This Is Me From Now On Page 4

  I nodded. But I didn’t look at her. Instead, I was staring at Espee.

  Because I’d seen her a bunch of times rushing past in the hallways. But this was the first time I’d ever seen her up close, and after a summer of Lily’s fashion magazine, I couldn’t decide if this was the weirdest-looking woman I’d ever seen in my life, or the coolest. Aside from the tallness and the skinniness and the random silvery streaks in her almost-black hair, she had pale, un-made-up skin, and light aquamarine eyes. She might have been wearing a sort of intellectual black eyeliner, but she moved around so much, I couldn’t get a good look. And her clothes—it was hard to imagine someone waking up for the first day of school and thinking, Oh, I know. I’ll wear my shapeless black pants outfit today. But you knew she’d been thinking something, because everything about her seemed sharp and focused and on purpose. Even the way she grabbed a blue marker and wrote under the word “SPUSH,” in a very straight,

  un-penmanshippy script:

  History is a story we tell ourselves

  “What do you suppose this means?” she asked suddenly, as if she’d just discovered some kind of important clue

  No one answered

  Someone in the back of the room coughed

  “It means history is a lie,” called out this boy named Brendan Meyers who all of last year never once wore deodorant

  “Really?” Espee cocked her head to one side, which made her hair swing excitedly. “Then why study it?”

  “Because we have to?” Kayla asked. I didn’t look, but from the car alarm sound, I could tell Gaby was giggling.

  “Okay, true, but that’s the brainless answer,” Espee said, her eyes sparkling. “What if we didn’t have to? Would we somehow want to tell ourselves lies?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” Francesca blurted out

  “Really? Why do you say that, Francesca?”

  So Espee knew her name; not a good sign. On the other hand, she was smiling. You could see she had slightly crooked teeth, which for some reason made her seem younger

  And Francesca was smiling back. “Because lies make people feel good. And maybe nobody knows the whole truth, anyway.”

  Omigod, I wrote in teeny-tiny letters on the first page of my Spush notebook. Francesca is sitting here admitting she’s a liar!!

  “Hmm,” Espee said. “Interesting. But don’t we have an obligation to figure out the truth?”

  “Not if lies make more sense,” Francesca answered cheerfully

  She did it again!!!

  “That’s just stupid,” Brendan snorted.

  “I agree,” Nisha said. “Who cares if a lie makes sense. It’s just wrong.”

  Espee bowed her head. “Fair enough. But let’s avoid words like ‘stupid’ and ‘wrong.’”

  “Even if you totally disagree with someone?” Nisha argued. She glanced quickly at Lily, who glanced quickly

  at me.

  “Listen, guys, this is really important,” Espee said firmly. “In this class, there’s never just one answer, like in math. There are only interpretations, supported by evidence. So what about yours?”

  I realized she was pressing on my shoulder with a cool, dry hand.

  “Mine?” I said.

  “Yes, you. Our note taker.”

  “Her name is Evie,” Francesca announced. “Evie Webber.”

  Nisha kicked me

  “Thanks, Francesca,” Espee said. She looked at me as if she was expecting something important.

  And then I panicked, because I’d totally lost track of this discussion. I stared blindly at the quote on the whiteboard: History is a story we tell ourselves. “Um. Well. I think lies always get found out, even if they look like they make sense. I mean, at first. But maybe . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t think that’s what the quote means. It’s about stories. And stories are different from lies.”

  “How so?” Espee asked, speed-walking away from me. “Are stories true?”

  “They don’t have to be. But they could be based on the truth. They make more sense if they are. In the long run. And, anyway, no one means them to be false, so it’s like they’re bigger than lies.”

  Kayla made a face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Evie.”

  “Neither do I,” I admitted. A couple of kids behind me laughed.

  But then I said, “Maybe stories just have more sides to them. So they’re more complicated than lies. And also more interesting.”

  “Hmm. Very thoughtful, Evie,” Espee said. Her eyes sparkled at me from across the room, and I realized I was blushing. “Well, we’ll have to keep thinking about the difference between stories and lies, and why we tell ourselves U.S. history in the first place.”

