Gracefully Grayson

Copyright © 2014 by Ami Polonsky
Cover design by Whitney Manger
Cover illustration © 2014 by Kristine Lombardi

All rights reserved. Published by Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.

ISBN 978-1-4231-8792-9

Visit www.un-requiredreading.com

For Ben and Ella,
who have great faith in stories

IF YOU DRAW a triangle with a circle resting on the top point, nobody will be able to tell that it’s a girl in a dress. To add hair, draw kind of a semicircle on top. If you do this, you’ll be safe, because it looks like you’re just doodling shapes.

I was in third grade when I realized I could draw princesses without anyone knowing and, for more than three years, I’ve been sketching the same thing in the margins of my notebooks at school. I look up at the board. Mr. Finnegan has already given us almost an entire page of notes, more than most teachers, but I don’t mind. Humanities is the best class of the day, and besides, it’s no problem for me to take notes and draw at the same time. I sketch another triangle dress in my notebook, circle on the top point, thin semicircle of hair. I try to look at it like I’ve never seen it before just to confirm that nobody else would know that the sketch is really a princess. But I’m good. It’s too abstract.

My pen is a glitter pen—silver. I have a gold one in my backpack, but I always leave the purple and pink ones in my drawer at home with the rest of my art supplies. If anyone asks, I can always say I found the silver and gold ones on the floor in the gym or something, but probably nobody will. I want to fill in the dress with the shining silver, add big eyes and a smile and long shimmering hair, but I never would because that’s not what boys are supposed to do. I squeeze my eyes almost shut to try to see the princess the way I want to. All I can see is her silver outline, though, so I rest my head in my hand and look out the window instead.

Outside, a giant truck barrels down the street and a city bus honks as it turns the corner. Mrs. Frank, the gym teacher, is bringing some little kids out to the soccer field. They’re skipping and running across the grass. Beyond them is Chicago’s skyline. Even though the leaves are starting to change color, it still feels like summer, and it’s way too hot in the classroom. My bright yellow basketball pants are sticking to my thighs. I push my bangs to the side as I adjust the sweatband on my forehead.

Finn is awesome, and I’m lucky I got him for Humanities, especially since Mrs. Tell is the other humanities teacher and she’s probably ninety years old and supposedly horrible. My cousin Jack had her last year and was always in trouble in her class. He blamed it on how boring she was, but lately he’s in trouble in every class, and most of what he says these days is bull.

I look back to my notebook as Finn asks Anthony to read a paragraph about the Holocaust aloud. I think of my drawing pads at home, in my top desk drawer. Usually I draw the castles and landscapes huge and then make the people tiny, so they’re barely noticeable—the queen, the king, and the little blond princess. When I was younger, my mom was an artist, and I wonder for the millionth time what she would have thought of those drawings and of the sketches in my notebooks at school, and I wonder what she drew when she was my age. The one painting that she left behind especially for me is of the earth surrounded by a wave of trees and sprinkled with smiling animals. Behind the earth is the sky, brightening from darkness into light, and at the top of the sky, one bird that’s red, yellow, and blue is soaring, all alone. The painting hangs on the wall next to my bed, so I fall asleep each night looking at it, especially at the bird. And I wake up to it every morning.

Finn writes the names of some places in Europe on the board. I turn to a clean page. “We’re going to start talking about people in specific cities who risked their lives to help Jews escape the Nazis,” Finn says. He sits on his desk as he waits for us to finish writing.

I look up at him when I’m done. He looks relaxed, as usual. His white dress shirt is tucked neatly into his dark jeans, and he’s holding a red dry-erase marker in his hand. “These people had to keep their involvement in the Resistance secret.” He emphasizes the word by walking back to the board to write it above the other notes.

I doodle a new princess and sketch a jagged circle around her. “How would it feel to hide an enormous, important, life-threatening secret from your friends, your neighbors, and maybe even members of your own family?” Finn continues. I bend down and take my gold glitter pen out of my backpack. His question makes me forget all about the Holocaust and think, instead, of when we were in elementary school, back when we had recess every day, and how, for so many years, I sat on the side steps alone, watching everyone else play. I draw a ring of gold flames outside of the jagged circle. They surround the princess. She suffocates.

The clock ticks on the wall, and somebody coughs behind me. Otherwise, the class is still.

