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pulled
Concepts in Mathematics
out of her backpack and opened it to last night’s homework. Circumference: the distance around. Diameter: cutting across. Radius: the halfway point, poking from the center to the edge.
    â€œListen.”
    The person in the chair—Gigi—was awake. Her hand was extended, her eyes wild. “Listen,” she said.
    Ruby didn’t move. “Mom will be right back. She’s taking a—”
    Gigi pushed against the arms of the chair, struggled to stand up.
    â€œNo.” Ruby rushed over just like she had seen her mom and dad and aunts and uncles do. Gigi was trying to say something wild and confusing, like at the hospital. “It’s the medicine,” Ruby said, just like she had heard her parents say. Just like she was supposed to say. “It gives you the dreams. It makes you—”
    The bony hand smacked the arm of the chair once. Twice. “Listen.” The voice was wilder, louder. “It’s all coming together.” In between the words there was a gasping sound —“It’s all (
gasp
) coming (
gasp
)—”
    Ruby kept saying the things that she had heard her family say. “It’s the medicine. It’s not real. It’s nothing to worry about. It’s not—”
    â€œListen,” gasped the voice.
    And then Mom was there, stepping in front of Ruby and kneeling at Gigi’s feet, holding her hand.
    â€œNo,” Ruby said again. That’s when Mom turned to her. “Ruby, go to your bus stop. Go to school. I’ll take care of this.”
    Ruby remembers walking backwards to the kitchen. Seeing Gigi slump back in her chair. Her eyes were still open, but they had lost their wild look. They just looked tired now. Right away Ruby knew something was wrong—that she had done the wrong thing. She remembers wanting to go back to the recliner, to apologize, to listen to whatever it was that Gigi had wanted to tell her.
    But Mom had said to go to the bus stop, and so Ruby did. She gathered her homework and put it in her backpack. She put on her boots and her coat and her mittens and her hat, and she went to the bus stop, just like she was supposed to do. She went to school, and she did what she was supposed to do there, too, though all the while she could not help thinking that when she got home she’d try again. She’d ask Gigi what it was she wanted to say. She would listen.
    Â 
    They could have called her at school to tell her, but they didn’t. They let her come home on the bus. All those cars in the driveway. PEPPERDINE MOTORS, PEPPERDINE MOTORS, PEPPERDINE MOTORS on every plate. Nobody had to tell her what had happened. Ruby figured it out.

Ruby Will Be Fine
    There is a tap on Ruby’s shoulder. “You’re the Essay Girl?” It is Patsy Whelk, assistant coordinator of the Bunning Day Parade. She has a clipboard that she taps in time with “Amazing Grace,” which is being played now by the Graniteers Regional Pipe Band.
    â€œThat’s me.” Ruby holds up her index cards as proof. The heat of her hands has warped them, and they curve like the sail of a ship.
    Patsy Whelk nods and presses a button on the headset she is wearing. “Got her,” she says into it. Then she looks back at Ruby. “You all set? You know what you’re supposed to do?”
    â€œShe knows,” Aunt Rachel says.
    â€œNo no no no no no!” Carter-Ann does not like the bagpipes.
    â€œCover your ears, sweetie. Sweetie? Cover your ears. They’ll be gone in a minute,” Aunt Rachel says.
    â€œOkay. Couple of things. Speak clearly into the mike.” Patsy Whelk taps her clipboard.
That saved—
tap
—a wretch—
tap
—like me—
“Got a phone on you, turn it off. Don’t want someone trying to talk to you while you’re up there.” Tap, tap, tap.
    Yes, I do
, Ruby thinks as she pulls her phone from her pocket and turns it