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Yesterday, the day Ghost was kidnapped, Mom came into my bedroom after breakfast and jumped out the window.
I’d gone out that way before dawn, and I’d come back in the same way. Like, it was super practical and, bonus, Mom didn’t know—which was hella best for both of us. There was no way I was telling her I’d been flying.
We’re on the eighth floor, and I heard a sick thud as she slammed into the concrete below. I ran over to the window and looked down. Mom got to her feet and waved. She was fatter now.
“I love you, honey!” she called in this weird, peppy voice. I was thinking, like, please don’t do that—because it was giving me the sick willies. “Have a good Monday!” Then she jogged away, and the people on the sidewalk parted for her like water.
She’s been doing that a lot lately. Jumping out my window, I mean. She used to use her bedroom window when she wanted to put on fat, but ever since she came back from Kazakhstan she’s been different. As in, so not normal.
Of course, “normal” for us isn’t normal at all. After all, Mom’s an ace. She’s a totes famous ace. Between her modeling (she’s been a model since she was a kid, even before her card changed) and her work with the Committee, she’s either on the front page of every political website, or she’s selling cosmetics and stuff like that to all the nats. She’s always filled with the fabu—even when she’s heavy. Maybe especially then.
But me, I’m a joker. I couldn’t pass for a nat no matter what. My iridescent cobalt-colored wings—the same color as a morpho butterfly—make sure of that. And I still have four vestigial insect legs on my torso from when I was a little girl. Oh, yeah, did I mention that until four weeks ago I was a little girl? Overnight I went from being, like, ten to being, like, sixteen. See, the bad stuff that happened in Kazakhstan, well, my little-girl self was so frightened by what she saw in her dreams that she went into a cocoon. When I came out, I came out as something the size of a teenager. And my wings, well, they aren’t just pretty anymore. They’re awesome.
So Mom and I both emerged from that whole Kazakhstan thing … changed. And I think my changes have been freaking her out. But then, freaking her out isn’t a difficult thing to do these days. Like, she went noodley over the fact that our water has started to turn a gross color kinda like orange Gatorade. Okay, so anyone would be grossed out because, ew. But she got crazy noodley when the super said to tell the city about it, not him. She threatened to make him drink it. Also, our HBO keeps switching to Spanish for no reason, and we’ve had to buy a new remote control because she got pissed about that and bubbled the old one into powder. Not pieces. Powder.
I guess that’s why she’s gone into full-blown Mom-of-the-Year mode. It probably makes her feel like she’s in control of something. So she cooks. She cleans. She even tries to help me with my homework. Which is amazeballs, but in a bad way. For one thing, she’s even worse at algebra than I am. But I have to pretend that I couldn’t do it without her.
And she’s pretty much gone wild with the cooking. Like, she’s been channeling Martha Stewart, except Mom doesn’t have a prehensile tail.
Yesterday morning, before the window thing, she made eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes, and fresh-squeezed orange juice. It used to be, when it came to breakfast, she could barely put cereal in a bowl. So most of the time we’d just grab a bagel with a schmear at the deli at 14th Street and Avenue A. The deli crowd were all used to me when I was a little girl, and some of them even smiled at me once in a while. But now, if we go there at all, everyone avoids making eye contact.
Sure, I look like a teenager now, and my wings are a lot bigger than they used to be. So maybe I knock a few things off a table when I walk past. But I’m still me.
I mean, I’m mostly still me. I haven’t told anyone this … but how I think is different now. It’s like I got smarter and dumber at the same time. I know things I didn’t know before, and I can do things I didn’t do before. (I can play the bass! Really!) But I cry, like, at the drop of a hat. At stupid stuff. Like, tragic love scenes in movies. It’s mega embarrassing.
“Adesina, eat up, honey,” Mom said. “You’re too thin.” Which should have been hilarious, coming from her.
I gave a groan and pushed away my plate. “Mom, I’ll be in Snoozeville, like, all day if I have any more.”
As usual, she didn’t seem to hear me. But she swept away the dishes and loaded them into the dishwasher. Then she polished the sink faucets for, like, the sixth time. As if that would make them any shinier.
“Mom,” I said. I wanted to tell her she didn’t have to do all this stuff—that it would be fine by me if she just went back to being like she used to be. But she still didn’t seem to hear me. And I hated the look on her face. It was blank, and her head was cocked to one side as if she were hearing something. Something bad. But the only sounds were the usual noises coming up from the street. The taxis honking, the exhausted sigh of buses, and people yelling at each other. Nothing that would make Mom blank out like that. It was the worst.
I got up and went to my room. Leaving Mom alone when she got like this, I’d decided, was the only thing to do. She couldn’t hear me, and getting her attention by touching her would only freak her all the hells out. I knew this because about a week before, I’d tried to get her attention that way. Just by touching her shoulder. And she had almost bubbled me.
Oh, she used to make a lot of bubbles for me. When I was a little kid. But they’d always be soft bubbles. We’d play with them in the park or knock them around the bathtub. Or she’d encase me in a bubble for a few minutes and I’d roll around in it. Stuff like that.
