Now Jane thought she might be sick. “You’re making this up.”
“Afraid not. And apparently his grandsons”—she nodded toward the geeks—“know how to hold a grudge. Preemie used to neigh at Harvey—he’s the one who confronted you. And Cliff, too, he’s the one to the left.” Turning back to Jane, she said, “I would have told you this yesterday if you’d told me who you were.”
Jane stood up and they walked in silence then, heading toward their first class. Jane pictured Harvey—the way his pores tore right through the ink on his skin—and then his brother, sort of a Harvey-lite, but still scary.
She could just give them the horse.
It would be that easy.
“People were taking bets on whether you two would even show up today,” Babette said.
Jane looked at her blankly for lack of anything else to do. Crying, while tempting, was not an option.
“I lost ten bucks, but I’m actually happy I was wrong.” Babette stopped short to let the legless kid roll by on his skateboard. “Because believe it or not, things had started to get sort of boring around here.”
They entered the classroom then and Babette said, “And another thing.” She waved her hand to indicate Jane should bend down again, and so Jane did. “You’re brother’s cute and I happen to be in the market for a boyfriend.”
Jane looked for Marcus between classes that morning but couldn’t find him anywhere. Luckily, she survived several hours without further incident and made it to lunch. Juniors and seniors were allowed to leave the school and eat on the boardwalk, and Jane thought a bit of air might do her some good. When she saw Tattoo Boy sitting alone on one of the benches right near school, she almost turned right back around, but she didn’t. He was drinking from a bottle of water, and something about the fact that it was just water reassured her, calmed her.
He was human.
He drank water.
And just thinking hard about the seahorse wasn’t going to help her figure it out. She waited a minute to make sure he was, in fact, alone, and then walked over. This close up, she noted the sharp line of his lips, the ski jump at the end of his long nose. His hair, as black as Babette could ever hope for, seemed to be constantly in motion, like the soft tentacles of a sea anemone.
“Hey,” she said, and he said “Hey” back. The blue of his eyes swirled, like his irises had been tattooed to look like a lollipop. She looked out toward the ocean, counted ten people standing way out on a cross-shaped pier, and considered what to say. The sea was a dark gray that morning, and calm. With a strange sort of calm in her heart she said, “Where did you get the seahorse tattoo? The design, I mean.”
“It’s from an old postcard,” he said. “You gonna explain what you meant? When you said you’d seen it?”
“It’s just really familiar. Sort of like I dreamed it.”
He looked at her funny, then shrugged a shoulder. “I can look for it if you want.”
Maybe it was a postcard from somewhere she had lived. That would explain it. “Do you know where the postcard is from?”
“I’m pretty sure Florida.”
Jane had never been to Florida, and she said so.
“Well, I’ll look for it anyway.”
She said, “Thanks,” and was suddenly lost at sea in their conversation, afraid it was over.
“So Preemie Porcelli was really your grandfather?” He gave her this look, sideways and suspicious, like the whole story was too unlikely to believe, and maybe she’d have felt the same way if she’d been an outsider considering Preemie Porcelli on the one hand and Jane Dryden on the other.
“He was.” Jane eyed the bench, pocked with flattened bits of gray gum and some bird crap, too. The paint was so chipped it was barely there and the wood looked soft, worn from the wind and the water. She decided to sit anyway, close enough that no one would sit between them but not much closer than that.
“What was that like?” His eyes lit with actual curiosity.
Jane knew the truth would disappoint. She practically sighed when she said, “I never met him.”
“You never met your own grandfather?” Tattoo Boy crossed and then uncrossed his ankles, legs stretched out.
Jane shook her head, and when she thought she saw him look at her knee, she tried to cover it with her gray skirt, then felt dumb for doing that. “My parents moved abroad before I was born.”
His eyebrows climbed up to meet his hair. “So you’ve never even lived in America before?”
His accent was sort of crazy: befaw.
“Twice.” She shook her head. “When I was like seven. In Michigan and California.” She remembered that period right after her mom died only by the apartments they’d lived in while their father worked on some bridge or building, remembered missing being around amusement parks all the time, missing getting to go on rides for free, missing her mom. “It was a long time ago.”
Tattoo Boy nodded and then smiled and said, “I knew Preemie.” He turned to her. “I mean I played his game a few times—the water gun game—and got yelled at by him a few times. And I used to see him all over the place, you know. On his bike. I think he’s the only person I’ve ever seen smoking and riding a bike at the same time.”
“He did that?” Jane almost laughed.
“It was a sight to behold.” He looked back out toward the water. “My dad used to tell me stories about him, too. He’d always be placing weird bets at the Anchor, like how he could eat three pieces of Wonder Bread in a minute or smoke a whole cigarette in forty-five seconds.”
“Really?” Jane felt a sort of thrill in knowing that she’d walked past a bar Preemie had been to, even if it was a dump. “I wish I’d known him,” she said after a moment. “Or at least I thought I did until I met the Claveracks.”
Tattoo Boy nudged her with an elbow and said, “It’ll blow over.” Then he raised his eyebrows. “Is it true that he had a ton of great old Coney stuff in the attic? That’s what my dad said.”
