Justin Kramon (7 page)

Finny assumed that after dinner they would go their separate ways, but Poplan proposed a game.

“Do you know Jenga?” Poplan asked.

When Finny told her she’d heard of it but never played, Poplan challenged her to a match.

Before beginning, they each washed their hands twice, under Poplan’s orders. It turned out that Jenga was Poplan’s favorite game, and she played it with a competitiveness and relish that Finny had never witnessed before in an adult. The game consisted of poking little wooden blocks out of a tower and then placing them back on top of the structure. The first to knock over the building lost. When it was Poplan’s turn, she winked and lined up her index finger at a block the way a marksman might aim at a bull’s-eye. She then dislodged the block with a series of deft little pokes, always keeping a finger ready on the other side, to poke the block back in the other direction should the tower begin to sway. Finally, when the block came free and Poplan had placed it on top of the tower, she let out a long, tortured breath, as if she’d just dismantled a bomb.

They played on the floor in Poplan’s room, which was decorated in a surprisingly feminine way. The bed was covered in a pink duvet, and there were china animals on the shelves and the desk, the types of items young girls might buy at the mall as presents for their mothers. Finny kept getting distracted by the animals’ faces, a collie’s sad eyes, a parrot’s rainbow beak, the arc of an elephant’s trunk, and in truth, they freaked Finny out. It was like being watched by a band of loony cartoon characters. She knocked over the tower.

“Aha!” Poplan screamed, and shook her fist victoriously.

“Damn,” Finny said.

“Don’t be discouraged,” Poplan said. “No one has ever beaten me in Jenga.”

“I think I need to go to sleep.”

“All right,” Poplan said, and she seemed a little disappointed. “But there’s one thing.”

“What is it?”

“I hate to do this on your first night. I’m very sorry, but I’ve had orders, and one must obey one’s superiors.” She looked down solemnly, but with obvious determination to complete the task she’d been given.

“What are you talking about?” Finny asked.

“Oh, my life, my life,” Poplan said, shaking her head, and then got up and went to her closet. She opened the door and, after digging around a moment, brought out a purple T-shirt with green lettering on it that Finny thought was the gaudiest thing she’d ever seen.

“Like I said,” Poplan continued, “I’m very sorry. But they said you have a tendency to sneak around.” She handed Finny the shirt.

“After talking to your father last week, Mrs. Barksdale—the principal—she thought it might be a good idea to give you something bright to wear.” And then Poplan added, in a softer voice that seemed to betray the first hint of reluctance in her, “Every night after eight.”

Finny looked down at the shirt. On the front, in letters the color of pea soup, it said:
Thorndon School.
And on the back, in a message that must have been botched by the printer, it read:
Shorty Finn.

Chapter
6
Finny’s Incredible New Roommate

The girls began arriving the next afternoon. Finny was in her room with the door closed, and she heard them in the halls, banging doors and suitcases, chatting, making familiar comments to each other: “Oh, it was fine, but Brian turned out to be a jerk anyway.” “Do you have any more, because I’m all out?” “Kelly says she’s got big boobs but her ass is fat.” Finny listened to all of it, feeling tired at the prospect of making her appearance, all the smiles and handshakes. She hated the idea of drawing all those hungry eyes to her, the scrutiny she was sure to receive. And then later, when she had to wear that stupid shirt: it would be humiliating.

But just as she thought of getting off the bed and going out into the hallway, the door of her room swung open.

A girl with a big black duffel came in and threw the bag down on the floor. “Oh, hey,” the girl said, shutting the door behind her. “You must be my roommate.”

“Finny,” Finny said.

“That’s an interesting name,” the girl said. “Is it Irish?”

“No,” Finny said, and couldn’t gather her thoughts to say anything more. The reason she was so scattered was that the girl who stood before her was beautiful. She wasn’t just cute or pretty, the way some of Finny’s classmates at home were. She had long blond hair that she kept back in a ponytail, tied up with a simple black band rather than the colorful, poofy ornaments other girls wore. She was tall, maybe four or five inches taller than Finny, and she had a bright, open expression, large eyes, a slightly wide jaw that somehow complimented her delicate nose and defined cheekbones, her plucky little chin. And she had breasts, full ones. She was actually more like a grown woman than a girl, and Finny could easily have imagined her on the arm of some handsome man in a suit.

