Liar
LIAR
Justine Larbalestier
For my father, John Bern
Table of Contents
Part Two: Telling the True Truth
Part Three: The Actual Real Truth
PROMISE
I was born with a light covering of fur.
After three days it had all fallen off, but the damage was done. My mother stopped trusting my father because it was a family condition he had not told her about. One of many omissions and lies.
My father is a liar and so am I.
But I'm going to stop. I
have
to stop.
I will tell you my story and I will tell it straight. No lies, no omissions.
That's my promise.
This time I truly mean it.
AFTER
When Zach isn't in school Tuesday morning I am worried. He said he'd call me Monday night. But didn't. Friday night was the last time I saw him. That isn't usual.
Zachary Rubin is my boyfriend. He isn't the best boyfriend in the world, but he usually does what he says he will.
If he was going to skip school he'd have taken me with him. We could've gone running in the park. Or ridden around on the subway all day laughing at the crazies, which is mostly everyone.
Once we walked from the Staten Island Ferry all the way up to Inwood, right next to the big hospital and the bridge that leads to the Bronx. It took us all day. We'd get sidetracked, checking things out, looking around. Enjoying the novelty of walking instead of running.
Broadway was our path north through the island. Zach said it used to be an Indian trail, which made it the oldest street in Manhattan. That's why it twists and turns, sometimes on the diagonal, sometimes straight like an avenue.
Me and Zach had an argument about what the water under the bridge to the Bronx was called. Was it the Hudson or the East River? Or did they meet in the middle under the bridge? Whatever it was called, the water was gray brown and nasty-looking. So it could've been either one.
That was our best day together.
I hope Zach isn't doing anything that cool without me. I'll kill him if he is.
I eat lunch on my own. A cold steak sandwich. The bread is gray and wet, soggy with meat juice. I eat the steak and throw the rest away.
In class I stare at the window, watch the reflection of my classmates superimposed in mottled glass over gray steel bars. I think about what Zach looks like when he smiles at me.
AFTER
The second day Zach isn't at school, I wear a mask. I keep it on for three days. I forge a note from my dad to say I have a gruesome rash and the doctor told me to keep it covered. I carry the note with me from class to class. They all buy it.
My dad brought the mask back from Venice. It's black leather painted with silver and unfurls at each corner like a fern. The silver is real.
Under it, my skin itches.
They tell us Zach is dead during third period on Thursday.
Principal Paul Jones comes into our classroom. He isn't smiling. There are murmurs. I hear Zach's name. I look away.
“I have bad news,” the principal says unnecessarily. I can smell the bad news all over him.
Now we all look at him. Everyone is quiet. His eyes are slightly red. I wonder if he is going to all the classes or just us seniors. Surely we would be first. Zach is a senior.
I can hear the minute hand of the clock over the whiteboard. It doesn't tick, it clicks.
Click, click, click, click.
No ticks. No tocks.
There is a fly in the room. The fan slices through the air. A murky sliver of sunlight cuts across the front of the classroom right where the principal is standing. It makes visible the dust in the air, the lines around his eyes, across his forehead, at the corners of his mouth.
Sarah Washington shifts in her chair and its legs squeak painfully loud across the wooden floor. I turn, stare at her. Everyone else does, too. She looks away.
“Zachary Rubin is no longer missing. His body has been found.” Principal Paul's lips move into something between a grimace and a snarl.
A sound moves around the classroom. It takes me a moment to realize that half the girls are crying. A few of the boys, too. Sarah Washington is rocking back and forth, her eyes enormous.
Mine are dry. I take off the mask.
BEFORE
The first two days of my freshman year I was a boy.
It started in the first class of my first day of high school. English. The teacher, Indira Gupta, reprimanded me for not paying attention. She called me Mr. Wilkins. No one calls anyone Mr. or Ms. or anything like that at our school. Gupta was pissed. I stopped staring out the window, turned to look at her, wondering if there was another Wilkins in the room.
“Yes, you, Mr. Micah Wilkins. When I am talking I expect your full and undivided attention. To me, not to the traffic outside.”
No one giggled or said, “She's a girl.”
I'd been mistaken for a boy before. Not often, but enough that I wasn't completely surprised. I have nappy hair. I wear it natural and short, cut close to my scalp. That way I don't have to bother with relaxing or straightening or combing it out. My chest is flat and my hips narrow. I don't wear makeup or jewelry. None of themâneither students nor teachersâhad ever seen me before.
“Is that clear?” Gupta said, still glaring at me.
I nodded, and mumbled in as low a voice as I could, “Yes, ma'am.” They were the first words I spoke at my new school. This time I wanted to keep a low profile, be invisible, not be the one everyone pointed at when I walked along the corridor: “See that one? That's Micah. She's a liar. No, seriously, she lies about
everything
.” I'd never lied about
everything
. Just about my parents (Somali pirates, professional gamblers, drug dealers, spies), where I was from (Liechtenstein, Aruba, Australia, Zimbabwe), what I'd done (grifted, won bravery medals, been kidnapped). Stuff like that.
I'd never lied about what I was before.
Why not be a boy? A quiet sullen boy is hardly weird at all. A boy who runs, doesn't shop, isn't interested in clothes or shows on TV. A boy like that is normal. What could be more invisible than a normal boy?
I would be a better boy than I'd ever been a girl.
At lunch I sat at the same table as three boys I'd seen in class: Tayshawn Williams, Will Daniels, and Zachary Rubin. I'd love to say that one look at Zach and I knew but that would be a lie and I'm not doing that anymore. Remember? He was just another guy, an olive-skinned white boy, looking pale and weedy compared to Tayshawn, whose skin is darker than my dad's.
They nodded. I nodded. They already knew each other. Their conversation was littered with names they all knew, places, teams.
I ate my meatballs and tomato sauce and decided that after school I'd run all the way to Central Park. I'd keep my sweatshirt on. It was baggy.
“You play ball?” Tayshawn asked me.
I nodded because it was safer than asking which kind. Boys always knew stuff like that.
“We got a pickup going after,” he said.
I grunted as boyishly as I could. It came out lower than I'd expected, like a wolf had moved into my throat.
“You in?” Zach asked, punching me lightly on the shoulder.
“Sure,” I said. “Where?”
“There.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the park next to the school. The one with a gravel basketball court and a stunted baseball diamond, and a merry-go-round too close to be much use when a game was in progress. I'd run past it dozens of times. There was pretty much always a game going on.
The bell rang. Tayshawn stood up and slapped my back. “See you later.”
I grinned at how easy it was.
Being a boy was fast becoming my favorite lie.
SCHOOL HISTORY
All the white kids sit together. All the white kids with money, I mean.
Our high school is small and progressive and costs money. Not expensive like the uptown schools, but it's not free. Except for the scholarship kids who mostly aren't white. They're here tuition free, only having to pay for their books. They mostly don't go on field trips.