Hello Groin

by Beth Goobie

  We went inside and got back to work, Joc following a master plan I’d drawn up for the boy silhouette while I wrote out titles for the girl. Feast on Scraps had finished while we were outside so the room was quiet, with just the squeak of magic markers as we wrote. Abruptly, three-quarters of the way through the job it hit me—Joc hadn’t said anything for over five minutes. That was not like her. In fact, it was very much not like her.

  Suspicion slammed into me. Reaching for her stack of completed book silhouettes, I sifted through them.

  “Joc!” I yelped, horrified. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Don’t take a hairy,” she said, grinning at me. “I got bored writing down the titles you gave me, so I made up some of my own.”

  “Hamlet Is A Turd?” I bellowed. “Holla Bolla, Moron? Get Thee to a Monastery?”

  “Well, I couldn’t say what I really thought,” Joc said reasonably. “It had to be something Ms. Fowler would let you put up in the display case.”

  “It took us ages to cut out all those books,” I wailed, glaring at her. “Now I’m going to have to do these all over again. How many did you wreck?”

  “Cool your toots, Dyl,” said Joc. “Just five or ten, for a joke. Hail, Basti, who comest forth from the morgue, I promise never to have any fun.”

  “Easy for you to say—it’s not your display,” I mumbled, counting the altered titles. Fortunately, I’d caught her after seven. Twenty minute’s work would replace them.

  “Watch it,” warned Joc, slitting her eyes at me. “You just rhymed. You’re starting to sound like Shakespeare.”

  “A rhyme is a crime,” I shot back, just as a car horn honked loudly outside.

  “A rhyme is a slime,” Joc corrected sternly. “And it sounds as if my darling foot soldier has finally arrived. Can I have the books I screwed up? I’ll give them to Dikker. He can pretend they’re fan mail.”

  “Here,” I said, shoving them at her. “Good riddance.”

  “See you later, Dyllie,” Joc said, her grin absolutely ear to ear as she tucked the construction-paper books into her purse. Then, without warning, she leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.

  “It’s going to be completely and utterly fab, you know,” she said, her nose one inch from mine. “Your display will make the day, even if I am slime-rhyming.”

  Then she got up, ejected Feast on Scraps from the stereo and headed out the door, leaving me with the sensation of her lips, still warm and slightly wet, on my cheek.

  Early the next morning my bedroom door creaked slowly open, and feet tiptoed cautiously across the floor. The end of my mattress gave slightly as Keelie clambered onto it, and I lay holding myself stock still as she crawled to my shoulder and stared intently at my face. When she’d convinced herself that I was still asleep, she leaned in, flooding me with the scent of baby shampoo and her musty morning breath.

  “Good morning, Dylan,” she whispered into my ear. “The sun is waiting for us to get up so it can jump into the sky.”

  Reaching out an arm, I tugged her down beside me and we snuggled under the blankets, murmuring back and forth about important five-year-old things. Keelie had just started giving me a rundown on her favorite Quidditch tactics when I suddenly remembered what day it was. Sitting bolt upright, I glanced at my clock radio.

  “Geeeeezus!” I yelped. “It’s 8:30. I have to be at the Dief by 9:00.”

  Yesterday afternoon Ms. Fowler and I had agreed to meet this morning in the library so I could set up my genius idea in the display case. “Sorry Keelie,” I said, climbing hastily over her. “I’ve got a zillion things to do before we go swimming this afternoon.”

  “Can I come, can I come?” she demanded, trotting after me.

  “Uh-uh. They don’t allow Quidditch maniacs where I’m going,” I said, ruffling her hair.

  As she took off out of the room, I pulled on some clothes and headed downstairs for a waffle. The breakfast thing over and done with, I rolled up the girl and boy silhouettes and tied them to my backpack, then checked through the book outlines Joc and I had cut out to make sure they were all there. Finally I took off for the Dief on my bike. It felt weird, zooming through the early morning streets without taking my usual detour toward Joc’s house, but then I had passed the turnoff and was heading over the Dundurn Street bridge. Racing down a few more streets, I rounded the last corner, and the Dief came into view, a gray concrete outline that looked like several large shoe boxes shoved together. And there, standing at the east entrance, was Ms. Fowler, looking as rumpled, gray-haired and observant as ever. Underneath that quiet exterior hummed a hyper-alert mind. Ms. Fowler was a spy for the gods.

