The Importance of Wings Page 8

  Gayle turns her attention back to Lulu. “Maybe you want a beautiful blue house instead,” she squeals.

  “Yes,” I squeak back. “A beautiful blue house with three swimming pools, two tennis courts, and seven rose gardens. Oh, darling Lancelot, I will marry you.” I make smoochy noises.

  At that moment, I hear footsteps.

  I instinctively gaze up at the grimy basement window and see four sneaker-clad feet scurry away.

  Gayle’s mouth drops open.

  “Did they hear us?” I ask in a whisper.

  Gayle looks stricken. She drops Lulu and bolts for the stairs. A moment later, she has run up to her room and slammed the door.

  My face feels hot. Whoever was spying on us surely heard me accepting a marriage proposal in a high-pitched voice from a piece of Lego.

  Footsteps sound on the basement stairs. Kathleen and Liat come bouncing down. They seem amused.

  I gaze at them through narrowed eyes. “You were spying on us,” I say.

  The expression on Kathleen’s face gets more amused. “We weren’t spying,” she says playfully.

  Liat seems less smug. “We just asked your dad where you were. He said in the basement. He said to go through the back.”

  It figures that the one Sunday my father is home changing the oil in his taxi, Liat and Kathleen would show up.

  Kathleen’s eyes twinkle. “Oh, darling Lancelot!” she suddenly bursts out.

  “Shut up, Kathleen,” I say.

  “My beautiful Lancelot!” she goes on.

  “Shut up,” I say again, then add, “Get out.”

  Liat lifts her hand as if she’s directing traffic. “Look, it’s okay. We just wanted to know if you want to come to town. We could get spice cakes.”

  I shake my head back and forth. “Get out,” I repeat.

  Kathleen, grinning, starts to make her way back up the stairs.

  “Nice friend,” I say, watching her leave. Liat frowns at me. “She’s still your friend, Roxanne. She’s just teasing you.” “Yeah, right,” I sputter.

  Liat sighs. She seems exasperated. “Roxanne, you’re too worried about people making fun of you. Or beating you up.”

  I stare at her in disbelief. “ ‘Cause it hurts!” I yell. “Getting made fun of hurts! Getting beaten up hurts!”

  Liat’s face reddens. “No,” she says angrily. “Having your mom blown to pieces hurts.” She looks away. “That hurts so bad, everything else is nothing.”

  A silence settles between us. Liat’s statement has knocked all my arguing out of me.

  Finally I mutter, “Well, it’s easy for you, ‘cause you’re good in gym.”

  Liat exhales loudly. “Gym isn’t real life, Roxanne. Gym’s going to be over one day.”

  “Well, real life stinks!” I say, and my lower lip quivers.

  “Hey, no arguments there,” Liat says.

  I sniffle. “I don’t get it.”

  “I don’t either.”

  “But you’re so tough. You know how to fight. You beat up Donna.”

  “You could learn that. It’s no big deal.” “It is, too.”

  “Look, I told you. I’m Israeli. Like you. It’s, like, an attitude thing.”

  “But I want to be American,” I say in a small voice, and even as I’m saying it, I know that isn’t a hundred percent accurate. Not anymore.

  “You already are,” Liat says, calling me on it. “Now, come on, let’s find Kathleen.”

  I don’t want to, but I follow Liat. Kathleen is sitting on my front stoop. When we come out, she says she’s sorry for teasing me about my Lego romance.

  “It’s okay,” I say, squirming, aware of Liat’s eyes on me, but Liat doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. Her eyes are saying it all: You’re too worried about people making fun of you.

  Kathleen suggests going to town for spice cakes. I go in the house to get Gayle. When Gayle and I come out, Eddie is standing next to Kathleen. My heart begins its normal being-around-Eddie pounding.

  Eddie and Kathleen walk ahead of us. Every few minutes, Eddie leans over and tries to kiss Kathleen. Kathleen backs away from him every time and protests, “Eddie!” It’s the kind of protest that sounds to me like, “Not right at this moment, hot stuff, but please try again later. Oh, and have a nice day!”

