her mom’s eyes fell on her. “Well,” she said, releasing the wheel, “that was an adventure.”
Hazel nodded, though her mom knew nothing of adventures.
“I know you didn’t mean to miss the bus, Hazel,” her mother added, her voice gentle. “But you’ve got to try to be practical for me, okay? You’re a big girl, and I just can’t be—”
Hazel nodded again.
“Okay, good. Listen, I’m having coffee at Elizabeth Briggs’s after school. Why don’t you come? I’ll pick you up right from school.”
Hazel squirmed. She did not want to argue with her mom, not now. But—
“I’m going sledding with Jack.”
Actually, this was not strictly true. She and Jack had made no plans. But they didn’t need to make plans, for there was a thick layer of snow on the ground and hills to sled down. Plus she owed him a good pounding with a snowball.
“I thought perhaps you’d like to go hang out with Adelaide,” her mother continued, as if she had not spoken. “She’s such a nice girl. I think you two would really get along, if you just gave it a chance.”
“I have plans.”
“I know, but you can sled with Jack another time. I think you should spend time with . . . other people.”
Hazel flushed. With girls, her mother meant. She scowled slightly, and her guilt plummeted deep into the snow, burying itself where no one would find it. She mumbled her good-bye and hopped out onto the sidewalk before her mom could cancel any more of her pretend plans.
The air was filled with the smells of winter, and car exhaust, and the familiar sausage-y–maple syrupy wafting from the Burger King across the street. Hazel took a moment to inhale it all, to let the smells wash over her—not that they were particularly good, but it was one more moment that she didn’t have to be in school.
This was Hazel’s first year at Lovelace Elementary. After her father moved away over the summer, her mother explained that they didn’t have the money to send her to the school she’d gone to since kindergarten and she would have to switch. Her old school had been very different. The classrooms didn’t have desks. They called their teachers by their first names. Hazel tried that with Mrs. Jacobs on her first day at Lovelace. It did not go over well.
The good thing was she now went to the same school as Jack. The bad thing was everything else. Hazel did not like sitting at a desk. She did not like having to call her teacher Mrs. Anything. She did not like homework and work sheets and fill-in-the-blank and multiple-choice. It used to be that Hazel’s teachers said things like Hazel is so creative and Hazel has such a great imagination, and now all she heard was Hazel does not do the assignment asked of her and Hazel needs to learn to follow school rules.
So Hazel stood and gathered herself for another day of the things she did not do and the things she needed to learn, when a voice burst through the air. “Hey!” it said. “Crazy Hazy, are you coming to school today or what?”
Hazel grimaced. Tyler Freeman was walking