Camille McPhee Fell Under the Bus by Kristen Tracy

said. I would have felt better if it had been fifty dollars, but I had to be honest.
    “Let’s round up,” she said.
    I liked that idea.
    “Here is seventy dollars. Fifty for your sock. And twenty for your day.”
    “Thank you so much!” I said.
    “Don’t spend it all in one place,” she said.
    This made me frown. Because I only planned on buying one calling card. I slipped the money into the palm of my hand and slid it into my glove.
    “Would you like to stay for some pasta salad?” Mrs. Bratberg asked. She opened the refrigerator. “It has sausage and broccoli and eggplant in it.”
    “I can’t,” I said. “But I’ll save room for a brownie.”
    I was out of there. My mind zoomed as I walked home. How much would it cost to call Japan? On TV they had commercials for psychics and it cost about five dollars a minute to talk to one of those women and learn about your future. Sally wasn’t going to tell me about my future. We’d talk about the past and the present. My call had to be a lot cheaper. Probably a dollar each minute. I figured I’d need thirty more dollars, so we could talk for one hundred minutes, so we could remember each other one hundred percent.

Chapter 12
Load it Up
    D uring the last week of April, spring showed up out of nowhere. The snow melted early. Yellow and purple wildflowers along the road bloomed. The yard turned green again. And I didn’t have to wear a jacket anymore. Also, I had saved ten more dollars for my international calling card and had avoided making any friends. I was reminded of how important this was again when Emily Santa, a sixth grader, moved to Guam.
    Emily visited our class and gave a report on Guam before she left. At first, she made it sound like afantastic island and I thought I’d like to visit it one day. But then she started talking about these brown tree snakes that had eaten every single bird on Guam. She made the snakes sound like dangerous criminals. She said that special police were hired to walk around the airport to make sure none of the snakes snuck on a plane and flew to some other island and ruined it. Apparently, Hawaii was really freaked out about this because they have a ton of birds and they aren’t that far away from Guam.
    But I didn’t have to worry about Guam or tree snakes or friends. I remember waking up and hearing birds chirping outside my window and thinking it was some sort of sign. From now on, my life was going to be one big, happy birdsong. Who knew that a trip to the Grand Teton Mall could sink me.
    Up to this point, my mother had been a pretty good tightwad. My father said we were finally out of the hole. To help us stay out, my mother carried around a little notebook and scribbled in it every time she made a purchase. She kept track of how much money she spent down to the penny. Personally, I didn’t enjoy thinking about the hole.
    But that day, my mom’s Chevy was almost out of gas, so we drove my dad’s pickup to town. I thought we were going grocery shopping. But instead, my mother drove us to the mall. She parked the pickup in themall’s parking lot in front of Macy’s and slammed her door much harder than she needed to. Like she was mad at it. Then, walking toward the store, she pulled her little notebook out of her purse and stared at it like it was her enemy. She even growled at it. Then she tried to rip it in half, but it was too thick.
    “I hate this thing!” she yelled. She tossed the little book into a bush beside the store.
    “But we’re finally out of the hole,” I said.
    It didn’t matter. My mother had snapped. And once inside, I snapped too. Worrying about the hole isn’t as much fun as shopping.
    I’d hoped to go through life as a problem solver. But in this situation, I became a problem maker. I found a fabulous purchase!
    I spotted my future mattress in the corner of the Bare Maple Furniture and Mattress Store. It was on display, sheetless and without pillows. I imagined myself curled up on top