Flannery Read online

  Go fuck yourself, I say. I break out of the circle and stride toward the hill. I’m trying to look like I’m not in any kind of a hurry. Like I’m casually sauntering up the hill.

  But I abandon that plan after a few steps and start running as fast as I can.

  Somebody flies through the air at me and I’m knocked hard to the ground. They’re all on top of me, and I can’t breathe, I can’t even move. They’ve got me by the arms and the legs and they roll me over on my back and there are hands all over my face. Several hands are prying my mouth open.

  All their heads are together and I can only see little chinks of sky. They’re grunting with the effort of holding me down and cursing, and the wind is making their hair fly all over the place.

  Then I see Jessica Kelloway pushing through the circle of heads, holding something on a stick.

  I got something here, Jessica says.

  We got something for you, Mercy says.

  I can see it’s a used condom. Jessica Kelloway has pierced the rim of it with the tip of the stick. Most of it is wrinkled up and withered with little folds, except at the very bottom. There hangs a bulbous part, plump with a dense milky liquid.

  Sperm.

  Get her mouth open, Mercy orders. Someone has a hand clamped on my forehead and another hand is on my chin, forcing my mouth open and my head back. Several of them are holding my legs. There are knees on both my shoulders. There are many sets of arms around my waist. Someone’s head is grinding into my side.

  But still I am writhing like crazy. I am thrashing with fury.

  They start chanting. Eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it. The stick is jiggling and bouncing and coming close to my face and then the condom brushes over my cheek.

  I get a leg free and kick the girl at my feet as hard as I can and at the same time I bite somebody’s finger. I can feel the bone under my teeth. I bite down hard and whoever owns the finger is screaming and people are really punching me now, fists hammering down.

  Then a car drives into the parking lot. The girls all scrabble to their feet and take off up over the embankment.

  The school secretary gets out of the car and rushes over to me. She says she was driving by and saw me going around the back and didn’t think it was safe back there in the dark. Thought she’d just check.

  We both get in her car and she passes me some Kleenex from the glove compartment and I wipe a cut on my forehead.

  Are you going to be okay? she asks.

  I don’t know, I say. I’m shaking all over and she puts her hand on my arm and rubs it vigorously up and down and then pats me.

  We have procedures at the counselor’s office, she says. If you want to name those girls. You can think about it, anyway.

  I don’t say anything.

  I’ll take you home, she says. Put on your seatbelt.

  As we’re pulling out in front of the school, I see that the Sunbird is still there. There’s a guy bent over it, talking to whoever’s in the driver’s seat. The guy with his arm on the Sunbird’s roof straightens up and looks in the direction of the lane leading to the back of the school.

  Gary Bowen.

  18

  Tyrone makes an unexpected appearance — in math class of all places. There he is, long legs sticking out in the aisle. He’s wearing socks with marijuana leaves on them and army boots spray-painted gold. But he’s jotting down notes from the board.

  I corner him in the hall while the lunch buzzer is droning through the speakers.

  I have an appointment at a glassblower’s studio, I tell him. To look at bottles for our potion. It’s somewhere on Bond, and I’m not going there by myself. Even though the guy seems pretty nice in his texts, he is, after all, a complete stranger.

  It’s been a week since Mercy Hanrahan attacked me behind the school, and I’m still constantly looking over my shoulder. I haven’t let my guard down for one second until now. I’m standing there trying to convince Tyrone he has to come with me when Mercy Hanrahan walks by with Jessica Kelloway. I don’t see them until they’re practically on top of me.

  Mercy fakes this dart-jolt toward me, her sneakers squeaking on the floor, her eyes nearly popping out of her head. Her face so close to mine I can feel her breath on my cheeks.

  She whispers, Boo!

  Of course I nearly jump out of my skin and that sends her into a fit of giggles. She’s jabbing Jessica Kelloway in the ribs with her elbow and the two of them are laughing hard, crossing their legs so they don’t pee in their pants and staggering forward like the laughing might make them keel over.

