“You think he would really do that?”
“Why not? I mean, I’m not Frank Miller or anything, but I think it’s good. And we need more female superheroes written by girls, you know?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you read comics?”
“Not really.”
“I brought a bunch with me if you need something to do.”
“I’ll be fine.” I turn around to start hanging my clothes up in the closet. I can sense Melanie still watching me. I hope I didn’t hurt her feelings too much by not wanting to read her comics. I’ve just never seen any point to musclebound guys in capes and tights shooting lasers from their eyes and all that.
When I finish hanging my clothes up, I turn to find Melanie still staring at me. Her face is red and her lower lip trembling as if she’s about to cry. “I’m thorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s not your fault. I’m coming on too strong. I knew it. It’s just…my last roommate and I…it was a nightmare, OK? She was really pretty and popular and she’d always have her friends over to hang out and they’d make me sit outside in the hallway. For a really long time, too, like hours. A couple of times they thought it’d be funny to throw my pillows out there and make me sleep in the hallway. I was so glad she was able to move in with one of her friends and I…I guess I hoped we could be friends, you know? But now you probably think I’m such a dork.”
“No, I don’t think that. Jutht don’t try tho hard, OK?”
“OK.” She forces herself to smile and then say, “You want to go get some dinner?”
***
It’s a long walk across campus to the cafeteria. My legs still aren’t fully recovered from when I got shot, so it feels like we hike ten miles before we finally reach the cafeteria. Along the way Melanie tells me about her family. Her father works on the docks and her mother is a cook at an elementary school. She has just the one sibling, who still lives at home and spends most of his time playing video games in the basement when he isn’t lounging around his store, which sounds as if it’s on the verge of bankruptcy. What I can’t understand is why she got sent to what’s pretty much a prison for teenage girls. She doesn’t seem like a druggie or a slut who’d get herself knocked up or anything. But then she was going to a party that night on the train, so maybe she’s wilder than she seems.
The cafeteria is already filled up with girls in their St. Martha’s uniforms. Melanie says, “Don’t worry, they don’t serve us gruel or anything. The food’s actually pretty good.”
I’d prefer gruel to the mystery meat in watery gravy the cafeteria worker drops onto my tray. There are peas to go along with it and a pint of milk. It’s not like the cafeteria back home with pizza, candy, and Coke. Melanie is ahead of me in line; she waits until I’ve given my identification card to the cashier before she starts to look for a table.
Back home I steered clear of all that clique stuff and went outside to eat or in the hallway when the weather sucked. Melanie trudges down an aisle, timidly approaching each table in the hope someone will offer us seats. She speeds up as we near a table with a blond girl holding court. The blond girl sneers at us and then says, “Hey, Mel. I didn’t think you’d still be here.”
“Hi, Tonya,” Melanie mumbles. “I’m still here.”
Tonya turns to me, her evil grin widening. “Is that your new roommate? Oh my God, when did they start taking little kids?”
“I’m not a little kid,” I say. “I’m thixteen.”
“What was that?”
“I thaid I’m thixteen.”
Her whole table cracks up. My face turns red hot with embarrassment. I’m tempted to drop my food and use the tray to break Tonya’s jaw, but even if I were strong enough to do that, I’d get kicked out and end up in military school—if not juvie. “Go ahead, kid, thay thomething elthe,” Tonya says.
One of her friends says, “Say ‘she sells seashells by the seashore.’” Everyone at the table laughs. I narrow my eyes, but manage to keep my cool. These girls aren’t any different from the popular girls where I used to go to school. Popularity and bitchiness always seem to go hand-in-hand.
“Whatever,” I say. “Come on, Melanie.”
“Aw, did we hurt the midget’s feelings?” Tonya teases. “I’m tho thorry.” They’re still laughing as Melanie and I scurry away to an empty table at the back of the cafeteria.
Melanie looks down sadly at her tray. “That was the girl I was telling you about. My old roommate. Tonya Schmidt.”
