Kidsreads.com - GRACIE’S GIRL by Ellen Wittlinger

GRACIE’S GIRL
by Ellen Wittlinger
Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0689822499
Age Level: 8-12

Chapter One

It was the last week of the summer, and I felt like I should be getting ready, but there I was on Ethan's back porch again, playing Monopoly, just like most other days this summer. In fact, we were playing the same exact game we'd started in June. How many times the last three months had I landed in Jail and been glad to sit out a couple of my losing turns? Too many. Ethan was busy exchanging five-hundred-dollar bills for more hotels.

"Let's just say you win," I suggested. "In five days school starts. I want to do something different."

Ethan stared at my treasonous face. "Bess! We said we'd play this game all summer!"

"We have. Almost."

"But you can't quit now. I've got hotels on Park Place and Boardwalk!"

"Yeah, and all the Railroads and all the greens and yellows and reds, too! I couldn't possibly win. I'm bankrupt!"

"Here, I'll lend you some more money," he said, giving me a fistful of hundred-dollar bills. That's what he always does. That's why we'll probably be playing this same game until we graduate from high school. Ethan doesn't really care about winning; he's just naturally good at games, and Monopoly is his favorite.

"Well, let's at least quit for today. We'll play some more tomorrow."

He wasn't happy, but I knew he'd give in. Ethan doesn't like to argue.

"Okay. But what else can we do? It's too hot to ride bikes."

"We could go to the pool," I said. Ethan never wants to go to the pool, but I thought maybe the heat would change his mind. He doesn't like wearing swimming trunks in public because he thinks he's fat.

"I told you, I don't want to go there again until I have my growth spurt." His mother told him he'd get thin again when he had his growth spurt, and he was waiting for it like an extra birthday. I hope he gets it before next summer so we can cool off once in a while.

"Is Janette home today? We could go over there."

"Are you kidding? It's Thursday afternoon, which is ballet and tennis."

Janette Silverman is my second best friend (after Ethan) and the shyest girl in our class. We might have all three been best friends except that Janette is too nervous to sit around playing games. And she never stays in one place very long. She's used to being busy; her mother has her booked up with lessons -- ballet, singing, violin, tennis, swimming. And in the summer she has to take sailing lessons every morning. I would die if I had to get up early even in the summer.

Sometimes Janette complains about having so much to do all the time. Once she told me, "My mother wants me to be a child prodigy. In anything -- she doesn't care what. But I think I'm already too old." She chews her nails down to stumps.

Ethan was putting all his bills and property into perfect order so he'd be ready to monopolize me again tomorrow.

"What are you wearing to school next week?" I asked him.

He looked at me as if my body had been inhabited by aliens. "What do you mean? The same stuff I always wear."

"Ethan, we're starting middle school. You don't want to look like you're still going to Albertine Gustavson Elementary School, do you?"

He shrugged. "Sixth graders don't look that different from fifth graders."

"Middle school kids look different. You never notice anything."

"I do too. Besides, you don't look any different."

"Maybe not this minute, but I will. My mother bought me some new clothes. And I'm getting a haircut tomorrow afternoon and picking up my new glasses on Monday. They have thin silver frames and they're really cool." It was hard to believe I'd ever liked my old pink frames -- they looked so childish now.

Ethan wasn't impressed. "Girls always do that stuff. Boys don't."

That made me mad. "Ethan Riley, I never did this before, and plenty of boys wear cool stuff to school. We've dressed like twin dorks for six years. It's time we started to look interesting."

"I am not a dork."

"You're the biggest dork!" I know that sounds mean, but Ethan and I always say that kind of stuff to each other. Besides, I could have told you what he'd say next.

"Who cares? Sweatpants are comfortable. Hey, your mom's home. Let's go to your house."

Ethan lives next door to me, so it's not exactly a hike to go back and forth. And he's crazy about my mother, probably because she thinks he's the neatest invention since toast.

I'd forgotten what our living room looked like until we walked in the front door.

"I think your closets exploded," Ethan said.

"It's rummage sale weekend at the church," I said.

"Oh, right, your mom was in charge of that last year, too."

"She's in charge of it every year. Like she doesn't have enough to do already between her job and helping out at the shelter. I've hardly seen her for weeks," I complained.

