“And is it? Edifying?”
“I guess so.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I was hoping it would explain why . . .” I trailed off.
“Why what?” Rowan prompted.
I almost said, Why everything. Instead I said, “Why things change.”
“That’s a lot to ask of one person, even a genius like Darwin.”
“If you’re going to have a whole theory named after you, you’d better earn it.”
Rowan laughed. “Touché.”
“Seriously,” I said. “He just spent an entire chapter wondering what the difference is between a species and a variety, or if there even is a difference. I’m not even sure what conclusion he came to. That’s how much my brain hurts.”
Rowan stood up. “Tell you what. You squeeze all you can from Darwin and then see if you can do him one better. Maybe you’ll get a theory named after you someday.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, right.”
He crossed the room and opened the door. “As for short-term goals: as soon as you get home from the farmers’ market tomorrow, we’re hitting the thrift store. It’s costume time.”
“Okay,” I grumbled, though really I was grateful. Trick-or-treating with Rowan was definitely one of the things I didn’t want to change.
He started to duck into the stairwell but stopped. “One more thing. And before you get mad at what I’m about to say, please consider that I’m telling you as a favor, not an insult.”
“What?”
“Ask the moms about picking up some dandruff shampoo. You’re looking a bit flaky.”
As he shut the door, I touched my scalp. My fingers came away dusted in flour.
“Hey, Bernadette,” I whispered. “I promise not to forget you, but I’m going to take a long, hot shower tonight.”
Since we wouldn’t see her at lunch the first half of the week, Yosh and I met Carina in the library before school instead. “What are you two doing for Halloween?” I asked. “Want to trick-or-treat together?”
Carina and Yosh exchanged a look not so different from the Moms Look. How much time had they been spending together without me? I knew it was wrong to feel jealous, but I couldn’t stop myself.
Carina said, “We were talking about that. Neither of us really wants to trick-or-treat this year.”
“But candy,” I said. “Costumes.”
Halloween was the only time of year I could count on getting my hands on a whole lot of sugar. The sweets we got from the farmers’ market were delicious but tended to be made with whole grains and natural sweeteners. It wasn’t the same.
“You sound like my mother. ‘Go on, get out there and be a kid while you still can,’” Yosh said in a breathy, coaxing voice. Back to his normal voice—“I’m almost fifteen. I’m allowed to be over it.”
“What’s your excuse?” I asked Carina.
“I love dressing up,” she said with a sigh, “but I don’t want to spend an entire night bumping into people I know from Osterhout. Halloween is supposed to be fun, not stressful.”
“We could go to a different neighborhood. We could trick-or-treat right here around Finley.”
She shook her head. “I’m going to Yosh’s to play Legend of Zelda. But you can come, too, if you want. Can’t she, Yosh?”
“Only because you’re the one doing the asking.” Yosh gave Carina a sideways smile.
I went pink. Last week in the principal’s office, I’d thought Yosh and I had crossed the border into actual friendship. But maybe Carina was still the only real thing we had in common. I picked up my backpack. “Forget it. I’ll find something else to do.”
“Don’t be like that,” Carina said. “He’s just messing with you. Apologize, Yosh.”
“Only because you’re the one doing the asking,” he said again, then added, “Sorry, Hazel. You do make it easy. Want to virtually adventure with us?”
“I’ll think about it,” I said, sitting back down.
Actually I was thinking that playing video games—or, more realistically, watching Carina and Yosh play video games—was a poor substitute for trick-or-treating. I guessed it would be just Rowan and me after all.
But somehow, if you ignored the circumstances, that wasn’t so bad. This year, Rowan wouldn’t be chaperoning his kid sister and her friends. He might be older than me, and occasionally smarter (not that I’d ever tell him that), but for a few short months, I was thirteen while he was nineteen—and that would make us two teenagers hanging out.
