Bad Girl School

by Red Q. Arthur

  The first part went perfectly, especially when the doctor took that industrial-strength fur out of my eye. Boy, was that a relief! After that, it was dicey. I had to go out the same door I came in and walk right past Rachel without her knowing— a real test of my glamour.

  But as it happened, luck was with me— or else the glamour was working more magic than I counted on. Rachel was dead asleep and snoring when I glided past her.

  Just like that, I did it. I was free!

  I could have just caught the next bus to Puerto Vallarta, but I really did want to see Abuela. So I simply bumped into a prosperous-looking man, lifting his wallet in the process, to get the money for a taxi. “Excuse me,” I said sweetly, but he acted as if he hadn’t even heard. Excellent.

  For once, though, I did feel bad about taking someone’s money— Sonya’s influence, maybe.

  I took a good look around me, breathing free air on a free street and trying to get used to the idea. It was my first time out in the world in almost a month, a really long time to be in one small place. It was also more or less my first look at Ojai. At first glance, a little bit hokey, a little bit poky.

  But the town was happening or so it seemed to me after all those weeks of confinement. Everything seemed to be going at a terrific pace, especially the traffic, which was as loud and relentless as a jackhammer. There was so much to see— shops and restaurants, and people rushing like they were in New York— and hear— traffic noise and manic chatter— and so much to smell, that it was pretty bewildering, almost too much to take in. So many people on the street, so easy to run into them— even if you didn’t need their wallets.

  After all those weeks of wishing for the real world, now I had it and it was a little disappointing. For about half-a-second, I missed the peace and quiet of St. Psycho’s, but I got over it, no fear. I got more and more used to the action with each passing minute, and by the time I found a hotel, I was a citizen of the world again.

  I went in, got a map, and asked directions to the hospital. Before I left, I looked at the floor, squealed, bent over, and pretended to find the prosperous man’s wallet. I turned it over to the desk clerk, thinking he might or might not return it to the man, but if he didn’t, he probably needed the little bit of money I’d left in it.

  Next, I asked for the ladies’ room, went in, peed, and, turning to wash my hands, found myself looking at my reflection for the first time in months. I almost screamed. Because staring back at me was a freak with three inches of brown hair at the roots and a unibrow. I was weeks behind on my roots when I came to St. Joan’s, which I could just about get away with, but that last half-inch made me look freakish. And my eyebrows! Without benefit of plucking, they’d completely grown together! How had I failed to notice this?

  Oh. My. God. I wanted to go hide.

  But, looking closer, I thought my unibrow had a certain Frida Kahlo glamor (as opposed to “glamour”), and anyway, there was nothing I could do about it. In situations like this my dad always says, “It is what it is.” I decided it was.

  So I shrugged it off and went shopping. Since I didn’t want to turn up empty-handed, and Abuela lived for her sewing, I found a hobby shop that sold needles and good embroidery thread. I helped myself to some really nice stuff while the shopkeeper helped another customer. He didn’t even look up to ask if he could help me; didn’t seem to notice me at all. I was in such a good mood I left a little money, anyhow.

  By that time, I was so full of myself I figured I might not even have to pay the taxi driver, but this time the spell worked to my disadvantage— I stood out in the road with my hand up in the air, but the first taxi passed me by as if I weren’t even there. Finally, I caught one that had stopped to let someone out. I was beginning to see where the phrase “worked like a charm” came from.

  Abuela was asleep when I walked into her hospital room, and I figured the way things were going, she wouldn’t wake up unless I set off a fire alarm. That was okay, I figured— I just wanted to see her, make sure she was all right.

  But I was shocked by the way she looked—so small, with her eye all swollen. I was planning just to leave her my little gifts and leave, but her good eye flew open. “Hola, Reeno,” she said, as if she’d been expecting me.

  “Hola, Abuelita,” I said, blinking away the embarrassing tears that had come out of nowhere.

  By now, my Spanish was good enough for a simple conversation. I showed her the embroidery materials. “I think I brought you the wrong gift,” I said sadly. “With that eye, I guess you’re not sewing much.”

