Parrotfish (8 page)

“I’ll take care of it—I promise! I need
something
to play with!” Charlie said. “How about a hamster?”

“No, Charlie!”

Sebastian took it all in with amazement. I couldn’t have written a better scene myself.

“Did you fall down?” I asked Laura, trying again.

She stopped crying and raised a furious face toward me. “Oh, right, act like you’re all concerned about me. Like it’s not all your fault.”

“Laura, it’s not your sister’s . . . I mean, your . . .” Mom gave up and sighed. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s all my fault.”

“Are you going to tell me what happened to Laura?” I asked Mom this time.

“She fell down on the way home. She was running, and there was a tree root, and she didn’t see it—”

Laura interrupted Mom’s calm explanation to give me her version of events. “I was running because Mira and Sarah and Brit and everybody I’ve ever
met
want to ask me questions about my weird sister, and I don’t know what to tell them. I was running home because I’m humiliated that the entire school knows I’m related to the most bizarre person they’ve ever heard of.
That’s
why I fell down.”

Fortunately, I didn’t have to answer this charge immediately, because Charlie started to sing again. “Found a puppy, found a
puppy, found a puppy just now. I just now found a puppy, found a puppy just now. Had a worm in it, had a worm in it—”

“I hate you! All of you!” Laura sobbed as she ran from the kitchen.

“Charlie, be quiet,” Mom demanded. “I have enough on my mind without—”

“If I can’t have a dog, then I should at least be allowed to go to a regular middle school next year instead of being stuck at home, just me and Daniel and our mothers every day. It’s
boring
.”

Mom turned her back on him and only then did she see that I had someone with me. “Oh dear, I didn’t realize . . .”

“This is Sebastian Shipley. He’s in my TV Production class,” I told her.

Sebastian stuck out his small hand. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Katz-McNair.”

I could tell she was surprised by this polite miniature person. “It’s nice to meet you too, Sebastian,” she said, giving his hand a half-hearted shake. “I’m sorry you had to walk in on this scene. Laura’s very emotional these days, and every little thing seems to set her off.”

“Well, I guess having your sister suddenly become your brother might not seem like a little thing to her.”

Mom looked sort of pale; she obviously wasn’t
getting any more comfortable with my new gender as the days went by.

“Are you two hungry?” she asked, deftly changing the subject.

But before we could reply, Charlie interrupted again. “You don’t understand anything! I
need
a dog! I swear to God I’m getting myself a dog. I’ll go to a shelter and get one by myself! I swear to God!”

“You’re not swearing to
anybody
, do you hear me?” It took Mom awhile to lose her temper, especially with Charlie, but once the point was reached, there was no going back. Her voice careened into the soprano range and blew right into Charlie’s face. “You’re going to your room, and you’ll stay there until I tell you to come out! And I don’t want to hear a word about it!”

I motioned to Sebastian to follow me back outside.

“Whoa! Some family!” he said as if he were complimenting me.

“Not like yours?”

He snorted. “My mother never raises her voice—it gives her a headache. But then, she never really has to. I mean, I’m the only kid, and I’m damn near perfect.”

“I’m sure. She never argues with your dad?”

“Not in living memory,” he said. “He works about twelve hours a day, so he’s not around that much. He’s a big-deal lawyer.”

“I guess he makes a lot of money.”

Sebastian shrugged. “I guess. But making money is stupid. I mean, you have to make
some
money, but I want to do something that actually matters when I’m an adult. Otherwise, why bother to
be
an adult? Just so you can buy stuff?”

This was not the kind of conversation I was used to having with anyone. But I enjoyed this kid, I really did. I liked the way I never knew what was going to come out of his mouth next. So I decided to broach the topic I’d been thinking about since lunchtime.

“That was really cool the way Russ Gallo came over and gave me his shirt,” I said, sneaking up on my real topic of interest. “I’ve never even spoken to him before.”

“Yeah, Russ is a good guy. You know, I was thinking, if you’re gonna be a boy now, maybe you oughta get some more muscles. Like, work out or something. So if people push you around, you can push back.”

I shrugged. “Not really too interested in muscles.”

He grabbed my upper arm between his thumb and first finger. “Pretty skimpy for a guy.”

