The Turning Book 1: What Curiosity Kills

by Helen Ellis

  She says to Ben, “You’ve helped enough. You’re released. Go back to the boys’ gym and dress out.”

  “Yes, Coach.” Ben shuffles toward the exit. He collides with Ling Ling, who gestures to his rope-burned legs and says something that we can’t hear but must be brutal. He hangs his head and skulks out.

  Coach shouts, “Ling Ling Lebowitz, if you can talk, you are not running fast enough! Nick, I want a word. The rest of you, start picking up balls!”

  I ask, “What about me?”

  Octavia gives me a look that says, Girl, you be buggin’.

  Coach gives me a look that says, You are an accident that’s already happened. She doesn’t mean this the way Ling Ling would if she’d said it. Coach is having mercy on me. I’ve embarrassed myself enough: the socks, the parachute, the outburst, the boy. I should do myself a favor, put my head down, pick up balls, and blend in.

  Coach says to Nick, “Don’t be such a hero next time. If you’re injured, it’s my responsibility. From what I know, coaches around here get fired for hurting feelings.”

  Nick catches sight of me. He looks through the coach like he looked through my parents’ blinds. His eyes don’t change like Octavia’s did when her expression told me I was bugging or like the coach’s did when she let me know I’d embarrassed myself enough. Nick’s eyes are steady, perfect ovals. I get lost in their darkness.

  Sneakers stop scuffling across the court. Ling Ling pauses in my peripheral vision. Everyone’s staring at Nick and me because we are staring at each other. For how long? Five seconds? Five minutes? I don’t know. I don’t care. Nick is trying to tell me something. I feel it physically, as if his hand is still clutching my wrist. I keep my sights on him until I read him loud and clear: if I am ever in danger, he will defy Coach’s orders, ignore Ling Ling’s barbs, and get by anyone in his way to save me.

  Ling Ling races toward us but is stalled by the coach. “What?” Ling Ling challenges her, panting for real. She stops a foot away from me, but her legs keep on pumping. “I’m doing my laps, Coach! I’m lapping in place!”

  Coach’s eyes flash from her to Nick and then rest on me. She asks, “Ling Ling Lebowitz, what business is this of yours?”

  “My boyfriend’s my business!”

  Nick doesn’t deny it.

  Coach says, “I don’t care if you two are Mr. and Mrs. Dr. Phil. This is my gym!”

  I don’t hear what either Coach or Ling Ling says after that. Or what Nick doesn’t say. The dress-out bell rings. I head toward the locker room. At the door, other girls crowd behind me. They want me to move faster, so I do. But it’s really something else that compels me forward. That something is so enticing, I forget about Nick and what we just shared.

  chapter seven

  There is a smell you wouldn’t expect coming from the locker room. I’m not going to describe the additional smells you would expect. If you’re not home-schooled, you can list the smells for yourself.

  Girls rush past me as I stand motionless, sniffing, trying to identify what the special smell is. We have fifteen minutes to change before our next class. Marjorie grabs a clean towel from the cubbies and tosses it to me. I toss the towel to Mags because I am not stripping off these knee socks to jump in the communal shower.

  Octavia has a free period after gym. She sits on a bench to wait for the rest of our class to clear out so she can shower in private. No one at Purser-Lilley, including me, has ever seen her bare torso. Freshman year, Ling Ling got detention for saying that my sister had Thug Life tattooed across her stomach. Octavia didn’t dignify the accusation with a response or raise her camisole to prove it wrong, but I could tell she was hurt. So, she’s super self-conscious about her body—so what? That’s not the worst thing in the world. I join her in front of our lockers.

  I ask, “Don’t you smell that?”

  “Smell what? Your pheromones? What was up with you and Nick?”

  I ignore her. I don’t want to talk about him. Even if I did, I couldn’t. The smell in here is too distracting. “It smells herbal, like one of Mom’s poisons.”

  Octavia stares at me with either impatience or worry. “I don’t smell anything.”

  I wave my cupped hand under my nose.

  Octavia pinches hers. She says, “Eau de B.O.”

  “We’re sitting on top of it.”

  “It’s your socks.”

