by E. M. Kokie
There are a million things I could be doing right now that would be more useful — or more entertaining — than sitting at the table, eating some cereal, with a stupid book open randomly next to me. Every other bite, I turn the page. In between, I survey Mom and Dad when they’re not looking. They’re very lovey this morning. I wish they’d stop. And leave. Mark will probably sleep half the day. Uncle Skip went to the station. Just Mom and Dad to go. Then I can get down to business.
Mom taps the open book. I guess I haven’t turned a page in a while. “I expect you to be further along by the time we get home. Your aunt Lorraine is going to send me the links for the quizzes that go along with the summer reading list.”
“Can’t wait,” I say. Like I’m taking any quizzes or working my way through the eleventh-grade summer reading list for a school I have no intention of going to.
“I’m sure Hannah would be happy to talk about the books if you have any questions. Or she might have some ideas about which books were most helpful in her classes.”
Mom’s smile is so hopeful. She thinks she has me snowed, that I don’t know she’s been plotting to dump me with Aunt Lorraine and Uncle Nathan. Within weeks, if I’m not careful.
Aunt Lorraine always looks at me like I’m defective or will get dirt on her furniture. Mom used to defend me. Now she just wants me to be like Hannah.
Perfect Hannah can keep her perfect ideas inside her perfect drone head. All her books and grades and perfect clothes aren’t going to help her when the world goes to hell. These books can’t save us.
I will never live with Aunt Lorraine.
“Charlotte,” Dad says from the door. He’s been ready to leave for fifteen minutes.
Mom drops a kiss on the top of my head, stroking my hair down to my shoulders. “We’ll be back in a few hours.”
She’s so happy my hair is “growing out.” It’s like she thinks since I gave in on my hair, she can dress me in some new clothes, park me at summer school, and I’ll stop being me.
I eat another bowl of cereal and scroll around on my phone to kill time until I’m sure they’re really gone.
Maybe I’ll go ahead and build another pipe bomb, this time with a timer. I swiped a cell phone from the station’s “lost” box months ago. Then Mom got all freaked out about the first pipe bomb, so I just packed it away in my trunk in the barn. But maybe I don’t care anymore.
Building it wouldn’t be the hard part. The hard part would be making sure it didn’t blow up accidentally in transport to one of the abandoned subdivision lots or somewhere else I can set it off. I can’t set it off here, and not just because of Mom. Mrs. Hoepkin said she’d call the sheriff if I set off another one anywhere near the property line. Which is ridiculous, because we shoot on the land out here all the time, and people set off fireworks. A little pipe bomb’s no different. And it’s not like her yappy dog was even hurt. She got it out from under the house.
Mark almost screwed up the video of the one we set off by the pond. If I hadn’t made him show me the test video, all he would have recorded would have been me setting it up and then a frozen, squiggly image of me walking back. But with a timer, I’d be able to build a pyramid with junk lying around the lot — like maybe an old TV or minifridge or something — and take the video myself. I wouldn’t even need Mark. I’d need a truck or car or something, though.
“Mom and Dad leave already?” Mark asks, stumbling into the kitchen, scratching his stomach like a monkey.
“Yeah.”
“I wanted to borrow her car.”
“Then you should have gotten up earlier.”
Mark opens the screen door and leans in the doorway, lighting a cigarette. He takes a long drag and blows the smoke outside.
Mom will kick his butt if she catches him smoking. And Dad’s, too, if he’s providing the cash for Mark’s cigarettes.
He offers me the cigarette, but I wave him off. I like my lungs. If he’s serious about training, he better cut those out, too.
He leans back against the frame, exhaling smoke through the door.
He smokes and I scroll through the search results on my phone. Then he stubs it out and flicks it into the yard. Because of course he can’t see that anyone will know it’s his.
