“I wanted to show you, that’s all.”
“I’m glad.”
“Maybe we can listen to music tomorrow night, at the Lock-In? If you want to?”
Milla imagines listening to music with Max, their heads close in order to share his headphones. “Yeah. Totally.”
“Cool.” He grins, and she holds that grin in her heart as she goes to join her friends. It’s her reward for being brave.
the Dorito crumbs from her jeans. She tightens first her right pigtail and then her left one.
“Excuse me, ladies, but I have some business to attend to,” she announces. “I do hope you will forgive my absence and continue to chat pleasantly amongst yourselves until my return.”
Her friends look at her.
“We’ll try our best,” Violet says.
“Where are you going?” Yaz asks. “What business do you need to attend to?”
“Simply that which needs to be done,” Katie-Rose says grandly. She doesn’t know what her sentence means, but she likes the sound of it. And so, on that note, she leaves.
Marching across the playground in her oversized shirt, she imagines that she’s a general in war. Or, no. An Amazon! A fierce warrior, standing up for the rights of girls everywhere! Wonder Woman is an Amazon, she seems to recall. Although Wonder Woman wears a red bathing suit bottom with a blue star-spangled top, and no way in heck will Katie-Rose ever be seen in that get-up. Jeans and an oversized T-shirt is her superhero costume of choice. That’s the way she rolls.
“Ahem,” she says when she gets to the edge of the grassy field where kids play soccer. Preston is kicking the ball around with Chance, Brannen, and some other guys. They don’t appear to notice her.
“Ah-HEM”, she says again. The guys still don’t notice her, so she marches right over to them, intercepting the ball and stepping on it with her sneaker.
“Katie-Rose!” Chance groans. “You blocked my shot!”
“Quit yer bellyaching,” she growls. She plants her fists on her hips, having transformed—for reasons unbeknownst even to her—from Amazon warrior to gun-slinging cowboy. Wait, girl. Cowgirl. “I have no beef with you.” She jerks her chin at Preston, “It’s your pardner I need to have words with.”
She glares, determined to show no weakness. But on the inside, she’s mortified. Pardner? Really? Did I really just say pardner?
Preston cocks his head, reading her shirt. “‘Chicks don’t dig stinks?’”
“That’s right,” she says. “And now might I have a moment of your time?”
“Ooo-ooo,” Chance says in the foolish way of suggesting that romance is afoot.
“Shut up, Chance,” she tells him. Anyway, who is he— the boy with seventeen girlfriends—to talk?
A smiles plays at Preston’s lips, and he saunters toward Katie-Rose. “What’s up?”
“I’ll tell you in private,” she says.
“Fine,” he says, heading for the fence that surrounds the playground.
“Fine,” she counters, heading there faster. No way is she following him. She needs to be in front of him, in accordance with natural order as she perceives it.
They reach the fence at the same time. Katie-Rose stares Preston down—or tries to. He seems to be enjoying himself, the rat.
“You noticed my shirt, I noticed,” she says.
“Ah,” Preston replies. “Yes. I noticed you noticing my noticing.”
“I know, because I noticed you noticing me noticing you.”
“Are you sure? Because though I noticed you noticing my noticing, I did not notice you noticing me noticing you noticing me.”
Katie-Rose attempts to play back his sentence in her head. She scowls. “Oh, shut your face.”
He grins.
“What you need to know is that I am wearing this shirt on purpose,” she says. “I am wearing this shirt, which I made myself—”
“No”, he says, feigning astonishment. “You made that shirt? For real? Are you going to make more and sell them?”
“You better stop mocking me,” Katie-Rose warns.
“Could you make one in pink, for my grandmom? Maybe add in some embroidery?”
She stomps on his toe.
“Ow!”
“I am wearing this shirt for one reason and one reason only: Because it is true, and because you are sadly, sadly mistaken if you think I can’t handle grossness.”
“That’s two reasons,” Preston says.
She stomps on his foot again.
“Ow!”
“I said shut your face!” she says sternly. But what is he doing? Is he laughing? Why is he laughing? It is very hard to maintain sternness when someone is laughing. For heaven’s sake, doesn’t he know that?
“Preston,” she says in what she hopes is an intimidating voice.