  Hey, Malone, Mercy says. Did you give your friend our message? Tell her she’s next.

  What was that all about? asks Tyrone. I haven’t told anyone about the attack, not even Miranda. I feel ashamed for being stupid enough to cross the dark parking lot in the first place and I feel ashamed about feeling ashamed. Of course it wasn’t my fault. But I can’t help it. I feel so stupid. And the condom was so disgusting. I can’t bring myself to speak about it.

  What did that mean, “She’s next”? asks Tyrone. What have I been missing around here?

  Look, I say. I did the whole interview thing on my own and signed your name to it. Twenty percent of your grade. And I did the initial proposal on my own. And the rewrite. All I’m asking is you come with me to check out this glassblower’s perfume bottles. It’s the perfect packaging for the love potion. It’ll just take an hour. The thing is, I’m depending on you, Tyrone. I mean it. We’re already behind with this. Jordan and Brittany already have their prototype in. They’re making wallets out of duct tape. They’re really cool. And David and Chad are recycling old tires to make sandals. Lori McCurdy and Allie Jones are selling herb gardens. The things are already sprouting.

  Tyrone ducks his head a little and scratches the back of his neck. It feels so good to be near him. Those blazing brown eyes. When he looks at me — giving me his full attention like this — I feel like one of Miranda’s neon sculptures, brilliant green light zipping all through me. I’m lit up.

  Can we do it tomorrow? he asks.

  No, we can’t do it tomorrow, I say. Everybody is supposed to have a sample of their packaging for tomorrow.

  I absolutely can’t go today, Tyrone says.

  You sound ambivalent, I say. I reach up and pull the little thread on his Santa Claus pin and the nose lights up and there’s a little tinny voice inside there that says, Ho, ho, ho.

  And suddenly I find that I am flirting with Tyrone O’Rourke. Out and out full-blown hair-tossing flirtation. What’s to lose, right? My days are probably numbered, when you consider Mercy Hanrahan. Desperation has made me brave.

  Aw, come on, Tyrone, I say in a kind of baby-talk. Maybe we could get a cappuccino after? I feel exhilarated and unrecognizable to myself. And I can see Tyrone is taken off guard. He straightens the shoulder strap of my knapsack, though it doesn’t need straightening. His finger smooths down a wrinkle in the fabric, kind of lingering there.

  I am so sure I can’t go today, he sighs. I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life.

  But you have to admit there’s a chance, right? There’s always a chance? I mean, the guy is an artist. It could be fun.

  I show him the glassblower’s texts. I found him in the crafts section of Newfoundland Buy and Sell. He says he has a hundred handblown perfume bottles for sale, each one a unique work of art. I texted him as soon as I saw the ad. And the guy says he’ll let them go for cheap because it sounds like an interesting project. Also, he’s closing up shop. Moving to Italy.

  Newfoundlanders don’t understand glass, he texted. They aren’t ready for it. In fact nobody in North America gets glass. What I do is art.

  I could tell he must be in his fifties because he kept texting big long paragraphs.

  Just then Amber walks down the corridor. She doesn’t even look at me. She’s talking to Melody Martin.

  So you’ll come? I say it loud enough for Amber to hear. And I get up the picture of the bottles on
my phone.

  See, aren’t they pretty?

  They do look sort of perfect for a love potion, Tyrone says. He takes the phone from me and flicks through the pictures.

  Don’t make me go there alone, I say.

  This time I’m not flirting. I’m dead serious.

  He’s also selling swan ashtrays, Tyrone says.

  I only want the perfume bottles.

  They are cool.

  So meet me by the front doors and we’ll walk there after school?

  I guess so, Tyrone says. Yeah, I’ll see you there, Flan. And thanks, you know, for doing the interview and stuff and signing my name.

  I feel intensely relieved. The truth is, I’ve been kind of afraid to walk home from school even while it’s still light out. But with Tyrone I’ll be safe.

  And then I’m beaming. I can feel all the muscles in my face involuntarily align themselves into a beam. I’m humming to myself through Madame Lapointe’s class on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I get to read Titania.

