I stood there, looking at the bandage.
The little girl left without bothering to dry her hands. Now Yara and I were alone.
“You can talk to me, chica,” Yara said. “I’m a good listener.”
I sank against the wall, melting like the witch in The Wizard of Oz, dribbling into the ground, down under the restaurant.
“Come on,” she said.
“Give me a minute.”
Yara frowned. I could tell she didn’t want to leave me alone. When she finally left the bathroom, I could still smell her perfume. I felt Mama’s tweezers in my pocket.
I took them out and yanked at my eyebrows, first the left, then the right, until my arches were pencil-straight. When I tugged, the hairs pulled out easily. Their roots were pale white, each with a little nub.
“What took you so long?” Dad asked when I returned to the table. He touched my forehead. It stung. “Your face looks a little flushed. You’re not catching that bug that’s been going around, are you?”
Yara was watching me.
“I’m fine,” I said.
We were getting ready to leave the restaurant, and Dad was gathering his raincoat and laughing at some joke I hadn’t caught. It seemed like everyone else in the restaurant had heard it, because they were all laughing, even the girl in the flower print dress on the porch.
Dad hugged me so hard, I lifted off the ground. Yara smooched me on the cheek and said, “Have fun, chica. You’re supposed to be having fun.” Her kiss print burned my skin. She laughed. So did Dad. We were laughing because we didn’t know what to say.
Round Numbers
The number ten was a round drum with a thin stick. Ten minutes into a test left me looking for numbers, as if counting could snap off the lights or fire up the pencil sharpener (not to mention the air-conditioning). How could I concentrate when I was dying in slow motion? One minute my teeth knocked together, as if I had morphed into an ice sculpture. The next minute, sweat dribbled down my back and I could smell everyone breathing on me, the air so warm and soupy.
Taking Paxil was like having the rug pulled out from under my brain cells. So I quit. I didn’t plan on popping pills for the rest of my life. I wanted to declare myself “cured” and go on without the neurochemical cocktail. I couldn’t tell Dr. Calaban because I was afraid she would prescribe more medication.
Dr. Calaban wanted me to be happy artificially. If that didn’t work, she’d toss me in the loony bin and turn me into an ever-smiling idiot.
Quitting made me feel sicker.
Paxil’s aftereffects had turned my body into a busted thermostat. I had sworn off the drug and it still hadn’t left my system. I was contaminated.
I glued my eyes to the door and prayed that I wouldn’t throw up.
At school, the windows were bolted with metal bars “for our safety.” I was thinking how those so-called security bars could trap us during a fire when the alarm buzzed. Ms. Armstrong didn’t even look up from her desk. I wished that she’d take off her stupid hat. Mama said it was bad luck wearing hats indoors.
“Second false alarm this week. Somebody thinks they’re funny,” Ms. Armstrong said, popping a grape in her mouth. Lately, she’d been eating during class, which didn’t seem fair. For example, she’d pull a wrinkly avocado out of her purse, as if it had grown there, and gobble the whole thing with a spoon. The last thing I needed to see was Ms. Armstrong chewing.
“What if it’s the real deal?” Thayer blurted. He never raised his hand. “We’d be torched like KFC. Then my mom would sue the school.”
Ms. Armstrong said, “Quiet, please,” which seemed pointless, given that a fire alarm was buzzing in the background. As she wove between the desks, she asked, “Did anyone lose power during last night’s storm?”
Thayer’s hand shot up. It was just him and this weird girl from England. Two hands.
Brit-girl wrinkled her nose. “It’s absolutely disgusting,” she said in this bitchy voice, reminding me of Posh Spice or the unfunny comedies on PBS. “You can’t even flush the toilet without running water.”
The boys in the back row, all burnouts, laughed and made flushing sounds with their mouths. Ms. Armstrong told them to shut up (or “restrain themselves”). Thayer rambled on about the evils of Florida Power and Light and how they should bury the power lines underground.
The lava in my stomach had morphed into needles. I squirmed in my chair, trying to find a position that didn’t prick me.
Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up.
