The Center of Everything - By Laura Moriarty Page 0,21

registration lady’s attention, and said, “Excuse me, but don’t you think the people who are actually paying for the lunches should get to go first?”

The registration lady said she didn’t know, and Mrs. Carmichael said it only seemed fair, and then Brad Browning’s mother raised her hand like she was in school and said she had just been thinking the same thing, the same thing exactly. They were both wearing sleeveless shirts and sweaters with the sleeves tied around their shoulders. My mother watched them talking, sweat trickling down her forehead, no sweater. I get free lunches too, and we were next in line.

The registration lady said she might as well finish up with Mrs. Hernandez, since she was already up at the front of the line, but by then Robby had turned what they were saying into Spanish and Mrs. Hernandez went straight to the back of the line, pulling him behind her, without anyone saying another word about it. So we had to go to the back of the line too. Mrs. Hernandez put on a pair of sunglasses even though we were inside, and I could tell she was crying, or at least trying not to, her mouth closed tight like she would never open it again.

When Traci and her mother got to the front of the line, my mother was too mad to talk. She stood very still, her arms crossed, her eyes trained on the back of Mrs. Carmichael’s head as if just by looking at it, she could make it explode.

So when the bus pulls up to Traci’s brick house with the porch swing and she isn’t there, I’m glad, because maybe Traci is sick and won’t be able to be in the science fair. Libby Masterson is Traci’s next-door neighbor, and she isn’t at her stop either, which makes sense, because she does everything Traci tells her to, and if Traci called her and said, “Don’t go to school tomorrow,” Libby probably wouldn’t.

I know you’re not supposed to be glad when other people get sick, but I have been sick of Traci for a long time. And it’s not like you can make someone sick just by wishing for it. Eileen says you can make sick people better by praying for them. But I don’t know if it works the other way.

I’m surprised by how much I like Ms. Fairchild, because she is old, and not pretty and her breath always smells like coffee. She has been teaching at Free State Elementary for twenty-nine years, which is longer than even my mother has been alive, and she has one dress for every day of the week, a Monday dress, a Tuesday dress, a Wednesday dress, and so on. She never mixes up the order. Star Sweeny makes fun of her for this, but I like it.

The first time I saw her, though, I thought, Oh no. I wished I would have gotten into Mrs. Blake’s class, the other fourth-grade teacher, young and pretty, with straight blond hair that curves under her chin. She got married just last year, and some of the fourth graders from last year got to sing “Going to the Chapel” in her wedding. She wears high heels and bright sweaters and gold earrings shaped like little suns or little snowflakes, depending on the weather.

Ms. Fairchild, my teacher, has big eyebrows and short black hair cut like a pilgrim’s. Her hair never moves, even in the breeze, and she does not wear earrings. When I first saw Mrs. Blake and Ms. Fairchild standing next to each other on the playground the first day of school, it was easy to think that Ms. Fairchild was unlucky.

But it turns out that Mrs. Blake is a screamer. We can hear her from our room, her shrill voice saying Stop that! Stop that this instant! When this happens, Ms. Fairchild walks across the room in her flat, soundless shoes to shut the door. She does not yell, and if we are good, she tells stories at the end of class about people who can turn into trees whenever they want, and pets that talk when their owners aren’t home. Sometimes she reads out of a book, and sometimes she doesn’t have to.

Today she is wearing a green dress with white buttons, the Friday dress. She looks at me carrying in my triptych poster and my box of plants, and she smiles. She tells me to put them on the shelf by the window. Star