by Beth Vrabel
“Who?” I asked.
Dad blinked at me. “Do they teach you anything at school?”
I blinked back.
“It’s based on the story of Agamemnon, who was murdered by his wife and her lover. His daughter, Elektra, was obsessed with revenge. But once she finally achieved it, she danced past the point of exhaustion and died. It is a gory story, worse than any horror movie I’d let you see. Of course, that’s probably why Angela chose that particular character for her Halloween costume. She went on the stage and started singing. And it was just wow.” He shook his head.
“What?” I prompted. For a professional storyteller, he was having a hard time getting to the point.
“She got on the stage, right? And this costume, it was a huge skirt with a supertight bodice, you know, the corset type? With…” He motioned to his chest area in rounded motions. He paused, his ears turning red. “You’ve been to the Renaissance Faire, right?”
“Oh,” I said and grimaced. “Frau Jacobs? She wore something…” I copied Dad’s motions.
Now his whole face was red. “Yeah. From what I could make out, Angela made the dress herself but used fabric glue, I think, instead of stitching. Anyway, she went on stage and began belting out this incredible music like nothing I had ever heard before. It was astounding! She was in magnificent character. None of us knew what was happening, other than it was big. Quiet Angela just exploding… that was the wrong word… just being. Just being so big, so bold on stage. And then…”
“Then what?” I nudged his side with my knuckles.
“I don’t know if I should be telling you this. It was a long time ago.” Dad started gathering up the rest of the yearbooks, too.
“Dad, c’mon! What happened?” I tugged on his sleeve, pulling him back to sit down.
“So, again, I learned this later, when your mom and I actually went to the Met to see a performance. I didn’t even know it was the same one until this one scene—Elektra is so consumed with revenge, that when she finally achieves it, she launches into this bizarre dance. The music, rising, rising, rising out of her like… like…”
“Revenge bubbles,” I said.
“More like lava,” Dad said. Then he took a deep breath. He was facing away from me, but his eyes slid toward mine. “We were only supposed to walk across the stage, right? But Angela Jacobs was performing. And no one made a move to stop her. Just as she reached the peak of the aria, the glue holding her dress together, I guess, gave up the ghost.”
“Oh, no.” I covered my mouth with my hands.
Dad nodded, head hanging. “Yeah. She didn’t know, either. Kept on singing. No one knew what to do at first. What was exposed wasn’t anything more than a bikini would’ve shown, but still, everyone froze. And then someone laughed.” Dad took another deep breath. “Then a few more people. And soon, everyone was laughing.”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
I knew what that felt like.
“She only realized when a teacher rushed the stage, giving her a sweatshirt to put on.” He sighed again. “I gotta admit, Pip, I was one of the kids who laughed at her. I wouldn’t now, but then? Yeah, I did. I wasn’t a terrible person then, but I didn’t get it. Didn’t realize how cruel it was. It wasn’t even really about her, though maybe it was for some people. Maybe some of them were jealous of her talent or showmanship or whatnot. But for most of us? It was just funny.”
Kara texted me as I headed home. Update? Frau? Sarah?
I didn’t reply.
A minute later, just as I got to the front porch, she texted again. Mom has a friend over. A lawyer. How’s Eliza?
Rage boiled through me. And then I heard Annie giggling as Alec chased her around the house. Mom laughed as she took a seat on the sofa, a book in one hand and a glass of iced tea in the other.
“When’s my mom coming home?” Annie asked Alec. “I want to show her how fast I can run now!”
Alec swept her up onto a piggyback ride. “Any minute,” he said. “Should we draw her a picture?”
“Yes!” Annie said. “Of our house!”
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and pulled out my phone. I called Kara, who answered on the second ring. “Didn’t I tell you we had company?”
Eliza’s car pulled into the driveway. It’s for her, I reminded myself. I tried to tell myself that Frau Jacobs deserved whatever scheme Kara dreamed up. Hadn’t she humiliated me? Not only that, but she seemingly relished doing it. And high school had been so long ago for her—about forty years. Honestly, I doubted it bothered her anymore.