Thayer passed me a note folded like a ninja star. Once he got rolling, forget it. He’d never finish that test. He was too busy writing about his latest conspiracy theory: HAARP, a tuning fork in the ocean, was steering hurricanes toward Miami.
“This is just practice,” he scribbled. “Biological warfare is only the beginning. Weather weapons can wipe out an entire nation in a matter of hours.”
Last week he was obsessed with bird flu, “which is, like, five species away from hurting humans. Just propaganda to get people to buy vaccines.”
I sat in my hard plastic chair, ripping my test and thinking about the number five. I was so busy juggling it around in my head, I didn’t even notice Ms. Armstrong staring at me. The entire class turned around and my throat itched.
“I don’t feel good. Can I go to the restroom?” I asked. My throat wouldn’t stop itching. I needed to rinse my mouth.
She shook her head no. The fumes from her dry erase marker tickled my nostrils. I felt my brain cells dying. I swear it.
Thayer tapped my shoulder. I ignored him. He kept tapping one, two, three more times and I scooted my desk an inch away from him. He was talking about tuna fish…or how he lived off it, even though it’s “crawling with mercury.”
My stomach gurgled. I couldn’t focus on my test. I stared at all those blank spaces reserved for “short answers” and saw a stack of minus signs.
“I’m not sure what to write,” said Thayer, erasing craters into his paper.
Ms. Armstrong got up and glanced over Thayer’s shoulder. He had written everything Ms. Armstrong had scribbled on the blackboard, including the instructions (“back up your answers with examples”).
“Now give me your own ideas,” said Ms. Armstrong, squinting under her hat.
Teachers always said stuff like that. What they really meant was: Memorize my ideas, but make them sound like your own.
The fire alarm wouldn’t quit. I scribbled triangles across my test, trying to cancel out the buzzer. Somebody bumped my desk. I craned down at Thayer’s slip-on Converse, which were dappled with doodles, a pirate skull and crossbones. Sweet. I could’ve decorated my own snow white sneakers, but I didn’t have the guts.
I tapped his toe with my pencil. One, two, three.
Thayer coughed so hard, he drowned out the alarm. Whenever he started hacking like that, a knot tightened in my chest. He sounded sicker than me.
“You sure this isn’t for real?” he called between coughs. “I smell smoke.”
I glanced at Thayer’s paper again. Amazing. We’d been sitting for a half hour and he hadn’t jotted two paragraphs.
I put down my pencil.
Just then, the principal barged into the classroom. He leaned in the doorway, letting in noise and sunlight. Everyone stopped pretending to take the test and stared. So did Ms. Armstrong, who had moved on to her moldy-looking avocado. I’d seen the principal only at assemblies, lurking behind a podium, so I wasn’t sure if he had legs. Maybe he wasn’t sure either, due to the size of his waist.
“Why aren’t you moving?” he said, mopping his neck with a hanky. “This isn’t a false alarm, people.”
A few girls screamed. Others kept working on the test.
Thayer rocketed out of his chair and said, “I knew it!”
“Single file,” said Ms. Armstrong, despite the mob clogging our exit.
I didn’t budge. No use getting trampled.
Ms. Armstrong yanked me int
o the aisle. “Now,” she said.
I stumbled and hit the floor. Once I was down in the forest of desk legs, I just stretched out on the carpet.
“Up,” she said. So much for sympathy.
I looked up. There was a secret world under our desks: stalactites of gum and Scotch tape, metal staples gleaming. You could get lost in it—clues in the empty classroom like archaeological evidence. And then I saw it: the tennis ball wedged under a cabinet, all fluffy with dust.
Ms. Armstrong flung out a hand. I ignored it and finally scrambled to my feet. Once outside, we joined the rest of the class, which had spilled around the flagpole in the parking lot.
As we stood outside, I caught a hint of something charred in the breeze. The fire alarm clanged and the jocks snickered.
“Smells like burned tortillas,” said Sharon.
“The smoke alarm went off. Was someone smoking?” the principal muttered. He stood there, looking confused, as the girls mulled around, screaming and laughing.
