Girls Don't Fly

by Chandler, Kristen

  I’ve been planning to skip AP bio since three o’clock this morning. But I go. I’m not much of a sluffer. I sit in the back, next to Jonathon Hempilmeyer. There’s always a seat next to Jonathon because he can’t talk about anything but his horror movies and he has a big, germy nose ring. I actually kind of like Jonathon, except for the nose thing.

  “How come you’re sitting by me today?” he says.

  I stare blankly for a second. He probably knows I’ve been dumped, but I like to think that maybe he doesn’t. I attempt perkiness. “So do you make real movies, or just stuff with your phone?”

  “Why, do you want to be in one?”

  I laugh. “Just curious. What are they about?”

  Jonathon’s nose ring wiggles when he talks. “Your black eye is cool. How do you feel about eviscerated intestines?”

  Erik comes in. He avoids looking at me and of course I don’t look at him because I’m asking Jonathon an important question.

  “What about intestines?”

  “That’s my movie. It’s called Sausage Girls. Sixty minutes and you’ll never be the same.”

  I hear Erik ask the girl in the tight T-shirt next to him for a pencil. She’s delighted to give it to him.

  Ms. Miller stands at the front of class in her white lab coat. She’s always in a lab coat, no matter what we’re doing in class. Ms. Miller says, “Today we’re having a guest speaker....”

  What I like about Ms. Miller is that she explains things without making fun of students. What I don’t like about her is that she always looks depressed when she hands back our tests, like we’ve personally disappointed her.

  Suddenly Jonathon leans over to me and whispers, “Did you break up with Erik?”

  I should have taken the seat by Alicia Smelinich.

  Jonathon’s nose ring is tinkling with excitement. “No more Dream Team? Seriously?”

  I keep my eyes glued on Ms. Miller and the guy at the front in the rumpled brown clothes.

  Jonathon whispers, “Really?”

  I look at Jonathon. I’m expecting him to be appropriately jaded. But instead his eyes are wide, like I just broke the news about the tooth fairy.

  He says, “I mean he’s kind of uptight, but you two just seemed like you were perfect. You’re kind of wreckin’ my day here.”

  I scoot in my chair so I don’t have to listen. Jonathon makes movies about body parts. He’s supposed to hate Dream Team romances.

  “So what happened?” he whispers. “Did he cheat on you?”

  I look ahead like I don’t hear him.

  “It’s not like you aren’t smokin’ hot.”

  If he keeps talking I swear I’m going to whack my face into the desk.

  Ms. Miller says, “This is Peter Tree. He’s a graduate student at the University of Utah who specializes in evolutionary biology. He’s here to tell us about a project the university is sponsoring in this school district. I’d appreciate all of you giving him your undivided attention. That includes Myra and Jonathon.”

  Everyone except Erik turns and looks at me—in case anyone hadn’t noticed I wasn’t next to Erik. Instead I’m next to Jonathon, getting busted by Ms. Miller.

  “Okay,” says the biology guy with this low, serious voice, like he’s on the radio. He’s twentysomething, with longish red-brown hair and a scruffy beard, and he’s underfed, like he’s been on one too many campouts. But his eyes remind me of Carson’s. “What can anyone tell me about the Galápagos Islands?”

  For a second everyone does a double take. The Galápagos what?

  The biology guy unfolds a giant map and hangs it on the blackboard. There is a red circle around some little tiny islands out in the middle of the ocean next to Ecuador.

  Biology guy, who clearly is missing a few screws, flips into this weird Einstein voice and points out the red circle. “Here are the Galápagos Islands,” he says.

  After a moment of silence a few hyperachievers raise their hands. Of course the weird biology guy calls on Erik.

  “They’re the islands that Darwin visited when he invented evolution.”

  The biology guy goes back to being a grown-up. “Well, Darwin didn’t invent evolution. But he did write a very famous theory about evolution, using what he observed on the Galápagos Islands.”

  Erik looks bugged, maybe even embarrassed. Like I say, Erik’s not as cocky as people think.

