The Humiliations of Pipi McGee

by Beth Vrabel

  I took my usual seat in the back and waited for her to enter, trying hard to cling to the glorious feeling of revenge and not the boiling unease of what she had revealed about Ricky and what she had been about to say about Sarah.

  “Did you hear?” Becky Sprenkle asked as she took her seat. She wasn’t technically talking to me, but around me. Everyone near us twisted toward her. “Kara Samson was stuck in the bathroom. No tp, no paper towels, nothing—and it was a, you know, number two situation.”

  Someone shrugged. “Eh, everyone poops.”

  “Yeah.” Becky giggled. “But does everyone sit and scream for a half hour in an empty bathroom?”

  Another kid snickered.

  Becky sat back, clearly enjoying being the informant. “That’s why she’s not here. Ms. Baqri was the one who found her,” she said, naming the social studies teacher, who still hadn’t entered the room even though the bell had rung. “I saw her running down the hall with a handful of toilet paper. She went into the bathroom and then dashed back out to get a janitor.”

  My heart thumped too fast in my chest. What did you do? my brain asked, as if it weren’t responsible for the decision-making that led us to this point. How much trouble are you in?

  Just then a shrill, “Are you kidding me?” sliced through the room.

  In a whoosh, everyone in class scrambled to the door. Just outside it was Kara. In front of her stood Frau Jacobs. Holding a tape measure.

  “Seriously?” Kara screamed. She threw her arms up in the air and slammed them down on her legs. “You’re dress-coding me? Now?”

  Frau Jacobs held up the tape measure. “Your shirt is three inches above your hip bone. Unacceptable. As the esteemed soprano Frau Greta Mila von Nickel would say, you’re allowing others around you to give in to their inner swine-dog, a bit lost in translation there, but you get the idea, dearie.”

  “Did you just call me a pig-dog?” Kara growled. Kids huddled around the door on the other side of the hall, too.

  “Your inner swine-dog, that which is base and inappropriate. But don’t worry, dear. I have a suitable shirt for you right here.” Frau Jacobs pulled the oversized white T-shirt with NORTHBROOK MIDDLE written across it in Sharpie from her shoulder bag.

  “I am not wearing the shame shirt!” Kara stomped her foot. Frau Jacobs slipped it over Kara’s head. It was so big that it draped over her arms, falling to Kara’s knees and down to her wrists.

  As Frau stepped back, Kara stomped again and something happened on her face that made Frau Jacobs tilt her head in one direction and then the other.

  “What?” Kara stomped again. She turned toward the doorway where we all gathered.

  In unison, we gasped.

  Kara’s eyebrows had shifted. There was a brown streak where the colored part of the gel had filled in her brows. But the actual eyebrow hair had shifted slightly to the sides when she stomped. The right eyebrow was sliding down the side of her face. The left dipped a little toward her nose.

  All those revenge bubbles I had earlier? They burst in one explosion of contrition. Oh, Pipi. What have you done? My brain demanded to know. It’s your fault! You did this! I slipped back into the crowd like a fish into an anemone.

  Kara turned toward the other doorway.

  Everyone gathered there gasped, too.

  She turned back to Frau Jacobs. Ms. Baqri trotted down the hall toward us, one hand keeping her headscarf in place. She paused, too, and stared at Kara.

  “WHAT?” Kara screamed.

  Ms. Baqri put her hand on Kara’s arm. “Perhaps we should go back to the bathroom, Kara.”

  By the end of the day, the whole school was buzzing about Kara being stranded in the bathroom, coming out without any eyebrows, and leaving early in the Shirt of Shame.

  The nonstop whine of my brain—What did you do, Pipi McGee?—combatted with my inner pig-dog’s occasional roar of Vengeance is mine! I swallowed down some panic at what repercussions I might be in for from Kara, along with something much bitterer that tasted a lot like guilt. What did you do, Pipi McGee? Standing there, Kara looked so utterly furious. But when that zapped away, what would she be left with (aside from no eyebrows)? And why would I want anyone to go to sleep at night, eyebrowless, with everyone’s laughter ringing in her ears, even if that person was mostly responsible for the same thing having happened to me?