For as many Halloweens as I could remember, I’d dressed as an animal—and not just a cat or a bunny, like other girls in my class. Last year I’d been a tardigrade, also known as a water bear, though they didn’t necessarily live in the water. There were over a thousand species that could live anywhere from mud volcanoes to mountaintops. They weren’t bears, either. They looked more like pill bugs, except they had four pairs of legs. The best thing about tardigrades was how tough they were. They survived in extreme environments no other creature could.
I’d made my costume out of a puffy brown sleeping bag, adding a papier-mâché proboscis. Real tardigrades maxed out at half a millimeter long, so I was definitely not to scale, but I looked exactly like the drawing in Grzimek’s—not that anyone at Osterhout appreciated it. Everyone, teachers included, thought I’d been going for a piece of poop. If I hadn’t convinced the principal to research tardigrades online, I would’ve been sent home.
This year, I’d had trouble thinking of a costume idea. Whether because my trick-or-treating traditions had been disrupted, or because my costume choices had a history of being misunderstood, the idea of being one of my favorite animals for a day had lost its appeal. I’d stalked the aisles at Goodwill for nearly an hour, not knowing what I was looking for but certain I wasn’t seeing it.
Finally, Rowan had given a tortured sigh. “Is it essential for you to be an animal? Have you considered being something else for once? Like, maybe a person, even?”
My first instinct had been to make a retort, but I’d stopped and considered the question. Yes, I’d always dressed as an animal for Halloween. Yes, in general, animals were better than humans. On the other hand, there were some decent people out there who deserved to be celebrated.
“Fine,” I’d said. “But you have to help me.”
And so I arrived at school on October 31 in a khaki shirt and khaki pants (shorts would have been better, but Michigan Halloweens were notoriously cold and rainy), my hair in a ponytail, a set of binoculars around my neck, and a stuffed chimpanzee in my arms. Everything but the binoculars had gone in the washing machine as soon as we got home from Goodwill. The last thing I needed was to discover that my toy chimpanzee had real live fleas.
Less than a minute passed before people started commenting. I held my breath, waiting for them to say, Hey, Monkey Girl, what made you think that would be a good costume? But they didn’t—which saved me from having to tell them that, actually, chimpanzees were apes, not monkeys. They said, “Hey, are you that gorilla scientist? Jane Something?” And I said, “Jane Goodall. She studies chimpanzees.” And they said, “Yes, that’s who I meant.” Even though they weren’t calling me by my own name, for the first time all fall, I felt like they knew me. It was the complete opposite of going to Osterhout dressed as a tardigrade.
As promised, Rowan’s costume was epic. He dressed as a dragon with light-up red eyes and flapping wings. It also roared. About the only thing it didn’t do was breathe fire, and I’m sure Rowan would have found a way to make that happen, too, if Mom hadn’t said, “That thing had better not breathe fire.” She said half the kids out trick-or-treating would be wearing store-bought costumes that were almost certainly flammable, and that Stanford probably frowned on burning schoolchildren alive.
As Rowan and I trick-or-treated, I was surprised by how many kids I recognized—and who recognized me back, and waved. It was weird. For some reason, I blended in at Finley in a way I never had at Ost
erhout. Was it because of my plan to hibernate (though, to be honest, I’d let it lapse weeks ago)? Was it because Finley’s predators had already chosen their prey by the time I got there? Or was it because I had Carina and Yosh? Individually, all of us might have been easy pickings, but instead we had each other, our own miniature pride. Had the kids at Finley not figured out I was a freak, or had they figured it out and decided they didn’t care?
If nothing else, from here on out, I’d be the girl whose brother was a Halloween genius.
Chapter 20
As November began, the leaves began to fall in earnest, along with the temperature, not to mention a lot of drizzle. It promised to be a highly November-ish November.
Mom and Mimi tried to get me to go to the mall with them. “Come on, Hazel,” Mom wheedled. “We can pick you up some new outfits for winter.”
I hated the mall. Weaving among endless racks of clothing, breathing stale air, my eyes worn out by the dull fluorescent lights, I felt like a rat in a maze. There wasn’t even the promise of cheese at the end. I shook my head. “You made me go back-to-school shopping in August.”
