Saving Montgomery Sole

by Mariko Tamaki

  I squirmed in my desk, my student-issued classroom torture device. Cat coiled the end of her ponytail around her index finger.

  “Foreshadowing doesn’t have to be dark,” I said finally. It felt like I was squeezing the words out of my eyeballs.

  “Hey,” Madison snapped. “There’s no need to be rude!”

  “I’m not being rude. I’m being right!” I could feel my cheeks glowing red. I’m sure I was flushing like crazy. I probably looked like a raspberry.

  “Excuse me. Can I just say? A shadow is dark.” Cat sniffed, looking at Madison.

  “That’s totally true.” Madison nodded.

  “Uh, hello, I know that,” I said, my face exploding. “What I’m saying is, that doesn’t mean foreshadowing has to be dark!”

  Honestly!

  Mrs. Farley stopped writing on the blackboard and looked over at our group. Someone else on the other side of the classroom coughed. “Whi-itch.”

  “Whatever,” Madison sneered. “Let’s just work without her.”

  And they scooted their chairs closer together and bent their heads toward each other so I could just hear them whispering. “It’s like, ‘Oh, I’m so cool, look at my T-shirt, I listen to alternative music.’”

  I could feel my stomach pinching together like someone was using it to make pizza.

  As a kid, I thought girls being mean was the only way to get a stomachache.

  Screw them. I inched my chair over in the other direction and held my book in my lap so I could be as far away from them as the class rules of “group work” allowed.

  “Does anyone have any examples?” Mrs. Farley asked, pacing up the aisle. “Anyone? No? Not even one? Nice work, guys. Okay, it’s homework, then.”

  The bell rang.

  “Class dismissed,” Mrs. Farley sighed.

  Just to make sure I really got that feeling-like-a-busted-up-sandbox-toy vibe, after lunch, I ran into Matt Truit.

  Matt is one of the most popular boys at Aunty, even though he just transferred here last year. He is the biggest jock there is, the best football and basketball player of all time, irresistible to all women. Also, he is a jerk.

  So Thomas and I were walking down the hall to class, talking about whether or not it would be cool to go to Disneyland for my birthday, which is maybe out of the question because we’d probably have to rent a hotel room since it’s really far. Thomas thought we should try to hitch to Vegas or something. Which is probably also out of the question but still fun to talk about hypothetically. And we bumped into Matt. Or Thomas did. And Matt spun around and said, “I thought you gays, I mean, guys, were supposed to be light on your feet.”

  Thomas and I kind of simultaneously froze midstep.

  And Matt smiled. This stupid, big, puffy lip smile. This smile like an old pizza crust. And he said, “Joke.”

  I felt Thomas’s hand on my back, and we started walking again.

  “Jerk,” I whispered.

  “I know, I know.” Thomas breezed past the lockers, head held high. “Let’s go, Monty, heel, toe, heel, toe, nice strut. This is the scene where we march off into our futures. Cue bell.”

  And right on cue, the school bell screamed. BRRRRRRING!

  Thomas ran off to gym. I ran to bio, just in time to find out that I’d failed my test because I drew a plant cell instead of an animal cell.

  “Seriously?” I groaned to myself.

  Clearly displeased with our overall cell ignorance, Mr. Jenner took a swig from his massive coffee thermos and said, “Okay, let’s go through our answers. Eyes front. Mr. Tanner, I’m talking to you. Mr. Tanner, this class is not a party for you to meet girls!”

  In history, Mrs. Dawson had the flu, so we watched some ancient DVD of a BBC production of King Lear. What that has to do with ancient China, which is what we’re studying, I’m not sure.

  Then I was supposed to have study hall, but I kind of wandered the halls for a bit, feeling a little lost, until I ran across Naoki heading into the library for her English class.

  I told her what had happened with Thomas and Matt. She frowned. “Poor Thomas,” she said.

  “Matt is, like, ‘Oh I’m so funny,’” I spat. “Like that guy even knows what a joke is. That guy is as funny as…”

  “A rock?” Naoki offered.

  “That would be an insult to rocks,” I said, thinking of the cool white surface of the Eye of Know.

