The Humiliations of Pipi McGee

by Beth Vrabel

  Frau Jacobs clapped her hands, drawing the class’s attention. “Yes, yes, Mr. Harper is seizing an opportunity to compete in reality television, something apparently worthy of a sabbatical, according to our esteemed new principal.” Frau Jacobs’s shoulders rose and fell in another dramatic sigh. “And so, while Mr. Harper is off baking cupcakes or whatnot, I’ll be taking over yet another class. This homeroom.” Frau Jacobs smiled. “We will be kicking off each and every day together for the rest of the semester.”

  A hush fell over the room. A few kids, ones who were in seventh grade Intro to Languages with me, twisted in their seats to shoot me looks. I felt their eyes on me but kept my stare pointed down at my desktop.

  Did you ever flip your eyelid inside out? Really, don’t. It’s incredibly gross. But for a while in second or third grade, there was this kid at the park who’d always flip his eyelids inside out and then chase girls around the playground with his arms outstretched like a zombie. In that moment, finding out I’d begin every single morning with Frau Jacobs for the rest of the semester, I felt like my entire body was flipped inside out like that. As if everything I worked so hard to keep inside—everything too tender for even air to touch—was flipped right out for everyone to see.

  I sucked in my breath.

  Whispers rattled around the classroom. Whispers about last year. Whispers about me. Someone laughed just behind me. They’d do that next year, too, and—just like how someone else said, “what?” and a new person filled him in on the story—the humiliations were going to follow me wherever I went.

  I don’t talk about seventh grade. Ever.

  But for just a moment, I let myself remember.

  The entire school staring at me, laughing at me. Frau standing in the middle of them all, wearing a smug little smile. The shame that nearly swallowed me whole—shame that kept me curled up in a ball on my bed, for the whole weekend after that day.

  I shuddered and forced the memory away.

  I was going to save others from going through what I had.

  But I also was going to get my revenge.

  I was going to see Kara and Frau Jacobs’s faces dunked in shame.

  And I would be the one standing in the middle this time, smiling.

  Chapter Eight

  “Pipi,” Frau Jacobs said as I left homeroom. I was the last one out, after accidentally tipping my bag and spilling my pens across the floor—all things that happened because I was trying too hard to get away. “If you’re always the last out the door, you won’t have time to swing by the facilities between classes. Part of becoming a woman is managing one’s own needs.”

  I zipped up my bag and passed her as I rushed out the door. No one had been in the classroom to hear, thankfully. When I got to algebra, Tasha already was there, sitting in her regular seat next to mine.

  “Ugh! I heard Frau Jacobs is replacing Mr. Harper,” she whispered as I took my seat. She pressed pause on her audiobook and slipped her earbuds out of her ears. “It’s only homeroom. Just ignore her.”

  I nodded as I opened my textbook. I felt like everyone was watching me, but of course they weren’t. Then I decided to risk a look around, just to be certain. Sure enough, someone was, in fact, staring my way. Ricky. Only he was actually watching Tasha.

  Tasha had lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays with the fantasy book club (she was president), so I was left on my own in the cafeteria. (She also had lunch with the track team on Fridays—she’s the captain. Tasha said I could join them, but the few times I did, there was a weird silence whenever Tasha tried to bring me into the conversation.)

  Usually I spent those days wandering around the school during lunch period, eating a granola bar or ducking into the art room if no one was there and working on my birds. But the art teacher had a sub today and the room was locked.

  Since it was a beautiful, bright day, everyone was eating outside in the courtyard. All around me, people were laughing, huddled in groups around picnic tables, passing their cell phones around to show off pictures. Except for me. I found a little niche behind a row of bushes. There was a table on the other side without anyone at it, but I knew that was just a matter of time. Instead, I went to the far side of the bushes and sat down in the shade.

  Honestly, I was happy to be alone. Whenever I asked Mom if I could be homeschooled (which was pretty much daily), she said, “No, Pipi. You’d never leave the house. You’d be up in your room talking to Myrtle all day.” And she was right. Everyone else knew how to be around other people, while I was hiding behind the hedge so no one would talk to me. This, of course, was part of what tackling The List was supposed to change. But for now? For today? I was cool being in the shadow.

