by Helen Ellis
I see.
Her skin is crisscrossed with slim, raised, overlapping welts: cat scratches. Hundreds of them. From when she couldn’t fight and curled up like a ball. That’s why she won’t change clothes in front of me. Eight years of sharing the same room, and I never knew.
I whisper, “No wonder you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you. I love you. You’re my sister. But I can’t live with a cat again.”
***
At six-thirty, the sun isn’t up, but we get dressed. My school skirt is hot and stiff and smells like the Purser-Lilley indoor water ballet aquatics center from spending the night draped on the radiator. I steal a pair of Mags’s navy knee socks because she’ll never miss them. I stuff Nick’s and Yoon’s clothes in my backpack.
Octavia leaves a note excusing our early departure, claiming she wants to get a jump-start on prep for the upcoming debate against Dalton. She writes that she wants to be the first one into The Cellar Used Bookstore (her never-fail research trove) when it opens at eight. She needs me to help her carry home bagfuls of out-of-print books.
The elevator is unmanned from midnight until eight. Exiting into the austere main lobby, our shoes echo along the marble floor, but we don’t wake the sole overnight doorman who’s curled up asleep on a tiny cushioned bench with an unlit cigarette between two fingers.
It takes both Octavia and me to force the front door open. We squeeze through to the sidewalk. The day is gray, and streetlights illuminate a few cars and an M1 express bus soaring down Fifth Avenue. Walking south, I pull my mittens from my coat pockets. My sister pulls her scarf up to cover her cheeks. Her voice is muffled.
She says, “We really are going to The Cellar, but it’s to find out how to fix you.”
“Fix me?” I grab her around the shoulders. I can’t hide my joy. “You mean you’re not going to tell?”
Octavia flinches. Oops. Just because you admit why something scares you doesn’t mean you stop being scared. I let her go.
“Sorry,” I tell her.
“I’m sorry too. I don’t want to feel the way that I feel. You don’t want to be the way that you are. So, we’ll fix you and get back to our normal lives.”
I want a normal life. That’s what Nick told me. He wants this phase to be over so he can start living for real. Yoon loves our life as it is. I’ve lived our life for one night, and I am not so sure that I want to be fixed. I kissed a boy. The boy. I had some nerve. But I can’t lose my sister. But if I lose the cat inside me, will I go back to a safe, sedentary life filled with could be’s?
I say, “I don’t think I can be fixed. Nick says I’ll turn for five years, then stop on my own. Nick says I can suppress it with pot.”
“Nick says, Nick says. How are you going to smoke pot? With what money? And where are you planning to light up? Not our room, Mary Jane. I’m not getting sent back to foster care because of drugs.”
“We’re not on parole. Mom and Dad aren’t going to return us for smoking pot.”
“No, they’re going to send you back for being a mutant and me for being emotionally unstable. Remember when they got us, they said they’d take any healthy kid. Race and age didn’t matter, but they knew their limitations. No autism, no handicaps. Where do you think your I’m-a-Teenage-Werewolf syndrome falls on that scale? If they catch you smoking, they’ll want to know why. And you’ll tell them. You can’t keep a secret to save your life.”
“What good has keeping secrets done you?” I shoot back—and instantly regret it.
Octavia frowns. Forty-five cats and lifelong scars. I feel terrible. That was a terrible thing to say.
“Why don’t you let me try to find an answer for you first?” Octavia keeps the peace.
“Nick says—”
“Nick says!”
“Well, he does! Nobody else has told me what to do. He says Yoon’s been researching since last summer but hasn’t found much.”
“Then, we’ll go straight to the horse’s ass and find out what Yoon knows. Believe me, he doesn’t know everything. Nick either. There’s a reason I’m the youngest-ever debate team captain at Purser-Lilley. I know where all the answers are buried.”
chapter fourteen
The deli is full of club kids—not Lady Gaga groupies but boys getting home from playing cards in underground poker clubs. Poker clubs are regularly raided by cops and held up at gunpoint, but they reopen in new locations because boys will be boys. The players are primarily grown men, but sons of the Upper East Side with American Express black cards and bar mitzvah money to burn are always welcome. High school boys win big but lose big. Good or bad luck, they never tire. They sit at the tables, spit dip into sixteen-ounce Pepsi bottles, and play until dawn. Saturdays, they straggle home, trolling delis in search of sustenance. They are baggy-panted zombies.
