The Reinvention of Bessica Lefter (17 page)

The fluffy-headed girl kept smiling as she flitted through the office. I felt myself turning several shades of angry red. Stupid diary. Stupid Sylvie. Why had she kept the pages that talked about me liking Kettle Harris? What was wrong with her? I hadn’t shown that to anybody. I was smart enough to know that was a terrible idea. And how did Sylvie even know the puffy-headed girl? Were they secret friends? And who else had Sylvie shown that stupid diary to?

And then that puffy-headed girl took the attendance slips and left before I could deny what she’d said. And when Mrs. Batts came in and handed me my refund, it didn’t feel as great as it should have. The bell rang and lunch was over.

“I’m going to write a note giving you permission to eat in class,” Mrs. Batts said.

“Thanks,” I said. But it was hard for me to think about lunch and cookies. I didn’t know one lunch could be this bad. First I found out that I had to become a cheerleader or I’d be socially certified as “nothing” in a deadly area for three years. Then I found out that Sylvie was a total
jerk. It sure was a good thing that Sylvie and I weren’t friends anymore. Because if we were, I would have called her up and yelled at her and told her how rotten she was. Then, as I walked to my stupid geography class, I realized I could call Sylvie up and yell at her and tell her how rotten she was, even though we weren’t friends anymore. In fact, if I didn’t do that, Sylvie would never know that I knew she was rotten. And I couldn’t let that happen.

I decided that I’d call her that night. I’d call her right up and ask her what her problem was. And if she pretended that she didn’t know what I was talking about, then I’d just yell more. And say superterrible things. Because she deserved that. She totally did.

raditionally, Monday was the day that my grandmother was in charge of dinner. She wasn’t expected to do this. But she was the sort of person who liked to contribute. Grandma used to set the table, turn off both televisions, light candles, and serve dinner. She didn’t like to cook meals from scratch. Just dessert. So for dinner she brought home corn dogs from the Corny Spot. And I guess I thought my family would keep this tradition alive in honor of Grandma. But I was wrong. Because that tradition died pretty quickly.

My mother thought making fake meat loaf would be a
nice change of pace. But her fake meat loaf wasn’t so hot. Instead of meat, she made it with ricotta cheese and brown rice and a large number of spices that we normally never ate. In fact, it tasted so terrible that my dad and I were forced to use a variety of condiments to disguise the fake taste.

“Try more ketchup,” my mom suggested.

My dad pounded the butt of the bottle a few more times.

“It tastes like I’m eating a shoe,” he said.

In addition to tasting bad, it was also gray. And I didn’t find gray food appealing. Also, now I associated it with my principal.

“I miss corn dogs,” my father said.

I nodded.

“Do you know what’s in a corn dog?” my mother asked.

“A hot dog?” I answered.

“And do you know what’s in a hot dog?” my mother asked.

“Meat fat and filler?” I said.

My mother’s eyes widened. She was surprised that I knew what was inside a hot dog. “And possibly carcinogenic nitrite additives.”

“Let’s not say that word at the dinner table,” my father said.

But I wasn’t totally sure what
carcinogenic
meant. And in
my family, if you didn’t know what a word meant, it was totally acceptable to interrupt the conversation and ask for the word to be defined.

“Please define
carcinogenic
,” I said.

My father glanced at my mother. She set her fork down.

“
Carcinogenic
means that it can cause cancer,” my mother said.

And then I set my fork down too. “Grandma fed us carcinogenic corn dogs for five years and you let her?” I asked. I knew it was polite to be nice to old people, but this was ridiculous.

“Just because you eat a hot dog doesn’t mean you’ll get cancer,” my dad said.

“And some of them don’t have nitrite additives. Like you said, some are just meat fat and filler,” my mom said.

I shook my head. And then I stared at my plate. “Have I ever eaten a carcinogenic hot dog?” I asked.

My parents looked at each other again. But they didn’t say anything.

“I have eaten a carcinogenic hot dog, haven’t I?” I asked. I was disgusted to learn this.

“You’re overreacting,” my father said.

“Yes,” my mother said. “Calm down.”

But I wasn’t overreacting. Grandpa Lefter had died of cancer ten years ago. That meant cancer could happen to other people in my family. Like me.

“Let’s just eat our meat loaf,” my mother said. “The center is better than the edges.”

I stared at the center of my fake meat loaf. It was very, very gray.

“Your homework pile looks huge tonight,” my dad said.

“It was that big Friday night,” I said. “I have a feeling it’s always going to be that big. Maybe bigger.” I poked my meat loaf again. I guess I sort of expected it to react.

“How was geography?” my dad asked. “Are you studying bears yet?”

I shook my head.

“What did you learn?” he asked.

I thought very hard. I didn’t take a lot of notes in geography today, on account of the fact that I was completely freaked out about living in loner town and people having read my diary. Also, I was eating my lunch cookies. “I learned that some days in the Arctic during the winter, the sun never rises and during the summer, the sun never sets.”