  I popped in my earbuds and was listening to music that might work for spin class when I noticed how low my battery was. I turned off the music and was about to go inside until lunch was over when I heard a familiar name: Eliza. Who was talking about my sister?

  I peeked through the hedge. There was Vile Kara Samson, Sarah Trickle, and Jackson Thorpe.

  “I’m just saying,” Kara spoke to Jackson, “it’s pathetic. She was in my brother’s grade. Max told me Eliza was such a snob, always acting like she was so much better than everyone.” Kara raised her eyebrows. “Now look at her. Max’s in college, in a frat, and Eliza McGee is shelling mascara with a kid who I hear is a total weirdo. Probably thanks to living with Pipi.”

  I sat down so hard my tailbone hit the flagstone. Fury roared through me. Talking about me was bad enough, but Eliza? Annie? Max Samson had asked Eliza out a half dozen times during her sophomore year. She always had said no. The only boy she ever dated was a senior, who never wanted anything to do with her—or Annie—after he found out she was pregnant. And I knew that a lot of people assumed Eliza was a snob, but I was there once when Max asked her out to the movies. She was so nice, thanking him but saying that she didn’t want to lead him on. He had called her a name and stormed off.

  Sarah murmured something too low for me to hear.

  Kara sighed. “Whatever.”

  “Besides,” Sarah said a little louder, “I heard Eliza was taking classes.”

  “Parenting ones, I hope.” Kara laughed, not noticing that no one joined her. “Max said he heard the kid doesn’t even call Eliza ‘Mom.’ That she thinks she’s more of a sister. How messed up is that?”

  I took a deep breath and peeked between the branches again.

  Jackson was writing in a notebook, occasionally staring off into space. “She’s still hot, too,” he said. “I mean, her hair, it’s golden as the sun. And her eyes, they’re like blueberries in a… ah… spring horizon.” He quickly scrawled more into the notebook. Kara shook her head and turned back to her sandwich.

  “How long are you and Jackson going to stick with this whole poetry thing?”

  “You don’t stick with poetry,” Jackson said. “It sticks with you.” Again, he stared into the distance for a second, his mouth silently reforming the words he had just spoken, then he hunched back over the notebook.

  “You know what Mr. Harper was saying about community service projects? That club he mentioned?” Sarah shrugged. “I really like the idea. Some schools even have these clubs—”

  “You are not joining a poetry club. That is so dorky.” I couldn’t see it from the hedge, but I’m one hundred percent certain that she rolled her eyes. I heard her zipping her lunch bag. “I’ll see you after school.”

  “Right.” Sarah sighed.

  Jackson closed his notebook. “Oh, is lunch over? I was so caught up in my poetry writing.”

  Sarah sighed again. “No, Kara’s just headed to the bathroom.”

  “Hey,” Jackson said, “what’s wrong?” His voice was so gentle, I nearly swooned.

  Sarah forced a smile. “It’s just Kara. She was being… you know, Kara.”

  Jackson tossed his notebook into his backpack and tucked his pen behind his ear. That was his new look this year. “Sometimes I wonder why we’re even friends
with her.”

  Sarah’s smile was less forced now. “She’s my cousin. I have to be friends with her.” She bit her lip, then said, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Jackson laughed. “Secret’s safe with me.”

  Sarah sighed. “Yeah, I know, but secrets are part of the problem.”

  Jackson moved closer to Sarah. “You know, not everything has to be a secret. That’s up to you.”

  Sarah let out a big breath in a whoosh. “But it’s not just that. It’s mostly Kara; she’s just a little much sometimes. Mom says it’s just the way they are—she says even when she was a kid, she knew better than to cross Aunt Estelle. Max and Kara are just like her. We don’t back down is like the family crest. Dad says they ‘tell it like it is.’”

  Jackson nodded. “How it is for them, maybe.” His voice was lower, almost a growl, when he said, “I know about Max. My dads told me to stay away from him. They heard about how he harassed a kid for being gay. Didn’t he write a slur on his locker?”

