Every Single Second Read online

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Once a book ventures into the world, it belongs to readers, not me. Yet I can’t let this one go without saying that my deepest hope is that it sparks questions, conversations, discoveries, and most of all, new and deep connections. My heartfelt thanks to Donna Bray, Viana Siniscalchi, and all the genius people at HarperCollins who believed in this challenging book. Mille grazie to my agent, Sarah Davies; to my wonderful readers, Mary Oluonye, Delia Springstubb, and Kris Ohlson; to Mary Grimm and Susan Grimm for everything, including Mario Lanza; and to Mary Norris for her support and especially her knowledge of Italian.

  DEDICATION

  For my family near and far,

  who have been there for me

  time and time again

  MAP

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Map

  Prologue

  Secret Sisters

  An Announcement

  What the Statue of Jeptha A. Stone Would Say if It Could

  Land of Innocence

  Flip of a Coin

  Because Angela Didn’t Tell

  What the Statue of Jeptha A. Stone Would Say if It Could

  Nonni, Cross to Bear

  What the Statue of Jeptha A. Stone Would Say if It Could

  Disaster Dolls

  Among the Barbarians

  Breakdown

  What the Statue of Jeptha A. Stone Would Say if It Could

  You Can’t Always Get What You Want

  In Common

  P2F2

  Dad’s Secret

  What the Statue of Jeptha A. Stone Would Say if It Could

  Marie

  Aiuta!

  Anthony’s Secret

  What the Statue of Jeptha A. Stone Would Say if It Could

  The Future Awaits

  Because Angela Didn’t Tell, Again

  What the Statue of Jeptha A. Stone Would Say if It Could

  Bell and Rem, Time Sisters

  Seize the Doughnut

  Buona Festa!

  What the Statue of Jeptha A. Stone Would Say if It Could

  Too Late

  The News

  Flip Book

  What the Statue of Jeptha A. Stone Would Say if It Could

  Angela DeMarco Has No Friends

  Marie, Again

  Seashell

  What the Statue of Jeptha A. Stone Would Say if It Could

  Landslide

  What the Statue of Jeptha A. Stone Would Say if It Could

  Nonni, Time Traveler

  This Voice Inside

  With a Capital F

  Why God Made So Many of Us

  Camera’s Eye

  Gad

  Choose Your Own Adventure

  Sticks and Stones

  Nella’s Turn Not to Tell

  What the Statue of Jeptha A. Stone Would Say if Only, if Only It Could

  Mi Ricordo

  Chutes and Ladders

  James Garfield Middle School

  A Small, Pure Bell

  Do-Over

  What the Statue of Jeptha A. Stone Would Say if It Could

  The Countdown Begins

  Seashell, Again

  Speak

  What the Statue of Jeptha A. Stone Said

  Now Now Now

  The True Turtle Girl

  Leap

  You Know

  What the Statue of St. Amphibalus Would Say If It Could

  Every Single Second

  What the Statue of Jeptha A. Stone Wanted to Say More than Anything

  Leap Second

  More than Three Dimensions

  Nonni, the Secret Keeper

  What the Statue of Jeptha A. Stone Would Say if It Could

  The News, Again

  Crapp

  Friendship, Fate, and Other Cosmic Things

  Now and Always

  A Final Word from the Honorable Jeptha A. Stone

  About the Author

  Books by Tricia Springstubb

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  At first Nella doesn’t recognize the sound. The wind, maybe? Except the trees behind the stone wall don’t move. A flock of birds with heavy wings? Except the sky is empty. Ghosts? Except of course that’s ridiculous. A girl who’s lived her whole life across from a graveyard does not let herself believe in ghosts.

  The July night is warm, but she shivers. Until a few days ago, Nella knew every sight and sound, smell and taste of her neighborhood. The steep hill and narrow houses, the cheesy music at Mama Gemma’s, the supernatural perfume of fresh doughnuts, and the zing of lemon ice. She and Angela used to love— No. Don’t think about Angela. Just don’t.

