Girl in Reverse (9781442497368) (2 page)

Ralph reaches around me and grabs the meat platter, spilling a few drops of cold minute-steak juice on the carpet. He grinds them in with his sneaker.

*  *  *

After the dishes Ralph clomps upstairs and bursts through my bedroom door with the Firestone Bible under his arm. His face is flushed, his sleeves wet to the elbows. “Disappear, Ralphie.” He pulls the chewed steak from his pocket, tosses it in my wastebasket.

“Ick.”

He shakes his head at the trash can. “Man, I need to teach Mom how to cook. I know how to make jelly horn. You just wrap raw dough around a stick, cook it over the campfire, and smear it with jelly. And I can steam wild greens in a fire hole and—”

“Wow, that mouth of yours did it again. You lit the ol' Firestone family fuse with your tongue and ended up with the dishes.”

He shuts my door, narrows his eyes at me. “So? God! What'd you do?”

“What do you mean?”

“At school! What happened? The vice principal called. Mr. Thorp. Mom was out so I, uh, took the message.”

“
You
took the message?”

“I took the information,” he says in a confidential tone.

I shake my head. “Wrong. Mr. Thorp wouldn't give
you
information.”

Ralph raises his voice an octave. “He would if he thought I was Mom. I can still do that voice thing when I need to.”

“You pretended you were Mom?”

“Yep.”

“Oh my God. You are amazing. What did he say? Did he apologize for how Miss Arth didn't—?”

“He said you left school without permission and that you need to report to his office Monday morning. That's all.” Ralph looks about to bust. “I mean . . .
you.
I can't believe it. What happened?”

Snow twirls in gusts in the streetlight out my window. I sit cross-legged on my bed and tell him everything, including the janitor's lightbulb salute and
The Thinker.
For the first time in history Ralph doesn't interrupt. “Usually it's just one or two kids, but this was the whole class
and
the teacher. I am so sick of it. I just stood up and walked out.”

“That took guts,” he says. “Did everybody clap?”

“
No.
They probably thought I was running away.”

His eyes are saucers. “I swear. I'm bringing
you
to Scouts. You're a hero. It'll be so neat when you walk into school Monday morning.”

“Sorry, but walking into Mr. Thorp's office will not be so neat.”

Ralph thinks a minute, puts the Bible down. “Uh . . . what're you gonna do if it happens again, you know, somebody else coughs something bad?”

“It's not
new
. You wouldn't remember it, but in grade school kids teased me all the time thinking I was Japanese. I didn't even get what was going on.” I chew my thumbnail. “But it's switched. Everybody's prejudiced against Chinese people because they are Communists now and they're trying to take over Korea. I've become the enemy because I'm Chinese even though I've never been there and I know exactly zero about it.”

Ralph's quiet a moment, thinking. “So what
did
you do—run away, or stand up for yourself?”

I rub my face, my stomach in a knot. “I don't
know.
Both, I guess.”

Ralph's eyes are bright. “Well, you can't stop now. You gotta keep going. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.”

“Wow. Is that a quote from the Bible?”

“No, it's from the Dental Hygiene merit badge.” He sighs, rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Well, at least Mr. Thorp's call is over.”

“Yeah. Thanks. But that's not exactly Boy Scout code, is it? Faking who you are.”

“No, it's part of the help-your-older-sister code of honor.”

We open to the genealogy page of the Bible, with four generations of Firestones perched on little branches. In Mother's neat script “Lillian Catherine Firestone—b. December 20, 1934” is written under “Donald and Vivian.” Perched next to me is their miracle, natural-born son “Ralph Laurence Firestone—b. July 13, 1939.”

Ralph points to two crossed-out, smudgy names. “Who are those guys?”

“Relatives on death row.”

He nods. “Nice.” We sit quietly for a minute studying the chart of our heritage, or at least Ralph's heritage, but we know almost none of them. It's as if our mother has used the Bible, the literal bulk and solemnness of it, to stand in for the actual people, even on Dad's side.

Ralph rattles the junk in his pocket, pulls out a rock. He flips it off his thumb, catches it back and forth, and then tosses it in my lap. It looks to be a piece of greenish shell.