  “It’s not my socks.” I cross my ankle over my knee, bend forward, and take a whiff to make sure. My sweaty socks don’t smell good, but they’re not what I’m after. I sit up. “It’s coming from one of the lockers.”

  Steam filters through our small alleyway of narrow metal doors. Soon, the alley will be jam-packed with girls in their underwear. Deodorant, lotion, and perfume will be applied and overpower the mystery scent I am compelled to root out. I lean forward and press my nose to the nearest locker grate.

  “That’s my locker, Nancy Drew.”

  I scoot over and press my nose to another locker. I smell cigarettes. Which one of my classmates sneaks smokes on the side? I scoot again and smell Listerine. Who has gingivitis? I hear one of the squeaky shower knobs turn off. I scoot farther and smell “deodorized” tampons and pads. Girls’ voices grow clearer as less and less water runs to drown them out. I scoot yet again and smell more sanitary stuff. The other girls will be back any second. I’m running out of options. As I press my nose to the grate of the last locker, I nearly tumble off the end of the bench.

  I’ve found it.

  Whatever the odor is, it is rich, earthy, and intoxicating. I want to spread it out on the floor like an emptied suitcase full of money and roll around in it so I can bask in it all day long. Purser-Lilley uses the honor code, which means no locks on our lockers. When I pull up the handle and stick my hands inside to grope for the source, Octavia gasps. So does everyone else who has come back in time to see me try to steal from Ling Ling.

  Don’t worry—she’s not standing right behind me. Forty-some witnesses are dramatic enough. Ling Ling’s still on the defunct basketball court with the coach and what’s-his-name.

  Octavia is on her feet and has her hand on my elbow. The rest of the girls huddle together as if they’re watching a horror show. I guess what I’m doing is pretty horrific. Except for the elbow my sister holds, I’ve fit every part of my body inside Ling Ling’s locker.

  With a jerk, I wriggle out of Octavia’s grasp. The locker is confining but tall. I turn in circles, knocking Ling Ling’s clothes off hooks. Between my feet is her gigantic purse, printed with the current must-have designer’s initials. The bag is blood-red dyed lambskin and retails for five grand. Ling Ling didn’t get her sweet sixteen birthday party, but she got her non-returnable, wait list–worthy present. If she’d asked for a puppy, she could fit a litter inside.

  I draw my hands into the namaste yoga salutation, then dive, twisting myself into a folded position: fingers at my toes, forehead to my knees. Thanks to Pilates, I am as limber as a contortionist in Cirque du Soleil.

  I unzip Ling Ling’s bag.

  The smell explodes! It smells so good. As long as I keep inhaling it, I don’t care what happens to me. I rifle and find a cosmetic bag, a pencil bag, a battered paperback, hair clips, straw wrappers, plastic spoons, and wadded receipts from Pinkberry, Jamba Juice, and Tasti D-Lite. I pull out the cosmetic bag, unzip it, and sniff. I do the same with the pencil bag. There’s nothing in either that you wouldn’t expect. I flick both small bags out of the locker, forgetting that my sister is blocking the door.

  Octavia says: “Have you lost your damn mind?” But she is finished trying to stop me. She’s as curious as I am to see what I dig out. I locate a zipper along the inside of the purse. I jerk it and hear the tiny brass teeth separate. The teeth scratch my knuckles when I shove my hand into the pouch. There’s one object in there. I wrap my hand around it and yank it free.

 
Until this point, no one has called for the coach because: a) they want to see crazy go crazier; or b) they want to see Ling Ling go crazy when she finds out what I’ve done. No one likes Ling Ling enough to stop me from going through her things. No one calls for the coach yet because they want to see what Ling Ling is hiding. If Coach comes, she’ll confiscate whatever it is. On the other hand, if the coach comes, she’ll bring Ling Ling in tow. Ling Ling will have a legitimate reason to chew me out and rip me a new one. She will kick one hundred percent of my ass. Fight! Fight! Every girl wants to scream it once in her life. To guarantee they get their chance, the girls finally shout for the coach.

  Coach appears in an instant. She’s not allowed to teach wrestling, but she hasn’t forgotten her Vulcan nerve pinch. She clamps her thumb and all four opposing fingers to the nape of my neck. I go limp. She ducks me out of the locker, grabs the pulse point at the end of my forearm, and applies pressure. It doesn’t hurt, but my fingers bloom.

