Naturally, Brainzilla was on the case right away. She called Child Protective Services and got in touch with Mrs. Morris, my neighbor. Mrs. Morris said that of course I could come and stay with her, but the state wanted me to have an “observation period” before they released me into her custody. So I got down at Crazytown.
And that’s how I ended up in this life.
Poor Mrs. Morris. I know she feels bad that she scared me out there in the garage. It isn’t her fault, of course. It isn’t my fault, either.
There’s no one to blame. No one who’s around, anyway.
Chapter 19
IT’S NOT SO EASY WRITING IN A DIARY IN HOMEROOM
Homeroom is nothing but dead air this morning. I don’t feel much like writing. Still no luck with the new ending for Twilight. For a while, I was working on a musical number. But I can’t write music. And it’s hard to get the dance steps across in a book.
So that’s not working.
Half the class is zoning out, and the other half is trying to carve expletives onto the desks, so nobody notices as I take a little mental vacay and go visit Laurence.
The English countryside is way more beautiful this morning than dreary suburban Portland. (No offense, suburbs!)
So I’m sitting there, mentally running through a field of flowers, when it’s like a heavy weight lands on me. You know what’s worse than having a football lineman pull you out of a back-row seat? It’s some football lineman sitting on you because he didn’t even notice you were there.
I try to gasp but can’t get enough oxygen. Tommy Marinachi has got to weigh two-eighty.
Interestingly, it’s Marty Bloom who notices I need help. “Jeez, Marinachi!” he says, smacking Tommy on the side of the head and hauling him off me.
Tommy apologizes as I try to massage some feeling back into my legs. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t even see you!”
He’s only making me feel worse. “I’m okay.”
Marty looks doubtful. “Are you sure?” he asks. “Do you want me to carry you to the nurse or something?”
“No, really,” I say. “I can feel the blood returning to this one already.” I attempt to move my foot, and fail. Any minute now.
Marty looks concerned, but he doesn’t push it. I’m grateful. I mean, I haven’t even spoken to him since that whole food fight/Freaky Jesus deal.
It would definitely be a little weird to have him carry me to the nurse.
I just wish I could figure Bloom out.
Nice?
Mean?
Why can’t he just be one thing or the other?
Chapter 20
THE FREAKSHOW’S OPERATION HAPPINESS: HOLIDAY EDITION
Chapter 21
TRUE CONFESSIONS
I love taking the bus to Portland. It’s fun to watch people whiz past the windows as I ride along, imagining their lives. There are worse ways to spend a sleety Saturday.
The bus is so toasty that I have to take off my coat, which is fine with me. Mrs. Morris insists that the cold air is good for her circulation, so she keeps our place pretty chilly. The bus is a nice change from my seven-degree bedroom.
It’s already mid-December, and everyone around me is loaded down with red and silver shopping bags. I’m not going shopping, though. I’m actually on my way to see Dr. Marcuse. She’s the one from Crazytown and she is 100 percent awesome with zero byproducts. I’m serious.
Anyway, don’t worry—nothing dramatic has happened. Well, nothing except this mild freak-out I had the other day when I tried to borrow Brainzilla’s turtleneck.
Once I got the turtleneck off my head and took a few deep breaths, I realized that Katie was right. Not just because of the turtleneck, but also because of how worried I got when I couldn’t find Mrs. Morris the other night. And also because I really like Dr. Marcuse.
Not because I’m having a psychiatric emergency. I swear.
Anyway, I make it to St. Augustine, and I just have to ask, is it weird to say that a mental hospital feels homey?
I actually feel kind of happy to be back here. It’s a bit like visiting my old elementary school: There’s my old locker! There’s my old teacher! There’s that same dead fly that has been on the windowsill for three months!
But it’s also like visiting your old school in that there are all these new faces. I check in at the desk, then walk past the cozy activity room where a bunch of teen girls are using safety scissors to cut up magazines for a collage. Right. It’s Saturday—art therapy. Mr. Noyes is smiling at one of the girls, explaining something in his slow, patient way, gesturing with his tiny, clean hands. He doesn’t notice me as I pause in the doorway, remembering what it was like to be one of those girls at the white table.