  She reached her strong-skinny arm into a leather briefcase and took out some papers. Then she sat on top of her desk and crossed her legs like she was doing yoga.

  “All right, then,” she said, in a campfire sort of voice. “If history is a story, whatever that means, this year let’s agree to tell ourselves the best, most fascinating story we can. So we’ll be doing very little textbook work. That’s the good news.”

  “What’s the bad?” asked Brendan

  Espee smiled. She started passing around the papers

  Nisha looked at me and murmured, “Omigod, Evie. She’s giving work already?”

  I didn’t answer. I just took a paper and read

  SP USH ATTIC PROJECT

  Step 1: Go up to your attic. (Interpret “attic” loosely.)

  Step 2: Find some family document(s) relating to a particular event or period in U.S. history—e.g., a scrapbook, a diary, some correspondence. Almost anything goes, as long as it’s written

  Step 3: Analyze closely, using multiple outside sources. (Take lots of notes. Try to fill a whole spiral notebook!

  Step 4: Find out all you can about the author. What sort of storyteller is/was he/she?

  —Don’t have an “attic”? See me for a Mystery Box.

  —Work in pairs; either person’s “attic” is fine

  —Start now. Make daily progress. Finish by September 18

  chapter 4

  Twelve days?” Nisha screeched as we left the building. “She’s giving us twelve puny days for a major research project? That she assigns to us the first day of school? I swear, you guys, that woman definitely is a wicked witch.”

  “Actually,” Lily said, “I feel kind of sorry for her.”

  Nisha laughed in disbelief. “You do? Why?”

  “Because she obviously has no life.”

  “How can you tell that?” I asked curiously

  “Just the way she’s so intense about everything. Like she really thinks U.S. history is so important. And interesting. And also the way she looks.”

  “Omigod. Her hair. Those pants,” Nisha hooted. “Almost goth. Nerd goth.”

  “There’s no such thing as nerd goth,” I said. “Besides, I think she looks sort of cool.”

  “Right. And you also like bug jewelry.”

  I pretended to ignore that. “Anyway, who cares what she looks like? Don’t you think she’s incredibly un-teachery? I mean, compared to, like, Mr. Womack?” Last year Mr. Womack was our teacher for sixth-grade Social Studies. All he did the whole year were these dorky PowerPoint presentations with the same title: The Legacy of Ancient Greece, The Legacy of Ancient Rome, The Legacy of Fill in the Blank.

  “I still think she’s evil, assigning this huge project the very first day,” Nisha grumbled. “And then acting like there’s no right or wrong, even if someone is lying.”

  Before I could say that I actually didn’t think that’s what Espee had meant, Lily grabbed my arm. “Look, Evie, is that Zane?” With her non-grabbing hand, she pointed to a clump of jersey-wearing eighth-grade boys on the grass in front of the faculty parking lot.

  “Uh, yeah, it is,” I said. I squinted as if he were a tiny, smudgy dot way off in the distance. “I mean, I’m pretty sure.”

  Lily grinned. �
�So why don’t you go over and talk to him, then?”

  “And say what? ‘One scoop of chocolate chip, please’?”

  “No. You could say something like, ‘Hey, Zane. I heard you had Espee last year. Is she actually a wicked witch, or does she just dress like one?’”

  I groaned. I mean, I loved Lily, but she kind of thought she was an expert on flirting and dating just because she went to the mall last June with Tyler Corbett. And really, it was barely even a date. Tyler’s mom left them at a booth at the IHOP and then went off to shop at Payless, and the only thing Tyler said to Lily the entire time was, Can you please pass the syrup? So that’s what we’ve called him ever since: Can You Please Pass the Syrup. Of course not to his face

  “Oh, leave her alone, Lily,” Nisha said. “Evie doesn’t even like Zane, remember?”

  “That’s not what I said,” I protested. “I said I wasn’t sure.”

  Nisha grinned at me. “Well, that’s not my interpretation. Based on the evidence.”

