Open Court (9 page)

“Come on, let's finish eating in my room,” she said.

Her bedroom furniture looked like it was purchased from random garage sales—a green desk, a pine headboard, a white chest of drawers. I sat at her desk, careful not to disturb her piles of math textbooks and test papers.

Her eyes, deadened at the sight of them, seemingly mortified by the chunk of her life she devoted to them. “Geometry,” Polly said flatly. “I'll move them.” In one wide swoop of her hand, she flung the books to the floor: pages crumpled, pages tore.

“The bindings will break,” I said, picking up a book.

“Leave it,” Polly said.

“Yeah, but the bindings—”

“I don't care.”

Polly gathered a red feather boa from her closet and slung it around her neck, transforming herself into a chorus line dancer. She applied a heavy coating of orange lip gloss, smacking her lips together to blend it. Now she was a gangster's girlfriend from the Roaring Twenties
and
a chorus line dancer. “Want to help me bury something?” she said.

“It's not a body, is it?” I asked.

She squealed. “No, don't be silly. Come along,” she
urged. She grabbed a small cookie tin from her floor and led us out.

In her backyard, while Sugar sniffed around the lawn, Polly sat in the grass near a dead aspen tree and the fence, digging up the dry earth with a kitchen spoon. Her red boa flowed onto the grass.

“So, what's in the can?” I asked.

“Open it and see,” she said.

“It's not a dead hamster or something, is it?” I asked. I'd once given a deceased pet hamster a shoe-box funeral in my backyard. But I was eight then.

Polly flicked out small spoonfuls of dirt, deepening the hole. Pausing, she flipped her boa out of her way, keeping its feathers from the dusty earth. Something about her face caught me—
the girl did not look human.
I pulled back like I'd touched fire.

Polly looked up suddenly. Her orange lips popped off her face. “It's not a hamster,” she said. “Open it and look.”

The lid came off with a
ting
sound. Inside was a balled-up red ribbon. Polly grabbed it from me and shook it so it unfolded. It read
SECOND PLACE.

“I won second place at the math competition today. Out of fifty kids. We compete every so often, to shake things up,” she said, rolling her eyes. She stuffed the silky ribbon back in the cookie tin and shut the lid.
Looking at me, she dropped it to its scary resting place. “Bye-bye,” she said to it, waving, laughing.

She scooped dirt over it with her bare hands. Giggling. She was a kite, flying free.

Discovering Polly this summer couldn't have been a fluke. Janie had sent Polly here, somehow, to comfort me and tell me I'd be all right. Polly wasn't human— Polly was my
angel
I mentally replaced that boa with a set of celestial wings. Yes, my angel. I didn't have to worry myself over Janie, at least not right here with Polly in the yard. Polly had risen above her talent for math. Floated right above it, with her wings. She hated it, but it hadn't broken her. And maybe, just maybe, Janie wasn't broken, either. I let myself think this. I needed to think Janie was OK.

At one o'clock in the morning Polly decided she was hungry. We creaked into the kitchen. Words echoed from the dimly lit living room.

“Polly, are you guys still up?” called Maren. “Bring in the rest of that pizza, will you?”

“And water,” Pete said. “Please.”

Polly grabbed bottled water. I carried the pizza.

Pete's head was propped awkwardly against a sofa pillow. Maren's blouse was on the floor, her bra on the
coffee table. I sort of stood there at a loss. Surely she knew she was naked, didn't she? How could she not?

Maren took the pizza. “Did Polly tell you about her ribbon?”

I assumed only hookers or drug dealers were corrupt enough to be naked in front of people and not care. Apparently I was wrong. I had the strong urge to laugh. To bust up laughing. I clenched my jaw tight. Surely this was a joke, right? No one was laughing. No wonder Pete thought she was interesting. Interesting, naked—same difference.

“Yeah, she did,” I said, remembering the ribbon's untimely death in the Cassinis’ backyard. “That's great,” I added, pretending I wasn't surrounded by a bunch of freaks.

“Next time she's going to get a blue ribbon, aren't you, Polly?”

