In Your Shoes Read online

  Amy could have worn inserts inside her sneakers, where no one would see them, and she did that for a while. But after her mom died, Amy pulled the sneakers from the back of her closet. She decided to honor her mom and wear them proudly every day. Let people stare!

  The tall boy skidded up first. “Oh my…Are you…? I can’t believe—”

  “You’re bleeding!” the other boy shrieked. “Your head, it’s—it’s—bleeding!”

  “I’m really sorry,” the tall one said. “It was—”

  “All your fault!” the other boy yelled, shoving the tall one.

  The tall one shoved him back.

  Amy scooted away from the fray. A single drop of her blood plopped onto the sidewalk. It reminded Amy of Sleeping Beauty when she pricked her finger on the spindle. “Hey, do you guys have a tissue or something? Oh my gosh. I can’t believe…” Nothing was working out like it was supposed to. Her first day at a new school was not supposed to go this way. When Amy imagined the story outline of this day, it did not involve a bowling shoe and these two characters. Truth really is stranger than fiction, Amy thought.

  The boy who’d been putting his bowling shoe back on fished awkwardly in his jacket pockets and handed over a small piece of paper. “It’s all I have.”

  “Never mind,” Amy said, shoving the piece of paper into her pocket. “I’m good.” There was no way she was pressing that grimy piece of paper to her forehead. “You can stop staring now,” she said from her spot on the ground.

  The whole thing made Amy feel like crying, but she’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry again today. Of course, when she’d made that promise, she couldn’t have anticipated being clonked in the forehead by a flying bowling shoe.

  “Come on. She’s good,” the tall boy said. “Let’s go. We’re going to be late.”

  “But…,” the other boy said. “We can’t leave her sitting there like that.”

  “Please,” Amy said. “Leave me sitting here. Really. I want you to go.”

  So they went.

  The tall boy ran toward school, his backpack bouncing against his spine.

  The other boy ran after him. But he stopped and looked back at Amy, his eyes wide. Then he continued on. “Wait, Randall! I have to tell you something!”

  “What?” the tall boy yelled.

  “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have said that about…”

  Amy wondered what Bowling Shoe Boy was sorry about and what he shouldn’t have said. Her writer brain was always paying attention to details, like the moment the boy stopped and looked back at her. Amy figured he couldn’t believe what a weirdo she was, sitting on the cold ground, bleeding and not getting up. He probably noticed the heel lift at the bottom of her right sneaker, too.

  Oh, how Amy longed to rewrite this morning.

  She wished she’d been allowed to stay home and spend the day in her room, writing. Not that she liked where she was living now, but she could have lost herself in creating a story. She would have been transported to a different world, maybe a castle from centuries ago, maybe a peasant’s hut in a beautiful part of Ireland, maybe—

  An icy wind sliced through Amy, making her shiver as though she weren’t wearing a winter coat. Since she wasn’t allowed to stay home and write, maybe she’d remain there on the ground and freeze to death, like the Little Match Girl from the fairy tale her mom used to read her.

  Get up, sweets. You’re not going to let a little thing like an airborne bowling shoe hold you back. Are you?

  Amy shook her head in answer. She loved when her mom’s voice floated into her head. It seemed to come when she needed it most, and it made her feel less alone, more brave. Her mom’s words reminded Amy that, every now and again, life had a way of kicking your legs out from underneath you, then daring you to stand back up.

  Amy stood back up.

  She brushed off the seat of her pants and let out a forceful, frosty breath. She was numb from the cold. Her forehead throbbed. Yet she was ready to face this day. She could do it, even with a fresh cut on her forehead. After all, Amy was the hero of her own story. Wasn’t she?

  And this unexpected incident? It was merely a plot twist—a surprising turn of events in her life story.

  Plot twists could be fun.

  But, really.

  A flying bowling shoe?

  Maybe it was more than a plot twist, Amy thought. Maybe it was an inciting incident. Her forehead tingled, and the tingle radiated through her whole body. She knew that an “inciting incident” meant the beginning of something new, something big, something that made the protagonist act whether they wanted to or not. An inciting incident meant things changed in some irrevocable way, and she couldn’t go back to how things were before. Of course, Amy despised the last inciting incident in her life—the one that changed everything for the worse—but maybe this one would be positive. Perhaps this inciting incident was packed with promise and possibility.

  Amy hurried to school, excited to see what lay ahead.

  In the quiet hallway of Buckington Middle School, a man who wore a name badge that read Vice Principal Cedeno said to Amy, “You’re late for homeroom!” He squinted. “Hey, what happened to your head?”

  Amy reached up and touched her forehead. Her fingers came away sticky wet. “I…I…” There was no way she could tell him a bowling shoe fell from the sky and hit her in the head. He wouldn’t believe her. If it hadn’t happened to Amy, she wouldn’t believe it herself. “I ran into a door.”

  “Ouch.” He pointed down the hall. “Go to the nurse’s room and get the cut cleaned up, then get a late pass from the main office.”

  Amy went.

  Inciting incident, Amy reminded herself as she walked down the hall toward the sign that read Nurse’s Office. Her life story might be about to take a dramatic turn. At least she hoped it would.

