Poster Boy (13 page)

The girls started talking about a “super hard” test that Maggie had missed and laughing about some Kyle kid flipping a quarter in the air and catching it whenever the teacher turned his back. Maggie smiled and listened, laughed weakly along.

Making sure Mom wasn't about to walk back in, one of the girls lifted up her hair and showed Maggie a red football-shaped mark on her neck. A hickey. Maggie made a face and one girl laughed behind her hand.

“Hamish,” the third girl said, “at a party at Bethany's last night.”

Hamish, I recalled, was the name of the boy Maggie had a crush on last year.

“Okay,” Mom announced as she came through the dining room, all hyper-bright. “Who wants to design their headband?”

I heated up some tofu cutlets I found in the fridge, along with some brown rice and veggies. After Nacie's lunches, this stuff tasted like cardboard but I ate it anyway. Then I called Davis. Just because I vowed not to play Xbox at my house didn't mean I couldn't play it at his.

By the time I got home, the girls were gone. Mom was in the kitchen pouring rice into a cup. She tossed the empty plastic bag in the garbage.

I went and pulled it out.

“This can be recycled along with other bags.”

“Oh, sorry, Gray. Just tuck it under the sink, then.”

“And these peelings, Mom. Why aren't they in the compost?” I began picking them out. “And,” I continued, picking out a Styrene egg carton, “you should only buy eggs in cardboard unless you're going to drive across town to the depot that takes these.”

“Well, the compost outside is full and I haven't gotten around to doing any gardening this year yet and the free-range local are coming in those cartons so I don't — ”

“The Daskaloffs have this giant farm and don't generate any garbage.” I left out the fact that they burned a lot of stuff in the stove.

“Yes, yes. I'll work on it, Gray,” she said, looking up from her cookbook. “I am trying. Now, please, will you take Maggie up her pomegranate juice and eight of these turmeric pills? I'm behind on those banners…”

“Yeah, I was going up anyway. But are you going to buy a second compost bin? Or you know, you can just dump peelings and eggshells and stuff directly on the garden and dig it in.” I didn't want to bug her but really…

“Yes, I will. One or the other. Now I'm trying to figure out this recipe.”

I knew when I wasn't wanted. Upstairs, I listened at the door in case Maggie was asleep, heard the TV so knocked and pushed open the door.

She was in bed, propped against a wall of pillows. Her desk had been pulled over beside the bed and on it were her three jars of putrefied rice, notebook, laptop, TV remote and a
Young Scientist
magazine.

“Hey, Mag.”

“When did you get home?” Her eyes brightened to see me. Made me feel all right. But she didn't lift her head off the pillow, didn't move a muscle, only her eyes. She had taken off her turtleneck, and eraser-sized bumps ran down the right side of her neck. Creeped me out. I couldn't look at her and picked up one of the trolls from her collection and pretended to be interested in its bulbous nose and blue hair.

“Just before the party.”

“How's the farm?”

“Major hard work but cool.”

“And your tent?”

I laughed. “My tent's all right. A little cold at night. Probably get soaked with this rain.”

“You see lots of animals?”

“Lots of deer, though the Daskaloffs' dog scares them off pretty quick. Then there's your mice, raccoons, lots of different birds like hawks and turkey vultures. Bullfrogs at the pond. And bats come out at dusk.”

“Cool. Bats keep the mosquitoes away.”

“There's still plenty of those.” I pulled up my hair and showed her the ring of bites at the back of my neck.

“You know it's only the female mosquitoes that bite you. They need the blood to feed their babies. They can't help themselves.”

“Yeah,” I said, though I actually didn't know that.

“Seen any skunks?”

“I've smelled skunk but no, haven't seen one.”

“I did a report on skunks,” she said. “In grade five.”

I stifled a yawn, flipped through her science nerd mag.

“They're really friendly. Get along with all sorts of animals like foxes and raccoons, and don't smell unless they activate their scent glands. They give predators a warning first, by raising their tails and stamping their front feet.”

