At which point the second bell rang and they all scrambled for their respective first-period classrooms, wishing I hadn’t made them late.
I watched them scatter, but I didn’t make a move toward Ms. Phelps’s language arts class. Even though it was my favorite class, there was something else I needed to do today.
I marched at turtle speed past E building, all the way down to the metal shop. Hardly any people were milling around that part of campus; there’s only a couple of reasons to be down there. Two upperclassmen painting a mural paused to smirk at my outfit. Gingerly, walking pigeon-toed so I wouldn’t lose my balance, I traveled past the end of the concrete and onto the leafy, muddy ground.
It was like this: Deep down I knew Icka’s performance at breakfast had only been a warm-up. A month ago, when we’d planned the party, Mom had assured me she wouldn’t let Icka anywhere near it. Dad would offer to take her to the movies, and if she refused, then Mom would simply ground her to the upstairs—with the threat of taking away her art supplies if she so much as put one foot on the top step before every guest was gone. At the time, I’d been shocked that Mom—whose motto was “expect the best and people rise to your expectations”—was finally admitting she expected bad behavior from her older daughter. Now it was clear that Mom still needed to adjust her expectations down. Icka was determined to wreak havoc. She’d possibly done years worth of damage in mere moments. Whatever she was planning for tonight, I had to stop her…which meant I had to find her.
And I knew just where she’d be.
Unfortunately, the idea of going there made my breakfast bounce in my stomach. Lincoln was a friendly school, and I already felt welcome anywhere on campus, even on the quad, where freshmen were supposedly banned from sitting. But the path behind the metal shop wasn’t technically on school property. That was its sole appeal as far as I could see, and why it was legendary at Lincoln as a stoner hangout. Dad said back in the eighties they called the Path’s denizens druggies, and in the seventies it was burnouts, but the idea was the same. Freaks and losers, people who couldn’t pass as normal, got pushed to the edge of campus life. You always wondered what would become of those people after high school…something I wondered about Icka too. Surely if you’d told Mom and Dad ten years ago their oldest would grow up to be a stoner/druggie/burnout and hang out at the Path, no doubt they’d have been disappointed. But the truth was sadder: Even those people wouldn’t hang out with Icka.
My sister spent her breaks and lunches—and too many class periods—about a hundred feet beyond the Path, on the other side of an old dry creek bed that was closer to the woods than to school. My heart pounded just thinking of venturing out there. Was I crazy? Looking for Icka was like driving toward a hurricane. But I couldn’t stand back and let her destroy my life until it sucked as much as hers. I had to try.
The stoners were congregated exactly where I knew they would be, clad in black leather and denim, smoking cloves and bidis and other weird cigarettes of a possibly less legal variety. I tried to walk quickly, but the damn shoes held me back.
“Hey, look!” A stoner girl pointed at me. “One of the trendies is defecting!” A burning joint crash-landed on the ground to vanish behind a black backpack, and a dozen mocking eyes were suddenly fixed on me, like I was the freak.
“Wow, I didn’t know sheeple could venture so far from their quad pasture.”
“Maybe she has a message from our popular overlords?”
“Nah, she’s trolling for a homecoming date.”
“Hey, cutie, I’ll go if you promise to wear that dress.”
A chorus of snickers. And they say popular people are the mean ones? I smiled my Gina Belle smile, straightened my shoulders, and kept walking.
“She thinks she’s running for Miss Universe,” a leather-jacketed girl said. More laughter.
The tallest guy in the group I recognized as being in my government class. It took me a moment, because he cut class a lot. A lot a lot. He’d always struck me as shy and odd, but not mean. I had this bizarre urge to say hi to him and prove I wasn’t the snob they thought I was. But before I could I Heard him Whisper: I hope she doesn’t talk to me in front of everyone here. I don’t want people to get mad.
So much for that.
The last thing I Heard before I crossed the dry creek bed—and the stoner pack moved out of my Hearing range—was from the girl who’d made the Miss Universe crack: I wish people like her would stay away from here and leave us alone.
Youch. Who would have thought the denizens of the Path would be so harsh and excluding? Normally, Hearing nasty Whispers like that could cast a shadow over my whole day—even week—but I couldn’t afford to nurse hurt feelings now. I had to keep going. Steeling myself for what was ahead.
