by Carrie Mac
“This is impossible, Mom. Look!” Junie sloshed her boot through the wet slime.
“It’s okay.” Her mother pushed past her. “Let’s start in the bathroom.”
Her mom went ahead and turned on the light, illuminating the mess all the better. They hadn’t used this bathroom as a bathroom for over a decade, so her mother had stacked boxes of stuff in the bathtub, which was now brimming with raw sewage, dark brown soup with bits of toilet paper and food floating in it. Junie had to turn away as she retched behind her mask.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Mom.”
Her mother stood in the doorway, staring. The sink was also brimming with shit soup, as was the toilet. Flies were everywhere.
Junie set her supplies on a stack of boxes by the door and pulled up the hood on her coveralls, cinching it tight under her chin. Her mother did the same.
“I’m glad he suggested the safety goggles,” her mother said as she waded into the bathroom, plunger in hand.
Five minutes later, using the plunger hadn’t accomplished anything except sending more shit soup spilling over the edge of the toilet bowl.
“I’m telling you, Mom, we need a plumber,” Junie wheezed from behind her mask. “With one of those snake things.”
“I think there’s one in the garage. I’ll go look.” Her mom left.
Junie stood there, having absolutely no idea where to start. She was still standing there when her mother came back ten minutes later.
“Found it!” Her mother sounded almost cheerful.
Junie had hoped that she wouldn’t be able to find it, but she hadn’t hoped too hard. She was always astounded at how easily her mother could find exactly what she was looking for, despite the chaotic mess.
Junie stood back while her mother stabbed the metal coil down the toilet. She jabbed it in hand over hand until she hit a block.
“That’d be it,” she said as if she had a clue about what she was doing. She cranked it around and around, forcing it in farther as she did.
Junie crossed her fingers, praying that it wouldn’t work. Praying that her mother would give up and call a plumber. But to her great horror, the toilet made a terrific glug glug sound, and the shit soup started draining. Not only from the toilet, but from the sink and bathtub as well.
“Well, how about that?” Her mother collected the snake in big, filthy, dripping coils. “Aren’t you proud of me?”
Junie offered her a terse nod in reply. Truly, though, she was appalled. Her mother was on her knees in a shallow sea of crap, her coveralls already split over her fat ass, the front splattered with feces. She was not proud of her. Not one bit. She was ashamed. Deeply, irreparably ashamed.
With the shit soup gone, they still had to get rid of the boxes from the bathtub and then mop up everything off of the floor, and wipe out the dregs from the toilet bowl, sink and bathtub. Junie and her mom put the ruined boxes straight into the garbage bags. Junie was thankful that her mother didn’t insist on trying to salvage any of it. By the looks of it, it was all the decorations from the Hawaiian luau party Junie had had for her seventh birthday. Paper palm trees and hula skirts, piles of plastic leis and tiki torches. Junie hiked the fetid trash up the stairs and out the back door to the alley, hoping the neighbours weren’t watching.
It took about an hour before it started to look normal again. It took another two hours before they’d cleaned a path to the stairs, and that was without removing any of the contaminated junk. By then, Junie and her mother were exhausted.
“I need a shower,” Junie said. “And then we need to eat something before we keep going.”
She and her mom stripped off the coveralls and boots and gloves and each had a shower in the upstairs bathroom. Junie made them grilled cheese sandwiches, which they ate on the back step, drinking in the sunshine.
Fortified by the fresh air and food, they pulled on clean coveralls, rinsed off the boots with the garden hose and headed back downstairs. By six o’clock, they’d made some serious progress. But not enough. Junie had another shower, during which she tried to think of how she could convince her mother that everything that had come in contact with the shit soup had to go.
While her mom had her second shower, Junie put on clean clothes and went downstairs. The door to the basement was closed, but it still reeked. It was worse now, actually. Whether because Junie knew what was down there, or because all of their cleaning had stirred it up. Her mother joined her, her hair wrapped in a towel turban, her housecoat knotted over her girth.