  At last, Eddie succeeds in giving Kathleen a quick peck on the mouth before she can pull away from him. Kathleen giggles and slaps him playfully. I turn away, feeling sick. Liat’s watching me. I avoid her eyes.

  When we arrive at the bakery, we buy every spice cake they have in the display case. We each polish off two as we walk home. Eddie and Kathleen are ahead of us again. I’m growing very, very annoyed with them. Eddie is tearing pieces off his spice cake and feeding the chunks to Kathleen.

  Suddenly, Kathleen bolts down the street. Eddie takes off after her. They disappear around the bend in the road.

  By the time we reach them, they’re leaning against the side of a house, making out like crazy. I can’t help staring, taking in their closed eyes and the urgent way their mouths are moving. Eddie’s arms are wrapped tightly around Kathleen, she’s practically folded into him, and it gives me goose bumps to imagine my own body pressed against his instead of hers.

  We pass them silently. When we reach our block, Gayle skips ahead.

  Liat asks me, “How come you like Eddie so much?”

  Somehow, I expected this question, but my face still flames with embarrassment. Is it that obvious?

  “He’s really cute,” I reply dully. “He’s, like, All-American.” That simple sentence always seemed like enough of a reason to have a massive crush on Eddie. After I say it out loud, however, it sounds stupendously stupid.

  Liat nods. “Yeah, Eddie is really cute in an All-American way.”

  I can tell there is more coming, and that it won’t be good.

  “But he’s a jerk,” Liat declares.

  “You’re right,” I say without arguing. “He’s a jerk.”

  chapter twenty

  liat, gayle, and i sit on our stoop on a Saturday afternoon, polishing off what’s left of our Halloween candy. After five Milky Ways, I decide I’m never going to eat chocolate again.

  “Do they have Milky Ways in Israel?” Gayle asks. Her mouth is one great big brown smear. Nice.

  Liat takes a big chomp out of a Snickers bar. “I’m not sure,” she says. “They might. There’s all kinds of Israeli candy bars, though.”

  “Elite, right?” I say.

  “Yeah,” Liat says, looking impressed.

  “What’s Elite?” Gayle asks.

  “It’s a brand of Israeli chocolate,” I reply. “Like Hershey.”

  Gayle stares at me in mid-chomp. “How’d you know that, Roxanne?”

  I try to act insulted. “I know something about being Israeli, Gayle.” I’m just trying to annoy Gayle, but at the same time, I realize I really do know a lot about Israel—and I’m proud of that. I guess hanging out with Liat helps me remember all the things Aba and Ema taught me—the things I used to try to forget.

  Gayle makes a face at me. With her mouth and fingertips smeared with candy bar, she looks like a chocolate alien from a distant Milky Way. Ha, ha.

  “You guys are pretty good at speaking Hebrew, right?” Liat asks.

  “Sure,” we both say together. Ema and Aba have always spoken Hebrew to us, even if we do answer back in English. I guess it’s one of those things we do without thinking, like breathing or blinking.

  “There are these words that are really funny—the ones where two words are doubled. You know, like koom-koom.”

  “Teapot,” Gayle says immediately.

  Liat smiles at her. “Par-par.”

  “Butterfly,” I say, then in a moment of inspiration, “Chach-chach.”

  “Lowlife,” Gayle promptly translates, and we all crack up.

  Eddie starts toward us from down the block.

  “Speaking of lowlifes,” Liat murmurs.

 
Gayle and I turn to her, then burst out laughing.

  It’s the first time I can remember making fun of Eddie like that. And my heart normally speeds up when Eddie is around, but I notice with some surprise that it doesn’t now.

  Kathleen is running to catch up with him.

  “Anything going on?” Eddie asks when he reaches us. “Anything happening?”

  “Nope,” Liat replies.

  “No deaths, no accidents, no dismemberments?”

  “Nope,” Liat repeats.

  “Eddie,” Kathleen scolds. “Cut it out.”

  Gayle offers them candy bars. They take them, even though she’s muddied the wrappers with her sticky fingers.