“Grayson? Any thoughts?” Finn finally asks. He usually calls on me if nobody answers; I guess because I can always come up with something to say. “What do you think?” he goes on. “How would you feel if you were going about your life, day to day, all the while hiding a dangerous secret?”

I try to seem calm, like I usually feel in Humanities, but my heart is starting to race. I hesitate and look down at my notes. “I mean, I guess I’d feel like it would be safer to stay away from other people,” I finally stumble. Finn waits for me to say more, but I’m kind of hoping he’ll call on someone else now.

“Can you elaborate?” he asks.

I adjust my sweatband again. It’s damp. “Well,” I say, “I’d just stay away from people because I’d be worried I’d accidentally tell them my secret.” It sounds like a question, the way I say it. I feel my ears turning red, and I flatten down my hair to hide them.

The class is quiet, and I look down at my glitter pens. The pause feels like forever.

“Okay,” Finn finally says slowly. Then he’s silent for another second. “Interesting. Does anyone have any thoughts on Grayson’s comment?”

I avoid his eyes and glance around the room at the faces I’ve known pretty much since kindergarten. For a minute, I only look at things, not the people, like the thin braid hanging down the side of Hailey’s head that’s clasped at the bottom with one of those tiny heart clips, Meagan’s pink backpack on the floor next to her desk, the shining wooden desktops.

Then I let my brain adjust and I examine the people. Ryan, who is a complete jerk, sits right across the aisle from me. He glances in my direction, and I look away. On the other side of me, Lila is twirling her long, brown hair into a bun. She seems quiet, but she’s completely in charge of the girls. My eyes rest on Amelia, who started at Porter last week. She looks like she belongs in high school, not sixth grade. Her long, reddish hair hangs over her huge chest. Slowly, she puts her hand up.

She seems nervous, and I feel kind of bad for her. It’s probably not easy to move once the school year has already started, and especially not to a school like Porter, where most of us are lifers.

“I’d actually make friends with more and more people,” she says sort of softly when Finn calls on her. “I wouldn’t stay away from people, because that might look suspicious. I’d just try to act normal, you know, like everyone else.” Her pale, freckled cheeks look pink.

“So,” Finn says, “on one hand we have Grayson’s idea to isolate oneself, and on the other hand is Amelia’s idea to surround oneself with lots of people in order not to appear suspicious.” Next to the word secret, he writes Isolate v. Integrate in quick, slanted writing.

I look up at the clock. It’s almost time to go, and I can’t wait to get to my next class. I copy the last notes quickly. The bell rings, and I stand up with everyone else. “We’ll pick up here tomorrow,” Finn yells over the sound of rustling notebooks. He glances my way. I concentrate on my shoes as I walk to the door.

WHEN SCHOOL IS OVER, I get out of the building fast, like I always do. Lots of kids stay after for activities or sports, but I never have. When I was younger, Uncle Evan, Aunt Sally, and my teachers always tried to get me to join debate or the boys’ chorus or whatever, but finally they gave up and left me alone. I didn’t feel like debating anything in front of an audience, and, even though I have a pretty good voice, I definitely wasn’t trying out for the boys’ chorus.

I look around as I walk to the bus stop. The streets are empty, and it’s pretty quiet outside of school. I relax. Jack does football fall quarter, and Brett goes to the After School Club with a bunch of the other second graders, so they won’t get home for a while. Luckily, we’re the only ones who take the 60 home, so as long as Jack and Brett have activities after school, I don’t have to know anyone on the bus.

My back is completely sweating through my yellow T-shirt, and I sit on the edge of the shaded bench at the bus stop so my mammoth backpack can fit behind me. I always end up taking home books I don’t need, but it’s easier to get out of the building quickly if you just take everything. I squint in the sun. My mind wanders to the Resistance.

The Chicago street fades away, and I see a young girl, just my age. She’s hiding alone on a dirty blanket in the dark, cold basement of the little house where I live with my mom and dad. When the world sleeps and it’s safe, I knock gently on the basement door and bring her something to wear and what stale bread we can spare. She is thin and cold. Her deep, dark eyes meet mine as I loan her my gray, woolen dress.

“Hey, Grayson,” a voice says softly, and I snap my head up. Amelia is standing next to the bench. Her dark eyes meet mine. “Do you take the 60?”

