Don’t get me wrong. I knew I was never going to be a Miss Perfect Teenager. My hair wasn’t going to suddenly turn curly and blonde. My teeth weren’t going to suddenly look like a movie star’s. I would never wear a size six. No matter how much I prayed it was unlikely that I was going to grow. And it’s not like I even wanted to be Miss Perfect Teenager. I mean, me? I mean, who wants to spend their Saturdays jumping around a football field in shorts screaming, “Red Bay! Red Bay! Show them the way!”? If I wanted to be anything while I was in high school, I wanted to be a lifeguard. And afterwards, of course, I wanted to be an astrophysicist. Those were the things that were important to me, not being pretty and popular. I told myself that several times in the next couple of days, so I knew it was true.
* * *
But after my talk with Amy – or Amy’s talk with me, to be more exact – I began to have this fantasy of waking up one morning and discovering that I was incredibly beautiful and thin. I was even sort of blonde. I could just picture the look on people’s faces as I strolled into school.
“Who is that?” they’d all be whispering to one another. Kim and Amber would be tripping over themselves trying to meet me. Rosie Henley would invite me to her Hallowe’en party, but I wouldn’t be sure if I could go. The most popular kids in the school would be fighting to have me sit at their lunch table. “Please,” they’d beg me, “don’t sit with those Martians, sit with us.” I’d be asked out on a date. Maybe not even just one date. Maybe I’d be asked on three or four. Amy would dump Kim and Amber to hang out with me again. It’d be like Cinderella transformed by her fairy godmother, but without the coach and horses and those dumb glass shoes.
So I decided that though I wasn’t going to become one of those girls who thinks about nothing but boys and clothes, I would improve myself a little. There was no harm in that. There were things I could do without too much trauma.
The first thing was I could go on a diet. After all, thin was the one thing that everyone wanted to be. Not everybody looked good with curly hair. Not everybody looked good in cycling shorts. But everybody looked good thin. And I was sure that what I’d told my mother was right. If I were thinner, I’d look taller. Tall and thin. My fantasy shimmered before my eyes. There I was, striding up the path to school. Boys were nudging each other. Girls were hugging. “Good grief!” they were whispering. “I know who that is!” It’s Jenny Kaliski! Who would’ve guessed how attractive she really is?”
I know this must sound weird, but even though I was fourteen, I’d never been on a diet before. My mother and Amy’s mother and all their friends and relatives had been on diets. A lot of the girls from school had been on diets. And I knew from magazines and movies and television that everybody diets most of the time. But I’d never been on a diet. I decided to keep it a secret. I was going to surprise everyone. Especially Amy. I couldn’t wait to see her face. I figured I’d spend a week or so being careful about what I ate – you know, no chips, no butter, no soda, no sweets – and then one morning I’d wake up, just like in my fantasy, and none of my clothes would fit me any more. It was going to be really easy.
“You want some cakes?” asked Sue, pushing a paper plate full of squares of something iced and chocolate towards me.
We were just finishing lunch. Or those of us who weren’t on a secret diet were finishing lunch. Those of us who were on a secret diet were nibbling slowly on a carrot stick, chewing every bite twenty-six times. “No, thanks,” I said.
“My mother made it,” said Sue.
“Sue’s mother makes great chocolate cake,” said Tanya.
“I’m sure it’s terrific,” I said, “but I’m really full…”
Joan raised one eyebrow. “Full? From what? You’ve hardly eaten anything.”
“Well, if Jenny doesn’t want her piece, I’ll take it,” said Tanya. “I’m starving.”
She reached for the cake, but Sue slapped her hand. “Starving?” shrieked Sue. “Tanya, you never stop eating long enough to know what it feels like to be slightly hungry.” She pushed the cake towards me again. “Come on, Jenny, my mother always gives me enough for everybody.”
“Don’t tell me we’ve got another Marva on our hands,” said Maria, laughing. Marva had already refused some cake because she didn’t want to poison her body with sugar.
Marva smirked. “Laugh all you want,” she said to Maria. “But I’ll be the one who laughs last.”
“Just take a little,” urged Sue.
I looked at the square of cake in front of me. It was really dark chocolate and the icing was white, just the way I liked it best. I could practically taste it in my mouth, all soft and crumbling with sweet and grainy icing. On Monday I’d had one bowl of cereal for breakfast. I’d had one sandwich and an apple for lunch. I’d had one helping of supper, no salad dressing, no potato, no butter and no dessert. No snacks. Today was Tuesday. I’d had two pieces of dry toast for breakfast, and a sandwich and a carrot for lunch. On the one hand, I didn’t want to go off my diet already, not when I was doing so well. On the other hand, maybe Tanya really wasn’t starving, but I was.
