Into the Wild (2 page)

“Wait a minute, young lady.”

Julie stopped, hand on the door. “What?” she said. Her mother pecked her on the forehead. “Have an uneventful day,” Mom said.

With a backward wave, Julie sprinted out the door. Down the driveway, she saw the yellow of the school bus through the red and gold maple leaves. She was going to miss it! Backpack bouncing on her shoulders, she ran for it. Her shoes slapped her feet. The school bus turned from West Street onto Crawford Street. The brakes squeaked as it stopped.

Up ahead, she saw Gillian—book bag in one hand, trumpet case in the other—hopping from foot to foot. “You’re almost late,” she said as Julie skidded to a stop in front of the bus door. She didn’t have to say it: friends don’t let friends sit alone on the school bus.

“Happened again,” Julie managed to pant.

They slid into a seat as the bus lurched forward. “What was it this time?” Gillian asked as she balanced her trumpet case on her lap.

Julie peeked around the bus seat to make sure no one was listening. “Boot,” she whispered. “Supposed to let you go three miles with one step.”

Gillian whistled. “Wow,” she said. “You could ace gym with that.”

Julie shushed her. “I
told
you—”

“I know. Super-secret. Sorry,” Gillian said. She too looked to see if anyone was listening, and then she settled back down in her seat. “But don’t you think it’s cool?”

“Not exactly the word I was thinking of,” Julie said, looking down at her exposed toes, and Gillian giggled. Julie grinned back. At least there was one person in this school who knew Julie’s weirdness wasn’t her fault. Gillian was even loyal enough to think it was cool, once she’d gotten used to the idea. She’d known about it for two years now—ever since she’d walked in on Julie’s brother talking to a mirror (and the mirror talking back). That mirror never did shut up. Neither did Julie’s brother.

For the rest of the bus ride, they talked about other things: the Halloween dance, Gillian’s band tryouts, Julie’s history quiz. Gillian left her at the school entrance. “Luck on the Wallace quiz.”

“Luck at band,” Julie said.

Gillian held out her pinky, and Julie shook it with her pinky. Julie wished (not for the first time) that her locker was next to Gillian’s. So not fair. Mom could have chosen any last name she wanted after she escaped the Wild Wood—and yet Julie Marchen was stuck with a locker near the likes of Kristen March.

There was no way Kristen wasn’t going to notice the flip-flops. If the school had had fashion police, Kristen would have been their captain. Leaving Gillian, Julie slunk toward her locker. Why should she care if Kristen noticed? I don’t care, she told herself. No one was going to be able to guess their secret from a single pair of shoes.

Switching her homework books with her books for the first three periods, she risked a glance across the hall. Kristen tossed her hair—her infamous reversible part. Even with a mother who owned a hair salon, Julie couldn’t get her frizz to do that flip. I don’t care
,
she repeated, but she eavesdropped anyway.

“I was going to be a princess,” Kristen said to her gaggle of friends. “I had a tiara and the whole bit.” Of course she was, Julie thought. She didn’t have to worry about accidentally completing a fairy-tale event.

Her flock said, “Ooh.”

“It’s all Dad’s fault,” Kristen said. “He’s
impossible
. Of all the weekends to want to go to Vermont, he picks this one. It’s so
unfair
.”

Julie sucked in a breath. Any other day Kristen’s words might not have hit her so hard, but today . . . She felt as if she’d been punched in the gut.
Unfair?
Spending a weekend with a dad was unfair? Kristen had no idea what
unfair
meant.

Turning her back on Kristen, Julie faced her locker. She was okay with Kristen being beautiful and thin and having tons of friends who worshiped her, but Julie would have given anything to have a dad to spend a weekend with. Or even to know what he looked like. She smoothed the collage of illustrations on the inside of her locker door.
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,
each prince said. She didn’t even know if he looked like any of them.

She closed the locker with a sigh—loud enough, apparently, to be heard across the hall, because she heard giggling from Kristen’s friends. “Isn’t it a little late for the beach?” Kristen called. Her voice seemed super-loud, and Julie felt dozens of eyes looking at her and her feet. “Or are you just early for the Halloween dance?” Kristen’s flock of friends burst into peals of laughter, and Julie hunched her shoulders as if she could plug her ears with them.