I don’t feel any crazier now than I did then.
Laughter bubbles from the activity room as I move toward Dr. Marcuse’s office. Light streams in through the large windows, lighting up the colorful fish mural that lines the hall. A nurse in Tweety Bird scrubs pushes a medication cart out of one of the rooms. Her face lights up with a huge smile.
“Hey, there, Ms. Maggie,” Opal says, waving at me with her fabulous nails. They’re painted with little Tweety Birds. “Guess you missed us too much?”
“I’m just here to check in with Dr. Marcuse,” I say, walking into her soft-bodied hug. She smells like hand cream.
“Well, you’re looking real good, sweetheart. You take care of yourself.” And Opal gives me a little squeeze, like she really is happy to see me, and really is happy I’m better.
Here is the thing about Crazytown: It’s shockingly normal. It isn’t like the mental hospitals you see in movies, where the staff is all psycho and desperate to give people lobotomies. Even the so-called patients wouldn’t strike you as nutcases. That’s because most of the crazy goes on inside their heads.
At Crazytown, the staff encourages you to, like, live in the real world most of the time. Then, with your doctor, you work on those little parts of your brain that are tripping you up. So most of the day is spent doing art or playing games or exercising or whatever. It’s kind of like camp. Minus the archery.
Dr. Marcuse’s door is half open, like it’s inviting me in, but I give a soft knock anyway.
“Maggie, is that you?” she calls, and when I walk in, she gets up from behind her desk and comes over to grab my hands. Dr. Marcuse isn’t a very huggy person, but I can tell she likes me.
I sit down in the same old comfortable wing chair. When I was at Crazytown, I saw Dr. Marcuse every day, sometimes twice a day. I know every detail of this room: the slightly crooked diploma from Columbia on the wall behind her head, the elegant aloe plant on her dark wood desk, the framed print of a yellow elephant that sits propped among the books on her disordered shelves, the green fabric wall hanging.
Who wouldn’t get better in a place like this, talking to someone like Dr. Marcuse? After ten days, she pronounced me “sound of mind.” I’m totally fine now. Mostly totally fine. Still a little blue sometimes, but hey—it worked for Picasso, right?
Chapter 22
INDEPENDENT
There’s a great indie bookstore about five blocks from my house called Pagemakers, where I like to spend some of my time and most of my money. It always has a great selection of books, and sometimes it hosts readings by awesome authors. Usually only, like, three people show up to the readings, so I always get to ask lots of questions and get my book signed, and it’s really great. But this evening, the store’s hosting one of my favorite authors, Nancy Werlin, and her fans are hogging up some serious floor space. It’s also mid-December, so the place is buzzing with holiday shoppers.
I take a seat near the back of the room. There’s a guy in a baseball hat sitting in front of me, and its flipped-up brim is blocking my view, so I lean forward and tap him on the shoulder.
“Excuse me,” I say politely. “Would you mind taking off your hat? I can’t see the podium.”
The guy turns and looks at me. He’s handsome, about my age,
with pink cheeks and eyes like a crisp sky. “Sure, Cuckoo,” he says with a smile.
Have you ever seen one of those pictures that look like a candlestick until you look at it a different way and realize it’s, like, two friends talking to each other? Sometimes the new picture comes to you suddenly. Like, you didn’t see it and didn’t see it, and then—suddenly—it’s there.
That’s what happens to this guy’s face as he takes off his baseball cap. Suddenly, this super-cute dude in front of me morphs into Winnie Quinn, my biology teacher.
“Oh!” I say. “Hi, Mr. Quinn.”
He looks vaguely horrified by the use of his Teacher name.
“I mean, um, Winnie,” I add awkwardly. I hurry to change the subject. “Are you a fan?”
Winnie holds up three books. “I get this one autographed every time she comes to town.” He opens the cover of Rules of Survival and shows me the title page. Nancy Werlin is signed in five places.