But there are other things she can do with her bubbles, and those just aren’t funny. She can shoot iron-hard bubbles as if they were bullets. She can even make them explode. Put it all together, and she’s one of the most powerful aces in the world.
Which is cool. Except when it’s not.
She’s my mother, but she’s done … things. In particular, things for the Committee. Ugly things. And she tries really hard to make up for all of that. But dead is dead. You know?
So when I touched her shoulder, and she turned on me with that terrible look on her face and a bubble half-formed in her hand, it about scared the pee out of me. Not just because of the danger in her hand, but because she didn’t know me. For a moment, I was whatever she’d been thinking of. And whatever it was, she wanted to kill it.
Then, suddenly, she was back to being Mom. Well, not exactly Mom, but that weird version of Mom that cooks and cleans. And occasionally almost blows me up.
So, yeah. We’ve both changed.
But I’ve only chan
ged on the outside. Mostly. Mom, though, has changed on the inside.
And I just want her to be herself again. Like, the way that I’m still me.
Which is what I was thinking while I was getting my school stuff from my room, and she walked in. “I’m doing a job for the Committee today,” she said. “They’re jetting me down to Panama.”
“Is it a … dangerous job?” I asked. I really didn’t like the idea of her doing anything more for the Committee just yet—especially not if it might remind her of Kazakhstan.
Mom shrugged. “The idea is that if I make an appearance, certain people will re-think their positions. I might only need to be there a few hours, so I could be home this evening. If I’m not, Mrs. Lehman from down the hall will come over about ten o’clock, and she’ll stay the night. Either way—the leftover beef Stroganoff is in the fridge. And the broccoli, too.” She paused. “No. I should make you something for dinner besides leftovers.”
“Leftovers are fine!” I said in a loud voice. “And I don’t need Mrs. Lehman to stay with me.”
For once, Mom seemed to hear me. “You might look like you’re all grown-up, but we both know better. Text me as soon as you get home from school. And deadbolt the door.”
“I know, Mom.”
Then she jumped out the window. Which really irked me.
I mean, jeez. It’s my room, isn’t it?
Well. Two can play at that game.
* * *
I had a little time before I had to go to school, so I thought about heading to the roof for more flying practice. But it was daylight now, and there are taller buildings surrounding ours. And I wasn’t ready to display my aerial skills to the whole world yet. For one thing, my landings weren’t always pretty. More like crash-and-tumbles. But when that happened, I just wrapped my wings around myself and rolled. My wings are hella tough, so it didn’t hurt. But that didn’t mean I wanted anyone to see me bouncing across the roof like a lumpy soccer ball.
So instead, I went into Mom’s bedroom, reached under the bed, and pulled out the box I’d found there when she’d been at a photo shoot. Inside was a denim-covered diary.
I’d found the diary by accident. Okay, maybe not completely by accident. More like an accident when I had been searching her room. After the incident when she had almost bubbled me, I had decided I needed to get to know this new version of my mother a little better. Even if I had to be kinda sneaky about it.
I had read the whole thing immediately. But now I kept going back over certain entries, as if they would unlock some secret. Of course, if she’d dated anything or kept up with it all the time, it might have been easier to figure her out.
But Mom isn’t really about making things easy.
She might say that I’m not, either. But I’m a teenager now. So, you know. I have an excuse.
Mom’s Diary
I wish Mommy wouldn’t just drop me off at shoots. But today she said she had other errands to run and I’d be fine. After all, I’m ten and that’s practically a teenager. At least that’s what she said.
There was a new photographer today. I like Mr. B, but they said Mr. B was sick and this new man would be doing the photos. He told me to call him Tony, and then the wardrobe crew got me into the new clothes for Fall. It’s Spring now, and Fall clothes are heavy and hot under the lights.
Mommy and Daddy said I had to make these ads really good because we’re having money problems. But I always try my best when I work. And I don’t want Mommy and Daddy to have to worry about money.
Mommy said we can’t afford to have me out of work again. I guess things got bad when OshKosh B’gosh didn’t renew my contract. They kept me after their usual cut-off because I look younger than I am. And because I was popular. But just before I turned eight I got too tall, and a lady from Osh Kosh said she was sorry, but no one would believe I was six anymore.
That was two years ago. Daddy was mad because he started having trouble booking me. But I knew why. I was famous as the Osh Kosh B’gosh girl. So who else would want me?
But Daddy found someone who did. So today I did the shoot with Tony.
I didn’t like him. He kept asking me to look sexy. That’s just gross. But I did my best because I’m a professional.
They dressed me up in all these grownup clothes. Four other girls were there, too. They were like me. When they were younger, they were known for selling kids’ stuff. But now no one wanted us. Not as kids, anyway.
The make-up girls seemed angry. I heard one of them say Rudolph was going too far with this new campaign. Rudolph makes these really pretty clothes and he uses all kinds of models. Most are nats like me. But he’s used some aces with cool powers. Once he used jokers, but that didn’t work out so well.
