Flannery (5 page)

They are together!

And the bubble breaks.

And Miranda says, I mean, men don't have to cover
their
chests.

The bubble drapes the girl's chin and Tyrone turns back and hops off the up escalator. And she hops off and they disappear — into the Avalon Cineplex, it looks like.

I'm surprised to feel my nose tingling. It's the feeling I get just before I feel tears coming. I sniff them away. I am not about to cry in the Avalon Mall.

And why should we cover our breasts, ever? Miranda is saying. I mean, unless we're cold. She is striding through the mall ahead of me, her leopard-skin number swishing around her knees, red lining flashing.

I think we should rebel and let our breasts swing around all over the place, don't you? And let's shake the lead out, Flan. The last time I was late picking up Felix he karate-chopped a tetrapack of apple juice and it squirted all over the place. Sensei Larry was sticking to the gym floor for weeks.

That's when I notice the shopping bag in Miranda's hand.

What is that?

What is what?

Miranda, you didn't.

I just know Felix will love one of these helicopter drones, Flan. I couldn't help myself. And you got a new bathing suit! I can't go home with something for you and nothing for your poor little brother.

Miranda, we needed that money for the rent.

That isn't due for two weeks.

I roll my eyes. And what about my biology textbook? I say. I don't even
want
this bathing suit, Miranda. I only need it so I can help
you
, remember? And Felix already has a ton of remote control cars.

This is not a remote control
car
, Flannery. It's a
helicopter
. Totally different, and it has a video camera.

But you must have emptied the bank account.

Just think of his face when he sees this thing go. And money will come, Flannery. For heaven's sake. Stop being such a party pooper.

5

On Monday our math teacher, Mr. Green, loses it again. Kyle Keating says the answer to number 26 is 35.

An awful silence falls over the class. Mr. Green strides down the aisle between the desks and puts Kyle in a headlock.

Kyle stays very still. Perhaps he's heard those stories that tell you to play dead if attacked by a bear. Mr. Green digs his knuckles into Kyle's head, giving him a noogie. It's supposed to be a playful noogie but Mr. Green is gritting his teeth with the effort of digging his knuckles into Kyle's skull.

Kyle, likely desperate for air, begins to pound his fist against the top of his desk. He may be trying to pound out a more considered answer to the math problem.

Can anybody, anybody at all, help out Mr. Keating? Mr. Green shouts.

It's 34, I say, though in that position, it's not like Kyle can hear me.

Geez, says Mr. Green. He lets Kyle go and gives himself a full body shake. Kyle is deep red and breathing hard. His eyes are watering, his dreadlocks mashed on one side. Actually, he looks kind of cute.

A girl, Mr. Green says with a shudder of disgust. A
girl
got the answer, Mr. Keating.

Kyle looks at all of us, wondering who his savior was. He touches his throat in an experimental way, as if trying to see if it's still functioning.

A girl! Mr. Green shouts. Mr. Green puts both his hands over his ears and stands for a moment like that, staring at the floor as though a movie's playing there. He whispers to himself all Hamlet-like: A girl, for God's sake!

The buzzer rings and Mr. Green looks up instantly as if nothing has happened.

Okay everybody, Mr. Green says. Good class, good work, good try there, Keating, see you guys tomorrow. And remember, math expands the brain.

He holds his hands up in front of his face, as if they hold a brain, and then very quietly says,
Pow
. He opens his hands, glancing fast to the left and right, as if the brain has exploded all over the classroom and he is watching gray matter drip down the walls.

Mr. Green is a kidder. At least, I hope he's kidding.

Next class: Religions of the World. Ms. Warren wants us to write an essay about our personal spiritual philosophies — the ones we live by.

Kyle Keating says his personal philosophy is existentialism, which means he believes in nothing, and so maybe he should pass in a blank piece of paper. Ms. Warren says he's welcome to do that, and she will give him a big fat nothing for his mark.

My personal spiritual philosophy is a whirling dervish doing a Riverdance in my heart, patent leather shoes beating out a rhythm that goes
Tyrone
,
Tyrone
,
Tyrone.

Today is the sixth day straight Tyrone hasn't been in school. If I hadn't seen him at the mall last week, I'd be worried he'd died in a motorcycle crash or run away to join a cult or a punk band or the circus.

