Pig City (9 page)

“So, we all do that,” said Allison.

“But Nathan's so cuuute!” said Tiffany.

Laura and Allison laughed. They were walking home from school. The Mystery of the Altered Message was never solved.

“Do you think Yolanda did it on purpose?” Laura asked.

“What do you mean?” asked Allison.

“Remember Debbie said that Yolanda's been in love with Jonathan since the fourth grade. Then yesterday, Karen said Yolanda
told
her to ask me if she could join Pig City. Yolanda knew what would happen.”

“She knew you'd put her note in Jonathan's desk,” said Allison. “She wanted you to do it!” She covered her mouth with her hand, then took it away. “Remember how quickly she chose Jonathan?”

“She might have done it all on purpose,” said Laura, “without even realizing she was doing it.”

“Ooh, I just got a chill down my back,” said Tiffany. “It's like she has a split personality. Part of her is very shy and scared of boys, but she has a burning desire buried deep beneath her breasts!” She covered her heart with her hands.

“Yolanda doesn't have a split personality,” said Allison.

“She doesn't even have breasts,” said Laura.

They all laughed.

“Do you think boys really care about that?” Tiffany asked. “I mean do you think a boy wouldn't like a girl if she was flat?”

Allison shrugged. “I don't know what's so special about boobs! Anyway, none of the girls in our class have very much.”

“Except Sheila,” said Tiffany. “Maybe that's why Gabriel likes her. 'Cause she's stacked!”

“Does Gabriel like Sheila?” asked Laura. She tried not to sound too interested.

“Oh, I don't know,” said Tiffany. “I saw them talking after school.”

They reached the corner where Tiffany and Allison went one way and Laura the other. Fists met noses, then Laura walked the rest of the way home alone. It
was Friday, but she couldn't hang out with her friends because company was coming over.

She had an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She knew it was because of Gabriel and Sheila. She tried to ignore it. It was stupid. She had no reason to be jealous. She took off her cap, shook her hair back, and put the cap back on.

The feeling remained.

“Aunt Laura!” Rebecca greeted her, as she entered the house.

Laura smiled. She loved it when Rebecca called her that.

Rebecca was five years old. She was the daughter of Laura's oldest brother, Dan, and his wife, Sue. They were all spending the weekend.

“What's Pig City?” Sue asked.

“I got it at a garage sale,” said Laura, not about to break her vow of secrecy.

“She never takes it off,” said her mother.

“I don't think she really likes it,” said her father. “I think it's stuck to her head, and she's afraid to tell anyone.”

Laura laughed even though she didn't think it was funny.

The feeling remained inside her. It stayed with her all weekend, gnawing at the insides of her stomach.

On Sunday, she received two earth-shattering phone calls. The first one was good news. It made her sad. The second was bad news. It made her glad.

Tiffany called first. “Laura!” she exclaimed. “You'll never guess what happened! Nathan came over to see me today. Actually he came over to see Hubert.”

“Your hamster?” questioned Laura. She lay with her head at the foot of the bed. Her feet were on her pillow.

“Uh-huh,” said Tiffany. “Nathan likes hamsters. He likes all animals. His favorite is the porcupine. See, first he called and asked about the homework assignment.”

“We never have homework over the weekend,” said Laura.

“He forgot what day it was,” Tiffany explained. “He thought it was Tuesday. Did you know that Saturday is his favorite day of the week, and it's mine, too? Isn't that a coinc-i-dinc? That's what Nathan says instead of ‘coincidence.' I like Sunday second, but he likes Friday. Do you want to hear his order for the rest of the days?”

“That's okay.”

“We told each other our favorite colors and our favorite food and our favorite animals, and that's when I told him I had a hamster named Hubert. He said he liked hamsters, and I asked him if he wanted to meet
Hubert, and he said, ‘Okee-dokee-do.' So he came over to meet Hubert. They liked each other.”

“Nathan and Hubert?”