“Good job today, Junie.” Her mother pulled her into a hug, but Junie resisted.
“Everything that’s come anywhere close to that mess has to go, Mom.”
“We can sort through it.” Her mother undid the towel and tousled her hair. “Bit by bit.”
“It’s got to go in the garbage! We need to rent a bin. Get rid of everything that got the raw sewage on it.”
“Relax, Junie.” Her mother patted her arm. “We’ve done enough for today.”
And that’s when it hit Junie. She hadn’t called Wade to say she couldn’t hang out. She’d stood him up.
“We’ll talk about this later. I’ve got to go to Tabitha’s.” She shoved her feet into her sneakers and slammed out the door.
FOURTEEN
Tabitha opened the door with a frown. “Where have you been?”
“I had to help my mom with something.” Junie wasn’t about to tell Tabitha about the shit soup. It was too humiliating. She couldn’t quite imagine keeping a secret from Tabitha, but she would try. For the first time ever, she would try. After all, what was one more lie?
“Help her with what?” Tabitha pulled her into the house. “I came by, there was no answer. I called, there was no answer. Where were you all day?”
“I was—” This secret was going to last all of about two minutes. Junie couldn’t think of what to tell her. “I was with my dad.”
“You weren’t,” Tabitha said with a snort. “I called him. Why are you lying to me?”
“I’m not. My mom and I—” What? Went shopping? Not likely. “My mom and I . . .”
“Look, while you try to come up with some excuse for dropping off the planet, a certain someone is desperate for you to call him back.” Tabitha dragged her toward the phone. “He left six messages, and a note on the door.”
“He came here?”
Tabitha thrust the phone at her. “Call him. And you’d better have a good story. He thinks you’re lying mortally wounded in the hospital.”
Without having a clue as to what she was about to say, Junie dialled Wade’s number.
“Junie!” Wade said when he picked up. “What’s going on? I was worried.”
“I was with my dad.” Junie turned away from Tabitha. She didn’t want to see her disproval. “I am so sorry. He dropped by this morning to take me out to breakfast and then we went shopping and I just totally blanked. I’m an idiot. I am so sorry.”
“Oh.” There was a pause on Wade’s end. “Okay.” “I’m a space cadet, honestly. Tabitha will tell you.” She glanced at Tabitha, eyebrows raised. Sorry, she mouthed. “How can I make it up to you?”
“I thought something bad had happened,” Wade said flatly. “I was really worried, Junie.”
“Wade, I am so sorry. It will never happen again.” “
It’s okay, I guess.”
“No, no it’s not.” Junie’s heart raced. He sounded so disappointed in her.
“I managed to get Royce and Jeremy to agree to my documentary,” Wade said. Junie pounced on the new subject with enormous relief.
“Yeah? When do we get started?”
“I was going to pick you up so we could go out there today, but . . .” Wade sighed. “I’m just glad that you’re okay.”
“I’m an ass who is okay.”
“This is true.”
“So sorry.”
“Apology accepted.” Wade laughed. “Do you think now might be a good time to get a cellphone?”
“I’ve told you, my parents agree on one or two things and me not having a cellphone is one of them.”
Tabitha poked her shoulder and said, loudly enough for Wade to hear, “Hi, Wade.”
“Hi, Tabitha,” Wade said.
“She came over to check on me,” Junie said. “I hadn’t told her where I was going either, if it’s any consolation.”
“I called her house too, but there was no answer.”
“Church day,” Junie said.
Tabitha grabbed the phone. “It does not appear to have been an alien abduction. At least, I haven’t noticed any indicators.”
Junie could hear Wade laughing. Everything was going to be okay. With him, anyway. For the time being.
They said goodbye to Wade, and then Tabitha turned on Junie. “Tell me.”
“I really don’t want to.”
“It’s about your mom.”
Junie nodded.
“Are you going to make me play Twenty Questions about this or are you going to give up and tell me what made you disappear all day?”
Junie pursed her lips and tried to think of an excuse. She just couldn’t. “All right. Apparently, I cannot lie to you. Even when I really, really want to.”
