Everything I Know About You Page 6

  “Numbers?” Spider repeated. He seemed interested. “Do you think it’s some kind of code?”

  “Possibly.” I hadn’t considered that. Ava was in accelerated math, but she never seemed like a numbers person to me. She wasn’t even someone who seemed to like numbers, especially. “I mean, I didn’t see any pattern, but—”

  “Everything good, you guys?” All of a sudden, Ms. Jordan was beside the three of us. She was shiny again, not dusty and droopy like she’d looked when we arrived at the hotel, and her new-looking turquoise sneakers gave her a bouncy walk.

  “Yep, everything’s fine,” I said.

  “What’s all that?” She pointed to my arms and legs. Since we were being forced to wear the Ugly Tee, I’d decided to decorate my limbs with pirate Band-Aids. I’d also stuck a couple on my neck.

  “Mosquito bites,” I said. “If I don’t cover them up, I’ll scratch, which can lead to infection.”

  “Oh yes. Washington’s a swamp. I should have warned you guys there’d be mosquitoes.”

  “That’s okay. I’m always prepared for mosquitoes and other random annoying creatures!”

  Ms. Jordan gave me a funny look and jogged to the front.

  Cheese

  AS SOON AS WE ARRIVED at the National Mall, Sydney let out a wail. “Ms. Jordan, this can’t be a mall. There aren’t any shops!”

  Ms. Jordan smiled. “In eighteenth-century England, the word ‘mall’ meant a ‘shady promenade.’ In other words, a tree-lined walkway.”

  “In other words, bor-ang,” Sydney said.

  “There’s nothing boring about this place, dear,” Mrs. Seeley told her. “It’s the heart of the world’s democracy.”

  Ms. Jordan kept on smiling at Mrs. Seeley. “Yes, although let’s remember that America didn’t invent democracy. It’s one of the many American things that had its origin somewhere else.”

  “Yeah, like hot dogs,” Marco said. “Which are from Germany.”

  “And apple pie,” Spider added.

  I blinked. “Oh no, Spider, that’s wrong! Apple pie is definitely American.”

  “Not originally,” Spider insisted. He jutted his chin at me. “It’s from England, like in the thirteen hundreds. I read it.”

  A hot wind blew up, snapping Ms. Jordan’s hair around her face. “Yes, that’s true, and plenty of other American foods are also on that list. Did you guys know the ancient Aztecs ate peanut butter and popcorn?”

  “¡Yupi!” Nadia exclaimed. “My people rule!”

  Haley laughed. “Nadia, you’re not Aztec.”

  “No, but my family is Mexican-American, so I bet we’re part Aztec, too. Do not doubt me, mortal.” She stuck out her tongue, and I saw Haley, Ava, and Sonnet laugh.

  My own hair started whipping around then, so I made a sort of bun out of it, holding it in place with one of my elastic fake-shark-tooth bracelets. Because I’m adopted, I didn’t know my exact heritage, but I liked wondering about it. Sometimes I thought of myself as a mathematical formula:

  X (Bio-mom Marisa, whose mom was from Portugal and whose dad was Italian-American) + Y (Bio-dad) = me, genetically speaking.

  Of course, Bio-mom Marisa wasn’t just a simple sum of her own two parents; there were all these other unknown ancestors you had to add to the equation, who could have been from anywhere: Brazil. Morocco. Canada. And same for Bio-dad, whoever he was. So it really wasn’t a straight addition equation, anyway. Or if it was an addition equation, it was the kind that was so big and complicated, it would take over an entire whiteboard.

  Also, this formula didn’t factor in Mom and Dad and Fiona—and, obviously, I was the product of them, too.

  And sometimes I wondered: If you added up Marisa + Bio-dad + Mom + Dad, would the answer be Talia Martin—or would there still be something missing? Like my mathitude, for example: Did I get it from Bio-dad or Marisa? The little I knew about her didn’t include any math scores. Mom and Dad both hated math, and Fiona almost failed ninth grade algebra last year. Maybe there was some specifically Tally math ability that just popped up all on its own—not a gene gift from anyone, just a 100-Percent Me thing.

