Momentous Events in the Life of a Cactus

by Dusti Bowling

  “Have you read all of these?”

  “No, but a ton of them. I’m sort of fascinated with all the different characters. Like, what are people thinking when they write this weird stuff? And I love the art.”

  “Maybe you should write a comic book,” I said.

  Lando smiled. “I am already.”

  “Really? Can I read it?”

  He shrugged and put his Captain America mask back on. “Maybe. One day. It’s not ready.”

  I stood up. “Okay.”

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you one more thing about Armless Tiger Man,” Lando said.

  “What is it? No, don’t tell me. I can’t take anymore. What is it?”

  He narrowed his eyes at me from under his mask. “Armless Tiger Man and Captain America are mortal enemies.”

  “Of course, they are!” I cried. “Captain America is like this great hero and Armless Tiger Man is a disgusting Nazi.”

  Just then Mrs. Hill walked into the room. “Aven, sweetie, come with me.”

  I followed her down the hall to a closet. She opened it.

  “Whoa,” I said. It was crammed with about a hundred costumes.

  “I know we can make something new out of the stuff in here,” Mrs. Hill said, adjusting her wig, her eyes full of determination. She scratched at her green chin. “Did you read about the Armless Master in your, uh, research?” She asked as she pulled out a green cape.

  “No, I just saw Armless Tiger Man.”

  She pulled out a flesh colored foamy muscle suit. “Well, if we take this green Loki cape and combine it with this Sumo suit . . . ”

  “Sumo suit?” I asked.

  She waved a hand in the air. “Don’t ask. Experiment gone wrong.” She draped the cape over my shoulders. “Yes, I think you could be the Armless Master. He’s pretty tough.”

  I smiled at her, but the corners of my mouth shook and my eyes filled with tears. “Oh, honey,” Mrs. Hill said, wrapping her arms around me and pulling my head into her foamy chest. “It’s okay.”

  “I’m sorry,” I sobbed into the foam. “I can’t believe how stupid I am. I didn’t mean to dress like a Nazi.”

  She ran a hand over my head as I cried. “Of course, you didn’t. No one thinks that. And you are definitely not stupid, Aven.”

  “Yes, I am.” I pulled away. “I swear I don’t like Nazis,” I sobbed, tears running down my cheeks. “I hate them. I really, really hate them.”

  Mrs. Hill put her hands on my shoulders and gripped them. “I really, really know that.” She smiled and wiped at my cheeks. “Are you okay, honey?”

  I sniffled. “I will be.”

  Mrs. Hill nodded. Then she picked up the flesh-colored foam suit and held it up to me. “Now let’s see . . . I think I’ll need to tailor this just a bit. It won’t be the best, but I can pull it together pretty quickly.”

  20

  All this anger.

  All this fear.

  It’s been building.

  You’re about to hear.

  — Kids from Alcatraz

  AND MRS. HILL AMAZINGLY DID pull it together. My costume ended up looking pretty good, though I wondered if people would know who I was. Mr. Hill, all decked out in his killer Black Lightning costume with actual glowing blue lightning bolts on his chest, drove us all in the van.

  “You know,” Mr. Hill said, “you could have dressed her up as Arm-Fall-Off-Boy. That would have been a good one.”

  I gaped at Mr. Hill in the rearview mirror. “Arm-Fall-Off-Boy? You’ve got to be joking?”

  “That can’t be real,” Connor said. “Then again, I wouldn’t think Armless Tiger Man or the Armless Master could be real either.”

  “That’s a complicated costume,” Mrs. Hill said. “I don’t think I could have pulled it off so quickly.”

  “You’re right,” Mr. Hill said. “You couldn’t pull it off. At least, not like Arm-Fall-Off-Boy pulls his own arms off.” Mr. Hill was clearly impressed at his joke as he grinned at all of us in the rearview mirror.

  We all sort of half-groaned, half-giggled. “Maybe next year,” I said.

  “Dude!” A guy in a Joker costume said as he walked by Lando and me. “The Armless Master! That’s so rad!”

