by Laura Ruby
“What?” says Madge. “We’re not staring. We’re going down.”
“So go,” the boy says.
I punch 2 again and the doors start to close. “Bye,” I say, waving. He rolls his eyes.
“He was rude,” Madge whispers. “Why was he so rude?”
“He has staples in his head,” I say. “You’d be rude, too.”
“Apart from the staples, he looked okay. I mean, I bet there are cancer kids here. People dying. Like Grandpa.”
“The doctor said he was going to be fine,” I say.
“Shows what he knows,” Madge says.
There’s a story my grandpa likes to tell over dinner, a story about my sister, Tiffany, before she became the Madge we all know and love and occasionally want to bury in the backyard. When she was very small, not even four, she and Grandpa were eating peanut butter sandwiches at the park. The way Grandpa tells it, she looked at Grandpa very seriously and solemnly over the crust of her sandwich, and said, “Why are you so old?”
Grandpa answered, “Because I was born a long time ago.”
“Can’t somebody fix it?”
“Honey, I wish they could.”
As much as Madge loves Grandpa, I think it might be easier for her if he were suffering with something more life-threatening, more cinematic—a bear attack, a war wound stapled shut, a fall down a well. She needs the validation.
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“We talk every day, but there’s a lot she doesn’t tell me. Sometimes I try to ask her questions about it, but she only answers the ones she wants to answer, and if you push her, she’ll change the subject. I think that she does that to herself, too. In her own head. Skips things. Changes the subject. She forgets so much, or remembers only the way she wants to. Like the time we kissed in the art room. She always says it was my idea. It wasn’t. It was hers.
“I think that maybe something did happen with Mr. Mymer. But don’t tell her I said that, okay?”
—June Leon, classmate
“People always want to know where my name came from. But if I explain it, they feel sorry for me. And who needs that?
“The truth: I was found in a park when I was three. The woman who found me and brought me to the police said she’d seen a man leave me under the slide. A white guy. Tall. Skinny. Wearing running shorts with shiny dress shoes, like he was going to a fancy dinner and forgot to put on his suit. She said he came out of the woods with me, left me, and disappeared into the woods again. It’s in the police report. I don’t remember any of it. The guy never came forward, and the police never found him. I was put into foster care. My parents took me in when I was four, then adopted me when I was seven. My brother said that I act like my life began when I was seven, so he started calling me Seven. He thinks it’s some kind of insult, but I like it. People are more curious about my nickname than they are about my adoption. And hardly anyone guesses I’m adopted because I’m the same shade of brown as the rest of my family. People say I look like my brother. If you want to piss my brother off, just tell him that.
“Listen, my parents are my parents and my brother is my brother and that’s good enough for me. I feel bad for the skinny guy who left me in the park. That doesn’t make me some great person or anything. Just a smart one. Love the people who love you back.”
—Seven Chillman, classmate
“Joe is sick. Nothing else matters anymore. Joe’s sick, and everything’s changed.”
—Emmeline King, maternal grandmother
THREES
After Grandpa goes to the hospital, the Earth seems content to twirl its lazy way around and around, oblivious to both our happiness and our misery.
Then three things happen.
1.
I shuffle into the kitchen one morning to find my mother handing Madge some sort of pill from a big brown bottle. “What’s that?” I say. “Do you have a fever?”
Madge bursts into noisy sobs, startling Mr. Doctor so much that he sloshes milk over the side of his cereal bowl. “Can’t you mind your own business?” Madge shrieks. “Do you have to know everything about everybody? I have a headache, okay?”
“Okay, okay!”
“What are you going to do? Paint it in one of your stupid pictures?”
“Why would I paint a picture of your headache? Actually, how would I do that?”
As soon as I say it, I see it, a portrait of Madge in a forest so deep green it’s almost black, kneeling with her head on a wooden chopping block, with the robber bridegroom—the character from Grimm’s who convinces young girls to marry him and then kills and eats them—standing over her with an ax. Even though Mr. Mymer was always saying that these flashes of inspiration we believe are so brilliant are often clichés we’ve seen a million times before, I think it’s a fabulous idea. I want to ask Madge to sit for me, but she runs from the room. Pib runs after her. My mother sighs.
“What? What did I say?”
“Nothing,” says my mom. “It was just a vitamin anyway.”
But, later, when I steal a glance at the label on the bottle, it says fluoxetine, which Google tells me is the generic name for Prozac.
2.
When I open my locker before class, there’s a pink cupcake sitting on the top shelf. On it is the number 7. It is delicious.
3.
At lunch, June comes running over, waving the NASA phone. “It’s done. The board issued a press release. They decided that there was no evidence. Mymer’s coming back.”
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“I don’t get to see her much. We have opposite schedules; our classes are in different wings of the school. But I hid around the corner to watch her find the cupcake. June gave me the combination to the locker. I’ve been experimenting with different ingredients. This one was coconut with a cream-cheese icing. I put a dash of almond in the batter.
“Anyway, when she found it, the first thing she did was smell it. Then she took a huge bite. She got icing all over her face. I think that’s why I like her. For the good stuff, she’s willing to get icing all over her face. Who wouldn’t want a girl like that?”