  Or maybe one day I’d meet Marisa and find out that all this time she was a nuclear physicist or a math teacher. Because it was possible, wasn’t it? For all I knew, she even had a ringtail-lemur necklace like mine. And a big butt, too.

  When I looked up, I saw Marco staring at my hair, as if bun-making were a complicated math problem he wanted to watch me solve.

  • • •

  We started at the Lincoln Memorial, which Mr. G said was the site of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963.

  I wanted to breathe the air around the Abraham Lincoln statue, feel historic molecules blowing on my skin. But immediately Mrs. Seeley announced that it was the “ideal spot for a group photo,” so she organized us on the steps and took out a camera—a real camera, not a phone.

  “Let’s see those beautiful T-shirts,” she insisted. “And let’s have everybody smiling. Say ‘cheese’!”

  Nobody said it.

  “Come on, what’s the matter with saying ‘cheese’?” she argued, laughing.

  “Too cheesy,” Marco said.

  “How about if we say, ‘Go, Bulldogs’?” Nadia suggested.

  “Or just ‘Eastview,’ ” Ava said. “You have to smile when you say ‘East.’ ”

  Everyone liked that, so they shouted “Eastview.” But not me. I was disgusted: Saying “Eastview” at the Lincoln Memorial pretty much wrecked the aura of the whole place, as far as I was concerned. So instead I shouted, “I have a dream,” which meant I finished a nanosecond after everyone. It came out “Eastview . . . a dream,” and that made everybody giggle hysterically.

  Except for Ms. Jordan, who held up a hand. “Can we get one more photo? And this time, can everyone follow Tally’s example and say ‘dream’?”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful,” Mrs. Seeley exclaimed. “Okay, everybody. Ava, darling, get your hair out of your eyes. And stand up straight, please! One, two, three—”

  “Dream!” everyone shouted.

  “Cheese,” I said. Because I hated the idea of turning Dr. King’s speech into a photo opportunity. And everyone saying the word “dream” as if it meant “smile.”

  Selfies

  NEXT WE WALKED OVER TO the Vietnam Memorial. As soon as I saw it, I had a weird feeling in my stomach, like how it felt when Grandma Wendy died and we went to the cemetery. A feeling like I wanted to cry, or something, but also like it was wrong to make any sounds.

  I guessed other people felt like that too, because the whole place was pretty quiet. We watched a woman hold a sheet of paper to the wall, and use a pencil to make a rubbing of the name. Who was that person, I wondered. Her husband? No, she wasn’t old enough. Her father? Uncle? Whoever it was, she loved that person; you could tell by the way her fingers stayed on the name.

  Finally, she slipped the paper into her bag and left. Then Mr. G told us that that there’d been a national contest to see who could design a memorial for the Vietnam War, and the winner was a college student named Maya Lin.

  “Why do you think she designed it this way?” he asked.

  “It’s such a weird shape,” Ava said, frowning. “It’s not even a right angle.”

  It was such an Ava thing to say—but the thing was, she was right. I looked it up on my phone: the two sides met at an angle of 125 degrees 12 minutes, a funny angle to choose, really. Plus, those extra twelve-sixtieths of a degree definitely bothered me. Why did we need them? Monuments were supposed to be exact.

  “Also,” Nadia said, “the names aren’t even alphabetical.”

  “Right,” Ms. Jordan said. “Maya Lin decided to list the names chronologically, in order of when each soldier fell or went missing in action. Why do you think she made that choice?”

  “To make you search for them?” Spider called out.

  I stared. Spider wasn’t in my social studies class this y
ear, so I never saw him answer questions. Last year, he barely said a word unless the teacher made him. And even then, he’d say like three syllables.

  Mr. G was smiling at Spider. “And why do you think she wanted that?”

  “I don’t know,” Spider said. “Maybe so you can’t just come here; you have to do something.”

  “Interesting,” Mr. G said.

  “But even if you come here looking for just one name, the chronological order causes you to see other names too. How they’re all connected,” Ms. Jordan added.

  She caught my eye for a second. What was that about?

  I looked away, pretending to focus on un-bunning my hair.

  “Didn’t a lot of people protest the war?” Spider asked. “So maybe Maya Lin wanted people to spend time here. To bring them together, kind of.”