“You should talk!”

“Hey, nobody spilled milk on
me
today!”

I dragged the conversation back to my original direction. “I thought Russ’s girlfriend seemed nice too,” I said.

“Kita? I guess. I don’t know her very well,” Sebastian said. My heart had begun to sputter when he said her name out loud. Kita Charles. I’d never heard a more beautiful name.

“So, have they been together for a long time or what?”

“I think so. Since last year anyway.”

“Huh. That’s pretty long for high school.”

Sebastian shrugged.

“I mean, you know, Kita’s so pretty. You’d think she’d be dating lots of different guys.”

Sebastian stopped walking and looked over at me. “What? Do you like Kita?”

“No!” I yelled. “God, where’d you get that idea? I was just asking how long—”

“Okay, okay, don’t get your panties in a twist.”

The fear that seized me when Sebastian made his correct guess came out of nowhere. I wasn’t expecting him to figure me out, and I wasn’t expecting myself to flip out about it. But what if he told somebody that I liked Kita? It would be bad enough if I were just the school lesbian—imagine the hoopla that would ensue now that I
was out as transgendered! If Kita knew I liked her like
that
, she’d probably be as disgusted as everybody else. Everybody but goofy Sebastian.

“God, Sebastian,” I continued, trying to calm my racing heart. “Just because I asked you a simple question about somebody—”

“Look, I don’t care if you like her. Kita’s a beautiful girl, and she’s nice, too. I wouldn’t blame you for liking her.”

“Well, I
don’t
, okay? Not the way you mean.”

We didn’t speak for a few minutes after that. We were wandering aimlessly down the hill by my house, and I was trying to think of an excuse to go home without Sebastian following me, when I noticed who was coming up the hill toward us. “Turn here!” I said, taking Sebastian’s arm and pulling him around the corner and ten yards down the block where we’d no longer be visible to the approaching party.

“What are we doing?” Sebastian looked expectant.

“There are some girls coming up the hill. They’re going to Eve Patrick’s house, and I . . . well, I don’t want her to see me. Especially when she’s with
them
.”

“Who’s
them
?” he whispered conspiratorially.

“These girls she hangs around with now—Danya
somebody, and Melanie and Zoe. Danya’s a real jerk.”

Sebastian nodded. “Danya Seifert,” he said. “Known her since elementary school. She’s a big bully.”

I grunted. “I guess so. I don’t usually think of girls as bullies.”

“Not all girls are alike, as you know.”

I shook my head. “I don’t get it. Why does Eve even want to hang around with her? There must be other girls who’d be nicer to her.”

“They all want to be Danya’s friend,” Sebastian said. “Because if you aren’t her friend, you could be her enemy. And believe me, that’s a lot worse.”

“The awful thing is that being around these creeps is turning Eve into a creep too.”

“She used to be a good friend, huh?” Sebastian said. If your IQ was based on how well you guessed personal stuff about other people, this guy would be a genius. Actually, he probably
was
a genius.

“My best friend. Now we hardly speak.”

He nodded, then paced quietly back toward the corner.

I followed. “Don’t let them see you!”

“I just want to listen,” he said.

They stopped in front of Eve’s house. It wasn’t
hard to hear them, especially Danya, whose voice was like a trumpet.

“I just don’t get how you could
ever
be friends with her. Or
it
, or whatever. Didn’t you know she was a pervert?”

I think Eve answered her, but her voice was too quiet to hear.

“If I was like that, I’d just go ahead and kill myself. I really would. I couldn’t stand to be such a sicko. I’m telling you, Eve, if I find out you spoke to that deviant, even once—and I
will
find out if you do—you will be very sorry. In fact, you’ll regret it for a long time!”

Suddenly I felt dizzy, and my legs wobbled a little. Danya thought I ought to
kill
myself? Jesus, I didn’t even know this girl, and she wanted me dead! The worst I’d ever wished on her was that her mouth be magically sewn shut for a week or two. And she also seemed to be threatening Eve. My stomach was suddenly sour with guilt. Had I put my former best friend into this awful situation? Or had she done it to herself? Why did she want to be friends with Danya to begin with?

Sebastian snorted, and before I could stop him, he was going around the corner, heading toward the girls. “No!” I said, but it was too late.

