by N. Griffin
Bett sighed, but inside she was terrified. If she did what she was good at, so many Pluses would build up that the aftermath would be hell.
* * *
After the morning bus ride, Ranger and his little group of friends ran into the school building, all of them talking together in fierce whispers. As they moved inside and muttered in their intense way to one another, one of them held his left hand high in the air, only to have it slapped down by Ranger, who looked around as if to see if anyone noticed. Bett had no idea what he was up to, but it was something. Cakes.
* * *
Paul was at Bett’s table in English class, along with Hester and Hester’s best friend, Lily, and a couple of others. Doug, one of Mutt’s meat-minions, was at the table behind them. “Let me explain the first part of our semester today. We’ll start with our first author study,” Ms. Peters, the teacher, said. They had had Ms. Peters last year in tenth grade, too. “Virginia Woolf. She’s one of my favorites.”
It all sounded very dull. Bett zoned out until Ms. Peters ended her drone about Virginia Woolf’s life and books and overbearing father and having rooms of one’s own. “She was very depressive,” Ms. Peters told them, going around the tables, passing out books. “In the end, it was too much for her, and she filled her pockets with stones and walked into the water and drowned.”
“Damn,” said Paul. He was tall and thin and dressed in a wild way, in a lavender checked suit and bow tie. Bett supposed he was glad he was at their table and not with the homophobic Doug. But Doug was sitting too close for comfort anyway. “What a way to do it.”
“God,” said someone else from the back of the room. “Why would you?”
Hester shuddered. “It must have taken forever. She must have breathed in water for, like, ten minutes before she died.”
But Ms. Peters was going on now about language and alliteration. Bett looked at her knees and wiggled her hematite toes a little in her sneakers.
“Everybody read the first few pages of the book,” Ms. Peters said. “See what you think about the language. Can you find any alliterative moments?”
This was why English class bit. Teachers sucked the life out of a story before you could even get into it with all the analyzing. Why couldn’t the kids just read something and then talk about what they thought of it?
“We have a psycho in our school, and all she wants to talk about is alliteration?” Doug said to the kids at the table behind her.
“Shut up, Doug,” said Lily, turning around. “I’m, like, trying not to think about all that.”
“Don’t worry, Lily,” Doug continued, throwing a crumpled-up piece of paper at her. “We got you. We’ll smash the person behind this.”
“Not if they kill us first,” said Hester. “Jesus.”
Ms. Peters went on rustling papers at her desk as if she’d heard nothing. Bett hated her.
* * *
“Did you hear?” Dan caught up with her at her lunch table again.
“I’m not deaf,” said Bett.
Dan started. “What are you talking about? And besides, aren’t you?”
“What the hell?” said Bett as they plopped down at the table. “My hearing is fine. Mostly. Sometimes my left ear goes out. But yes, I heard what Doug and Lily were talking about in English class, and it’s nothing we aren’t all thinking anyway.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Dan. “Why are you such a grump?”
Bett stared at her lunch, stomach churning from all her talking. Then: “Doug and Lily? Talking about the psycho? Why do we all keep coming back here if someone’s about to go off at any minute?”
Dan looked at her. “I know,” he said. “You’re right. But what I meant was, did you hear about the boys’ locker room?”
“No,” said Bett. “What are you talking about?”
“What I’m talking about is that there was another one of those devil-breathing-fire pictures. Hung up over the lockers. We all saw it in gym second period.”
“What?” Bett asked. “You’re freaking me out even more!”
“We’re all freaked out,” said Dan, who was apparently not freaked out enough to stop chomping down his grilled cheese.
“Who the hell is doing this? Who would?”
“Someone who wants attention?” said Dan.
Bett shook her head. “No,” she said. “Because it’s anonymous. It must just be someone who wants to, like, have an effect on people. In a shitty way.”
“Like that ass who called in the bomb threat last year.”
“Yeah,” said Bett. “My mom investigated that one and she said that was the psychology. Didn’t help, though. She never caught whoever did it.” Whatever the reason for all her speaking now, Bett was grateful that even if it wasn’t Normal Girl talk, she was at least able to talk cop talk to Dan.
