Chapter Three - GRACIE

What a strange boy. Cute, sure. But a bit on the weird side. Gracie had never met someone her age who would defend Mrs. Krump, who was notorious for torturing teenagers with what she referred to as ‘life lessons.’ Thankfully her best friends Sandra and Amanda joined her and Markus, followed quickly by Alex and Charlie.

“Anyone want to go to a movie this afternoon?” Amanda asked while stabbing a fork into the humongous salad in front of her.

“I’m in,” Sandra said. She adjusted spiked bracelets on her wrists before she chugged down her chocolate milk. A few drops fell onto her skull-and-crossbones T-shirt, but she didn’t seem to care as she wiped at the spot with the back of her hand. Her long hair fell forward and covered the damp area.

“Can we count on you two?” Amanda asked, waving her fork at Alex and Charlie.

They shared a quick look before they both shook their heads.

“Sorry, I have a ton of homework,” Alex said, giving an apologetic shrug.

“And I need to practice my saxophone,” Charlie said.

Amanda raised an eyebrow. “Is this your way of telling us that you need your ‘alone’ time? Alex, you’ve already gotten into your pre-med program at Jon Hopkins, and Charlie, you just got your acceptance letter to the Peabody Institute. You’re seniors. What you do now doesn’t matter. If you want to stay home and make out, just say so. At least someone is getting some action around here.”

Alex gaped and her cheeks flushed. “No, I really do have a project that I have to get done. I still have to send in my final transcripts, you know.”

“And things are only going to get tougher once I start my music program. I need to be on my A game,” Charlie said, his ears blazing red. Gracie thought it was hilarious that they were the only things that changed color when he was embarrassed.

“Uh-huh,” Amanda said, clearly not believing them. “I’ve heard it all before.” She turned to Markus. “What about you?”

Markus choked on the piece of orange he had just placed in his mouth. “Me?”

“Sure. You like movies, right?”

For some reason, he looked at Gracie, as if she had the answer to whether he wanted to go or not. When Gracie didn’t say anything, Markus turned his attention back to Amanda. “Um…maybe. What movie are you going to see?”

“I’m thinking either a romcom or that new horror flick that everyone’s been freaking out about.”

Sandra scrunched up her nose. “Ugh, you know I can’t handle horror.”

Gracie tried not to laugh at Markus’s surprised expression. On first glance, Sandra seemed like horror would be all she was interested in, considering her gothic attire. But Sandra wasn’t obsessed with the occult or spirits or anything that could be classified as creepy. And the only gothic art she had on her walls was the paintings Gracie had painted. Gracie had used bright and vivid colors, and even she had to admit they had turned out pretty awesome.

Markus’s gaze flitted back to Gracie. “Sure, that sounds like fun,” he finally said.

“I guess it will just be the four of us, then,” Amanda said, narrowing her eyes at Alex and Charlie.

Alex laughed. “If you’d go to the movies on the weekend like a normal person, we could go.”

“Yeah, but then it costs more. It’s discounted on Tuesdays.”

Gracie fiddled with the hem of her shirt. “Actually, it’s going to be just the three of you.”

Markus’s head whipped toward her, and she could have sworn she saw panic in his gaze.

“What do you mean?” Sandra asked. “You’re always up for anything.”

“I—” Gracie stopped, unsure how to explain that she needed to stay home to take care of her siblings until her parents came home from work, and that she had a mountain of homework she was behind on. Sandra was right. Gracie used to be up for anything. Amanda hadn’t even bothered to ask if Gracie would be going, because the answer was always yes. Anything to get out of the house and the chaos that came with a large family.

But all that had changed, and she hadn’t told her friends. She didn’t know why, but for some reason, she was embarrassed by it.

“I just can’t,” Gracie said lamely. “Next time for sure, though.” Hopefully.

“O-kay,” Sandra said slowly, though she was eying Gracie with suspicion.

Gracie was saved from having to give further explanation when Markus stood from the table.

“I just remembered I have plans tonight as well,” he said, gathering up his trash. “Sorry.”

Amanda looked between Gracie and Markus with an accusatory stare. “What is going on here? All of a sudden no one can hang out anymore?”

“Hey, I still count as someone,” Sandra said, waving her hands in front of Amanda’s face.

Amanda laughed and pushed away Sandra’s arms. “I suppose so.”