He sobers up. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Ha ha. Now, listen. I can handle grossness fine. I just prefer not to, because it. Is. Gross. Do you understand?”
“You don’t want to handle my grossness. Got it.”
A sound comes out of Katie-Rose that could be mistaken for a laugh, or if not a laugh, then a goat bleating. She tries to make her mouth behave, but the corners of her lips curve up defiantly.
“Stop!” she cries, addressing herself and Preston. “When we were in art, you said I was like Mrs. Gundeck, which was very rude. If you don’t take it back, I will have to kill you.”
He holds up his hands. “You’re not like Mrs. Gundeck! I take it back!”
“Good. Now say, ‘Katie-Rose is not scared of barf.’”
“Katie-Rose is not scared of barf.”
She leans back on the fence. “Now say, ‘Katie-Rose is un-gross-out-able, unlike Mrs. Gundeck.’”
“Katie-Rose is un-gross-out-able, which isn’t even a word.”
Katie-Rose doesn’t correct him. Instead, she bounces forward off the fence she just leaned back against and grabs Preston by the shoulders. “Omigosh, I have just had the most genius idea in the history of the multiverse.”
“The multiverse? What’s a multiverse?”
“Preston, this is important, so don’t lie. Can you make stinks on purpose? For real?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Can you? And can you do it today, during German?”
“Maybe, but only if you tell me why.”
Katie-Rose is too excited to bother with whys. “Because I owe someone a favor. You wouldn’t understand.”
He twists out of her grasp and turns to leave. “Then no. Sorry.”
Aargh! She grabs his arm and whirls him back around. “All right, I’ll tell you.” She scans the playground until she spots Yasaman, her face framed by her golden hijab. Yaz genuinely wants Mr. Emerson and Ms. Perez to fall in love, and Katie-Rose genuinely wants Yaz to be happy. She thinks she may have found a way to make all of that happen: for Mr. Emerson, for Ms. Perez, and especially for Yaz.
“I’m waiting,” Preston says.
So Katie-Rose outlines the flower friends’ plan to get Mr. Emerson and Ms. Perez to become a couple. She knows he’ll think it’s silly and girlish, but she doesn’t let that deter her.
“If you can fart during German, and it’s anything like your farts from art, then you can stage a massive gross-out,” she says. “If you can make just one person throw up, or if you can make Mrs. Gundeck think someone’s going to throw up, then Violet can plant the idea that there’s a virus going around. Violet’s in your German class, right?”
“Yeah,” Preston says. The wind ruffles his hair, and Katie-Rose catches a whiff of something sweet, like papaya or passion fruit. She sniffs again. Like her mom’s Papaya Passion Punch Shampoo, with its “refreshing blend of papaya and tropical passion fruit that invigorates your senses and gives you a taste of paradise.”
Does Preston use girly, yummy-smelling shampoo? Is that possible?
“I don’t get how making Mrs. Gundeck think there’s a throwing-up virus going around will help Mr. E and Ms. P in t
he romance department, though,” Preston says.
In the romance department. Katie-Rose thinks that’s sort of cute, at least until she remembers who said it.
“Because then Mrs. Gundeck won’t want to chaperone the Lock-In, and Ms. Perez can step in,” Katie-Rose explains. “And then … well, I don’t exactly know. But Mr. Emerson and Ms. Perez will get to spend the whole night together.”
He smirks. “Oh, yeah. The Lock-In.”
“Yes, Preston, the Lock-In,” she says. “I know you think it’s stupid. I know you’re waaaaay too cool to go to a school-sponsored event on a Friday night, but guess what? I know it’s going to be awesome, so deal with it.”
Preston looks at her, but Katie-Rose can’t read his expression. Katie-Rose liked it better when they were laughing, but whatever. Laughing with Preston was a fluke. She knows that.
“So will you or not?” Katie-Rose says. She folds her arms over her chest and stares at him, but not directly into his eyes. She stares at a spot right above his eyes and hopes he won’t be able to tell the difference.
“Sure,” Preston says.
“I’m sorry … what?”
“The gross-out thing. Sure. I have German next, and as I just ate a healthy lunch, it should be no problem.”
