“In a way, I’m looking forward to it,” Carina said. “I didn’t leave Osterhout because I wanted to, you know. I left because I was scared.”
“Scared of getting bullied? Like, even more?”
“Yes . . .” Carina’s shoes dragged on the concrete. When she spoke again, it was so softly I could barely hear it. “But also sort of scared I might do something bad.”
“I wish you would’ve,” I said. “I wish you would’ve punched all those jerks in the face.”
Carina stopped. She bit her lip. “I meant bad to myself.”
My stomach thudded to the pavement. “Oh. I’m sorry, I—”
“Ugh, no, I’m the one who’s sorry.” Carina started walking again. “I mean, no big deal. Everyone thinks about it once in a while, right?”
“No,” I said, stumbling across the street after her. “No, I haven’t, actually.”
We’d had an assembly on suicide prevention at school last year, but it had seemed very theoretical to me. It hadn’t occurred to me I might know people who felt sad enough to hurt themselves. The saddest person I’d ever seen was Mimi, after Miles died, and even she’d gotten out of bed eventually. Had she ever wanted to die? The thought terrified me.
“Well, you’re lucky,” Carina said. “Anyway, I got out. And I got better. I’m in a support group for trans kids now, and I don’t feel so alone. Every day I get to be me, I feel happier and stronger. By next fall, I think I’ll feel strong enough to see everyone again. And I’ll be like: Look, here I am, the real me. You tried to make me feel terrible about myself, but I’m doing amazing, thanks.”
“Do you think they’ll actually be nicer?”
“I’m sure some people won’t. But I bet other people will. Not everyone was all bad.”
“What makes you think that?” I said skeptically.
“Because I know you, duh.”
“Oh. Yeah. I’m still getting used to everyone not hating me.”
Carina dribbled an acorn down the sidewalk with her feet. “If you mean Kirsten . . . when we get to Van Buren, she’s not going to rule the school, you know. She’s going to be a puny little freshman, competing with the queen bees from all the other middle schools.”
“I still don’t get why she picked on me all those years. I never did anything to her.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Carina said. “Kirsten hates other people being the center of attention.”
“When have I ever been the center of attention? I’ve been an outcast since day one.”
But when I stopped to think about it, Carina’s words made sense. The first day of kindergarten, when all the other kids were excited to hear about Thimbleweed Farm. The day after Lena died, when everyone was curious and sympathetic about my sore-from-crying eyes. The skunk-crossing campaign, when I was interviewed for the paper and TV. Those were all times Kirsten had lashed out most sharply.
“If you’re right, Kirsten must’ve hated everyone at one time or another,” I said.
Carina shrugged. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she has.”
“Then how come she’s got so many friends?”
“I don’t know. But I’d rather have one you-type friend than fifty Kirsten-type friends.”
Carina passed the acorn to me. I kicked it. It bounced off the sidewalk into the grass.
We crossed the street under a blinking yellow traffic light to the block of old-fashioned storefronts that passed for downtown Osterhout. At the bookstore, we pawed through the giant box of yellowed paperbacks on the sidewalk. We automatically rejected the romances and thrillers. Fantasies and science fiction went to Carina for closer inspection.
“Own that one . . . own that one,” she said under her breath. “Read that one, and it was so bad I’m tempted to drop it in the sewer so no one else makes the same mistake . . . ah-ha!” She held up a battered copy of a book called The Privilege of the Sword. “I’ve heard this one is amazing. I’m totally getting it. Have you found anything good?”
“I’m still looking.”
“I’ll help you look. What do you like to read?”
“Mostly science stuff,” I said. “Animals especially.”
“Oh, duh. I should have guessed,” Carina said. “Well, it so happens I saw a bunch of books I think you might like. What do you think?” She picked through the box to relocate them and plunked them on the pavement in front of me: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard. Cosmos, by Carl Sagan. On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin.
