Libby on Wednesday (6 page)

Gary laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “Or your characters are putrid and your plot is double-dip barf.”

After that Ms. O used up exactly five minutes threatening and scolding. Libby knew how long it took because she had been watching the clock closely, hoping desperately that the class would be over before it was her turn to read. Ms. O’s lecture covered some generalizations about good citizenship and the sin of wasting the gift of a special talent, which was something—according to Ms. O—that all five of them certainly had. But then she went on to give some specific information about what might happen to anyone who behaved in a nonconstructive manner. Such as the fact that if people had to be thrown out of the workshop, they would spend their Creative Choice periods in detention. That part
of the threat didn’t seem to impress anyone, but when she got around to saying that notes would also be sent to their parents, both Gary and Tierney seemed to take her lecture more seriously.

Watching Gary and Tierney sit up and stop grinning and sneering, at least for the moment, Libby found herself breathing more easily. If you had to be shut up in a room with those two, it seemed a little safer to have someone present whom they took seriously. Teachers, in Libby’s experience, weren’t always much protection, but in this situation it was a relief to see that Ms. O seemed to be in control.

There was a vote next, on whether to read out loud or make copies to pass around. While Ms. O was making some slips of paper for ballots, the thin boy leaned over and whispered to Libby.

“Let’s vote to read out loud. Okay?”

“Why?” she whispered back. She had definitely been planning to vote for making copies. Having the others read her stories would be bad enough, but having to read out loud to them would be unbearable.

“Because—well, just because it would be more fun that way. Don’t you think so? Besides, the other way you’d have to write your comments on their manuscripts, and I couldn’t do that.”

“Why not?” Libby said.

He grinned his twitchy, lopsided grin. “Because I can’t write.”

Libby was still staring at him in amazement when Ms. O handed around the slips of paper and the vote started. In spite of Alex’s request, Libby voted the way she had intended
to—to pass out copies—but it didn’t make any difference. The majority was for reading out loud.

There was only about a half hour left in the period when Ms. O called on the first workshop member to read to the group. It was Gary Greene.

    6

Libby walked home that day. It was only a few minutes by bus from downtown Morrison to the McCall House, and on foot it could take almost an hour, but she’d always preferred to walk. She liked strolling slowly down the long, shady streets and alleys lined with all kinds of houses, stopping now and then to look over fences, through hedges and into picture windows.

Looking into people’s yards and houses was necessary, she had always felt, for a writer. A writer needed to learn how all sorts of people lived and the secrets they kept from the ordinary passerby. And yards, particularly backyards, often revealed that type of information. Libby knew of backyards in Morrison that absolutely swarmed with secrets. And so had her famous grandfather, Graham McCall. His books, particularly the ones set in Morrison, were full of fascinating backyard-type information.

So, walking through the streets of Morrison had always been important to Libby, even during the days of the Libby McCall Private Academy. But in the last few months it had
become important in a different way. Sometimes, on her way home from Morrison Middle School, she simply needed some extra time to shake off the middle-school Libby McCall and get back to the person she used to be. To stop being the silent, angry McBrain—or Little Frankenstein—or whatever they’d thought of to call her on that particular day, and get back to being her old self.

The old Libby McCall. Sometimes it was hard to remember just who that had been. Thinking back, trying to imagine herself as she had been then, it sometimes seemed that she had never really thought about who she was, except in terms of what she was doing at the moment. Most often, of course, she had been Libby McCall, the writer. But then there had also been the actress, the dancer, the scientist, or the historian. Beyond that—beyond what she was writing or dancing or acting—she had just known, deep down, that she was simply Libby, and that had always seemed important and perfectly satisfactory. There had never been any reason to doubt it. Lately the changeover to that old Libby seemed to take longer and longer.

Today it seemed she would need that kind of between-worlds time more than ever. Making her way down Jefferson and Emerson and across Elm, she barely noticed the backyards, not even as she passed the Vincentis’ house, where Mrs. Vincenti and her mother-in-law were, as usual, working in their vegetable garden and gossiping in loud voices about their neighbors.

Libby didn’t even stop to listen. She had other things to think about. Walking slowly, her eyes straight ahead, her mind was busy with what had happened at the writers’ workshop and with what she was going to tell them at
home. What could she say that would not be too far from the truth and yet wouldn’t make them even more sure that Elizabeth Portia McCall still needed years and years of socialization?

But instead of analyzing information and making logical plans, her mind kept jumping back and forth. Short bits and pieces of memories and emotions churned and tumbled, back and forth and over and over like clothing in a washing machine. At one point she remembered Gillian’s suggestion that she write a limerick about the members of the group, and even though she knew they would never hear it, she began working on one in her head—a nasty, angry limerick, much worse than the ones she used to write about the family when she was upset with them.

She had almost finished the limerick by the time she pushed through the wrought-iron gate at the McCall House—and quickly forgot about it, as her mind went back to tumbling, without purpose or direction.

On the brick walk that curved to the front door through overgrown shrubs and tangled rosebushes, she walked more and more slowly. And at the foot of the broad, leaf-littered stone steps, she stopped altogether, as one useful idea emerged from the confusion. If Christopher were in the library, as he possibly would be at this time of day, he would be sure to ask questions like, “Well, how did it go?” or “How was the writers’ workshop?” and that would be dangerous. She needed more time to plan, and besides, it would be better to tell them all at once.

