by Tanya Kyi
After that came math, which I did my best to sleep through, and art. The art teacher was also old, but he looked less likely to croak in the near future.
“And who are you, young lady?” he asked when I sat down. He removed old-fashioned spectacles to look at me more closely.
“Caz Hallard,” I said, digging my sketchbook out of my bag.
“Hmm…obviously a Virgo,” he said.
The rest of the class giggled, but I looked up at him in surprise. He hardly seemed the type to study astrology. And he was right — my birthday was in September.
“Nice people, Virgos,” he mused as he sauntered back to the front of the class. “Organized, too.”
I looked at my sketchbook suspiciously, as if it had given away my secrets. Then Mr. Spectacles started drawing on the board. With only a few strokes, he outlined a method of showing perspective in an illustration. A farmyard fence seemed to slowly disappear into a background of rolling fields.
Bending my head, I hastily copied the example into my book. He might have been strange, but at least he knew how to draw.
Amanda found me at my locker after school. “So. Shopping,” she said, snapping her gum. I hoped it wasn’t the same piece she’d been chewing that morning.
“What?”
“Shopping. You said that was your thing.”
“I guess. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.”
“Want to go to the mall?” she asked.
I didn’t really want to go. I wanted to race home and call Mel and whine about how hellish my new school was (except for art). But I didn’t want to say no to Amanda, the only person who had actually talked to me all day.
“Sure. The mall sounds great.”
It was only a couple of blocks away. It was filled with winter clothes, even though it was only the first week of September. We wandered through one of the department stores.
“Hey, check it out,” Amanda called, holding up a purple paisley skirt, tightly pleated. “It was made for you. Seriously.” It looked like something my great-aunt might wear.
I smirked at Amanda. “I was thinking of trying this on instead,” I said, grabbing a hideous sequined blouse from the rack.
Just then a saleswoman appeared — the condescending kind who thinks she owns the store. “Perhaps you girls are looking for the junior miss section on the second floor?” she said, pressing her lips into a prim red bow.
We both dumped our clothes on the nearest racks. I was ready to slink away, but Amanda looked up at the woman and batted mascara-clotted lashes.
“I was going to buy that for my mom’s birthday. But then I saw the hanger up your ass and I changed my mind,” she said. Grabbing my elbow, she waltzed us toward the door.
I turned to call over my shoulder. “You have lipstick on your teeth!”
Once in the mall, we collapsed onto a bench in a fit of giggles.
“Did she really have lipstick on her teeth?” Amanda gasped when she could breathe well enough to talk.
“No. But I wanted to say something mean and I couldn’t think of anything.”
That sent Amanda into another giggle fit. “You’re right,” she said.
“About what?”
“Shopping’s perfect. And I have another idea. See the dollar store over there?”
I nodded.
“Do you think you can cause a distraction when we go in there?”
“What kind of distraction?” I felt my cheeks going red just thinking about it.
“I don’t know. Complain about something you bought last week.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
Amanda just grinned. Not waiting to see if I was going to agree, she strolled casually into the store and started browsing.
I followed reluctantly. What could I complain about? Especially at a dollar store. The clerk was going to tell me to shut up and spend another dollar on something new.
When I got there, the clerk was busy anyway. There were two plump women in front of him, making him add up their bill a second time.
“Those wrapping paper rolls were on special,” one of them was saying.
I heard a hiss from between the shelves. “Hurry up,” Amanda whispered.
Looking around frantically, I spotted a stack of cheese graters near the edge of a shelf. I nudged them and they crashed to the floor. The women and the clerk stopped talking and stared at me.
“I’m so sorry,” I stuttered. “They just slipped. I’ll put them back…” The three of them kept looking, not saying anything, until I’d replaced the graters. I couldn’t see Amanda so I ducked out the door.
I spotted her a few stores down, loitering in front of a shoe display. “Come on,” she motioned.
