The Humiliations of Pipi McGee

by Beth Vrabel

  Ricky nudged me.

  “Do you have a math quiz later or something?” I snapped.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  “You touching me. Isn’t it for luck?” I pushed the hoodie sleeves down over my hands and crossed my arms.

  Ricky’s forehead puckered. “No,” he said slowly. “I’m trying to get your attention. What’s wrong with you today?”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. I kept my eyes on Kara, who went up to Frau Jacobs and complimented her for wearing a pen hanging from a string around her neck (“So practical and a beautiful accessory!”). Soon Frau Jacobs was showing her how the pen could change ink colors. Kara winked at me from across the room.

  “I have a lot to figure out,” I managed.

  “Were you… I mean… Tasha and I were talking, and were you behind the eyebrow thing with Kara Samson?” He half laughed as he said it, like the idea was ridiculous.

  “Yeah, I know you and Tasha were talking.” I couldn’t seem to get the sneer out of my voice. “Maybe you guys could stop talking about me.”

  Ricky reared back as though I had hit him. “We’re worried about you. That maybe you’re taking this List thing too far. I mean, what’s the point, really?”

  The speaker in the middle of the room beeped and then Principal Hendricks’s voice called attention for the Pledge and the morning announcements.

  “Pipi?” Ricky prodded.

  “You don’t get it,” I muttered over Principal Hendricks’s voice.

  “Don’t forget to sign up now for this year’s talent show! Only two weeks until the big day. And this year, our very own Northbrook Middle School staff is welcome to join in on showcasing their hidden talents!”

  Ricky had never been picked on or left out. He had never been a walking embarrassment. He didn’t understand.

  “So, tell me,” he said.

  Tell him? Tell him what? That everything was out of control? That going from laughingstock to good luck charm still made my skin crawl? That becoming friends with Sarah meant losing Tasha? That I couldn’t stop revenging The List now if I wanted to—it was out of my control? That I was now aligned with the one person who hurt me more than anyone? That I had spent so much time feeling sorry for myself or thinking about how to get back at everyone that I never realized how much I had? That I would never be sure if Ricky really liked me for who I was and not because he felt guilty for what he had done? That I had hurt the only friend who had always been there for me? That I was going to have to betray Sarah, even though she had only ever been kind to me?

  “Penelope?” he whispered.

  “It’s all—”

  “Do you have something to add, Miss McGee? Something more important than the morning announcements?” Frau Jacobs asked.

  “Really,” sighed Kara from across the room. “Sorry you have to deal with such rudeness every day, Frau Jacobs. I bet Greta Mila von Nickel would whip her into shape!”

  Frau Jacobs turned to Kara. “You’ve heard of the great soprano Greta Mila von Nickel?” she asked as if she hadn’t mentioned the singer moments earlier.

  “Oh, who doesn’t love some von Nickel?” Kara winked at me again.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  All week, Kara made a point of laughing at every one of Frau Jacobs’s awful jokes. She shook her head at Frau Jacobs whenever someone walked by in a skirt. “I just wish you got recognition for your hard work,” I heard her whisper to Frau Jacobs one morning.

  Thursday morning, I woke up to a text from Kara. You have one more day for dirt on Sarah. Say hi to Eliza for me.

  But even if I wanted to, I couldn’t say hi or anything else to Eliza. I hadn’t seen her all week. Every day, she had picked up Annie from preschool and then they were gone until after dinner. Mom and Alec whispered about it a bunch of times, Mom’s hand on her belly as they talked, but they stopped when I walked into the room.

  “Does Eliza still have a job?” I asked Mom as we headed to the car. She was dropping me off at school and Annie at preschool.

  “Yes,” Mom said over her shoulder as she led Annie to the back. Her face was buried in Annie’s bag, making sure she had an ice pack in her lunchbox. “The Samson family hasn’t officially decided not to pursue any further action, but Eliza’s manager said she can continue working until they make a final decision.”

  “Is Eliza okay?” I sank into the passenger-side seat.

  Mom sighed, bending over Annie to check that the belt buckle was latched. “I think Eliza would be the one to ask.”

