Stargirl (11 page)

26

Usually I saw her in the courtyard before school, but that day I didn’t. Usually I passed her between classes at least once or twice before lunch. Not that day. In fact, when I looked over to her table at lunch, there was Dori Dilson, as usual, but someone else was sitting with her. No Stargirl in sight.

Coming out of the lunchroom, I heard laughter behind me. And then a voice, Stargirl’s: “What do you have to do to get somebody’s attention around here?”

I turned, but it wasn’t her. The girl standing, grinning in front of me wore jeans and sandals, had burnt-red nails and lipstick, painted eyes, finger rings, toe rings, hoop earrings I could put my hand through, hair…

I gawked as students swarmed past. She made a clownish grin. She was beginning to look vaguely familiar. Tentatively I whispered, “Stargirl?”

She batted her chocolaty eyelashes. “Stargirl? What kind of name is that? My name is Susan.”

And just like that, Stargirl was gone, replaced by Susan. Susan Julia Caraway. The girl she might have been all along.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She cradled her books in her arms. The sunflower canvas bag was gone. The rat was gone. The ukulele was gone. She turned around slowly for my open-mouthed, dumbstruck inspection. Nothing goofy, nothing different could I see. She looked magnificently, wonderfully, gloriously ordinary. She looked just like a hundred other girls at Mica High. Stargirl had vanished into a sea of
them,
and I was thrilled. She slid a stick of chewing gum into her mouth and chewed away noisily. She winked at me. She reached out and tweaked my cheek the way my grandmother would and said, “What’s up, cutie?” I grabbed her, right there outside the lunchroom in the swarming mob. I didn’t care if others were watching. In fact, I hoped they were. I grabbed her and squeezed her. I had never been so happy and so proud in my life.

We sailed through time. We held hands in the hallways, on the stairs, in the courtyard. In the lunchroom I grabbed her and pulled her over to our table. I looked to invite Dori Dilson, too, but she was gone. I sat there grinning while Kevin and Susan gabbed and gossiped over their sandwiches. They joked about her disastrous appearance on
Hot Seat
. Susan suggested that I should go on
Hot Seat
one of these days, and Kevin said no, he’s too shy, and I said not anymore, and we all laughed.

And it was true. I didn’t walk, I strutted. I was Susan Caraway’s boyfriend. I. Me. Really?
That
Susan Caraway? The one with the tiny barrettes and toe rings? Yep, that’s the one, my girlfriend. Call me Mr. Susan.

I started saying “we” instead of “I,” as in “We’ll meet you there” or “We like fajitas.”

Whenever I could, I said her name out loud, like blowing bubbles. The rest of the time I said it to myself.

Susan…Susan…

We did our homework together. We hung out with Kevin. Instead of following strangers around, we went to the movies and plunged our hands together into the six-dollar Super Tub of popcorn. Instead of shopping for African violets, we shopped for Cinnabons and licked icing from each other’s fingers.

We went into Pisa Pizza. We walked past the bulletin board inside the door. We shared a pizza: half pepperoni, half anchovies.

“Anchovies, ugh,” I said.

“What’s wrong with anchovies?” she said.

“How can you eat them? Nobody eats anchovies.”

I was sort of kidding, but her face was serious. “Nobody?”

“Nobody I know.”

She picked the anchovies from her slices and dumped them into her water glass.

I tried to stop her. “Hey—”

She pushed my hand away. She dropped the last anchovy into the glass. “I don’t want to be like nobody.”

On the way out, we ignored the bulletin board.

She was mad for shopping. It was as if she had just discovered clothes. She bought shirts and pants and shorts and costume jewelry and makeup. I began to notice that the items of clothing had one thing in common: they all had the designer’s name plastered prominently on them. She seemed to buy not for color or style but for designer label size.

She constantly quizzed me about what other kids would do, would buy, would say, would think. She invented a fictitious person whom she called Evelyn Everybody. “Would Evelyn like this?” “Would Evelyn do that?”

