Momentous Events in the Life of a Cactus

by Dusti Bowling

  I smiled. “I’ll think about it.”

  Trilby threw her head back and groaned. “Man, that’s what people always say when they mean no. Like when I ask my parents if I can open a chicken sanctuary. They always say ‘We’ll think about it.’ Do I have a chicken sanctuary?” She crossed her arms. “Nope.”

  “You kind of have a thing for chickens, don’t you?” I said.

  “Have you ever seen them wearing pants?”

  I giggled. “No.”

  Trilby narrowed her eyes. “I strongly suggest Stagecoach Pass puts all the chickens in the petting zoo in pants. I predict attendance will go up by . . .” she scratched at her chin. “Twenty percent at least.”

  I giggled again. “I’ll suggest it to my parents.”

  I left Trilby at Sonoran Smoothies and went to visit Chili. She reached her head down to my foot when I walked into her stall. “Smart girl,” I whispered as I slipped my foot out of my flip-flop and rubbed at her head. Then I laid my body against her side, feeling her breath. “We have to figure out how to work together,” I told her. “I know I’m a different kind of rider. But we have to figure this all out. I don’t want to give up on you.” I stood back. “And I don’t want you to give up on me.”

  Chili didn’t seem nearly as worried about the horse show as I was. I wished I could be so carefree. Being a horse must have been amazing.

  I decided to check on Henry. I couldn’t stop thinking about him growing up in orphanages. And those things he said about the nuns hitting him with a brush—it all made me so sad. I wondered what he had been like as a kid. He was so old, it was tough to imagine him as any kind of kid at all. I kept picturing a three-foot tall Henry with wrinkles and white hair.

  He was busy talking to a woman at the counter when I walked in. I sat down at a table and waited while he sold her some saltwater taffy, then she left the store.

  Henry smiled when he saw me. “Hi, Aven.”

  “Hi, Henry.”

  “Would you like some ice cream?”

  I stood up and walked to the counter. “How about a scoop of mint chip?” I said. I didn’t care if he got it wrong today.

  He nodded and picked up the scoop. I watched as he struggled to get ice cream into the scooper—like he didn’t have the strength to do it. Then he dropped the ball of ice cream on the floor before he could get it in the bowl. He went to grab a rag, and I saw how his hands shook.

  I walked around behind the counter. “Go sit down, Henry. I’ll clean this up.”

  He nodded and shakily walked out of the store. For a moment I was worried he was going to wander off. I’d heard about old people with memory problems walking off and getting lost. But I saw he sat down in one of the rocking chairs.

  I worked at cleaning up the ice cream mess on the floor and dumped the rags in the sink. Then I went out and sat next to Henry in a rocking chair on the porch. “Are you okay?” I asked him.

  He nodded. “I’m tired.” He rocked gently. “Just really tired.”

  We rocked in silence awhile until I asked him, “How long were you an orphan, Henry?”

  He stared out at the park. “All my life.”

  “No one ever adopted you?”

  He rubbed at his wrinkled forehead then ran an age-spotted hand over his white hair. “No. No, I guess I wasn’t lucky like you.”

  I smiled, glad he remembered who I was, though it was getting later in the day.

  “Where did you go grow up?”

  “In an orphanage, of course. Back then we had to go to orphanages. That was . . . a long time ago. Nineteen thirties when I was born. There was the Depression. Lots of kids went into orphanages.”

  “But where was your orphanage?”

  “Mostly in Chicago,” he said.

  “Was that the Angel Guardian orphanage you mentioned?”

  “Yeah, that one. And others.”

  “So were you born in Chicago?”

  “I don’t know. I was shuffled around a lot. Not sure. I tried getting my paperwork once, but no one could find it for me.”

  “You don’t remember having a family ever?”

  “Nope. Must’ve been too young to remember when I went in. Don’t even know what happened to my parents.”

  “So you could have brothers or sisters then,” I said, mostly to myself.

