Magic in Costa Rica

Clever Girl

"Hey, how come you didn't tell me you went to dinner at Mrs. K's and Matthew was there?" I confronted Carla as soon as I stormed into the library at lunch. It's not that I was mad, although it may have come off that way; I was just genuinely curious as to why they had kept it from me, and the question had been burning on the tip of my tongue all day.

"Um, hello to you too, Alma!" Carla said as her, Mark and Ethan looked up at me from in between the bookcases. I sighed and sat down next to them.

"Hi, great to see you, how've you been? Now why didn't you tell me?" I whined. Mark raised a hand in the air before Carla could open her mouth.

"Hold up, you're gonna be mad at her for not telling you that she had dinner at her boyfriend's house, but you're not gonna tell us about your date with Alan?" he paused for effect. A collective gasp rose from Ethan and Carla as Mark gave me a sassy smile.

"How did you know about that?" I groaned.

"Well, as you know, Alan and I both work at the mall, and he was leaving right around the time I was, saying how excited he was to go roller skating with the hot crying chick, and I had to assume it was you, based on context. Was it or was it not?" he demanded. Carla and Ethan both raised their eyebrows at me expectantly.

"Aw, he thinks I'm hot?" I blushed and Mark, Carla and Ethan all gasped again, like they were all Laura Dern seeing a live dinosaur for the first time in Jurassic Park. Boy, I really liked that movie. "Okay, yes it was me! But I was going to tell you, I was just waiting for the right time, okay? And art class didn't seem like the right time."

"Well, it didn't seem like the right time to tell you about dinner either! Plus, we thought you'd be... jealous?" Carla admitted. I scoffed, but then reconsidered and nodded.

"Yeah, that's fair. Anyways, let's get back to the point. What happened at dinner? Did you guys say bad things about me? Why was Matthew there?"

"Nothing happened at dinner," Carla started, "I mean except, well, eating dinner. We didn't say bad things about you, I just told the story of Alan asking you out because I thought it was funny, and," she paused, "I don't know why Mr. Miller was there. He just kind of showed up in the middle, and Mrs. K gave him some food to take home."

"Hence the Tupperware..." I speculated.

"Okay now I'm lost," Mark said, putting a hand on his forehead.

"Oh, Matthew came into Mrs. K's classroom to return a Tupperware. That's how I found out you guys had dinner in the first place," I explained. "And then I overheard them talking about how he was 'having a hard time' after I left... I wonder what that was about."

"I may have an idea," Ethan said, and we all turned to look his way. I guess that was the good thing about being the quiet one: when you had something to say, people listened. "A couple nights ago, I heard my mom telling my dad that she needed to keep a close eye on Mr. Miller because this time of year reminds him of his dad," he revealed hesitantly, nervous that all our attention was on him. Carla smiled.

"Look at you, our little man on the inside!" She held out her hand and they high-fived. They were such a cute couple. "Anybody know what the deal is with his dad?"

"I do..." I said, almost whispering, "He died ten years ago." The cheerful atmosphere of our conversation turned serious. "Maybe the anniversary is coming up. I mean I always get really sad on the anniversary of my mom's death, which is actually coming up pretty soon now that I think about it. Hey, maybe we're death-anniversary buddies!"

"Seems like a weird thing to be excited about, but okay," Mark said. Man, he was being pretty sassy today! I brushed it off. If he really was stressed from school (although I suspected another motive to his behavior) I didn't want to make him feel worse.