  I smiled at Lando as the Joker walked off. We had already lost Connor and Zion to a video gaming exhibit and Mr. and Mrs. Hill to a panel on intersectional feminism in comics. “I guess people do recognize me,” I said.

  “Yeah, you’re pretty memorable,” Lando said, smiling.

  “Whoa.” A storm trooper stopped in front of me. “Are you the Armless Master?” he asked from under his helmet.

  “Yep.”

  “How’d you make it look so real?” the Storm Trooper asked, circling me. “How’d you hide your arms like that?”

  “Chainsaw,” I told him.

  He stood there a moment before saying, “Huh?”

  “I take Comic Con very seriously.”

  “What?”

  “I’m a hardcore method actor.”

  The Storm Trooper backed away from me. “I almost believe you.”

  Lando chuckled beside me as the Storm Trooper left. I felt kind of bad about traumatizing him, so when the next person asked me how I made my armlessness look so real, I told her it was CGI.

  “Comic Con is awesome,” I said, looking around at all the nerds. I wished every place could be like this. Only with better smells.

  A couple of guys about my age in Wolverine and Cyclops costumes walked by us. Wolverine gave me the horrible “I can’t stop staring at you because you’re a freak” look.

  I stared right back at him. “What are you looking at, Wolverine?”

  There seemed to be something about being in costume at Comic Con that made me feel way bolder than usual. Like I was someone else.

  And I was sick to death of people looking at me like those guys did.

  “Nothing,” Wolverine said, walking away with Cyclops. But I could hear him say to his friend as he walked away, “That was freaky.”

  My heart pounded. I felt like all my anger that had been building over the last couple of weeks was about to explode. And it did. “You know what’s freaky?” I said, stomping after the X-Men. “Wolverine with giant sweat stains!”

  The two guys turned around. “Huh?” said Wolverine.

  “Yeah, you heard me, nerd boy!” I exclaimed loud enough that several people around us had stopped what they were doing and watched us. “Wolverine is not a geek with sweat stains! And a perm! Wolverine most certainly does not have a perm!”

  Several people around us giggled as I felt Lando’s arm slip around my waist from behind and start pulling me away. Wolverine’s face scrunched up in anger. “My hair is naturally curly!” he squealed. “Naturally curly! All natural!”

  “Yeah, I bet those sweat stains are natural, too!” I cried as Lando snorted behind me but kept pulling me back.

  “It’s over a hundred degrees outside!” Wolverine waved his rubber claws at me.

  “Why are you picking a fight, Armless Master?” Cyclops said. “You want a go?”

  I squirmed in Lando’s arms. “Oh, yeah, I want a go! I’ll take you both down. Don’t you know who I am? I’ll Kung Fu you both!”

  And then the people around us were chanting, “Armless Master. Armless Master.”

  Zion and Connor ran up to us, their eyes wide. “Aven, you’re going to get us in trouble,” Lando said.

  I walked away with my friends, my chest puffed out. “No one better mess with me today.”

  “I don’t think anyone else will,” Lando mumbled. He smiled and shook his head, walking off to check out a Harry Potter display.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Zion scolded me and then ran off to join his brother—like they both needed to put distance between themselves and me.

  I turned to Connor. “You got something to say, huh? Bring it on!”

  Connor barked, clucked his tongue, blinked his eyes. I had clearly stressed him out, and I felt
kind of bad about that. “Need anger management much, Aven? What is up with you?”

  “Those guys were being rude.”

  “People are rude all the time, and you don’t normally react like that.”

  “Well, I couldn’t take it today.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just couldn’t.”

  Connor stared at me and shrugged. “You’ve been acting so weird the last couple of weeks. You won’t answer my calls, you’re no fun to hang out with—”

  “Hey!”

  “And you just flipped out at Comic Con.”

  I took a deep breath and willed my temper to cool off. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m having a hard time.”

  “With what?”

  “With stupid school. High school sucks. I haven’t even made any friends since I started.”

  “It’s only been a few weeks. And you have Zion.”

  “Maybe I want more friends. Is that too much to ask?”

