by Dalya Moon
I take the stack of plates and walk them to the dining room, speechless. The den doesn't even have any windows. My brain goes blank and I forget everything I know, including how to set the table.
The den!
That means having no windows, plus sleeping on the squeaky old fold-out bed, and listening to the clanky old furnace turn on and off all night long. I don't know how Aunt Trudy could stand it. I'm a heavy sleeper, but that furnace ... there's a reason it has a nickname. Infurnace. Because its fury has no bounds. The nickname doesn't seem that cute now that I'll be sleeping next to it.
Tick joins me in the dining room and sets five place mats around the table. “It's not fair!” she wails.
“What? Did they tell you to come help me set the table? It's about time. At least you're not moving to the den.”
“I have to room with MY MOTHER! She doesn't just snore, you know. She gurgles. And talks in her sleep. And she gets up three times a night to pee.”
I give her a nasty look. “My heart bleeds for you.”
“I can still get out, though. I just have to get a bunch of pillows to stuff in my bed, to make it look like I'm still in there.”
That's when I remember something that makes me smile. Vengeance will be mine.
I say, “You know that panel on the wall next to the light switch by the front door?”
“No. Who cares.”
I give her an evil smile. “It's an alarm system. I'm going to tell my dad, and he'll start setting it at night. We usually just use it when we go out of town. I don't even know the code.”
“An alarm?”
“Oh, yes. And there are contact points on all the windows. Every single one. I'd better mention to Dad that he should set it tonight. Can't be too safe.”
She glowers at me. “You have no loyalty.”
“You have no common sense.”
She snorts and grabs all the place mats, then throws them at me.
“Do whatever you like, but stay out of my way,” I say.
“Fine.” She turns and stomps out of the dining room, leaving me alone with the antique furniture and the cranberry-red walls.
I study the walls for a moment, as though seeing them for the very first time. In Art class at school today, our teacher talked about how the color red makes your heart speed up, and it makes you hungry. It can also make you angry.
I wonder if they've done any studies on people who dye their hair bright red and the people who want to strangle them.
* * *
I wake up in History class.
How long was I out?
The loudspeaker is going, and my name is being called out over the speakers.
What has my cousin done now?
Class is nearly over, so I grab my books and take them with me, down the hall to the office.
I've never been called to the office before.
This can't be good.
I step inside, and the administrator tells me, sternly, to take a seat. He then goes back to his work, which, from the glimpse I caught, involves posting on a website called reddit.
Ten minutes later, I'm still waiting.
This is worse than my dentist's office. Why call me down when they're not ready?
After twenty minutes of me doodling on the cover of a notebook, I start to wonder if something terrible has happened to my cousin, or to one of my parents. My mind races as I think of all the possibilities.
Dread sets in.
I don't feel well.
When I was younger—I would have been eight, because it was around the time we moved to Snowy Cove—I had the depressing realization, suddenly, that not only would everyone, including myself, continue to get older, but they would eventually die, just like my great-grandfather had.
For days and days, I couldn't shake the thought. I had nightmares about being buried.
Finally, I told my sister. I hadn't wanted to tell anyone, because in my mind, I'd be breaking terrible news to them, making them feel as sad as I did.
Olivia was very patient with me, and we talked for a long time that night, in our shared bedroom. We talked about life and death and God. I told her that I believed in Heaven, but it didn't make me feel any better, because I didn't want to go there.
Olivia didn't laugh at me or tell me I was being silly. In her comforting, big-sister voice, she told me what I felt was normal, and everyone gets scared sometimes, even about big things that are beyond comprehension. She said it had scared her in Science class, when they learned about suns in other solar systems burning out, and the teacher said one day our own sun would do the same.
That night, in the dark, I turned on the bedside lamp and sat straight up.
I said something to the effect of, “What? The sun is going to burn out?”
That was when she started to laugh. She assured me it wouldn't be for billions of years, or maybe never.
I tried to imagine what a billion years would feel like, and eventually, I started to laugh too.
After I turned off the light, she told me that she loved me, and whatever happened in the future would be fine, because I loved her and she loved me.
* * *
I hear the clomping of boots. Principal Woo's cowboy boots.
I look up from my seat. “Are my parents okay?”
“As far as I know,” he says, reaching his hand out to mine. “I don't believe we've formally met.”
I shake his hand and tell him my name, which he already knows.
He smiles, and the laugh-lines on his face crinkle up in a way I find comforting. “Your cousin's the one I'd like to speak to you about.” He gestures to his office door. “This way, please.”
His office is nicely decorated, with a big window, and framed art all over the walls.
“Student art,” he says. “I don't have kids of my own, but you could say I'm a proud papa to all my students. Which brings us to the delicate matter at hand.”
I take a seat across from him and tuck my hands under my legs so I can't fidget. “Tick isn't a bad person,” I say. “It's just ... her mother, I think. She lets her get away with everything. She thinks kids should do whatever they want, so they don't explode or something as soon as they leave home.”
He studies me quietly.
“Like my sister, Olivia,” I say. “She's getting a degree in boys, apparently.”
“Hmm.” He nods.