I know I should be furious that he keeps ignoring my messages about our assignment for Entrepreneurship. I should force myself to remember how he looked at that parrot-haired girl on the escalator and forget about him ever loving me back.

But then I find out that the Bursting Boils are reuniting for an all-ages show at the Kirk Community Centre on Friday night. The Bursting Boils were Tyrone's favorite local band before they broke up.

There's no way he won't be there.

On Friday Amber tells me she's going to the concert with Gary, but she'll see me there. I try on every single piece of clothing in my closet and excavate the bottom layer of clothes on my floor and the mountain of clothes piled at the end of my bed, and I take pictures in the mirror of every possible outfit and text them to Amber, but she doesn't text back. Maybe they've scheduled an extra practice at the pool. That's the only time Amber doesn't text back, when she's swimming.

The Kirk is just up the street from my house but I feel weird walking across the parking lot by myself. There's a crowd at the door and I try to blend in with some girls in front of me. They're comparing glow bracelets, waving their arms in the air.

The stars are out and it's dark and the band is already playing and it's packed.

I squish through the double doors and I'm in line to pay my five bucks — the show is a fundraiser for Oxfam — and there's about four people still ahead of me in the lineup when I see Amber.

She's standing on the edge of the stage at the other end of the hall above a mosh pit. People are pogo dancing in the center of the hall. The Bursting Boils are a big deal and there are people from high schools all over the city. People much older than us too, maybe even in their late twenties, and some kids from junior high.

The place is throbbing with punk. Carl Cole, who has a shaved head and a beard to his chest, is gripping the bass like it's a wild rabbit he needs to trap and he's jittering all over the stage trying to keep it from hopping out of his grip. Even from this distance I can see sweat flying off his face. Bubs McCarthy, the lead singer, does a somersault and lands on his feet. The crowd screams.

Kids are lobbing handfuls of cold spaghetti in the air and shaking cans of pop and beer and spraying each other and a bunch of people have brought eggs to throw at the band when they really get going, which is something that used to happen at Bursting Boils concerts in the old days.

Gary is in the mosh pit yelling at Amber, but I can't hear him. Her hands flutter near her ears just for a second.

Gary's pumping his fist at her. He seems to be encouraging her to jump. He's at the outer edge of the mosh pit, trying to muscle his way in, but keeps getting regurgitated by the crowd. Gary won't be anywhere near Amber if she jumps. She could get trampled. What the hell is she doing up there?

Then Amber spreads her arms out to the sides like wings, her fingers still fluttering. She's standing on the very edge of the stage. I jolt forward, ready to run and catch her, but Kyle Keating lurches over the card table and grabs me by the wrist. I hadn't even seen him there.

Hey, he says. Pay up. And thanks for saving me in math class.

I hand him the five bucks and he rolls a rubber stamp across the back of my hand. It says
Grade A Beef
in red ink.

Just then Amber tips forward into the tightly packed mosh.

Her body drops and a yell goes up in the pit. All the bodies in the center bow down, collapsing, a brief implosion like a jellyfish drawing itself together before pulsing forward in the dark. Then the mosh center rises up all at once, and there's Amber's body, floating as though it has no weight at all on the raised hands of the crowd. It seems like she's being passed along on a gazillion fingertips.

Amber's legs wriggle and her arms pull. She's swimming toward the edge of the mosh. She's being passed along and gently lowered at the edge of that tightly packed circle, right in front of Gary. She throws her arms around him and buries her face in his hair and the crowd closes over them.

That's when the sound of sirens tears through the hall, and everybody charges out the exit doors on all sides of the building. There's an ambulance and a fire truck and two cop cars. Ella Sloan has passed out on the lawn outside the hall and the paramedics are loading her onto a stretcher, her arm swinging limply from under a white sheet as they slip her into the back of the ambulance.

I manage to get out before the cops charge in and empty the place and I'm walking down the hill when I hear the slap of running sneakers behind me and the clatter of cans in a knapsack.

There's Tyrone materializing out of the dark, panting hard. The girl with the parrot hair is nowhere in sight.

That was wild, Tyrone says. I egged the cop car.

You didn't, I say. He's still holding the empty egg carton, but he tosses it into the branches of a tree. We're overtaken then by a crowd of girls running down the hill behind us.

