Fetching

by Kiera Stewart

  I try to unfold it quietly, but I’m not quiet enough, because the girl next to me shoots me an annoyed look. The note says,

  Don’t forget to wait for me after class!!!!!

  I slowly turn around and give Brynne a smile that says I think she’s crazy—good crazy, not seriously mentally ill. Although. She smiles back and her face softens, like she’s a little relieved.

  But I’m not, I realize after I turn back around and it hits me. I think about Bella, and how when some dogs start to feel insecure, they begin to fixate on something. In Bella’s case it was wood; in Brynne’s case, well, I’m starting to think that it’s me.

  It’s not just any Monday. It’s Worm Day.

  I know that sounds gross, but I love Worm Day. It’s the one day of the month that the dogs get their heartworm medicine, which comes in meaty little chews. The dogs are crazy about these chews—I’m talking nuts. Worm Day is when the dogs pull out their best tricks—rolling over on command, turning in a circle, shaking hands, that kind of thing. I’m trying to teach Queso to high-five me (with no luck) when the phone rings. It’s Moncherie.

  “I can’t do our session this week,” she tells me. It’s good timing because I’ve just received another Spokane-postmarked letter, and I know how much she loves to interrogate me about them. I file it away, under my mattress, unopened, with the others. “Something came up, but I’ll call as soon as I can to reschedule.”

  She sounds a little excited.

  I wonder if she’s got a date or something. And I wonder if maybe she used the training I told her about to get that date. And then I wonder if she knows what she’s getting into.

  I WALK INTO the school lobby Tuesday morning and try to squeeze past a crowd. I slide sideways, sucking in my gut, tolerating elbows and shoulders digging into my ribs, and knees bumping into my shins. I stand on my tiptoes to see what’s in the center of the crowd.

  It’s a table, full of campaign buttons that just say, really big, mandy! Behind the table are the four of them—Mandy, beaming and looking almost glamorous with her black lips, like some oddly attractive work of art; Delia, with her caramel complexion practically glowing; Phoebe, looking polished and professional, with naked, perfect teeth that you can see really well because she is actually smiling; and Joey, all dressed up, with a belt and even a hint of a waistline. Hands are reaching over other hands to grab the buttons. I feel pressure at my back and I’m swooped forward. I try to turn around and swim out of the crowd, like you’re supposed to do when you get sucked into a riptide, but the crowd doesn’t yield. Someone behind me says, “I’m just trying to get to English. Are you trying to make life difficult?” I crane my neck. It’s Caleb. He’s smiling at me. I’m so flustered that I say something dazzling like “No!” I’m just that smart.

  But the moment is gone because the crowd pushes forward again and forces me closer to the table. My arms and legs are struggling against the force. And then I hear Delia’s voice.

  “Olivia?” For a second, our eyes lock, and I can’t remember why I’m mad. All I feel is panic and sorrow and the hollowness of missing someone pretty badly. Even if that someone betrayed you. The crowd squeezes forward again, spitting me out sideways, where I beach and catch my breath.

  But my head is still swimming.

  Is it possible to forgive someone who betrayed you even when it still hurts? And if it is, how?

  In the hallway I trip over my own ankle. In Algebra I pick at my cuticles and bleed so much that I start to wonder if there’s an artery in my thumb. In History I find myself glancing over at the back of Joey’s head so often that I get a crick in my neck. For the first time ever, I’m dying to know what’s going on in that round little head of his.

  I still don’t know exactly how you forgive someone, but I think I’m ready to try. Maybe I can start with Joey. I decide that I’ll kick him in the butt on our way out of class. That’s how guys make up after fights—some type of casual violence. I’ve seen it myself. Last week, Blake Edward and Nissen Gambrill got in some fight about a basketball foul. A couple of days later, Blake sneaked up on Nissen and put him in a headlock. They’ve been inseparable since. And wedgies. Those also work. But I decide a nice swift, but gentle, kick to the left cheek should do it this time.

  But I never get the chance. I try to follow him, but the minute we get out the door, I run smack into her. Brynne.

  “Hi,” she says. She’s waiting for me. “Do you need to go to your locker first or you want to go straight to lunch?”

