by Lisa Bunker
But not so much now.
Smiley face.
Oh. OK, you’re welcome. Smiley face.
See you later.
*waves* Bye for now.
TEN
SO FAR THERE had been only one shopping trip, made harder by the fact that neither of the Aunties wore girl clothes or cared about them. Also, Zen’s experience to date had been based on wistful imagining rather than the actual buying and wearing of garments. As a result, it had been a stressful challenge coming up with even just three school outfits that were maybe okay. What they had ended up with: the blue dress; a pair of jeans—seriously girl jeans, no way to see them as boy jeans, which made Zen so happy; and a couple of tops to go with the jeans. Three outfits. Which meant that by Friday she had worn them all once, and had to start over. She could only pray that no one would notice.
It did help that the dress was her favorite, even if it was too big. With the jeans there was the problem of the stupid bulge to deal with. Plus she just liked how she felt wearing the dress. Now if she could just get shoes to match. But, step at a time.
Third period, instead of regular English class, there was an assembly. When Zen got to the auditorium, the doors weren’t open yet. Inside, the sound system made a screeching noise. Still setting up, sounded like. She got in line behind a group of four girls. In one quick glance before averting her eyes, Zen observed that they all had salon hair and new-looking, fashionable clothes with accessories.
The first “Hey” she didn’t react to, thinking it couldn’t be for her. But then the group in front of her turned as one. “Hey,” said the same voice again, and she looked up. The four girls were all staring at her.
The speaker was a tall, thin girl with glossy auburn hair, expensive-looking clothes, and pretty, dangly earrings. “You’re new, right?” said Auburn Hair. Her voice seemed familiar, though Zen couldn’t think why. “What’s your name?”
“Um . . . Zen.”
“Zen?”
“It’s short for Zenobia.” Her voice had sunk to an abashed whisper. All the judgy eyes.
Auburn Hair leaned forward. “What did you say? Speak up!” One of the other girls giggled.
Zen managed a bit more volume. “It’s short for Zenobia.”
“Zenobia. Wow.”
Zen went back to looking at the floor.
Auburn Hair spoke again. “Cute dress.”
Zen made herself look up again. All four still staring. “Um . . . thanks?”
“Or it will be when you grow into it.” Auburn Hair pinched the shoulder seams of her own top, a light sweater that fit her perfectly, and pulled it up so that her head was poking halfway out of the neck hole. She pooched her lips out like she had no teeth, rolled her eyes, and said in a goofy voice, “It’s the hillbilly look.” The other three girls laughed. Auburn Hair patted her sweater back in place. Then she tapped one of her friends on the shoulder and made a gesture with her head. The friend raised the phone she was holding and snapped a picture. Auburn Hair made a sound like “hm” and turned back around. The other three girls did likewise. One of them whispered something, and they all laughed again.
Feeling confused and threatened, Zen turned her back to the group, and was startled to see a familiar face. Melissa, again. Kind Melissa with the rubric and the invite-wave that Zen had willfully misunderstood. Their eyes met just as someone crash-barred the auditorium doors open. The line began to shift.
Melissa did something with her face that wasn’t quite a smile, but still seemed nice. “Hi,” she said in her soft voice.
“Hi,” said Zen. Melissa, she noted, was wearing a little gold cross on a chain around her neck.
It was their turn to file forward. Melissa fell into step beside her, and together they turned into a row near the back. They sat down together. Zen felt tongue-tied, but Melissa didn’t seem to mind. After a stretch of companionable sitting, Melissa said, “You shouldn’t have let her do that.”
Who? Do what? Zen still couldn’t speak, but apparently her look managed to ask these questions, because Melissa said, “Olive. Natalie’s friend. You shouldn’t have let her take your picture.”
Pure puzzlement at last made speech possible. “Why not?”
The answering frown said, Duh, isn’t it obvious? “Haven’t you ever seen Mean Girls?”
“No. What is it?”
“A movie. How can you not know that?”
Zen didn’t answer.
“Were you homeschooled or something?”
“For a while. Why do people keep asking me that?”