She led the way outside. When we got to the middle of the parking lot, she reached in her coat pocket and pulled out four chocolate bars. “Here’s your half of the hot goods,” she grinned, handing me two.
“You stole these?”
“We stole these,” she said happily.
I looked behind us, as if there might be a team of security guards on our trail.
“They’re only chocolate bars. Relax,” Amanda said.
I nodded and slipped them into my pocket. Who was going to miss a few chocolate bars? It wasn’t like the store was going to go bankrupt.
Chapter Five
When I got home I could hear my mom banging drawers open and closed upstairs. My dad called me into the living room, where my little brother was already waiting. Ted was in grade nine and pretty cool in an obsessed-with-multimedia kind of way. He was holding his video game controller, but the TV was turned off. He looked wary, as if Dad were about to send him to boarding school in Siberia.
“What’s up?” I asked, climbing over the arm of the sofa to sit cross-legged beside Ted. As a general rule, I avoided sitting on the sofa. It was sort of a silent protest. We used to have a big chocolate-colored couch like a velvet mud pit, waiting to suck you in. Old and ugly, but unbelievably comfortable. Then Mom started reading home décor magazines and bought this “camelback sofa.” It was called that because there was a hump along the back. It was also about as comfortable as sitting on a camel.
So I usually avoided the sofa. This time the disadvantages were outweighed by the advantages of sitting by Ted — he hated it when I sat too close to him. Surprisingly, he didn’t complain.
Dad took a deep breath. “Your mom and I have been having some problems lately,” he said.
“And the Oscar for understatement of the century goes to…” I said dramatically. No one laughed. Ted studied his video game controller.
“We’re going to try living separately for a while,” Dad continued.
This time I stared at him in silence.
“Maybe you were expecting this,” Dad mused.
Suddenly my brain clicked back into action. “Wait! Who’s we? Who’s living separately?” I asked. Ted remained silent.
“Your mom has rented an apartment downtown. She has an extra bedroom, so you can stay with her whenever you want. But I hope you’ll want to continue to live here, with me.”
Clang! Ted threw his controller onto the glass coffee table, which vibrated with the impact. He kicked the cord out of his way and scuffed out of the room, hauling up his pants as he went. Dad waited until he was gone, then turned to me with a sigh.
“This has nothing to do with you,” he said.
“Obviously, since you’ve decided everything without even telling us.”
“We thought if we had a plan in place, the transition would go more smoothly for you kids.” He sounded completely calm, as if we were transitioning from one brand of breakfast sausage to another.
“You both suck.” Not the most impressive thing to say. It was the best I could do on short notice.
“Mel phoned yesterday and today,” he said, still calm. “You should call her.”
“Whatever.” I followed Ted.
I could hear my mom still banging around. When
I poked my head through the doorway, it was like being sucked into a disaster zone. The closet had obviously been hit the hardest — hangers dangled empty, sweaters hung half off their shelves and socks littered the floor. The bed was covered in suitcases.
I took a step inside and Mom finally noticed me. I don’t know what I was expecting. Waiting for Mom to apologize is like waiting for the polar ice caps to melt — scientifically possible but unlikely in the near future. A couple of months ago she turned an entire load of my white laundry bright pink, and all she did was shrug and say, “Mmm…bad luck. You’re old enough to do your own laundry, anyway.”
This time, when she turned her head toward me, her hands kept working.
“Your dad talk to you?”
I nodded. I guess I must have looked mad, because her jaw set the way it does when she’s refusing to extend my curfew.
“It’s hardly the end of the world. You’re just going to have to adjust.”
“Whatever,” I shrugged.
“Get me some newspapers from the recycling bin downstairs, will you? I need more packing material.”
When I turned to go, my eyes slid past the dresser, a jumble of keys, lipsticks, mints and a fifty-dollar bill. Without looking back at Mom, I whisked the bill off the surface and stuffed it in my pocket. I don’t know why. It wasn’t like I usually stole money from my parents. This time, it seemed like she owed me something.