  It’s a little weird how things have changed. Okay, a lot weird.

  I sit beside her on the bus, like I always do now. The popular kids that she used to hang out with in the front of the bus are still there—and still popular—but we’ve managed to secure our own little spot in the backseat. It’s like we’ve been banished. Being her friend is not at all like I imagined.

  I think about all the training we’d done, and I so wish I could rewind everything. I miss Delia with an almost physical pain. I want to cry—in a good way!—when I see Phoebe, for Pete’s sake! I almost stopped in the hall and hugged Mandy today, and would have French-kissed Joey if I could just have him back as my friend. I miss them all so much. As mad as I’ve been, I know them. Delia did something stupid, but it’s only because she was trying to protect me from something worse. They all were.

  Brynne starts. “Did you see what your ex-best-friend did with her hair?” She’s referring to Delia’s new updo, her hair swirled up and away from her face. Knowing Delia, it probably took hours to put it up and days trying to overcome her insecurities to do it in the first place. Just thinking about her little familiar quirks makes it hard to breathe. “I think I liked her hair better down, like when she had pizza-face.”

  “You’re being kind of mean,” I say quietly.

  “Sor-ry,” she says. “I thought you didn’t like her anymore.”

  “I just miss her,” I confess. It’s got to be the understatement of the year.

  She turns to look out the window, and I know I’ve upset her. “I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s just that—I thought she was a good friend, you know? And fun—they all were.”

  “So I guess ‘good friends’ tell everyone all your secrets now?”

  “I mean, sure, part of me wants to throttle her, but you know Delia—you know she thought she was helping. You used to be best friends with her too. You know how sweet she really is.”

  “Sweet? Gag,” Brynne says. “I’d still be mad if I were you.”

  “Yeah, but still,” I say. “I was always afraid that no one would like me if they knew the truth about what a freak I am—you know, a weird mom, therapy, that kind of thing. But you know everything about me now, and you still like me. And it turns out they’ve all known that stuff about me for a while, and it never bothered any of them.”

  “What. A. Revelation,” she says flatly, and crosses her arms over her chest. The bus squeals to a stop. Her stop. She gets up and pulls her backpack on. “I’ll call you later,” she grumbles. Then she gets off the bus behind Carolyn and Tamberlin. The bus pulls away, but I turn to watch them. Carolyn and Tamberlin walk together, talking with their hands and laughing with their whole bodies. Brynne walks about twenty feet behind them, with her face toward the ground.

  Brynne’s already called by the time I get home. Corny tells me. I sigh. I don’t really want to call her back after the way she acted on the bus. As it turns out I don’t have to, because a little while later she calls again.

  “I wasn’t sure your grandma would remember to tell you I called,” she says.

  “Oh, she did.” I don’t tell her that Corny told me Brianna called. Or that I wasn’t sure I should call her back at all.

  “Anyway, have you written a love letter to Delia yet?”

  “You think that would work?” I say, only half-kidding.

  “I can’t believe you. Someone screws you over like that and you still want to be friends?”

  “But we were best f
riends,” I say.

  “So? And now we’re best friends. You don’t need her.”

  “I just really do miss Delia. And Mandy and Phoebe and even Joey!”

  “Phoebe,” she says. “What a joke. That whole thing is just ridiculous.”

  “What whole thing?” I ask.

  “That thing with Brant. I know it was mean, but I really didn’t think it would work out.”

  “Brynne, what are you talking about?”

  She sighs. “I totally dared him to do it. To ask her to the Fall Ball. Then he was supposed to dump her the night before. I told him I’d dump Danny and go with him if he did.” She makes a sound like ugh. “Oh yeah, like that worked out.”

  I’m surprised at how much something like this can hurt, even when it’s not done to you. “Why would you do that?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it was kind of fun to see how far he’d go.” She sighs again. “What an idiot I am. I never thought he’d like, totally go for her.” She mimics Brant in a girly, high-pitched voice: “Oooh, she’s just so exotic. She’s so beautiful!”

  Exotic! Exotic? I mean, wow. “So he really does like her?”

  “Well, they went to the dance together, didn’t they? And that part? Was no joke.”

