St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (8 page)

“Nothing,” I squeak. “Just trash.”

I panic. Oh God, I think, they are going to pry my fist open and expose me as a law-abiding astronomy lover. And before I’ve made any sort of conscious decision to do this, I feel myself winding up and chucking my planisphere into the ocean. My weak muscles tense and draw back, and then it’s over. Usually I throw like a girl, but tonight the planisphere goes rocketing from my hand. The waves are so dark that I can’t even see if it makes a splash when it hits the water.

“You know, weirdo, there’s a trash can right over there,” Raffy says, pointing at the lidless can. “Say, what’s this?” He’s turned to the
Star-Gazer’s Log of Summer-Time Constellations
section in the back. The half-finished Alcyone page stares up at me accusingly.

“Oh.” I blush. “That’s not mine. That’s my twin sister’s.”

Raffy pulls out a pen from behind his ear. He crosses out “Constellations” and writes in “Crimes.”

“Well, now it’s the official log for our crime ring.” He grins down at me. “You can be the secretary.”

“Hey, Big Dipper,” Dad says when I finally get back to our hotel room. He puts down his drink and looks over at me with bleary eyes. “It’s past your curfew. I’ve been waiting up for you for hours.” But he sounds more proud of me than angry. “You must have
really
gotten lost in the stars tonight. Did you find Alcyone?”

“Yes, sir,” I lie. “Five degrees south of Eta Carinae, right where you said she’d be.”

“Great work, son!” he says, beaming at me. His voice drops to a whisper. “Don’t tell Little Dipper—it’s different for girls—but maybe we can talk about extending that curfew.” He winks at me. “There might be a few foxy new clusters around Cassiopeia tomorrow night, if you know what I mean.”

I picture my planisphere glinting on the bottom of the dark ocean floor. Right now, I think, schools of tiny yellow fish are probably nibbling at the glow-in-the-dark stars.

“Hubble hubble,” I say, raising my eyebrows. “Boy, would I love to get Cassiopeia on the other end of my telescope. Thanks, Dad.” We grin at each other, man to man.

Parents can be so dumb.

As I climb into my hotel bed, I have to hold on to the headboard to steady myself. I have the giddy sense that I’m hurtling towards some uncharted corner of space, a world full of bros and bitches and comical, ironical crime. I pull back the covers, preparing to sink into sleep. Then I scream.

“Molly!” She is mummy-wrapped in the hotel sheets and staring right at me, her arms crossed over her flat chest. Anger seems to have inhibited her ability to blink. As usual, I’m dismayed to note that my sister has more arm hair than I do.

Molly and I are twins, but we’re not identical, and thank God for that. People often describe me as “cherubic” because I’m blond and fat, but at least I’m well complected. Poor Molly. My sister’s like a kiwi fruit—sweet on the inside, but small and hairy and round on the outside. Not to mention her face has more craters than friggin’ Callisto.

“Well, well, well,” she says icily. “Howdy, Ollie. How was your hot date with Alcyone?”

“Oh,” I mumble, “It was okay….”

“Liar!” she howls, throwing back the hotel covers. “Don’t patronize me. I know it was a lot better than just okay. We’re talking
Alcyone
here.” She does a swoony pantomime and collapses against the pillow. “So, are you going to take me with you next time, or what?”

I don’t answer. Instead, I pick Molly up and plop her down on her own twin bed. “G’night, Little Dipper.”

“I hate you.”

I sigh and turn off the lights. Molly’s the other fifty percent of the Junior Astronomer Society. At first I didn’t want her to join, but I had to capitulate after the Activities Committee told me that I couldn’t form a society with only one member. Molly thinks that just because we share the same genome, we have to have matching bedsheets and hobbies and moral systems. I don’t want to take her with me tomorrow. The crime ring is
my
new friendship constellation. Besides, Molly’s such a goody-goody that she’d probably feel betrayed by my baby turtle smuggling or something. Some people just aren’t cut out for a life of crime.

We meet every morning, still bearded with toast crumbs from our continental breakfasts. Everybody assembles in the green shade of the palm trees next to Barnacle Bob’s Shrimp Stand. Everybody except for Petey. We don’t know where Petey goes during the day. Sometimes we plan crimes and sometimes we perpetrate them. Sometimes we just sit around tic-talking down the hours until we can resume the Great Turtle Stakeout. I keep detailed notes of all our activities in my Star Log.

I guess I’d always assumed that Raffy was a bomb-in-your-mailbox, flaming-bag-of-fecal-matter-on-your-stoop kind of outlaw. But Raffy has a real flair for comical ironical crime. I don’t know what he does during the school year, but Raffy’s summer-time crime feels good, and clean, and funny. In fact, that’s the catchphrase that sparks every crime we commit:

“Wouldn’t it be funny if…?”

And Raffy has this magical, abracadabrical ability to transform all his “ifs” into “whens.”

On Monday, we stow away on a glass-bottom boat and then tap out forbidden messages to the dreamy-eyed manatees in full view of the
DO NOT TOUCH THE GLASS
sign. On Tuesday, we warm up by shoplifting a six-pack of Coke and then throwing the cans away in the
PLASTIC ONLY
bin. Afterwards we take the bus to the other side of the island—we do not hold on while it is departing—and steal all the pennies from the Children’s Hospital Wishing Well. Raffy uses them to buy a Mr. Goodbar candy bar. He seems unperturbed when I point out that
1 Mr. Goodbar
©
187 sick children’s wishes.

