Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks

  Mr. Jones skims it and says, “Carly, you’re needed in the headmaster’s office.”

  “I am?”

  “No, I just thought it would be fun to mess with you,” Mr. Jones says in a deadpan. People titter, and I blush. I get up and grab my backpack.

  “Everything okay?” Roger says in his deep voice.

  “I don’t know.” It’s not my hair, is it? Is hideous hair against the dress code?

  “Call me after school. Let me know what’s up.”

  I nod and angle my body to navigate through the row of desks.

  “Say ‘hey’ to your sister for me,” Derek whispers as I pass.

  In the hall, I pass Madison Miller, who’s jamming a Vera Bradley tote into her locker. She doesn’t look like a crack addict.

  She glances at me and says, “Hey, Carly. You have a good summer?”

  “Yeah,” I say. I pause, happy to delay my visit to Headmaster Perkins. “You?”

  “The best. I am so moving to Seattle for college. That’s where I was all summer. Ever been?” When I shake my head, she says, “You’ve got to go. So laid-back—you’d love it.”

  “Cool.”

  “People aren’t uptight like they are here. Nice bangs, by the way. Very Feist.”

  “Thanks,” I say, cheered by her comment. Feist does know how to rock the short bangs.

  “So what class are you late to?” she asks.

  “Um, none. I got called to the headmaster’s office.”

  She laughs. “On the first day of school? Such a badass.”

  “That’s me, a Holy Roller badass,” I say drily.

  “Ha. Guess it is an oxymoron, huh?” She shuts her locker and heads down the hall, tossing me an over-the-shoulder wave. “Later!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  PERCOLATE THIS

  In the waiting room outside Headmaster Perkins’s office, Anna sits in a leather armchair with her knees pulled up to her chest. My heart rate spikes, and I rush over.

  “Anna?” I say. She’s been crying. I can see the tearstains. “What happened? Are you okay?”

  Anna looks up at me. Her lashes are wet and dark. “I got in trouble during computer science. But it wasn’t my fault.”

  I glance at the secretary, who eyes me over the top of her glasses.

  “Your sister was having a hard time calming down,” she says. She goes back to her typing. “She wanted you.”

  “They called Dad,” Anna says in a scared voice. “Oh my God, I’m so dead.”

  I squeeze onto the chair with her. “Anna, tell me what happened.”

  “This guy, this jerk Ben, told me I looked like some actress, and since Mr. Abernathy wasn’t there yet, he pulled up her picture on Google.”

  I try to read her face. True, you’re not supposed to use the computers for nonacademic purposes, but surely she didn’t get busted just for that. “Who’s the actress? Was she ugly or something?”

  “No. She was naked.”

  “What?!”

  The secretary lifts her head. I can tell by her expression that she already knows what happened.

  “Her name was Tricky Trixie,” Anna whispers.

  Tricky Trixie?

  Ohhh. Comprehension dawns. My little sister got busted for looking at porn.

  She sniffles. “Ben was all, ‘They think their filters can keep me out, but they can never keep me out, ha ha ha.’”

  “He hacked the filters?”

  “And then he was like, ‘Want to see that unit on apes and evolution that was blocked last year?’ So he pulled that up, too. That’s when Mr. Abernathy came in.”

  “Why didn’t you just not look?”

  “I did! I tried to escape, but he pulled me back!”

  The computer lab is equipped with cushy office chairs on wheels, and I imagine the tug-of-war that must have gone on: Anna paddling her feet to push away from this Ben jerk, and him grabbing Anna’s chair and towing her back.

  “Did you get in trouble for the evolution or the . . . other thing?”

  “Both. Mr. Abernathy pulled up the search history.”

  “Well, why didn’t you tell Mr. Abernathy that it was completely Ben, and you had nothing to do with it?”

  “Because Mr. Abernathy, like, snuck up on us, and Ben let go of my chair, and it tipped over backward, and the whole class laughed.”

  “Ouch.”

  Her eyes fill with tears.

