Speak Read online

  SNOW DAY—SCHOOL AS USUAL

  We had eight inches of snow last night. In any other part of the country, that would mean a snow day. Not in Syracuse. We never get snow days. It snows an inch in South Carolina, everything shuts down and they get on the six o’clock news. In our district, they plow early and often and put chains on the bus tires.

  Hairwoman tells us they canceled school for a whole week back in the seventies because of the energy crisis. It was wicked cold and would have cost too much to heat the school. She looks wistful. Wistful—one-point vocab word. She blows her nose loudly and pops another smelly green cough drop. The wind blasts a snowdrift against the window.

  Our teachers need a snow day. They look unusually pale. The men aren’t shaving carefully and the women never remove their boots. They suffer some sort of teacherflu. Their noses drip, their throats gum up, their eyes are rimmed with red. They come to school long enough to infect the staff room, then go home sick when the sub shows up.

  Hairwoman: “Open your books, now. Who can tell me what snow symbolized to Hawthorne?”

  Class: “Groan.”

  Hawthorne wanted snow to symbolize cold, that’s what I think. Cold and silence. Nothing quieter than snow. The sky screams to deliver it, a hundred banshees flying on the edge of the blizzard. But once the snow covers the ground, it hushes as still as my heart.

  STUPID STUPID

  I sneak into my closet after school because I can’t face the idea of riding home on a busful of sweaty, smiling teeth sucking up my oxygen. I say hello to my poster of Maya and my Cubist tree. My turkey-bone scupture has fallen down again. I prop it up on the shelf next to the mirror. It slides back down and lies flat. I leave it there and curl up in my chair. The closet is warm and I’m ready for a nap. I’ve been having trouble sleeping at home. I wake up because the covers are on the floor or because I’m standing at the kitchen door, trying to get out. It feels safer in my little hideaway. I doze off.

  I wake to the sound of girls screaming, “Be Aggressive, BE-BE Aggressive! B-E A-G-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E!”

  For a minute there, I think that I’ve tripped into the land of the truly insane, but then a crowd roars. It is a basketball game, last game of the season. I check my watch—8:45. I’ve been asleep for hours. I grab my backpack and fly down the hall.

  The noise of the gym pulls me in. I stand by the door for the last minute of the game. The crowd chants down the last seconds like it’s New Year’s Eve, then explode from the stands like angry hornets at the sound of the buzzer. We won, beating the Coatesville Cougars 51–50. The cheerleaders weep. The coaches embrace. I get caught up in the excitement and clap like a little girl.

  This is my mistake, thinking I belong. I should have bolted for home immediately. But I don’t. I hang around. I want to be a part of it all.

  David Petrakis pushes toward the doors in the middle of a group of friends. He sees me looking at him and detaches himself from his pod.

  David: “Melinda! Where were you sitting? Did you see that last shot? Unbelievable!! Unbefreakinglievable.” He dribbles an imaginary ball on the ground, fakes left, right, then pulls up for a shot. David should stick to human-rights abuses. He goes on and on, a loose ball racing downhill. To hear him talk, you’d think they just won the NBA championship. Then he invites me back to his house for celebratory pizza.

  David: “Come on, Mel. You gotta come with us! My dad told me to bring anyone I wanted. We can give you a ride home after if you want. It’ll be fun. You do remember fun, don’t you?”

  Nope. I don’t do parties. No thanks. I trot out excuses: homework, strict parents, tuba practice, late-night dentist appointment, have to feed the warthogs. I don’t have a good track record with parties.

  David doesn’t bother to analyze my reluctance. If he were a girl, maybe he would have pleaded or whined more. Guys don’t do that. Yes/no. Stay/go. Suit yourself. See you Monday.

  I think it’s some kind of psychiatric disorder when you have more than one personality in your head. That’s what it feels like when I walk home. The two Melindas fight every step of the way. Melinda One is pissed that she couldn’t go to the party.

  Melinda One: “Get a life. It was just pizza. He wasn’t going to try anything. His parents were going to be there! You worry too much. You’re never going to let us have any fun, are you? You’re going to turn into one of those weird old ladies who has a hundred cats and calls the cops when kids cut across her back yard. I can’t stand you.”

  Melinda Two waits for One to finish her tantrum. Two carefully watches the bushes along the sidewalk for a lurking bogeyman or worse.

  Melinda Two: “The world is a dangerous place. You don’t know what would have happened. What if he was just saying his parents were going to be there? He could have been lying. You can never tell when people are lying. Assume the worst. Plan for disaster. Now hurry up and get us home. I don’t like it out here. It’s too dark.”

  If I kick both of them out of my head, who would be left?

  A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

  I can’t sleep after the game. Again. I spend a couple hours tuning AM radio to the weird bounces of night. I listen to jabber-jabber from Quebec, a farm report from Minnesota, and a country station in Nashville. I crawl out my window onto the porch roof and wrap myself in all my blankets.

  A fat white seed sleeps in the sky.