Hi, Tyrone, one of them singsongs and they all giggle and run past us and their neon bracelets glow and wink until they turn the corner onto Queens Road.

We should talk about our proposal, Tyrone says, as if the idea has just occurred to him.

For our Entrepreneurship unit, he says. He has stopped in his tracks under a streetlight.

A stoppage.

A police car slows to a crawl beside us. There's an unbroken egg yolk on the tip of its windshield wiper. The car creeps along with us for a moment or two and Tyrone and I start walking, our eyes on the sidewalk in front of us, our fists deep in our pockets.

Then the cop car picks up speed and goes past. The red lights of the fire truck are still riffling through the maple trees up on the big hill of the Kirk parking lot. I'm walking a little ahead, but Tyrone tugs on the cuff of my jacket and then we're standing still. Tyrone has silver glitter in his hair and in his eyelashes and on his cheeks

He really is tall. He's looking down into my eyes. Not just looking, but somehow pouring himself into me. He jerks his chin as if he's calling up my whole being. Whoever I am, he wants to see me right here on the sidewalk, with the crowds pouring out of the Kirk, and all that glitter.

I think we should make potions, he says. Like when we were kids. Remember, we used to make potions in your backyard. These will be a gimmick, like canned fog or pet rocks. People will go crazy for it. Just one sip and bang, you're done. You know what I mean? Gone. Like ready to create the masterpiece of your dreams. Or achieve prosperity. Or become invisible to your enemies. Or a potion for making yourself shrink so you can escape through keyholes when things are bad. Or you fall in love with whoever you happen to set eyes on. I mean it could be just water and food coloring. Jokey, you know. But all profit. That's the part that would have Payne eating out of our hands.

Another crowd of girls are running down the hill from the Kirk and Tyrone looks up and calls out to Lily Parsons.

Hey, Lily, he says. And he turns to watch her walk away.

Hey, Tyrone, she calls without looking back.

A cold breeze rustles up from the harbor. There's a hint of frost in the air. It makes the maple trees swish and jostle over us. It makes a bell of Lily Parsons' skirt as she turns the corner at the bottom of the hill. A bunch of people have fake IDs and they're heading to Distortion. A single yellow leaf drops down near our feet.

I got to go, Tyrone says. He hikes his knapsack up on his shoulder. Again I hear those spray-paint cans. He's obviously going to make graffiti somewhere downtown. His last SprayPig tag was in the paper a few days ago — fluorescent pink and silver, the “S” a big boa constrictor squeezing all the other letters together. There were comments online about it and an editorial. He'd sprayed the Bank of Montreal. People were disgusted.

Think about it, he says. Magic potions. Halfway down the hill he turns and keeps going backwards, still talking.

People will lap it up, he says. We can make a fortune, Flannery. Especially if they start to believe in it.

Then he's gone.

On Monday, Amber and Gary are sitting together in the cafeteria and nobody else is at their table. For some reason I don't even go near. Even though I've eaten lunch with Amber every day since — what, kindergarten? — it's as though they have an invisible force field around them. I stand there with my tray.

Another stoppage.

Finally I make Laura Linegar squish over at the end of a big table with a bunch from the drama club and a few grade tens and the rest are from my homeroom. I've already unwrapped my ham and cheese when I realize I'm sitting across from Elaine Power and Kyle Keating.

Elaine is one of those people who says the word “interestingly” before a lot of her statements. She starts telling Kyle that, interestingly, the adult monarch butterfly lives on nectar from very deep in the flowers.

Kyle wiggles his eyebrows at me and repeats this in a faux-sexy British accent. Nectar from
very
deep in the flower.

And the viceroy butterfly flaps its wings more frequently than the monarch and glides, says Elaine, when it wants to take a rest.

Hey, Flan, just talking about the monarch butterfly, Kyle says. There's a lot of stuff most people just don't know.

Apparently the fundraiser with the Bursting Boils had been Kyle's idea. They'd already raised 1,500 bucks when the cops showed up.

This afternoon I'm heading down to Oxfam with the money, Kyle says. Want to come, Flan?

That's when I notice Tyrone standing in the door of the cafeteria. He's talking to someone. Lily Parsons.

Nah, I say. Thanks, though, Kyle. Got to get started on my Entrepreneurship project.

Started? says Elaine. You mean you haven't
started
yet?