I knew that name from sixth-grade life science: Darwin’s theory of evolution. We’d glossed over it in a single class period, but I remembered the gist. Darwin hadn’t believed God created Earth and all its inhabitants, fully fleshed, in a six-day period. He believed it had taken millions of years for plants and animals to gradually become the life-forms we recognized.
What our teacher hadn’t explained, much to my disappointment, was why. Why had some species sprung up millions (or even billions) of years ago, while others had been on the scene only thousands of years? Why were some organisms virtually identical to the ancient fossils of their kind, while others differed wildly? You couldn’t just say, “Chickens are modern-day dinosaurs,” or “Whales used to walk on land,” and expect everyone to accept it. You needed an explanation. Maybe Darwin could give it.
In the center of the book were photos printed on glossy paper. I flipped through them and saw Darwin and his family, and the ship he’d been sailing on when he began formulating his theory. But the image that held my eye was a photo of a notebook page. Above Darwin’s illegible handwriting was a sketch of a familiar shape. It looked like the family tree Mrs. Paradisi had passed out in H&HD. It looked like a chart of taxonomic ranks branching from Dear King Philip to comes for good soup. The caption called it Darwin’s tree of life.
I didn’t believe in signs, but this felt like one. I just wasn’t sure what it meant.
I scooped up the book and hopped to my feet. “I’ll take this one.”
“Don’t you even want to see the others?” Carina asked.
“I’ll remember their names,” I said. “Anyway, maybe they’ll still be here next time.”
Carina grinned at the mention of a next time. “Let’s pay up. We’ll have plenty left over to buy some pops at the corner store.”
Five minutes later, On the Origin of Species was mine, and my tongue was tingling from an icy Vernors on the walk back to Carina’s. It was almost five, and Rowan would be picking me up soon. I wasn’t in a hurry to go home, but I could hardly wait to learn what Darwin had to say.
I only wished he had an explanation for what was happening in my life. My family, my friends, my school, and even the seasons were changing faster than I could keep track of. And I stood in the middle, rooted like a tree, the same old Hazel as ever.
Chapter 14
As it happened, there wasn’t time to start reading On the Origin of Species that night. But Sunday I went out to the half-ton with the book tucked into the front pocket of my hoodie. My heart beat faster as I touched the cover, faded and soft, the pages inside yellow and slippery. I found the front page and began to read.
When on board H. M. S. ‘Beagle,’ as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts . . . These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species—that mystery of mysteries . . .
It was hard—harder than I wanted to admit. Grzimek’s was pretty technical, but at least it was written in modern English. Darwin had published On the Origin of Species in 1859, and it showed. I had to read every sentence two or three times to be sure I’d understood it. It took me close to an hour to make it through the introduction, and even then I wasn’t sure what I’d read.
Darwin was sickly. That much I gathered. He was sickly and wanted to publish his ideas before he died, even though they weren’t perfect—which, if he was anything like me, must’ve really annoyed him. He talked about how previous theories of evolution weren’t cutting it. He repeatedly used the words variation, modif
ication, natural selection, and coadaptation without explaining them. Finally, I closed the book, frustrated. I felt like I knew less than when I began.
I went back to the house and up to my room, where I pulled out my H&HD folder. Mrs. Paradisi’s essay assignment was due tomorrow, and I hadn’t even started.
In language arts, I’d gotten the five-paragraph persuasive paper down to a science—a boring science that had less to do with exploration and everything to do with checking off boxes. Introduction with thesis statement: check. Three supporting examples with relevant quotes: check, check, check. Conclusion: check.
Mrs. Paradisi wanted something different, something personal and meaningful. I had mixed feelings. I loved my family, but how was any of this Mrs. Paradisi’s business? I wanted to write, Earthworms have never written about the influential earthworms in their lives, and they’re doing just fine.
But once I began, it was easy.
Mom taught me to appreciate the outdoors. She helps me take a deep breath when things are getting intense. It’s because of her that I know how to milk goats and make soap . . .
