The Sky’s the Limit: My Journey with Maryellen

Before I decide whether to stay or go, Maryellen and I walk past a new store opening up. Trees in pots line the sidewalk, and colorful flowers and plants fill the windows inside. Something catches my eye: a sign in the window. I shake Maryellen’s sleeve and point. It says

• Enter the contest.
• Think of a name of the slogan for our new store.
• Draw a logo.
• You could win a cash prize!

I tell Maryellen she should enter. She’s great at sketching, and if she wins, she could buy a new bike. Maryellen agrees she likes sketching, and thinking up a name and slogan for a plant store sounds fun. She’s entered contests before. She suggests I enter, too, for a telescope, but I tell her drawing isn’t for me. This contest has her name written all over it.

We chat about ideas the whole walk home. Back at the Larkins’ house, we head straight to Maryellen’s room and dig out the construction paper and markers from her presentation, still stuffed under Beverly’s bed. We squeeze onto the floor between the beds and Maryellen starts doodling.

Beverly appears in the doorway with Scooter, her cardboard crown askew but as queenly as ever. When she asks what we’re doing, Maryellen brushes her off, but Beverly refuses to leave, it’s her room, too. I say we’re working on an art project, and Maryellen relents: Beverly can stay if she doesn’t bother us.

I hand Beverly paper and markers and ask her to draw a ballerina. She decides to draw herself instead and settles cross-legged on the bed, absorbed.

Maryellen whispers that I’m good with little kids, then asks if I share a room with my sister. I tell her I do, ever since Gran moved in. We haven’t been getting along well since, with all our stuff crammed together and Emma hating the stars I put up. Whenever she comes in, she puts on her earphones and shuts me out. I don’t mention the earphones, since no one in Maryellen’s time wears a pair.

Maryellen says she used to share this room with Beverly, Tom, and Mikey. She wanted Carolyn and Joan to move in and make it an all-girls room, but first she had to prove she could keep it tidy. I agree that sharing a room is hard. It’s been a big change for me and my sister, too. Maryellen says she had to turn over a new leaf.

Suddenly Maryellen’s face lights up. That’s it, that’s the name for the plant store. She sketches a tree branch, adds big leaves, and prints A NEW LEAF on one of them. A name and a logo, just like that.

Now Maryellen just needs a slogan. I tell her I like how the branch’s limbs split into smaller ones, and Maryellen hugs me, calling me a genius, since it gives her an idea. She adds the words to her sign: above the branch, in leaf-decorated letters, “Branch out! Shop at,” with A NEW LEAF on the big leaf below.

Maryellen is the real genius, not me. Beverly peers at the sketch and says it’s good, but Maryellen keeps redrawing and reprinting until it’s just right. She’s adding her finishing touches when the phone rings.