The Benefits of Being an Octopus

by Ann Braden

  Once the pot is on the stove, she pulls out the stuff to make Hector’s formula. She still doesn’t look at me.

  I pick up Hector out of his seat and plop down on the couch with him like all I want to do is hold him and watch TV with Frank. No big deal, right? What did I expect her to do when I confronted her? Just instantly go back to the determined, fearless mama bear she was when I was eight?

  Maybe she was never that different from how she is now. Maybe I was just too young to know better.

  Frank is watching The Lost Secrets of the War of 1812, but even though the volume is up, I can still hear Aurora helping my mom in the kitchen like they’re a totally normal family.

  “Are we going to have ’paghetti sauce, too?”

  “Can I ’tir it?”

  “Oh yum! Are those meatballs?”

  “What’s that out the window?”

  I peek over and see Aurora hopping up and down at my mom’s feet. Bryce is slouching by the refrigerator, playing with the can opener.

  My mom peers out the window over the sink. “Oh, you’re right, Aurora. A bird just flew by. One of those little chickadee birds.”

  “Chick-a-DEEDEEDEEDEEEDEE!” Aurora screams, flapping her arms like wings.

  “My little chickadee,” my mom laughs, patting Aurora on the head.

  Of all times for Frank to turn up the TV to drown them out, couldn’t this be it?

  I hear the door and then Lenny’s voice: “It sure is good to smell dinner cooking when you get home!” Lenny walks in, his perfectly shaved cheeks practically shining.

  “How was your day?” my mom asks him. She has a smile on like Lenny had a normal day, and not a first day of being partially unemployed.

  Lenny stretches. “Pretty good. Filled out some applications. No bites yet, but I’ll keep trying.”

  “I just know there’s going to be someone who can’t wait to hire you.” My mom leans up against the sink and peers out the window. “Oh, the chickadee is back! It’s got its feathers all puffed out like a big puffy coat. It’s so cute!”

  “No one cares about some bird, so settle down,” Lenny says. “And the pasta is boiling over.”

  “Oh!” my mom exclaims, reaching to switch off the burner and uncover the pot as the water comes streaming down the sides.

  Lenny shakes his head and tosses her the roll of paper towels. “Make sure you get all that junk out from under the burner. I’m going to go take a shower.”

  My mom might be scurrying around in a paper-towel tizzy, trying to clean up all the boiling hot water, but Bryce is like a statue as he watches Lenny head into the bathroom. Even after Lenny closes the door behind him, Bryce still doesn’t move.

  I put Hector on my hip and quietly approach Bryce. I put my free arm around him. “Come on,” I whisper. “Let’s see if we can get Hector to giggle.”

  But Bryce just shakes his head, slips out from under my arm, and goes back to fiddling with the can opener.

  “Zoey, look!” Aurora calls. “I’m ’tirring the ’paghetti!”

  I take a deep breath. Bryce is hunched over the can opener, spinning it and spinning it and spinning it.

  “Zoey,” Aurora calls again. “You have to come see!”

  I nod. “I’m coming.”

  Twenty minutes later, the stove has been perfectly cleaned and my mom is pouring milk into cups for the kids. I’ve put Hector back in his seat and am separating the meatballs from the sauce on Aurora’s plate because she doesn’t like them touching—when Lenny reemerges from the bathroom. He’s stroking his cheek like he might have just shaved for the second time today. Like a perfectly shaven cheek is how you get to some perfect heaven. And like he’s on his way there, happily dragging my mom behind him by her hair.

  She chose him over me. Him and his perfectly shaved cheek.

  I want to tackle him. I want to knock him down.

  I straighten up and face him. “I joined the debate club at school.”

  The words come out of my mouth before I can stop them. And, of course, I don’t even know if I’m in the club anymore since I just walked out, but if there was a debate club where you got to debate Lenny, I’d be all over it.

  He smirks and shakes his head. “Right.”

  “I did,” I say.

  He’s about to pull the fridge open, but he stops and looks at me like I’m some little girl hiding an ice cream cone behind my back. “You really expect me to believe that?”