“I talked with my dad. Frau Jacobs was picked on a lot in high school. Mostly for a show-type thing where she sang an aria on stage in front of the school. There was a… wardrobe malfunction.”
“OMG,” Kara said. “Like, she flashed the school?”
“Kind of,” I said.
Kara’s laughter was so loud it couldn’t possibly be real.
“That’s all I’ve got,” I said.
“Oh, this is perfect, Pipi! Perfect!”
“What do you mean, perfect?” I asked.
“This is the in we need,” Kara said. “Listen, I’ve learned from the best. My brother, Max, he’s got a gift for finding out info on people and then using it to get back at his enemies.”
“Is Frau Jacobs really an enemy?” I said. “I mean, does anyone really have enemies in real life?”
Kara sighed into the phone. “You’re so clueless, PeePee McGee. Of course she’s our enemy. She mocked you. She mocked me. She has to pay. That’s the way it works. Someone hits you, you hit back harder.”
“Look, I don’t want to get caught up in some scheme,” I said. “Are we good?”
Kara paused. “Oh, Pipi. You’re in it. As of tomorrow, you and I are going to be Frau Jacobs’s favorite students. Speaking of favorites, what have you got on Sarah?”
I turned as Eliza closed her car door. She waved as she passed me and, when she opened the front door, Annie flew out of the house and into her arms. She whispered something into the little girl’s ear and then closed the door behind her.
“I don’t know what Sarah’s keeping a secret,” I said. Lie. I squashed the thought, but it echoed through my mind. I did know something of what Sarah hoped to share at the open mic. It was about having something for herself, breaking from the mold she was born wearing and just being herself. I knew that. I felt that. Wasn’t that exactly what I had been trying to do for myself ever since the beginning of the school year? And aren’t you about to take that from Sarah? The same unwanted thought refused to budge.
Kara was silent. Then, from far away as if she were holding the phone away from her cheek, she shouted, “I’ll be right there, Mom!” She breathed into the phone, letting me know she was back.
I glanced up again, spotting Annie running through the house, showing Eliza the drawing she had made. I had to do this. For Eliza. “Tomorrow night? We’re going to be at the JV Bookstore. Eight o’clock. It’s an open mic.”
Kara gasped. “Seriously? She’s, like, reciting a poem or something? In public?”
“Or something,” I muttered. “I don’t know. I just know that it really, really is important to her. Sarah wants to share something, and she knows the people there are understanding. Then I think she’ll share it with everyone else, maybe even at the talent show. So, it’s not like you won’t find out soon. Promise me you won’t—”
The phone beeped in my ear and I realized Kara had hung up.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Why are some days so fast you want to catch them by the tail and hang on to them? Friday morning, Mom woke me up six minutes before my alarm was set to go off. “I have to get to the gym early today. Be ready to go in fifteen.”
“That’s how long my shower takes,” I whined into my pillow, though she had already left my room. I pulled on jeans and an old band T-shirt that used to belong to Dad, shoved my hair into a ponytail, and slouched downstairs to eat a granola bar for breakfast.
The school halls were empty as I trudged toward homeroom. With any luck, Frau Jacobs wouldn’t be there yet and I could slump my head over the desk and sleep until school started. Not only was the light on in the room but also voices carried out into the hall.
Vile Kara Samson sat cross-legged on top of her desk, facing Frau Jacobs, who was so caught up in explaining something that her hands swirled through the air like tentacles.
“Pipi!” Kara called out as if we were friends. “Frau Jacobs was just telling me the most fascinating story. It’s about Alexa—”
“Elektra,” Frau Jacobs and I corrected at the same time. Frau Jacobs’s eyebrows raised in my direction. Slightly behind her, Kara’s hands jerked out in a go-with-it motion and her face turned fierce.
I swallowed a lump in my throat and muttered, “Yeah, I heard it’s an opera or something.”
