The banner with their handprints and names and the bright, cheerful letters saying WELCOME, FAMILIES hangs lopsided, one side lower than the other. Charlie desperately wants to climb up and fix it, but he’s not on the classroom setup committee and Michael will get mad at him if he tries since his side is the one that’s lower, so he leaves it alone, but he knows it’s going to bother him.
He also knows he’s probably the only one it’s going to bother. If his grandmother were coming, she wouldn’t like it, but she’s probably not. This isn’t really something she enjoys anyway. Not just the picnic that’s going to come after they show their families what they’ve been up to, but the fact that if she comes she’ll have to pretend to be impressed by his accomplishments. The other parents might notice if she’s not enthusiastic as they are, and appearances are everything.
So Nan won’t be here to look at the artwork on the walls, or watch their classroom spelling bee, or listen to the recitations and performances. She won’t be here to judge the crooked banner and the teacher’s desk not being perfectly centered in the room and the one floor tile that got put in sideways so the pattern doesn’t match. She won’t be here to nag at him for why his name is a different color than everyone else’s (David wrote it in pink and Lydia and Ben tried to go over it in blue before Charlie saw, but the markers did a weird bleed thing so it came out sort of purple) or lecture him about “showing off” because he only writes in cursive (the letters don’t flip around so easily when they’re all connected like that because it’s all one line, so even though they’re allowed to print now he sticks to cursive) or get upset with him about the essay he wrote for the contest (he didn’t expect to win, otherwise he wouldn’t have picked the “My Special Family” prompt and mostly left Nan out of it). Most importantly, she won’t be here to insist on addressing him by his full first and middle name, loudly and repeatedly.
The people who are coming—or who should be coming, anyway—they won’t care if it’s not perfect. Or, more accurately, they won’t notice if it’s not perfect.
Or maybe they’ll just make it perfect by being there.
Charlie misses them. It’s silly to say, since it’s only been about a day since he saw them, but it’s true. It’s not like he sees them every day anyway, but knowing they’re there always makes him feel better. He was awake early yesterday, and something made him look out the window of his bedroom on the upper floor. By pressing tight against the glass and looking hard, he was able to see them walking down the street, arms around one another and heads bowed, and it took everything in him not to run after them.
He’s still not sure if he wanted to beg them to take him with them or just beg them to stay.
The presentations are to start at twelve, then the picnic on the fields at one-thirty. Charlie slipped a note with all the details under the door on his way to school yesterday, but he knows there’s a chance they won’t have got home in time to see it and they’ll be coming straight to the school. Hopefully, though, they’ll ask at the front desk and Ms. Chesmire will tell them where his classroom is.
The other families start arriving at quarter ‘til. Charlie’s trying not to get his hopes up, but he can’t help the little flutter in his chest every time someone comes in, or the stab of disappointment when someone else gets to run up and hug them and excitedly drag them over to show off their projects. By five minutes to twelve, the only ones whose families haven’t shown up are Helen, whose mother has to work very long hours because she’s raising Helen by herself, and Charlie.
“Your grandmother’s not coming, I take it,” Helen says to Charlie as they watch old Mr. Lacker, who lives in the house next to Charlie’s, lean heavily on Jacob’s shoulder. “What about those people you talked about in your essay?”
“They said they’d try,” Charlie answers, crossing his arms over his chest and trying not to stare at the door or the clock. “They, um, there was a work thing they had to go to yesterday, but they said it should be over by last night and they’d be able to make it.”
“Where do they work?”
“I—” Charlie stops and frowns. They’ve told him, he knows they’ve told him, but…“Um, I’m not sure, actually.”
Helen starts to interrogate him further, then stops and lights up. “Mama!”
She rushes off to hug the tall, pleased-looking woman who just walked in the door, leaving Charlie in the back of the room feeling lonelier than ever.
At twelve o’clock on the dot, Mrs. Wellman claps her hands for order and gets everybody in their seats. Charlie keeps stealing glances at the door, hoping against hope that they’ll come in late, maybe full of apologies, but it remains resolutely shut as Mrs. Wellman talks about what they’ve learned, what they’ve done, and then starts calling people up. They have a spelling bee on all the words they’ve studied that term (Charlie mixes up the I-E combination in conscientious and gets knocked out, but does at least make it to the top ten), then a multiplication bee (Mrs. Wellman eventually declares Charlie and Bryn to be joint winners because she’s out of problems to give them), and then they start doing recitations.
Charlie really hopes they get there for that, but they still aren’t there when Mrs. Wellman calls his name and he walks to the front of the room. He’s practiced and practiced to get the rhythm right, but part of him wonders if there’s any point if the people he wants to hear him aren’t there.
The rest of him acknowledges that the poem itself deserves to be done right, so he launches into his best rendition of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Bells” and finds himself swaying back and forth as he does so. It’s not as good as it would be if they were there, but it’s good enough to get a nice, long, sustained round of applause from the parents and his friends and a full-on glare from David and Michael, who are jerks anyway. He even gets calls for an encore, which startles him, and he ends up rattling off “I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day” because it kind of goes with the first one and it’s the only thing he can remember who wrote it. After that the whole class stands up together and recites “If” by Rudyard Kipling, and then Mrs. Wellman thanks everyone for coming and dismisses them to the picnic.
Charlie watches the whole way from the classroom to the field, but his family never shows up.
