Rebel, Bully, Geek, Pariah (24 page)

“Fine,” she said with another yawn. She stretched out on the floor. “But just for a few minutes.”

The sun had moved to the other side of the sky by the time we woke up.

 

31

I WAKE UP on a soft leather couch, comfy but confused. I'm used to the scratchy motel-room sofas and the busy buzz of the Cartoon Network on TV. It's too quiet here. I rub my eyes and remember we have a house now—or, what did Grandma call it? An apartment.

I'm hungry, I realize, and pad off to the kitchen in my pink footie pajamas. Mama promised pancakes every day in this new place. Mama is not in the kitchen, but something is cooking on the stove. It does not smell like pancakes. It does not smell like anything good at all. I don't want to eat that, whatever it is. I need to get rid of it so Mama doesn't make me.

I stand on my tiptoes, but my fingertips only brush the handle of the pot—just like in my kindergarten class, where all the other boys and girls can reach the top toy shelf except for me. The smell from the pot is making my tummy hurt. I pull out the drawers next to the stove one by one to make a set of stairs, but on the second stair the drawer breaks, and I trip forward.

“Sam.”

I am falling toward the stove in slow motion. My face is going to hit the pot. No, no! I don't want to smell it. I thrust my tiny arms in front of me to push the pot out of the way, and then it's all flames, flames hot on my face.

“Sam!”

I grab at the air, but there is nothing to hang on to, nothing to save me from the fire. I turn my face just in time, and my ponytail turns to ash.

“SAM!”

Rough hands shook me awake—many rough hands. I came to with a jerk to discover that Andi and York each had me by an arm, and Boston was actually sitting on my feet.

“Get off me!”

I squirmed until they let go, and Andi sat back with a thump against the silo wall. “Jesus, that was some kind of nightmare.” She picked something up off the dirt floor, dusted it off, and held it out to me—the green knit hat.

My hands went instantly to my hair, where I felt a matted knot of curls.

“You took it off,” York said quietly. “You were pulling your own hair out. We had to . . .”

I snatched the hat from Andi's outstretched hand and tugged it on, yanking it down as far as it would go. “Got it,” I said, and then, because it seemed like the not-weirdo thing to do, I added, “Thanks.”

“Thanks?” Boston scoffed, climbing off my legs. “That's it?”

“Yeah, that's it,” I snapped.

“But—but—what were you dreaming about?” he pressed.

York gave him a backhanded smack to the chest that practically knocked him over. “What do you think she was dreaming about, asshole?”

“Sam,” Andi said quietly. “What the hell happened to you?”

I wiggled my fingers up under the hat, feeling my scars. They seemed hot to the touch, but maybe that was just because the silo was now sweltering in the afternoon heat.

“You used to be blond,” Boston said, staring at the hand digging into my scalp. “In kindergarten, right? Blond, and then . . . then you went away.”

That's one way to put it.

“And you didn't come back until first grade, and then you . . .” He trailed off, but I saw the memory coming to him, saw how his eyes slid from questions to compassion. I'd rather be interrogated than pitied.

“And then I wore wigs,” I finished for him.

That was all I was going to say, but the three of them were watching me intently, sitting in a little semicircle around my legs. I stretched, then contracted my body, pulling my knees to my chest.

“I wore wigs to cover my scars,” I began. “But they were worse than scars back then. They were . . .”
Still oozing, still red and raw like meat.
“Still healing.”

“But what happened?” Boston asked. “Why did you go away?”

“I didn't go away, exactly. I was in the hospital for a really long time. My—I lost my . . . There was an accident, and my hair caught fire.”

“What kind of accident?” York asked.

I rested my chin on my knees and stared at the floor. My next words came out in a rush. “The kind that happens when a drug addict attempts to cook her own meth and leaves a pot of poison sitting on an open flame with her curious six-year-old unattended in the next room.”

“Whoa,” Boston breathed.