“Spill it, sister.”
Junie laughed. “You have no idea how fitting that is!” So Junie told her, sparing no detail.
By the end of the story, they were both in tears, laughing. Now, being removed from the situation, Junie could see how it was kind of funny. Not funny ha-ha, but sick funny. Too-crazy-to-be-true kind of funny.
“And you can never, ever tell Wade,” Junie said. “Promise?”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” Tabitha said solemnly. “Truly. It’s that gross.”
All the next day at school, Junie worried that she still smelled like shit, even though she knew better. Even still, she asked Tabitha, who insisted that all she could smell on her was her apple shampoo, but Junie still thought she could catch a whiff of her day down in the basement, slogging through the crap stew. Wade scooped her up in a hug when she got to World Studies. He kissed her on the lips, too. And without a grimace, so she was sure that Tabitha was right, but she still couldn’t shake the feeling that she was wafting a wake of poo perfume behind her wherever she went.
She’d surveyed the basement before leaving for school that morning and was still convinced that they needed a professional crew in there to decontaminate. Her mother wouldn’t hear anything about it, though, no matter how Junie pleaded with her. Sure, she and Tabitha had been laughing about it the night before, but if Tab saw the basement, she’d call Social Services for sure. It was definitely not a safe home for a minor – or for anyone for that matter.
In Math, Mr. Benson sprung a pop quiz on them and announced that it would count for 10 percent of their overall grade. Everyone groaned—even Ollie—but Junie panicked.
“You’ll do fine,” Ollie whispered as Benson handed around the quiz.
“No talking!” he barked, dropping a quiz on Ollie’s desk. But Ollie, bless his little rebel heart, ignored him.
“Just stay calm and don’t over-think it. Go with your first answer.”
“Ollie, I’m warning you.” Benson retrieved Ollie’s quiz. “Your straight-A status does not mean you can break the rules. Go sit at the back, where I’ll be sure you’re not aiding and abetting in Miss Rawley’s demise here.”
Ollie winked at her as he made his way to the back. He mimed taking a slow, deep breath and letting it go.
Junie turned to her quiz. There had been hints that this might have been coming. On Friday, Benson had given them a chapter of homework, emphasizing that it would be wise to have the material under their belts by Monday. But Junie had been so busy being angry with That Woman on Saturday, and then dealing with the shit soup all day Sunday, that she’d only glanced at the chapter before she’d collapsed, exhausted, into bed on Sunday night.
A right triangular prism has edges in the ratio 3:4:5:10. If the volume is 202.5 units find the actual length of the longest side.
The first question would be her last question. She set her head on the desk and squeezed her eyes shut. She would not cry. She would have to redo grade ten Math. This was no surprise. It was just a fact. Ollie had done his best, but this was beyond help. This was simply beyond Junie, period.
She didn’t even bother trying. There was no use. She was going to get a zero anyway, so why make herself crazy trying to figure out questions she would never get right?
Mr. Benson gave them half an hour for the quiz, during which Junie doodled on the piece of scrap paper they were allowed to have during tests. When he called for pencils down, Junie was almost calm. Not quite, but almost. Mr. Benson collected the quizzes and then gave them a textbook assignment to do while he marked them. Junie would rather have put off the inevitable until the next class, but Benson thought otherwise. Just five minutes before the bell, he handed them back.
Junie did not get a zero. She got minus five.
“For not even trying,” Mr. Benson said with a shake of his head. “Minus five, class. I can’t say that I’ve ever given a negative mark before.” He frowned at Junie. “Ever. And that’s in fifteen years of teaching. Congratulations on being the first.”
When the bell rang, Ollie put an arm across her shoulders and led her to the cafeteria, where her friends— and Wade—were suitably sympathetic.
After school Wade asked if Junie wanted to go get a coffee.
“Something with lots of whipped cream,” he said. “To make your Math mark feel better.”
