by Helen Ellis
She fires.
Streams of water splat the cover. Water hits my hands. Water strikes my throat, shoulders, and face. It clings to my flesh as if my flesh were fur. My face is slick and slimy, as if I bobbed for pepperoni on an extra-large pizza.
The gun clicks. The tip drips. Octavia sucks out what's left in the barrel. Her thirst sated, she grabs Marjorie's $49 broom.
"You're the hunter!" I shout at her.
She holds the bristled end toward me. "I'm sorry. I can't let you near me."
But I want to get near her. I am drenched, and now that she knows about what's happening to me, she should be offering me her sisterly help. I'm gonna get that broom.
I lunge. She swats me. I go after her. She swats me harder, many more times, until I'm running from her. I jump on the bed, she swats me off. I jump on the beanbag, she swats me toward the desk. I hop on the edge, land on my butt, pivot off. Her broom knocks over the desk chair. I hopscotch over strewn Goo Goo Clusters, but Octavia steps on them. The foil packages pop. Caramel, marshmallow, and peanuts squish between her toes and slow her down. I shimmy into Mags's closet that's too messy to close. I press my back against the wall and hug the relatively few hung clothes to my chest. My arms sting where Octavia swiped me. I glance along the outside lengths of my legs and see what feels like razor burn there too.
Octavia says, "Girl, don't you know that you're nekkid?"
I peer out of the closet. Mags's comforter is stuck in the door.
Truth be told, I did know. But being naked felt natural. It feels natural now.
I say, "Looks like my days of self-consciousness are over. Whatever's happening to me can't be all bad. No more changing clothes under other clothes! Try it. You might like it. You could stop getting dressed in your bunk and showering by yourself after gym. Maybe we should see how shy you are if I bite you!"
Octavia jabs me with the broom handle. She kicks Mags's mound of shoes and clothes into the closet. She tries to shove the door closed to trap me.
"I'm not gonna bite you!" I say. "Besides, I don't think that's how it works. I think you're born with it. So, if Mom and Dad are sending anyone back to foster care, it's me. I'm the one with the problem."
Octavia sniffs. Her voice is shaky. "Your problem is real—mine's in my head. Head cases always lose to medical conditions."
"You know, Mom and Dad don't have to know about either of us. I'm not going to tell if you don't. You said you saw me." I try to get a smile out of her. "How can you be scared of a pwecious widdle kidden?"
Octavia's lips tighten.
She says, "Kittens cry all the time. They get their heads stuck in glasses and bags. They hide in sofa cracks. You sit on them or knock them across the room when you open a door. When you step on their tails, they make the worst sound."
I hear something in her voice I've never heard before. I ask, "How do you know?"
"My last foster mom was a cat-hoarder."
"A what?"
"One of those women who has a hundred cats." Her shoulders slump. The fight has gone out of her.
"You're exaggerating," I soothe.
"Okay, Oprah, she had forty-five cats. She was old. She couldn't climb the stairs to my room, which was an attic, by the way, but the cats could get up there. I could never get them all out. There was always one under the bed, or behind a curtain, or on a shelf in the closet, or under a pillow. They pissed on the wallpaper and shit in corners because she forgot to change their litter boxes. Her eyes were milked-over, her nose was shot. The house should have been condemned."
"I can't believe child services put you there to begin with."
"As long as you don't kill anyone, they'll keep the checks and kids coming."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"What was I supposed to say? To who? I was seven, and my parents were dead. My brother and sisters wouldn't take me. I'd been through other foster parents. The old woman didn't hit me. She loved those cats, even though she couldn't take care of them. I figured I had no right to complain."
"But it was—"
"Hell," Octavia says. "Some were sick. Skinny. Spines showing through. Shit stuck in their paws because they were too sick to bathe. They'd cough up hair balls, puke. That vomit noise…chug, chug, chug, CHWACK! I hate it. They'd chase each other across the furniture. Stuffing hung out from where they sharpened their claws. There was no place to sit where you wouldn't sit on a spring or get run over. I couldn't eat a bowl of cereal without them crawling all over me because they wanted the milk."