“Oh,” the girl said now about Finny’s name. “Well, I like it anyway. I’m Judith.”

The instant Judith said her name, Finny remembered the lipstick she’d stashed in her pants pocket the day before. She felt a hot gulp of fear slide down her throat.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Finny said. And then: “I took your lipstick.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say, and she figured it would be better to get it out of the way early that she was a thief.

But Judith just laughed and flopped down on her bed across from Finny. “You mean the black one? Actually, I’m glad you took it. I meant to put it in my dresser before I left, but I forgot. They would have seen it.”

“Who?”

“Old Yeller. That’s what we call the principal, Mrs. Barksdale.”

“Why?”

“Take a guess,” Judith said.

Finny didn’t have a response to this, so they sat for a moment in silence. Then Judith said, “I was living alone before break. Actually, I’m in ninth grade.” The way the girl began her sentences with the word
actually
, it sounded like she was correcting some unheard person. “You’re in eighth, right?”

Finny nodded. “Unfortunately.”

“When they said a new girl was coming, I volunteered to have you stay with me.”

“Thanks a lot,” Finny said. “But how did you get to choose?”

“My parents are on the board,” Judith said, and then blew at a strand of hair that had come loose from her ponytail. Finny was captivated by her movements, her ease in these strange surroundings. “It just means they give a lot of money,” Judith went on. “You might have seen the Turngate Auditorium? That’s my last name. Turngate.”

“I’m sorry you had to give up your room,” Finny blurted out. She felt clumsy in the presence of big graceful Judith.

“Like I said, I wanted a roommate. My last roommate left all of a sudden, and it was lonely. Actually, I’m very glad you’re here.”

“Why’d she leave?”

Judith shrugged. “Family stuff. By the way, why are
you
here? I mean, why’d you come in the middle of the year?”

“I got in trouble,” Finny said.

“What kind of trouble?” Judith asked. “Boys?”

“Actually, yes,” Finny said. She was already beginning to talk like Judith. The girl’s pull was that strong, like a huge planet on a tiny pebble.

“Did you get caught doing something?”

“Sort of.” Normally Finny wouldn’t have answered any of these questions. She would have shrugged, or made a smart comment about what she got caught doing. But she felt compelled to give Judith what she asked for. Finny wanted so badly to please her, to win her approval. She could see that Judith must have been used to having that effect on people. “I started taking piano lessons so I could see this boy. Then my parents found out.”

“And what happened?”

“I got sent here.”

“No. I mean, what happened with the boy?”

“He’s at home. We’re still in love.”

Here Judith let out a squeal of pleasure. “How
wonderful
,” she said. “Have you written him?”

“I just sent him a letter this morning.”

“Hm,” Judith said, frowning. “Well, you have to be careful about that. Old Yeller will check mailboxes.”

“Really?”

“But she won’t check mine. How about you have your boyfriend send the letters to my mailbox? And then I’ll hand them off to you. I promise I won’t peak at anything. Unless you let me.” Judith was glowing. Finny loved the way their strings were crossing, how they were winding into each other’s lives.

“Thanks,” Finny said.

“Nothing,” Judith said, in a way that sounded faintly European to Finny, though Finny had never been to Europe. “So what did you do last night?”

“I ate dinner with Poplan. Then we played Jenga.”

“Oh, so the Pussy Popper got you to play already?”

“It wasn’t that bad. The only dumb thing was this shirt I have to wear so I don’t run away.”

“Shirt?”

Finny got up and went to her closet, pulled out the shirt. She put it on, and modeled it for Judith, striking a sassy hand-on-hip pose, the way she used to when she was modeling her rat’s nest for Sylvan. Finny was beginning to feel comfortable enough with her new roommate that she could joke like this, strut around and make faces, twist up other people’s behavior into these absurd shapes.

Judith laughed at Finny’s display, so hard she fell back on the bed and hit her head against the wall. “Ow,” she said, then laughed some more. Finny kept dancing, enjoying how silly she and Judith looked together.

“Shorty Finn,” Finny said. “It’s like a deformed shark.”

After a while Judith stopped laughing. “Actually, that’s terrible,” she said. “The shirt, I mean. I’m so sorry they’re making you wear that. But I think I can take care of it.”

