Sticks & Stones (22 page)

“Acting the way she did may not have inspired compliments, but it may have ensured that no one insulted her to her face, either. If your teacher is the other person, that is,” Dr. Patel said.

He was right. We all thought she was weird, but no one would dare say so to her face.

“Being afraid of bad names is no way to live,” I said after a minute. “She's so much older than me. How do I know that but she doesn't?”

“People deal with things in their own time,” he said. “She may not be ready to face it yet. Does this mean that you're no longer afraid of bad names, Elyse? Sixth grade is only the beginning, you know. I'm afraid you're still in for some obstacles.”

“Well,” I said, “I think there's always going to be something itchy on me. But it doesn't have to ruin my life every time.”

“Hmm.” Dr. Patel went over to his computer and typed in a few things. “You're an interesting case, Elyse Everett. And a very special one.”

“I hope Ms. Sigafiss figures out someday that she's a special one, too,” I said.

“So do I,” Dr. Patel replied. “So do I.”

 

36

SHORT SLEEVES

Hey girl,

Ever since Ms. Sigafiss left, I've been thinking a lot about the
me
I really am and the
me
other people see. Ms. Sigafiss helped me understand that both things exist. She would always be nicey-nice to our parents, like she was the best friend and teacher ever in the history of friends and teachers, and then she'd be all mean and scary with us.

But she also had CAV. And acting the way she did was how she chose to deal. She was protecting herself in the only way she knew how.

I think I might be a little like her. I acted like a doing person when I was around other people, but I secretly wanted to be a thinking person (and I kind of was, when I was by myself) because that's the real kind of person that I am, even though that person likes to eat lunch in the bathroom sometimes and do a whole bunch of other things that most people find super weird.

I've been thinking about it, and people can just be one person, too, like Mr. Todd. No matter who he's with, he's always talking about blue stuff and making us laugh without trying to.

I don't know what he's like when he goes home after school, but I bet he goes home to a whole house filled with blue furniture, and he probably makes his mom and dad and friends laugh a lot.

The good news is, I think I can mix being a doing person and being a thinking person and be one super-awesome person who thinks and does. And I can be the kind of person who eats lunch with people sometimes and eats lunch with books and be quiet other times.
And
I can be the person who has
AWESOME
and
COOL
and
OKAY
stamped on her arms no matter what, because I really am all of those things when I let myself just be.

The goal for the rest of the year?

I don't even need to say it, do I?

I know what I need to do.

Go get 'em.

April El

*   *   *

When I emerged from my room in a light purple short-sleeved T-shirt, cute knee-length dark denim cutoffs, and no socks, Mom almost cried. I stood in front of the full-length mirror in the hall with her right behind me, looking over my shoulder. And I was adorable! For once, my hair was doing exactly what I wanted it to. It was perfectly straight, resting just beneath my shoulders, held back by a sparkly black headband. My eyes had somehow changed from mushy seaweed green into an actual nice green that you'd see on a blossoming tree somewhere in the spring.

Was it possible? I knew I was awesome and cool—but had I also turned, dare I say, pretty?

Mom confirmed it, even though her opinion doesn't really count.

“You look gorgeous!” she said with little tears glimmering in her eyes. “I'm so proud of you, sweetie.”

GORGEOUS
nestled into a comfy spot on my shoulder. I lifted my head higher and straightened out my back so I was standing up very tall. I felt like I could float all the way to school.

Dad said, “I hope rush-hour traffic isn't too bad this morning.” But then he added, “Elyse … you really look fantastic. Mature and grown-up and absolutely beautiful.”

A huge grin spread across my face as the good new words sprang up all over the place.

“Thanks, Dad.”

Mom snuck around us and went upstairs. I thought she was going to come back with a sweater for me in case of an itchy emergency. Dad and I went into the living room and sat down.

But she didn't come back with a sweater. She came back with fifteen zillion tubes of goopy cream in a big basket.

“Mom,”
I groaned. “I know we should be prepared, just in case, but this seems like a little much.”

“I'm giving these to you,” she said, placing the basket in my lap. “There's no reason to keep them in my bathroom. You know when you feel like you need it and when you don't, sweetie. Right?”

“Well, yeah,” I said, but something was confusing. She was saying one thing, but on the trip she'd acted a lot differently. “Do you really think that? Because you only came on the trip to make sure I put the goop on. That's why Mr. Todd invited you … so someone was there to keep an extra eye on the Explorer Leader. To make sure bad words didn't stop my Explorer Leader-ing and turn the whole trip into a disaster.”

“Elyse, no!” Mom's eyes got huge. “Mr. Todd just thought it might be fun for you and me to go together. You know, we're always so stressed, so serious. Always going to doctor appointments. He thought we could use a special getaway.”

Looking into her eyes, I realized she was right. We were so serious. If Mom made a this-is-so-fun face, I probably wouldn't even recognize it.

She was right about another thing, too: it had been a
very
special getaway, but not in a way that had much to do with her.

I looked at the basket in front of me. They were all there: the thick kind, the thicker kind, the water-resistant kind, the kind with extra moisture …

I felt Mom's gaze, and it occurred to me that maybe I had something to give her, too.

“I'm not mad at you, you know,” I said. She raised an eyebrow. “Because of the CAV gene. It's not your fault. And it's fine, having CAV. I'm fine. I really am. And I think we should start having more fun together, too. Maybe we could take a trip sometime, just the two of us.”

Mom exhaled loudly and enveloped me in a big bear hug, scattering the creams all over the place. Now that I was looking at her more closely, I could practically see
GUILTY
on her skin. She didn't have CAV, but she still probably had words in her mind—imaginary itches, just like Dad's—that never really went away.