“And you’re already five minutes from outgrowing those jeans. Your wrists are sticking out of that sweatshirt.”
“I don’t care. Rowan’s got plenty of hand-me-downs I can wear.”
Mom looked about to protest, which would have been hypocritical, considering her wardrobe mostly consisted of flannel shirts and overalls from Goodwill. Mimi put her hand on her arm. “Let it go, Dawn.” She turned to me. “Are you sure you don’t want to come just for fun, babe? Girls’ day out? We could make a stop for ice cream.”
I couldn’t believe my moms thought I could be bribed with ice cream. I wasn’t five. “No, thanks. I’ve got stuff to do. Besides, it’s too cold for ice cream.”
The real reason I didn’t want to go was the real reason they were going. I’d overheard Mimi remarking that she couldn’t keep appearing in court with the top button of her slacks undone under her blouse, her blazer gaping around her belly. She had some maternity clothing from Miles, but not enough.
I couldn’t feed her excitement. Someone had to keep their head about the baby thing. Someone had to remember we’d never be out of the woods until the baby was blinking in Mimi’s arms. I ignored the disappointed glance they exchanged and went up to my room with a cup of hot chocolate—which was far more seasonally appropriate than ice cream—where I spent the afternoon doing homework, reading Darwin, and writing articles for the Guide to Misunderstood Creatures.
Outside of school, that was how I spent most of my time these days. It was too chilly and damp to hang out in the half-ton for any length of time, so Arby and I would curl up together on my bed or in the dormer window. The herd munched their way across the pasture below. They didn’t mind the cold and damp. Only a full-on downpour would send them hustling for the barn.
I hadn’t seen or even talked to Becca since missing her game. We’d chatted online and traded comments on each other’s posts, but each successive interaction felt more stifled and stiff, like a pair of shoes you were steadily outgrowing. I was still waiting for her to tell me cheering was over for the fall and invite me to her house for a sleepover, but she hadn’t mentioned it.
Finally, I asked Carina and Yosh, “When does football season end?”
“That’s random,” Carina said. “Anyway, don’t you mean, when did football season end?”
My stomach sank. “You mean it’s over already?”
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure Halloween was it. Why, did you change your mind about going to a game?” Carina asked. “The high school season’s over, too, I’m pretty sure, but maybe we could get tickets to a college game.”
“No,” I said impatiently. Her face fell. “I mean, no, thank you.”
“I’ll go with you,” Yosh told Carina.
“Seriously?” she said. “I didn’t think you were into sports, either.”
“I’m trying to be open-minded.”
“Come on, Hazel,” Carina said. “All three of us could go. It would be so much fun.”
“No, thanks. I really don’t want to.”
“Looks like it’s just us,” Yosh said to Carina. Their heads together, the two of them started planning. Carina said she could get discount tickets because her aunt was a chef at the university. They talked about how much hot chocolate they would drink and how many hot dogs they would eat. I zoned out, still reeling. Becca had as good as lied to me.
When I got home, I went straight to the computer and searched for the county middle school football schedule. Carina was right. The last game had been on Halloween. I’d known Becca had a game that day, but she definitely hadn’t said it was the last of the season. I stared at the calendar until my vision went spotty, but the date didn’t change.
I opened a new window and brought up Becca’s photos. There were dozens, if you counted the ones other kids had tagged her in. Most of them were still of the cheerleading team—but not at games. They were in the cafeteria, at the mall, at each other’s houses.
In the worst, Becca and Kirsten laughed together in a bedroom decorated in cream and rose—Becca’s room. They looked as carefree and happy as models in an ad for acne medication. Not only wasn’t I in the picture, it was clear I didn’t belong in it.
Becca’s forgotten me, I imagined telling my moms. What should I do?
But I didn’t need to ask them, because I already knew what they’d say.
Why don’t you pick up the phone and call her? Mom would ask, as if it were that simple.
She’s probably got social engagements, I’d answer.
You could make a social engagement with her, Mimi would point out.
