The Humiliations of Pipi McGee

by Beth Vrabel

  Tasha glanced at me, then said, “She thinks it’s too big or something, so she covers it up all the time. I think she’d go Voldemort if she could.”

  I threw a bunched-up napkin at her, which she dodged with a laugh. “Shut up.”

  Ricky shrugged. “Well, I think your nose is nice.”

  “It’s enormous and takes up most of my face,” I said. “I’m not weird about it. I just don’t like drawing further attention to it.”

  “Like I was saying,” Tasha said, “before I was rudely assaulted by your napkin. Go to Eliza’s shop. I bet there are, like, contouring tricks if you’re that bothered by it.”

  Traitor nose itched. “Contouring?”

  Tasha shrugged. “If you don’t like it, do something about it. I used to hate my mouth—”

  “Your mouth?” Ricky interrupted. “Why would you hate your mouth?”

  Tasha laughed, then Ricky shook his head like the idea didn’t process. “Know what helped?” she said to me. “Makeup. Now my mouth is my favorite feature.”

  “Yeah, it’s great,” Ricky said.

  Odd silence seeped around us.

  “So, yeah, do something about it,” Tasha continued. “Your nose, I mean. If you don’t like it, do something about it.”

  Chapter Ten

  The library was only three blocks from school, so it was easy to get to once classes let out. I knew better than to think Tasha would be waiting to walk with me. She’d be way too excited to get to the CR party. I had a notebook in my hand, ready to stop walking and scribble down thoughts if I came up with the next part of my plan.

  I needed to do something bold. Something permanent. Something that would really prove to everyone that I, Penelope McGee, was different now.

  As I walked, I wrote the same couple of words over and over, trying to figure out how to address them—nose, vomit, basketball, peepee, Jackson Thorpe, eyebrow (plus another word referencing the thing I refused to talk about from seventh grade). Okay, I could do this. My eyes went to Jackson’s name. It wasn’t exactly the first time I had written his name. Even thinking about it made my cheeks burn bright, remembering how Fifth-Grade Pipi had filled an entire notebook with his name. And, of course, one enormous Penelope Claire Thorpe. I held my current notebook against my chest in a moment of silence for poor Fifth-Grade Pipi.

  The only real revenge for that humiliation would be to have Jackson fall in love with me. Of course, I wouldn’t, upon confession of his undying love, rush away from him, laughing and pointing, the way he had done to me. We’d stay in love. Redemption and revenge, see?

  I almost circled Jackson’s name, making it the unofficial next target in tackling The List. But the chances of Jackson falling in love with me would be much greater once I lost the Pipi Touch forever.

  I circled nose. How could I redeem myself for being the nose picker of first grade?

  When I heard someone shout, “Hey!” I turned around thinking it’d be Tasha, even though I figured she’d already be at the library. Instead, it was Sarah Trickle.

  I did that kind of backward glance to make sure she was actually waving at me before turning fully around. “Hey,” I finally said back.

  Sarah Trickle trotted up to me. “Are you going to the library?”

  “Um, yeah,” I said, pulling my backpack off one shoulder and swinging it to the front while we walked. I unzipped the bag, holding the notebook in one hand while I tried to make an opening wide enough to shove it inside.

  Sarah plucked it from my fingers. “Let me help!” Her eyes widened when I snatched the notebook back out of her hands and shoved it into the bag.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I don’t like… I mean, that notebook is… I don’t like people seeing it, I guess.”

  “Oh!” Sarah’s smile stretched and her eyes seemed to glisten a little. “I know what’s going on!”

  “You do?”

  Sarah clapped her hands together. “I have a notebook just like that—one that I don’t let anyone see. You’re writing poetry, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t really call it—”

  “No,” she said and squeezed my shoulder. “It’s cool! I understand.” She stopped, still holding on to my shoulder, so I had to stop, too. Then she squeezed my other shoulder with her other hand. “I know, believe me, I know, how hard it is to say who you are, what you care about. But this shouldn’t be.” Her smile stretched, and her voice dipped secret soft. “I’m a poet, too.”