Sometimes she misfired, as with laughing. For several days she was on a laughing jag. She didn’t just laugh, she boomed. Heads turned in the lunchroom. I was trying to work up the nerve to say something when she looked at Kevin and me and said, “Would Evelyn laugh this much?” Kevin stared at his sandwich. I sheepishly shook my head. The laughing stopped, and from that moment on she did a perfect imitation of a sullen, pout-lipped teenager.

In every way she seemed to be a typical, ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill teenager.

And it wasn’t working.

At first I neither noticed nor much cared that the shunning continued. I was too busy being happy that she was, as I saw it, now one of us. My only regret was that we could not play the basketball season over again. In my mind’s eye, I pictured her aiming her incredible zeal and energy exclusively at the Electrons. We could have won games on her cheering alone.

It was she who said it first: “They still don’t like me.” We were standing outside the TV studio after school. As usual, people were passing by as if we weren’t there. Her lip quivered. “What am I doing wrong?” Tears made her eyes even larger.

I squeezed her hand. I told her to give it some time. I pointed out that the state basketball finals would take place in Phoenix that Saturday, and that would end the season and clear the way for her cheerleading crimes to be forgotten.

Her mascara was muddy. I had seen her sad many times before, but always for someone else. This was different. This was for herself, and I was powerless to help. I could not find it in me to cheer up the cheerleader.

That night we did homework together at her house. I ducked into her room to check out her happy wagon. There were only two stones in it.

When I came to school next day, there was something different about the buzz in the courtyard. The arriving students were milling about, some roaming at random, some in clusters, but as I approached, there seemed to be a distinct clearing around the palmetto. I wandered in that direction, and through the crowd I could see that someone—Susan—was seated on the bench. She sat upright and smiling. She was holding a foot-long stick shaped like a claw on one end. Around her neck, dangling on a string, was a sign that read: TALK TO ME AND I’LL SCRATCH YOUR BACK. She was getting no takers. No one was within twenty feet of her.

Quickly I turned away. I walked back through the crowd. I pretended I was looking for someone. I pretended I hadn’t seen. And prayed for the bell to ring.

When I saw her later that morning, the sign was gone. She said nothing about it. Neither did I.

Next morning she came running at me in the courtyard. Her eyes were bright for the first time in days. She grabbed me with both hands and shook me. “It’s going to be okay! It’s going to end! I had a vision!”

She told me about it. She had gone to her enchanted place after dinner the day before, and that’s where the vision had come to her. She had seen herself returning in triumph from the Arizona state oratorical contest. She had won first prize. Best in the state. When she returned, she got a hero’s welcome. The whole school greeted her in the parking lot, just like in the assembly film. There were streamers and confetti and tooting kazoos and horns blaring, and the mayor and city council were on hand, and they had a parade right then and there, and she rode high on the back seat of a convertible and held her winner’s silver plate up for all to see, and the happy faces of her classmates flashed in the sparkling trophy. She told me this, and she threw up her arms and shouted, “I’m going to be popular!”

The state contest was a week away. Every day she practiced her speech. One day she called over little Peter Sinkowitz and his playmates and presented the speech to us from her front steps. We applauded and whistled. She bowed grandly, and I, too, began to see her vision. I saw the streamers flying and I heard the crowd cheering, and I believed.

27

“…and our best wishes go with you, Susan Caraway.”

The PA announcement echoed through the school lobby, and we were off to Phoenix. The driver was Mr. McShane, Mica High’s faculty representative to the state contest. Susan and I sat in the back. Susan’s parents were driving their own car and would meet us in Phoenix.

As we pulled out of the parking lot, she wagged a finger in my face. “Don’t get a big head, mister. I was allowed to invite two friends along. You weren’t the only one I asked.”

“So who was the other?” I said.

“Dori.”

“Well, then,” I said, “I think I’ll go for the big head. Dori isn’t another guy.”

She grinned. “No, she’s not one of those.” Suddenly she unbuckled her seat belt—we each had a back window. “Mr. McShane,” she announced, “I’m moving over so I can sit close to Leo. He’s so cute, I can’t help myself.”

