Wild and Crooked

by Leah Thomas

  I haven’t seen much of Quillpower—he seems to jump into bathrooms at the sight of me—but Boots has become my shadow.

  I can’t count how many times Rose Poplawski’s been laughing with Sarah in the hallway and turned around to find black-framed eyes peering at her from a distance. It’s like those eyes are a drill, twisting the cover of Rose around them, a drill that spins and tears and threatens to reveal what’s underneath.

  Somehow, Boots is seeing me. He’s seeing my Spencehood.

  This ain’t my first rodeo: I’ve come across stares like that before, even though it’s been years since I looked much like the little girl in that wedding photo. Some people are too curious for their own good, and small towns are boring places. I’m sure the Ellis murder still comes up in conversation around here, in classrooms or in churches or in bars. I’m sure that picture makes its rounds. What if Boots has caught my scent?

  But if this is the one kid in Samsboro who recognizes the daughter of a murderer, I won’t be telling him he’s right. I won’t be killing Rose off so easily. Spences aren’t that trigger happy, despite what the news might say.

  I should just tell him to fuck right off. He’s just one mousy kid. Sure, that would mean breaking character, but there are plenty of opportunities, like when I’m by myself at my locker and Boots limps by too slowly and pauses a little too long in my vicinity.

  Last time he pulled this, I took a deep breath and spun round to tear him a new one. Boots startled like a jackrabbit. I caught his magnified eyes. He steeled himself, waggled his fingers awkwardly, and then shuffled away. Like he was waving at me.

  That’s what makes me bite my tongue—if I’m right and Boots has got me figured, who the hell stalks a murderer’s kid just to wave at her?

  If Boots recognizes me, he’s choosing not to run away.

  Somehow it almost feels like while everyone else is voting for Rose Poplawski, Boots is filling out some silent ballot for Kalyn Spence.

  GUS

  PHIL’S DONE A thousand things for me. He’s led me through dozens of challenging campaigns in D&D, across fictional deserts and oceans, through astral crypts dark and cold. We’ve been to the ends of seven earths together.

  In real life, he drives me to school every day. He taught me to read, and he lets me speak for myself. Phil smirks at my broken jokes. He doesn’t laugh much, but especially doesn’t when I’m not joking. He knows the difference.

  So why is it that doing this one, normal thing for Phil feels impossible to me?

  I’ve been trying to ask Rose Poplawski to be his homecoming date for more than a week. I’ve trailed her down hallways at least six times, but never reached out. Phil has asked me why. He’s asked me what’s taking so long. He’s accepted my excuses, but he has tunnel vision. The more time that passes, the heavier his sighs hit me. It’s never occurred to Phil that I’m more anxious about all this than he is.

  If she says no, he loses a date. But either way, I’ll be losing him.

  Speaking to Rose really doesn’t seem feasible. It’s not about her being unfriendly. She goes out of her way to be approachable, smiling at everyone she passes. Rose Poplawski is rarely anything but charming. She’s usually joking or playing with her impressive braid or covering her mouth when she laughs.

  Is she covering up her snaggletooth, self-conscious like me? Or is she maybe worried that there’s smoke on her breath?

  I’m not special for noticing the cracks in Rose Poplawski; no one else is actually looking. When we ask someone how they are, we don’t want them to tell us. We want to hear they’re fine, thanks, how are you?

  Following a girl around the school for no good reason, that’s the sort of thing creeps do because they feel self-righteous, like it’s less creepy if you’re a nerdy loser instead of a stalker. I bet all stalkers feel justified.

  I don’t feel justified. I’m not Phil.

  A few times, Rose has caught me looking at her. I can’t explain it, but a window seems to open behind her eyes. The room past her eyelids is dark but full of all sorts of things that might be worth talking about. I might have a forest in my head, but I think there are other dark places in the world, places that don’t belong to me. Places no D&D campaign can go, places someone as uncomfortable as me can’t access.

  I can’t ask Rose to go to homecoming with my best friend. Maybe I owe Phil a lot, but Rose Poplawski doesn’t owe either of us a single thing.

  KALYN

  I’M IN THE library with Sarah, watching classmates meander between the shelves when a sudden nettle-y pang in my neck tells me Boots and his damn eyes are at it again.

