by Bridget Farr
“Hey! You! What are you doing back here?” a voice booms behind me, and I turn to see one of the cooks with her hands on her hips, sweat dripping along her bandanna-covered hairline. “You don’t have proper cafeteria service attire.”
“I’m leaving,” I say as I grab my tray, hoping she wasn’t loud enough to alert an administrator. I’m glad she doesn’t have a walkie-talkie to radio them.
“And you? Get that hoodie off your head and put that hairnet right!”
I stop at the door, looking back to see Santos smiling at me. He grabs the tray and heads back to the line, pausing first to secure his earbud underneath his hairnet.
OUCH
That afternoon, Hamilton makes his first trip to Crossroads. He thinks it looks like a prison for kids—and he’s not wrong. The colorless buildings, the chain-link fence, the faded swing set with rusted poles don’t look welcoming, but it didn’t feel that way. Inside, we find Meridee sitting on the dingy white carpet in the playroom, surrounded by the mountain of limbless Barbies. I wave at the few kids I know, taking note of those I don’t recognize so I can come back and set up their first consultations. We crouch down at the edge of the ring of Barbies, but Meridee doesn’t look up. It’s too loud in here for her to have noticed we’ve gotten so close.
“It looks like a Mattel massacre in here,” Hamilton whispers, and I lose my balance, slamming my hand down on the heel of a tiny Barbie shoe.
“Ow!”
Meridee’s head snaps up. “Are you okay?”
I examine the tiny red point in the center of my palm. “Just a small scratch.”
“Do you want me to high-five it?”
“You mean kiss it?” Hamilton says, now sitting on his knees beside me.
Meridee screws up her face, shaking her head. “No kisses. Just high fives.”
“Sure,” I say, putting my hand toward her. “You can high-five it.”
She gently slaps her small palm into mine, more of a soft press than a true high five, but it does make me feel a little better.
“Who are you?” Meridee asks Hamilton as she attempts to shove some stiff Barbie legs into the seat of a pink convertible.
“This is Hamilton. I live at his house.”
“Is he your brother?”
I smile, surprised that she doesn’t notice the difference between Hamilton’s pale, freckled skin and mine. “Sort of.”
“You can call me Hambone,” Hamilton says as he clears himself a seat in the Barbie gear. I’m surprised at his sweetness. I’ve never seen him with younger kids before.
“You be Nicki,” Meridee tells him as she plops a half-dressed Barbie into Hamilton’s palm.
Hamilton looks puzzled as he twists the Barbie in his hand. “Whoa!” he shouts as her head falls onto the floor. Then, again whispering to me, “These toys are a living nightmare!” I take the decapitated doll from him. We have work to do.
“Actually, Meridee, we’re here to teach you a new game! Do you want to play?”
“It’s soooo fun!” Hamilton adds, and Meridee looks at both of us with a raised eyebrow.
“I want to play Barbies.”
“You can play Barbies when we’re done, but this game is so fun!”
She shakes her head, the multicolored barrettes clinking in her hair.
“I think it’s time,” Hamilton whispers.
“We hardly tried yet.”
“You’re the one who said we needed to work fast.”
“Fine,” I say, shaking my head and twisting my backpack around so I can reach into the front pocket. Out I pull six fruity Tootsie Rolls, the mini kind they throw off floats during parades.
“Meridee,” I say, shaking the candies in my palm. “Did you know if you play our fun game you can win prizes?”
I hold out the sweets like a hand full of gold, and her eyes widen at the sight of sugar. Just like me. She abandons the convertible with the Barbie dangling out the side door.
“You only get one if you play,” Hamilton encourages, and she nods her head, scooting toward us.
“Okay!” I tell her, closing the candies in my hand and hopping to my feet. “But we have to play outside. Come on.”
Outside, we find a spot in the empty playground, taking a seat in the grass near the old swing set the kids aren’t supposed to use because the poles come out of the ground if you swing too high. Hamilton and I match Meridee’s cross-legged seat, and I spread out the candies in the center of our circle.
“One… two… three… four… five… six!” Meridee counts, and we applaud, already acting like proud parents.