“I don't really remember it—not the bad bit, anyway. I just know I was falling, and there were flames, and that's it. Then I was in the hospital.”
And there were lollipops and ice chips and clean sheets and cartoons.
“Honestly, I'm lucky I didn't pull the pot off the stove and dump it all in my face. I'd probably be blind or something. My mom knows all about taking drugs, but she doesn't know shit about making them.”

“What did they do to her?” Andi asked.

“Not as much as they could have.” My voice was rough, scraping the rust off words never used—a story never shared out loud. “She was wasted, but seeing your kid's head on fire will wake you up pretty quick. She took me to the hospital herself and called my grandma on the way. Grandma got rid of everything—I mean
everything
—in our apartment. As far as the police were concerned, I'd set myself on fire trying to reach a pot of boiling water.”

“So she got away with it?” Boston said, his eyes bugging.

I looked up from the floor. “Oh no; she went to prison.”

“But, you said—”

“I told you, she'd already been busted once. After that, they don't let you off easy for anything. They got her on neglect
and probation violation. They probably suspected drugs were involved because she had a history, but they couldn't prove it. So she only got nine months that time.” I twirled one of my orange curls around a finger. “And I got new hair forever and ever.”

“And scars,” Andi added.

“And scars,” I agreed.

“I think I laughed at your wigs,” Boston said. “I'm sorry.” He looked miserable about it, and I tossed him a forgiving smile.

“Hey, at least you didn't try to pull my wig
off
.”

“Someone pulled your wig?” York said. He punched a fist into the silo wall, causing a metallic ring to reverberate all around us. “That's messed up.”

I turned my smile to him. A punch thrown in my honor seemed more valiant than violent.

“Some girl,” I said. “Marla or Marlo or something. I can't remember now. She moved away. But she pulled it off at recess, and everyone could see—” I circled a hand over my head.

Boston swallowed. “And that's why we called you . . .”

“Worms. Yeah,” I said. “Because my scars are kind of shaped that way.”

Boston started to apologize again, but I held up a hand to let him know he didn't have to. Then we fell quiet, which was sort of awful, because I knew the quiet meant they all felt sorry for me and didn't know what to say. It's funny how people feeling bad for you can make you feel more like an outcast than people being cruel to you.

Andi was the first to break the silence. She pulled one of her long dreadlocks forward and inspected it. “
I
should be called
Worms, with this hair.” She waved the twisted lock at me, and I laughed gratefully. “My offer stands,” she said. “I could turn your curls into dreads. Cover up some scars—give people a new reason to call you names.”

“Don't cover 'em up,” York said. He lifted a hand to my face and gently tugged up the front of the knit hat so the ends of my “worms” were exposed on my forehead. “Scars are cool.”

“Cool?” I asked.

“Yeah—mysterious. Kind of . . . sexy. Like your hats.” He smiled. “Hat Girl.”

I knew I was turning pink, and a pink face always made my scar tissue turn white, but I didn't pull the hat back down.

On my other side, Andi snickered. “Way to take someone's childhood trauma and use it to hit on them.”

“Too bad Andi wasn't around back then,” York said to me. “You needed a friend like her to kick that wig puller's ass.”

“Nah,” Andi said. She plucked a small rock off the ground and tossed it back and forth in her hands. “I would have been one of the girls pulling the wig. I was a real little bitch back then.”

“Uh, sorry,” York teased. “But if you were a bitch back then, what are you now?”

Andi chucked the rock at him and laughed. “Fair enough.”

“What changed?” I asked her. “You used to be . . . different.”

“You mean I used to be like Georgia?”

“You were never
that
bad,” I said. Not that I knew.

“I was worse,” Andi promised. “Much worse.”

“You guys were joined at the hip,” York said.

“And at the lips.” Andi's voice was heavy with meaning.

“You guys made out?” Boston gaped.

“And then some.”

“So, not just a phase?” I asked.

“Not for me. I thought—I don't know, that it was me and her against the world. Nobody liked us, so—”

“Um, excuse me,” Boston interrupted. “Since when does nobody like the popular girls?”