“Only the best opera that’s ever been created,” Frau Jacobs said. “I’ve seen it performed a dozen times. Each time, it’s more beautiful. A great regret of my life is that I wasn’t alive while Greta Mila von Nickel sang on stage.” Frau Jacobs’s hands fluttered in the air again, and I knew the aria played in her mind.
“I wish I could see it, too,” Kara said in a somber voice. “But we never go to the opera. I bet no one in the school has heard live opera music.”
Something shuttered in Frau Jacobs’s face. “Yes, well…” She sat behind her desk. “Maybe someday.”
“It’s just such a shame, you know. That no one can hear it,” Kara said as the first bell rang and students began to wander into the classroom.
Frau Jacobs pulled up her email on her computer. “Please find your seat, Ms. Samson. School is about to begin.”
After the morning announcements, everyone buzzed about what they’d do for the talent show. Only a few kids had signed up, but those who had talked about it nonstop. Okay, so maybe it was just Jackson who talked about it nonstop. I had never noticed how his voice carried over the entire room.
“Yeah, me and Sarah are going to perform,” Jackson bellowed. “And Pipi will be there for good luck.”
At that, a few kids batted at me for their good luck of the day. Other kids kept trying to touch them to steal the luck, leading to a lot of Matrix-like dodging, even though I was literally right there.
“Jackson, I thought we were keeping that quiet,” Sarah said. A deep red blush spread across her face and her eyes were super shiny.
“Perform, huh?” Kara said as though she were surprised. “Perform what, exactly?”
“It’s nothing, really. I’m probably not even going to do it.” Sarah swallowed. “I’m sorry; I should’ve told you.”
“Oh, hey, I’m sorry, Sarah,” Jackson said. “I just got excited and—”
“Of course, you’re going to do it,” Kara said. She wrapped an arm around Sarah’s shoulder. “And you’ll tell me about it when you’re ready.”
When I was younger, Mom used to take me and Eliza camping a lot. We had inflatable mattresses that took forever to blow up, even with a pump, but when it was time to pack up the next morning, all we had to do was pull a plug and, whoosh, all the air left the mattress in five seconds. Hearing Kara say that to Sarah? It felt like I was the mattress and her words were the yanked-out plug. Every bit of guilt and worry about telling Kara about the open mic just whooshed away.
From the look on Sarah’s face, they had the same effect on her. “Really? Wow, thank you so much,” she said and leaned into her cousin for a hug.
Kara bent her face over Sarah’s shoulder so she was facing me. Her snake smile spread slowly across her face.
And the worry and guilt pumped right back inside me, where it threatened to burst.
I headed to the art room again at lunch. The wings would be dry enough to paint now; Ms. Adams, the art teacher, had helped me hang them from a rolling platform so I could reach every bit of them. When I arrived in the room, the wings were in the middle of the room. A boy I recognized from when Jackson, Sarah, Kara, and I were at the diner the other week was standing in front of them. He had been at the table with the girls, Ally and Lilith, who had talked with us. He had thick, dark hair that fell in an old-fashioned swoop across his forehead. He ran an outstretched finger across the layering of papier-mâché feathers on the wings. I noticed his fingernails were painted black.
Awkwardness bricked me in by the door. Was he pointing out all of the things that I could’ve done better on the wings? Or even worse, was he about to compliment them? Not sure what to do, I placed my bag on one of the back workstations and, of course, toppled a can of pencils and pens, which smacked the countertop and then rolled off the edge, clattering in a staccato across the floor.
The boy turned toward me. He smiled, the corners of his gray eyes crinkling. “Hey,” he said. “I’m here to help the backstage crew with the talent show prep and stopped by to say hi to Ms. Adams. Is she here?”
I shook my head, for some reason unable to form words. I gathered up the pens and pencils in a pile and he bent to pick up the can.
“My name’s Jason,” he said and held out his hand. I grabbed to shake it, only too late realizing he was just handing me the can. I shook the can. I shook the can like it was his hand. Jason laughed.