He was pulling old shoes out of a box and measuring them against his foot. "Couldn't somebody else do the rummage sale sometimes?"

I shook my head. "She wants to do it. So she can go through the stuff first and pick out things for the people at the shelter." Not that our house is ever what you'd call neat, but the weeks before the rummage sale things really get out of hand. The dining room fills up with garbage bags first, and by the last collection days the living room is starting to look like Goodwill, with old coffeemakers and ugly lamps, mismatched dishes, and busted-up game boxes stacked all over everything. And now the couch was piled high with clothes, too. Mom had obviously been rummaging herself.

"Hi, guys," Mom called from the kitchen. "Want some carrots?" Mothers never give up pushing vegetables.

"Could we make popcorn instead? Corn is a vegetable," I said. "How come you're home early?"

She came into the living room but had to finish chewing her carrot before she could speak. "I have to get the rest of these bags down to the church by five, but I want to check through them first for clothes for the shelter. How about you two giving me a hand, and then we'll make popcorn?"

"Sure!" Ethan volunteered. "I think it's so cool that you and Mr. Cunningham serve lunch at the shelter on Sundays. I wish my parents did something like that."

"Your parents are busy," Mom said, just to make Ethan feel better.

"Not as busy as you," I said, but they ignored me. Mom dumped a few garbage bags out on the floor and explained to Ethan what she was looking for, mostly coats and warm sweaters. Some shoes, too.

"We don't go to the shelter every Sunday," Mom told Ethan. "More like every other week."

I felt like adding, And then you go to meetings about it the rest of the time. But I didn't. I know I shouldn't complain. I mean, she helps people who need her help. Maybe some Sunday I'll go stand in line at the soup kitchen and Mom will take a good look at me, too.

"You wouldn't think it was so great to have your parents out feeding other people if you had to stay home and make lunch for Willy," I told Ethan.

Mom threw a sweater onto the shelter pile and turned to stare at me. "What? Why are you making lunch for Willy? He's perfectly capable of taking care of himself."

"He always makes me some kind of bet or says I owe him for something."

"I'll speak to him," she said, but I knew she'd forget all about it. Mom is always talking about how you have to prioritize your responsibilities if you have a lot to do, and I learned a long time ago that Willy and I are not high on her priority list.

Willy's five years older than me, a junior in high school this year. It kills me when I hear girls say they wish they had an older brother. "Take mine," I tell them. "He's all yours." He was all right when we were younger, but as soon as he started high school he stopped speaking. Now all he does is grunt and swear, unless he's talking to one of his friends on the telephone, of course. Then he's Mr. Hilarious.

"How come you never go?" Ethan asked me.

"Go where?" I wasn't paying attention.

"To the shelter with your parents."

"I don't like to," I said.

"How come?"

"I just don't, all right?" I poked through a big pile of junk and pulled out a worn blue cardigan with a hole in the elbow. "How about this? Is this good?"

"That looks fine, sweetie," Mom said, winking at me.

She knows it makes me uncomfortable to go to the Derby Street Shelter. It's in Atwood, but not near our house. It's in downtown Atwood, on the other side of the middle and high schools, in a kind of run-down area. Where our house is, it's pretty; all the houses have yards with trees and flowers and barbecue grills. But down there the buildings are close together, and some of the apartment windows are broken out. It makes me feel small to walk around there, like I don't belong.

When we were little, Willy and I used to go to the shelter with Mom and Dad because we were too young to stay home alone and it was hard to find a baby-sitter for Sunday afternoons. We'd sit back in the kitchen and eat soup and bread and salad. Dad would cook, which never seemed odd because he does most of the cooking at home, too. He loves cooking, which Mom says is one of his best qualities. Dad's a lawyer, but standing in the kitchen at the shelter, stirring a big kettle, he'd always say, "I should have been a chef."

After a while Willy and I decided we wanted to be out in front, where all the action seemed to be, at the serving line with Mom. Until we actually went out there.

It was kind of scary. I mean, a lot of the people looked okay, but some of them, when they got up close to you, smelled bad. I remember once there were two men in the back of the room having a loud argument about something, and some of the shelter people finally had to make them leave. One woman coughed all over her food, and her two little kids looked pretty snotty and sick, too. It was weird. I'd never been around people like that before. Some of them were downright crazy. You couldn't pretend they weren't. Even my parents couldn't.