Ben Strong is at the register with a Red Bull and a single-serving foil packet of Pop Tarts.
The deli owner says, “Brown sugar cinnamon, two-ninety-nine! Ask my son how he stays so skinny with this same breakfast every morning. He’s out all night, like you! Needs sugar to keep going. Sleep keeps you going. But my son wants to find himself. Hah! I find him! Look! You find him too! There he is, filling flower buckets. His mother insists we sell flowers—two deliveries a week—so he can go to college! You tell him if college isn’t good enough for him, the navy is waiting! Next two years underwater!”
Octavia and I are at the entrance of the deli. Sure enough, to our right is Yoon with a garden hose. His thumb clogs the mouth of the hose. His hands are clad in his trademark yellow dishwashing gloves. He’s in Nantucket Red khakis, rolled up to show his bare ankles in loafers. Waffle-textured long underwear sticks out of his lavender T-shirt, which must be part of a vintage collection. An iron-on wad of wasabi exclaims to an hourglass-shaped bottle: You SOY crazy!
I ask him, “Did Nick catch up with you?”
A grin flashes across Yoon’s face. “I can’t be caught.”
His father shouts, “Overconfidence is deadly! You ask that mouse by the sour cream ’n onion how much longer he’s going to be alive!”
Yoon drops the hose and darts past the ice cream freezer trunk, alongside the hot and cold salad bar, to the back of the deli. He crashes into the potato chip rack. Bags of Pirate’s Booty plummet from the most expensive top shelf and land on and around Yoon, who lies on his belly, his chin to the floor, searching for the mouse underneath the cheap row of Wise.
The club kids crack up. Wired on caffeine, they down fistfuls of Cap’n Crunch straight from the box. Their Patagonia hiking jackets are covered with corn-colored crumbs. From their pockets, they pull rubber-banded rolls of $100 bills and IOU chits. They place bets on whether Yoon will catch the mouse, how quickly he’ll do it, and whether he’ll bring the mouse out from under the potato chip rack dead or alive.
Ben holds up a roll of bills as fat as a roll of Charmin. He says, “All of it if he eats it!”
The deli owner leans across the counter and snatches Ben’s plastic bag of breakfast. He lords it over Ben’s head. The deli owner is on a riser. Ben will have to reach up and hop to get his bag back.
The deli owner says, “You want him to eat a mouse, you catch it!”
Ben’s friends roar. They wager Ben won’t get within five feet of the potato chip rack. If he does, they wager he’ll scream like a girl when he sees the little fella. If he faints, they wager on whether he’ll fall headfirst into the banana bin or break his nose against the see-through fridge that holds the beer.
From the floor, Yoon says, “A week’s salary says he catches it before me.”
The club kids aren’t impressed with what Yoon’s put on the table, but they do the math. Minimum wage times five days a week plus overtime equals a rack of red $5 chips. Money is money, but easy money is the best. The club kids believe Yoon’s made an impossible bet. He’s bet on Ben to win
. Even if Yoon throws the contest and doesn’t catch the mouse, Ben must. Nobody believes Ben will shove his hand under the dark, low-lying, dust-bunny populated potato chip rack.
Except Yoon. He pats the rubber flood mat. There’s plenty of room for two. He points under the rack. He says, “Come on, kid. Fish in a barrel.”
Octavia says, “Don’t do it, Ben. You might as well grab a sack of rabies.”
Ben, who’s been standing shell-shocked at the register with his penny change in his palm, is startled at my sister’s voice. Apart from Ling Ling Lebowitz’s verbal assaults and debate team sparing, girls don’t strike up conversations with Ben.
“Don’t let them pressure you,” she adds.
“Tell you what, kid,” calls Yoon. “You catch that mouse, and we’ll split my winnings fifty-fifty!”
