Milla is embarrassed. Ms. Perez is on the largish side, and in her thirties at least, and wears clothes that are too young for her, like Juicy track pants and T-shirts from Victoria’s Secret. From the Pink line. Modessa seems to have something against her, but Milla thinks she’s nice—and she loves the butterscotch highlights in her glossy dark hair.
The ball’s back in V’s court, and Milla watches V’s emotions play over her face. First, That’s so dumb. Then, But, fine. You think I won’t, so I will.
“Eeeee!” Quin squeals as V strides toward the swing set. “Oh my God, she’s doing it!” She uses her leopard-skinned celly to snap a picture.
“Of course she is,” Modessa replies. But she’s pleased, too. “I think we should give her probationary Club Panda status—if she comes back with the answer.” She turns to Milla. “Milla, do you agree?”
Milla doesn’t respond.
“Camilla,” Modessa says. She huffs. “You’re worrying about your stupid turtle again, aren’t you?”
Milla draws back. She is worried about Tally. It’s true. (Though Tally isn’t stupid.) But why would Modessa be mad at her for that?
“We put up all those posters and we went to every single classroom to make announcements,” Modessa says. “We’ve done everything that can be done.”
Milla rubs the pink flower on her scarf. The pink, plus the sparkly green of the scarf, are the only splotches of color in her otherwise all-white outfit. Maybe that’s why Modessa’s mad?
“Camilla!” Modessa says impatiently.
“What?” Milla says. I’m looking at you, she thinks. I’m listening. What have I done wrong this time?
“There are other things in life besides your problems,” Modessa says.
“Yeah,” Quin contributes. She aims her cell phone at Milla and takes her picture.
Milla flinches at the metallic beep. Then her attention is pulled away by an unexpected sight. Is that . . . is that Katie-Rose heading in her direction? With Yasaman Tercan?!
“I just think you need to get your priorities in order,” Modessa says.
“Yeah,” says Quin.
“Like, you could totally make more of an effort with V,” Modessa continues. “She’s the one who helped with the Find Tally posters. Just FYI.”
Maybe Katie-Rose and Yasaman really are friends, Milla thinks. But why are they coming over here? Katie-Rose knows how Quin and Modessa feel about her.
Apparently, Katie-Rose doesn’t care. She and Yasaman are chatty and bubbly as they approach, and it’s Yasaman who seems to falter when she catches Milla’s expression. She stops in her tracks, and Katie-Rose has to tug on her to start her up again.
From the other side of the playground, Milla sees V start back toward them. V is approaching from a different angle than Katie-Rose and Yasaman, but they’re all three heading toward the same destination.
Oh gosh, they’re going to meet in the middle, Milla realizes. And . . . cripes. I’m the middle.
“You haven’t even thanked her,” Quin accuses.
Milla jumps. “Huh?”
“For the posters.”
“Oh. Right!” She meets Modessa’s stare. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Not me,” Modessa says. “V.” She juts her chin. “Here she comes. Milla, ask what she found out about Ms. Perez’s underwear.”
“But I don’t—”
V is upon them. “Red,” she reports without prompting. “And it’s a thong.”
“Ewww!” Quin says delightedly.
Katie-Rose and Yasaman have reached Modessa’s posse, too, though they’re a few feet back. So far no one’s noticed them but Milla.
“Milla,” Katie-Rose says in a really loud whisper. “Come here.”
Milla pretends not to hear. Katie-Rose’s shirt says and Milla can only imagine the field day Modessa would have with that.
“How did you find out?” Modessa asks V. “Visible butt crack?”
Please don’t talk about Ms. Perez’s butt crack, Milla thinks. It’s wrong and disrespectful and just . . . wrong.
Quin snickers. “I should have given you my phone, V. Then you could have taken a picture of it.” Snicker, snicker. “Of Ms. Perez’s visible butt crack.”
Katie-Rose’s head swivels to Quin.
Uh-oh, Milla thinks.
“Why are you being mean to Ms. Perez?” Katie-Rose asks.
Milla steps between them. Maybe if Katie-Rose can’t see Quin, she’ll let it go. And maybe if Quin doesn’t see Katie-Rose, she won’t . . . well, do whatever obnoxious anti-Katie-Rose thing she decides to do.