“Tonya Schmidt?” There are plenty of Schmidts in the world, but when I think of that girl’s face and her general disposition, it’s pretty clear who she is. If I had a phone with Internet access I could check it out, but I’d stake my life that Tonya is Lydia Schmidt’s daughter. Madame Crimson’s daughter. Didn’t Carol check that before she had me sent here?
“Rose? Rose, are you OK?”
“Huh?”
“I know, she’s a bitch. You just have to try to ignore her.”
“Right. Ignore her.” That’s good advice since the last thing I want is for her to tell her mommy about me. Then this whole new identity and relocation would be for nothing. I shift my seat so Tonya can’t see my face and hunch forward to make myself as small as possible, but I can’t make myself small enough to disappear.
Chapter 15
The alarm goes off way too early the next morning. Back home I didn’t have to get up until at least seven and then Jessica usually had to roll me off the bed. Since I went to the hospital I hadn’t even gotten up that early.
Melanie shakes my shoulder to try to wake me up. I growl at her. “Rose, come on. You don’t want to get stuck in the kitchen, do you?”
“Don’t care.”
“You will, trust me. Now come on.” She grabs my wrist to drag me off of the bed. I flail around for something to grab onto, but my fingers slip off the bed frame to send me tumbling to the floor. It’s good I’m on the bottom bunk so I don’t have far to fall.
“You bitch!” I shout.
“Sorry, but like I said, you don’t want to be late.”
“I don’t care.”
She tosses a towel to me and then hands me the bottle of shampoo and bar of soap I brought. “We’d better hurry or all the hot water will be gone.”
I plod after her to the end of the hallway. There’s a row of bathroom stalls, some of which are occupied. Around the corner are the showers. “There aren’t any wallth,” I say.
“No. Just keep your eyes closed if you’re self-conscious.”
“Uh-huh.” I keep my eyes on the tile floor as I follow Melanie to the last two nozzles along the row. She generously lets me have the one at the end. I hesitate a moment before I strip off the plain white nightgown they require us to wear at night. I toss it aside, followed by my socks and panties. I turn to face the wall so no one can see me and I can’t see them.
I take probably the quickest shower I ever have. I don’t bother with conditioner or a very thorough scrubbing with the soap. I turn off the water and then wrap myself in a towel, glad for once that I’m short so the towel will cover most everything from my neck to my knees.
Melanie is still showering as I scuttle past her, back towards the room. In the doorway I almost run right into Tonya Schmidt and a couple of her friends. “Hey, look, it’th Baby Rothe.”
I try to sneak past, but they block the doorway. “Come on, kid, say it.”
“Pleathe?” I whine.
“That’s not it,” Tonya says.
“Then what?”
One of Tonya’s friends says, “She sells seashells by the seashore.”
I glare at the mean girls. If I were at full strength, not wearing only a towel, and didn’t care about getting kicked out I’d make a path through them. But since I’m not at full strength, am only wearing a towel, and do have to worry about getting kicked out, I sigh and then mumble, “The thellth theathellth by the theathore.”
“Come on, say it louder.”
I glare again at the girls. My fists clench, but then I think of Jessica and Carol and all the work they put in to send me here. “The. Thellth. Theathellth. By. The. Theathore.”
They laugh uproariously, but at least Tonya stands aside enough for me to squeeze through. I’m sure it’s intentional that her right hand snags the edge of the towel to send me tumbling to the floor, naked. They laugh again as I scramble to cover myself. I can still hear them laughing as I run into my room.
I haven’t cried in a while, but now I curl up on the mattress to bawl like a little baby. Melanie finds me that way and pats me on the back. “What’s wrong?” she asks. Stammering and sniffling, I manage to tell her about Tonya and her friends. “They’re so awful. They think because they’re pretty and they have money they can do whatever they want.” She sighs and then shakes her head. “It’s too bad the Outcast isn’t here. She’d give them what they deserve.”