Mimi cares a lot about fairness, but she also says things are hardly ever all-good or all-bad. Thanks to her, I want to be a lawyer someday, except for animals instead of people . . .
Rowan’s a pretty good brother when he’s not driving me up the wall. He’s really into technology, and I’m not, but we are both curious people and like spending time alone . . .
By the time I finished, my essay was the longest thing I’d ever written, except for my seventh-grade report “Praying Mantis: Friend or Foe? (Trick Question, It Depends on Who You Are).” I printed it out and stapled the pages together with a satisfying crunch.
At dinner, as Mom ran down the schedule for breeding the does, Mimi outlined a new case that had landed on her desk, and Rowan speculated about advancements in nanotechnology, I thought about how even though we were all so different from each other, we fit together so well. If anyone thought my family was weird, too bad. If I could travel back in time to the first day of kindergarten, would I keep mum about the farm if it meant Kirsten wouldn’t get the whole class calling me Goat Girl? No way. (I might take the opportunity to kick her in the shins, though, since I was destined for time-out anyway.)
I wondered how the new baby would fit in. She might turn out like any of us. Or she might turn out completely different—sporty, or artsy, or really into race cars. Part of me wished she’d be like me. It would be like having a twin, except thirteen years younger—someone I’d understand completely and who’d understand me too.
But the other part knew it didn’t matter. We weren’t pieces of machinery, each with a rigid role. We were moldable, malleable. She’d melt right in, and we’d roll on together.
You’re lucky, baby. You’re gonna be part of a really interesting family.
“You must be thinking happy thoughts,” Mom remarked.
At first I didn’t realize she was talking to me, but she was looking at me expectantly, as if waiting for me to explain. I put my hands to my face and felt the smile there. Immediately it dropped away.
“That didn’t last,” Rowan said. “Guess you scared ’em off, Mom.”
I rolled my eyes and pretended I didn’t know what either of them was talking about. I wished I could unthink my thoughts, but the damage was done.
Animals weren’t meant to wake from hibernation until winter was over. There was a plague of white fungus spreading across American caves, killing little brown bats by the millions. It infected their tiny snouts as they slept and caused them to wake up throughout winter. Each time their heart and lungs kicked back up to speed, it burned up the energy reserves that were supposed to carry them through their long sleep. If it happened too many times, they wouldn’t make it to spring. The only way to survive was to keep sleeping.
The next day, Mrs. Paradisi collected our essays and family trees and announced the next topic. “Romance. Respect. Consent. And the part you’ve all been waiting for: sexual health and reproduction!”
The room erupted into cheers—mostly. I wasn’t cheering. We’d had sex ed units for the past three years. I knew all about my changing body, I’d memorized all the diagrams of the reproductive systems, and I could spell every infectious disease a person could catch if they and their partner weren’t careful. What else was there to learn?
Yosh hadn’t cheered either. If anything, he looked bored.
Mrs. Paradisi wrote The Perfect Partner at the top of the board, then turned to face us. “I’m sure you’ve got plenty of ideas about what sort of person you’d like to date. Let’s brainstorm.”
The first three suggestions were good-looking, attractive, and plain old hot, thereby proving my classmates had as much originality as a stack of photocopies. Mrs. Paradisi wrote the words on the board and said calmly, “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s dig deeper.”
“Smokin’?” someone suggested. “That’s, like, hotter than regular hot.”
Yosh and I shared an eye roll. His mohawk had transformed from green to orange over the weekend, I guessed in honor of Halloween’s approach, and he no longer looked like a turaco. He looked like a hoatzin, or maybe a hoopoe. I liked it—not that I’d told him that.
Smart, someone else called out. Funny. Interesting. Good at video games. Likes guinea pigs. Likes dogs. Believes in God. Gives you compliments. Gives you chocolate even when it’s not Valentine’s Day. Mrs. Paradisi’s handwriting grew sloppy as she tried to keep up with the shower of suggestions.