She coughed as if her little speech took it out of her. I put down the magazine.

“So you're hanging in there?” I asked and sat in her desk chair, far enough away that I didn't have to notice her tumors.

“I wish Mom would relax. It's like she's trying to kill me with fun.”

“Just tell her. I'll tell her.”

“She doesn't listen. She's too busy finding some new cure.” She glanced at her bright red juice. “Or planning the next fun activity.” Maggie sighed. “And Dad's like so mad at Mom. He's been sleeping in the guest room.”

“He's a jerk.”

Maggie stopped and turned her whole head to look at me. “He's just really scared. It's because of me they're not getting along.”

“It's not your fault.”

“When I'm gone, I hope they — ”

“Don't talk like that!” I said, louder than I meant to. I picked up a jar of rice. “You should throw this moldy crap out already. You've finished your project, haven't you?”

“Just have to write a clean copy of my report.” She reached for papers on her desk and started to order them. I could feel another speech coming. I'd try to look interested.

She passed me the papers. On top was a photocopied picture of a water crystal.

“The first picture,” she explained, “is of water from a clean glacier lake and the rest are of that same water after it was exposed to different things.”

The glacier crystal had a clear space in the center and six protruding points. And each point was intricately detailed. It was the kind of radically complex symmetry that only nature could do.

“Cool,” I said to make her feel good, but it really was a neat photo.

“So that's the Before picture,” Maggie explained. “And these are the After pictures.”

Exposed to classical music, its crystals grew even fancier. Exposed to a heavy metal piece full of swear words made a flat, pockmarked non-crystal of broken concentric circles.

It was a little hard to believe music could have this effect, but the photos were still cool. The next crystal had been exposed to chlorine and looked as though a bomb had knocked out one side of it. The last had been exposed to microwaves and formed no crystals at all.

“Dr. Emoto says it's not that music changes the water. It's a mirror thing,” said Maggie. “Water's a mirror of intentions or words. Or something like that.” She shrugged and flipped back to the first crystal, the one made from glacier water. “This is the crystal Dr. Emoto says forms again and again in water that's been untouched by human pollution or negative stuff.” She traced a finger around it like she was trying to memorize it. “And… this is what's so cool… this same crystal forms when it's exposed to the words gratitude and love. See?” She showed me another identical photo. “Actually, he says it forms with two parts gratitude and one part love. Just like H2O.” She pointed to her laptop. “G2L I'm calling it in my report,” she said proudly. “He says this is the message water's trying to tell us. That feeling two parts gratitude and one part love is the world's true nature.”

“What's the difference between love and gratitude?” I asked, wanting her to keep talking and looking, well… so alive.

“Gratitude means letting things be, appreciating things as they are. Love is trying to change things for the better. He says out of love for our family we buy houses and cars and stuff but we forget the gratitude part which cares for the earth, air and — ” She stopped suddenly and pressed her arm to her side. “It's time for my medicine.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” I nervously reached for a bottle of pills and handed it to her.

She took two and washed them down with her pomegranate juice.

“You hurt, eh?”

She shrugged. “Not all the time.”

Duh, you're on painkillers.

“I think,” she said, taking a deep breath, “that, right now, Mom and Dad might have too much love and not enough gratitude.”

“I guess,” I said, though I didn't really get it.

She fell back on her pillow and had a coughing fit. I looked around feeling useless and ready to get out of here. I was about to call Mom but her coughing finally stopped.

I slapped my hands on my thighs and stood to leave when she stopped me with the words, “I'm not scared to die.”

“Well, that's a long way off, so — ” I made it as far as the doorway.

“I'm curious, really,” she continued, looking out the window, which was now being battered by another downpour. “It feels like I'm going on a trip.”

I didn't like this conversation.

“I've been practicing.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, I lie real still, close my eyes so it's all black and just forget about my body. Like it doesn't exist. Then I kind of push into that blackness, to try and sense what's left.”

“Like, what's left?” Now
I
was curious.