“How?” Finny said.

“You’ll see.”

They chatted for a few more minutes, until it was time to go down to dinner. When they had gotten their coats on and were all ready to go, Judith said, “Oh, by the way, I know you went through my dresser, and it’s okay.”

Finny was going to deny it, but then she wondered how Judith knew. Were there video cameras in the room? Was she psychic? Finny could have believed this girl possessed almost any powers. Maybe the CIA was working for her.

“Actually, I wasn’t sure,” Judith said. “But now by the look on your face, I am.” She laughed. “Don’t worry. Like I said, it’s okay. Actually, I would do the same. No one stops at the top of the dresser.”

That evening the dining hall was a completely new room, alive with the bustle of eighty girls. Finny could hear their shouts and chatter even as she came down the stairs. Judith was next to her, and by the way everyone watched them, Finny could tell that Judith held a privileged position in the school. Judith introduced Finny to some girls as they picked up their trays—one named Nora who lived on their hall, and another named Jean who was downstairs—and though Finny’s head was swimming, she loved their faces, their smiles and timid, sweaty handshakes.

Judith and Finny sat down at an empty table, which soon filled up around them. They talked about so many subjects that Finny would have trouble recalling them later: hair products, favorite stores, dishes to avoid in the dining hall, what people did over vacation. Judith pointed out people to Finny. There was an upper-form girl named Cynthia Bunswaggel, whom they called Bum Wagger because of the way her ass swayed when she walked. There was a girl named Yasmin Pitzer, whom they called Pits of Death because she didn’t shave under her arms and had BO. Tasha Nolan was the Jackhammer, because of her percussive laugh.

In the far corner of the room was a woman that Judith identified as Mrs. Barksdale, the Old Yeller. She wore a bright red blazer, and her stringy hair was dyed a light orange color, as if she’d been going for blond but hadn’t left the dye in long enough. She was so skinny that Finny could see the muscles tensing in her face and neck when she ate, and a vein that pulsed in her forehead. There was something animal-like about her, like a starved and aggressive dog.

When they were eating dessert, the Old Yeller got up and came over to Finny’s table, which became instantly silent.

“Hello, young lady,” the Old Yeller said to Finny. “I’m Mrs. Barksdale.”

“Hi,” Finny said.

“We’re happy to welcome you to our school. I hope you’ve settled in okay?”

“Yes. Thank you very much.”

“And Poplan told you about your dress code?”

Finny nodded. She was struck by Mrs. Barksdale’s voice, which seemed strained and nasal, like air pinched from the neck of a balloon. It was an almost inhuman pitch, and it cut through all the background noise in the room.

“Then I will see you at the check-in this evening. I expect you’ll be there?” She made this last comment with a small laugh, as if she were on to Finny already. And then she tucked her chin to her neck and gave Finny a long look.

“That was odd,” Finny said when Mrs. Barksdale had left.

“Actually, that was a typical Old Yeller moment,” Judith said. “No one knows what she’s thinking.”

After dinner and an hour and a half of free time, which the girls used to unpack but which was normally reserved for homework, all of the girls in the dorm were called to line up in front of their rooms for check-in. Judith had been out in the halls, catching up with friends. Finny hadn’t seen her since dinner, though now she took her place next to Finny. They were the first ones in the hall, and Finny wondered where everyone else was.

Then the girls came out of their rooms. Finny was shocked at the sight of them. She looked at Judith, who giggled. Finny couldn’t believe what was happening.

The reason Judith was laughing was that all of the girls were wearing purple T-shirts. They looked exactly like Finny.

“What is this?” Mrs. Barksdale shouted, her voice high and grating, like nails scraped against glass. Finny had to put her hands on her ears.

When she took her hands down, Judith said, “You see what I mean about the nickname?”

Chapter
7
Finny and Judith Find Ways to Entertain Themselves

Classes began the next morning. They were all the subjects Finny was used to, but the Thorndon School called them by different names. English was “communications,” history was “humanities,” and math was called “SMP,” for some reason related to the textbooks they were using. But once Finny got used to the titles, the courses were standard. She’d always been a decent student—not A’s, but usually high B’s—and here was no different. In truth, the classes were what engaged the least of Finny’s energies in her first semester at Thorndon.