New Girl

by Joan B. Flood

  The track was at the furthest end of the park from the houses around it. The smell of gas and seared meat clogged my nose. People were in the backyards tending their barbecues, and slugging back beers, but right now that seemed like another country away. A faint jangle of music from radios and stereos teased my ears in the quiet when I drew a breath.

  “Help!” I yelled as loudly as I could. It sounded thin and pathetic as it dissipated into the empty park.

  Bart stepped forward and slapped me hard across the face. I staggered backwards with the blow. Tommy charged Bart, and the two of them fell. Mr. Ugly came forward, wood swinging. I shot out my foot and he tumbled. He just barely missed landing on Bart and Tommy. This time I really screamed. Tommy had Bart pinned to the ground. Mr. Ugly got up and took a split second to decide who he wanted to clobber most, me or Tommy. Fortunately for me, he chose Tommy. He swung the block of wood and caught Tommy on the side. He fell off Bart, who pushed out from beneath him.

  I snatched Tommy’s bag and hurled it at Mr. Ugly. It bounced off him as easily as a fly off a cow’s back. My cell phone was in my bag, and that was neatly tucked against the wall of the shed. I dithered a moment, and then decided to go for the bag. I snapped it up, but before I could run, Bart grabbed me.

  “Take care of him,” he said to Mr. Ugly as he tugged the bag out my hand. He flung it to one side, and it landed with a thump. Tommy was on his feet again. He dodged a swing from Mr. Ugly.

  Bart pulled me around the side of the shed. I caught the edge of the wall to keep myself from being dragged off. Bart jerked to a stop. My shoulder just about ripped out of its socket. I screamed again. Then I heard Jane yelling. I thought I was imagining it, but I spotted her and Miss Copperhead cycling across the grass full tilt.

  Bart dropped my arm. I turned to see what was going on with Tommy. He and Mr. Ugly stood frozen, their eyes on the two cyclists, both yelling like Valkyries. Jane got to us first. She jumped off the bike and let it fall.

  “Get out of here, Bart,” she said.

  She didn’t look at me, but kept her eyes locked with Bart’s.

  “Oh, who’ll make me? You?”

  “Yes. Me.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. Remember the lesson I taught you last time?”

  Miss Copperhead circled around behind Jane, heading toward Tommy. She had a great big smile on. I began to shake and my shoulder hurt. I willed myself to do something, but couldn’t even string a couple of thoughts together.

  “Well, now it’s my turn to teach you, I guess.”

  Jane turned into a tornado. All legs and twirls, she launched herself at Bart. My legs gave way, and I slid down the side of the shed. Jane kicked Bart in his thigh. He gave a great whoof sound and dropped, both hands clasped to his leg. I looked over to Tommy. Bent over, he clutched his side. Blood dripped down his face onto the grass. Miss Copperhead and Mr. Ugly circled each other in a slow, tense dance. Sirens wailed toward us.

  “Outta here,” Bart yelled.

  Mr. Ugly dropped his hunk of wood and took off at a run. Bart stumbled after him at an unsteady trot.

  “You okay? You hurt?”

  Jane was panting hard as she crouched in front of me.

  “Both,” I said. She helped me stand up.

  Miss Copperhead was helping Tommy onto the grass. He hissed air through his teeth as he lowered himself.

  “How did you get here?” I asked Jane.

  “I told you Bart was just plain bad. I told you.”

  “Cool it, Jane,” Miss Copperhead said. “Jane overheard Bart making plans with Bob to come out here and get Tommy. When Jane heard where, she guessed you’d be here too and called me.”

  A police car arrived, sirens wailing and lights flashing. It parked on the road and a policeman and woman got out.

  “Let’s keep Bart’s name out of it, okay?” Jane said. “We should just turn him in, he deserves it, but he is my brother. I just can’t do that. Besides, Dad would get mad with both of us.”

  That was a no-brainer. I didn’t want Mom and Dad on my case about who I hung out with either. I didn’t want to have to explain about Tommy Mack and drugs—that was for sure. We just had time to get our story together before the police reached us.

  I told more lies in the next fifteen minutes than I’d ever told in my life. I lied to the police: “No, I had no idea what provoked the attack” and “No, I didn’t know the people involved.” Tommy’s blood was “from a nosebleed that quickly stopped” but he was hurt. My lip was split and my shoulder ached, but I was okay. Jane and Miss Copperhead were just fine. We didn’t say much, any of us, because of the police. For once I had nothing to ask, my head being curiously quiet and empty as I sat with my arm around Tommy and waited as the ambulance siren grew louder and louder.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  We stuck to our tale that we didn’t know who had attacked us. I even lied to Mom and Dad. I told Ryan the truth though, eventually, when I figured out what it was, or what I thought it was. I wasn’t certain anymore that I knew the truth about anyone, but Ryan said this would pass. He said the only mistake I almost made was to let Bart get a bit friendly. Maybe that wouldn’t have mattered even. I didn’t know.

  Tommy spent a day in hospital, and then went home with his ribs all strapped up. The blow from Mr. Bob Ugly had cracked a couple. My shoulder was sore a few days, but then settled down.

  Jane and I finally had our talk. We sat on the park bench as cars zipped by on the road in front, way too fast for me to take in. It had been like this ever since I sat with Tommy waiting for the ambulance, like I had slowed down or else everyone else had sped up.

  Jane told me about her bruises.

  The bruises I saw first she got from Bart, but they were not the first he’d given her. In the beginning they’d argued about his dealing. Jane had been friends with Tommy Mack way back when, and Bart had sneered and told her that Tommy was the one who got him into it. That was the first time he had hit Jane, when she said that he, Bart, shouldn’t put the blame for what he did onto others. It was just a slap that first time. Jane pushed him away, and he left. They’d stayed out of each other’s way a while.

