by Barbara Dee
I stopped writing. The Mattison business reminded me of art, and I didn’t want to think about that whole scene—Zachary apologizing, even though he didn’t know what for, the way he’d mentioned Chloe’s party, the nasty way I’d responded. Plus every time I thought about Zachary, it was like the Life Cycle got all muddled and muddy. How was I supposed to do meaningful upgrades, if everything Zachary did made me change my mind about him as an amphibian?
Okay, enough of this, I scolded myself. I came straight home to study photography, not to obsess about stupid boys.
I opened the Amazing Face camera book. For a long time I studied the portraits, especially the unbeautiful ones. Especially the eyes.
Then, on the empty pages that I’d been saving for more chart updates, I started taking notes.
• • •
The next morning I woke up feeling off balance. You know how when a wire gets broken in your braces, your whole mouth feels out of whack? Or when you lose your bracelet and it’s like your whole body is tilted because there’s nothing at the end of one arm?
That was me, because as soon as I opened my eyes, I remembered that yesterday I’d sort-of-fought with my best friend. Again.
The only thing to do was to get to school early. Maybe, I told myself, if I could spend five minutes with Maya at the lockers, we could unsay the things we’d said, and then things would be back to normal.
Except I never made it to the lockers, because that morning our house was utter chaos. Dad had left for an early meeting, and while Mom was trying to lure Addie to her potty, Max went zooming down the steps, crashing his knee into the banister. So then Mom went into EMT mode, trying to smear bacitracin on Max’s knee even though he was thrashing around and howling about his “boo-boo.” And of course that was when Addie decided that she needed to be on her potty NOW, but only if someone would sit with her and read Princess Petunia and the Lost Tiara.
In other words, me.
“Fin, honey, I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Mom said, as she was finally driving me to school. By the time Addie and Max had been calmed down, cleaned up, and strapped into their car seats, where they immediately fell asleep, I was about thirty minutes late. Although that morning I was only missing one of Fisher-Greenglass’s assemblies about the Scary World of Online Identity Theft, so truthfully, since I’d already missed Maya, there was no big rush.
“Oh, Mom, I’m not such a help,” I said. “Anyhow, someone had to read Addie’s dumb book.”
“Yes, of course,” Mom said, smiling. “What I’m saying is, you give me hope that if I hang in there with Max and Addie, they’ll turn out great. Just like you, Awesome Daughter.”
My stomach knotted. Suddenly I remembered Awesome Daughter’s comment about Dentist Barbie.
“Um, Mom?” I said. “By any chance have you checked your blog lately?”
“Why?”
“No big reason. I just . . . sort of posted a comment.”
“On my blog? You did?” She glanced at me. “About what?”
“Nothing. Just that you gave me Dentist Barbie when I was little. And I turned out normal, right? Even though you didn’t obsess about my toys.”
Mom blew out some air. “Whoa,” she said. “First of all, I didn’t give you Dentist Barbie. That was a present from Grandma Annie. And actually, she wanted to give you Beauty Pageant Barbie or Bimbo Barbie, I can’t remember which, but I told her absolutely not, I didn’t want my young daughter to get unhealthy messages about her body, and we had a fight, so you ended up with Compromise Barbie.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Second of all, where did you get the idea that I didn’t obsess about your toys? You mean because when you were little I had a full-time job?”
I shrugged. Really, it was just a feeling I had, but that didn’t mean it was wrong.
“And third of all,” Mom continued, “the next time you want to comment or discuss something—anything—just talk to me in person, okay? You’re my kid; that blog is my job. Separation of church and state.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I guess I was just having a bad day.”
Mom shot me a look. “You were? You want to tell me about it?”
“Maybe later. But you can delete my comment, right?”
“Sure, of course.” After a minute she said, “So. As long as you read my post, what did you think?”
“You really want to hear?”
“That’s why I’m asking, Finley.”
