Exposed (3 page)

“More like … Kodiak. Yeah. Definitely.” I try to give him a real smile. “I think she’s growing a big hump between her shoulders and everything. Maybe she’ll move to Canada and live with the rest of her kind?”

His eyebrows arch. “One day she’ll make it to panda. You’ll see.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Right.” Now the smile is real. I glance at the ceiling. “Have you been hallucinating pigs with wings?”

He laughs, and I can’t help warning him. Just can’t. “I made dinner for Lauren, but Mom—I think Mom wants to … uh, talk. You know. About the pancakes.”

Dad’s cheeks turn red and he meets my gaze. He looks so sad my insides twist and I want to give him another kiss, but I know it won’t help.

“Okay.” He sighs. His expression goes a little vacant. “Thanks for taking care of Lauren.”

When I hear the faint click of my parents’ bedroom door opening from down the hall, I zip to the plate of sandwiches, grab it, and shoot upstairs.

* * *

Almost an hour later, Lauren and I are in my room and through with our sandwiches, and I’m relieved that I haven’t heard any loud voices downstairs.

I snap a picture of my little sister with my laptop’s built-in camera to make her happy, but it doesn’t.

“Cut it out.” Lauren stops beside the desk and covers her face with her hands. No bruises or blood blisters on
those
fingers. Lauren’s not at that level of twirling yet. She’s still all kid nail polish (black, because she’s so uptight and weird no matter how hard I try to help) and bubblegum-machine rings (silver, shaped like skulls and stuff).

“One day you’ll have to give up on nail polish and jewelry.” I almost snap another picture but don’t because I don’t want to upset her. She takes really good pictures
because she’s so skinny, just like my mom. I’m glad she didn’t get Dad’s fat gene like I did. “The sport of twirling really wrecks fingernails.”

Lauren jerks her face out of her hands and glares at me. “Baton’s not a
sport
, stupid.”

“Twirling,” I say in my chill-Lauren-out voice. “That’s what you’re supposed to call it. Twirling. Not baton. And if twirling’s not a sport, what would you call it?”

“It’s … It’s …” Lauren sighs with way too much drama. She actually has on black eyeshadow. “It’s what a princess would do.”

I want to laugh so bad, but I know that’ll make her go off, so I suck in a breath and hold it. Until I feel my brain expanding. When I can handle speaking without giggling, I say, “A princess on steroids, maybe.”

Zombie-princess-with-no-steroids shoots me a nasty look. “I’m telling Mom you talked about steroids. Steroids are drugs, right?”

“You know that’s not how I meant it.” I wish she weren’t so touchy.

She heads over to my closet and yanks open the white folding doors. Her hands fly to her hips like always, and she mutters something about finding something fit for a vampire princess.

“Try the blue one.” I point to one of my older school uniforms. “It’ll look good with your eyes.”

Her black tap shoes drum against the wood floor while she tries to make up her mind.

Cute.

At least nobody’s yelling from downstairs and Lauren’s calm for now. Hunting through my stuff’s keeping her sort of happy. I always feel like I’m winning when she’s not fake-crying or worrying about something or having a sort-of-real, sort-of-drama panic attack because she’s not absolutely perfect at everything she does. I’m good at twirling and decent at school, but my little sister’s “gifted.” I’m kind of glad I’m not, because being gifted is way hard on Lauren—or at least it seems like it is.

Lauren finally selects the leotard I suggested, the one from four years ago. It’s blue for the Blue Dolphins—my middle school. I’ve been twirling forever.

Lauren jumps in my closet and slams the door, and I know it’s so nobody can see her through either bedroom window. She can’t stand the windows in my room because they go from the floor to the ceiling, and I’ve got shutters instead of curtains. She thinks people can see through shutters, even though they’re closed. She got wild last week about curtains, too, but Mom settled that problem by adding blackout shades in Lauren’s room.

My room looks like a page out of
Designer House
. Antique white dressers and chests that match my sleigh bed, matching lamps and rockers, and the best red print sheets and spread to coordinate with my area rug. Lauren’s room? Think medieval dungeon with black
lights and neon posters and the windows virtually taped shut.

Yes, my little sister’s in therapy, but I don’t think it’s doing much good.

“It’s a phase,” Mom insisted when she hung the shades and I griped about the cave radiating darkness since Lauren painted it black two months earlier. “You were scared of stuff when you were little.”

