Falling In Read Free Page A

she told the girl. She motioned to the overhead lights, then tilted her head toward the dishwasher’s steel door. “Bounce, bounce, bounce,” she said, her finger tracking the path of the light from ceiling to dishwasher to the spot where Isabelle just happened to be standing.
    Truma and Casey giggled, but uttered not one word of apology to Isabelle, not one careless“Whoops!” It was Isabelle Bean, after all. One did not actually direct comments toward Isabelle Bean unless one absolutely had to.
    No, on the whole, Isabelle preferred her school days event free. Dull was good. Dull meant her thoughts could roam here and there, uninterrupted. But even Isabelle had to admit that sometimes dull was, well, kind of dull. A momentary interjection of a squeak and a squeal wasn’t a bad thing, she decided as she poked her head into the nurse’s office to see what Charley Bender was going on about.
    Charley was standing on a chair in the corner. “I don’t usually yell when I see mice,” she said sheepishly when she saw Isabelle in the doorway. “I’m really not afraid of mice.”
    “But are mice afraid of you?” Isabelle walked into the room and leaned against the sink, prepared to be disappointed by Charley’s reply. Girls like Charley Bender never had good answers to riddles, especially riddles that had no answers.
    “I don’t think this one was,” Charley said. “Helooked me straight in the eye, like he wanted to say something to me, ask me a question. It sort of spooked me, if you want to know the truth.”
    “Of course I want to know the truth,” Isabelle replied. “What else would I want to know? A trunk full of lies?”
    Well, actually, now that you mention it, Isabelle didn’t mind lies, as long as they were interesting lies that didn’t get anyone hurt. But she suspected Charley Bender was a truth teller from way back. Charley Bender looked like a rose petal fresh from its morning bath. Rose petals were notoriously poor liars.
    Hopping gingerly down from the chair and limping past Isabelle, Charley made her way to the closet on the far side of the room. “He looked at me, I yelled, and he disappeared into here. There must be a mouse hole in there or something. My dad says this is the time of year when mice start building nests inside, so they have a safe place to have their babies. There’s one that lives in our attic all spring.”
    Isabelle came and stood next to her. “Maybe he needed a Band-Aid,” she said. “Maybe he was out playing mouse soccer and fell into an ant hole.”
    Charley Bender rolled her eyes at Isabelle. Girls like Charley Bender were always rolling their eyes at Isabelle. It was because they never knew whether or not she was kidding. But why would she kid about mice? Why couldn’t a mouse play soccer? Or paint a picture? Or start up a small business selling cheese crackers and Cat-B-Gone spray? She supposed their tails might get in the way on the soccer field, and that as a species they might not have a head for business, but that didn’t push these ideas out of the realm of possibility.
    Isabelle put her hand on the doorknob. “Maybe there’s a whole mouse country right inside this closet, did you ever think of that? Mice families, mice swimming pools, mice courthouses where the mice go to settle their disputes.”
    When Charley only nodded, Isabelle continued, enjoying this riff on the life of
mus domesticus
, the beloved house mouse. “Yes, I believe I’d like to visitthe country of Mice. I’ll try to be back by lunch-time, but if I’m not, save one perfect french fry for me, would you?” And with that, she twisted the doorknob—



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    I’d like to stop here for a moment, if I could. I want you to think about how many times you’ve opened a door. What happened? You twisted the knob, pushed or pulled, walked inside or outside, or from one room to another.
    You’ve imagined the alternatives, though, haven’t you? Or at least dreamed them? Of course you have.