  “So I’m here today to tell you about a program that will allow two high school seniors from this school district to travel to the Galápagos Islands for eight weeks this summer with our research team to study plant and bird life. We have been given a generous endowment from an anonymous donor to help pay for some less advantaged students to go learn about evolution, hands-on.”

  “Less advantaged? What’s that supposed to mean?” says Erik.

  Ms. Miller steps in front of the class. “What Mr. Tree is trying to say is that this school district has been notably lacking in its science scores. Some people at the university would like to help turn that around.”

  “By sending us to an island?” Jonathon says. “When should I pack?”

  “You might want to read the fine print first,” says the biology guy. “Candidates have to attend a ten-week prep class held on Saturday mornings at the Great Salt Lake Marina and then write a research proposal. We roll at six a.m. sharp.” The whole class groans on cue. The biology guy just smiles. “Then applicants are selected on the basis of the proposal, just like research fellows are given money for grants based on the fertility of their studies.”

  “You have to be fertile to win?” says the tight shirt next to Erik.

  Obviously the biology guy’s not used to talking to high school students. Over the laughing he says, “You choose something you’d like to study there and explain why it’s important, and then make a proposal explaining your objective. Fertility is optional.”

  Ms. Miller says, “It’s a scholarship program.” Which is a boring enough way of putting it that we all stop laughing.

  Peter Tree drops his voice another octave. “But like I was saying, the trip is subsidized, not completely funded by the school. You need to raise one thousand dollars. But the upside is you get college credit for the eight weeks in paradise.” He makes a face like a ghoul. “Those are the provisions of the donor.”

  Whatever, weird biology guy. Wrong school. I wonder what the moneybags donor was thinking. If he or she wanted to “advantage us,” he or she should have figured we wouldn’t be lying around in money.

  “What kind of fund-raising?” asks Alicia Smelinich. “Like selling cookie dough or something?”

  “That’d be a lot of cookie dough.” The biology guy laughs. “But I suppose you could do it that way. There aren’t a lot of rules about the fund-raising, since this is the first year. You just have to have the money before you submit your project on May first. The trip is in July.”

  “May is less than three months,” says Jonathon.

  “Eighty-three dollars a week,” says Erik.

  “It’s a lot to ask, I know,” says the biology guy. “But it’s also a great opportunity.”

  “So Mr. Tree, could we just have our parents come up with the money?” says David Marquez from the other side of the room. His parents both work at General Cooper and are about as likely to come up with the money as they are to give away gold bullion at Halloween.

  “The foundation hopes the students will raise their own funds, but they don’t require it.”

  A thousand dollars for a science trip? Obviously he isn’t talking to us. Kids around here don’t just pull that kind of money out of their pockets. Except Erik. He’s sitting there like he’s just found five aces in his deck. And why not? His dad makes that much money before lunch every day.

  A year ago I could have covered the whole thing, but that was before I started trying to dress like Erik’s friends and I wrecked Moby while backing out of the grocery store parking lot. Now I have a grand total of two hundred and thirteen dolla
rs in my bank account, and six neatly ironed ones in my wallet.

  The biology guy says, “So anyway, here’s a little video about the trip. In case you’re curious. And even if you aren’t, the video shows you a little about the islands and why they’re so important. Plus, they’re hot. Literally.”

  A few people laugh again. Mostly people start talking about other stuff, like what a weirdo this guy is.

  “Class,” says Ms. Miller. “Let’s be quiet so we can watch the movie.”

  Jonathon leans over to me. I can see a speck of brown on his teeth. “A thousand bucks? Yeah. That’s fair.”

  I nod. Since when did fair have anything to do with anything? At least it’s going to be dark for a few minutes and I can drift off into my own torture chamber while Erik plans his next great adventure. Too bad he and Tight Shirt can’t win the competition together so he could borrow her pencil, or whatever, for the whole two months.

  Ms. Miller’s voice slices through the room. “Class, you may now shut up.”

  Everyone goes silent.