  “What were you guys talking about?” Eddie asks as he tears into a Three Musketeers, demolishing it in three bites. It’s like watching a T. rex eat.

  “Hebrew words,” Gayle replies. “Do you want to learn some?”

  “What’s Hebrew?” Eddie asks.

  “It’s a language,” I say. “It’s what they speak in Israel.”

  “Huh,” Eddie grunts, and I’m reminded again of a big stupid animal.

  “I think it’s cool that you guys know another language,” Kathleen says, delicately peeling back her candy bar wrapper.

  “You want to learn some Hebrew words?” Gayle asks again.

  “Just the curses,” Eddie replies.

  We teach Kathleen and Eddie some of the Hebrew curses we know. They’re pretty funny, actually. Kathleen gets them easily.

  “I’m gonna use them at home,” she says with a grin. “They won’t have a clue. It’ll be great.”

  But Eddie can’t seem to get a handle on them at all. No matter how many times we enunciate the words for him, he can’t get them through his thick head. He’s massacring our language completely. Thinking of him as a T. rex was the right call after all, because his brain seems to be the size of a pea.

  Have I been worshipping a big dumb oaf all this time just because he looks like an All-American guy?

  chapter twenty-one

  it happens in the middle of the night.

  At 2:16 AM.

  I’m groggy, still between the world of sleep and dreams, when I become aware of a curious red-orange light outside my window.

  I hear loud noises that sound like bells. I turn over wearily and close my eyes. But the noises don’t fade; in fact, they get louder. They sound like sirens.

  And then I smell smoke.

  I jump out of bed. When I peer out the window, I can hardly believe my eyes. Brilliant flames are licking the sky. Fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances, their red-and-blue sirens spinning madly, are parked at odd angles all over the street.

  What I’m seeing finally connects with reality. I race down the hall, barge into my parents’ bedroom, and find Aba standing at the window with a look of utter shock on his face.

  “The Cursed House is on fire!” I scream.

  I don’t wait for a response. I bolt down the stairs and out the front door. It’s only when I get outside that I realize I’m barefoot and in my flimsy pajamas with the hole in the seat of the pants.

  The pavement feels like ice. It stings my bare feet. I half-run and half-stumble toward a crowd of people, all dressed like me, staring as if in a trance at the raging flames consuming the Cursed House.

  The fire feels like an open oven. A heavy odor makes it hard to breathe. I wonder why the firefighters don’t tell us to move back. I can’t take my eyes off the dancing flames. It’s like the fire is a living thing—rising, falling, rumbling like low thunder.

  Aba and Gayle come out of the house and stand next to me. Gayle eyes the fire with a mixture of horror and wonder. Aba hands me a pair of fuzzy slippers. I absently slip them on my numb feet.

  I become aware of Kathleen. She’s holding Mikey in her arms. I recognize others in the crowd, too—Joe, Margo, Eddie.

  But two people are missing.

  The full realization of that hits me with a force so strong I actually stumble backward.

  “Liat!” I yell, running forward.

  Two firefighters hold up their hands to stop me.

  “But my friend’s in there!” I shriek.

  My eyes burn, but I don’t know if it’s the smoke or the sudden terror I feel.

  chapter twenty-two

  the loss overwhelms me.

  Not Liat.

  Not strong, beautiful, tough, Israeli Liat.

  I thrash violently against the firefighters, but they won’t let me pass. They won’t let me rescue Liat from the flames.

  A growing pain inside me feels so sharp it’s as though an invisible knife has reached into my very heart, splaying it open, leaving it bloody and mutilated.

  “Roxanne! I’m here!”

  I turn. Liat is standing to the side, away from the crowd, waving at me frantically. Her father stands behind her, bare-chested, his arms wrapped around her. Their eyes are red and puffy.

  “Liat!” My relief is so strong it comes with a boatload of hot tears.

  I run to her, wanting to squeeze her whole self to me—but when I get there, I’m overcome by a powerful shyness. Thankfully, Liat ignores it and pulls me into a smothering hug.

  “Please clear the area!”

  The firefighters are shooing us away.

  “Please stay back. Please move away.”