“Okay.” I took a breath. “I think boys my age are a completely different species, so it isn’t fair to compare them to girls. Or to talk about “puberty” like it’s all one thing. Because there’s girl puberty and boy puberty, but the boy kind is definitely weirder.”
“Oh,” Mom said. “Is it.”
I nodded. “Much. It’s really obvious in a way, but also not. It’s like, you look at a boy and you think, okay, he’s growing up, he’s losing his tail—”
“His tail?” Mom said.
“Not literally his tail. But then five minutes later the tail is back. Or he doesn’t have a tail but now he’s talking funny.”
“You mean his voice is changing?”
“I mean he repeats himself, or he sounds like a cyborg. Or he starts referring to himself by his last name.”
“Wow,” Mom said. “That’s very—”
“On the other hand, he’s also apologizing, which is definitely Froggy. I mean, especially if he doesn’t even know what he did wrong.”
“Did this person do something wrong?”
“I’m not sure. But he’s definitely hiding something, and maybe not just the wrist tattoo. As for toys,” I said quickly, to change the subject, because maybe you shouldn’t say “wrist tattoo” to your mom, “I don’t think they matter as long as they aren’t g-u-n-s.” I spelled this in case M-a-x was listening in his sleep. “And I think the twins are fine, so you shouldn’t worry.”
“Ah yes,” Mom said, smiling a little. “But worrying is my job.”
“I thought your job was being this expert mom-person.”
She laughed. “Wherever did you get that from?”
“Oh, come on, Mom. People listen to you. You have this blog and a podcast—”
“Finny, believe me, there are days when I feel like such an imposter.”
“You?” I said.
“Let me tell you a big secret: There’s no such thing as an expert mom. Expert moms do not exist in nature.” She signaled as she pulled up to the front of school. “No parent has all the answers. We’re all just figuring it out as we go along.”
I don’t know why I said this either, but I did: “Too bad you can’t use mnemonics.”
Mom kissed my cheek. “Yeah, well. Like you said, they don’t work for everything. Some things you have to learn the hard way.”
CHAPTER 13
That whole morning everything went wrong.
Since I’d missed Maya at the lockers, I tried two different times to get into the computer lab. But both times the door was locked, and when I tried at lunch, Señor Hansen was there with his seventh-grade class, which meant I couldn’t exactly pop in for a quick visit. And because I definitely didn’t feel like going to the lunchroom and dealing with day two of Is Maya okayyy?, I went to the library to hang out with Ms. Krieger. Except she was busy teaching the fifth grade about the joys of bibliographies.
So I went to the photography shelf, took a Diane Arbus book, and plopped on the squishy red sofa.
For a few minutes I flipped the pages. Diane Arbus’s photos were creepy, but I couldn’t stop staring at them. You know the kind of dreams that aren’t about you personally, but that you can’t get out of your head all day? That’s kind of how her pictures were making me feel—a little queasy, like I was reading someone’s warped, private diary.
And finally I needed to get back to reality, so I opened my science binder to update the Amphibian Life Cycle.
Drew Looper: Total Croaker. Crashed into me with his bac
kpack. Instead of saying “sorry” or “oops” merely grunted. Then blushed. Then asked if he could copy my math homework.
Kyle Parker: Croaker. Visible blob of zit cream on chin, looks like marshmallow fluff.
Finally I realized someone was standing in front of me. And that this person was Zachary.
“Hey,” he said. “You weren’t at lunch, and I remembered you liked hanging out in the library, so.” He handed me an unopened bag of mesquite-flavored potato chips.
Here is the thing: According to my taste buds, mesquite anything tasted like a mistake—smoky, burned, overspiced. And what a totally Croaker thing to do—present someone with a whole bag of awfulness without even knowing their taste buds’ opinion on the subject.
On the other hand: Zachary had showed up with a food offering. Which was extremely Froggy of him, actually. Which no one had ever done for me in history, not even Maya. Plus, considering my nasty behavior in art yesterday, this was incredible.
