by Susie Taylor
I stick out my tongue and pant in dog fashion and waggle my paws/hands in front of me. I’m imitating the other girls’ dance moves when I see Damon looking over and smiling. I smile back, and then when I turn around, Candice is walking towards me and my hands are still waggling.
“Who do you think you are, you stupid ugly cow?” Candice hisses at me.
I can’t think of a reply. I see how she looks at me, with disgust. My limbs seem heavy, and the more I want to disappear, the more my body seems to swell and take up space. I wish I could suck back the last thirty seconds and un-imitate her. Miss Blake glares at me. Mr. Dean is beside us.
“Everything okay here, ladies?” He puts one hand on Candice’s shoulder and one hand on mine.
Candice beams at him with her good-girl smile.
“Fine,” she says, smirking. “I’ll see you later, Daisy.” She walks away, sending me one long look over her shoulder.
“You’re in for it,” Cathy says. She’s already inching away from me, and I don’t blame her.
I don’t cry. I won’t cry. Miss Blake joins Candice and the other girls in a circle and bops around to “Dancing Queen.”
I slink in the shadows at the edge of the gym. No one asks me to dance. Cathy goes to help Peony with the final tally of the door money. I watch Candice and Darlene head out the door of the gym together, giggling behind their hands. They laugh and shoot disgusted glances at me when they return. I can hear them from where I’m seated on a side bench pretending to be retying my shoelaces.
“Her mom never lets her come to sleepovers. I think it’s because she wets the bed,” Candice says.
“She tried to make out with Cathy once. Cathy’s mom saw and told all the other parents. My mom told me,” says Darlene.
“I heard she does it with hot dogs!” Candice says this loudly, and it makes Darlene laugh so hard she starts coughing and has to produce her asthma inhaler.
The lights come on in the gym, and we all go to pick up our bags from homeroom. Mine is on the floor. It was new this year, and a satisfying army green that I had fought Mum to purchase instead of a crafty one made out of brown corduroy. It’s covered in what I first think is mud, and then I realize is dog shit.
“What’s that smell?” Candice says loudly. “Did someone have an accident?”
Miss Blake can see what’s going on. She gives me a dirty look like I’ve rubbed my own backpack in dog poo. “Have a good weekend!” she says and goes across the hall to chat with Mr. Dean.
Candice and her friends leave in a swirling, cackling horde, and I hear Candice out in the hall say “Poopsy Daisy,” and Darlene copy her, croaking out “Poopsy Daisy” in a sinister voice like Freddy from A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Cathy hands me the plastic grocery bag her lunch came in, and I shove my books in it. It smells vaguely like ham. I am very careful not to touch the shit, but I feel filthy. Cathy leaves me. She says she can’t stay and pats me on the back. I’m left alone to deal with my shit-encrusted backpack. I take it and sneak round the back of the school. I wait until everyone is gone, then I pry the lid of the dumpster up and hurl my bag into it. The lid of the dumpster clunks shut, and I hear something above me. Damon is climbing down from the school roof.
“Tennis ball,” he says. He throws the ball at me, and it hits me in the stomach. I realize I was meant to catch it.
“Sorry, sorry,” he says, and then we both laugh.
“What are you doing here?” Damon asks me.
“Nothing,” I say too fast. “Have a great weekend,” I say even more quickly before heading away from him.
I walk very slowly towards the house. As much as I want to wash my hands, I’m dreading my mum’s questions about where my bag is. If I tell her the truth, she’ll say, “You shouldn’t have let them do that,” and unhelpfully point out that I shouldn’t have made fun of anyone’s dancing.
Dad’s car is in the driveway. I don’t know what I’m going to walk into. He might be here to collect more clothes, or maybe they want to sit me down and have the divorce conversation like it happens on TV. When I come in the door, the radio is on and there’s the smell of spaghetti bolognaise coming from the kitchen. My dad is working at the dining-room table with a glass of wine beside him. “Hello, Daisy,” he says.
No one says anything about his return. We just pretend like nothing is unusual about us all being here for dinner together. We sit down at the table and start to eat.