  Henry shrugged. “I suppose. But it’s been so long. I wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to find them. And they might be dead.” He rubbed at his forehead. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  “Okay.”

  That night I searched for all I could find about Chicago orphanages in the 1930s. It was difficult to find any good information about them. There were thousands of children in Chicago orphanages in the 1940s, over 1,200 of them in Angel Guardian alone.

  What I did find, however, were lots and lots of people on message boards trying to locate their records, trying to figure out who they were, where they’d come from, and if they had any other family. There were people on there looking for brothers and sisters who they’d been separated from—a woman searching for her older sister, another woman trying to find her three little brothers, and a man searching for his younger sister and baby brother, who’d be about Henry’s age by now. My heart sunk when I saw the post was already over ten years old.

  There were also stories of abuse—of growing up in a world where no one cared about them or wanted them. Had Henry grown up like that? No matter what was happening in my life, at least I knew there were people in this world who cared about me. I went to bed that night, my heart broken for Henry. And for all the people searching for their lost family members.

  22

  How can I make it through tomorrow

  When I can’t make it through tonight?

  How can I make it through tonight

  When I have no more fight?

  — Kids from Alcatraz

  THE DAY OF THE HOMECOMING football game, after Zion and I watched about ten videos of chickens in pants at his house (Trilby was right—attendance would definitely go up by at least twenty percent), we worked on some more guitar lessons together. “No, that’s the wrong chord,” I told Zion. “You’re supposed to be playing A Major.”

  “I was.”

  “No, you were playing C Major.”

  Zion adjusted his fingers. “See, A Major.”

  “Well, now you’re playing A Major.”

  “I can’t concentrate,” Zion said. “I can’t believe you did this to me.”

  “Did what?”

  “Asked Trilby to go to homecoming.”

  “Everything is going to be fine,” I assured him. “Trilby wouldn’t have agreed to go with you if she didn’t want to.”

  “I never would have asked her in the first place.”

  “Which is why I needed to step in. This is good for you. You’re getting out. Breaking out of your comfort zone.”

  Zion glared at me. “And what are you doing, hermit wannabe?”

  “I’m assisting you in making it happen.”

  “No, I mean what are you doing to break out of your comfort zone and move on?”

  “Well, I’m going to the dance, too, aren’t I?”

  “What else are you doing?”

  “I’m teaching you how to play the guitar.” I turned my attention back to Zion’s hands. “Now try playing D Major.”

  “I don’t know why you waste your time, Aven,” Lando said, standing in the doorway. “Dude will always be terrible.”

  “He’s not terrible,” I insisted.

  Zion glared at Lando. “Get out of here.”

  Lando stepped into the room. “Worst guitar player of all time.”

  “Get out or I’ll tell Ma.”

  Instead of leaving, Lando plopped down on the bed next to us. Zion looked like he might be having an aneurysm. He shot up and threw the guitar down on the bed. “I’m telling Ma!”

  Lando and I giggled as Zion stormed out of the room. “Tattletale!” Lando called after
him. In the other room we could hear Zion whining to their mom.

  “He’s trying,” I said. “Go easy on him.”

  “I just wanted to get him out of here.”

  My stomach twisted up into a knot. “Why?”

  “Because I want you to play that song you were playing last time.”

  I swallowed. “What song?”

  “I don’t know. It was like some old song.”

  I tried to think—a serious challenge with Lando staring at me like this. “Oh, you mean ‘Free Fallin’?”

  His face lit up. “Yeah, I think that’s it.” He picked up the guitar and laid it at my feet.

  I hoped he didn’t notice my shaking toes as I tried to remember how to play the stupid song. I started strumming.

  “No.” Lando shook his head.

  I stopped strumming. “What?”

  “You have to sing it.”

  “I don’t sing.”

  “Yes, you do. I heard you.”

  “I was only singing because I didn’t realize you were spying on me.”

  “Will you sing if I go stand outside the doorway then?”

  I smiled and bit down on my lip. “No.”

  “So you won’t dance and you won’t sing.”