  The movie starts off with drums and a smoking volcano and then flashes to seething waves and black lava beds, then to mangrove forests, ocean caverns, and fog-fringed mountain peaks. The narrator says something about the islands being a microcosm for the earth’s development. I put my head down on my desk.

  Jonathon bumps me. “Check it out.”

  I lift my head up. In spite of wanting to dissolve into a puddle I can’t help but watch. The water is so blue. One of the blue-footed boobies nearly flies into the camera. Its aqua feet scale over rocks. I hear Erik say, “Get out! Wouldn’t you love to go there?”

  His new buddy giggles. “Oh, sure.”

  I stare at the movie. I’m having a hard time swallowing. I tell myself to breathe. I think about Erik going to this place while I stay here and rot, and then I have to concentrate on the movie to keep from totally losing it.

  After a minute or two I let the music and the panoramic ocean shots wash over me. It’s hard not to. Not only is the water amazingly, perfectly blue, the sky is perfectly pink. The rocks are perfectly jagged. The tortoises are perfectly old. The sea lions are perfectly playful. Even the scientist leading the expedition looks perfect in her little explorer gear.

  The narrator says something about “the cruel but essential element of change.” The scientist lady talks about how the islands were born from violent changes in the earth’s core and now everything from the albatross to the algae exists largely because of these changes. And for some weird, deeply self-absorbed reason, the longer I watch, the more this is all freakishly interesting to me.

  I’m probably just feeling insane, but before I know what is happening to me I’m bonding with every lizard and lava rock. My brain is swallowing seawater. The scientist says something about it being a place that is new geologically, because of all the volcanic activity. It’s like a younger miniversion of the earth. Its isolation makes it uniquely suited to Darwin’s discoveries and all the other discoveries that have come after. The narrator butts in and says, “It’s a place where we can study the birth of things, and a place where animal and plant life can teach us secrets about all life. One cannot help but feel that this is a place to begin.”

  The camera shows a marine iguana hurling itself off the rocks into the sea to find food. His thick shadow disappears into the water, where he’s thrown against the razor coral. Sea lions harass him. The tide flips him in all directions.

  I look over at Jonathon. He’s sound asleep.

  For twenty more minutes I listen to the scientist talk about her impressions of this place. She visits cavernous holes in the earth and ambles up mountains shooting from the sea. In her lovely Texas twang she says, “Thanks to the isolation of these islands and the high rate of volcanic activity, so much about the archipelago is relatively pristine, and yet changing at a faster rate than places with less tectonic convergence. To study this special place is like studying time-lapse photography of creation itself.”

  I’m not sure I understand what she just said, but I love how it sounds. Everyone in the film is smart and brown and far from here, especially the scientist. I bet she never sucked anybody’s space.

  When the lights come on I close my eyes to keep the pictures there a second longer. I can still see iguanas and tortoises and blue-footed boobies. I hear the narrator say, “A place to begin,” and it makes a little glass-ringing sound inside my head.

  Stranger things could happen. Losers win the lottery every day.

  But when I open my eyes I see the back of Erik’s head. Oh yeah, reality. I’ll be working at the Lucky Penny this summer, signing up for dental hygiene classes in the fall. What this guy is talking about isn’t the lottery. He’s talking about a scholarship contest. That takes a grand to sign up for. That my gorgeous and brilliant ex-boyfriend will no doubt enter and win because he’s brilliant and gorgeous, and has lots of extra space to work with now that it’s not being sucked up by me.

  I reach over and nudge Jonathon. “Hey,” I say. “Time to wake up.”

  “So I’ll leave some flyers here with the schedule for the prep class,” says Pete the biology guy. “Everyone is welcome.”

  Everyone is welcome. But only Erik and I pick up flyers.

  7

  Skein:

  A V formation that birds fly in to avoid being a drag.

  All the way to pick up the boys from school, I see that stupid movie with its weird tortoises, dolphins, and birds. So many crazy birds. When the boys load up, feet and backpacks fly everywhere. I almost don’t notice when Brett climbs into the seat behind me that he has a scratch on his face. Except it’s a whopper.