  As Mom closed the backseat door and made her way to the driver’s seat, I twisted around to face Annie. “Is there anything going on, with you and your mom, I mean? Is she okay?”

  Annie put a finger to her lips and whispered, “Spy.”

  I dodged Kara in homeroom by coming in just before the bell. She was stationed by Frau Jacobs anyway, laughing at something the teacher had said.

  At noon, I braced myself for the cafeteria.

  A part of me hoped that Tasha would be back at our usual table. Tuesday night, I had my first postfight conversation with her when I saw her and Ricky at the park after school. Both of them had been laughing under a tree. The Crow Reaper book was unopened beside them. Ricky had called me over, and then, when I sat down, he claimed he had to get a drink from the water fountain. “I’m sorry,” I told her. I ripped up fistfuls of grass. “I was being a terrible friend, way too caught up in my own plans and not at all considering yours and all you’ve been through.”

  Tasha nodded. “Yeah, you were.” Then she sighed. “But we’ve been friends for a long, long time, and this is the first time you’ve been like this.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Usually, I’m too available.”

  Tasha snorted. “I’m still hurt. I’m not over it. But I will be.” She leaned back on her elbows. Across the park, Ricky peeked up from the water fountain and then ducked his head again into the stream of water when he saw us glancing over. We both cracked up. “I get that you’ve got stuff to figure out. Once you do, we’ll work through this. I do miss you, Penelope.”

  “Don’t call me that,” I whispered.

  Tasha raised an eyebrow.

  “It sounds odd coming from you,” I had said. I wasn’t sure what to do then—give her a hug or something?—but Annie had called me over to push her on the swings and had saved me a response.

  But when I got to lunch, Tasha and Ricky were at their new table. Perched around our old table were Jackson and Sarah, no doubt talking about plans for the open mic night tomorrow. Quickly, I sidestepped into the hall before they saw me.

  I turned on my heel and went to the art room instead. The art teacher agreed to let me eat lunch there so long as I was working on a project, even if it wasn’t for a grade. Two days a week, I had study hall right after lunch, so I had a solid hour and a half to work on those days, too.

  It was so nice not to think, not to avoid anyone, not to push anyone, not to miss anyone, not to do anything but mix flour and water until it was thin and soupy. To grab handfuls of the old newspapers in the back of the art supply room and rip them into shreds, taking those old stories, tearing them apart, and making something new. A couple of times I caught my dad’s byline as I lay the strips of newsprint into the vat of papier-mâché glue. I layered and molded, layered and molded, not even thinking about what I was creating until the shape was unmistakable. Wings. Two wide, outstretched wings.

  “Did you just come up with that?” the art teacher asked me. “In just the past few days?”

  I nodded. “I’ve stayed after school a couple of times, too, but, yeah.”

  She smiled. “That means you’ve been working on it in your heart for a lot longer.”

  The wings were beautiful, even without paint, as lines and lines of other people’s stories faded and converged.

  I heard a low whistle Thursday morning as I sat back and stared at the wings. For a silly half second, I thought it was Ricky.

  But whe
n I turned around, it was Jackson.

  “Those are so cool!” he said. “Good luck wings, huh?” And before I could stop him, he reached out to touch the tips. Still wet, they folded in. “Oh, man. I’m sorry,” he said, flicking some of the glue off his fingers onto the tabletop.

  “It’s okay,” I told him. “I can fix it.” He read me more poetry as I tried. I mostly fixed the wings, but it wasn’t quite the same. I’d have to make the wings bigger to make up for it.

  After school, we met in our usual room at Mom’s gym. Sarah had told her mom (and Kara) that she was going to my house after school on Friday but left out that Jackson’s father was going to pick us up about five o’clock and drive us to Collinsville.

  “Why don’t you want your family to know?” I asked and hated myself for doing it. Anytime I talked with Sarah at all, I felt slimy, like I was digging for information I could pass along to Kara. Which I guess I was.

  Sarah stared at her hands for a moment before answering. “My family isn’t like yours, Penelope. We don’t talk. We don’t hang out together, except for me and Kara. And Kara and I have always been kind of a packaged deal. Our moms being twins, us being born within weeks of each other, we’re always just ‘the girls.’ I, like, don’t exist alone.” She shrugged.