  Slush is frozen over. People say that winter lasts forever, but it’s because they obsess over the thermometer. North in the mountains, the maple syrup is trickling. Brave geese punch through the thin ice left on the lake. Underground, pale seeds roll over in their sleep. Starting to get restless. Starting to dream green.

  The moon looked closer back in August.

  Rachel got us to the end-of-summer party, a cheerleader party, with beer and seniors and music. She blackmailed her brother, Jimmy, to drive us. We were all sleeping over at Rachel’s house. Her mother thought Jimmy was taking us roller-skating.

  It was at a farm a couple of miles from our development. The kegs were in the barn where the speakers were set up. Most people hung at the edge of the lights. They looked like models in a blue-jeans ad, thinthinthin, big lips, big earrings, white smiles. I felt like such a little kid.

  Rachel found a way to fit in, of course. She knew a lot of people because of Jimmy. I tasted a beer. It was worse than cough medicine. I gulped it down. Another beer and one more, then I worried I would throw up. I walked out of the crowd, toward the woods. The moon shone on the leaves. I could see the lights, like stars strung in the pines. Somebody giggled, hidden beyond the dark, quiet boygirl whispers. I couldn’t see them.

  A step behind me. A senior. And then he was talking to me, flirting with me. This gorgeous cover-model guy. His hair was way better than mine, his every inch a tanned muscle, and he had straight white teeth. Flirting with me! Where was Rachel—she had to see this!

  Greek God: “Where did you come from? You’re too beautiful to hide in the dark. Come dance with me.”

  He took my hand and pulled me close to him. I breathed in cologne and beer and something I couldn’t identify. I fit in against his body perfectly, my head level with his shoulder. I was a little dizzy—I laid my cheek on his chest. He wrapped one arm around my back. His other hand slid down to my butt. I thought that was a little rude, but my tongue was thick with beer and I couldn’t figure out how to tell him to slow down. The music was sweet. This was what high school was supposed to feel like. Where was Rachel? She had to see this!

  He tilted my face up to his. He kissed me, man kiss, hard sweet and deep. Nearly knocked me off my feet, that kiss. And I thought for just a minute there that I had a boyfriend, I would start high school with a boyfriend, older and stronger and ready to watch out for me. He kissed me again. His teeth ground hard against my lips. It was hard to breathe.

  A cloud cloaked the moon. Shadows looked like photo negatives.

  “Do you want to?” he asked.

  What did he say? I didn’t answer. I
didn’t know. I didn’t speak.

  We were on the ground. When did that happen? “No.” No I did not like this. I was on the ground and he was on top of me. My lips mumble something about leaving, about a friend who needs me, about my parents worrying. I can hear myself—I’m mumbling like a deranged drunk. His lips lock on mine and I can’t say anything. I twist my head away. He is so heavy. There is a boulder on me. I open my mouth to breathe, to scream, and his hand covers it. In my head, my voice is as clear as a bell: “NO I DON’T WANT TO!” But I can’t spit it out. I’m trying to remember how we got on the ground and where the moon went and wham! shirt up, shorts down, and the ground smells wet and dark and NO!—I’m not really here, I’m definitely back at Rachel’s, crimping my hair and gluing on fake nails, and he smells like beer and mean and he hurts me hurts me hurts me and gets up

  and zips his jeans

  and smiles.

  The next thing I saw was the telephone. I stood in the middle of a drunken crowd and I called 911 because I needed help. All those visits from Officer Friendly in second grade paid off. A lady answered the phone, “Police, state your emergency,” and I saw my face in the window over the kitchen sink and no words came out of my mouth. Who was that girl? I had never seen her before. Tears oozed down my face, over my bruised lips, pooling on the handset. “It’s OK,” said the nice lady on the phone. “We have your location. Officers are on the way. Are you hurt? Are you being threatened?” Someone grabbed the phone from my hands and listened. A scream—the cops were coming! Blue and cherry lights flashing in the kitchen-sink window. Rachel’s face—so angry—in mine. Someone slapped me. I crawled out of the room through a forest of legs. Outside, the moon smiled goodbye and slipped away.

  I walked home to an empty house. Without a word.

  It isn’t August. The moon is asleep and I’m sitting on my porch roof like a frozen gargoyle, wondering if the sun is going to blow off the world today and sleep in.

  There is blood on the snow. I bit my lip clear through. It needs stitches. Mom will be late again. I hate winter. I’ve lived in Syracuse my whole life and I hate winter. It starts too early and ends too late. No one likes it. Why does anyone stay here?

  MY REPORT CARD:

  FOURTH MARKING PERIOD

  EXTERMINATORS

  The PTA has started a petition to get rid of the Hornet as our school mascot. It was the cheer that got to them. They heard it at the last basketball game.

  “WE ARE THE HORNETS,

  HORNY, HORNY HORNETS!

  EVERYWHERE WE GO-OH,

  PEOPLE WANT TO KNO-OOW,

  WHO WE ARE, SO WE TELL THEM …

  WE ARE THE HORNETS,

  HORNY, HORNY HORNETS!

