by Karen Rivers
Maybe this mysterious and dead grandfather would have got that.
And if he did, maybe he could have explained it to her.
“Well, let’s tidy this up,” Grandma said briskly, standing up.
Clem cleared her throat. “I’ll help,” she said. She started dropping the pictures back into the box, but when Grandma wasn’t looking, she slipped one photo into the pocket of her jeans.
If she had asked if she could have the picture, Grandma would for sure have said yes, but she couldn’t make her mouth form the words. In the photo, her grandfather was leaning against a Volkswagen beetle. He was half-squinting, half-laughing, like the blinding sun was funny or whoever was taking the photo was too bright to look at directly.
Looking at the photos made Clem feel as though maybe time wasn’t linear, but instead it was all stacked up like a deck of cards or, in this case, a pile of pictures, and somehow it was all happening at once. It sort of was happening all at once, seeing as it was the first they heard of it. It was the first time it happened for them.
“It’s super sad,” Jorge said, as they put the last photos into the box and put the lid back on. He patted Grandma’s hand.
“It is sad,” said Grandma. “It’s sad and it’s not sad. Because if it weren’t for him, there would be no you.”
“No us?” said Clem.
“Right,” said Grandma. “You would be made from different genetic material, so you’d be different people.”
“That might not be so bad. Sometimes I don’t want to be me.” Clem pulled her hair over her face. “I could be someone else and the me who is me would just . . . disappear.” She made a poof gesture with her hand.
Grandma cocked her head to the side. “Are you okay, Clementine?”
“I’m fine. I was joking! Jeez.”
Grandma stood up and walked over to where Clem was sitting. “Stand up,” she said.
Clem did, and Grandma hugged her. Grandma wasn’t usually much for hugging. “Sorry, Grandma. I don’t know why I’m weird.” Her voice was muffled against Grandma’s shirt. Clem kept herself stiff and didn’t allow herself to fall into the hug. If she did, who knows what would have happened?
Clem
Clem followed Jorge to a table in the café, holding her cookie balanced on the lid of her hot chocolate, but she wasn’t listening to what he was saying. Sometimes lately, it seemed like his voice bounced right out of her ear, without ever quite landing. She squinted at him. With her eyes almost all the way closed, he could be her.
Only he was a boy. And he wore glasses. And no makeup.
Other than that, it was like looking in a mirror at a carnival: distorted and kind of creepy. Like looking at herself, but not herself.
Or like looking at her grandfather, Beau.
“Beau,” she muttered. “Beau, Beau, Beau.” The information about Beau was so new, she felt like she didn’t know what to do with it.
“ . . . and then Mr. Banks was getting all mad, like, losing it, and making us all run laps around the gym.”
Clem tried to tune in to what Jorge was talking about. “Is he the sub with the . . . ?” She pointed at her head.
“Yeah,” he said. “Dandruff. And he smells like a vegetable garden but not in a good way.”
“Vegetable gardens smell like fertilizer and fertilizer is poop. When do they ever smell good?”
“Good point.” Jorge looked toward the counter where Jackson Spencer was sitting on a stool, eating all the muffin samples from the tray that was on top of the bakery case. He waved and Jackson made a hand gesture back that Clem couldn’t decipher.
Jackson’s uncle owned the café. The four of them used to hang out behind the counter, too, when they were all friends. But now they weren’t. Kit wouldn’t tell Clem why she was so mad at Jackson, but if kit hated him, then Clem hated him, too.
“I wonder if kit is going to stay mad at Jackson forever,” she interrupted.
Jorge shrugged, like he was listening, but he was staring at something on the other side of the room. Clem turned. Marina.
“I just wish I knew what it was about,” she added. “Why is it a secret? Did you ever ask Jackson?”
“Yeah,” said Jorge. “I guess.”
Clem felt a lumpy aching in her throat. He was obviously not listening. Lately, it was like he sometimes couldn’t even see or hear her.