  “Something wrong?” Sarah’s color-coding her schedule. It looks like a goddamn bowl of Froot Loops. Sarah’s involved in every possible student organization, from the paper to student council to the blood drive to, who knows, the candy-for-orphans club.

  “Just thinking.” I roll a pen across the table. I look at the shelves on our right. And there, right in the V section, I spot them. Peering at me from between Candide and Breakfast of Champions: wiry goddamn eyes.

  I meet them in a dead stare.

  “Rose, careful! You’re going to—”

  But it’s too late. The Pilot snaps in half, splattering our table with ink. Now Sarah’s white blouse is anything but.

  “Twice-blessed shit-sticks on ice!” I holler. “Sorry!”

  “ ‘Twice-blessed shit-sticks’?” Sarah’s shock dissolves into good-natured laughter. Her blouse is speckled blue like a robin’s egg. Honestly, it still looks nice on her.

  “Actually, you’re kind of pulling it off.”

  “Oh, I’m not going to pull it off, Rose.” Suddenly I feel her minty breath on my ear. “We’re in public.” She backs away, giggling like it’s nothing, but I’m pretty sure she just made one hell of a suggestive joke, and now I’m all flustered.

  How many people get into some kind of character every day? Maybe Sarah’s putting on a show just like I am. Maybe it’s a matter of time before we see how deep our characters go. I’m a puddle, but maybe she is, too.

  I could be wrong. There are people who aren’t pretending to be anything but themselves. Guys who aren’t afraid to ogle.

  When I look back at the V shelf, Boots is gone. I spy his wonky gait near the library exit. The guy moves faster than you’d think.

  Sarah’s digging in her bag, so I spare a second to flip him the bird.

  “What a mess!” Sarah offers me a tissue. “Your dress!”

  “Oh, this old thing.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  I drop the simper, for just a sentence or three. “No, it’s literally very old. It’s a hand-me-down from my grandma’s closet. Can’t you smell the mothballs?”

  Sarah leans in and takes a deep breath. “Not at all.”

  She’ll be the girly death of me, I swear.

  “Sarah. You know that thorny-eyed boy with the curls and glasses?”

  “Sorry?”

  “The kid with curly hair? Kind of small. Possibly a freshman?”

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  I go one step further, but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth: “The special needs kid? With the, um, I don’t know. The sort of collapsed arm?”

  “Oh!” Sarah bites her lip. “That’s Gus Peake. He’s an upperclassman, actually. Everyone knows him, because . . .” She hesitates. “Anyhow. He used to ride my bus. First time I saw him, he was in a wheelchair. I looked at him and started bawling.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure. I think he scared me.”

  “He scared you?” I’ve got no right to scoff, but a little Kalyn escapes. “What did he do, roll at you too quickly?”

  Sarah winces. “When I think back, I guess I’d never seen a sick kid before. Maybe I thought he was dying. Or maybe seeing him made me realize I’d die one day, or something.” Her cheeks flush. “Rose. I was five. Do you want me to apologize?”

  I don’t know what I want. Bu
t if strangers cried at the sight of me, maybe I’d stalk people before talking to them, too.

  And just like that, I want to talk to Boots after all, damned or not.

  “Two more minutes!” Ms. Coillard calls. “Guys, pick out your books already!”

  Boots used to be in a wheelchair, like Grandma. I look down at my dress. She’ll never wear it again, but leaving it blue-bloody suddenly feels a little wretched.

  “I’m gonna go clean myself up.” Sarah nods, buried in her schedule. Maybe mad.

  Seconds later I step into the hallway and feel the temperature drop. There’s a lot of shade in Jefferson Prison this time of day, despite the handful of skylights that screw up the ceiling. Those dusty-glassed holes leave asymmetrical diamonds of light on the tiled floor, and you can make out the shadows of cobwebs and dirt in them.

  At first I think he’s waiting for me, but his eyes are closed and his face is tilted toward the light. It’s like he’s solar powered or something.

  I fold my arms and cough. I don’t see him jump, but he must, ’cause I hear some part of him rattle. Those eyes mince me again. I don’t totally hate it.

  “Oh. Hey.” His voice drags, but not as badly as I remember.

  “Oh, hey.” I lift my hands. “So.”

  He doesn’t blink.