  “Did you get attacked by a cougar?”

  Brett gives me the disgusted look. His favorite facial expression.

  “Who did you fight with?”

  “Nobody,” he says.

  “How come the school didn’t have Mom come get you?”

  “Nobody answered,” says Brett. He climbs in the very back of Moby.

  “That’s a whole lot of nobody.” I pull my homemade first-aid kit, complete with pocket knife and granola bars, out of the glove box, retrieve some antibiotic ointment, and pass it back. “What happened?”

  Andrew shrugs his shoulders. Ever since Andrew got into sixth grade he acts like he’s entered a universe where the rest of us don’t exist. I’m not sure who Brett tells stuff to anymore, because it isn’t me. But I hope Mom at least notices he looks like the Frankenstein monster.

  When I get home Mom is in the laundry room pairing socks. We have a lot of socks at our house. “You’re late,” says Mom.

  Mom cleans offices. She leaves before dinner each day and then I take over with dinner and kids. She hates working nights, but this way Danny doesn’t have to go to day care and all the stuff that goes with six kids gets paid for. I’ll say this for my mom, she knows how to work.

  Instead of answering, I grab two black socks and fold them together.

  “We heard about this stupid scholarship today, in biology.”

  “Why is it stupid?”

  “Because you have to have money to apply. If you win, you have to pay part of the cost of going on the trip.”

  “How much is it?

  “A thousand dollars.”

  “Pretty stupid,” she says. “Danny has an ear infection. I need to pick up his prescription before I go to work.” She grabs the keys, says hello to the boys who have their heads lodged in the cupboard, and leaves without noticing Brett’s face.

  Danny is sitting in the chair with his head on his arms. When he lifts his face I see that he’s covered in graham cracker. He’s so sleepy it’s almost not disgusting. Danny is always sweetest when he’s sick.

  “Hi,” I say. I put my hand to his forehead and it’s warm.

  I make a snack of butterfly oranges for all the boys. It’s a thing Mom used to do for Melyssa and me when we were little. Before she had so many miscarriages, and then babies, and then had to g
o back to work. Maybe I just remember it this way, but I think she was a lot different back then. I flip two sides of an orange together on the plate. Not exactly filling but it looks pretty. I flap the wings at Danny on the plate, but he looks at me blankly. “How do you like it?” I say.

  Danny picks up a wing and squeezes it.

  Carson says, “Can we have a story about butterflies?”

  The older boys look up at me, disgusted, but they don’t run off. We all know they’re getting too cool for this.

  “Once there was a butterfly that was afraid of heights. So he walked.”

  Andrew says, “Butterflies can’t walk.”

  “I don’t like it,” says Danny.

  Brett holds up his hand with a downturned thumb.

  “No butterflies then. There’s going to be killing and maiming and bloodshed.”

  “Pirates?” says Carson.

  Andrew holds his thumb up. Brett rolls his eyes. Danny is doing something with his nose that I’d rather not describe, and I take it as a wait-and-see vote.

  “Pirates it is then. Our story begins in a land called Deadendia, a once happy land that was cursed by dark air that came from a nearby troll-infested mountain. The smoke was so enchanted with misery that the people never even tried to escape. They just walked around being cursed until they keeled over and died. And sometimes to cheer themselves up, they kicked each other on the street or threw rocks at innocent animals. Then one day, right in the middle of a perfectly good misery session, a pirate ship of scurvy dogs sailed to their less advantaged shores.”

  “The pirates were dogs?” said Danny.

  “No, they were pirates. Scurvy ones,” I say. “The villagers were amazed. No one ever came to Deadendia, at least not on purpose. The head pirate swung from his ship and began to tell a tale of another land with fire-breathing mountains and dragons that swam underwater and sprayed boiling water out of their noses. The people laughed at the pirate and told him he had to pay a harbor fee if he was planning on keeping his boat in town overnight. But there were a few souls that were caught up by his tale, a few crazed souls who longed to join him in spite of certain danger....”