“Mermaids are lame,” Clem muttered, to get Jorge’s attention.
“What?” said Jorge.
His crush on Marina annoyed Clem more than literally anything in the world.
“Stop staring,” she hissed.
She cracked her crooked pinky, which made a satisfying pop but still didn’t straighten out.
Marina looked up and Clem realized she was the one who was staring now, so she waved. If she were friends with Marina then maybe she would feel lighter, sparklier, more unicorn-y. (Or mermaid-y, as the case may be.) Marina frowned, so Clem turned the wave into a nose scratch. Belatedly she realized it probably looked like she was picking her nose.
She picked up Forky and pressed the tines of it into her thumb, just hard enough to hurt. Then she held it up so that in the picture, it looked like it was growing out of Marina’s tiny, distant head.
“Don’t post that on Pictasnap if I’m in it,” said Jorge.
“You’re just in the background. You’re blurry. Here, I’ll filter you out even more.”
She posted the photo. #forky, she tagged it. #forkhead.
Through the big front window, Clem could see her dad sweeping the sidewalk in front of One Buck Chuck, which was across the street. He liked it to be completely clean, as if a clean sidewalk was what brought customers in to buy $1 junky toys and $1 off-brand soda and not just the fact that everything was super cheap. He did a little twirl with the broom, as though he knew she was watching. “Do you ever think about how all the money that mom and dad got is basically like loser money? It seems like it was more money than if we’d won. Why did we get so much money?”
“Duh,” said Jorge. “So we wouldn’t sue.”
“Who would we sue?” she asked and he laughed, like she was kidding, but she wasn’t. Who would they sue?
She is the one who sneezed. It was her fault. If she told the show that, would they still have paid them so much? Would her dad have gotten the store? And if they found out now, would they take it all back?
Clem took a small bite of the cookie and chewed, even though swallowing past the lump in her throat seemed impossible. Jackson had now moved his sneakered feet up onto the counter and was leaning back on his stool. She hoped it would tip, but just then Jackson’s uncle—who she remembered Jackson hated but couldn’t remember why—came from the back and unceremoniously grabbed Jackson’s feet and plopped them onto the floor. Jackson flinched a lot more dramatically than he needed to.
“You should ask her before you post a picture of her,” Jorge said, looking at his phone. Crumbs flew out of his mouth.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full. It’s wrecking this cookie for me.” She deleted the picture. “I’m not going to ask her. Jeez. But I deleted it, are you happy?”
“Yes,” said Jorge. He put the whole rest of his cookie in his mouth at once.
When Clem and Jorge worked in the store after school or when their mom sent them to help Grandma with something, their parents gave them money to buy themselves “something” and they always got the same thing: these specific cookies. One day they might get sick of them, but that day was not today.
Clem touched the photo in her pocket to make sure it was still there. It was.
She almost took it out, so she and Jorge could talk about it, but he was still looking moonily at Marina. Clem looked out the window again, but watching her dad sweeping the sidewalk made her feel even worse. He was so depressingly happy with his dumb store, which wa
s basically a consolation prize for never getting to be an aerial acrobat, which is what he’d always wanted to do and didn’t. He wouldn’t even have the store if Clem weren’t a liar. She blinked. She didn’t want to cry.
A lady with a huge blue umbrella approached and stood by the door to One Buck Chuck and waited while Clem’s dad held the door open for her. He bowed.
Clem recognized her, even from across the street.
She pointed. “Mrs. You’re-Violating-Child-Labor-Laws,” she told Jorge.
Jorge looked. He made a face. “What a weirdo.”
“But she’s right!” Clem said. “It’s illegal for a minor to work after seven p.m. during the school year.”
“Is it?” Jackson was wiping the table next to theirs. He swept the crumbs onto the floor and then stepped on them. “That’s awesome. I’m gonna tell my uncle.”
“Please don’t talk to us,” said Clem.