  The door to Headmaster Perkins’s inner office opens, and a guy with gelled hair slinks out. Ben, I assume. His mother is with him and looks like a prune. She must be one of those helicopter moms to have gotten here so fast. Bringing up the rear is Headmaster Perkins, otherwise known as the Percolator.

  “So . . . they called Dad?” I ask.

  “The secretary tried Mom first, but she didn’t answer her cell.”

  Of course she didn’t. Mom never answers her cell, because she can never dig it out of her purse in time. “Is he on his way?”

  “He was in a meeting. The secretary left a message.”

  Headmaster Perkins is finishing up with Ben and Ben’s mom. Headmaster Perkins is saying, “ . . . still responsible for any assignments during the period of his suspension.”

  Suspension? This is not good. Dad will not be happy if one of his daughters gets suspended on the first day—or any day—of school. Dad’s daughters don’t get suspended, period.

  Headmaster Perkins looks our way. His expression is foreboding. “Anna?”

  Anna shakily stands up. Ben’s mother passes us on her way out and gives Anna a nasty look, like she thinks Anna is an oversexed wench. Anna turns red and crosses her arms over her chest.

  “Headmaster Perkins, I need to talk to you,” I say. “It’s important.”

  He scans the waiting area. “Where are your parents?”

  “Um, my dad’s in a meeting. My mom’s . . . I don’t know. Shopping?”

  He glances at his watch. He sighs. “All right. Come along, girls—both of you.”

  In his office, he listens as I tell Anna’s side of the story. He sits behind his humongous desk and drums his fingers, and he’s impatient and imposing in the particular way of Southern men who don’t expect to be challenged. I’m quite familiar with this type, and I address him in the tone I know he’s most likely to hear. I hold his gaze. I use a confident voice. I throw back my shoulders.

  The Percolator turns to Anna when I’m done. “Is what your sister said true?”

  “Yes, sir,” Anna says.

  “Your teacher seems to think you were an equal participant.”

  “I wasn’t. I would never.”

  “Did you tell him that?”

  “Um . . . not exactly.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Anna,” Headmaster Perkins says, “you can’t expect your sister to come to your rescue in situations like this.”

  “Okay,” she whispers, while I think, Is that what I did? Come to her rescue?

  He stands up. “I’ll have Joyce call your father and see if she can catch him before he leaves. But next time, Anna, I want you to come to me yourself.” He pauses. “Or rather, I don’t want there to be a next time. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” she says.

  “So . . . she’s not suspended?” I ask.

  “No, you can both return to class.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I surprise myself by sticking out my hand.

  He shakes it. I keep my grip firm.

  CHAPTER NINE

  LITTLE GIRLS DON’T DRINK BRANDY

  Dad is late getting home from work, and Anna and I both think, Wh-hoo, no confrontation! We escaped the flames! Anna doesn’t tell me she thinks that, but she doesn’t have to, just as she doesn’t have to tell me not to mention Tricky Trixie to Mom. Why burden her with unnecessary information?

  But when Dad finally arrives, he summons Anna and me to the living room. It’s his favorite room of the house. Fire turned on, snifter of brandy in
hand, Mom by his side with a flute of champagne—everything just the way he likes it.

  Anna and I perch nervously on the sofa across from them.

  “Well, girls, I hear you had an exciting day at school,” he says.

  Uh-oh.

  “Not really,” Anna says. I can feel her not looking at me, just as I’m carefully not looking at her.

  “That’s not what your headmaster reported,” Dad says.

  Mom is taken aback. “You spoke with Headmaster Perkins, Ted?”

  “I did indeed,” Dad says.

  “You didn’t mention anything to me!”

  “Well, Maureen, I wanted the girls here when I told you.” His tone is stern, but there’s something off about it. He takes a sip of his brandy, and I grow suspicious. Is that a smile he’s hiding?

  “When you told me what?” Mom asks. She turns to me and Anna. “Girls, did something happen at school?”

  Dad holds his hand out like a traffic guard and makes a preemptive strike that sounds like umphh. This means we’re not allowed to talk. This is his story—well, he’s turning it into his story—and he wants to tell it his way, wringing every ounce of pleasure from it.