I pull my hands out from under my legs and clap them awkwardly. “So … my cousin did something?”
He says, “Ms. Patricia Murphy was apprehended this morning.”
I choke on a bit of my saliva going down my windpipe, and have to cough for several seconds.
“Maybe not apprehended,” he says. “More like busted. You know, busted. That's what you kids say. She got caught. Now she has two strikes against her.”
“Two strikes?”
“There's a chart, set out by the Board. I don't make the rules, I just enforce them. Here.” He turns his computer monitor to show me a big chart with a long, alphabetical list of Infractions. Smoking, cigarettes—one strike. Smoking, other—two strikes.
He turns the monitor back before I can read more.
“She was smoking-comma-other?”
He gasps in horror. “Yikes, no. But she was in the boys' washroom, not the girls'. Being in the wrong washroom is a strike ... though we'll have to remove that Infraction if we get a transgendered student.” He waves a hand. “We'll deal with that when it happens. anyway, your cousin. She's going to get a two-week suspension, starting today, and she really can't get another strike, or she'll be ...” He swipes a finger across his throat.
“Killed?”
“No! You grade nines are so literal sometimes. I swear, the sarcasm detector doesn't kick in fully until fifteen, sixteen.”
“Oh, sorry. I'm a little tired today. I've been sleeping with Infurnace.”
He holds a hand up. “I don't want to know who or what you sleep with. anyway, your cousin will be expelled if she gets ano
ther strike. I wouldn't normally be informing one student of another student's activities, privacy policy, blah-blah-blah, but she's gone home already with your father, and I didn't want you to worry.”
“Great.” I start to get up to leave, but he tells me to wait.
“I hope I can count on you, Elaina, to help keep her on the straight and narrow?”
“Right. Because that's been working out so well up until now.”
He grins and points at me. “There, sarcasm. You're mature for your age. Which is how I know you'll be successful in your mission.”
I have nothing to say, so I look around at the art on the wall behind him. One particularly ugly piece catches my eye. It's a photograph of what seems to be a wall mural, with the tables of our cafeteria in front of it. The mural is an enormous, creepy hot dog with arms and legs, chasing a milkshake.
“Thanks for popping by,” Principal Woo says cheerfully, and he reaches across to shake my hand again. “Let's hope we don't do this again until graduation day, okay?”
“Sure,” I say as I walk out in a daze. Tick was smoking? Two days after getting in major trouble at home? Does she have a death wish?
* * *
When I come out of the administration office, everyone's gone to lunch. I walk into the cafeteria and survey the scene.
Tick's not here, so sitting at her table doesn't seem like an option. Ty looks up and waves at me, then points to the empty spot next to him.
Over at my former table, Genna looks up and gives me an even bigger smile and a wave. I can't remember who was angry at whom. I was upset at her, because her sister reported me to my parents. But that wasn't Genna, it was her sister.
Briana looks up from a book and waves me over.
I guess things are back to normal, I think as I take my usual spot with them.
“You're back into books again?” I ask Briana.
She puts a bookmark in between the pages. “I'm limiting my number of books per week.”
Genna says, “It's like a book diet.”
Genna's Bento box looks incredible, with sliced strawberries. My mouth starts to water. Briana is nearly finished hers, eating what looks like rice pudding with pistachios.
Unfortunately for me, however, yesterday after we argued, I didn't return my stacking plastic boxes to Genna. They're still in my locker. I apologize to her, and she says, “No big.”
Maybe it's no big to her, but I'll have to brave the fried-food realm and the million ensuing calories. The waistband of my jeans definitely feels a little looser today than I remember, though I don't know if it's my new eating habits or the stress of worrying what my cousin will do next.
I fill Genna and Briana in on Tick's latest Reign of Terror and my chat with Principal Woo, then join the line at the cafeteria window, my stomach grumbling.
I choose the healthiest-looking thing available: deep-fried chicken strips and coleslaw.
Ty gets in line behind me, and says I should drop by their table so he can try out some new material on me.
“Are you sure I'm welcome over there? I don't think your friend Dana likes me.”
He grins and raises that one eyebrow. “Dana doesn't like anybody.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” I say, and I take my tray to my table. Briana and Genna get up just as I sit down.
Briana says, “Wolf that down and come join us in the library.”
Genna's got a wry smile on her face, and I wonder if she's punishing me for losing my temper at her yesterday.
“We'll see,” I say, and I stand with my tray and cross over to the other table, taking the spot next to Ty.
Ty's already telling his new jokes—revolving around farts and other odd smells—and I realize Josh isn't here. He was in Drama this morning, though we just ran lines for the play straight through, with no time for flirting.
Dana isn't here either. That makes sense—of course Tick wasn't alone when she was caught smoking in the boys' washroom.
Ty tells a joke about pimples, which doesn't sound very sincere, since his chocolate-brown skin is as smooth as pudding.
When he finally takes a breath, I ask him how he avoided getting caught and suspended.