  I shook my head. “No,” I whispered.

  “Why not?”

  I went back to gently strumming the guitar. “I don’t know.” But I lied. I knew exactly why. I was too ashamed to admit that I was afraid of what other people would think of me.

  I stopped playing the song when I realized Lando was staring down at me. I slowly raised my head and met his eyes. “You do know,” he said. “And your reason is stupid.”

  His words hit me like a punch to the forehead. What did he care anyway? I opened my mouth to say as much, but Zion stormed back into the room. “Ma says to get out and leave us alone.”

  Lando stood up. “No problem. I’ve got to get ready to go anyway.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Zion said, giving his brother a dirty look as he left the room. Then he sat down on the bed beside me and picked the guitar back up. “I don’t know why he’s bugging us anyway,” he mumbled.

  I stared at the guitar. “I don’t know either.”

  “I like your shirt today,” I told Mr. Hill as we all piled into the van that evening.

  He looked down at his Avengers T-shirt with Nick Fury on it. “Thank you, Aven.”

  “How did he lose his eye?” I asked from the back seat.

  “There are multiple theories. With the original white Nick Fury, it was believed he lost it from a grenade blast in World War Two,” Mr. Hill explained. “But the new black Nick Fury was written to have lost it during the Gulf War when he was ambushed while transporting Wolverine through Kuwait.”

  “Interesting,” I said. Mr. Hill was like a comic book encyclopedia.

  “They rewrite characters and backstories all the time,” Mr. Hill said.

  We pulled into the school parking lot, and Lando jumped out and ran off carrying his football gear. Zion and I went to find seats while Mr. and Mrs. Hill waited in line to get drinks and snacks for us. We walked up the bleacher steps past lots of kids from school. And then there was Janessa.

  I guess it was because she was Lando’s girlfriend and Zion was one of my best friends and we would all be going to homecoming together the next day that I summoned my courage and stopped in front of her. “Hi, Janessa,” I said, giving her the biggest smile I could muster. “Are you excited for the game?”

  She literally didn’t even respond—just sat there with her friends, looking at us like Zion was a giant booger with arms and legs, and I was a giant booger with legs.

  Why someone else being rude to me should have made me feel so incredibly embarrassed, I honestly didn’t know. But I felt . . . ashamed. And the only thing I could have felt ashamed of at that moment was myself. And I felt ashamed that I let her make me feel ashamed. If that made sense.

  I hurried up the steps behind Zion, who had taken off the moment she’d looked at us like we were festering zits.

  We found an open spot and sat down. “She’s awful,” Zion breathed. “I don’t know why Lando likes her.”

  I thought about Janessa’s perfect long brown hair and face and the fact that she had all her body parts. “I know why,” I said.

  Mr. and Mrs. Hill made their way up to us as the game was starting, but I didn’t feel like eating the popcorn and nachos they’d bought for us.

  “Maybe you could all go to the dance tomorrow without me,” I said to Zion as I watched Joshua down on the field. Then my eyes moved to Janessa several rows below us.

  Zion shook his head. “You’re not backing out on this—not because of stupid Janessa.”

  “It’s not because of her. I mean, it’s partly because of her. We do have to drive to homecoming with her and Lando.”

  “She acts nicer when Lando’s there.”

  I snorted. “Hardly.”

  Zion popped a nacho into his mouth and then offered them to me. I shook my head. “Don’t worry, you’ll get through tomorrow,” he said.

  I looked once more down at the field where Joshua stood. “I have to get through today first.”

  Zion shrugged and chewed on another nacho. “One day at a time.”

  23

  Run away

  Or become a bot.

  Run away.

  Change your thought.

  —The Square Pegs

  I PUT ON MY PURPLE TANK DRESS and slip-on Star Wars Vans. I guess I’d gotten swept up in the Hill family’s passion for Star Wars when I’d picked them. My shoulders slumped as I gazed at myself in the mirror and realized I’d put my dress on backward. There went fifteen minutes of my life down the toilet.

