Like Mandarin - Kirsten Hubbard [89]
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe.”
Samantha headed back down the hall. I heard voices inside Mr. Beck’s office, so I sat in one of the vinyl chairs outside, inspecting the bulletin board in front of me.
It was covered in butcher paper, faded pink. Card stock borders decorated with dancing pencils lined the edges. Like a proud parent, Mr. Beck had stapled up kindergarten artworks, photos of student athletes at play, reports bound by plastic hinges with red A-pluses on the covers. And right at my eye level hung my All-American essay.
I stared at it in wonder.
I recognized the font, the shapes of the paragraphs, as if it had been photographed somewhere inside my brain. Leaning forward, I skimmed it, mouthing the phrases I’d labored to get right. As I read them now, they sounded all wrong.
We’ve got to take that first step off into the future by ourselves.
What had I been thinking?
The door opened, and a twosome of beaming parents stepped out, followed by Mr. Beck. I noticed he had dyed his white roots black, probably for graduation. The cheap pigment had stained his forehead in several places.
“Good morning, Grace,” he said.
“You wanted to talk to me?”
He nodded. “Yes, but I thought instead of talking in the office, we could take a walk. How does that sound?”
It sounded pretty embarrassing, if anybody saw us. But then I glanced again at Mr. Beck’s ridiculous bulletin board: the photographs, the dancing pencils, my essay. And I thought of the time I’d seen him eating alone at the Buffalo Grill. And I decided I was sick of being embarrassed.
“It sounds fine,” I told him. “Just one thing first …”
I reached out and ripped my essay from the wall.
We passed through the empty halls in silence, stopping by an open window that overlooked the playground. I spotted Taffeta, wearing a white sailor dress. She and the other kindergartners were lined up in two rows on the sunny lawn, arms linked.
They were playing Red Rover.
I felt pressure building behind my eyes, so I turned to Mr. Beck.
“Before anything else,” he began, “I was wondering … would you like to talk about Mandarin?”
“With you?”
It took Mr. Beck a moment to regain composure. He smoothed his tie, his ponytail, his mustache. “Yes, yes, I see why you wouldn’t,” he said at last.
“No offense.”
“We do our best, you know,” he said. “But … we just don’t have the resources of a larger, city school. It’s not the first time this has happened.”
“Not the first time what has happened?”
“That a Washokey student’s run away.”
Run away?
Mandarin had run away. I supposed she had—but the words had the wrong connotation. Mr. Beck probably suspected her of fleeing an abusive father, or running off with some man she’d met at the bar. To escape a stifling town. He’d be right about the last part.
“Red Rover, Red Rover! Send Annabelle over!”
I glanced back out the window. Far beyond the kindergartners, the seniors had started to congregate on the football field for graduation rehearsal.
“The other matter I wanted to discuss …” Mr. Beck cleared his throat. “You didn’t send in your paperwork for the leadership conference.”
I bit my lip. Momma had signed the papers the day after my birthday. But instead of sending them in, I’d stashed them between the pages of my pageant album. “How did you know?”
“The conference directors called me yesterday. There was a waiting list to attend the conference, you see. They had to fill your spot with a student from a different school.”
“Oh,” I said. It stung a bit. But I had to admit—“Leadership: the Musical” just wasn’t for me. “You mean Becky Pepper’s not going?”
“Well, Becky Pepper wasn’t the winner.…”
“Red Rover, Red Rover! Send Christopher over!” A round little boy ran at the opposite side but couldn’t break through the other kids’ arms. He latched on to the outermost of their ranks.
“… and so, the grant’s still yours,” Mr. Beck was saying.
I glanced at him. “The grant?”
“From Kiwanis and 4-H. It was supposed to fund the conference. But since it’s too late for you to attend, we can gift it to you in