Baygirl Read online

  “I just don’t know the Heimlich maneuver, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, picking up his backpack and moving down the hall. “So where’ve you been lately? I haven’t seen you in the courtyard in ages.”

  “A group of us hang out in the cloakroom at lunchtime.”

  “The cloakroom?”

  “Yeah. We sneak in when the teachers aren’t looking. We spend the whole hour back there. It’s a good laugh.”

  “Sounds like you’re settling in pretty well.”

  “Yep.”

  Elliot ripped some old flyers off the next bulletin board and held out his hand. I passed him a flyer from the stack.

  “So you gonna come to the dance?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe.”

  He took a step in closer to me. “I miss seeing you around.”

  I took a step back. “I’m gonna be late for science.”

  He touched the sleeve of my sweater. “Meet me after school. At Pelley’s.”

  I pulled my arm away. “No.”

  “I’ll buy you a tin of drink,” he said with a grin.

  The harder he tried to win me over, the more uninterested I acted. “No, thanks,” I said, turning my back to him. “I’m hanging with friends later.”

  Hoping my lie sounded convincing, I stuck my nose in the air and strutted away.

  “Hey, Kit!” he called.

  I turned around and rolled my eyes. “The answer is still no, Moptop. Move on.”

  He pointed at the stack of paper in my arms. “My flyers?”

  I walked back to him, trying to keep my dignity intact, and shoved the pile into his hands.

  “You look gorgeous when you’re embarrassed,” he said, a huge smirk plastered across his face.

  I bit my lip to keep from smirking too. “Goodbye, Elliot.”

  Sitting in science class, I wondered how long my willpower would last.

  The next day at lunchtime, the cloakroom door swung open. It was Amanda.

  I jumped up. “What are you doing here?”

  “You’re a whore,” she said. “Haitch-O-R-E. Whore.”

  I managed a convincing laugh despite the quaver in my voice. “And you’re dumb. D-U-M-B. Dumb. Whore is spelled with a w.”

  Her face turned red. “You’d know,” she said.

  “You don’t need to be a whore to know how to spell it. You just need to be literate. You know, literate? Able to read and write?”

  “I didn’t know baygirls could do either.”

  “I didn’t know townies were stuck-up snobs with their heads up their arses.”

  Amanda pushed me up against the wall. “Stay away from Elliot.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My friends saw you cozying up to Elliot yesterday.”

  “He was the one cozying up to me.”

  She put her face an inch away from mine. “Do you really think he’d go for someone like you? Why don’t you go back to where you came from?”

  There was no way I was going to let the tears that filled my eyes spill. I put my hands on her shoulders and pushed her so hard she fell over. “Go to hell, Amanda.”

  Scared of what she’d do next, I bolted out of the cloakroom. I ran to my locker and grabbed my backpack. Minutes later I was at Mr. Adams’s house, trembling and out of breath.

  “Bloody ’ell, lass. You look like you could use a cuppa.”

  He didn’t ask what was wrong; he just made the tea and opened some biscuits.

  “Did you tell ’em you were leaving?”

  I shook my head.

  Mr. Adams phoned the school. He said he was Kit Ryan’s grandfather and was visiting from the Yorkshire Dales, a most marvelous, magical place. Then he said, “Kit had to come home today, with no time to notify a teacher, as it was a family matter of the utmost urgency.”

  He hung up the phone and sat back down. “Now,” he said, “As The World Turns starts in ten minutes. You can stay if you promise to keep your trap shut.”

  I had absolutely no intention of going to the dance, but Caroline spent weeks wearing me down.

  “Come on,” she said. “My other friends wouldn’t be caught dead at the dance, but there’s this guy I like and I know he’ll be there. Please? You never know—you might meet someone yourself.”

  “I don’t want to meet anyone. Guys suck.”

  “Come on, Kit, please?”

  “I dunno…”

  “Please, please, please?”

  “It’s not my scene.”

  “It’s not mine either, but this guy…he’s amazing. He plays in a band and he’s so cute and I know he’ll be there because a friend of a friend knows him, so I have to be there because this friend of a friend said they’d make an introduction and—”

  “Okay, okay. Geez. Yes, I’ll go, if it’ll shut you up about it.”

  She smiled. “Mission accomplished.”

  I used my housecleaning money and bought a denim miniskirt from the Denim Den.

  Mom looked me up and down. “The skirt’s a bit short.”

  “That’s the style,” I said. “All the girls at school are wearing them.”

  Dad snorted. “They all look like sluts, do they?”

  “Phonse!” Mom said.

  “That’s a terrible thing to say to your daughter,” Uncle Iggy said.

  I grabbed my jacket and stormed out, slamming the door extra hard.

  Mr. Adams, who was outside drawing a picture of a pygmy shrew on his sign, looked up and said, “Did you forget your keks?”

  “My what?”

  “Your trousers.”

  “No,” I huffed. “I did not.”

  He stood back, admired his handiwork, then leaned forward and drew a pair of pants on the shrew. “There, that’s better.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “No,” he said, pointing at my bare legs. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “What’s everyone’s problem? It’s just a skirt.”