“Ew. Did this come out of your nose?”

“Yep.”

“What is it?” I ask.

Ralph gives me an odd look. “I thought maybe
you'd
know.”

I lob the shell over him into the wastebasket by my vanity.

“
Hey!
Careful. It's part of my Scout collection,” he says, scoping my room.

I hop off the bed, plaster my hands over his eyes. “You may not touch, move, or
re
move one single, solitary speck of dust from my room for your collection.”

“Okay. Okay.”

Dad's cigarette smoke snakes up the stairs. Ralph hoists his lumpy self off the floor. He retrieves his rock, then takes a split-second detour by my closet on his way out.

“
Halt!
I saw that.”

He turns, hands behind his back, all innocent acting.

“Give it!”

He pulls my sneaker from behind his back. “Oops . . . wrong shoe. Meant to take the other one. I'm, uh, practicing my tracking and stalking skills for Scouts. No muskrats handy, so I picked
you
. Should be interesting, especially after today.” He studies the sole of my shoe. “I need your
paw
print.”

“Stalking? Really?”

“Careful observation is important.” Ralph squats in stalker position on the carpet with his pants wedged up around his butt. He creeps—stomach to rug—across my floor. “Use toes and elbows only,” he grunts. “Rest your weight on the insides of your legs.”

I squish him to the floor with my foot. “In stalking,” he grunts into the carpet, “always remember that your shadow is not overlooked by your quarry.” He cranes his neck to look up at me. “Constantly watch your quarry. Be prepared. Freeze if necessary. Never approach from downwind.
Don't breathe until your quarry resumes feeding or other natural activities.”

I pull Ralph to standing, load the Bible on his arm. “Here. You take it. It's missing a few chapters.”

He walks out backward. “Don't you mean verses?”

“No, chapters.” I shut my door in my brother's goofy face.

. . . the true creation story of me.

I could grow a beard waiting for Mr. Thorp to get off the phone in his office. All weekend I obsessed over what rumors had been spread about me. I have rehearsed and re-rehearsed my side of the story until I can say it without crying. But so far, walking into school has been a carbon copy of every Monday, except for the pretzel twist in my stomach.

Mr. Thorp, of the clipped-caterpillar mustache and poochy eye bags, finally puts his caller on hold and looks up blankly. He mentions not one word about social studies. He does not ask a single question. Over the weekend my humiliating incident seems to have fallen into the empty wastebasket between his ears. He says nothing about Neil or commie coughing or the deaf-and-blind Miss Arth. “Since this is your first offense, if you successfully
complete your detention, your truancy will be expunged from your permanent record.”

Mr. Thorp reaches over, punches the blinking button on his phone, and that's it.

I walk out with my punishment—eighth hours on Wednesday and Friday for the next four weeks. Art room cleanup.

Sorry, Ralphie, all I got is a pink slip
—
no floats, no ticker tape parade for me.

Outside the front office I stop. I stare at the buffed brown floor, thinking
I hate this place
. But who cares? Nobody. My
heroic
departure was nothing that the swipe of a pink slip couldn't wipe away.

Outside, the ROTC honor guard is in formation around the flagpole. Neil Bradford holds a precision salute as the flag is raised. He's starched and serious. Neil will not receive a detention. Miss Arth will not receive a detention either. People don't get eighth hours for adjusting their earrings, even if right before their very eyes an innocent person is getting crushed by a tank.

In the lunch line Patty Kittle and my other former best friend Anita ask me how I'm feeling now. They both wear pearls, an essential part of the sorority girls'—better known as
cupcakes
—school uniform.

“What?”

Patty says, “You went to the nurse's office during class, right?”

“No. I wasn't sick. I walked
out
.” I hold up my detention slip.

“Oh!” She nods, wide eyed, with her hand cupped over her mouth.

Anita's eyes shift all over the place. “Well, I'm so glad it was just because of . . .
that
, I mean, I'm so happy for you that you weren't sick or having . . .” She holds her stomach, cringes, and mouths
cramps.

Is feeling prejudice more pleasant than cramps?

These are the only conversations I have the whole day except the ones in my head.