  Her hand flew to her face, and she winced as she moved. “Ee’s nothing,” she said, seeing my look of dismay. “Just my cracked rib.”

  “Oh, Abuelita! I’m so sorry.”

  “No, niña, no. You can help me. They say my left eye will not see again. But it will; it will! You can help me heal my eye.”

  “Me? But I’m not a doctor.”

  “I need to make a potion.”

  “A potion?” What was up with this place? Was everyone into magic?

  “You must get me something I need.”

  “Anything, Abuela. But I can’t bring it to you— I may not be able to get out again.”

  “I can wait until you can.”

  “But I—”

  “I need only one thing. Tears from the eyes of a princess.”

  What?

  “A real princess, you mean? Like the daughter of a king?”

  “Goodbye, niña. Hurry now.” And once again she closed her good eye.

  Tears from the eyes of a princess. She had to be delirious. What were the chances of a princess getting sent to St. Joan’s?

  I got a taxi at the cab stand and went back downtown to the doctor’s office. My luck was holding: Rachel was still asleep.

  I shook her. “Rachel! Time to go.”

  She jumped. “Oh! Reeno. You okay?”

  “Much better,” I said.

  “What about your contact?”

  “He’s ordering one from my doctor at home. My dad’ll just stick it in a letter or something.”

  “Oh. Good.” She seemed nervous about something.

  I decided to be generous about it. “What’s the matter?”

  “Uh… I wasn’t supposed to fall asleep.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Thanks,” Relief flooded her face. “And by the way, thanks for not running away.”

  I laughed. “Are you kidding? Then everybody’d have to walk around in circles again. They hate me enough as it is.”

  We were in the cab when she said, “Nobody hates you, Reeno.”

  A.B was waiting for me, his monkey-tail flicking like a whip. It relaxed the moment I walked in. “Welcome, Traveler. I wasn’t sure you weren’t going to live up to your name.”

  “And travel, you mean? I thought about it, but I’d never get service at a restaurant, being invisible and all.”

  “A word of caution, girlarama— that spell is good for only about twenty-four hours. You’ll have to work it again if the need should come up.”

  I nodded, preoccupied. “A.B., something funny happened. Abuela—”

  “Ah, Abuela. How did you find her?”

  I shook my head. “Not good. Not good at all. They say she’ll be blind in one eye. And that’s the funny thing…”

  “The Alpha Beast does not laugh. The Alpha Beast kills.”

  “Not that kind of funny. She asked me to get something for her— so she can make a potion. Something really, really hard to get. Like impossible. What’s up with that?”

  His ears stood up like a bat’s. I’d never seen that before. “I really couldn’t say.”

  “Oh, come on, A.B. Think she’s, like, a little out of it?”

  “How should I know?”

  “You know everything.”

  “Wrong, human. I see most things. I hear almost everything. But I do not know everything. There are more things…”

  “Yeah, yeah
, yeah. I have to get her some princess tears. Tell me the truth— do you think that’s a sane thing to ask for?”

  “I think, if I were you, I should keep my eyes open for royalty.”

  “So. Do you think a JAP counts as a princess?”

  “I don’t think I should bank on it.”

  “That’s what I thought you’d say. Listen— whatever happened to fighting lessons?”

  “Tomorrow, Soldier. You have enough to do today.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN—MOMARAMA

  He wasn’t kidding. Next up was Kara.

  At the appointed hour— after dinner and before the Rangers meeting— Julia and I descended on Sonya’s room, where we found the two of them sitting cross-legged on the floor and reading the Tarot. “Uh-oh,” Sonya said, “I think I see visitors in your future.”

  “Oh, great,” I said, “you didn’t tell her we were coming.”

  Kara’s face was a stormy sea of boiling emotions, her face working involuntarily, muscles twitching and jerking just beneath the surface. She was fast unfolding her legs. Call me psychic, but I knew she was going to bolt if we didn’t stop her.

