A Really Awesome Mess

by Trish Cook

  I shrugged, clueless. Maybe Little Willy would like a walk in the cornfields. How would I know? “I guess I’m just thinking he might get a little bored being cooped up in our room alone all day. And he’ll have to poop once in awhile.”

  “Bored, schmored. Geez, look at his teeny head. He’s no Einstein. You honestly think there’s a big brain in there?” Diana asked, then barreled ahead without waiting for an answer. “And just look at his cute little butt. Small ass, small poops, right?”

  I stared at Little Willy and decided he looked very smart for a pig. Maybe he was smart enough that if we made him a little litter box, he could deposit his little poops there?

  I changed tactics. “What about the Staffies checking our rooms, then?” I asked, thinking for sure this would put a kibosh on the crazy plan.

  “Once you get level two on Monday, they usually don’t do that anymore,” she said. “They have too many level one newbies to worry about. So you better get moved up, Skeletor, if you know what’s good for you.”

  I was about to protest some more when Justin said, “Oh come on, Emmy. It’s gonna be great! It’ll be our little secret.” I knew he meant the six of us, but it felt like just the two of us and it was nice, so I stopped resisting.

  On Monday, I did end up getting level two, just by saying honestly in class how I felt about being adopted. It turned out to be a mouthful that went something like this:

  “Listen, I’ve got a great, normal family. I love my sister like, well, a real biological sister and maybe more, and my parents are pretty cool. So that’s good. But I’ve spent my entire life knowing everyone can see that I’m the different one—not only is it obvious, but people say stupid things about it all the time—and it makes me feel like a loser and an add-on even though my family doesn’t treat me that way. And something else really stupid that I can’t help feeling is that I’m mad at my real parents for abandoning me in the street even though I get it that they did it because of the one-child rule in China and they needed a boy to help support them when they’re old. Unlike other adopted kids, I guess I’m lucky because I can pretty much know it wasn’t personal. Happens to girls every day in China. But it still hurts like a bitch. And the dumbest thing about being mad about being adopted is that I don’t even want to live in a misogynistic culture like that and I’m happy I grew up here instead, so what’s my problem anyway?”

  Everyone had clapped for me and it felt great and embarrassing and then when I went for my one-on-one with Brittany, she’d hugged me and told me I was moving up. And then she let me call home. I told my parents the good news and they were so proud you would have thought I’d gotten into Harvard or something, and then I was allowed to talk to Joss for half an hour. I was so happy, I practically glowed.

  The whole experience made me want to keep moving up levels. It made me want to go home. Even Simon’s Rock wasn’t as appealing as before. Like, maybe college could wait until after my senior year of high school, the way normal kids did it. I’d started to think maybe I could actually be a normal kid again.

  All of which made hiding the piggy an even bigger problem. Especially since it turned out that little pigs did not make little poops—they made piles and piles of poop, which they also sometimes liked to roll around in and occasionally, eat, and then poop back out again. There was also the problem of getting that guy enough to eat. He could chow down more in a single sitting than I normally allowed myself in an entire day. And while I had no problem sharing three-quarters of my meals with him, I wasn’t willing to stop eating entirely (maybe I was making progress? If only I could tell Brittany).

  It was getting harder and harder to sneak the food out of the caf and into our rooms, and we’d already had to get really creative (cutting an entire block of pages out of Chip’s trig textbook to create a nook to stash Little Willy’s meals in) and sometimes, completely stupid (me, Diana, and Jenny staging a protest against BLTs in the caf, complete with hand-drawn signs, so the boys could shove as many sandwiches into their pockets as possible while the staff gave us a little talk about how they appreciated the sentiment but we’d have to stop pronto unless we wanted demerits and a level drop).

  Next problem: The stench in our room was becoming rather noticeable, despite only having Mr. Piggy half time and cleaning up his messes as quickly as possible. I think even Jenny, who loved that pig an insane amount, was grossed out by it. Plus, my only perfume was getting dangerously depleted and I couldn’t figure out what we’d use to cover the smell when it was gone.