  I groan. “So, why have you been following me, Gus Peake?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “If you were sorry, you wouldn’t be doing it, would you?”

  He’s all stammers. “I mean—meant—I think—ah. I didn’t mean to. Following you. Sorry. I mean. Sorry. Follow you.”

  I size him up. “I ain’t giving you a pass just because you’re twitchy.” Suddenly he blurts, “I want to talk to you?”

  “Why does that sound like a question?” I sigh. “You know who I am, don’t you?”

  “Rose. Or . . . Kalyn?”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Do you have a—a minute?” Gus Peake asks. “I need to talk about you, serially.”

  Serially, huh? Probably as in serial killer-ly, right?

  Shots fired. Boots really does recognize me. I’m pretty fucked, seems like.

  So why the hell aren’t I fleeing the scene?

  GUS

  AFTER WEEKS OF practice, I still can’t get the words right.

  I try again. “I need to talk to you. Seriously.”

  “Oh.” Kalyn’s posture slackens. “Whatever.”

  “Your dress.” In the past minute, she’s managed to coat herself in blue ink.

  “What, wanna borrow it? It’ll be big on you.”

  “Not my style.” Typically, now my brain lets loose two-dozen needless words. “I like art, but I’ve never been a P-Pollock fan. Paint spatter kinda seems, um . . . ​hazardous? No. Um. Slapdash? Is that a real word?”

  Kalyn eyeballs me. “You think I know more words than you do?”

  “Is there any reason you wouldn’t?”

  “Huh. All right, Gus. Let’s have our heart-to-heart. And I promise not to cry.”

  I don’t know what she means by that, but Kalyn reaches for my good hand and leads me away down the sunlit hallway.

  Most people don’t touch me. I pretend they see me as an Armani suit, something that shouldn’t be stained. Really, I know I’m seen as something much less fashionable. You can’t catch CP any more than you can catch spina bifida. You’d be amazed by how many normies don’t seem willing to chance it.

  Kalyn’s grip is firm as she steers me across the building. She doesn’t ask whether she’s going too fast. She’s not, but it’s strange, not being asked.

  We veer down the shortest wing of the school. I haven’t been here since I took a Tech Ed class my freshman year. The smell of pine takes me back to frustrating hours I spent trying to juggle hammers despite my poor hand-eye coordination.

  Between the collage-coated art room windows and the open shop doorway stands a brown door I assume leads to a utility closet. Kalyn pushes the door inward, and we clamber into musty darkness.

  She pulls on a chain. A bulb flickers on above us. There are no water boilers or mops here. Instead, we’re caught between two walls lined with shelves occupied by a few pieces of abandoned pottery. The wall opposite us is marred by a large oven, built into the cinderblocks, its door hanging open to reveal more darkness.

  “A crematorium?” I blurt, because I was raised in a tomb.

  Dad was cremated. There are things you shouldn’t embalm, ways you don’t want to remember people. Dad was decomposing by the time his body was found. Mom and her yearbooks never told me this, but hours spent online in the Wheelers’ basement taught me plenty. I couldn’t avoid seeing autopsy photos. Dad wasn’t smiling on that silver table. Dad was—­

  “It’s a kiln. For the art classes?” Kalyn sinks to the floor, stretching her legs out like she’s melting. “You hopeless Emo.”

  I frown. “I’m not Emo.”

  “All that black is misleading, then. Surprised I don’t see you hanging out with those boys in skirts. You know? The kids who play black guitars outside?”

  “The Gaggle.”

  She whistles. “They’ve named themselves? Shit.”

  “No.” I clear my throat. “I named them that.”

  “How freakin’ weird of you.” Kalyn rubs one finger over a shelf and holds the dust to her nose.

  “I didn’t know we had a kiln.”

  “That’s ’cause you’ve never needed a place to smoke.” Kalyn shoves a hand down her dress and retrieves a cigarette and lighter from her bra.

  “I’ve got asthma.” I scrape my feet against the floor.

  “Oh.” Rather than light the cigarette, Kalyn shoves it between her front teeth and chews on it.

  This room is mostly soundproofed, but both of us look at the door as the bell echoes. My speech therapist, Alicia, is probably sitting in her tiny office next to the teachers’ lounge, looking at her watch.

  I’m here, watching this girl pick tobacco from her teeth.

