by Susie Salom
“Anyone want fruit?” Donna asks.
“¡Sí, por favor!” Cameron perks up. “What kind do you have? I was hoping we would be having something other than pop and pizza. My mom says soda is pure battery acid in your system. We did an experiment once where we put one of my teeth that had fallen out into a cup of soda pop overnight. I don’t believe in the tooth fairy so I didn’t mind donating a part of my body to science.”
Donna just stares at him.
“It was a quarter gone by morning,” he finishes. “A tooth.” He shakes his head. “You’d think enamel would be stronger than that but—”
“¿Tenemos sandía?” Donna asks the woman. “I hope you like watermelon,” she tells Cameron. “Because that’s all we’re having besides pizza and battery acid.”
“I like pizza,” Cameron says. “It was originally invented in Naples.”
Donna looks at him like he’s an alien.
The woman in the kitchen brings out a large wooden bowl filled with juicy-looking chunks of red melon. My mouth waters. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.
“I’ll get plates.” Donna goes into the kitchen. “You guys can sit at the table by the bookshelf,” she calls over her shoulder.
The den is huge. On one wall, there’s a glossy wooden bookcase, and right next to it are sliding doors that go out into the backyard where you can see the pool. Right by all the books, there’s a table and the woman sets the bowl down in the middle of it.
The doorbell rings.
“Someone get that,” Donna says from the kitchen, holding a stack of dishes.
Cameron and Brooke look at me.
“I’ll do it,” I offer.
I walk back down the hall and go straight to the front door, unlocking it before swinging it open.
“Donna has an answering service.”
Reed smiles and my fingers get tiny bites of electricity at the tips. I almost feel like I want to jump a little higher than my skin will let me.
“She’s in the kitchen getting stuff to serve the watermelon,” I say.
He lifts two bottles of pop, one cherry and the other cream soda.
“Cameron won’t drink those,” I warn him. “He donated his teeth to science.”
Reed and his older brother—I guess it’s his older brother because he looks just like Reed, only bigger—raise their eyebrows at each other.
“See you at half past six,” his brother says. “And be ready, ’coz I’m not in any mood to deal with the old man alone tonight.”
Reed nods.
“And don’t drink too much of that.” His brother looks at the pop in Reed’s hands. “’Coz I’m not in any rage to deal with one of your little spacker episodes, either.”
“All right.” Reed tries to shove his brother away.
He skips down the steps toward a funny motorbike with a passenger bucket attached to it. He kick-starts it and buzzes away. We watch him sputter down Donna’s street then turn to look at each other.
“You rode in that?” I ask.
“Yeah, I rode in it,” Reed says. “What of ?”
I lift a shoulder. “Nothing. Come in.”
We walk down Donna’s hall toward the den. After we each have a plate of watermelon, Donna leads us out the sliding door toward the pool.
“So, you’re gonna show us what a cinch it’ll be to suss the maze?” Reed asks her.
“Hold your horses,” she tells him.
“Did you know that phrase was started after the invention of gunpowder?” Cameron says. “The Chinese had to hold their horses because of the noise.”
“They don’t now?” Reed asks.
Cameron looks stumped. But as we walk around the edge of the water he gets distracted by a little freestanding house.
“What’s this?” Cameron peeks in the circular window. “It’s got long wooden benches and black panels.”
“You sit in there and sweat,” Donna says. “It’s for purifying the lymph. With infrared heat.”
“Intriguing.” Cameron nods.
“All right, everyone get in the water,” Donna barks.
We take off our shorts and tees and stick the tips of our toes into the shallow end by the stairs. The water’s not that cold but there is a little breeze swirling through the chinaberry tree in Donna’s yard. It’s already started to drop a few leaves into the pool. Once I shove my foot in to the ankle, it feels like the water will be warmer than standing around in just my swimsuit. I pull my foot out and take my watch off, tossing it on the lawn chair with my clothes and fedora. Then I walk to the deep end and dive straight in.
