The Detour (6 page)

Despite my current state of misery, I managed to smile a bit. The little freak came across as ignorant, but was she? I didn't think so. She knew exactly what she was doing. And exactly what would happen.

The whole thing was planned.

Flute Girl not only had to find a box, but she had to capture the bees and wait until her mom left. So Flute Girl absolutely did know right from wrong. At least, enough to know that her mother would not have approved. A sociopath was conniving and deceitful. A psychopath was sinister and violent. One of the differences was that a psychopath lacked remorse.

Flute Girl definitely had the cunning of one and the proactive cruelty of the other. Remorse? That would be the true test. I'd have to wait and see if I was dealing with a future monster or just a child who didn't have her moral compass screwed on right.

Mrs. Dixon kept yelling. “What am I supposed to do with you?”

There were certainly some suggestions floating around in my woozy, pissed-off head.

I groaned and managed to sit up. I leaned back against the wall and bent my knees. Carefully, I tucked in my slung-up arm and set my right elbow on my knee, elevating my stung hand as much as the pain would allow. Maybe that would help reduce the swelling.

“Don't you dare go near her again! Understand?”

I found myself slightly comforted by the fact that Mrs. Dixon was at least bothered that I might have died.

So she
didn't
want that to happen. Me neither.

I needed that not to happen.

I had to stay rational, organized. Flute Girl was obviously aware of my allergy, which meant that she had read the back of my MedicAlert bracelet. And Mrs. Dixon knew exactly where my EpiPen was, which meant she had done an inventory of my purse.

Had she spent my money? Used my credit cards?

If my mom or anyone tried to trace my whereabouts, they'd be certain to check that. I hoped she
was
stupid enough to use my cards.

What really gave me the willies was what these two lunatics could find out about me. My journal was in a secret pocket of the custom carry-on that had been in the trunk of my car. If they found it, they would know a lot more about me than anyone else knew, except maybe Rory.

I was so careful about what I revealed to my fans. Bloggers constantly interviewed me for this or that, but I managed to give them enough to keep everyone satisfied without giving them too much. And I blogged myself. Social media was a requirement for authors.

Honestly, when hundreds of people commented on my posts, it was a total ego boost. But there was so much I kept for myself. Rory was the only one I told everything to. Nearly everything.

Part of me was afraid that the readers wouldn't like the real me. I put on a good show, of course: Successful teenage author has the world by the proverbial balls.

If they only knew how insecure I really was about everything
except
writing. Which was why, at first, I didn't tell Rory
quite
everything.

For a long time, he had no idea that he was not only my first boyfriend, but also my first friend. From kindergarten to eighth grade, I'd attended a small charter school that billed itself as unique, different from the local public school. With all the bullying in public schools, it found a publicity niche: a kinder, gentler environment.

What a load of crap.

The first day of kindergarten, I wore black Mary Janes, a black-and-white-striped T-shirt, denim skirt, and perfect lacy black-and-white-striped socks. Mom did my hair in one long braid down my back, almost like a tail. Maybe the braid was the mistake. Or maybe it was the shirt. Most probably the black and white.

I didn't know. How could I? I was five.

I simply wanted everything to be perfect.

Every day when my mom went to work, the last thing she did was walk into a cloud of perfume. So I sneaked into her room, plucked a bottle off the bureau, and spritzed several pumps of perfume in the air, walking through the mist, turning, and walking through again.

“Olivia!” Mom took the perfume out of my hand. “Oh, sweetie.” She smiled. “Well, at least you'll smell nice.”

So I packed up my new pink book bag with pristine crayons and shiny safety scissors and colored pencils and everything else on the school supply list for East Cascades Charter School. I was breathless with anticipation.

My grandma had always watched me when my parents were at work, so as an only child, I hadn't had a lot of interaction with children, other than some children of my parents' friends. But I had been looking forward to starting school because I was smart, liked learning, and loved to read.

Above all, I desperately wanted a friend. We ran a little late that morning, and I knew there was something I'd forgotten to do as I buckled my seat belt. I told my mom, “I'm going to find a best friend today.”