He grabs the phone off the wall, stretching the curly cord to the fridge and then to the cabinet. “Hey. Can you guys pick me up?” He pours some milk into a glass and drinks a gulp before saying, “They’re waiting on a part. Should be done next week, they said.” Who is he kidding? He hasn’t even worked off the cost of the parts yet. “Yeah. Yeah, I think we have some. Sure.” He hangs up with a flourish, like he’s slam-dunking the phone back onto the receiver, except he misses and it hits the floor.
He makes himself some toast and eats most of it but leaves the crusts on the plate.
“Who do you think will clean that up?” I ask when he moves the plate to the counter and leaves it there, crusts and all. He flips me off on his way upstairs.
Boyd texts and we go back and forth, scheduling a time to meet. He’s in a rush, but not so much of a rush that he’ll meet today. It’ll have to be before work some day this week.
Half an hour later, Mark’s back down the stairs. I can hear him at the gun locker. He’s getting more than just his gun. He comes back into the kitchen with his range bag and several boxes of ammo.
“Did Dad say you could take that?”
He ignores me and pulls out his wallet, checking his cash. He shouldn’t have any cash, which means Mom or Dad gave him some. Figures.
“Once I’m working, I’ll restock this,” he says. “But I can’t look like a jerk in front of the guys. They don’t need to know just how broke we are.” He’s serious. “I’ve been downplaying how bad it is.”
“Mark.” He looks at me. “Are they for real?”
“Yeah,” he says. “They’re for real. The club’s just the first step, to make it private. Down the road they’ll have barracks, everything we’d need in a crisis.”
Plans for a compound. “We don’t need a compound,” I say. “We need to be mobile.” If not one big MAG, maybe an array of smaller ones, which could network in a crisis. Not a bunch of sitting ducks hiding behind a fence.
“Yeah, but if it’s on private land, then the government can’t regulate the guns kept there,” Mark says. “So it has to have some shelters, a community. That’s why members have to have a share, like a cooperative.”
If they’re focused on a compound, they won’t be mobile. They’ll hesitate to move when the first crisis wave hits. They’ll ignore key training.
“Did you know,” Mark says, “that during the Revolution only three percent of the able-bodied men actually fought to free us from tyrannical rule?” He pauses for effect. He holds up three fingers. “Three.”
I’ve read this stuff online, usually from scammers who want you to give them money, or guys who are half off the grid.
“We’ll need other patriots to support those who can fight,” Mark says. He’s parroting someone. This isn’t how Mark talks. “We need to be organizing that support now, and talking with the other groups around the country, so we have a network of support and refuge. We’re one spark away from all the dry tinder going up.”
“Sure, but we should be focused on mobility, not this stuff.”
“Clearview is just getting started,” Mark says. “They’re looking at what others are doing and taking the best bits. But they’re not scared of ruffling feathers or thinking there’s a fed behind every bush. They’re really preparing — legal protections against disarmament and tactical training. We’ll be getting in on the ground floor, before it will take money to join. I thought you’d be all in.”
I should be. But Mom’s right that getting all this for free does seem too good to be true.
“All that and they’ll give us work, too.” He nods, enthusiastic puppy again. “So why invite us? Why immediately, after what, ten minutes, start involving Dad in their plans and offering him work?
”
“They’re looking to add members. The right kind of members.”
“And we’re the right kind of members? We’re broke, and who knows how long we’ll be living out this way.” I can always tell when Mark’s lying. I wait for him to give it up.
He blows out a breath. “Daniel’s dad is on the committee. And he’s close to Riggs,” Mark says, dipping his head. “I told him Dad hadn’t been able to find work.” Dad would be mortified if he knew. “They need someone like Dad. Dad needs work. We need to get in now, as part of the organizational group, before there will be buy-in costs.”
“That doesn’t mean Dad would want you telling people his business.”
We can both hear a truck on the drive, and then a honk.
“You’ll see,” Mark says, picking up his bag.
Maybe. I’m never going to be a full member if I can only go on weekends.
I put my bowl in the sink and take Mark’s crusts outside and toss them into the yard for the birds. This is starting to feel like home, with the quiet, the trees and land. Working at the station with Uncle Skip. Learning how to fix things. And now Clearview, maybe.