  She starts down the hill. Past the deserted bocce court. The silent social club. The boarded-up school. Emptiness all around. The sound grows louder. It’s almost dark and she should go home, but the sound tugs her forward. The hill is so steep, the houses and shops have to dig in and hang on with all their might. When Nella was still little, maybe seven or eight, she saw pictures of a landslide. She freaked. She imagined her neighborhood suddenly swept away, tumbled and crushed and reduced to piles of bone and rubble. Anthony, Angela’s big brother, reassured her. No landslides in this part of the world, he said, shaking his princely head. Smiling with those deep-set eyes. Personally guaranteeing nothing bad would ever, ever, do you hear me ever, happen to her or Angela.

  Anthony!

  The world tilts and goes blurry.

  “You okay?” asks a soft voice at her elbow.

  A stranger. A woman with long dreads and dark, anxious eyes. Nella has almost reached the street where it happened, and suddenly she’s surrounded by other people, all intent on getting to the source of that sound. Looking into the woman’s concerned face, Nella at last recognizes what that sound is. Voices. Voices singing.

  “I’m all right,” says Nella, and then, who knows why, she says thank you in Italian. “Mille grazie.”

  The woman hesitates, but the sound, the singing, is pulling her, too. She reaches up—Nella is taller than she is—and gives Nella’s head a motherly pat. Then disappears around the corner.

  Police cars block off the street. Cops lean against them, arms folded. Maybe they’re here to protect people, but they scare Nella. There are news vans, men with cameras on their shoulders. She looks around, recognizing no one. A tornado snatched up every person she knows and spun them away. An earthquake gobbled them down. A landslide pulverized them.

  She slips between the barricades. A sea of strangers overflows the narrow street, spilling onto the sidewalks and little front lawns. Where did all these people come from? What are they singing? It sounds like a hymn, but not one Nella knows. She searches for Angela’s face, her bright shining hair. Crazy! Of course she’s not here. This is the last place on earth she’d be.

  There was blood on the sidewalk, her little brother said. They washed it away, but you can still see it.

  Nella squeezes her eyes shut. She can’t stop shivering. Wrapping her arms around herself, she thinks, This is where it happened. Thinks, How could it happen?

  The voices rise, growing richer and stronger, gaining power till they turn into a solid thing, pushing hard against the darkness, trying to push it back and make something happen.

  Or undo something that already did.

  SECRET SISTERS

  then

  They met on the very first day of school.

  The night before, Nella Sabatini laid out her uniform, a plaid jumper and round-collared blouse. She had new pink sneakers with snow-white laces she still didn’t know how to tie.

  And she had a lunch box. Her father had give
n it to her, proving again that he loved her best. The lunch box was pink, with her name in sparkly letters. For days Nella had carried it everywhere. That night, it stood on the kitchen counter, waiting to go to kindergarten with her.

  Back then, Nella only had one little brother. Salvatore. But her mother was pregnant again, and Nella was sure it was a sister. (Little did she guess that in the coming years her mother would bring home nothing but one fat, squally boy after another.) That night, Mom’s back hurt too much for her to bend over, so Nella stood up on her bed for her good-night kiss. The plan was to leave Salvatore with Nonni, their crabby great-grandmother who lived nearby, and for both parents to walk her to St. Amphibalus Elementary School. Even back in those days, having her parents all to herself was a rare event. Put that together with starting school, and no wonder Nella couldn’t sleep. No wonder she had strange dreams of her mother moaning and her father pacing, no wonder she thought she was still asleep when she felt his hand on her shoulder, shaking her. Not gently.

  “The baby,” he said. “The new baby’s coming.”

  Nella rubbed her eyes. Baby? Today wasn’t the baby’s day. It was hers. Hers hers hers. She jumped out of bed, hoping her mother would tap her forehead and say, You’re right! How could I forget? Get dressed, Bella. I’ll fix you a special lunch.

  But her mother stood clutching the edge of the kitchen table, her lips drawn back in a way that stopped the words in Nella’s throat.