“Think of it this way,” Raffy says, his mouth ringed with chocolate. “We’re making
our
wishes come true.”

On Wednesday, Raffy makes me use my mechanical expertise to rig up a plastic conch shell so that it makes crude potty noises whenever little old ladies in big floppy hats hold it up to their ears to hear the ocean.

On Thursday, Raffy wants to see if taking candy from a baby is really as easy as the old adage suggests. We walk up and down the splintery boardwalk peering into strollers, but I guess that today’s health-conscious parents don’t let babies have candy anymore, because all the ones we see are gumming jars of stewed prunes. We take some Ricola cough drops from an elderly sunbather’s straw bag instead. It
is
easy, and you can tell that Raffy’s disappointed.

“There’s just no stopping us,” he says glumly.

“Stop her!” Raffy yells, a little over an hour into Night Four of our Turtle Vigil. He points down the beach, to where a shadowy figure is bumbling along towards our nest. “Stop that intruder!”

I peer down the beach at the intruder and stifle a groan. It’s Molly. She is engrossed in her star maps, using her birthday planisphere to chart her course. I feel a sudden twinge of remorse. My own star compass is probably all sea-weeded and shattered by now.

“She’s just some kid,” I say.

“Anybody we know?”

“I told you, it’s nobody. Just some girl out past her bedtime.”

“Are you
sure
you don’t know her?” Raffy asks, turning Petey in her direction and illuminating Molly’s startled face. “Because it looks like she’s mouthing your name.”

“Oh. So she is. That’s my little dip…sister. I guess I didn’t recognize her from here. Hang on, I’ll get rid of her.” I hurry off to intercept her.

“Ollie?” she says when I run over to her. She pronounces my name uncertainly, as if it’s a foreign word. “Is that you? What are you guys doing?” Her eyes are wide and disbelieving. “You’re not hanging out with
Rafael Saumat
over there, are you?”

I shrug. “Yeah, and? He’s not such a bad guy. He’s my bro now.”

“Your bro?” she snorts. “He’s an asshole, Ollie!”

“Look, you don’t know him like I do. He can be really sweet.” I try to think of some examples. “Like the other day, these bovine girls with back acne floated by us in the pool—I mean, the kind of girls you wouldn’t want to feel up with oven mitts on, Molly—but Raffy gave them these charity cat-calls and politely invited each one to have his baby, even though you could tell that his heart wasn’t in it. Why, he’d probably hit on
you
!”

This rhetorical strategy doesn’t go over so well. In fact, Molly looks like she’s about to burst into tears.

“I bet he doesn’t even know your favorite constellation. You probably haven’t even told him you’re a Junior Astronomer, have you?”

“Well…”

“You faker, you phony!”

“Look, I’m not a phony!” I try to huff my voice up to an appropriately righteous volume. “It’s just that I choose to accentuate other aspects of myself around Raffy—sort of like how you glob on mascara so as to indicate, Look! I have eyelashes! So maybe I don’t mention the Junior Astronomer Society. Well, you don’t use mascara on your chin hairs.”

“Fine.” She sniffs. “Have fun with your new
friends,
Mr. Faker. I’ve got a date with Vulpecula.”

“Does Dad know you’re out here? If he finds out, he’ll be furious.”

“Ha! Dad’s been down at the bar with his buddy astronauts for so long now that I doubt he even knows there is an ‘out here.’”

I look over my shoulder. Raffy is waving at me impatiently.

“Go back to the hotel, Little Dipper,” I beg, whirling her around and giving her a little shove. “You can see Vulpecula just fine from the window of the Bowl-a-Bed.”

“I’m ashamed to share your DNA.” Molly whacks me with her own dog-eared copy of the
Starry-Eyed Guide to the Galaxy—
hard. Then she stomps off to the Bowl-a-Bed to constellate and sulk.

Molly’s pretending to be asleep when I get back that night. She’s left me an angry message written on one of the Bowl-a-Bed bar napkins.

Q: What is the constellation that never varies from its position at right ascension seven hours and declination eighteen degrees? Or have you forgotten? (Hint: it used to be your favorite.)

A: Gemini aka The Twins!!!

By the fifth night, the Christmas lights have run out of batteries. Now Petey has a compromised glow. His outfit looks less like the moon and more like a giant prewar nickel. Then Marta decides that we have to put the lid back on the trash can. These huge raccoons have taken up residence inside it, and she’s worried about rabies.

“Well, bitches,” says Raffy, Boy Scout–resourceful, “I guess we can always get more foil.”

So we shoplift some Reynolds Wrap from the Night Owl Mini Mart and triple-wrap all of Petey’s extremities. Including his head. It looks like a giant baked potato. Sweet little Marta remembers to make silver slits for his eyes and nose and mouth.

I think I might be developing a species of crush on Marta. It’s not sexual or anything, I don’t think. It’s sort of like what I feel for Molly, and sort of not. I just want Marta to let me lace up her sneakers. I want to rock her and knee-sock her and push her on swings. And, you know…I guess I wouldn’t mind doing a few other things.