“I’m Pipi,” I managed, only I pronounced it wrong. Yep. Told the hot high school boy that my name was PeePee.
“What’s that?” he said.
I managed to squeak out, “Pipi. I’m Pipi McGee.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know who made these wings, would you?” he asked.
“Me did. It was me,” I babbled. “I made them.”
He smiled again. “Wicked. Love the layering. I work more with sketching, but paper craft is awesome. I love that they have movement. Like, I don’t know if they’re about to sweep out or tuck back in. Was it tricky?”
I shoved the pens and pencils into the can. “A little,” I said. Talk about me? I was ridiculous. Talk about one of my projects? Suddenly, my tongue worked and I could actually speak sentences again. “Newspaper’s a good place to start. You just have to make sure the glue consistency is right. Perfectly smooth.”
Soon I was showing him how I had crafted the wings, which were the length of my arms and layered to resemble feathers. “I thought I was going to paint them today, but now? I don’t think they’re big enough.”
“Yeah,” said Jason, stretching out the word. “Make them huge.”
“I could show you how to mix up the plaster.”
“Sweet,” Jason said and pushed up his sleeves.
With both of us working, by the end of lunch period the wings almost touched the ground. Maybe I’d paint them Monday.
“Well, it was awesome meeting you, Pipi McGee, even though I totally missed the talent show crew.” He glanced again at the wings, nodding to them with his chin. “It’s kind of cool with just the plaster and the newspaper. All those stories running up and down the wings. How are you going to paint them?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure yet.”
“You’ll think of something.” He glanced around the empty art room. The hallways were buzzing as lunch ended and students headed to lockers or classrooms. He hesitated and then said, “You know it gets easier, right? I mean, high school isn’t always fun, but it’s not middle school.”
For a second my eyes filled. “That obvious?” I said. “That I don’t have friends, I mean.”
He grinned. “We can sort of spot our own, I guess. I’ll look for you next year. There’s a group—a club—of us.”
“I’d like that,” I said, smiling for what felt like the first time in weeks.
“Cool,” h
e said. “We watch out for each other. Everyone else, too.” He squinted like he was picturing his words before he said them. “I guess technically Principal Hardy calls it an anti-bullying group, but really we’re just looking for people who aren’t jerks to other people.”
“Oh,” I said. Whoosh. Good feeling gone. “Not sure you’ll want me around then.”
Jason paused, waiting for me to continue.
I shrugged. “I tried to get back at some people. But, now? I’m doing the kind of stuff that they did.” I worried he’d ask me what I’d done. I was even more worried that I’d tell him everything.
The bell rang.
Jason smiled. “So, stop. Stop being a jerk.” He laughed, but his eyes got squinty again and I knew he wasn’t thinking of me. “It’s easier than you think.”
I had just enough time after school to shower and put on clean clothes (I wasn’t sure what people wore to open mic, but black seemed like the best option, so I put on a black dress and black chucks). When Sarah arrived, I made us sandwiches from the chicken salad Mom had bought earlier that week. I had been so caught up in crafting the wings at lunch that I barely ate. Plus, having a mouthful of chicken salad kept me from saying the wrong thing to Sarah. Things such as, “I accidentally-on-purpose told Kara about the open mic night and I’m scared she’s going to show up, and not just because—and I don’t know when this happened—you’re literally my only friend right now, and I don’t want to ruin this thing for you, even if I don’t quite understand it.”
But, of course, I didn’t say any of that, just crammed the sandwich in my mouth.
Luckily, Sarah didn’t seem to notice my stress eating. She nibbled at her fingernails as she thumbed through the poem she had on her phone. Her hair was in its usual pigtail braids and her face was shining. She was so excited she practically vibrated.
A few minutes later, Jackson’s father picked us up in his minivan, and we were on our way. Jackson read snippets of different poems the whole drive, so no one noticed when I didn’t speak, though Mr. Thorpe did make eye contact with me once in the rearview mirror. He winced as Jackson rhymed “realize it” with “Cheez-It.”