  “So, this is something you’re doing on your own?”

  “Right,” Sarah said. “They wouldn’t like what I want to say. And they’d break it down.”

  “What do you want to say?” I asked, hating myself for digging.

  Sarah shook her head. “I’m still working on it.”

  Jackson came in late to the gym, holding a stack of papers about six inches thick. “I printed off my poems so I could figure out which one to use on Friday.” Sarah and I quickly picked up our notebooks and started scribbling in them. Jackson’s face fell. “Oh, guess you guys are busy.”

  “Yeah, but I’m sure whatever you pick will be awesome,” I said.

  He sat down and started spreading the poems out in a fan around himself. “Oh, forgot to mention, I signed us all up for the talent show.”

  “What?” I stammered while Sarah grinned.

  Jackson rolled his eyes. “Don’t sweat it, Pipi. You don’t have to read any poetry. Just show off those good luck wings. Sarah and I will perform.”

  “Together?” Sarah asked, her grin wobbling a bit.

  “Yeah, sure,” Jackson said. “We’ll take turns.”

  After Sarah and Jackson left, I walked to Dad’s apartment to have dinner with him.

  I braced myself on the stoop, pulling in a deep breath, saying a little prayer that Dad had a good news day and not the wallowing-in-pizza-boxes kind of day.

  “Hey, Dad!” I chirped as I walked into the house. “I’m home!”

  I stood frozen on the linoleum patch in the foyer. “Dad?” I whispered. Had I gone into the wrong apartment? No, that was definitely my picture hanging on the wall. (The first grade, nose-picking one. Thanks, Dad.) And that was Annie’s artwork on the fridge. But the apartment was clean. Like sparkling clean, with even the gray throw blanket folded into thirds and hanging off the armrest of the slipcovered sofa.

  There was the fake aloe plant on the scrubbed-clean table.

  “Oh, hey, Pipi,” said this person who resembled my dad except he was clean-shaven and wearing a nonwrinkled black button-down shirt.

  “Are you wearing cologne?” I asked, sniffing the air.

  Dad’s cheeks flushed. “Ah, well, Alec recommended a fragrance.” Dad’s face was now so red the gold stud in his nose was probably melting from the heat. “I, uh, wanted to talk with you. I’m going on a date later.”

  “A date?” I leaned in and sniffed him again.

  “Yeah,” Dad said as he slung an arm around me. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking—you know, spending time with Alec, seeing you branch out and join the basketball team—”

  “I’m just the manager,” I cut in, but Dad ignored me.

  “—and watching Eliza spread her wings a bit. It’s time for me to be part of the world.” Dad said all of this with his chest puffed up and the arm not wrapped around me outstretched. It was the same way he talked me into things such as summer sleepaway camp. And that’s how I knew he was trying to convince himself, not me.

  “I’m proud of you, Dad.” I kissed his cheek. “That’s super brave.”

  Dad shrugged, but the side of his mouth twitched. “It’s just the movies.”

  “Do I know her?”

  Dad shook his head. “Someone from work.” He took a big breath. “But, you know, I’ve been inspired. Finally went through some of the old boxes to clean out stuff. There are only a couple left.”

  “Let’s get to them, then,” I said. My belly was full of emotional stone soup again, but I kept my voice cheery. It was weird, I know. Mom was remarried, for goodness’ sake. It’s not like I expected or even remotely wanted Dad and her to get back together. But there was something comfortable about Dad being single. About him just being there, being the same. So much was changing so fast—Mom and Alec’s new baby, and now Dad dating. Where did I fit in? Do they want me to fit in? It was just a fleeting thought. Of course, they wanted me to fit in. They loved me, I never once ever doubted that. But the thought was sharp, slicing, all the same.

  I focused on the boxes. Only four of them left. I pulled open the crisscrossed cardboard top while Dad debated which theater he should take his date to—the one with the reclining chairs, where he risked falling asleep if the movie was boring, or the one with seats so uncomfortable there’s no way he’d fall asleep.