His voice goes high in pitch. “You think I was with them?” He laughs. “Really. You think I'm a bad boy? Huh. I should look into something rebellious for my image. I could get one of those piercings, with a big, giant hole in my earlobe, then when my dad says 'you need a new computer like you need another hole in your head,' I can put my finger through my ear hole and—”
“Ty, stop for a minute. So, you weren't actually with them? Who was there?”
The smile falls off his face and he blinks down at his hands. He has really short eyelashes. “No, I mean I was, but we were in the bathroom, and I had to take a dump, but they didn't want me to smell it up, so I had to go find another washroom. I took a big one in the teachers' bathroom. You should have seen it.” He holds his hands out wide.
“Nice.”
“I have a powerful colon.”
I poke at my plate of mayonnaise-colored coleslaw. “TMI. Way too much information.”
“All comedy comes from pain. You have to make yourself vulnerable, or people won't care.”
“What about Dane Cook?” I ask. “He's not vulnerable.”
“Uhhhh...” Ty puts his chin in his hand and sits that way, silently, for several minutes.
* * *
I come home to an empty house. I run upstairs to check for signs of Something Wonderful happening. Could it be? Is today the day? On the walk home, I started to imagine my parents' reaction to Tick's suspension from school.
Surely this is the straw that is breaking the camel's back, and soon the West Coast Murphys will be heading back to whence they came!
Alas—as my character in the Shakespeare play would say—neither suitcase nor makeup satchel hath been packed. Methinks the evil housepests have not yet been vanquished.
Just looking at my soft, comfy bed fills me with longing. My memory foam mattress topper. My sheets. Oh, to sleep next to my lovely lead-paned window, and not the horrible furnace. I let myself fall like a cut tree, landing face-first on the soft bed.
I close my eyes.
* * *
I wake up to the happy sounds of a family laughing, talking, and making dinner downstairs. Happy sounds?
I wander down the stairs to an unexpected sight. Everyone's smiling and getting along, and sitting down to dinner. Without me.
“A ghost!” Dad says when he sees me. “We thought you were over at Genna's.”
“No ... I came straight home from school. I am grounded, right? What about her?” I point at my cousin. “Didn't you hear what she did today?”
The adults look back and forth at each other as I slide into my usual seat at the table.
My father says, “We've decided to re-boot this situation.”
Tick glances at me, then looks back down at her plate. Her expression is inscrutable. What is she pulling?
My father says, “Patricia and I had a very good talk today, and I found out she's been quite depressed since Aunt Trudy broke her leg. That, plus the move, have been traumatic for her.”
“Traumatic?” I blow air out of my mouth in a razz-berry sound. “Does that mean she gets to do whatever she wants, whenever, wherever?”
Aunt Trudy speaks up, “We're going to see a counselor.”
I tuck my hands under my legs to stop them from making fists. “Are they going to put her on some sort of medication? Pills or something?”
My mother says, “That's not any of our business. That's between the medical professionals and your cousin.”
Tick says, “Depression is an illness.”
“Right,” I say, my voice flat. “Explain to me the symptoms. Does it cause an unquenchable desire to sneak out of the house in the dead of night? Or to smoke cigarettes in the boys' washroom and get other innocent people in trouble along with you?”
Everyone looks at me like I'm a monster,
their facial expressions a mix of pity and confusion.
Completely serious, my mother offers to make an appointment with the counselor. For me.
I tell her no, but I say it with a swear word.
“Beg pardon?” she says.
“Nothing.” I stuff some unbuttered bread into my mouth.
“My ears must be playing tricks on me,” she says.
My father fixes his stern gaze on me. “Lainey, apologize to your mother and everyone else.”
“Me?”
“Lainey,” he says.
“I'm sorry ... sorry you're all jerks.”
“Lainey!” gasps my mother.
My father points to the door. “Your ROOM. NOW.”
I give my cousin a dirty look. “Fine. I lost my appetite anyway.”
I leave the table and start up the stairs to my bedroom, then remember it isn't my room anymore. I turn on my heel and go to the den, where all my clothes are now. The computer and desk stayed upstairs, but at least I have the TV. And I don't have to clean up the supper dishes. This isn't such terrible punishment, I think as I grab the remote.
* * *
For the rest of the week, my cousin is still in bed when I have breakfast, so I don't even see her in the morning.
I walk to school by myself, focus on my school work, and eat lunch with Ty, because he's funny, and Genna's being totally boring and working on writing yearbook captions with the Annual Girls. Genna and I are being civil to each other, but I feel like we might still be fighting, just under the surface. She hasn't asked for my Bento boxes back, and she bought a lunch, chicken strips and fries, on Wednesday and Thursday.
Today, Friday, I got smart and packed a Bento box for myself. I even checked the calories of everything I loaded in, so it's probably better for me than Genna's lunches. I have a feeling she was using full-fat cream cheese on the celery sticks. There's no way that was low-fat.
My lunch today includes a hard-boiled egg. If you'd told me two months ago that I'd eat a hard-boiled egg as part of my lunch, I would have laughed. But, Mom showed me how to use the timer at home and we did a batch up last night. With a nice sprinkling of salt and pepper, a hard-boiled egg is delicious, and high protein. You just have to eat it really quickly before people get a chance to smell it and make fun of you.