Attack of the 50 Foot Wallflower

by Christian McKay Heidicker

  “I’m talking to you, young lady,” the carnival owner said, snapping his fingers in my face. “When do you expect her?”

  “Um . . .” My eyes drifted back to the remote.

  I wasn’t about to sit in this motel while the world made its mind up about whether it was going to end or not.

  I met the carnival owner’s eyes. “Ma quit,” I said.

  He paled. “But—but the billboards and the advertisements. We paid her three months’ advance!”

  “She sends her regrets.”

  I closed the door in his face. It was seven thirty. Time to go to school. It might not be the Eiffel Tower or Korvette’s, but it sure beat waiting for the world to be shut off in the motel room of gloom. Besides, Daddy’s movements were slow. If there were any changes in his expression, I’d be able to get back to the ham radio quick as a bunny and let the lab know.

  I emptied Ma’s makeup bag into the sink and followed her morning routine to the letter. I quickly learned that watching da Vinci does not a painter make. In twenty minutes, my face was stinging with alcohol from swabbing away all my mistakes, and I had to keep applying base to cover up my chapped skin. I wished Ma was there and not on some special mission. For a lot of reasons.

  I grabbed the sheath from the closet because it was the best dress I owned, even if it was a little tight. But I was in for a shock. When I slipped it on, it swished around my midsection. I looked in the mirror and found that it no longer made me look like a teakettle in a cozy. My dough was nowhere in sight.

  “Huh,” I said to my reflection, turning to the side and giving my side a pinch.

  My stomach started to gurgle, and I remembered I hadn’t eaten a thing since Ma vanished—other than a heaping dose of butterflies. I’d gone on a three-day diet without even thinking about it, and now my dress fit like an absolute dream. But now that I knew she was safe on her special mission, I felt as empty as an inflatable doll. I grabbed a few dollars out of the suitcase.

  “Be good, Pan-Cake,” I said, but she was out cold even as I shut the door.

  The day was beautiful—mostly overcast with a perfect blend of flashes of sunlight and cool breezes. Ethel, the manager’s wife with the knee braces, was rolling a cart filled with fresh towels.

  “Why, good morning, dear,” she said in a warm voice.

  “Good morning,” I said, and was surprised by how chipper I sounded without trying.

  When I was little, motel managers were like grandparents to me. I adored the managers of one Comfort Motel so much, I asked Ma if I could call them Grandma and Grandpa. She had heartbreak in her eyes when she said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, sweetie.” She was right. That night, Daddy’s eyes warned us to flee after someone started bringing people back from the dead with a monkey’s paw.

  No. Wait. Daddy didn’t warn us. He wanted to watch those people die.

  I wished it wasn’t overcast that morning so I could flip him the bird.

  On the way down Main Street, I stopped by the drugstore and bought a jar of Cheez Whiz, a can of SPAM, and two boxes of Cracker Jacks for breakfast. I picked kernels out of my teeth the rest of the way to school, my legs as trembly as a newborn deer’s.

  When I walked into Freeman High, I heard the squeak of shoes as two boys spun on their heels. One of them gave a low whistle like a bomb dropping. I looked around and realized I was gathering gazes like laundry static. I was about to explain that these army boots were the only shoes I had and that they should stop staring if they valued their eyeballs when someone threw their arms around my neck.

  “I was worried sick!” Beth said, squeezing and pressing her chest to me a little too hard. “What happened? You just took off into the desert! Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, laughing and pulling away.

  Liar, a voice said in my head. It spoke so clearly that I winced.

  “Is Pan-Cake okay?” Beth asked.

  “Um, yeah. She’s fine. She’s as beat as batter though.”

  “Where did you go?” Beth asked, adjusting her glasses. “The police combed the desert. They said they turned over every rock.”

  Not every rock, I thought. Not the one with a door in it.

  “Well,” I said, “see . . .”

  Beth’s eyes were all wrinkled up behind her glasses like we’d been best friends for just about forever. That’s when I realized that nothing is lonelier than being the only one who knows the world is going to end. But if I told Beth, the men in the lab might come nab me. Maybe Beth, too.

