Free Belle Teal by Ann Martin Page B

“You all right? Not sick, are you?” Mama sits on the edge of my bed and feels my forehead.
    â€œI’m okay.” The entire time I was trudging up our hill this afternoon, crying and bleeding and mad as a hornet, all I wanted to do was talk to Mama about Little Boss spitting, and those dirty words spewing out of Vernon’s lips. But now, with Mama at my side, stroking my hair, what I say is, “Tell me what is really wrong with Gran. I know it’s something more than just getting old. It’s like she’s gotten lost.”
    â€œDid something happen today?” Mama wants to know.
    I tell her what Vernon said, and how Gran thought I was Lyman coming home after a fight. “Mama, Gran calls me Lyman half the time and Adele the rest of the time. Yesterday she was wearing a sweater underneath her dress. And she forgot Halloween is coming. I showed her the black cat and the pumpkin I made in art and she said something like it was a funny time of year for that.”
    The light from the kitchen creeps through the open door to my room and falls on Mama’s tired face. The corners of her mouth twitch, but not like Vernon’s did in the afternoon. Mama purses her lips. She blinks her eyes. At last she says, “Precious, sometimes when people are old their minds go funny. I think maybe Gran is getting senile.”
    â€œBut she’s still cooking and all,” I point out. “And she talked about the fruitcakes this morning. Even though she forgot Halloween.”
    Mama nods. “We’ll just have to be patient with her. She can’t help it when she forgets things. Doesn’t even know she’s doing it.”
    I lie back on my pillow. When Mama leaves the room I make my mind run away from thoughts of Gran and Vernon and Chas. I focus in on Halloween. My costume. Maybe this year I will be something beautiful. A genie, the sort who would wisp out of a bottle. I could wear some of Mama’s makeup and wind my hair up on top of my head. I could look magical and mysterious and very, very wise.

A fter our fight with Chas and Vernon I am mad at Clarice almost until recess the next day. On the bus in the morning, the boys make crying noises at me and pretend to wipe away tears, even though I know I did not actually cry in front of them. I don’t sit near them, and I don’t sit near Clarice either. I sit across the aisle from HRH and ignore all of them by reading another Nancy Drew mystery.
    At lunch I sit with Clarice and Darryl as usual, but I do not speak to Clarice or trade anything with her. When she tries to talk to me, I answer like, “Darryl, please tell Clarice I do not care for her pear.”
    After I have done this three or four times, Darryl, he says, “Belle Teal, tell me, how long is this going to go on? I am not going to carry your messages forever.”
    I think for a moment. Finally I say, “It is going to stop now. But Clarice, please do not do things like that without telling me first. I have to be prepared.”
    â€œWhat did Clarice do?” asks Darryl.
    Clarice and me look at each other. Since I am still a little mad at her I say, “Do you want to tell Darryl?”
    â€œNo,” she says, annoyed-like. But then she turns to Darryl and her eyes look kind. “We had a misunderstanding, is all.” She turns back to me. “Belle Teal, I am sorry for what I did.”
    â€œWell, I am sorry too.”
    Even so, we don’t say anything for a while. Finally Darryl, he can’t take the silence any longer. “I decided to come to the Halloween party,” he announces.
    â€œYou did?!” Clarice and I cry.
    â€œAre Winnie and Terrence coming?” I ask.
    â€œAre you still going to be a fireman?” asks Clarice.
    â€œI don’t know about Winnie and Terrence,” says Darryl. “And my costume —”
    Darryl is interrupted when Little Boss, who has been sitting at a table directly