“Wow, that smells wonderful!”
“Just three more batches after this.” She glanced at the microwave clock and yawned again. “Then time to do the icing. But you should go to bed.”
I felt a twinge. I wanted to sleep, but the thought of her staying up till three A.M. to bake for my party made me feel horribly selfish.
“Why don’t you let me help you with the rest?” I said. “Tomorrow after school.”
“Oh, sweetheart, you don’t have to make your own birthday cake.”
“But I want to.” Sometimes it was like this with Mom—each of us wanted to help the other so bad we ended up fighting over it. Still, when I compared that to the fights my friends had with their mothers, I knew how lucky I was. “It’ll be more fun together.”
“Well…okay.” She smiled and kissed my cheek. “Night, honey. You’re going to have such a great day tomorrow.”
“I know.”
I didn’t say what I knew we were both thinking: if Icka doesn’t ruin it.
At my twelfth birthday party, she had replaced the treasure-hunt treasure with a cow’s brain swiped from the Lincoln High science lab. We all stared, dumbfounded, as maggots crawled between its grayish pink hemispheres, and then Natasha Trimble threw up on Ada Marcus’s shoes.
For my thirteenth, Icka had invited seven homeless people she’d met downtown, saying we had plenty of food and it would be wrong to waste it. Mom handled it with her usual grace, treating the homeless to a feast in our dining room while my friends and I moved our party to the pool. Until one of the men escaped Mom and tried to kiss Helena on the lips, and Mom got an angry phone call from Helena’s mom.
Last year, she had spray-painted MEAT IS MURDER on every box of pepperoni pizza we’d ordered and poured fake blood from a magic-supply store over the pies themselves.
I stacked our mugs in the dishwasher and turned to leave the kitchen, trying not to think about what Icka might be planning for tomorrow.
“Joy?” Mom called me back from the doorway. “I Heard you,” she said, “and I promise. This year, I’m not going to let anything ruin your birthday.”
2
Finally the kidnappers arrived.
At the sound of excited Whispers in the hallway, I sighed and wrapped the comforter around me like a warm tortilla. Since I’d braided my hair before bed, the back of my head didn’t look like a bluebird family’s home; which was good, because I didn’t want to look any stupider than I had to in the inevitable candids people would be snapping with their phones. I arranged each mousy lock across my pillow, popped another Altoid, and practiced my surprised look one last time.
With a rustle, my bedroom door slid open. A streak of light teased my closed eyes, but I focused on breathing slow and regular, like a person deep in sleep.
Helena Sargas crept into my darkened room first. She was Whispering, in her usual Eeyore-like tones, about a wig: Oh, gosh, I hope this thing fits over her hair! My heart thumped at the realization: We were now past the point where I could stop it from happening. Bree McIver, ninja quick despite her trademark high heels, was already sneaking in close behind Helena. Last was Parker Lin, my best friend, who I knew had planned the whole thing. As their feet crossed the carpet, their minds sent a harmony of Whispers tumbling into my mind. Snatches of thought bouncing off each other like wind chimes:
Oh, gosh, I wish we’d gotten her the gold wig instead.
Just hope they don’t dress me up on my birthday!
Praying Aunt Cece’s bell-bottoms aren’t too short for her legs—
Someone flipped a switch, and light flooded the room. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOY!” my friends’ voices yelled in practiced unison.
I let out the scream I’d practiced and bolted upright, squinting as if the light hurt my eyes (which it did) and also as if I was totally confused as to why three girls were fanned around my bedside wearing expectant grins and gazing back at me.
And clicking their cell-phone cams in my direction.
When really I was thinking, So far, so good.
They’d totally bought my surprise. I’d been worrying on some level that it wouldn’t be, you know, satisfying. Trying to surprise someone unsurpriseable…but I’d fooled them. It was almost too easy. Then again, when you’re a Hearer you get pretty good at feigning surprise, kind of like how most people get good at pretending they love a lame gift. Just another harmless little white lie, right? I hammed it up.
“Oh my gawd!” Ham, ham, ham. “What the hell are you guys doing in my room?”