I pull open my copy of Double Helix.
“Wow,” Winnie breathes when he sees my seventeen Nancy Werlin signatures.
“Which is your favorite?” I ask.
“Impossible,” Winnie says as pink sweeps up his cheeks. “I know it’s not the most macho choice,” he rushes on, “but I read it a bunch of times when I was in college and I couldn’t go out with everyone else because I wasn’t old enough to get into the bars and it just kind of spoke to me and… uh… sorry. I’m babbling. I should’ve just said Rules of Survival.”
“I love both of those books,” I tell him honestly. “I can’t wait to read her new one.”
I realize I’m fidgeting wildly with the cover of my book, flipping it back and forth between my hands. Why am I so on edge? He must think I’m a nut job, which I am certifiably not (now). But it’s just so weird to see him outside the classroom and talk to him like we’re two regular teenagers hanging out at a book signing. (Except regular teenagers, sadly, don’t usually go to book signings.)
“Me neither.” The dimple in Winnie’s right cheek winks at me, and I’m tempted to reach out and touch it lightly with my finger, but just then, Ms. Jackson, the owner of Pagemakers, steps to the front of the room, and everyone gets quiet. Ms. Werlin stands to the side, smiling brilliantly as the toad-voiced Ms. Jackson gives her introduction, and Winnie turns around in his seat.
For the next hour, I try to concentrate on Ms. Werlin’s words and the section of her latest novel that she shares with us. But all I can think about is the handsome boy in front of me, my biology teacher, the teenager who never got to go to high school, the college student who probably spent his nights alone.
I can’t help wondering what things would be like if he were a student instead of a teacher. Would we be friends?
I don’t see how we could help it.
The thought makes me just a little bit sad.
Chapter 23
CHRISTMAS MORNING
You know that feeling when you wake up and you’re all cozy in bed and then you remember, It’s Christmas!
Well…
It’s Christmas!
The minute my eyes snap open, I fling off my covers, which is a huge mistake because it’s freezing in my room. Luckily, Brainzilla gave me a Snuggie as an early holiday present yesterday. I slip it on and yank a pair of socks over the pair I had on in bed. Then I hurry downstairs—although I’m not really sure why. I mean, Mrs. Morris made me promise not to get her a gift, and I can’t imagine that she’s gotten me one.
The other day, Winnie Quinn told us about Pavlov and his dog. Pavlov would ring a bell, then give the dog a treat. After a while, the dog would drool whenever it heard a bell—even without the treat. Christmas is kind of like that, I guess. Glee is hardwired into our brains.
Even for people who don’t believe in Santa, there’s something magical about Christmas morning. Our tiny fake tree covered in tiny white lights looks surprisingly elegant in the pale winter morning light. And someone has put a few gifts in my stocking: a candy cane and a battered copy of The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson.
I run my fingers over the faded gold letters on the cloth cover. When I open it, the book lets off a sweet, old-book smell. Mrs. Morris has written me a message in her shaky handwriting.
There are some gifts that are so perfect that you can never, ever express how much they mean to you.
I hear someone banging in the kitchen and go in to find Mrs. Morris pulling something from the oven. “Good morning!” she says when she sees me. “Merry Christmas!”
I rush to help her with the hot pan. It’s full of warm, gooey sticky buns. “Oh, Mrs. Morris,” I say, “I thought we weren’t doing presents!” I feel bad that she’s gone to all this trouble.
“Now, sweetheart, you should know that being able to fuss over you is a present to me,” Mrs. Morris says. “I haven’t made sticky buns in years. No reason to.”
“Well… I do have a present for you,” I say.
Mrs. Morris clucks and frowns. “I told you not to buy me anything.”
“I didn’t buy it. I made it.” I hurry upstairs and return with a scroll.
Mrs. Morris smiles when she unrolls it. “Well, isn’t that sweet. A family portrait!”
It’s a picture I drew of the two of us and Morris the Dog. I had considered adding Nicki Minaj and Laurence, too, but wasn’t sure that Mrs. Morris would realize I was joking.