  I’m not going to let him throw me off. “The teacher in charge of the club is even giving me a ride home so I can pick up Bryce and Aurora on time.”

  “Yeah, I know that’s what you told your mom, but I’m not as gullible as she is.” He raises his eyebrows at me like we’re sharing some special secret. “I know you and your little friends just want more time to get into stuff you shouldn’t be getting into.”

  “How can you—”

  “You can argue all you want, little lady,” he says, opening the fridge and grabbing his can of soda, “but it’s only going to prove you’re trying to make trouble.”

  I open my mouth but no words come out. I catch my mom watching. Her face looks gray.

  Aurora tugs at my shirt. “Is my ’paghetti ready? I’m hungry.”

  I nod and slide her plate off the counter, so she can bring it with her to the couch.

  It’s twenty minutes later when we’re watching the local news that I realize what should have come out of my mouth. “You know that you’re just trying to discredit your opponent. I learned that at debate club.”

  Except that it didn’t.

  There are so many reasons why I don’t belong in debate club.

  Later that evening, after getting Hector to sleep, my mom and Lenny have gone out to the pool hall to see some of Lenny’s friends. Bryce and Aurora are zoned out in front of the TV.

  “Alright, come on guys,” I call. “Time to get ready for bed.”

  Neither of them say anything in response or even move. Frank’s currently watching one of those political analysis shows, so there’s no way they’re really paying attention to it. I put down the dish I’ve been washing and walk behind the couch to lean over right between their heads. “Bryce and Aurora, it’s time to get up and get ready for bed.”

  Bryce glances at me and then looks back at the TV. “No one cares about listening to you, so settle down.”

  I freeze. Maybe it’s Bryce sitting there, but it’s Lenny’s words coming out of his mouth.

  I’m sitting next to him in an instant. “Don’t you dare start saying what Lenny says,” I whisper.

  He glares at me. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Because Lenny’s not being nice when he says things like that,” I hiss. “Don’t be like that.”

  Bryce crosses his arms and his voice comes out loud enough to shake the whole trailer. “I will be if I want to be!”

  “’Top yelling,” Aurora says. “You too loud.”

  “I’m not yelling,” he screams.

  Aurora stamps her foot. “Yes you are!”

  “BOTH OF YOU NEED TO SHUT UP!” erupts Mount Frank from his recliner.

  Bryce and Aurora immediately burst into tears and make a break for the bedroom, wailing.

  When I come through the door after them, Bryce has turned to Aurora. “You don’t know anything,” he snaps at her through his tears. “You know less than nothing. You’re just a stupid bug that keeps annoying everyone around you. And no one cares about you.”

  “Bryce Albro!” I cry. “What’s the matter with you?” They fight all the time, but it’s about who gets to play with what toy or who accidentally pushed whom. It’s never flat-out mean.

  Aurora’s tears keep flowing, but it’s a silent kind of crying now. She’s almost trembling as she stares at her older brother.

  I kneel down to be face-to-face with her. “It’s not true what he said.” I wipe a tear from her cheek. “You need to know it’s not true.”

  She lets me pick her up and burrows h
er head into my shoulder. “Bryce,” I say, “never speak to someone that way ever again—especially someone that you love. You are not a mean person, and I’m not going to stand by and let you become one.”

  Except what can I actually do? When you’re living in a pond of algae, you turn green. It doesn’t matter how often someone tells you to stop.

  CHAPTER 20

  When I’ve finally gotten Bryce and Aurora into bed—but not yet to sleep—I hear Frank’s gruff voice from the living room over the noise of the TV. “Someone’s here for you!”

  He never calls me by name (I’m not actually sure that he knows my name), but who else could he be talking to?

  I poke my head out of the bedroom.

  “What’s going on?” I hear Bryce call from bed.

  “You were gonna tell us a ’tory!” Aurora says.

  I don’t see anyone at first, just Frank flopping back into his recliner with a grumble. And then, peeking around the corner with the washing machine, I see part of a face and a bit of pink hair.