  “Good morning, Dylan,” she said, as I dismounted and locked my bike to a street sign. “Ready to go to work?”

  Got it all done last night,” I grinned. “All I have to do now is staple it into place.”

  “That’s lovely,” she said, unlocking the school door. “Just let me know how I can assist you.”

  We walked quickly through the halls, the sound of our footsteps traveling ahead of us into the long emptiness. When we got to the library, Ms. Fowler let us in, then flicked the light switch, and the place lit up with endless books arranged on shelves, stacked on the check-out counter and piled into filing carts.

  “As you can see, I’ve cleared out the display case,” said Ms. Fowler, turning toward it. “I had one of the maintenance men bring in a stepladder so you could reach the top of the case, and the staple gun is right here on the check-out desk. Would you like me to help?”

  “Um,” I said, hesitating. I hadn’t thought about it ahead of time, but now that I was about to start, the task of putting up the display felt private—like getting dressed or something.

  Ms. Fowler clued in immediately. “Ah,” she said, taking a step back. “Why don’t I let you get on with it, and you can call me to observe the final product?”

  With that she vanished into her office, and I got to work, climbing up the stepladder and stapling the girl and boy silhouettes into place. Then I began stapling each construction-paper book into position. Halfway through the job, I realized that I could have glued the individual books into the girl and boy silhouettes at home, shortening the process considerably, but even so I was really getting into it, watching the girl’s body grow book by book, title by title: Absolutely Normal Chaos dead center in her forehead, Harriet the Spy riding her eyes, and The Chocolate War for her mouth. Next came Color of Absence as her throat. With slightly shaky hands, I stapled The Egyptian Book of the Dead into place as her heart. Good Families Don’t went into her gut, and Foxfire, in an orange open-book shape, each side tilted upward like a flame, became her groin. Another slew of titles like The Handmaid’s Tale and The God of Small Things went into her legs and feet, and then I was ready for the boy silhouette.

  Cirque du Freak hit him smack in the middle of the forehead, Rats Saw God took over his eyes, and with a grin I stapled The Joy of Sex into place as his mouth. Cam was going to love that. The Giver became his throat, The Subtle Knife his heart, Tribute to Another Dead Rock his gut, and The Once and Future King his groin. Just as I’d promised, I’d spent the last three days reading T. H. Whyte’s book, and like Cam had said it was a soul book, a servant-king for your mind. Giving it a satisfied beam, I moved on to the silhouette’s legs, and finished off the feet with Hate You and Bad Boy. Then I stapled the leftover titles into little thought clouds around the edge of the display: Watership Down, Gone With the Wind, The Stone Angel, Never Trust a Dead Man. Finally I put up the display’s title, The Small Words In My Body, written inside a huge thought cloud, and backed down the stepladder. It was done now, whatever was up there was utter crap or halfway decent. Either way, it was about to make its multicolored construction-paper way into the eyes and minds of every student at the Dief.

  “Why that’s excellent, Dylan,” said Ms. Fowler from behind me, her voice quiet as ever, but I could hear the pleasure in it. Slowly she approached the display, an
d I stood holding my breath as she ran her eyes over it.

  “The Chocolate War for the mouth,” she said slowly. “That’s good. Breathing Underwater for the nose and Color of Absence for the voice—I like that.” She paused a moment, her eyes fixed on the girl’s heart, then continued on without comment. “Foxfire,” she murmured suddenly. “How interesting. Very interesting.”

  As she glanced toward the boy silhouette, an actual grin flashed across her face. “The Joy of Sex,” she said. “We’ll have to see what Administration says about that. And The Giver. One of my favorites.”

  Her eyes traveled downward and widened. In that second I swear I actually felt her thought vibes quicken. “The Once and Future King,” she murmured. “How very very interesting. Yes, Dylan, I think you have done a tremendous job here.”

  I could have whooped, but managed to keep a grip. “Thanks, Ms. Fowler,” I said. “I loved doing it, I really did.”

  “Well,” she said, turning toward me, her eyes fixing on a spot to the left of my face. “It’s almost lunch. Shall I order in some pizza?”

  “Oh, I can’t,” I said, dismayed. I mean, the uncertainty in her voice was obvious, something delicate and shy. “Mom asked me to take my little sister swimming at one.”