We picked up the creams, but we didn't hurry.

“I think a trip would be great,” she said.

I patted her leg, and then we hugged again.

Before I left for school, there was one more thing I had to do. Grabbing my laptop from the kitchen, I plopped down on the couch, went online, and created a new group:
I Have CAV and It's Okay.

Maybe I'd be the only member for a while, but I hoped people would join eventually. At least they'd know it was there. That had to help.

When I walked into school a half hour later, arms glistening in the gross artificial school light, I had never felt more ready for anything in my life.

Heads turned and people stopped right where they were—even if they were in the middle of the hallway—to look at me. It was creepily quiet, but there was a lot going on. Fingers pointing. Mouths whispering. Bodies huddled. Everybody staring.

“I remember those words,” I heard someone whisper.

“That's what Ami was telling us about,” someone else hissed.

“That's the quiet girl from elementary school with that disease! SNAV? FLAV?” another person said.

“CAV,” I replied. The girl's face got red, like she didn't realize I had heard her.

Someone came up behind me and poked my arm.

“Ouch!” I yelped. That poke would have hurt anyone, words on arm or not.

“What's up with this creepy person?” the guy asked the crowd.

CREEPY
popped up before their eyes. I scratched it once, but then made myself drop my hands at my sides.

“Whoa. Creepy,” he said again.
CREEPY
got a little bigger and throbbed a little more.

“WHOA! CREEPY!” he yelled, and a bunch of kids came over and laughed.
CREEPY
got bigger and itched even more. Now it was at the level of itchy that definitely demanded cream. The serious goopy kind of cream that I had left at home.

Take a deep breath,
I told myself. You're not creepy. You're okay. It's okay.

“I have to go to class,” I said to the group surrounding me. And I pushed my way right through them. And, surprisingly, they didn't follow me.

Those kids were a little like the Minnesota wilderness, I thought. Tough. They were tough. They tried to break me.

I didn't have to let them.

Olivia smiled at me when I took my seat in Mr. Todd's class.

“Look at you!” she said. “You look so awesome.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Elyse!” Mr. Todd greeted me. “Wow, look at those. Incredible. Looking sharp. Not blue at all.”

A lot of people turned to look at me. Some whispered to each other and some stared, mesmerized. I held my arms out in front of me and kicked out my legs, kind of like I was doing a magic trick and this was the grand ta-da moment. The sunlight shone on them through the window, making them brighter and better.

“Wow, your arms are awesome!” Hannah B. said.

“Looking very cool!” Andy gave me a thumbs-up.

“Nice legs!” said Mike. Kevin punched him in the stomach lightly and they both started laughing.

“Do they hurt?” Paige asked.

“Nope,” I told her. “Sometimes they itch, but I'm okay.”

Liam walked up to my desk from the back of the room and dropped a blue Post-it on top of my books. I looked at him, then down at the note, then back up at him again.

“Open it,” he said.

I did.

Sorry for everything
.

I smiled. “It's okay,” I told him.

“Hey, guys! I got my ears double-pierced this weekend,” Ami announced to the crowd gathering around my seat. She turned her left ear toward us. Sure enough, there was her regular piercing, and now there was another sparkling silver stud on the cartilage part of her ear.

Just like that, all thirty pairs of eyes, even Mr. Todd's, shifted over to her. But that was fine. Maybe she needed the attention more than I did. I just needed to be. And now that I was out in the open, I really, truly could.

I glanced to my right. Jeg was the only one still watching me.

“You really look good,” she said in a whisper. “It's cool that you can just, I dunno, show that to everybody. And not have to follow rules about what you look like and what you wear. And not care what everyone else thinks.”

She fiddled with something around her neck, then dropped the charm so it was dangling over her shirt, right where I could see it.

It was the peace sign necklace.
Our
peace sign necklace.

But as quickly as it appeared, she tucked it away.

“Jeg…” I was whispering, too. Something about the conversation felt like a secret, and something about that made me feel really brave. “It kinda hurt my feelings when you started hanging out with the Loud Crowd instead of me. And then when you told them about me and Liam at the beginning of the year…”

“Yeah, I know … I'm sorry.” She sighed quietly. “I just wanted more people, you know? And they started talking to me all of a sudden and it was exciting. And my parents started traveling more this summer and not taking me with them as much. Only sometimes. I guess I got kinda lonely.”

“But you had me!”

“But I wanted more than you.”

That one hit me like a soccer ball to the gut.

“I don't mean it in a bad way,” she said. “I just mean I wanted more than one really good friend, that's all.”

“But…” I paused. “I mean, don't you think it's sorta weird that they started wanting to hang out with you right around the time your parents got even more rich and famous?”

“That was just a coincidence. They like me. And they're really not that bad when you get to know them.”

“Oh … okay. Well, if you ever wanna hang out again, we can.”

Jeg smiled at me, then took out a little mirror from her purse and did something to her face. When she looked back at me, her expression was totally different. It was like she had been hypnotized into being honest for a second and looking in the mirror had broken the spell. She shrugged and said, “Yeah, maybe. I'll text you sometime. Totes miss you.” Then she got up to join the crowd over by Ami's desk.

I hoped that that wouldn't be another text I'd be waiting forever for, like the one Liam promised that never came.

But it might be. And weirdly, that was good enough for now.

“Totes miss you more,” I whispered to myself.

 

37

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE ITCHY

Dear Elyse,

Today I decided to look back at this notebook and read what I'd written. September seems like years and years ago, but it wasn't really. But so much has happened since then.

I wish I could go back and warn myself: Mr. Todd didn't write the notes. Stand up for yourself. Bring an extra flashlight on the Minnesota trip. Don't drink two cups of cocoa before your Saturday-morning walk.