  “He scratched it into the metal. And I’m sure that’s not the worst thing he did, though it was what he got caught doing.” Sarah shuddered. “Yet he and Aunt Estelle act like he was the victim for getting suspended.”

  “That’s really messed up.” Jackson’s hands curled into fists and he shook his head. “Kara better never say anything like that in front of me.”

  “She won’t,” Sarah said. “Not in front of you or me.”

  “Must be tough for Kara to live with someone like that,” Jackson added.

  “Yeah,” Sarah said as she gathered up containers and shoved them back into her lunch bag. “That’s why Kara spends so much time at our house. Mom says I’m a good influence, but sometimes…”

  “Sometimes you want a break?”

  “Maybe that’s why the club thing I was telling you about is so appealing, you know?” Sarah said.

  Jackson stood and held out his hand to help up Sarah. “Yeah, it’d really make a difference, I think. Pop says it’d be super brave.”

  A poetry club would be super brave? I guessed it’d be brave for Sarah to create something that didn’t involve Kara, but Jackson seemed to be giving an awful lot of credit to Sarah. After all, wouldn’t he be making the club, too?

  “Let’s go,” Sarah said instead of replying.

  They finally left. I slowly got to my feet, feeling my back crack and wishing it were Vile Kara Samson’s face. Whatever it took, I was going to make sure she paid for what she had done to me, and now for what she had said about Eliza and Annie.

  Kindergarten volunteering days were the best part of the week (aside from the weekend when I didn’t begin my day with Frau Jacobs). I focused my time on training Piper how not to be a future Pipi.

  “Listen,” I told Piper as she put the final flourishes on her self-portrait (now including a penciled-in dinosaur with spiky legs, and a house with a big smile and glasses), “these are going to be displayed on the first day of eighth grade. Everyone will see your drawing.”

  “I better add some purple, then.” Piper sucked on her bottom lip as she swept purple across the sky.

  I handed her an eraser. “How about we tone it down just a tad? Maybe get rid of your unicorn horn?”

  Her crayon still pressed to the paper, she peered up at me. Her little forehead was puckered. “Why?”

  Ricky was sitting across the table next to Narrator Boy (“Now I’m adding a red hat. Here’s my red hat. Isn’t it red? It’s a hat.”). He shot me a look. I ignored him.

  “Well, because it’s supposed to be how you’re really going to look. You don’t have a unicorn horn coming out of your belly.”

  “Yes, I do.” Piper smiled and went back to her drawing. “You just can’t see it.”

  I pressed the eraser into her hand. “Trust me.”

  Piper’s forehead wrinkled again.

  “I drew myself as something silly when I was in kindergarten. Know what happened when they showed my portrait this year? Everyone laughed at me. Everyone.” I pointed to the eraser. “Do you want everyone to laugh at you?”

  Piper shook her head, then she erased the spike. I pointed to the dinosaur. “This, too.”

  “Pipi,” Ricky whispered.

  I ignored him again, focusing on Piper.

  Piper sucked on her bottom lip again, then erased the dinosaur.

  “And that’s why you should never try to shape your own eyebrows.”

  Piper ran a finger along her eyebrows, I think, to make sure she still had two.

  “When you’re older, I mean,” I added. “Your eyebrows are perfect right now.”

  We were doing something Miss Gonzalez called Centers. All around the room were stations, including arts and crafts, play dough, play kitchen, and dress up. A half dozen girls circled around Sarah at the kitchen center, bringing her plastic ingredients. She stirred them in a big bowl.

  “Why don’t you play with those girls?” I said to Piper. “They look like they’re having fun.”

  “All they want to do is play house. Boring! Who wants to pretend to make dinner?” She stuck out her tongue. “I want to be a dinosaur.” She looked toward the girls and shrugged. “I guess I could pretend they’re my dinner?”

  “No!” I stopped her. “Listen, Piper. Remember, I’m trying to keep you from being laughed at and picked on.” All morning, I had been imparting my wisdom to Piper, who finally seemed to get it. At least I thought so when I convinced her not to give herself bangs in the arts and crafts center, which had led to the disastrous makeover story. “Once a kid starts to be made fun of, it never stops. For all your life, these girls will say, ‘Remember when Piper tried to eat us at school?’ and you’ll have to live with that forever.”