The sun hit my face. So did the moist green smell of mowed grass. I chewed my lip and counted to three, praying I wouldn’t puke.
It didn’t work.
I doubled over and retched dry air. Amazing. Even when I tossed my cookies in front of the entire school, it was a nonevent.
A hand grabbed my left shoulder. I touched the other side to make it even. Thayer stood there, talking loud. “Hey, shortie,” he said. “You feeling okay?”
Lava climbed up my throat and leaked into my mouth. I aimed for the grass, missed, and spat chunky goo onto the sidewalk.
“Oh my God. That’s so gross,” said Sharon. “Maybe she’s preggers. Oh, wait. That’s impossible.”
Sharon and her crew were comparing muscles with a couple jocks in Straight Edge hats. Seconds ago, they had been bragging about getting wasted. These kids reminded me of zombies, grinning wide, even though the school could go down in flames. Or not. After all, it was built entirely of concrete.
I glanced at faces I didn’t recognize, their glazed expressions, and wondered who was taking medication. I knew nothing about these kids, despite spending six hours a day with them, week after week. I knew more by looking under their desks.
“Yo, shortie,” said Thayer, edging closer. “I got some good shit. This will fix what’s illing you. Let me hook it up.” He jiggled the pipe on his key chain, right there, in front of everyone. Ms. Armstrong didn’t notice. She was too busy trying to keep everyone in single file. If she saw the pipe, she’d probably mistake it for a tire gauge or something.
He pushed it into my hand. The pipe was shaped like a metal mushroom, which kind of gave it away.
“I can’t handle this right now,” I said, passing it back.
Thayer shrugged. “I’m just spitting out some knowledge for you.”
“So where were you at lunch the other day?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. Thayer was an expert changer of subjects. “Hey, your hair is getting longer.” He smoothed a few strands off my forehead.
“I’m growing it out,” I said, although I hadn’t thought about it before.
“It looks dope,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said as a sunburn crawled up my neck. “Actually, it’s getting on my nerves. I need to tie it back or something.”
“You want to borrow this?” Thayer whipped off his bandanna and slid it over my head. “I got it from the army surplus store in Homestead.” He tightened the knots until it fit just right. I felt lighter with my hair pushed back, not to mention a little tougher.
“It smells like you,” I said. God, that was dumb.
He grinned. “Don’t you love it when somebody borrows your junk and brings it back and it smells exactly like their house? That’s, like, the best.”
“True.” I was gulping deep breaths. The air was so full.
“You ever grow it really, really long? Like down to your butt?” he asked.
“No,” I said, trying to imagine how that would look. “My mom wouldn’t let me. She said it tangled too easily. So it’s time I took control of my hair.”
“You should’ve seen my locks in the beginning,” he said. “My boy Marco and me…we twisted them with honey. Then they just rotted and fell out.”
“Yuck,” I said. “What do you use now?”
“Wax. Or cactus juice,” he said.
Before I could ask where he found that stuff, he took out his Sharpie and started painting my split ends. “When it gets longer, we can dye the tips black.”
“Cool,” I said, wondering how Mama would react to butt-length black hair.
Thayer got bored with his dried-out marker and tossed it in the street. “We’ve been standing here for nine minutes and twenty-eight seconds,” he said, glancing at his calculator watch.
My brain juggled a trio of threes, then added two and eight into ten. We gazed up at the power lines, which were decorated with countless sneakers, all mangled and dangling like tongues.
“When a gang member dies, they toss their victim’s shoes up there,” said Thayer.
I didn’t know whether to believe him.
He took out the tiniest Ziploc bag I’d ever seen—about the size of a postage stamp—and sprinkled its leafy contents into his pipe.
“Sure you don’t want to hit it?” he asked.
My tongue still tasted molten. What difference did it make? I’d already had one drug pumping through my bloodstream and it hadn’t done much good.
“You’re going to smoke right now?” I asked.
“Yep.” He was already messing with the lighter.
“In front of everyone?” I said.
“Who’s gonna care?” he asked.