In the rearview mirror, the teacher’s eyes crinkled. “Whatever you like, Susan. It’s your day.”

She slid over and fastened herself into the middle belt. She jabbed me. “Hear that? It’s my day. I get whatever I want.”

“So,” I said, “what happened when you asked Dori Dilson?”

“She said no. She’s mad at me.”

“I could tell.”

“Ever since I became Susan. She thinks I betrayed myself. She just doesn’t understand how important it is to be popular.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I was feeling a little uneasy. Fortunately, wondering what to say wasn’t much of a problem for me during that two-hour ride, because Susan chattered away like the old Stargirl the whole time.

“But I know Dori,” she said, “and I’ll tell you one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“She’ll be in the front of the mob cheering for me when we get back tomorrow.”

I later found out that after we left the school, the principal had spoken again on the PA. He announced our expected time of return on Saturday and suggested that everyone be on hand to meet us, win or lose.

Losing, as it turned out, never occurred to the contestant herself.

“Would you do a favor for me?” she said.

I told her sure.

“That big silver plate that goes to the winner? I’m such a klutz with dishes at home. Would you hold it for me when the crowd rushes us? I’m afraid I’ll drop it.”

I stared at her. “What crowd? What rush?”

“In the school parking lot. When we get back tomorrow. There’s always a crowd waiting for the returning hero. Remember the film at school? My vision?” She cocked her head and peered into my eyes. She rapped my forehead with her knuckle. “Hello in there. Anybody home?”

“Oh,” I said. “
That
crowd.”

She nodded. “Exactly. Of course, we’ll be safe as long as we’re in the car. But once we get out, who knows what will happen. Crowds can get pretty wild. Right, Mr. McShane?”

The teacher nodded. “So I hear.”

She spoke to me as if instructing a first-grader. “Leo, this has never happened in Mica before, having a winner of the Arizona state oratorical contest. One of their very own. When they hear about it, they’re going to go bananas. And when they get a gander at me and that trophy—” She rolled her eyes and whistled. “I just hope they don’t get out of hand.”

“The police will keep them in line,” I said. “Maybe they’ll call out the National Guard.”

She stared wide-eyed. “You think?” She didn’t realize I was kidding. “Well,” she said, “I’m really not afraid for myself. I won’t mind a little jostling. Do you think they’ll jostle, Mr. McShane?”

In the mirror his eyes shifted to us. “Never can tell.”

“And if they want to carry me around on their shoulders, that’s okay, too. But they better not”—she poked me with her finger—“better
not
mess with my trophy. That’s why
you
”—another poke—“are going to hold it. Tight.”

I wished Mr. McShane would say something. “Susan,” I said, “did you ever hear of counting your chickens?”

“Before they hatch, you mean?”

“Exactly.”

“I hear you’re not supposed to.”

“Exactly.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “Never made much sense to me. I mean, if you
know
they’re going to hatch, why not count them?”

“Because you can’t know,” I said. “There’re no guarantees. I hate to break this to you, but you’re not the only person in the contest. Somebody else
could
win. You
could
lose. It’s possible.”

She thought about that for a moment, then shook her head. “Nope. Not possible. So…” She threw up her arms and smiled hugely. “Why wait to feel great? Celebrate now, that’s my motto.” She nuzzled into me. “What’s yours, big boy?”

“Don’t count your chickens,” I said.

She shuddered mockingly. “Ouuu. You’re such a poop, Leo. What’s your motto, Mr. McShane?”

“Drive carefully,” he said, “you may have a winner in the car.”

That set her off howling.

“Mr. McShane,” I said, “you’re not helping.”

“Sorry,” he lied.

I just looked at her. “You’re going to be in a state contest,” I said. “Aren’t you just a little bit nervous?”

The smile vanished. “Yes, I am. I’m a lot nervous. I just hope things don’t get out of hand when we get back to the school. I’ve never been adored by mobs of people before. I’m not sure how I’m going to react. I hope I don’t get a big head. Do you think I’m the big-head type, Mr. McShane?”