Not that anybody ever hurt me or even touched me or anything. The last time we went, I guess I was about eight and Willy was thirteen. I was standing by the trash barrel, just daydreaming, and this old man looked me right in the eye and said, "Could you help me find my teeth? I dropped them in the barrel." Except without his teeth it sounded more like, "Would you hep me fine my teef? I dwopped dem in da barrow."

Now I realize I should have just told somebody about it; my mom or dad would've helped him look. But all I could think about was that big gummy mouth of his smiling at me, and me having to dig through the garbage to find his old yellow choppers.

So I started crying. I cried until Mom drove Willy and me home. And that was the last time we ever had to go to the shelter. Willy was thrilled to stay home and "baby-sit" for me, as long as I didn't bother him while he watched videos all afternoon.

I held up an enormous flowered skirt, about size 82. "Who buys this stuff, anyway?" I said. "I mean, I know poor people at the shelter need clothes, but why would anybody else want this junk?" I couldn't imagine wearing somebody's old, thrown-out clothes.

"Lots of people," Mom said. "You can start putting stuff back in the garbage bags now. I've got enough to take to Derby Street."

"But who?" I insisted.

"Well, there are people who just don't like to spend a lot of money on clothes. They think it's a shame to get rid of perfectly wearable clothes just because they aren't this year's styles. I feel that way."

"Yeah, but you wouldn't buy stuff at rummage sales."

"Of course I would! My favorite blouse is from last year's sale. I have a lot of clothes I've picked up at our sale."

I made a face. "Ethan, don't you tell a soul my mother wears used clothes." That's all I needed to ruin my new middle school image, the news that my mother wore somebody else's raggy, old outfits.

Ethan, of course, couldn't imagine why I objected to anything Alice Cunningham did. "What's the big deal? She looks fine." Saint Alice.

"Thank you, Ethan. Lots of people shop at rummage sales," Mom said. "Kids from the college come to pick up inexpensive, funky-looking outfits. People who like to stand out from the crowd, look a little different. And some people just can't afford to pay the prices they ask at the mall. They aren't homeless, but they don't want to waste their money on overpriced clothing."

As you can tell, my mother has a lot of opinions.

So do I. "Well, I don't get it. I mean, those clothes could be dirty, or something."

"That's why we own a washing machine," Mom said.

Ethan grinned. "I'm gonna go to the sale. It sounds like fun."

"Why?" I said. "All you ever wear is gray sweatpants and a navy blue sweatshirt."

He shrugged. "Maybe I'll change."

"Wait until Saturday," Mom suggested. "That's Bag Day. All you can stuff into a bag for one dollar. There's always lots left to choose from."

"Great," I said. "I'll come, too. I can help Ethan pick out a new housedress and a pair of fuzzy slippers." Ethan just laughed. I don't know why he doesn't have a million friends. He never gets mad at anybody, and he acts like everything you say is so darn funny.

Chapter Seven

If you think I was mad, you should have seen Willy. He already had plans for Sunday, plans that involved a girl. So far in his life, Willy hadn't managed to involve many girls in his plans, so this was a big deal.

"How long do I have to hang out with the deviants?" he asked Mom.

"Use that word to describe people again," Mom said in her don't-push-me voice, "and you'll be hanging out in your own room for a week." Neither of us had any doubt she meant it.

"But, Mom," he whined, resorting to begging now, "I've wanted to ask Lauren out for weeks! Now I finally get up the nerve and I have to cancel it?"

"You'll be done at the shelter by two. You can go out then."

"We were going on a picnic! She was bringing food!"

"What were you bringing?" I asked. "Your pathetic excuse for a car?" The heap had been sitting in the driveway with the hood up for days.

"Ask Lauren to come with us!" Mom said brightly. I had just taken a drink of orange juice, and it snorted out my nose.

Willy kicked his backpack across the floor. "Right. Great idea, Mom," he said as he stomped out the back door.

