Things Get Worse.

Monday totally sucked.

When Franklin and I walked into school together, some boy I didn't even know said, "Play anything fun this weekend?"

My cheeks felt hot. Franklin didn't get that this was teasing. He opened his mouth: "Yea"" and I elbowed him lightly to shut up.

At my locker, Amanda had a crew with her: three girls in flat shoes, skirts, and fitted shirts. I guess dressing up wasn't a first-day-of-school thing but an all-the-time thing. I could never go to school like that. How uncomfortable. When I looked down the hallway, there were more girls in nice clothes than last week. Because of Amanda?

"How're the scabs, Scabular?"

Too bad I couldn't say something strong: They're great, how are you? All I could think about was how I must look like a boy dressed in my jeans and sneakers and red sweatshirt. The weather had gotten cool enough for long clothes; Amanda couldn't even see my scabs. But if she was still talking about them, would it matter if they were hidden or went away? Maybe I'd be known as scab-girl forever.

I'd just been staring at Amanda while the thoughts whirred in my head, not saying anything. I must have looked like an empty-headed ding-dong. She laughed, and a couple of her friends did the same. Then they all walked away.

If you forgot your homework in elementary school, the teacher just said that you could bring it tomorrow.

In middle school, the teachers seemed interested in making examples.

Like the science teacher. Mr. Fleming collected the homework and then noticed that some of us didn't hand anything in.

"Who didn't hand in homework this morning?" he asked.

Three other kids raised their hands. I snuck mine up slowly, afraid to admit it but more afraid to be caught lying.

"Maybe you got away with not doing your homework back in elementary school, but that won't be the case now. You're starting the year with zeros on your a.s.signments. You're not making a good impression. You're not off to a good start."

Franklin watched me slouch in my chair. Hadn't he been with me the whole weekend?

Mr. Fleming turned to write on the board. "When did you do your homework?" I whispered to Franklin.

"Friday afternoon when I got home."

"Talking during the lesson is not okay, either," Mr. Fleming announced, back still turned.

It went pretty much the same way in the other cla.s.ses.

I felt like a moron for not having any work done. Once I thought about it, I remembered that there were kids in elementary school who got into trouble for not having their homework done. I never knew how those kids ended up not doing it so much. Back then you only had one teacher, so at the most there were two things to do in one night; now we had seven different teachers and they all gave their own a.s.signments!

I was so glad when school was over. We didn't take the bus home. We went to see Leonard instead.

Leonard was my dad's best friend. They grew up together. Dad moved away for college and work for a while, but he moved back here to have his family near his brothers and Leonard. Leonard owns the hardware store in town, and he lets me and Franklin help out and make a little money whenever we want. Leonard's like my extra uncle.

I love the hardware store because everybody who works there knows me. And it has that great smell, like paint and cedar chips; that might be my favorite smell in the world. I walk in and I just feel better.

Franklin went to talk to some of the other guys. He always does that first, to let me say hi to Leonard by myself.

I headed to the back counter. Leonard's easy to spot: tall with thinning hair, bright green Town Center Hardware ap.r.o.n.

"Hey, Cricket. What's new?"

"Nothing."

"How's sixth grade going?"

"Awful."

"Why's that?"

"Yucky new teachers, yucky new kids, yucky more homework a"

"Yucky, huh?"

"Yeah, everything is yucky."

"Well, give it a chance. This is only youra"what?a"second day?"

I nodded.

"Are you and Franklin in need of an ice cream?" Leonard placed several quarters on the counter.

"Should we sweep up? Or inventory the nails? Or stir paint?"

"Nah, no need." Leonard smiled. "Ice cream's on the house today."

"Thanks, Leonard," I said. I slid the quarters off the counter into my other palm.

"Bye, Cricket."

"Bye!" As I left, I called to Franklin, who seemed to be showing a customer what kind of nails would be best for the wood he was planning to use. Franklin knows too many random things.

We went next door to the ice cream place. Franklin always gets a blue raspberry slushie. I picked M&M ice cream. I don't like the way frozen M&M's hurt your teeth, but I love how the colors come off the candies and streak the vanilla ice cream rainbow.

Franklin and I sat at a table with high chairs. I decided not to tease him about his blue mouth, but it was really hard not to. The light stain around his lips made me think of a five-year-old.

Aunt Bessie came to pick us up at four o'clock. I thought about getting right to my homework. But I'd been at school all day. I needed a break.

"What do you want to do?" Franklin asked.

"I don't know." I thumped my backpack down on the porch. "Not homework."

"Let's build stuff," Franklin said. "It looked like Uncle Hugh just put out a whole bunch of pieces for us."

"Yeah, okay." I could make something that I wanted to make, not do something that a teacher said I had to do.

Uncle Hugh's truck was gone, so he wasn't in his workshop. Franklin got the bin of wood pieces and dumped them out on an empty table. I got our hammers and nails.

"What do you want to make?" I asked.

"Let's build a castle."

"Don't you think of castles as more rock than wood?"