Talking to her father alone would not be a good idea. With everybody present she could look mostly at Elliott, who always believed everything she told him, or at Gillian,
who was always on her side whether she believed her or not. When you had to lie, it was better not to look directly at Christopher McCall while you were doing it—at least not if you happened to be his daughter, and very much like him in some important ways.

Back on the brick path she turned to her left and followed a trail that wound its way toward the east among the untrimmed and overgrown trees and bushes. After passing below the library windows and curving around the bulge of the tower, it skirted a huge Japanese quince and came to a stop at the foot of the Treehouse oak.

Writing would help. If she could have just a few more minutes by herself to write it all down. If she could put into words not only exactly what had happened but also just how she felt about it, perhaps it would all become clear in her mind. Writing had worked that way for her before. Writing a tantrum had taken the place of having one, and writing a confusion had sometimes cleared it up.

A few moments later, seated at the jungle-drum table under the pale timeworn eyes of the fantastical figures painted on the Treehouse’s walls, she opened the green notebook and began.

FEBRUARY
25,

I was terrible! I hated it. I hated them all
.

Slashing the
t
s and stabbing the
i
s so hard the paper tore, she sat back and stared at what she had written. It was working. She felt a little bit better already, and the limerick would help even more, if she could just remember how it
went. The first line had been about Tierney. Little by little it all came back.

Reading it over, Libby found she was breathing hard. She read it again and then continued to bend over the table, her pencil poised, but nothing happened. It was several minutes before she began to write again—in short phrases—catching ideas that skittered through her mind—jotting down things almost before she had finished thinking them—tying them together with dashes.

GARY GREENE
—
G.G.—Gary the Ghoul—Gory Gary—the reincarnation of someone horrible—like Hitler, maybe—or Genghis Khan—or an executioner during the French Revolution—he would have loved that—Gary Greene would have loved that old guillotine. His story was gruesome, too—all about a spaceman landing on a planet and killing all kinds of aliens in all kinds of gruesome ways—I don’t see how he could have won even an honorable mention
.

She stopped again to think, her cheek resting on her fist, drumming the end of her pencil on the leather tabletop, letting her eyes roam around the dim figures in the wall murals: Robin Hood, Joan of Arc, Beauty and the Beast—and
Peter Pan, her favorite. Remembering how she used to talk to them when she was younger, how she told those palely brooding Treehouse companions all kinds of secrets, she picked up the notebook and read what she had written out loud. They seemed attentive, but when she had finished, they didn’t, for some strange reason, offer any advice or criticism. Smiling—ironically—at her own childish behavior, she went back to drumming on the tabletop—and thinking.

Except—he does make his characters so you can see them—even if you don’t like them—and you do know where they are and how they got there—I guess he does write better than a lot of the students at Morrison—which isn’t saying much
.

At the top of the next page she wrote:

TIERNEY LAURENT
.

Taller than Ms. O—and a lot fatter—and almost as mean as Gary—acts angry all the time—sneers at everything—even at Gary Greene—after he read his story, she said it was boring—what she actually said was something like, “The first seven or eight massacres were just your average B-movie borrr-ring, but after that it was, I mean, what we’re talking here is major ZZZs.” But then she looked at Ms. O and said, “Oh, yeah. CONSTRUCTIVE! Something constructive about old G.G. That’s a hard one. Oh, yeah. The icky green blood. I really flashed on that icky green blood. You got a really big imagination there, dude.” Then she sneered again and said, “How’s that for constructive?”

Ms. O asked Tierney to read her story next, but she didn’t—said she’d forgotten to bring it—and Ms. O said okay but she better not forget next time, or else—and Tierney said, “Or else what?”—and Ms. O smiled and said, “Don’t ask. You wouldn’t want to know,” and Tierney said, “Arrghh” and pretended to be terrified
.

I don’t think Tierney Laurent is dumb—definitely not dumb—just mean—and really angry about something
.

And then there was Wendy Davis.

WENDY DAVIS
.

She is a phony—always pretending—nicey-nice to everybody—when the teacher is around at least—that’s probably how she got to be on the student council—by pretending she likes everyone—she didn’t read today either because there wasn’t time after Alex Lockwood
.

ALEX LOCKWOOD
.

The strangest person I’ve ever met—moves in a funny way—like a robot with mixed-up wiring—he’s so afraid of Gary Greene he hides in the cupboard—and then he gets up in front of Greene and everybody and sings a crazy song—about dorks and weirdos—after Gary called him a weirdo—after he called Alex and me both weirdos
.

Libby stopped writing then and began to drum again on the tabletop, beating out a definite rhythm this time, to a song that she halfway remembered.

That song—it was to real music—something I’ve heard before. And he must have just made up the words in a flash—with them all staring at him—I wish I could remember all of the words—I wish I knew how he did it
.

He read his story, too, the parody of
Cujo.
It was about a rabid chihuahua that had a bunch of people trapped in a car for years and years. The people in the car kept getting older and older—the little boy grew up and went through puberty, and the chihuahua was still drooling on the windshield and eating parts of the car, like the tires and the windshield wipers. Everybody laughed—even G.G. and Tierney
.

She thought for a while about Alex’s story and how he had read it in a dramatic, quivering voice, like a parody of someone reading a horror story. And everyone HAD laughed. Everyone. Even Libby—at least a little. You couldn’t help it.