Luv Ya Bunches

Chrissy makes a face and holds up her hand, nails toward Katie-Rose. Four of the five look pretty, but Chrissy’s thumb is smeared with orange.

  “I suck at self-manicures,” Chrissy says. “Come help me.”

  “Well . . . I’m kinda not—”

  Chrissy groans. Chrissy is very dramatic. Chrissy also comes up with the nuttiest, most wonderful ideas ever, like sumo wrestling with pillows tied to their bellies. The two of them did that once, and it was a blast, although Katie-Rose has a hard time recalling that emotion now.

  “I look like a smushed, pulpy, disgusting pumpkin,” Chrissy complains. “My thumb looks like a smushed, pulpy, disgusting pumpkin. Please come help me, Katie-Rose.”

  Katie-Rose sighs. She’s not in the mood for manicures, but it’s not as if she’s in the mood for anything else, either. Maybe if I go away for a few minutes, Yasaman’ll get online, she thinks. She slides off her computer chair and joins Chrissy on the floor.

  “Thank you, dahlink,” Chrissy says in a fancy-lady voice. She pushes over her manicure kit. “You have no idea.”

  First, Katie-Rose takes off Chrissy’s gloppy polish. It’s so vivid that it takes multiple wipes to remove it all.

  “Hey, um, Chrissy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Have you ever . . . did you ever . . .”

  “Spit it out, small fry,” Chrissy says, then grins because it’s a funny term, small fry. Katie-Rose gives a flat smile in return. Chrissy is one grade above her oldest brother, Charlie, but unlike Charlie, Chrissy never treats Katie-Rose like a baby.

  Right now, Charlie and Sam are at karate and Katie-Rose’s parents are at a charity benefit. That’s why Chrissy is here. Katie-Rose could, technically, babysit herself, but Katie-Rose thinks that’s too freaky, the idea of being alone in their big, huge house.

  “Have you ever had . . . friend problems?” Katie-Rose says. She immediately busies herself with the bottle of Tangerine Dream nail polish, because der. Of course Chrissy has never had friend problems. Chrissy is bubbly and blonde and über-confident—who wouldn’t want to be friends with her?

  “Are you kidding?” Chrissy says. “All the time.”

  Katie-Rose lifts her head. “Really?”

  “Oh my God. You don’t even want to know.” She tilts her head. “Like, Francesca? Who’s friends with me and Chelsea, but doesn’t get along with Hulya? Just today Francesca told Chelsea that Hulya’s after this guy, Jellico, which she totally isn’t, unless it happens to turn out that Jellico likes her already. I’m trying to find out for her. But Chelsea isn’t dating Jellico! She just has a crush on him. Is it illegal for Hulya to like him, too?”

  “Um . . .”

  “Francesca was being totally backstabby to bring it up. Now, if Hulya and Jellico start going out . . .” Chrissy lets her sentence trail off meaningfully. “You see what I’m saying?”

  Um, no, Katie-Rose doesn’t. Still, it helps to know that other people have problems.

  Has anyone ever accused you of being a thief? she wants to ask. But she would never.

  “So what do you do?” she asks instead. “To fix things?”

  Chrissy lets out a pffffff. “Yeah, right. Ha. Fix things—I wish.”

  There’s a pause, and Katie-Rose figures that’s it. There’s no more to her answer. They’ll just watch Ugly Betty together . . . and she guesses that’s not so bad.

  But as she carefully applies polish to Chrissy’s thumbnail, Chrissy starts up again.

  “You know what’s hard?” she says.

  “What?”

  “My sister.”

  “You have a sister?” Katie-Rose says. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yeah, Angela. She’s a freshman at the University of Georgia. She’s never here, that’s why you’ve never met her.”

  Katie-Rose detects pride in Chrissy’s tone, but also something else. She finishes the first coat and blows on Chrissy’s thumb, watching Chrissy’s face.

  “She’s perfect, is all,” Chrissy says. “I mean, not exactly as a person—”

  “Why is she not perfect as a person?” Katie-Rose asks. This is getting slightly fascinating, enough to temporarily distract Katie-Rose from her own hornets’ nest of problems.

  Chrissy rolls her eyes, as if there are so many reasons her sis isn’t perfect. “She’s ditzy. She’s a spaz. She let a guy give her a Jeep once, when she didn’t even like him—and then she gave it back! Can you believe it?”