  “It seems like Lando’s your friend.”

  I glanced over at Lando. “Yeah, I guess. But that’s different. He hangs out with other people at school. And he’s, like, cool.”

  “And I guess you’re not cool.”

  I snorted. “I’m definitely not cool.”

  “And why is that bad?” When I didn’t answer, Connor said, “I’m not cool either, you know. And Zion’s not cool. None of us are cool, Aven. But you know what? I’m okay with that. Aren’t you?”

  “Not when it makes people treat me like garbage.”

  “Who’s treating you like garbage?”

  I stared down at my yellow flip-flops.

  “I see. More secrets.”

  Zion and Lando walked back to us, and Lando aimed a wand at my head and tapped it on my frazzled red hair. “Calm downus!” He grinned.

  “I am calm,” I said. “I’m not going to get us into trouble.”

  “That was pretty tough, though,” Lando said. “I think those guys were seriously scared.”

  “What can I say? I’m pretty scary.”

  “You are scary,” Zion said. “For real.”

  “Yeah, ’cause I’ll for real kick your butt,” I said.

  Zion watched me warily as he and Lando walked back over to the Harry Potter exhibit. Lando turned around and mouthed the word scary, then smiled. I smiled back and shook my head at him.

  I turned and found Connor watching me. “You like him,” Connor said.

  “What? Like who?”

  “Lando.”

  “Of course, I like him. He’s Zion’s brother.”

  “No, I mean you like him, like him.”

  “What? I do not.” My cheeks felt like they were going to melt off. I wasn’t sure if it was from my fight with Wolverine or from Connor’s accusations.

  Connor shrugged. “I mean, it’s okay if you do. I would understand.” But Connor didn’t make eye contact with me. He stared at the ground and fiddled with the dog fur on his costume. He clucked his tongue a few times.

  “Well, I don’t,” I said. “At least not like you like Amanda.” I instantly regretted saying that.

  Connor looked up at me. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I don’t like her like that. She’s just a friend.”

  “Well, I don’t like anyone like that, and I doubt I ever will.”

  Connor frowned. “Why?”

  “Because no one would ever like me like that.”

  Connor opened his mouth like he might say something, but I turned around and pushed my way through the crowd of characters before he could see the tears in my eyes.

  21

  Life is hard

  And hardly ever fair.

  — Llama Parade

  «I CANT BELIEVE WERE GOING TO homecoming,” Zion whined as he sadly took a bite of his sandwich.

  “I can’t believe it either.” I swung my bag onto the lunch table and eased my head out from under it. I sunk down in my chair. “Like I said . . . ” I leaned forward and whispered, “Y. M. C. A.”

  I glanced over at Lando’s table and saw him laugh about something. I’m not sure why I made a special note of the fact that he and Janessa weren’t sitting next to each other. Connor’s words echoed in my head. You like him, like him. Lando looked over at our table and waved at me. I quickly turned away from him.

  “So Comic Con was fun,” I said casually.

  “Yeah, it was okay,” Zion said.

  “I’d totally go again next year.”

  “As long as you don’t start any more fights.”

  “I didn’t start the fight.” I stuck my chin out. “I ended it.”

  “Yeah, about ended up in jail.”

  I snorted. “You’re such an exaggerator.” I sat there for a moment. “What do you think they would do about my fingerprints if I went to jail?”

  “I guess they’d have to print your toes.”

  “Cool,” I said. “I kind of wish I had ended up in jail.”

  I opened my bag and pulled out my pretzels. I popped one in my mouth as a smarmy voice behind me said, “Leave some food for the rest of us, Lardon.”

  Zion stared down at his sandwich, all crawled back into himself. I could see what Joshua was starting to do to him again—the power he had over him. I wondered how much of Zion’s terrible shyness and insecurity about his weight was because of Joshua. My heart pounded with anger.

  “You like your finger foods, don’t you, Aven?” Joshua went on. “Or would those be toe foods for you?”

  Was I going to let him have that same power over me?