  I dropped into a squat and put a hand on her knee, causing her to jump about a foot. Her leg tensed so hard it felt like A.B.’s. “It’s okay,” I whispered. “You’re going to be okay. Somehow, some way, we’re going to get you away from that witch.”

  Her mouth dropped open in a gasp and her eyes filled. Julia had dropped to the floor as well. “We know, Kara. We saw what you’ve been through.”

  She was shaking her head silently, as if this were the last thing she wanted to happen, and scooting on her butt toward her bed, away from Julia and me. She looked as if she expected to be raped and pillaged any minute.

  And finally I got it. She was embarrassed that we’d witnessed what she must see as her humiliation. “Kara, listen. You know what visions are like. I literally saw a witch. I don’t even know what your mom looks like. All I saw was a crone in a black dress and a witch’s hat. And she was chasing you. Something… I don’t know what… but something about the vision told me it wasn’t a one-time thing. Maybe it was the expression on your face— kind of like what I’m looking at now. I know you’re scared, but you don’t have to be. We’re not going to invade your privacy. We just want you to know you’re not alone.”

  “I saw you tied to a post,” said Julia. “Like… well, like Joan of Arc or someone… and she was whipping you.”

  “You’re crazy! My mother wouldn’t tie me up.”

  I had to note that she hadn’t said her mom wouldn’t whip her.

  “I want to tell you about my mother,” said Julia. She was looking down at her hands, the fingers of which were interlaced in her lap, but constantly opening and closing, fidgeting, hopping about like small animals she couldn’t control. I could see this was no easier for her than for Kara.

  “She didn’t let me go to school, didn’t let me have any friends, didn’t let me out of the house. I had to stay in my room for two days, with no food except peanut butter sandwiches, just for reading Harry Potter!”

  Silence. Dead, stone-cold silence. What do you say to something like that?

  Finally, Sonya said, “What was up with that?”

  “Harry’s demonic, that’s why! Mom joined some church that thinks everything’s demonic. Even school.”

  “Omigod,” I said. “Like in Carrie.”

  Nobody said anything. I guess they hadn’t seen the movie— if they had, they’d have known Carrie’s mom was a total lunatic. So I said, “What about your dad?”

  “He couldn’t stand it. He left us. And then I couldn’t stand it. I ran away. And lived on the streets for two years till Dad found me. You know why I’m here? Because I couldn’t make it in school at all. I’d never been, so I didn’t have any idea what to do. I acted like a five-year-old because I hadn’t been around other kids— I mean kids who lived in families— since I was five. I used to throw tantrums and get up on the desks and yell at the teacher.”

  Sonya put her arms around her, and just held her for awhile, the rest of us being quiet like little mice. Disoriented, totally stunned little mice.

  And then Julia, perfectly put together Julia, proceeded to lose it. She screamed first, to let us know the dam was breaking, I guess, and then she cried for awhile and when she quit, she was still shaking, but she wasn’t finished. “So, Kara. Whose Mommy Dearest wins the Joan Crawford Cruelty Contest?”

  I just sat there with my face hanging out. Finally, Kara said, “But— how’d you support yourself?”

  “Found kids to stay with. Begged. Slept in doorways.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “Julia, I’m really, really sorry.” I reached out to touch her hand, but she pulled it away.

  This was the girl I’d condemned as a mall rat? I’d imagined her shopping with her silly friends, all of them smoking in the rest room and giggling like retards while throwing their spoiled little lives away. When all the time she’d been freezing cold on the street, begging to get enough money for a Coke and a BLT. And now she probably dressed like she did as camouflage.

  “Looks like it’s up to you, Reeno. Let’s hear about your delightful relatives.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I understood that this was all part of a process to help Kara through whatever was muddying up her aura, but at the moment my mom didn’t seem half bad. “My mom isn’t so bad.” I paused, thinking how to tell this. “She just doesn’t have time for me, that’s all. I mean with Haley getting worse and worse all the time. But I don’t know— it doesn’t seem like it was always like that. Can I tell you about my name?”

  “Uh, sure,” said Sonya, who was probably the only one who wasn’t preoccupied with her own problems.