  “Maureen,” he says, “which of your daughters do you think was asked to leave class for looking at porn?”

  Mom regards me with dismay. “Carly!”

  My mouth opens. “Mom!”

  Dad laughs.

  “It wasn’t me!” I say.

  She shifts to Anna. “An-na?!”

  “Mom!” Anna makes an indignant sound and turns to Dad. “Da-a-ad!”

  Dad’s laughter swells. He’s going to start wheezing soon.

  “She wasn’t looking at porn,” I say. My face heats up, because porn is not a word I’ve ever used in front of Mom and Dad. I hope never to do so again. “Some kid named Ben was.”

  “And he tipped my chair over,” Anna says. “I fell completely backward.”

  “I didn’t hear about that,” Dad says, and sure enough, here comes the wheeze. It’s a cough wheeze. His face turns red.

  “Don’t laugh,” Anna says. “It really hurt.”

  “All Headmaster Perkins told me was that you were caught looking at pictures of a naked lady.”

  “Named Tricky Trixie,” I contribute.

  Dad goes off again, louder and wheezier. Mom tries not to laugh, but not very hard. She’s part horrified and part tickled, and the tickled part wins out.

  “It’s not funny,” Anna complains.

  “Believe me, it is,” Dad says, and I have to admit that despite their many other flaws, Mom and Dad aren’t uptight about certain things the way most Holy Redeemer parents are. If Anna really had been looking at porn—like, deliberately—it wouldn’t be funny. But the fact that she got falsely accused of looking at porn on her first day as a freshman at a Christian prep school . . . Now, that is funny.

  Not to Anna, maybe. But to the rest of us.

  Dad pats the cushion beside him.

  “Carly, come here,” he says.

  “Me?” I stand and go over. I sit on the edge of the sofa.

  “Headmaster Perkins told me you’re the one who bailed Anna out.”

  “Uh, yeah. I guess.” I glance at Anna.

  “Well, I think that’s terrific,” Dad says. “A fine example of sisterly love.”

  Anna and I groan, and Dad chuckles. Dad is a big fan of the term sisterly love, and he works it into the conversation whenever one of us—usually me—is told to do something for the other. Like, if Mom and Dad go out and I have to stay with Anna, I’m told to do it out of sisterly love. Or if Anna can’t figure out her homework, I’m expected to help her out of sisterly love. When we were younger, I even had to clean up Anna’s room out of sisterly love, which was insanely unfair. But if I complained, Dad would cut me off with his preemptive umphh and say, “I don’t want to hear it. You two are sisters—it’s your job to help each other.”

  “How did you bail her out, Carly?” Mom asks.

  “She talked to Headmaster Perkins for me,” Anna tells her before I can. “She explained that I didn’t do it.”

  Mom meets my eyes and smiles. “Oh. Good. I’m proud of you, Carly.”

  How strange that Headmaster Perkins chided Anna for allowing me to “rescue” her when she should have rescued herself, while Mom and Dad’s response is to praise me for it.

  “Well . . . thanks.” Since I’m here already, I lean over and give first Mom, and then Dad, a brief hug.

  “Watch the brandy,” Dad says, raising it out of harm’s way. But he hugs me back—or rather, he pats me, kind of the way you might pat a dog if you aren’t exactly a dog person. Then he sends me and Anna up to bed so that he and Mom can relax in peace.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SWEET ENOUGH TO EAT

  Anna comes to my room after brushing her teeth. She stands in the doorway until I look up from my book, The Tao of Pooh.

  “Ye-e-essss?” I say.

  “Can I sleep in your room?” Anna asks. She’s wearing her blue pj’s with the cherries all over them. The top is sleeveless with a single cherry on it, and underneath it are the words “SWEET ENOUGH TO EAT!”

  “Nice pj’s,” I remark. I bought those pj’s first, one day last spring when I went shopping with Peyton. Anna commented on how cute they were, and the next day she came home with the exact same pair.

  “Can I?” she presses.

  “I guess . . . if you stay on your side.”

  She walks around the bed and slides in. I mark my place in my book, put it down, and turn off the lamp. I wiggle down flat and smush my pillow into the right shape.