  Plus, Little Willy was growing exponentially by the day. He was still cute as hell, but you could totally see that sometime in the not-so-distant future he was going to outgrow his Dora nest and our dorm rooms in general. I had no idea what we were going to do then.

  I decided to ask at lunch, when we were all working out a plan about who was willing to give up what food and how we were going to sneak it out of the caf and into our rooms. “You guys, you know we can’t keep doing this much longer.”

  Jenny shook her head violently.

  “Seriously, Jenny? Our room smells like a Porta-Potty after Lollapalooza and Little Willy has already eaten three pairs of my underwear. I’m gonna be permanently commando by the weekend at this rate.”

  “Boo-hoo about your panties, but there’s no friggin’ way are we giving up the pig,” Diana said. “He’s the best friend I ever had. Laughs at all my jokes, snuggles up tight at night—”

  “You’re sleeping with a pig?” Justin asked, his eyes enormous.

  “Not like that, buddy,” she said and kicked him under the table. “I would say ‘men are such pigs,’ but that’s an insult to our pig friends everywhere.”

  “I’m just saying—” I started, but Diana was all over me before I could get any more practical words out.

  “You’re saying nothing, other than this: Oh Miss Tina! I had a total epiphany at the awesome fair you took us to and I really want to get myself back to a normal body weight. My stomach is still too small to fit all the calories it would take to do that at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, though. Do you think I can also get two big snacks a day to bring to my room in between meals?”

  “Oh like she’s totally gonna buy that one,” I said.

  “To be fair, Tina thinks we’re making progress when we end a group by beating the shit out of each other,” Justin said.

  “Yeah, and she never catches on that my iPod activities are less than pure,” Chip added.

  “And don’t forget, she picks up dudes with beards growing out of their neck,” Tracy said.

  A collective ewwwwwww went around the table.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” I asked, but was drowned out by Diana yet again.

  “The bottom line is you really have no excuse, Bones. You’re the key to Little Willy’s survival here at Assland.”

  Everyone else nodded. I knew I was defeated. “Fine.” I sighed.

  So after group that afternoon, I walked up to Tina and said, not so convincingly, exactly what Little Miss Bossypants told me to say. And instead of being all like, I don’t buy it for a second, Tina actually got misty-eyed.

  “Oh Emmy, I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to hear that! You’re making such progress. We’ll start right away, at dinner tonight. I’ll have them give you a snack to eat before lights-out.”

  “Ummm,” I said, at a total loss for words. Could the key to getting out of Assland really be that easy? Like, just say what they wanted you to say—even if you didn’t mean a word of it—and your wish was granted? I’d have to store that golden piece of information in my brain for later use. “Okay. Thanks, Tina.”

  “How did she react?” The gang wanted to know the second I joined them at the dinner table.

  “Are you kidding me? She said No way, Emmy. You’re a lying piece of shit!”

  Jenny frowned and Diana gasped. “Nuh-uh!”

  I laughed. “No, she actually almost cried she was so happy to give me extra food to fatten
me up.”

  “Dude, you rule!” Diana yelled, giving me a high five.

  I liked that everyone was looking at me like I was a superhero, but deep down, I kind of thought I was doing a crummy thing—not just to Tina by lying to her, but to Little Willy. Honestly, it wasn’t like I wanted to get rid of him. I liked him more than most people I knew. But the thing was, he was also a ton of responsibility. All day long, every day we had custody of him—it was relentless. It made me appreciate all the real moms out there.

  Especially my own.

  I mean, maybe things hadn’t turned out exactly the way my parents had planned, but for my mom to have to take care of me and Joss, two little kids at once? It definitely had been a lot of effort. I should probably thank her for that when I saw her next. Which would be at the end of the term. Which was coming up quickly.

  The whole thought of Family Weekend made me nervous. I wanted my parents to see how hard I was working, to think I was really making progress. I hoped they would, worried they wouldn’t. I mean, I’d definitely figured some things out already. Others, I probably still needed to work on.