Peregrine posed naked for his perfume line. Her wings hid everything, but you could tell she didn’t have any clothes on. Mommy said it was disgusting. Right up until Daddy said it probably paid her a fortune.
Who leaves their little kid alone with strangers? I was glad I’d never met Gramma and Grampa, or whatever I would have called them. Nothing nice, I don’t think.
I pulled out my phone, went on the Internet, and looked up that campaign for Rudolph Haute Couture Atelier in Vogue.
Mom had been right. It was pukesville.
There she was all pouty-faced and made up like an adult. The clothes are gorgeous, but the way Mom and the other girls are posed—gah. I mean, it’s yucky. It’s a world of yuck. Did I mention the high yuck factor?
I shut the journal and put it back in the box. Then I slid the box under the bed, back into the dark, where it belonged.
* * *
I wouldn’t say my day at school was bad. Not exactly. The week before, and the week before that, hadn’t been bad, either. Not exactly.
I mean, the high-school work isn’t as hard as I thought it might be. And the teachers are okay. Also, shock of shocks, none of the other kids—I mean, teenagers—have been mean to me. For the first few days, some of them even showed me around. Being a joker probably helped my cred, since most of them are jokers, too.
But just because they haven’t been jerks to me, well, that doesn’t mean they’re my friends. Not yet, anyway.
So yesterday, when the final bell rang, I decided to blow down to the Jerusha Carter Development Center. My actual friend, Ghost, goes to the Carter School, and I wanted to see her. Maybe I could walk home with her.
See, I used to be at Carter with Ghost. Then things got messed up because I got big. So now they’ve sent me to the Xavier Desmond High School, which is a few blocks away from the Carter School in Jokertown. But it might as well be on the Moon. I miss Carter, and I especially miss Yerodin—who we call “Ghost” because of her ace power.
She and I were both adopted after our cards turned. She was adopted by Wally Gunderson. You know, Rustbelt, who was on American Hero with Mom. Wally is a joker like me. Well, not like me. His skin is iron, he has bright yellow eyes, and he’s about the size of one and a half professional wrestlers. And he’s strong. Mom says he can hit hella hard, but that’s what Mom would focus on. She’s always into taking the damage.
Anyway, the Committee sent him and Mom to the People’s Paradise of Africa—it seems like a lifetime ago, now—and that was where they found me and Yerodin. In the PPA, the both of us, along with a lot of other kids, had been injected with the wild card virus. Some of those kids became aces, like Ghost, and some, like me, turned into jokers. But the people—bad people, not that I want to be all judgy, but I really do—who were injecting us didn’t want jokers. Just aces. So they either killed us jokers or left us to die. Then Mom saved me from the pit where they’d dumped me. I guess the bad people thought I’d drawn a Black Queen, because I was in my cocoon when they tossed me in. But really, I was just becoming my little insect-girl self.
Just like, a month ago, I would become my new insect-teenager self. The wild card virus, besides the other things it did, had been slowing down the growth of both me and Ghost, keeping
us as little kids. But when Kazakhstan happened, I changed. Fast.
My first day back at Carter after my transformation, when I met Yerodin on the sidewalk, she freaked out. She went all non-corporeal, and then she ran into the building. Through the wall. And she wouldn’t come near me for the next two days. She wouldn’t even talk to me during gameplay on Ocelot 9. She did respond a few times via text, but even then, she only answered with emojis. Like, you know, steaming poops with unhappy faces.
Then I was transferred to high school.
But yesterday, I hoped that maybe enough time had passed. Maybe Ghost was feeling less weird now, and might even be glad to see me. I had to try, anyway.
To my surprise, when I got to the Carter School, Wally was there. He was lumbering out of the gate behind a gaggle of kids, but Ghost wasn’t one of them. And he looked as if someone had just punched him in the gut. Assuming anyone could do that to a gut made of iron.
“Hey Wally,” I said as the kids streamed past me. “Is Yerodin still inside?”
“Oh gosh, she sure isn’t,” he replied. His voice was thick with his Minnesota accent. Minnah-SO-dah. His shoulders were all hunched up, and he was hugging his arms to his chest as if it were winter instead of fall. And his clothes were rumpled. “We had a fight this morning about—aw, it doesn’t matter. But she was mad as heck. So I thought I’d come pick her up and take her for an ice cream. But I can’t find her. Mrs. Teasdale says she was here before her music class, but the music teacher says she didn’t show up for it. And I know she didn’t come home then, because I was there. She isn’t home now, either, because our neighbor Bob has a key, and I just now called him to check.” He looked up and down the street. “It was dumb to let her leave the apartment while she was mad. But I thought if she walked to school, same as every day, it might blow off some steam.” He shook his huge head. “Now she won’t answer her cell phone. So I don’t know where she is. Or even if she’s okay.”
I was stunned. Wally and Ghost never argue. Wally is too nice, and Ghost, well, she just worships him. So what he was saying made me feel as if I were about to have a freak-out storm. Like a category 5. I couldn’t even imagine what they would fight about.
The Flight of Morpho Girl Page 1
