Made That Way (10 page)

Behind me I hear the kitchen door creak open, then my parents whispering as they sneak down to their bedroom. Mom giggles. Their door shuts tight and I am spared hearing any more. I'm glad they've made up already, but still.

Fortunately I am really enjoying myself. I like learning. I like understanding more about Brooklyn. I like being the only person around who owns a hinny. I like it that hinnies have the high intelligence of the donkey and the amenability of a horse. They sound so perfect, and I am so lucky. When I grow up I think I will become a veterinarian who specializes in hinnies.

I feel all relaxed and happy so I scroll back up to some technical stuff about chromosomes that I skimmed over the first time.

I swear that my heart stops.

Because there, right on the screen, is information that totally changes my life.

Hinnies are missing a chromosome.

Just like me.

Hinnies are sterile.

Just like me.

There's nothing wrong with hinnies. No one talks about “hinny syndrome”. Hinnies are perfectly normal and natural.

And maybe the same thing applies to me. Why not? Maybe there's nothing wrong with me and I don't have Turner Syndrome.

I am a hybrid. I know it in my bones.

But a hybrid of what?

And I remember that Stephanie said she thought I was a unic. Half a unicorn.

I rub my forehead.

There's that bump under my skin that I noticed in the hospital. I'm sure it's bigger now. It's kind of sore. The more I rub it the more sore it gets.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I am riding, and not on Electra so immediately I suspect I'm dreaming. Sometimes when I ride Electra in a lesson I feel like maybe I'm dreaming, but mostly I notice that I'm working hard and concentrating on what Kansas says about things like my weight being equally distributed on my feet, thighs and seat bones and my shoulders being square, so I don't have time to think about whether it's real or not.

I'm riding a white horse, so possibly I'm riding Kansas's horse Photon. Then the head turns, and I see I'm riding the grumpy unicorn, though his horn is still missing.

“I thought you didn't want me riding you? You said it would be undignified,” I say.

“Well it is. But sometimes we have to put up with life not going the way we want it to.”

He plods on. He's not limping but he's not very energetic, not like the galloping and jumping dreams I usually have. There's something I need to ask him, but I can't think what it is.

The unicorn says, “And don't kick me, or try any of that giddy-up nonsense.”

“Okay,” I say. I can feel his warmth underneath me and the gentle swaying of his movement. Brooklyn probably wouldn't feel this good, not with his spine sticking up and his ribs poking out.

Then I remember. “There's nothing wrong with me. I'm a hybrid,” I tell the unicorn. This was part of it anyway. There's something else though. My brain feels fuzzy.

“So you won't have to go on that Premarin stuff,” says the unicorn.

“Of course I do. I still want to become a boss mare.”

He snorts. “That will take more than mare pee.”

“I know that,” I say. I try not to sound defensive. And I do know. I just don't know exactly what more I'll need.

“And of course there will be the side effects.”

“Not everyone experiences side effects from medications. And not all side effects are bad. I know someone,” I say, pleased with myself for not mentioning Taylor's name, “who got pretty blissed-out on morphine and Tylenol 3.”

“And you'll grow hair,” says the unicorn.

“I'll shave it off, like my mom does.” She has a pink razor she keeps by the bath tub. I could buy my own, but not pink.

“Well don't you think that's stupid?” says the unicorn. “You want secondary sexual characteristics and then you shave them off?”

This unicorn is like Stephanie on a very bad day.

“And your sweat will smell,” he continues. “You'll get acne. And your mammary glands will develop.”

“I'm going to wake myself up,” I threaten.

“About time too.”

“You don't want me to grow up. You want me to stay a little kid. You're just like my dad. My mom wants me to go galloping off through the developmental stages and become a full-blown woman as soon as possible, but you and Dad want me to stay as your little girl.”

“Now you're cooking,” says the unicorn.

