Breadcrumbs - Anne Ursu [7]
Someone asked Hazel this every once in a while, and she thought sometimes she should say yes, and then everyone would think she was the sort of person someone might like to go with, and that would be something. But she didn’t want anyone to think it, not really. Jack was her best friend. And there was a time when everyone understood that, but they didn’t anymore, because apparently when you get to be a certain age you’re just supposed to wake up one morning and not want to be best friends with your best friend anymore, just because he’s a boy and you don’t have a messenger bag.
Hazel cast a glance at Jack, who was looking at her questioningly, his superhero bat dangling at his side, and then she straightened and tossed her black hair.
“Molly,” she said, “you’re a goon.”
From the superhero batter’s box came the sound of Jack cracking up. Hazel smiled. The girls’ faces were identical masks of affront—because it was certainly bad enough to be called names when you were just innocently trying to be obnoxious, but far worse to be called something that, just an hour earlier, you had specifically established as dorky. They shook their heads, and then turned and walked away.
Thwack.
“Jack!” Hazel shouted, grabbing her shoulder where the snowball had hit.
The bell rang. Jack and Hazel fell in next to each other as they moved their way back into school, just a little separate from everyone else.
“So, you want to go sledding after school?” Jack asked.
“Yeah!” said Hazel. “But you gotta show me your drawing first.”
“Promise,” said Jack. “On the bus.”
Hazel felt her heart lift. Jack usually sat in the back with the boys.
It wasn’t until Hazel walked out of school and saw her mother’s car parked across the street that she remembered that she wasn’t going to be riding on the bus at all today. She had forgotten all about the plans her mother had made for her, had placed them in the box in her mind where things like Take out the trash and Do the dishes used to go, back when it was okay to forget about those things.
“Jack, I forgot. Mom’s making me go with her somewhere. I can’t go sledding.”
Jack frowned. “Bummer.”
“Yeah,” Hazel said, eyeing him. He would never come out and say that he didn’t want to go home, but she knew. “Can we go tomorrow?”
“Cool,” said Jack.
They said good-bye, and Hazel grumbled her way to the car.
“Hi, dear!” her mother said brightly. “How was your day?”
Well, Tyler called her Crazy Hazy again and she was really late and Mrs. Jacobs wrote something in her book and people sniggered at her and you can’t say “goon” and Molly’s going to hate her now and she didn’t get to ride home on the bus with Jack to make it all okay and he wanted to go sledding with her so he didn’t have to go home and she’s abandoning him even though she’s his best friend and isn’t supposed to do that ever ever ever.
“Okay,” Hazel said.
Hazel could sense the familiar feeling of her mother’s eyes on her. She looked ahead impassively. “Well, you’ll have fun with Adelaide today,” her mother said.
Hazel sighed. She used to play with Adelaide when they were little. There were pictures of the two of them splashing around the Linden Hills kiddie pool in matching arm floaties. But the Briggses left the country for four years, and when they came back neither girl wore floaties anymore. Adelaide liked making bead jewelry and putting nail polish on dolls. Hazel was into pirates. There was no compromise to be had.
“I haven’t seen her in two years,” Hazel said.
“Give her a chance, Hazel.”
Hazel looked at the dashboard. Her mom didn’t understand. She was perfectly willing to give everyone and everything a chance. It’s just no one wanted to give her one.
They drove over to the Briggses’ house slowly. The snow had stopped falling, but cars still inched carefully along the unplowed streets. Hazel’s mom drove their car like it was an emotionally unstable bear.