  “That guy?” she says. “Ben?”

  “He’s skeevy.”

  “I know.” She pauses. “But, Carly, it was so weird. It was like he was hitting on me or something.”

  I snort. “Showing a girl porn, always the way to her heart.”

  She rolls on her side and gazes at me. “You think he wasn’t?”

  Instead of looking back at her, I stare at the ceiling. I recall all the people—girls and guys alike—who commented on Anna’s hotness today. “No, I’m sure he was. But back to exhibit A: skeevy.”

  “I’m not saying I like him, Carly. Gross. I’m just saying it was weird.”

  I turn so we’re facing each other. Her eyes are liquid; her long hair spills over her shoulder. “Guys are going to hit on you sometimes,” I tell her, wishing the words came from a nicer place inside me.

  “I wouldn’t mind having a boyfriend,” she says. “Not Ben. But . . . you know.”

  “Yeah, I hear you.” In bed, with the lights off, is a good place for this sort of conversation. I have thoughts on the matter, so I share them. “A guy who isn’t a player. A guy who likes you for who you are, not how hot you are. Like, a really good friend who happens to be a boy, and who you get to kiss.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And one day I will find this miracle guy, and he will be my love boodle.”

  Anna giggles. “You cannot call your boyfriend your ‘love boodle.’”

  “True, because I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “It’s not a very manly nickname.”

  “I’d call him that ironically, obviously. He’d be my ironic love boodle.”

  “Ahhhh. And how are you going to find your ironic love boodle?”

  “Are you talking about me, or are you talking about you?”

  “You.”

  “For real?” I say. “Or do you just want to know how I’m going to find my ironic love boodle so you can find your ironic love boodle? Because for the record, you are banned from calling anyone love boodle, ever. I claim that nickname, and you don’t get to use it. Got it?”

  She studies me. “You don’t know how you’re going to find your ironic love boodle, do you?”

  “Well . . . um . . . maybe he has to find me.”

  “But what if he doesn’t?”

  “I don’t know. No ironic love boodle, I guess.”
r />   She tugs the sheet over her bare shoulder, and in the process yanks my section away. I yank it back and give her a look that says, Watch it, sheet stealer.

  She says, “I think Roger would be a good ironic love boodle.”

  “For me, or for you?”

  “For you,” she says, as if I’ve hurt her feelings. “I would never steal Roger!”

  “‘Steal’ him? Anna, you can’t steal him because I don’t have him.”

  “You could if you wanted.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t.” I feel the same confusing unease I always do when circling the idea of liking Roger that way. “I love Roger, but I don’t love him love him.”

  “Why not?”

  “What do you mean, ‘why not’?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what do you mean’? I mean, why not?”

  I shift, realizing I forgot to call Roger and tell him what happened with Headmaster Perkins. Oops.

  Then I think back to when I first met Roger, last year when he started at Holy Redeemer. Right away I liked him better than the other Holy Roller guys. Maybe because he wasn’t from the South, or even the United States. Maybe because he didn’t know how to be anyone other than himself.

  “Did I tell you about the time our French class went to Chateau Élan?” I ask Anna. Chateau Élan is a “French” winery a little less than an hour outside of Atlanta. Madame d’Aubigné took us there on a field trip last year. I guess she found it perfectly reasonable to take a class of ten freshmen to learn about wine.

  Anna shakes her head.

  “Well, Roger and I and two other girls got stuck riding with Eddie Zinsser, who already had his license.”

  “How could he have his license as a freshman?”

  “Because he was sixteen. He was held back.”

  “Oh. Who’d the other kids go with?”

  “Madame d’Aubigné. She has a minivan. So we were on the way to the chateau, and Eddie saw a cop behind us on the highway. We weren’t doing anything wrong, but Eddie freaked out, going, ‘Oh no! The fuzz is behind us, the fuzz is behind us!’”

  “The fuzz is behind us?”

  “He was trying to be funny. Anyway, Roger told me later that he had a moment of private panic, whipping around and scanning the air for giant balls of fuzz.”