So, after church on Sunday we changed clothes, picked up Ethan, who was so excited you'd think we were going to an amusement park, and headed downtown to the Derby Street Shelter. Willy had gotten his junker running, so he was following behind us.

Ethan leaned over the front seat to ask Mom and Dad all kinds of questions about how they first got involved with the shelter, while I slumped against the door, wishing it were all over already. I couldn't believe it. The only way I got to spend a day with my parents was to be an unpaid servant, like them. Why they got a bigger kick out of dinner at a homeless shelter than dinner at our home, I couldn't imagine.

Once you drive a block or so past the high school, everything starts to look run-down. Most of the stores that used to be there are shut now, and the windows are either broken or soaped up. A few stores are still open: a drugstore, a locksmith, an appliance place where the washing machines in the window look dusty. Some of the places don't even have signs, so you can't figure out what they sell.

The shelter didn't look so bad from the outside, not as bad as I remembered. A few years ago some high school kids painted a mural on the front. One of those scenes where all kinds of people, all races and colors, join together, some people singing, some building things, some eating, little kids running around. As if that's what it was like inside: a Perfect World. The painting was real colorful, though, and it did spruce up the building. There was a sign by the door that said DERBY STREET SHELTER in fancy letters, like it was a gift shop or something.

But to me it was like getting a present wrapped in beautiful paper and when you open it the stuff inside is old and broken. That's the way I remembered the shelter, and I wasn't anxious to walk through the front door again.

It was still early, so there were only volunteers inside, but some of them looked pretty scruffy, too. It seemed like everybody was wearing a sweatshirt and a straggly ponytail, men and women both. Mom looked like that, too, but Dad looked like a lawyer, even in jeans and a T-shirt. Everybody shouted hello to us.

"Hey, you brought the whole family, huh?" A black guy with a white apron, a gray beard, and a huge pair of clogs clomped over to us. "That's not Bess, your little baby, is it?" He was staring at me with amazement. The baby stared right back.

"I'm afraid it is," Mom said. "All grown up. And this is her friend Ethan. And you remember our son, Willy. They've come to help out today." Willy was already leaning against a wall in the corner looking about as helpful as a stray dog.

Mom continued the introductions. "Kids, this is Harold Wyman. He's in charge of the kitchen here."

"Yes I am, and I'm a happy man on the days your father comes in to help me cook. Those days I can sit back and everything runs smooth as a river without me paying it any attention."

Dad put one hand on Harold's back. "Actually Harold just lets me cook because I always bring a vat of my famous homemade hot sauce on chili days. Isn't that right?"

Harold laughed. "Well, that does influence me a little bit, Bill, I must admit."

Ha-ha. Harold didn't know what the rest of us went through the nights Dad decided he had to make more stupid hot sauce. Mom always managed to have a meeting to go to, but Willy and I usually just barricaded ourselves in the den with a pizza. The stink of that stuff goes right through walls. I don't know what's in it, but it makes your eyes water and your throat sore. Holding your nose is no help at all. I'd sooner eat nails.

"So, which of you wants to work in the kitchen, and which out front?" Mom asked.

"Kitchen!" I volunteered immediately. That way at least I wouldn't have to deal with all those people. What if that toothless guy showed up again?

"I'll work out front," Ethan said, the traitor.

"What about you, son?" Dad asked Willy. "Kitchen? Help us make spaghetti sauce for two hundred?"

"Whatever," Willy muttered. I couldn't see what he was so mad about. He'd arranged to pick up his new girlfriend at two thirty. Her gourmet sandwiches wouldn't get moldy that soon.

"Okay," Mr. Wyman said. "Kitchen help this way. Alice, you can show the boy there about setting up the steam table and putting out the fine silver. Later we've got to talk. We might be getting the price down on the place next door."

"Oh, that's great, Harold," Mom said. "Not a day too soon, either. Weather's getting cool already."

The kitchen wasn't really that bad. Dad and Harold -- he told us to call him Harold right off -- were like a comedy act or something. Together they made this huge cauldron of spaghetti sauce, pretending to put in things like eye of newt and alligator toenails while they were really adding garlic and oregano. Harold acted like he was putting in an old tennis ball, but then he made it disappear into thin air. It was nice to see Dad having such a good time. He seemed more relaxed than he usually did at home, where he's always looking at his watch to see if he's got time to finish one thing before he goes to the next.