I raised my hand. “Can I answer that?”

“I think your head is just fine,” said the teacher.

She jabbed me with her elbow. “Hear that, Mr. Know-it-all?” She gave me her smug face, which promptly disappeared as she thrust up her arms and yelped, “They’re going to love me!”

Mr. McShane wagged his head and chuckled. Silently I gave up.

She pointed out the window. “Look, even the desert is celebrating.”

It seemed to be true. The normally dull cacti and scrub were splashed with April colors, as if a great painter had passed over the landscape with a brush, dabbing yellow here, red there.

Susan strained against her seat belt. “Mr. McShane, can we stop here, just for a minute? Please?” When the teacher hesitated, she added, “You said it’s my day. I get whatever I want.”

The car coasted to a stop along the gravelly roadside. In a moment, she was out the door and bounding across the desert. She skipped and whirled and cartwheeled among the prickly natives. She bowed to a yucca, waltzed with a saguaro. She plucked a red blossom from a barrel cactus and fixed it in her hair. She practiced her smile and her nod and her wave—one-hand, two-hand—to the adoring mob at her hero’s welcome. She snapped a needle from a cactus and with the slapstick pantomime of a circus clown pretended to pick her teeth with it.

Mr. McShane and I were leaning on the car, laughing, when suddenly she stopped, cocked her head, and stared off in another direction. She stayed like that, stone still, for a good two minutes, then abruptly turned and came back to the car.

Her face was thoughtful. “Mr. McShane,” she said as the teacher drove off, “do you know any extinct birds?”

“Passenger pigeon,” he said. “That’s probably the best known. They say there used to be so many of them they would darken the sky when they flew over. And the moa.”

“Moa?”

“Huge bird.”

“Like a condor?” I said.

He chuckled. “A condor wouldn’t come up to its knee. Make an ostrich look small. Twelve, thirteen feet tall. Maybe the biggest bird ever. Couldn’t fly. Lived in New Zealand. Died out hundreds of years ago. Killed off by people.”

“Half their size,” said Susan.

Mr. McShane nodded. “Mm. I wrote a report about moas in grade school. I thought they were the neatest thing.”

Susan’s eyes were glistening. “Did moas have a voice?”

The teacher thought about it. “I don’t know. I don’t know if anybody knows.”

Susan looked out the window at the passing desert. “I heard a mockingbird back there. And it made me think of something Archie said.”

“Mr. Brubaker?” said Mr. McShane.

“Yes. He said he believes mockingbirds may do more than imitate other birds. I mean, other
living
birds. He thinks they may also imitate the sounds of birds that are no longer around. He thinks the sounds of extinct birds are passed down the years from mockingbird to mockingbird.”

“Interesting thought,” said Mr. McShane.

“He says when a mockingbird sings, for all we know it’s pitching fossils into the air. He says who knows what songs of ancient creatures we may be hearing out there.”

The words of Archie Brubaker settled over the silence in the car. As if reading my thoughts, Mr. McShane turned off the air conditioner and powered down the windows. Hair blew in a faint, smoky scent of mesquite.

After a while I felt the touch of Susan’s hand. Her fingers wove through mine.

“Mr. McShane,” she cooed, “we’re holding hands in the back seat.”

“Uh-oh,” he said, “hormonal teenagers.”

“Don’t you think he’s cute, Mr. McShane?”

“I never really thought about it,” said the teacher.

“Well, look,” she said. She grabbed my face in her hand and pulled it forward. The teacher’s eyes considered me briefly in the rearview mirror.

“You’re right. He’s adorable.”

Susan released my blushing face. “Told you. Don’t you just love him?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

A minute later: “Mr. McSha-ane…” Now I felt something in my ear. “I’m putting my finger in his ear…”

This sort of silliness went on until we rounded a mesa and saw the brown mist on the horizon that announced our approach to the city of Phoenix.