  Then it was all a crazy confused rush, with her father yelling at her to get dressed, and Salvatore wailing, and a wild ride to Nonni’s, where Salvatore wailed even louder because he was scared of the old lady, and somehow they were pulling up beside the school and Nella, shoes still untied, was getting out of the car. Alone. Both her parents looked stricken. Maybe they would change their minds.

  “You’ll be okay, kiddo.” Her father pointed toward the grown-ups standing on the playground. “They’ll help you. And—”

  But then her mother gave a cry, and he hit the gas.

  That was when Nella remembered her beautiful new lunch box. Still standing on the kitchen counter.

  The school was next to the church. On the edge of the asphalt school yard stood a statue of St. Amphibalus. His hand was raised in blessing, but his eyes were blank. No eyeballs. This was kind of creepy, but who else did she have? She huddled close, setting her hand on his foot.

  Please let me have a friend.

  “Look,” said a voice. Another pink shoe appeared beside hers. The laces were dazzling white and tied in neat double bows. “We’re twins.”

  That wasn’t true. Nella had short curly brown hair, and this girl had long yellow braids. Once Nella had sat behind her in church, and it was all she could do not to reach out and stroke those silky braids. Besides, her own shoelaces were undone and already a little dirty.

  “Don’t cry,” said the girl.

  “I’m not!”

  “Are you in kindergarten too?”

  “My shoes aren’t tied and I don’t know how.”

  The girl ran away, making Nella start to cry for real, but within moments she was back, dragging a tall boy. The two of them could have stepped out of a fairy tale. She would live in a cottage in the woods, with her father the woodcutter, but he would be a prince, the lonesome kind, looking for true love.

  His name was Anthony.

  “Tie my friend’s shoe,” the girl commanded, and Prince Anthony bowed.

  He had the same pale hair, but thick and curly. Cinderella, that’s who Nella was when he crouched at her feet. He tied her laces in double bows to match his sister’s, then stood up tall and straight.

  “You two stick together,” he said.

  “Roger that,” his sister said.

  A big brother. A brother who looked out for you. (Destined for a lifetime of needy-pest brothers, Nella would always remember that moment.)

  The girl, whose name was Angela, had gone to day care. She knew about forming a line, zipping your lips, and raising your hand. By lunchtime, Nella was doing everything Angela did. They were twins after all.

  As they went into the lunchroom, she noticed Angela didn’t have a lunch box either. That was comforting, until the lunch lady handed Angela a tray of food. Nella held out her hands, hoping for one too, but the woman, whose hair was trapped in a spidery web, ignored her.

  “You don’t get free?” Angela asked.

  “No, I guess.” Tears pushed at the back of Nella’s eyes. Why couldn’t she get free too? She was suddenly so hungry. The room was so loud. The thought of her beautiful lunch box, home on the counter, made her miss her mother so much. Nella slumped forward, her head in her arms.

  “Bella.”

  Out of nowhere, her father loomed over her. He hadn’t shaved, and his hair stood on end. He looked familiar but strange, nearly a stranger, in this strange place. With a jolt Nella understood: The world is much bigger than they told me.

  “Great news, kiddo. You have another brother.”

  Daddy wasn’t big on smiles, but he beamed as if he’d delivered the best news ever.

  “What a day, huh?” He ruffled her hair. “He’s got a set of lungs on him. I swear he’s louder than Salvatore.”

  Angela sat very still, like a girl trying to memorize everything she saw and heard.

  “Nonni will pick you up. Keep Sal out of trouble. Wow, kiddo. You’ve got two little brothers now. You’re Super Sister, know that?”

  He dropped a kiss on top of her head and was gone. Leaving her there, red-eyed and lunchless.

  “Your mom had a baby,” said Angela softly. “I wish my mom would have a baby.”

  “A stupid brother!” The words burst out fierce and ragged. “I already got one of those. I want a sister!”

  Angela blinked. She broke her chocolate chip cookie in half and put it in her mouth. Nella’s own mouth watered.