  The lunch bell rang.

  “Can I tell you later?” I said. “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”

  “You’re in luck,” Beth said, hooking her arm through mine. “If I know Freeman’s cafeteria, that’s probably exactly what they’re serving.”

  • • •

  “Sheesh, leave some for the Africans,” Rhoda said, sitting down across from me and staring at my lunch tray.

  I had just about everything the lunch lady was serving up, from macaroni and cheese to drumsticks to buttered rolls to peas and carrots with gravy. But Rhoda couldn’t faze me. Now that I was eating a solid meal, my skin felt gilded. This was good because Beth said she had to look something up in the library, so I was left to face the white pigtails and famous bangs alone.

  “How’s Queenie?” Rhoda asked.

  I swallowed a chunk of chicken. “Who?”

  “The Pomeranian, of course.” Rhoda examined the end of her pigtail. “I only ask because she must feel so cooped up in that motel room. Father and I have a whole house and a nice big backyard she could run around in.”

  “Her name is Pan-Cake,” I said, biting into a roll.

  Rhoda flipped her pigtail over her shoulder and ignored me.

  Calvin strolled up to our table and rubbed his hands together. “What about today?”

  Rhoda bobbed her head back and forth. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  “She’ll have to think about it,” Calvin said to me. “She’s like one of those computers that fills a warehouse and takes a month to tell you one and one makes two. I’ll be in a retirement home and old Rhoda will stroll in to join me for a game of bingo right before I die of cardiac arr—” His eyes did a double take. “Hey, did you cut your hair?”

  “Um, no,” I said. I hadn’t washed it in a week.

  He stroked his chin. “Something’s different. Stand up.”

  I couldn’t think of any reason not to. So I stuffed the roll in my mouth and stood.

  “Boy, take her out of the sun and turn off the sprinkler,” Calvin said. “This girl is grown! You’re taller than me!”

  I was taller than him. How had I not noticed that before?

  “Say,” Calvin said, “while blondie here is computing whether or not to give the time of day to yours truly, do you want to hit the malt shop with me later?”

  I was too shocked to respond. I’d never been asked on a date before. Also, my mouth was full of roll.

  “Calvin,” Rhoda said, “be a dear and get me a fruit cup, would you? Clean spoon?”

  “Oh, um, yeah, sure. One fruit cup, coming right up.” He snapped and pointed. “Think about it, Phoebe.”

  He jogged off to the lunch line while Rhoda got this look on her face, like the one the evil queen gets when the mirror first muttered the words Snow White.

  “Maybe you could bring Queenie for a little visit later,” she said.

  “Huh?” I said, sitting back down.

  “Your adorable doggie, of course,” Rhoda said.

  “She has other plans. Excuse me.”

  I took a massive bite of mashed potatoes and went to the lunch line, trying to still my pounding heart.

  “Hey, Calvin,” I said real low so the other kids in the cafeteria couldn’t hear. “You know where the motel is, right? The one at the bottom of Main?”

  “The one with the burned out O on the sign?” he said.

  “That’s the one.” I swallowed deep and tried t
o tap into Ma’s wellspring of confidence. “Why don’t you show up there tonight around six? Room eight. Meantime . . .” I pulled him close and whispered into his ear. “Think of every dirty thing you ever wanted to do with a girl and write them down on a napkin. When you show up . . . we’ll try ’em all.”

  Calvin tried to talk, but his jaw wouldn’t work. I’d never left anyone speechless before. Let alone a wisecracker.

  “Did Rhoda put you up to this?” he finally managed.

  “You just show up,” I said. “That’s all.”

  He swayed, then took a step backward and sat on a stack of lunch trays. I blushed. Ma had told me about how boys have trouble standing whenever the blood relocates.

  “What’s your last name, by the way?” I said, trying to contain my giggling.

  “M-Marple,” Calvin said.

  Phoebe Marple sounded like an eighty-year-old cartoon character. Ah, well. It’s not like we were getting married or anything.

  “Mr. Marple!” the lunch lady shouted. “What is your bottom doing on those trays? Stand up immediately.”