  Ling Ling makes a grab for the small, gold, round tin that sits in the palm of my hand. The coach gets to it first. Whatever I’ve found must be worse than red lipstick with a dirty name.

  The coach says, “Mary Richards, what do you have to say for yourself?”

  I shriek, “Smell it! Don’t you smell it?”

  The coach brings the tin to her nose. “Strawberries.”

  “It’s not strawberries,” I say.

  Ling Ling says, “It is! It’s lip balm. Everybody has it!”

  I recognize the red vine printed across the lid. It’s the same brand my sister uses. The twins use it too. I don’t because the smell is too artificial. It doesn’t smell like strawberries. That pink stuff smells pink. But whatever is in Ling Ling’s tin doesn’t smell like fruit or color to me. How can the coach be fooled? She shakes her head at me but twists open the lid. Judging by how wide her eyes get, I was right about what’s not inside. Even if you don’t smoke it, you should be able to identify that small, dull, brownish-green clump.

  “Ling Ling Lebowitz, marijuana is grounds for expulsion.”

  Girls clutch their towels above their chests and push forward to see.

  Coach blows her whistle, but Ling Ling screams over the shrillness, “It’s not mine! I’m holding it for Nick!”

  This shuts everyone up.

  Footsteps fill the silence, running fast away from the locker-room door, toward the main gym exit across the basketball court. Rubber soles—Nick’s. He is repeatedly tripped by shoelaces, untied.

  Dang it if I don’t run after him.

  Behind me, I hear Octavia: “What the—?”

  I never hear the curse she inserts. I’ve squeezed through Coach and Ling Ling, shoved through the girls, sprung out of the locker room, and I am now close to halfway across the gym. I’m hurdling with nothing to hurdle. I feel like I could leap from the foul line all the way to the exit. Energy surges through me. My legs won’t be stopped.

  Coach shouts, “Slow down!”

  I slip on the floor wax and slide into a pyramid of yoga blocks. Showered with dull foam edges, I don’t feel any pain.

  “Mary Richards, what has gotten into you?”

  Am I high? Is this what high feels like? Can you get high without smoking? I thought pot was supposed to relax you. I am not relaxed! I get up. I have to catch Nick and make him answer my questions. Why did he look at me that way? Why is he dating Ling Ling? Was she really holding his weed for him? Since when does Nick smoke? Since when does Ling Ling? What’s so special about her? What’s so special about me? Barreling forward, I am fueled by curiosity.

  When I reach Nick, he’s at the principal’s office door, confessing.

  “Ling Ling made me trade it for one of her mom’s fake doctor’s notes.”

  “Her what? For what?” The principal frets. His chin—or rather, chins—blotch. Principal Sheldon is a thin man, but his neck is that of a man who was once fat.

  Coach arrives with Ling Ling and explains the situation. I’m on the outer rim of the conversation—there but not there. Still, Principal Sheldon seems to understand that I broke into Ling Ling’s locker and that this offense is on par with the hidden marijuana. The coach escorts herself back to the gym, leaving Principal Sheldon to call our in-case-of-emergency numbers. Turns out Dr. Lebowitz is in surgery. Mom’s inaccessible in her writing studio, and Dad can’t get away from the news desk. My parents will be here at the end of the day for Octavia’s debate, so it’s decided that the principal will talk with them then. In the meantime, in lieu of Nick’s parents, who are out of the country on their annual winter getaway, his Greek grandparents totter in.

  Nick’s yiayia is draped in an oversized mink that smells like mothballs. Her hands are tucked inside an ancient muff. She removes nothing as she takes the seat her husband pulls out for her. Nick’s papou opts to stand along with the rest of us. The principal shoos Ling Ling and me out of his office, but Yiayia objects.

  She says, “These girls are why our Nick is in such trouble. They should stay and see what fate befalls him.”

  The principal says, “Mrs. Martin, the girls will be counseled separately.”

  “Mrs. Martin is my daughter-in-law. When she married my son, she changed his name and my grandson’s name for her reasons. Me, I am Mrs. Poulikakos.”

