Part 2 (1/2)

”Listen, I'm going to help Margo and the boys set up the badminton net in the backyard,” he said. ”Would you mind making Claire a PBJ?” (A PBJ is a peanut b.u.t.ter and jelly sandwich - another Pike family favorite.) ”She just ate breakfast,” I said, not budging from my bed.

”I know,” my father said. ”But she wants to have a picnic with her dolls in the backyard.”

”Oh, all right.”

1 slammed my notebook shut and followed my father. I made Claire a sandwich as quickly as I could, then sliced it into little doll-sized triangles. This time I didn't even get to the kitchen door before my mother called me to do something else.

”Mal, honey, would you help me fold these clothes?”

”Mother!” I blew my bangs off my forehead in exasperation. ”1 have to work on my story, you know.”

”This will only take a minute. Then I promise to leave you alone.”

It didn't take a minute. It took an hour because Margo got hit in the face with a birdie from the badminton set. It didn't break her nose or anything, but it still hurt a lot. Mom had to comfort her and I had to make another set of PBJs for Claire because the neighbors' dog came over and skarfed them all down when her back was turned.

Once I was back in my room, I tried to shut everything out of my mind except writing. But just when I'd have a possible story forming in my head, Dad or one of my brothers would interrupt and I'd have to start all over. This went on all afternoon. I wanted to scream. I took my pen and scratched in big, bold letters on the top of my blue-lined notebook paper: Two may be company, and three may be a crowd, but ten is a mob!

”Mallory!” my mother called at six o'clock. ”It's suppertime. Please come down and help me serve.”

”Mallory!” I repeated, imitating my mother in a singsong voice. ”Wash the dishes, scrub the floors, take out the garbage. Be my slave!”

I wanted to throw my notebook against the wall. Instead, I took a deep breath and tried to calm my temper.

I don't know why I felt so resentful about being asked to do ch.o.r.es. I've been doing them my whole life. I guess I just felt as though I'd wasted a lot of things. Like my quarter. I paid Vanessa to leave me alone, and it was Mom and Dad who turned out to be the problem. And what about the rest of my day. Six hours of work on my story, and I had only written one sentence.

”At this rate,” I muttered as I trudged down the steps, ”I'll never finish it.”

Chapter 5.

Mr. Dougherty's creative writing cla.s.s meets on Tuesdays and Fridays in what used to be a teachers' lounge. I love walking into that room. Mr. D has filled it with plants and bookshelves crammed with books. It doesn't feel like a cla.s.sroom at all. It's more like a comfortable library in someone's home. Every time I step through the door a little s.h.i.+ver of excitement runs through my stomach, as if something wonderful is about to happen. Like maybe I'm really on my way to becoming a writer.

On Tuesday I wore my navy blue wool skirt and knit sweater vest with a white starched blouse and penny loafers, so I would look more studious. It's extremely important to me that Mr. Dougherty take me seriously.

Mr. D was busy writing on the chalkboard, and his back was turned to the room. I took my usual place in the half circle arranged around his desk. Mr. Dougherty says that makes our cla.s.s more like a seminar, a type of cla.s.s you get in college in which students exchange ideas with their teacher. Being in a seminar made all of us feel very mature and special.

Everyone in the cla.s.s - there are ten of us - was at his or her desk long before the bell rang. We sat up straight in our seats, eager for the period to begin.

As the bell rang, Mr. D set down his chalk and turned to face us. He wore a brown corduroy coat with brushed leather patches at the elbows, a red-and-yellow-plaid s.h.i.+rt, and baggy tan chinos. (I personally think all teachers should dress that way. It makes them look very acute.) ” 'The Write Stuff/ ” he declared, pointing at the words he'd written on the board. He smiled at us. ”Have you got it?”

I folded my hands in front of me and swallowed hard. I sure hoped so. The boy sitting beside me shuffled his feet and cleared his throat.

”Now, there's the right stuff in everyday life,” Mr. D continued. ”That's having the courage to do a physically dangerous job, like flying a s.p.a.ce shuttle, or fighting forest fires.” He paused dramatically. ”And then there's the Write Stuff - which means having the creativity, the persistence, and the inner strength it takes to do the writing job.” I held my breath as he walked in front of us, looking each one of us in the eye. Finally he said, ”I think you've got it.”

The room was filled with a sigh as the ten of us exhaled with relief.

