“He’s never even
One of the feral cats sprayed Alicia’s locker. It stank to high heaven, and on Monday morning everyone made “pee-ew” sounds and waved their hands in front of their noses. “Piss Girl,” they called Alicia, and it didn’t matter that it made no sense.
“What’d you do, Piss Girl?” Stuart Hill taunted. “Leave some chicken guts in there?”
“Shut up,” Alicia said. “I didn’t leave anything, you asshole.”
“Not even your books?” Stuart said. He guffawed as if he were actually being funny. “Not even a chewed up pencil for your nasty old tomcat?”
The janitor shooed them away. He doused Alicia’s locker with Odor-Out, aiming his spray nozzle at the slats and seams as well as the smooth gray exterior.
“Wait!” Alicia cried, but the janitor took no notice. When she opened her locker, a sodden spiral slipped to the floor along with her cheerleading Pep Manual. The stench of cat pee wafted into the air.
I strode toward the other end of the hall. I hoped Alicia hadn’t seen me, but two yards from the stairwell, I heard her call, “Jane, where are you going?
During Algebra I thought of one of my Ramona books, of a scene in which Ramona was doing a kindergarten worksheet. Only instead of “circle cat, cross out bird,” Ramona substituted the name of a despised fellow kindergartner, Susan of the boing-y curls. As in, “circle Ramona, cross out Susan.”
It wasn’t that I despised Alicia—god, no. It wasn’t even on purpose, despite the guilt that was making me feel swampy and wrong.
Still, there it was, crazy or not: circle Jane, cross out Alicia.
Six, sin, and sorcery,” intoned Lurl the Pearl. “All three words come from the same root, which, once celebrated, has now become vilified.”
I copied the words into my notebook and tried to convince myself that it was purely academic, her use of the word “sorcery.” That she was just going off on her favorite tangent about how female folk healers, drawing on the life force of the goddess, were later denounced as witches. Blah, blah, blah. She’d shown the film
During LIFE, my entire class surprised me by singing “Happy Birthday” at the beginning of the period. Roly-poly Mrs. Parmigian sang loudest of all, clapping her hands and swaying at the front of the room. When they were done, Tina Knowles walked to my desk with a yellow-and-white sheet cake, one of those fancy ones with edible flowers and candied ribbons. In the center was an airbrushed picture of me. I looked really young.
“Wow,” I said. “I mean, wow.”
Fifteen faces beamed. Tina nudged Hannah Henderson, who nudged her back. They both looked tickled pink.
“Only, it’s not my birthday,” I said.
Tina waved her hand. “That’s okay. We figured, you know, what were the odds?”
“We just wanted to celebrate anyway,” Hannah said. “Who cares when the actual date was?”
“Happy birthday!” cried Arnie Aughenbach.
“Happy birthday!” echoed fourteen others. Hands patted my back and ruffled my hair.
I grinned. “You guys are crazy.”
“Heck, it’s better than following the lesson plan any day,” said Mrs. Parmigian. She waddled across the room to give me a hug. “In LIFE, there’s always cause for celebration.”
I raised my eyebrows. “So … do I get presents?”
“Presents!” Tina exclaimed. “Of course!” She ran to her backpack and pulled out a brightly wrapped box. Other kids dug into their packs and reached under their desks.
“Mine first,” Arnie said, plunking down a lumpy package tied with yarn.
“I don’t think so,” Tina said. She bumped him out of the way. “Jane asked me, remember?”
“Wait,” I protested. “I was kidding. I was completely kidding!”
The stack of presents grew on my desk. I tried pushing them back into their owners’ hands, but they wouldn’t have anything to do with it.
“Open them,” Tina insisted.
So I did. I got the new Spayed CD, a pocketknife engraved with my name, a framed picture of Arnie. Four pairs of earrings. From Tina, a sky blue container of stress therapy bath beads (“Not that you need them. What do you have to be stressed about? But they’re so cool, because the water gets all fizzy when you put them in!”). A leather bookmark, a mauve feather boa. A tiny tub of lip balm.