To her credit, V blushes. “I didn’t see any VBC.” She steals a glance at Katie-Rose. “I only saw . . . you know.”
“Her thong,” Quin says in a singsong voice. “Ms. Perez wears a tho-ong. Ms. Perez wears a tho-ong.”
Milla wishes Quin would shut up—or that she was brave enough to tell her to shut up.
Milla feels an elbow in her side. It’s Katie-Rose, butting into the inner circle.
“That is so inappropriate,” she says to Quin, planting her hands on her hips. She turns to include Modessa. “You shouldn’t talk about teachers’ . . . bottoms.”
Quin and Modessa are speechless—and then they burst into laughter. Like, roll-on-the-floor laughter, only they aren’t rolling, because they’re on the playground and they’d get dirty.
“Omigod,” Modessa says, gasping. “Quin, we shouldn’t talk about teachers’ bottoms.”
Milla’s stomach tightens. When V calls Modessa on her crap, it earns Modessa’s respect, but when Katie-Rose does the same thing, Modessa laughs as if Katie-Rose is nothing but a worthless speck. Why?
Some deep part of Milla senses the answer, and it’s such an ugly truth about human nature that she is shot through with shame.
“Katie-Rose is right,” she whispers to Quin and Modessa. “You shouldn’t.”
Modessa’s eyes pop. Still laughing, she says, “What is this, the Anti-Being-Mean-to-Bottoms League?”
“Yes,” Katie-Rose shoots back.
Modessa’s laughter trickles off, and Milla thinks, Uh-oh. Because Modessa, as Milla knows, gets more pleasure from certain other things than she does from laughter.
Run, Katie-Rose, Milla begs her silently.
But Katie-Rose doesn’t, and Modessa gives her a slow, thorough once-over. “‘Geek magnet’?” she says, reading Katie-Rose’s shirt. “Oh, sweetie, I don’t think so. You’re not going to attract anyone, ever, not even a geek.”
Katie-Rose turns a bright, painful red, and Milla hurts for her, because she knows—she knows—what it’s like to be on the receiving end of Modessa’s assaults.
Snicker snicker snicker, goes Quin.
“I want to talk to Milla,” Katie-Rose says stiffly. She turns away from Modessa and looks at Milla, who drops her gaze to her sneakers. They’re solid white Skechers, but there’s a smudge on her left toe. She’ll have to wash them tonight.
“What do you want to talk to her about?” Quin asks. “Her bottom?”
“Come on, Katie-Rose,” Milla hears Yasaman say. “Just forget it.”
“I don’t want to forget it,” Katie-Rose says.
“Sure you do,” Modessa says easily. Pleasantly, even. Modessa can go from mean to nice so quickly that it scares Milla. It’s like with Modessa, anything can happen.
“Milla?” Katie-Rose says with a slight tremble.
Milla closes her eyes. Go away, go away, go away, she thinks. Everybody just GO AWAY.
“She’s not going to answer you,” Modessa tells Katie-Rose.
“Shut up, Medusa,” Katie-Rose says.
Milla’s eyes snap open. Medusa. Katie-Rose just called Modessa Medusa. Milla’s vision goes preternaturally sharp, and she can see every individual thread woven in the fabric of her smudged white Skecher.
Elsewhere on the playground, people are still playing. But not here. Here, everyone waits—in horror, in delight—for Modessa to turn Katie-Rose to sto
ne.
“Oh, Katie-Rose,” Modessa says, and it’s dreadful, the feigned sadness at what a disappointment Katie-Rose is.
“I didn’t mean to call you that,” Katie-Rose says, low, quick, and—oh, but it’s too late—scared. Milla can hear the fear fluttering in her voice.
“You hurt my feelings,” Modessa chides.
“Yeah, you hurt her feelings,” Quin says.
V opens her mouth like maybe she wants to interrupt, maybe even on Katie-Rose’s behalf. Then she presses her lips together. To Milla’s new eyes, V looks too sharp, just like her Skechers. Milla sees more than she wants to, which is that V isn’t as ballsy as she lets on. Not when it matters.
“Come on,” Yasaman says to Katie-Rose. “Let’s go.”