  “See, my mom gave it to me,” I said. “She doesn’t know it, but she did.” Tears flooded my eyes, but I didn’t care. Right now I just didn’t care. Let them escape, like the blood in my dream; let them flow like Yosemite Falls.

  “When I was a little kid— a real little kid— back when I still thought nothing could hurt me, and every day was an adventure, my mom was nice to me. I mean, maybe she wasn’t all that nice, but little kids trust their parents because they’re their parents and because they’re all they’ve got. They don’t know any better.

  “In those days, my dad used to come in and wake me up in the morning, and when I’d come down to breakfast, my mom would say, ‘Well, look who’s up? Hi-ho, Deboreeno!’ and I’d say, ‘Don’t call me that, it’s not my name.’ It was, like, this game we had. I secretly loved it that she called me that. It was her special thing for me.” I looked around to see if they were getting it, and they weren’t. They were sitting there like three big question marks— two white, one brown, one black.

  “Well, it was the only thing. See what I mean? That’s the only good memory I have of my mom. After Haley got sick, it was like she was on my case all the time, and I couldn’t do anything right, and I was always wrong and crazy and everything. But I wanted her to be a good mom— the nice mom I remembered! So I called myself Reeno to remind me. And now it makes me so sad because…”

  “Kara?” Sonya said, “Kara, what is it?”

  I guess I’d been doing what Julia had done, I’d more or less stared at the floor as I talked, but now I looked up. Kara was sitting there with big fat tears rolling down her face. “My mom never called me anything nice. Not ever! Not even once! But I called her something— Reeno just reminded me, because it was, like the same thing. I used to call her Momerino.”

  Julia said, “And you’re crying about that?”

  “I’m crying because one day when I did it, she just… slapped me. For no reason. And said, ‘Don’t call me that— I’m nobody’s Momerino. I’m gonna wash your mouth out with soap’.”

  Sonya said, “Ewwww.”

  We were all quiet, thinking Kara’s mom was probably tied with Julia’s for America’s Craziest Maternal Unit.

  “You know how sick soap can mak
e you?”

  “You mean she actually did it?” I blurted.

  “I never told that to my dad, or my school counselor, or anybody. And guess what else? Not even to myself. Because my mother’s crazy, and you can’t go around saying your mother’s crazy. Because nobody’ll believe you. They’ll say you’re just trying to get attention. You just can’t say it.

  “She did beat me. You were right, Julia. And she’d shut me up in a closet, and the basement, and sometimes she didn’t, like, she didn’t even feed me for a few days while I’d be in the closet and… oh, God, I can’t talk about this.” She was sobbing and slobbering the whole time she was talking.

  I suddenly had a revelation. “That’s why you never get any points. Because you don’t want to leave here until you’re a major. You don’t want to have to ever go back.”

  She glared at me, trying to lock eyes, as if daring me to steal her dream. Suddenly I understood what button I’d pushed with her. “That’s why you never forgave me, isn’t it? Because I leaned on you about not making points, and you couldn’t make points. Oh, God. I get it now. I’m so sorry.”

  She kept on glaring. This wasn’t going to be an instant fix, ending with a tearful group hug.

  Julia said, “Where was your dad in all this?”

  “Same place he is now. In Colorado with his second family. He dumped us when I was seven and never looked back.”

  “But don’t you ever see him? In the summer, at least?”

  “My mom says…”

  “What?”

  “She told me he didn’t want me… that he gave up all… I don’t know… rights or something.” It was funny, but even as she spoke, I could see her beginning to doubt it.

  “But your mom’s crazy, right? And meaner than Cruella deVille. Did you ever think maybe she might be lying?”

  Once again she gasped, getting it. Realizing she might have a safe harbor out there somewhere.

  “You’ve got to talk to your advisor,” I said. “They’ve got laws about this stuff.”

  “Nobody’s going to help me.” She sank down into herself and her voice was barely audible. “You have no idea how sane she can sound. Nobody’s going to believe me. I’m not talking to anybody, okay?”