I
was five.
Lauren
is eight.

Lauren pops out of the closet wearing the long-sleeved blue uniform with the glittering dolphin on the front. My finger’s still on the keyboard like I’m going to snap another picture, and she screams and hides her face.

Devin picks that second to pop through my door, wave a shut-up hand at Lauren, and croon, “The mooahns ah meek-ah thahn they wehrrrre, the nuts ah gettin’ broo-oowaahn, the berry’s cheek is plump-ah, and the roo-oose is out of tahw-ahn.”

Translation:
The morns are meeker than they were, the nuts are getting brown, the berry’s cheek is plumper, and the rose is out of town
.

That’s Emily Dickinson, the poet. My idol. Uh, minus Devin’s crappy fake Massachusetts accent.

I punch up my screen saver, which announces that my laptop is “Chan’s Baby” in fluffy purple letters, and spin the machine around to show Devin the new script I’m using.

“Ooooooh,” Devin says, admiring the size and color. “Prodigious!”

“Ooooooohhh,” Lauren echoes. “Progy-dose.” Her black-lined eyes go all fake-wide.

Devin ignores her.

“Think you can head to your own room now?” I smile at Lauren to encourage her. “You can take two leotards with you.”

Devin brushes her fingers against the chrome edge of the computer’s screen. “Love the purple letters. Too bad the Bear won’t let the majorette section get a little class.” She smooths her sleek black hair. “I would
shine
with a purple streak right down the side.”

“No vay!” I flutter my hands in front of my face like a wounded insect. “You are like the but-ter-flies. You are
fantasies
of grrrrace and co-vordination!”

Devin shakes her finger at Lauren as Lauren stomps out of the room with two black sequined leotards draped over her arm.

“You must
look
the part,” we chorus. “You must
plaaay
the part.”

Lauren slams the door behind her, bringing an instant “Knock it off!” from Mom downstairs.

The sound of Mom’s voice jams a silence into my room.

Devin’s eyes get wide. She sits down on my bed, where she can stare at me more effectively. If her look packed any more heat, my face might flame and crack.

For a few seconds, I wonder what she’s so intense about, and then I remember.

Internet hunk search.

My insides go all squishy and I glance at the bedroom door. With the late practice and all the Dad-stuff tonight, I almost forgot about my online plans.

My fun.

I
need
the fun.

“Let’s do this,” Devin says, but loud tap dancing breaks out in the hallway.

We both flinch.

“You need to get a life, little girl,” Devin hollers through the door at Lauren. “Or at least some real batons.”

“Devin,” I say to hush her up.

“I
have
real batons,” Lauren yells back, starting to sound panicky and upset—pretty much fake, from what I can tell. “And this year, I’m getting my own costume.”

Devin leans forward on the bed and shouts, “ Leotard!”

“Devin.” I hold up both hands. “Let her go, okay?”

She shakes her head and frowns as she sits back. “You know all that hysterics crap is total drama. You spoil that little emo, Chan. Seriously.”

“Um … emo? Is that good or bad?”

Devin snorts. “It ain’t wonderful. Emo’s like—like all fake-goth and pretend-intense and dark and—Lauren. And you spoil her.”

“Spoiling is necessary to keep the peace.” I inch forward in the rolling chair, holding the computer. “Besides, I got some really cute pictures of her. She looks just like us back when—”

“You’re a butthead!” Lauren yells at Devin, now sounding lots more pissed than upset.

“I said knock it off!” Mom screeches from downstairs. “Lauren, thirty minutes until bedtime!”

Lauren answers with huffy, smacking steps to her room.

“Back to the computer.” Devin points at my bouncing, fluffy screensaver. “I think you should start on BlahFest, looking at some profiles. At least it’s kind of moderated.”

I open the BlahFest home page I’ve been building since school started. Lots of sparkling letters flash my name, alternating with a baton, my favorite links, a picture of our new uniform, and a picture of this year’s majorette section. As soon as it loads, I log into BlahFest’s GoTeen.SafeChat, the only online community our folks let us use (that they know about), because it’s monitored (supposedly) and they don’t let the perverts in (yeah, right). It’s supposed to be students only. You don’t have to list much info to build a profile, and there’s a hookup section where people can find “e-pals.”

