The Princess of Las Pulgas (12 page)

I step back and close the
door. “Very funny.”

“I’m going to do you a
number one favor.”

Please don’t.
I hold my chemistry book to my chest like a
shield.

“Do not pee in any of these
bathrooms starting today. Go to the annex.” K.T. smiles but humor’s
not involved.

“Excuse me?”

“Something’s goin’ down in
here soon.” She leads her gang away, but calls over her shoulder.
“Don’t want our star to get messed up.”

When her back’s to me I
make a face.
Some favor
.
Now I have to plan an extra walk
around the back of the school to the so-called annex if I have to
use the toilet.
And for what? Is she
pulling some kind of newbie joke on me?

At least in chemistry I
have a nonviolent lab partner—nonviolent but very unfriendly. He’d
been working alone until I arrived, then Mr. Mendoza stuck him with
me, the future English major.

“Hi Doc.” I keep trying to
soften him up. I nicknamed him Doc because he’s already decided to
be an Orthopedist and plans to apply to Columbia University. He
didn’t tell me; I overheard him. He talks to other kids, just not
me.

While he sets out the
experiment he grunts commands at me. I’m not allowed to touch the
set up. He may let me hand him stuff.

“So what’s the—”

“Combustion experiment.” He
sets a Bunsen burner on the counter along with small square pieces
of screen.

“Can I—”

“Light the burner when I
tell you.”

Mr. Mendoza strolls past as
I hold the matches at the ready, looking productive. “Remember to
use all the fire safety precautions during this experiment,” he
says.

“Okay, light it now.”
Without looking at me Doc adjusts the flame, something else he
won’t let me do. Then, using tongs, he slowly lowers one of the
screen pieces onto the flame. “Make notes.”

“Like what?” I grab my
notebook and a pencil. He snorts, but I ignore him and say, “Just
tell me so I don’t screw up your lab report, okay?”

“Flame doesn’t penetrate
screen when lowered from above.”

I write, then wait for the
next step.

By the end of the
experiment I have one page of dictation. “So why did we do this?” I
know my question annoys him, but how else am I to learn anything in
this lab?

“We’re observing heat
dispersion.”

“Hmm.” I’ll have to read
the chapter to find out what I need to know. Doc’s already packing
away the Bunsen burner and preparing for the next experiment. We’re
always ahead in lab.
He’s
always ahead in lab. I begin to plot how I can
screw up his A in this class.

After chemistry I have one
more stop at my locker before I can quit the stuffy halls of Las
Pulgas High until tomorrow. I stack the books I’ll need for
homework into the crook of my arm, close my locker door and chart
my passage to freedom. When I’m near the girls’ bathroom the door
swings open and with the force of an explosion hits the wall. I
jump back. The loud scream is mine.

A blonde wearing nothing
but a bra and panties falls into the hallway. K.T. swings after her
on crutches then tosses them aside and pounces on top of her.
Locked together, they roll across the floor, K.T’s cast thumping
with each rotation. The gang of six jams together in the doorway,
yelling and waving what the girl had been wearing.

The stripped girl screams
as K.T. rips off her bra. The hoots from males in the area are
deafening. Mr. Icky pushes the growing crowd aside and plucks up
the nearly naked blonde by the arm. With his foot he pins K.T. to
the ground. Principal Bins is suddenly there, his jacket off and
wrapped about the victim whose face streams with tears.

Mr. Icky hands K.T. her
crutches and marshals her down the hall toward the office. The
principal follows, keeping the girl close to his side. “Show’s
over,” he calls to the gawking bystanders.

The gang of six trails
after the rest of the students jostling toward the exit. “K.T. got
her good,” Big Teeth says. “That’ll shut her down.”

One of the gang who has
beads knitted into her hair sends them chattering against each
other as she swings her head. “That skinny witch shoulda knowed
better.”

Another, the shortest one,
scurries to stay up with the rest. “What’ll happen to K.T. this
time?”

“She’ll get some time off
school that’s for sure, but maybe not as long. Bins is gonna see
what’s on that wall in there.” At the exit Big Teeth separates from
the others. “Catch ya tomorrow.”

When the door closes on the
last student I exhale.I’d been holding my breath and I’m still
pressed against the wall biting my lips, staring at the open door
to the girls’ restroom and letting the sudden eerie silence crowd
around me. The surveillance cameras hover like vultures overhead,
scanning, patient; I don’t want to alert them to my being here, so
on cat feet I step inside to see what provoked K.T. into ripping
off someone’s clothes. The peeling gray paint is covered with the
same initials, phone numbers and gross poems about body parts that
I’ve seen since day one. The first stall door droops from a single
good hinge, and one mirror has a crack from corner to corner. I
don’t get what that fight was about.

But I turn to leave, there,
next to the light switch by the exit, is a crude drawing that sends
my stomach into spasms. A chair is tipped on its side. Dangling
over it is the lifeless form of a woman hanging by her neck from a
thick rope.

I escape into the
hall.
What did that drawing mean? Was it
some kind of gang code?
Doesn’t matter.
It’s a terrible thing that will make going to the annex bathrooms
much more appealing. I hurry outside.

Keith’s at the curb, but
he's not alone. Chico, standing a couple of inches shorter than my
brother, has his hands in Keith's face, flipping him off. Keith
shoves him and Chico's hands ball into fists. He's about to take a
swing when a police car, lights flashing, drives up to the front of
the school and two officers get out. Chico turns the swing into a
wave and jogs off.

Chapter 22

Our dented Tercel sweeps up
to the front of the school and parks behind the police car. Mom’s
out almost before the car stops rolling.

“Are you all
right?”

“It has nothing to do with
us, Mom,” I say holding both hands up as if that will calm her
down. “Some kids got in a fight.”