  Mr. G gave Spider a high five. “Monuments can remind us that we’re one nation. E pluribus unum, right? And very smart thinking there, Caleb.”

  Spider beamed.

  So did I. It was great how Mr. G had praised Spider in front of everybody. And it was also great how Spider spoke up, especially about something he didn’t know for sure. Because Spider collected facts about his favorite subjects, but when you asked for his opinion, he usually just shrugged. So seeing him be brave enough to guess—especially in public—made me very happy.

  But then two things happened to spoil my good mood:

  The first was that Mr. G raised his eyebrows at me and smiled. This gave me a weird feeling, because it was like he was saying: Did you hear your friend just now? And of course I had. Why would he think I hadn’t?

  The second was that all of a sudden, Ava, Nadia, Haley, Sydney, Shanaya, and some other girls started posing for selfies. Like they thought the whole function of the wall was to serve as a backdrop for their outfits and hairstyles. And then Mrs. Seeley took out her camera and actually encouraged them to pose: “Look at me, everyone, and squeeze together. Ava honey, hands by your side, and no squinting, please.”

  And maybe the worst part was that Sonnet wanted to join them. Haley Spriggs was waving her over, and she asked if I thought she should go.

  “You mean to photobomb it?” I said.

  “No, I mean to be in the photo. With them.” Her cheeks were pink.

  “Sonnet, if you want to, just do it.”

  “You won’t mind?”

  “Are you crazy? Why would I mind?”

  Immediately she ran over to squeeze herself next to Haley.

  Out of nowhere, Ms. Jordan appeared by my side. “Tally, don’t you want to be in the photo?”

  “You mean, why don’t I want to be in some stupid photo that basically misses the point of this entire monument? Just like we missed the point of the Lincoln Memorial?”

  “Okay, I get what you’re saying, and I don’t disagree. These are solemn, important places in our history. But don’t you think a photo would be a nice souvenir from the trip? And one day you’ll look back—”

  “And I’ll think: Who are those girls, and why are they smiling in front of the Vietnam Memorial? Don’t they understand what it’s about? And why do they all look exactly the same?”

  “Why? Because they’re all wearing Eastview Spirit tees.”

  “Well, yeah. What I mean is, why are they all making exactly the same face?” I did The Smile for her. I even flipped my hair over my shoulder, the way Nadia did. Except my own hair didn’t pose; it just blew into my face.

  Ms. Jordan patted my back. “All right, Tally, I get your point. You’re a strong individual, and that’s great sometimes. But being part of a group is also great sometimes. There would be no Civil Rights Movement if people hadn’t joined forces, right? Same thing for the anti–Vietnam War movement. And the American Revolution, too, for that matter. Think about what I was saying before, how the names on this wall are all connected.”

  Okay, this was getting way too history-lessonish for me. All I’d meant was that I didn’t want to be in the clonegirl photo. Why did Ms. Jordan care about it, anyway?

  And now she was squinting at my sweaty arms.

  “You’re losing Band-Aids,” she explained, pointing to the pirate Band-Aid flapping off my elbow, exposing mosquito-biteless skin.

  I pressed the Band-Aid back on. “Oops. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  For a second I thought she’d ask why I was wearing Band-Aids if my skin was obviously unbitten. But I was relieved she didn’t, because the truth was I didn’t even know.

  My Idea of Perfect

  WE DID MORE MEMORIALS—World War II, Korean War, FDR—and then people started complaining about being hungry and tired.

  “Okay, time for dinner,” Ms. Jordan agreed. “But first, a moment for the Washington Monument, which we can’t visit at the moment due to some renovation. But let’s all gaze at it from afar. Who knows what we call its shape? Tally?” She smiled at me, knowing I knew the answer.

  “An obelisk,” I announced. “Which means it has a square or rectangle bottom and a pyramid top. So it’s like a cross between two different polygons, which is really cool. And you know what else is cool? It’s exactly five hundred fifty-five feet, five inches tall.”

  “No, it’s not,” Shanaya said.

  “Excuse me?” I squinted at her.

  “Since the earthquake, it’s five hundred fifty-four feet, seven and eleven-thirty-seconds inches.” She held up some article on her phone.