  Mr. Adams wagged his magic marker at me. “A skirt that might assert that you’re a flirt which might alert some weird per-vert that you’re dessert.” Then he pointed at the shrew. “His name is Bert.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Deadly. It’s short for Bertram.”

  “Not about the stupid shrew,” I said. “About the skirt. Are you seriously saying that it would be my fault if some creep bothered me because of what I wore? And what’s with this dessert thing? I mean, who says that?”

  Mr. Adams ignored me. “What do you think, Bert? Should Kit go back inside and change?” He stared at the shrew for a few seconds, nodded, then turned to me. “Bert thinks you should go home and put on a pair of trousers.”

  I walked up to the sign. “Bert? Mind your own business.”

  I hadn’t noticed Caroline coming up behind me. She tapped me on the back.

  “Geez, Caroline!” I said. “Give me a heart attack, why don’t you! Where the hell did you come from?”

  Mr. Adams tutted. “Language, Kit, language.”

  “Oh, I’m ever so sorry. Let me rephrase that. Eh, up, lass! Where the bloody hell did you come from?”

  Caroline looked confused. “Why are you talking weird? And why were you talking to a mouse?”

  “A mouse?” yelled Mr. Adams. “A bloody mouse?”

  Caroline looked at me and widened her eyes as if to say, “Who’s the nutcase?”

  “Caroline, meet Mr. Adams,” I said. “Mr. Adams, Caroline.”

  Mr. Adams held out his hand. “Sir Reginald Adams. Kit’s neighbor. May I say that your trousers are wonderfully appropriate?”

  Caroline looked even more
confused. I linked my arm through hers and pulled her away. “Goodbye, Mr. Adams.”

  “Remember,” he called after me. “Don’t be someone’s dessert.”

  I had no intention of it. The way the gym smelled, I wouldn’t have gone near anyone with a ten-foot pole. It was stuffy and sweaty and suffocating. After half an hour of leaning against the wall, Caroline and I decided to go outside for air. We didn’t get very far. Elliot appeared in the doorway and blocked me.

  “Hello, mon petit agneau perdu,” he said, staggering and falling against me. “How’d ya like to shlow dansh with me?”

  I was stunned. Moptop was drunk.

  “Get out of my way.”

  “C’mon,” he said, looking me up and down like some kind of creepy pervert. “I know you want to.”

  “Leave her alone, asshole,” said Caroline.

  He grabbed me by the arm. I flinched.

  “You’re hurting me.”

  Caroline pulled on his shoulder. “Let go of her!”

  “Lesh shlow dansh, Kit. You. And me.”

  Amanda stumbled out the gym doors. “What’s going on?” She reeked of booze.

  “Ask your boyfriend,” Caroline said.

  “I just wanna dansh.”

  Caroline grabbed Elliot and shoved him out of the way. Hard. He fell over.

  “Come on, Kit,” she said. “Let’s go home.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you, Elliot?” Amanda screamed. “Why would you want to dance with that ugly baygirl?”

  But she didn’t get an answer. Elliot was too busy puking in a trash can.

  Iggy was up when I got home.

  “How was the dance?” he asked.

  I plunked down on a kitchen chair and dropped my head to the table.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  Iggy laughed. “I’ll make you a cup of cocoa.”

  He warmed some milk on the stove, and soon the smell of cocoa filled the room. I breathed deeply and closed my eyes. The bad feeling from the dance was fading. Someone was making me cocoa. I started to imagine I was at Nan’s but realized I didn’t have to. It was okay here with Iggy. I didn’t need to escape.

  “Are you okay, Kit?”

  “Just a bit tired.”

  “You know, Kit,” said Iggy, “anytime you want to get away from…stuff…you just need to ask. I can drive you anywhere you want to go. The movie theater, the library, the mall. Anywhere.” Iggy stirred the pot. “I don’t even have to stay with you if you don’t want me to. I could just drop you off. I understand that you mightn’t want to be seen with an old man like me.”

  “You’re not old,” I said.

  Iggy turned around and smiled. “See? That’s why you’re my favorite niece.”

  I laughed. “I’m your only niece, Iggy!”

  “That joke never gets old,” he said, placing a bowlful of mini marshmallows on the table.

  He passed me a steaming mug of cocoa. I took a big sip. It warmed me from the tip of my toes to the top of my head.

  I sank back in my chair and relaxed.

  “You know, Iggy,” I said, “I wish you were old.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because then people might mistake you for my father.”

  Iggy looked at me sadly. “Oh, Kit.”

  I threw a couple of marshmallows in my mug. “He’s so embarrassing.”

  “I know.”

  “What were you and your parents thinking, letting Mom marry an asshole like that?”

  Iggy took a sip of his drink. “The more we tried to tell her he was bad news, the more she attached herself to him.”

  “He won’t change, will he?”

  “There’s always hope, Kit.”

  “I hate him.”

  Iggy didn’t tell me it was wrong to say such things.

  “I know, Kit,” he said. “I know.”

  And I just sat there, swirling my cocoa, watching a marshmallow get caught up in the deep, dark vortex.

