Marigold by Heather Manheim (best books for 8th graders .TXT) 📕

Then, as she commonly did, Davis decided to deflect the emotional situation, and she cleared her throat and then looked at Ringo. “So, do you think we can finish the conversation we started, maybe after breakfast?”

“Yes, of course, that is fine,” replied Ringo. “Of course,” he added as if he needed to certify his earlier affirmation.

Davis chewed mindlessly and silently, as did her tablemates. Nobody made one noise until Buster came over to weave himself in between the legs of everyone at the table. When he got to Namaguchi, he looked up at him and gave him a loud “mew.” Davis was surprised this was the target Buster had picked for a tidbit, but more to her amazement, Namaguchi plucked a bit of egg off his plate and held it down for Buster. Namaguchi did not strike Davis as someone who was overly sensitive. Then there were several minutes of silence, only broken by Buster’s mews as he went from person to person, begging for food. Davis felt like she couldn’t stand the silence one more second when a thought popped into her head that made her feel like she had just stumbled upon the key to everything. “So,” she blurted out, “How do Namaguchi, Duffy, and Hernandez pass medical checks now? If they’re now ‘immune’? Because when they go into the city to be double agents for you, they must get their ID Cards scanned and have to go to medical checkups. And they gave an execution order for Namaguchi. How did he escape that?” She gave a huff of satisfaction before lightly slapping her hand down on the table as if she had just solved every mystery since the dawn of time.

“Maybe not in front of the children…” Ringo started to say.

“It’s okay,” said Duffy, who was at the end of the table. “One of the benefits of being in the medical field is that we can make sure certain documents get certified for all of us. It’s not hard to write what they want to see, especially since we’ve written it so many times for so many others.”

“Oh, so you lie?” Davis lifted her eyebrow in skepticism as she said this.

“We don’t think of it like that,” interjected Hernandez. “Sometimes, we need to bend the truth to make sure people don’t get hurt or killed.” He sounded a little angry at having to defend himself, which surprised Davis. He had been so amicable before this. She then realized how accusatory what she had said probably sounded.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to offend, I’m just trying to get everything sorted out in my mind still, and so many things still don’t make any sense.” She added a slight smile and nodded toward Hernandez.

“No problem, sorry if I got a little in a huff about it myself. I just really feel like I’m helping people, and having that called into question…” Hernandez trailed his sentence off and looked down, shaking his head as if there could be no question about his actions.

Ringo spoke up once more, “Again; maybe we should set this aside until the children go off to their lessons with Ana.”

“Oh!” said Davis, seeing an opportunity to both change the subject and smooth things over. “What are you guys learning?”

Oliver answered, “Well, we’re all different ages. So, my sister and I, we’re ten, and we do mostly big kid stuff, like math with letters. Did you know you can do math problems with letters like x and y but get number answers?” Oliver seemed very proud of himself as he gave this fact, and Olivia beamed with self-satisfaction herself before butting in.

“Yes, but I’m better at the math!” Olivia very excitedly exclaimed.

“Olivia,” her mom reprimanded, “You’re both very good with your math. And your brother was talking, you interrupted.”

“Sorry, bro!” Olivia did not seem too put out having to apologize.

“It’s okay, sis. So, we do big kid stuff. But, the little kids, Russell W. and Mae, mostly work on things like letters, numbers, colors. Sometimes we all make music together, or Ana will let us help the little kids; we’ll read to them or help them learn how to write,” he said, and at this, Oliver got a massive smile on his face, a toothy grin that was missing a few teeth. He very excitedly added, “We get to watch a movie together sometimes. We’ve seen it a few times. We normally like different stuff ’cause they’re so little. But it’s a math cartoon Ms. Ana plays for us, Owl in the Numbers, and we all like that. Olivia and I like the math problems, the little kids like the owls and their animal friends. Have you ever seen that cartoon? Ms. Davis.”

Davis had never been called “Ms.” in her life, and she found it tickled her to no end. “No,” she replied. “I’ve never seen that one. It sounds like it might be fun.”

Olivia looked to her mom and her brother as if she wanted to make sure neither talked first. “What is your favorite movie, Ms. Davis?”

“Hmmm…” Davis had to think a bit. “I have to think about that a second. I like to read; I go to the library a lot.” Davis was getting lost in her thoughts. “I saw one movie once. It was pretty old. It even had a famous Davis in it. It’s so old; people had first names still. Her name was Bette Davis, and the movie was called All About Eve.” Here she paused and tried to sound as if she was relaying some grand, secret information. “The movie is so old; it’s in black and white! There was no color!”

Both Olivia and Oliver looked stunned and had great big wide eyes. “WHAT!” Olivia and Oliver said together at the same time, which started a round of giggling. “No color!” again, in unison, and another round of giggling.

“That’s right. Some movies are so old; not only