The Center of Everything - By Laura Moriarty Page 0,20
thirds, but it wouldn’t stay up. So I cut it into thirds and taped it with masking tape on the back. Now it stands up on its side when it’s unfolded, but it’s crooked.
On the board, Ms. Fairchild had written HYPOTHESIS, OBJECTIVE, METHOD, OBSERVATIONS, and CONCLUSION. I copied these same words onto the yellow poster board, and I like how they look, very official. Under OBSERVATION, I have made a graph charting the growth of each plant in inches per week. So even though my poster is crooked, I’m pleased with the way it looks, and also with the lima bean plants themselves. I am amazed that anything came out of the soil at all, green and healthy, something coming out of nothing. On the bus, I show my poster to a second grader. I explain the graph to her, opening the box so she can see the plants for herself. She says it’s nice, reaching into the box to touch the leaves.
The student with the best project gets to go to Topeka this summer to be in the state Science Fair, and if you win that, you get to go to Washington, D.C., and meet Ronald Reagan. I would love, more than anything, to meet Ronald Reagan, to see him in person, making his jokes. There is a chance that this could happen. I usually have the highest score on science tests. The only person who ever beats me is Traci Carmichael. She is smart, and she is also popular, and usually you don’t get to be both. But she has always been popular, and this year you can actually see it because of friendship pins. They are just safety pins with beads pushed onto them in different colors, and you are supposed to have your own design and then bring them to school in a plastic bag to give to all your friends. I don’t know who started it, but last year no one had them, and this year everyone does. Or the girls do. Boys don’t.
When someone gives you a pin, you stick it on your shoelace, so people will know you have friends. I don’t know who started it, but now you have to have at least one friendship pin if you’re a girl or it looks like no one likes you. I have two: one from Patty Pollo, one from Star Sweeny. Traci Carmichael has nineteen. I count them when she stands by my desk, sharpening her pencils.
She also has four different OP sweatshirts, with matching ribbons for her braids. Other people have one or two of these sweatshirts—Brad Browning has three—but only Traci has four. They are just normal sweatshirts, with hoods and sometimes pockets and palm trees painted on the back, but they say OP on them, and this is what matters. I asked my mother for one for Christmas, but she said no. You could get just as good a sweatshirt without a palm tree on it for half the price, she said, and who needs a goddamn palm tree in the middle of Kansas anyway? She said “OP” stands for Over Priced, in her opinion anyway. But it doesn’t. It stands for Ocean Pacific, and I wish I had one.
Traci Carmichael’s house is the last stop the bus makes in the morning. She lives in a redbrick house, a porch swing in front, twelve different windows on just the front side. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live there, in all that space. She doesn’t have any brothers or sisters. I picture Traci at one end of the house, having to call to her mother at the other end, her hands cupped around her mouth.
I know Traci’s mother, and I don’t like her because of registration day. There was a long line to sign up for lunches, and the Carmichaels got there after we did. When Mrs. Carmichael saw the line, she said in a loud voice that she didn’t appreciate the poor management that had led to such a long line on such a hot day, when some people were busy and had things to do. My mother and I were standing behind Robby Hernandez and his mother, and when they got up to the front of the line, Mrs. Carmichael was standing right next to them because of the way the line wound around itself. The Hernandezes had just gotten up to the counter when Mrs. Carmichael leaned forward, jingling her car keys to get the