  “I see,” said Ms. Fowler. For a second she stood blinking rapidly, then turned toward her office. “Well, that’s all right,” she said briskly. “I just wanted to express my appreciation for all your work.”

  “Ms. Fowler,” I said quickly. “I’d really like to, sometime... have lunch with you, I mean.”

  She stopped, and I felt the pause in her. Then she turned slightly and glanced again at the space to the left of my head. “I’d like that too,” she said quietly. “Perhaps sometime we will. Thank you again for your work.”

  Pulling her cloak of mystery quiet about her, she went into her office, and I headed outside to unlock my bike.

  Chapter Twelve

  That evening Cam and I went to a dance that was being held across town at Confederation Collegiate. Both of us knew kids there from summer sports leagues, and Cam had a friend in the school’s Student Dance Security who looked the other way on selective alcohol infringements. So after parking the car in the student lot, we headed to the front door to get our hands stamped. A wall of sound hit us as we entered the auditorium, and for a second we just stood blinking in the strobe lights. The decorations theme was obviously outer space, and images of galaxies, aliens and laser guns were plastered everywhere. The entire stage had been converted to look like the inside of a spaceship, and some of the kids were dressed as alien Grays, with slanted insect-eye sunglasses. The effect was kind of eerie, enough to lift you out of your usual drift and get you looking at things from another dimension.

  “They must’ve wrapped the whole place in tin foil,” Cam yelled in my ear.

  “Shiny side out,” I yelled back.

  He grinned, I bumped him with my hip, and we started dancing, kind of goofy. Cam liked to fool around on the dance floor, move however he felt. He didn’t care what other people thought about his dancing, and when we first started going out, I wasn’t sure how to react. I mean, rhythm wasn’t Cam’s thing, he didn’t have a clue when it came to following a beat, but no one had as much fun dancing as he did. He’d jump up and down if he felt like it and usually came off the dance floor dripping sweat.

  Tonight he was moving in what I can only describe as monkey-jiving—here, there and jibber-jabber everywhere, grabbing my hands and making me jive with him so I lost the tightness I’d brought onto the dance floor and began to let loose. Circling each other, we started bumping hips. Suddenly Cam gave me his ecstasy grin, lifted his arms and began shaking his chest. I must have split a gut laughing. All around us, kids were turning to stare.

  After some more jibber-jabber jiving, we headed over to the refreshment table for a can of pop, then tracked down the kids we knew. As expected they were huddled in a back corner, slurping down a mixture of rum and Coke and critiquing the dancing technique of everyone in sight. For a second I cringed, hoping they hadn’t seen us, but then someone called, “Hey Zeleny, I was wondering when you’d show.” Someone else held out a bottle of rum, and Cam grinned as the dark liquid poured into his can. Next I got my dose. Sipping slowly, I stood beside Cam, watching kids on the dance floor twist and jive. As far as I could see, he and I appeared to be the only jumpers, but there were a few wild ones out there.

  Without warning I saw her, the girl from the movie theater washroom, leaning against a nearby wall. Immediately a jolt of electricity ran through me, just like the one I’d felt last weekend when our eyes met in the mirror, and my hand jerked, slopping some Coke onto my runners. Swearing, I checked my clothes for damage, but I’d gotten off lucky—T-shirt still white, unstained, virginal.

  “You okay?” asked Cam, leaning into me.

  “Yeah,” I said quickly. “My arm got bumped. No prob.”

  With a nod he went back to his conversation, and I glanced at the place the girl had been standing. It was empty now, she’d obviously moved, but I could feel her somewhere close. Turning, I scanned the crowd. In the thirty seconds since I’d seen her, everything had changed. Suddenly my heart was in massive overdrive, as if someone had flicked a switch and my entire body had come on, full heat. Lifting my Coke to my mouth, I drank steadily. I didn’t usually do that with alcohol; slow and thoughtful was my rule. But in the last few seconds, something that had been asleep and unnoticed deep inside me had come awake—something huge, heated and irrevocable. The Coke and its burning slide down my throat just seemed to match the mood.

  Setting the empty can on a nearby table, I edged away from Cam and his friends. No specific thoughts were in my mind, my body had simply morphed into an extreme pair of eyes, searching for the movie-theater girl. She was here and she was alone, I was sure of it—something about the way she’d been standing, leaning against the wall and watching, as if she would always be a watcher, never a dancer. Aloneness was her mystery cloak, like it was Ms. Fowler’s.