“Since you have to do some pretty unpopular shit to stay one of those girls,” Andi said. “Just because people want to
be
you doesn't mean they
like
you. But Georgia and I . . . we liked each other. That was enough.”

“You
like
liked each other,” I said.

“Just me.” Andi traced patterns in the dirt with her fingers. “It really was a phase for Georgia. Or an experiment or something. She got freaked out. And then I got freaked out.”

“And then you . . .” I waved an arm wide around her, not sure how to put it.

“Got a new look?” she supplied.

“Yeah.”

“That was part of it, I guess. I just didn't want to keep being what everyone expected me to be.”

“But you have a boyfriend now,” I said. “The nice guy on your phone, who left you all those charming text messages.”

Andi looked up, one eyebrow raised. “What, a girl can't keep her options open?” She winked.

“Speaking of options,” Boston said, standing to stretch, “what are ours?”

I would rather have shared ten more disturbing childhood memories than discuss the answer to that question, but I dragged myself to my feet and stumbled out of the tin tower with the others. The air outside was cool and fresh compared to the sweat lodge that was the inner silo. I held out my arms to feel every bit of the light breeze blowing around my body.

Maybe we don't have to go anywhere. Maybe we can just stay right here and start one of those communes like old hippies. Maybe we can have a new beginning.

“Maybe we should hike back to Pit Stop,” York said.

Or that.

Boston eagerly agreed, but Andi repeated her warning that the crooked cops might be waiting for us there. Always the voice of dissent.

My head said she was right, that trouble could be parked in Pitson, but my sandpaper throat and screaming calf muscles didn't care. We needed water. We needed rest.

“I'm with the boys,” I said. “We'll call the police from there and let them come to us.”

I didn't add that I was secretly relieved I wouldn't have to march into a police station all by myself.

“What do we tell them?” York said, tightening the straps on his backpack.

Boston shouldered the second pack. “Everything.”

“You all sure you don't want to come up with a different story?” Andi asked. “I like the one where you just picked us up at the party and then let us out of the car. Whose idea was that again?”

“Yours,” Boston and York said simultaneously.

“Oh yeah.”

I tugged one of Andi's dreadlocks. “All of us or none of us,” I said.

She sighed and threw her arms up in defeat. “Fine, whatever. Let's go to back to Armpit.”

“Pit Stop,” York said. He started the long trek back toward the highway, retracing our earlier steps, and we all fell in line behind him. “And then we go home,” he promised.

I heard Mama's slurred speech in my head and imagined her sprawled out, passed out, blacked out on her bed. Home was the last place I wanted to go.

 

32

“I'M THIRSTY,” BOSTON complained after only a few steps.

“I'm starving,” Andi added.

I was both, but I didn't see the point in complaining about it.

Ahead of us, York stopped and turned, digging into the front pocket of his jeans.

“Here.” He pulled out a slighly smushed package of something colorful and tossed it to Andi.

She ripped into it with her teeth, then stopped to inspect the contents. “Gummy worms?” She raised an eyebrow, but stuffed three in her mouth at once and offered the bag to Boston.

“I only eat the red ones,” he said.

“I pocketed them back at the cabin.” York shrugged. “Better than nothin'.”

“Barely better.”

Boston agreed with Andi. “You couldn't have grabbed some beef jerky or something?” he said through a mouthful of red gummies.

“And what did you bring?” I challenged Boston.

It seemed to me that he and Andi were being a little ungrateful. If it hadn't been for York keeping his wits about him, we probably wouldn't have even gotten out of the cabin, let alone with a little bit of food.

York elbowed me lightly as we started walking again. “Thanks.”

“No problem. But seriously, gummy worms?” I laughed. “I thought you didn't eat foods that jiggle.”

“I don't.” He slipped me a sideways smile. “But I like
worms.
”

My face burned so hot I thought my scalp might catch fire all over again, but I forced myself to return his smile. He stumbled when our eyes met, his feet tripping forward a few steps.