  “A Jeep?”

  “Oh, and there was this whole thing with chickens, and this stuffed animal named Boo Boo Bear, and then there was my aunt who got into this pole-dancing ring . . .” Chrissy raises her eyebrows. “That’s who Angela lives with in Atlanta, our aunt Sadie. Only Angela’s not there so much now that she’s in college. You know.”

  Again, Katie-Rose actually doesn’t. Her head is spinning. Chickens? Boo Boo Bear? Pole dancing?

  “It’s a long story,” Chrissy says. “But the point is, Angela may be a total ditz—even though I love her! Totally love her. But the one thing she’s never had to deal with is friend problems. And you want to know why?”

  Chrissy looks at Katie-Rose, waiting. Katie-Rose waits, too, anxious about what she’s going to hear.

  “Because Angela’s friends are rock solid.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yyyyep.”

  Chrissy wiggles her fingers to remind Katie-Rose that it’s time for the second coat. As Katie-Rose paints, Chrissy tells her all about Angela and her two best buds, Zoe and Maddie. The way Chrissy makes it sound, Angela, Zoe, and Maddie are really cool, really tight, and never ever ever let anything come between them, even though they’re living apart from each other for the first time in their lives, since they all go to different colleges.

  “But if they’re all at different colleges, how do they . . . stay tight?” Katie-Rose asks. She feels silly using that term, but grown-up, too.

  Chrissy shrugs. “The internet.”

  Katie-Rose startles. The internet! Yasaman! She applies one last stroke of polish to Chrissy’s nail, then recaps the bottle and jumps to her feet. “There you go. Gotta get back to work now.”

  “Uh, okay,” Chrissy says. “Thanks. But do you see what I mean about how it’s a drag to have friend problems when my sister never does?”

  “Uh-huh!” Katie-Rose calls out. She drops into her computer chair, checks herself from rolling backward, and clicks the Refresh button. She squeezes shut her eyes for three seconds. Then she squinch-opens her right eye. Blurry. She squinch-opens her left—still blurry—then gives in and opens both eyes wide.

  Yasaman is online! announces the alert at the top of the page.

  Relief courses through her. She types like a maniac.

  to hurt you? That’s what Milla wonders as her mom pulls into Rivendell’s parking lot on Friday morning. Today Mom Joyce is dropping Milla off, and usually Milla would be thrilled, since Mom Joyce drives a black BMW convertible. Riding in it makes Milla feel like a movie star.

  But today, instead of imagining she’s Disney’s next It Girl, Milla is imagining nothing. Or, no, that’s not true. She’s imagining things like nothingness and no friends and ominous black rain clouds.

  The no friends worry is silly—wasn’t Modessa so super-nice to her yesterday when she was all wrecked about Katie-Rose? And even Katie-Rose wants to be friends, Milla suspects. Katie-Rose called Milla three times last night, but Milla shook her head each time when Mom Abigail held out the phone.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Mom Abigail said after telling Katie-Rose again that Milla was swamped with homework and suggesting—kindly, but firmly—that she wait and see Milla at school tomorrow.

  “No,” Milla said.

  “Well, she made it seem urgent, whatever it is,” Mom Abigail said. She regarded Milla with an expression Milla was familiar with: concerned, but at the same time thinking, Oh, it’s just a kid problem. How urgent can it be? “She said to log on to some sort of website, that there’s something
you need to see?”

  But Milla didn’t, even though she could guess what site Katie-Rose was talking about. She didn’t want to deal with it.

  Nothing matters, she tells herself now. Sometimes Milla pretends life is just a made-up story, or a dream, and she’s merely floating through as an observer. But the fat drop of rain that splats the windshield is real, and so is the next one, which lands on Milla’s bare arm. Milla sighs, because it’s hard to pretend everything’s an illusion when the illusion is slopping down and getting you wet.

  “Aw, man!” Mom Joyce says good-naturedly. She pulls out of the drop-off line and parks in one of the faculty spaces. “Help me put the top up, will you, babe?”

  Getting caught in rainstorms and having to put the top up are two of the many reasons Mom Abigail teases Mom Joyce about owning a convertible. Mom Joyce counters that Mom Abigail is a soccer mom in her bright red minivan, which isn’t true, because Milla doesn’t play soccer. She takes dance.