Too bad she couldn’t crawl under a rock and hibernate until middle school passed. Would anyone really mind if she opted out of the whole junior high experience? Mom hadn’t had to go through it. Maybe, Julie thought as she trudged to class, I can find a nice, doorless tower.

Chapter Two

The Hair Salon

Goldie plopped down in the hairdresser chair. “Look at me!” she wailed. “Oh, just look at me!” Zel peered at her friend’s flawless baby-doll face and crown of golden ringlets and said a silent prayer for patience. Once a month, Goldie was in Zel’s salon moaning as if she’d suddenly turned green and bald, when in truth, she was the picture of perfection. But it was no use telling her that. And it was no use telling her to make an appointment first. Goldie waved an issue of
Glamour
in the air in front of Zel. “I’m unfashionable!”

Before Zel could respond, she heard a sheep baa outside. She winced: her 10:30 was here early, and she hadn’t come alone. “Excuse me,” she said to both Goldie and her other customer, Linda. She hurried around the reception desk to the door. “Mary, please, leave it outside. Board of Health regulations.”

“I’m trying, Zel,” Mary called as she wrestled to tie the sheep’s leash to a bike rack. The lamb fought her as if it were rabid. Mary thwapped its head. “Behave.”

The lamb bit her.

Zel felt a headache forming, but she tried to be sympathetic. After all, she wasn’t the one with the obsessed sheep. “Fine. Bring it in. But it has to stay in the manicure room.” The lamb baa-ed triumphantly, and Zel gave it her best steely look. “But no poop on the floor. You use the toilet or you don’t go at all.”

“Baa?”

“And flush this time,” Zel said.

Meekly, the lamb followed Mary inside.

Pausing at the reception desk, Zel marked Mary Hadda in her appointment book and scanned the rest of her schedule. She had a double load today with Gretel out. (Gretel had broken her new sugar-free diet again, and it had disagreed with her.) Zel glanced at the clock: 10:05. So far, the salon had three customers: Goldie, Mary, and one of the town librarians, Linda. Not to mention the lamb.

Zel was already behind, and today was the day she’d persuaded her mother to leave the Wishing Well Motel in the hands (or paws, actually) of one of the guests and come for a haircut. The extra appointment would make Zel even later.

Maybe she should take Gretel’s suggestion and ask Julie to help out after school.

At the thought of her daughter, Zel swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. Her baby girl. Lately, it felt like shouting across the Grand Canyon to even try to talk to her. At least she had made her laugh this morning. That was rare these days.

Zel sighed. Sometimes she understood why her own adoptive mother had locked her in a tower. It was hard to watch the person she loved more than her own life grow distant. Each time her daughter rolled her eyes at her, Zel felt her heart twist. She didn’t want to wait nine or ten years for Julie to like her again.

The lamb baa-ed vigorously as Mary dragged it into the manicure room, and Zel winced. She really should insist Julie come work. She could use the help, plus it would mean extra mother-daughter time—and, Zel thought wryly, I won’t have to find a spare tower in the suburbs.

Closing the appointment book, Zel went to finish trimming Linda’s hair. “Did I hear a sheep out there?” Linda asked.

“Sick dog,” Zel said. “Now, bend your head down.” Linda obeyed and Zel ran her fingers through the back of her hair to check for evenness. All she needed to do was think of a way to make Julie come without Julie immediately assuming her mother was trying to ruin her life. Not an easy task. “You have any books on handling teenage daughters?” she asked lightly.

“Dozens,” Linda said. “Self-help books fly off the shelves these days, but that’s not what people need.” She waved her arm for emphasis, and Zel hopped out of the way. “What people
really
need are more good, old-fashioned stories. A dozen stories can teach people more about how to live their lives than a hundred Ph.D. studies.”

“Uh-huh,” Zel said. She knew stories—firsthand—and even though she could joke about it, a tower wasn’t going to help her with Julie any more than the perfect porridge was going to make Goldie like herself more.

