Family Rules

by Samuel S. Crawford

  Kyran says, “I just don’t know what she wants, you know?” One of the elephants trumpets, and Kyran laughs and asks, “You don’t know, do ya?” Then he puts his arm on my head and rests it there. He smells like the inside of Abercrombie & Fitch and when I tell him that, he starts tickling my ribs and making monkey sounds. “Stop it!” I say, but when I start to run away, Kyran pulls me back and I fall on the grass, laughing even harder.

  Maisie is back. In between chomps of lettuce, she asks, “What are you even doing?” I don’t know why, but my face gets real hot and my forehead starts prickling. I say,

  “Fuck off, Maisie!” Kyran starts laughing again. He grabs me by the neck and sort of shakes me, but I can tell it is in a friendly way.

  Maisie asks, “What did you say?” and when I say fuck off again, Maisie says, “I’m going to tell Mom and Dad you said that.” Then she storms down the little hill towards the reptile house.

  I ask Kyran where we are supposed to sleep and he tells me they’ve got a room all set up for us near the main office. I ask, “Are we very far from the lions there?” and Kyran reassures me that I’ll be safe. “I’m excited for the stars to come out,” I say, but Kyran isn’t listening.

  Julia is back with her salad, chomping just like Maisie and Indie. I’m expecting her to act drunk, but she seems chipper, like she’s forgiven everybody. “What’s going on?” she asks, seconds before Kyran grabs her by the knees, sending her salad flying, catching her head just before it hits the hill.

  Julia screams, but I can’t tell if she is angry or not. “Tickle her!” demands Kyran, “Jump on her!” and then Bane, Vilgot and Igar are there, tickling Julia behind her knees, tickling under her arms. I don’t want to tickle Julia, but I don’t want to be left out either. I stand next to Kyran, laughing when he laughs. Michael jumps on top of everybody. Then he holds Julia’s arms over her head and tells the boys to target her chest.

  “Stop it!” says Julia, half-crying, half-laughing, wriggling around on the grass so that her skirt slides up her thigh, revealing grey undies.

  Michael yells, “Look at those granny panties!”

  “Oh, stop!” cries Julia, no longer laughing but attempting to pin down her skirt. The boys stop tickling Julia’s legs and move towards her chest, Vilgot thrusting his hand underneath the neckline of Julia’s shirt.

  I look at Kyran, wondering if he is going to do anything, but he only stares at his phone.

  Then he cries, “Get her!” again and walks a little bit down the hill. Michael has got both of Julia’s hands in his one hand, and with the other, he is holding up Julia’s shirt so that the boys can get their fingers near her armpits. Julia’s bra is white and lacy and reminds me of a bride. Kyran is still texting, but when he glances back up, he says, “Get her!” again, even though Julia’s started to screech. She’s crying, “Stop it! Stop it!” but the boys keep at it. Then Julia begins to sob so loudly, she echoes through the zoo. Bane and Igar freeze. Maisie and Indie stop chomping their salads and exchange a look. Vilgot throws his hands in the air, and asks, “Why’s she crying?”

  Kyran is back. When Bane and Vilgot see him, they get up and move away from Julia.

  Kyran asks, “What happened?”

  Michael looks at Julia as though she’s grown antlers. Then he asks Kyran, “What’s wrong with your girlfriend?”

  Kyran grabs Bane by the shirt-collar, “What happened?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” says Bane, “We were all just tickling her, but I stopped when she started crying.”

  Kyran points at Michael, then asks, “And you? What the fuck happened?”

  Michael says, “Chill, man. The kids were just being kids. Your girlfriend’s a pussy, that’s all.” From not too far away, we hear one of the Howler Monkeys screech.

  Then Vilgot says, “Michael pinned her arms!” Bane says, “He told us to tickle her!”

  Kyran says, “Shut up, kid! Go sit over there.” He points to the café tables. “All you kids go sit over there.” Kyran is shaking, so even though the benches are wet and cold, we all follow Maisie and Indie and sit.

