The Detour (7 page)

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Something on that order.

Some days, it was as if they realized we needed each other to survive fifth grade.

And I began to trust. Cecille had blossomed into a lovelylooking ten-year-old. Still mean as hell on the inside, which just goes to show you can't exactly judge a book by its cover. But even she had mellowed with the advent of Mrs. Klein's fascist regime. At lunch there were even some days when I sat with her and her friends, who actually seemed like they were my friends, too.

And why wouldn't they want to be my friends?

Despite my enduring nickname, which had been shortened to Skunky, I did not smell. My parents had money. I always had the best shampoos and soaps and perfumes and trendiest jeans and dresses and shoes. I got good grades. I wasn't terrific in gym class, but I wasn't ever picked last, either. And slowly, I began to let down the walls that had bricked their way up around me since that first day of kindergarten.

Then, in March, a new girl showed up. Christine had flaming red hair and freckles all over her face. She was pretty and wore white jeans with a blue sweater. That first day, cheeseburger and fries day, I took my tray in the cafeteria and stopped as I decided where to sit.

The new girl sat by herself at the end of the lunch table. But instead of bowing her head low over her tray, trying to seem invisible like I usually did when I ate alone, she held her head high, looking around at everyone.

Christine seemed fearless.

I wanted to sit by her. Christine knew nothing about me, none of my history. Finally, I could have a friend. Perhaps even a best friend. I hadn't been invited to sit with Cecille and her crew that day, so I took one step toward Christine.

Cecille stepped in front of me. “Skunky, you sitting with us?”

I glanced quickly over at Christine and swallowed. For a matter of seconds I considered my options because there usually were none.
Maybe I will blow off Cecille, blow her off like she doesn't matter, and go claim Christine as my one and only friend.
Instead, believing that things had changed,
hoping
that at last I was truly part of the powerful faction of the fifth grade, I nodded.

We sat down. I dumped a packet of ketchup onto my plate and dipped a crinkled fry into it.

Cecille leaned forward toward the center of the table, beckoning us in with a hand. Her gaze darted about, conspiratorially. “So, Olivia.”

I froze and stopped chewing.

She never—none of them ever—called me anything but Skunky. If there was a teacher or other adult around, they refrained from calling me anything.

Cecille continued, “We've been talking.”

I swallowed, waiting. “Yeah?”

She raised and lowered a shoulder. “We'd like you to be a permanent member at our lunch table.” She looked around at the others. “Right?”

The rest nodded, some
um-hmm
ing, some giggling as they ate their cheeseburgers.

I was too stunned to say anything. It had finally happened. All those years of torment were over. Had they realized I wasn't going to cave? I wasn't going to go begging them to be my friends? Was that what they'd been waiting for all this time? And they finally decided it was time to reward me by letting me in?

Whatever the reason, I didn't care. I smiled and nodded.

“There's one thing you have to do,” she said.

I leaned in as Cecille whispered in my ear. My stomach clenched as she told me the price of being included and slipped something onto my tray.

Later, back in class, I told myself,
You don't have to do it
.
You can turn them down. Becoming one of them is not worth it.

But instead, I closed my fist around the item in my hand and took my seat, waiting for the right moment. We were in creative writing, my favorite part of the day. Because not only did I like reading to escape my world, I also liked writing my own worlds. I bent my head over my desk and began working.

“Pssst.”

I looked up. Mrs. Klein's seating chart put the troublemaking boys in the front row, good students in the back, which left me in the second-to-last row. Cecille was across the aisle and one seat back from me. She jabbed a finger at Christine's empty seat, which was right behind mine. Up at the front of the room, Christine was sharpening a pencil. Mrs. Klein entered grades in her computer, her back to us.

I glanced over at Cecille. She glared at me and mouthed,
Do it.

I opened my left hand. A white packet of ketchup lay there, a little scrunched from where I'd been squeezing it. I quickly ripped the corner open and looked back up at the front.

