Anatomy of a Misfit (2 page)

But this is not a complete liability. In fact, it's probably why, two years back, I won that fight at the roller-skating rink. Here's what happened: Russ Kluck, from the wrong side of the tracks, liked me and kept trying to get me to couples skate with him. Even though everyone knows he lives in a trailer, everyone thought I should be flattered, but I don't really know how to talk to boys so I just sprayed ketchup all over him.

He thought that was cute and liked me even more but that just made this other wrong-side-of-the-tracks girl jealous. She liked Russ and couldn't believe I sprayed him with ketchup. I bet she thought she was getting into a fight with a vanilla wafer on roller skates but little did she know she was getting in a fight with a spider sandwich.

Look, I'm gonna explain my insect insides but you have to promise not to feel sorry for me, okay? This is not a sob story. These are just the facts. Plain and simple.

My dad, Count Chocula, basically kidnapped us and brought us with him to a castle in Romania when I was three. Maybe it was more like a chateau. Whatever, to a three-year-old, it felt like a castle. It was me, my real sister, Lizzie, and my real brother, Henry, practically all alone in that castle, with Count Chocula gone half the time but that was okay because when he actually was there it was kind of like having a walking wraith eating your Cheerios with you. I'm serious, this guy could basically freeze the air just by strolling in the room. It's not like we ever did anything wrong, either. Are you kidding? We were too scared. It was obvious if we even spilled a drop of milk on the stone castle floor we would be encased in glass and sent into the phantom zone, never to return. Luckily, there was a nice nanny for a while. But he got her pregnant and she left.

My mom didn't have any way to get us back so it took me standing up to my dad when I was ten to finally get back home to her and her new husband. So, to recap, I was raised from three to ten by a wraithlike vampire in a freezing stone castle in Romania. Don't feel sorry for me, that's not what this is about. This is about spider stew.

Wrong-side-of-the-tracks girl didn't know what she was going up against at the roller-skating rink and I don't blame her. The legend goes that I pulled her hair out, dropped her to the ground, and kicked her repeatedly with my roller skate. But that's not what happened. It was more of a weird roller-skating dance—each of us pulling on each other and moving in a slow, deformed circle—that was ended by the manager. In all honesty, it was a draw. I guess that girl had a pretty tough rep, though, because nobody ever messed with me after that.

My sisters and brothers don't mess with me either, but that's because not only do they think I'm annoying and hate bringing me anywhere, but they are also worried I'm going to throw myself off the nearest bridge on their watch, in which case, they will be grounded for life.

Robby and Neener, my stepbrother and stepsister, are 100 percent purebred all-American. Their mom lives in a trailer next to a lake and there's even a horse. Also, a duck. Or so I'm told. They have no idea how lucky they are. I would give anything to have a dad who lived in a trailer instead of a castle, and maybe that sounds completely backward but you try growing up half vampire in Nebraska.

Henry, my real brother, doesn't care about being a half-breed because he knows once he graduates from Harvard and starts making a billion dollars no one will care and he can just buy all his friends at the friends store. And Lizzie. Well, Lizzie has decided to just go straight past half-breed, and full speed ahead into super-freak. She is dark. She is gamine. She is mean. She is Joan Jett. She will kill you. And you will know her by the trail of dead.

So, really, I'm the only one around here wrestling with an immigrant complex.

I bet you think I go to school with all these freaks but I don't. Thank God. We live in this weird strip of suburb where you can choose either East High or Pound High. My sisters and brothers chose East High. So I chose Pound. I did this as a purely self-protective measure. My sisters, especially Lizzie, would have pursued, tortured, and harassed me endlessly if I set foot or even thought about setting foot near them. No, sir. High school would've become my own personal Spanish Inquisition crossed with Salem Witch Trials crossed with every movie you've ever seen with a marine sergeant torturing his underlings at boot camp. No thanks, folks. No way.

I cannot give Lizzie that pleasure.