  “Rocks are pretty great.” Naoki paused, tracing something in the palm of her hand. “It’s too bad Matt isn’t the person you thought.”

  Which is Naoki’s nice way of saying, or remembering, that I once had kind of a thing with Matt Truit. Briefly had a thing with Matt Truit.

  “There should be an actual foreshadowing technique that lets you avoid this stuff,” I said.

  “Maybe there is.” Naoki patted my shoulder with her scarf. “Healing scarf touch,” she explained.

  “Uh, thanks.”

  Naoki smiled encouragingly. Which made me think maybe I was looking like a basket case. Which I am not. I straightened, crossed my arms over my chest in order to look casual and in control.

  “Hey,” I said. “Did I tell you I ordered this thing on the Internet yesterday? The Eye of Know. We’re going to wield it and use it to see beyond.”

  The word wield clearly peaked Naoki’s interest. “We’re going to wield the Eye of Gnome! That’s fabulous!”

  “The Eye of Know,” I said. “Know, like with a k. Like knowledge.”

  “Oh,” Naoki breathed. “Oh, I haven’t heard of that one.”

  “But you’ve heard of an Eye of Gnome?”

  I must have said it really loudly. There was a shuffling inside the library. “Naoki,” a soft librarian voice called, “please take your seat.”

  “Crap,” I said, stepping back. “I should go.”

  “Do you want to go walk in the sun later?” Naoki asked, stepping one toe through the library door. “We can talk about the Eyes?”

  “No, it’s okay,” I called, walking backward down the hallway. “See you later.”

  Slumped over in study hall, I realized the only thing that could save me on a day like this was frozen yogurt.

  3

  Before Yoggy was Yoggy, it was this antique shop owned by a woman who always wore pink tracksuits and told her customers that the place was haunted. Mama Kate went there all the time because she likes old things like candlesticks and lace doilies. While she shopped, I sat at the front and grilled the woman about the ghost.

  It used to make me crazy that she couldn’t be more specific.

  “What’s her name?” I would ask.

  “I don’t know, dear,” she’d say, needlessly dusting the very old things in the shop.

  “But it’s a girl?” I’d push, watching the dust spray up and land back on the glass or wood she was cleaning.

  “It’s a feminine spirit.”

  I considered this. “When she talks, can you hear it in your brain or your ear?”

  “You buying anything, little girl? Or just riling up an old woman for kicks?”

  Clearly this was just laziness on the old lady’s part because I can go online and in two seconds find, like, intensive documentation people have done all over the world of the different paranormal spirits inhabiting their houses and other buildings. I could go online right now and buy a Spirit Tracker if I was so inclined. There’s a guy in Iowa who sells them for, like, a hundred bucks (plus shipping). Last year I found this one site where this guy had a twenty-four-hour webcam of his haunted closet (although I watched for about three hours nonstop once, and I didn’t see anything).

  Whoever bought the place and put up Yoggy clearly repurposed some of the art and decor from the antique shop. The place is covered in a mishmash of old posters from the fifties to the nineties. Thomas, when he’s accompanied me to get a treat, says the place feels a little sacrilegious.

  “You mean, like, haunted?”

  “Ugly, Monty. Ug-ly.”

  Tiffa
ny, who is both the manager and the only person who works at Yoggy, is sort of my adult best friend. She looks kind of more like a mountain lion than a person. She has big dreads, which I normally don’t like on not–African American people, but on Tiffany it looks kind of scary in a good way. She’s got all these thick black tattoos on her forearms. On one hand is a hammer and on the other is a fountain pen. On her back is a picture of a woman holding a sign that says “No justice, no peace.” Tiffany wears tank tops even though it’s always freezing at Yoggy. Tiffany used to be a master’s student in Women’s Studies in Michigan, but then she said she decided the whole thing was useless and too expensive. Also, her boyfriend ran off to India with a skinny yoga instructor … named Tiffany.

  What are the odds?

  Now Tiffany spends most of her time at Yoggy working on her “independent thesis,” which will be based on her “out-of-system” research on “The SorBetties.”

