But then, seemingly from out of nowhere, another surfer drops in directly in front of her and cuts back suddenly, a motion that takes her by surprise and sends her hurtling off her board.
Nasty. That was a mean, vicious, intentional move. She tumbles over the peak of the wave and is clobbered by a wall of churning white that comes down hard on her. She’s tossed around like a rag doll.
For several moments we can’t see anything, and then her board pops to the surface, but it’s straight up and down, like a gravestone in the water, and we know that Alix is buried somewhere under it—who knows how deep?—connected to the surface only by the long leash around her ankle.
Raymond grips my arm and we wait, wait, wait, until finally her head emerges, her mouth open and gasping for air. I’m so relieved. We all are. She coughs and quickly gets her bearings. She’s shook up. Only it was worth it. This is what she wanted us to see. The evidence. The culprit. The outrage to avenge. How many other times has this happened? She points to her right, stabbing her finger at the surfer who cut her off. Our target.
“Is that who I think it is?” Ambrosia asks.
The light’s tricky, and under the tight wet suits everyone looks similar, all the bodies appear lean, strong, and muscled. Is it someone we know?
Ambrosia, her black hair ironed straight into a metallic sheen today, moves to a different part of the railing. She drags her hand along the base of the surfer statue. She lets it linger there, closes her hand around the bronzed ankle as she studies the moving figure in the water. “Yes, of course it is. It would have to be one of that Plague crew. They’re all like that. Every single one of them. Vicious backstabbers not to be trusted.”
What if it’s … a name passes through my mind, and I quickly dismiss it. It can’t be him. Sure, he’s part of the Plagues, but deep down he’s not that sort of person. I know he’s not. I don’t know how I know, but I know. He wouldn’t go out of his way to intentionally hurt Alix.
“I’m thinking,” Ambrosia goes on, “that it’s Brendon.”
My heart pounds as I narrow my eyes and home in on more details. I don’t want Ambrosia to be right. This figure has a bulky frame. Brendon is narrower than this. At least I think he is. I hope. Brendon also has lots of dark hair, and even if it were wet and slicked back, he wouldn’t look like this surfer. I now recognize the eyes and the sneer on his lips as he paddles past Alix and flashes his middle finger in her direction.
It’s not Brendon, definitely not! An embarrassing amount of relief whooshes through me, and I can’t contain it.
“You’re wrong, it’s not Brendon!” I say with too much excitement. They look at me puzzled. “I mean, I know who it is. It’s Bubonic.”
“Oh,” Ambrosia says with a dismissive glance into the water. “So it is. My mistake.”
Stephanie waves at Alix, who again points at the surfer. I feel her anger starting to filter through me, not just from today’s injustice but from so many years of being cut off, bullied, harassed, hounded, and frustrated in the surf.
I’m ready when you are, Alix.
My vision goes dark for a heartbeat, and there’s an explosion and the zillion pieces that emerge from it look like dust particles, rising and falling and swirling in a shaft of light. They’re beautiful because they are pure fury and they have purpose. I follow them.
We sing. We unravel his defenses. We show Bubonic his own greed to give him the lesson that he deserves. This should have happened long ago.
When we’re done, I shake myself out of an exhilarated daze and land back in the here and now. I squint past the glare on the water to see Alix, pleased, sitting up and straddling her board.
Bubonic on his board next to her folds his hands in prayer as he grovels for forgiveness.
A harbor seal, sleek and mottled gray and brown, breaks through the surface near them, its head like a bowling ball with whiskers bobbing in the surf. I see movement around its mouth. There’s a struggling fish gripped between its sharp, pitiless teeth.
WEDNESDAY
In physics, two kids in our class—notorious grade grubbers who wreck every curve by getting As—rush to the front of the room and stun Mr. H by confessing that they cheated on the last test. They have tears in their eyes. They beg forgiveness, saying they can’t live a minute more with their guilty consciences.
THURSDAY
The three of us link arms and walk down the hall against the oncoming flow of students. We hum our song softly, work lightly, and cast our power widely but gently, like tossing wildflower seeds across a big meadow.