Icka sat alone on the other side of the creek, sprawled on a boulder. Lit cigarette in one hand, matted white blond dreads sticking to her long, graceful neck. If not for the glint of metal in her lips and nose, the tattered men’s clothes, and clunky Docs, she could have been a mermaid. Even her raccoon-painted eyes looked otherworldly. A lot of people were intimidated by my sister, even if they didn’t like or respect her. Me, I wasn’t fooled; her pose looked posed. She was waiting for me, just like I’d waited for my friends at five thirty A.M. Still, it infuriated me that she could Hear me and predict my actions when I could rarely pick a Whisper off her.
My wig rustled in the breeze and red and orange leaves crunched under my platforms, but Icka didn’t lift her gaze till I was less than a foot away. Then her mouth curled into this smug little smirk that made me want to strangle her.
It also made me nervous. Had she Heard something from me, just now? I didn’t want to know what my desires sounded like at this moment.
“Hey, Icka,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and even. “How’s your day been so f—”
“Get to the fucking point, if you have one.”
“Fine.” I folded my arms across the front of my hideous dress. “You were evil to my friends this morning. You can’t do that again.”
“Oh, Joy.” Smug impatience changed to smug pity. “When you find out what those plastics have been Whispering about you, it’s really going to break you.”
Here we go again…she was so full of crap. “I don’t want to fight with you, okay? But Mom says my Hearing’s already done growing so—”
“Mommy says I’m all grown up,” she copied in a baby voice. “You planning to bring Mom with you to college so she can keep on telling you what to think? I hope you realize it’s not natural to be your mother’s clone at age fifteen. You’re supposed to hate the lying bitch…like I do.”
“Do not talk about Mom like that. Ever.” My heart was hammering. Poor Mom, who loved Icka so fiercely, who defended her still. Poor Mom! “You’re the liar.”
Icka jerked her head sideways and laughed, a high miserable sound of pain. “We’re all liars, Joy-Joy!” Just like that, her voice had gone shrill and jerky, dancing toward hysteria. “Have you, by any chance, noticed that our whole family lies. All. The. Time!”
I stared into her bloodshot eyes and felt a chill. “Icka, are you high again?” She’d tried just about every kind of drug—she even owned a fake ID claiming she was Allison Monroe, age twenty-two—but no matter what she did, her Hearing always came back.
“Seriously, we should change our name to the Liarsons.” I couldn’t help but notice she’d dodged my question. “The only one who tells the truth about anything is Aunt Jane. You should ask her about your headaches.” She hiccoughed and it turned into a giggle. Wish she’d go away so I could finish.
“Finish?” Aha! A Whisper. “So you could finish doing what?”
She shrugged.
I narrowed my eyes at her army bag loaded with science-fiction paperbacks. It appeared to be propped up right next to her boulder, but my eyes zeroed in on a 7Up bottle behind it. I bent down and swiped the bottle. Icka examined her fingernails in an exaggerated display of not giving a damn. There were n
o bubbles in the clear liquid. I took a tiny sip and spat it out on the dirt.
“That would be vodka,” Icka said unnecessarily.
“You’re drunk, Icka. Jesus. At school.”
“Oh, who gives a shit?” She grabbed for the bottle, but I held it over my head, miles out of her reach. “For god’s sake.” She actually sounded amused. “If you’re worried about my education, I know what’s in every teacher’s head better than they do. Dr. Kendricks, for example, spends half his time daydreaming that he’d made it as a real scientist, and the other half wishing he could bang Ms. Phelps.” I shook my head, not wanting to hear more. Not believing her. “Hey, I didn’t want to know this stuff either, believe me,” Icka said. “Speaking of Ms. Phelps, did you know she’s into—”
“Stop it. Now.” I held my hand up. Ms. Phelps was my favorite teacher…as Icka well knew. “None of that is true,” I said forcefully. “It’s just like Mom said, when you think the worst of people, you Hear the worst. You read too much into everything.”
“You know the real reason Mom Hears no evil?” she said. “Because her Hearing’s just as crappy as her parenting. She can’t Hear a word below the surface. Must be kinda nice, being so clueless.”