“I hate working here,” said Jackson. “It totally sucks.” Jackson swung the cloth onto his shoulder, flicking it into her face.
“Hey!”
“Sorry,” he said, but he didn’t look sorry.
“So do you think I should tell Marina that I like her?” Jorge asked, when Jackson was gone.
Clem shook her head, no. “If you tell her that you like her, you’re going to have to ask her out. Do you even know how to go on a date?”
“No, do you?”
“We’re twelve. We don’t go on dates.”
“I don’t know why you don’t like her.”
“I do like her. She’s great. She’s . . . Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I don’t like her. Why do you like her?”
Jorge blushed. “She’s pretty.”
“Lame,” said Clem. “There is more to girls than just being pretty.”
“I know! I’m not like that!”
“Whatever, Shallow McShallowperson.”
“I’m not shallow. She’s also smart. And she’s popular, so I’m not the only one who thinks she’s okay.”
“Being popular doesn’t mean anything. It’s random. Why do all the popular girls have names that start with an M?” The five most popular girls in their grade were Marina, Maggie, Madeline, Matilda, and Martine. Martine was French, so her name was pronounced Marteen. “I could change my name. Mentine. Menteen. Ment. Menty? Mento. Clem sounds like something that should be in soup. Clem chowder.”
“Isn’t a Mento a chewy mint?”
“Is it?”
“Yeah, you put them in Diet Coke and they explode.”
“Oh, those. I forgot. That has an s though. Mentos.”
“Whatever, Mento.”
Clem laughed. She liked how weird it sounded. “I like it,” she said.
“You know what, Mento? I’m going to ask Marina to hang out.” Jorge grinned. “I’m just going to do it. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“She could say no.” A wave of mad-sadness swept over Clem like a Diet Coke and Mentos explosion. “She probably doesn’t like you. And Mom and Dad would never let you date in a million years. You’re twelve! What don’t you get about that?”
“Whoa,” Jorge said. “Okaaaaay. Can you keep your voice down? She’s going to hear you.” He tapped the table with his pen. “But what if she does like me?” He said that last part under his breath.
Without even thinking about it, Clem grabbed Jorge’s hot chocolate and poured it onto the table. There wasn’t a lot left, so it wasn’t as dramatic as she’d imagined.
“What did you do that for, Mento?” he said. He was laughing, which made her even madder.
“Because you don’t get it!” she shouted, and Marina turned to look at Clem and her face wrinkled up like she’d just seen something disgusting.
Clem pushed her way through the narrow aisle, almost hitting a teenager with pale blue hair with her backpack.
“Sorry,” she heard Jorge say behind her. She knew he was probably wiping up the spill. “She’s sorry.”
“I’m not sorry!” she yelled. She closed her eyes and put her hand on the door and tried to take a deep, calming breath. When she opened them, Jackson was standing right in front of her, so close she could smell his breath, which wasn’t good.
She stepped back. “What are you doing?”
“Making sure you’re okay, I guess. Or kicking you out.” He raised his eyebrows all the way into his hair. His face-making was impressive. It was as if his face was made of latex and it could stretch forever.
“That’s truly ugly,” said Clem.
“Just wait until the talent show.”
“You wait for the talent show,” said Clem.
Jackson looked confused, which was fair enough, because she didn’t know what she meant either.
“I will wait. Or maybe I’ll invent a time-traveling car and fast forward to it.”
“Forget it.” Clem rolled her eyes. “I’m not even talking to you.” She pulled open the door and cold air rushed in. She didn’t want to think or talk about the talent show. Why was everyone so obsessed with talent?