Each person we pass gets the same look on his or her face, a bloom of shame. They’re remembering some hurt they caused—the time they ignored their grandma’s birthday, how they talked trash behind a good friend’s back, the way they sneaked cash out of their parents’ spare-change jar. What a flurry of regret and guilt! Everyone’s desperate to apologize and get rid of the awful feelings.
FRIDAY
You know that mom who seems to be in every supermarket, the one who yells at her kid, tells him to shut his mouth or she’ll give him something to wail about? And then she gives him a big smack across the butt, and the little kid doesn’t know which is worse, the sting of the slap or the public embarrassment.
You know that mom? You know how you always want to do something to make her stop picking on her own kid?
We did something. She will never, ever hurt or humiliate anyone again.
SATURDAY
This is Stephanie’s day to be in charge, and she’s very deliberate in her choice of target. It turns out to be so rewarding that she writes a blog post about the incident. Of course she eliminates any mention of our role in the course of events. Raymond and I read over her shoulder as she types her newest post.
Green from Tenth Grade to Death:
One Student’s Struggle to Save Mother Earth
There are many places that make this blogger infuriated: standing in a new housing development that sits on top of former wetlands; venturing into a redwood grove that’s been logged into oblivion; standing by a cliff that’s crumbling from man-caused erosion.
But above all, there’s one place that instantly throws me into a state of despair and hopelessness: Surfside Mall on a Saturday afternoon.
Today I ventured into this fortress of shameless capitalism and soullessness. My heart sank as I watched my fellow humans suckered into buying useless stupid crap. But hope showed its bright shining face.
I was standing outside of Britches Boutique, a chain known for its complete disregard of fair labor practices and its overpriced schlocky jeans. Two twins of my acquaintance passed by, their arms loaded with bags from The Clothing Goddess.
Suddenly their arms dropped their packages. If shame has a color, I saw it as the blood drained from their cheeks. Their faces went white with a tinge of blue, like the anemic shade of no-fat milk.
In that moment, on the outskirts of the food court, in the artificially recycled air, standing by the fake fountain, two new activists were born.
In impassioned, pleading voices, they recanted their ignorant consuming ways.
“I’ve been blind to avarice!” one declared, using a word not formerly in her vocabulary. “My shopping is killing Mother Earth.”
“Take it all away!” the other begged. “I don’t want these bloodstained goods. I can’t live with the guilt.”
Their friends pleaded with them to stop being so weird and embarrassing.
But they wouldn’t. As one of them explained to this blogger: “I’m so sorry that we ever made fun of you. You’ve been right all along! We need to do something to save Mother Earth. Tell us what to do and we’ll do it!”
It was when the twins started to take off their clothing and give it away that the heavy hand of the law got involved and put an end to their brave demonstration. It took two security guards to quiet these half-naked speakers of truth.
“You did get a little carried away with the nudie part,” Raymond says, but he’s grinning at the memory. He shows us some photos of the Double Ds that he took with his cell phone. They are priceless.
“Should I put those on the blog?” Stephanie asks.
Raymond wags a disapproving finger. “That would definitely be over the top.”
“I’m so glad to be living in a world that works this way,” I say.
Raymond deletes the incriminating photos from his phone. “What do you mean?”
“This is a world with order to it. It makes sense. There’s right and wrong, good and bad, and the line is clear.”
I nod my approval of the post. Stephanie clicks Publish.
SUNDAY
The Furies rest.
16
I
am nothing like
my birth parents. I never even met them and I can tell you that we have nothing in common. Nothing! If by chance I ever do meet them, for example if they decide to track me down because suddenly after all these years they get curious, I’ll try to be polite but I’m not going to hug them. Maybe they’ll start sending birthday cards, but we will still have zip to say to each other because we’re totally different, poles apart in our values and dreams, likes and dislikes. How do I know this even though I never met them?
They gave me away. That’s all the evidence I need.