"Why didn't she stop them? You were her kid—they were animals."
"Those cats were her darlings, like Peanut Butter and Jelly are Kathryn Ann's. The old lady made me put my cereal on the floor as soon as I was finished. So many cats would crowd around that bowl, it would disappear. At night, they'd crowd around me, and I would disappear. They'd dive-bomb me. Attack my feet under the sheets. Blow in my face. Chew, rip out my hair. They covered me like my milk bowl. I fought but never won."
"How come you never told me?"
Octavia props the broom against the closet hanging rod. I could take hold of it, but I'm too stunned to move as she raises her pajama top. She trusts me enough to turn her back.
I see.
Her skin is crisscrossed with slim, raised, overlapping welts: cat scratches. Hundreds of them. From when she couldn't fight and curled up like a ball. That's why she won't change clothes in front of me. Eight years of sharing the same room, and I never knew.
I whisper, "No wonder you hate me."
"I don't hate you. I love you. You're my sister. But I can't live with a cat again."
* **
At six-thirty, the sun isn't up, but we get dressed. My school skirt is hot and stiff and smells like the Purser-Lilley indoor water ballet aquatics center from spending the night draped on the radiator. I steal a pair of Mags's navy knee socks because she'll never miss them. I stuff Nick's and Yoon's clothes in my backpack.
Octavia leaves a note excusing our early departure, claiming she wants to get a jump-start on prep for the upcoming debate against Dalton. She writes that she wants to be the first one into The Cellar Used Bookstore (her never-fail research trove) when it opens at eight. She needs me to help her carry home bagfuls of out-of-print books.
The elevator is unmanned from midnight until eight. Exiting into the austere main lobby, our shoes echo along the marble floor, but we don't wake the sole overnight doorman who's curled up asleep on a tiny cushioned bench with an unlit cigarette between two fingers.
It takes both Octavia and me to force the front door open. We squeeze through to the sidewalk. The day is gray, and streetlights illuminate a few cars and an M1 express bus soaring down Fifth Avenue. Walking south, I pull my mittens from my coat pockets. My sister pulls her scarf up to cover her cheeks. Her voice is muffled.
She says, "We really are going to The Cellar, but it's to find out how to fix you."
"Fix me?" I grab her around the shoulders. I can't hide my joy. "You mean you're not going to tell?"
Octavia flinches. Oops. Just because you admit why something scares you doesn't mean you stop being scared. I let her go.
"Sorry," I tell her.
"I'm sorry too. I don't want to feel the way that I feel. You don't want to be the way that you are. So, we'll fix you and get back to our normal lives."
I want a normal life. That's what Nick told me. He wants this phase to be over so he can start living for real. Yoon loves our life as it is. I've lived our life for one night, and I am not so sure that I want to be fixed. I kissed a boy. The boy. I had some nerve. But I can't lose my sister. But if I lose the cat inside me, will I go back to a safe, sedentary life filled with could be's?
I say, "I don't think I can be fixed. Nick says I'll turn for five years, then stop on my own. Nick says I can suppress it with pot."
"Nick says, Nick says. How are you going to smoke pot? With what money? And where are you planning to light up? Not our room, Mary Jane. I'm not
getting sent back to foster care because of drugs."
"We're not on parole. Mom and Dad aren't going to return us for smoking pot."
"No, they're going to send you back for being a mutant and me for being emotionally unstable. Remember when they got us, they said they'd take any healthy kid. Race and age didn't matter, but they knew their limitations. No autism, no handicaps. Where do you think your I'm-a-Teenage-Werewolf syndrome falls on that scale? If they catch you smoking, they'll want to know why. And you'll tell them. You can't keep a secret to save your life."
"What good has keeping secrets done you?" I shoot back— and instantly regret it.
Octavia frowns. Forty-five cats and lifelong scars. I feel terrible. That was a terrible thing to say.