  Indie says, “You guys are so immature.” But no one responds. We only watch. Kyran pulls Julia up from the ground. Michael is talking quickly, furiously, and Julia’s yelling something, her finger pointed into Michael’s face. Kyran pushes Julia behind him. He says something else to Michael, and then he punches him in the stomach, so hard that Michael doubles over. Kyran sees me watching. He yells at all of us kids to come back over to where he is, so we do. Kyran has Michael’s head stuffed under his arm, and he sits, forcing Michael to crouch next to him. He tells us to tickle Michael.

  Indie says, “We don’t want to!”

  Bane asks, “Can we go to the Reptile House?” Maisie says, “I want to buy a zoovenier!”

  I say, “I’m cold!”

  Kyran says he will take us to see the lizards and to buy zooveniers, but first we have to tickle Michael. “It’s justice,” he says, so we all pile on top of Michael while he lies there not saying or doing anything.

  We tickle him some, but it isn’t any fun because Michael is balled up on the ground like a big baby. Finally, we are allowed to stop after Indie says that the shop is going to close in a couple of minutes and if we don’t go now, we won’t be able to get any zooveniers at all.

  Kyran takes us the gift shop while Julia goes to the restroom and Michael lies on the ground, crying.

  Inside, Kyran asks me to help him find a gift for Julia and I feel very important and sort of touched that Kyran trusts me. I tell him that I’m getting my best friend, Marcus Kirton, an elephant-stuffed-animal because elephants are wise, but also kind, and maybe he could get Julia an elephant too. So Kyran and I both buy elephants and when I ask if Kyran thinks they are related, he says, yes, no doubt about it. I like being around Kyran because he smells nice, and because whenever I am with him, everybody has to be nice to me or they know they’ll get their lights punched out just like Michael.

  We are all piled up in this empty conference room that has murals of monkeys and lions painted on each of its walls. There is even one of those wooden animal paintings with the faces cut out so that you and your friends can pretend to be a little koala family, for instance.

  Somebody’s put up a partition in the middle of the room and the boys are supposed to sleep on the right side, while we girls sleep on the left. Thomas stops by to tell us that if either the boys or the girls sneak onto the wrong side, there will be serious consequences. “Got it?” he asks.

  “Got it,” we say.

  Julia, Michael and Kyran disappear for a little bit and when they come back, they all smell like booze. I know because one time Bane drank some of Dad’s liquor and he smelled the same way. Bane was only eight, so he didn’t get into trouble, but Dad said that if Bane ever went into the cabinet above the fridge again, there would be serious consequences.

  I wonder if Maisie will tell us all a story before we go to sleep. Most of the time Maisie sucks, but nobody tells better stories than she does.

  I’m looking in my backpack for leggings and the sweater that I know I packed, but all I can find are the pink, fuzzy PJs Mom bought me at Costco. The Costco PJs are too big for me, not to mention they are stained at the crotch, and if I wear them everybody will think that I have wet myself. “Oh no, oh no, oh no,” I say, as I search my bag, pulling everything out. The back of my neck gets real warm and I am taking lots of breaths so that I can remain calm.

  Maisie and Indie come over to where I am, and Maisie asks, “What’s wrong? You’re, like, freaking out.”

  I say, “I don’t have my PJs!”

  Maisie says, “You’re holding them.”

  I say, “No, these are the wrong ones, these are stained. I can’t believe Mom packed them!”

  Maisie shrugs, “You should have packed your own bag,” she says.

  Then I hit Maisie in the arm. I don’t know what made me do it. I could
n’t breathe and my armpits were prickling and I smacked Maisie across the arm so hard that I left a red handprint.

  “What. The. Fuck,” says Maisie.

  “What. The. Fuck,” says Indie, then she turns to Maisie and says, “You should tell somebody, that’s physical harassment, she could go to jail.”

  I take a deep breath and then I tell Indie, “You are about the stupidest fucking cunt I have ever met in my entire life.”

  Indie told Julia what I said about her being a stupid cunt, so now I am sitting outside with Julia and Kyran while Michael supposedly supervises everyone. I wouldn’t want to be inside even if Indie hadn’t told on me.