Christine still hunched over the sharpener; Mrs. Klein still faced the other way. I grabbed a tissue out of my desk, crumpled it, then stood up and walked to the garbage can at the back of the room, tossing it in. On my way back, I dropped the open packet of ketchup on Christine's chair, then quickly took my own seat.

She began to head back toward me.
Please, let her see it, let her see it. Don't let her sit on it.

And I realized there was no way Christine could miss it. She was coming from the front; she would totally look before she sat down. I breathed a sigh of relief. She would pick it up, throw it away, wonder who had done it.

But nothing bad would have happened. Nothing that I couldn't take back.

“Pssst!”

I whipped my head toward Cecille.

A big smile on her face, she waved at Christine. Christine hesitated for a second, and then a smile spread across her face. She waved back. She wasn't looking at her seat. The new girl was simply responding to a friendly classmate.

Christine sat down. Apparently without looking, because she quickly jumped to her feet behind me. “What is on my—” The butt of her white jeans was splotched bright red.

“Oh no,” said Cecille, so loud that everyone turned around. “Did you get your period, Christine?”

Christine's hip brushed my arm as she ran for the door at the front of the room.

Mrs. Klein looked up. “You need a pass, young lady!”

But Christine was gone. And the entire class was laughing. Well, the entire class except for me. I sat there and tried to persuade myself not to cry.

And all these years later, sitting in the basement, I hated Cecille for making me feel like I had to do that. And I still wished I could take it back.

 

{8}

I TRIED TO
stand, and actually managed to get up on my knees. But I had to bend forward and rest on my right elbow to keep from passing out. Slowly, I straightened up. My vision swam.

I took a couple of deep breaths until it cleared. “Maybe I'll just stay here for a bit.” I leaned back against the wall and slid down on my butt, my knees bent.

I shut my eyes.

A door slammed overhead. An engine started. Tires crunching gravel.

I opened my eyes. Had Mrs. Dixon left again?
Seriously?

I hoped she took her demon child with her.

The floor above my head creaked.

I froze.

Flute Girl was still in the house.

I exhaled. “I hope to hell your mother put the fear of God into you.” I didn't know what I'd do if she tried anything. There had been only one EpiPen in my purse. So if Flute Girl decided to try the let's-see-what-happens-when-the-allergic-girl-gets-stung game again, I'd be toast.

Steps on the stairs. Quiet, like she was trying to be sneaky, but she sucked at that part. Flute Girl was more skilled at confronting people with a stick in her hand.

“Get the hell out of here!” I yelled. “Just leave me alone.”

No response.

I wished I could get up and go bang on the door, but I was still working on breathing. Then a sound started. A low note on her flute. Then another. A song. She was playing a freaking song.

Nuh nah, nuh nah nuh nah na naa naa, nah nuh nah nuh naa naa
 …

Was that…?

“Holy crap.”

Lady Gaga.

Flute Girl nailed it. If I didn't hate her guts, I might have been impressed.

Hopefully, Mrs. Dixon had hidden the key to the padlock, maybe even taken it with her. So Flute Girl had been forced to shift from killing me with bees to serenading me with a pop music medley.

She moved on to “All the Single Ladies,” then some old Maroon 5. I said nothing as she played and gave no indication that I even heard her. But as song segued into song segued into song, I began to wonder if she was still trying to kill me, only in a different way.

I got to my feet and slowly made my way over to the bed. I went the long way to avoid the shards of china and spaghetti mess on the floor and collapsed on the bed, wincing as the bounce jarred my bad shoulder and my throbbing hand. I awkwardly scooted up and laid my head on the pillow, then pulled the blanket over my head. It drowned out a bit of the music, but not entirely.

I groaned and patted the blanket closer in around my ears. But then it was too close to my face. After my brush with never breathing again, I couldn't take it and pushed it away.

The ceiling was made up of white tiles. Clean, though, no mold.