  “Actually…” I searched through responses, but somehow No, it isn’t a book of poetry. It’s a list of humiliations and how to seek revenge couldn’t quite form in my mouth.

  “That’s been my big hang-up, too. When can you really say that you are something?” Sarah squeezed my shoulders again. “So, I’m just going to do it. Just call myself a poet.”

  “Uh, sure,” I mumbled.

  Sarah laughed. “Sorry, guess I’m a little intense. I’m just, I don’t know, figuring myself out.”

  Now it was my turn to laugh. “You? What’s there to figure out? Everyone loves you.”

  Sarah stopped again. Even though she wasn’t holding my shoulders anymore, I paused, too. Her nose wrinkled up. Her perfect little nose. “What are you talking about?”

  My wide, flat nose twitched. “Why the self-reflection? I mean, why would you change anything about yourself? Some of us”—I gestured down over my body—“have years’ worth of events to figure out. Tons of things to change. Not you. Everyone wants to be you.”

  Sarah swallowed. She looked strangely hurt for someone who was just told she was perfect. “That’s definitely not true.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  The quiet between us was thicker than the humid late-summer air. Finally, she said, “We’re not the only ones, either. Jackson’s a poet, too.”

  I snorted. “Oh, yeah, I noticed that.”

  Her eyebrow (perfectly shaped, by the way) popped up in the air.

  “I think I heard him say he’s evolving, or something,” I finished.

  “Right.” Sarah smiled. “He’s been sharing a lot of his poetry with me.” Under her breath, she added another a lot.

  Seize opportunities! my brain screamed. I remembered what I had overheard at lunch—when Kara shut down Sarah’s idea of a poetry club. Just me and Jackson. In a club. Together. (And, okay, fine. Sarah, too.) He’d be the first to see the bold new me, to notice how much I evolved this year. “If only there was, like, a place where we could meet. Us poets, I mean. A get-together or a…”

  “A club!” Sarah bounced on her toes. “Yes! I know!” By now we were steps away from the library.

  I shrugged. “My mom has space. In her gym. We could meet there.”

  Sarah stopped, standing stock still. “That could work! It’d just be the three of us—you, me, and Jackson—to start, but hopefully more people will join once they see us performing.”

  “Performing?” I felt a little like a parrot.

  Sarah laughed. “A bunch of schools around us have Spoken Word Clubs. They go to performances and everything. I think we should start one. Get a head start on the community service thing Mr. Harper was saying we have to do in high school. It might even give us clues—you know—inspiration, for other clubs we might want to create. What do you think?”

  “Absolutely!” I could probably figure out how to avoid actually sharing and writing poetry. It wouldn’t be too hard. “I don’t know about me performing, but, yeah, absolutely.”

  “Yes!” Sarah jumped up and down. Before I knew it, her arms were around me in a quick hug. I gasped like she had squeezed out all my air, even though her hug was quick as a clap. Sarah Trickle just hugged me and invited me to be in a secret club with Jackson Thorpe.

  She backed away and glanced around. Her forehead puckered. “Aunt Estelle’s pulling into the parking lot now. Gotta go. But, um, one thing… it’s kind of, you know, something we shouldn’t tell…”

  And here it was. The part where she remembered
she was talking to Pipi McGee, the social virus. My face flamed as that empty feeling I had after the hug filled right to the brim with shame. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t tell anyone you talked to me.”

  “I knew you’d understand,” she said, her eyes still on the parking lot. She turned suddenly so she was behind me. And, of course, since I’m enormous compared to her teeny tiny perfect little doll self, I entirely hid her. I glanced over my shoulder toward the parking lot. Vile Kara Samson was darting out of the library toward the car. “So just us, okay? And maybe we should meet, I don’t know, fifteen minutes after spin?”

  I gulped. “Why not make it twenty? That way no one will see you hanging out with me.”

  She flashed a quick smile. She actually smiled at that. “Perfect! I’ll see you tomorrow, Penelope.” She peeked over my shoulder, then grimaced, obviously trying to figure out how to get to the car without being spotted walking with me.