1

As soon as I wake up I remember the crucial matter I failed to discuss with the unicorn. I meant to ask exactly what sort of hybrid I was. I'm also puzzling over the roadblocks I keep encountering trying to grow up the way I want to . . . if I want to. I'm not sure I haven't thought of these issues before, but having spoken about them to the unicorn, they've taken on new significance. Now I've got some thoughts to hang on to, not like before when it was more like dealing with a slippery bar of soap in the shower.

It's Saturday. Dad is making his special oatmeal pancakes. Mom wants to know if I want to go shopping for some back-to-school clothes. “You can't wear those barn clothes to school. We could go to Fifth Street,” she says smiling in a way she must consider enticing. Mostly it just makes me feel sorry for her. I mean, doesn't she have a life outside of me and Dad and work?

I put down my fork, then pick it up again and push a triangle of pancake through a puddle of maple syrup. I have so much on my mind, clothes don't seem important. Even at the best of times I don't enjoy shopping for clothes unless they're for riding. I don't know what's fashionable and I don't know what suits my body. Usually I let my mom take charge because Mom loves fashion, though she doesn't necessarily know what kids are wearing so she asks the clerks in the store. She likes to take me to the boutique clothing stores on Fifth Street and tends to push me into more adult styles, which is no easy feat given my body-of-an-eight-year-old. So in this sense, Mom is shoving me into adulthood, but on the other hand she's treating me like a baby who can't pick out her own clothes. The confusion is enough to put me off my breakfast.

Dad slips another pancake from the frying pan onto my plate. “What's the matter, Munchkin? Eat up. You don't have to go shopping if you don't want to. I see a Sears catalogue came last week, you can pick out some new clothes from that if you want.”

I close my eyes, trying to analyze what Dad said, and also prepare myself to get caught in the crossfire over the cost of new school clothes if I don't quickly change the focus.

“I'm not looking forward to going back to school, that's all,” I say.

“Oh, Honey, why not?” says Mom. “You always do so well. And you'll have new teachers. It'll be exciting, won't it, Tony?”

“You betcha,” says Dad. He slathers butter on his pancakes and pours syrup until it flows off all sides of the stack. If I did this they'd kill me.

“Maybe there'll be new kids to make friends with,” says Mom.

I shrug. I picture Amber and Topaz and feel sick. All those names they have for me, pygmy chimp being the worst. And here I am, no taller than when I left school in June. I am in desperate need of mare pee.

“When do I see the pediatrician again?” I say. My parents exchange a startled look. “I mean, what point is there in buying new clothes if I'm going to start taking Premarin and then I begin developing?”

“Oh I don't think it will happen that quickly, Honey,” says Mom.

Dad checks his watch. “Yikes. I'm going to miss my tee time.” He ruffles the top of my head as he bounds from the table. “I'll let you two girls figure this out.”

“Girls?” says Mom, but he's already down the hall, out of earshot. She sighs then smiles stiffly. “Oh well. At least this means we're not stuck with the close-outs and over-stocks from the Sears catalogue.”

I swallow some pancake. I need to build up my strength. I want to ride Brooklyn today, though apparently this will have to wait until after the shopping trip.

Mom pats my hand. “We'll have some fun. I know how important it is for teenagers to feel like they fit in, Honey.”

I grunt. As though I'd like to fit in with jerks like Amber and Topaz.

“Connections with peers are very important at this stage of your life,” says Mom.

I groan inwardly. In a way it's nice to have a change from the usual puberty lectures, but the teaching tone is the same.

“It's much like being in a herd,” says Mom.

My mom is being so lame but she's also trying hard. “Okay, Mom. I get it.”

But there's something else I understand suddenly. I've been thinking about Amber and Topaz as aliens or adversaries, but there is another way of looking at them. Along with me they are members of a herd. Granted, it's a different herd than the one I belong to with Kansas and Dr. Cleveland, but it's a herd nonetheless, with dynamics and ebbs and flows of power and influence.