Now, this brings us to my mom. Who is essentially the only decent one in the house. But if you think post-Chocula she went out and found the perfect husband, you can guess again. The guy she got is six foot three, three hundred pounds, and stands in front of us at the buffet line my mom sets out at dinner, eating all the food. If we are lucky we will get something good but you better grab it while you still have a chance. He never talks to us, except in grunts, and then goes straight to his room after dinner, to lie on his water bed and watch
Wheel of Fortune.

So, basically, my real dad is a vampire and my stepdad is an ogre. If my mom gets married a third time it will clearly be to either a werewolf or a mummy. I'm sure she married this guy so her kids would have a home and all but, man oh man, I wish she could have found someone that made her happy.

I have an escape plan for Mom and me where we can leave all these jerkfaces in the dust, but I am only on stage 2 of that plan currently.

I'm looking at her in the kitchen and realizing that if you made a trajectory from Brigitte Bardot to Mrs. Santa Claus, my mom is one-third of the way from Brigitte Bardot over. She's a total dumpling about everything and certainly deserves better than this crap-hole.

“Honey, did anything exciting happen at your first day of school today?”

“Not really. Logan McDonough got a moped.”

She's making Mexican casserole, which is heavy on the rotation and usually lands on a Monday night, unless there's gonna be Taco Tuesday.

“Oh, I bet that was a real hit.”

“Not really. Becky told him he was a nerd on wheels.”

“Well, that wasn't very nice of her.”

“
Tsh.
Whatever. She's kind of a bitch.”

“Honey, you know I don't like words like that.”

“I know. She's just not very nice is all.”

“Well, did you say something nice to him? I bet that woulda made his day.”

“What?! No. Becky would kill me.”

Now Mom stops putting the chips in the casserole and looks up. Real emphasis.

“You know what, honey, just because Becky does something doesn't mean you have to do it.”

“Yeah, right. She's like the number one most popular girl, Mom.”

“Well, why is that?”

“I dunno, she was like a model or something.”

“A model?”

“Yeah.”

“A model for what, might I ask, seeing as we live in this bastion of the fashion industry here in Lincoln, Nebraska?”

“I dunno. I think, like, the J. C. Penney catalog?”

“Oh, well that explains it.”

“Mom, you just don't understand, okay?”

“Honey, all I'm saying is that you can stand up to her—”

“You mean like you do with Dad?”

But she doesn't take the bait. She just ignores me and puts the casserole in the oven instead. Doesn't matter, my brothers run in from the back and start tearing through the cupboards like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are riding up from Kansas.

“Boys, now listen, it's only one hour to dinner. I don't want you to ruin your appetites.”

Back in my room I get to flop down with no one around. One of the perks of being the youngest nobody likes? I get my own room. I had to share with Lizzie for a while but I just kept calling her a slut all night till she begged Mom to move her. Sounds mean, but the thing is, all she ever does is talk to boys all night on the phone and make it impossible to study. She blushes and giggles and then half the time sneaks out but I don't tell anyone because then I can use it to blackmail her. Now she's down with Neener and I get my whole room to decorate and think about how Logan lost twenty pounds and actually didn't look half bad.

four

M
y boss doesn't know I've been poisoning him.

Don't be jealous but Shelli and I got a job at the Bunza Hut. We get to wear lemon-colored fake polos, Kelly-green shorts, and banana LA Gear sneakers. We get to wear this every. Shift.

You have to stand back by the sundae machines, otherwise you'll be on camera the whole time and it's an invasion of privacy or whatever.

“Bubba thinks you're hard to get,” Shelli says.

I snort. “I'm hard to get if your name's Bubba.”

“They're having a party Friday. We should go.”

“They're just gonna try to stick their wieners in us.”

“You're such a prude.”

“Wull, they are.”

“Some girls actually like that kind of stuff.”

“Like some girls named Shelli?”

Mr. Baum, who has absolutely no idea how high he is, pokes his head from the back.

“Am I paying you girls to drink milk shakes?”