Mom smiled. “I bet you will.” When she was a lawyer, she always dressed in smart suits and heels, her dark hair in a perfect bob that required regular trips to the salon to maintain. She had no doubt that I would turn out to be smart and talented and, above all, popular.

At the circle drive at school, I hopped out and ran up to the front door. A sweet gray-haired lady introduced herself as Miss Nola and pointed me to the classroom. The soles of my Mary Janes clicked happily the entire way.

Inside the room, I stopped to take a breath. A piano stood in the corner, an art table ran across the entire back wall, and a glass fish tank sat on top of a short, squat filing cabinet. The room smelled enticing, like Elmer's glue and finger paint.

“Olivia.” The voice was musical. Miss Molly was short for a grown-up, with a blunt red bob and freckles sprayed across her nose. To me, she was perfection. Miss Molly opened her arms, and I ran into them. “Welcome, welcome! Can you go over and put your bag in your cubby? Then find a chair in the Happy Time Circle.”

I was reluctant to leave Miss Molly's embrace, but I bounced over to the wall across from the windows and found my name, then placed my bag on the hook. I felt a pressure between my legs and realized what I had forgotten.

I wondered if I should ask Miss Molly where to go, but she was surrounded by other children, so I skipped over to the circle of chairs and sat down next to a girl in a pink dress with short, brown hair who smiled at me. Her name tag read
SAVANNA
. I smiled back as I pinched my legs tightly together.

Another girl, with brown curly hair, red shorts, and a blue T-shirt, name tag bearing
CECILLE
, sat on the other side of the girl, as a boy sat next to me.

I didn't know very much about boys, and I didn't want to sit by one. He wore a red polo shirt and jeans and what looked like a smaller version of my dad's weekend work boots. His name tag said
DONNY
.

Donny told me, “You stink.”

Savanna said, “That is not nice to say.”

Donny leaned closer to me and took a big sniff. He scrunched up his nose. “Well, she does. She stinks.”

I said, “It's my mom's perfume.”

Cecille stood up and walked over to me. She sniffed and then quickly pinched her nose shut with her fingers. “Oh, she does.”

Tears welled up in my eyes.

More children took their seats, all of them staring at Cecille and Donny, who seemed to be suffering greatly in my presence. I'd had enough. “I don't stink!”

“Yes, you do!” said Donny. “You smell just like … just like … a skunk!”

Cecille giggled. “Yeah, a skunk!”

Savanna in the pink dress shook a finger at her. “That is mean.”

A girl started to sit down, but Cecille waved her off. “No! You don't want to sit by a skunk!”

Donny grabbed my braid. “See? She even has a
skunky
tail!”

Tears slipped down my cheeks, and I put my hands over my face, amid the whispers of “Skunk!”

Why didn't Miss Molly come over there and stop them? Why didn't she save me?

Donny pinched my stomach, hard.

And then, I couldn't help it. The pee seeped out and drenched my underwear, turned my denim skirt dark in patches, and then spread to the edges of the chair.

Drip. Drip. Drip onto the primary-colored blocks of carpet that made up the Happy Time Circle. The green square darkened in spots.

“Look!” cried Donny. “The skunk peed her pants! Now she smells like … skunk piss!” He pinched his nostrils shut, and the other children followed suit.

I looked to Savanna for help.

Slowly, Savanna slid her chair over, away from me. Then she pinched her nose shut as well.

Miss Molly approached the Happy Time Circle, a dark look on her face. But she said nothing to the children all holding their noses. Instead, Miss Molly rolled her eyes slightly and sighed, mumbling under her breath, “I thought we'd at least make it to recess before someone did that.”

The classroom aide was Miss Nola, the gray-haired lady from earlier. No longer sweet, she scowled and pinched my elbow with old, wrinkled fingers. “Come on.”

When I stood up, warm pee dripped down my legs and into my perfect lacy black-and-white socks. By the time we reached the single-stall faculty bathroom at the end of the hall, each footstep squished. The aide opened up a new package of white underwear and handed me one, along with some rough brown paper towels. “Clean yourself up. I'll be out here.”