Underwater it’s always super quiet. I let the air out of my lungs and sink to the bottom of the pool where everything is wavy and bright. The surface is kind of purple and smooth until a pair of legs surrounded by soapy-looking bubbles splashes in. It sounds like a hole being torn in the galaxy but it’s just Cameron. He floats toward me with his hair all crazy on the sides of his head and waves with one hand. He’s using the other one to hold his nose.
I push from the bottom of the pool and shoot up out of the water. Brooke has waded in through the shallow end and Donna is fishing out chinaberry leaves with a net. Reed is standing on the edge of the pool toward the deep end, staring at the waves.
“You getting in?” I ask him.
He doesn’t say anything.
“You can swim.” I tip my head to get water out of my ear. “Can’t you?”
The way he looks at me—without smiling or saying anything—makes me wish I hadn’t asked him that.
Cameron swims over to Brooke with just the top half of his head out of the water and splashes her.
“Cameron! You ever-loving pustule!” she shrieks and splashes back. Which only makes him splash her more.
I try not to stare at Reed as I wait for him to make some kind of move.
CAN YOU SWIM, ENGLISH BOY?
“Cowabunga!”
He crunches his whole body into a cannonball and splashes out half the pool on the way in. And that’s all it takes. Cameron and Reed start splashing the Gorgonzola out of each other. Not just with their arms but with hard, thunking kicks.
I look at Donna through the spray and see her smiling. I didn’t think her face could do that. She tosses the net on the grass and does her own cannonball. She and Reed and Cameron get into this monster water fight but by this time Brooke’s gotten out of the pool and has slipped into the hot tub. I take a deep breath and dive under the water, like a mermaid flipping her enormous tail, and see all these ripply legs and feet bouncing up and down at the middle of the pool. Cameron’s trunks are orange and purple checkers and Donna’s bathing suit is red with a picture of Emily the Strange. Reed’s trunks are plain green.
I am a mythical sea creature, exploring this strange world of humans splashing each other for fun. My aqua tail swishes in a humongous circle around one pair of legs, then another. I stay under the surface until my lungs start to ache and cry and then I zoom up for air in a cone of silver. The humans don’t notice the shimmering being that has come out of the water. They are the splashers. All they can do is splash, so I must join them. I must become one of them. I flip my tail and thunk at the first human. She is laughing and sending a huge wave with both arms at the second human who is wiping his face with one hand and splashing wimpily with the other.
The third human is holding on to the wall and making enormous splashes with both legs. This is the human I must conquer. I dive under and find a mysterious tube letting out warm water. It is my only weapon. My last stand. I shimmy toward the human at the wall and break the surface in front of him, drenching his face with the hose.
He screams like the little sister I never had and says, “Oh, you are really asking for it now, Fedora!” He tries to grab the hose from me to turn it on my face but I let it go and slice through the waves, faster than a hundred thousand dolphins, queen of the oceans of the entire planet and world!
I feel a hand grab my foot and try to pull me. My tail h
as begun to morph back into human form. I splash to the surface and see a tall, serious human standing in the sliding door to Donna’s den.
“Kyle.”
The human—otherwise known as my mom—looks really mad.
“Where is your sponsor?”
Sponsor?
Oh, Mrs. Arceneau.
Right.
I wipe my face and see Reed standing next to me in the shallow end. He shoves the hose underwater. Cameron and Donna have stopped splashing.
“I came by because your father forgot to ask what time I was supposed to pick you up,” she says, “and you never gave me Mr. Donahue’s number.”
Her voice is calm but it’s the angry kind of calm.
“Sorry,” I say.
“Get out of the pool, please.”
“Do I have to go ho—”
“Yes, I’m afraid you do,” Mom says.
Game.
Over.
“Donna, please give my best to your father,” Mom tells her. Then she looks at me. “Where’s your towel?”
“I didn’t bring a towel,” I say. My knees are going to shake when I get out of the pool, I just know it.