“Thanks, but no.” Junie shook her head. “If my mom finds out that I went out after school after getting a minus five mark, she’d kill me. I should go home and study today. Or pretend to, anyway. No studying in the world is going to help me at this point.”
“Rain check, then. We can stop for coffee on our way out of town tomorrow.” They were going to go out to Chilliwack to start filming. Both she and Wade had a spare period after lunch, so they were going to skip Art and Gym respectively to get the whole afternoon free.
“Sounds brilliant.”
“I’ll drive you and Tabitha home.”
Junie sat in front as usual, while Tabitha sat in the back, making plans to salvage Junie’s Math grade.
“We could do a math-athon,” she said. “Like a marathon, but with math. Spend next weekend totally immersed. Ollie can be in charge. All math, all the time. Try to soak it into you. Math by osmosis.”
“Wow,” Junie said. “Does that ever sound like fun.”
“Might work,” Tabitha said as Wade turned onto Lambert. “It’s worth a shot.”
“Whoa,” Wade said, pointing down the street. “What the hell is going on? Someone get murdered or something?”
He was pointing at Junie’s house. Her real house. The driveway was full of those TV vans with the big satellite dishes on top. Two cop cars sat at the bottom of the driveway, lights flashing.
“Oh my God.” Junie’s breath got stuck in her throat. “My mom!”
“What?” Wade turned to her.
“Stop the van!” In that moment, Junie didn’t care about her lie or that it was about to get blown out of the water, she had to get to her mother. “Let me out!”
“But—”
“Stop the van!” Junie banged on the window, desperate.
A collection of official-looking people stood on her front lawn, heads together, talking quietly. “Let me out now!”
Bewildered, Wade stopped the van in front of Junie’s real house. Junie flung open her door and raced across the lawn. The front door was wide open, and there was her mother, standing in the cluttered hall, talking to Kendra. Kendra, of The Kendra Show. In her house. In real life. In front of her. In person. Not on TV, in person. Right there. It was so strange, so out of context, that Junie had trouble processing the tableau in front of her.
“Mom?” Junie stood frozen, uncomprehending. “What’s going on?”
�
��Hi, I’m Kendra.” As if an introduction was necessary. Kendra was smaller in person, shorter than Junie would have imagined. Heavily made up, and in heels, her coiffure shaped and sprayed so that not one hair was out of place, she looked like a life-sized living doll. A very, very famous doll. Junie spun around, spotting a boom and mic, and a guy with an enormous camera on his shoulder. “You must be Juniper,” Kendra purred, arm elegantly outstretched, waiting for Junie to grasp it in return.
“Mom?” Junie backed toward the door. This was the very definition of surreal. Why was Kendra, world-famous host and creator of The Kendra Show empire, in her horrible house?
“This must be a big shock, honey.” Kendra smiled widely, her teeth blazingly white. She gestured at the camera guy. “Turn on her, Jake. Let’s get a shot of her reaction. This is good.”
The camera guy aimed the camera at her, just as Wade and Tabitha came up the walk behind her.
“What’s going on?” Wade asked. “Junie? What is all this?”
“I don’t know. Mom? What’s going on?”
“Junie, it’s The Kendra Show! And Kendra herself! They’ve come to help us.”
Kendra smiled at Tabitha and Wade. “And who have we got here?” Neither Wade nor Tabitha offered introductions, and Junie couldn’t bring herself to. Junie’s mother—summoning a sense of propriety from somewhere deep within, for the sole benefit of the celebrity standing in front of her—did the honours.
“This is Tabitha, Junie’s best friend—” Junie’s mother pointed to Tabitha, and then Wade. “And this . . . this . . .” Junie’s mother suddenly put it all together, despite the chaos. “And this must be Wade! Of course!”
Junie’s mother thrust her hand out, and Wade shook it obligingly, his eyes on Junie, questioning.
“I’m Junie’s mom. Marla. I’ve heard a lot about you.” She dropped Wade’s hand and grabbed Junie’s. “This is crazy. Crazy, crazy, crazy. Junie, can you believe it? Kendra is here. She’s here at our house! In person! For real!”