  The nurse’s office was a bright, warm room that smelled like Amy’s doctor’s office back in Chicago—a faint odor of medicine, rubbing alcohol and hand sanitizer. Amy wondered who her new doctors would be here in Buckington and how they’d handle her leg-length discrepancy. Her old doctor wanted to wait until she was done growing to see if the bone in her right thigh corrected itself. Amy hoped it did, so she wouldn’t need surgery and could stop wearing sneakers with a bulky heel lift. She just wanted to be like everyone else.

  Oh, you’ll never be like everyone else, sweets. And isn’t that a wonder-filled thing?

  Amy smiled at the sound of her mom’s words in her mind. She hung on to them as if they were oxygen, not realizing how much she needed to hear them, not realizing how nervous she felt standing in the nurse’s office in this new school with a pulsing, aching cut on her forehead.

  “What do we have here?” the nurse asked, breaking the spell Amy was under from the soft sound of her mom’s voice.

  The nurse wore black slacks, black clogs with rainbow-striped socks, and a pink lab coat over a long-sleeved black top. Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. She wore an ID tag on a lanyard around her neck. “Tell me what happened to your head.”

  “I…uh…walked into the edge of a door.”

  The nurse gently examined Amy’s forehead. “Were you looking at your phone? Kids are always getting hurt doing that.”

  “No. Just clumsy, I guess.” Amy decided her story sounded believable, even though it wasn’t true. Amy wasn’t clumsy. She was graceful despite her leg-length discrepancy. In fact, she loved to dance. It was the one thing besides writing that allowed her to transcend time and place. To her, dancing was another form of expression—and that expression was usually of pure happiness. It was no surprise that she hadn’t danced—not once—since her mom died.

  When her mom was well, Amy and she had danced together in their tiny kitchen while they cooked dinner. They’d blast music and shimmy, shake and laugh until the
y could barely catch their breath. But Amy couldn’t keep remembering that right now because of the promise she’d made to herself—the one about not crying any more today.

  “I’m Nurse Bailey.” The nurse held up her ID tag, as though Amy might not believe her otherwise. “What’s your name?”

  “Amy Silverman.”

  The nurse swiveled to face someone else who walked into the office, which was getting uncomfortably crowded with students. “Be right with you.” Then she turned back to Amy. “Good news is, your forehead doesn’t look bad at all. Press this wet cloth to your head and keep pressure on it. I’ve got to give meds to these kids. I’ll be right back to fix you up and get you on your way.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” Amy settled onto a plastic chair in the corner. Out of habit, she tucked her right foot behind her left. Her forehead still throbbed, but more softly now. Clearly, her injury was already getting better.

  Amy watched as students were given medication from little paper cups, one after the next, as if in a production line of people and pills.

  While Amy waited, she observed. A good writer always paid attention to her surroundings and filtered the world around her, listening for snappy snippets of dialogue and wondering about what she saw and heard. Good writers were curious about everything and noticed small details. Amy definitely wanted to be a good writer.

  “Now, let’s see what’s going on with that forehead of yours.” Nurse Bailey pressed the orbital bones around Amy’s eyes. “Hurt?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good. Headache? Dizziness? Blurred vision?”

  “Nope. Nope. Nope.”

  “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Four.”

  “Now?”

  “Six.”

  “Ha ha. Seriously, how many?”

  “Three.”

  “Right. Okay, if you get a headache or feel dizzy, or if your vision gets blurry or you see double, come back right away. We want to make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

  Amy nodded and tried not to yip when Nurse Bailey cleaned her forehead with an antiseptic wipe and applied a bandage.

  “You’re good to go, Amy.” Nurse Bailey nodded and then turned to another student who’d just walked in. “Marcus, how can I help you?”

  Amy wanted to hear what was wrong with Marcus, because her writer’s curiosity craved the rest of a story. Plus, Marcus was cute. But Amy knew she had to go. Maybe Marcus would show up as a character in one of her stories.

  Amy touched the bandage on her forehead as she walked to the main office. Everyone would stare, she understood. Some people would probably ask what had happened. She decided to stick with her “walked into a door” line, if the question came up. Amy was good at creating fiction.

  When she handed the teacher of her first-period class the note from the office and everyone stared at her, Amy was actually glad for the bandage on her forehead. It distracted people from noticing the heel lift at the bottom of her right sneaker as she walked to a vacant desk at the back of the room.

  “As I was saying,” the teacher said, “this is my favorite Jerry Spinelli novel. Perhaps it will become your favorite, too. The story takes place in Pennsylvania, not far from here.” The teacher passed out copies of Wringer.

  Amy knew she’d like this class.

  She’d read Jerry Spinelli’s books Stargirl and Maniac Magee and loved them, but she’d never heard of this novel. When no one was looking, Amy took a satisfying sniff of the paperback copy. It smelled like old book—her second-favorite scent. Her favorite, of course, was the crisp, inky smell of a new book. Or maybe it was her dad’s blueberry waffles with warm syrup drizzled on top on a Sunday morning. Or the scent of the lavender lotion her mom used to rub on her feet after a long day of delivering mail.