“We’ve lost our roots, lost ourselves in fads,” Linda said. “I tell you, a fresh influx of stories could solve most of the world’s problems.”

The problem with being a hairdresser, Zel thought, was that you had to listen politely to everyone’s pet theories, right or wrong. She was tempted to tell her how Gretel had battled bulimia, how Snow White’s marriage had crumbled (her prince hadn’t wanted a wife with a personality), how Sleeping Beauty . . . No, stories hadn’t helped Zel’s friends, but Zel let Linda prattle on.

Moving to the waiting chairs, Goldie paraded her magazines in front of Mary. “What do you think of that one?” she said. “Or, ooh, how about this one?”

Mary’s own hair was dyed purple. “I like that one.”

“That’s a
man
.”

“Oops, my bad,” Mary said. Goldie grumbled to herself as Mary eyed her critically. “But seriously, Goldie, have you thought about trying bald?”

Goldie was still shrieking when Rapunzel’s adoptive mother, Dame Gothel Marchen, walked in. “Oh, my,” Gothel said mildly. “One of those days, is it?”

Goldie blanched, instantly silent, and Zel grinned. Her mom had that effect on people. In a purple sweat suit, Gothel looked like someone’s sweet grandma, fresh from the Northcourt Pool Shuffleboard League. She had a face as wrinkled as a walnut and hair as frizzed as a gone-to-seed dandelion. She looked like an innocent elderly lady—and, in point of fact, she hadn’t boiled a child in years. But when she smiled at Goldilocks and said, “Goldie, dear, you look lovely. Now, why don’t you run along home?”—Goldie bolted out the door.

Zel was torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to smack her head against the wall. “Mother, please! You can’t do that to customers!” Behind Gothel, Zel saw Mary inch across the chairs toward the doors—preparing to flee. No customers was
not
better than too many customers.
“Mother.”

Without glancing at Mary, Gothel said, “No, you stay, dear. You need it.” Mary froze. From the manicure room, the lamb baa-ed and kicked frantically at the door. “Sheep?” Gothel asked.

“Sick dog,” Linda said.

“Would you like me to take a look?” Gothel offered.

Instant silence from the manicure room.

Gothel’s cheek twitched, and for a second, Zel thought she saw . . . No, her mother couldn’t be bothered by people fearing her. “Pity,” Gothel murmured. “It would have made a lovely shish kebob.”

Mary paled.

“She’s kidding,” Zel said.

“Of course I am.” Gothel smiled sweetly. “I wouldn’t hurt a lamb.”

Zel rolled her eyes. She had clearly imagined that flicker of emotion—her mother enjoyed feeding her reputation. “Oh, Mother.” Shaking her head, Zel put down her shears and went to hug her. It was time for her mother to quit the wicked witch routine. She didn’t even use her powers anymore. Of course, there were a few frogs around Gothel’s motel that Zel had her suspicions about, but everyone needed a hobby. So long as it didn’t cause the Wild to grow too fast, she wasn’t going to ask. She guided her mother to the shampoo chair and fastened the nylon smock around her neck. “You’d have better social skills if you got out more,” Zel said. “You spend too much time at that motel.”

“Are you nagging me, Rapunzel?” Gothel asked with an edge to her voice.

“Yes,” Zel said sternly.

Gothel cackled. Mary flinched at the sound, but Zel couldn’t help smiling. She loved her mother’s laugh. In the years since they’d escaped the Wild, Gothel’s laugh had changed from overtly evil to delicious and free.

In the shampoo chair, Gothel leaned backward. Running warm water, Zel wet her hair. “So what am I missing that’s so special?” Gothel asked.

“Well, I don’t know.” A single mother with her own business to run, Zel wasn’t an expert on Northboro’s social scene. She added shampoo to Gothel’s hair and worked it into a lather. “But you should get out more. Not just for haircuts.” She shouldn’t be so tied to her responsibilities all the time. She was sacrificing her freedom in her efforts to protect her freedom.