The wind blew the leaves down the sidewalk in a way that made Clem want to run, so she did, ignoring the clicking in her ankle. The M-named girls probably never did stuff like that, never ran for no reason. Clem ran hard even though it hurt all the way up her left leg, which is the one that had had to be pinned. The pain poked at her hip and then up higher, into her side, but she didn’t stop, not until she’d run all the way home.
kit
Kit was on the bus, going to pick up some hair color from the distributor for her mom’s salon. Usually Clem came with her, but when she had asked Clem after school, Clem had said, “No, I have to help Grandma with her Christmas decorations.” It was only October, so it sounded sort of like a lie, but kit hoped it wasn’t. She didn’t know what she’d do if Clem stopped being her friend altogether. It was already terrible that Clem was so unlike herself.
Jackson had always come with her in the past when Clem couldn’t, but that was not an option now. She felt mad at Jackson all over again. Why had he had to go and ruin everything?
But kit had to do it. Her mom wouldn’t (or couldn’t) do this kind of thing anymore, so she bent rules about what kit could (or couldn’t) do to make up for it. Last time her mom had done it herself, she’d hyperventilated at the bus stop and fainted and kit knew she’d never do it again. It would always be kit’s job from now on, like picking up burgers at Dal’s or getting groceries when they needed more than what was at the bodega or picking up prescriptions at Rite Aid, which was not on their block.
Her mom wouldn’t go beyond the block, period.
She’d never fainted on their block, kit supposed, but what if she did? What if she fainted in the living room? Then what?
The whole situation was getting a little scary, if kit was being honest. It also was deeply unfair, although sometimes she didn’t mind going because it made her feel like she was doing something helpful and important, even heroic, although “picking up the new color samples” was probably not quite what her mom was envisioning in her whole tattoo-map-save me story.
So kit went back and forth between feeling like she was having an adventure and feeling like she was being used or, worse, enabling her mom somehow. She’d seen an episode of Dr. Phil about that one day when she’d gone home from school early and it had stuck in her head. Now she worried about it all the time, along with everything else she worried about, and the worrying made her even more worried.
“Ugh,” she said out loud, and she missed Clem so much that her head hurt.
That day, without Clem, it seemed a lot less like an adventure and more like a dumb way to get kidnapped—or worse—and kit felt prickly about having to do it. What if something happened to her?
It would be her mom’s fault!
Kit pulled her feet up and tucked them under he
r so she could see better out the window. Rain streaked against the glass on the outside and the inside of the window was getting steamed up because of everyone’s breathing.
There were still a lot of stops before the hair-supply place when kit saw him.
He was a normal enough looking man from the back. He was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt. He stood up to let a pregnant lady sit down, which is why kit looked at him in the first place. It was a nice thing to do. But when he turned around, she saw that he was wearing a Batman mask. Kit swallowed a scream, and then she started to choke and feel dizzy. She couldn’t catch her breath. She coughed and flailed.
The lady next to kit slapped her on the back until she stopped and could breathe again. “You okay?” she said. “That was quite a spell.”
“I’m good, thank you,” said kit. Her back hurt from where the lady hit her. She looked at her hands, not sure what she’d see.
They were her hands.
She hadn’t turned into a rodent.
Obviously.
Why would she think she had? That was dumb. She was dumb.
“You look too young to be alone,” the lady observed. “I wouldn’t let you ride this bus alone, no sir.”
“Okay,” said kit.
“I told you,” the Batman guy said. “I’ll get you a TV! I promise!” He was using the speaker on his phone and the other person said, “You better.”
“Did you hear that?” kit wanted to ask the lady. “It’s him! He’s the guy! The kitchen clock guy!” But the lady would have thought she was nuts. It was so blatant of him to just be out and about with his stupid mask on. Was it the only mask he had? Robbing people in a Batman mask and then wearing it on the bus made it seem like he wanted to be caught. Maybe he did. There was obviously something wrong with him.
“I said I would so I will,” the man said. “How big? I can’t carry it if it’s too big. You know I gotta get it on the bus.” He paused. “What am I gonna do, steal a car?” Then he laughed and so did the person on the other end of the phone.
Kit’s heart stopped beating and then started beating and then stopped again. She wished she had her own phone because she would call 911.
