That Girl Lucy Moon Read online

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Acknowledgments

  A Note to Readers

  Author Biography

  Praise

  Copyright

  For Phil

  CHAPTER ONE

  It all began with that October 3rd wind—a breeze with a nip that arrived in Turtle Rock, Minnesota, every year, right on schedule at three o'clock.The wind loitered at the top of town, rolling around in the limbs of the old sugar maple on Wiggins Hill, before whooshing down onto Main Street and skipping across the waves on Turtle Rock Lake. Within an hour the wind turned gusty, and a half hour after that, the Arctic rushed in with it. It came quickly, numbing noses, ears, and cheeks, banging drainpipes, rattling windows, and blowing plastic grocery bags high into the air. All over town, people found themselves saying the same three words to one another: "There's that wind."

  But this year, the October 3rd wind wasn't finished with just an Arctic gust. No, the gust was followed with ice and then snow on its tail.

  * * *

  That particular afternoon, Lucy Moon clamped one hand on top of her green-and-yellow woven hat to keep the wind from blowing it off. Then she thought, why bother, and lifted her hand. In junior high school, no one cared about her hat, or why she wore it.

  Lucy would not admit this to anyone, but boy, did she miss elementary school. In elementary school, everyone knew why she wore the green-and-yellow hat. Kids thought she never took the hat off—not since her mom brought it back from Mexico City. And it was true that Lucy wore the hat every day—on hot days and cold days. Whenever teachers asked her to remove the hat, Lucy educated everyone present about workers in Mexico and how United States businesses took advantage of them. She'd work this into a "And did you know that hemp should be legal?" speech, because the hat was made of woven hemp. Finally, the whole thing would slam to a stop with a simple statement: Lucy wore this hat as a physical symbol of distress around the world.

  Then Lucy would sit down.

  Some teachers tottered and said nothing. Some stared. Others leaned momentarily on the desk at the front of the classroom, sighed, and went back to their lesson notes. Anyway, after a beat, the class continued with the hat encircling Lucy's head. At the time, it had reminded her of a halo. These days the hat only made her head sweat.

  In elementary school, Lucy had felt full of fire and fury. "No frying ants!" she remembered yelling in first grade. She'd take off running toward the perpetrator, and if they weren't quick enough with their magnifying glass, she'd kick it out of their hand. Elementary-school years included outbreaks of petitions about everything from secondhand smoke (wafting from the teachers' lounge) to a demand that girls be taught real baseball and not Wiffle-Wuss ball. She even led honest-to-goodness protests, the scariest being the time she and twenty other kids hiked into the forest to prevent Canton Lumber from cutting trees. Everyone except Lucy ran when they heard the rumble of the trucks approaching. Lucy closed her eyes and clung to her tree, thinking she might leave the earth with tire tracks running up her backside. Finally, a big man peeled Lucy from her tree, like skin from an orange.

  Today, though (and every single day since starting junior high), Lucy didn't feel any of the old gumption. It's a beat-up hat, she thought. Let it go.

  Still, when that October 3rd wind lifted the hat's edges, Lucy couldn't help herself. She caught the hat and tugged it securely onto her head. Junior high was strange enough, she decided, without having to go hatless, too.

  Zoë Rossignol, Lucy's best friend, glanced at her.

  Zoë and Lucy often walked down the long hill from the junior-high school together, since their houses sat side by side on Fifth Street. Usually they dumped their school bags at their houses and then continued walking down the hill to Main Street, where they both helped out at the Rossignol Bakery until it closed at six o'clock.

  Today, Lucy and Zoë were in the middle of an argument. A feather boa floating around her neck, Zoë loped ahead of Lucy and then stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

  "All I'm saying," said Zoë, blocking Lucy's path, "is, how often do you want to write one-page essays about why you shouldn't damage other people's property?"

  "I only broke a pencil," muttered Lucy, stepping around Zoë. "And Thomas Duke and Ben Furley started it. It's none of their business whether I wear a bra or don't wear a bra, and whether or not I've 'developed.' And I'm sure Mr. Skoglund can see what's going on from the front of the classroom! As a male, he identifies with their prehistoric, oonga-boonga brains. It's probably a 'boys will be boys' situation. It is so unfair that I have to write the essay!"

