The Battle of Darcy Lane (12 page)

My dad always seemed to need socks.

We all got ready and grabbed hoodies, even though it was eighty-five degrees out. We went to the garage through the door off the hall near the kitchen and got into the car, which we hardly ever brought in there, but with the bugs coming, Dad had planned ahead. As the garage door opened, the sun came in and I think some bugs
flew in, too. We pulled out and it sounded like a downpour. There were still more bugs out than I'd thought, which meant no Russia would be played today. Alyssa's driveway was empty anyway.

Once we were on the road, Dad tried the wipers a few times, but they were useless. When we came to stops at red lights or signs, I swore I heard crunching under the wheels. When we picked up some speed on the highway, there seemed to be less bugs. But there were still a handful of them, dinging off cars and trucks and then spiraling to the ground like tiny doomed fighter pilots. I cracked my window and the noise outside was so very loud, like there was a beehive in my ears.

Eventually Dad pulled into the mall parking lot up close to the main entrance. “Why don't you two get out?”

Mom and I both pulled on our hoodies and ran for the door and had to swat some bugs away—I screamed—and then we made it through the big glass doors into the entryway and started laughing.

“This is pretty crazy,” I said.

“See! I told you!” She elbowed me and her look turned all dreamy. “I remember it now, from when I was younger, not like seventeen years ago, but the one before that, when I was like eight. I'd forgotten or maybe blocked it out. I remember being at my grandmother's house and not going outside for days, but it was almost like she didn't even let
me know why we weren't going out. I remember the noise, though. We spent days doing this art project, building this whole little fairy village. I should really be more crafty. We should. Together.”

“Okay, Mom. We'll be sure to do that.”

She fixed a piece of my hair, pushing it off my shoulder. “Don't be like that.”

I thought about asking her what she had talked to Alyssa's mom about, but thought I might be better off not knowing.

Dad ran to us through the parking lot, and then we were all three in the mall, walking along a shiny white floor that reflected overhead fluorescent lights and the colored lights of store signs. Everyone and their uncle was there, and I felt sick thinking it was possible—likely, even—that Alyssa would be here. Her car was gone and her mom loved the mall. But it was a big place. With any luck, we wouldn't see them.

So we bought some socks for my dad and we got a few new T-shirts for camp/school, and we bumped into a family we knew from church and a girl I knew from school, then Mom lingered too long at the window display at some baby store. Of course they'd want a baby to be closer to their bedroom. But obviously that wasn't happening. If it were, there would have been signs. Like Mom would have gained weight or lost weight. She'd have cut out the half a beer with dinner. I didn't know if or how heartbroken
they were or weren't, though, so I didn't really know how to feel except that I felt bad for bugging her about moving into the room so much.

We ended up in one of those annoying restaurants where the waiters all gather around and make a fuss for people's birthdays, but they can't sing “Happy Birthday” for some nutty legal reason, and so they clap out this rhythm and shout instead. It happened maybe three times before we'd even gotten our food, and again when we were finishing up. There was a lot of loud whooping this time around, and I craned my neck to see what the fuss was about.

Almost magically, I made eye contact with Taylor. Who was next to Alyssa. Who was next to her mom, who had an ice cream sundae with a candle stuck into it in front of her. She blew it out and shouted, “It's great to be thirty,” and some people laughed. She kissed the man next to her, and I got my first glimpse of Alyssa's father. His hair was buzz-cut short and his arms were seriously at least twice the size of my dad's. I had a quick vision of them having a fistfight, and of my dad losing.

I slid farther into the booth so Alyssa wouldn't be able to see me. I suddenly very much didn't want to reschedule our game. I asked the waiter for the check myself.

“Where's the fire?” Dad said.

“No fire,” I said, but I felt like there were flames under my feet.

We managed to escape without actually bumping into them, and I kept saying in my head,
I wouldn't want to go to Alyssa's mom's party anyway.
I put it on a loop to the same rhythm of the birthday clapping in the restaurant the whole ride home, even as the bugs hit the windshield, even as I felt like my stomach was a double-knotted shoelace.

Dad didn't want to open the garage door and let more bugs in so he said we were just going to make a run for it. He went first, keys in hand, and Mom ran after him. I didn't feel like running the thirty feet from the car to the door, though. So I put my hoodie on again and put the hood up and just walked at a regular pace—maybe even slower than normal.

There were bugs on the ground along the path, and I walked on tippy-toes to avoid them—each one easily bigger than my thumb. I felt bad for them, flapping around there, looking for mates without a clue as to what was really going on around them, oblivious to the fact that everybody hated them and that as soon as they mated and laid eggs, they would die.

I felt one bing me on the head and I wondered if maybe they knew more than I could imagine.

I stopped and shook myself off on the front porch while Mom said, “Hurry, hurry, hurry,” from behind the screen door.

I thought about pulling the wings off one of the bugs
on the porch, to see what would happen to its head, but then Mom opened the door and the moment passed.

A while later, I heard noise on the street and went to the window, standing back so no one could see. Alyssa's car was back, and I watched as Taylor got out and ran down the block toward home, swatting bugs the whole way. I don't even know why, but I laughed.

16
.