Milla decides to shut her eyes again. She doesn’t open them until she’s sure Yasaman and Katie-Rose have disappeared.
She tries regulating her breathing like her therapist taught her. Breathe in, two, three, four; out, two, three, four. She gets light-headed, but her thoughts continue to zip about every which way, refusing to be tamed.
Next, she imagines a ball of light hovering over her breastbone, radiating peace and serenity. Only, it’s a really scrawny ball. A stupid ball. It shrivels and dies.
She flips to her other side and executes an aggressive sheet-adjusting maneuver, kicking to free the fabric caught beneath her hip. When did she get so angry? Has she always been so angry? It’s like her body is filled with putrid green bile, and everything makes her mad.
(stop it, you’re being a brat.)
So?
(so, this isn’t you. you’ve got to stop . . . being so clenched up.)
Pfff. Yeah, right. Thanks for the brilliant tip.
(it’s not Mom’s fault that she . . .)
Yes it is. Shut up.
There’s a rap on her door.
“Violet?” her dad says.
Violet freezes. She quick-pretends to be asleep.
There’s a sliver of silence, followed by a creak as he opens her door. Stupid falling-down house, not nearly as nice as the one they left behind.
“You’re rattling the floorboards, Boo,” her dad says, and the nickname brings a rush of longing to her chest. A longing for the way things used to be, before her mom turned into a spook and her life turned into a ghost story.
Her dad comes to her bed. He hesitates, then sits on the edge of the mattress. His weight is solid and shifts her universe. Still, she keeps her eyes shut.
He puts his hand on her back, traces rough circles. He never was good at back rubs. “If you’re worried about your mother—”
“I’m not,” she says fiercely, then curses herself for blowing her cover. She sighs and rolls over, looking up at him.
His eyes, when they connect with hers, fill with tears. But there’s strength in his gaze, too.
“We’re going to be okay, Violet,” he tells her.
She aches to believe him.
“I spoke with Dr. Banks. He said she’s responding well to the new medication, though it makes her thirsty. He’s working on adjusting the dosage.”
“Whoop-de-do,” Violet whispers, then regrets it immediately.
Her dad takes her hand in his, and he doesn’t go away, even though she’s giving him very little to work with.
“We can visit her this weekend if you’d like,” her dad says.
A lump forms in Violet’s throat. “Whatever.”
He nods, slowly. “Get some sleep, Boo,” he says, leaning over and kissing her cheek. “Have fun tomorrow during Greek Day.”
She exhales.
“Do you . . . feel like you’re settling in? Now that it’s been a couple of days?”
“Not really. Maybe.”
“Want to tell me about it?”
She could, she supposes. Not about Modessa and Milla and . . .
(the turtle you stole.)
Not about any of that. But she could tell him about the Greek god, Hermes, whom she’s presenting on tomorrow in front of both fifth-grade classes. She could tell him about how Mr. Emerson let her be an Athenian lady of stature, which means she has to wear a chitōn, which is the fancy word for toga. Which she doesn’t know how to make, though she figures it’s just a sheet tied in a fancy toga way.
She could . . . she could even ask him for help, maybe. With the sheet. He’d look stern and say, “Violet, isn’t it a little late to be telling me about this?” But he’d figure something out, because he’s good at stuff like that.
And while they worked on her chitōn, she could tell him that she thinks the concept of Potato Olympics is actually pretty clever, and that that’s happening on Thursday if he wants to come watch, and that she’s going to make her potato do the high dive into a bucket of water. She could tell him she no longer thinks Rivendell is quite as stupid as she first did.
She could tell him all that stuff . . . and deep inside she wants to. But as she gathers her courage, he makes a sound of resignation.
“Well, all right,” he says, standing up from her bed. “Good night, Violet.” He walks with weary footsteps across her room and leaves, shutting the door behind him.
And here you are, she tells herself, heavy with despair. This is your life now.
Her gaze drifts over her room. Those Pottery Barn Kids pink curtains left behind by the previous owners? Yours. The garage-sale dresser with knobs instead of handles? Yours. The bobble-head turtle on top of the dresser?
(NOT yours and you KNOW it. why haven’t you given it back?)