  Pretty soon we were at Nisha’s. We’d be going there all the time now, because Mrs. Guptil had convinced Lily’s dad to let Lily do homework there in the afternoons rather than be totally unsupervised in a messy house full of junk food. I was happy for Lily, who I knew sometimes got lonely with no one home all day except Jimmy. But to be honest, I wasn’t so sure about this new arrangement, mainly because we’d have to be dealing with Nisha’s mom on a daily basis.

  “And how was school?” Mrs. Guptil asked, pouncing on us the second we walked in the door. “Did you like all your teachers?”

  Nisha opened the refrigerator. “Meh.”

  “What does ‘meh’ mean? Speak English, Nisha, my darling.”

  “They seem okay,” Lily told Mrs. Guptil. Then she turned bright pink. “Especially the art teacher.”

  “Oh, yeah, Mr. Rafferty’s definitely hot,” Nisha said. “But I’m not so sure about that little soul-patch thingy. It’s kind of ‘I’m so cool, I’m not really a grown-up.’ Don’t you think, Evie?”

  Mrs. Guptil made a tsk sound. “Nisha, my darling, show some respect for your teacher, please. And shut the refrigerator if you’re not taking anything out.”

  Nisha grabbed a bunch of green grapes. She popped a couple in her mouth, then offered the rest to Lily and me. “So, Moms,” she said ultra-casually, in a way I knew Mrs. Guptil hated, “do we still have Great-grandpa’s scrapbook?”

  “Of course we do,” Mrs. Guptil said. “It’s in the attic. Do you think I’d just creep up there one day and toss it in the garbage? It’s your heritage, Nisha, my darling.” She shook her head at Lily and me. “My daughter is such an American,” she said, sighing

  After we finished the grapes and listened to Mrs. Guptil complain about her landscaper, Nisha went up to her attic and came back down to her bedroom with a big leather box. As soon as she opened it, I knew it was incredible. I mean, totally apart from the fact that it was like the whole Attic Project was lying there on her bed, all ready for Step 3, it was just an amazing thing to see: an enormous scrapbook covered in purple silk, with thick cardboardy pages full of faded photos and typed letters and fountain-pen-written notes. All of it was about Nisha’s great-grandpa Mohan, who’d been a doctor back in Delhi. He was great at it, Nisha said, but when he came to Baltimore in the twenties, no hospital would hire him because his skin was dark and he had an accent. So he worked as a janitor in the local veterans hospital, and became president of the Baltimore Socialist Party. He sent a million letters and photos back to India, which some relative stuck in a scrapbook. And one day when he was visiting Delhi, the relative gave him the scrapbook to bring home to Baltimore.

  “And now it’s mine,” Nisha said, making a cartoon mustache with her index finger. “All mine.”

  “Plus whoever you’re working with,” I said. Then I bit my lower lip. “So how are we going to decide who’s working with who?”

  “Maybe we don’t have to,” Lily said in a soothing voice. “Maybe Espee will let us all work together.”

  “She won’t,” I insisted. “The assignment is to work in pairs. Meaning one attic, two people. Not three.”

  Lily put her arm around my shoulders. “Let’s talk to her tomorrow, okay? We’ll explain how we are.”

  I nodded. “What if she says no?”

  “Then we’ll deal with it,” Nisha said confidently. “Besides, what are you so worried about? After that answer you gave today, you’re totally her pet.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Yes you are. You and Francesca. Who’s all in favor of lying.”

  Later, when I got home, Grace was sitting in the kitchen doing her AP Calculus. She immediately told me Francesca had called. Twice. And wanted me to call her back.

  “Okay, thanks,” I said, not reaching for the phone. Because I had a pretty good idea what the call was about: She wanted to pair up on the Attic Project.

  Grace carefully erased something in her notebook. “So how was your first day?”

  “I survived.” I opened the fridge, even though I wasn’t hungry. “When you had Espee you had that Attic Project, right?”

  “Oh, who remembers seventh grade?” She gave me one of her superior smiles. “Oh, riiiight. You mean where we had to find family junk in the attic and then do all this research?”

  I nodded. “And was there anything?”

  “Of course not. You think Mom would keep any of that stuff? The way she cleans?”

  I closed the fridge and got a gigantic glass of ice cubes out of the freezer. “So did you look anywhere else? I mean, besides the attic.”