  “Mrs.…” Principal Sheldon won’t risk mispronunciation, so he doesn’t say it. He explains, “It is school procedure that offenders are met with individually. I will meet with the parents of Miss Lebowitz and Miss Richards—”

  “Oh, these names you can say, but mine is such a hardship!”

  Insulted, she extends her hand for her husband to hoist her out of her seat. I swear, her fur coat bristles. My leg and foot suddenly itch. I lean forward to scratch, but my head spins like I’m having a combination sugar and caffeine crash. I sit back on the windowsill. My gym shorts ride up. Yiayia cuts her eyes at me. I’ve never been looked at with such disdain. Her mink has her stuck in the chair. Papou scoops her under the armpits. He pulls. She shrieks as if every brittle bone will dislocate and break.

  “Fine, fine!” the principal says. “Everyone stay where they are. Nick, out with it.”

  Nick says, “I have asthma.”

  Ling Ling glares at him. Does she hate to hear the flaw uttered out loud? I am surprised I never knew about it. Nick’s never had an asthma attack at school. The condition makes him a little less normal. He’s not too skinny, not too fat, not too tall, not too short. He’s got nice legs and deep, dark eyes. But, lo and behold, there’s something about himself that he keeps to himself. What other secrets of Nick’s does Ling Ling share? For one, that she’s his girlfriend. And why was that a secret? Ling Ling’s mean, but since when has meanness been a dating deterrent?

  Papou explains, “The asthma affects our Nick only at night. But it keeps him from sleeping. You want him to do cartwheels, rotate the handstands, in a condition like his? Nico mou is exhausted. He didn’t want to confess to his true life affliction or be bullied by your drill sergeant of a coach, so he white-lied—said he had a cold or cholera or whatever the girl wrote on her mother’s pad. He took care of himself the best way he knew how. He was right to take the excuse from the girl.”

  The girl. Ling Ling shifts her glare to Papou. Well, what did she expect him to call her, his future granddaughter-in-law? Or is her relationship with Nick a secret from his family too?

  The principal says, “Excuse or no excuse, your grandson brought an illegal substance onto school grounds. Nick, where did you get it?”

  “From us,” says Papou.

  Principal Sheldon’s chins quiver. “From you?”

  Papou nods. “Please—his mother does not know. We keep it in the spice rack, in the oregano jar.”

  Yiayia states flatly: “His mother does not cook.”

  Turns out Nick’s grandparents are potheads who take pride in growi
ng their own in the lowlands of Mount Parnitha. Every Christmas, they come to New York for two months and smuggle a big plastic bag of it through customs. They use airport security profiling to their advantage. Papou plays the part of the kindly, loving, but exasperated husband while his wife shrieks in Greek as customs inspectors plow through her meticulously ironed and folded clothes. Customs inspectors never have the patience or stamina to make it through what the Poulikakoses bring with them. September 11 changed nothing for them in regards to how they travel. Instead of suitcases, they pack ten to twelve mini-boxes from the local agora. The boxes are taped and tied together with butcher’s string and bungee cords. Finding the pot is like finding the million dollars on Deal or No Deal: an all-but-guaranteed impossibility.

  “But what about drug-sniffing police dogs?” Principal Sheldon asks, mostly out of bafflement. His anger has faded.

  Yiayia laughs at him. She clutches the handle of her purse like a roller-coaster safety bar as she rocks onto the back legs of her chair.

  Papou says, “Dogs are for Colombians, Jamaicans. JFK is not so concerned with our little oregano.”

  Principal Sheldon says, “We are not talking about a little oregano. We are talking about breaking the law. Risking arrest. The rest of your lives in prison. Not to mention setting a bad example for Nick.”

  “For us, to help our only grandson is a privilege.” Papou chokes up, waves off a box of tissues. “It is right. We have no choice. To see him suffer is not for us. What we bring to him is natural. From the earth.”

  “Like a cucumber!” exclaims Yiayia.

  “Nai, like a cucumber,” says Papou. “A cucumber takes the bags from under your eyes. It hydrates you when you have no water to drink. Sir, what we bring Nick helps him to sleep. Medicinal is how I think that you call it.”

  “How can you encourage a young man with asthma to smoke?”

  “No smoke,” says Yiayia. “Brownies! I hide the good stuff like pureed spinach!”