“GOOD GOD, BOY! How do you do it?” Aunt Calla stood in the kitchen, her hands in the air in a gesture of surrender.
“I don’t know,” said Luke. “It was an accident.”
His face and front half of his hair were coated with oil. We’d tried to scrub it off with creek water and sand, but the oil remained. Luke’s face was raw, red, and blackish. He looked like a rotting tomato.
Aunt Calla turned to me. “Well?”
I sat mute on a kitchen chair with my knees pulled up to my chest. I wasn’t saying anything. It was Luke’s job to come up with a good lie.
“What have you two been doing that you got your face dipped in oil, not to mention your hair?”
“Nothing,” said Luke. He looked apologetic, but that was as far as it went.
“That stuff’s not going to come out easy, you know. We’ll have to shave your head,” said Aunt Calla.
“No way.” Luke licked his grimy upper lip and grimaced.
“Oh, for Christ sake! You’re the biggest pain in the ass I’ve ever seen in my life.” Aunt Calla stomped out of the kitchen and I heard her rummaging around in the bathroom. She came back with a large squat jar that said “Goop” on the side.
“What are you going to do with that?” asked Luke.
“Put it on your head, you idiot. We have the Fourth of July picnic at school tomorrow. God knows what people will think if you show up with half your head oiled.”
I smothered a laugh with my knees. Luke didn’t care what people thought, especially people at school. He’d consider it a good joke and might dip the other half of his head in paint.
“Whatever. Just get it over with.” Luke took off his shirt and sat down.
Aunt Calla scooped a handful of Goop out and plopped it on top of Luke’s head. She worked it through the front half of his hair, cursing under her breath and urging Luke to rub some into his skin.
After a few minutes, she popped him on the back of the head. “It won’t come off.”
“I don’t care,” said Luke.
“Big surprise. You don’t care.” She sniffed his head. “What is this stuff? It can’t just be oil.”
Luke yelped as Aunt Calla started working on his hair again. Bits of green slime flew off her fingertips, landing on my chair. The little blobs jiggled, looking like they might start oozing toward me. Attack of the Goop. I flicked one towards the back door, just as The Pack walked in.
“Holy crap!” yelled Caleb. “What’d you do?”
“Good question,” said Aunt Calla.
“What is that stuff?” said Frank.
“Goop,” replied Luke.
“No, I mean the other stuff,” said Frank.
“Oil. I had an accident.”
“You had an accident on your face?” asked Ella.
“Shut up, Ella Smella,” said Luke.
Luke wouldn’t have been quite so confident if he could’ve seen himself. Aunt Calla had worked his hair into pointy rods. He looked a lot like the Statue of Liberty.
“He can’t go to the picnic like that. He looks like a freak,” said Ella.
“Not as much of a freak as you,” said Luke.
Ella stalked out of the kitchen yelling “Mom” at the top of her lungs. A few seconds later, she returned with Mom in tow.
“Wow,” said Mom. “That’s impressive even for you, Luke.”
“Thanks. I told you I was talented,” said Luke.
“Oh, you’re talented all right, just not at anything useful,” said Aunt Calla.
“What about chemistry?”
“Yeah, well, we’ve seen how you put that talent to use,” she said.
Mom went to the sink, soaked a cloth with scalding hot water and started scrubbing Luke’s face. Luke screeched and pulled away, amid The Pack’s laughter.
“That’s enough,” said Mom. “Girls, go to the garden and pick some veggies for dinner. Pup, go check on Mildred for me. I think she hurt her wing. The rest of you go change clothes. You smell like wet dogs.”
I could think of a dozen things I’d rather do than check on Mildred. So she hurt her wing. So what? She spent most of her time trying to get into the feed shed with the ravens to steal grain. She probably caught it on a nail because she was too big.
“Puppy, go,” said Mom in a dangerous voice.
I walked out the back door, dragging my feet, and pushed open the screen door. The drizzle had stopped and the sky was a whitish blue. A wave of wet heat pressed against me as I went out onto the large granite step. Before I reached the second step, something hit me. My head plowed into the screen door and snapped it off its hinges. I stumbled back to fall headfirst into Ernest’s rosebushes, whacking my head on a rock.
When I woke up two minutes later, Mom was cradling my head and making shushing sounds.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing, honey. Just an accident,” she said.
An accident? My head was killing me, like the time Ella cracked me with one of Mom’s sculptures. The last thing I remembered was standing on the step. How could I have an accident standing on a step?