  Julia says, “You can’t go around calling people cunts at your age.” Kyran nods behind her, even though I can tell he is trying not to laugh. “If you do something like that again, we’ll have to tell your parents,” Julia threatens.

  Kyran says, “Ah, geez.” Then he asks, “Julia, let me talk to her, ok?” Julia says, “Ok.

  What do I care?” Then, swigging from her flask, she walks back to the mural room. When she is gone, Kyran puts an arm around me. I lean into him and he pats my head. “Listen,” he says, still patting my head. He takes a long time before he says anything else so I can tell that he really cares about me and that he is really thinking hard. “All of this,” he says, “this stuff is just kid stuff. Like it seems really important to you now, but it won’t later on.” Kyran says he’s known girls like Indie and that they never seem to grow up right. “I mean, look at Julia,” he says, “I’ve known her for years, years! When she was your age, she only cared about Lacrosse, like a freakish amount. Everyone thought she was so weird, even me. But then we grew up, and Julia, well, she’s beautiful, and now everyone thinks it’s cool that she’s athletic, that she’s dedicated.”

  “I fence,” I say. Kyran laughs and smacks my arm. “Did you give Julia her elephant?” Ι ask.

  “Not yet.”

  “I hope she likes it,” I say.

  Kyran says, “Come on, let’s go give it to her.”

  Indie and Maisie are sitting under the painted toucan, playing with tarot cards. They don’t look up when Kyran and I walk up to them, not even when I say, “Hi guys!”

  Kyran asks, “You guys got room for another?” He turns to me and mouths, “Sit down.” Then he says, “We were just talking about fencing. It seems we have a real talented er…player in our presence.”

  Indie rolls her eyes. Maisie says, “She’s ok.” Indie puts a card down and tells Maisie that she is going to have many suitors, but that a newcomer will take everything away from her.

  Then Kyran looks all around the room and asks, “Where’s Julia?” He gets up, peers around the partition, then he asks, “Where are the boys and Michael?” Everybody shrugs. Kyran looks at me and says, “Come with me!”

  “They’re, like, in love,” Indie says, not even bothering to whisper.

  I’ve never been in love with anybody, but as Kyran takes my hand, I think he wouldn’t be such a bad guy to be in love with. I know from the movies that an age difference between girls and boys is ok as long as the boy is older. Kyran heads towards the coffee kiosk and then the little hill. He walks so fast I have to jog to keep up with him. All of the animals must be asleep ‘cause everything is dead quiet. Kyran keeps asking, “Where the fuck are they?” so I start asking it too. “Where the fuck are they?” asks Kyran.

  “Where the fuck are they?” I ask.

  And then we hear screaming near the bathrooms. It sounds like everybody is having lots of fun. “The bathrooms!” says Kyran, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “We’re so dumb!” I say.

  We hear the screaming again, and this time it doesn’t sound like any fun at all. “Is that Julia?” asks Kyran. We start running, Kyran pulling me along.

  Kyran is in such a hurry to get inside the bathroom that he bangs my shoulder against the wall, and he doesn’t even say he is sorry. It hurts so badly that I can’t hold in the tears. I don’t want it to be dislocated, but if it was, that would make sense. Nobody is screaming anymore, but a few boys are laughing inside the handicap stall. We can see their feet shuffling around.

  Still gripping my hand tight, Kyran runs over to the stall. He kicks the door open with a bang! And then I hear someone shout, “What the fuck!”

  Julia is draped over the toilet. Her shirt is around her neck, and her skirt is bunched around her stomach. Michael is behind her, leaning over her, his hands on her waist. Vilgot and Igar have their phones out, filming Michael and Julia. Somehow, I’ve sort of wedged myself between the gross plastic thing meant for changing babies, and the hand dryer. I don’t know where Bane is, but he isn’t here.

  “We were just helping her!” says Michael, his hands in the air.

  “Michael called us in here!” says Vilgot, shoving his phone into his pocket. “She’s drunk!” says Michael.

  “What were we supposed to do?” asks Igar.