This doesn’t ruffle the crowd. Even if the two of them cooked up a scam before everyone got here, it doesn’t matter. Now that everyone is here and there is a mouse on the loose, the club kids know Ben is not going after it. The only time they’ve seen Ben be brave is at the poker table, when he bets pot into two aces on the flop. Silly Yoon. Mice-catching is for killers. The Ben we go to school with holds his pee all day if someone sees a water bug in the boys’ restroom.
Octavia warns him: “Don’t.”
Ben chews the inside corner of his mouth. He’s been waiting sixteen years for a chance to prove his manhood. He’s certainly not going to prove it in gym, climbing the rope. He scans the deli impulse-buy rack for candy he could hurl at his prey with the accuracy of a tennis ball. He may want to slay a miniature dragon, but he doesn’t want blood on his hands. He wants a story to tell at the poker table. He wants bragging rights. But most of all, he wants the club kids’ money.
Me too.
Look at all those $100 bills held out in the air! All that cash would buy a huge bag of research from The Cellar or a huge bag of pot. Either way, I’d be afforded time off from the turning, which would keep my sister from turning on me.
I cry out, “I’ll catch it!”
More of the club kids’ money goes up. Expensive confetti. I hear it snatched and swapped. I see it—faded green. I smell it—sweet and warm, if warm is a smell.
Octavia grabs my elbow, but I jerk out of her grip.
Barreling through the club kids, I cry out, “Double or nothing!”
Ben says, “What about me?”
“You had your chance!”
I stop at Yoon’s feet. He rolls onto his side, rests one hand on his hip, props his head in his other hand, and grins up at me.
Octavia shoots me her most incredulous, disgusted look. Bitch, PLEASE!
Ben steps away from the register. To save face, he should join Yoon and me at the back of the store.
Not on Octavia’s watch. She can’t stop me, but she’ll stop him. She puts her hand on Ben’s jacket sleeve. The club kids make whipping noises. Yoon meows like a—well, you know—but that meow is a little too spot-on, so he clucks like a chicken.
I say, “Move, Yoon.”
The deli owner says, “Catching mice is not for girls.”
Yoon says, “She’s no normal girl, Father.”
His velvet voice gets under my skin. It tingles up and down my spine. It makes me want to please him. I want to lie down beside Yoon and do what he says. My fingers rest on the corner of the hot and cold salad bar. Steam from the sautéed spinach and boiled half-ears of corn on the cob makes my hair frizz. Vinegar from the pickled cauliflower crinkles my nose.
Yoon says, “This girl is something special like me.”
Club kids snicker. Compared to their rugby shirts and 501s, Yoon’s clothes are flamboyant. The boys clearly aren’t aware of what may or may not have gone on between Yoon and Mags behind this very potato chip rack. They certainly aren’t aware of how good his tongue felt on my tail.
Yoon offers me his hand, and I extend mine. He slips off my mitten. I feel like he’s untoggled my toggle coat and then fussed and fumbled with every button and zipper underneath. I wiggle my freed fingers. My hand itches to grab hold of the mouse. The want has nothing to do with money anymore. It’s like I’ve discovered my hand was made only to open and trap. Yoon taps my index finger, and my hand heats with desire.
I drop to my knees, stretch out on my stomach. We are shoulder to shoulder. The flood mat presses zigzag patterns into our forearms and thighs. Ear to ear, we peer under the bottom rack.
The mouse is a baby, no bigger than a thimble and the same color as the floor.
Its tiny body palpitates with each desperate sniff. I’ve heard that mice are blind, that they sense their way by skimming walls with their whiskers. This little guy sees nothing. He’s lost. He is dead center under the rack. For him, he has miles to run. The club kids’ racket must be deafening. Mama! Where is his mama?
I don’t care. That mouse smells like a nacho cheese–flavored Dorito.
“Take him, Kitty,” Yoon whispers, his hot breath against my ear. “See how fast you are now.”
His lips graze my earlobe. Then, his lips slip behind my ear, where the skin covers my skull. I feel a prick. My eyes tear, and I glance sideways at Yoon through the blur. He smiles and holds a thin, nearly invisible, stiff wire between his teeth. It is half the length of a toothpick. A whisker. It had sprouted out of the side of my head.