  “Well, sure,” Grace said. “I called every single one of our relatives, and I spent the entire Labor Day weekend going through Grandma Nora’s file cabinet. And you know what I discovered? We’re probably the only history-free family in North America.”

  I chomped on a cube. “So what did you do? The Mystery Box?”

  “Yeah. And it wasn’t even a box. It was just a stack of letters from a soldier in World War Two. Which I was positive Espee wrote herself.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “I don’t know. They were handwritten, but the ink seemed too perfect, and he mentioned too many battles. And of course we had to analyze every little picky detail, so it was a ton of extra work.” She blinked at me. “Why? You’re doing a Box?”

  “I might have to. If I can’t work with Nisha.”

  “Well, make sure you work with Nisha, then. Because the Box was really evil. At least in my personal experience.”

  The phone rang. I checked the caller ID: S PATTISON. Again.

  “Don’t answer that, okay?” I begged. “I’m sort of hiding from Francesca.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Grace said. “She’s right next door. What if she was watching through the window? What if she saw you come home just now?”

  “It’s really not my problem, Grace.”

  She superior-smiled at that and reopened her AP Calculus book. Which meant the conversation was over because Grace Had to Study, even though the kitchen phone kept right on ringing and ringing.

  chapter 5

  No,” said Ms. Pierce when we went to her classroom at lunch the next day.

  “But we’re so good together,” Lily said. “We never fight.”

  “And we always share the work,” I added. “And we respect each other’s opinions.” That was totally overdoing it, of course, but I was starting to really freak.

  “Sorry,” Espee said, shaking her strange hair. “I’ve been doing this project for eleven years now, girls, and I’ve learned the hard way that groups of three just never work out. Someone is always left in the cold.”

  “Not us,” Nisha insisted. “You can ask Mr. Womack.”

  I nodded at her. That was a smart thing to say.

  But Espee wasn’t buying it. “Sorry,” she repeated firmly. “I truly am, but I’m afraid this one isn’t negotiable. Just figure out how you want to partner up, and then let me know by sixth period.�
�

  “But that’s impossible,” I wailed.

  Espee pressed a cool, dry hand on my shoulder, the way she did the day before in class. “Come talk to me if it really is,” she said.

  As soon as we were out in the hall, Nisha exploded. “She’s so nasty! And condescending! The way she judged our friendship. Like she even knows anything about us.”

  “Oh, well,” Lily said, sighing. “We’ll figure something out.”

  We went to the cafeteria, but by that time all the lines were a million miles long, and anyway, I wasn’t super-hungry. Nisha and Lily were, though, so they got on the Wraps line while I saved a table and nervous-nibbled a bag of Sun Chips. Across the room I watched Francesca eating a slice of pizza by herself, which sort of gave me a guilty pang. The next table over, Zane was shoving around those jersey-wearing boys from yesterday, and for about two horrible seconds I thought she was going to go over to him and ask for lunch recommendations. But she didn’t. She just finished her slice and left the cafeteria, and I could tell one of the jersey-wearers even made some kind of gross Neanderthalish comment as she clomped past.

  Then from out of nowhere Kayla showed up at Zane’s table and started flirting and laughing, like they were suddenly such great friends. That was really weird, because everyone in the seventh grade knew that Kayla was sort-of-dating this semi-jock eighth grader named Ryan Esposito. Plus, when I ran into her and Gaby at I Scream the other day, she didn’t even talk to Zane. Of course, she was behind me in line; so maybe they had a whole flirty conversation while I was outside with Francesca, gaping at her empty pockets.

  “Well, so here’s the problem,” Nisha announced as she and Lily sat down with their wraps. “You know I’d love to partner with you, Evie, and obviously so would Lily. But since Lily is doing homework at my house every afternoon, the only thing that makes sense for this stupid project is if she pairs up with me.”

  I looked at Lily. She was turning hot pink and poking lettuce back into her wrap.

  “Right,” I said slowly. “I totally forgot about the whole after-school thing.”

  “Then you’re not mad?” Nisha asked, watching me with worried eyes.