  “The recliner one, Dad,” I told him, even though I had only been half listening. “It’s the fancy theater. Aim to impress.” Inside the box I’d just opened was a photo album. Mom had every album from our childhood in a bookcase, but this one was from Dad’s high school and college days. I flipped through it, sinking onto the floor.

  “Never, ever go the mustache route again,” I warned Dad.

  “Hey, I could curl the ends. Only sophomore who could. It was epic!” Dad plucked the book out of my hands, laughing at the picture. He headed over to the bookcase along the wall and slipped the album onto it. I checked the box for more junk. Inside were four yearbooks. His and Frau Jacobs’s yearbooks. Kara’s words came back to me, even though I didn’t want them to. Pump your dad for details.

  I flipped open the one from Dad’s freshman year. Signatures curled around the pages. Most were pretty generic. Never change! and Northbrook forever! Things I bet I’d have in my yearbook next year. I searched for Frau Jacobs’s signature on the first two signature-covered pages. Nothing.

  I flipped to the alphabetical listing of students. Under J was unmistakably a fourteen-year-old Frau. She had an enormous smile on her face, which was framed with thick bangs. I opened the sophomore yearbook. There she was again. The smile was smaller now. I flipped through the rest of the sophomore section. Frau Jacobs was in the chorus, front and center. The photographer got the shot during a performance, probably the spring concert. Her mouth was wide open as she belted out a song. Around her, other kids grimaced or smirked.

  I hadn’t realized that Dad was behind me. “Shame what they did to that girl. Angela, I mean.”

  “What do you mean, ‘what they did’?” I asked. Leaving the yearbook open to the concert page, I rooted through the box for the junior-year yearbook. Frau Jacobs wasn’t smiling at all in this portrait. She wasn’t in choir, either. I checked the last one. Frau Jacobs wasn’t in the listings. “Did she move?”

  Dad rubbed his chin. “I think she studied abroad that year—in Germany, I believe.” He grabbed the sophomore yearbook and looked again at the concert picture. “Angela Jacobs loved opera. I mean, lived, breathed, and talked nonstop about opera, particularly one singer…”

  “Greta Mila von Nickel,” I whispered.

  “Right!” Dad snapped his fingers. “That’s all she talked about. And she sang. Nonstop singing.”

  “Was she goo
d?” I asked.

  Dad smiled. “She was amazing. Absolutely amazing.” He sighed. “She was, well, I guess a lot of people thought she was annoying. More than a few people—girls especially—went out of their way to pick on her. Things like tipping her lunch tray onto her lap, coughing into their fists through her solos, stuff like that.”

  “Did she stop singing?” I asked.

  Dad shook his head. “No. That didn’t happen until…” He pulled the junior yearbook from the pile and flipped through it until he got to a section where everyone was in costume. “The Halloween party.”

  “You had Halloween parties? At school? In high school?”

  “It was the early eighties. I’m old.” Dad pointed to a picture of a kid wearing sweatpant cutoffs with frayed edges, a torn-up T-shirt, and a werewolf mask covering the top of his face. Under the mask was a fluffy mustache.

  “No!” I gasped. “You didn’t!”

  “I did,” said Dad, another half smile on his face. “I absolutely did. But none of our costumes could hold a candle to Angela Jacobs’s.” His smile evaporated.

  He flipped another page and then handed the book to me, tapping a photograph in the upper right-hand side. It was a group of kids, all of them wearing costumes and most of them laughing. At the far edge was a girl wearing an enormous gown with a sweatshirt over it. Her hands were covering her face and she must’ve been rushing away, maybe even running, because her picture was mostly a blur.

  “What happened?” I whispered.

  Dad sat beside me. He closed the book. “I believe it was what’s now referred to as a ‘wardrobe malfunction.’ We had a contest for best Halloween costume. Every person who showed up to school in a costume paraded across the stage. Of course, we showboated. I growled and…” He threw out his arms side to side like a wild animal. “You know, werewolf stuff.”

  I snickered. “Very scary.”

  “Anyway, so kids started going across the stage. And there was Angela Jacobs in the most elaborate gown I’ve ever seen. I didn’t know it at the time, but later I realized she had dressed as Elektra, Agamemnon’s daughter.”