Draft Folder
From: Jemma Dutton
To: Olivia Freeman
Subject: Ollie and Jem’s Guide to Survivel
Porcupines MOVE SLOW. Use a stick to nudge it toward the sack. Throw a towel over its head then the sack. Then kill it with a LOG.
Remember? That notebook we kept? Fourth grade?
I know it’s been a while. Okay, six months. But. I have a story. It’s so long it requires ye olde email.
But first this. I was packing for the summer bummer. I cleaned for so long yesterday I smelled like beeswax and lemon, and not in a groovy Burt’s Bees kinda way, like a Glade PlugIn kinda way. Anyway I found it wedged in the back of my pajama drawer.
Back when we read The Hunger Games in elementary school? We were totally going to rock dystopia. Teach everyone how to roast a porcupine. Build a solar still.
We turned it in for our English project, and we got sent to the school psychologist. Remember?
Well, guess what. I live in dystopia now. All your fault for moving to Iowa or Idaho or wherever. Meret surfaced. Jaws. Dun-dun. And I got dragged along for the ride. With teeth.
I wanted to say you were right.
Meret. Long story. It’s a Tolkien, it’s Twilight, it’s Game of Thrones without the thrones just the games. This is why I’m resorting to that old-timey parental communication method, the EMAIL. If this summer continues to Suck So Bad, soon I’ll be buying STAMPS, and you’ll be checking that thing called a mailbox that your mom uses.
I know you said Meret would drop me because she always picked out a girl and groomed her like a pedophile (yes I totally remember you said that) and then dropped her after she blew up some teeny thing into a major betrayal.
I was so funny. She said. I was so pretty when I blew out my hair. She said. She was jealous of me. She said. Let’s both work at the farm stand this summer so we can meet hot summer guys. She said.
She said
She said
She said
On and on. Until the voice in my head was Meret’s voice. Creepy possession thing!
Get to the story, you are saying.
First I could tell that she must have realized that working at a farm stand would mean, you know, work. And she started talking about tennis academy, and how she didn’t want to go but her mom totally wanted her to and she hoped the job wouldn’t conflict with that if her mom made her go.
So I knew she was going to drop out of the working thing.
Which she did. Leaving me with farm stand job alone with Annie Doyle who now hates me because I dropped her for Meret. It’s going to be a long summer.
So first this happened. We were hanging at Saffy’s house. Remember Mrs. Rubner, who gave Saffy probiotics in kindergarten? You should see their pantry, it’s a whole freaking cabinet of potions! So Saffy says, I had the sex talk with my mom. And we said, Well, that’s kinda late, since Saffy and Nick had done the deed on New Year’s Eve. Yeah, Saffy said, but here’s the thing, she kept calling my vag a mayflower. And we just lost it. We were on the floor. Mayflower! We peed.
Saffy said the trouble with your first time is that even if you think you know what to expect, you kinda don’t, because all of a sudden there’s this thing coming at you and it’s not stopping, and you’re like, whoa. And Meret said, I hate surprises. She wants to lose it with someone she doesn’t care about, someone experienced, like a college guy or even older, because if you pick someone you really like you can really make a loser of yourself (which was a dig at Saffy since she followed Nick around for a month and then he broke up with her) and he shows your sexts to his friends (yeah, another dig). And how are you going to be any good at it if every guy has been watching porn since he was eleven? Her point was, get it over with and get some experience. Right?
That’s when Meret said to me, Let’s do it. Let’s lose our mayflowers this summer for sure. And I laughed, and she said, But of course everybody knows you’re, like, frigid or something. The way Saffy and Kate laughed, I knew this was some kind of fun rumor. Who started it? One guess.
Now the second thing. Friday at school I stayed late for French Club and walked out past the outdoor courts, and there was Josh Frye, doing layups. I said hi, and he said hi, and that would have been that, but he tossed me the ball.
Does this ever happen to you, where you feel something in your hand, like a Polly Pocket or something, and then you’re a kid again? Like Holden Caulfield with the skate key. (Yes, we had to ask our parents what a skate key was, and you hated that book, but you will come around.)
I hadn’t played basketball in years. Not since I was on the team in sixth grade, remember? Josh and I played one serious game of HORSE. I really, really wanted to win, and I could tell he was pissed that it was so close. We were both on H O R S forever.
Skip to the interesting part you are saying.
So then I won, and I yelled “HORSE!” just as Meret was walking out the door all hair-flippy.
The look on her face.
Josh broke up with her last Christmas!
And we were just playing stupid HORSE!
She walked by, her face all screwed up into this tiny ragey fist, and didn’t say hello or anything.
I’ve got a bad feeling in my stomach and two weeks of school left. I’ve texted Meret four times, all I get is crickets. I can feel it, I can feel being on the outside somehow.
This is the longest email in the world. Are you still awake.
Fellow Porcupine Slayer, I know I stopped answering your texts. Basically, I suck. But can you either send me a plane ticket to Indiana (ok, Iowa) or give me Survivel Guide tips?
Btw I’m not sending this
xojem
From: Saffy Rubner
To: Jemma Dutton
Meret said you called her a whore yesterday while you were with Josh
From: Jemma Dutton
To: Saffy Rubner
Wtf?
From: Saffy
To: Jem
U yelled out WHORE right at her
From: Jem
To: Saffy
We were playing HORSE. I yelled HORSE.
…
I had a freaking BBALL in my hands!
From: Saffy
To: Jem
She says it’s so obv cause u r frigid and jealous of her and Josh
From: Jem
To: Saffy
Wtf I don’t like Josh
From: Saffy
To: Jem
Right that’s why you called her a whore
From: Jem
To: Saffy
Joke? Because this is just stupid
From: Meret Bell
To: Jemma Dutton
so now I’m stupid, bitch?