Markus stood awkwardly by the table, like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to leave. “I have somewhere to be. So…I’m just going to—” He nodded toward the cafeteria exit.

“Thanks for eating with us,” Alex said. “You should join us more often, you know, if my friends haven’t scared you off.”

“Hey, we were totally nice,” Sandra protested.

“The nicest,” Amanda said.

His lips quirked up in a lopsided smile. “I’d like that.” Markus’s gaze once again landed on Gracie. “If that’s all right with you.”

Was he speaking directly to Gracie? She looked around but didn’t see anyone else he could have been talking to. “Um…yeah. Of course.” She returned his smile, though she felt more confused than anything.

Why did Markus care so much about what she thought?

* * * *

Gracie managed to get to school in time for her first class but couldn’t get there early enough to turn her assignment in to Mrs. Krump. That was no surprise, but still, it would have been nice to not get a zero on the assignment. Gracie had done the work, though, so when lunchtime rolled around, she slipped the assignment out of her locker and headed to the history teacher’s classroom. Even if she wouldn’t give Gracie credit for the work, Mrs. Krump wouldn’t be able to say that Gracie hadn’t tried.

The door to the classroom was open, and Gracie walked in. Mrs. Krump was sitting at her desk, eating a sandwich while grading papers.

“Sorry I wasn’t able to get here earlier,” Gracie said, placing the assignment on top of the already teetering pile. She turned to go.

“You’re a fabulous student. One of my best,” Mrs. Krump said, rooting Gracie to where she stood. “Or at least, you were.”

“Things change,” Gracie said quietly, turning to face her teacher.

“And not always for the better.” Mrs. Krump looked down her long nose. “What’s going on?”

Gracie shouldn’t feel like she needed to spill her guts to this awful woman. Except, Mrs. Krump didn’t look stern and scary like she did in class. It was the opposite, actually. She looked like she truly cared. And Gracie found herself wanting to tell her teacher everything.

The thought made Gracie’s stomach sour. It should be her friends that she spilled her guts to. But they were busy with their normal, happy lives, and Gracie had always been the cheerful one—always with an easy smile. She didn’t want to become the downer—always complaining about how hard life was. That wasn’t supposed to be who she was.

She had to tell someone, though.

Mrs. Krump nodded toward a desk in the front row. “Have a seat.”

Gracie slid into the chair. “I have a big family,” she started. “Six brothers and sisters.”

“And you’re the oldest,” Mrs. Krump said.

Gracie tilted her head to the side. “How did you know?”

“No one ever complained about being the youngest of a large family,” Mrs. Krump said, the crow’s feet around her eyes crinkling as she gave Gracie a rare smile. “They’re the spoiled ones.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I would know, being the youngest of eight children.”

Gracie’s eyes widened. “Eight?”

“And six of us were boys.”

Gracie’s thoughts immediately went to the poor kid who had to be the eldest of all those kids. And most of them were boys? Maybe Gracie didn’t have it so bad after all.

“I’m sorry. I interrupted,” Mrs. Krump said.

Gracie wrangled her thoughts back to the present situation. “Well, anyway, my mom has had a rough sixteen years raising all of us kids, so now that my youngest brother is in kindergarten, my parents decided it would be good for her to go back to work.”

“It costs a lot of money to raise a large family,” Mrs. Krump noted. She pushed away what was left of her lunch and steepled her fingers under her chin.

“Yeah—it does,” Gracie said slowly.

Mrs. Krump raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think that’s why she went back to work?”

“I’m sure that’s part of it,” Gracie said. “We’ve never had a lot of the extra stuff that other families have. But we haven’t been starving either. We’ve gotten by.”

“Maybe they don’t want you to have to ‘get by’ anymore,” Mrs. Krump said. “And maybe you shouldn’t have to. You want to know why the youngest child is so spoiled? As my older siblings left the house, one by one, all of a sudden there was more money to go places and do things. I didn’t have the same childhood as the others.”

Gracie had heard similar things before. But the thing was, she had never felt like her life was lacking. She had everything she needed or wanted—except quiet. And her own space. But that had gotten better last year when she’d finally gotten her own room. When she’d turned sixteen, she was no longer required to share a room with the twins.

“I think it has more to do with my mom needing something outside of the house,” Gracie said. “I heard her talking to my dad once about wanting to be useful in a professional way—with people who made their own peanut butter sandwiches and wouldn’t come to her every time someone else breathed their air.”