Through sobs and sniffles, I held a paper towel under the water until it was a soaked, mushy ball, then pushed the button of the soap dispenser and let the glittery pink ooze out. I wiped my legs, shivering as the cool water and soap dripped down, and dried them with a scratchy paper towel. Some of the soap dried sticky.

As hard as I tried to clean off the smell, it lingered. Donny was right. I smelled like skunk piss.

I put on the big and baggy underwear, which felt like it might fall down at any moment. That afternoon, after enduring an entire day of children holding their noses whenever they came near me, I trudged out to my mom's car.

She grinned. “Well! Did you pick out a best friend yet?”

Instead of answering her question, I claimed I had a stomachache. When I got home, I ran upstairs and stripped off my clothes, my new Mary Janes, the no-longer-perfect lacy black-and-white socks, and stuffed them all in the garbage.

I was five years old. Old enough to know I had not turned out to be the child my mom wanted me to be. Old enough to know I was already a failure at life.

 

{7}

STILL TOO TIRED
to move, all my efforts were focused on breathing regularly. I sat there on the floor, staring at the concrete wall on the other side of the room. I hadn't reminisced about my school years for a while. In my day-to-day life, there was no time to think. There was definitely no time to wallow in the past.

I was doing what I liked, getting paid a lot of money for it, and was about to head off to college. I hadn't ever planned to tell Rory much about my torturous grade-school years. And why the hell would I? They were bad enough to live through once.

I had been afraid to tell him. Who would ever want to love someone who had been known as Skunk Piss for much of her childhood?

Maybe Miss Molly was blind, I don't know, but she never stopped them from tormenting me. Maybe she didn't want to deal with it. Maybe she was stupid. Maybe she'd been bullied in childhood and was relieved that no one bothered her.

I didn't tell my mom that year. Or the next. Not that she was absent from my life, or even school. She brought cupcakes for every open house. I liked those nights. Both my parents, holding my hands, lingering over my desk to see my latest drawing or math or writing. On those nights, I was like everyone else, simply another kid with proud parents.

Telling them the truth would have ruined it.

Their pride kept me silent. Because I loved that they were proud of me. And seeing what I was really like in the classroom on a daily basis—weak, victimized, cowering alone at recess, sitting at the end of the lunch table by myself—would have deflated them. Maybe they would have felt like they failed. The biggest reason I never told them?

I was terrified they wouldn't love me anymore.

No one wants to be the parent of the class loser.

Their love and pride were all I had to hold on to, and all it took to keep me silent.

Finally, in fifth grade, I'd had enough.

Why did it take so long? Really, it wasn't like I was walking up to other little girls and asking them to jump rope or share my Nutella at snack time, then having to deal with their saying no. I interacted with none of them, so there was little chance for any actual rejection to occur.

Plus, there was the little matter of the pariah cloud over my head.

But children are optimistic at heart. So I waited for someone to ask me to play. And in the meantime, I kept busy.

I read. Constantly. From second grade on, the librarian would let me stay in at recess and help her shelve books. I loved being there in the quiet windowless room, alone with all the shelves stuffed with stories, many happier than mine, but some much more tragic. Those books were my friends.

Charlie Bucket and Lucy Pevensie and Harry Potter. They begged me to read them. So I was okay as long as I had books. Maybe, deep inside, I held out hope that I could escape like Charlie and Lucy and Harry had. Like one day I would be swept away to run a chocolate factory or discover I had secret magic skills. Or maybe I would find a wardrobe and say, “Screw this, I'm going to Narnia.”

In fifth grade, our teacher was mean. We'd had Miss Reed as a long-term sub in fourth grade when our teacher had a baby, and she had been kind and patient. Even to me. But when she returned in the fall as Mrs. Klein, she apparently took her new full-time job seriously. Maybe it was Mrs. Klein's constantly demanding so much of the entire class. But for whatever reason, it seemed like nobody had energy left after dealing with her to mess with me. At least some of the time. Sure, there were days when I was treated like a leper, nothing new. But there were also days when the girls who had tormented me for years were, if not exactly my friends, at least my allies.