Yosh raised his hand. “Someone who isn’t using me for my accessible parking permit.”
The room fell silent. Only a couple of titters escaped, and they were quickly stifled. Nobody knew how to react. Suddenly I wondered how having a wheelchair, not to mention the reason for having the wheelchair, whatever it was, might impact Yosh’s romantic future.
Then he said, “Jeez, people, I was kidding,” and everyone laughed again—except me.
“Mrs. Paradisi,” I said, “what if we don’t have a perfect partner?”
She smiled. “I certainly don’t expect you to have found them already. It’s hypothetical. In an ideal world, who would you end up with?”
I didn’t stop to think. “Myself,” I said.
I wasn’t trying to be funny, but everyone laughed again.
Mrs. Paradisi said, “I tell you what, folks, Hazel’s onto something. There’s only one person guaranteed to stay with you all your life, and that’s you. Besides, I think oftentimes the traits we wish to see in other people are traits we wish to see in ourselves. Chew on that.”
Unfortunately, my brilliant insight didn’t end the discussion. Mrs. Paradisi told us to keep brainstorming. I wished the classroom wasn’t in the basement. I wanted a window to stare out of. Where were the diagrams and lists of infectious diseases? Mrs. Paradisi wasn’t treating this stuff like schoolwork. She was treating it like something she actually expected we would do someday. Possibly any minute.
“Can I get out of sex ed?” I asked my moms before bed. I hadn’t had the guts to ask at dinner, in front of Rowan. “I heard there’s a waiver you can sign to give me permission.”
Mom paused the show she and Mimi were watching. She looked bewildered. “Why on Earth would we do that?”
“This is the fourth year in a row of sex ed. The fourth year.”
“Have you ever looked at the statistics for teen pregnancies and STDs in communities that don’t offer a scientifically sound sex education program?” Mimi said. “We should count ourselves lucky.”
“Besides,” Mom said, “you’ve never complained about sex ed before. In fact, as I recall, you were pretty enthusiastic about it. You had those diagrams memorized in a day. And last year you begged to come along when we bred the does—oh, speaking of which, I called Jack Bardell. Kali and Tiamat are on the calendar to meet his beautiful new Alpine buck.”
I cleared my throat. “My point is I already know everything there is to kn
ow. It’ll be a waste of time.”
Mimi said, “You may feel like you know everything, but that’s how school works. You master the simple stuff first, but things get progressively detailed and complex as you go along.”
“Couldn’t I read On the Origin of Species instead?”
“Oh, I read that book in college,” Mom said. “Well, parts of it. Fascinating stuff.”
“I’m sure,” Mimi said, not sounding nearly so excited. “I’m all for you reading Darwin, Hazel, but not at the expense of learning how babies are made and sexually transmitted diseases are spread. Sorry, not sorry. We’re not signing any forms.”
“What if I promise never to have sex?” I asked.
“Oh, sweetie,” Mom said. “We’d never ask you to promise that. We want you to have as much sex as you want! When you’re older, of course. Much older. Like, thirty-five.”
Mimi looked at me curiously. “This is the second time in recent history you’ve said something along these lines. Would you like to talk about it?”
“I . . .” I didn’t know what to say.
How could I explain that the idea made me queasy—like in a scary movie, when someone said, I’ve got a bad feeling about this, and someone else said, Don’t be ridiculous, it’s nothing, so they went into the cave or the run-down house or wherever. It was obvious to everyone watching that something terrible was about to happen—the cave would be home to a bloodthirsty monster, the house would be haunted by vengeful ghosts—but you could do nothing but stare at the screen and shove popcorn in your face until your stomach hurt.
“It’s normal to feel nervous about this stuff, Hazy,” Mom said. “It’s big. It’s okay if you don’t feel ready to deal with it. But that’s the point—that when the time comes, you’re ready.”
I shook my head, ready to argue, but just then, Mimi sat straight up. “Oh my God!”
Hazel's Theory of Evolution Page 11