Melissa was back to her first thought. “Well, anyway, pictures and stuff. Nothing good can come from that. Natalie Davenport isn’t good for anyone but herself.”
Brain click. “Natalie,” Zen whispered. The girl in the bathroom on the first day, talking about corn husk hair. That was why her voice had been familiar. But the lights had gone down. It was time for the program.
While the motivational speaker spoke motivationally, Zen and Melissa exchanged looks and smiles a few times. Friendly, was how it felt.
INTERLUDE: SEEING ZEN
Natalie
The new girl? Yeah, I’ve seen her. Of course I’ve seen her. She was behind me in line at assembly. She’s, like, a freaky homeschool doofus, you know? Or something? Looks like she just started wearing clothes yesterday. Like she doesn’t even know what a dress is. What did she do, grow up in a cult? Where they had to wear, I don’t know, like, overalls or something? Overalls and nothing else?
Oh, and Robert, you know Robert? Robert hangs out with some of the same people I do, and I heard him say she’s, like, a cyber-expert freak or something. Or at least she thinks she is. Showing off her NAW-ledge. I missed it, but everyone was talking about how she yelled at him in the caf. What was that about? What kind of girl cares about stuff like that?
Gamer geek girls are the worst. They are just the most pathetic. Hanging around the loser boys who play those games—well, not Robert, he’s pretty cool, but most of them are fat ugly losers—listening to them talk and pretending to be impressed, just so maybe someone will notice them. Pathetic? No, not even a little bit. Psssh.
ELEVEN
THE ENCOUNTER WITH Natalie and her posse stuck in Zen’s brain like a goat’s head burr, spiked and galling. As the day went on, her mood blackened. By the time she got home she was fuming.
As she approached the driveway she saw Aunt Phil out working in the apartment house’s little front yard. She longed to get inside, to escape into Cyberlandium. She had the right kind of rage going to maybe check in on an old exploit, or even start a new one. But there was no way to get by unseen.
“Well, hey, twiglet,” said Aunt Phil. “How was school?”
“Okay. I guess.”
“Okay? That sounds less than happy as can be.”
“Oh, so there’s a rule now? I have to be happy?”
Back home, such talk might have begun an escalation. Aunt Phil stayed calm. “No rules,” she said. “Rules can be such a bummer, right?”
“I guess.”
“And, hey, it’s Friday. You survived your first week.”
“I guess.”
“Hum. Okay then, what’s up? Something got you riled, cupcake?”
Zen’s mouth worked. “I hate this dress!”
“Oh? Right on, right on.”
“I hate all my clothes! You don’t know anything about shopping!”
“That’s true. You’re right about that.”
Zen scowled. Aunt Phil never said what Zen thought she was going to say. It flummoxed her utterly. She flailed her hands and said, “Oh, leave me alone. I’m going to my room.”
“Door’s open, turtledove.” Zen turned away. “But, one other thing.” Zen turned back unwillingly. “We’re in for a treat. We’re going to have company for d
inner.”
“Again?”
“Yes.”
Even irate as she was, Zen could feel how ungrateful it would sound to complain, so she contented herself with snarling, “So?”
“So, I thought you might like to know. Sprink is a lovely human. I think you’ll like him.”
“I doubt it.”
“Well, we’ll see,” said Aunt Phil serenely, and went back to pulling weeds.
Zen stomped inside, but she couldn’t quite summon a door slam anymore. Why did Aunt Phil have to be so nice? Ruining a perfectly good bad mood.
In her room she threw her pack on the bed, opened her laptop, and entered the portal of Cyberlandium. She felt the knot between her shoulder blades ease a bit. The comfort and safety of being online never changed. Her ultimate refuge. She checked her regulars. Well, look there: a couple of new Kimazui episodes had been posted. Exploits could wait. That would do fine.
It was true, what Aunt Phil had said. She had survived her first week. She deserved a treat. She leaned back in her chair, clicked, and was swept away into the shadow-play and girl-heroics of her favorite esoteric subs-not-dubs bootleg anime.