Now I'm cooking.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I can see the sweat bead up on my mom's forehead as she cranks the ignition on the car. Getting to town to shop for clothes isn't important to me, and I'm not keen on the new plan to check in on Taylor on the way either. But Mom is going to drop me at the barn when this is all done, so for that reason I really need the car to start.

“You can do it, Mom,” I say, encouragingly, the way a good boss mare would.

“I hope I haven't flooded the bloody thing.”

“If you had electronic fuel ignition like Dad has in his SUV this wouldn't happen.”

I guess I shouldn't have said this because Mom slaps the steering wheel with her free hand and turns open-mouthed to say something that I anticipate will not be pleasant. But I resist the urge to shrink into the seat to hide from the blast; instead I take a deep breath and square my shoulders, the way Kansas tells me to steady myself when I ride. And then the engine catches.

Mom slips the car into gear and clears her throat. “When did you learn about electronic fuel ignitions, Pumpkin?” she asks sweetly.

“Kansas told me,” I say warily. I'm not sure about quoting Kansas on yet another topic, but Mom nods encouragingly so I continue. “Kansas wants a newer truck, hers is old and it doesn't always start easily either. She says it's because it's a Ford. She wants a new Tundra but can't afford one. She says the latest models have better towing capacity. They come in four wheel drive which she says we need in our climate if you have a long driveway like she has. Unless you drive a car. In which case all wheel drive would be sufficient.”

“Hmmm,” says Mom, obviously having lost interest. “Honey, I bought a get-well present for Taylor. It's on the back seat. I know she's redecorating and I found the sweetest little angel mobile.”

I'd forgotten the redecoration project, cut short by our biking accident.

“It's too bad she outgrew the unicorns though. I always kind of liked them,” says Mom. “You must have liked them too, Sweetie, being equines.”

“I dream about unicorns.” I don't know why I say this. I'd certainly never planned to confess something so stupid.

“No kidding,” says Mom. “I used to dream of unicorns too!”

Well that's a surprise. But kind of nice too.

Then she ruins it by going all academic on me. “Perhaps dream content is genetic too. I'll have to do a literature search.”

I slouch in the seat. She is so hopeless.

“When did you start having unicorn dreams, Honey?” She doesn't even wait for me to answer, not that I was going to. “I think I started in my adolescence. And they went on for years and years.” She stares off over the horizon and almost misses the turn to Auntie Sally's. “As a matter of fact, now I remember, I stopped having them when I was pregnant with you. Isn't that something?”

I grunt.

“So it has to be hormonal. This is so interesting,” says Mom.

I wish I'd never brought it up.

Fortunately we have arrived at Auntie Sally's. “We'll have to talk about this more later,” says Mom.

“Oh right,” I say. I try not to sound sarcastic.

As usual their dog Bunga has met us on the driveway. He's leaping all over the driver-side door while Auntie Sally yells at him from the front steps. The last time Bunga did this to my dad's car, Dad said the mutt was having a near-death experience and if he did it one more time he'd kill him with his bare hands. Auntie Sally promised to take him back for more obedience classes but I guess she hasn't done it yet. She's probably been too busy. My cousins are what my mom calls “a handful”. Especially Erika who is ten and gets whatever she wants, and Stephanie who is eighteen and gets everything she wants as well as things she doesn't want, like Chlamydia. In the middle is Taylor who now, thanks to me, is an invalid.

Auntie Sally ushers me to the patio out back where she says everyone is having a little picnic. My mom says she'll follow me out in a minute, which I don't believe.

Taylor looks like she's the only one who is happy to see me.

“Oh look, it's Evel Knievel,” says Stephanie. She's wearing denim short shorts and a Madonna-like corset thingy. I hate it when she dresses like this. She's even worse than Amber who mostly just wears super-tight things and has bra straps hanging out all over the place. Stephanie is much more into exposure. It's bad enough in cooler winter months, but in the summer I never know where to look. What makes it worse is that I am slightly curious about what could happen to me development-wise after I start hormone treatments. Not that I'd like to turn out like Stephanie, or if I did I would have to be more modest about it, because I wouldn't want people looking, or struggling not to look like I do. I force myself to keep my eyes off her chest. There's a big tattoo on her left shoulder. I can't quite make out what it is, but clearly there are fangs.