  “I didn’t want to be his victim. I didn’t want to be anyone’s victim,” Jane said, “so I took up kickboxing. I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want Bart to know.”

  Things were tense between her and Bart after that, but that was all. Until Bart began to taunt her about me. Jane called him scum, and he hit her. She fell, and then he kicked her and said that if she opened her mouth again and called him names or said one more thing about him, she’d be really sorry. Those were the bruises I saw that first time. Jane stepped up her kickboxing and began to spar in earnest with Miss Copperhead, whose name was Josephine.

  “Did you tell Josephine?”

  “No, I didn’t tell her then. I told later, after she helped me out that day at the park.”

  That was where she’d gone after school when she disappeared. That was where she got the rest of the bruises, from the bumps and grinds of training. That was where she’d met Josephine, who was a really nice person. Josephine and Jane were sparring partners.

  “You could have told me or Corinne.”

  “I couldn’t. I couldn’t admit what had happened with Bart. I guess I was ashamed. Now I wish I had.”

  I thought about my not telling anyone about the awful messages. I told Jane all about it then.

  “Idiot. If you’d told me, I could have told you Bart sent them. That’s his term, ‘slut girl.’ That’s what he calls every girl he knows. Even me.”

  “Why did he do it? Hit you, send messages, try to really hurt Tommy?”

  “Dunno. Because he’s Bart. A real bad dude. Because he liked you and hated me. He just wanted to mess up what we had. He likes playing with people. Who knows?”

  We were quiet for a while. I remembered how nice to me Bart had been. Ryan was right about bad guys. If they were all ugly and smelled liked hell, the world would h
ave fewer problems.

  “How is it at home with him now? How do you stand it? Are you not scared?”

  “Well, he knows I can kick his ass anytime I like. He stays pretty quiet and out of my way.” She grinned. “That was the whole point of learning to kickbox.”

  Seemed to me the cars had slowed down or maybe I had caught up with real time again. Whatever, I was glad that Jane and I were talking. It was too late to return to the way we were, but now we could really be friends.

  “Let’s not hide things anymore, okay?” I said.

  Jane leaned against my shoulder.

  “Okay.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Mom brought the cake out onto the porch. She had made my favorite, an angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream. My aunts, Louise and Julie, were talking to Tommy Mack over by the barbeque. Fern was there, and Jack and Corinne. So were Jane and Josephine. Oh, and Ryan and Claudia. And Dad. All the people I cared about. All my friends. Except Claudia, but she came with Ryan, so that was okay with me.

  It wasn’t how I had imagined it that first day I walked into Astoria High School when I thought of a huge party without Mom and Dad. I had imagined they would let Ryan oversee the party. As if. But though it wasn’t what I had dreamed about, it was what I wanted. Fifteen candles blazed on top of the cake and I blew them out with one breath. Easy.

  “I know I’m not supposed to tell anyone my wish,” I said, “but I’m gonna. I wish that from now on everyone, including you, Mom and Dad, would stop calling me Carly. You can call me Caroline or Caro. There will be no more Carly, okay?”

  Aunt Louise raised her glass.

  “To Caro.”

  Then everyone else did too, and everyone said at once: “To Caro.”

  It was the best birthday ever.

  So many things changed that first term in Astoria High School. Corinne stopped being a goth, and tried out being the girl next door, which didn’t last too long. She settled into some mix of each that suited her. Just before the end of term, she found out she was going to be editor of the school newspaper the following year. Jane turned into a jock after all her jeering at us, and became runner-up in a kickboxing championship. Tommy got to race with our team and be part of it. And while I didn’t understand the calm that propelled Tommy Mack through the world, in the end I recognized it as a defense every bit as binding as my own need to fit in.

  Bart and I ran into each other a few times over the summer, but we didn’t even say hello. Jane just barely tolerated Tommy and avoided talking to him. That was one thing about her, she was too hard. If she took offense to you, you were done, no matter what you did to change. Corinne still called me a baby sometimes, but I didn’t care anymore. For the first time, I had a place that didn’t depend on being the best at something.

  It would be Astoria High for me for one more full year. Dad promised that. He was settling in to make his showcase restructuring. I was glad to stay with my friends, even if I were nervous because I had never before had to follow up on friendship, and I wasn’t sure how it would go. But one thing I’d learned that first term, was that things didn’t turn out the way you expected them to, no matter how you tried to plan. It was a lot like running a race: you just got to take a deep breath and go. That was all.

  Acknowledgements

  Wholehearted thanks to:

  My mentor, Wayde Compton, for his unfailing support, guidance, and inspiration.

  To my writing group Leslie Hill, Juliane Okot Bitek, and Jan Hodgkinson Redford who asked all the right questions, read more versions that anyone should have to, and gave excellent advice.

  To Yael Harlap, Lorri Rudland, and Sharon Bray for their fantastic patience at finding my typos, bad grammar and misplaced commas.

  To Arthur Slade at the Banff Centre for his insightful input to the early chapters.

  To Betsy Warland for her generous advice and support for this writing life.

  To Ryan Loveless for her careful reading and editing, fine suggestions and indulgence with my mix of Canadian and Irish phrasing.

  To Devon Boorman for asking me to dream bigger, and for being there to keep my head in the clouds and my feet on the ground.

  To my son, Kevin Ricks, for cheering me on and for enriching my life.

  About the Author

  Joan B Flood was born in Ireland and lived briefly in France and England before settling in Canada. She now lives in Vancouver, BC.

  Her poetry, short fiction, and non-fiction have been published in anthologies in Canada, U.S.A., and Australia. She has published under the names Joan Bridget and Joan Flood. New Girl is her first novel.

  Website: www.joanbflood.com

  Twitter: @joanbflood

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/joanfloodwriter