I jump up and accidentally knock my shoulder on her chest. Oh, God. “Sorry,” I mumble. She looks down and takes a little step back. “Yeah. Um, do you?” I ask nervously.

Her cheeks are pink again. “Yeah, we live at the end of Randolph, right across from the lake.”

“Really? What’s your address?”

“One twenty-five Randolph,” she says.

“I live right across the street from you,” I tell her. You can see Amelia’s building from our dining room window.

“Oh, cool. This is my first time riding the bus,” she continues. “My mom drove me up till now. She said she’d drive me until I got used to things. So nice of her. Like that could make up for anything…” Her voice is sarcastic, and it trails off. She holds her red hair out of her face. The warm wind blows around us and becomes even hotter as the 60 pulls up at the stop.

I don’t really know what to say, so I force myself to smile as I fish my bus pass out of my backpack pocket. Amelia unzips her messenger bag, takes out a tiny, hot-pink change purse, and finds her fresh, never-been-used pass. We climb the steps, and I walk to an empty seat. She wobbles over as the bus starts to move and sits down next to me. I look out the window and watch the cars and trucks pass by.

The bus ride is short and will be over soon. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see that Amelia is looking at me. I’m sure she wants to make new friends. I mean, nobody wants to be lonely—unless they have to be. Unless it’s their only choice. So, I take a deep breath and turn to her. “What do you think of Porter?” I ask.

She seems relieved. “It’s okay,” she says. “I guess it’s hard to tell. It seems pretty much like my old school, so far.”

I nod. “Where’d you move from?”

“Boston,” she says. “My mom got a promotion so we had to move here.”

“Oh.” I look down at Amelia’s hands and try to think of what else to say. Her nails are all chewed up, like mine, and I can feel her body bumping and swaying next to me as the 60 makes its way over the potholed streets. We sit quietly for a couple of minutes, and I pretend to be interested in looking out the window.

“This is where we get off,” I tell her when the bus finally slows down. Together, we stand up and walk to the doors. They open, then close behind us. We stand on the corner saying good-bye and see you tomorrow. She heads off down the street.

I cross the street slowly, watching my shoes as I go. Aside from talking about school stuff, that was probably the longest conversation I’ve had with anyone from Porter since second grade. When I get to the other side, I turn and watch Amelia’s back as it disappears into the front door of her building before I walk the rest of the way home.

On the fifteenth floor, I unlock the door to our empty apartment. It’s cool inside, and the air conditioning is humming away. I go to my bedroom, close the door, and stand in front of my mirror. My shoulders are sore from carrying my overstuffed, gray backpack, and I watch myself drop it by the foot of my bed.

My bangs cover my white sweatband, and my hair, which hangs just past my ears, has gotten all tangled up in the wind. I take the sweatband off, grab my brush from my desk, and comb through the knots. I put the sweatband back on so it pulls my bangs off my face, like a headband, but I know I can’t keep it like that so I take it off altogether and throw it onto the bed as hard as I can. It lands silently. I study my sandy blond hair, thick and straight, and my blue eyes. I’m skinny enough that I seem lost in my shiny, bright yellow basketball pants and T-shirt, but my jaw doesn’t look as pointed as it used to, and my shoulders seem more obvious underneath my shirt. I look down at my hands and think of Jack’s hands and Uncle Evan’s, and then I try to push these thoughts away.

I search the mirror for what I was able to see when I got dressed this morning—the long, shining, golden gown and the girl inside of it—but the image has completely vanished, just like I knew it would, because since sixth grade started, this has happened every single day. My imagination doesn’t work like it used to. The basketball pants and T-shirt left in the gorgeous gown’s place are pathetic.

I can practically hear the blood racing through my veins. Aunt Sally and Uncle Evan told me I used to have gigantic temper tantrums when I first moved here. I would rip the curtains off the windows, throw my desk chair across the room, and break everything I could. Everything, obviously, except for the old toys and pictures on my bookshelf. I’d never hurt those.

The urge to explode is rising in me now. I want to smash something into the mirror until I’m a million pieces on the ground, but I’m stuck in front of my reflection and I tell myself to breathe, to try harder.