So I took the bag.
“Ms. Krieger won’t let us eat in the library,” I said. “But thanks. I mean, a lot, Zachary.”
“You’re welcome.” He did a pretend little cough. “Anyhow, um. So Sabrina says today’s the deadline for yearbook photos. And I don’t know if you still want to take my picture—”
“No, I mean, yes, I do.”
“Awesome.” He sat next to me on the sofa. “You’re looking at photos?” he asked, glancing at the Arbus book.
“Yeah, I’m trying not to be an imposter.”
“What?” He blinked.
“I mean, if I’m supposed to be taking pictures, I’d like to know what I’m doing.”
“Cool,” he said seriously. “I’m interested in learning about photography too. I think it’s a great hobby.”
Sometimes Zachary spoke as if he’d read a book called How to Talk Like a Human Being. But probably he should have read How to Have a Conversation, because when he said cyborg things like “I think it’s a great hobby,” I had absolutely no idea what to say back. Plus, he’d said almost this exact same sentence—“photography is a cool hobby”—the first time he’d called me on the phone. So this was another time when he repeated himself.
But (I argued with myself) despite the cyborg manners, Zachary was the first person who’d shown any interest in my so-called hobby. You couldn’t count Ms. Krieger, because showing interest was her job. And really, all Maya and Olivia cared about was new yearbook photos.
Also, by then I was feeling depressed about the Maya situation, and I was desperate for some company. I figured I owed Zachary some niceness from yesterday. Plus he’d brought me a food offering. Even though it was mesquite-flavored.
So I said, “What about you?”
“Me?”
“What’s your hobby?”
“Oh.” He thought. “Dogs.”
“You have one?”
“A mutt named Thor. My stepbrother Kieran has three. They’re all rescues.”
Okay, this was information. Except I didn’t want to talk about Kieran or his rescue dogs. “So what else do you do?” I said, nodding the way you do when you want to keep someone talking.
“I don’t know. I like drawing robots,” he answered.
“Really?”
“What’s wrong with robots?”
“Nothing. It’s just . . . robots and dogs aren’t hobbies.”
“What are they?”
“Subjects.”
Zachary shrugged. “Well, I disagree. Also I like graphic novels, but they’re actually comics. And I like bad movies.”
“You can’t like them if they’re bad,” I protested. “That makes no sense.”
“No, Finley, the badness is the whole point. But they have to be terrible; I don’t like them if they’re mediocre. Mediocre is a waste of time.”
I had to smile. These were all boy interests, and I didn’t share any of them, especially not the bad-movies thing. But I liked what he’d said about mediocre. Mediocre was sort of the same as generic.
“Also you like basketball,” I reminded him.
“I do?”
“Your hook shot?”
“Right. Yeah, I’m still working on that.” He started tapping his foot. “So, um. The yearbook photo—”
“I haven’t forgotten. Can I show you something first?” I flipped the pages of the Diane Arbus book.
“You like these?” Zachary said, looking over my shoulder.
“I wouldn’t say like,” I admitted. “But they aren’t mediocre. I think they’re incredibly . . . ugly-beautiful, like those sunflowers in art. And I guess I like looking at them.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. They’re good to think about.” I pointed to a portrait of a massively tattooed bald guy. “Okay, so, if you look at this guy, doesn’t it make you wonder what he ate for breakfast?”
“Not really,” Zachary said. “I’m not sure he has teeth, actually.”
“Sure he does. You can tell by the way he’s scowling at the camera.”
“Well, even if he does have teeth, I bet he doesn’t eat breakfast. On principle.” Zachary wrinkled his nose. “So what do you think Mr. Coffee has for breakfast? Besides coffee, I mean.”
“Doughnuts,” I said. “The really slippery kind.”
“Boston cream.”
“Spelled crème.”
“Right,” he said, smiling a little. “I bet Fisher-Greenglass has granola with soy milk.”