"Why don't you let me try to find an answer for you first?" Octavia keeps the peace.
"Nick says—"
"Nick says!"
"Well, he does! Nobody else has told me what to do. He says Yoon's been researching since last summer but hasn't found much."
"Then, we'll go straight to the horse's ass and find out what Yoon knows. Believe me, he doesn't know everything. Nick either. There's a reason I'm the youngest-ever debate team captain at Purser-Lilley. I know where all the answers are buried."
chapter fourteen
The deli is full of club kids—not Lady Gaga groupies but boys getting home from playing cards in underground poker clubs. Poker clubs are regularly raided by cops and held up at gunpoint, but they reopen in new locations because boys will be boys. The players are primarily grown men, but sons of the Upper East Side with American Express black cards and bar mitzvah money to burn are always welcome. High school boys win big but lose big. Good or bad luck, they never tire. They sit at the tables, spit dip into sixteen-ounce Pepsi bottles, and play until dawn. Saturdays, they straggle home, trolling delis in search of sustenance. They are baggy-panted zombies.
Ben Strong is at the register with a Red Bull and a singleserving foil packet of Pop Tarts.
The deli owner says, "Brown sugar cinnamon, two-ninetynine! Ask my son how he stays so skinny with this same breakfast every morning. He's out all night, like you! Needs sugar to keep going. Sleep keeps you going. But my son wants to find himself. Hah! I find him! Look! You find him too! There he is, filling flower buckets. His mother insists we sell flowers—two deliveries a week—so he can go to college! You tell him if college isn't good enough for him, the navy is waiting! Next two years underwater!"
Octavia and I are at the entrance of the deli. Sure enough, to our right is Yoon with a garden hose. His thumb clogs the mouth of the hose. His hands are clad in his trademark yellow dishwashing gloves. He's in Nantucket Red khakis, rolled up to show his bare ankles in loafers. Waffle-textured long underwear sticks out of his lavender T-shirt, which must be part of a vintage collection. An iron-on wad of wasabi exclaims to an hourglassshaped bottle: You SOY crazy!
I ask him, "Did Nick catch up with you?"
A grin flashes across Yoon's face. "I can't be caught."
His father shouts, "Overconfidence is deadly! You ask that mouse by the sour cream 'n onion how much longer he's going to be alive!"
Yoon drops the hose and darts past the ice cream freezer trunk, alongside the hot and cold salad bar, to the back of the deli. He crashes into the potato chip rack. Bags of Pirate's Booty plummet from the most expensive top shelf and land on and around Yoon, who lies on his belly, his chin to the floor, searching for the mouse underneath the cheap row of Wise.
The club kids crack up. Wired on caffeine, they down fistfuls of Cap'n Crunch straight from the box. Their Patagonia hiking jackets are covered with corn-colored crumbs. From their pockets, they pull rubber-banded rolls of $100 bills and IOU chits. They place bets on whether Yoon will catch the mouse, how quickly he'll do it, and whether he'll bring the mouse out from under the potato chip rack dead or alive.
Ben holds up a roll of bills as fat as a roll of Charmin. He says, "All of it if he eats it!"
The deli owner leans across the counter and snatches Ben's plastic bag of breakfast. He lords it over Ben's head. The deli owner is on a riser. Ben will have to reach up and hop to get his bag back.
The deli owner says, "You want him to eat a mouse, you catch it!"
Ben's friends roar. They wager Ben won't get within five feet of the potato chip rack. If he does, they wager he'll scream like a girl when he sees the little fella. If he faints, they wager on whether he'll fall headfirst into the banana bin or break his nose against the see-through fridge that holds the beer.
From the floor, Yoon says, "A week's salary says he catches it before me."
The club kids aren't impressed with what Yoon's put on the table, but they do the math. Minimum wage times five days a week plus overtime equals a rack of red $5 chips. Money is money, but easy money is the best. The club kids believe Yoon's made an impossible bet. He's bet on Ben to win. Even if Yoon throws the contest and doesn't catch the mouse, Ben must. Nobody believes Ben will shove his hand under the dark, low-lying, dust-bunny populated potato chip rack.