  Fuchsia?

  “I’ll tell you a story in just a bit,” I call back over my shoulder. “I promise.” I quickly close the door to the bedroom behind me, cross the main room, and come around the corner to the entrance way. “What are you doing here?”

  She shakes her head. She’s wearing her jacket, which might be pink but was clearly designed for winter in Florida, and she looks completely frozen.

  “Here.” I grab my jacket from the pile of coats. “Put this on. Warm yourself up.”

  She slides down until she’s sitting on the floor with her back to the washing machine and my jacket over her like a blanket. Her teeth are chattering.

  I sit down across from her in the entryway, scooting Bryce’s snow boots out of the way.

  Fuchsia takes her hands out of her pockets and reveals an inhaler clutched in her fist. She takes two shots of it and then leans back against the washing machine. “I just feel like I’m going to explode or something.”

  “What? Because of the inhaler? Isn’t it supposed to help?”

  “The doctor said I should use it whenever I feel like my chest is tightening up. But that’s like all the time right now. And the inhaler isn’t making it go away.”

  “You should go to the hospital then.” I tug at her wrist. “Why are you here?”

  Fuchsia closes her eyes and bows her head. “Because nothing is going to get better unless I tell someone,” she whispers.

  What is she talking about?

  “I couldn’t tell you at school.” Her voice is so quiet I can barely hear her. “You never know when a teacher is going to overhear you, and I’ve learned my lesson about that.”

  Why does she have to be so dramatic?

  I’m about to stand up and tell her that I’m done. That I’m done with her and all of her games. Just done.

  But then she starts talking. “I threatened Crystal that I would call DCF if she made me move in with Michael. And then, I guess, Crystal told Michael because the next day he showed up to pick me up from school instead of my mom. And as soon as I got into his car he told me that if I ever pull something like that again, then I wouldn’t live to … ” Her voice cracks.

  “Oh my gosh.” My hand flies to my mouth. “Did he … Was he the one in the parking lot who … ”

  She squeezes her eyes shut. “I thought he was going to kill me. He was pointing the gun right at me before he shifted to the side and shot through the window of the car instead.

  That sound of glass shattering. I can hear it so perfectly.

  “He fired twice more just for fun. And then, like nothing had happened, he drove us out of the parking lot. Like nothing had happened!”

  It was the day after that when Fuchsia kept going on and on about her asthma and about how she couldn’t breathe—and I was getting annoyed with her!

  “I’m so sorry.” I reach out and awkwardly pull her into a hug.

  When Fuchsia pulls away she shakes her head. “Who does that? I mean, really!”

  All I can see is Lenny, who grew up with Frank for a dad and just spent four years carrying around bags of smelly old-people diapers for a living.

  Fuchsia doesn’t wait for an answer, though. She produces a makeup mirror from her pocket and checks her eyeliner.

  “Have you told the police anything?” I ask.

  “No,” she says. “What good would that do?”

  “Well, they can arrest him, can’t they?”

  “Yeah, and then one of his buddies will post bail for him, and I’ll be dead before the trial even starts.” She snaps the makeup mirror shut. “I feel better now that I told you, though. Thanks.” She stands up.

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  “Back to the apartment. We’ve got one more day there and then my mom’s borrowing someone’s truck so we can move our stuff to Michael’s lovely place.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell your mom? You can still call DCF. You do have a choice.”

  She stares at the floor. “I’ve learned my lesson about fighting back.”

  Her teeth are still chattering from the cold. I look away and swallow the lump in my throat back down. “Are you walking?”

  “I walked all the way here, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, well, I walked here from downtown earlier today. That doesn’t mean I want to do it a second time.”

  “It’s fine.”

  I look out the window. The driveway is empty, which means Lenny and my mom drove rather than hitching a ride from someone else.

  Certain things are okay to spend gas on.

  Even if the car were there, what would I do? Convince Frank to get out of his recliner? Force Fuchsia to get in the car with him? Try to reach the pedals myself and get pulled over immediately?

  “Are you sure?” I say.