That made them laugh. They laughed like evil masterminds on cartoons. Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Because even though my friends didn’t know about my Hearing—no one did—they knew that any Lincoln High School student would know what they were up to by that stage.
Kidnapping was an ancient tradition at Lincoln. The concept was simple, and sort of stupid too if you thought about it too long. Ambush your best friend on her birthday; force her into a bizarre, idiotic costume; then march her off to school where everyone makes fun of her for looking bizarre and idiotic. The custom was established hundreds of years ago, or at least kids were already doing it back in the eighties when Dad was QB for the Lincoln Cougars and Mom was head of the spirit squad (still called the Cougarettes, before it got changed for being “sexist language”). Mom had been kidnapped her senior year, and she said it was one of her favorite memories from high school.
My sister called it a barbaric ritual of humiliation and said she’d never let anyone do that to her in a million years.
The really sad thing was, no one would ever want to do that to her in a million years.
For better or for worse, one’s chances of being strapped down and forced into an embarrassing getup were directly related to one’s level of popularity. Thus, kidnapping was practically mandatory among varsity cheerleaders, soccer studs, model types, and student body presidents, but among the terminally friendless it was as rare as being fried by lightning. To be honest, as a freshman who didn’t stand out in any way (except maybe my height), I’d figured I was pretty safe too.
That illusion shattered Monday at lunch, when I was nearly blinded by the sight of Gina Belle, our student body president, cruising by our group’s quad bench in a lime green gaucho suit, pink cowboy boots, and rainbow clown wig. Gina was acting totally normal, though, smiling and holding her head high, and I was staring after her, trying to figure out how any human could be such a good sport, when beside me I Heard Parker Whisper: Hey, I want to do that to Joy this Friday.
My heart dropped right down to the wooden bench. I knew it would happen too. Parker was just one of those people; her wishes were commands. She would plan and she would execute, just like she did in her successful campaign for frosh class president. So it was settled, then. I had eighty-nine hours to look forward in dread.
It wasn’t that I hated attention, exactly. I’d just rather give it than receive it, which I tried to explain to Parker once, but she just kept screwing up her forehead into tighter and tighter furrows of confusion, so I finally changed the subject. This was after we all took this stupid Cosmo Girl quiz “What Kind of Friend Are You?” and everyone else got Lovin’ the Limelight while I got Groovin’ Behind the Scenes. No one was really surprised. (Is anyone ever surprised by quiz results?)
My friends were like most people. They wanted to be special, to stand out as being the best. And I wanted that too…for them. As for me, though, helping people was what I did best, and between cookie baking for Parker’s campaign, helping Mom with chores, and late-night IM chats reassuring Helena on her extra-down days, it was no wonder my report card was an endless column of Bs and the only hobby I could think to list on MySpace was “hanging with my friends.” But that didn’t matter, because I knew something Mom said it took most people their whole lives to learn. That making other people happy was more fulfilling than competing for the crown of Most Special.
If I was honest with myself, there was a second reason why I didn’t long to be special. S
tanding out could be a curse—that much was obvious from watching Icka. Stars that shone too big and bright could implode, become black holes. Your own specialness could betray you, painting not a spotlight but a bull’s-eye over what was once your face.
Still. Birthdays were the one day a year even I dared to let myself be special. Even the most average girl on Earth, I told myself, must score some attention on her birthday. A cake with her name written in frosting, basking in a circle of friends and gifts, everyone looking to her, singing to her, Whispering they hope she likes their present best of all…As Parker shook something crinkly out of a plastic bag, I reminded myself that it was okay to have other people focus on me all day.
That this would be just like the attention I’d get on any birthday…
“We so got you!” Parker held up a sparkly purple disco wig.
…except, well, there’d be a whole lot more of it.
“Show Joy the fab look she’ll be rocking at school this morning.”
On cue, Helena presented a corset-top minidress in vomit green with bubble gum polka dots. Bree held up a pair of stretchy magenta bell-bottoms with electric orange peace signs all over them. Gleefully Parker swatted my pillow with banana yellow opera gloves.
