Libby on Wednesday

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  It was Gary Greene. Two girls, the other two writers’ festival winners, came in right behind him, but Libby barely noticed them. You didn’t notice anyone else when Gary Greene walked into a room. He had a way of making sure of that. It wasn’t because of his looks, that was certain. He was medium-sized, square and solid-looking, but not particularly tall, and his face was only normally homely for a person of his age and sex. And it wasn’t just because he stomped and shouted a lot, either. Even when he walked softly and kept his mouth shut, the threat was there, in his dangerous smile and the way his eyes slid around—as if looking for prey.

  “Hey! Hey!” he said loudly, grinning at Libby and the thin boy. “Look at this. We’ve got the wrong room. This must be the psycho ward.” He turned to the two girls. “Look at this. What we got here is weirdo heaven.”

  Libby bent over her book bag, pretending she hadn’t heard. But she had of course, and she also heard the laughter—a loud, squawking noise like a cackling hen. Glancing up through the curtain of her hair, she saw it was the big girl with the punk hairdo who had cackled. Someone else was laughing, too, but it wasn’t the other girl. It was the thin boy himself.

  “Ha, ha, ha,” he screeched, “weirdo heaven.” Then he jumped to his feet in an awkward explosion of motion, held his arms out dramatically, and began to sing in a high-pitched voice, “Heaven. Weirdo heaven. It’s the place that only nerds and dorks can go. Aren’t you sad that you can never know, what a—”

  He stopped suddenly as Ms. Ostrowski burst into the room, apologizing in a loud, cheerful voice for being late. Stumbling back into his seat, he opened a notebook and bent over it. For a moment the others—Gary Greene and the two girls—went on staring at him, and then, as Ms. Ostrowski chattered on, they turned slowly away. The thin boy’s bent head turned toward Libby, and his mouth stretched into a brief, lopsided grin.

  Libby’s lips twitched in response before she quickly bent her head again over her notebook. As she stared blindly at the blank page, her mind raced. Where had the song come from? The tune sounded vaguely familiar, as if he’d just made up new words to a real song. Had he really made it up that quickly? How could he? And how could he jump up like that in front of the others and make a fool of himself?

  As Ms. Ostrowski arranged six chairs in a circle, she kept up a steady stream of chatter, about Mr. Axminster and his wonderful suggestion to form a writers’ workshop and about how much she was looking forward to being a part of it and on and on. While the teacher was talking, Libby watched the others—G.G. and the two girls—but mostly she watched the thin boy, who was perhaps crazy—or perhaps something harder to understand.

  “So,” Ms. Ostrowski said at last, when they were all seated, “Are introductions in order? I think most of you know that I’m Ms. Ostrowski, but since that’s quite a mouthful, I’d like to suggest that you call me what some of my other classes do—and that is Ms. O. All right? And now about the rest of you. Do you all know each other?”

  At first no one answered, but then the smaller girl, the one with sun-streaked hair and bluish eyelids, finally said, “I know Gary and Tierney, but I don’t really know …”

  She paused, and Ms. Ostrowski—or Ms. O—took over again, telling everyone’s name and grade and a little about the story each of them had written for the contest. The girl with the golden hair was Wendy Davis. Libby hadn’t ever spoken to Wendy Davis, but she’d seen her many times before—on the stage with the student council and doing other student-leader things like introducing people at assemblies. She always looked—well, the way you were supposed to at Morrison Middle School, with the right kind of hair and clothes, not to mention size and shape.

  Wendy, Ms. O said, had written a contemporary story about a group of teenagers and their interests and problems. When Ms. O said her name, Wendy looked around the group smiling and nodding at each person, even at Libby and the thin boy. Libby ducked her head and didn’t smile back—not that she was afraid to. She just wasn’t going to play that phony game. She had been at Morrison long enough to know that someone like Wendy Davis wouldn’t smile at her and really mean it.

  The other girl, the big one with the punk hairdo, was Tierney Laurent. As Ms. O announced that she wrote exciting detective stories, Tierney just scrunched down in her seat and looked the other way. She was dressed in what seemed to be several sloppy layers of expensive-looking clothing, and her legs were stretched way out in front of her. Her shoes were the black high tops a lot of people wore at Morrison. Except that the high lace-up shoes looked sharp in a stylishly ugly way on some people, and on the end of Tierney’s large legs they looked like something a bag lady might wear. While Ms. O was talking about her story, Tierney kept her face turned away and her lips curled in a sarcastic sneer.

  And then there was Gary Greene, who, according to Ms. O, had written a science fiction story. “Yeah,” he said. “Like major action. Lots of blood and gore.”

  “Well,” Ms. O said, “I think you’re selling yourself short, Gary. There’s a bit more to what you wrote than that, I think.”

  Then she turned to the thin boy. “And Alex,” she said, smiling. “Alex Lockwood writes wonderful comedy. His entry in the Young Writers’ Contest was a very funny parody.”

  “Parrotty?” Gary Greene said. “What’s that, parrot language? Hey, Lockwood. You write in parrot language? Like, Polly want a cracker?”

