The Year of the Beasts

by Cecil Castellucci

  Celina went first with Tony. Dylan went in with a girl they knew from school whom he’d grabbed into the line. Tessa hung back, and so Lulu hung back, and so Charlie hung back, and pretty soon the three of them were at the front of the line.

  “Next,” said the girl in the carnival costume of red pinstripes and black vest.

  Tessa stepped forward only to find the girl’s striped arm blocking her way.

  “Only two at a time,” the girl said, snapping her gum.

  And suddenly, Tessa was outside, looking at the closing flap, and her Charlie was heading into the curiosity sideshow tent with Lulu.

  “Next,” the girl said and opened the tent flap again. Tessa didn’t want to go into the freak tent anymore. She began to step aside to let the people behind her go, but then a hand appeared gently on her shoulder and guided her toward the total blackness. There was nothing to do but go in.

  “Freaky,” the voice belonging to the arm said.

  Tessa turned around and stood face-to-face with Jasper Kleine. She thought she could see that Jasper was smiling. Her eyes adjusted to the dimness in time to see her sister and Charlie disappear into the next section of the tent. She didn’t want to stop and see the thing in the jar sitting illuminated on the table that Jasper was steering her toward. She wanted to follow Charlie and Lulu into the next room and say something clever. But suddenly a fear choked her and that fear made her feet unwilling to step forward and pursue them.

  She didn’t want to look at Jasper.

  So she looked at the jar.

  Inside was a twisted creature that looked like a shaved rat with wings. It was pink and veiny. The wings had wet feathers that limply clung together, but they didn’t look natural. They looked pressed on.

  “You can tell they just stitched together two animals,” Jasper said. He was moving toward the next room. “Rat and bat. Come on.”

  Jasper held open the curtain for her. She stepped through. They moved from room to room as though in a dream. The curiosities were laughable. It was the darkness that was frightening. And the music; it was like a timpani or like wind pushed through drowning lungs. It was a ghostly soundtrack.

  Jasper kept talking, commenting on the various beasts on display. Tessa said nothing. She strained her ears through the silent moments in an attempt to hear what Charlie and Lulu were laughing about up ahead. But she never caught anything. She would have to hear all about it later.

  “Where are we going next?” Jasper asked when they reached the last room.

  He was so close to her. She could feel his breath on her face, and she could smell him. If she moved the tiniest bit, her lips would be on his.

  She felt strange. Strangled. Joyous. Angry. Tingly.

  “We’re not,” she said.

  She said it to hurt him.

  His eyes went from soft to wounded. Then Tessa felt bad, but didn’t say so. She just looked at him harder, wishing that he would get the hint and go away.

  “OK, I don’t like groups anyway,” he said, and he stepped out of the tent and went on his way, leaving her alone.

  She was sure that her disappointment had made her hair curl more. There was only one way to face Lulu and Charlie—with smooth hair. It was easier to look like she didn’t care if her hair was straighter. She didn’t want her wild corkscrew curls to betray her hurt.

  She tried to coax it down with a little spit, hoping to tame it before she emerged. She ran her hand through her hair. No good. It was still a mass of tangles.

  chapter

  two

  chapter

  three

  The first thing Tessa noticed when she emerged from the curiosity sideshow tent was Lulu and Charlie’s fingers curled around each other’s. Their eyes were shiny and even if they didn’t know it for sure yet themselves, it was clear to her that Charlie and Lulu were now boyfriend and girlfriend.

  A black hole emerged inside of Tessa, making everything good about the evening fall inward until it disappeared.

  But Lulu had a warm smile. She gave Tessa and Celina a look, and the girls excused themselves from the group of boys to go to the bathroom so that they could talk. They grabbed each other, and held hands and skipped on the way there.

  Tessa couldn’t help but squeeze Lulu a little too forcefully and laugh in an unnatural way that hurt even her own ears.

  Lulu laughed back. But it was so pure that it drowned out any unsavoriness among them.

  “Well?” Celina said, breathlessly.

  “Well…” Lulu said, turning red.