He belches, and Katie-Rose automatically says, “Gross.”
“Isn’t that what you want?” Preston says.
She feels a tumble of emotions. Preston’s willingness to help confuses her, as does his ability to make her laugh. Like, genuinely laugh. But then he had to go and act scornful about the Lock-In … and that hurt her feelings.
Just as she didn’t know Preston could make her laugh, she didn’t know he had the power to hurt her feelings. She assumed that by making a point of actively disliking Preston, she’d protected herself from that. She thought she held all the power.
“Great. Thanks,” she says, and with no further ado, she walks away.
bathroom and switches her “day” hijab for the “sports” hijab her ana gave her. It’s not the prettiest headscarf she’s ever seen, but she doesn’t care.
She turns her head back and forth, and her hair stays tucked in. She jumps up and down, and it still stays tucked in. She knew it would, though, because she practiced with it lots last night. So maybe she jumped up and down not to double-check the security of her hijab, but out of excitement.
She should be nervous, but she’s not.
She should feel self-conscious about her new, different-looking hair scarf, but she doesn’t. (Well, maybe a little, but she’s not going to let a case of the jitters stop her from reaching for the stars, or, in this case, the ceiling tiles in the PE Room, which is where all the trapeze students are to meet.)
She strides down the hall, holding her chin up and her shoulders back. She slips into the PE room and joins the nine other fifth graders who signed up for the class, wiggling in between Becca and Katie-Rose. Everyone’s taken their shoes off, so she kicks hers off, too. She fumbles for Katie-Rose’s hand.
“… and since it’s an introductory level course, we’ll be working with a single trapeze,” Josie is saying. She’s barefoot, like the others, and she stands confidently on a wide gym mat she’s spread across the floor. Her hand rests on a slim metal bar attached to two thick ropes. The ropes are secured with hooks and wire cable, and it looks as stable as Josie promised her ana it would be.
Josie keeps talking, and Yasaman listens, but at the same time, she soaks in every detail she can. The gleam of the bar, the blindingly white ropes, the anticipation popping and fizzing in Yasaman’s chest until it feels as though her soul has no bounds, expanding to fill the room and beyond. She will remember this feeling forever.
Josie tells them what skills they’ll learn—drops, balances, hangs—and as she speaks, she plays with the trapeze, pushing it gently so that it sways back and forth. Yasaman’s pulse thrums. She can’t wait to grip the fibers of the ropes, to perch on the bar, to experience at last what it’s like to fly.
Josie catches the bar and holds it still. “So. Who wants to go first?”
Yasaman’s hand shoots up. Some of the kids are surprised, she can tell. Yasaman wants to go first? Shy, quiet Yasaman?
“Fantastic, let’s do it,” Josie says.
Katie-Rose squeezes Yasaman’s hand. Yaz squeezes back. She leaves the group, steps onto the squishy mat, and walks to Josie, where she mirrors Josie’s stance by planting her feet about a foot apart. Josie passes her the trapeze, and Yaz catches the metal bar, which is the part that would be the “seat” if the trapeze was a swing.
“Step closer,” Josie says, gesturing for Yaz to approach. “Terrific. Now, turn so that your back’s toward me … yep … and now I want you to let go of the bar with one hand and bring your other hand all the way to the end of the bar so that it’s flush with the rope.”
“Which hand should I hold on with?” Yaz asks.
“Either is fine, just—that’s right.” Josie glances at the class. “Check it out: Her knuckles are aligned, her wrist is straight, and the edge of her thumb is grazing the rope. That’s the perfect form for the mount we’re going to start with.” She smiles at Yaz. “Great job … um …”
“Yasaman,” the other kids fill in, like contestants in a game show. They sound proud of Yaz, proud that she’s doing so well and proud that she’s one of them. Warmth blooms in Yasaman’s core and spreads all the way to her fingers, which are itching to do more, more, more.
“Great job, Yasaman,” Josie says. “Now listen while I explain what you’re going to do, please, and then you can give it a try. But learning to do tricks on the trapeze is a process, just like everything else in life. Don’t worry if it takes a few tries.”
Yasaman nods.