  Luckily, that’s when I noticed Ricky and Tasha standing in the grass by the front of the library. Ricky was spraying the white dye onto Tasha’s braids. “My friends are over there,” I said to Sarah. “See you around.”

  “Oh!” she said, and I tried not to notice how relieved she was that I wouldn’t be trailing her to the parking lot.

  Concentrate on being in the club. Concentrate on The List, I ordered myself as I trotted toward Tasha and Ricky. Do not cry, Pipi McGee. Don’t you dare cry. So what if the nicest girl in the entire school would rather hide than be seen next to you? So freaking what? Tasha saw me lumbering toward her and her laugh choked off. Ricky took a half step back as I fell into Tasha’s arms.

  “Oh, no,” she said, patting my head. “You okay?”

  I nodded into her shoulder. One tear didn’t listen and trickled down my cheek.

  “Want to talk about it?” Tasha asked.

  I shook my head. “Sorry,” I said and brushed at my cheek with the back of my hand as I dropped my hug. “Guess I’m just overcome with excitement for Crow Reaper.”

  Tasha laughed a little too loudly, but her eyes locked with mine. I nodded, letting her know I was okay.

  “Sorry for the hug attack.” I forced another laugh. “Poor Tasha. You’ve got so many years of the Pipi Touch, you’ll never be free of me.”

  “Pipi Touch? Is that a thing again?”

  “Did it ever stop?” I rolled my eyes.

  “Nope, no way. No feeling sad on CR day!” Tasha tugged me forward. “Let’s go! I’ve been trying to download the audiobook all morning, but I think the librarians must’ve embargoed the library copy or something until after the party.”

  The “party”—I knew from experience—was a bit of a stretch. Tasha was the only Crow Reaper–obsessed person in Northbrook. At the last release, the librarians had a plate full of cookies and a half dozen copies of the book on a table in one of the rooms usually reserved for quiet study. (Know how I said everyone loves Sarah? Well, that’s definitely true. But the adoration the library has for Tasha is something next level. The teen librarian has a framed picture of Tasha on her desk. For real.)

  The party last year lasted only a few seconds for most people—just long enough to grab a cookie and say hi to Tasha. But the librarians had played the first chapter of the audiobook for Tasha and me in that little room. I had slipped earbuds into my ears and listened to music instead, but Tasha was so excited. Now, a couple people held open the library doors and gestured for her to come inside.

  “The librarians said we couldn’t start until you got here,” one of them told Tasha with a whiny voice.

  “Blame her,” said Tasha, jerking a thumb my way. “It’s her fault we’re late.”

  “Wow,” I said, “looks like even more people have read the books than last time.”

  Tasha rolled her eyes. “They’re here for the cookies and you know it. But who cares. Right, Ricky?”

  Ricky laughed. “Right! Just means we get to be first to find out about Death’s secret purpose. And the catalyst.”

  “And meet the goblin king!” Tasha squealed.

  “You guys are so weird,” I said. They ignored me.

  Inside the library, the books were in a pile. The cover image was of a little boy with an enormous shadowy crow stretching out behind him.

  “Whoa,” both Ricky and Tasha said at the same time, even though, of course, they’d seen the cover a million times before. I nabbed a cookie.

  Ricky grabbed one, too, and Tasha looked around for the speaker. The librarian walked toward her with hands raised. “I know what you’re going to ask: Where’s the audio? Here’s the thing—and I’ve been on the phone with the distributor all morning—it looks like this last book isn’t on audio yet.” Tasha gasped, but the librarian just continued: “We’ve got plenty of copies, as you can see. But you’ll have to wait for the audio. Sorry, Tasha.”

  “But…”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again and then tried to corral the line of kids into an orderly cookie-grabbing procession.

  I breathed out slowly. Tasha picked up a copy of the book and flipped to the first page. Her eyes filled with tears. “I wanted to stay up all night reading it,” she said softly. Her eyes scanned the words and then she slammed it shut. The words jumble on her sometimes. When she’s rushing—the way she would be to see what happened next in the story—they jumble even more. Tasha works with a vision itinerant at school to make her work accessible; it’s not like she can’t read. But audiobooks are kind of like her escape, a way that she can just fully enjoy the story without accommodating the way her brain works differently with dyslexia.