Dad asks me if I have done something to my eye.
I don’t say anything.
Mum says, “You’re a bit young for makeup, aren’t you, Daise?”
My father stays for two weeks. One night the phone rings at 2 a.m. and I listen as his car rumbles to life in the driveway.
I find Mum standing in the dark living room, staring at the departing tail lights. “He’ll be back. I just need to be patient. Pat is being difficult.”
Olivia comes over, and when Mum makes excuses for my father, I hear Olivia say, “He’s an asshole, Sheila. You’re way better off without him.”
three
Mum discourages me from wearing my watch to school in case I lose or break it.
“What’s the point of having it if I can never wear it?” I ask her.
“I suppose it’s up to you,” she says. She’s been getting up all week and hovering in the kitchen as I get ready in the morning. It’s a relief to see her standing up. Mostly she silently drinks tea as I cram in toast. Today she actually takes the time to cast her eye over what I’m wearing and notices the watch. I thought she’d be pleased I’d started wearing it.
Everyone else has a Swatch. Candice has five, Cathy has two, even Wanda has one, she has written G N’R on the rubbery strap with a black magic marker. The morning of my last birthday, when Mum handed me the wrapped box, it was the wrong shape. Instead of a Swatch I got a plain watch with a silver face and a black strap. I don’t know why I expected anything different. In grade six everyone had a Cabbage Patch. Mum went to the bazaar at church and came home with a “Crochet Kid.” A hideous doll with a head made of old nylons that smelt like old lady. It wore a green crocheted jumper that you couldn’t take off. Its nylon legs flopped back and forth where they had been sewn to its permanent clothing.
I wear the watch despite Mum’s concern. The black watch strap looks punk rock against my wrist. Miss Blake makes us put our heads on our desks and gives us a lecture about the importance of personal hygiene before we head out to change for gym. “At the age you are at, your bodies are changing. Pheromones start developing.” I like the way the leather smells salty, and I give it an experimental lick as Miss Blake talks.
The change room is actually just the girls’ washroom closest to the gym. It always smells like wet paint, even though the concrete walls haven’t been painted in years. When the bathroom door opens, it swings directly into the main hallway and gives a clear view into the room. The only space sheltered from view is the big communal shower room in the far corner. Candice, Darlene, Tiffany, and Jenny change there. The rest of us find a space against one of the short walls and hope we are out of sight from the doorway.
I can hear Candice and her friends proudly showing off stubbled armpits and comparing sticks of deodorant. They are laughing and snapping each other’s bra straps. Wanda strips off fast and doesn’t seem that bothered standing around in her bra. But then her bra is black, with a T-strap back. Cathy has a white cotton bra with lace trim. It’s clean and athletic looking. Her mom just went out and bought it for her, so she didn’t have to suffer the indignity of trying it on under the fluorescent lights of the Sears change room. Peony goes into a cubicle with a toilet to change. I’d like to do the same, but it makes it seem like you’re hiding some physical defect, hair growing down your back or a third nipple.
I have bigger boobs than most of the other girls and an embarrassing patch of black pubic hair. My bra is a hand-me-down from Elizabeth; it is elastic and beige and smells of old deodorant. It looks like it
came from the lost and found at an orphanage. I’m wearing a long shirt, so I can slip off my jeans and pull on my shorts without anyone seeing any of the black hairs that sometimes curl through the cotton of my underwear. I take off my T-shirt really quick and pull on the one I’ve brought for gym in practically one motion. I only have to expose my yellowing bra for a few seconds. I try and time this move when everyone else is busy tying up shoes or taking off their own shirts. I think about putting my watch in my jeans pocket, but we all leave our clothes hanging on hooks in the bathroom and anyone could come in and go through my stuff. All the other girls leave their Swatches on for gym class, and I decide to keep my watch on too.
Miss Blake lines us up for skills drills. Cathy serves the ball at me, and I duck when it comes hurtling down. I manage to return the ball to her a few times. I can’t stand the way the volleyball feels when it slams against the insides of my wrists. My wrists are red, and my veins are sticking out disgustingly. A ball from Darlene and Jenny comes bounding over and hits me in the side of the head. “Heads up, Daisy!” Miss Blake shouts afterwards.