  Kyran tells me to get Julia standing, but she just rolls to the floor. When I try to pull her up, she is like liquid in my arms. She says, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Kyran lifts her and then he tells me to hold her while he pulls her skirt back down.

  The whole time Julia leans on me, moaning into my shoulder. The boys stand still as statues, their hands still in the air. Julia is real heavy, but I know it’s my job to keep her standing up, to keep her safe. I tell her, “You know, Kyran really loves you. Nobody has ever bought me an elephant just because.”

  Kyran has Michael, Vilgot and Igar lined up against the bathroom wall, and he is pacing in front of them. When I can’t hold Julia anymore, the two of us slump to the ground. I ask, “Don’t we need to get out of here?” but nobody is listening to me. The boys aren’t looking at each other. Even though there are three of them, and only one of Kyran, the boys look terrified.

  Finally, Kyran says, “I could kill you all!” Igar says, “We didn’t even do anything!”

  Kyran frowns and says, “I don’t know.” Then he seems to remember that I am here. He turns to me and asks, “What should I do?”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah,” says Kyran.

  “I don’t know,” I say, “I’m a kid!”

  “Oh,” says Kyran, and I know that I’ve let him down. “Well, you should punish them,” I say.

  “How should I punish them?” asks Kyran.

  “Well, an eye for an eye, and all that,” I say. Kyran walks over to me and pulls Julia up from my lap. She doesn’t even open her eyes. “Go play,” he says.

  “I want to stay,” I say. Kyran takes a deep breath, then he tells me to get the fuck out, like I did something really wrong.

  I run out of the bathroom and straight into Maisie, Indie and Bane, who have taken the Tarot cards outside to the picnic bench. Indie’s wearing a headlamp, shining it on the cards so that they can all see what they are doing. Indie looks up, blinding me with her headlamp. I say, “Michael attacked Julia and then Kyran attacked Michael, and Vilgot and Igar and I were all there and now I think that Michael might be dead!”

  Indie rolls her eyes, she turns to Maisie, says, “Your sister is like, so dramatic.” Then she walks up to me and asks, “Why don’t you go and find Kyran, your boyfriend?”

  “Aren’t you listening?” I ask. I try to explain about how Julia got drunk, how Michael, Vilgot and Igar tried to attack her, how Kyran attacked them, how I saw it all. Then I ask, “Can you turn off your light for the love of fuck?”

  Indie pushes my shoulders and says, “Don’t swear at me!” but then Maisie is there, standing between Indie and me.

  “That’s my sister,” she says. “Don’t push her.”

  We’re all in our sleeping bags, and Call-Me-Thomas is making us go around and say the best part of our day. He brings us popcorn and Hawaiian Punch, and the boys are on our side until lights out. I’m sitting on the far side of the circle, so I have plenty of time to think o
f my best thing.

  Indie says that her best thing was making a new friend. Maisie says that her best thing is the same as Indie’s. Vilgot says his best thing is any day spent in America. Igar says he doesn’t have a best thing.

  I don’t think Kyran is going to say anything, but then he says his best thing was when he and I went shopping for zoovenirs, so I say that was my best thing too.

  Mom picks us up, and Bane starts playing his Gameboy right away. Mom asks, “So, would you do it again? Was it fun?” and before I can tell her anything, Maisie starts telling Mom all about Indie, and asks if Indie can spend the night next Thursday and then she says that she is a vegetarian now so can we stop at Whole Foods on the way home?

  Mom says ok to Whole Foods and then she asks me what I thought about the zoo so I tell her about the gorillas having sex and then I explain about how Kyran and me turned out to be this awesome team, how he and Julia said they would come to my next fencing match, how they promised to kick the ass of anybody who even looked at me the wrong way.

  Mom smiles and I catch her eye in the rearview mirror. She says, “That’s good honey.” Then she says, “That Thomas guy gave me the phone numbers of your counselors– says any one of them would make a great babysitter. Dad and I would love to get some more time to ourselves. Azalea? Maisie? Bane? What do you think? Next Friday Dad and I will go out, and we’ll have this Kyran guy over to watch you three!”