I reached up and felt sticky goo in my ear. “Beatrice.”
“I’m sure she didn’t mean to, Puppy. Did you say anything to her?”
“For Christ’s sake, Mom. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even see her.” I pushed away Mom’s hand and tried to sit up. A bolt of pain came down from the top of my head and a wave of red-hot vomit rose in my throat to greet it. I fell back in her arms and began to feel the dozens of thorns cutting into my legs.
“You’re supposed to lock her up,” I said.
Mom plucked something out of my forehead, probably a thorn. “I was afraid this would happen. I caught her licking the lock a couple of times. I guess she found a way to open it. She’s very intelligent.”
“She’s not smart. She’s stupid and dumb and an idiot. When are you calling the farm?” I fingered the goo in my ear and smiled. It was worth a broken head to get rid of Beatrice and maybe Shasta would come to pick her up. Being attacked by a llama probably wouldn’t add to my appeal, but at least I could see her.
“Call them for what?”
“To get Beatrice.”
“Why would I do that?”
“She attacked me, Mom. She’s a meany.” I paused for a second. Did I just say meany? A burst of laughter around me confirmed it.
“He said meany,” said Caleb, snorting.
I tried to sit up to defend myself, but white stars burst in my vision and I vomited on my crotch.
“Shit,” Mom said. “Calla, call Dr. Jobs. I think we need to take him in.”
“No, no. I’m okay,” I said. “I don’t need to go to the doctor, really.”
I could rouse myself, white stars or not, if it meant avoiding the doctor and possible shots.
“Jobs will decide that. Don’t move,” said Mom.
“I’m okay.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re swell.”
She kept stroking my forehead and murmuring until Aunt Calla came back.
“What did he say?” Mom asked her.
“Bring him in. It’s probably a concussion,” said Aunt Calla, still holding the phone and a pair of gym shorts.
Caleb and Luke lifted me out of the rosebush, enduring the thorns but bitching about the vomit and Beatrice goo. Mom told them to shut up, and then she pulled off my shorts and replaced them with the vomit-free pair. She did it before I realized Carrie was there and had seen me in my underpants.
“Aw, Mom!” I said as Luke and Caleb half-carried, half-dragged me to the car.
“What? What happened? Are you going to puke again?” asked Mom.
“No, never mind,” I said. It didn’t matter. It was only Carrie. Now if it had been Shasta that would’ve been a different thing all together.
They laid me on the backseat of Aunt Calla’s car and propped up my head with a pillow. April put a large mixing bowl on the floor in case I felt like puking again, then ran a light finger across my forehead.
Outside the car, Ella said, “Do you think he’ll get a shot?”
“Shut up, Ella,” said April. “Pup doesn’t need to hear that.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Well, don’t,” said Mom. “Keep your thoughts to yourself. This family could use a little more discretion, if you ask me.”
“I have discretion,” said Ella.
“Right,” said Luke. “You have discretion and I have a PhD.”
“I have more discretion than you have brains,” said Ella.
“At least I’ll have a PhD someday. You’ll never have discretion.”
Luke and Ella walked away, continuing to squabble until they were out of earshot.
Frank’s voice wavered. “A shot? They don’t give shots for concussions, do they?”
“Maybe, but you’re not getting one. Don’t be such a girl,” said Cole.
“I’m not a girl,” said Frank.
“Are so.”
“Am not.”
The rest of the voices faded and I lay counting the stars tattooed on the inside of my eyelids until I heard a beating wing.
“What’s that?” I asked, just as something heavy and honking was dropped on my chest.
“Here, hold Mildred,” said Mom.
“What, what?”
“Hold her.” She put my hands on either side of Mildred and pressed. Then she slammed the door and slid into the driver’s seat. “I figure we may as well take Mildred to the vet, if we have to go to town.”
“But I’m hurt.”
Mildred honked again, spraying a light mist across my knees.
“Not your hands. Really, Puppy, just hold on to her. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Mildred honked and I realized my face was at the business end of a very large, well-fed goose.
“Oh, God,” I said.
“What?”
“What if she poops?”
“She’s not going to poop.”
“She poops all the time. She’s practically incontinent,” I said.
“Oh, she is not and you don’t even know what incontinent means.”
“It means she can’t stop pooping.”
“Well, don’t think about it,” said Mom.
“That helps.”
“Of course it does. Just think about something pleasant.”