Ignoring Mom’s newspaper request, I made for Ted’s bedroom. There was no answer when I knocked, so I slowly pushed the door open. He was sitting on the end of the bed, bouncing a basketball off the opposite wall. His headphones were on, the music playing so loudly that I could hear a garbled version of it from the doorway. I walked over and flicked one of his ears. He jumped.
“What do you want?” he grumbled, turning down the music only slightly.
“To see if you’re okay.”
“Perfect,” he said.
“I thought you might want to talk.”
“Did you know that at the Sydney Olympics, Vince Carter slam-dunked the ball over the head of a guy who was more than seven feet tall?”
“That’s thrilling.” My twisted brain couldn’t remember how to spell, but Ted could remember years of basketball facts. Genetics were totally unfair. “You’re changing the subject,” I told him.
“We weren’t talking about a subject.” Welcome to the world of little brothers. They’re entirely annoying. I suddenly remembered the chocolate bars I had in my pocket. I pulled one out and threw it on the bed beside him.
“Where did this come from?” he asked.
“I stole it,” I said, trying not to sound too pleased with myself.
“You did not.”
“I did.”
“I don’t want it then.” He tossed it back toward me and I let it fall on the floor as I left. Ted was still throwing the basketball at the wall. I saw a flash of the future — one Hallard kid becomes a famous TV sportscaster. The other ends up illiterate, unemployed and enormous from eating stolen chocolate bars.
Chapter Six
We progressed to the “sh” sound in Ms. Samuels’ class.
Her blank box of a classroom was starting to show traces of our existence. There were the badges pinned in one corner, around the Golden Gate Bridge poster. A couple of days before, she had hung clouds from the ceiling in celebration of “cl.” She’d even posted this crazy picture of a stripper that Amanda drew to represent “str.”
We were also learning rules of spelling that applied to all sorts of words. It was actually kind of cool, when I could remember the rules. For example, when a one-syllable word had a short vowel sound, the end consonant was always doubled. There was a trick to help remember that one — “Buzz off, Miss Pill.”
When I got to class, Rob and Dodie were the only ones there. Dodie was sitting with her collage — our latest homework assignment in the “sh” category — displayed in front of her. I could see she had done it wrong. She had potato chips in it. As if they were spelled “potato ships.” Of course, it was probably hard to think while wearing such hideous clothes.
“Nice cardigan.”
“Thanks,” she whispered, without looking up from the table.
“Do you buy your own clothes?”
She shook her head.
I started to suggest that she ask for an allowance, but Amanda swooped in.
“Caz Hazard and Dodie Doorknob, you both look smashing this morning,” she chirped, exaggerating the “sh” sound in “smashing.”
“My last name’s Hallard,” I told her.
“I like Hazard,” she said. “As in hazard to your health.” At that moment she spotted Dodie’s collage on the table.
“Did you actually do that piece of crap assignment? I’ve never heard of something so stupid. I swear that woman thinks we’re in kindergarten.”
“No, that woman doesn’t,” Ms. Samuels said from behind Amanda as she entered the classroom and closed the door behind her.
Amanda didn’t even flinch. She just smirked.
A second later, Ms. Samuels was the one to flinch as the door banged open. Jaz slammed it shut again behind him and dropped into a chair. He pulled a rolled-up piece of paper from the inside pocket of his jean jacket and flicked it onto the table. As far as I could tell, the only thing glued to it was a giant picture of a turkey. I couldn’t help grinning.
I had kind of liked doing the collage. My mom decided to pick up some more things for her new apartment the night before, so cutting up magazines was a good escape from the sounds of moving furniture. I found a woman’s shoulder. (The poor Cosmo model never even saw my scissors coming.) I added pictures of a cruise ship and seashells and snipped a tiny piece of our living room shag rug.