I spin in a slow circle and my wide pants legs puff out like sails. I watch myself. They’re still pants, and my chest tightens. I spin again, not like a dainty princess, but like a tornado. I’m making myself nauseous and dizzy, but I don’t care. And finally, with the wave of a magic wand, with glitter flowing in its trail, in a blur of gold and a rush of hot blood and wind, my clothes transform, the way they have for so many years, into a dress.

I breathe deeply now. I know my pretend dress won’t last for long, and tears sting my eyes. I sit at my desk and open the top drawer. The castle in my sketch is almost done, and I sharpen my gray colored pencil, lean over the sketch pad, and shade in the empty spaces. I draw the king and the queen outside in the garden, holding hands, and then, in the top window of the castle, so small that you can barely even see her, I draw the blond princess.

Suddenly, my bedroom door slams open and Jack barges in. I snap my sketch pad shut. I hadn’t even heard anyone come home. “Dinner, loser,” he announces.

I stand up in a fog. I am Cinderella. I follow my evil stepbrother to the dining room, wearing a golden gown that only I can see.

THE WARM OCTOBER days fade into plain old November in Chicago. Some of the leaves still cling to the branches outside the tall, freshly cleaned windows at Porter. They’re fiery orange, red, and yellow against the gray-white sky. They’re like flames dangling from the trees—like something you’d see in a painting.

I’m sitting at my desk, doodling in the margins of my notebook. “We’re starting a new novel today,” Finn is saying, and I look up to watch him excitedly carry a stack of books to his desk from the bookshelf.

“Are we going to have to write a paper on it?” Lila calls out. She glances around the room, probably to make sure that everyone’s watching her. And for the most part, everyone is.

“Great question, Lila, thank you!” Finn says, smiling. “We are!”

Practically the whole class groans.

Meagan, who sits right in front of me, tucks her thin, black hair behind her ears and fixes her eyes on Lila, who is still glancing around the room. Meagan looks interested, but also sort of annoyed. She and Lila have been friends forever. All of a sudden, I wonder what she thinks of her.

“We’ll have lots to discuss as we read,” Finn continues. “Starting today, all of my classes will be working in pairs for the rest of the quarter. You’re the lucky ones who get to rearrange the classroom. Once you’re paired up, everyone will have a built-in discussion partner!”

I look up quickly, then down, as my hands get clammy. “So,” Finn continues, “everybody up! Find your partners! Once you’ve pushed your desks together into pairs, I want the pairs lined up in rows!” He’s yelling now over the noise of the class. It’s like someone broke a piñata, and everyone is frantically searching for candy. Except for me. I stand up slowly, and I don’t move. It’s not such a big deal! I want to scream. But I’m frozen.

I’ve done this so many times before. Teachers at Porter are always making us choose partners for projects, or choose groups for discussions. By now, I’ve figured out what to do. I stand still. I watch kids pair up frantically. They look so stupid. I wait. In the end, the teacher will suggest that I join up with Keri or Michael or whoever is left over.

Across the room, Ryan motions for Sebastian to join him, and Hailey and Lila are already laughing about something as they push their desks together. Amelia is in the middle of the room, looking around nervously. She always sits next to me on the bus now. I’m starting to feel jittery. She says something to Maria and then looks down, her face flushed. She glances around again. It almost looks like she’s about to cry.

She starts walking in my direction. Now my heart is racing in my chest. Nothing is working for me the way it used to, and all the sounds around me start to disappear, like someone is turning the volume button on the radio almost to off. The only noise I can hear is an annoying hum, and suddenly, it’s like I’m watching myself watch the class, as if I’m a bird perched on the high wooden bookshelves lining the classroom walls. I see myself below, biting my lip, clumsily untying the oversize gray sweatshirt from my waist. I watch myself look down and retie it, trying to stretch it so it hangs around my waist completely. I see myself study the small gap in front. The sweatshirt isn’t big enough to be a skirt. And, then, from my perch up above, I start to feel like someone’s watching me, like I’m a bird in a cage. I look over to Finn. He’s sitting on his desk, his head cocked to the side. He looks at the sweatshirt around my waist and back up to my eyes.

With a thump, I’m back on the ground. Amelia is standing in front of me. The volume has been switched back on. Desks and chairs scream across the floor.

She looks nervous. “So, do you already have a partner, too?” she asks.

“No,” I mumble.

“Do you want to pair up, then?” she asks quickly.