  I’m still full of relief as I jam my books in my locker and hurry down the stairs and wait in the front porch of the school while all the students pour out of there.

  I watch as the basketball team comes out of the boys’ change room and heads into the gym for practice.

  I’m not smiling quite so much at 3:45 when Amber and Melody get out of Amber’s father’s car with armloads of the costumes Amber and I picked out at the Arts and Culture Centre three weeks ago.

  Flannery, still waiting for Tyrone? she asks.

  Amber, I say. Can I talk to you a minute?

  I don’t know, Flannery, she says. I’m kind of busy.

  I have something to tell you, I say.

  My arms are full, Flannery. Gary is upstairs waiting to get to work on our project.

  I’m worried about you, I say. I want to tell her about Mercy.

  Oh, I know, she says. You’re worried about me. You want to protect me from my boyfriend. Thanks a lot, but it all seems to be working out fine. I don’t think we need your help. Maybe you should worry about yourself, Flannery.

  Sean, Amber’s dad, sees me at the door and waves and toot-toots the horn before driving off. Amber breezes past. The school is emptying out now, and I really have to get going. I guess I’ll be going to the glassblower’s alone.

  Just then Kyle Keating comes up to me and thrusts a brown paper bag into my hands.

  Here, he says. I’ve been carrying this thing around for a week. Now it’s your turn. You and I are partners in Healthy Living. Mr. Follett put us together while you were supposedly sick, as I’m sure you know, since I’ve been texting you all week.

  You know something, Flannery? he says. I didn’t ask to be partners with you. But I was glad when Mr. Follett put us together because I thought you were cool. I didn’t think you were the kind of person who would let somebody else do all the work on a project.

  I didn’t get your texts, I say. (That’s a lie, of course. I did get them, but I didn’t pay attention to them.)

  Sure you didn’t, Kyle says.

  I’m sorry, Kyle, I say. God, I’m really sorry.

  I take my hand away from the bottom of the bag of eggs and there’s slimy egg white webbing my fingers together.

  Oh great, he says. Let me tell you something. They didn’t break on my watch. You’ve had them for all of five seconds and now look. You can write the essay on unwanted teenage pregnancy all by yourself.

  It suddenly occurs to me that Kyle Keating likes me. Like, like likes me. I mean, that’s why he’s so mad about the broken egg. I mean, he’s not mad about the egg at all. He’s mad that I have been ignoring him. I haven’t been thoughtful. In fact, I’ve been thoughtless. I suddenly remember him asking me to walk to the Oxfam office after the Bursting Boils concert. I’m totally flabbergasted! I mean, I’m flattered and confused. I don’t really know how I feel about Kyle. But I feel terrible about not being thoughtful.

  I’ve been having a bad week, I say. I hope you can forgive me. I really am sorry. I had this really terrible thing happen.

  And suddenly I’m telling him all about Mercy Hanrahan. I can’t stop myself. I tell him about kicking and biting and even the condom. I cry a little bit. And I laugh too. And when I’m done I see that he has walked me home. I still have the bag of eggs in my hand.

  And I’m sorry about our metaphorical baby, I say.

  I hold up the bag. The bottom is completely soaked through now, and it tears apart and all the eggs fall out on the sidewalk.

  Some of them break and some roll away.

  19

  I’d come home from a sleepover at Amber’s one day when I was nine. This was after Hank had married the soon-to-be-lawyer lady and the happy couple had both headed into the sunset on their surfboards. I got the key out of the mailbox and opened our front door and all of a sudden I noticed the house was very quiet.

  Our house was never quiet.

  Miranda likes to have music blasting and it was the height of her tango phase, when she was taking tango lessons and sometimes I would come home and there would be six couples — mostly women though there was one gay male couple — charging across the living room with their arms out straight and grim looks on their faces, cheek to cheek, turning on their high heels just before they smashed into each other or the opposite wall.