  Mom helped me with my makeup so I didn’t have to go the stupid dance all smudgy. “They’re going to play the ‘Y.M.C.A.,’ Mom,” I told her as she brushed my lids with eye shadow. “I’ll be humiliated.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, honey. You’re going to have a blast. She blew on my lids. “And if they play the ‘Y.M.C.A.,’ go get something to drink until it’s over.”

  “People will make fun of me.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “They will. You don’t know how mean they can be.”

  She stopped and stared at me, like she was waiting for me to tell her what I meant. And I almost told her right then and there about my Great Humiliation, but when I opened my mouth, nothing came out. She would be horrified. She would cry. It would be emotional. And I couldn’t get all emotional while she was putting mascara on my pale red lashes.

  She put the mascara back in the makeup bag and broke out the blush. My head shot back. “Are you serious?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” She snapped the blush shut and took out the tube of lip gloss. “Why do you even have blush?” she asked as she swiped my lips with the light glossy color.

  “It came with a set.”

  “Can I have it?”

  “Be my guest.”

  “There,” she said, studying my face. “You’re beautiful.”

  I turned and gazed at myself in the bathroom mirror. “Whoa,” I said. “It looks so much better when you do it. Are you available for full-time hire?”

  “Nope,” she said. “Only for special occasions.”

  I grimaced. “Is this a special occasion?”

  “Of course, it is.” She covered her mouth with her hands. “My baby’s going to her first dance.”

  “I wish I were as excited as you are, Mom.” I hopped down from the bathroom counter, and we walked out to the living room together.

  Dad whistled when he saw me. “My, aren’t you perty, little lady,” he said in a southern accent.

  There was a knock on the door, and Mom opened it to let Trilby in. She wore a cute pink baby doll dress and now had pink streaks in her short blonde hair. “Trilby!” I cried, and she hugged me.

  “How do you do those cute streaks i
n your hair?” I asked her.

  “Hair chalk!” she announced. She opened up her cross-shoulder bag and pulled out a handful of hair chalks. “I have purple, too. I should do yours. It would match your dress!”

  We sat on the couch, and as Trilby worked on putting purple streaks in my red hair, I said, “It’s really nice that you agreed to go to the dance with Zion.”

  “I’m excited to go. No one’s ever asked me to go to a dance before. And he’s so sweet.”

  I smiled at her. “He is sweet. I’m glad you think so.”

  “Have you discovered any new bands you like?” she asked me as she picked up a long strand of my red hair.

  “I like We Are Librarians.”

  “Oh my gosh!” Trilby exclaimed. “‘Banned Book’ is already one of my favorite songs ever.”

  “I’ll add that one to my playlist.”

  When Trilby was done, I went to the bathroom to check myself out. “You like?” she asked from behind me.

  I nodded. I did like. I liked it very much.

  “We’re going to go wait outside for Zion,” I told Mom and Dad as Trilby and I attempted to escape.

  “Not until we get pictures,” Mom said excitedly. “But outside’s a good idea. Better lighting.”

  We all four walked down the steps from the apartment while my parents debated whether to take the pictures in front of the saguaro cactus near the entrance, the line of palo verde trees by the parking lot, or the great big mesquite tree in the center of the park.

  We decided to go out to the parking lot. Trilby was taking a picture of me with my parents as Mrs. Hill pulled up. Mom walked over to the car to say hi. “Zion, why don’t you get out so we can get a picture of you and Trilby?”

  I thought Zion’s eyes were going to pop out of his head when he saw Trilby. “Hi, Zion,” she said, but he looked around awkwardly. And then when she put her arm around him for pictures, he seemed like he was struggling to breathe. I worried he might pass out.

  Everyone else got out of the van, and I noticed that Lando’s friend Justin was with him. Not Janessa.

  Lando stood next me and planted one foot next to mine. “We have the same kicks.”

  I looked down at our matching Star Wars Vans. Then I grinned up at Lando. “I guess you didn’t realize you were buying girl shoes, huh?”