“So this game is called Ouch,” I explain as Meridee eyes the pink pieces of joy. “It’s only for special kids like you! Hamilton—”
“Hambone,” Meridee interrupts.
“Yes, Hambone is going to do something and then you repeat after him. Kind of like Simon Says.”
Beside me, Hamilton has his notebook flat on the ground and is reviewing the notes we took today in the library during lunch. He mouths the words, making small cringing facial gestures as he reads. He was better at the gestures than me, so we chose him to be the actor, me the director.
“Ready, Hambone?”
He nods, his face serious.
“First, do you know where your belly button is?” he asks, and Meridee nods, pointing her finger into the belly of her striped shirt.
“That’s right! So, first you put your hand on your belly button and you do this.” Hamilton bites his lip, squeezing the edges of his mouth together like he’s playing the clarinet, and squints his eyes. “Oooh.”
“Do you think you can do that?” I ask Meridee, and she nods, her face already beginning to mimic Hamilton’s. This might actually work.
“Oh,” says Meridee with the same lip bite, but her eyes are completely closed. Hamilton and I applaud, and I hand her the first candy. She’ll need to do better than that, but I want to encourage her for trying.
“Do it again,” I instruct Hamilton, and he repeats the action three times, pausing between each motion. Meridee watches him as she chomps her Tootsie Roll. I pocket the wrapper and find myself biting my lip and squinting my eyes, too.
“Watch me,” Hamilton says, scooting closer to her in the grass. “First you bite your lip just a little bit and then close your eyes a tiny bit, like you’re looking at the sun and it’s too bright.”
Her tiny face twists to match his; I wish I had a camera phone.
“Oooh,” they say together, and I applaud. Hamilton breaks into a big grin.
“Okay, I think she’s got the first one. Let’s try the next one and we can come back,” he says as he grabs the notebook.
We spend the next fifteen minutes walking Meridee through the steps of an appendix attack, knowing it will be difficult to make it not look like a regular old stomachache. We teach her to rub her temples with a headache, and Hamilton shows her how to move her stomach pain from her belly button to her lower right abdomen, using her small palm to measure the distance. With a press on the area, we show her how to flinch over the “rebound tenderness” when someone quickly pushes on the part of her stomach we just found. Together, they blow their cheeks out like an inflated blowfish before they groan, “I’m gonna vomit!” Back and forth they repeat the motions with me cheering and unwrapping candies, moving from tiny Tootsie Rolls to miniature Snickers bars to, finally, the round, rainbow-colored lollipop that now fills her mouth and spreads across her cheeks.
“I think I’m actually going to be sick,” Hamilton says as he flops back on the grass, his arms flung above his head, his eyes closed. “But she’s got it.”
Meridee crawls over to Hamilton and peers down at his face, a dangle of purple-and-pink saliva threatening to drip onto his cheek.
“Hambone.” She giggles, moving her face closer to his. “Wake up!”
He opens one eye to look at her. “I’m not sleeping; I’m just appendixed out.”
“Let him rest a minute,” I tell Meridee, leaning over to gently pull
her arm toward me. “We’ll be back tomorrow and you can play some more. Remember, though, you can’t tell anyone about the game yet. It’s a surprise.”
Meridee doesn’t acknowledge me, absorbed instead by her attempt to peel off the sticky plastic protecting the rest of her lollipop.
“Meridee, did you hear me? Don’t tell anyone yet. It’s a surprise for tomorrow.”
“I know!” she yells, and I realize she must be getting tired, too.
I wonder if she knows what is going to happen tomorrow. Is she still young enough to be moved around without any information? Does she know when she’ll get to see her mom again? Does she hope with every open door that it will be her mom walking into the room?
“We should go now,” I tell Hamilton, who is still in starfish position in the browning grass. “They’re going to come get her for dinner soon, and we don’t want them to see all of this.”
I gesture to the candy wrapper debris surrounding us. Hamilton groans as he lifts himself up, closing his notebook and tucking it into his back pocket before helping me collect the garbage. I hand him the small Ziploc bag I brought for this purpose while I get a wet wipe to clean up the destruction I knew would occur on Meridee’s face.