  Back to the auditorium wall, I stood scanning the crowd. I don’t know why I was looking there, I should have known better, because when I finally caught sight of her, the girl wasn’t on the dance floor but sitting with her legs dangling over the front of one of the large speakers that had been set up on the stage. Cautiously I edged closer, using the crowd for cover. I didn’t want to be seen by her, just look her over, observe like Ms. Fowler. If I watched her long enough, I figured I could pin down what had set off that mind-blowing spark between us.

  Tonight her hair was pulled back into a barrette, revealing the smooth line of her neck. Her mouth was in a pout, her eyes restless and shadowy. Casually I let my gaze slide downward, inch by slow inch. And it hit me then the way I’d known it would, even though I was standing in the darkest part of the auditorium, even though I was alone and no one was observing me—a power blush, a wave of Foxfire heat and a heart so far into overdrive that I was verging on a near-death experience.

  Something took hold of me, moved me out of the shadows by the wall and stood me directly in front of the speaker. Sound hit me full blast, I was riding a sheer throb of bass. As I stood there looking up at her, the girl glanced down and our eyes locked. For a second she just stared at me, her face in neutral. Then, swinging her legs to one side of the speaker, she slid to the stage and jumped down beside me, so close we were almost touching.

  “Want a smoke?” she shouted. I nodded and she turned, weaving her way through the crowd. Pushing open a side door, she headed down a hall, then through another door. As we came out into the student parking lot, a cloud of cigarette smoke hit us. Without stopping to greet anyone, the movie-theater girl slipped through the small group of smokers that surrounded the exit and turned a corner to the back of the school. Abruptly, we were alone. Ahead stretched a parking lot of empty cars; behind us, dull sound throbbed through the school wall.

  “Here,” said the girl, lighting a cigarette and passing
it to me. “Thanks,” I said. Taking a drag, I passed it back.

  “You been here before?” she asked, her face a low glow as the cigarette ember flared in the dark.

  “I know some kids who go here,” I said, trying to fake casual, my eyes flicking everywhere but her face.

  “You don’t know me,” she said.

  That got me so jumpy, I almost took off. I mean, what the fuck did I think I was doing here? Nervously I turned to look out over the parking lot, and my eyes landed on Cam’s Firebird.

  “I’ve seen you around,” I muttered, my eyes flicking away from that too.

  “Yeah, I know how you’ve seen me,” said the girl, and suddenly our eyes were locked, my heart pounding, just pounding. “You’re like me,” she added, then waited, letting the silence speak for her.

  “Maybe,” I said finally, “and maybe not.”

  “Then, why are you here?” she asked.

  “For a smoke,” I said, taking the cigarette from her hand and dragging on it. It was a shaky drag—she was watching me so close, I almost choked on it.

  “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” said the girl, taking the cigarette from my hand and dropping it to the pavement. Then she added, “By the way, my name’s Sheila.” Letting her eyes slide to my mouth, she leaned forward.

  A surge of heat hit me, so intense I almost yelped, and then our lips were touching, touching again. We leaned closer, not just her leaning into me—I was right in on her, my hands in her hair as hers slid up my back. Sweet fire shot through me, so vivid I was lost in it—whirling, spaced-out, gasping-crazy, hot.

  “Shit,” I hissed, jerking away. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  Ahead of me the parking lot blurred in and out of focus, the rum and Coke putting in some special effects. Inches to my right Sheila stood silently, not moving, just breathing, quick and quiet in the dark. Ducking my head, I took a few steps away from her, then broke into a run, heading for the safety of the smoking crowd and the school entrance that loomed just beyond them Obviously I didn’t spend much time Thanksgiving Sunday thinking about Cam. Or Joc. Or the math and history assignments I was supposed to have been working on. Instead I spent any time that I wasn’t chowing down turkey and cranberry sauce and talking to my grandparents, lying in bed doing you-know-what while I relived that kiss behind Confederation Collegiate. Over and over I remembered Sheila saying, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire” and leaning in, as unbelievable sensations flashed through me—I was an electric billboard plugged into overdrive, a supersonic strobe light, a maniac’s scream. Sunday night I went at it again for hours and probably would have Monday afternoon too, if Julie Crozier hadn’t called and asked me to go to the mall with her and Rachel.