“Gonna try,” Polly said.

“Don't leave it up to fate, Polly. If you'd studied a little longer, you would've easily won first place.”

Polly shrugged.

“You're smarter than any of those kids,” her mother lectured, voice rising. “Besides, this camp is expensive. You need to show a little more initiative.”

This naked woman was yelling at angelic Polly right
in front of me. No one was laughing. My jaw was clamped so tight I was forgetting to breathe. My mom wouldn't have mentioned a stupid ribbon; my mom didn't even know how to keep score in tennis. My mom wore clothes.

Polly changed the subject. “Where'd you guys go?”

Great, more conversation.

Maren spat out the details of the James Bond flick they'd seen. “The line was clear out to the parking lot, and we had to wait an hour for tickets …”

Meanwhile, Pete was falling asleep sitting up. Eyes closed, his head nodded. He'd catch himself only to dip down again. Finally, he shook off the sleep like a wet dog. Disgusted, he grabbed Maren's shirt from the floor and tossed it at her as she continued to talk about 007.

“It itches,” she said, like he was stupid.

“There are other people here,” he said, meaning me.

“So?” She flipped the blouse back to the floor.

“I'll get you a T-shirt.”

“What are you, a Boy Scout all of a sudden?”

Their eyes locked. Pete looked away, preventing the impending fight.

“Anyway, the end of the movie was great because—”

Pete gripped Maren's shoulder. Her skin turned light pink from the pressure. He could have crushed her
bones had he wanted to: he was that strong. I kind of wished he'd slug her or something. I already disliked her and I barely knew her. Pete looked at me apologetically.

“It's time for you girls to get some sleep, isn't it?”

We retreated, without snacks. I examined Polly's chameleon face for some kind of an explanation, like maybe she was adopted or something and not really human but an angel here to comfort me. Her face revealed nothing.

I snuggled into my sleeping bag, suddenly tired.

“Hall?” Polly whispered in the pitch-blackness.

“Huh?”

“Good night.”

I lay awake for a while. My sleeping bag was too hot and I couldn't get comfortable. In the dark I somehow knew that Polly burying her ribbon and me slicing up my tennis academy catalogs hadn't really accomplished anything. I knew that, even if Polly didn't.

“
T
urn the sound down! I'm on the phone.”

Brad played air guitar to the radio while my brothers’ rude friends propped their feet on my mom's coffee table.

My mom refers to my brothers’ friends as riffraff and hooligans, but Michael smiles and says, “But, Mom, they're harmless. Practically choirboys, even.”

The Choirboys burped loudly while verbalizing their desire for some girl named Stacey. “The girl is hot. She is hotter than hot,” Michael said.

Choirboy 1 said, “I'm not saying she's
not fine.
I'm saying what makes you think she'll date you?”

“Dream on,” Choirboy 2 said. “She's too hot for you.”

“No, she's too hot for
you,”
Michael said.

“You're afraid to talk to her! She doesn't date mutes,” Choirboy 2 said, letting out a belch that could have made it into
The Guinness Book of World Records.

“I've talked to her plenty,” Michael boasted.

“Yeah,” said Choirboy 1. “You said, ‘Excuse me.’ Once. That's not a conversation.”

“Turn it down! I'm telling Mom!” I screamed, my voice barely audible above the music.

Brad cut the sound and mimicked me. “I'm telling Mom … I'm telling Mom …”

The Choirboys laughed.

“Are you OK?” Eve said on the phone. “What's going on?”

“Nothing.” Explaining my brothers was pointless. She lived in a girlie home where people said things like “Please” and “Thank you.”

“Everyone's here. Where are you?”

“On my way.”

Ms. Jensen met me at the door with her purse over her shoulder and keys in her hand. “Hello, Hall. The girls are on the back porch. I'll be home later to give everyone a ride home. You girls behave while I'm gone,” she said. She obviously wasn't aware that we spent the majority of our waking hours inside her home.

“Yes,” I assured her, “we will.”

Melissa was crouched over, painting her toenails. Eve was supine, with a dusty pillow under her head. Only Polly bothered to greet me as I stepped onto the cool porch. She scooted over, making room for me on her lawn chair.