There are tables of food and tables to sit at, but there are also blankets spread all over the grass for people who don’t want to sit at the tables. Charlie figures he’ll end up sitting by himself in a corner or something, but then he hears his name being called and sees Helen and Ben both frantically waving for him to come join them at the blanket they’re sharing with Lydia and Bryn and their families.
That’ll be okay, he thinks. He and Helen used to play together a lot—she has to stay late a lot of times because of her mother’s work, but there’s not really an after-school program, so Charlie used to go to the playground after school with her most days; they’ve drifted apart a bit this year, but they’re still friends. Ben tried to invite Charlie to his slumber party for his birthday (it’s not his fault Nan said it wouldn’t be “appropriate”) and Lydia tried her hardest not to invite him to her Halloween party (her mother made her send him an invitation and Nan made him go, and he didn’t mind, really, except for the glitter pens), so they’re all right, too. Bryn he doesn’t know too well, but if the others like him, Charlie reckons he must be all right.
The parents all have compliments for the five of them. Charlie assumes he won’t get any because his family isn’t there to return the compliments, but to his surprise, they not only tell him what a good job he did, they seem to genuinely mean it. Charlie mumbles his thanks, but he’s not sure what to do with them.
Helen nudges Charlie with her foot. “I’m sorry Mama made it after all.”
Helen’s mother gasps dramatically. “Well!”
“Not like that!” Helen protests. “It’s just that Charlie’s family couldn’t make it, and I didn’t think you were going to be able to come, so I thought it’d be okay because, well, then neither of us would have any family there and we wouldn’t be so alone. And then you came after all and I felt kind of bad, but I was hoping—I really hoped they’d be back in time.” She directs this part at Charlie.
“Me, too, but don’t be mad your mum could come,” Charlie tells her. “You did a real good job on your poem, and you won the spell-down. It wouldn’t be fair if she missed it.”
“Winning a spelling bee is easy,” Helen counters. “It’s just letters. You went toe-to-toe in maths with Bryn and didn’t lose. That’s hard.”
Lydia and Ben both raise their cups of lemonade in Charlie’s direction, and Bryn’s face catches fire, which is kind of how Charlie feels right now. The parents all laugh, and Bryn’s father ruffles his hair affectionately. It’s the same way Tim always ruffles Charlie’s hair and kind of makes his heart hurt.
Helen’s mother picks up her sandwich. “I didn’t think I’d be able to come, but we found out we have a new Head at the Institute and nobody’s quite sure what’s going on, so Theo—ah, Mr. Grant—gave us all the day off.”
“Oh, where do you work?” Lydia’s father asks. He gets the same light in his eyes that Lydia gets when she’s about to launch into one of her special interests. Lydia seems to notice it, too, and she scoots just a little closer to Ben. “Which institute, I mean?”
“The Magnus Institute. It’s in Chelsea.”
The name tickles recognition in the back of Charlie’s mind, and he blurts out, “That’s where they work! I knew they told me.”
Helen perks up. “Really? Mama, you might know Charlie’s family! Are they in Research too?”
“Um, I don’t think so,” Charlie says, but the memory’s gone out of his head. “I—I don’t know.”
Helen’s mother smiles and shakes her head. “I don’t know anyone named Cane.”
“Mama.” Helen rolls her eyes theatrically.
Ben’s mother studies Charlie quizzically. “I thought it was just your grandmother, dear.”
Ben gives an exasperated sigh that seems to come from the depths of his soul. “Mum, didn’t you read his essay when I showed it to you? Charlie lives with his grandmother, but his real family is the people down the block who take care of him. Blood doesn’t always make a family.”
“Oh, well.” Helen’s mother smiles wider. “What are their names, then? I don’t know everybody at the Institute, there are almost a hundred people there, but I know a few.”
“Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood, and Jon—um, Jonathan—Sims,” Charlie answers promptly.
“Ah, the Archives crew, of course.” Is it Charlie’s imagination, or does Helen’s mother’s smile fade a little? “I don’t know Martin well, but Jon and Tim both used to be in Research with me.”
“So how come their boss didn’t give them the day off, too?” Lydia asks through a mouthful of deviled egg.
“Jon is the boss. I think,” Charlie adds uncertainly. “And they’re out of town. They had a big, important work…thing. That’s what Tim said, anyway. It was supposed to be over last night, but they were going to have to spend the night and they wouldn’t be back until today. They—there might’ve been traffic, or it might not have finished last night after all.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Helen’s mother says.
“Imogen,” Bryn’s mother says, “I wouldn’t want to send something to someone without their permission, but if I send you the video I took of the multiplication bee, would you share it with Charlie’s family? I’m sure they’d love to see it.”
“I can do that. They’re a bit of a world unto themselves down there, but we do communicate occasionally,” Helen’s mother replies.
Ben tugs his father’s shirt. “Dad, did you get the video of Charlie doing his poems like I asked?”
“I did,” Ben’s father assures him. “I can send it to you as well, if you like.”
“I would appreciate that. I did get the spelling bee, myself, so we can give Jon and the others the full experience.” Helen’s mother laughs, but there’s something…off in her eyes as she looks over at Charlie. “I’m sure they’d have been here if they could.”
“I know,” Charlie says. If he’s sure of nothing else, he’s sure that they would never break a promise to him.
Lydia cocks her head at Charlie. “Do you know what they were going to do?”
“No,” Charlie answers. He thinks about the way they looked when they said goodbye and adds, “But I’m sure it was a blast.”