“I couldn’t help overhearing you, Danya,” he said as he walked up to the group.

She swiveled around and glared at him. “Where’d you come from, Tiny Tim?”

He ignored that and said, “I was just wondering if you might be talking about my friend Grady.” He gestured toward the corner, and all four girls looked in my direction.
Crap
. I could run away and hope they hadn’t already seen me, but that seemed more cowardly than the situation demanded. I could walk around the corner as if I’d just been headed in that direction anyway, which no one would believe for a second, but at least there’d be no chance for them to watch my sorry butt retreating down the street like a whipped puppy.

I sauntered around the corner.
Damn you, Sebastian Shipley
.

Danya’s face pulled itself in tight as if I had a skunk in my pocket. “What are
you
doing here?”

“I live here. Over there,” I said, pointing in the general direction of Peace and Joy.

Zoe sucked in a big breath. “Oh, it’s the Christmas House! You live in the Christmas House?”

I nodded.

“I always loved that place,” she said, smiling. Until she caught a glimpse of Danya’s glowering mug.

“Are you
speaking
to it?” she asked Zoe.

Zoe’s face turned white. “No! I was just surprised! I didn’t know—”

“Well, shut up,” Danya ordered. Zoe clamped her lips together and looked down at the sidewalk.

“I always loved Grady’s house when I was a kid too,” Sebastian said, as if we were all having a normal conversation. “I always thought,
Wow, whoever goes to all that trouble just to make kids happy must be really great. I bet a wonderful family lives there
.”

Danya glared at him. “Are you under the impression that we give a damn what you think?”

But Sebastian babbled on. “See, it’s this thing about you calling my friend Grady a pervert, when really he’s just a transgendered person. Which is not all that unusual, actually. If you were interested in doing some research, there are lots of sites on the Internet—”

“Believe me, shorty, I’m not in the least interested. Get lost, both of you.”

“But what really bothers me,” Sebastian continued in the same calm voice, “is you telling Grady’s friend here that she can’t talk to him. As if you’re in charge of everybody.”

Eve had been keeping her eyes carefully focused on the picket fence around her house, but when Sebastian said that about me being her friend, her head twitched and she looked up at Danya. “He’s not . . . she’s not . . . I mean . . . we aren’t friends anymore! We really aren’t!”

I wasn’t sure if I was saying it to save Eve or to save my own self-respect, but I said it loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear. “She’s right, Danya. We’re not friends. I would never be friends with anybody who hung around with a soul-sucking bitch like you.”

Right then I wished I had those muscles Sebastian had mentioned earlier, because, pacifist though I’d always been, at that moment I really wanted to bounce Danya Seifert on the sidewalk like a basketball and see if the crap would fall out of her head.

Sebastian must have realized I’d hit my boiling point. He took me gently by the arm and pulled me away from the girls.

“Must be going,” he said. “Nice to chat with you.”

Danya was snorting like a bull, but I was only looking at Eve. Just before I turned around and walked away she looked up at me, and there in her eyes I could see that scared kid lurking, the one who could never stand for anyone to be mad at her, especially me.

I
managed to wait until we’d put a block of houses and a row of tall maple trees between us and them before I lit into Sebastian. “For Christ’s sake, why did you do that? I told you I didn’t want to talk to them!”

“Well, I
did
,” Sebastian said. “You can’t just ignore people like Danya. She won’t stop being a creep unless people call her on it.”

“You think she cares what
we
think of her? Besides, she probably likes being called a soul-sucking bitch.”

“Possibly. Still, you can’t let her walk all over you.”

“Maybe she’s just saying what everybody else is thinking.” I wondered if that was really true; were there other people who thought I should off myself so their world wouldn’t be soiled by my presence? I hunched up my shoulders the way I used to when I first started getting breasts and didn’t want anyone to notice. Eventually my neck
and back would start to hurt, but in the meantime, I felt invisible. “I should never have told anybody. There’s no place I can go now and feel good. Feel safe. At home they’re all upset, at school everybody’s freaking out . . . I have to walk half a mile to use a bathroom so no one is offended by me. People stare at me everywhere I go. I can’t stand being a freak anymore.”