Mrs. Morris gives me a hug. “This is one of the nicest gifts I’ve ever received,” she says, and dabs at her eyes a little with an oven mitt. She puts the picture on the fridge while I give Morris the Dog his special Christmas treat—a large green dog biscuit. I pull out a chair for Mrs. Morris, then serve us each a sticky bun on a plate along with some coffee. (Mine is mostly milk with four tablespoons of sugar.)
After we clean up from breakfast, we go into the living room to watch Elf.
It’s not the most exciting, expensive holiday… but it feels warm and cozy. As I sit on the couch beside Mrs. Morris, I realize I’m happier than I have been in a long time.
I guess making the sticky buns wore Mrs. Morris out a little, because she falls asleep near the end of the movie. I hold her delicate, papery hand for a while.
I’m filled with gratitude for her, and I remind myself not to take her for granted. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own life that I haven’t been thinking about her nearly enough. But, really, where would I be without Mrs. Morris?
Chapter 24
LIFE GOES ON. AND ON.
Call me sentimental, but I think the holiday season is really all about one thing: money.
Big bucks. Crazy cash.
Well, that’s what it seems to be about at the country club. I’ve been working tons of parties this holiday week and raking in the dough.
I don’t mind the work, to be honest with you. Even servitude has its moments. Brainzilla and I agreed to work both the Christmas and New Year’s gigs. Eggy joins us for a few of the midweek parties. She doesn’t really need the money, but the club is desperate for extra help, and she finds the place pretty humorous.
During the New Year’s party, Brainzilla is everywhere—hostessing, busing, smoothing linens, soothing egos. She never has enough money and always has a million jobs, and the amazing thing is that she’s good at everything. Who’s that Indian goddess? The one with all the arms? Shakti—that’s Brainzilla.
After three straight days of parties, all the country club members start to look alike to me. I have this fantasy that everyone at the club has the same mother. They must at least be cousins, right? What’s the probability of there being that many people with great skin in the same room? It has to be genetics.
“May I have this dance?” Marty Bloom catches my elbow gently and stops me at the edge of the dance floor. It takes me a moment to recognize him. He’s wearing a tuxedo with the bow tie dangling loose, and he looks very James Bond-y and dangerously handsome.
I nod at the tray in my hands. “I’m working.”
“Just one dance.”
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“No, really, I can’t—” But he has taken my tray and placed it on the bar. “Okay, I need that back—” Ignoring my words, he takes my hand and leads me to the dance floor. It feels strange to be touching Bloom. His hand is warm and large, and I spend a lot of time worrying that mine is small and sweaty, and wishing that someone made hand antiperspirant.
The band is playing some sort of slow swing thing. Marty wraps his arms around my waist, which means that I have no choice but to wrap my arms around his neck, which makes me feel a little dizzy and awkward. I’m so close to Bloom that I can smell the cinnamon scent of his breath. Mints? Gum? He smells delicious.
I catch Eggy scowling at me from the edge of the dance floor. What are you doing? she mouths.
I shrug, and a little shiver runs through me. Bloom is tall, and I’m enjoying standing next to him. He rests his chin on my head, and I feel strangely safe.
And just as I’m enjoying that feeling, someone taps me on the shoulder.
Chapter 25
GET BACK TO WORK
Excuse me, Ms. Clarke.” The hard brown eyes of my manager—Mr. Wong—are boring into my skull. “You’re supposed to be working, not dancing.”
“Oh, sorry—I just…” I pull away from Bloom, but he takes my hand again.
“Excuse me,” Bloom says, flashing a brilliant smile. “I’ve asked Ms. Clarke to dance with me. You don’t mind—do you?”
“Actually, I do.” Mr. Wong folds his arms across his chest. “People are waiting for their orders.”
Bloom scans the room, as if he’s only just noticed the tables. “Oh, I’m sure these people can wait. I know my father—right over there—can.” He waves at his father, who grins and waves back.