Rachel and Everett do the best at spiking, so they get to be team captains. They call out names, and soon there are only four of us left. Everett picks Cathy, Rachel picks Peony, Everett picks Murray, and I shuffle over, unchosen, to Rachel’s team.
“Something smells like poo,” says Derek Fletcher, as I join the group of kids on my team, and everyone laughs, even nice Kevin Taylor. The ball is coming towards me, and I start to run in its direction. I see Tiffany in my peripheral vision. I stumble over Tiffany’s foot, and she pushes me away from her, so she can get to the ball. I fall sideways; the back of my arm and hand slam against the ground. Candice laughs. I can’t tell if Tiffany tripped me on purpose. She says sorry, but doesn’t offer her hand to help me up. When I stand up I can see cracks running through the face of my watch. During the rest of the game, I just try and stay away from the net and move out of the way if the ball comes towards me.
At home I put the watch back in its box and shove it far into the back of my underwear drawer. All through dinner my wrist feels naked, and I dread Mum asking about it. I can’t fall asleep, worrying I should have confessed to Mum about it. The phone rings late, and I can hear Mum speaking into it. I put my ear against the heating vent in my room; this way I can hear her down in the kitchen. She keeps saying, “I understand, Donald.” When she hangs up and comes upstairs to bed, I put on my headphones so I don’t have to listen to her crying.
“It’s not based just on looks, it’s personality too,” Tiffany tells Cathy, Wanda, and me. I think this is meant to reassure me. She has joined us for group work. Candice is rating all the kids in our class on looks and personality. She writes the results in a Care Bears notebook that she reserves especially for this purpose. “I know your scores,” Tiffany confides. I am four out of ten, and Cathy is a five. Last year I got invited to three more birthday parties than Cathy, so I’m a little surprised she beat me. Wanda doesn’t even blink when Tiffany tells her she’s a six.
Later that day Miss Blake gets called to the office, and we’re told to stay in our seats. As soon as Miss Blake shuts the door behind her, Candice gets up and grabs a thick marker from the World’s Greatest Teacher mug on Miss Blake’s desk. Everyone is watching. She heads to the back of the class and grabs my new bag. She holds it up triumphantly and starts writing.
“That’s mine,” I say.
“What are you going to do about it, Daisy?” Candice looks at me and starts unzipping my bag.
Packed inside are a bunch of maxi pads, as well as a pair of clean, but bloodstained, underpants Mum made me take to school “just in case.” The shame of having these things spilled out on the classroom floor is unimaginable. I stand up and walk to the back of the class.
“Sit down. You’ll get in trouble,” whispers Cathy.
I glance back towards my desk, and Wanda gives me a smile.
When I reach Candice, she holds my bag towards me. I go to take it, and she snatches it away. Everyone laughs. It’s juvenile, but effective. I can see she has written Daisy is a and hasn’t had a chance to finish.
“Give it to me,” I say quietly.
Candice just laughs, and I see she is about to dump the contents of my bag all over the floor.
I reach out and slap her hard across the face. She has not been expecting this from me and just stands there with her mouth open. I’m shaking with rage. “Come on, hit me back, Candice,” I say to her. I want her to hit me, so I can hit her again and again. Candice just puts her hand to her cheek and stares at me. The class goes absolutely silent.
“Holy shit!” I hear Damon say after what seems like forever.
Then there is the sound of the door opening, and Miss Blake has my arm and is pulling me down the hall to the principal’s office. “Who do you think you are?” she keeps asking me.
My hand tingles like it’s filled with fireworks, and I seem to float behind Miss Blake like an oversized helium balloon. I watch as a single maxi pad slips from my bag onto the floor. I disown it without a second thought. Miss Blake is focussed on heading to the office, so there is no stopping.