Jane nodded. “Yeah. I’ve only made a dent, but there’s all these old films and books and”—Jane wasn’t sure she should be talking about this, considering the situation with the carousel horse, but she wanted to impress—“he’s got a big demon face that I think used to be at Dreamland.”
“The one from Hell Gate?” Tattoo Boy asked.
Jane nodded.
His eyes went wide, and he let out a plummeting whistle. “Holy shit.”
The surf had picked up—a storm must have been churning off the coast—and Jane tried to picture the submarine that she’d read was shipwrecked somewhere off the coast of Coney. She imagined swimming down to it with Tattoo Boy, and hiding out there while they told each other their life stories, why they both felt like they’d always known each other.
“I’m Jane,” she said, “but you already knew that.” And for the first time in a long time, it felt wrong to use her middle name.
“Leo,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”
Then he smiled and said, “I think.”
During study hall, in a far, dark corner of the school library, Jane found the school’s old yearbooks—years and years worth of Coney Island High Tides. She pulled out the one from 1978, the year her mother graduated, and flipped through to the “Seniors” section, and then flipped through pages and pages of alphabetical student photos until she found her.
Clementine Porcelli.
Her mom had long, straight hair in the photo and was wearing a T-shirt with some kind of writing on it, though you could only see the tops of the letters and thus couldn’t read what it said. She was smiling with her mouth closed, and had a look in her eyes that said she really couldn’t be bothered. Still, she looked pretty.
Under her name appeared the words “Founder, Dreamland Social Club.”
“No way,” Jane whispered to herself.
Heart thumping with the thrill of discovery, she compared her mother’s entry to some others. Most of the seniors pictured had long lists—Math Team, Drama Club,
Editor-in-chief of The Siren (which she gleaned was the school paper, though she hadn’t seen it yet) and on and on—underneath their names.
But not her mother.
It made sense on some level that her mom was a nonjoiner—the woman had practically un-joined her own family—but she had started the Dreamland Social Club? And it was still going after all these years? Something about discovering a legacy, even if Jane had no idea what it actually was, made her happy.
When the section for club photos turned up no picture of the Dreamland S.C., she went back to the beginning of the alphabet and started looking for other people who’d listed it among their extracurriculars. But the whole thing proved more time-consuming than she’d realized and, by the time the bell rang, she’d only gotten to the D’s and hadn’t found any other members.
The second she stepped out into the hall to head to her next class, a voice said, “Well, look who we have here.”
She turned to face Cliff Claverack, whose face was red, as if from a workout. He said, “We are going to make your life a living hell.”
As nonconfrontationally as she could manage, Jane said, “I didn’t know about the horse.”
He leaned in close to her, so close that she could see the pores on the face of the dragon tattooed on his neck. For a second she half feared that that tattoo was going to open up and breathe a stream of fire at her.
“Doesn’t matter whether you did or didn’t,” he said. “He was a piece of shit and shit runs in families.”
“But I never even met him!”
He’s not even really my family! she almost added. But of course he was.
He covered his ears and said, “Not-listening-notlistening-not-listening,” then pulled his hands away and said, “Just turn over the horse and we’ll leave you alone.”
Fine, Jane almost said. I will!
But a voice came from down the hall—“Giddyup, Claverack”—and Cliff looked up and over Jane’s shoulder. Jane turned and saw a black kid walking down the hall. She recognized him as the guy who had no legs, but here he was. Walking. Wearing jeans and shoes.
“None of your business!” Cliff sang in a sort of singsong.
“Is if I make it.” He was standing beside Jane now, taller than her by several inches. His teeth were straighter than any Jane had ever seen, and his arms were tight with muscle.
Cliff backed away. “That’s how it’s gonna be?”
Jane didn’t understand how it was possible, kept looking at those jeans, those shoes.
He said, “That’s how it’s gonna be,” with a crooked smile that made the teeth look even straighter.
Cliff clomped away then, and she turned to her savior and said, “Thanks.” But confusion must have tinged her features, because he bent to knock on his thigh and said, “Prosthetics.”
“Oh,” Jane said.
“I’m H. T. Astaire.” He held out a hand, which Jane shook. It was calloused, rough; felt the complete opposite of how the skin on his face looked.
“Officially Henry Thomas,” he said. “Unofficially, Half-There.” He hit his prosthetics again.
Jane put it together. “Half-There Astaire.”
“I dance”—he held up his hands—“mostly on these. Which might be the reason Claverack is scared shitless of me. You gotta use what you got, you know?”
“Well, thanks,” Jane said, not sure she had anything to use at all.
“He’s just a big, dumb bully.” He shook his head. “I got no time for that. And yo, do not give them that horse.”
“But their grandfather made it.”
And it’s my ticket to freedom!
“Doesn’t matter who made it. Doesn’t belong in their grubby mitts.”
A late bell rang, and Jane consulted her schedule. When she saw that she was expected in gym, possibly her most dreaded class in the history of the world, she thought about hiding in the bathroom. Then again, she’d need to be fit if she was going to survive that five-mile swim.
