A Mango-Shaped Space Read online

  Jonah is the first to speak. “How come we haven’t heard about this before?”

  Roger shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe you haven’t had the right teachers.”

  “I think it’s perfect,” Laura says, stabbing her plastic fork into the last chunk of cake.

  “Let’s do it,” Jonah says.

  Roger beams at me as if it were all my idea. All I did was remember the story. “Okay then,” he says, crumpling up his empty lunch bag. “We can meet next week at my house to divide up the work. Any day except Wednesday — that’s when I have acupuncture on my ankle.”

  I immediately think of the woman I read about on the Web site. She made acupuncture sound so amazing. She said that because of her synesthesia, her senses just came alive. Maybe that could happen for me. We decide to meet at Roger’s house after school on Tuesday. I’ll have to get Beth to pick me up. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled. Laura and Jonah start arguing about how to split up the project, so I decide to ask Roger a few questions.

  “Does it hurt?” I ask. “Don’t they stick long needles in you?”

  “Not only do they stick them in,” he says, “but sometimes they twist them around or attach an electrical current to the ends of them. It’s a little uncomfortable, but it doesn’t really hurt. Why?”

  The gears are turning in my brain. If it didn’t really hurt, then maybe I should try it. All in the name of research, right? If I could see even a bit of what that woman saw, I could carry that image with me forever, and I bet my paintings would be amazing.

  I hear Roger calling my name, but it sounds far away. All I can think of are those colors the woman described.

  “Mia!” Roger says loudly, waving his hands in front of my face. “I asked you a question.”

  Just then the bell rings for next period. I toss my paper bag in the trash and realize Roger is still standing there.

  “Yes?”

  “I asked why you wanted to know about the acupuncture.”

  “No reason,” I tell him, making a mental note to come up with a good reason tonight.

  “Okay,” he says, slinging his book bag over his shoulder and looking away from me. “See you later then.” Without waiting for a response, he hobbles out of the cafeteria. I walk to math class alone, wishing the day were already over. I arrive to find a crowd standing in front of the blackboard shaking their heads. The words surprise quiz today are written in huge letters. The teacher comes in and announces we have two minutes to review the basic algebra formulas from last week.

  My first instinct is to hide in the bathroom, but then I’d definitely fail. If I take the quiz, then I may be able to squeeze by with a D. I hurry to my desk and fling open my math book. Memorizing the formulas was the one thing I totally could have done if only I’d paid attention. I reach into my book bag for a pencil, and my fingers fall on the Magic Markers I use in art class. I pull them out, and an idea forms in my head. I’ve never cheated on anything before, but I can’t fail another math test. It would be too humiliating. And summer school would be too horrible for words. I only have a minute left now, so I quickly pull off the caps on the markers and start drawing a rainbow on my jeans. Only it’s not really a rainbow. The colors stand for the letters in the equations. Maroon is x, gray is y, and light blue is z. Yellow is a, brown is b, and red is c. That should do it. All I have to do is put the colors in the right order, and I can tell at a glance what the formula is.

  Twenty minutes later the short quiz is over, and the teacher grades them at her desk. We’re supposed to be reading ahead in our math books, but I can’t help sneaking glances at her. When she’s done, she stands up and passes them back to us.

  “Excellent, Mia,” she says, placing my paper lightly on my desk. She pauses for a second before moving on to the boy behind me.

  I finally got my big, beautiful sunflower-yellow A. I’m so proud of myself that I forget to be ashamed.

  Chapter Nine

  “C’mon, Beth, other people have to use the bathroom too. If we miss the bus, you’ll have to drive us to school.” I’m banging on the bathroom door while Zack leans listlessly against the wall next to me. “You’ve been in there for an hour.”

  “I’m shaving!” she yells out. “Do you want me to cut myself?”

  “Do you really want me to answer that?” I reply.

  A minute later the door opens, and before I can get in, Zack suddenly springs to life and beats me to it.

  “Better work on those reflexes,” Beth says as she walks past me, her hair wrapped in a towel.

  This is one of those times when being an only child would be really, really good. There’s no way I’ll have time to shower now, so I might as well check if Adam responded to my e-mail about the acupuncture. I throw on my clothes and hurry downstairs.

  DEAR MIA,

  THE ACUPUNCTURE SOUNDS GREAT! IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A GOOD FAKE SYMPTOM, ALLOW ME TO SUGGEST AN EARACHE. THE ONLY THING I’VE EVER DONE TO TRY TO ENHANCE MY SYNESTHESIA WAS TO GET REALLY DRUNK ON EGGNOG ONE CHRISTMAS. I LEARNED MY LESSON, THOUGH, WHEN ALL I SAW FOR THE NEXT FIVE HOURS WAS THE INSIDE OF THE TOILET BOWL. YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY GO, NO MATTER WHAT, EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO SNEAK AROUND BEHIND YOUR PARENTS’ BACKS. I CAN WRITE YOU A FAKE DOCTOR’S NOTE IF YOU WANT.

  LEMME KNOW,

  ADAM

  The fake doctor’s note sounds a bit extreme, but there’s no way my parents would let me go if I asked. I’m very lucky to have Adam to write to, not only because he’s the only one who understands me, but because I seem to be fighting with everyone in my family. Just yesterday Zack declared I was acting all superior because I told him I was too busy to help him study for his vocabulary test. I told him that maybe, just maybe, my brain actually was more superior than his and that my colors are an advancement in evolution. He said that more likely I’m some kind of a throwback, and now he’s been calling me the Missing Link. I don’t think it’s very funny.

  “Mia,” my mother calls out as I’m leaving the small office. “You have a phone call.”

  I quickly delete the letter, run up to her room, and take the phone. “It’s Jerry,” she says. I can’t imagine what he wants, but I’m just relieved it isn’t my math teacher calling to accuse me of cheating. I say hello.

  “Hi, Mia. Your mother said you’re about to leave for school, so I’ll make this fast. The funding just came through to bring a group of synesthetes together over Thanksgiving weekend for a few days of comparing notes. We’ll have group discussions, and basically you’ll all get to learn from one another. You’re one of the lucky ones, since you live only a couple of hours from here. Do you think you’d like to participate?”

  My eyes widen. “Definitely!”

  “Good. Why don’t you put your mother back on the phone, and I’ll give her the details?”

  “Okay,” I say. “Hey, can I bring someone with me who might be a synesthete too? His name’s Billy Henkle.”

  “Of course. Have his parents contact me.”

  “I don’t really know how to reach his parents,” I admit.

  “But you know his last name, right? Just look in the phone book.”

  What on earth is wrong with me that I didn’t think of that before? I feel like a huge idiot as I hand the phone back to my mother.

  “Who’s Billy?” Mom asks, holding her hand over the mouthpiece.

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “I can’t keep track of your boyfriends,” she says.

  “Huh?”

  She waves me away as she takes down the information from Jerry. While I’m waiting, I pull out the phone book she keeps under her night table. Scanning through the h’s, I find no Henkles listed in town, or in the neighboring towns. I try spelling it as many ways as I can think of, but have no luck. I pace across the well-worn carpet until my mother hangs up.

  “What boyfriends?” I repeat.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” she says. “Your brother told me about them.”

  “What did he tell you?”