I wait for a very long time outside Mr. Holder’s office, listening to the occasional rise in inflection of Miss Blake’s voice. When she leaves the office, she gives me the evil eye, and for the first time ever, I’m told the principal is waiting for me.
He talks for forty-five minutes. It takes me a while to realize that he’s enjoying this. He likes the sound of his own voice and sees me as an impressionable audience. I can’t hear the words at first. It occurs to me somewhere near the middle of his diatribe that we are talking about the difficulties of divorce and how he won’t bother my mum with this. And, obviously, this is so unlike me that it must be the atmosphere at home. Mr. Holder doesn’t give me a detention, but assigns me to write a book report for him on Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
The book is only 144 pages. It doesn’t take me long to write the report. I hand it in a week later. Mr. Holder lectures me on being a team player, and then says, “We’ll speak no more of the incident,” when he sends me back to class.
When I return from Mr. Holder’s office my desk has been moved. Miss Blake is sorting out a new seating system where we all have desk buddies. Instead of our desks being in six rows, there are now three big rows of double desks. Miss Blake acts like this is her idea, but classes have been moving desks all week, and we know it is just a new school policy. Cathy has moved to the front of the class to sit next to Peony. “Mom wants me to sit up front, because of my eyes. It’s nothing personal, Daisy.” My desk is pushed up next to Wanda’s. Wanda finishes Candice’s graffiti on my backpack with the word crazy and draws a bunch of stars and flowers all around the words. I like Daisy Is a Crazy. I tell Wanda this will be the name of my first band.
Wanda is addicted to reading and bubble gum. During class she is either illegally chewing gum or has a book or magazine opened up inside of her desk that she reads while Miss Blake explains fractions or talks about the structure of the Canadian government.
We’re doing math, and Miss Blake’s back is to us when Wanda eases a piece from the forbidden pack of Hubba Bubba in her desk. It is grape flavoured, and when she pops in a piece I am engulfed in the purple scent of it. When Miss Blake turns from the board to look at us, Wanda’s head is down, reading the open copy of Murder on the Orient Express she has balanced on her legs.
“Wanda, come up here and solve this please.”
Wanda eases her book into her desk before she stands. The gum in her mouth is hardly chewed yet. I imagine it still plump and square. Wanda walks slowly up to the board and takes the piece of chalk Miss Blake hands her. She stares at the problem and does not speak.
Miss Blake gives her “Everyone Needs Math” speech; everyone from an astronaut to a cleaning lady. Wanda’s mom works as a cleaner at the local hospital. When Miss Blake turns to face the rest of us and can’t see Wanda behind her, Wanda che
ws her piece of gum with exaggerated pleasure. Miss Blake turns around to see why the class is smiling, and Wanda’s lips become motionless, her face an insubordinate mask.
“Now you’ve wasted all of our time, you can go sit down, Wanda. Kevin, come up here. I’m sure you can show us the answer.” Wanda sits down, and I give Miss Blake the finger under my desk.
Mum is up in the morning going through the careers section of the paper. “I don’t qualify for any of these. No one wants shorthand anymore,” she says as I pass by her on my way down to the basement laundry room. I’m hoping to find some safety pins. The more silver safety pins you have holding your jeans tight from the ankle up the better, but I can’t find any. I notice a faded black T-shirt of Dad’s poking out of the top of a bag of old clothes. Mum uses these as rags for polishing shoes and cleaning behind the back of the toilet. I take off the shirt I’m wearing, an uncomfortable green striped one with a scratchy collar, and put on Dad’s old shirt. I shove the stripped shirt into the bag of rags.
I think I can sneak by Mum and grab my jacket without her noticing what I’m wearing, but she looks up irritably from the paper when I come back upstairs.
“What are you wearing, Daisy? Don’t you have anything clean? You can’t wear that shirt to school. What about that pink sweatshirt? I haven’t seen you wear it in ages.”
“Mum, I like this.”
“Daisy!”
“I’ve got to go, Mum. I’ll be late for school.”
“No one cares what I think anymore,” she moans, and I shut the door with more vigour than I intended, making it slam. Hot tears come up, but I blink them back and grind my teeth together.