—Seven Chillman, classmate
“If the drugs kill me, blame it on my mother and that bloody therapist.”
—Tiffany Riley, sister
LIAR
The school is abuzz, aflame, afire with the news of Mr. Mymer’s return. For a few minutes, I think: It’s over! It’s done! I’m free!
Until I am asked the same questions I was asked a month ago: Is Mr. Mymer going to leave his wife for you? Are you getting married? What kind of dress will you wear to the wedding? Are you going to have his baby?
The real story doesn’t matter to anyone. They’re only interested in the story that they helped to tell. But I don’t care. They can say what they want. Mr. Mymer’s coming back.
I’m sitting in health class as we’re going over our CPR skills. Ms. Rothschild suddenly doubles over at her desk. As Ms. Rothschild has been pregnant about a thousand years and is as big as three people, this is a little worrisome. We’re certain that a litter of puppies is imminent.
“Are you okay? Are you going to puke?” Heather and/or Feather Whitestone wants to know.
“Um,” says Ms. Rothschild. “I think my water just broke.”
“What does that mean?” demands Tim Corcoran.
“It means that someone should go get the principal before this class turns into a live demonstration.”
Tim bolts from his seat as if his life depends on it. Ms. Rothschild continues to huff and pant in the most unladylike way. Heather/Feather keeps asking if she’s going to puke until Ms. Rothschild tells her to jump off a bridge. A comment that Heather/Feather seems to find unnecessarily hostile. The principal gets there in about five minutes, saying he’s called an ambulance. He ushers the students out into the hallway and has us join the gym class already in progress.
The good news: Seven Chillman is in the gym class.
The bad news: We are forced to play paddleball. A
nyone wearing a dress is excused from the activities. Since I’m wearing leggings under my dress, I’m not excused.
Paddleball, if you’re not familiar, is a version of racquetball played with oversized Ping-Pong paddles. I’m not allowed to play with Seven. Today, it’s my job to count how many times John Jarmen, state tennis champion and resident ass, can hit the ball against the wall in a minute for one of those stupid skills tests Mr. Hoosbacher, the gym teacher, is so fond of.
John smiles his super white smile at me and says, “Hope you can count fast.” I force a laugh. Everyone laughs at John Jarmen’s jokes. Not because they’re funny, but because he’s six foot three and because last year he pounded a French exchange student named Etienne, who made the mistake of sitting at his table in the cafeteria.
Anyway, John drops the blue ball on the ground, swings his arm, and slams the ball…
…right into a crack in the cinderblock wall.
Both of us watch as the ball ricochets off the crack and goes whizzing across the gym. John is so surprised that he just stands there, waiting for the ball to come back and apologize. Then he shakes his head and dashes after it, but he gets stuck dodging the other balls (think enraged giraffe trying to negotiate an obstacle course). When he finally makes it back to our court, Mr. Hoosbacher yells, “Time!”
Mr. Hoosbacher walks to each counter with his clipboard, asking for the numbers so that he could record them. “How many?”
“One.”
“You lie!” says John.
I’m so surprised I don’t say anything for a minute. Then I say, “Your first ball hit the crack in the wall.”
“So?”
“So,” I answer slowly, as if talking to a non-English speaker, “you didn’t make it back to the court in time to hit any other balls. You got one hit.”
“You lie!” he says again. I wait for him to say something else, to explain himself, but he doesn’t. I realize that he’s waiting for me to say something else. And some other day, before all of this, maybe I would have. Maybe I would have made up a number: fifty-seven-point-nine—nine-two-five-eight and a half. Maybe I would have claimed a giant butterfly with a lion’s head flew into the room and I couldn’t see for all those gossamer wings and whiskery catness. Maybe I would have said a team of hacky-sack-playing leprechauns distracted me. Maybe I would have claimed that paddleball is not a real sport and that I refused to participate in skills tests out of principle. Maybe, to keep things simple, I would have just appeared stupid.
Now, everything’s different. My favorite teacher was almost fired. My grandfather is sick. I almost watched a live birth, something I don’t plan on watching even if I’m the one actually giving birth.
I am way too tired for this crap.
I say, “You got one hit.”
“Bitch,” he says. “You’re a lying little bitch.”
“Hey! Watch the mouth, Jarmen!” says Mr. Hoosbacher. “And relax! It’s one skills test. No big deal.”
“She’s lying,” John says. He has beads of sweat on his forehead.
“Yeah?” says Mr. Hoosbacher. “Why would she do that?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“What did I say about the mouth?” Mr. Hoosbacher marks a red 1 next to John Jarmen’s name. “Next time, pay more attention to ball placement,” he says, and wanders over to the next court, where the Whitestone sisters are arguing about who is skinnier.
John Jarmen watches him walk away. “Freak.”
“Original,” I say. He’s got more than a foot and a hundred pounds on me. He could use me to stir his drinks. It’s clear my mother is right and I need some sort of professional help, because I can’t seem to help myself.
“You look like a boy,” he says. “I can’t believe Mymer went for you. I can’t believe anyone would go for you.”