  Tierney snorted, but no one else laughed, and Ms. O was obviously angry, her green eyes flattened like an angry cat’s. “That’s not particularly funny, Gary,” she said in a tight voice. “Nor very intelligent. Who does know what a parody is?”

  Libby’s mouth actually opened before she caught herself. “Yes?” Ms. O asked, but Libby only shook her head and went on shaking it as the teacher waited, smiling. “All right, then, I’ll explain,” she said at last. “For your information, Gary, a parody is a spoof, a lampoon. An exaggerated imitation of something. Usually something famous so that everyone recognizes what’s being poked fun at. Alex wrote a very funny spoof of a popular horror story, Stephen King’s Cujo, I believe.”

  For just a moment Libby was so caught up in Ms. O’s explanation that she forgot to worry about what was coming next. So it was with a shock that she heard, “And our first-prize winner is Libby McCall, for a wonderful fantasy set in ancient Rome.”

  Libby kept her head down, and Ms. O quickly went on. “I think the first order of business today might be to think up a name for our group and then, perhaps, to set up our standard operating procedure. Does anyone have any good ideas about a name? Think about it for a minute or two, and then I’ll ask for suggestions. Okay?”

  Libby glanced around. Gary Greene was staring out the window and drumming his pencil loudly on the edge of his desk. Tierney was still slouched in her chair looking as if she were half asleep. But Wendy was bent over her desk chewing on the end of her pen and occasionally scribbling something in her notebook. As soon as Ms. O looked up, she raised her hand.

  “How about the FFW?” she said.

  “Standing for what?” Ms. O asked.

  “Yeah, for what?” Tierney said. “The Funny Farm Writers?”

  They all laughed, even Wendy. “No,” she said. “What I was thinking of was the Future Famous Writers. You know, like, there’s this Famous Writers Club, so we could be the Future Famous Writers.”

  Gary and Tierney both groaned but they didn’t come up with any other suggestions, so Ms. O said that then it would be the FFW, at least for the present, so as to get on with the next order of business as quickly as possible—to set up an operating procedure.

  In writers’ workshops, Ms. O said, the participants sometimes read their material out loud to each other. But another way to go would be to make copies of each person’s work for the other members to read ahead of time. Either way, the process would then be to take turns commenting on each story and offering constructive criticism.

  “Constructive,” she said, was the key word, and did they all kno
w what “constructive” criticism was? They all said yes, but when she asked for examples, no one said anything—at least not at first.

  But then Wendy Davis said it might be if you said something like, “I really think your characters are great, but it seems to me that you might need a little more work on plotting.”

  Ms. O liked that, but then she made the mistake of asking for an example of nonconstructive criticism.

  Still slouched down in her chair, Tierney said, “How about, your characters are stupid and your plot stinks.”

  Gary laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “Or your characters are putrid and your plot is double-dip barf.”

  After that Ms. O used up exactly five minutes threatening and scolding. Libby knew how long it took because she had been watching the clock closely, hoping desperately that the class would be over before it was her turn to read. Ms. O’s lecture covered some generalizations about good citizenship and the sin of wasting the gift of a special talent, which was something—according to Ms. O—that all five of them certainly had. But then she went on to give some specific information about what might happen to anyone who behaved in a nonconstructive manner. Such as the fact that if people had to be thrown out of the workshop, they would spend their Creative Choice periods in detention. That part of the threat didn’t seem to impress anyone, but when she got around to saying that notes would also be sent to their parents, both Gary and Tierney seemed to take her lecture more seriously.

  Watching Gary and Tierney sit up and stop grinning and sneering, at least for the moment, Libby found herself breathing more easily. If you had to be shut up in a room with those two, it seemed a little safer to have someone present whom they took seriously. Teachers, in Libby’s experience, weren’t always much protection, but in this situation it was a relief to see that Ms. O seemed to be in control.

  There was a vote next, on whether to read out loud or make copies to pass around. While Ms. O was making some slips of paper for ballots, the thin boy leaned over and whispered to Libby.

  “Let’s vote to read out loud. Okay?”

  “Why?” she whispered back. She had definitely been planning to vote for making copies. Having the others read her stories would be bad enough, but having to read out loud to them would be unbearable.

  “Because—well, just because it would be more fun that way. Don’t you think so? Besides, the other way you’d have to write your comments on their manuscripts, and I couldn’t do that.”

  “Why not?” Libby said.

  He grinned his twitchy, lopsided grin. “Because I can’t write.”

  Libby was still staring at him in amazement when Ms. O handed around the slips of paper and the vote started. In spite of Alex’s request, Libby voted the way she had intended to—to pass out copies—but it didn’t make any difference. The majority was for reading out loud.

  There was only about a half hour left in the period when Ms. O called on the first workshop member to read to the group. It was Gary Greene.

  6

  Libby walked home that day. It was only a few minutes by bus from downtown Morrison to the McCall House, and on foot it could take almost an hour, but she’d always preferred to walk. She liked strolling slowly down the long, shady streets and alleys lined with all kinds of houses, stopping now and then to look over fences, through hedges and into picture windows.