  “Well,” Tessa said, trying not to sound bitter; trying to hold her face in an expression that resembled happiness for her sister’s new status.

  “He kissed me. Right by the jackalope. He kissed me!” Lulu said. She touched her heart as she said it. Her face flushed. Her voice cracked.

  It was her first kiss. Lulu was a late bloomer compared with her sister. Tessa knew that much. Lulu was always much more interested in books. She had a romantic idea about what a first kiss, a first beau, a first anything should be. She was such a girl that way. Tessa had made out with her first boy back in sixth grade. It was nothing special, just a boy named Keith in the corner of a dark room. He kissed her with an open mouth, blowing his cheeks out like a puffer fish. She did not particularly enjoy it, but she had done it. She’d kissed other boys at make out parties, in closets, or when the bottle pointed at her. But she’d never kissed Charlie.

  Lulu sighed. It was a real sigh. The kind that makes everyone around feel giddy about life. Even Tessa’s mood brightened for a moment.

  How could she not love a sister who believed in that kind of magic? Deep down Tessa knew that it was a piece of magic that they shared. Tessa, too, felt that kisses could be more than a grope in the dark or too much wetness; and if she were honest, truly honest, she would wish for Lulu only kisses that curled toes. Only magical kisses with boys like Charlie—just as she was sure that Lulu would wish that for her.

  But magic like that can grow twisted and dark if it doesn’t come to the light. Tessa had so many kisses that meant nothing, it made her think that maybe magic didn’t exist. Meanwhile, Lulu had one kiss that bubbled all the light up to the surface.

  “Was it good?” Celina asked. “Did you like it?”

  Lulu nodded emphatically. Yes. Yes. Yes. It was good. Celina grabbed Lulu’s hand and turned her back on Tessa.

  “I made out with Tony,” Celina said. “But it was nothing. It was just something to do.”

  Celina was like that. She liked to make out with boys by the dozen and it meant nothing. She didn’t believe that the quality of kisses mattered, just the number of them. She was leaning over the sink, dangerously close to a puddle of water, unsmudging her blue eyeliner.

  Tessa felt that quality might be more meaningful than quantity, but quantity might get a girl a reputation. Tessa and Celina had long ago decided that it was unclear whether a reputation was a good or a bad thing to have. They thought that perhaps even a bad reputation might be a good thing to have.

  A reputation got you noticed.

  Charlie had a reputation for being a good boy.

  Jasper had a reputation for being a weirdo.

  And everyone knew who they were.

  For a long time no one noticed Tessa and Celina. And they had wanted that to change.

  Celina and Lulu each had a reputation now.

  Tessa felt the change in the air. Saw it in all of their bodies. Tessa watched as Celina and Lulu stepped closer to each other, as though kissing in the curiosity sideshow tent with a boy had somehow united them.

  “How about you, Tessa?” Celina asked. “Did you make out?”

  “No,” Tessa said. “I was alone.”

  “You didn’t go in with anyone?” Celina asked.

  “No.” Tessa examined the pattern on the sink counter.

  It was easier to lie, otherwise it was complicated.

  If she said that she had been in the tent with Jasper, there would be qu
estions. And she wasn’t sure that she could explain that Jasper had whispered witty things about each weird object they saw in the tent and that she had bitten the insides of her cheeks so he wouldn’t know that she had wanted to laugh. That she almost didn’t mind when he caught her by the elbow when she tripped on an extension cord. That being with him in that tent had a different feeling than what she felt when she hung out with her friends. If Tessa said those things out loud, they might not be understood.

  Besides, there was a bigger truth. She wasn’t in there with Charlie, and he was the only person she had wanted to be with. So in truth, no one else counted. Her mood, almost changed, reverted back to bittersweet.

  Tessa wondered what kind of sister she would be if she weren’t truly happy for Lulu. Would she be a mean sister, like those in fairy-tale books they both loved? When she spoke would only toads and bugs fly out of her mouth? Would she be condemned to be the true ugly one? Would her road always be dark and barren? Would her soul grow more and more twisted?