Ms. Samuels picked up Dodie’s collage from the table. “This is very good, Dodie,” she smiled. “I like your use of color.” I rolled my eyes. It was obvious Ms. Samuels couldn’t think of anything else nice to say.
“Caz? Did you finish your collage?”
As Ms. Samuels spoke, Amanda turned to look at me. Her raised eyebrows said, “Don’t desert me now.”
I shook my head. “Didn’t get it done,” I said.
Ms. Samuels looked disappointed for a moment. “Maybe by tomorrow,” she said. Then she turned to the blackboard and began the class.
When we left the room at noon, I made sure Amanda and Jaz both left before me. Then I dropped my collage facedown on the table. It wasn’t really like handing it in.
I finished my lunch early and headed for my locker, thinking that I could grab my sketchbook and put some finishing touches on my work before class.
It was pouring outside. The hallways were so crowded that I had to elbow my way through. When I finally got close to my locker, I found drug-dealer Brad and a group of his friends in my way. I tried to skirt around them, but no luck.
“Sped alert,” I heard one of them say.
“Hey, it’s Caz, right?”
I looked up, surprised to see Brad speaking to me.
“Want to go out with me some time?”
It wasn’t like I was going to say yes. Not even if the universe was about to end and Brad and I were the only hope for the survival of the species. But when a guy like Brad suddenly asks you out, your jaw automatically drops. Then the entire circle of guys erupted in laughter.
“Go out with a sped! Nice one, Brad!” They were slapping him on the shoulder as if he were a stand-up comedian. Feeling my face turn more and more red, I backed away through the crowd and headed for the girls’ washroom.
Amanda found me just as I got there. I swiped the tears from the edges of my eyes, not wanting to explain what happened. She didn’t notice. Instead, she pulled me into the bathroom with her as the bell rang.
“Hey, Hazard, come and hang out with me,” she whispered. “I can’t stand the thought of going to math today. If that guy makes me do ratios one more time, I’m going to dip myself in oil and light a match. Really. I’m going to
wrap myself in foil and throw myself into a deep freeze. I’ll take…”
“Okay, okay. I get it,” I stopped her, laughing. “I’m not exactly in the learning mood either.”
I sat at one end of the bathroom counter while Amanda perched on the other. She tugged off one sock and balanced her foot on the edge of a sink, pulling nail polish from her purse.
“What do they do when you skip out?” I asked her.
“Who?”
“The school. Do they send notes home or something?”
Amanda shrugged. “If they do, they probably send them to the wrong address. I changed foster homes twice this summer.”
“You’re in foster care?”
“Don’t look so shocked. I’m not the only one. Even Dodie Doorknob’s a foster.”
My eyes widened. “Why?”
“Her mom’s psychotic or something. Aren’t they all?”
Thinking of my mom’s behavior lately, I was inclined to agree.
Amanda launched into stories about her new foster sister, who kept sneaking out of the house at night. After a while I tuned out. I started writing on the mirror with my finger, watching the lines appear and disappear.
“Skipping out,” I wrote. Then, “Caz HAZARD.” When I turned back to Amanda, she was dabbing lipstick on her lips, then smearing it around with lip-gloss.
“Want some?” She tossed me the lip- stick tube.
I opened it and turned to the mirror again. “Dodie Doorknob,” I wrote in big pink letters. It seemed childish. After a minute I added, “does Dogwood.” It wasn’t any less immature, I admit, but I thought Ms. Samuels would be proud of my consonant use.
“Executed with true creative flair,” Amanda grinned, hopping off the counter to give me an elaborate bow. “Now let’s blow this Popsicle stand.”
We padded out through the deserted hallways, past the stoners smoking along the school fence and toward the mall again. It was windy and the air blew through my sweater, chilled my skin and sent my hair flying over my face. I suddenly felt carefree, as if the worst had already happened. I was already skipping out. I’d already written mean things on the mirror. What else could I possibly get in trouble for?