  The day after the dance, Elliot was on Iggy’s doorstep.

  “Are you stalking me now?” I said.

  “I just want to talk.”

  “Well, I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “Ten minutes. That’s all I ask.”

  “No.”

  Elliot stuck his foot in the door as I tried to shut it.

  “Get lost, Moptop.”

  He tried to turn on the charm, flashing his signature smile. I’d read once that dimples were technically a birth defect. I’d say it was more like hitting the genetic lottery. Those indents were the cutest things I’d ever seen.

  He added raised eyebrows to his winning smile. “Je suis désolé.”

  “Apology not accepted. And enough with the French. It’s annoying.”

  “Look, I’m sorry. I was a complete jerk.”

  “Um, duh! That’s pretty obvious. Tell me something I don’t know.”

  His face turned serious. “Give me ten minutes and I’ll explain.”

  “Ten minutes,” I said. “That’s it.”

  “Not here,” he said. “Let’s go to Pelley’s.”

  “Tin of drink?” he said when we got to the store.

  “No thank you.” I went directly to the back of the building and leaned against the Dumpster, crossing my arms. “Well?”

  Elliot looked down at his feet. “Something happened the morning of the dance. Something bad.”

  I let my arms drop. “Yeah?”

  Elliot dug a groove in the gravel with the toe of his shoe. “My grandfather died. In his sleep. Mom asked me not to go to the dance. She asked me to stay home. But I went anyway. I said, He’s dead now. What difference does it make? And she cried. And I felt like shit for making her cry. And I felt like shit because my grandpa was dead. So I drank Amanda’s disgusting booze so I wouldn’t feel like shit anymore.”

  I was stunned. “Wow.”

  He ran his fingers nervously through his hair. “So… I’m sorry, okay? I really am.”

  “Did it work?”

  “What?”

  “The booze. Did it help you not feel like shit anymore?”

  He shook his head. “Nah, it made me feel worse.”

  “Good.”

  “I just want you to know how sorry I am.”

  “Saying sorry doesn’t cut it.”

  I started to leave. Part of me didn’t want to, but I thought about all the times my mother had forgiven my father so easily, so pathetically. I wasn’t going to give in to a simple sorry. As I walked away, I heard a series of thumps. I turned around. Elliot was kicking the Dumpster in frustration.

  I gave him a round of applause. “Bravo, bravo,” I said. “Nice show.”

  He looked up, and I was startled by the mixture of surprise and sadness in his face. “Wow,” he said quietly. “You don’t forgive easily, do you?”

  “What do you mean?” I said. “I forgive. I forgive people all the time.”

  Elliot leaned against the Dumpster and slid down to the ground. “In Mr. Byrne’s writing group, we did this funny writing exercise where we had to think up fortune-cookie sayings. He gave us this printout of famous quotes, for inspiration. And there was this one that I really liked. It was To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “So what are you saying? I’m only hurting myself by not forgiving you?”

  “Not exactly,” he said. “Because I feel hurt too. But to hold all that anger in…geez, Kit. That can’t be good.”

  I leaned against the brick wall of Pelley’s. “Wow,” I said. “You’re a master at turning things around. This isn’t about me being some kind of a prisoner with anger
issues. This is about you getting drunk and acting like a moron.”

  “Fair enough, Kit, I was a moron. But I’ve apologized. What do you want, blood?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “When was the last time you forgave someone?”

  “What?”

  “You said, I forgive people all the time. So when was the last time you forgave someone?”

  I thought of my dad, who I would never, ever forgive, as long as I lived.

  I walked over and sat down next to Elliot.

  “Okay, so maybe you’re right. Maybe I don’t forgive easily.”

  “I understand why you’re so mad, Kit, but—”

  “No, you don’t. You don’t understand. See, the thing is, my father is an alcoholic.”

  “What?”

  “My father. He’s a drunk.”

  He was stunned. “Wow.”

  “So maybe I have a stronger reaction to drunkenness than most people. But you disgusted me. The way my father disgusts me every single day of my life. And I’m never going to forgive him for that. So, yeah, I’m a prisoner, all right. And maybe forgiveness would set me free, but the thing is, it would also let my dad off the hook.”

  He put his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, Kit.”

  He really was sweet. Deep down I knew that. He hadn’t meant to hurt me. But he was way out of line at the dance. Getting drunk like that? Grabbing my arm? Unforgivable.

  I put my hand on his shoulder as I stood up. “You’re a nice guy, Elliot. If you want to drink, fine. But don’t expect to be friends with me. Because I have enough bullshit to deal with.”

  Elliot grabbed my hand. “Don’t go.”

  I pulled away. “Goodbye, Elliot.”

  “Kit! Please!”

  I walked away, wishing things were different.

  “Kit, wait!”

  He was behind me, tugging on my coat. “Stop.”

  I turned around. “You had your ten minutes.”

  “I want us to be friends.”

  I threw my hands up in the air. “Friends?” I said. “Being friends with you is too complicated. I don’t need the hassle.”

  “Actually, I want to be more than friends,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I broke up with Amanda.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “You did?”