“Vibrations, I think. Like Dr. Emoto says. Plus whatever frequency my soul, or consciousness, whatever it's called, is vibrating at.”

I laughed nervously. “Your soul music.”

She nodded. “Yeah. And since I don't know where those vibrations end up, that's the adventure part.”

“Well…” I didn't know what to say. Just hoped she wasn't pretending to be chill and that any day she was going to freak out real bad.

“Gray?”

“Yeah?”

“Make sure a window is open when I die,” she said. “I think the vibrations will need a way out.”

My throat felt thick all of a sudden.

“You got it,” I said, trying to sound cool with it. “Mind if I take your picture?” I needed an excuse to leave.

“No.”

I went to get my camera, relieved to get out of there.

* * *

I focused on her face, half of which was lit by her lamp, the other half in shadow. She smiled and looked straight at me. Was that a swelling under her eye? I shivered, thinking of that sinus tumor, then took her picture. And a couple more.

“I'll let you rest now,” I said.

“I really want some candy.”

“What?”

“Dad used to buy me good stuff but Mom found out last week and got all upset.”

“Yeah, well, he wasn't doing you any favors.”

Maggie sighed. “I just really want some… cinnamon lips.”

“They are like full of food coloring and hydrogenated — ”

“I don't care,” she blurted, sounding more like the old Maggie. “And I want a Blizzard with Smarties and Oreos. Just one. I have money in my jewelry box.”

“Maggie, I'm not going to buy you crap food — ”

“Please, Gray. Just a Blizzard, that's all. A small one. I won't ask again. I'll pay you,” she said. “Please, Gray.” She looked so sad. And sick.

“Okay,” I said. “But don't tell Dad. Or Mom. Don't tell anybody I did this.”

“Okay, I promise. My money's in my — ”

“I don't want your money.”

I grabbed my jacket off the coat rack and, since it was raining, some goofy plaid golf-tourney cap of Dad's.

I will not look up Blizzard ingredients on the Net. I will not look up Blizzard ingredients on the Net. I will not look up Blizzard ingredients on the Net…

16
Ciel

Wearing Dad's dumb hat, I prayed I wouldn't run into anybody I knew. Dairy Queen was only five blocks away, after all. I walked fast and kept my head down.

As I rounded the corner onto Market Street, I saw Ciel coming out of Maria's deli. Something in me perked right up. Then I remembered her letter and went suddenly spastic over whether or not to turn around or cross the street.

But then she looked up.

“Gray? Is that you?”

“Yeah, hi?” She looked prettier than I remembered. Really pretty, actually. I remembered my hat and yanked it off.

“What are you doing here? I thought you were living out on that farm?”

“Yeah, well, I come home on the weekends.”

“Oh, right,” she said with a little snicker. “It's just a school-day getaway.”

“No. You don't see.” I suddenly didn't care how pretty or smart she was. I was tired of her snooty shit. “The only reason I come back each weekend is to see my dying sister.” I gave the word dying a little shove and then couldn't stop myself from adding, “Because the doctor says it could be any day now.”

Ciel's face turned red, her whip-smart eyes flinching. I thought she might have some cutting comeback but then her voice seemed to catch in her throat.

“I'm… really sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I say stupid things sometimes. I really should go.” She dropped her head and ran into the rain.

I watched her go, not quite knowing what had just happened. But hell, I wasn't going to feel bad. Maybe she'd treat me with more respect next time.

I realized I hoped there was a next time.

I opened the door to Dairy Queen, saw Parm and Hughie in line and backed out. Parm was cool but I wasn't in the mood for Hughie.

I walked around the block in the rain, waiting for them to leave.

* * *

I hid the Blizzard in my jacket and snuck it past Mom. Upstairs, I locked Maggie's door and watched the Nature channel with her, some program on polar bears and the melting of their “land mass” due to climate change and how they had to swim miles and miles to find solid ice and were drowning in the process. Really cheerful stuff but Maggie was into it.