  Lulu sighed again and then reached into her purse for some lip gloss. She made a big show of applying it, as though the kissing had made it necessary for her to be extra glossy.

  Inside herself, Tessa reached for the light left behind by the sigh. But it slipped away into the growing, gnawing hole inside of her. But then a moment later, Lulu shifted, and the twosome became a threesome again. Tessa didn’t have to worry. They would never leave her out.

  “Oh,” Lulu said. “You should have come with us.”

  Lulu said it sincerely. As if she wouldn’t have minded trading in the kisses with Charlie for Tessa not having to be alone in the curiosity sideshow tent. She stuck her hand out and squeezed her sister’s hand sympathetically.

  “But then you wouldn’t have been alone with Charlie,” Tessa said. “And then you wouldn’t have made out. And then you wouldn’t have a summer boyfriend.”

  “Let’s not keep your boyfriend waiting!” Celina said.

  “Right,” Lulu said. And then blushed again. And then sighed. And then gazed dreamily at the door. Until they all ran out the door and headed back to the boys.

  Despite her resolve to be happy for her sister, Tessa couldn’t help but think that it was supposed to be her sharing Charlie’s Slurpee, her holding his hand, her wearing his varsity jacket when the night got chillier. Tessa watched Charlie and Lulu whispering to each other and stealing kisses while in line for all the rides.

  After all, hadn’t Charlie talked to her at school? Hadn’t he stolen glances at her during lunch? Didn’t he sometimes say nice things to her, like, “I like your sweater,” or “Nice answer in Ms. Durbin’s class,” or “Hey, do you want potato chips?” And didn’t those things mean something? Tessa could string a thousand tiny moments together and weave a story in which Charlie liked her.

  But she could not deny the way that Charlie leaned in toward Lulu. Shared his cotton candy with her. Held her purse for her. Pushed the long hair off of her face.

  Celina spent the night bouncing from Dylan to Tony, and they were all happy about it. Tessa watched as each of them tried to one-up the other in order to win Celina’s undivided attention. Celina didn’t want lose any morsel of it and she strung them along, convincing each that they would be hers exclusively.

  Lionel was too smart to get caught up in that game, so he had turned to Tessa. Lionel did all the nice things that a good boy would do, he bought her tickets to all the rides, he held her bag when she took her turn at playing the water pistol game, he won her a plush space monkey, but to no avail. Tessa ignored Lionel’s attempts at sweetness, and he eventually gave up and trailed along behind the group, occupying himself with something on his phone.

  And then just when she thought she couldn’t stand the night for one more moment, the chance to leave presented itself. Tessa grabbed on to it.

  It was when they were on the Tilt-A-Whirl. Or, as Celina called it, the “Tilt-A-Hurl.” Tessa had eaten a polish sausage with curly fries and a soda pop. She had a strong stomach, but the bubbles of the soda made her want to burp. She tried holding it in, but as the ride slung around, the bubbles in her chest grew larger. She knew that she could keep it down. But when she stepped off the ride, she let out a big belch that lifted the food up her esophagus.

  “Are you OK?” Celina asked. The burp had been loud and gurgly.

  She knew this was her chance.

  “No,” Tessa said. She forced another burp and this time did not hold back and threw up in a garbage can.

  “Oh, no!” Lulu said, leaving Charlie’s side, which is what Tessa had to admit she’d wanted the whole night. Lulu came to her and whispered soothing words and rubbed her back. Even Charlie went to get her a glass of water and paid attention to her. Tessa cried a little, and everyone thought that it was because of the throwing up and the not feeling well, but really it was because Lulu had gotten Charlie and Tessa was upset about it no matter how much she truly loved her sister. She was jealous. But no one needed to know that.

  The only thing everyone needed to know was that Tessa wanted to go home.

  “I’ll come with you,” Lulu said.

  “No, Lulu,” Charlie said. “Stay.”

  That wounded Tessa, and she flinched as though the words had scratched her insides.

  Lulu didn’t even hesitate.

  “No,” she said. “I have to take care of my sister.”