“I don’t know if I’d want to catch who’s doing these stupid pictures,” said Dan. “The asshole would probably pin me to the ground and draw that devil on my face.”
“Don’t even,” said Bett, glad that the main part of her lunch was eaten so she could start in on her cookies.
“A slasher-burner devil-drawer,” said Dan. “What a weird combo.”
* * *
Bett let Dan get ahead of her on the way out of the lunchroom. But both of them stopped when they saw Anna making repairs to some of the paper feathers she had made. At least the principal hadn’t made her take the wings down in the end. Anna’s work really was lovely. Why can’t I be more like her? Bett thought. Why couldn’t she be normal like Anna and speak reliably whenever she wanted to, and not just like some kind of cop in training? And Bett had to admit, as Twinkler as Anna was, she had balls.
21
Tuesday, Fourth Day of Eleventh Grade, Cross-Country Practice, Apparently
AFTER SCHOOL, EDDIE TOOK THE same turn as he had the day before and led them into the same open field.
“Are we, like, trespassing?” asked Dan. “Whose field is this?”
Eddie waved Dan’s worry away. “I know a guy,” he said cryptically. “All right. We start with stretches. Cross-legged toe touches! Now!”
Everybody obligingly crossed their legs and bent over, except Bett, who had no intention of shoving her rear end in the air for a viewing.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Eddie asked her.
Bett said nothing. She took a pen out of her bag, and sat down on the ground, heel on her opposite knee, and wrote NO on the sole of her sneaker. She darkened it with several passes of the pen while Eddie jabbered at her.
“Put that pen away and get up. You have to stretch,” he said plaintively. “You’re gonna get injured if you don’t, and then we won’t have enough kids on the team to run in the meets.”
“No,” said Bett levelly.
He stared at her. She stared back.
“Can we get up?” asked Ranger, his voice strangled from the downward dangling of his head.
“Yes,” said Eddie, tearing his gaze away from Bett. “We’re moving on to quads.”
That one Bett had no problem with. Eddie looked at her, puzzled, but said nothing.
When the stretching was over, Eddie poked Mutt. “You’re up, kid. Outline the course for us.”
Mutt stood up with a clipboard. “Okay,” he said. “We’re going to do two laps of this field as warm-up. Then we’re going out the field, right on the road, left on Cutter’s Way, left again on Ridge Road, and two more lefts back to here. Got it?”
“How long is that?” asked Ranger.
“A ways,” said Mutt vaguely.
“So we’re, like, running in a circle?” said Dan.
“God, you’re smart,” said Mutt.
“Asshole,” muttered Dan, but only Bett heard him. She wasn’t going to run, anyway. Not for Eddie and certainly not for Mutt. She’d do a couple of the stretches, but then she was going to walk the course. She might be being forced to be on this team, but there was no way she was going to Plus herself into
so many Ho Hos she’d get sick from the unPlusing of the run. She was already going to have to unPlus the walk.
“Okay, everybody, get going.” Mutt blew a whistle.
“Who gave that douche a whistle?” muttered Dan as he jogged off, Ranger trailing a little behind him.
Bett walked.
“What the hell is your problem? Why are you being such a pain in my ass?” Eddie yelled at her.
“I don’t think you’re allowed to swear at us, Eddie,” Ranger called back, but then even he was too far ahead of Bett and Eddie for it to make a difference.
Second walk around the field and then Bett turned right, as she’d been directed, still walking, moseying really, thinking her own thoughts. The ground was cold and rutted with mud that had hardened. Bett tried not to think about how much she would have enjoyed running on it, pacing the ground underneath her feet until she kicked the crap out of those boys.
Stop, she told herself. Don’t think your way into a thought Plus.
Suddenly, behind her, a god-awful horn sounded, louder than a goose on steroids, accompanied by a familiar diesel chugging.
Eddie was chasing her with the bus.
“Move it!” he bellowed out the window. “You join a team to run, dammit, you run!”
