the thing about jellyfish

by Ali Benjamin

  I need thin, flat disks. These are easy to make, especially since I have been bringing home leftovers from Ming Palace every Saturday. Plastic takeout containers are perfect. The smallest size, the ones that are only a couple of inches high, are the best; these are easiest to stack neatly in the back of the freezer.

  Peeing right into these containers is easy. I sit on the toilet and hold them underneath me, one at a time, stopping midstream to swap them out. I arrange the containers on the floor in front of me, then snap the lids on.

  It’s all very clean. Like I said once, on a day when none of my words came out quite right, urine is sterile. The only gross thing about it is that we think it’s gross.

  I was right about that, you know. I was right, even though those girls laughed, and you laughed, too.

  After the lids are sealed tightly, I rinse the outsides, then place them in the freezer. I cover them with several packs of frozen vegetables, then place ice trays in front of the vegetables.

  Then I go to bed. Tomorrow is the last day of sixth grade.

  In the morning, as my mom showers, I stack the frozen plastic containers inside an insulated lunch pack, which I place in the bottom of my backpack. My stomach hurts, but I feel more sure than I have felt for a long time. I have even, at least for the moment, stopped hearing that terrible thud-splat inside my brain.

  I tell Mom that my homeroom teacher invited kids to help clean out the classroom and ask her to drive me to school early. She doesn’t ask any questions. Even when the parking lot is almost empty, she doesn’t ask.

  She trusts me, I think. Still trusts me, even if I no longer deserve it.

  Maybe this is what happens when a person grows up. Maybe the space between you and the other people in your life grows so big you can stuff it full of all kinds of lies.

  No one is in the hallway. Without any students, the hallway doesn’t look like a real middle school; it looks like a movie set of a middle school. I imagine that it is the future, and that all the people have disappeared, and I am the only human left in the whole world. Outside, giant insects are roaming the planet; at any second they might appear at the double doors at the end of this hallway; they will come in and devour me, and that will be my end.

  I feel the weight of the bag I’m carrying, my message for you, and I head toward the lockers.

  When the bell rang after my science report was finished, Mrs. Turton said, “Suzy, hang back for a minute.” I nodded but did not look up. I just kept staring at my desk as all the other kids gathered their books and walked out into the hallway, chattering as if my whole stupid report hadn’t even happened.

  As he passed my desk, Justin Maloney quietly placed a piece of notebook paper on my desk. The paper was covered with really messy sketches, each one of jellyfish, some of which looked like raggedy versions of the images I’d shown the class.

  When the classroom was empty, Mrs. Turton said, “Suzy?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Hey, Suzy,” she said. She waited until I looked up. “That was a really good report. I can see how hard you worked. I rarely give As for these reports, but I’m giving you one. You deserve it.”

  I looked back down at Justin’s sketches. They were sloppy but pretty accurate, actually.

  “You know, Suzy,” Mrs. Turton said, “I eat my lunches in here. You’re welcome to join me. I’m always here if you want to talk.”

  Which reminded me of Dr. Legs, who was the doctor I could talk to but would rather not.

  But the one I want to sit down with is Jamie. With Jamie I would know what to say.

  “Or we could just sit and eat,” Mrs. Turton said. “No talking necessary. Okay?”

  I nodded, but I did not look at her. If I looked at her, I might start crying all over again.

  “Be proud of yourself, Suzy,” she said. “You did a terrific job today.”

  I walked out of the class then, back into the hallway, thinking that this was another thing I didn’t understand: how you can work so hard on a report, you can even earn an A, but you still walk away feeling like you’ve done something wrong.

  Like you, yourself, are terribly wrong.

  When i reach locker number 605—yours—I open the cooler. This is your message.

  And you will understand.

  The disks are frozen, but they have started to melt around the edges. That’s perfect; they slip out of the plastic containers with ease.

  Each locker has slats, which are angled upward. The disks are exactly the right size to slip through the slats. I work fast, but calmly, pressing each up through the slats of your locker.

  I ignore my stomach, which is cramping hard. I don’t know if any of this could have been different, if there was some other message I could have sent, something I could have done sooner that would have allowed me to be sitting on the bus with you at this very moment, instead of here, slipping frozen pee disks into your locker.

  I hear the clang when a frozen disk hits the back of the locker, the hushed thud when one lands on something soft.

  It wasn’t that long ago that I slipped notes into your locker, marked with BFF and FOR YOUR EYES ONLY and our nicknames—MIZZ FRIZZ and STRAWBERRY GIRL. This is a different kind of note.

  You shouldn’t have laughed at me. You shouldn’t have called me weird. You shouldn’t have spit on me.

  But I want you to know: This isn’t about revenge. This is me doing the very thing you asked me to do. It’s me trying to make you listen. To finally, really listen. It’s about trying to save us before you disappear completely.

  You will be shocked at first. You will look up, right at me, as if to say, What have you done?

  And I will stare at you. Hard. And with my eyes, I will tell you, You told me to do something big.

  Then it will dawn on you: I did something big, because I had to.

  I did something big, because you told me to.

  I did something big, because it was time. It was time to bring you back. To bring us back.