“Why not? Didn’t you know you were going to be swimming?”
I don’t say anything. People have the right to remain silent.
Donna hops out of the water and opens a huge basket by the lawn chairs. She gets a towel for herself and one for me. I get out of the pool and thank her for it.
Mom just gives me that white look where her lips might any second disappear.
“Bye,” I tell Donna.
She lifts her hand.
I don’t turn around to look at Brooke or Cameron or Reed. I’ll die first. Shrivel up like a raisin on the cool grass and just lie there until a bird gets me in his beak and flies away to his cave to eat me.
I pick up my clothes and hat and slide my sneakers on over my wet feet, following Mom into the house.
“I’m extremely disappointed in you, Kyle Alexandra.”
World of Minecrap. Not the middle name.
I punch down my dread as Mom’s heels click through the hall. I follow her past the picture of Donna’s mom holding Donna.
“You have started off your sixth-grade year in alarmingly bad form.”
We walk out the door and she snaps it shut behind her, taking the steps to her car. My whole body is shivering. She opens the door to the passenger seat and looks me full in the face.
“You’re picking fights, making unsafe choices and now you’re lying to me about the only thing your father and I have allowed you to do. I thought we covered this the other night!”
“Mom, I didn’t—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she says. “You have nothing to say that could possibly redeem this behavior. Now, get in.”
I climb into the car and fold Donna’s towel over the seat before I sit on it. Mom steps in on the driver’s side and slides on her sunglasses.
“I’m going to have a talk with Principal Bracamontes about a more suitable form of discipline.”
“Mom—”
“I said I don’t want to hear it, Kyle.” She starts the car. “You have shown me today that you are simply not to be trusted.”
There are elves on my ceiling. I’m lying in bed, staring at the plaster, and can see them dancing around a pot on the fire. They are laughing and singing and having fun.
But not me.
I am grounded for an extra two weeks and—even though Dad says Mom is overreacting—I’m not allowed to stay on NAVS. Just when it was starting to get good.
I look at the clock on my desk. It’s way past 7:07. Not that I could call Sheroo, anyway, but I do consider typing her a message on Instant. We don’t usually communicate like that. We’re much more better with words shared out loud.
I’m all twisted inside. Like if I can’t fix things with Mom and NAVS right away, then I at least want things to be back to normal with one of my best friends.
I hear a bubble pop on my laptop and push down my covers with one finger, thinking things must be okay with Sheroo, after all, if she’s reading my mind like that!
But it isn’t Sheroo.
It’s an avatar with very long claws.
I throw off my covers and tiptoe to the computer.
Logan: so now did you get the book thrown at you?
Logan? Who in hairless hedgehog hineys is Logan?
the_amazing_kyle: I don’t even understand what that means
I type it before I have a chance to think how dumb I sound.
Logan: it means are you in major trouble
I sit there with my fingers over the keyboard, watching the cursor blink. Ah, the schneck with it. Might as well just ask.
the_amazing_kyle: who’s Logan??
I send the question then chew on my bottom lip, waiting for like fifty billion seconds before the answer comes.
Logan: it’s Reed Fedora. Brooke signed you up for NAVS chats
My spine lights up like a Tilt-A-Whirl at sunset. Then I look out the window of my bedroom, wondering how many helpless hearts are out in the world.
the_amazing_kyle: my mom says no more NAVS
The screen goes quiet for so long, I wonder if Reed logged off. But his avatar isn’t in sleep mode. Now that he’s invited me to chat, that little cartoon guy with the super-long claws will hang out at the bottom of my screen next to Brooke, Sheroo and Meowsie’s avatars until I delete him. If I delete him.
Logan: where’s the fighting Fedora I know?
I roll my eyes.
the_amazing_kyle: grounded
Logan: aw come on you gonna let a little groundation keep you from the NAVS challenge
the_amazing_kyle: not like I can help it
Logan: sure you can. you know what to use
the_amazing_kyle: ??