For a moment I lost my will to be a sport. For starters, Bree’s Aunt Cece was clearly at least five inches shorter than me. Seemed like everyone was, these days: Mom and Jessica both stopped at five five, while Parker was five foot one and so wiry she needed an extra small in Juniors. At best, stretched over my long legs, these pants were going to be sausage tight, not flowing. And speaking of bad and wrong, the ugly dress had built-in bra cups. That meant the fabric would pucker and bag out in the places where my breasts were scheduled to be (but had not yet shown signs of arriving, or called to let me know what the hell was taking them so long).
Under those circumstances, I felt sure, not even Gina could have pulled off queenly poise.
But my friends were beaming down at me, Whispering hopefully…and I realized I was supposed to be reacting to the outfit. Protesting, giggling, that kind of thing. Not just sitting there petrified.
I swallowed. “No…no way!” I said, gaining strength from the words. “I’m not wearing that crap to school! You can’t make me wear eeeeek—”
They fell on me like a wolf pack.
The room filled with shrieks and giggles as I struggled, flailed, ducked, and dodged. But I wasn’t fighting hard enough to really get in their way. In two minutes, my blue cotton pj’s were history. Scratchy material went over my head and the satiny pants slid up my calves, then stretched like a second skin over my thighs. Sigh.
The sun was rising pink and orange outside my window by the time they put the finishing touches on my makeup. I’d stopped struggling long before. Sat back and let them work on me, work with me, like they were all on that show Iron Chef and I was the secret ingredient. It was a weird feeling to be Project Joy. Weird, but not unpleasant. Bree, the head makeup artist, kept wishing she’d brought her other blush brush; Helena was hoping the wig would stay on all day. My shoulders had started to relax. It was fun, if I was honest with myself. Fun, having all eyes on me. And maybe I’d been looking forward to this birthday more than I’d realized. More than I’d let myself admit.
Maybe more than I should have.
“Okay, she looks redonkulous!” Bree pronounced with a giggle. “Our work is done.”
Everyone squealed and took one of my hands or arms and guided me down the hall to the bathroom Jessica and I shared. The platform sandals they’d strapped onto my feet felt unsteady, like stilts. When I saw my reflection, I let out a gasp. A real, sincere gasp.
“Oh my god,” I whispered to the mirror. “That can’t be me.”
I looked like a Goth hooker mime.
My face. Doll-skin white with two (uneven) coal black diamonds with tips at the center of each brow. Sloppy circles of red paint marked my cheekbones, as if drawn by a child. Exaggerated cherry pout. On my forehead in lip liner, the number 15 in Parker’s high, angled writing.
I thought I would feel embarrassed, but somehow seeing my face like that made me feel fantastic. The best way to explain it is to say I felt like my face wasn’t really my face anymore but some kind of scary mask, like a witch or Richard Nixon or something else you could buy at a drugstore at Halloween, and I was a kid and I was getting ready to go and collect tons of little Almond Joy and Mounds bars. The scarier my mask looked, the better.
Then I Heard Bree Whisper, I wish I hadn’t made her look sooooo bad. Hope she’s not mad or anything.
I blinked. Her wish had sort of bounced me back to reality. I wasn’t supposed to be a little kid having fun on Halloween, I was in high school, for god’s sake! Any normal high school person would be embarrassed to look scary and ugly, duh. Sometimes it scared me to think what a social retard I could have been without my Hearing. In fact, back in first grade, when I still couldn’t Hear without touching, I’d thought nothing of skipping off to school in red sneakers, neon lime leggings, and a pink tank top that said PRINCESS in rhinestone letters. Shudder.
“Oh my god, I look like crap!” I moaned, then grinned. “I am going to kill you guys.”
They all laughed with relief, and I did too.
In the kitchen Mom was squeezing organic oranges. She burst into applause with juicy hands. “Beautiful job, girls! I can’t wait to get photo coverage. Sit down, food’s almost ready….”
“Can we help with anything, Kelli?” If Parker had said that to any other adult, Bree would have tipped her head back and puckered her lips with a smacking sound. But my friends treated Mom as an honorary member of our group.