Willy and I got the job of washing and ripping up about a hundred heads of lettuce for the salad table. Lots of other people came in, too, and they all seemed to know one another. It was actually starting to look kind of like the mural on the front of the building.

"This isn't as bad as I remember," I told Willy.

"That's because we aren't out front. Wait till your friend Ethan gets a load of the clientele." Willy shivered.

"They aren't that bad. They're just people who can't afford food," I said, trying to convince myself. Also, I didn't like to agree with Willy if I could help it.

"That's not what you thought a few years ago when that guy wanted you to dig through the garbage for his molars." Willy laughed.

"That was different. I was a little kid then."

"Oh, right. I forgot how grown-up you are now. Miss Middle School."

I hated that Willy was so much older than me that my life was just a faraway joke to him. Mom told me once that as we got older, five years wouldn't seem like such a big difference, but she was probably just saying that. It seemed that for every year older I got, Willy got two. I mean, when he was nine and I was four, he'd at least pull me in the wagon sometimes; now he acted like I was too childish to be allowed in the backseat of his car.

As we finished chopping the carrots and peppers, I could hear people starting to line up outside at the door.

"Gather round for a minute, please, folks," Harold sang out. "Make a circle." Most people had been here before, so we just did what they did, joined hands and stood in a circle, looking at Harold. I was right between a young couple who spoke Spanish to each other over my head. I asked if they wanted to stand together, but the girl said, "Oh, no, you stay!" and gave me a big smile.

Willy had to hold Dad's hand on one side and some middle-aged woman's on the other, and I could tell he wasn't too happy about it. I mean, Willy probably hadn't held hands with anybody since kindergarten. I was pretty sure he was thinking this circle thing was too sappy for words.

"As you can hear, our guests have arrived," Harold said. "I hope no one will forget that these folks are our guests. Please greet them with a smile, as you would a guest in your own home, for the welcome we give here at Derby Street is as important to them as the warm food in their stomachs." I thought that was a nice way to put it, although I guessed that if they had to choose, they'd take the food over the smile.

Then we all looked at our shoes while Harold said a prayer. At the end of the prayer, he clapped his hands and said, "Open the doors and go to work!"

"Run the salad stuff out to the table, would you, Bess?" Dad called out. "Willy, you can slice the bread."

Willy smirked as I picked up the big silver container and backed through the door. There they were, our guests, starting through the line, kind of tired-looking, but not really scary at all. Some of them were quiet and kept to themselves, choosing tables in the corners, while others yelled hello to their friends and sat in groups. There were a few people who were dressed really raggedy or in too many layers, and seemed to be having conversations with themselves. But mostly it wasn't that different from the cafeteria at school, just people meeting and eating and talking, then going on their way.

Mom was second on the serving line. A woman named Dorrie put the spaghetti on the plate, and Mom poured the sauce over it. Then she held the plate out while Ethan plopped a roll on it and handed it to the person waiting. Of course, she knew a lot of people by name, and they knew her. As I stood watching, I felt really proud of my mom, not just for working on the line, but for enjoying it so much.

Ethan was having a good time, too. I could tell. Mom was introducing him to the people she knew the best, and they were all telling him, "Thank you very much, young man," and things like that. He was all red in the face and smiling.

"Hey, Kitchen Help!" Harold shouted from the doorway. "We gotta clean up this mess and get ready for the dirty dishes!" They sure worked you hard.

Pretty soon the place was really noisy. There were people bringing their trays to the clearing table, and other people getting another cup of coffee and sitting around talking, and one table full of people singing some kind of hymns back in the corner. And kids. That surprised me. I hadn't remembered the kids, but today there were about a dozen little kids running around, playing, just like kids do anywhere.

The kitchen people were laughing, too, while they banged carts of dirty dishes around and washed everything up. Somebody brought a radio and had it tuned to a jazz station and turned up loud. Some people even danced a little while they worked. It was kind of cool.

Willy and I got assigned to the clearing table, where people brought their trays when they were finished. A few people forgot to clear their own tables, so when things got quieter, I went around to get the dishes.