Logan: circular power ☺
the_amazing_kyle: Reed what are you talking about??
Logan: Mumsy’s upset because you were having fun at a NAVS meeting right?
the_amazing_kyle: she says I lied to her
Logan: well did you
I suck on my bottom lip.
the_amazing_kyle: kinda??
Logan: then say your sorry. tell her you didn’t know ms. a would be a no show
the_amazing_kyle: Reed she wouldn’t even let me talk at the table tonight
Logan: tell her the team won’t be as strong without u
the_amazing_kyle: what about Donna Dolphin???
Logan: Donna Dolphin doesn’t know sweet fanny adams. She just knows bottle nose dolphins use clicks to swim through muddy waters how does that help???
I take a deep breath and hold it until my cheeks puff out.
Logan: the team needs you Fedora
I let the breath out. I got assigned to do NAVS because I stuck up for Marcy. Now that I actually want to be in NAVS, I could get into even worse trouble for staying. Seriously, what is up with the universe?
the_amazing_kyle: well how in the world do I change my mom’s mind????
Logan: I know you Fedora
I blink into the blue light of the screen as my heart does a hop through an invisible hoop.
Logan: you’ll find a way
After school the next day, I go straight to the homework table and spread out my books and papers to look like I’m working extra hard. I want Mom to catch me slaving over my school stuff when she gets home from work.
“You wanna leave room for me?” Meowsie asks.
I pull some of the papers toward me and slip one of the books into my backpack. I don’t actually have homework on state capitals. That was just an extra book I checked out of the library so I could have a bigger stack. Wish I had glasses. I could be super smart girl who has all the answers with my fat stack of books and my baby blue, super smart girl glasses. Ask me anything, I’d say.
“Meows, can I ask you something?”
He drops his backpack on the chair. It smells like orange rind and playground and has a picture
of Yoda that says, THERE IS NO TRY.
“Shoot.”
“Does every guy want a ton of girlfriends like Roger?”
The doorbell rings and he looks at me. “You expecting anyone?”
“Meows”—I lift a hand—“I’m grounded.”
He gets up and crosses the den to answer the front door.
“It’s for you!” he calls.
I get up right away and do a little run across the den.
“Marcy!” I say. “Come in.”
“I got your address from the directories they passed out today.” She takes one shy step into our house and Meowsie shuts the door behind her. She looks at him super quick and kinda smiles. “I wondered why you weren’t on our bus anymore.”
“How’d you get here?”
“Our new boarder dropped me off while she goes to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy. Just for like twenty minutes. I hope it’s okay?”
“Of course.” I swing my arm to the den to show her that my casa is her casa. “Marcy, this is my brother Michael. Michael”—I motion to her—“Marcy Diamond.”
Meowsie gets a reddish splotch on his neck.
Marcy offers him her hand but he just blinks at it as the splotch crawls up his cheeks. I elbow him in the ribs and he moves his hand to shake hers.
“Come in,” he mumbles. Then he sticks his hands in his pockets and backs away like Circe when we’re getting ready to open a new trash bag. I think maybe the noise freaks her out. I swear, Meowsie’s exactly like her sometimes.
“So this is my pad,” I tell Marcy. “You want a homework snack? We have like a hundred oranges. Michael’s madly in love with oranges.”
Meowsie widens his eyes at me.
WHAT? IT’S THE TRUTH.
But then Marcy smiles at him again and he sort of smiles back.
“You still grounded?” Marcy asks me.
“Practically for eternity.” I grab three oranges and toss one to my brother.
We move to the homework table and I clear off all my crud and dump it to the floor. Marcy looks like she’s in pain.
“What’s the matter?” I ask her. “Do you feel all right?”
“It’s just—” She stops to take a seat and starts to pick at the orange. “It’s just that you never would have been grounded if it wasn’t for me,” she says. Then she gets really quiet and I can barely hear what she says next. “And it turns out it’s not even worth it since it feels like things aren’t really working out at Georgia O’Keeffe.”