  Amy resisted the urge to hug the book to her chest, but she read bits of it throughout the rest of the class…and her next two classes.

  The walk to the lunchroom after third period seemed long. In fact, Amy counted five posters that she walked past on her way—posters for a dance that had a Cinderella theme. Looking at them made the tiny hairs at the back of Amy’s neck stand at attention. She’d love to go to that dance. But how? With whom? She didn’t even have a friend to go with. Amy missed Kat, her friend from Chicago. She missed lots of things from back home.

  Once she got her tray and trudged through the lunch line, Amy scoured the room for an empty spot at a table, but there weren’t any. One table near a garbage can in the back was piled with cardboard boxes. She sat at that table, making a small space for her tray.

  Amy’s forehead throbbed. She thought about the boy whose shoe had hit her. Despite the circumstance, he seemed nice, in a dorky way. He’d worried that her head was bleeding and handed her that piece of paper. Amy would be okay if that boy came over to sit with her now so she wouldn’t be eating lunch alone, but she didn’t see him at any of the tables. Buckington Middle was a big school, and he probably had a different lunch period.

  Even though Amy filled her belly with cafeteria pizza and fries, she felt emptier and emptier as she ate. She looked down, wishing she had at least a notebook with her so she could write and create characters for company, but she’d come to school entirely unprepared. At least she had a copy of Wringer now. She could read.

  Amy had asked her dad to buy school supplies with her, but he didn’t have a chance. He promised to do it this weekend, but that would be too late. She’d have to ask Uncle Matt to take her tonight, because she needed notebooks and pens for tomorrow’s classes. Of course, Amy had her special writing notebooks in a desk drawer back at the place, but they weren’t for school. She needed to buy ones that were just for school.

  When the never-ending day finally ended, Amy let out a big breath.

  School-day tally?

  Bowling-shoe-induced forehead injury: one.

  Potential new friends: zero.

  When Amy saw another dance poster on her way out of school, she wanted to tear it down, because if today was any indication, she wouldn’t be going to that dance. She’d be like Cinderella at home before her fairy godmother showed up to help get her to the ball.

  Too bad there aren’t any fairy godmothers in real life, Amy thought. But even if there were, she was sure there wouldn’t be any here in boring old Buckington.

  A wisp of words whispered through Amy’s mind. She almost didn’t catch them.

  You’re right where you’re supposed to be, sweets.

  Miles was happy to be done with school and back at the bowling center, even though his dad made him clean both bathrooms and refill the toilet paper and paper towel holders before he was allowed to play.

  After his chores—there were always chores!—Miles surveyed the lanes. In the third lane from the end, three guys were playing. Miles didn’t recognize them. They looked like they might be in high school. That didn’t intimidate him. He knew he could outplay kids of any age, as well as most adults. He put on a pair of house shoes, took a deep breath and walked over.

  “Hey,” Miles said to the three guys. “I was just bowling over there.” He pointed vaguely toward the other end of the bowling center. “It’s kind of boring bowling by myself. Mind if I join your game?”

  They looked at each other; then the tallest of the guys said, “We’re just starting a new game. You can play if you pay for it.”

  Miles tapped his chin, like he was considering it. “How many games have you already paid for?”

  “We’ve paid through the next game,” he said.

  “How about I pay for the game after that?” Miles asked.

  The three guys looked at each other and nodded.

  “Be right back,” Miles said. “Don’t start without me.” He jogged to the counter and quietly asked his mom to add one more game to their lane.

  “Sure, s
weetheart.” His mom typed something into the computer. “You’re all set. New friends of yours?”

  “Um, sort of.” Miles turned to go. “Thanks.”

  During their first game, Miles paid attention to how the guys bowled. They were good, but definitely not better than him. He knew he’d have no trouble beating them all in the next game. For this game, though, Miles missed easy spares and even bowled a couple of gutter balls. On purpose. It wasn’t easy for him, but he had to.

  After losing, Miles said, “Thanks for letting me play. Enjoy the next game.” Then he started to walk away. Slowly.

  The tall guy called, “Hey, you wanna play one more with us?”

  Miles turned, hiding his excitement. “Um, I guess so. Sure you don’t mind?”

  They looked at each other and nodded.

  “We could, you know, bet on this game—I mean, if you want,” the tall guy said.

  Miles’s pulse beat wildly. Usually, he had to suggest the betting part. This was going better than he’d expected. “Um, okay.” Miles pulled a ten from his pocket, hoping it wasn’t too much. “Is this enough?”

  The tall guy pulled out a twenty. “Was thinking something more like this.” He looked at the other two guys, who yanked twenties from their pockets.

  These guys were too quick to pull out their money. They kept looking at each other. Something felt off to Miles. Should he walk away? Were they trying to trick him? He glanced at his grandfather, who was sitting at the snack counter. Miles knew he needed the money to buy the gift in time for his grandpop’s birthday party. “Sure, sure,” Miles said, pulling the rest of the money from his pocket and pushing away the feeling in his gut that something wasn’t right. “Twenty each is good.”