  I was unloading my bag into my locker at the end of the day when I spotted Sarah. She marched up to me with her eyes narrowed. Quickly, I zipped up the bag before she could see the rolls of toilet paper stashed inside. “Kara just texted me. She said you might’ve had something to do with the bathroom thing today?”

  “Bathroom thing?” I echoed as I closed my locker door.

  When I turned around, Jackson was trotting toward me from the other direction. “What bathroom thing? Or is it a girl thing? Never mind. Don’t tell me.” Jackson ruffled my hair like I was a dog. “I need an extra dose of luck,” he said with a wink.

  “Oh,” Sarah said. “Just something with Kara.”

  “Yeah!” Jackson laughed. “I heard. Stuck in the bathroom. Classic.”

  Sarah’s forehead wrinkled. “It’s not funny, Jackson. She was really embarrassed.” She turned to me. “She also said that you might’ve been the one to make her eyebrows fall off.”

  Even though my face felt like someone was hitting it with a hair dryer turned to high heat, I smiled. “How could I make her eyebrows fall off?” I slipped my arms through the backpack. “Maybe it was just a stress-related thing? When my mom’s really stressed, she breaks out in hives.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it. She said she got a special blend of something from Glitter.”

  I crossed my arms, focusing on keeping my flaming face smooth. “I told her Eliza made me a special blend for my eyebrows, but I didn’t give anything to her.” I opened the front zippered pocket of my bag and pretended to root around.

  I snapped my fingers, looking off into the distance. “You know, earlier today I tripped and the bottle rolled away. I couldn’t find it, but it was right next to Kara’s locker. I even asked her for help looking for it.” I shrugged. “I guess she could’ve found it, but I told her it was a special blend for me. You don’t think she would’ve kept it for herself, do you?”

  Sarah’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times. “Let’s just forget about it,” she finally said.

  Jackson, still chuckling, shrugged. “Yeah, she’ll get over it.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I mean, who hasn’t lost an eyebrow or been embarrassed in a bathroom.”

  “Kara’s not great at getting over stuff,” Sarah said. “Listen, I’ll see you guys tonight. Club meeting at the gym, right?” She bounced on her toes for a second. “Open mic is next week, so let’s pick our poems. We can practice performing tonight.”

  She waved and headed toward her bus as if she hadn’t just said something terrifying. “See you, Pipi,” Jackson said and headed toward the doors.

  “Jackson,” I called and trailed after him. “Do you remember sixth grade—the, um…” My face was about to combust, but I spit out the words. “The notebook?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Jackson laughed. “That was so funny.”

  “Yeah.” I forced a smile. “So funny. It must’ve really been hilarious when Kara gave you the notebook.”

  “Kara?” Jackson frowned. “Nah, that was Ricky.”

  I nodded. “Right. Must’ve remembered it wrong.”

  “You okay, Pipi?” Jackson asked.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “See you later.”

  “Yeah, cool.” Jackson paused, scratched at the back of his head, and turned around. “You know it was just a joke, right? We didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Yep. That’s what I’m good for, right?” I threw out my arms. “A joke.”

  About a half dozen kids ran by me, grabbing at my arms and hair for luck.

  Jackson laughed. “So, we’re cool?”

  �
��Yeah, of course,” I said, and pulled up the hood on my sweatshirt, blocking someone from grabbing at my hair. “Totally cool.”

  When the day was finally over, I slunk into Mom’s gym, taking my spot behind the desk. I smooshed my face against the countertop and tried not to think. A pair of hairy, pasty legs in tube socks and a pair of dark, toned legs stood in front of me. They paused, so I rolled my eyes to look at them without lifting my head. Dad and Alec, fresh from the racquetball court.

  “Everything okay there, Pipi?” Alec asked.

  “Fine,” I said, only it came out a little garbled since my face stayed smooshed against the countertop.

  Dad leaned forward, resting his face on his palm. He smelled a little from the racquetball game. The light glinted off the little stud in his nose. I arched my eyebrow and touched it. “Yep, still rocking the hardware,” he said and patted the back of my head. “What’s going on, Pips?”