  I’m in shock at how everything—and I mean everything—seems to be turned on its head.

  Right now, the pressure inside my chest is rising. Brynne’s acting sort of crazy—and is it any wonder? I’m starting to think her crazy gene has already kicked in. Maybe mine has too, and maybe I’m too whacked to even know it. “I have to go,” I say.

  But she starts apologizing again. “Olivia, I’m sorry. I really am. But it worked out for them both, didn’t it? Don’t be mad, okay?” Her voice cracks, which gets me. I so wish I didn’t feel sorry for her. The flossing in my head is accomplishing nothing—yet again.

  “Brynne—” I start. I take a deep breath. I miss my friends, and enough is enough. “I really do think we need to—”

  “SHUT UP! I HEARD YOU!!!!” she screams. Her brother, I remember. “Crap. I gotta go. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. Like always.”

  But I’m ready for always to stop right now.

  I pick up the phone and make a call.

  “Dad?” I collapse in the front hall, near the old corded phone. The floor creaks. Oomlot’s toenails click against the wood as he comes to find me. Then he lowers himself next to me, as if collapsing in the hall is the thing to do. I snuggle up next to him and run my hand down his back. I will be absolutely covered in yellow-white dog hair when—and if—I ever get up.

  “Hey, Liv. What’s up? I’m just sitting here with Grey watching Law & Order.” Then he says in this really creepy high voice, “Me like the assistant D.A.”

  “What was that?”

  “Oh, that was Grey,” he says. “She’s gotten to be a big fan.”

  Oh, dear God, no. He sounds like he’s losing it a little, too. He laughs out loud at himself.

  “Dad, you do know that’s not normal, right?” I try to laugh with him but I end up in tears.

  “Liv? You okay?”

  Oomlot sniffs my face as I cry, like he’s trying to figure me out. I bury my hand in his soft fur. “Is that offer still open? The one where you said I could move back home?”

  He’s quiet for a second. “Well, yeah. If that’s really what you want. But honestly, it doesn’t really sound like it is.” Then he asks, with doubt in his voice, “Is it?”

  Oomlot looks like he’s finally given up trying to diagnose me (Is she sick? Is she mad? Is she hurt? Will she feed me?) and lays his head in my lap with a sigh. I console myself by rubbing his velvety ear, and he starts the loud breathing of dog purrs. I can’t imagine leaving him.

  Through the screen door, I see Corny outside. She’s watering the lawn, and the dogs are playing chicken with the stream of water. Queso approaches the water, then scurries off to hide under the massive Ferrill. Tess runs back and forth as elegant as a deer. Bella lies on the grass, rolling from side to side, daring Corny to soak her. No, I can’t imagine leaving any one of them—Corny or the dogs.

  “What’s going on, Liv?”

  So I tell him what’s gone on, minus, of course, the training part. Or the Mom part. I just tell him that Delia betrayed me, and I lost all my friends and started hanging out with Brynne. But now I want all my old friends back.

  “Okay, well, I’m not a girl. And I’m not thirteen. But I don’t get why you can’t all be friends.”

  “Stop talking like a guidance counselor,” I tell him. “Things like that just don’t happen.”

  “Nothing happens if you don’t make it happen. You think a house builds itself?”

  “Now you’re talking like a carpenter.”

  “So I should know what I’m talking about, right?” he says. “Don’t you think you could talk to Delia and them, you know, straighten this whole thing out? Sounds like you’ve already forgiven them.”

  “I don’t know if I have or not,” I tell him.

  The truth is, I’m not even sure I really know what forgiving is. It’s not forgetting. It’s not pretending it didn’t happen. Clearly, I only know what it’s not. I wish there was some sort of manual on forgiveness, like there is on dog training.

  “Look, you don’t have to tell me the exact details of this betrayal, or anything you don’t want to,” my dad says. I feel a rush of love for him. “But answer me this. Are you still mad at them?”

  “Mad?” I ask. “No, not really. I know Delia was trying to look out for me. The rest of them—well, they just kind of went along with Delia’s stupid plan.”

  “Sounds like she meant well.”

  “Yeah, she did. They all did,” I say. “And it almost doesn’t even matter anymore. I just want them back.”