“Here, Meridee,” I say as I hand her the wipe. “You’ve gotta clean your face a little bit.”
“I’m sticky!” she squeals as she rubs her face, smearing the sugar rather than cleaning it.
“Ready?” Hamilton asks as he hands me the Ziploc of candy wrappers.
“For tonight, at least.” I slide on my backpack before standing up and brushing the grass off my pants. The sun is beginning to pinken behind the buildings, changing their color from a dull gray to a warm rose. As I walk toward the house, I notice Meridee slip her sticky hand into Hamilton’s. He squeezes hers a bit tighter.
“Hambone,” she says quietly.
“We’ll be back tomorrow,” he says.
“With more candy?”
“With more candy,” I repeat. We’ll be back, determined to keep her as happy as she is right now, her stomach full of sugar, her hand held.
THE GOTHS DESCEND
The next morning, Hamilton and I are silent in the car on the way to school. Marjorie glances at herself in the rearview mirror, practicing for her new podcast on being a single foster mom. Normally, Hamilton would be giving her notes, but today we’re both focused on Meridee. We told Marjorie we would be staying late to work on a project for science, though we’ll rush to Crossroads when the last bell rings to see Meridee before she gets dropped off at the Nickersons’. In our backpacks is the homework we haphazardly finished, neither of us feeling the energy to complete the bonus problems. Who cares about getting an A when someone’s life is about to collapse?
I’m chewing the ends of my hair, running through the checklist for our meeting with Meridee, when I see it. It’s just a flash, but I swear I saw black-glittered hair and dark eyeliner. I tap Hamilton’s shoulder to point out the student when we pull up to the curb, and there they are: a handful of students dressed in their typical T-shirts and shorts, but with gothic heads, hair combed over one eye with black glitter holding it in place. Two boys have identical black eyeliner while another girl has turned her black eyeliner into polka dots around her eyes.
“Hamilton…,” I whisper as Marjorie reaches the drop-off spot. He’s busy stuffing something in his bag and doesn’t lift his head until he hears Marjorie’s “Oh my.” He sits speechless, taking a moment to adjust his glasses on his nose before leaning closer to the window.
“That certainly can’t be dress code,” Marjorie says.
“There are no restrictions for hairstyles or personal grooming in the dress code.” Hamilton’s voice is expressionless as he continues to stare out the window.
“I take it people watched your video,” I say as the car behind us honks.
“You two better get going,” Marjorie says, and we hustle to grab our lunch things. His eyes are still on the goths milling around the flagpole as he kisses his mom good-bye.
“Have a great day, Pav!” Marjorie yells out the window. I can’t hear what she says to Hamilton, but I don’t bother to listen, since I’ve spotted Piper bouncing up and down at the edge of the curb. Hamilton hangs his head as he moves around the front of the car, not even looking up as Piper shouts his name. Before we get to the sidewalk, she is off the curb and running toward us, immediately grabbing Hamilton’s hands.
“Get back on the sidewalk!” the crosswalk monitor yells, and Piper gives the officer a snooty look before yanking Hamilton to her spot by the flagpole.
“Four hundred twenty-three views!” she shouts, lifting their clasped hands above her head. “Can you believe it? That’s almost half the school! I’ve never had above fifty, and now we’re famous!”
She pulls him into a huge bear hug, pinning his arms at his side.
“We have to do another video! I wish I had brought my black lipstick so we could get in on the trend. This is just so… ahhhh!” She pulls Hamilton into another hug.
He still looks shocked and keeps adjusting his glasses and squinting at the kids around him as if he can’t be seeing right. Piper steps in front of him, setting herself up as a bouncer, preventing the flow of kids beginning to line up. “I love your video!” they shout, and Piper beams.
“Check out SparkleGirl285 for more videos!” Piper reaches out to shake the hands stretched out toward Hamilton. “More tutorials are on the way!”
“Are you okay?” I ask, and Hamilton looks like he doesn’t see me before a huge smile spreads across his face.