“Yeah,” I mumble. “It’th too bad.” I sit up on the bed and then wipe tears away. “Thankth.”
“Come on, we’ve got to hurry up and get dressed.”
I nod and then get to my feet. It’s too bad there is no Outcast in real life, just a tiny geek who can’t even stop herself from being bullied in the bathroom.
***
We manage to steer clear of Tonya and her friends at breakfast. As much as I’d like to stick close to Melanie afterwards, we have to go our separate ways. My first class is geometry in one of the newer buildings. I’m pretty good at math, but I still take a seat in the back and hunch down to make it harder for the teacher to see me.
But as if the nun teaching the class has some kind of targeting computer, she locks onto me and then says, “Miss Howard, can you finish this proof?”
I have to trudge up to the front of the room and then finish the last four lines of the proof she has started. I know the answer, but to write it down I have to get on my toes, which prompts more than a few snickers from the other girls. “Quiet!” the nun snaps. “Go on, Miss Howard.”
“Yeth, ma’am,” I mumble and then go on to finish the problem.
The nun inspects my work and then nods. “Very good, Miss Howard. You may take your seat.” I start back to my seat. It’s good I’m looking down at my feet so I can avoid the foot someone sticks out to trip me. I hop over it and then collapse onto my seat.
It only gets worse in chemistry when the nun teaching that class pairs us up for lab work and I get stuck with Tonya as my partner. She pats me on the head as if I’m a little kid and then grins evilly. “I’m thure you know about thienthe, don’t you? I mean, aren’t all geeks into that stuff?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Good, then get to it, Rothe.” Tonya takes out her cell phone to type a message while I start on the assignment. It’s not fair I have to do all the work, but at least it means we don’t have to talk to each other.
After a few minutes, Tonya grumbles, “This stupid place. Why can’t I ever get more than one stinking bar?” I don’t say anything to this, but she nudges me with her elbow. “Isn’t there some way you can hack it or crack it or something to make it work better?”
“No.”
“No you can’t or no you won’t?”
I shrug. “Either. Both.”
Her eyes narrow at me. “Fine. Whatever. I don’t need you.”
“Exthept to do your lab work.”
“Shut up.”
The nun comes over to loom in front of us. She clears her throat. “Is there a problem, ladies?”
“No, ma’am,” we say in unison.
“Good. Get back to work.”
Tonya pretends to help me for a few minutes, until she’s sure the nun isn’t watching anymore. Then she starts to play with her phone again. “Thanks for not tattling on me,” she says. “Maybe you’re not so lame after all.”
“You’re welcome.”
***
Melanie and I have the same lunch hour, so at least we can eat together. I tell her about what happened in geometry and chemistry. “People here can really be bitches,” she says. “I mean, most of them are here because they got thrown out of other schools.”
“Did you?”
“No. My mom thinks it will help me get into a better college. We don’t have money for one of the really fancy boarding schools. And our church helps with some of the bills. You know, so I’ll be brought up as a ‘good Catholic’ and bring up my kids that way.” She sucks down the last of her milk and then asks, “What about you?”
“My mom went here like forty yearth ago or thomething. I gueth my thithter thought thomeone thould carry on the tradition.”
“You live with your sister?”
“My parenth are dead. A car acthident.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know.”
“It’s cool your sister is taking care of you. God, I don’t want to think what it’d be like if my brother had to raise me. I’d have to live on Cheetos and Mountain Dew.”
We share a laugh at this. “Cheetoth would be better than what my thithter cookth.”
“It has to be better than the stuff they serve here, right?”
“Yeah.”
We finish our slop and then go our separate ways again. I have to go to English class, where this semester we’re going to read Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. It seems like a pretty advanced book, but the nun doesn’t leave any room for discussion. The first point she stresses is that while the author’s first name is Evelyn, the author is a man. This brings short-lived snickers from everyone, until the nun slaps her desk with her pointer. “That’s enough of that. I expect all of you to behave like young women, not children. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” everyone says in unison.