  “Looks like we’re playing hooky.” Kalyn traces a finger through the dust on the floor. “It’s a gen-u-ine first for Rose. You’re bringing out the worst in me, Gus. What’s ‘Gus’ short for, anyway? Augustus?”

  “No.”

  “August? Gustav?”

  “None of the above.” The last time I missed speech therapy, I was lying at the foot of the stairs outside the gym, wondering who tripped me. “Can we talk?”

  “Well, aren’t we?”

  “No. Yeah. But this . . . ​not what I planned, what to saying have do.” The words wriggle away. I press my fist against my right temple and close my eyes. When I open them, Kalyn’s rubbing at the blue ink on her dress with a fervor that might set fire to it.

  She pats the filthy concrete beside her. It’ll doom my dark pants. “Sit down before those chicken legs of yours give out. What’s your deal? Did you have a stroke?”

  “Um.” I can’t decide if I’m offended. Her bluntness borders on refreshing. What’s less refreshing is the prospect of relaying the details of me to yet another stranger. I take a breath. “I was born with a type of cerebral palsy called hemiplegia, which means—”

  “Hold up. You don’t have to talk about it.”

  “. . . sorry?”

  “You’re cringing like I just threw another egg at you. I’m not gonna make you talk about shit you don’t wanna talk about. I only asked because my grandma had a stroke last March. It’s why me and Mom moved here. You talk like Grandma talks, a little out of order, using the wrong words and whatnot. It got me curious, is all.”

  “Um . . . ​for me, it’s aphasia. But no one always uses the right words.”

  “That’s the freakin’ truth. Gustin.”

  “Also not my name.”

  “See? I’ve only got wrong words! Yesterday in the cafeteria, they gave us soggy chicken fingers. I cracked a joke, like, ‘Hope they got manicures first.’ You know, before cutting the chickens’ fingers off? But the words we
re wrong. No one laughed.”

  “Maybe the words weren’t wrong. Just different.” Why people ever think there’s only one way to think is something I can’t understand. Maybe because I already think differently. Words fall like branches in my brain. “Timber.”

  “Did you just say ‘timber’? You see any trees in here, Gus-driver?” Kalyn laughs.

  “Definitely not my name.” I use the shelves to lower myself to the floor. Kalyn budges aside to accommodate me. One battered flat bumps against my boot.

  “So. How’d you find me out?” Her voice maintains that light twang, but her shoulders stiffen. “Did you look me up? Follow me home?”

  I can’t make any sense of this. “Are you making another joke?”

  “You found out who I am, right?”

  I shake my head. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh.” The shutters behind her eyes open a little. “So what are we here for, then?”

  “You know my friend? He’s tall? Wears glasses?”

  “Quillpower? Unforgettable tumbleweed of a guy. Gets boners for Shakespeare?”

  I cough. “Phil is . . . ​odd. Reality is hard for him. He’s decided you must be a, um, character that’ll make his life interesting. He thinks you’ve got, um. Heroine potential.”

  “I’m trying to decide if that’s condescendin’.”

  “Definitely.”

  Kalyn wipes her nose on the back of her hand. “Dehumanizin’, at least.”

  “I told him that. But he wants to know if . . .” It’s hard to say.

  “The anticipation is killing me,” she says dully.

  “Phil wants to ask you to homecoming.” It’s the cleanest sentence I’ve managed all day, but I’m wincing, muscles tingling. But Kalyn, or Rose, whoever she is? She doesn’t laugh. She rests her chin on one knee and says “hmm.”

  Everyone in school knows “Rose” left Eli Martin hanging a few days ago, in front of an audience. Here in the dark, there’s no reason she should be nice.

  But she says “hmm” again.

  Without warning, I imagine the world Phil’s probably imagined.

  A world where this girl says yes, and Phil finds the guts to rent a suit and borrows Mr. Wheeler’s car instead of taking the Death Van. Phil appears at Kalyn’s house. And she, wearing a tacky silver prom dress rather than her usual charming country fare, hops in beside him, and Phil drives her to school, more carefully than he’s ever driven me. And when they get to the gymnasium, they dance, obviously, and she makes him smile a lot more than I ever have, and both of them are shiny with sweat but neither is worried because they’re having a surprisingly good time, so good they can’t believe it.