Gem & Dixie by Sara Zarr
DEDICATION
For my big sister, Liz
With very special thanks to Jordan Brown
and Michael Bourret
Prologue
WHERE ARE we going? Dixie would ask.
The forest, I’d say. Or, Space.
She never questioned me.
We need to pack survival rations, I’d tell her.
What’s that?
Food and water and gum and stuff.
She’d help me make butter-and-jelly sandwiches on soft, white bread. If we had chocolate chips, we’d sprinkle those in, too, and mash the bread down hard so they wouldn’t fall out. I’d lift her to the kitchen sink so she could fill a bottle with water, and I’d roll up a beach towel; then we’d put it all into the picnic basket that was really just a paper grocery bag on which I’d drawn a basket-weave pattern with a green marker—badly, crookedly.
We would put on our jackets and shoes, and I’d make her close her eyes and I’d lead her around the apartment and spin her in circles and then say: We’re here. Open your eyes.
I knew, and she knew, we weren’t in space or the forest or Narnia or anywhere other than our shitty apartment. Still, when she opened her eyes, they’d go big and bright. She was good at make-believe. My favorite thing was how she always skipped into whatever fantasy place we’d gone to. As soon as her eyes were open, she’d start skipping all around the living room and up and down the hall.
We’re in space, I might say. You can’t skip in space.
I can.
Okay, but you can only skip really slow in space because there’s no gravity.
Mid-skip she’d switch to slow motion and try to make her arms and legs more floaty. Then she’d get tired of it and get hot in her jacket and say it was time to go home.
No, we’re not going home. We’re never going home. I don’t remember when I started saying that part.
She’d stop squirming. What about Mom? And Daddy?
We’ll leave a note.
Then we’d spread the beach towel on the living room floor and if I forgot to bring crayons or markers to space I’d run into our room and get them, and we’d draw a good-bye note, our stick figures flying up to the moon and holding hands as we waved good-bye forever to our parents. Dixie liked to draw stars behind our heads like halos.
She used to play along. She used to believe everything I told her, and do anything I said.
She used to need me to take care of her, and I liked doing it. I liked doing it because, then, I thought I was the one who could. Even though nobody was taking care of me.
1.
NINE QUARTERS.
They were the last of what had been left in the jar of laundry money that Dixie and I kept in our room, the jar that had never quite lost the smell of pickle relish. I counted and recounted the quarters in my pocket with my fingertips as the lunch line moved forward, as I’d counted and recounted them through English, physiology, and government. I counted because things in my life had a way of disappearing on me, and I’d learned not to trust what I thought was there.
What was there wasn’t enough—three quarters short of the cost of lunch—but I stayed in the line anyway as it moved me toward the food. Lunch roulette. Luca, the cafeteria worker on the register, might find seventy-five cents for me in his pocket. Or someone else in line might cover it, out of impatience or pity, which were just as good as kindness on a day that hungry. I hadn’t eaten more than a candy bar since the potluck in my fourth-period Spanish class the day before.
Denny Miller and Adam Johnson—freshmen—stood right in front of me in the line; Tremaine Alvarado and Katy Plant, juniors like me, stood behind. Tremaine was on my PE volleyball team. She’d stare through me on the court, or jostle me while we rotated to the serve, without saying sorry or excuse me or anything else that showed she thought of me as an actual person with a name. Katy Plant thought it was funny to call me “Jim” and got other people to do it, too. I don’t know what’s worse—people acting like you don’t have a name, or them saying it wrong on purpose. The point is I wouldn’t be asking Katy or Tremaine for a handout.
Not that I wanted to ask anyone for a handout. But being hungry—I mean really hungry—had a way of erasing a lot of the embarrassment. And Denny and Adam were easy, being the kind of undersized freshmen who still looked more like seventh graders.
“Denny,” I said.
Both Denny and Adam turned around. I could see them wondering how I knew his name. I knew it because they were both listed on a program from the last band concert, and it was posted in one of the display cases outside the counseling office, under a picture of the band. I spent a lot of time there. I knew not only their names, but that Adam played clarinet and Denny played trumpet and had a solo in “Stars and Stripes Forever.” They both had floppy hair and bad skin. Adam was taller, which helped me tell them apart.
“Can I borrow seventy-five cents?” I asked quietly.
“Me?” Denny pointed to himself.
“Either of you.”
The line moved and the smell of ravioli and garlic bread got stronger. My stomach seemed to fold in on itself.
“I use a lunch card,” Denny said.
“Yeah,” Adam said. “Me too.”
They turned their backs to me. Just because their parents loaded up cafeteria cards with money didn’t mean they didn’t also have some cash. I checked on Katy and Tremaine behind me; Katy was busy showing Tremaine something on her phone. I leaned closer to Denny. “But maybe you have some change or something?”
He drew back and shook his head. I wondered whether I’d tell Mr. Bergstrom about this in our appointment later and if I did, how I would describe it in a way that made me not look too bad.
I tried Adam. “Do you know Dixie True?”
That got his attention. “Um, yeah.”
“She’s in our social studies class,” Denny added, facing me again. “And English.”
“That’s my sister.” Maybe if they knew that, I would seem more interesting than weird.
They exchanged a glance.
“Really?” Denny’s voice cracked on the end of the word. Adam laughed through his nose.
“Ask her next time you see her.”
They wouldn’t, not boys like this, zit-faced and probably still playing with action figures in secret. They might sneak looks at Dixie but they wouldn’t dare say a word to her.
Denny pulled a wrinkled dollar bill from his pocket. “You can pay me back tomorrow, though, right?”
“I’ll look for you,” I promised, taking the money.