  Fuchsia sticks one hand in the pocket of her pink Florida jacket and grabs hold of the doorknob with the other. “Time by myself will be good.” She pauses and looks at me. “I really feel better, though. Thanks.”

  I pick my jacket up off the floor. “At least put this on. Your jacket couldn’t keep anyone warm.”

  “Then what are you going to wear?”

  “I’m not walking across town in the wind right now, so it doesn’t matter.”

  Fuchsia purses her lips, but then she takes my jacket. “Thanks. I’ll give it back to you tomorrow.”

  I nod. “I know.”

  And then I watch her walk out into the darkness, all alone, with the wind blowing hard.

  One jacket isn’t enough.

  When I go back into the bedroom, Bryce and Aurora are still awake.

  “Time for our ’tory!” Aurora cries, flinging Petunia the Sea Turtle clear across the room.

  “Make it about two kids having to stop an evil mastermind this time,” Bryce says, climbing onto the bed. “With lasers and car racing.”

  I crawl into their bed. It isn’t simple like that. One evil mastermind that you can stop to make everything okay. Instead it’s like a horrible disease that’s found its way into every corner, one that’s super contagious.

  Aurora gets nose-to-nose with me. “’Tart the ’tory!”

  I close my eyes. I can’t.

  “And it should have sleds with blaster rockets and ants that have magical powers,” Bryce says.

  “Zoey,” yells Aurora. “You can’t go to seep! You pomised a ’tory!”

  But I can’t. If I open my eyes I’ll see Bryce and think of Lenny and now flippin’ Michael, too. My friend came to me to tell me that someone shot at her, and all I could do was give her a jacket.

  This disease is everywhere, and it’s like the only medical equipment I have to fight back with is a Q-tip.

  “That’s not fair,” Bryce says. “You promised us. You can’t go to sleep. It’s not fair!”

  Nothing’s fair. Getting shot at means you’re too scared to tell the police. Getting bullied by your boyfriend means you slap your daughter when she tries to stand u
p for you.

  “Come on!” Bryce jostles me.

  It’s good for them to learn now that nothing’s fair. Well, they’ve already learned that plenty of other places, but I might as well show them that it’s true everywhere.

  Aurora starts crying and flings herself on top of me. “Wake up!”

  Bryce is down at the foot of the bed whacking at my ankles with his foam lightsaber. “Not fair! Not fair! Not fair!”

  But I keep my eyes closed.

  Eventually, they tire out and fall asleep. When they do, I slither out of their bed and head to the living room to watch angry news guys with Frank.

  Because what’s the point? Octopuses have three hearts, and all of mine have broken.

  CHAPTER 21

  In the morning on my way out the door, I see Silas disappearing around the corner, walking the same death march as yesterday.

  “Wait,” I yell. “Silas!”

  Before I can think twice about it I’m charging down the road after him. I’m just wearing a thin hoodie since I don’t have my jacket, and the frigid air grabs tight to me as I run. I get why Fuchsia didn’t speak up at school about what happened, but still … “Silas!” I call again as soon as I turn the corner. I can’t tell if he can’t hear me or if he’s ignoring me, but he doesn’t turn around.

  I keep running and zero in on that camo trucker hat. If he doesn’t turn around, if he refuses to talk to me, I’ll just barrel right into him.

  I’m closing in. “Silas!”

  He turns, but his face is that expressionless wall.

  I stop right in front of him, and before I can even catch my breath I blurt out, “You didn’t have anything to do with that shooting in the parking lot.”

  His face doesn’t shift.

  I let out a long breath. “Right, well,” I mutter. “You probably already knew that, but I just wanted you to know that I know, too.”

  Silas squeezes his eyes shut. I watch him. Did he even hear me? Is he too closed off to care? Then, after a long moment, I see something.

  A tear escaping from one of his squeezed shut eyes.

  I look away. But then I look back because I don’t want him to think that I think it’s bad for him to cry.

  I take another step toward him and bite my lip. “Kids suck,” I whisper. “I don’t blame you for going all mute mode on everyone.”