  “Well, then,” he says. “Sounds like you’ve forgiven her.”

  “Really? You think?”

  I have to wonder, all this talk about forgiveness—it’s a concept right up there with holy stuff and saints and angels and all those other things that seem so out of reach. But my dad makes it sound so simple.

  “Hey, I’ve done my fair share of forgiving. I know these things. Just because you love someone doesn’t make them perfect.”

  He’s talking about my mother. The air seems to thicken around me. But thankfully, before I start to choke on it, he says, “Liv?”

  Breathe in. “Yeah?”

  Outside, the dogs bark and Corny’s laugh rings out. Someone must have gotten drenched.

  “You know…” I hear a smile in his voice. “I may have some bad news soon, okay?”

  It makes me smile too, just a little bit. Bad news means his job in Valleyhead might be drying up. Bad news means he may be moving here soon. Bad news is good news. Which I guess is normal when your world is completely upside down.

  IT’S WEDNESDAY. I decide I’m going to straighten everything out before lunch. Maybe my dad is actually right.

  But that never happens. What happens is that on the way to lunch, Brynne takes my arm and rushes me down the corridor, around the corner to the dark, dead-end hall where the janitor keeps her stuff. She goes to a door, wiggles the handle, and pushes me in. Through another little door is a couch with a staticky TV tuned to a Spanish soap opera.

  “Look. Janitor’s closet. Our lunch spot from now on,” she says, beaming.

  My heart starts fluttering. I think about Delia and Mandy and Joey and even Phoebe, and how the only thing I want right now is my old spot at the lunch table with them. But all I can say is, “Why don’t they lock the door?”

  She frowns. “It’s broken,” she says, narrowing her eyes, and I find myself wondering if she had anything to do with that.

  “Isn’t this Mrs. Vittle’s room? Where is she?”

  “Duh. Lunch duty,” Brynne says. She sighs. “Will you please just stop worrying so much? We’ll have fun. No one’s going to find us here.” Which only serves to make me a little more worried.

  Befor
e I can tell her that I haven’t brought lunch today, she opens her backpack and lays a couple of packages on the crate used as a makeshift coffee table: peanut butter crackers, a tube of Pringles, a crushed bag of Fritos, and some packets of fruit chews. “Have whatever you want, but I brought these especially for you.” She holds up a package of M&M’s.

  There’s something so incredibly sad about it all—the sense of desperation under all those snacks laid out on the table, the tiny room—that keeps me from just standing up and walking away. So I grab some M&M’s and let her turn up the volume on the TV, and we both watch like we completely understand Spanish. But all I’m really understanding is that everything feels broken and I don’t know how to piece it back together.

  Later, Corny and I go to see Kisses. I have grand plans to take her out into the backyard today; we’re that close. But when I set the stones out on the lawn, she stops at the first one—two stones back from where we left off. The more I try to coax her out, the less she seems willing. By the end of the session, she’s retreated to the patio. It’s hard not to feel lame.

  On the way home, Corny tells me we’ll try again soon. She talks about how we saved Bella from wood and that soon we’ll save Loomis from bikes, and maybe even sooner we’ll save Kisses from those terrible blades of grass.

  I guess I don’t look too convinced.

  “Look, Olivia, I know it’s frustrating. Sometimes, with dogs like Kisses, you take one step forward and two steps back.”

  Which pretty much explains everything happening in my life now. Every single little thing.

  IT’S ONLY BEEN about eight weeks since I hatched my evil plan, and so much has changed. It’s clear who the alpha dogs are. First of all, now everyone is going around with marker on their lips. Our old lunch table is full of people like Morgan Askren and Erin Monroe and whoever else is lucky enough to get there first. Brant has a regular seat, and it’s right next to Phoebe’s. The Bored Game Club has swelled in membership, and now two teachers sit in the back of the room, one of whom, rumor has it, is a game specialist, hired specifically for that purpose. The biggest trend in school is having your own personal place-marker. Kids are bringing in everything from Barbie heads to bottle caps to house keys to mark their spot in Monopoly or Sorry! or whatever they’re playing at the time. Having a place-marker means having a place in the popular crowd. The popular crowd. My old crowd.