  Zoë grabbed Lucy's sleeve. "You know that's not what I'm saying."

  Lucy pulled free and shrugged.

  "Okay, I'll say it plain. You're Lucy Moon! Lucy Moon puts up with it for three days and then writes the essay her teacher tells her to write, like a good little girl? I don't think so."

  Yeah, Zoë had a point, but Lucy didn't say anything.

  For three days, Lucy (along with every other girl within pencil reach) had been subjected to Thomas Duke's "daily bra-check." Every morning, Lucy felt a pencil run up her spine. This was followed by "nope," or "yup." Lucy was a "nope," and Thomas Duke liked to whisper loudly about Lucy's "development" (not promising) to Ben Furley.

  The first time it happened, Lucy had actually allowed that it might have been a mistake, that Thomas Duke had gestured grandly with his pencil and accidentally swooped it up her spine. The second time, she knew it was a bra-check, but she inwardly panicked—she hadn't said anything the first time, so how could she complain the second time?

  Making excuses, inwardly panicking, and hoping—fan-no good reason—that two lamebrains wouldn't repeat themselves a second day? Lucy didn't do this! In elementary school, she'd have figured out a way to expose them after the first pencil swipe.

  Finally, on the third day, Lucy snapped Thomas Duke's pencil in half and yelled, "Will You Stop It?" Yes, this was in the middle of homeroom announcements, but who cared?

  Apparently, Mr. Skoglund did. And now Lucy had to write an essay on why other people's property was "sacred." A bra-testing, #2 pencil sacred? Oh, give her a break! Worse, Mr. Skoglund explained slowly, as if Lucy were dense, that if a girl ignored Thomas and Ben, the behavior would stop. Right.

  "I don't get junior high at all. Everyone acts so weird," said Lucy finally. She flipped her hip-length braids over her shoulder and frowned.

  What was the deal with that place? The only time it had felt okay had been the first week, when all the sixth graders had experienced the newness together, like loose change jingling in the same pocket. They had all felt the looming presence of eighth-grade boys who filled doorways with lumbering frames, and they had openly gaped at older girls with bodies (and outfits) like Barbie, even down to their pointy-toed shoes. That first week, the sixth graders had complained to one another about extra homework, and how they got lost between classes. Everybody had talked to everybody.

  But by the next week, the sixth graders had begun to sort themselves into groups,
associating only with kids like themselves (popular, band, jock, brain). To Lucy, it made no sense. She had watched it happen—kids splitting and regrouping with all the forethought of single-cell amoebas. As soon as kids found their groups, they avoided Lucy. If the other sixth graders were like pocket change (dimes, pennies, nickels, quarters), then Lucy had always been more like a button, a foreign object. In elementary school, being unique was cool, but in junior high, kids needed a way to define you, or it was the kiss of death.

  During lunch, Lucy followed Zoë around, waiting to see where she sat. These days, Zoë sat with the oddball, artsy types (Cape Guy, Quote Girl, the ribbon dancer, etc.). Zoë made things with her hands—knitting, sewing, origami, pastries—and she and this girl named Edna could talk stitches, techniques, and patterns all lunch period. To Lucy, it was like listening to irritating gibberish with just enough English to fool her into thinking she understood what she heard. But she wasn't complaining—at this point she guessed she was lucky to have a place to sit at all.

  And the strangeness of junior high didn't stop there. No, as the weeks went on, the sixth graders had developed other signs of junior-high sickness. When teachers turned their back, notes about who liked who traveled palm to palm, and books with dog-eared pages describing people "doing it" were read under the lips of desks. In elementary school—only five months ago—everyone had acted normal. Now, after a summer and a couple of months in junior high, they were cliched characters from a drippy teen movie!

  The epicenter of all this activity was on the third floor, southeast corner of the school, where The Big Six had their lockers—Kendra, Brenda, Didi, Gillian, Chantel, and Eugenie (who everyone called the Genie).