It made sense, since Mom was trained to talk to teens about their problems. She worked with runaways at the Beaverton Teen Center three days a week, ever since I’d started middle school.
She waved away Parker’s offer of help and motioned for us to take our juice to the table. I sat in my usual place and immediately spotted a tiny white package on my place mat. I covered it with my napkin and hoped no one saw me.
Too late; Parker noticed everything. “What’s that thing?”
I shrugged.
“Is it from your dad?”
Crap. “I don’t know.” In fact, I could tell it was from Dad because the card wasn’t a normal card from Hallmark or something, but a quarter-page ripped from a legal pleading. I didn’t want to open it in front of my friends because my dad’s gifts could sometimes be weird and embarrassing. Like last year, he gave me this rusty metal jewelry box with a dent in it. Not that I expected a diamond tiara, but you could tell this was some old thing he’d had lying around, or maybe found on the curb, and he’d just grabbed it and wrapped it at the last possible second.
Sometimes it seemed like Dad gave up on us a long time ago. Once when I was five or so, I remember Dad ruffling my hair and silently wishing he could take Jess and me to Disney World. I stared at him, but he moved his hand as if from a hot stove, then coughed and went away to go walk Scarlett, the Irish setter puppy he’d gotten us for Christmas. That was the only time I ever heard him Whisper about us.
Mom caught my eye and raised her eyebrows. I Heard her inner voice:
I want to see you open it, Joy!
Sighing, I tore into the package. I don’t know what I was expecting—a bottle cap, a twig? But I felt pretty guilty once I saw the sparkling pendant on its silver chain, the stone a glossy honey yellow.
“Topaz.” I ran my finger over the slippery gem. “It’s my birthstone.” I turned to Mom. “Did you pick this out?” She shook her head and smiled. Which meant he’d chosen it just for me, stab, more guilt.
Everyone crowded around to look at the sparkles.
“Warm tones are great for making hazel eyes pop,” said Bree, her own green-contacts-wearing eyes wide with seriousness. She was the only person I knew who went to the library to study fashion mags.
“Really? What’s good for brown eyes?” Helena leaned on her elbows and f
rowned. “Or are those just hopelessly boring and unpoppable?”
Parker turned to me. “It’s a beautiful necklace,” she said quietly. I knew she meant it because I could Hear her wishing she had one like it.
I started to feel a little bad about dissing the jewelry box last year. Maybe Dad’s plan all along had been to fill it with goodies. Maybe it had belonged to his great-great-grandmother and he’d been saving it all these years for me. It would be just like him to do something like that and never bother to explain.
Mom came around with full plates, none of which looked remotely alike. She placed poached eggs and toast at Parker’s elbow, yogurt and strawberries in front of ever-dieting Helena. And for me there was a stack of banana pancakes dusted with powdered sugar.
“Gosh, Mrs. Stefani, how do you always know what I’m craving?” Bree asked as she dug into her waffle.
“Oh, I know you girls pretty well by now.” Mom winked at me. “Tuck in!” Then she glanced at the clock—seven twenty-one—and hugged everyone and said she’d see them at the party tonight.
As soon as she was gone, something really weird happened. It was like the good mood drained out of our group, like she was somehow holding us up with her cheeriness, and without her we all slumped into gloom.
That was bad. We didn’t have time to be gloomy, realistically speaking. It was nearly seven thirty, and Mom was gone, and we’d been loud before with all that giggling and screaming, so we were seriously tempting fate now.
Icka was a very deep sleeper. But even she couldn’t sleep forever.
If I’d been thinking “proactively”—as Parker would say—I would have stood up and hustled us out of the kitchen, backpacks on and out the door. Instead, I sank into my chair and toyed with a forkful of pancake for two minutes that we just didn’t have. I blame it on my friends’ Whispers. They were the upsetting kind. The kind where something’s wrong and I couldn’t do anything to help, and I couldn’t even bring it up because I wasn’t supposed to know about it in the first place.
Whisper Page 2