  They left together, Lulu with her arm around her sister, holding her up, Tessa feeling a little bit victorious. Tessa faked being ill all weekend and Lulu stayed with her, playing card games and drinking ginger ale and eating dry crackers with her in solidarity, even though she wasn’t sick herself. Even though everyone else was spending all their free time together at the carnival. Even though Charlie called or texted every hour and the carnival would be leaving soon.

  Tessa couldn’t understand because given the choice between boy-attention and no boy-attention she would have chosen boy-attention, especially if the boy in question was Charlie Evans and especially if it meant he could be her boyfriend. Tessa was quietly impressed with Lulu’s confidence in how she handled the attention. She wondered where she could have gotten it from. Is that what being pretty did to someone? Did it give you an impossible amount of patience? Was it another thing that Lulu inherited that Tessa hadn’t?

  She started to study Lulu’s laissez-faire attitude. Perhaps she could learn something from Lulu, instead of succumbing to the passions that always burst out of her. The ones that made her turn the lights low and listen to moody music and made her scream at her parents for being so clueless when in fact she had never even given them a clue to begin with. The passions that got her in trouble up front and hurt her more in the long run. The ones that made her hair curl up even tighter.

  Tessa was glad to have her sister all to herself. But it troubled her that Lulu was ignoring Charlie. Tessa’s heart went out to Charlie. What must he be thinking? Could his feelings be hurt? Each text sounded a little bit more desperate. It was Saturday night and Lulu chose to climb into bed with Tessa. They watched movies, whispered about their stupid parents, and made plans for summer. And for a moment Tessa couldn’t tell if they were thirteen and fifteen years old or seven and nine.

  “I’m going to put straightener in my hair,” Tessa said.

  “Me, too.”

  “I’m going to learn how to ride a horse.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I’m going invent a new kind of cookie.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You can’t just do everything that I do,” Tessa said.

  But it had always been like that, Lulu always copying her, always acting like a second shadow. Lulu always looking to Tessa to lead the way.

  Lulu lay her head on the pillow, her features flattened by the light of the flat-screen T.V. The cell phone buzzed, a new text from Charlie had arrived. Lulu showed it to Tessa. Tessa felt a stab but didn’t say anything. Lulu put the phone back down.

  “Aren’t you goin
g to write him back?” Tessa asked

  “Should I?” Lulu asked.

  Tessa shrugged. She didn’t know. She couldn’t lead the way this time. Being older had taught her nothing about boys except that they were infinitely mysterious. All she knew was that she would have written him back, or gone to the carnival, or made a firm date right away to be alone and kiss more. She wouldn’t have hung out with her sister all weekend. But she didn’t want to encourage Lulu toward Charlie.

  Celina came over to check on her friend and to try to change Lulu’s mind about going to the carnival Sunday before it closed. Celina didn’t want to go alone, and while there were other girls to hang out with, Tessa was her best friend. And Lulu was her best friend’s sister, so was a much better substitute than other girls she might have gone with. Besides, Lulu was Celina’s best chance at hanging out with Charlie and the boys. And Celina was interested in hanging out with boys.

  “It’s so boring without you, Tessa. Don’t you feel better?” Celina asked.

  “No.”

  “Well, can’t you lend me Lulu?”

  “No.”

  “But Lulu, aren’t you worried that Charlie will kiss another girl?” Celina asked.

  Tessa looked at Lulu. Lulu’s hands were twisting in the same way that she used to do when she heard a ghost story or stayed up late watching a scary movie.

  “Then I guess he doesn’t like me very much if he can’t wait until the next time he sees me to kiss me again,” Lulu said.

  “That is so mature,” Celina said. “You’re going to do OK in high school next year.”

  Then Lulu excused herself and went to her room. And that was that. When Tessa passed by the open door, she saw Lulu kneeling on the floor in front of her dollhouse. She was surrounded by paper towels. The sun was coming in through the window, making everything look golden. Lulu looked enormous, sitting there among the tiny chairs, tables, and beds. Tessa watched as Lulu cleaned off each item and placed it delicately back in the house. The furniture was now rearranged. And as Lulu placed each doll into its room, she whispered secrets into their tiny ears.