I glanced at the mob of teachers and students standing there, waiting for something to happen. Nobody was paying attention to us. They never did.
“Okay,” I said.
“Follow me,” he said, all serious.
We stepped out of the line and moved toward the seniors, who were sucking water from the fountains and spitting it at one another. That’s when I looked up at the second floor, where the upperclassmen prowled the breezeway, and noticed the flames. Somebody’s locker was on fire.
“Told you I smelled smoke,” said Thayer. “The seniors burn the shit out of their lockers whenever there’s a major test. It’s practically a tradition.”
The fire seemed brighter than everything else. The rest of the school was black and white. I watched the gnat-sized bits of paper billow in the smoke.
“Just a little excitement,” said the principal, pushing us in line with the cackling seniors, although we didn’t belong there. The flames wiggled back and forth, making no sound.
Thayer coughed and covered his face. He was looking at the truck parked across the street: Metro Dade Fire Rescue.
“I’ve been in one of those,” he said, not bothering to explain.
“Ya’ll need to get back,” yelled a sweaty fireman, materializing from thin air. He looked like an astronaut in a suit that could withstand nuclear clouds. I imagined him playing with fire trucks as a kid.
“You going to put that out or not?” the principal asked.
“I’ll take care of it, sir,” said the fireman, who probably posed for nonprofit calendars. He still wasn’t doing anything.
By this time, most of the classes had meandered around the flagpole. They gawked at a safe distance while the principal had a long discussion with the fireman.
“Hey.” Thayer nudged me. He was pinching this stubby pipe between his fingers. After flaming up and taking a few gut-busting puffs, he passed it to me.
I’d heard the “Just Say No” spiel since fifth grade. By now, it seemed like a joke.
“Put your finger over the hole while you hit it. Let go before you finish inhaling,” he said. This was the boy who was sent home from school, all for wearing a shirt that said D.A.R.E. in bold red letters. Beneath it were the words “Drugs Are Really Expensive.”
I took a deep breath, as if diving unde
rwater. I had never smoked a cigarette before, much less pot. I tried to imitate the way Thayer took these tiny sips of smoke, but, of course, I coughed like a first timer.
“Hold it in,” he said.
That was the last thing I wanted to do. I pictured the human lungs in my biology book: twin willows with cascading branches. Now they burned like the rest of me, the flames twirling up my throat.
It didn’t taste like anything I’d sniffed at concerts, that wet carpet stench that fogged up the air. So far, I wasn’t blasting off or craving nachos or seeing auras in the parking lot. I felt like a complete reject.
Sharon and her crew were a few feet away, watching. Normally, I would’ve crawled off and hid. Now I just laughed, my voice coming out strange, too high and skittery.
“Hey, Fin,” said Sharon. “I hear you don’t like me.”
I turned around. “Yeah, that’s right. What are you going to do about it?”
Sharon tried to giggle, but nobody joined in. It was just her, alone.
“Those girls are dogs with a capital B,” said Thayer.
I laughed even harder.
Thayer stared at me. “Don’t Bogart that weed,” he said, snatching back the pipe.
A grungy sophomore (whose name I had forgotten) shuffled toward Thayer. He was the boy with the skully cap I’d seen at the park, but he looked so much older than us. Tufts of hair sprouted on his knuckles and knees, even between his eyes. Stretched over his gut was this lame Hawaiian shirt (no doubt for “ironic” effect). At first, I thought he might call us out. My panic surged into words.
“Hey, what’s up?” I said, looking at my shadow, which had merged with his.
He grabbed the pipe from Thayer without even asking.
“Yo, T-Puff,” the kid said. His voice was low and startling. “You used to get me some awesome chronic. Now you’re dropping it on this chickenhead?”
“I got nada, bro,” said Thayer. “You out thievin’ again?”
“Whatever, tool.” He turned and looked at me as if I had dropped out of the sky. “We met before?”
“I don’t think so,” I said, watching the grass, which seemed to be swelling.
He snorted. “Must’ve been one of Thayer’s other girlfriends.”
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