Still she’s shaking as she
puts her arm around my shoulder. “Let’s go.” Mom’s Las Pulgas
Market uniform has perspiration stains under both arms and if she
combed her hair today it was early this morning.

My brother doesn’t say
anything when we climb into the car. He avoids eye contact with me,
leans back against the seat and does his ostrich impression.
Nothing’s wrong so long as he closes his eyes.

The last thing I want to
talk about is K.T.’s fight, so none of has anything to
say.

When we reach the
apartment, Mom starts for her room. “I need a quick shower and—”
She opens the door and closes it behind her, still talking, and
forgetting that we're not with her. “ . . . put my feet up for half
an hour.” The last part is muffled.

I follow Keith down the
hall. “What was that about today?” I ask him.He looks at me like
I’m talking in a foreign language.

“I saw Chico take a swing—”
I get out these few words before he snaps at me.

“It’s none of your
business.” Keith steps into the bathroom, then closes and locks the
door.

I’m not letting him get
away with that answer. “Whatever you're saying to Mitch about Las
Pulgas is getting back here. You'd better stop.”

“Mind your own business,”
he growls through the door.

“Keith—” I pound on the
door, but he cranks the water on in the shower so he won’t hear
anything else I try to tell him.

That night he eats in his
room. Mom never let us do that in Channing, but this is one more
thing that’s different here. When I ask how come Keith gets special
treatment, she says, “He needs some time without women.”

Mom holds her real estate
book in both hands, but she doesn’t turn the pages, so I’m sure
she’s reading the white spaces instead of the words. I flip through
the script without paying attention to which act I have in front of
me. We don’t talk, and I know this silence is about the two missing
men in our lives. I keep seeing Chico at the curb ready to pound on
Keith, and I wonder what else is going to happen to my brother at
school.

What would you do about
this, Dad? Go to the principal? Buy Keith some boxing
gloves?
I know Dad would handle this mess
so differently than Mom who seems willing to let our mole burrow
deeper and deeper into his hole.

I glance over the top of my
script. Even after a shower she looks wilted, but she’s so into her
thoughts that I know she’s not really here in this box of a
kitchen. I wish that were true for me, too.

Later when I check my email
it’s as pathetic as the rest of my life. Sean writes that he’s
bought his ticket, so he’s set to visit New York before the break.
He’ll talk to me soon.

“Right!” I hit Delete. Then
I change my mind and retrieve the message from Trash. “U R so
lucky! Out of school early AND going to NY. Carlie.” My finger
hovers over Send. Then I back space over Carlie and write, “Love,
Carlie.” I back space again over “Love,” and type “X.”

Quicken is tucked into a
tight ball on my desk, and when I stroke her she stretches out.
“You are my best fur person, aren’t you?” She rolls over and lets
me stroke her belly and under her chin.

I’m too tired to shower.
I’ll just—

The crash that shudders my
wall shoots Quicken to all fours and under the bed. I’m up from my
desk chair and instantly on the opposite side of the room to
listen.

“No more money on the
horses! You hear me?” The woman’s voice on the other side of my
bulletin board is shrill. I remember her face from that day I
knocked at her door and asked about Quicken.

Her husband’s loud gravelly
voice shouts back. “I make the money. I’ll spend it on what I
want.”

What she says next changes
my mind about not taking a shower. I need to wash away her voice
and block out the ugly sounds coming through my wall. Rummaging
through my desk and shuffling my journal aside, I dig out the
earplugs I used for swimming class last year. From under the bed
come Quicken’s low growls.

I push the foam pieces into
each ear and relax to the soft pulse of my blood. Before closing
the drawer I touch the embossed letters on my journal, but I don’t
open the leather cover to look inside.

Tuesday’s here again,
another rehearsal night has arrived before I’ve read over my part,
so I stake out a quiet corner behind the gym bleachers during lunch
and cram “My lords” and “Alacks” and “Alases” into my head. After
scene ii in Act V I have no more lines. Othello murders Desdemona
and even though I hate the plot, I’m grateful not to have more to
learn.

I take a moment to close my
eyes and get ready for social studies. I’ve done the homework. I’ve
studied for the quiz. I deserve a break.

The door to the boys’
locker room opens, but I don’t pay any attention to the footsteps
and voices that echo in the empty room. But when I’m about to get
up from my seat, I hear, “That effin’ Edmund.”

Is that Anthony’s voice?

“He’s a dip shit.” I’d know
Chico’s snarly voice anywhere. That evil jerk is stirring up
trouble for my brother.

I peer through the gym’s
bleacher seats at the three of them huddled together. I can't leave
now, so I stay crouched without moving. They're at the opposite end
of the gym, so I can't hear everything they say.

“Channing . . . ass—.”
That's Anthony again.

“Grits says the guy’s good
and we need—” I don’t know who this third guy is.

Chico interrupts. “Ain’t
happening, man. Grits or no Grits.”

“I say we nail him now and
shut his mouth.”

I’d like to strangle
Anthony Mancuso.

“We'll get him, but not
until the motherf—” The bell signaling the end of lunch drowns out
the rest of what Chico says.

The gym door opens and
closes, and I’m alone. I have to warn Keith. They're going to jump
him, but I don't know when.

The second bell rings
before I reach my seat in social studies—the seat just in front of
Chico Ramirez, of all people, who’s already there, his eyes
tracking me as I come down the aisle.

I suddenly want to be a
female version of Rambo. I want to take all of these creeps down
and reduce Las Pulgas High School to rubble.

Chapter 23

Saturday and Sunday always
whip past during the school year, but since I started going to Las
Pulgas High, I blink and they’re gone. The weekdays are
different—they drag, and so do the weeks themselves. Week four
seems more like week four hundred.