My dad whistled. Which is something he did when he heard an interesting fact or statistic. Then he stabbed his meat loaf again. “I need more ketchup.”

I passed him the bottle. It was almost empty.
Whap. Whap. Whap
.

Then there was a lot of silence while we chewed. And I wasn’t sure what we should talk about. I was a little
distracted, because I kept playing the conversation that I wanted to have with Sylvie in my head.

“When you showed people our diary, did they have to come to your house or did you let them take it home? Did anybody photocopy it? Why do you want to destroy my life, Sylvie? And when did you become such an awful person?”

Then my dad asked me another question, and I stopped thinking about how miserable I was over what Sylvie had done and started thinking about how miserably things had gone for me at lunch today.

“You’ll never guess who I bumped into at my last stop,” my dad said. “Principal Tidge’s husband.”

I swallowed hard and looked at my mom.

“What?” my dad asked. “Why are you both making that face? You don’t like Mr. Tidge?”

Then my mom started talking, and I felt pretty bummed out, because it was obvious that she was going to tell him all about the vending-machine incident.

“I should probably tell you that the principal’s office called today to notify me that Bessica was involved in a vending-machine incident.”

My father took a big swallow of milk.

“Did the machine rip you off?” my dad asked. “Sometimes they do that. If that happens, you need to go to the secretary and ask for a refund.”

“Oh, I got my refund,” I said.

“Aren’t you concerned that our daughter is eating out of the vending machines?” my mother asked. “Talk about carcinogenic additives. Those things shouldn’t even be allowed in schools.”

“Maybe Bessica was eating something nutritious,” my dad said. “Like an organic granola bar. Or an apple.”

He looked at me.

“I purchased oatmeal-raisin cookies,” I said. “Sugar is the second ingredient.”

My father sighed. “Tell me about the vending-machine incident.”

“At first, the principal told me that Bessica had vandalized the machine and broken the glass,” my mother said.

My father’s eyes got big. “What?”

“But then the principal called again because another girl admitted that Bessica hadn’t done any such thing,” my mom said.

“A girl broke the glass?” my dad asked. “Did she use a heavy object?”

I nodded. “Her boot. She kicked it seven times. My cookies wouldn’t drop.”

“And what did you do?” my father asked.

I shrugged. “I waited for my cookies to drop.”

My father did not look pleased with this answer.

“You didn’t get a teacher?” he asked.

“That’s not always the best answer,” I said.

“Everything sorted itself out,” my mother said.

“Sounds like North Teton Middle School has a tough crowd,” my dad said.

“Nadia is totally tough.”

“Nadia sounds like trouble,” my dad said.

“Yeah,” I said. “But she’s suspended. Also, she wears a dog collar and she spends all her time in loner town. We’re not friends.” And I didn’t bother going into how I didn’t have any other friends yet, and would be stuck in loner town for three years unless I became a cheerleader.

“The school system has changed a lot since I was a sixth grader,” he said.

“I know,” my mother said. “The PE teacher at Bessica’s school is a former Olympian. She threw the shot put.”

My dad whistled again.

“How did you know that?” I asked.

“Your schedule is on the refrigerator,” my mom said.

“But how did you know Ms. Penrod is a former Olympian? Is she famous?” I liked the idea of having a famous teacher. Even if she was determined to kick my butt.

“There was an article about her in the paper. Do you want to read it?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Has she had you throw the shot yet?” my dad asked. “It can weigh as much as sixteen pounds.”

I shook my head. “I haven’t even seen a shot. We jog a lot. It’s her favorite. Also, for variety, we’re learning basic and intermediate tumbling tomorrow.”

My dad looked thrilled. “Variety,” he said. “It’s the spice of life.”

“Whatever,” I said. “I’m finished.” Even though I still had a lot of loaf left.

“Should we go for a walk?” asked my mom.

On Mondays, after dinner, we used to walk with Grandma around our block so we could monitor hedgehog destruction. I looked at Grandma’s empty chair. It was a very sad-looking empty chair. She’d left her cushion on it. I wondered if she knew she’d left that.

“No,” I said. “I’ve got things to do.” I wondered if it made sense to write a letter to Kettle, even though I didn’t know where he lived, and deny that I’d ever liked him. Maybe I should send a copy of this letter to the fluffy-haired girl. When it came to my new problem, I wasn’t sure of the best solution.

“If you need any help with your homework, just ask,” my dad said.

“I will,” I said. Even though the truth was I planned to attempt to do splits and then call Sylvie and yell at her.
And none of that was really a school assignment. I could do my homework after that. And maybe do more cheerleader bending.

I went to my room and waited for Sylvie to get home from school. She had no idea what she had coming.

aybe Sylvie did have an idea of what she had coming, because I called her three times and she never answered her phone. I bet my name came up on her caller ID. That was when I realized that she was probably screening her phone calls and that I needed to come up with a better plan.