Like Mandarin - Kirsten Hubbard [14]
Washokey students had to take part in ten hours of community service in both fall and spring. Momma wanted me to help backstage at Little Miss Washokey—an appalling idea, but I hadn’t come up with anything better.
“Unless you were planning on assisting Mr. Mason again …”
“I haven’t decided.” No way. Some of those ancient photos had sharp edges. I still had scars from the tintypes.
“Of course, cataloging our history for future generations is priceless. But I’ve been thinking. How would you like a project whose results are a little more … immediate? And that takes advantage of your extensive brainpower?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess.”
Ms. Ingle hesitated. When she spoke again, I could tell she was trying to sound nonchalant. “By any chance … do you happen to know Mandarin Ramey?”
My thoughts blanked out for a second. Then they returned as a series of exclamation points instead of words.
“Grace?”
“Well, no, not like personally … But I know who she is, yeah.”
“Mandarin’s predicament is the opposite of yours. We should have held her back years ago, but she swore she’d drop out if we did. We’ve lightened her load enough for her to scrape by. Yet anytime our help is obvious, she rebels. I’ve never met anyone so averse to a helping hand.”
Ms. Ingle held out a glass candy dish filled with Reese’s Pieces. Taffeta called them Reesey Peeseys. I took a single orange candy to be polite. It stuck in my throat.
“She needs help in all her classes,” Ms. Ingle continued. “But geometry and history the most—which happen to be your two best subjects. Mandarin also hasn’t chosen a community service project. She needs twenty hours to count for both semesters, since she didn’t complete a project last fall. I was hoping you could help her choose one. You don’t have to participate, but any sort of guidance—”
“I’ll do it,” I said.
As soon as I uttered the words, a bizarre image flashed behind my eyes: Mandarin and me sitting side by side in the library, leaning over a massive reference book as thick as an ancient Bible. For some reason, we both wore glasses.
I felt a tickle of laughter in my throat threatening to overflow. I coughed to keep it down. I didn’t want to look crazy. But the absurdity of the two of us, paired up—hysterical. Not just Mrs. Cleary hysterical, but straitjacket-bound, funny farm–inmate hysterical.
We might as well frolic through a horse pasture, holding hands.
“You look apprehensive,” Ms. Ingle said, misreading my face. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”
“No,” I said. Or I thought I’d said it. It was as if I were outside myself, listening to me speak. “I can do it. But … I just want to get this straight. My service project is helping Mandarin find a service project?”
“With some tutoring on the side.” Ms. Ingle smiled. “You’re a good person, Grace. I knew you had a strong sense of self. With the wrong person, Mandarin could be a …” She paused. “I just trust you won’t be influenced.”
I felt the urge to laugh again, but this time at Ms. Ingle, for so thoroughly misreading not only my facial expression, but everything about me.
“There’s just one problem,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Why would Mandarin want my help? I’m just a sophomore. The youngest sophomore in the school. It would be embarrassing for her. She’d never want to work with me—not in a billion years.”
Ms. Ingle took a small handful of Reesey Peeseys and rattled them in her palm. “That’s not a problem at all,” she said. “Mandarin asked for you herself.”
No matter what Ms. Ingle said, I never believed the whole preposterous mentorship enterprise would happen. Because that was the very definition of my rocks-and-books-and-badlands existence: in my life, nothing happened.
So when Mandarin approached me on Thursday, I was completely unprepared.
I was standing in the hallway between fifth and sixth periods, trying to buy a drink, but the fickle soda machine refused to take my dollar. Every time I crammed the bill into the slot, the machine spit it back out, like a wagging tongue.