“Evil who?” says Erika. Erika is holding a small mirror in her left hand. With her right she is using a pen to draw what could possibly be a black widow spider on her left shoulder.

“He was a daredevil stunt rider. Like our cousin here,” says Stephanie. She sprawls on the lounge chair with one leg over the arm rest. “But he only ever maimed himself. He never endangered innocent passengers.”

I look over my shoulder for my mom. I could use some reinforcements. But all I hear is the coffee bean grinder, so I know I'll be on my own for a while. I take a deep breath and lift my collar bones.

Taylor comes to my rescue. “Oh Stephanie, grow up. It wasn't Sylvia's fault. It was my fault. I made her double me on the bike.”

“Hmmph,” says Stephanie.

Taylor's foot is resting on a plastic lawn chair. She's wearing a huge sock so her amputation is not visible.

“How's the angel redecorating going?” I ask her.

“Stephanie's going to help Mom put up my wallpaper before she goes back to university next week. It's going to be wonderful.”

“It's going to be ridiculous,” says Stephanie. “Taylor, you are such a Pollyanna.”

“What's a Pollyanna?” says Erika. In a way I'm glad she's here. Half the time I don't know what Stephanie's talking about either, but I sure don't want to admit it.

“It's someone who only looks at the positive side of things. As far as I'm concerned the only angels that are interesting are the fallen ones,” says Stephanie.

“What's a fallen angel?” says Erika.

“They are angels who've gone astray,” says Taylor. “They've made a mistake.”

This sounds curiously like what the unicorn told me about why he lost his horn.

“They've had sex with humans,” says Stephanie.

In slow motion I take a seat in an empty lawn chair. Oh no.

“You're kidding!” says Erika.

“They have sex and then their wings fall off,” says Stephanie.

1

We don't leave until almost lunch time. I'm in even more of a totally confused state than usual after a visit with my cousins. I don't have a headache exactly. It's more a feeling of pressure in the middle of my forehead. When I touch the spot with my fingers I swear I can feel a lump, and I swear the lump is bigger than it was yesterday.

The situation is not looking good. Here are the facts:

1. I am a hybrid.

2. I have lucid dreams about a fallen unicorn who has lost his horn.

3. Unicorns are not born with horns; they develop at adolescence.

4. I am entering adolescence and my forehead hurts.

5. My mom dreamt of unicorns until the time of my conception.

The conclusion is grave and obvious.

I have no alternative but to try to think about something else.

We've rolled down the car windows because it's so hot. If I hook an elbow up on the door a cool breeze blows into my hairless armpit.

I have to try harder not to think about adolescence.

I take a deep breath of road smells and then have to cough. At the traffic light all the cars stopped around us have their windows rolled up tight, and their passengers look a lot cooler than I feel, plus they're not breathing fumes so their lungs must be much more comfortable. I look at my mom again, see how damp tendrils of hair are stuck to the back of her neck, how her fingers grip the steering wheel, how her calf muscle tenses above her foot firmly planted on the brake pedal, how her eyes scan the traffic lights, preparing for the signal to go, no doubt praying that the car will respond and not die there in the middle of the road as has happened so many times before. I consider the sacrifice my mom is making for me. She'd probably prefer to be drinking wine with Auntie Sally. I feel guilty.

“Mom, why don't we go car shopping for you instead of clothes shopping for me? I can go shopping later with Taylor, when her foot has healed. She has good taste in clothes.”

“Oh, Cupcake, really…”

The light turns green. The car lurches and a new cloud of gasoline fumes wafts in through the windows. Someone honks behind us. The car lurches again, bounds forward, gains some momentum and then the engine dies. Mom frantically pumps the gas pedal to no effect, then flicks on the emergency flashers and steers the coasting car into the bike lane on the right side of the road. She rests her forehead on her hands gripped at the top of the wheel.