  Some of the people in the crowd begin to go home. But Liat and I stay. We stand as close as the firefighters will allow us, holding hands, and watch the fire until it’s over.

  It isn’t until the sun has risen over Brookfield Avenue that the fire finally dies down. By then, the fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances have left our block, crawling away as if in a parade. As sunshine illuminates the street, the extent of the damage becomes clear.

  The Cursed House has burned to the ground.

  Yet no other houses on the block, including the two on either side of it—ours and Margo’s—have suffered any damage at all.

  When I look at the spot, it’s as if the Cursed House had never been there in the first place. All that’s left is a charred foundation. In fact, when I try to remember what it looked like, I find my memory curiously blank. All I know is that it was bright pink.

  In the days following the fire, Liat and her father move into Rivka’s apartment.

  The Staten Island Fire Department cannot explain how the fire started. It wasn’t arson, they say. It also wasn’t an electrical malfunction.

  In an article in the Staten Island Advance, the fire chief is quoted as saying, “I know this is going to sound funny, but we simply cannot find the cause. If you ask me, it’s as if the house spontaneously combusted.”

  I remember learning about spontaneous combustion in science lab last year. A Radical Idea begins to form in my mind.

  This Radical Idea starts out small but gets huge by week’s end. It’s so big, in fact, I can’t get it out of my head.

  See, everything I know about Liat, and the Cursed House, tells me it’s absolutely right. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to share it. Very few people would understand.

  It’s only when Gayle brings it up that I even say it out loud.

  It’s two weeks after the fire, and Gayle and I are walking home from school. We’re silent most of the way until Gayle suddenly blurts out, “I think the Cursed House killed itself.”

  I inhale sharply. My teeth make a whistling sound. “I think so, too,” I say.

  I struggle to fashion my jumbled thoughts into coherent words. “I think that when Liat moved in … she … defeated the Curse. She beat it. So the Cursed House … destroyed itself. And now, without it, there’s no Curse anymore.”

  Gayle nods vigorously.

  We never mention it again.

  But some people on the block, like Eddie, don’t see it our way.

  They say the fire is only the latest example of the terrible reliability of the Curse. Even when we point out that no one got hurt in the fire and that the Cursed House itself is now gon
e, they insist the Curse struck again.

  Some people even believe a new house will be built on that spot one day, and that it will be Cursed, too. But they’re wrong. Gayle and I are right.

  Even if a new house goes up on that spot one day, the Curse itself is gone. Liat conquered it.

  chapter twenty-three

  it’s almost thanksgiving now, and I’ve decided I won’t let it be like Rosh Hashanah. Just because Ema can’t be here doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate. And this year, we’re going to have Israeli foods on the menu in addition to the traditional American foods. I’m going to make Old-Fashioned Yankee Spiced Cake—and jachnun too. I’m going to invite Liat, Yossi, and Rivka. It’s going to be the best Thanksgiving ever.

  I’m in my room, writing out the giant list of ingredients I will need from the supermarket. Liat’s with me. We’re both sprawled on the floor, blowing giant green bubbles that are collapsing stickily on our cheeks.

  It reminds me of the first day I met Liat, that afternoon I saw her sitting alone on the stoop of the Cursed House, blowing big green bubbles.

  Liat is unusually quiet. She scrapes three strands of gum off her face. “We’re leaving, Roxanne,” she says softly.

  “What?” I ask absently.

  Liat looks down at the floor. “We’re going back to Israel,” she says in a low voice.

  I nearly choke on my wad of Bubblicious. “What?!” Liat nods solemnly. Her face is pale.

  “When?”

  “In a couple weeks.”

  I can’t find words. Finally I stammer, “But what about school?” It’s a dumb question, considering everything.

  Liat clears her throat. “I guess I’ll go to school in Israel.”

  “No,” I say. “You can’t go. What about Thanksgiving?” “I’m really sorry, Roxanne,” she says sadly. Her eyes are shiny.

  I blink back tears of my own. “But why?” I ask. Liat sighs. “My dad. He says it was a sign. He says it’s time.” “A sign? You mean the fire?” I ask.