When it comes to other people, though—regular kids with typical, everyday families—I have a whole different idea. I expect most people to be more or less like their parents and to have lots in common besides hair color and the shape of their eyes. Take Raymond and his mom. I get a real kick out of them, how they have the same body type and the exact same philosophy of life, which goes something like this: If you expect the best of people, you usually find it. If you expect the worst, that’s what you get.
I’m pretty sure what I’m going to see at Stephanie’s house. We’re heading there to hang out on Sunday afternoon. Furies need downtime, too. After a week like we had—the strangest, most extreme days of my life—I’m ready to kick back with an all-organic, home-brewed sassafras tea or something equally healthful and environmentally aware that I’m sure Stephanie will serve. Alix is driving us north toward the outskirts of town. In the front passenger seat, Raymond adds a mouth-violin harmony to the hard-core surf music that’s blasting from the car radio. He’s into it, until Alix tells him to knock it off because he’s wrecking the vibe.
Stretched out in the back seat, I envision what we’ll see when we get to Stephanie’s. I’m thinking a cozy house with basic hippie parent décor, the back door leading out to a woodsy area, solar panels lining the roof, a kitchen pantry packed with quinoa and tofu. A dog, I definitely imagine a dog, a big, hairy, happy mixed breed that’s been rescued from certain death at the pound.
What I don’t expect: a left turn into a gated community. A huge, white box that looks more like a bank than a home. No trees at all. A long, rolling lawn that’s as iridescent green and smooth as a golf course. A gardener with a leaf blower on his back walks the perimeter. Another gardener tosses handfuls of white powder to keep the lawn so perfect. They stare suspiciously as we rattle into the driveway and Alix parks her battered Volvo behind a black SUV. It takes me a second to decipher the license plate:
REL S T8.
Real estate. Tate. Stephanie Tate. Of course! The Tate Company is the biggest developer in town. They’re the ones who constructed a three-story combination conference center/hotel/restaurant/bowling alley/parking structure that completely obstructs the view of the ocean for two solid blocks.
Stephanie opens the front door before we can knock. “Guess you found it.” She sounds totally mortified. My “like mother, like daughter” myth is shattered. I’m not the only one who must feel like a complete alien from the person who gave birth to her.
We enter the house and I’m hit with the combined smell of lemon furniture polish, floor wax, and bleach, a hospital clean that makes me want to gag. How does Stephanie, who won’t even pollute the air with perfume, live with this? Every piece of furniture is white or chrome, glass, shiny, new, and very uncomfortable looking.
Stephanie’s mouth twists in distaste. “You know how Ambrosia said that her family doesn’t like anything contemporary? My parents
live
for contemporary, basically nothing older than a few years. After that, my mom gets bored and it’s out with the garbage.”
Cue the mom. The front door opens and a woman with short, very auburn hair and pointy, very red shoes charges into the room. She’s involved in an intense conversation on her cell phone. It’s one of those hands-free devices, so she looks like she’s shouting to herself. Stephanie resembles her a little around the eyes, but other than that they look nothing alike. Stephanie’s face is round, and when she smiles her cheeks puff up like little crab apples. Her mom’s face is so lean and tight, it’s like she does special exercises just for her cheekbones.
“Mom,” Stephanie says, “these are—”
“Yes, yes, nice to see you again, girls.” Back to the phone: “I told him we’re not budging on commission. We’re a development corporation, not a charity.”
I notice Stephanie’s face register a range of feelings—ashamed, hurt, disgusted, sad, mad, lonely—all of them appearing and disappearing in a few seconds. She ends with a sigh that harmonizes with the hissing sound of furniture polish spewing from a can, the housecleaner at work. Her mom leaves the room the same way she entered, talking into the phone and with a little wave to us.
“Wow,” I say. “You and your mom are so opposite.”
“She used to be just like me. I didn’t believe it until she showed me pictures of herself when she was just a little older than us. Can you believe she lived in a commune that protested logging in the redwood forest up north? She even spent a night tree-sitting to keep it from being cut down.”