  The SorBetties are the yoga freaks who come to Yoggy every week but only ever eat the health-conscious options, that is, the yogurt Yoggy has labeled as either fat- or sugar-free. Or carb-free. Tiffany has been tracking the SorBetties’ movements since she got this job three years ago. Every time a SorBetty orders a health-conscious Yoggy flavor, Tiffany takes their picture with her phone and adds them to her data.

  We got to be friends because one day I ordered health-conscious, carb-free, blueberry swirly with extra marshmallow and Cocoa Puffs topping, and I caught her taking my picture. My only interest in the carb-free blueberry was that it was their only blueberry option. Blueberry goes great with marshmallow.

  I would never diet. Even Tesla, who is always on a health kick, would never diet. You cannot diet in a house run by lesbian moms, especially when one of them was the head of a “consciousness-raising group” in college.

  Or, you know, that’s what Momma Jo tells me.

  Needless to say, Tiffany and I are pretty much bonded on our shared major dislike for the population of Aunty that worries about carbs. The SorBetties are the rudest. They always travel in packs and squeal really loudly like how girlfriends laugh on TV. Also, they never pick up their cartons. And they never finish their yogurt.

  Recently, Tiffany kicked her research up a notch by changing around the health-conscious cards on some of the flavors. The Wild Strawberry Sensation, as a result, is now listed as carb-free.

  It is not.

  It’s possible the SorBetties have sensed a snake in the grass.

  “This is totally carb-free?” they squeak from the dispensers. “You’re sure? Totally carb-free? Hellooooo, yogurt lady? I’m talking to you. Yes. Are you absolutely and totally sure this is carb-free?”

  “Totally.” Tiffany has a special smile she saves for the SorBetties. It is a teeth-only, dead-eye smile. It looks like some sort of reverse magic spell.

  Mystery Club–related side note: once, like two years ago, I started reading these blogs of girls who decided to starve themselves to death. I was actually looking for websites about people who fast for spiritual reasons, so they can hallucinate, but all these anorexia fan sites started coming up instead.

  There are so many blogs out there written by girls who want to weigh less than a baby squirrel.

  I would put it on my list of things I will never understand, but it’s too gross and sad.

  Of course, the second-best part of Yoggy is that whenever I come in, Tiffany lets me put on as much topping as I want as long as I pay for the actual yogurt.

  I’m currently perfecting the perfect balance of mochi and mandarin slices and crispy stars. The trick is to keep the stars on the top so they don’t get soggy.

  The store was quiet when I arrived, so Tiffany let me sit on the counter, and we looked at sexist magazines together. Which was kind of calming. The counters were all littered with half-eaten cups of strawberry-smelling goop.

  “How’s the research?” I asked, between perfect cold and crunchy mouthfuls.

  “Grueling,” Tiffany grumbled.

  I scooped some extra Lucky Charms cereal and maraschino cherries on my Mocha Me Crazy fro even though Mama Kate is convinced anything with red dye is poison.

  Flipping the page of her magazine, Tiffany squished her mouth from side to side, like she was rinsing with Listerine or something. Her lip ring looked a little sore.

  “How’s school?” she asked.

  “Stupid,” I said, flipping the magazine page.

  “Huh.” Tiffany flashed a pierced-eyebrow raise.

  “Hey,” I said, jumping off the counter to grab more topping. “Do you ever get the feeling you’re, like, on the verge of not being able to deal with people being jerks?”

  Tiffany gave me the look I guess a person like me asking a person like her a question like that deserves. I mean, she works at a place called Yoggy.

  She sighed and grabbed another magazine from the pile. “High school is mostly pointless.”

  “Right.” I stabbed at a handful of peanut butter cups with my clearly-too-small-for-the-job set of plastic tongs. “I’m pretty convinced my own research online will be more fruitful than anything I’ll learn at Jefferson High.”

  Tiffany stopped to unstick a page. The magazines were the ones the SorBetties had left behind, and they were always covered in carb-free. “Yep. Most of what you’re learning at school is a lie you’ll have to unlearn in college.”

  “Unlearn!” I shouted exuberantly, scattering peanut butter cups and cherries on the counter as a result. “Whoops. I mean, exactly! I should just not go.”