  Looking into people’s yards and houses was necessary, she had always felt, for a writer. A writer needed to learn how all sorts of people lived and the secrets they kept from the ordinary passerby. And yards, particularly backyards, often revealed that type of information. Libby knew of backyards in Morrison that absolutely swarmed with secrets. And so had her famous grandfather, Graham McCall. His books, particularly the ones set in Morrison, were full of fascinating backyard-type information.

  So, walking through the streets of Morrison had always been important to Libby, even during the days of the Libby McCall Private Academy. But in the last few months it had become important in a different way. Sometimes, on her way home from Morrison Middle School, she simply needed some extra time to shake off the middle-school Libby McCall and get back to the person she used to be. To stop being the silent, angry McBrain—or Little Frankenstein—or whatever they’d thought of to call her on that particular day, and get back to being her old self.

  The old Libby McCall. Sometimes it was hard to remember just who that had been. Thinking back, trying to imagine herself as she had been then, it sometimes seemed that she had never really thought about who she was, except in terms of what she was doing at the moment. Most often, of course, she had been Libby McCall, the writer. But then there had also been the actress, the dancer, the scientist, or the historian. Beyond that—beyond what she was writing or dancing or acting—she had just known, deep down, that she was simply Libby, and that had always seemed important and perfectly satisfactory. There had never been any reason to doubt it. Lately the changeover to that old Libby seemed to take longer and longer.

  Today it seemed she would need that kind of between-worlds time more than ever. Making her way down Jefferson and Emerson and across Elm, she barely noticed the backyards, not even as she passed the Vincentis’ house, where Mrs. Vincenti and her mother-in-law were, as usual, working in their vegetable garden and gossiping in loud voices about their neighbors.

  Libby didn’t even stop to listen. She had other things to think about. Walking slowly, her eyes straight ahead, her mind was busy with what had happened at the writers’ workshop and with what she was going to tell them at home. What could she say that would not be too far from the truth and yet wouldn’t make them even more sure that Elizabeth Portia McCall still needed years and years of socialization?

  But instead of analyzing information and making logical plans, her mind kept jumping back and forth. Short bits and pieces of memories and emotions churned and tumbled, back and forth and over and over like clothing in a washing machine. At one point she remembered Gillian’s suggestion that she write a limerick about the members of the group, and even though she knew they would never hear it, she began working on one in her head—a nasty, angry limerick, much worse than the ones she used to write about the family when she was upset with them.

  She had almost finished the limerick by the time she pushed through the wrought-iron gate at the McCall House—and quickly forgot about it, as her mind went back to tumbling, without purpose or direction.

  On the brick walk that curved to the front door through overgrown shrubs and tangled rosebushes, she walked more and more slowly. And at the foot of the broad, leaf-littered stone steps, she stopped altogether, as one useful idea emerged from the confusion. If Christopher were in the library, as he possibly would be at this time of day, he would be sure to ask questions like, “Well, how did it go?” or “How was the writers’ workshop?” and that would be dangerous. She needed more time to plan, and besides, it would be better to tell them all at once.

  Talking to her father alone would not be a good idea. With everybody present she could look mostly at Elliott, who always believed everything she told him, or at Gillian, who was always on her side whether she believed her or not. When you had to lie, it was better not to look directly at Christopher McCall while you were doing it—at least not if you happened to be his daughter, and very much like him in some important ways.

  Back on the brick path she turned to her left and followed a trail that wound its way toward the east among the untrimmed and overgrown trees and bushes. After passing below the library windows and curving around the bulge of the tower, it skirted a huge Japanese quince and came to a stop at the foot of the Treehouse oak.

  Writing would help. If she could have just a few more minutes by herself to write it all down. If she could put into words not only exactly what had happened but also just how she felt about it, perhaps it would all become clear in her mind. Writing had worked that way for her before. Writing a tantrum had taken the place of having one, and writing a confusion had sometimes clear
ed it up.

  A few moments later, seated at the jungle-drum table under the pale timeworn eyes of the fantastical figures painted on the Treehouse’s walls, she opened the green notebook and began.

  FEBRUARY 25,

  I was terrible! I hated it. I hated them all.

  Slashing the ts and stabbing the is so hard the paper tore, she sat back and stared at what she had written. It was working. She felt a little bit better already, and the limerick would help even more, if she could just remember how it went. The first line had been about Tierney. Little by little it all came back.

  THE FFW.

  There’s Tierney who’s big, fat, and mean.

  And Alex, the strangest I’ve seen.

  And then there is Gary,

  Who’s cruel, dumb, and scary.

  And Wendy who thinks she’s a queen.

  Reading it over, Libby found she was breathing hard. She read it again and then continued to bend over the table, her pencil poised, but nothing happened. It was several minutes before she began to write again—in short phrases—catching ideas that skittered through her mind—jotting down things almost before she had finished thinking them—tying them together with dashes.

  GARY GREENE—G.G.—Gary the Ghoul—Gory Gary—the reincarnation of someone horrible—like Hitler, maybe—or Genghis Khan—or an executioner during the French Revolution—he would have loved that—Gary Greene would have loved that old guillotine. His story was gruesome, too—all about a spaceman landing on a planet and killing all kinds of aliens in all kinds of gruesome ways—I don’t see how he could have won even an honorable mention.