  I whirled around to face him. “I do like toe foods,” I said. “Just not as much as you like butt foods.”

  “That doesn’t even make any sense,” Joshua said.

  “It makes sense to people with half a brain.”

  “And apparently to people with half a body.” Joshua laughed at his own stupid joke. I glared at him, willing my eyes to not fill with tears as he joined his friends at their table.

  I turned around and slumped in my chair.

  “Maybe you were right,” Zion said.

  “About what?”

  “Maybe we should eat outside.”

  I shook my head. “I am not going to let that guy beat us.” I leaned forward. “And you’re not going to let him do this to you. We shouldn’t care at all what he says or does.”

  But I could see that Zion cared. And as much as I tried to deny it, I cared too—so much that when a kid burst into the cafeteria and screamed, “It’s raining!” Zion and I just sat at our table, sadly glancing at each other while everything around us erupted into chaos. Kids pushed past one another, laughing and screaming and grabbing and shoving, in their eagerness to get a small sprinkle of cool desert rain on their faces.

  Zion and I just focused on making it through lunch.

  The air had slightly cooled for a few hours as a result of the sprinkle we’d had, and it smelled amazing at Stagecoach Pass as I walked through the park that day after school. There was nothing quite like the smell of the desert after a rain. Too bad it had to come with humidity, making my clothes feel sticky.

  I sat next to Spaghetti in the shaded covering of the petting zoo and rubbed his soft fur with my foot. He barely acknowledged me. “He’s still so sluggish,” I told Denise. “Has he been eating?”

  “A little,” Denise said as she filled the water troughs with a hose. “It’s still so darn hot. I wish that rain had lasted longer. How could anyone act spry in this muggy weather?”

  I shrugged. I had to admit I felt sluggish myself, like I could crawl in bed and sleep for, oh, the next four years.

  “I wish I were a llama,” I said to Denise. “Then I could live here in the petting zoo and not have to worry about anything.”

  “But what if you didn’t live in a petting zoo?” Denise said. “Then you’d have plenty to worry about.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like getting eaten by a mountain lion.”

  “That’s
why I would be a petting zoo llama. They live a life of leisure.”

  At least my career options were growing: hermit, llama.

  Denise smiled. “I suppose. But it seems kind of boring to me.”

  I saw Trilby walking by. “Trilby!” I called out, but she didn’t seem to hear me. “Trilby!” I cried again. “Trilby!”

  She finally looked over. She waved and pulled an ear bud out of her ear. She made her way into the petting zoo and sat down in the dirt beside Spaghetti and me. “You have to hear this new band I just discovered,” she said. “They’re called We Are Librarians.” She laughed. “Isn’t that awesome?”

  I smiled as she put the bud in my ear, and I tried not to think about how we were sharing ear wax. I sat there listening to We Are Librarians in one ear while Trilby went on about how excited she was to go to homecoming with Zion and me in the other ear. She rubbed her hands all over Spaghetti while she talked, and I thought if anyone could pep him up, it would be Trilby. But still he sat there all lifeless.

  “I better get back,” Trilby said. “I was just enjoying the smell of the rain.”

  “I’ll walk with you,” I told her.

  While we walked, I told Trilby how Dad couldn’t believe that her dad was in a punk band because he’d once seen him wear a polo shirt, which she thought was hilarious. “They still get together and play every now and then but not often. You know, I don’t think you can ever turn it off.”

  “Turn what off?” I asked.

  “The love of playing music,” she said. “I think my dad will still rock out even when he’s super old.”

  “Have you ever thought about starting a band?” I asked her.

  She stopped and grabbed me, like this was the most serious subject ever. “All. The. Time.”

  I looked shyly down at me feet. “I, uh, play the guitar a little.”

  “What?” Trilby practically screamed right in face. “How could I not already know this? We have to start a band, Aven. We have to.”

  “I don’t think I can do that,” I said, still looking down at the ground. “I can’t perform in front of people.”

  “Why not?”

  I looked up at her. “I like to keep a low profile.”

  Trilby frowned. “I think it’s time for you to start keeping a high profile.”