Except Yoon. He pats the rubber flood mat. There's plenty of room for two. He points under the rack. He says, "Come on, kid. Fish in a barrel."
Octavia says, "Don't do it, Ben. You might as well grab a sack of rabies."
Ben, who's been standing shell-shocked at the register with his penny change in his palm, is startled at my sister's voice. Apart from Ling Ling Lebowitz's verbal assaults and debate team sparing, girls don't strike up conversations with Ben.
"Don't let them pressure you," she adds.
"Tell you what, kid," calls Yoon. "You catch that mouse, and we'll split my winnings fifty-fifty!"
This doesn't ruffle the crowd. Even if the two of them cooked up a scam before everyone got here, it doesn't matter. Now that everyone is here and there is a mouse on the loose, the club kids know Ben is not going after it. The only time they've seen Ben be brave is at the poker table, when he bets pot into two aces on the flop. Silly Yoon. Mice-catching is for killers. The Ben we go to school with holds his pee all day if someone sees a water bug in the boys' restroom.
Octavia warns him: "Don't."
Ben chews the inside corner of his mouth. He's been waiting sixteen years for a chance to prove his manhood. He's certainly not going to prove it in gym, climbing the rope. He scans the deli impulse-buy rack for candy he could hurl at his prey with the accuracy of a tennis ball. He may want to slay a miniature dragon, but he doesn't want blood on his hands. He wants a story to tell at the poker table. He wants bragging rights. But most of all, he wants the club kids' money.
Me too.
Look at all those $100 bills held out in the air! All that cash would buy a huge bag of research from The Cellar or a huge bag of pot. Either way, I'd be afforded time off from the turning, which would keep my sister from turning on me.
I cry out, "I'll catch it!"
More of the club kids' money goes up. Expensive confetti. I hear it snatched and swapped. I see it—faded green. I smell it—sweet and warm, if warm is a smell.
Octavia grabs my elbow, but I jerk out of her grip.
Barreling through the club kids, I cry out, "Double or nothing!"
Ben says, "What about me?"
"You had your chance!"
I stop at Yoon's feet. He rolls onto his side, rests one hand on his hip, props his head in his other hand, and grins up at me.
Octavia shoots me her most incredulous, disgusted look. Bitch, PLEASE!
Ben steps away from the register. To save face, he should join Yoon and me at the back of the store.
Not on Octavia's watch. She can't stop me, but she'll stop him. She puts her hand on Ben's jacket sleeve. The club kids make whipping noises. Yoon meows like a—well, you know— but that meow is a little too spot-on, so he clucks like a chicken.
I say, "Move, Yoon."
The deli owner says, "Catching mice is not for girls."
Yoon says, "She's no normal girl, Father."
&
nbsp; His velvet voice gets under my skin. It tingles up and down my spine. It makes me want to please him. I want to lie down beside Yoon and do what he says. My fingers rest on the corner of the hot and cold salad bar. Steam from the sautéed spinach and boiled half-ears of corn on the cob makes my hair frizz. Vinegar from the pickled cauliflower crinkles my nose.
Yoon says, "This girl is something special like me."
Club kids snicker. Compared to their rugby shirts and 501s, Yoon's clothes are flamboyant. The boys clearly aren't aware of what may or may not have gone on between Yoon and Mags behind this very potato chip rack. They certainly aren't aware of how good his tongue felt on my tail.
Yoon offers me his hand, and I extend mine. He slips off my mitten. I feel like he's untoggled my toggle coat and then fussed and fumbled with every button and zipper underneath. I wiggle my freed fingers. My hand itches to grab hold of the mouse. The want has nothing to do with money anymore. It's like I've discovered my hand was made only to open and trap. Yoon taps my index finger, and my hand heats with desire.