The lump in Violet’s throat won’t go away . . . and what is it, that lump? What physical reality is in there, lodged like a golf ball and pushing against the soft tissue of her throat? At what point did Violet’s emotions get so bottled up inside of her that they took on a shape of their own?
Modessa and Quin and Milla—Violet knows they aren’t nice girls.
(Well, Milla might not be so bad. Milla isn’t the one who came up with the underwear dare and thought it was oh-so-hilarious that chubby Ms. Perez wore a thong. That was Modessa. And Milla didn’t make fun of the Muslim girl who rammed into her and sent her sprawling. That was Quin. And while Milla didn’t stand up for Katie-Rose on the playground—Katie-Rose, who shook Violet’s hand on the first day of school—she wasn’t out-and-out mean to her, either. That was Modessa and Quin.)
Here’s something else that Violet knows, however. With Modessa and Quin, what she sees is what she gets. Modessa and Quin are pretty girls who wear the right clothes and have the right hair and know the right answer to the question of what’s cool and what’s not. After all, they’re the ones asking the question.
Modessa and Quin assume that they’re popular because they’re meant to be popular. They think they’re getting what they deserve. Violet could tell them that that isn’t the way it works, but why bother? Modessa and Quin aren’t going to change. They’re going to lord it over others their whole lives, and when they grow up, they’ll drive their kids to school in skinny jeans and oversized Chanel sunglasses and make the dumpy, frizzy-haired, can’t-quite-figure-out-what-day-it-is moms blink and say, “Oh no. I was supposed to bring brownies today?” and then burst into tears while everyone looks on.
So who cares about girls like Modessa and Quin?
Violet might use them, sure. Go along with their “tests.” Lie about Ms. Perez’s underwear. Let them think they’re gracing her with their approval, when really she could care less.
It’s easier to be one of the Populars, that’s all. If you’re a Popular, people don’t mess with you.
But Milla . . .
That’s where things get complicated, because fine, Violet knows perfectly well that Milla is different from Modessa and Quin. She can see the cracks in Milla’s shell.
Violet thinks about the containers that filled the cabinets of their old kitchen. Small cardboard boxes holding foil-backed sheets of pills, each pill safe within its hermetically sealed plastic pouch. Each pill trapped in its bubble of stale air
.
Milla is not hermetically sealed. She may be a Popular on the outside, but on the inside, more tender things nudge against her. And this isn’t good, this isn’t good at all, because if Violet sees Milla struggling with doubts, then Violet might succumb to her own.
(stop. you’re not like this. this isn’t you!)
No, Violet has to stay strong. Strong like a goddess, lofty and untouchable.
And forget the chitōn. If you’re not mortal, why dress like one?
(but . . . then . . .?)
The ridiculous Greek-goddess outfit Aunt Sylvia brought her from Disneyland—Violet will wear that. It’s from the movie Hercules, after all. And if Mr. Emerson doesn’t like it? Too bad.
Her costume decided upon, Violet turns a cold eye to Tally the Turtle, sitting on Violet’s dresser.
You’re not giving that turtle back, you know.
(violet! no!)
Hey, Violet’s mean voice says. If Tally the Turtle means so much to Milla, then Milla should have taken better care of her.
When you’re careless with things you love, you don’t deserve to keep them.
(Shot from Katie-Rose’s sunshine-yellow video camera)
FADE IN:
EXTERIOR KATIE-ROSE’S HOUSE—FRONT PORCH—BEFORE SCHOOL ON WEDNESDAY MORNING
KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)
Hi, Max!
Max, who has a red bedsheet wrapped lumpily around his body, glances over from the end of his driveway. He picks up the newspaper.
MAX
Hi, Katie-Rose. How are your social skills coming?
KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)
Ha ha. It was never my social skills that were in question.
Max ambles over to Katie-Rose’s house and sits on the front porch. The image on the camera jiggles as Katie-Rose lowers herself down beside him.
MAX
But I thought . . .
KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)
You thought what?
MAX
Well, yesterday . . . and the playground . . . and you were with Camilla, but—
KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)
(cutting him off)
Those were her social skills being a problem. Anyway, doesn’t matter. Yasaman explained to me how people change depending on who they’re with, so today I’m going to get Milla by herself. Then she’ll be the real Milla.