“And Ms. Krieger has a croissant, or whatever she feels like. Maybe pizza or an ice cream sundae. What about Hairy Hands?”
“Blood oranges. Bloody steak. Or wait—what do they call it when steak is raw?”
“Salmonella,” I said.
He was grinning now. “No, there’s an actual French name for it. My stepmom watches all these cooking shows.”
“Your stepmom?” I asked casually.
“Yeah, my dad’s new wife. In Florida.” His smile twitched at the corners. “That’s where I went last spring. My parents made me.”
“Oh,” I said.
“There was this whole big wedding thing, so.” He shrugged. “But it turns out I have this cool stepbrother.”
“You mean Kieran, right?”
Zachary tugged on his sleeves. “Yeah. He’s sixteen. He taught me a bunch of stuff, and he gave me some clothes when I outgrew mine.”
Well, so that explained Zachary’s style makeover, and the limited wardrobe options. It also explained why he’d acted so weird last year. And why he didn’t exactly volunteer information when he came back. I mean, if my parents divorced and my dad moved across the country and got himself a new family they forced me to live with—well, let’s just say I wouldn’t be contributing that news item to the Official Gossip.
But now Zachary was being serious and quiet, and I wanted to get back to the fun we’d been having guessing our teachers’ breakfasts.
“You know,” I announced, “I strongly feel we should write down those menus. To commemorate them for all eternity.” I grabbed my science binder and flipped to the back.
“What was that?” Zachary asked. He was peering over my shoulder.
“What was what?” I carefully wrote the words Secret Breakfasts of the Fulton Faculty.
“I don’t know. You had a page that said something about tadpoles? And I think croaking . . .?”
My heart crashed into my chest. I slammed the binder shut.
“Oh, that was nothing,” I said. “We were studying frogs in science. Last fall.”
“So why are there names?”
“Names?”
“Of kids. It looked like a list.”
My brain emptied. “Those were just . . . to help me remember the material. I’m terrible in science, so I used a mnemonic.”
“A what?”
“You know, a dumb memory trick. Like i before e, except after c. Or ROY G BIV. Or My Very Educated Mother.”
“Every Good Boy Deserves Favor,” Zachary said. “Thirty days hath
September. HOMES.”
“Exactly.” I exhaled a little. “Homes?”
“H-O-M-E-S. First letter of each of the Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “Like PEMDAS in math— Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction. I can never remember the Order of Operations unless I write PEMDAS at the top of the page. Ha ha, isn’t that pathetic?”
“I wouldn’t call it that,” Zachary said, shrugging. “I’m the same way.”
Phew, I thought. I’d just saved this conversation from utter excruciation. But I still had to change the topic immediately. And permanently.
“Zachary?” I said. “Can I ask you something? You still want to go to Chloe’s Stupid Party?”
He raised his eyebrows. “You mean with you?”
“Yeah. I don’t mean go with me—”
“I know what you mean,” he said. “And yeah. Actually, I do.”
And then he gave me a smile so gorgeous and glowing and Froggy that all I could do was smile back.
CHAPTER 14
Before lunch was over, I snapped four shots of Zachary superfast.
The first and second ones were of him looking at the Diane Arbus book. He had a funny expression, like he was eating something that possibly tasted good, but he wasn’t sure how he felt about the ingredients.
The third and fourth ones had him looking right at me. I mean, at me, not at the camera. Don’t ask me to explain this, because I can’t.
The photos didn’t come out great. The library light was uneven, and Zachary was boringly centered in the composition. But it was amazing that the photos weren’t blurry, considering how my hands were shaking the whole time.
Because Zachary Mattison had almost seen the Life Cycle.
Well, actually, no: He had seen it. He just hadn’t known what it meant. And I’d managed to distract him with all those mnemonics, which maybe couldn’t teach Spanish verbs or toddler raising but were good for some things, fortunately. Plus, of course, asking him to Chloe’s Stupid Party—that was a good distraction too.