“Hamsters can tell about people,” said Tiffany. “They know if someone's nice or not. So anyway, now I'm getting to the good part. After Nathan finished talking to Hubert, we went out in the backyard, and we were just kind of lying on the grass talking and looking up at the sky. We kept picking out things we saw in the clouds, you know, like giraffes and camels and a whale with a spout, and a lamp on top of the spout, and a turkey playing football.”

“A what?”

Tiffany laughed. “A turkey playing football! I didn't see it at first, but Nathan showed it to me, and then once I saw it, it looked just like a turkey playing football! Really!”

“What does a turkey playing football look like?”

“I don't know, like a turkey playing football. Wait, I'm getting to the good part now. Anyway, so then I saw a fish driving a car. He said he didn't see it, so I showed it to him again, but he said, ‘I still don't see it,' and I said, ‘See, the fish's hands are on the steering wheel,' and he said, ‘No, show me,' and I had to put my head right next to his so he could see where I was pointing, and then just as I was trying to show him,
Laura, he kissed me!”

Laura gasped.

Tiffany squealed.

“On the lips?” asked Laura.

“Yep. It happened so fast. One second I was pointing to the sky and the next, smack! You know, I bet he saw the fish the whole time.”

Laura laughed. “Probably,” she said.

“So then, we just stared up at the clouds some more without saying anything. Then he went home. We both said, ‘See you tomorrow,' at the exact same time! It was funny.”

“Kissing him?” asked Laura.

“No! Saying, ‘See you tomorrow,' at the same time.”

Laura didn't think it was funny.

“I'm a different person now than I was yesterday,” Tiffany said very seriously.

“What do you mean?”

“It's hard to explain. You wouldn't understand. Well, I've got to call Allison and tell her. “Bye!”

“'Bye.”

Laura hung up. She felt terrible. She knew she should feel happy for her friend, but she didn't, and that made her feel even more rotten. “You wouldn't understand,” Tiffany had said.

She walked to the bathroom and looked at herself
in the mirror. It didn't seem fair. She was prettier than Tiffany or Allison. She should have been the first to kiss a boy.

“Fish don't have hands!” she said aloud.

Everybody had a boyfriend except for her. Tiffany and Nathan. Allison and Aaron. Yolanda and Jonathan. “Sheila's as ugly as a toad!”

“Who's Sheila?” asked Rebecca.

Laura turned around, startled. “Nobody,” she muttered.

She wondered if she'd ever kiss a boy. What if next year in junior high no boy would want to kiss her because she didn't have experience?

She went into her parents' bedroom, where she found her father reading a book. “Do you think I'm pretty?” she asked.

He said yes. She asked him, “How pretty?” and he told her she was the most beautiful girl in the world. She asked if he was just saying that because she was his daughter, and he said he wasn't. They went on that way for over fifteen minutes, until she was practically talking baby talk. It was sickening.

Worst of all, Laura knew it was sickening. She heard herself talking to her father, and she hated herself for it. Still she continued.

When she left her father, she found her mother and
had almost the identical conversation with her. Fortunately, her phone rang again.

It's probably Allison telling me Aaron kissed her! she thought bitterly as she walked to her room.

“Hello.”

There was no one there. “Hello,” she repeated. “Hello.”

Nothing. She hung up.

She sighed. She felt like she was about to cry.

The phone rang again. “Hello!” she demanded.

“Monkey Town will turn Pig City into bacon and eggs,” said a voice. There was some muffled laughter, then the line went dead.

She slowly hung up the phone.
Monkey Town will turn Pig City into bacon and eggs
. She hadn't recognized the voice. It was disguised to sound like a cranky old lady.

Later when she came to dinner, everybody made a point of telling her how pretty she looked.

“You're going to break a lot of hearts someday,” said her brother Dan.

“You get prettier every time I see you,” said Sue.

Even Rebecca got in the act. “You're the prettiest of all my aunts and uncles,” she said. “You're much prettier than Sheila!”

“Knock it off, okay?” said Laura. She didn't care
whether or not she was pretty!

George Washington didn't worry about whether or not a girl would ever want to kiss him. That was probably a good thing, too, Laura thought. What girl would want to kiss somebody with wooden teeth?