  And that’s when the look on your face will change, and your eyes will say, Did I really hurt you that much?

  And my eyes will tell you, Yes.

  And your eyes will say, I understand.

  And then your eyes will say, I’m sorry.

  And then well be even. Well be able to start again.

  I imagine the disks hitting your pink Red Sox sweatshirt, falling past the decorations that hang on the inside of your locker door—the cutout magazine images of cats, the polka-dot magnetic mirror, the photos of your new friends, the ones that one day replaced the picture of the two of us standing together at Six Flags. When I think of your new photos, I push the disks especially hard.

  As soon as the last one is gone, I snatch the empty plastic containers and lids, and I stuff them back into the insulated cooler. I take the lunch pack to the girls’ bathroom and stuff it in the garbage bin, covering it with crumpled paper towels.

  Then I walk to the sink to wash my hands.

  And it’s while I’m standing there, in front of the mirror, that I feel something else. The back of my neck throbs. One of my eyelids spasms. I grip the sink and try to look in the mirror, but everything is blurry. Whatever this feeling is, I want to run from it, but my legs don’t want to hold me up. I sink down onto the floor.

  In forty minutes, the hallways will fill with kids. The ice will have melted. Your locker will be soaked.

  The thing you and I understand, Jamie, is that having venom doesn’t make a creature bad. Venom is protection.

  The more fragile the animal, the more it needs to protect itself. So the more venom a creature has, the more we should be able to forgive that animal. They’re the ones that need it most.

  And, really, what is more fragile than a jellyfish, which doesn’t even have any bones?

  I think you understand this. I just wanted you to know that I do, too.

  I wish we could sit down and talk about these things. About stings and venoms and beginnings and endin
gs and all the creatures that no one else seems to understand.

  I am standing at my locker when I see you approach. My heart beats more steadily now. The cold, sticky, sweaty feeling has stopped. Only that churning in my stomach remains.

  Just before you arrive at your locker, I close my own and walk toward homeroom. I count the seconds. I don’t look back at you, not yet, but I know anyway: Now you are turning the dial of your combination lock. Now you are lifting the handle of the locker. Now you are reaching in.

  When I hear the commotion, I do not turn around.

  Someone shouts, “Gross!” Then, from other kids, I hear “Ew!” and “Piss! It’s piss!”

  “Oh, man, somebody took a leak in her locker!”

  I hear laughter. I hear the footsteps of kids running over to see what’s happening. I feel the commotion, feel the energy out there, like it has a shape, volume, weight. It is something I could reach out and touch if I were to turn around.

  I focus on the air going in and out of my lungs.

  Somebody says, “I’ll go tell the main office.” I hear footsteps running.

  I stand in the doorway of homeroom. I adjust my books slowly, carefully.

  I look up only when the crowd moves away.

  Your shoulders are rounded, like you have crumpled into yourself. Crying, I think, feeling strangely disconnected from my own thoughts. Franny is crying.

  Now you need to look at me. For the message to work, for you to understand, you have to look at me.

  The bell rings. Kids filter past me into the classroom. They’re still laughing.

  The homeroom teacher tells everyone to sit down, but I linger in the doorway.

  Look at me, I think.

  The teacher says, “Suzanne Swanson, please join us.”

  There is a pencil sharpener near the door. I dig in my bag, pull out a pencil, and place it in the sharpener. I turn the handle very slowly.

  Mrs. Hall, the school secretary, approaches you with plastic bags. You fill the plastic bags with your belongings, one at a time. Your shoulders are shaking hard now.

  The homeroom teacher asks the kids to begin emptying their desks. I continue to turn the pencil sharpener.

  Look. At. Me.

  And then you and Mrs. Hall walk toward the office. She does not offer to carry any of the bags. You get farther away with each step. If you don’t turn around soon, you won’t even be able to see my eyes.

  Together, you round a corner.

  Then you disappear.

  I do not wonder if this is the last image I will ever have of you on this Earth. Why would I wonder such a thing?

  What I am thinking now is simply this: You did not look.

  It’s not a new beginning to you, I realize. It is something else entirely.

  It’s some sort of ending.

  I place one hand on the wall to steady myself, and I turn back to the classroom, where kids are pulling heaps of paper out of their desks. The homeroom teacher is saying that if everyone gets things cleaned up quickly, we can have a paper airplane contest with some of these papers. Everyone cheers. Everyone but me.

  I feel nothing at all.

  The nothing stays with me for the rest of these final, useless hours of sixth grade—as kids toss paper airplanes around the room, as I sit alone through the end-of-the-year picnic, as the buses pull out of the parking lot, this terrible school year fading away.

  It’s only later that I feel something.

  It’s only later, when I step into the bathroom and sit down on the toilet and find a single red spot of blood in my underpants. The blood is a surprise. When I see it, I feel a deep wave of shame. It blares its crimson color at me like a warning.

  Or maybe an accusation.

  After my science report, kids started coughing “Medusa” into their hands every time I passed in the hallway.

  They did it for the rest of that day, and then—just to make sure it wasn’t a one-day thing—when I returned to school again in the morning.

  That was just one of the reasons I decided to visit Mrs. Turton at lunchtime.

