Like real superheroes, the girls in my class are turning into women overnight. We’re in sixth grade now, and everyone except Imogen and me is getting their puberty. Dr. Rivka couldn’t fix me. I saw her for four entire weekends in a row, and then I never saw her again. My mom didn’t say a word to me about it, so I know it’s true that I’m too broken to fix. Only I don’t know what part of me is the broken thing; maybe it’s all of me. What I do know is that I’m an incurable jinx who exists outside time and space, which explains why I’m not growing out of my tomboy phase and still can’t figure out how to care about Jordache jeans, Secret deodorant, shopping, halter tops, or wearing lip gloss. During recess the girls won’t play sports anymore. Instead, they sit on the bench braiding each other’s hair. Now it’s just the boys and me. Omar James says I’m talented at sports, so I show off for him.
Imogen and I keep a journal charting the growth of our breasts. After school she comes over and we lift our shirts and I measure myself, then her, record the numbers, and then next to the numbers draw the levels of bump that are there, which in our case is none. Maybe she won’t get boobs either because she’s deaf. But unlike me, she has hope. Nuar says that people who are tall get their puberty first. Also people who are fat. I’m not either of those things, but maybe when I’m taller. Only I’m not getting any taller. What if I never get my puberty? I’ll have to sit on the sidelines of life forever.
But it’s happening to my friends, and they’ve turned into people who wear flowered spaghetti-strap summer dresses and hair barrettes, which is not who I am. Kara’s at a new school, and it’s fancy. There, they get to wear uniforms, which means everyone matches and no one is wrong. I want to be with her, but she says it’s not a good school for me; that it’s really hard, and there’s a lot of pressure and I wouldn’t like it. It takes her four hours to do all her homework; sometimes she cries. But if I got to wear a uniform, none of that would matter. Maybe nothing would bother me ever again. Besides, I do my homework really fast. Sometimes I don’t even do it at all, and my mom writes a note saying why I couldn’t do my homework. Other times, when it’s just too hard, and I’m crying and hyperventilating, she just does the homework for me. I have the best mom.
People are having more slumber parties, and because I am too afraid to sleep over, I’m getting left out of more things, even with Imogen, who isn’t afraid to sleep over. My siblings ignore me, so I’m left out at home, too. Sometimes Vito cheers me up by making me fun drinks, which is why I sometimes go in there after school. Vito wasn’t there a few weeks ago, but Tony was. He said he had a surprise for me in the back and I followed him, but then he just sat down.
“It’s a pony ride,” he said, slapping his knee.
A pony ride is not a surprise, it’s a dumb thing uncles do. But you have to do what adults say, so I climbed on his knee, which he jumped up and down. The surprise happened when he put his hand down my pants, trembled, and something made my lower back sticky and wet. He pushed me off him and yelled, “Look what you made me do.” I went home and changed my clothes and tried to forget.
Now when we go across the street to eat at Joe’s Restaurant, if Tony is our waiter I fall asleep at the table. Everyone loves it there, and I don’t want to ruin it by telling. Also, I didn’t make him do it, but I know no one will believe me because everyone says I’m overdramatic.
Most days I come home from school crying.
“No one talks to me anymore,” I tell my mom.
“Why not?” she asks.
“Because I’m never at the sleepovers!”
“Well, then you should go,” she says. Just like that, like she doesn’t understand me.
“No! I can’t! I can’t do that!” I feel like a steering wheel after someone lets go. I can hear my voice crackle.
“Have it your way.”
“They all have secret jokes without me, and I’m always left out of stories and things.”
“That’s not very nice,” my mom says.
“No! It’s not nice at all!” I say.
“I’ll call Marie tomorrow,” she says, as if Marie has any control over my social life at school.
“No! Don’t call Marie! That will make things worse.”
“Well, then I’m not sure what you want me to do.”
“I want you to fix it! I want you to tell me what to do!”
“They’re just jealous of you,” my mom says. “Maybe they want to be more like you.”
“No, they want to be less like me. I want me to be more like them.”
“They sound jealous, if you ask me.”
I’m so frustrated. “Just forget it! You don’t understand anything!” I yell and storm upstairs to my room, throw myself down on my bed, and sob. After a while she comes up to check on me.
“I don’t want to go back to school,” I say into my pillow. “Everyone is so mean to me.”
“What can I do to make it better?”
“Send me to a different school,” I say. “I hate it there. I don’t want to go back.”
“Do you really want to switch schools?” she asks.
“Yes!” I say.
“Where do you want to go?” she asks.
“I want to be with Kara, and I want to wear a uniform.”
“Okay,” she says.
This picks me up off the pillow. I peer up into her face. “Really?”
“Of course. If switching schools would make you feel better, then that’s what we should do. I’ll call Mrs. Maynard and make an appointment for a tour.”
I nod and then hug her. “You’re the best mom in the entire world.”
* * *
That night I lie in bed, thinking about how much better things will be, how all my problems will be solved now that I’m going to a new school. Except—I scramble for the pad and pencil.
“Dr. Fine never said why I was so short!” I scribble in a note to my mom.
“You’re right! If you’re really worried, we can go to a growth doctor.”
“I’m really worried!!!!!! What’s a growth doctor?”
“A doctor who can tell us whether you need to take something to grow.”
“There’s something you can take to grow?????”
“Of course! There’s a pill for everything,” she writes back.
I can’t believe what I’m reading. Why didn’t she tell me about this sort of doctor earlier? She knows I’ve been hanging from my chin-up bar for weeks; but also, if there’s medicine for everything, why didn’t Dr. Rivka give me one for my worries?
Before school starts the next morning, my mom drops me off at Eric’s office. He’s the assistant of someone I can never remember. Eric sits on the edge of his desk and plants one foot on the ground; I can tell she’s told him kids were making fun of me for my size.
“Amanda, I want to tell you a secret,” he says.
“Okay,” I say. I like secrets.
“What I’m about to tell you will change your entire life. It will turn all your worries upside down.” I am getting chills on my actual organs. “Amanda,” he says and stands. “Men”—he turns to the window, pulls in as much nostril air as he can, and then faces me—“don’t like tall women. I want you to burn this into your memory. You are lucky to be small. Tall women are too masculine. No man wants to be with a woman who reminds him of a man. Trust me on this one. Don’t worry about your height. Your height is perfect. Men love small women. Got it?”
I blink. Does he know about Tony at the restaurant?
He leans into me. “Now, don’t tell anyone. This is just our secret. You don’t want other small girls knowing what you know, right? Then they’ll go steal your men.”
I hesitate. “Right.” But I already know men like small women, because they also like small girls. I am not interested in keeping any of them for myself.
“You’re welcome!” He stands up straight, beaming, and returns to his seat at his desk.
I hurry back to my classroom in relief, until I see Imogen standing near the window and notice something new: buds.