Oh, Patty and Anita, maybe the nurse could medicate you two for your phony sincerity syndromes. You know, the ones you use to hide the fact that you dropped me, the smiles that scream
sorority girls and rice girls don't mix.

If I had done a handstand on my desk everyone would still have avoided looking at me in social studies. Miss Arth yawn-talks her way through a lecture on the future of the oil industry in America, followed by a Cold War film so dull it shreds itself in the projector.

Mr. Thorp reads the afternoon announcements—
the Student Council Ideals and Ethics Committee meets today. . . . Glee Club will practice its repertoire of religious, popular, and novelty songs for the Brotherhood Week assembly. . . .

The final bell. The dreaded Monday here and gone.

*  *  *

On Wednesday afternoon the art room smells of turpentine and wet clay. It's big and messy. A freezing draft from outside comes through a ground-level door that isn't latched tight. Prisms hang in the long windows overlooking the icy track and football field. They cast patches of rainbow across the floor. I shiver, fold my arms. I remember sitting in here last year full of my parents' assurance that Patty and Anita and I would be fine starting at Wilson High School together. We'd stay loyal and watch out for each other after transferring from Our Lady of Sorrows. We would not become ladies of sorrow ourselves.

No one would have predicted that the polite, straight-A former Girl Scout Lillian Firestone would become a juvenile delinquent.

I sign the detention form on the art teacher's desk and read a list of “Cleanup Procedures” posted on the wall: 1. wipe tables, 2. soak rags and brushes in turpentine, 3. rinse eyedroppers, 4. sort pastels, 5. wash mirrors, 6. alphabetize glazes.

How would anybody ever know if I just signed in and left?

On the wall is a diagram showing how to shade a flat two-dimensional circle to create a sphere. Another poster, titled “Principles of Portraiture,” outlines the proportions of the human face. Student self-portraits are tacked to cork strips around the room. They're terrible! Every one looks like an electrocuted zombie.

The side door thunks open, followed by a swoosh of freezing air. I wheel around. In sweeps a tall guy with messy brown hair, glasses, and a long coat.
Elliot James!

“Self-portraits are a pain,” he says, tossing me a glance. He flops his portfolio on the table. “Don't laugh until you've tried one.”

What?
“I wasn't laughing.”

“But you wanted to,” he says.

No I didn't.

He sits on a stool at a drawing table with photos taped to it. His boots are paint splattered. His knit scarf falls on the floor. “Girls don't get detentions. What'd you do?”

I ignore the question, grab a rag, and wipe an arrangement of bottles and shells sitting on a pedestal in front of the window.

“Don't touch that! It's a still-life model. You'll change the shadows. And don't clean the tables, either. Nobody'll notice. It's just stupid crap to make you sorry for what you did.”

“Do you have one too?” I ask.

“One what?”

“Detention,” I say.

“No!”
Stupid. Stupid. Elliot James is the king of the art room. Of course he doesn't have an eighth hour.

“Yearbook stuff.” He points to his drawing paper. “Caricatures.”

I must look blank because he says, “You know,
caricatures
,
drawings where you exaggerate people's features and personalities.” He waves his pen. “It's sort of like Chinese calligraphy. Just a few perfect strokes and no more. But with a pen instead of a brush.”

Continued blankness.

“Chinese calligraphy, you know, handwriting. I'm learning how. Practicing the techniques.” He tilts his head, speaks slowly. “
China
. Right? That big ancient place across the ocean?” He makes a wavy pattern with his hand, then hunches over the table, rubbing his boots together as he draws. He has a rolled towel propped under his forearm to keep from smearing the ink, and an expression as intense as
The Thinker
's.

I wring the life out of some sponges, thinking that at least he said China like it's a
place
, not a slap in the face. I prop the sponges behind the spigot. I looked dumb about calligraphy because I am. I know exactly zero about China—we haven't studied it yet—except that it's now
Red
China and that pandas live there and so did Gone Mom and my birth father. But I didn't. Babies living in Chinatown, San Francisco, don't learn Chinese handwriting. And little Chinese orphan girls who move to Missouri and get adopted and go to Catholic school don't learn it either.