Read Online The Goodbye Time by Celeste Conway - Free Book Online Page A

that anymore, and I missed it so much, I wanted to cry. From across the room Michael was looking at me. I wondered if he knew what I was thinking. But probably not. And I didn’t think I wanted him to.
    Mrs. B made us write a paragraph explaining what happened and then list five things we could have done to “avert” the problem, instead of what we did. She always made us write stuff like that. I, of course, hadn’t done
anything,
because I had been standing outside waiting for Katy. I wanted to tap her and ask what exactly had happened, but she hadn’t been at the party, so she wouldn’t have known about seeing Kendra’s Barbie dolls in the shoe box. If she could have told me what she knew and if I could have told her what I knew—well, with both our parts together, the story would have been complete. It really stank not being able to talk to her. And it only got worse as the day went on.
    At lunch, for instance, she sat with a bunch of girls she didn’t even like. Everyone knew we were having a fight, which made me feel ashamed. In the schoolyard afterward I got up my courage and went over to where she sat reading a book. Other kids were watching, but I walked right over anyway. Let them stare if they want to stare, I thought.
    “Katy,” I said. She just looked at the book.
    “The least you could do is talk to me.” She just kept looking down at the page. “That book must be very interesting.”
    “It is,” she said, not moving.
    “I’m sorry, Katy. For whatever I did.”
    “You don’t even know. See, that’s the problem, Anna.”
    “Tell me, then. I want to know.”
    “If I have to
tell
you, what’s the point? I mean, how can you be so dumb?”
    “And how can you be so
mean
?”
    “You’re mean
and
dumb,” she answered, then slammed the book shut and walked away. I stood there stunned. Everyone was watching, and I felt the tears starting to well in my eyes. I bit my lip as hard as I could to keep them back. Then I sat on the bench that Katy had left. All around, people were laughing and playing games. It seemed like a movie without the sound. I could see their faces, their smiling mouths, but somehow I couldn’t hear them. Everything was blurred. Then out of the blur came Michael’s voice.
    “Hi,” he said. He was standing right there in front of me, though I hadn’t seen him until that very second. “That was stupid this morning, wasn’t it?” he said with a little shrug.
    “I missed it,” I said, “but I guess it had to do with the Barbie dolls in Kendra’s room.”
    “Yeah,” he said. “It was Nancy who wrote that on the board.”
    “And she’s supposed to be Kendra’s friend.”
    “The whole thing’s stupid anyway. Who cares if she plays with Barbie dolls? Sometimes I play with my Matchbox cars.”
    “You do?”
    “Yeah, sure. And I wouldn’t care if anyone knew. I roll ’em around and pretend I’m a tiny guy driving them through my room.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah. Are you going to write it on the board? ‘Michael plays with Matchbox cars’?” I laughed at that, and then he said, “I bet everybody in our class plays with toys—I mean, once in a while, I bet they do.”
    “Yeah,” I said, “I still have my stuffed animals. I don’t play with them exactly, but I still want to keep them, that’s for sure. And sometimes I guess I talk to them.”
    “Nothing wrong with that,” he said. Then, in a more serious voice: “What’s up with you and Katy? I saw you trying to talk to her.”
    “I wish I knew.” I was too embarrassed to tell him more. Like the fact that she’d called me dumb and mean.
    “Did you have a fight or something?”
    “Like I said to my brother the other day, she’s the one that’s fighting with
me.
I don’t know what I did to her. And now she’s mad
because
I don’t know what I did.”
    “She’s probably upset about bringing her brother to that place.”
    “Yeah, I know. It upsets me too. But I didn’t make it happen. I feel