  Or she’d have her feminist consciousness-raising group over and they’d be yelling about social justice, equal pay for equal work and sexual freedom. At the very least, she’d have several pots boiling away on the stove, the lids rattling, the fire alarm set off by whatever she was burning in the oven.

  But on this day, I’d come home and it was very, very quiet.

  I called out to Miranda.

  The window was open in the living room and a square of bright sunlight lay over the hardwood floor and a billowing curtain had knocked over a plant.

  The pot had cracked and the roots of the banana plant were poking out through the black soil and the roots were white and hairy.

  Something about the great mass of those twisting hairy roots and how very translucent they looked gave me goosebumps.

  I went up the stairs and every room was empty and all the curtains were open.

  I was afraid to look in Miranda’s study so I stood on the landing. I could hear a jackhammer several streets away. I could feel the vibration of it in my teeth.

  And then I peeked into the study. Miranda was sitting at her desk, but her head was hanging down and a thin strand of drool had dropped from the corner of her mouth to her chin.

  I had never in my whole life seen Miranda asleep in the afternoon. I had never seen her drool.

  I knew at once that Miranda had been enchanted. Something powerful had cast a spell and drawn her away. She had been possessed. Or taken over by an alien life form.

  What was left at the desk was the husk of my mother. She had become a host or a shell.

  She looked like my mother, sure, but — like the Big Bad Wolf after he’d eaten Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother and put on her clothes — there was something unfamiliar in her expression, in the flush of her cheek.

  I tried to say her name and nothing came out, and then I tried it again and said it very loudly and her head jerked up with a snort and she said, Oh!

  She saw me standing there in the doorway and she smiled at me. Even the smile was weird. It looked as if I had already grown up and left her and she was smiling at the kid I used to be.

  The heat must have knocked me out, she said.

  I knew if she spoke again everything would change forever but there was no way to stop what was coming.

  Flannery, she said. The alien put out my mother’s hand and wiggled my mother’s fingers, beckoning me to come toward her. I stepped forward against my will.

  This wasn’t Miranda and the knowledge made me miss Miranda so much I couldn’t stop my feet. They moved, one heavy clodhopper at a time, across the room. Miranda had put up a fight, that’s why her cheeks were
blushing and radiant. But she had finally succumbed.

  Come here, girl-child, Miranda said. Which is the name the real Miranda sometimes called me. Girl-child, Flana-Banana, Buckwheat, Bucktooth, Lover Lumps and Malone-Face. But there was still the telltale glimmer of drool on her chin, which she wiped at with the back of her hand.

  She drew me close to her, rested her head against my chest.

  I didn’t care if she was an alien then. She was all I had.

  She yawned and rubbed her eye with her knuckle.

  Miranda said, I’m going to have a baby. You’re going to have a little baby brother. It’s not just going to be the two of us anymore, Flannery. We have a beautiful new baby on the way.

  I felt the sting of tears. They were rolling down my cheeks and my neck.

  She was my mother. Mine. Not somebody else’s. I didn’t want to share. Why should I? Why did we need somebody else? Wasn’t I enough?

  I thought of her footprints in the flour spilled on the kitchen floor when she was making pizza dough the week before Hank’s wedding and the flour print of her hands on her hips.

  I thought about us both sitting on the side of the bathtub with the book about sex. I thought of all those sperms with their angry faces in the animated film the teachers had shown us.

  And the egg, preening in front of the mirror, putting on mascara, batting her eyes. I thought about my dad, Mr. X, sailing the high seas in his boat of plastic bottles and tin cans and chip bags.

  Miranda was pregnant with Felix, but she hadn’t told anybody — least of all Hank. She’d been hiding it in loose clothes. Even at nine years old, I think I might have understood that she would only have wanted Hank to be with us if he was in love with us. It doesn’t feel good to be somebody’s obligation.

  One other thing I suddenly understood. Something had come between us now. Between Miranda and me.

  There was something definitive in the way she said it wasn’t going to be just us.

  And the third thing that dawned on me that day was that there should be a magical phone you can call when things are bad, and someone on the other end who can fix just about anything.