After school that day, Jane studied a bulletin board for information about The Siren, then found the offices, located in a far corner of the school’s basement, and dared to knock. She poked her head in after someone called out, “It’s open!”
She walked into a cement-walled room with rectangular windows and exposed pipes running along the ceiling and heard only the buzz of a printer or scanner. At a desk in a far corner, one covered with piles of papers, the giant stood up from his chair. A shadow fell over Jane as he blocked the lights like a big cloud in front of the sun.
“Hey.” He held out an oversize hand. “I’m Legs Malstead.”
She went to shake it but her hand barely covered the span of his palm; it was more of a high-five than anything until Legs enclosed her hand in his other hand to hold in there long enough to have a proper shake. Jane was grateful he had a system.
“I’m Jane,” she said. “Dryden.”
“I know.”
“Oh.” She figured she should just cut to the chase. “I was wondering, do you keep archives?”
He bent down on one knee and, irrationally, Jane thought he might propose. Instead he said, “We do.” And then he seemed a little bit irrationally excited when he said, “What are you looking for?”
Jane felt her cheeks tighten at the thought of having to say any of it out loud, so she kept it short and sweet. “My mom went to school here.” Talking about her mother out loud, with a stranger—and a giant, no less—took the wind out of her. She had to concentrate hard in order to speak again. “I wanted to see if she was ever written up in the paper.”
And of course the founding of a new school club seemed potentially newsworthy, but she didn’t feel the need to elaborate. Not until she knew more, anyway. Not until she could breathe again.
Legs nodded quickly and said, “Just give me one minute to finish something up. . . .” He handed her an issue of the paper. “Read while you wait.”
Jane’s eyes landed on a Faculty Q&A in a box on the first page of the paper. It definitely offered up some interesting facts about Coney Island High’s chemistry teacher—like that he worked at the Coney Island Sideshow during the summer, as Garth the Human Garbage Disposal—but the reporter hadn’t asked the questions Jane would have asked. Then again, she probably wouldn’t have chosen a teacher to shine her spotlight on. She wished for a spotlight on H.T. or Leo, even one about Babette. Because she couldn’t just flat-out ask her new classmates things like “What’s the best thing about being a goth dwarf?” and “What’s the worst?” Or “Why do you get tattoos?” Or “Do you envy people with legs?” She’d be tagged a Looky Lou forever. And besides, the core question behind every question she wanted to know the answer to was unanswerable. It was “What’s it like to be you?”
And not me.
She sort of felt like it was the only question ever worth asking anybody. Not where are you from? Or what do your parents do? Or what do you want to be when you grow up? Or any of the usual bunk. Just what is it like? What are you like?
It was a question she couldn’t answer.
You know who you are.
Or you don’t.
“Okay,” Legs said finally, putting some papers in some sort of courier bag. “So. Archives. They’re definitely not complete. Come this way. . . .” He walked toward a door at the far end of the room and opened it. Boxes upon boxes filled tall metal shelves. “But you’re welcome to have a look.”
Right then the genius toddler came through the office door, walked over, and jumped up onto Legs’s knee and kissed him. So, apparently, she wasn’t a toddler.
“Oh, hey,” Legs said, almost falling over. He indicated Jane. “This is Jane Dryden; Jane, this is Minnie Polinsky.”
“His girlfriend,” Minnie said, in a high-pitched voice. She gave Jane a smug look, then turned to Legs and said, “Come on. We’re going to be late.”
“Oh,” Legs said, then he looked at Jane, then back at-Minnie, and said, “Jane here wants to look through the archives. Isn’
t that interesting?”
“Yeah,” Minnie said, sort of slowly and suspiciously. “Sure. I guess. But we still have to go to . . . you know.”
Legs sighed. “Jane? Can you do this another time? There’s someplace I have to be and I can’t leave you here alone. We can set a time. I can help.”
“Sure,” Jane said. “No problem.” She nodded. “That’d be great.”
She followed them out into the hall, then said goodbye and started walking away down the hall in the opposite direction. When she heard them open a door and disappear into a classroom, though, Jane doubled back.
Muted laughter came from Room 222, and she stopped near the closed door.
The Dreamland Social Club was meeting.
She walked by the room a few times—back and forth, back and forth, as casually as she could—and caught glimpses through a small window in the door of Legs and Minnie and H.T. and Babette and some others—was Leo there? She couldn’t be sure—but then the bearded girl came into the hall and Jane panicked and rushed down to the main floor and out the front doors into a wall of hot, salty air.
CHAPTER six
THE SPIDER PLANT THAT HUNG by the one window in the painfully dark living room seemed to be straining toward the glass for survival. On the TV in the corner a black-and-white woman pointed at a man with no arms or legs and screamed, “But is it human ?”
“Look,” Marcus said. “It’s a movie about our school.”
“Not funny,” Jane said. “Where were you all day? I looked for you everywhere.”
He shrugged.
She plopped down on one of Preemie’s old couches. The cushions were less cushy than she’d expected and she’d plopped too hard. It hurt. “You’ve got an admirer,” she said. A dwarf had just appeared on-screen.
“Oh yeah?” Marcus didn’t even look up.
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