I think about Etienne, who, after having his two front teeth neatly punched from his jaw, put both his hands on his hips and said in that nasally way that made him sound constantly annoyed: “How did you do that for?”
I hold out my hand. “My turn.”
“What?”
“It’s my turn,” I say. “Give me the paddle.”
“I’ll give you the paddle,” he say. “I’d love to give you the paddle.”
“Okay,” I say, and snatch it right out of his hand. I guess I didn’t think he would do anything to me when I grabbed for it, but I should have taken into consideration the terrible athletic disappointment he’d just suffered, because he reaches out, puts his hand over my face, and shoves. I land on my butt, hard, and skid across the polished floor like a human hockey puck.
He looks down at me. “You can keep the paddle,” he says, and then he turns and struts over to the Whitestone twins, who are trying very hard not to giggle and are failing.
Before I even know what I’m going to do, I get up off the floor and run up behind him. The twins’ giggles change to bleats of surprise when I whack John Jarmen as hard as I can on his big bubble butt. There’s a crack, then a burst of pointillated light, like Georges Seurat took over the universe, tossing his fractured fairy dust in my eyes.
It’s snowing stars. The ceiling now looks a rich, deep blue, the color a little kid paints the ocean. The wood floors are gone, replaced by a vast field of white flowers. I can feel the stems poking into my back. I can smell the blooms. They smell like sugar and cinnamon. My mouth waters.
Someone walks toward me. He wears pants that stop short at the knee, a gold shirt that shimmers in the fairy-dusted air, and a green velvet cape that sweeps behind him. The ruby set in the center of his crown winks. As he gets closer, I see his eyes, silver as sun on water. He kneels and holds out his hand.
“Are you all right?” he says.
I have a hard time finding my voice. I’ve misplaced it somewhere in my body; it’s hiding in an ankle or an elbow or a kidney.
Finally, I croak, “Who are you?”
“Me?” He seems surprised I don’t recognize him. But I do. I think. But he’s so different. Different and the same.
He presses a palm to his chest and bows his head slightly. “I’m Prince Charming.”
“Prince Charming is a brown dude?”
“Obviously.”
“You should sue Disney.”
He pats me on the head and then looks away. “Did you see anyone run by? A princess maybe? Missing a shoe?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, no.”
“It would be better if you’re sure.”
“I’m sure it would be better if I was sure, but I’m not sure.”
He shakes his head. “And I guess you don’t wear shoes.”
“What? Why would you think that?”
“Because,” he says, pointing to my feet.
I look down. Sprouting from the ends of my shins are the marmalade-colored claws of a bird.
The stars fade. I feel hands gripping my shoulders. Jewels gleam back at me. Bright gray jewels set in a brown face.
Seven says, “Are you all right?”
“It’s you!” I say.
Seven smiles. “Yes, it’s me.”
Mr. Hoosbacher shoves Seven aside. “Tola Riley!” he booms. He claps his ham hands as if he’s trying to get the attention of a deaf dog. “Can you hear me?”
“Russians in space can hear you, Mr. Hoosbacher,” I say. I glance past him and see everyone standing around, their faces floating over me like balloons. I blink at the balloon heads and try to get up.
“Lie still.” I don’t know who says this, but it’s extremely annoying. I don’t like to be told what to do. I stagger to my feet. The balloon heads part, and I see that Mr. Hoosbacher has pulled John Jarmen aside and is now waving his arms wildly and shouting. The phrases “overgrown mountain troll” and “expelled from the planet” echo through the gym.
“What happened?” I say.
“You were looking right at me,” Seven says, “but you seemed really out of it.”
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“I was out of it. But what I meant was, why was I lying on the ground in the first place?”
“The troll punched you,” Seven says. “You don’t remember?”
“I’ve never been punched before,” I say. “I always wondered if I could take it.”
He blinks his silver eyes. “Is that why you paddled him? To see if he’d punch you?”
“No,” I say. “I paddled him because he’s a troll. And I’m tired of all the bloody trolls. They ruin everything.”
“That chick is crazy,” says one of the balloon heads. “She’s some kind of deranged munchkin.”
“Yeah,” says another balloon head. “Munchkin. From, like, Munchkin Land.”
“Psycho Munchkin Land.”
“Better watch it,” Seven says. “She’s got a badminton racket with your name on it.”
I smile at Seven.
He smiles back.
“I think I need to go to the nurse.”
Seven reaches out and takes my arm. “That’s a good idea. I’ll walk you there.”
But this is not to be. Mr. Hoosbacher takes me to the nurse himself, and the nurse calls the principal, the principal calls the school psychologist, and the psychologist calls my mom. The psychologist makes the nurse get rid of the three kids faking fevers and stomachaches and drags a chair over to sit down next to me.
“How are you, Tola?”
“I really wish you hadn’t called my mom.”
“You’ve been hurt by another student. We had to inform her.”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m sure you’re fine, but we need to cover our bases.”
Cover your butts, you mean. “Now she’s going to make me get a CAT scan.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“She’ll assume that it’s my fault.”
“John Jarmen was suspended.”
“For how many years?”