  Which became completely apparent when I walked into Brittany’s office for my regular appointment later that week and she had a scale waiting there for me.

  “Hop on, sister. Tina told me about your epiphany, and I want to see what kind of progress you’re making toward your goal of getting back to a normal BMI,” she said, all smiles.

  “Why don’t we wait until I’ve eaten the extra snacks for at least a week? That way, I’ll feel like I’ve really made a dent instead of just a tiny ding in my goal.”

  As usual, Brittany believed exactly none of my bullshit. “Every little bit counts and I want to celebrate along the way with you.”

  She motioned with her arm to the scale and I stepped on, my eyes firmly squeezed shut. I hoped I’d gained at least a few ounces—maybe from the Whopping Wiener?—but I knew it was a long shot. With me giving up most of my food to Little Willy these days, I’d be lucky to stay even with where I was a week ago.

  “Want to explain how you can lose weight when you’re consuming three thousand calories a day, Emmy?”

  Brittany plopped down in her chair and looked at me expectantly as I slumped down into her couch. It was going to be a long session.

  THERE WAS SOMETHING IN THE AIR AT ASSLAND. I MEAN BESIDES the smell of pigshit, though that was definitely in the air, too. We were not allowed anywhere near the girls’ rooms, what with the sexual reactivity and everything, but even still, I swear I could sometimes catch a whiff coming from their wing of the building.

  It was also the end of summer term. Real classes started next week. Precalculus. English. Chemistry. And US History. Maybe I’d figure out what the hell Diana was talking about in the pig barn.

  And my friends were moving up levels. Kids weren’t supposed to announce they were running for level six to the rest of us—it was supposed to be this great surprise when they got to leave—but I suspected balance and wholeness were within reach for a lot of them. Tracy was going by his real name, Diana hadn’t jumped anybody in a while, Jenny was talking, Emmy appeared to be eating, and Chip wasn’t gaming. Of course, we were all harboring a four-legged fugitive, which would probably take us all down a level or six if it were discovered, but, otherwise, everybody seemed like they were doing better.

  Even me. Maybe. Max and I had been “doing work” on figuring out my core issue. Though of course I had to take issue with that. Ha.

  “My core issue is that my brain is screwed,” I’d told him last time. “I don’t make enough seratonin. End of story.”

  “That’s not the story that you’re telling yourself,” Max had said. “You’ve got a story you tell yourself that affects how you see everything. What do you think it is?”

  “Goodnight Moon? This explains everything. I like red balloons a lot. This feels like a real breakthrough,” I said.

  Max rolled his eyes. “Hiding behind a joke, Justin.”

  “It’s cozy back here.”

  “But it’s not helping you get better.”

  “Nope.”

  That was as far as we’d gotten.

  But maybe there would be a big breakthrough in time for the upcoming Family Weekend. We were allowed to go off-site with our parents, and there was a minor Midwestern city about an hour’s drive from here, so a lot of people were getting pretty excited about non-Assland food. Not Emmy, of course, and who the hell knew if Jenny would be able to find anything vegetarian to eat, here in the land of grass-fed beef and corn-fed humans, but everybody else was pretty stoked.

  And terrified. Assland’s idea of a Family Weekend was something that started on a Thursday and didn’t end until Sunday and included at least two big-deal therapy sessions with the parents. I mean, even regular teens didn’t want to spend that much time with their parents. And we were not regular teens.

  So, yeah, I was kind of happy about seeing my mom and I guess kind of indifferent about seeing Patrick and really nervous about seeing Dad. Because when I saw him, I guessed I was gonna have to tell him about how angry and disappointed he made me feel all the time if I was gonna achieve balance and wholeness. And the man did not take criticism well.

  Whatever progress I was making toward balance and wholeness was not being helped by the fact that I was completely starving all the time. Monday dinner was typical. I could barely sit down before Diana eyed the baked potato with sour cream on my plate and said, “Potato. For Little Willy. Now.”

  I sighed and handed the potato over to Diana, who stuffed it in a gym bag at her feet. “You know, Diana, I am a growing boy. I need my calories. I can’t starve myself so your pig can eat.”