  I beelined it out of the lunchroom so I wouldn’t have to watch that particular scene unfold. At least now I’d have some sort of life experience if Daddy ended up pressing the big button. In my imagination, I had always lost my innocence to some handsome tuxedoed man in New York. But with the world threatening to end, it would have to be hammy Calvin Marple instead.

  I grabbed the rest of my food on the way out.

  • • •

  “Bye, Phoebe!” Beth called on the front steps of Freeman. “You coming to Girl Scouts today?”

  “Um . . . yeah!” I called back, waving. “I think I will!”

  I’d just need to pick up some food first. I was starting to get spots in my vision.

  “Great! Don’t forget Pan-Cake!”

  I was almost to the bottom of the steps when a long-fingered hand landed on my shoulder.

  “Miss Lane,” Principal Toll said. “Would you like to explain to me what you’re wearing?”

  I followed his gaze to my legs and realized for the first time that the hem of the sheath dress was a couple of inches above my bare knees. Had it shrunk?

  “I think it’s time you paid a visit to Dr. Siley,” Principal Toll said. “It’s about time you’re given your tests.”

  • • •

  Girls and jocks and greasers alike stared as Principal Toll led me down the hallway. I realized they weren’t staring at my army boots. They were staring at my legs. I didn’t know what was happening to me, and right then I was too worried to care.

  “Now, now, don’t look so dour,” the principal said as he led me down the hallway. “Seeing a psychiatrist is perfectly normal. Perfectly.”

  Principal Toll escorted me to a wooden door with a fogged window that read DR. SILEY, MD. The principal gestured to a chair and waited for me to sit before he left.

  Voices murmured behind the door. Someone was crying. I thought I heard the words “nighttime,” “blood,” and “thigh,” but the voice belonged to a boy, so that couldn’t have been right. I crossed my legs, folded my arms, and prepared to act as natural as I knew how. The thought made me uncross and recross my legs the other way.

  When the psychiatrist’s door creaked open a minute later, my heart made a leap. There was nothing special about the boy—not in such a way that you’d put him in a Sears catalog or anything. He was bulky with low cheekbones and thick eyebrows, a squashed nose and a wide mouth, a cleft chin and a buzz cut, and a whole bunch of other unfortunate features that somehow came together into something that wasn’t terrible to look at. When he saw me he wiped at his eyes with the back of a hand. In his other, he held a book called Seduction of the Innocent. He sniffed and the corner of his mouth made a sideways leap. It was so sweet, a girl could almost forget it was the end of the world.

  The boy broke eye contact and clomped down the hallway. He hadn’t so much as glanced at my army boots.

  A throat cleared, making me jump. A man with a mustache, round glasses, and a white jacket stood in the doorway. He gestured inside, and I entered. The office was dark, barely lit by a window covered with wood slat blinds. The wall held a clock with a pendulum and portraits of Dr. Freud and Klaatu, the alien that made the electricity cut out across the entire planet for half an hour in 1951. The shelves were filled with books. One gave me a crawly feeling in my skin: Sexual Behavior in the Human Female.

  “Sit,” the psychiatrist said in a voice as low and soothing as a washing machine.

  I sat. An hourglass lamp threw a circle of light onto a black leather desktop, illuminating a file. I saw a name, upside down at the top of the sheet: Lear Finley. The boy with tears in his eyes. I squinted at another line: Father victim of vampirism.

  Oh. The boy was a Shiver survivor. I’d never met a survivor before. My and Ma’s rule was that we never returned to a town that had been attacked. Too messy.

  Before Dr. Siley could take his seat, I said, “Could I have some water?”

  He gave me an irritated look, half squatted in his chair, but then pushed up off the armrests and went right back out of the office. The moment I sensed his shadow round the corner, I snagged the paper from Lear’s file, folded it a few times, and slid it into my sock. I leaned back just as Dr. Siley reentered and set the glass of water on a coaster in front of me.