  I sighed, my shoulders rising and falling. “Nothing. Everything is going exactly according to plan.”

  “Good. Good.” Dad stood up.

  “Should we call her mom?” Alec whispered.

  “No, man. We’re dads. We’ve got this.” Dad poked my shoulder. “Does anything hurt?”

  I shook my head.

  Alec cleared his throat. “Did, um, someone say something…”

  I shook my head.

  “Just having a moment?” Dad asked.

  I nodded. “Have you ever done something that felt good at the time, but then you felt guilty about it?”

  Alec said, “Once I ate an entire bag of Tootsie Pops. Do you mean like that?”

  “Kind of,” I said. I squeezed my eyes shut. For some reason, Ricky bloomed behind them. “Or have you had someone you thought was on your side turn out to have hurt you?”

  Dad patted my shoulder. “Everyone gives in to their swine-dog once in a while.”

  “Their what?” I sat upright, staring at him.

  Dad grinned. “It’s just something someone I went to high school with used to say. She liked this opera singer—wanted to be an opera singer herself. She got picked on a fair amount.” Dad’s face clouded for a second and he shook his head, like he was wiping something off a blackboard. “Anyway, she used to say the people giving her a hard time were just indulging their swinedog.” He shrugged. “Guess it stuck with me.”

  I blinked, hard, staring at my dad. I tried to do some math. “Did you go to high school with Frau Jacobs?”

  Dad’s bottom lip popped out. He had pretty much blocked out most of high school. Loads of times people would come up to him and say how much they liked seeing his name in the paper, just like when he was the school paper reporter. Dad never remembered their names. He’d always say something like, “Oh, thanks… you.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I think that was her name. Angela Jacobs, though she went through this weird phase where she made us all call her Aahn-ka-la. She was always quoting an obscure German soprano.”

  “Greta Mila von Nickel,” I said. “She was my Intro to Languages teacher. And now she’s my homeroom teacher.” I made a face.

  “Be nice to her,” Dad said. “She wasn’t exactly treated well in school. I’m surprised she’s a teacher, to be honest.”

  Alec drummed his fingers on the countertop. “I noticed that people sometimes stick with things that don’t work, thinking that they can make them better long past when they should’ve moved on,” he said. “I see that at work a lot. I’ll advise my clients to give up on an investment, but they push through, expecting a payment that never measures up.”

  Both Dad and I looked at Alec. He cleared his throat. “I’m not doing the Dad thing where we say something vague, and it ends up being a metaphor. I’m just saying that literally some of my clients do that.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “That was good stuff, nevertheless,” Dad said.

  To me, Alec added, “If you did something and you regret it, maybe undo it?”

  “I can’t,” I said, slumping down again. “I think I made an unfixable problem.”

  “Oh,” Alec said. He smiled. “My dad used to say that if you can’t fix a problem, the problem is there to fix you.”

  Dad held out his fist above my head and they bumped. “You’ve got this down, Alec.”

  They both sat down next to me, one on each side, while I smooshed my face back into the countertop. We stayed like that for about five minutes, until I pushed back and breathed out. Finally, I grabbed my homework out of my backpack. Dad and Alec both kissed the top of my head and then left.

  The doors to the gym opened and closed a bunch of times, but no one needed help, so I kept plugging away on my homework. Scheming hadn’t exactly been great for keeping up my grades. I had just finished my algebra work when the doors opened with a swoosh. Annie skipped through holding hands with Piper.

  “Hey!” I said, surprised. “What are you guys doing here?”

  Piper grinned. “Being a unicorn.” She held her pointer finger out on top of her head.

  “I can’t tell you what I am because it’s a secret,” Annie said, her face solemn.

  “She’s a spy,” Piper whispered.

  “Shh!” Annie said, but then whispered back, “Double agent, remember?”

  “Right!” Piper said as she dropped Annie’s hand to prance in a circle.

  Coming in just behind them were Eliza and Piper’s mom, both holding coffees. They were mid-laugh.

  “Come on,” Annie said. “Let’s go back to the trampoline room.”

  “A whole room of trampolines?” asked Piper, her eyes perfect circles. “Like the walls and floors and the ceilings and the lights and the—”

  “Just the floor.” Annie sighed. “Just the floor.”

