Goth Girl Rising

by Barry Lyga

  Her face freezes with that stupid grin. We're maybe a foot apart. I don't blink. I don't say anything else. I just look at her.

  "I'm sorry?" she says. "What did you just say?"

  And then ... and then it's like I can't help myself. I can't stop myself. When people are stupid, when they give me shit, I just can't stop myself. It's like I'm watching myself do it, listening to myself. And I just purge everything out of my body. I just puke up all the mean, nasty shit.

  "All the boys want to eff you. That's what I said. They all want to eff you. They lust over you in class."

  "Uh, Kyra, I—"

  "It's really sick to sit here and watch it." I just steamroll right over her. I lean forward a little bit and she finally backs off and gets those tits out of my face. "Every day I'm in here and I watch them check you out like you're not even real, like you're Internet porn they just downloaded. And the worst part isn't them. The worst part is you, because you totally know it. You totally know that all the boys want to eff you because you make them want to, don't you? You wear your tight little skirts and your shirts with your boobs falling out and you sit up on your desk and you make sure everyone watches when you cross your legs. Everyone can see right up your skirt. Did you know that? I bet you did. You're wearing blue underwear today. See? I proved it. So you do that every day and all the boys drool and want to eff you and you love it, don't you? You love knowing that all the boys want to eff you and you encourage it. So don't tell me about self-hating and self-destructive and all that shit. don't tell me about girls and society. don't try to be my friend. I have enough sluts for friends!"

  And I get up and grab my messenger bag.

  God, it's like I just went to the moon! I feel light! I feel like I could fly! Like one of Fanboy's superheroes.

  "Kyra!" She clears her throat and I look at her over my shoulder. She's gone all pale and she's off the desk now. "You cannot talk to me like that!"

  "Bite me. I already have a shrink, OK? And at least I know what's wrong with me. At least I'm not some Evelyn Sherman wannabe who gets her rocks off making a bunch of kids get boners."

  And wow—Miss Powell is ugly when she's pissed!

  "You—I'm trying to help you!"

  "Don't want it. don't need it." I open the door.

  "Go to the office!"

  "Eat me."

  I leave and slam her door on my way out.

  God. God. God. That felt so good! That felt so so so so so good!

  I don't go to the office. Eff that shit. I go to lunch.

  I sit with the usual crowd. The goth table, usually a sinkhole of black, now has a little salt to go with its pepper. Simone has napkins spread all over herself to keep from getting anything on her copycat white clothes.

  "You're going Friday, right?" this kid Troy asks me. He's a tool for the most part, but he does have an awesome horseshoe through his nose. Every time I see it, I think, I should totally pierce my nose again. Because I've got the red stone through the left side, but having a horseshoe hanging from the middle would be awesome.

  "Where?"

  Simone sighs like she thinks there's an Academy Award in it for her. "The party. Don't pretend. I know Jecca told you about it."

  I look around the table like I'm not sure I've chosen the right place to sit. "You all are going to a party at Pete Vesentine's house? He's a jock dickhead."

  Lauri says, "So? His parents are gonna be gone and there's gonna be alcohol."

  "You have to come," Troy says.

  Simone saves me from having to answer: "What did Powell want?" she asks.

  "She wanted to know where you get your bras and thongs."

  Most of the table laughs. Even the people who haven't had Miss Powell for English have heard the stories.

  "I'd lend her this one, but her boobs are too big," Simone says, and quickly opens her jacket and arches her back, just in case all the boys missed which specific bra she was talking about. (They double check, just to be sure.)

  "What did she really want?" Lauri asks.

  So I tell them.

  There's some giggling and some horrified looks and some head-shaking.

  "What did you say to her?" asks Troy.

  So I tell them.

  Total silence at the table.

  And then they applaud.

  "Holy shit!" says Troy. "Holy shit! You're my hero!"

  "Whatever."

  "That's awesome," Simone says. "You really screwed her. That is so awesome!"

  "I just told the truth. That's all."