The fire returned to her eyes. Pig City was going to war!

“Bacon and eggs?” asked Gabriel.

Karen laughed.

“Sorry, Gabe,” said Howard.

“Pigs don't lay eggs, Howard,” said Jonathan.

Howard was supposed to have called Laura and said, “Monkey Town will turn Pig City into bacon and ham.” That made sense. Bacon and ham come from slaughtered pigs.

Howard felt awful. He was so happy when Gabriel asked him to join the club, but now he messed up his first assignment. “I meant to say ham,” he explained. “It's more natural to say ‘bacon and eggs' than ‘bacon and ham'. It's hard to say ‘bacon and ham.'”

“Bacon and ham. Bacon and ham. Bacon and ham,” said Sheila.

“You want me to call her back, Gabe?” asked Howard. “I can call her back and tell her I meant ham.”

Karen laughed hysterically.

“This is war, Howard,” said Gabriel. “We can't call
her back and say we made a mistake.”

“It might be better this way,” said Jonathan. “They're not just pigs. They're chicken pigs! They lay eggs.”

Everyone laughed.

“They still won't know what ‘bacon and eggs' means,” said Yolanda.

“That's all right,” said Gabriel. “One of the first rules of war is to confuse the enemy. You did a good job, Howard.”

“I knew you'd like it,” said Howard. “That's why I did it.”

Sheila snorted.

“We'll have to change our song,” said Yolanda. “What rhymes with eggs?”

“Pegs,” said Jonathan.

“Begs,” said Karen.

“I think we should just tell Mr. Doyle that Laura's the one who wrote on the board,” said Sheila.

“We can't,” said Gabriel. “I wrote on the board, too. I wrote ‘Pigs Stink.' If she gets in trouble, we all will.” He would never have told on Laura, anyway, but he had to give a reason that would satisfy Sheila.

“There's more than one way to skin a pig,” he said. He stuck his right thumb in his right ear and wiggled the remaining fingers on that hand.

Everyone else did the same.

It was the secret Monkey Town salute.

Laura walked to school Monday morning, alert, but not afraid. She didn't know who or what Monkey Town was, or what bacon and eggs meant. She was ready for anything.

She sneaked into the building and on through the yellow curtain into Mr. Doyle's room. There was already a message on the board:

MONKEYS ARE

     MARVELOUS

          MAGNIFICENT

              AND MIRACULOUS!

She picked up the eraser and a piece of chalk. She didn't change it all, just enough.

She placed the eraser and chalk back on the rack, then walked calmly out through the school to the outside. She stood with her back against the brick wall so nobody could sneak up behind her, and waited for Pig
City. Her eyes moved constantly.

Tiffany and Allison came walking across the blacktop. She went out to meet them and raised her fist to her nose.

Allison returned the salute. Tiffany didn't. Something was wrong. Tiffany looked very scared and confused.

Laura wondered if Monkey Town had gotten to her already. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“I don't know what to say to him!” Tiffany complained, pulling at her hair. “How can I even look at him?”

“Look at who?” asked Laura.

“Nathan!” Tiffany exclaimed. “Who else?”

Laura laughed.

Allison shrugged. “She started out perfectly normal, or at least, normal for Tiffany. Then the closer we got to school, the crazier she got. She's afraid to see Nathan, after you know, what they did.”

“It's not funny!” Tiffany insisted. “Tell me what to say to him, Laura.”

“I don't know,” Laura replied. “
I wouldn't understand
, remember?”

“Just talk to him like you always did,” said Allison. “Say what you used to say.”

“I can't remember what I used to say,” complained Tiffany.

Debbie and Kristin approached. Everyone saluted. Tiffany missed. Her fist hit her eye.

“Did anybody else get a call from Monkey Town?” Laura asked.

“Monkey Town?” questioned Debbie.

Laura told them about the phone call.

“Bacon and eggs?” asked Kristin. “What does that mean?”

“I don't know,” said Laura. “But it doesn't sound good.”

Tiffany gasped.

Everyone turned around.

It was Nathan. He and Aaron were approaching. Nathan's face was as red as a beet.