“Like how I’m going to kill Beatrice when I get home.”
“Puppy!”
“It’s pleasant,” I said.
“Think of something else.”
“Whatever.” But I didn’t stop. I pictured my hands around Beatrice’s long, skinny neck, and Mildred honked as I squeezed her too tight.
“Stop it,” said Mom.
“What?”
“You were thinking about killing Beatrice, weren’t you?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Well, stop it.”
I rolled my eyes and a fresh set of stars burst in my head, driving thoughts of Beatrice clear out of my mind.
After the doctor, Mom sequestered me on her porch. Slick curled up on my lap and purred like a buzz saw while Mom encased my head in cool packs for my throbbing headache. Dr. Jobs had only given me an 800-milligram Motrin and a pat on the shoulder. Apparently, a mild concussion didn’t warrant more. I wasn’t allowed to go outside or go to sleep, so Mom decided I’d spend the rest of the day with her. I couldn’t even watch TV. While I was in town getting my head examined, The Pack held batting practice and Caleb knocked the satellite dish on top of the house. It lay in mangled disarray on the lawn, looking as sad and pathetic as I felt.
“Are you hungry? I’ll fix you a sandwich,” Mom said from over her latest sculpture, a copper piece resembling a pile of mangos.
“No, I’m not hungry.”
She didn’t reply, but turned her attention back to her torch. She refined the flame and began heating a small piece of copper. The flame and Mom’s soft murmurs to herself hypnotized me and my eyelids drooped.
“Don’t go to sleep,” she said. “Read a book.”
I jumped at the sound of her voice and my cool packs fell off.
“Don’t move. I’ll get it.” She extinguished the torch and repacked my head.
Then she lit her torch and the smell of butane filled the porch only to be carried away by the breeze coming up from the creek. The breeze was the only thing coming from the outside. The house and the lawn were unusually quiet. The quiet meant one thing: The Pack was up to something. They could be playing ball or hiking, or more likely launching another attack on Miss Pritchett. They could’ve at least waited until the next day, when I could go out again.
“Read,” said Mom. “And stop stewing. It’s only one day.”
I tried to concentrate on the book Aunt Calla gave me. It was about boys at a reform school. Aunt Calla was probably trying to make a point, but I didn’t know what it was. We weren’t going to reform school. We were going to college. People don’t always get what they deserve. Although the boys in the book did deserve it. They were idiots. Our combined IQ of three million was a big factor in our not getting caught for even a fourth of what we did. I fell asleep with the book in my hand.
When I woke up, the entire Pack surrounded my chair, sunburnt and still smelling like wet dogs.
“You’re not supposed to be sleeping,” said April, sitting on the edge of the cushion.
“I’m totally bored. What’d you expect me to do?”
“You were asleep?” Mom glared at me through her safety googles. “Damn it, Puppy. You heard what the doctor said.”
“I woke up. What’s the big deal?”
“You could die. How about that?”
“I haven’t died yet.”
Mom rolled her eyes and started on some detail work. In a second she’d forget all about me and my so-called condition. That’s one of the advantages of having an artist for a mother. Mom got so into her own stuff she forgot to worm her way into every moment of my life. That aspect of Mom couldn’t be overrated.
The Pack waited for Mom to get engrossed before they started talking freely.
“Dude, you got to get out of here,” said Caleb.
“She’ll never notice,” said Luke.
“What’ve you been doing?” I tried to look disinterested, but failed miserably.
“Nothing good, if that’s what you’re worried about,” said Luke.
“Where’d you go?”
“We’ve been looking for Beatrice.”
“What happened to Beatrice?” I hoped for an out-of-control cement truck or at least a freak drowning.
“I don’t know. We can’t find her,” said Caleb.
Mom looked up from her sculpture, surprising us all. “You mean to tell me you still haven’t found her? I bet you’ve been swimming.”
Cole’s back was to her. He wore the guiltless grin of the perpetually guilty.
“We did not. We just can’t find her.” Luke’s face was all seriousness, despite its oily shine and ring of Lady Liberty hair.
“Well, walk the property line and take some carrots with you,” said Mom.
“We need more than that,” said Luke.
She increased the flame on her torch and put a hand on her hip. “Like what?”
“Pup’s the ultimate bait. A thousand carrots aren’t as good as him,” said Luke.
She looked at her sculpture and ran a finger along the ragged edge. “Fine, but don’t tire him out.” She started to say something else, but we were out the door before it left her lips.