“Hey,” she said, pushing her bangs out of her eyes, as she often did. I think she liked them long so she could fluff them up and push them out of her way. The repetitive act seemed to comfort the margins of her secretive soul. I simply could not figure the girl out.

“Anybody up for going to 7-Eleven?” Eve asked.

“I am,” I said.

“Sure,” Polly said.

Melissa looked a little worried. “It's a long way.”

“Live a little, Melissa,” Eve said. And that was that. We rose simultaneously.

Eve carted her new water bottle with her, handing it to Melissa as we spilled out onto the asphalt. Sidewalks were for dog walkers; we commanded the street, taking up half of it, walking in a line. Dusk had settled in. The air smelled sweet, clean.

Melissa clamped her teeth around the water bottle and tipped it.

“Don't laugh,” I said, hoping to make her laugh.

Her lips pursed. She almost swallowed, but then she
couldn't. She doubled over, water flowing out of her mouth like a hydrant. Most of it landed on the front of Eve's cotton shorts, leaving a big mark. Eve looked at us, then at her shorts.

“Ew, gross!” Polly wailed.

“You know I didn't mean it, Eve,” Melissa said.

Polly and I exchanged a pitying look. Then we burst out laughing.

Appalled by her bad luck, Eve danced around the pavement. “I'm gonna pee …
I'm gonna pee.”

“Looks like you just did!” I said.

I loved these people.

From a distance, the 7-Eleven looked like a bug motel. Customers were sucked into the lit door and never seemed to come back out. I hate going to Sev with friends. The clerks assume we're there to steal. Even when we're paying for a Slurpee they act like we've shoved candy bars down our pants, planning to sell them for profit.

Our mission complete, we stepped back onto the asphalt, chewing nougat and drinking cold Big Gulps. I should've been eating something healthy that Trent would approve of. An apple or a banana. But I didn't feel like it.

I pointed to the darkening skies. “It's going to rain something fierce.”

“Let's take the shortcut through the field,” Eve suggested. “To the bluffs. They'll take us to Naples—from there it's five minutes.”

“We better,” Melissa said. “I don't want to get struck by lightning.”

“Why don't we walk back up Maizeland Road the way we came?” asked Polly. “Where the streetlights are.”

“Afraid of the boogeyman?” Eve taunted.

“No, booger.”

“We don't have time to take Maizeland,” I said. Eve was wrong, though—the empty field would indeed bring us to Naples Drive, but Naples Drive was a good fifteen minutes from being anywhere near her house. I had other motives. Luke Kimberlin's house was at 18 Naples Drive; I'd looked it up in the phone book.

The field was a nightmare. In the dark, we trampled tall weeds, struggling with the uneven ground. In the belly of the field our shoes sank in pockets of mud.

“Whose bright idea was this?” Polly said.

Eve huffed in response.

Weeds scratched our bare legs bloody. Crickets chirped like jet engines. Bugs propelled themselves,
sucking, biting tender flesh. Crawling, creeping. Flying, landing. Bugs, bugs, everywhere bugs.

As usual, Eve stomped ahead of us, leading. I could barely keep up. The mud got deeper and deeper with each step.

“Quit stepping on my heels, Melissa,” Eve yelled.

“But I can't see anything,” Melissa moaned.

“Don't walk so fast, Eve,” Polly said from behind me, breathless.

“I'm
not walking fast,
you're
walking slow,” Eve said.

I ignored the tempo of the others and tried concentrating on exactly where I was stepping. The girls were concerned with mud; I was concerned with mud leading to a sprained ankle, leading to a destroyed tennis game.

“Something is crawling in my hair! Get it out, get it out!” Polly cried.

I ran my hand over Polly's scalp. “It's gone now, whatever it was,” I said.

“Does anyone else smell skunk?” Melissa asked.

We did, all of us. Eve busted into a full sprint; we were more than happy to follow, screaming. Dogs in the distance heard our hysteria and met our shrieks with long, low howls, as if they understood.