  “Yeah,” Spider chimed in. “And before the earthquake, it was five hundred fifty-five feet, five and one-eighth inches. So actually, it was always off a little.” He shrugged.

  “Dude,” Marco said. “Did you just, like, know that?”

  Because the thing was, unlike Shanaya, Spider wasn’t even reading this number off his phone.

  My cheeks burned. It had really bothered me that the Vietnam Memorial had that weird angle, and I definitely did not want to hear all those messy fractions about the Washington Monument, which had always been my idea of perfect. And why was Spider agreeing with Shanaya? I knew he wouldn’t make me look dumb in front of everyone on purpose, but I wondered why he didn’t just tell me this fact in private. I mean, if he had it in his head the whole time, anyway.

  Ms. Jordan caught my eye. “Well, as Tally informs me, the Washington Monument is the world’s tallest freestanding obelisk and the world’s tallest stone structure, so how cool is that?” She gave me a thumbs-up. So I felt maybe one lepton better. A lepton and a half.

  Then we trooped back to Hotel Independence, where we could eat half-price in the Thomas Jefferson restaurant. (Or, at least, that was the deal they’d offered the imaginary medical-school students, and they were probably too scared of Mrs. Seeley not to offer it to us.)

  “Oh, yummy, Revolutionary War food,” I said. “Porridge and lard, probably, right?”

  “And venison,” Spider said.

  “Venison?” My mouth dropped open. “Eww, I absolutely refuse to eat Bambi! Or Thumper! Or squirrel meat!”

  “Shh, Tally,” Ms. Jordan scolded, even though we were just walking on a noisy city street. “I’m sure the restaurant has regular, delicious, modern food. And it’s buffet style, so just choose whatever you want.”

  “You mean it’s all-you-can-eat?” asked Trey, his eyes popping. “I’m so hungry I’m gonna eat till it’s coming out of my eyeballs.”

  Nadia slapped Trey’s arm. “Try not to be disgusting, okay?”

  “Sorry. But it’s not my fault boys need to eat. Maybe girls don’t, but—”

  “Who says girls don’t?” I challenged him. Marco smiled; I pretended not to see.

  “Let’s all not take more than we’ll eat,” Ms. Jordan said. “Let’s act like well-mannered hotel guests, shall we?”

  Ava mumbled something to Nadia that I couldn’t hear.

  Body Talk

  A FEW MINUTES LATER WE entered the restaurant. It was less American Revolution-y than the rest of the hotel, but still red, white, and blue, with fan
cy portraits on the walls, and tiny colonial flags on all the tables instead of flower vases or candles. But I was relieved to see that the buffet thing worked kind of like the school cafeteria—except without sporks or lunch ladies in hairnets or lukewarm sour-smelling milk in half-pint containers.

  Also, the food looked good. I mean, really good. On my plate I heaped some stir-fried chicken dish, a mini-pizza, peas with almonds, and some apple pie. Sonnet had mac and cheese and french fries; Spider had mashed potatoes and a chili dog. The three of us grabbed a big table by the dessert stand and started stuffing our mouths. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was, but as soon as I started eating, I realized that I hadn’t had a real meal all day.

  “Hey, Tally, remember that time your family took us to that street fair and we had like three hot dogs each?” Spider said. “And then all of a sudden I asked: Why are they called hot dogs?”

  “So Dad had to explain they were just the shape of dachshunds, and weren’t actual dog,” I said. “And finally you believed him.”

  “Yeah. I was so dumb.”

  I patted his arm “You weren’t dumb; you were little.”

  “I used to think horseradish was made from horses,” Sonnet said. “And once my mom made chicken cacciatore, and I freaked because I thought it was made out of cats.”

  “That’s terrible,” Spider said, laughing.

  “You know those pastries called bear claws and elephant ears?” I said. “Guess what I thought when Dad first baked some.”

  “Eww,” Spider said, laughing.

  “Good thing he never made ladyfingers.” I grinned at Spider, who was laughing even harder now, a hyuk-hyuk that made his shoulders go sideways. Suddenly I realized that I hadn’t heard that laugh in a long time.

  Then a strange thing happened. Haley, Nadia, and Ava asked if they could join us. Or, rather, Haley asked Sonnet, and Nadia and Ava were somehow included in the question.