He whispers, “You’re turning again.”
Before my mind can process this, the mouse is caught in my hand.
I don’t know how I got it. I wanted the mouse; the mouse is in my hand. The little critter squirms. Squeaks! His fur tickles my palm. His scrambling claws barely register on my skin. He noses his way through the hole that my curled fingers make. I seal the hole with my thumb the way Yoon plugged his garden hose.
Drawing my arm out from under the rack, Yoon helps me to my feet. He dusts me off. His hands swipe my coat sleeves, skirt hem, Mags’s socks, and my naked knees. He doesn’t pat my back. He slaps it. Here, here! Get a load of yourself! Excitement’s starting! He grabs my wrist and raises it over my head. I pump my fist, my tiny trophy concealed inside.
The club kids go wild. Money funnels in my direction down the length of the salad bar. My sister turns away, repulsed. She wants to leave me.
The deli owner dumps Ben’s breakfast out of the plastic bag and onto the counter. “Clean up on aisle one!” he shouts, flapping the bag.
Don’t ask me why Ben takes the bag and walks toward me. Maybe because the deli owner is an adult, the boss, and Ben can’t defy authority without a note from Ling Ling’s doctor mom. Maybe getting the mouse from me is Ben’s last shot at bravery. Standing in front of me, holding out the open bag, he expects me to fork over the mouse like a Hershey’s Kiss on Halloween. No way. This is MY mouse. I tilt my head back, open my mouth, and toss the mouse up like a piece of popcorn.
A hand swipes the mouse from midair.
Yoon grabs me. His arms, long and sinewy, are different from Nick’s. They are ropes, tight and strong. His ribs press through the back of my coat. I struggle to break free, but Yoon is an upright railroad track, and he has me tied. He forces me to see what I’ve lost. I am so mad, I could scream.
Octavia does that for me.
The mouse’s tail twitches between Ben’s closed lips. He hiccups, and the tail is gone. Before I can stop him, he swallows. He is showered with winnings that were rightfully mine.
chapter fifteen
The Webster Branch of the New York Public Library is a leftover, nineteenth-century mini-mansion. There are gas lamps to the right and left of the front door. The building is three stories, with giant vaulted windows revealing a children’s reading room on the first floor. My sister goes to this library two or three times a week. I have not been inside a library in years.
I say, “I don’t want to go in. I can smell the cellophane book wrappers from here.”
She yanks open the front door, and I shuffle past her through the vestibule.
The circulation desk is manned by black and Hispanic teenage clerks. There are four of them scanning bar codes, unpacking transit holds, double-checking that the right number of CDs are with the proper audiobooks, and alphabetizing returns on the shelving cart. When they spot Octavia, they light up, wave, and mouth Hey, girl!
Octavia coos, “Haaaay!”
The clerks never stop working while Octavia loiters and chats with them about books, movies, TV—specifically American Idol. They all have different opinions on who’s going to make it to Hollywood Week and who’s going to crack under the pressure of group sing. The clerks don’t ask to be introduced to me, and Octavia doesn’t offer. These are her secret, outside-of-school friends, and she wants them to remain private.
Octavia asks, “Is Mrs. Wrinkles in The Cellar?”
“Always. But what do you want with her?”
Octavia motions to me.
“Oh, it’s like that,” one of the girl clerks says.
I’m not sure what she means, but apparently it is like that because Octavia doesn’t say otherwise. My sister leads me down a wide marble staircase.
The Cellar Used Bookstore is one of New York City’s best-kept secrets. Located in the Webster basement, all proceeds go to support local libraries. Along the far wall are hardbacks. To the left—jammed two rows deep, two on top of each other—are paperback mysteries. To the right are biographies, dramas, and histories. Rounding out the front: romance and sci-fi. Aisles are divided by chest-level antique bookcases filled with out-of-print classics. Nothing has a penciled price of more than two bucks. The bookstore is run exclusively by volunteers—retired, old-school, bespectacled librarians who no longer want to spend their days shushing the public. They play Broadway soundtracks and bustle about in matching work aprons that are printed with the silhouette of a cat whose tail drapes an open book like a bookmark.