  I stood in the doorway and cleared my throat.

  “Oh,” she said, brightening a little. “Suzy. Come on in.”

  She brought a second chair over to her desk and patted it. “How are you doing?” she asked as I sat.

  I looked at her shoes. They were brown leather boots, well worn, with fringe coming down in the back. They looked at once practical and adventurous—the kind of boots that could really take a person somewhere. I imagined the hallways outside this room as a desert filled with enemies in khaki, Mrs. Turton dashing through the harsh landscape in an effort to save the world.

  “Suzy, you’re a terrific student,” she said, “but I’m concerned about you. I talked with some of your teachers from last year, and it sounds like there have been some changes in your behavior this year. Change is normal. Everybody changes. But I wanted to make sure you’re okay. Are you?”

  I kept my eyes on her boots. I nodded.

  “Good,” she said, sounding like she wasn’t all that convinced. “That’s good to know.”

  There was a long pause, and then she changed the subject. “You seem to really like science. Am I right?”

  I thought about that. I liked a lot of the things she showed us, and a lot of the things I found online. I liked the way patterns repeated themselves in this universe, the way a solar system could resemble an atom, or a mountain range seen from outer space could look just like a fern leaf covered with frost. I liked the thought that three billion bugs fly over my head in a single month in summer or that an inch of soil might contain millions of creatures from thousands of different species.

  These things made me feel like I could stand in one place my whole life and never run out of new things to discover. I liked that so many things were out there, waiting to be known.

  But sometimes studying science uncovered other, scarier things. I didn’t like thinking about predators and prey, about a rabbit thrashing in a fox’s jaws. I didn’t like lying in bed knowing that even if we could figure out how to travel at the speed of light, which no one can, we wouldn’t get to the edge of the universe for 46 billion years, which is triple the amount of time anything has even existed. And worse, the universe is expanding so fast that by the time you got to the edge of today’s universe, the universe would have grown so much bigger that you could never, ever get to the edge.

  No matter how hard we tried, we’d be stuck in an in-between place—nowhere, really—forever.

  I didn’t like being on a pale blue dot, surrounded by nothing, a nothing that expanded around us in every direction.

  “I’d like to show you something, Suzy,” Mrs. Turton said.

  She typed into her computer, tilted the monitor toward me, and pulled up a video.

  “I just watched this last night. Perhaps you’ll like it.”

  She pressed Play, then picked up some papers and started grading. I liked that she left me alone like that.

  At first, the video showed just a man talking on a stage in front of a bunch of people. The man had a little lisp and he was describing pollination, which he described as nature’s way to reproduce.

  Then, on the screen in front of me, there was a time-lapse image of a flower unfolding. The flower had these delicate outside petals, which opened to reveal long spikes with violet stripes.

  This is one of the good kinds of blooms, I thought. The word bloom can have so many meanings. Jellyfish blooms might be terrifying. But some blooms—like this one—can be beautiful.

  Someone appeared in Mrs. Turton’s doorway. Justin Maloney.

  “Mrs. Turton?” he said. He glanced at me. “Oh, hey, Belle.”

  I was so busy watching the video in front of me that I didn’t even bother to make a face at him for calling me the wrong name.

  Mrs. Turton looked up from her desk. “Ah, Mr. Maloney. Have you completed your bibliography?”

  “Yeah,” he said, sort of sheepishly.
He handed her a paper.

  She examined it, then nodded. “Thank you. I’ll add it to your report. But next time, I expect it with your report. It’s an essential part, okay?”

  He nodded and turned to leave. Then he asked, “Whatcha watching, Belle?”

  “Shhh,” I hissed at him. That name again. Belle. I kept my eyes on the computer screen.

  A bee lifted off a flower in slow motion, like an airplane rising. It joined a group of bees, whose wings beat together like a million heartbeats.

  “Whoa,” said Justin.

  “Pull up a chair, if you want,” said Mrs. Turton. I frowned. But Justin either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He pulled a chair over.

  As he sat, the screen showed bats flying through the desert at night. Their skeletons were visible through their wings in the moonlight.

  Justin whistled, then asked, “Seriously, what is this?”

  I didn’t know. It seemed to me it was about everything beautiful.

  Then, in front of us on the screen, there were a million monarch butterflies, dancing in slow motion in the sky. All that fluttering, that color, yellow against blue, the in-and-out movement of their wings. I thought something inside me might crack in two.

  When it was done, Justin said, “Hey, can we go back to the part with the bats?”

  So we did.

  “I wish the world looked like that all the time,” murmured Justin.

  Mrs. Turton looked up from her paperwork. “It does,” she said.

  We watched the video again and again, until the bell rang and lunch was over and it was time for math class.

  As we stepped into the hall, Justin said, “Thanks for letting me watch with you, Belle. That was cool.”

  That was the third time he’d called me that. Belle. I didn’t know why he was calling me names, or why he’d chosen that particular one. But I’d had enough.

  I stopped and put my hands on my hips.

  “That’s their biggest part, right?” he asked. “A bell?”

  I stared at Justin. He shifted his backpack from one shoulder to the other, and his mouth curled into the tiniest half-smile.