“Mom is far from clueless.” I shook my head. “It’s just that there are too many Whispers in the world for anyone to pick up all—”
“Oh, good god, there you go quoting Mommy Dearest again.” She tipped her head skyward and broke into a hyena laugh. “You’re like her Mini Me. It’s creepy.”
“No, what’s creepy is trying to poison all your sister’s relationships! And if you’re so jealous Mom and I are close, try being nice to her for once.” I paused, breathless with anger. None of this was going how I’d wanted it to. She was pushing my buttons with that sneer, sucking me into her psychodrama vortex. I couldn’t let her. I inhaled more slowly, straightened my itchy wig, planted my hands on my hips, and exhaled. “Okay, look, I just came to tell you one thing. I’m not going to let you ruin this birthday.” It didn’t sound like much, and Icka’s patronizing gaze made me painfully aware of how stupid I must look trying to sound tough in my kidnap victim’s getup. But I was proud of myself just for getting it out. I’d put up with so much—way too much—until now, but today I was taking a stand. “Do you hear me?” I added. “Am I being clear? Stay away from the party…and my friends.”
She gave a short laugh, more like a sob. “I keep telling you, you don’t have friends! None of us does.”
The way she said it, I wasn’t sure if she just meant our family or the whole planet. Either way, she was wrong again—so wrong it made me sad for her. No one had friends? That’s what she needed to believe? Even the stoners had each other, and it didn’t take a genius to see why she wasn’t welcome in their dark leather huddle, let alone on the quad. As for the future, things looked even grimmer. At least now she had teachers checking up on her, and parents to go home to. But what would happen to my sister when she turned eighteen without a friend in the world?
“Hey, hey.” Icka touched a hand to the top of her head. “Don’t you start a pity party for me, Joy-Joy. I have my problems, I admit it, but at least I don’t need to pretend I’m best pals with the A-list, or should I say the A-hole list.”
Any sympathy I’d felt for her vanished like smoke. “You can’t go after my friendships anymore.” I’d never heard my voice so certain, words tumbling out unplanned but deeply felt. “If you ever do it again, it’ll be the last time I speak to you.”
She snorted and waved her hand as if to shoo a gnat. “Oh, you’re not actually mad at me for that. You have to admit it was funny to watch.”
“It was not funny! Can’t you even see that?”
“The only reason you’re mad,” she went on with infuriating calm, “is because just like that”—she snapped her fingers—“I proved that all your supposed friendships are bullshit. Remind me, how many seconds did it take loyal BFF Parker to turn on you?”
“She did not turn on me!” I was yelling now. “You played on her Whispers. You knew she liked Ben. Your little mind game was just stupid and cruel—not to mention a complete lie. Ben Williams would never call me.” I held my breath.
Icka smiled at me. “You’re so hoping he did, though.”
“I am not!”
She shrugged. “I can Hear you.”
I lowered my voice, glanced around, even though we were alone. “Maybe I wish someone as cool as Ben would call me, all right? That’s not the same.” I was aware of the defensive catch in my voice and the slow drunken grin spreading on her face. What was she Hearing now? “So what if I hoped!” I blurted out, hating the satisfaction in her eyes. “So what? It was just a stupid Whisper. Maybe I am attracted to Ben. Who wouldn’t be? It’s not like I’d ever let it affect my actions, so what’s the big deal?”
“Oh, I get it!” She widened her eyes and pretended to twirl her hair. “It’s not a big deal if you like him, it’s only a big deal if Parker likes him. She gets whatever she wants, your desires don’t count. Sound fair to you?”
“That is not what I said!” Suddenly I was shouting again. “And it’s not true!”
“You’re wishing it wasn’t,” she informed me with a superior grin. She jumped up from the boulder, as if Hearing me incriminate myself had given her new energy. “It means I was right, part of you already knows the ugly truth.” Now she was inches from my face, vodka on her breath. “Congratulations, little sis, you’re finally seeing the sad, shitty light of reality—where some of us have to live every day.” Her knuckles rapped the side of my head. “Our little Joy-Joy is finally growing up!”
Something snapped in me when she tapped my head.
