Free Remembering Raquel by Vivian Vande Velde Page A

she'd drawn, her certificate from Odyssey of the Mind from fifth grade—when I was going through her things, I came across three do-not-resuscitate orders. There was also the one that was in her notebook that night. As well as the one they found in her locker. Orders that she had taken from the hospital bedside table so that her mother couldn't sign them—couldn't give up.
    Raquel would
never
give up.

Vanessa Weiss, Classmate (Part 3)
    Mrs. Scarborough is carrying a huge purse. "Oh," I say to Hayley, "I hope she hasn't brought Miss Hap with her."
    "
Who?
"
    I find it hard to believe Mrs. Scarborough didn't have Miss Hap in first grade but has her now for high school. "Miss Hap," I repeat in case Hayley simply didn't hear me. "Her puppet?"
    Hayley shakes her head.
    "She has this puppet that talks to the students about things."
    "
Things?
"
    "Like about being sensitive toward people who have disabilities or those of different ethnic backgrounds. Like about not bullying or giving in to peer pressure."
    Hayley says, "You are kidding, right?"
    I hold my hand up to shoulder level and flap my fingers to simulate a mouth moving. Keeping my voice soft, so as not to be disrespectful of Raquel's relatives, I still pitch the tone high and say, "Always treat others the way you'd like to be treated."
    Hayley tries, with only moderate success, to cover a snorting laugh,
    "Oooh," I continue, "think how you're making Miss Hap feel by acting that way."
    Hayley sinks lower into the cushions of her chair and covers her face with her hands.
    "And remember," I have my hand lecture, "never, never let boys touch you in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable."
    Hayley's shoulders are shaking, and she's making shushing motions with her hands, though she's making more noise than I am.
    An older couple who had drifted close by gives us looks like we're publicly picking our noses.
    "What?" my hand asks.
    Hayley grabs my wrist and shoves my hand under a couple pillows. "Die," she orders in a whisper. "Die, die, die."
    I let my hand go limp.
    She peels back one of the pillows, and I let my hand flutter. She covers it again.
    "Miss Hap has had a mishap," I announce.
    "Good," Hayley says. She wipes her eyes and puts her glasses back on and looks for Mrs. Scarborough. "She doesn't really?" she asks me.
    "'Fraid so."
    "I can't believe Raquel never told me."
    "I think Raquel avoided the library," I say, "now that I think about it. Mrs. Shesman, the head librarian, is in charge of the newspaper, so I was always going in there because of the articles I was writing. I guess I had more contact with Mrs. Scarborough than most of the students would have. Mrs. Scarborough is only part-time, you know? Mornings, she's at Rockefeller Middle, and we'll give her the benefit of the doubt that Miss Hap is mostly for them."
    "She's gone over to Rockefeller?" Hayley asks in horror. "I got out of there just in time."
    "So what was she like as a first-grade teacher?"
    Hayley tells how she needed glasses, and Mrs. Scarborough was oblivious, and Raquel helped her out. "I just don't understand it," she ends. "I would have thought you and Raquel would have been great friends."
    "I don't understand it, either," I say, because I've been thinking the same thing. I don't know why we didn't click except that, as Hayley said, she was shy. And I'm not exactly outgoing, either.
    "Oh no, oh no, oh no," Hayley suddenly gasps. "She's opening her bag."
    But Mrs. Scarborough isn't bringing out the dreaded Miss Hap. She's bringing out what looks like a cookie tin.
    "Snacks?" Hayley asks incredulously.
    Mrs. Scarborough demands everyone's attention. She summons us to come closer and, in fascinated horror, Hayley and I comply.
    Holding on to my self-destructing skirt so that it doesn't migrate to the South Pole, I whisper to Hayley, "You don't happen to have a safety pin, do you?"
    Not only does she have one in that well-stocked purse of hers, but she knows exactly where it is and has it