  But Mom Abigail says pfff to Mom Joyce’s soccer mom comments, reminding Mom Joyce that a minivan is exactly what she needs for her catering business. “Anyway, I love my bright red minvan,” Mom Abigail says breezily. “It reminds me of cherries.”

  Her moms are so different—and yet they fit together perfectly.

  Just like people can be different and still be friends, Milla thinks. They can be different and still . . . click.

  She closes her eyes and shakes her head. Of course people can be different and like each other. Duh.

  Why is her brain being so weird?

  Why does she click with the girl who stole her turtle, and not click—not really, not in the crazy-snort-giggling way—with Medusa? Ag. Modessa!!!

  “Mill?” Mom Joyce says. “Rain. Sky.” She points at the darkening clouds. “Top up now.”

  “Oh,” Milla says. “Right!” She scurries out of the car and helps her mom heave the heavy fabric top into place. It’s an old Beemer—a classic, her mom would say—which means Milla and Mom Joyce have to snap snaps and clasp clasps and all sorts of car-ish stuff.

  “Thanks, babe,” Mom Joyce says. She climbs back in the car. “Kiss?”

  Milla kisses her mom’s cheek. As she’s leaning over, she spots her green sparkly scarf on the passenger seat. It must have fallen off during the ride.

  Her mom catches on. She swoops up Milla’s scarf and hands it to her.

  “Here you go, sweetie,” Mom Joyce says. “Today’s your ice cream social, right? Hope it doesn’t get rained out!” She shifts her Beemer into gear and pulls out of the parking lot.

  Milla rubs her thumb over the silky strands of her scarf. It makes her feel melancholy, so instead of looping it around her neck, she swings her backpack off her shoulder, awkwardly unzips the top, and pushes her scarf inside.

  It’s a good thing, too, because just as she gets her backpack closed, the skies open up. That happens in California sometimes. No rain, no rain, no rain . . . and then boom. Milla is soaked before she can even think to make a mad dash for the building. Then, when she manages to get her feet moving, she’s nearly hit by a mini-van pulling out of the drop-off lane.

  “Oh, hon, I’m so sorry!” the mom in the driver’s seat says, rolling her window down an inch. “You’ve got to watch where you’re going!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Milla says.

  The woman speeds off, and the tires spray muddy water all over Milla.

  Milla cries.

  Everyone else is in a car, or in the building, and they’re dry and warm and don’t have mud on them. Milla could get in out of the rain—it’s not as if her legs have lost the ability to move—but she’s crying, and the rain is plastering her hair all messy over her face, and she’s muddy and ugly. Muggly. And even though sometimes Milla’s fairly good at the whole being-a-functioning-human-being thing . . . well, sometimes she’s really not.

  “Did you know that you get more wet if you run through the rain than if you walk?” somebody says.

  Milla’s head swivels. It’s Max, who likes to sharpen pencils.

  “Huh?” Milla says.

  “I learned it on MythBusters,” Max explains. He starts toward the building, and after a moment’s pause, Milla falls in with him. She feels like she’s not in her own body.

  Max continues his monologue. “They kept all factors equal. They used a football stadium, and rigged up overhead sprinklers, and then they did different trials to see who got the wettest.”

  Milla is focusing more on Max’s footsteps than his words, but his words have a nice rhythm. Even if she has no idea what he’s talking about.

  “They wore special suits made of . . . of . . .” He makes a sound of frustration. “What were they made of?”

  Max’s steady pace has brought them almost to the building’s overhang. Other kids are mad-dashing to shelter. There are more car-door-slamming sounds than usual.

  “At any rate, the scientists were able to measure the amount of water that got on them,” Max says. “That’s the point. And when they ran, they got wetter, because their bodies came into contact with more raindrops. Does that make sense?”

  “But walking is slower.”

  At last they reach the overhang. “Doesn’t matter,” Max says. “Less drops hit you overall.”

  “But . . . people always run to get out of the rain.”

  “You didn’t,” Max says.

  “Well, that’s because . . .” Her sentence trickles off. Why didn’t she?