  For the rest of lunch, I'm the Hero of the Table, the Goddess of the Lunchroom. It's pretty nice.

  Fifty-six

  ALAS, THERE'S A PRICE TO PAY for such popularity.

  As lunch ends, I get paged to come to the office. Troy pretends to check something off on an imaginary clipboard. "Right on schedule," he says.

  "The Spermling and your new girlfriend want a disciplinary threesome," Simone cracks.

  "Guh-ross."

  "Don't worry—the Spermling can't find his dick under all the rolls of fat. Your virtue is intact."

  "Nice to know."

  I go to the office. Miss Channing barely even looks up at me. "Mr. Sperling," she says (like I don't know), and points to a chair. I flop down. Once again I miss my Bangs of Doom; one of my pleasures in life is sitting in this very chair with the BoD shaken over my eyes, glaring out at the world from under cover.

  But I have no Bangs, no hair at all, so instead of slumping down all sullen, I decide to sit up nice and straight—perfect posture. When Miss Channing looks over at me, I smile at her with my ElecTrick Sex lips instead of glowering. It sort of freaks her out. I can tell.

  "Are you on something?" she says to me in a low voice.

  I suppress giggles. "Just high on life," I whisper back.

  The Spermling pokes his head out of his office. "Miss Sellers."

  I stand up nice and tall and walk proudly into the Spermling's office. He lowers himself into his chair like ... like...

  Like something really fat being lowered into a chair, OK?

  I sit down like I'm the queen of the world. Miss Channing, of course, joins us, standing in the doorway. Because we need a chaperone—otherwise the Spermling will try to have his way with me, ha-ha.

  He just sits there and looks at me for a second.

  "Well, uh, this is an interesting new look for you, Miss Sellers." I guess the latest gossip hasn't hit the teachers lounge yet.

  "Is that why I'm here? Fashion tips?"

  He grimaces. "No. No. Uh." He messes with some papers on his desk. As usual, my disciplinary file is there—it's a massive slab of papers in a folder that has to be held together with big clips.

  "I understand you had an, uh, altercation with Miss Powell."

  I decide to give him the silent treatment for a little while. I just look at him. Let him do the talking. I'm tired of talking.

  "You accused her of, well, of having an inappropriate relationship with her students." It takes him a little while to get the sentence out. I don't blame him. There's a history of this kind of shit in Brookdale. This wacko middle school teacher Evelyn Sherman, she effed Crazy J back when he was in middle school. It was all over the papers. It was a big deal. "That's a very serious charge, Kyra."

  Yeah, whatever. I didn't say she actually effed someone. I said she made all the boys want to eff her. But what's the diff, right? Like I'm supposed to expect the Spermling to get it right.

  "You used some pretty..." He's looking at his computer now, probably reading an e-mail from Miss Powell. "Some pretty foul language. We've talked about language before, Kyra."

  And that's a total joke. I probably have one of the cleanest mouths at South Brook because I don't say the F-word. Anyone else here drops that bomb ten times in homeroom alone.

  He sighs deep down in the fattest part of his fatty body and leans back in his chair, which groans and begs for the mercy of a quick death. I wait for it to break and send him sprawlin
g back into the wall, but reality—as usual—disappoints me and the chair lives to suffer another day.

  "So, do I have it, right, Kyra? You swore at her? You accused her of sex with a student? Do you have anything to say in your defense?"

  I still say nothing. Which is a feat for me, I admit.

  "Come on. I always let you have your say."

  Still nothing. Giving him the opposite of what Miss Powell got. It doesn't matter what I say. He won't believe me anyway. And what's he going to do, tell Miss Powell to stop being a slut? He probably likes that she's a slut. He probably gets turned on by her—why should he be any different from any other guy? Even if it takes him an hour to find his own dick?

  And besides, she'll never, ever try to talk to me again. So, really, I win.

  "Fine, then. I have no choice but to let your father know what you did."

  Oh, well.

  He lets that sink in, like it's supposed to scare me or something.

