and out of the school. Then I tore out of the schoolyard like lightning and headed toward the gift shop. Please, let Deena not be angry with me.
I was completely out of breath by the time I reached Waverly Gifts. Four blocks is usually no problem, but when I run in the cold, my asthma kicks in, and my lungs feel like they’re ready to burst. When I pulled the door open, a warm blast from the heating vent tried to melt away my day’s troubles. But the day wasn’t over—and my biggest troubles were yet to come.
MATH PROBLEMS
The wind chimes clinked out a hollow fading song. As I passed the display of homemade candles and fake flowers, I got a good whiff of cinnamon, strawberry and eucalyptus. Right across from the greeting card counter, I saw her. She was examining a letter opener. “Expecting mail?” I said.
“Vivi! Am I glad to see you! Did you get in trouble?” she asked in a voice that seemed a bit too cheerful.
I told her what had happened, and she began to laugh. When Deena laughs, it spreads around like the flu. In a second, she had me laughing too. Not just regular laughing, but the kind that makes you pound your fists into your knees. The kind that comes with tears.
The saleslady came out from behind the cash register and gave us the once-over. She twisted her mouth into a crooked wave and looked up into her eyelids.
When we finally stopped laughing, Deena showed me a brass letter-opener. “How does this grab you?” she said.
“I guess it’s okay. You gettin’ it?”
“It sure would make a nifty birthday present for my grandfather,” she said as she placed it back with the others. “Let’s come back for it tomorrow after school. Okay?”
“Why tomorrow?”
“Because it’s three-and-a-half bucks, you goof, and I don’t have enough on me. That’s why.”
“Well then, I’ll come back with you,” I said. “You can count on it.”
We hung around outside for a bit and watched a lady drape tinsel on the Christmas tree in the window. Under the tree, in the glow of tiny coloured lights, I saw a white leather diary. The pages were edged in gold. A strap from the back cover wrapped over the front of the pages and slipped into a gold lock on the front cover. Tied to the strap, with fine red ribbon, was a tiny golden key.
“Oh-h-h, Deena,” I said. “Just feast your eyes on that.”
“What? Where?”
“The diary. Right down there . . . beside the manicure set . . . see? Isn’t it absolutely stunning?”
“Oh, please!” she said. “It’s only a diary, you hangnail. What’s the big deal?”
“It’s perfectly gorgeous!” I said. “Did you ever have a diary?”
“Of course, you doofus! I just got my new one for ’55. You?”
I didn’t answer.
“Yeah, sure. You probably never even had one,” she sneered, then almost screamed, “How can you live without a diary? Everybody has a diary!”
“Well . . . my other one’s filling up real fast,” I said. “When we come back tomorrow, this diary will be mine.”
I always wanted a real diary, but had to make do with an old notebook I had left over from Grade Four. Besides, Mom always says, “If you ask me, those fancy-shmancy diaries are nothing but a waste of money and a bunch of foolishness.”
Deena and I went through our usual string of goodbyes, au revoirs and see-ya-laters. “Snow at last!” she said. “Remember—the mountain on Sunday.” As she reached the corner, she called, “And don’t forget . . . the hot chocolate’s on you.”
I squashed my forehead against the window of Waverly Gifts to take another peek at the diary, then raced home. Great wet snowflakes melted on my cheeks and clung to my hair and eyebrows. The streetlights had come on. I didn’t see it happen. I never do. The glow of streetlights just seems to creep up on you when you’re not looking. I hurried along, stopping now and then to kick at some of the slush-cruds hanging from the car fenders at the curb. It was awfully late, and I knew Mom would be downright mad if I didn’t come up with a pretty good excuse.
Our house isn’t really a house. It’s called a flat. The Kingsleys live in the bottom flat. They’re lucky, because in the summer they can plant a garden, and in the winter they don’t have to bust their backs shovelling stairs—because they don’t have any. Ha!
The middle flat, where the Gravelle family lives, has at least a dozen outside stairs and, of course, no garden. If you ask me, the Gravelles don’t have it so easy, because they have to put up with noise from their upstairs neighbours (for example, moi!), and if they make noise themselves, they get complaints from the Kingsleys under them. Mom says that Mrs. Kingsley has dug hundreds of little dents in her ceiling by bashing it with the handle of her broom. She does that every time Jeanine Gravelle practices the piano over her head. The truth is . . . I always hear Jeanine playing her boogie-woogie music. The beat comes right up through the floor of my room—and I love it.
We live in the top flat. That means we get to share the outside staircase with the Gravelles, but once we open the door at the top of the stairs, we end up with a long inside staircase to climb as well. Believe me, it’s awful when you have to drag home a stack of books or other heavy junk of one kind or another.
Mom says she dreams of living in a bottom flat so she won’t have to go lugging groceries up two flights all the time. But Dad complains that a higher rent would break him altogether. “Even fifty a month for this dump is highway robbery,” he says.
Nobody had bothered doing any shovelling yet, so I scraped my boots back and forth through the snow on each step to clear my own pathway up to the outside door.
Mom swung the inside door open. “Where on earth were you?” she said in her most frantic voice. She was holding a knife.
I slipped by her, dropped my schoolbag onto the little hall table and shimmied out of my jacket. “I was delayed,” I said, following her into the kitchen.
“What do you mean ‘delayed’?”
I watched her cut the ends off the last few string beans and dump them into the enamel pot on the stove. “I was delayed by Mr. Peale,” I said.
“Whatever for?”
“He was commenting on my writing.”
“Oh! You must tell us all about it at suppertime. But right now, you’d better get started on your homework.”
I closed my door and flung my books onto the bed. Homework, nothing! First things first!
I made a list of all the most likely places to find money, did a careful search, and filled in the amounts.
Square wooden bank 13 ¢
Schoolbag 9 ¢
Junk drawer 3 ¢
Desk