”However,” Mr. Dougherty said, raising one finger, ”it's something you have to work at. Being a writer takes a lot of self-discipline. You've got to make yourself work. No one can do it for you.”

Boy, that was the truth. Other people always seemed to get in a writer's way. Like my family, who still wouldn't leave me alone long enough to let me write even a page.

Mr. D perched on the edge of his desk. ”How many of you will be writing a piece for Young Authors Day?”

Ten of us raised our hands.

”Good.” He twirled his mustache. ”Let me take down your names so that I can arrange for enough teachers to read and judge your work.”

We waited patiently as he scribbled down our names on a pad of yellow paper. When he was finished, Mr. Dougherty looked back at the cla.s.s.

”Today I want to talk to each of you indi- vidually about your entry,” he said. ”While I'm doing that, I'd like the rest of you to pick an object in this room and make up a one-page history of that particular item. Where it came from, its name - if you care to name it - and how it ended up in this room.”

Immediately everyone pulled pieces of paper out of the binders, then sat nibbling on the ends of their pens while they stared around the room for a suitable object. I was trying to make up my mind between the slightly rusty wastebasket and the p.r.i.c.kly cactus on the windowsill, when Mr. D called me to his desk.

”As I recall,” he said, twirling his mustache and leaning back in his chair, ”you said you were going to enter the Best Overall Fiction contest. Is that right, Mallory?”

”Yes, sir.” I felt like I was being tested, and my voice shook a little. It was silly for me to feel that way because Mr. D is so nice. But he's also an author, and at that moment he was talking to me, author to author, about my story.

”Tell me a little about the plot.”

That was the one thing I had managed to work on between doing nay ch.o.r.es, babysitting, and working on homework. ”My story is about a girl named Tess. She comes from a large family and feels left out. Her mom and dad hardly seem to notice she's there. They're too worried about her older sister, who wants to date a boy they don't like, or her younger brothers, who are always getting into trouble at school. So, even though less is in the middle, she feels the farthest from their affection.”

”Nicely phrased,” Mr. Dougherty said. ”What happens to less?”

”Well, one day, her parents have to go away, and they leave her in charge. That's when Tess finds out how important she is to the family.”

Mr. D stroked his mustache as he nodded his head. That made me feel good. But that only lasted a few seconds because then he asked to see what I had written.

I flipped open my notebook and stared down at the first page of my story. The blank spots looked huge and I tried to cover them with my hand, but it was too late.

”Three paragraphs?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. ”That's all you've written?”

”Uh, I - I really haven't gotten a chance to write it yet,” I stammered. ”I've been kind of busy at home, and I've mostly been concentrating on the plot.” It wasn't a lie. I really had been thinking about the plot.

Mr. Dougherty took a deep breath and sighed. It was a disappointed sound, one that I would have given anything not to hear.

”Thinking about your story is important for any author/' he said quietly, ”but until you actually put the words on the page, Mallory, you can't call yourself a writer.”

I stared down at my notebook, too ashamed to look him in the eye. ”I know that,” I murmured. For one terrible moment, I thought I was going to cry. It took every ounce of willpower to stop myself. I just couldn't humiliate myself in front of Mr. Dougherty and the whole cla.s.s. It was too awful even to think about.

Mr. Dougherty stood up, letting me know that our conference was over. He must have sensed how rotten I felt because he patted me on the shoulder and said, ”I know you can write, Mallory. I just want to remind you that time is running out. Young Authors Day is only three weeks away.”

I shut my notebook and clutched it to my chest. ”Don't worry, Mr. Dougherty,” I said in a shaky voice I hardly recognized as my own. ”I'm going to spend every spare minute working on this. I won't let you down.”

My words echoed in my head walking home from school that day. I was afraid that I might actually let Mr. Dougherty down, and then I'd never be able to face him again. As I climbed the steps to my front door, I decided to make a work schedule for myself and stick to it.

The minute I got in the house, I grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter and headed straight up to my room. I dumped my books onto my bed and gathered some materials with which to make my schedule - two pieces of lined paper, some tape, a ruler, and colored pens. Turning the two pieces of paper sideways, I taped them together and drew lines across them to make a graph. Then I listed each day leading to Young Authors .Day down one side. Across the top I wrote the hours of the day after school. Here's what the first four days looked like: T-oo W,:.