I was dumping a couple of trays into the trash when all of a sudden I felt my new glasses starting to slip down my nose. I had trays in both hands and even though I tried to keep the glasses in place by screwing up my nose, they slipped down, anyway, right into the trash!

"My glasses!" I yelled.

Willy saw the whole thing and laughed so hard, he just about wet his pants.

"Yuck!" I said, peering into the soggy mass of spaghetti, salad, and used napkins. "Lemme reach in there and get 'em out for you, child." Before I could say anything, a small black man leaned over the barrel and picked through the slop. In just a second he'd pulled my glasses out. "Here you go. They needs some washin'," he said, handing them to me. "I imagine I do, too!" He laughed.

"Thank you. You didn't have to -- ," I said.

"Nothin' to it, dear." He gave me a big smile that was full of holes. "Newly Puckett at your service." He bowed at the waist and then walked off.

The whole thing was so weird. I gave Willy a hard shove as I went into the kitchen to wash my glasses. He was laughing so much, he couldn't stand up straight.

There were still some trays to clear and, anyway, I couldn't stand listening to Willy, who was just making himself laugh now, so I went back out into the main room. An old woman was sitting by herself at a back table, but it looked like she was finished eating. There were two trays on her table, so I went back to get them.

I'd been trying to smile at people, like Harold said to, so when I got to the table, I gave the woman a big grin and she looked right up at me. It was Gracie. "Oh!" I said. "Hello."

She looked a little scared, like the day we found her by the Dumpster, but she smiled. "Good girl," she said.

I wasn't sure if she remembered me or if she just called everybody "good girl." "Do you know who I am?" I asked her.

"Good girl," she said again.

"Hey," Willy called to me from the kitchen door. "We're not finished in here."

"It's okay, Willy," Mom said. "You can take off now if you want. Thank you."

Willy looked a little embarrassed as he took off his apron and sauntered out the door, like he was in no big hurry to get going, but he would if he wasn't needed anymore.

Gracie had finished her dinner and was hugging a cup of coffee in her hands as if it were a cold day. She was still wearing several layers of clothes and she smelled a little musty, but not too bad.

"Do you want more coffee?" I asked her.

"Gracie likes coffee," she said, and held out her cup. I went to the pot and got her a refill, then sat down across from her. For one thing, I was exhausted from running around here half the day, but I also kind of wanted to talk to her. It was funny -- recognizing her in this place, where I didn't know anybody, made her seem almost like a friend, except, of course, I didn't really know her, either. She didn't seem all that crazy sitting here drinking coffee -- definitely strange, but not totally nuts or anything.

"My name is Bess," I said. "And you're Gracie?"

"Gracie." She looked shy at first, but then she sat up straight in her chair. "Grace Jarvis Battle. My husband was Ernest Warren Battle."

"My name is Bess Cunningham. My parents work here every other Sunday. Are you from Atwood? Did you grow up here?" What I really wanted to know was, how did you end up here, at the Derby Street Shelter, eating leftovers, but I couldn't ask that.

She shook her head. "Born in Linton. Moved to Atwood with Ernest. He was born round here." Suddenly her voice got louder. "I was married thirty-five years. He was a good man, Ernest was. It was not his fault about the business. When he died, there was nothing left. Nothing left." She shook her head.

"Do you have any children?" I wasn't sure if I was being too nosy or not, but Gracie didn't seem to mind.

"No, never had any. Wish I had. Wish I had. Only a sister. Dead now, too." Her face wrinkled up all of a sudden, like the ground after an earthquake. She spoke loudly again. "That girl's no good. Evil and hateful. She could help me, but she won't! Rich people are like that. They spit on you."

"Who won't help you? Your niece? My mother said you had a niece."

But Gracie wasn't paying any attention to me anymore. "I didn't spill the coffee that time. No sirree. Sometimes they spit on me. I don't like that, no sirree." Her face was twitching now. "It's not my fault. It's not Ernest's fault."

Obviously she was a little crazy, but still, how could her niece let her sleep out on the street and eat out of Dumpsters?

"Where does your niece live?"

She'd settled down a little bit, and she smiled at me again. "I can have two cups of coffee if I want to. Yes sirree. I can even have three cups if I want." She sounded just like a little kid, and it made me smile.