  “I’ll be a dinosaur forever?” Piper bounced up and down. “Yay!”

  I sighed. “No, you’ll be picked on forever.” My nose itched, like it needed me to remember the nose-picking incident of first grade. “Forever.”

  She stilled and rubbed at her eye.

  “I’m just trying to save you, that’s all. Try to be like the other girls a little. Maybe play a game with them?” I opened the big cardboard box behind the little theater curtain set up at our center. It was filled with piles of clothes—dresses, hats, scarves. I pushed a frilly bonnet onto her head. “You love to pretend! Pretend you like to play dress up.”

  Piper rubbed at her eye again. “I’m all itchy.”

  “Maybe it’s the dust from the clothes,” I said, wrapping a scarf around her.

  “No.” Piper blinked a bunch of times. “My eye’s all sticky, too.”

  I peered at her. Her right eye was a little goopy with light green stuff at the corners, and the white part of her eye was a little reddish. “Stop rubbing it,” I said, “and I bet it’ll be better. Now twirl.”

  Piper spun in a circle and laughed. I did, too, just a tad too loud. “You look gorgeous! Like a movie star!”

  Future Sarah Trickle smiled over at us and nudged the girl beside her. Real Sarah Trickle said, “Would you like to go play dress up, too?”

  The girls narrowed their eyes as if considering. This was Piper’s chance to get in with the right crew!

  “It’s super itchy,” Piper said, rubbing at her eye some more. I pulled her hands down from her face. “Maybe I should tell Miss Gonzalez,” she said.

  “No!” I whispered. “The girls are on their way over.” I snagged the eye patch from the box. “Look! You’re an awesome pirate princess!”

  “I love pirates!” Future Sarah Trickle said. “I’ll be a pirate, too!” She wrapped one of the scarves around her head.

  I grinned at Piper. “See?” I whispered.

  Piper nodded, a small smile tugging her face. “Do you want to use my eyepatch?” she asked.

  Future Sarah Trickle said, “Are you sure?”

  Piper nodded and pulled it off her face. “I’ll just pretend to have one on.” Piper’s eye did look squished shut. Future Sarah Trickle immediately put on the e
yepatch.

  “I want to be a pirate, too!” cried another girl.

  Future Sarah Trickle handed her the eyepatch as Piper danced around with a Beanie Babies parrot on her shoulder.

  “Can I have the parrot?” Future Sarah Trickle asked Piper.

  “No, I’m playing with it right now,” Piper said.

  “But I want to be a pirate!”

  “You shouldn’t have given up the eyepatch,” Piper pointed out.

  “I shared the eyepatch with Jessmarie. You should share the parrot.” Future Sarah Trickle crossed her arms.

  “When I’m done,” Piper said. She made the parrot nod.

  “That’s not fair. We’re all sharing.” Future Sarah Trickle looked at Jessmarie, who super slowly pulled off the eyepatch and handed it to the next girl to strap on. After a few seconds, a third girl poked her on the shoulder and, still being watched by Future Sarah Trickle, she passed along the eyepatch. Future Sarah Trickle held out her hand for the parrot.

  Piper took a half step backward, right onto my foot.

  I nudged her forward. I whispered, “Remember, you want to be her friend.”

  Piper whispered back, much too loudly, “No, I want to play with the parrot.”

  I raised an eyebrow. Piper sighed and handed over the parrot. Future Sarah Trickle tucked it on her shoulder and pretended to feed it crackers.

  “So, when do we loot?” Piper peered at the other stations.

  “We’re nice pirates,” Future Sarah Trickle said. All of the other girls surged forward, holding hands and skipping in a circle with Future Sarah Trickle. Piper sighed again and joined the circle, looking a little cockeyed with her one puffy red eye.

  And I could just see it, a flash of little Piper being older—my age—and part of that bigger circle. Someday she would look back on this moment and thank me, I thought, even though now Piper’s one opened eye was locked on the parrot on Future Sarah Trickle’s shoulder.

  When I got home that afternoon, I drew a thick red line through Kindergarten on my list of humiliations. Someday Piper will thank me, I thought to myself again.