“No,” said Bett, and slowed her pace even further. But the bus picked up speed behind her and that awful honking began again. A car passed going the other way, and Bett had to move in front of the bus to let it go, her face burning because now she had to run, run at least faster than the bus creeping behind her before Eddie mowed her down, which he was so crazy he might just do, and there was the car full of people looking at her running and her butt cheeks were moving independently of each other, and the horror of it all made her want to run away from it, anyway, which only confused things because would that be a Plus or an act of self-preservation?
“GO!” screamed Eddie, leaning out his window. “And you better keep it up because I don’t trust the brakes on this thing!”
Jesus! Bett picked up speed. Her legs stretched out and oh God, it felt good, but also terrifying because what if Eddie hit her, and then she thought maybe that would be okay because it would undo the Plus this run was turning into. How long had it been since she’d run? Really run?
But she knew exactly how long it had been.
Bett sprinted with the honking Eddie in pursuit until she caught up with Dan, who looked fearfully behind him as Eddie pressed on with his bus and his horn the rest of the way around the course until they reached the field again.
“What was that?!” shouted Dan. “Are you going to do that to us every day?”
“Only to pains in my ass who won’t run.”
“You could have killed us!”
“Yup,” said Eddie. “So Bett better pick it up next time. No telling how well I can control that bus at such a slow speed.”
“I was running as fast as I could!” panted Dan.
“Bett wasn’t,” said Mutt.
“How do you know?” said Bett. She knew she sounded rude, but this time she was glad of it. Flipping Mutt. Except if she were honest with herself, the run had not been hard, racing over that rutted mud, her muscles working, stiff, then long and loose, just as she had remembered running being like from before, with the added frisson of Eddie terror pushing her faster, faster, faster.
Oh God, don’t think about it. Don’t Plus it. Too late, though. She already knew she would have to do a midnight raid on one of her hiding places and eat as many snack cakes as it would take to unPlus that run, numb her out, and force her still again, stomach swollen, lying flat again on her bed in the SIM card house. Until the numbness was replaced with self-hatred for what she had done, what she had become.
* * *
“All right,” said Eddie. “Now we’re going to stretch to cool down. Granted your permission, of course,” he said to Bett.
Bett said nothing.
“We’re going to do, ah, a cobra pose,” said Eddie.
“What the hell is that?” asked Mutt.
“It’s where you do like this.” And Eddie lowered himself stiffly down onto the ground to lie flat on his stomach, and then reared back up from the waist so they all could look into his slightly embarrassed eyeballs.
“Where’d you learn thatcakes?” asked Ranger.
“It’s, ah, yoga,” said Eddie.
“Yoga?!” Dan scoffed. “Eddie, are you turning into one of the city people?” Bett looked at him with appreciation. Her thoughts exactly.
“Shut up,” said Eddie, lumbering back to his feet, “and do it.”
Bett could handle this one. She got down on the sweet-smelling grass of the field with the others.
“Lie flat,” said Eddie, “until I tell you to rise.”
Bett lay flat. It was very restful. She smelled dirt and grass and felt tiny bugs crawl up her wrists.
“Who do you guys think the burner-slasher is? Cakes?” Ranger’s voice was muffled by the ground.
“When did I say to talk?” demanded Eddie. “Rise!”
Obligingly, the four of them reared back as Eddie had. Uh-oh, thought Bett. This feels amazing. Cakes.
“Can’t he talk during this part?” asked Bett. She didn’t like seeing the scared look on Ranger’s face.
“Yeah,” said Dan. “We’re done with the hard part. Can’t we, like, socialize now, at least?”
“Who cares who did it, anyway?” said Mutt. “So someone slashed a bunch of bad art and lit it up. Big deal. Why does it matter?”
“Because it does,” said Dan.
“Why does it? Why does anything?” said Mutt. “I mean, you said yourself we just ran around in a three-mile circle. What for? We’re right back where we started.”
“That’s because that’s how you told us to run, dillhole,” said Dan. “And it’s also where the bus came back to. How else are we going to get home?”
