When You Reach Me

Things You Give Away

I dropped the rolls back into Colin’s bag, pulled my coat on, threw my knapsack over one shoulder, and took the stairs two at a time. There was a mob of kids outside like always, pushing and laughing and standing around talking, even though it was still freezing and had started to rain. I took a minute to look for Sal, like I always do. No sign of him. I wound Mom’s scarf around my ears, turned north, and started walking up the hill to Annemarie’s.

It didn’t make sense. Not that Colin had taken the rolls—in fact, that was just the kind of thing I expected from Colin. But my brain was yelling all kinds of other questions at me: How could anyone possibly have known that Colin would take the rolls? And when had the note been put in my coat pocket? It didn’t occur to me that you could have left it there the same day you put the first note in my library book about the squirrel village. I didn’t get that at all, until much later.

And why me? I jumped a gutter full of rainwater and took the last steps to Annemarie’s building. Why was I the one getting notes? Why did I have to do something about whatever bad thing was going to happen? I didn’t even understand what I was supposed to do! Write a letter about something that hadn’t happened yet?

“Miranda,” my brain said. “Nothing is going to happen. Someone is playing with you.” But what if my brain was wrong? What if someone’s life really needed saving? What if it wasn’t a game?

Annemarie’s doorman waved me in. Upstairs, her father answered the door with an unlit cigar in his mouth and asked me whether I wanted some cold noodles with sesame sauce.

“Uh, no thanks.”

“Fizzy lemonade, then?” He helped me tug my wet coat off—the lining was all stuck to my sweater.

So I walked into Annemarie’s room balancing my lemonade and an ice water for her, along with a dish of almonds that her father had somehow warmed up. Warm almonds sounds kind of yuck, but in reality they taste pretty good.

Annemarie was still in her nightgown, but she looked normal. “My dad won’t stop feeding me,” she said, taking a handful of nuts. “And he won’t let me get dressed. He says pajamas are good for the soul. Isn’t that so dumb?”

I sat on the edge of her bed. “Is that the rose?” It was on her bedside table in a tiny silver vase, just the kind of thing they would have at Annemarie’s house.

She nodded and looked at it. The rose was perfect—just opening, like a picture in a magazine.

“I tried to draw it,” Annemarie said. She held out a little spiral pad of heavy white paper. She’d sketched the rose in dark pencil, over and over.

“Wow,” I said. “I didn’t know you could draw like that.”

She flipped the pad closed. “My dad shows me tricks sometimes. There are a lot of tricks to drawing. I can show you.”

But I knew I could never draw like that, for the same reason I couldn’t do Jimmy’s V-cut or get my Main Street diagrams to look good.

“Hey,” I said, “maybe your dad left you the rose.”

“Maybe.” She frowned, and I felt a little piece of myself light up. “He says he didn’t, though.”

“But it would explain how the person got upstairs, why the doorman didn’t buzz you.” I could feel my lips making a smile. “Your dad is so nice. It has to be him.”

I was miserable, sitting on the edge of her bed in that puddle of meanness. But I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want Annemarie’s rose to be from Colin. Maybe I couldn’t stand for her to have so many people, and to be able to draw and cut bread on top of that. Maybe I wanted Colin for myself.

Annemarie’s dad stuck his head through the doorway. “Anybody need a refill?”

“No thanks,” I said, even though my glass was empty and my back teeth were packed with chewed nuts. “I have to go.”

“Stay for five more minutes,” he said. “I put your coat in the dryer.”

So I had to sit there, thirsty, and then I had to put on my dry, warm, but still-dirty coat and take the elevator down to Annemarie’s lobby, where the lamps glowed yellow and the doorman remembered my name. It had stopped raining.

It was too cold for the boys to hang around in front of the garage. There was hardly anyone out on the street at all.

The light in Belle’s window looked friendly in the late-afternoon gloom, and I thought of going in. I had been telling Belle the story of my book, a little bit here and a little bit there. I’d told her how Meg helped her father escape, and I’d described the first battle with IT, which is this giant, evil brain that wants to control everyone. I knew Belle would give me some vitamin Cs and maybe a paper cup of hot chocolate, but it was getting late and I didn’t want to have to walk down our block in the complete dark, so I decided to keep going.

At first I thought the laughing man wasn’t on the corner, but then I saw him sitting on the wet curb, leaning against the mailbox and just watching me walk toward him. For one second there was something familiar about him, and I noticed for the first time how old he looked. I thought about what Louisa had said, about how old people can’t get enough heat. Maybe I felt sorry for him. Maybe he reminded me of Mr. Nunzi from upstairs. Or maybe I wanted to do something good, to make up for being kind of a jerk to Annemarie, even if she didn’t really know it. Anyway, I spoke to him.

“Hey,” I said, opening my bag. “You want a sandwich?” I still had the cheese sandwich I hadn’t eaten at lunch. I held it out. “It’s cheese and tomato.”

“Is it on a hard roll?” He sounded tired. “I can’t eat hard bread. Bad teeth.”

“It isn’t hard,” I said. It was one of my best V-cuts ever, probably a little soggy now with the juice from the tomato soaking into the bread all afternoon.

He reached up with one hand, and I put the sandwich in it.

“What was the burn scale today?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said, pretending I knew what he was talking about. “I didn’t have a chance to, um, check.”

“Rain is no protection,” he said, looking at the sandwich in his hand. “They should have had the dome up.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” I said.

He looked up at me, and suddenly he seemed familiar again. It was something about the way his eyes took me in. He said, “I’m an old man, and she’s gone now. So don’t worry, okay?”

“I won’t.”

He nodded. “Smart kid.”