  There were advantages to junior high: Lucy liked having her own locker and locking it. Lucy liked being able to walk to different rooms for classes. (Who wants to sit in the same warm seat all day?)

  Still, there seemed to be something off about the place, or maybe contaminating the air, because even the adults working at the junior high (principal, secretary, janitor, counselor, lunch ladies, and teachers) exhibited telltale signs of junior-high infection. The adults, for some reason, seemed to think of students more in terms of hormones than potential. Potential was all any of the adults talked about in elementary school. Lucy had gotten sick of it back then, but the "potential" mantra sure beat the way some of the adults eyed them here—as if any second a chemical might detonate in their junior-high brains.

  The one exception was Ms. Kortum, their social studies teacher. Ms. Kortum liked guesses and crazy ideas. Lucy wrote one of her papers from the perspective of a eucalyptus tree. "An unusual point of view, Lucy," said Ms. Kortum as she handed back her paper. Lucy turned it over and saw "A+ for creativity" written across the front.

  Okay, here was a thought: what if her wishy-washy, please-go-away-Thomas-and-Ben squeamishness was a symptom? What if it was more than just the creepiness of junior high making Lucy feel unsteady?

  But hormones were just chemicals, right? So if her reaction had been caused by a brain-chemical spill, like the Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska, there should be some sort of clean-up program to initiate. Maybe Lucy needed to eat some sort of rot-smelling vegetable, like Brussels sprouts. Lucy would ask her mom when she got home. She'd know.

  Actually, it might not be a bad idea just to run it all by her mom—the freakiness of junior high, hormones, and most of all, why Lucy just didn't feel like herself anymore. Her mom would give her an honest opinion, without smirks or stupid jokes. That was what Lucy liked about her mom. She took Lucy's concerns seriously.

  Suddenly, Zoë ran around in front of Lucy again and held out her arms to stop her. "Okay, if you're not going to fight, you could wear a training bra. Thomas Duke and Ben Furley aren't so bad to the 'yups.' That'll stop 'em."

  Lucy moaned and pushed Zoë away. "I can't believe you said that. Why should I have to do anything for those morons? No, no, no! They're the ones that ought to be punished, not me." What was the women's movement for if a person had to wear a training bra in order to go to school in peace?

  "Wearing a bra is not a punishment," said Zoë.

  "I didn't mean you," said Lucy. "I meant I shouldn't have to wear one unless I want to wear one."

  The truth was this (and Lucy didn't like to think about it): Zoë was now a "yup," but Lucy was still a "nope." Yes, Zoë wore a bra and had grown about three feet over the summer. So now, Zoë didn't fit into any of her clothes—the Tamarack Books sweatshirt, or the patched jeans, or the hiking boots. Over the summer, Zoë had started shopping at The Wild Thrift, the secondhand store in Turtle Rock. This explained today's purple feather boa.

  Lucy, on the other hand, looked exactly like she'd looked in elementary school, still gazing out at the world from her four-foot, eight-inch height. Adults used to call them "two peas in a pod," but now they looked as unlikely as a giraffe chatting with a mouse. No one would even guess that they were both in sixth grade! Secretly, Lucy worried that Zoë wouldn't want to hang out with a puny prepubescent. (And by the way, Lucy hated the word "pubescent." Why was junior-high life filled with medical terminology?)

  Zoë glanced at her. "I know you didn't mean me," she said.

  Lucy smiled and, feeling guilty for her thoughts, conceded: "Well, wearing a training bra would probably work."

  Zoë began to skip and spin down the sidewalk in a wild, limb-flinging dance, and her sweater spun out like a dress.

  Lucy couldn't help smiling. "Man, that is a jumbo sweater."

  "I know!" said Zoë. She twirled around a few times to watch it. "I knitted it big and grape!"

  "Ha!" said Lucy.

  Zoë stopped spinning and fell down in the grass. "You wanted to belt someone today," she said. "Admit it."