  "OK, get going." He starts to fill out a hall pass.

  Whoa. No detention? No suspension? Nothing? Really? I can call a teacher a slut and I get nothing but a call home to Roger? Shit, I wish I'd known that years ago! I would have been calling teachers sluts back in middle school, man!

  I guess my surprise shows because he says, "No, I'm not doing anything else to you. you've missed enough school and believe it or not, my primary concern is that you get an education. If you have a ... a ... a personality clash with Miss Powell, we'll see if you can't just resolve it like an adult. If not, we'll look into transferring you to another English class."

  He tears the pass off his pad and holds it out to me. I jump up and grab it. He doesn't let go.

  "You caught me on a good day, Miss Sellers. Don't think otherwise."

  A billion comebacks fly through my brain. Sometimes I think God built my brain and then tuned it specifically for the cutting comeback, tweaking it like the geeks tweak their computers for maximum game performance, only I'm tweaked for maximum put-down performance.

  But I like the silent vibe I've got going, so I swallow all those delicious insults, take the pass, and leave.

  Fifty-seven

  IT KILLS ME, HOW CLUELESS adults are.

  I mean, I get in trouble just for talking. For talking.

  Do they realize that there are kids doing shit a million times worse in this school? Like Troy, for example. He supplies pot to all of the goths and sells it to some of the jocks, too, which is probably how any goths got invited to Pete Vesentine's party in the first place.

  There are two freshmen who've had abortions. It's supposed to be a big secret, but there really aren't any secrets in high school. Someone tells someone, who tells someone, who tells someone...

  And I know of a kid who does heroin and sells it to a couple of guys on the football team, but only during the off-season, which cracks my shit up.

  Girls give guys blowjobs in the bathrooms between classes. Kids sneak in knives and drugs. All kinds of shit goes down, every day.

  But, hey. I tell a teacher I can see her underwear and I get in trouble for it. What-the-hell-ever.

  Roger is waiting for me at the end of the day. He's parked right in the bus circle, right out in front of everyone. I consider going to my bus anyway, pretending I don't see him, but he gets out of the car and stands there and then my phone rings and it's a text from Roger saying, In the car—now.

  Shit.

  So I get in, even though it's way embarrassing because my friends see it. Everyone sees it—everyone is getting on the buses.

  As soon as the doors close, he starts in, going straight to Pissed Off:

  "What the hell, Kyra? You couldn't go two days without getting in trouble?"

  "I'm not in trouble. I don't have detention—"

  "I got a call from your assistant principal—"

  "—I'm not suspended—"

  "—at work and you know I hate that, so, yeah, I'm sorry, but you are in trouble—"

  "—I don't even have to write an essay or any shit like that—"

  "—sort of the definition of trouble, Kyra—"

  "—so how can you say I'm in trouble when they didn't even do anything—"

  "—because when I get a phone call in the middle of the day that interrupts me at my job—"

  "—totally blowing this totally out of proportion—"

  "Enough!" he shouts. "Enough until we get home!"

  I spend the drive figuring that I could tell him everything. I could tell him about Miss Powell and her underwear and the boys with their drool and their boners and how I called her a slut, which totally should not be an issue because you can't get pissed at someone for telling the truth, right? And I didn't even call her a slut, not really. I just sort of compared her to a slut. Which is different.

  But then he'd want to know why I was talking to her in the first place and he'd want to know what she said and I would have to tell him how she was trying to "get through to me" and all that shit. And that would make him want to "get through to me" and talk about all that shit and I just don't want to. I have a system, you know? I've got Dr. Kennedy and I've got my letters to Neil and I do all right. I figure shit out on my own.

  So by the time we're home, I'm ready to just go silent again and take my medicine. Which is what Roger has called getting punished since the beginning of time—taking my medicine.

  "Tell me what this was all about," he demands as soon as we're out of the garage and in the house.

  It worked for the Spermling; I shut my mouth.

