Hyacinth Girls (21 page)

And now that my hockey sticks were gone, how could I solve myself? The root inside me was tough to understand, but sometimes it felt like a twig or a brown slug or a smooth stone with a name on it. Or maybe it was something I couldn't yet see. Something brighter and smaller. A word. A claw. A shiny black seed that would grow into something new and real.

There were fourteen members of “
HAVE YOU SMELLED BABYSHITS
?” when I got home from school. I scrolled through the new comments on the wall.

Smelled her today and almost puked. Raw sewage dipped in menstration.

Worst smell eva—rotten eggs and diarrea

DIRTY BEAST LOL.

The more they wrote, the less anyone would know. I clicked on Phoenix Drake's profile and thought about square roots. Words and passwords that could crack the code. Then I took out a notebook and wrote a name at the top of the page. Dallas Yardley Price. I knew lots about her, and somewhere in all those facts I might find the X or the Y. The solution to all the empty boxes that were crowding around me.

Dallas's birthday. Her favorite brands, food, music, and movies. Nicknames and secrets. Her lucky number. The names of everyone I knew in her family, including her cats. Her e-mail addresses—I would need those. Her favorite color and favorite animal. The names she gave her breasts, and all the stuff she'd told us about Kevin. When I finished with Dallas, I turned the page and wrote Ella Abi Brooks. Then I made a
list for her. I wouldn't be able to start testing my solutions until later, so I went into the living room. Rebecca was sitting on the couch with the red photo album on her lap. I'd forgotten it was that time of year already. Usually, I remembered sooner. There was more crying in the bathtub and sometimes when you said things to her, she didn't hear. But right now, she was smiling.

“Come have a look at these photos, Callie.”

Rebecca's square root would always be Mom. I sat down next to her and let her turn the pages. The pictures started from when they were young. Mom was prettier than I would ever be. She was small and grinning and loveable, and now she would never change. There was nothing new to discover, but Rebecca chuckled as she turned the pages, like she'd never seen any of this before. She and Mom had dressed up in costumes one night. They'd wrapped themselves in silky robes and covered their faces in white makeup. Mom held a fan in front of her mouth and her eyes peeked over the top. In another picture, they had pulled their sweatshirts down on one side to show their shoulders, and covered their eyelids with blue shadow. Next they smiled and posed in pajamas, then they made monster faces at the camera. Something popped into my head that I'd never thought of before. Who was taking the pictures? Was there a third friend who was too ugly to be included in any shots? Had they invited her along just so they could have someone to watch them?

“Who took these?” I asked.

Rebecca turned the page and didn't answer for a moment. “Your dad took some. When we were young.”

“Why isn't he in any?”

“I guess because he was the photographer.”

“Too bad for him, huh?”

Rebecca pulled the album closer. “You know, I was thinking about what we talked about the other day—about school spirit,” she said. “And
I didn't mean to give you the wrong idea. I don't think you should do pointless things just for the sake of it. But I do think that sometimes you need to join in with things, so you can feel like a part of something bigger than yourself.” Rebecca let her finger glide across the page. “I want you to enjoy your life and your school and your friends—and you have to get involved to do that.”

I looked at the pictures of my dead mom, flat and frozen, with her endless smile that would never change. I could get involved, but I wouldn't enjoy the things she wanted me to. It was too late to become anyone else.

That night, I took the laptop in bed with me and started getting involved. On Facebook, I typed one of Dallas's e-mail addresses into the username box. Then I looked at the Dallas page in my notebook and began to try different words in her password box. Jaguar. Maury. Tif-Tif. DH95. Prada. Twilight. I knew there could be hundreds or thousands of combinations. Letters and numbers mixing together. Every time “the password you entered is incorrect” popped up on the screen, I made an
x
next to the word I'd tried from my notebook. After a while, the website locked me out. So I tried to break into her e-mail account instead. After six tries, that website locked me out, too, so I went back and started trying combinations for Ella's account. I knew it might take a long time, but I had to stay positive. None of the websites locked me out forever. And as I worked my way through the lists of words, I imagined how Dallas and Ella would look after they'd both lost their hockey sticks.

Dallas first. She would try and hide on the edges of crowds, hunched over like she was trying to cover up the pit in her middle. She wouldn't be able to laugh or smile. Her mouth would drop open when she saw someone she usually shouted at, but nothing would come out. She'd pull on the edges of her mouth, scared, and stare at her feet.
Alone
, she'd say to herself.
My new name is Alone
.

Ella would be shivering in a bathroom stall, afraid of being seen. She would understand that the girl she'd been was gone. Her arms would have lost their swing, and she'd be scared to get in the water because she'd know she'd sink. Ella would wrap her hands around her shoulders and say her new name.
Gone
, she would say.
My new name is Gone
.

As for all the rest—all the empties who had joined in so that they could feel like they were a part of something bigger—I would become part of their boxes. I would be the piece of square root that they could never get rid of. Every time they tried to laugh or thought up a prank, I would be there inside them, hard and choking, making them double over in pain.