Maybe Mom and Dad can move to the city and I can just stay here.
But they’d have to want to let me stay here. Mom would have to want to, starting with this summer. Shipping me off to Aunt Lorraine’s has to be eliminated as a viable option.
I assemble my tools in the bathroom and take a few deep breaths to calm my pounding pulse. If I do this, there’s no going back. Mom and Dad will know I’m never going to change, never going to become the good girly-girl they want.
I dampen my hair, part it off-center, and comb it until it hangs straight down, barely resting on my shoulders. Then I pick up the hair bands to section it like in the YouTube video I found. But before I can do that, I stop, because with my hair like this, I really do look like Hannah. I can see exactly why Mom thought she could pull it off if she dressed me in Hannah’s castoffs and sent me to Hannah’s school. Growing out my hair was just the first step. Aunt Lorraine is ten times as stubborn as Mom. Maybe Mom thought that with them working together they could make me into a real girl who giggles and goes to dances and isn’t fighting like hell to save all of our lives. One who will grow up and marry a guy who will take care of her and go shooting with Dad. One who will have babies, and gossip and laugh with Mom. Someone I will never be.
But pretending doesn’t work. People stare. Even with my hair this long. They look at my face, and then my chest, and they wonder. A kid in a bathroom asks if I’m a boy or a girl, or some asshole grunts “dyke” when I pass. My hair’s never going to be long enough to stop that. I’m still going to look like I look. Be how I am. And I like how I look, except for the hair. So why am I letting them force me to be uncomfortable, when it’s not working anyway?
Maybe they’re the ones who need to be made uncomfortable.
They don’t see me.
I bundle my hair into four sections: a ponytail on each side and one in the back, and a messy bun on top. Then I take a deep breath, position the scissors on the left side of the band holding the right ponytail, and cut it off. What’s left of my hair springs back free. I drop the ponytail in the sink. I do the same with the one in back and the one on the left. Then I go to work cutting what’s left of my hair as short as I can with the scissors, trying not to cut my scalp where I can barely see it in back despite using the mirror over the sink, the mirror on the door, and my phone’s camera to try to see. When I’m done with the back and sides, I pause to rub my fingers over the soft, bristly hair, loving how it feels on my fingers. And how my fingers feel on my sensitive scalp.
I undo the top section and comb it again, figure out where I want the sharp line between crew cut and long hair to be, and cut off everything to the right of it. I comb the long layer several different ways before I figure out how it will hang. Then I cut it on a diagonal so that the hair makes a point near my chin and then angles up toward the back of my head, revealing the crew cut underneath. I wet the long layer, comb it again, and then trim it in sections to get as straight a line as possible.
When I’m done, I turn from side to side, admiring my work. It’s patchy in places, and clippers would have probably been better, but it still looks cool. Not at all like Hannah now. It’s amazing what you can learn to do on YouTube.
The one long layer is somehow more daring than just cutting it all off. It makes a statement. It demands attention. It can’t be ignored. And Mom always says she likes a little hair around my face.
If people are going to stare, I’ll give them something worth staring at.
If Mom and Dad want to pretend they can’t see me — see who I really am — then they can look at the side with hair.
I clean up the hair and take a long cool shower. After, I use some of Mom’s gel to get the long layer to hang straight and sleek. It takes forever to get it completely dry and like I want it.
I find the box of random earrings in my drawer and dig through them until I find the small hoops. I use one of the posts to reopen the piercings in my right ear and force the hoops through both holes. Then put the post in my left ear. I shake my head. The hoops swing free, with no hair to get in the way. Maybe I should add a few more holes up that ear.
In the full-length mirror, it’s even better. From one side, my hair is sleek near my cheek, with just the small stud earring, but on the other, the hoops in my ears swing free with no hair to get in the way. Maybe I’ll pierce my eyebrow on the right, too.
I’m contemplating how to add a third hole in my right ear when I hear a truck on the drive. Dad’s truck.