  “That’s okay,” Piper said. “But someday? My whole house is going to be a trampoline. I’m going to bounce all the time. Even on the toilet.”

  Annie stopped. “We’re going to live together in our trampoline house.” Piper nodded.

  “I’ll be just behind you all,” Eliza said. “I want to talk to my sister quickly.”

  As Piper, her mom, and Annie rounded the corner, Eliza practically Piper-pranced over to the desk. “Can you believe it?” she said. “I think I have my first mom friend!”

  “Told you Piper’s mom was cool.”

  “So cool!” Eliza took a big breath. “And watching Annie play with a friend? I think I’m getting the hang of this. I think she’s going to turn out okay.”

  I squeezed Eliza’s arm. “Annie’s perfect. You’re doing a great job.”

  Eliza bit her lip and then nodded. “I think I am.”

  The girls’ laughter drifted down the hall toward us.

  Eliza’s eyes filled for a moment. In a quiet voice, she said, “She called me mom. Annie, on the way here. She said, ‘Hurry up, Mom,’ when we stopped for coffee.” I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded. Eliza smiled again and waved goodbye as she joined her daughter.

  Before Jackson and Sarah arrived for poetry club, I remade my list from memory while again smooshing my face on the countertop. Someone tapped me on the shoulder in the middle of my musing.

  Tasha! My brain supplied. But, instead of my former best friend, in front of me stood Annie.

  “Piper and her mom are in the bathroom and my mom’s on the phone,” she said.

  “Does Eliza know you’re out here with me?”

  Annie shrugged. “I think she’ll figure it out.” Annie scooted up to sit on the countertop as I resumed smooshed face. “You’re melting.”

  “I’m just thinking.”

  “’Bout what?”

  I shrugged.

  “Is it The List thing?”

  “How did you know about that?” I popped my head up so fast something creaked in my neck, feeling like a hot egg cracked on the inside.

  Annie leaned in so her mouth was next to my ear. “Spy.” She looked around to make sure no one heard, then went back to her upright position. “Wa
nt to talk to me about it? I’m superior at puzzle-solving. It said so on a test. Superior. It means awesomely awesome.”

  “I know what superior means,” I said. “You wouldn’t get this.”

  Annie mouthed the word superior again.

  Sighing, I sat up, too. “I thought this whole plan thing would be so simple.”

  “What did you do so far?”

  I glanced at my niece. I was about to spill my guts to a person wearing corduroy overalls. This might be a new low. “For kindergarten—when I made that bad self-portrait—I fixed Piper’s. Got rid of the dinosaur and the unicorn horn.”

  “But she’s going to be a unicorn when she’s a grown-up,” Annie pointed out. “So, that’s not a great plan.”

  “It still counts,” I insisted. I held up one finger. “I did my part to stop her from being labeled a weirdo.”

  Annie shrugged. “She likes being a weirdo. She has a song about it. I am a weirdo. Weirdo, weirdo, weirdo. I am a weirdo and I love weird-ooooohs!”

  “Still counts,” I said and held up a second finger. “First grade was the nose-picking thing.”

  Annie giggled. I ignored her. “I reclaimed my noble nose.” I held up my other hand to stop her from interrupting. “Yes, I know that Dad ended up with the piercing, but it still counts. I don’t hate my nose anymore.”

  Annie just blinked at me.

  “And that, plus the second-grade vomit-a-thon, are both scratched off The List.” I held up a third finger. “The Pipi Touch is a good thing now. People think I’m good luck. Isn’t that awesome?”

  Annie shrugged and held up her hands.

  “Yeah. It is,” I said. “The whole jabbing at me or grabbing strands of my hair is kind of annoying, but I’m not a virus anymore. People like being around me now. No one scrunches up their face and acts like simply being near me is going to make them sick.”

  Annie ran a little hand down the side of my head. “I like you.”

  “Thanks. But you’ve always liked me, so it doesn’t count,” I said. I held up a fourth finger. “Third grade, the wrong basket in basketball. I achieved total redemption by being absolutely amazing as a trainer and team manager.” Annie clapped for me.