Again though I’m hunched down in the back, the nun’s eyes focus on me. “Miss Howard, come up here, please.”
As I get close to her desk, the nun shoves a cart of paperback books at me. “Hand those out, if you will.”
“Yeth, ma’am.”
“I expect all of these books to be returned in the same condition at the end of the semester. Failure to return your book will result in your parents being charged to replace it and a scathing notice left on your permanent record.”
Since a new copy of the book is probably eight dollars that doesn’t seem like much of a threat. I hand out the copies of the books, feeling like the prisoner who gets stuck with wheeling the library cart around to all the cells. I’m glad Tonya isn’t in this class or she’d probably find a way to make me spill the books to look like an idiot.
I’m not so lucky in my last class: phys ed. We have to change in the locker room of the gym. I turn away from Tonya, but she says, “It’s not like we didn’t see it earlier, Rothe.”
I don’t say anything; I just hurry to get into my T-shirt and shorts and then put on my sneakers. Melanie is in the class too, not that she can really do much to protect me from Tonya and her friends. “Just ignore her,” Melanie whispers to me as she slips on her sneakers.
“I’m surprised they make sneakers big enough for your feet,” Tonya says to Melanie. Melanie doesn’t say anything, but her cheeks redden as she ties what are probably size-11 sneakers. Mine are only about half that size.
It’s kind of funny to see Sister Matilda wearing a habit with a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants. Instead of a crucifix she has a whistle that she blows to bring us to attention like we’re in the army. “All right, ladies, let’s split into two teams.” I hope to get on Melanie’s team, but of course I’m stuck with Tonya.
I groan to myself when Sister Matilda announces we’re playing basketball. That’s about the worst sport possible for a girl who’s only five-two in her shoes. And a girl whose legs are still atrophied from weeks on crutches. After a couple of minutes I’m hobbling from one end of the court to the other. It doesn’t take Melanie’s team long to capitalize on that and keep passing the ball towards me. All I can do is wave futilely at shot after shot. It’s lu
cky for my team that most of those shots miss.
“You’re so useless, Howard,” Tonya shouts, apparently too angry to even make fun of my lisp.
“Thorry.”
“You are pretty thorry,” she snaps.
“That’s enough chatter,” Sister Matilda says. “Rose, why don’t you sit this one out? We’ll take someone off the other team to even the numbers.”
I’m left sitting on the bleachers with Melanie while the other girls continue to play. She gestures to the nasty scar on my leg. “Is that from the car accident?”
“Huh? Oh, right. The car acthident, yeah.”
“Did you…did you see them?”
“When they died?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I thaw my father. It wath…it wath bad,” I say, thinking of him in the morgue, on that gurney, his body so pale and cold.
“I can’t even imagine it,” Melanie says.
“Heads up!” Tonya calls. There’s just enough time for me to grab the basketball she probably threw at us on purpose. If I hadn’t grabbed the ball, it probably would have broken my nose.
“You lothe thomething?” I call out and then toss the ball back to her.
After the other girls have gone to the showers I limp over to Sister Matilda. “I wath wondering if I could thtay here for a little bit to train.”
“Train?”
“Jutht thome jogging and thtuff.”
“All right. The janitor usually comes in at six to clean up so be sure to be done by then.”
“I will.”
I explain what I’m doing to Melanie and she volunteers to stay as well. She pats her stomach. “I could probably lose a few pounds.”
“You’re not fat.”
“I’m not skinny like you either.”
“You’re not ath thort either.”
With her longer legs, it’s easy for Melanie to keep pace with me as we do laps around the gym. My hair is matted with sweat after ten laps and by fifteen I’m so winded that we have to take a break. We sit on the floor, leaning our heads against a mat hanging on the wall.
“I hate being out of thape,” I grumble.
“Is this about Tonya and them?”
Justice for All (The Outcast Book #1) Page 11