  He sat and, lighting a cigarette, flipped Lear’s folder shut and opened a blank one. “We’re going to discuss your inappropriate dress, Miss Lane,” he said, unscrewing the cap of a fountain pen, “but first I’m going to ask you a few simple questions. Have you or anyone you know exhibited a desire for blood, fear of sunlight, or an abhorrence to garlic?”

  “No,” I said.

  He checked a box on the paper.

  “Have you ever been in any type of illegal machine that instantaneously transported you through physical space, even if only a few feet?”

  “No.”

  He checked another box.

  “If you have been in one of these machines, is it possible that there was an insect or other creature of some type in there with you, and is it possible you were crossed with that creature, perverting your natural sense of humanity in any way?”

  “Um, still no.”

  “Was that hesitation I sensed?”

  “No.”

  Check.

  “Do your sexual desires cloud your mind?”

  Not more than any other girl, I didn’t think. “No.”

  “Do you experience visions of a life that is not your own?”

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

  “Hmm.” The doctor did not check the box. “And finally, are you now or have you ever been a communist?”

  “No.”

  Check.

  My foot wouldn’t stop tapping. I’d never had a test like this. I wanted a cigarette so bad I could’ve leapt across the table and snatched the psychiatrist’s right out of his mouth.

  Dr. Siley opened a drawer. “Now I’m just going to ask you to hold a few objects for me.” He pulled out a clove of garlic, a silver bullet, a crucifix, and a cake of rotenone. For each one I picked up that didn’t make my skin sizzle, he checked another box.

  The doctor adjusted his glasses uncomfortably. “This next one is strange, but necessary. I promise you there’s nothing untoward. I’m going to stand up from this chair and I’m going to come around this desk and I’m going to kiss you.”

  My whole body went cold. “Oh, I—”

  He stood up, buttoned his jacket, and came around the table. I pressed back in my chair, thoughts swarming. What if I was really a cat person? What if I just never knew it till now because I’d never been kissed before? What if this whole time Daddy wasn’t searching for Ma but me because he was waiting for me to transform? Also, this was my first kiss. I didn’t want it to be my first kiss. Not with a guy with a mustache. Not with—

  Dr. Siley bent over, and he pecked me on the cheek. It was quick and unromantic, and the
saliva from his lips felt sticky on my skin. I felt relieved until he tipped my chin back and peeled open one of my eyelids and then the other.

  “No sharpening of the pupils. Good.” He returned to his seat and checked another box. Then he screwed the cap back on his pen, placed the cigarette in his lips, and lifted a heavy box from the floor and plugged it in. “Where is your father?”

  “He passed,” I said, staring at the machine. It had a gauge with a needle and numbers ranging from zero to five hundred to two k. “He fought the great dinosaur in Japan. It clawed his plane right out of the air.”

  Dr. Siley nodded and flipped a switch. The machine hummed to life.

  “What is that thing?” I said, uneasy.

  “It’s a standard Geiger counter. No need to be nervous.”

  He drew a metal rod from a clasp on the side and passed it over my head. The machine made a sound like stretching plastic. The needle leapt to two k.

  Dr. Siley’s cigarette dropped to the floor and smoldered on the carpet. He touched his Adam’s apple. “Perhaps I should have waited to kiss you. . . .”

  “What is it?” I said. “What does two k mean?”

  The wall clock ticked away the seconds.

  When I was nine I asked Ma what life was like in the loony bin. She grabbed an old sweater from the closet, pulled it over my head, slipped my arms into the stretched-out sleeves, and then tied the sleeves behind my back. She told me to lie on the bed and stare at the wall. She said I could have meals at eight, noon, and six. If I needed to go to the bathroom, I’d have to use the coffee can in the corner. Otherwise, I just needed to lie there and think about what made me go crazy.

  “The problem is,” Ma said, “how can you know? Is crazy a bug in your stomach? A scribble on your heart? A bruise on your brain? Whatever it is, you’ve got to try to make that crazy die inside you. You have to do it without ever feeling the sunshine or laughing with friends or even playing a round of solitaire. And if nothing is actually making you crazy, if all the doctors and psychiatrists think you’re nuts for no good reason, well then you have to kill whatever part of yourself makes them think you’re that way. Even if it’s the best part about you.”