My mom and Peter's mom
had formed a carpool for camp. Every morning of that first week, it was my mom's job to get us to the school where camp was and then Peter's mom's job to get us home. Week two would be the reverse. When Peter crunched his way up to the front porch Monday morning and rang the bell, I was ready.

“Did you do that thing?” I asked. “With the wings.”

“Nah.” He kicked a bug off the porch. “It seemed like a weird thing to do. But it's definitely true that it works.”

“How can you be sure?”

“The Internet, Julia. Ever hear of it?” He grinned.

I pinched his arm.

He turned and looked at the lawn, still dotted with bugs. “To be honest, the whole thing is a little bit of a letdown.”

“You think?”
Poor Peter,
I thought. No zombies and now more disappointment. “I actually find it more impressive than I thought I would.”

“Why?”

“I don't know.” I took a minute to think about it. “I guess I didn't realize I'd have
feelings
about them. Like I had dreams about them, and I feel bad for them but also think they're pathetic. I've never really thought so much about bugs before, and what a sad thing it is that they're just programmed to do what they do.”

“We're all just programmed.”

“Maybe”—I was pretty good in biology at school and knew about genes and DNA—“but I like to think I can at least shake things up every once in a while, you know. Do something unexpected.”

“Yeah, like what?”

I knew it was wrong, but I smiled anyway. “Like throw a ball at somebody's face.”

Peter laughed. “Yeah, that was pretty unexpected. I assume it got canceled?”

I nodded. “She wants to reschedule when the bugs and carcasses are all gone.”

“That should give you at least another week to practice.” Peter nodded. “So that's good, right?”

“I guess.” But I really just wanted it to be over with.

My mom came out and said, “Well, good morning, Peter.”

He said, “Good morning, Mrs. Richards,” and we got into the car. They chitchatted most of the way, and we all talked about the cicadas. For once, now that it was actually happening and would soon be over, I didn't mind.

Camp was being held at the high school that we would all go to, so I took special note of things, like the colors of the lockers (finger-paint blue) and the smell (Lysol/fresh paint). I tried to imagine myself—older and wiser—walking in there for the first time even though it wouldn't
technically
be the first time. I hoped I'd be a totally different person by then and that maybe
this
place would be the place where I'd feel like I belonged. If there were any clues as to whether that would be the case, I couldn't see them.

Peter and I signed in and parted ways as we said hi to some people we knew from band at school. I looked around for Wendy before I remembered she wouldn't be there, and saw mostly unfamiliar faces since the camp drew from schools all around the island. Among those faces, one was smiling and bright. It belonged to a girl that had a short black bob haircut, short-short bangs, and a short denim skirt. She was wearing a cool graphic T-shirt with skyscrapers all over it, and was talking to a few girls who were laughing at whatever she was saying.

When one of the directors told us to break down into instrument groups and gave room assignments, I headed
for the clarinet room and took a seat with some others. The overhead lights hummed ever so slightly while we waited quietly for instruction.

So quietly.

Too
quietly.

Everybody was first-day awkward.

Then skyscraper girl came in and sat down next to me, and I got crazy nervous.

She got up and smoothed the back of her skirt, and sat again. Then she did the whole thing one more time. Everyone was staring at her, and when she noticed that, she looked at me and said, “It's a good thing all the flutes are ladies, otherwise some flute boys would be getting quite a show later today.”

I laughed. “Wearing a skirt probably not the smartest move.”

She laughed back and that was that.

Her name was Laney, and we grabbed time to talk between pull-out groups and individual assessments and had lunch together. We made a list of boys that we thought were cute even though we didn't know most of their names so we had to write things like “Broody Basoonist” and “Little Drummer Boy.” She agreed that Peter was cute, and that I had what she called “crush dibs,” and we confessed that we'd both just gotten our first bras and had never been kissed. We talked about the cicadas and about
End of Daze
, which she hadn't been allowed to watch, so I filled
her in, and then it turned out she'd read the book about the haunted pond, too. We were like sisters who'd just never met, which, of course, we hadn't because we lived about as far from each other as you could while still living on the same island.

So unfair! She wasn't even zoned for this high school!

At the end of the day, while we were waiting for our rides—her older brother was hers and I thought that just made her even cooler—I told her about Alyssa and how her moving to my block had wrecked everything with Taylor and just in general, too. I told her about the stuffed giraffe and the
ALYSSA
chair, and the hairy guy and the woman who needed the boob job.

Laney's eyes got huge. “She
spies
on them?”

I nodded. I wasn't sure whether she was grossed out or impressed.

“Yuck,” she said with a shake of her head.

Lastly, I told her about the Russia showdown. How I'd gotten myself into this totally weird situation where I was supposed to prove my worth by playing a weird ball game against a girl I despised.

“That's pretty messed up,” Laney said.

“Should I back out?” I did not tell her I'd thrown a ball into Alyssa's face because I did not want to appear to be the psycho that maybe I was. “Or maybe she'll just forget about it?”

“Not likely.” She shook her head violently. “And no way. You'll never live it down if you back out. Have you been practicing?”

I nodded. “A ton. Before the bugs anyway.”

Peter joined us where we were sitting on a curb in the parking lot. “I've been coaching her,” he said.

“Is she any good?” Laney asked him.

“She totally is,” Peter said.

Laney nodded. “Well, then, you
have
to beat her.”

I knew it to be true.