Free Meeting Miss 405 by Lois Peterson Page B

called.
    â€œNothing to report,” he says. “Remember you need to go straight along to Miss Stella’s after school.” When he plunks a plate down on the table, the juice in my glass shivers.
    â€œDo I have to?”
    â€œYou do. We talked about this, Tansy.”
    Dad has cut my toast in rectangles. I like it in triangles. I poke my fork into the egg. It looks slimy.
    â€œJust eat it. Please,” he says.
    â€œRemember. No nuts in my lunch.”
    Dad sighs and grabs the bag from the counter and takes out the granola bar. “Shall I give you an extra banana instead?”
    â€œOne is too many. I despise bananas. You should know that. You said you’d buy cookies.”
    â€œI did. But we discovered they have peanuts. Remember?”
    â€œOkay. Okay. Okay.”
    If Mom were here she would tell me not to be lippy. And
she
would remember that I don’t like bananas anymore.
    Dad just sighs and scrubs his face with his hand. “Sorry, Tan. How about tonight we go to the grocery store and buy some more cookies or something? Look, I have to get going. I can drop you off.”
    While Dad shoves the dirty dishes into the dishwasher without rinsing them, I cut my egg in teeny-tiny pieces and spread it around my plate. I eat one rectangle of toast and slip the other piece in my schoolbag.
    It is Devin’s fault I only have a bologna sandwich and a blotchy banana in my lunch.
    It was very exciting when he was rushed to hospital after he had an allergic reaction. His face got fat andhis tongue swelled up, and he made funny noises right in the middle of silent reading.
    Mr. Howarth saved his life by jabbing Devin with a special medical thing called an EpiPen that he keeps in his desk. But Devin still had to go to hospital for a checkup.
    The next day there were signs all over school.
This is a Nut-Free Zone. Keep Your School Friends Safe
.
    No nuts are allowed in the whole school now. Devin spoiled my favorite lunch.

    Parveen and I sit on the hard edge of the sandbox while I tell her about having to go to Miss Stella’s after school. Cats are the only ones that play here most days. They leave little turds behind, so no one else wants to go near it.
    I tell Parveen that Dad and I are going to visit Mom soon on the Sunshine Coast. We will sleep under the glittery stars and rent a big sailboat and go out onto the ocean and then bring Mom home and everything will be okay again.
    â€œYour grandpa should live with you like mine does,” she says. “Then someone would be there to take care of you
and
your mother.”
    â€œDad would not let him smoke at our place!”
    Grandpa and apartments do not go together. He keeps his bagpipes on the back porch and plays them every night at sunset. Sometime he takes his little red boat out on the water and just sits in it for hours. Not even fishing. He chops wood for the woodpile every day. Even in summer when the woodstove is not lit.
    Maybe Mom can help him. It must be hard to cry when you are chopping wood.
    â€œYour dad could have asked my
bebe-ji
to watch you,” says Parveen when I tell her about being babysat by Miss Stella with the wrinkly legs and a balcony like a jungle.
Bebe-ji
is what she calls her grandma. Mine both died when I was tiny. And I only have one grandpa. We must have the smallest family in the world.
    â€œMy
bebe-ji
might not even notice if you came to my house every day after school,” says Parveen. “Some days there’s me and my brothers and my cousins. Sometimes all seven of them.”
    But I already have the key to my apartment building on a shoelace around my neck. And Miss Stella said if I was not at her door by 2:47 precisely, she would come looking for me on her bike.
    â€œThanks, Parveen. Maybe you can come home with me one day and meet her yourself.”
    But I bet she won’t be allowed to. Her job is to make the
rotis
for supper. Every night! Everyone in her house has a job