“And your picture got slashed, too, Mutt. That was of your great-grandpa. In his military uniform. Don’t you even care?” Ranger’s voice was curious.
Mutt sighed. “Who cares. You make something good, gets wrecked every time. Look at Coyote Acres.”
“Who made those?” asked Ranger.
“What, coyotes?”
“No, the house pits.”
Mutt sighed. “Developers, idiot. And art isn’t for straight boys, anyway.”
“What the hell kind of bullshit is that?” Eddie barked. “I’m ashamed of you, Mutt. See me after practice!” Eddie glared at Mutt, then glanced at the rest of them. “Back down to the ground,” he said, and they all obligingly relaxed back into the grass. “The bus would stay put if some people moved their asses with the gift God gave ’em.”
Mutt snorted. “God,” he said.
“Now steeple your rear ends in the air like a triangle,” commanded Eddie. “That one’s called downward-facing dog.”
“How do you know all this yogacakes?” asked Ranger, sticking his skinny rear in the air.
“Never mind how I know,” said Eddie. “Just do it.”
Oh well, Bett might as well do it, too. No one could see her butt if they were all doing it. “You do it too,” she said to Eddie. Eddie shrugged and assumed the position.
“You know, it’s the devil pictures that make it all extra creepy,” said Dan, steepling as commanded as well. “It makes it seem, like, satanic or something.”
“Maybe they aren’t devils,” said Ranger uncertainly.
“Of course they are, dork,” said Dan. “What else has horns and breathes fire? Even if the drawing looks like a kindergartner drew it?”
“Maybe that’s why the slasher slashed the art, Ranger,” said Bett. “Because they suck at it and are jealous of kids who can draw.”
But Ranger’s brow only furrowed.
“It can’t be a kindergartner,” said Ranger. “It has to be someone tall enough to reach that high of the wall.” Then he reddened. “I mean, if you care about thinking about it. Which I don’t. Ca
kes,” he said hurriedly.
Oh, Jesus.
Ranger and his short posse chatting when they got off the bus. And then again, fiercely and secretively, at lunch. And now this prevarication.
Ranger was on the case.
It was exactly the kind of thing the kid would do. No way. Bett had to dissuade him. The person who’d wrecked the pictures was more messed up than an undersize seventh grader should be dealing with.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” she reassured Ranger, her voice sounding weird with her cheeks sliding into her eyeballs from all this being upside down. Still, the position felt good after the arched back of the cobra pose.
Would you quit thinking things feel good?
“Reallycakes?” said Ranger. “You don’t think someone is going to hurt us?”
“Of course not,” said Dan.
“All right, you bastards. Get up. And get on the bus. Except you, Mutt. We need to have a talk.”
They stood, and Dan cast a grateful look at Bett. She smiled smally back at him.
“Thanks,” he said.
Bett nodded. Besides, now they had the gift of the vision of Eddie doing the cobra pose with them for the rest of their lives.
See what a shit she was? Mere days after Mutt’s first public disgust of her on the bus, here she was, making fun of Eddie in her head. She was just as bad as Mutt.
22
Autumn, Tuesday, Home After That Hell Practice at Last
BETT STOOD AT THE TOP of the slope, not ready to go in the house yet and face her mother, who’d be beaming around because Bett had exercised. But look: Bett was safe because there was her mother, far down along the road Bett had just left, rollerblading like a mad thing. Her mother had a helmet on, but her still-feathered eighties hair peeked out from below the helmet, the pyramid structure of its top hidden beneath the helmet, at least. No matter how often Bett begged her mother to let her do over her makeup or go with her to get her hair cut, her mother refused to update her look. “Worked for me then, works for me now,” she always said. And even though Bett begged to differ—not even a cat eye? Just that awful blue eyeliner all the way around her mother’s eyes, shrinking them into her head?—her mother had support from Aunt Jeanette, who was just a slightly smaller version of Bett’s mom. Both of them were eighties girls, and not in a cool, retro way, either. Pathetic and even more awful in their boldness.