I didn't crack any passwords on that first night of trying. I still had to get up in the morning and go to school with things the way they were. I wore my new-old shirt and listened to boys blow wet farts when I walked past. Sixteen members of “
HAVE YOU SMELLED BABYSHITS
?” I collected leaves behind the shed in our yard and carried one in my pocket. Nineteen members. In homeroom, the girl on the desk behind me had a bottle of Coke. I sat down and waited to feel the cold, sticky spray on my back. When I stayed dry, I put my head down on the desk. The morning announcements started, and when they told us to all rise, I didn't move. I pressed my forehead against my arm and closed my eyes as Mrs. Dobbler started to shout, interrupting the Pledge. “Callie! Callie, stand up!”

Someone poked my shoulder.

“I think she's crying,” a boy yelled.

The National Anthem began and nobody sang. Chairs scratched the floor and Mrs. Dobbler's voice was close.

“Come speak to me in the hall.”

My hair hung so far over my face that I didn't have to see anyone as I followed her out.

Mrs. Dobbler thought that there was something wrong at home. When she said “home,” she sounded like a cooing pigeon. Home, home. She had little bows on her shiny shoes and I knew what would happen if I told her. She'd feel sorry for me, but she'd also blame me. I tried to imagine Rebecca meeting with Dallas's parents. They'd destroy her and she wouldn't even know what happened. Then Dallas would get teary and say she'd been bullied by me—I'd sent out a naked picture of her and she had proof. Then everything would only get worse because I'd blabbed.

“I don't feel well,” I told Mrs. Dobbler. “My stomach.”

I wrapped my arms around my shirt and she said I could go to the nurse. I thought I'd get to lie down for a while, but the nurse wanted to know what I'd had for breakfast. Her bangs were clipped back with kiddie barrettes and her skin looked scratched.

“It's very silly not to eat something for breakfast,” she said, pouring me a Dixie cup of juice.

“I felt too sick to eat.”

“You're giving yourself low blood sugar. Do you always skip breakfast?”

I sipped the cup of juice and she tried to give me an energy bar, but I didn't want it. “Can I just lie down for a while?”

She took my temperature and then said I could lie down if I tried to eat the energy bar. I unwrapped it in front of her and started nibbling the edges. Forty minutes later, when the bell rang, she said I had to go back to class.

On Saturday morning—the morning we were supposed to visit Mom—“
HAVE YOU SMELLED BABYSHITS
?” had twenty-four members. Twenty-four empties who shared rotten thoughts and pinprick hearts. Davenport
Henshaw had posted a photo of dog doo in the grass, and Megan O'leary responded, “Noooooooooooooooooooooooo! Babyshits? LOL!”

I didn't want to go to the cemetery; I wanted to stay home and test out new passwords. Rebecca's little ceremony was dicey and pathetic. She always told stories about Mom and checked my face like she was waiting for me to cry. Even if my eyes got itchy I wouldn't let myself touch them because then she'd think I was wiping away tears.

When I told her I was sick, her hand landed on my forehead like a fruit bat. Warm and moist, it quickly flew away. She went to get the thermometer and stood with her hands on her hips, looking around my room. Then she brought in a tray of food and started saying how she'd have to stay home with me. She was talking about doctors and hospitals and how I wouldn't miss going unless I was really sick. Then I wanted to screech and caw and scratch my talons on her face. She wouldn't force me to go; she'd just make me regret it. I imagined a slim white bird, standing on one foot. It opened its long beak and poked me in the bed. Egret, regret. Egret, regret. Regret. Regret. Regret.

“I'm sure that missing it
this once
won't be the end of the world.”

She would never stop pecking. I held the hot tea in my mouth and thought how I could spray.

In the car, I told myself I wasn't even there. It was only Rebecca in her striped sweater and earrings, driving alone. She wore flowery perfume, and tilted her head, glancing in the rearview mirror as she left Pembury. Every time she shifted in her seat or tucked hair behind her ear it was exaggerated, like she was saying,
Watch me! Pay attention to me!
But the car was empty; I wasn't there. When she looked at my seat, her voice went up and down, talking to herself, but I could tell she knew that her audience was gone. She was alone in the car.

When she turned off the engine at the cemetery, I knew I had to leave her behind. She opened the trunk, and I was sicker than ever. My
square root filled with fat brown turds and I could barely lift my legs. They weighed thousands of pounds each—and I swallowed the stinging seeds crawling up my throat. When I got to Mom's grave, I touched my shirt and tried to get used to the idea of never taking a shower again, of always wearing the same thing forever. I picked up the shovel and started digging a hole. This was my grave, full of chunks of dirt. I would tunnel down forever and dive in headfirst.

Rebecca started doing this gaspy thing. Ah-ah-ahh. Ah-ah-ahh. I saw the paper in her hand and almost dropped the shovel. The flittery jits were jumping from her to me, from me to her, and she was holding the page I'd left for Mom.

Your daughter hurts people. She threw the paint and sent the picture. Callie deserves to die like you
.

I felt her circling. Bare-necked, she turned from side to side.

As I collapsed to the ground I felt her hand on my back. Now she would see me and know me and there would be nowhere left to hide. I was a hermit crab without a shell and she was looking at my body. How had she missed this ugliness before?

“I'll go to the police,” Rebecca said. “I won't let her get away with this.”