  "I don't hit," said Lucy, imitating the voice their first-grade teacher had used whenever someone in class took a whack at another classmate. They both laughed.

  "Anyway," Lucy continued, "I haven't slugged anyone since . . ."

  "Since Mealymouth Mickelson kissed you in third grade," said Zoë, standing up and brushing herself off.

  "Yeah," said Lucy, smiling. What was a little height difference when the two of them knew everything about each other?

  A gust of cold wind interrupted this thought. Lucy tugged at her green-and-yellow hat and looked up. The sky spread out wet and gray, like fresh cement. Lucy remembered it was October 3rd and remembered the October 3rd wind, but she wasn't one for believing that a wind came every year—same time, same place—like clockwork.

  A few snowflakes drifted from the sky.

  "It's snowing!" Lucy said. She laughed and spun around in an imitation of Zoë.

  "Maybe we'll have enough for sledding," said Zoë. She stared up at the sky. One snowflake followed another. "Do you want to go sledding on Wiggins Hill later? If there's enough snow?"

  Lucy smiled widely, imagining pushing off on her wooden Flyer from the top of Wiggins Hill. But then she remembered something.

  "I can't," said Lucy. She paused and then added, "I can't go sledding and I can't go to the bakery, either—Mom's leaving on a trip."

  Most people in Turtle Rock knew that every year or so, Lucy's mom left Lucy and her dad for two weeks to a month to go on a photography trip. Sometimes Lucy's mom followed a whim and shot photos of grebes up on Lake of the Woods. Other times she had an assignment from an editor: when Lucy was in third grade, her mom went to Mexico; a year later, she hiked part of the Appalachian Trail. Between trips, Lucy's mom photographed Turtle Rock families in her downtown studio.

  "Where's she going this time?" said Zoë.

  "Everywhere," said Lucy. "She's going to take pictures of clouds all across the United States."

  "There aren't enough clouds here?" said Zoë, gesturing at a sky packed tight with gray clouds steadily releasing snow.

  Lucy smiled. "She says she wants to capture clouds over different landscapes. You know—mountains, ocean, prairie?"

  Zoë sighed and
shook her head. "I'm just saying . . ."

  "Your mom is weirder," said Lucy, laughing.

  "No use arguing that," said Zoë.

  Lucy and Zoë said good-bye when they reached their houses at the end of Fifth Street. Zoë promised to call after she finished at the bakery.

  But Lucy barely heard her. Lucy was too busy gawking at the state of their light-blue compact car, which was parked in the driveway of their little red house. A winter parka, flip-flops, CDs, darkroom equipment, and camera cases were smashed up against the car windows like stuff to be won in the quarter machine at the movie theater. A bag of chips and a sandwich sank sideways on a beach towel right under the hatchback.

  "Mom?" Lucy called tentatively.

  "Oh, Lucy," said her mom, banging out the screen door. She looked a little flushed and her eyes were bright. "Good! You're finally home. Stay here and see me off, okay?"

  Before Lucy could answer, her mom snapped her fingers and dashed inside the house.

  As Lucy waited, she noticed that the snow had already completely covered the lawn. It was really coming down! Her dad was clearing twigs on the yard's edges, his hat and coat covered in snow. Lucy knew what he was thinking— that you couldn't help Mom when she was like this. So Lucy dropped her backpack on the snowy ground, plopped on top of it, and waited. She twiddled one of her braids.

  Meanwhile, Lucy's mom whizzed like a balloon freed from its knot, whirling around the car, tucking this in there, moving a box of lenses and filters over here, darkroom equipment in the center, sandwich up front. Car doors opened and shut; the hatchback went up and down with a heave and a clack and a sigh of relief.

  "I've got enough equipment to make a mountain out of a molehill or turn cloudy skies blue," her mom said. She laughed giddily.

  It was 5:10 P.M. The street lamps blinked on. Snow streamed out of the sky. Lucy and her dad stood at the side of the car.

  "Well," said her mom, grinning at both of them.

  A particularly cold gust of wind skidded over Lucy's skin.