I asked her to go trick-or-treating, and she said no. It’s her turn to ask. Besides, she said we’d hang out once the football season was over, and it’s been over for more than a week.
Be that as it may, you’re only hurting yourself by not calling . . .
I’d make a face, because they were right. Even when I was imagining their voices, they were right.
After dinner, I retrieved the phone from the kitchen. I went up to my room and settled in the dormer window. Arby curled up on the rug beside me. I entered Becca’s number and waited.
Her phone rang once, twice. Then her recording began. Hey, this is Becca. If you’re hearing this, I’m either at school, cheering, or sleeping. Leave me a message, and I’ll call you back!
There was a beep, but I didn’t say anything. I’d gotten Becca’s voicemail before, of course, but either it hadn’t rung at all (meaning her phone was off or out of service), or it had rung half a dozen times (meaning she hadn’t answered in time). I might not be a phone expert—thanks, moms—but even I knew that only two rings meant Becca had declined my call.
Seconds passed, and I still didn’t say anything. Finally, I hung up.
My stomach churned. What if Becca and Kirsten were hanging out right at this moment? What if they’d seen BROWNLEE-WELLI on the caller ID and Kirsten had said, Hazel still thinks you’re her friend? and Becca had said, I know, talk about not being able to take a hint. You’d think she’d’ve caught on when I barely called her for two months. And then they’d laughed like girls in a deodorant ad.
Except that was ridiculous. Becca might be friends with Kirsten, but she wasn’t Kirsten. I couldn’t become paranoid. She’d probably swiped to accept the call, and her thumb had slipped. Or the Blumbergs were having a family meeting, and her parents had told her not to pick up. Something, anything but intentionally ignoring my call.
I probably should’ve called her personal number again and left a message—to tell her I missed her so, so much. To ask her to please, please call. But I hated waiting, and I couldn’t shake the nagging fear that she’d never call back. Instead, I called the Blumbergs’ landline.
It rang three times before Mrs. Blumberg’s cheerful voice buzzed in my ear. “Hazel! It’s been a while since I’ve seen your name pop up on the caller ID
. How are you?”
I swallowed. No family meeting, then. “I’m okay. Is Becca around?”
“Yes, she’s in her room. I’m surprised you didn’t call her directly. Not that I’m not happy to hear your voice, of course. We’ve missed you around here.”
“I did call her phone. She didn’t pick up.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Blumberg said. “Huh. That’s strange. Well, maybe she was in the bathroom.”
“Maybe,” I said, growing queasier.
“Let me call her, in any case. Oh, and Hazel, congratulations.”
I felt like she’d put out her foot to trip me. I stumbled to catch my balance. “Huh?”
“You know.” Mrs. Blumberg’s voice grew playful. “Mimi. Becca told us she’s expecting.”
The temperature of my blood plummeted. My first thought was, Oh no. My second thought was, If Becca told Mrs. Blumberg about Mimi, who told Becca? My third thought was, I’m in so much trouble.
At first all I could say was, “Uhhh.” Long seconds passed before I managed a thank-you.
“You’re welcome, sweetheart. Let her know we’re pulling for her.”
“Thanks,” I said again, my voice strangled.
“I won’t keep you any longer. Becca! Phone!”
It felt like forever before Becca picked up. My stomach knotted and unknotted and re-knotted as I waited. Now that I had her attention, I wanted to hang up. Arby roused herself and nudged at my arms until I let her climb up on me. She licked my nose and settled into a doughnut in my lap. Petting her usually soothed me, but now it couldn’t stop the sinking of my stomach. I alternated between wondering how Becca had found out about Mimi and reminding myself it didn’t matter how she knew. She knew, and she hadn’t heard the news from me.
“Hello.” Through the crackling static, Becca’s voice was flat.
“Hi. Uh. It’s Hazel.”
“Yeah. I know.”
I didn’t know what to say. Should I apologize right away, or give Becca the chance to get mad at me first? Maybe she wasn’t even mad. After all, the old Becca didn’t get mad. I decided to wait and let her bring it up. “How was your Halloween?”
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