Mrs. Krump chuckled. “I can imagine she might be ready for some time outside the home. So, what’s the problem?”

Gracie released a long sigh. “When my mom first took the job, it was going to be part time. She’d be gone for four hours during the day while we were at school. But then after she started, they told her they had a big project coming up and they needed her working full time for the first six months. She’s only been there a month and now they want her as a permanent full-time employee.”

“She doesn’t want that?”

“I think she does, but she tries to not let it show. And the perks that come with the job make it hard for her to say no. Apparently it comes with better medical benefits than my dad has, and with how many broken bones we’ve had over the years, that’s a good thing. The pay is better too.”

“Seems like a no-brainer.”

“Yeah. It does,” Gracie said quietly.

Neither of them said anything for a few moments.

Mrs. Krump opened a desk drawer. She pulled out a protein bar and extended it toward Gracie. “You hungry?”

Gracie nodded and took the bar from Mrs. Krump. “Thank you.”

“Who’s getting the kids ready for school in the morning?”

Gracie’s gaze dropped, and she fingered the protein bar wrapper. “I am.” She had a feeling Mrs. Krump already knew that, though.

“And you have to be there when they get home from school as well?”

Gracie nodded.

“That’s a lot of responsibility for a teenager.”

“I don’t mind helping out,” Gracie said, but even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t true. She had been okay with it when she’d thought it would be a once-in-a-while thing. But since it had become an everyday thing? Not so much. And from the small smile Mrs. Krump was wearing, it seemed that she already knew that too.

She took a pamphlet out of her desk. “You have always done well in my class, and I have an opportunity I would like to present to you.”

Gracie sat up a little straighter. “What kind of opportunity?” She hoped it wasn’t something bad disguised as something good. Teachers did that a lot.

Mrs. Krump walked over and handed the pamphlet to Gracie. “I am putting together a tour of U.S. historical sites for a handful of students who I feel would benefit from it. I’d like you to be on it.”

Gracie’s pulse quickened. She’d do anything to get away from school for a day. Maybe she would even be given extended time on the assignments she hadn’t gotten around to. “There isn’t exactly a lot of history in Lakeview,” she said, wondering where they would go.

“That’s why we’re going to Philadelphia.”

Gracie’s heart plummeted. She looked at a picture of the Liberty Bell on the front of the pamphlet, disappointment curdling in her stomach. “That has to be twenty hours away.”

“On a bus? I expect several hours longer.”

This wasn’t just a typical field trip. There was no way she’d be able to go. “I don’t remember you mentioning this trip in class.”

“I’m only able to take twenty students, preferably those in their junior year, so I haven’t wanted to make any big announcements.”

And Gracie was on the list. Longing replaced the disappointment. She wanted to go so bad. “I’m sorry,” she said, fighting the tears that tried to escape. She placed the pamphlet face-down on the desk. “I won’t be able to go. But thank you for thinking of me.” She stood to leave, still holding onto the unopened protein bar.

“Why not?” Mrs. Krump asked, folding her arms and leaning back against her desk.

Hadn’t she been listening for the past twenty minutes?

Gracie went with the easiest explanation. “We don’t have the money.”

“There is a scholarship available through the company we’ve booked it through. You just need to apply.”

Fine. She’d spell it out for Mrs. Krump, though none of this was information that the teacher didn’t already know. “You know that’s not the only reason. I need to be there for my brothers and sisters. My mom needs me. If it was for only one day, that would be different. But you’re talking at least a few days, right?”

“One week,” Mrs. Krump said with a small nod. “During spring break.”

Gracie snorted, as if that could disguise her pain. “Sorry. I want to go. I really do. But it just isn’t possible.”

“Well, you can’t blame me for trying,” Mrs. Krump said.

The bell rang, indicating that lunchtime was over and Gracie needed to head to her next class. “Thank you for the offer,” Gracie said with a final glance over her shoulder as she walked toward the door. “I do appreciate it.” Breathe. Don’t cry in front of Mrs. Krump.

Gracie hurried into the hall and nearly ran over Markus. He seemed to be showing up everywhere the past couple of days. She mumbled an apology while avoiding his gaze. Gracie barely made it to the bathroom before the dam broke and her tears escaped.