“Mom, it's a sign,” I say, surprising even myself. I don't believe in signs. Taylor is the one who believes in signs and the influence of the spirit world. Ugh.

Mom shakes her head. “Not now, Sylvie.”

A car pulls in ahead of us but does not stop. I watch as it turns in the next driveway and winds its way through a parking lot jammed with shiny vehicles and stops in a space in front of a double-door marked “Reception”. Perhaps not a sign, I think. Perhaps more an opportunity. I unbuckle my seat belt, slide forward and turn to face my mom. My shoulders are square and I lift my sternum. A stream of cars whizz by. In the rear window of the last one are Amber and Topaz, laughing, pointing and making monkey faces. But even this sight is not enough to throw me from my task. Boss mare, I tell myself.

“Yes, Mom. Now. You shouldn't have to just make do—it's not fair. You deserve air conditioning. You deserve a better car.”

“It's not about deserving, Cookie. You know this. It's about whether we can afford a new car.” She retrieves her purse from the back seat and scrabbles through it. “Oh no. I left the cell phone on the charger. We'll have to find a pay phone.”

“A pay phone? There are no pay phones around here, Mom.” I focus on being patient. I want my mom to figure this out herself if she can. I don't want to bully her into it, like Hambone would do. I will be subtle, like Electra.

Mom checks the rear view mirror. “Maybe someone will stop.”

“No one's going to stop, Mom. The road is too busy.”

“Well I have to call the Automobile Association somehow.” I see her look around and somehow fail to notice the obvious.

“Mom, we can get out here and walk to the nearest business. They'll let us phone. Or something.” I indicate over my shoulder. Finally Mom picks up the cue and stares across the verge at the glass and chrome building beckoning from the other side of the parking lot.

I'm ready with an innocent blank expression when her gaze slides back to me.

“The Toyota dealership,” says Mom.

I nod.

“How did you manage this?”

I shrug.

Mom slips her purse over her shoulder. “Well, we can ask to use their phone, but that certainly doesn't mean we have to buy anything.”

“Sure, Mom.”

A salesman holds open the door for us and we step into the air-conditioned show room. The windows are all darkly tinted. When the door closes behind us the space feels like a sanctuary from all the noise and stink of the outside world. Instead the air is full of the scent of new cars and coffee and the sound of pop music. Near the door, dark leather couches surround a coffee table strewn with shiny colourful brochures.

The salesman says his name is Ted. My mom explains that our car has broken down and we need to phone the Automobile Association. Ted suggests we take a seat and he'll bring a cell phone, and anything else we might need. A coffee perhaps? He is really nice.

“Have you got anything cold?” I ask.

“I'll see,” says Ted.

“Nothing with a lot of sugar,” says Mom. “Or caffeine.”

“Maybe a beer then?” says Ted, winking at me.

I smile but Mom glares at both of us.

“I'll see what I can find,” says Ted.

I flop into a seat beside my mom, and just about disappear into the couch. I'm feeling so much better. Things are going okay. I'm cooling off, my head feels fine and I'm in control of my thoughts. I clamber out of the depths of the couch and perch on the edge of the seat. I reach forward with one finger and slide the top brochure off the pile on the table and stuff it in my pocket. It's all about Tundra pickups. I'm taking it for Kansas. The next pamphlet shows a picture of an SUV just like Dr. Cleveland's. Under the photo, printed in bold letters is
Toyota Hybrids and Crossovers
. I groan. I can't get away, no matter what I do. And it's bad enough to be thinking about hybrids again but
crossovers
reminds me of the hermaphrodite barnacles I used to have as pets. For a while I thought I might be a hermaphrodite as well. In retrospect, those were the good old days. As difficult as it might have been to be a hermaphrodite, being a hybrid is much more complicated.