I can’t think of a reason to say no, so I nod. “Yeah, okay.” We push our desks together at the back of the room behind Ryan and Sebastian, and sit down. Finn is dancing around the classroom directing pairs to move six inches this way or that. I smooth out my hair and look down at my nails. I can feel Amelia’s eyes on me.

“So, I never see you at lunch,” she says. Her voice is loud over the sounds of the classroom, and I cringe. She continues, “Do you have a different lunch period or something?”

In front of us, Ryan and Sebastian grin at each other and turn around. Sebastian adjusts his glasses. “He’s eaten lunch in the library since, like, third grade,” he says.

I try not to flinch, and I look at Amelia. She’s blushing. “Oh,” she says quietly.

“I bet he’s doing extra homework,” Ryan says, smirking. “Like the teachers don’t already love him. What a freak.” I look back down at my fingernails.

Finn is back in the front of the newly arranged classroom, yelling for our attention. Ryan and Sebastian turn around, and I look up at Amelia out of the corner of my eye. Her cheeks look pink, and she’s staring straight ahead.

“We only have a minute left,” Finn says once the class is quiet. “Here are your books. Please read chapters one through three tonight.” He hands out stacks of novels quickly at the front of the room, counting out the right numbers for each row. Sebastian passes two books back to me without turning around. I hand one to Amelia, and she puts it into her backpack. I do the same.

The bell rings. Once Ryan and Sebastian are out of earshot, Amelia turns to me. Almost whispering, she says, “I think you should meet me in the lunchroom fifth period. We could eat together.”

I think, suddenly, of second grade, before Emma moved away, and of the table in the corner of the lunchroom where we always used to sit. I look at Amelia’s round face and dimpled cheeks.

I feel myself stepping out of my skin again. “Okay,” I say. I have no control over myself. “I’ll meet you there.”

I HAVEN’T SET FOOT in the lunchroom in forever. It’s crazy how loud it is. I guess the entire middle school is jammed into one room, so what did I expect? Everyone is crammed in, close together, leaning over tables, throwing brown paper bags, getting up, sitting down, yelling, laughing. The smell of hot lunches and old sandwiches is so disgusting that it’s almost unbearable. I look over to where a bunch of seventh graders are sitting, and I scan their faces quickly for Jack, but luckily, I don’t see him anywhere.

The ceiling of the lunchroom is high, and long rectangular windows line three sides of the room completely. A flood of blinding light pours in from outside. The noise bounces like a million invisible Ping-Pong balls from the floor to the ceiling to the windows to the tops of the lunch tables over and over again.

I stand in the doorway, feeling completely ill. I wonder where Jack is. The strap of my backpack is cutting into my shoulder, and I can’t take it anymore. I turn around to head to the library. But I take one step and walk right into Amelia.

“Good, you came!” she says. “Come on.” She steps ahead of me, into the lunchroom. I take one more look around, and I follow her in.

She walks slowly down the aisle in the center of the room, looking carefully at each table she passes until she finally stops when she gets to a pretty empty one near the back of the room. Lila, Meagan, Hannah, and Hailey are sitting toward the middle of the long table, huddled together in a little clump, their lunch bags in front of them and their lunches spread out on the tabletop. “Let’s sit here,” Amelia says quickly, and she plops her backpack down on the end of the table. “Are you buying lunch?”

I slide onto the bench and unzip my backpack. “No, I brought one.” I take out the brown bag that Aunt Sally packed last night.

“Yeah, me too,” Amelia says, taking a pink lunch bag out of her backpack. “You couldn’t pay me to eat hot lunch.” She glances over to the four girls and looks quickly back to me. I peer over at them to see what she’s looking at, but they’re just sitting there, eating and talking.

“I know,” I tell her, and smile a little. I watch her unwrap her sandwich. She takes a bite, and I wonder who she ate with before today. Probably nobody.

My stomach is fluttery and empty feeling. Up through second grade, Emma and I used to eat lunch together every day. Across the room, some eighth-grade boys are sitting at the table near the glass doors where we always used to eat. Looking between them to the empty playground outside makes me think of friendship bracelets made out of colorful yarn and the way Emma would tuck her shirt into her jeans before we’d hang upside down on the jungle gym. I smile to myself thinking about her messy blond hair, red-rimmed glasses, and missing front teeth.