* * *
~
An hour or so later, as the second episode was ending, there was a knock on the bedroom door. Aunt Lucy stuck her head in. “Our dinner guest is arriving,” she said. “Will you come out and help us greet him?”
“Yes, m— Okay, Aunt Lucy.” Zen closed her computer and followed her aunt to the front hall.
Their visitor turned out to be a big bear-shaped human with short gray hair and a bristly face. Oddly, he had a butterfly painted on one cheek.
“Sprinkles!” said Aunt Phil, giving him a hug.
“Hello, darling!” the man said.
“Hello, Brad,” said Aunt Lucy. “Face painters at the farmer’s market again today?”
“Why yes, how did you know?”
Aunt Lucy said, “Brad, I’d like to introduce you to my niece, Zenobia. She’s living with us now.”
Zen found herself face to face with a red-cheeked moon full of grin. “Well, isn’t this delicious! How do you do?” the man said, holding out a huge hand.
Zen grasped three fingers and shook. “Very well, thank you, sir. I’m pleased to meet you,” she said.
The grin got bigger, if that was possible, and the eyes sparkled. All the eyes, so different everywhere. “Oh my, how very polite,” he said. “Not like these salty old women amongst whom you find yourself now, at all.” Aunt Phil whacked his shoulder, and he guffawed. Then he said, “That’s a wicked cute dress.”
Surprised, Zen blushed. “Thank you, sir.”
“Honey, you’re sweet,” he said. “But please, don’t call me ‘sir.’ I get more than enough of that at work.”
Zen blushed again and dropped her eyes.
“We had to do some shopping when Zen first arrived,” said Aunt Phil. “Her old wardrobe . . . got lost in translation.” Zen glanced at Aunt Phil’s face and felt a sudden rush of gratitude. Such care being taken. It made her feel . . . safe? A word she was so unused to using, she couldn’t feel sure. Protected? Something.
“It was a little tricky, though,” said Aunt Lucy. “We had trouble settling on more than a couple of outfits.”
“Well, that will never do,” said Sprinkles-Brad, looking at Zen. “Bare minimum, girl’s gotta have at least two weeks without repeating, am I right?”
Yes, that sounded exactly right, actually, now that he mentioned it. Zen nodded.
“The thing is,” said Aunt Lucy, “neither of us actually knows all that much about—”
“Say no more! Gotcha covered!” Then, to Zen, “So how about it, girlfriend? Wanna go shopping?”
Zen flopped her mouth, then managed to stutter, “But . . . d-dinner . . .”
All three adults burst out laughing. Not mocking, though. Warm.
“Not this very instant, ducks,” said their guest. The laughter coasted down. “Seriously, though,” he went on, “I’d be happy to help.”
Aunt Lucy said, “But not your usual—”
“No, of course not. Schoolgirl outfits. Prim, but also stylish, but also proper, but also fabulous. I know the exact sort of thing.”
“That would be a great help,” said Aunt Lucy.
Aunt Phil winked at Zen. “You’ve got all sorts of aunts and uncles now,” she said. “Perhaps you didn’t realize.”
“Sure!” said their visitor. “The village it takes! You can call me Uncle Sprink if you like. Way better than sir.” He didn’t wait for a response to this, rooting instead in the depths of the canvas tote he held. “Anyway,” he said, “that one stand I like had squash so cheap it was practically free, so I brought you some.” He pulled lumpy vegetables out of the bag and handed them to Aunt Phil, and the conversation moved on to local food.
At dinner Zen kept mum and listened. These people were so nice, but they were so strange, too. What kind of a name was Sprink? And Zen knew the words her father would have used for this man—hard, wounding words, based just on the lilt in his voice, the way he talked with his hands. Having grown up around them, it was hard to keep those words from popping up in her own mind too. Even though she knew that her father would have had words just as hard for her. Not just would have had. Had had. Had yelled.
As she helped clear the table after the meal, she experimented with trying to begin to trust this tentative new sense of security she seemed to be feeling. Each time she approached it, all the old fears still welled up, instinctive and powerful. Maybe with more practice, though, she could get past the fear. Maybe someday soon she could begin to lower her guard at least a little bit.