The demonic flutist's repertoire moved on to what could have been either Rihanna or an abysmal rendition of a Coldplay hit. Unsure, I tried to think of something to get my mind off the noise.

Unintentionally, my mind went back to fifth grade, to that day.

*   *   *

Christine ran out of the room. I sat there, not laughing with everyone else, feeling remorse for what I'd done. For what Cecille had made me do. Sure, I had a choice. But did I really?

What if I had said no? Cecille and her group would have barred me for good. But by completing the task, I had a shot at being embraced by her group. Because I had always been someone who looked at the big picture.

After about half an hour, Christine came back into the room wearing some baggy gray sweatpants, balled-up white jeans in one hand. I stared down at my math book as she neared me.

I was anxious for afternoon recess. I wanted to talk to Cecille and the others. I'd done what they said, which made me part of them now.

But Mrs. Klein was furious at the disruption and put us on lockdown until the end of the day. No recess. No talking. And after school, my mom was waiting outside, so I couldn't do anything more than go straight to the car.

At school the next day, I took my seat. I tried to get Cecille's attention, but her back was to me as she talked to a girl across the aisle. I turned and glanced sideways at Christine, whose gaze was trained out the window. She had on black leggings and a cream-colored sweater. No chance of repeating the humiliation of the day before with dark pants, I supposed.

Art was the first class of the day. But instead, Mrs. Klein said, “I've informed Mr. Millis that you'll be a little late to art today.” Someone groaned. Mrs. Klein glared and crossed her arms. “I have a little story for you all.”

“Once upon a time, there were five buffaloes. They decided they wanted to go roller skating. Now four of the buffaloes took off, leaving the other buffalo behind. She wasn't very good at roller skating, so they laughed at her and left her behind because she was so slow.”

Someone coughed.

Mrs. Klein continued. “The buffalo sat there, alone. And she began to cry because the other buffaloes were mean to her.”

I slipped down a little in my seat. Where was she going with that? Because it seemed to me like, more often than not, I was the buffalo left alone. Was she finally going to address the bullying in the room?

“Finally, one of the buffaloes noticed the other one, crying all by herself, and went back to help her up. She joined the other buffaloes, and they all roller-skated together after that.”

Um, what?
I scratched my head.

Mrs. Klein uncrossed her arms and shook a finger at us. “It has come to my attention that there has been some bad behavior in this room. We have a new girl, and I will not tolerate anyone treating her any way but the way we should treat others. Nicely.”

My face began to burn.
Seriously? I get treated like crap for years, and now the new girl gets picked on one day and gets a protective lecture from the teacher?

Mrs. Klein scowled. “Mostly, I'm incredibly disappointed that the one person who knows what it's like to be picked on, the one person who should know better—” Her gaze turned to me. As did several heads of others in the room.

I slunk further down in my seat, and my face got even hotter.

“—was involved in this. So this behavior will stop. You will all get along with one another from now on. Do I make myself clear?”

I nodded, and everyone I could see also nodded. They wanted the lecture to be over. She dismissed us for art class, and we walked, single file, out in the hallway.

We sat where we wanted in the art room, on long benches at cafeteria-style tables. Cecille sat down, and I headed for that table. But when I got there, she set a hand on the bench beside her. “You're not sitting here, Skunky.”

I froze. My heart began to pound. My hands trembled at my sides. Was she messing with me? I had done what she asked! Risked getting in trouble for it. She had to be joking.

But the girls around her sported smug looks and shook their heads. One pinched her nose. Cecille looked behind me and called out, “Christine, come sit with us.”

I turned and almost bumped into Christine. The new girl glared at me. “Cecille told me what you did. What did I ever do to you, Skunky?” She sat down next to Cecille, in the spot that was supposed to be mine.

Cecille grinned at me. “Go sit somewhere else.”

Blinking back sudden stinging tears, I quickly went to a table at the other side of the room. There, I slid in beside a couple of girls who wouldn't care if I was there or not. They would ignore me, like everyone else did, but at least they wouldn't say anything mean to me.