  "Come on, Kyra. You were talking plenty in the car just now. Spill it. Why did you go off on this teacher?"

  I say nothing. I watch Roger go from Pissed Off to Sad, Tired to Pissed Off again.

  "Fine. Fine. Go to your room."

  Shit. Now I have to talk. "How long am I grounded for?"

  "You're not grounded. I just want you out of my hair for a while so I can work."

  Before I get to my room, he calls out, "And I can tell you this much—you're not getting that driver's license any time soon!"

  Whatever. Like I even need one.

  I go to my room and lie on the bed for a little while. I don't get it. Most of the time when my dad yells at me, I can sort of see his side of it. It's not like I care or anything, but at least I can see it.

  But I don't think I did anything wrong this time. Miss Powell had no right to try to buddy up to me. I didn't ask for her to be my friend. She's a hypocrite. I hate hypocrites. I called her out on that. I told her the truth, right to her face. Why should I be punished for that?

  But Roger wouldn't understand that. The Spermling wouldn't understand that.

  I do my homework. I spend extra time on English because I once heard someone say, "The best revenge is living well." Which isn't as cool as A little revenge and this, too, shall pass, but it's still not bad. I figure that the best way to piss off Miss Powell at this point is to totally kick ass in her class.

  After I finish my homework, it's probably time for dinner, but I don't want to remind Roger that I exist by going out to the kitchen. I have to walk past his little home office and God knows the sound of my breathing might disturb him or something.

  But, hey—I have something else I can do, right?

  I pull the envelope out of my messenger bag. The envelope with Schemata, Version 1 in it.

  Oh, boy. I can't wait!

  The scanner's in Roger's office, but I can still go through everything and figure out the best shots to use. I flop down on my bed and kick off my shoes and put the old stuff next to the new stuff and start paging through them, comparing.

  But something weird happens. I can't focus. Well, no, that's not right. I can focus just fine. On Schemata. What I can't focus on is screwing over Fanboy. I should be looking for the best shots of Courteney, the most Dina-like shots. And then scan them in and make up posters and shit.

  But instead I keep getting caught up in the story. I keep comparing the old stuff to the new stuff a
nd ... God, you know, it's not just the change in Courteney. It's not just that he's not drawing this grown-up fantasy version of Dina anymore. It's everything. I mean, he really made a big effort. The artwork is stronger and more mature. More detailed when it needs to be. But it's not like he's trying to cram every panel with as many lines as possible to impress the reader, like some guys do. He's got panels where he's completely removed the backgrounds, for example, because it makes the foreground stuff pop that much more. And in the old version, he had all these cool Photoshop effects for Courteney's powers, but he's toned them down. They're still there, but ... I don't know. I thought it looked cool before, but now it's even better. It's more confident. It's like he doesn't need all that flash to impress you. He doesn't need to overwhelm you with a million filters and gradients and all that shit. He's just got the confidence to tell his story.

  Damn. What the hell happened to him while I was gone?

  I've got these two monsters inside me, playing tug-of-war with my gut. I want to buckle down and blow him away, but I also want to call him and tell him how totally amazing, how completely kick-ass this thing is now. How he's totally taken everything I suggested, but also added in his own shit and just ... just, made something unreal.

  I don't know what to do.

  But I think about Miss Powell. How she shoveled shit at me and I just came back at her with the truth. I told her the truth.

  And that's what I do, right? I mean, yeah, I lie. I lie a lot. I know that. But I tell the truth, too. About the important stuff. About stuff that matters.

  So I have to tell him. I have to tell him the truth.

  I call him. His mom answers the phone and I open my mouth and then I freak out and snap my phone shut because what if she recognizes my voice from my fake hospital call today?

  I lie there staring at my phone. I didn't block Caller ID. She could call right back.

  Shit.

  Shit!

  Shit!

  After a few minutes, nothing happens. I have sweat on my head. It feels weird.

  I fire up the computer instead. Luckily, Roger didn't block my net access. He does that sometimes when he's punishing me.