  “Don’t cry,” Angela said.

  “I’m not!”

  Angela held out the other half of the cookie.

  “I don’t got a sister either.” Angela leaned forward till their foreheads touched. “You and me,” she whispered. “We can be secret sisters.”

  Nella’s mouth filled with sweetness.

  “Okay,” she whispered back.

  AN ANNOUNCEMENT

  now

  Their seventh-grade classroom swam with the smells of lilacs and B.O. Sister Rosa had made a May altar in a corner of the room, with a statue of the Virgin Mary and armloads of perfumed blossoms. That sweet scent would make you dizzy, if not polluted by the reek of boys yet to learn the word deodorant. It was just after recess, where the boys hurtled around the asphalt playground bouncing off each other—like nuclear fission, her best friend, Clem, said. The girls clustered near the statue of old, eyeball-less St. Amphibalus.

  Except for Angela, who stayed in to help Sister Rosa.

  The way Angela sat on her hands now, Nella knew she was trying not to bite her nails. Her blond braids streamed down her back. Once upon a time Nella was jealous of those braids, but now they annoyed her, like so much else about Angela. She had beautiful hair—why didn’t she leave it loose, or at least go for a ponytail? You’d think those perfect braids held her together. You’d think if she undid them, she’d come unglued.

  Nella wanted to tell Angela about the braids but was afraid it would sound mean. Even though Nella no longer wanted anything to do with Angela, she didn’t want to be mean.

  Nella stretched her legs, her mile-long, ostrichlike legs that refused to stay under her desk. They had that kinked-up feeling—what if she was growing again? She was already a freak of nature, towering over everyone in the class, including Sister. Across the room, Clem’s spiky head bent over a graphic novel. Casually, nonchalantly, Nella let her glance wander to the Knee of Sam. Which was, as usual, jiggling like crazy. This afternoon that restless knee had a streak of dried dirt shaped precisely like a fish. Nella smiled. Her face grew warmer yet. Raising her eyes, she discovered Sam looking back at her
. Knee stalker. He grinned.

  “My children!” Sister’s voice was honey and cream, the voice of a young woman, though who knew how many centuries old she was. She didn’t really teach anymore, just filled in here and there around the school. She’d been Nella and Angela’s first-grade teacher, and prehistoric even then. Nella loved her so much. Over the years, she’d Band-Aided Nella’s scraped knees and dabbed her cheeks with a snow-white hankie when she failed yet another math test. Sister had taught them all to read and to recite their prayers.

  Who made you? Sister asked.

  God made me, they chorused back.

  At St. Amphibalus, every question had its answer. This drove Clem insane. But she wasn’t Catholic. She wasn’t anything, which was so hard to imagine. Clem claimed the word faith was just an alibi. Give me proof, she said. I’ll give you a knuckle sandwich, Nella told her.

  The classroom door swung open. Sister Mary Anne, the principal, strode in.

  Abrupt and thunderous silence.

  Sister Mary Anne was a modern nun, with steel-gray hair and a no-iron blouse. She spoke in a low voice to Sister Rosa, who produced another snow-white handkerchief from her endless supply and pressed it to her lips. Her sweet face crumpled. Was she crying? What was going on? The principal straightened her already painfully straight shoulders.

  “Boys and girls,” she said, “I have an announcement. One I prayed I would never have to make.”

  She folded her hands as if she might start praying some more. Everyone was staring. “As I’m sure your parents have told you, the diocese has been in financial difficulty for some time. Months ago, Bishop Keller ordered a school-use study to determine which buildings were most effective. That study is now complete. This morning, we received word from His Excellency’s office that . . .”

  Her lips pursed. Sister Rosa twisted her hankie.

  “. . . word that St. Amphibalus School will close at the end of this school year.”

  A lilac petal drifted down and settled on the floor. Nella was sure she heard it touch.

  “It’s not the decision we hoped for.” The principal’s voice trembled. “Our school has been the cornerstone of this neighborhood for generations. We hoped to educate your children and your children’s children. But such is not to be.”