They’re back.
The screen door squeaks open and slaps shut. Their voices in the kitchen. Mom’s laughing. A twisted tangle of anxiety knots in my stomach. Best to face it now, head-on, without delay.
I step into the kitchen. Dad inhales loudly, and then seems to forget how to exhale. His mouth flaps open and closed like a fish just pulled from the water.
“We found some great watermelon at — What did you do?” Mom screeches, dropping the ears of corn she was holding on the floor. Coming at me fast.
I hold my ground. “Cut my hair.”
“What did you do?” she screeches again, turning me, grabbing my head, tugging at my hair.
“Ow.” Her hand crushes my right ear, which still hurts like hell from forcing the earrings through.
“Why?” She examines my arms, turns me like she’s looking for wounds or missing parts. “Why? Why would you do this?” She’s hysterical. “What happened to you to make you —?”
“Charlotte!” Dad shouts.
She doesn’t stop, her nails digging into my head and cheek, examining my hair from too-close range, making noises, garbled and distant, through her hands over my ears.
Dad gets a hand between us and she backs off, across the room, shaking. I knew she’d be angry, but this is something else. Her whole body is vibrating. Dad stays between us, watching her. I’m afraid to move, like if I turn my back, she’ll attack.
She rests her hands on the counter, taking deep breaths. Then she sort of laughs, but not really.
“What am I going to do with this?” Mom turns her head to look at Dad. “Are you going to say anything?”
“What do you want me to say?” he asks. “It’s not like I can glue it all back on.”
“You let her get away with whatever she —”
“Enough,” Dad says. “Just . . . enough.” But he’s not on my side. “Go to your room.”
I walk through the living room, but I don’t go upstairs. I’m out the front door and halfway to the tree line before I hear him yelling my name.
I stay away for hours, until I’m hungry and thirsty. I don’t have anything to purify the water from the pond, and chewing on foraged greens isn’t cutting it.
When I get back, they’re all sitting at the table. They don’t say anything when I sit down and join them. Uncle Skip stares, wide-eyed, at my head
, but once the initial shock wears off, he sort of smiles. He quickly wipes the smile away before Dad can notice, but it’s enough.
I fill my plate in silence.
“You look like a freak,” Mark finally says. No one acknowledges that he’s even spoken. “Can’t you see how stupid she looks?” he asks Mom and Dad, looking from one to the other. Uncle Skip just eats. I wait, surprisingly curious about their response. “You’re not going to let her go to Clearview like this, right?” Mark asks. When Dad doesn’t answer, Mark starts to sputter. “Da-ad, everyone’s going to —”
“We can see how she looks, thank you,” Mom says, a little too calmly. Her being calm is not a good sign.
Mark retreats to his room as soon as he’s done chewing.
Uncle Skip excuses himself with “Delicious, Charlotte,” and goes out to his workshop.
I’m on cleanup duty. I’d have had to clean up even without the haircut, but now it’s got the added weight of punishment.
Mom is on the phone with Aunt Lorraine. I can’t hear what she’s saying, but the murmur of her voice bleeds through the ceiling from upstairs. Anger. Anguish. Something else that makes dinner churn in my stomach.
I take my time wiping down the counters, drying the dishes and putting them away, feeling the tension build. Mom and Dad are sitting in the living room, talking too quietly for me to hear. I catch my reflection in the window over the sink. I like how I look. Enough to smile.
It’s time to get whatever is going to happen over with. Anticipating the worst is making my stomach hurt.
When I walk into the living room, Mom stops talking midsentence and leans back. Dad turns to face me.
“Why?” Mom asks.
I shrug.
“That’s all? That’s all you think we deserve, when you . . . I don’t even know what to make of this. Because we want you to look nice? To fit in, and . . .”
I step closer but don’t sit down. I’m not sure I’m supposed to sit down. “I’m not like Hannah or —”
“You don’t have to be like Hannah! There’s a world of difference between her and this.”