TWELVE
PERHAPS IT WAS just the roller coaster, or perhaps it was because, without quite realizing it, she had spent the whole first week braced for disaster, or perhaps both, but whatever the reason: Saturday morning when Zen got up, rather late, and stumbled bleary-headed into the bathroom, she looked in the mirror and saw nothing but boy. She recoiled and covered her eyes with her hands. She peeked again. Still, boy was all she could see. Her mood, already shaky, plummeted. This was insane. How could she possibly continue to pretend that the world might accept her? She began to shake, and from deep down a long wail rose up, unstoppable. Release of tension, the needle-sharp stab of hope, renewed spike of fear, all in combination maybe, came bursting out of her in a storm of tears.
Concerned Aunties came hurrying. She had no words, could not explain. They put her back to bed. When the weeping finally tapered, she drifted back into sleep, then woke again feeling drained and bleak. She lay for a long time staring at the ceiling. Aunties came and asked questions. She answered with monosyllables, grunts, silence. They went away again. She dozed some more, then managed to drag herself out of bed long enough to fetch her laptop. Kimazui: the ultimate comfort. The outfits. The outrageous anime hair. The kick-ass girls saving the world, routinely, from a new and different evil each week. It soothed her turbulent mind and salved her aching heart. Slowly the day passed.
As evening came on she began to feel lighter. She emerged from her room to find the Aunties preparing to go out. Aunt Lucy looked at her with a line between her eyes and asked, “Do we need to get you a babysitter?”
“She’ll be all right,” Aunt Phil said to her wife. “She’s a smart and independent young human.” Then, to Zen: “Am I right?”
Sometimes the Aunties talked like she was a little kid, which was infuriating. Other times, though, they acted like she was already an adult. As she had on other occasions, Zen jumped at the chance to claim more autonomy. “Yes, thanks, you’re right. I’m fine by myself.”
“Are you sure?” said Aunt Lucy. “We could find someone.”
“I’m fine, thank you. So much better than this morning.”
“Well then, as you like,” said Aunt Lucy, and Aunt Phil added
, “Right on.” The Aunties gathered the food they were taking, put on shoes, and were gone.
Beyond just feeling comfortable alone, Zen loved the moment when a door closed and she had a house to herself. She stood still, savoring the fading echoes. Not just sound echoes. People echoes. Humans took up so much space, and it was always so nice to feel the space springing back when they went away.
Her mood was shifting yet again. The roller coaster, swooping on into the next curve. She felt herself becoming hyper-alert. The ire was coming back too, like a turbine spinning up. She headed for her room.
Once aboard in Cyberlandium she sat drumming her fingers and staring daggers at the blinking cursor. She felt the need to visit righteous wrath on someone. The hot sweet fury. That pent-up thing. Her fingers hovered, on the edge of typing an address that would lead to a portal that would ask for an old black hat name . . . but then her hands dropped again. No, not quite that.
What about Lukematon, then? She had never ended up getting there the other evening. Yes, that would do very well.
She signed in, loaded one of her arsenal of warrior woman avatars, and entered one of the many game environments she routinely visited. Didn’t matter which one—the secret doors were everywhere, once you knew how to find them. Next she teleported to a saved location out in the remote reaches of empty wilderness, far from all other players. On arrival she did a quick scan to confirm that she was alone and unobserved. Then she took from her virtual satchel a key.
This key was a strange and precious treasure, for it unlocked the maintenance tunnels that ran under all the gaming platform’s worlds. Actual virtual tunnels. Whoever had designed Lukematon had a whimsical sense of humor, giving admin space such atmospheric trappings. The key was the prize from what had been without doubt the toughest and finest hack of her career.
Zen ducked behind a certain tree. There was an iron ring in the grass near the trunk. She pulled on it and a trapdoor opened, draggling sod. Underneath was a thing like a manhole cover—lower res than the gameplay, pixels plainly visible. That meant she was on her way inside. About to walk the secret corridors once again. She put the virtual key in the virtual keyhole and hauled the manhole cover open. She climbed down the cartoony steps into the gloom and pulled the cover shut again above her.