  “Can and will,” Diana said, and as Emmy approached with a potato, Diana said, “Drop the spud, chubs.”

  Emmy actually smiled. “No dice. I just had a grueling one-on-one session where I had to swear for fifty minutes that I’m not purging all the snacks I’ve been getting. If I don’t put on some kind of weight in the next week … well, I don’t know, but I’m going to wind up getting treated for some kind of disorder I don’t even have—”

  “How different can the treatment really be?” Diana barked, but Emmy continued.

  “And more importantly from your perspective, they’re gonna cut me off from all the snacks. So Willy can have half of what he’s getting now or he can have nothing.”

  “Well shit,” Diana said. She folded her arms.

  “And that’s another problem,” Emmy said. “It’s getting out of control. I’ll be surprised if the custodial staff doesn’t start wondering why the Dumpster smells like livestock.”

  “It’s actually your whole wing,” I said. “When the wind is right you can smell Willy’s crap all the way across the quad.”

  “Not all the way across,” Tracy said as he sat down and handed his potato to Diana.

  “So you just tell them you’re not puking, but you’re using lots of laxatives, and—” Diana began.

  “I am not taking the blame for pigshit!” Emmy said just as Jenny and Chip reached the table.

  “Shut the hell up, will you?” Jenny said. “Hey,” Diana said. “You guys seem to arrive together to a lot of meals these days. Are you like, together?”

  “Well, we were together in the potato line,” Chip said, smiling, but Jenny actually started blushing.

  “Whoa, somebody’s got a tell,” Tracy said. “See, Jenny, my boy Chip here, I’ve trained him well. He can lie all casual now. Of course, he’s an addict, so he’s got practice. But still, the boy is good. See, let’s try it.” He went into a falsetto mom voice. “Chip? What are you doing on the computer, honey?”

  “Just looking at porn, Mom,” Chip said, and Tracy cracked up.

  “See, that’s excellent. Because if he says he’s doing research for school, that’s just an obvious lie. But why would you admit to porn? He’ll at least be able to hide the World of Warcraft window before Mom gets to the room.”

&nbs
p; “Are you gonna game when you get out?” Emmy asked, all serious.

  “Well,” Chip said. “I honestly have no idea. One day at a time, you know? I’m not gonna game today. Tomorrow’s gonna have to take care of itself.”

  Diana did a little robot dance in her seat. “I am a recovery-bot three thousand,” she said. “One day at a time. Easy does it. I will now recite the Serenity Prayer. I owe you an amends. I have achieved balance and wholeness.”

  “Shut up, Diana,” Jenny said. “You shouldn’t make fun of stuff that’s making people better.”

  “But then what will I make fun of? Oh yeah, just the fact that you guys are totally a couple.”

  Jenny blushed again and clenched her fist. “Bring it, Fern,” Diana said.

  I turned to Emmy. “Fern?”

  “Charlotte’s Web?” Emmy said to me. “Have you ever read a book in your life?”

  “Now, ladies, let’s not do anything that’s gonna knock us back a level or two,” Tracy said. “Jenny, let’s work on your lying skills. Really, this is a crucial life skill, and I gotta say I’m a little worried about sending you all out into the world so unprepared. So Jenny, are you and Chip a couple?”

  Jenny looked straight at Tracy. “We’ve made out a couple times. I mean, it’s not like we have long meaningful talks or anything. Obviously.”

  “Ideal girlfriend!” I said, and went up for the high five from Tracy, who did not leave me hanging. We really were making progress around here!

  Emmy punched me in the arm. “Pig. No, you know what, that’s unfair to Willy. Now wait, I’m confused. So, was that the lie?”

  This time it was Chip who was blushing.

  “Just be careful, kids. Don’t want to wind up in Sexual Reactivity group with Justin and the other pervs. Then you might not get to leave,” Diana said.

  “Why the hell is everybody talking about leaving?” I say. “I mean. You’re not like, all on level six yet or anything. Are you?”