I’m already listed there, profile only, no e-mail address. Have been for about a week. I highlight my profile, but I don’t have any hits or messages.

“It’s
not
a dating site,” I say as Devin’s glare gets worse. “Just ‘e-pals.’ That’s all.”

“AmherstViolet?” Devin reads aloud, along with the number the site generated to go with it, since the basic name was taken. “Three-three-seven. Since when are you AmherstViolet? I thought you were—”

Without looking up, I interrupt with, “Amherst is for where Emily lived and violet’s my favorite shade of purple next to amethyst, and I couldn’t think of anything to go with amethyst. I changed to this one because Ellis found out my last one and I got sick of her IM-ing me to tell me I should die or get tuberculosis and move to the desert.”

Devin’s mouth twitches.

“I mean, I kept blocking her, but she just kept using new profile names.”

Devin doesn’t argue with me, but I knew she wouldn’t, not if I brought up Ellis and her cyber-bullying. Ellis is such a cretin. Like I would
ever
want Adam-P back? What planet did she fall off?

Devin’s expression turns to a mixture of concern and admiration. “And you got this new identity past your parents?”

“They don’t know about it.” I tap the PROFILE button and enter my e-mail address.

“Are you crazy?” Devin tries to grab the computer, but I keep it in my lap and roll the chair back. “Chan. Take that e-mail off right now.”

“How am I ever going to get to talk to somebody if I don’t give them a real e-mail address?” I make myself hold Devin’s gaze even though she’s really skewering me with those dark eyes, and I’m sure she’s winding up with about two hundred oh-no-you-shouldn’ts. “Come on. Who wants to leave a message on the board for everybody to see?”

She blows air out of her mouth but keeps quiet as I check the screen.

The profile won’t let me enter the e-mail address without more information, so I quote my absolute total favorite Emily poem as I type
I’mnobodywhoareyou?
into the blank for
Gender.
That’s PIR—Parental Internet Rule—1, never put any identifying information on the Net without parental approval. That one, at least, I follow, so I make up a postal code, then type
280 Main Street
for my country—Emily Dickinson’s house number in Amherst, Massachusetts. I think her house is a museum now, but I’m not sure.

I show Devin all of that. “Safe enough?”

She grunts, but doesn’t argue.

I press SAVE on that stuff, and the BlahFest pulls up an interest-match section.

“Your folks will just catch you and make you turn it private.” Devin sounds hopeful that this will actually happen, which makes me frown at her.

“I turned off cookies, downloaded some scrubber programs, and I always erase my history every day—so
they have to find it first. And I’ll play stupid and say it was a mistake. Besides, with this laptop, they can’t watch me all the time, right?”

Devin doesn’t respond, but her disapproval is obvious.

PIR 2—no public profiles—is the
biggest
pain in my butt. No public information, period, without parental approval. Which sucks, because when I’m using my main profile, the one everybody knows, I have a hard time adding new friends to my hotlist, even when I see a really hunky guy’s picture.

I finish filling in
twirling
and
poetry
under the
Interests
section as Devin bites at her thumbnail, then says, “My dad got all up in my e-mail last night, and read my chat logs, too. I mean, I turn seventeen in less than fourteen months, and he’s still that deep in my business?”

PIR 3—the last and biggest of all, and Devin’s folks follow it, too. Everything we do on the Internet gets supervised or reviewed—if our parents know about it.

“I want a Berry3000.” Devin worries her nail again as she stares at my computer screen. “Handheld, wireless, and totally private.”

“And the monthly plan costs a fortune,” I add, which makes her sigh. “If you’re annoyed with your dad and planning on a Berry3000, why are you so worried about me on dating sites, or putting my e-mail here?”

“Private e-mail with people you
know
is a lot different than what you’re doing,” Devin points out.

I keep my eyes on the screen and add a webcam icon to my profile, then open my camera and set it to stream at high resolution. I save my new BlahFest e-pal profile, then click PUBLIC. “Three, two, one. We’re live!”

Devin takes another sharp breath.

I know she doesn’t usually break rules like this, but if I’m going to meet cool guys, I know I’ve got to attach something interesting to my e-mail address and profile.

For a few seconds Devin sits on the edge of my bed, breathing hard, enjoying the thrill of being live on the Internet—against all our parents’ rules and wishes.