  She frowns and looks down at herself. She’s drenched. She’s no doubt tearstained. Her white jeans are splattered with mud, and her white shirt is also splattered with mud. Plus, it’s clammy, and it clings see-through thin against her body. With a jolt, she wraps her arms around herself.

  “It’s like—okay, imagine this,” Max says. “You know how when you’re going somewhere in a car? And it’s raining? But whenever you stop at a stoplight, it seems to rain less?”

  What am I going to do? Milla thinks. How can I go inside with my shirt all see-through?

  “Well, it doesn’t rain less when you stop,” Max goes on. “The amount of rain coming down stays constant. All that matters is how fast or slow you’re going as you move through it.”

  He looks at Milla, and his eyebrows pull together. “Are you okay?”

  How do you tell a boy that your shirt is transparent and you can’t go inside? Milla wonders. You can’t. There is no way to say those words.

  Tears threaten to overflow.

  “You’re really wet,” Max says. He pauses. “You’re way wetter than I am.”

  “I stood there longer,” Milla replies, sniffling. She doesn’t want him thinking his running-versus-walking theory is wrong just because she stood stockstill like a dummy.

  “Yeah, you were kind of on a time delay, only no one had programmed in a rain sensor.”

  “Huh?”

  “Like with the NXT robot I helped build for our robotics competition. We needed it to roll forward—that was one of the required tasks—but not until a specific amount of time had elapsed. So we programmed in a sound sensor, and when Thomas blew a whistle, the robot rolled forward approximately a foot and a half to knock over—”

  Milla has understood none of this. But now, out of the blue, Max’s jaw drops open and he’s no longer talking, period.

  “Max?”

  He closes his mouth with a snap. When he opens it to speak, his words tumble out in a rush. “Oh man! I just figured out how to make my domino course work!”

  “You use dominoes in robotics?”

  He draws his eyebrows together. “No. I do robotics in robotics. I do dominoes at my house, and I’ve been working on a course that incorporates five hundred dominoes.”

  “That’s . . . a lot of dominoes,” Milla says.

  “I’ve been seriously questioning it, though,” Max continues, “because there’s one section I haven’t been able to figure out. The dominoes build up too much momentum, that’s the problem, and their trajectory becom
es unpredictable. But if I could let that one section expend its energy—and program an NXT with a time delay that’s triggered by the sound of falling dominoes . . .”

  He’s adorable when he gets excited, Milla thinks. Too bad the world is so sad. She’s glad he can be happy, though. Even if such happiness is no longer within her reach.

  “Thanks, Milla,” Max says. “Thanks a ton. I’d have never figured it out if you weren’t so wet.”

  Milla smiles ruefully. He’s adorable, yes. But his social skills could use a little work.

  “Hey, I have my robotics shirt in my backpack,” he says. “You can wear it if you want.”

  Max squats, unzips his backpack, and pulls out a hand-painted blue T-shirt. It’s not at all the kind of shirt Milla would make if she had puff paint and fabric markers and a lovely shirt to decorate. Max’s shirt has a black rectangle on it with white antennae. There are gray squiggles beneath the rectangle (is the rectangle supposed to be a robot?), and laser beams or something shooting out from its body.

  GO MIGHTY TERMITES! the shirt says in messy letters.

  Max offers it to Milla, and Milla accepts. She pulls it on over her soaked one.

  “It looks nice,” Max says, cocking his head.

  “Yeah?” Max’s robotics shirt is, bar none, the ugliest shirt she’s ever seen, yet her heart swells at his compliment. “Thanks,” she says, blushing.

  dropping, and she’s only getting better. Maybe she’ll be a spy when she grows up. Or . . . why wait? Maybe she’ll be a spy now, and wear cute plaid uniform skirts and knee-highs like the girls in Yasaman’s favorite book series. Those girls aren’t much older than Yasaman, and they go to an actual spy school. They know karate and have cool gadgets and swishy, shiny hair.

  None of them wears a hijab, though. And of course Yasaman’s baba would never let her wear a plaid uniform skirt.

  So, Yasaman will settle for being stealthy-sneakered invisi-girl, mwahaha. There are perks to being the quiet Muslim girl no one sees—well, except when she trips, of course. Then they see her big time, and laugh, and roll their eyes, and call her Spazaman.

  But why focus on the negatives?