"We can paint it to look like gray rocks. Or maybe we can build with sugar cubes on the outside and paint those. It'll be great. Here, you make the base and I'll make a tower."

I made a floor and then a four-sided structure. Franklin's tower took a lot longer because he wanted it to have more than four sides. He was being quiet, so I started to wander around the barn.

There are different sections of the barn off the main workshop. Uncle Hugh uses them to store equipment, supplies, and projects in progress. Mostly he's hired to build specific things, but he also makes things just because he feels like it and sells those, too. In one room was a rocking chair that he was staining a beautiful blue, in between light blue and green, the color uneven in a way that made the chair look old and worn. I hoped I could get the chair for my birthday next month. Maybe I could drop the right hints. We don't usually keep any of the things Uncle Hugh makes, because we already have everything we need and they're meant to be sold, after all. Maybe he would make an exception if he knew I really, really wanted it.

The chair looked ready to be sat ina"furniture was usually ready to use if he was staininga"so I sat in it. I liked the way my arms fit on the armrests, the way my feet just reached the floor, the way the chair tipped gently back and forth.

While I sat there, rocking, something on the wall caught my eye: a key, hanging by string, with a tag. It said Elise.

I went over to look closer. I'd never noticed it before, but Uncle Hugh has so much stuff in the barn that it would probably take a lifetime to notice every little thing. How long had the key been there?

I lifted it off the hook.

"Look," I called as I headed back to Franklin. "It has my name on it."

"Huh?" He looked up from connecting the sixth and final side of the tower.

"This key. I've never seen it before. My name's on it. What do you think it goes to?"

"Your room?"

"There's not a lock on my room," I said.

"A treasure chest?"

"A treasure chest? Why would we have a treasure chest?"

"I don't know." Franklin finished nailing the last wall in place. "Come help me attach the tower."

I hung the key back up and went to help.

"I need you to hold the base and the tower together while I nail them, okay?" he asked.

I held them as he counted: "One, two, three."

I watched Franklin hammer. Then suddenly I pictured a tree getting split by lightning. It wasn't just a picture but a hot, splintery feeling in my thumb. I realized I was screaming.

"Oh no, oh no, I'm sorry! Oh no, Elise, come on!"

I was holding my thumb tight with my other hand, so Franklin grabbed my elbow and pulled me out of the barn at a run. In the driveway he started yelling, "Aunt Bessie! Aunt Bessie!"

She came out onto the porch, drying her hands on a towel.

"For heaven's sake," she said. "Oh Lordy, Cricket. Let me see." She examined my hand. It was bleeding now. "How did this happen?"

"We were building, and I hit her," Franklin said.

"With what?"

"A hammer."

"Were nails involved?"

"Yes."

"Car. Now," Aunt Bessie said.

Franklin and I hurried. Franklin asked, "Where are we going?"

"The hospital. Elise, if there's rust in that cut, you'll need a teta.n.u.s shot. And if your thumb is actually broken a see how it's swelling already? How does it hurt? Dull, sharp?"

"Sharp." I was still crying. Franklin buckled my seat belt. While Aunt Bessie started driving, she had Franklin reach into the emergency kit she keeps in the car and get a disposable ice pack. He slammed it on the cup holder until it turned cold and then held it on my hand.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he kept saying. I wanted to tell him it was okay, but the words weren't coming out. He's Mr. Super-Careful. What had happened this time?

We waited in the ER for Aunt Bessie to fill out forms and then for the doctors to call us. I had to go by myself for an X-ray. They had me put my arm in a machine. Then the doctor cleaned the cut while we waited for the pictures. I didn't need st.i.tches, but he thought a shot would be a good idea, so he jabbed a needle in my arm. "Clean the cut twice a day and change the bandage."

Aunt Bessie nodded.

"Now let's check out what's going on inside." He put the X-rays up on a board that lit up from behind. He used his pen to point out the bones in my thumb and how there was a crack in one of them. Broken. Not too badly, but broken all the same.

He braced my thumb in a splint, wrapped it in gauze, and put my arm in a soft sling to make sure that I moved my hand as little as possible. I came out looking like I had a fat, bright white thumbs-up strapped to my chest. Awesome.

The doctor had me take pain medicine and handed Aunt Bessie a slip to get more at the drugstore. Another thing we had to sit around and wait for.

When we dropped Franklin off on the way home, he said, "I'm sorry!" for the one-hundredth time.

"Don't worry," I said. "It's okay."

But maybe it was just the medicine saying that.

Uncle Hugh didn't come home until the baked ziti was ready and cooling on the table. I was sitting there already, my head down, my thumb throbbing.

"Cricket!" he said. "What happened?"

"I went to the hospital."

"I can see that." He sat down next to me. "But why?"

Aunt Bessie made a noise in her throat as she brought the salad to the table. "They were playing in your workshop. Maybe you shouldn't let them play there."

Uncle Hugh turned slightly pink, but he said, "Don't be silly. They know not to touch anything dangerous. Were you using only the things set aside for you?"