  Ricky glanced at Tasha, then his eyes met mine. I pulled the book from her hands and opened it up again. I cleared my throat and began to read, walking slowly to a chair. Tasha paused for just a second and then followed me, wrapping her arm around my shoulder.

  “What?” I said when I reached page two. “What? Who is Maeve?”

  Ricky sighed and plucked the book from my hand. “Nope. No. You don’t get to ask questions. Read the other books.” He picked up where I had left off. I watched them for a minute, Tasha sitting with her knees drawn up, staring into space as Ricky read to her in a smooth, steady voice. He must’ve read a lot to his little brothers and sister because he did voices and everything.

  I nabbed another cookie, gave Tasha a quick hug, and headed home.

  After leaving the library, I went to Dad’s condo complex, which was only a few blocks from my home. I knew technically both places were home, but Dad’s place never really felt like it. I had never hung a poster on the walls of my so-called bedroom there, which was really just a walk-in closet with a bed and a tiny window. Don’t get me wrong; it wasn’t that I didn’t feel welcome at Dad’s or that I loved him any less than Mom. It was just that the condo was so much Dad’s place, whereas Mom’s house was our house. When Dad and Mom were still married, he had a basement den full of newspapers he wanted to read but hadn’t gotten around to, a record player for his Motown records, and a coffee pot always brewing in the corner. Dad’s place now was like one giant basement den.

  Dad was sitting in the middle of his lumpy couch with a slice of pizza in one hand and the remote in the other when I came in.

  “Pipi!” he called when the door swung shut with a loud click. “Oh, man! Lost track of time!”

  Dad had random hours at the newsroom—when news was breaking, he could work round-the-clock shifts. But newspapers weren’t exactly rolling in cash lately, so he didn’t get overtime. Instead, he banked up the hours so when it was slow at the paper, he wouldn’t go into the office at all. Today must’ve been a slow day.

  Actually, looking around, the week must’ve been slow. I could see drifts of dust swirling through the dim light that was seeping through the drawn curtains. The room smelled stale, like old pizza and newspaper. Which was because of all the old pizza and newspapers laying around.

  “Dad, how old is that pizza?” I asked as he bit down. The cheese had congealed to plasti
c consistency.

  “Pizza never goes bad,” he said. But his jaw was working awfully hard to yank the bite from the crust.

  “I don’t think that’s actually true. When was the last time you had a vegetable?”

  “It’s got sauce!” Dad brushed crumbs from his stomach and groaned as I yanked back the curtains to let in more light. Surrounding Dad were coffee mugs and pizza boxes.

  “What happened?”

  Dad crossed his arms He was quiet for a moment, then tossed the slice into an open pizza box. Quickly, I snagged it and dumped the whole box in the trash can. “Kid died. Hit and run. Was on his bike. His father was right there. Couldn’t stop it.”

  I blew out my breath in a puff and sat down next to Dad. He let his head fall on my shoulder. He might not have left the house for days, but he still smelled good—like deodorant and mint shampoo. “Driver’s just a kid, too,” Dad added. “Only seventeen. Charged with manslaughter.”

  I leaned into him a little more. I’d been toted around to crime scenes and house fires and accidents often enough as a reporter’s kid to handle the facts. Whenever the news broke, Dad headed out and covered it—he marched right up to police officers or suspects or victims and asked them questions, his notebook a barrier between them. His face was always expressionless until he filed the story. Then? I glanced around the dark, dirty den. This.

  He held on to things too long, from pizza to pain. His little condo was testimony to that. He still had boxes in the corners, labeled yearbooks and college textbooks, even though he had moved out of our house more than five years ago.

  I knew the cycle—knew it was behind my parents’ divorce—and also knew it was useless to try to reason him out of it. What he needed—what I needed, I reminded myself—was bold action. We were going to change our ways. Reinvent ourselves. And if copious amounts of bad eighties movies on TBS had taught me anything, it was that there was only one place where a teenage girl could reinvent herself. (Not sure about dads, but it was probably the same place.)

  “Get ready,” I told him. “We’re going to the mall.”