“So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to walk from one end of the bar to the other, sliding your hand with you. Then turn around, lean back, and swing your other hand up so that you’re gripping the bar with both hands. Then kick one leg up and over the bar, while pushing off the ground with the other. It takes a bit of a jump. You have to commit.”
Josie seems so serious. But then, Yasaman is, too. Serious and buzzing and totally ready to commit, as in now, before she has a chance to think too much about it.
“If you can get your leg over the bar, you’ve done the hardest part,” Josie says. “Then hold on by bending your leg, like I’m sure you’ve done a thousand times on the monkey bars.”
Yasaman doesn’t respond, and she doesn’t look at her classmates, either. She hasn’t hung upside down from the monkey bars since she was Nigar’s age, practically. Before she started wearing a hijab. But once upon a time she did hang upside down from the monkey bars, and she’s almost a hundred percent sure she can do it again.
Or ninety-percent sure. Seventy-five percent sure? Okay, if she really really had to swear to it—not that she would, as she doesn’t swear—she’d say she’s fifty percent sure she’ll be able to get her leg hooked over the bar, and thus fifty percent sure she won’t end up flat on her back on the blue gym mat. A fifty-fifty chance, those are good odds!
“When your leg’s holding the bar, you can grab the ropes and pull yourself up to sitting,” Josie tells Yasaman. “Cool?”
“Cool,” Yaz says.
Josie steps back, waving her hand in front of her to say, The space is all yours.
“Yay, Yaz!” Katie-Rose calls.
“You can do it!” Becca says.
Yaz visualizes the steps Josie explained, practicing in her mind what she’s about to do. Her heart is a small thing with wings. It flutters.
Then she takes a deep breath, and then one more deep breath, and just … goes for it. With her right hand on the bar, she takes two steps forward. She pivots, leans back, and throws her left arm up, catching the bar with her hand. With her quads, she pushes off the mat, launching her right leg high into the air while allowing her shoulders and head to swing upside down in counterbalance.
She hooks the bar
with her leg. She’s got it! She’s got it, and her hijab is still on! She grabs a rope in each hand and pulls herself to a seated position. She’s not terribly graceful about it, and it’s a little embarrassing to be straddling the bar with one leg dangling from each side, but who cares? A smile splits her face.
“That was awesome,” Josie says. Behind her, the other kids clap and cheer, and now Yaz can look at them. Now she can grin at her meddlesome FFF, Katie-Rose, who got her into this in the first place.
“You’re, like, a natural, and I’m not just saying that,” Josie marvels. “Since you’re up there, do you want to try one more move before someone else takes a turn?”
“Sure,” Yasaman says.
Josie nods her approval. “All right. Draw your left leg over the bar so that both legs are in front of you.”
It’s a tight squeeze, wiggling her knee and leg through the gap between her upper body and the bar, but Yasaman does it. Without thinking, she bends and flexes both legs, making the trapeze move through the air like a swing.
“Fun, isn’t it?” Josie says, her lips curving upward. “Now the tricky part. Bend your right arm—yeah, keep your left arm rigid and push against that opposite rope—and pull both legs up so that they extend from your hips at a ninety degree angle. Straighten them, that’s right. Pretend you’re just sitting on the ground with your legs out in front of you.”
Yasaman wobbles. “They’re both on the same side of the rope,” she says, wanting very much not to fall. “Is that okay?”
“Yep. Press your spine into the rope behind you and tighten your muscles. That’ll help with your balance.”
Yasaman frowns and instinctively shifts her weight, rotating her hips so that the bar digs into her outer thigh. Instead of sitting on the pretend ground with her legs out in front of her, she’s lying sideways on the pretend ground, her legs stacked on top of one another.
“Perfect!” Josie cries. “Omigosh, you’re almost there. Now just flip your grip on the rope by your head so you can let the other rope go.”
“Let it go?” Yaz squeaks.
Josie strides over. “Um, okay, like this.” She loosens Yasaman’s fingers and shows her how to reorient her right hand so that the rope twines around her forearm like a snake. Then she puts her hand on Yasaman’s lower back and pushes, guiding Yasaman to arch her spine. With her spine arched, Yasaman’s legs have no choice but to press hard into the rope she’s supposed to let go of.
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