  “Ah, no. You gotta go,” Tiffany said, grabbing a wet cloth from under the counter and handing it to me. “Wipe.”

  “What?” I froze, cloth in hand. “Why?”

  “Ahem. You gonna clean that up?”

  Tiffany has this thing, the ability to switch almost who she is, on a dime. Like, all friendly to superharsh. She’s not mean like high-school-girl mean. More like grumpy. Usually when something is spilled.

  I wiped the counter while she opened up a new magazine.

  “You know,” she said, when I’d finished grabbing all my spilled toppings with the cloth and dumped them in the trash, “I had a SorBetty come in today and buy a small carb-free for her four-year-old. Four years old, Montgomery!”

  I snorted. “What does that have to do with me not going to school?”

  Tiffany gave me this kind of drop-dead look. “Maybe there are some things that are bigger than just your problems?”

  Wow. Nice.

  I looked down at what was left in my cup. All I could smell was the bleachy, sour smell of the wet rag on my hands. The anti-food smell.

  You know, I wanted to say, I’m, like, the only person you talk to all day, I bet, that gets why it sucks here. I mean, it’s not like I treat you like someone who’s serving me yogurt. How about you treat me like something other than a dumb kid?

  Instead I said, “Well, thanks for the toppings.”

  Just then, the door dinged and a bunch of SorBetties came in, dewy from Ashtanga or whatever it is they do. I slipped out, put a little Eurythmics on. Eurythmics is this band from the eighties. Their song “Here Comes the Rain Again” was Momma Jo’s favorite song, and she used to play it all the time. I heard it probably a million times as a kid. Fortunately it’s a great song. They’re probably my fourth-favorite band.

  Naoki said it’s interesting that I like Eurythmics because the name actually means “a harmonious body of words.” “Like a pep rally where everyone is singing the same song.”

  “And it’s a nice song,” Thomas added.

   Harmony—music and magic?

   Throat singing?

  There’s no way Jefferson High would ever play Eurythmics, anywhere. First of all, Eurythmics is music for poets, not jocks. Plus it’s music for singing alone when you feel alone in the world. And that’s not pep rally music.

  * * *

  It was Sole Family Pizza Night. By the time I got home, Tesla had already voted on a movie, Home Alone, which
is this relatively ancient movie she found on Netflix about this kid who gets left behind when his parents go away, because his parents are stupid and don’t know how to count their kids.

  As I carefully stacked what I perceived to be the max number of pizza slices onto my plate (accessing my math skills to see if my triangle studies would prove at all helpful—they didn’t), I caught Mama Kate looking at me.

  “How’s it going?” she said, in this superlight “I’m just asking about the weather” way.

  “Starving,” I said, pointing at my pizza.

  Mama Kate disappeared into the fridge and emerged with a big bottle of soda, which is an only-movie-night treat because sugar in pop form makes Tesla a bit crazy. “How’s school?”

  “Fine,” I said. It is important, when eating pizza, to make sure you have at least two napkins per slice. Especially in my family. Half the clothes any of us owns are stained with something.

  Mama Kate nudged a glass in my direction. “Nothing of note?”

  There is nothing Mama Kate wants more than for me to “talk about things,” whatever that means. Talk about what and why is what I want to know. About how Matt Truit is a dickhead? Which would give her a new thing that she can worry about? On top of all the other things she worries about, like food dye and grades and everything? I don’t think so.

  I poured myself a glass of sugary carbonated goodness and smiled a huge “school photo” fake smile. “Everything’s totally cool,” I said.

  “Hey!” Momma Jo shouted from the couch. “Are we watchin’ a movie or what?”

  On movie nights, my moms sit on the couch with Tesla snuggled in the middle, and I perch on the top of the couch, creating kind of a pyramid shape. We have many family photos with this similar formation. It is not necessarily the best setup for a movie-night seating arrangement. Many pieces of pizza have been spilled because the top of the couch, as Momma Jo has often said, is not a table.

  I lay a few extra napkins on my knees and on the couch for good measure.

  “That’s a good idea,” Momma Jo said, holding out her hand. “Gimme some of those.”

  “I might have to go and do homework and not watch the whole movie,” I warned as Tesla pointed the remote at the TV.