  (and on and on and on)

  The wiggles and shakes that accompany the cheer freaked out the Merryweather PTA. Freaked out PTAs all over the city when the Horny Hornet cheer was televised. The TV sports guy thought the song was cute, so he did a segment showing the “Hornet Hustle,” with the cheerleaders shaking their stingers, and the crowd bumping and grinding their horny Hornet heinies.

  The student council started a counterpetition. The Honor Society wrote it. It describes the psychological harm we have all suffered from this year’s lack of identity. It pleads for consistency, stability. It’s pretty good: “We, the students of Merryweather High, have become proud of our Hornet selves. We are tenacious, stinging, clever. We are a hive, a community of students. Don’t take away our Hornetdom. We are Hornets.”

  It won’t be a real issue until football starts up again. Our baseball team always stinks.

  THE WET SEASON

  Spring is on the way. The winter rats—rusty brown $700 cars that everyone with sense drives from November until April—are rolling back into storage. The snow is melting for good and the pretty-baby shiny cars glitter in the senior parking lot.

  There are other signs of spring. Front lawns cough up the shovels and mittens that were gobbled by snowdrifts in January. My mother moved the winter coats up to the attic. Dad’s been mumbling about the storm windows, but hasn’t taken them down. From the bus I saw a farmer walking his field, waiting for the mud to tell him when to plant.

  April Fool’s Day is when most seniors get their acceptance or rejection letters from college. Thumbs up or thumbs down. It’s a sick piece of timing. Tensions are running high. Kids drink pink stomach medicine from the bottle. David Petrakis My Lab Partner is writing a database program to track who got in where. He wants to analyze which advanced-placement classes the seniors took, their standardized test scores, extracurriculars, and GPAs to figure out what he needs to do to get into Harvard.

  I’ve been going to most of my classes. Good girl, Mellie. Roll over, Mellie. Sit, Mellie. No one has patted me on the head, though. I passed an algebra test, I passed an English test, I passed a biology test. Well, hallelujah. It is all so profoundly stupid. Maybe this is why kids join clubs—to give them something to think about during class.

  Andy Beast joined the International Club. I hadn’t figured him for a deep interest in Greek cooking or French museums. He has abandoned the Martha table and hangs around and onto Rachel/Rachelle and Greta–Ingrid and all the other resident aliens. Rachel/Rachelle flutters her purple eyelashes at him like he’s some kind of Überdude. You’d think she’d have more sense.

  Easter came and went without much notice. I think it caught my mother by surprise. She doesn’t like Easter because the date keeps shifting and it’s not a big shopping holiday. When I was a kid, Mom used to hide colored eggs for me all over the house. The last egg was inside a big basket of chocolate rabbits and yellow marshmallow chicks. Before my grandparents died, they would take me to church and I would wear stiff dresses with itchy lace.

  This year we celebrated by eating lamb chops. I made hard-boiled eggs for lunch and drew little faces on them with a black pen. Dad complained about how much yard work has to be done. Mom didn’t say much. I said less. In heaven, my grandparents frowned. I sort of wished we had gone to church. Some of the Easter songs are pretty.

  SPRING BREAK

  It is the last day of Spring Break. My house is shrinking and I feel like Alice in Wonderland. Afraid that my head might burst through the roof, I head for the mall. I have ten bucks in my pocket—what to spend it on? French fries—ten dollars’ worth of french fries, ultimate fantasy. If Alice in Wonderland were written today, I bet she’d have a supersized order of fries that said “Eat me,” instead of a small cake. On the other hand, we’re rushing toward summer, which means shorts and T-shirts and maybe even a bathing suit now and then. I walk past the deep-fat fryers.

  Now that spring is past, the fall fashions are in the store windows. I keep waiting for the year when the fashions catch up to the seasons. A couple of stores have performance artists hanging at the front door. One guy keeps flying a stupid loop-the-loop airplane; a plastic-faced woman keeps tying and retying a shawl. No, now it’s a skirt. Now it’s a halter top. Now it’s a head scarf. People avoid looking at her, as if they aren’t sure if they should applaud or tip her. I feel bad for her—I wonder what her grades were in high school. I want to give her a tip, only it would be rude to ask if she has change for a ten.

  I ride the escalator down to the central fountain, where today’s entertainment is face-painting. The line is long and loud—six-year-olds and their mothers. A little girl walks past me—she’s a tiger. She’s crying about ice cream and she wipes her tears. Her tiger paint smears and her mom yells at her.

  “What a zoo.”

  I turn. Ivy is sitting on the edge of the fountain, a giant sketchbook balanced on her knees. She nods toward the line of whiners and the face painters furiously coloring stripes, spots, and whiskers.

  “I feel bad for them,” I say. “What are you drawing?”

  Ivy moves so I can sit next to her and hands me the sketchbook. She’s drawing the kids’ faces. Half of each face is plain and sad, the other half is plastered with thick clown makeup that is fake-happ
y. She hasn’t painted any tigers or leopards.

  “The last time I was here, they were doing clown faces. No such luck today,” Ivy explains.