I knocked her hand away, hard. “I hate you.” I didn’t mean for those words to come out, and when they did I was amazed at how hard my voice sounded. But as I watched her take a slow puff on her cigarette, watched her smirk at having got to me, I realized I wasn’t done. Not close to it. “I hate what you do to our family,” I said. “I hate what you do to my friends. You act like you’re so much better than all of us, when you’re nothing but a mean, nasty, negative…bitch.” I heard her snicker at my hesitation to swear, but I felt detached. This was no longer a conversation, or even a fight. I was just telling her how it was. The ugly truth. “You’re not a misunderstood victim,” I said. “You’re just spoiled and selfish. You have a gift, a power that could make this world a better place, but all you do is make people miserable.”
“Oh, grow up. Making people happier doesn’t make them better.” Ahh, the Humanity Is Evil rant. “People suck. Get it through your head: They’re beyond saving. If you want to help the rest of the planet, stop spraying chemicals on your head. Stop eating tortured animals shipped using fossil fue—”
“Shut the hell up, you self-righteous bitch.” I was on a swearing roll. Icka’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. “I am so tired of feeling sorry for you, when all you do is hurt me and hurt our family and hurt my friends. It’s like the only thing that makes you happy. Well, I’m sorry you can’t be happy, Icka. I really am! I’m sorry you hate your gift. But I’m not going to let you drag me down too. Because I’m not like you. I’m not a freak, like you.” It felt freeing to say the words, so I said them again. “I. Am not. A freak. Like you.”
She groaned. “Too true, you’re not a freak. You’re just like everybody else, another stupid human Whispering stupid, horrible, disgusting desires. I Hear things, all the time. Things that would make you curl up in a fetal ball…and not just from creeps on the bus, either. It’s everyone.” She stared right into my eyes. “It’s you too. What the hell happened to you, Joy? The things you want these days. The things you pray for…it makes me sick. And I don’t have the luxury of shutting bad things out.” She bared her teeth, reached out, swiped back the vodka bottle before I could stop her. “The only thing I can do is stay the hell away from everyone…even you.”
I put my hands on my hips, nearly tottering forward on my four
-inch platforms.
“Good, keep talking like that,” I said, surprised at how tight and angry my voice was. “You’re going to get your wish—you’ll end up all alone, with no one, with nothing. Hiding away from the world like Aunt Jane did. And you know what? The world will be a happier place without you in it.” My heart was pounding as if I was about to jump off a cliff—or maybe I’d already jumped. I had tried so hard. To love my sister and be loyal to her, no matter what she said or did, the way Mom could. But we had become the people we’d become, and I had to protect myself. “Stay away from the party tonight,” I heard myself say. “Stay out of my life from here on out. I’m done with you, Jess.”
A strange look had come over Icka’s face. Maybe it was the childhood nickname that no one had called her for so many years. Maybe it was the hardness in my tone—me, Joy, the good sister, owner of the Sweetest Smile. Stiff superiority drained from the corners of her mouth and her eyebrows seemed to sag. I was shocked to realize I didn’t feel a bit sorry for the harsh things I’d just said. I was being cruel like she’d been to my friends, but they had been innocent while she completely deserved it. Even when her black-painted lower lip trembled, all I felt was a sour satisfaction.
Slowly she ground out the cigarette with her boot, then looked up. “I have to go now.” Her voice sounded flat, not even angry anymore, almost like she wasn’t even talking to me. And then she had her bag and her fake 7Up and she was weaving farther down the path, away from school. Into the woods. Typical. She would probably cut the rest of the day. She’d miss her calc test, Mom would get another call from Mr. Rich…
I leaned against the cold boulder and sighed. I’d done it. I’d finally stood up to my sister. I felt different: grown up. Strong. I also felt alone. But maybe that was part of being grown up and strong. I watched her black-and-purple shape shrinking as the eucalyptus trees around her grew taller. When she was the size of an ant, she seemed to stand still for a second, and my heart thumped. Was she marching back here to fight with me some more? Then I Heard her, as clearly as if we’d been side by side watching Cartoon Network together on the old beanbag chair: I wish, I wish, I wish I could go back in time. A moment later, she disappeared behind a tree.
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