“Sure… I guess Goth Boy has a special appeal I don’t normally possess.”
I thought he’d be embarrassed, but as the bell rings, he adjusts his glasses one more time and then steps into the waiting mob. I follow a few feet behind him, joining the crush of students headed toward the open doors.
“No. Flour,” I hear him tell a girl whose face is streaked with what must be face paint. She looks like a skeleton, her brown eyes surrounded by charcoal eye shadow. At the door, he turns back to me and offers a thumbs-up.
“See you at lunch!” he shouts, and I return the thumbs-up, a weight dropping into my stomach. I hope Goth Boy doesn’t forget he still needs to be Hambone.
By the time seventh period arrives, I’ve had enough of the fake goth crowd. Thankfully, no one in class is wearing any black, though one girl’s lips are a strange shade of gray. At the door, Mr. Ramirez gives high fives in his tweed vest and olive-green bow tie. I sort of expect him to start speaking with a British accent. He did that once last year for an entire week. I scribble my response to today’s warm-up as the seats fill up around me, but everyone leaves the one beside me empty. The countdown timer runs on the whiteboard; Hamilton only has about thirty seconds before he’s late. He’s never late.
“You better run,” Mr. Ramirez suddenly says, his voice booming down the hallway over the ringing bell. Hamilton and Piper barrel into the classroom, causing Mr. Ramirez to jump back. Winded, they both bend over with their hands on their knees, their gasping breaths almost synced to the beat of the piano pop songs Mr. Ramirez often plays. There’s a hint of black in Hamilton’s hair.
“We’re here,” Piper shouts, raising Hamilton’s hand above their heads like he’s a champion boxer.
“That’s Goth Boy,” someone whispers, and Piper beams, turning Hamilton side to side with his hand still above her head.
“That timer is going!” Mr. Ramirez barks, and our heads drop while our pencils start to fly. I add to my answer, not lifting my head as Hamilton takes the seat beside me, his breathing still heavy. I flick my eyes to him and notice the smudged black nail polish on his fingers.
“Look at me quick,” Piper whispers to Hamilton from the desk across from him. She pops her finger into her mouth and leans toward Hamilton’s face.
“It’s fine. Just leave it,” he says, jerking back, keeping his eyes on the question on the board.
“I jus
t need to fix this.…”
“We can get it after school,” he whispers, his attention now back on his paper. Mr. Ramirez stares at Hamilton with a raised eyebrow as he logs our attendance into the computer. I wonder if he will give Hamilton and Piper tardies. Probably not. Hamilton can get away with just about anything at this school. Probably because he stays after class to help teachers tidy up. He can’t keep his own room clean, but he won’t leave a classroom without pushing in all the chairs.
“You decided to return to Goth Boy, huh?”
Hamilton glances over, his pencil still moving. “I got kinda swept up.”
“Fame can do that to you.”
“It’s not…,” he starts, but the timer cuts him off. I look him over while Mr. Ramirez collects our warm-ups. Hamilton’s look is a messier version of the night of the video. The glitter isn’t smoothed into each strand, but speckled across his head. The eyeliner looks like Cleopatra on one side and is barely noticeable on the other. No flour on his face, though he does look paler than usual. This must be why he stood me up at lunch.
As we start class, I’m grateful we’re doing independent work, because I don’t feel like working with Goth Boy. Unfortunately, Piper ignores the zero-voice requirement for independent work and continues a stream of whispered conversation.
“We really need to capitalize on this attention and make another video,” she explains to Hamilton, clearly loud enough so I can hear, too. “I’ve been thinking about a cartoon makeup tutorial where you make someone look like a cartoon character; I saw it done on a couple channels.…”
“So, you’re going to copy someone else’s tutorial?” I ask.
Piper glares at me, tapping her lime-green pen on her desk. “No. They’re just inspiration. I’ll add my own personality.”
“And Hamilton’s. He’s the only reason people are watching your channel.”
Piper’s glossed lips pop open in a gasp, and Hamilton turns to me with a frown.
“Piper does all the editing and concept development. There’d be no Goth Boy without her.”