You shoulda seen this guy before I started crunching up my mom's Valium and dosing his endless cup of Folger's. He was a total dick. Especially to Shelli. It was like that helpless, needy look in her almond-shaped eyes sparked something in him where he smelled blood. He tormented her. If she was sweeping, he'd say to mop. If she was mopping, he'd say to sweep. If she smiled at the customers, he'd say she was being too friendly. If she didn't smile, he'd say she wasn't being friendly enough. Black shoulda been white, white shoulda been black, and no matter what, she was an idiot. The guy's a sociopath. One day he made Shelli cry because he said her shorts needed to be pressed and she needed to lose ten pounds. That was the day I realized something had to be done.

So now I dose him. First thing after clocking in.

The trick is misdirection. You can't just crunch up Mom's Valium and put it in his mug. Are you crazy? He'd notice that in a second. You have to make small talk with a customer while doing the crunching. Of course, there is the issue of dosage.

Here's what happened the first time. About five weeks ago, the first Sunday of preseason football, Mr. Baum was hungover and it was practically an emergency because he was being a total jerkface.

He was nursing his headache in the back and I was up front chitchatting with a very nice family from Platte.

“Oh, those Huskers are looking good!”

Crunch. Crunch.

“Looks like this is gonna be our year.”

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

“Those Sooners don't stand a chance!”

“Damn straight. Go Big Red!”

Pour the coffee in the mug.

Dose. Dose. Dose. Stir stir stir.

And then the happy Platte family makes their way to the table, Mr. Baum gets his Folger's, and everything is perfect.

Except.

Fifteen minutes later we hear a thud.

Shelli looks at me with her almond-eyes. There's no face anymore, just eyes.

I look at her and we both know the situation is dire.

“You go look.”

“No, you.”

“I can't go. You know how much he hates me. He'll kill me. If he's not already dead.”

Shelli does have a point.

“Okay, what if we both go?”

“Like together?”

“Yeah, like together.”

And now Shelli is holding my arm.

“Shelli, now's not the time to make a pass at me.”

“Shut up!”

“I know I'm superhot but we have an emergency situation here.”

I can't help it. It's too fun to tease Shelli. Also, she's a Christian, so if Mr. Baum is dead that means eternal damnation in the claws of the Beelzebub, whereas I will just be grounded.

By the time we make it into the back office there is nothing visible of Mr. Baum but his feet. He's wearing tassel shoes, which should be enough excuse for the poisoning, but the lack of movement here is certainly a cause for concern.

“Is he . . . is he . . . ?”

“If he is, Shelli, I really think you should keep your hands to yourself. It's important to respect the dead. Also, he might reawaken as a zombie.”

“Shut up, Anika, God!”

“I also don't think you should take the Lord's name in vain in front of a zombie.”

“Jesus!”

“That's the son of the Lord, Shelli. You just murdered someone and now you've taken the son of the Lord's name in vain.”

“Anika, stop, seriously—”

“Look, there's no way he's dead.”

“Are you sure?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Smell him! He smells like a vodka plant.”

“What, like a plant made of vodka?”

“No. Like a place where they make vodka. You know, like a rubber plant.”

“Shelli, focus. I need you to check and see if he's dead.”

“I'm not checking. You check.”

“I can't. If I get closer he might bite me. We both know I'm Romanian and if I'm bit by the undead I will immediately become a vampire. Then, there's no chance for you.”

“Well, I'm not getting cl—”

“
No chance
, Shelli! My ancient blood will overpower you. You'll probably just evaporate.”

“I can't do it, Anika!” She's practically crying.

Mr. Baum's tassel shoes remain unmoved.

“Really the only solution is that we both look at the same time.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Shelli grabs my arm and we go in closer, like two kittens investigating a fallen rhino.

We are almost to his comb-over when he snores so loud it throws us back into the other room.

Jesus.

That guy can snore!

“What do we do?! What do we do?!”

“Well, I dunno, Shelli. There's kind of two ways to look at it. Either . . . we tear ourselves apart with guilt that we are obviously horrible people or . . . OR . . . we accept that Mr. Baum is out for the day, make some sundaes, and prank phone call that hot new debate teacher.”