“Oh, go ahead,” Joan said. “It’s not going to kill you, is it?”
“That’s what you think,” said Marva.
I looked at the cake. It wasn’t a very big piece. How many calories could there be in one tiny, infinitesimal piece of chocolate cake? Hadn’t I passed up ice-cream last night? Ice-cream and mashed potatoes? “Well…”
“Oh, go ahead,” said Sue. “If you don’t like it, Tanya will finish it for you.”
I was weakening. I could feel it. That piece of cake was calling to me. “Jenny,” it was saying, “Jenny, I’m small. You can eat me and it won’t make any difference. What’s dry toast compared to double fudge?” When you’re weakening you need something to hold on to. I looked around the table. Maybe I could use a little support on my diet after all. Maybe keeping it a secret wasn’t the best thing I could do. Amy’s mother always told everyone when she went on a diet, even people she didn’t know very well. I’d thought she did that so they’d be sure to tell her she looked thinner. Now I realized it was so they’d stop her from eating.
I leaned forward. “The thing is,” I said, keeping my voice down and trying to sound casual, “well … you see the thing is, I’m sort of on a diet.” I might as well have waved a banner and shot off fireworks. They all began to shout at once.
“A diet?” howled Sue. “To lose weight, you mean?”
“You’re nuts,” boomed Marva, “diets just make you fat.”
“Oh, Jenny,” said Maria, “you don’t need to lose weight. You’re just right.”
“You?” Tanya practically fell off her chair. “What are you on a diet for? If anybody should be on a diet it’s me.”
“Did you know there are celebrities who’ve been on diets for twenty years?” asked Sue.
“What kind of diet?” asked Joan.
I looked at her. “What?”
“What kind of diet?” Joan repeated. “Calorie, fibre, fat or carbohydrate? Are you eating one type of food, substituting nutritional shakes for meals or following menu plans?”
I didn’t know what she was talking about. “Well … I … well … I’m not really being that strict about it.”
“Oh, but you have to be,” said Joan, “or you won’t get anywhere. My sister’s been on every diet there’s ever been. Diets where you eat all the calories you want, but nothing before noon. Diets where you only eat a thousand calories, not one more or one less. The ice-cream diet, the kumquat and spring-water diet, the spinach diet, the wholewheat-bread diet…”
To tell you the truth, I was amazed. This may sound naïve, but I really wasn’t aware of just how many different diets there were to go on. I guess I thought everybody followed Amy’s mother’s diet: the Hide All the Good Stuff and Scrape the Cheese From Your Pizza diet. It wasn’t so much a diet as a system of denial. You ate less of everything you wanted and none of the things you liked best.
“And do they work?” I asked.
Marva gave me a pitying look. “Oh, sure they do,” she said, smirking again. “That’s why Joan’s sister goes on so many of them.”
Joan gave Marva a non-pitying look. She turned back to me with a shrug. “Some of them do,” she said. “And some of them don’t. I wouldn’t know, personally.” Joan was built like a stick insect. “But I do know that you have to be on one or the other. You can’t leave this sort of thing to chance.”
I watched Tanya scoop up my piece of cake and shovel it in her mouth. I don’t even think she chewed it. “I can’t?” I said.
Joan was adamant. “No, you can’t.” She licked some icing from her fingers. “Dieting is a serious business.”
“I wouldn’t mind the chocolate cake diet,” said Sue.
“You are what you eat,” said Marva.
Tanya began to laugh. “I’m pepperoni pizza and Rocky Road ice-cream!” she roared. “I’m chocolate-chip brownies and double-cheese-burgers!”
Marva threw a bean sprout at her. “You’re a monument to junk food, that’s what you are.”
Maria leaned across the table towards me. “You don’t need to diet, Jenny. Really. My mother says boys like girls to have a little meat on their bones.”
Well, that certainly made me feel better. “Maybe I should pick up a calorie counter or something like that on my way home today,” I mused.
Marva put one long white hand on my shoulder. Her purple nails and silver bangles sparkled. “Not today,” said Marva. “Today you’re coming home with me, remember?”
I stared into those large dark eyes for a second. I hadn’t remembered; I’d forgotten. Well, maybe not forgotten exactly. Blanked out of my mind entirely might be closer to the truth. Last night Marva had called me up and invited me over to her house after school. “I’ve been thinking about frogs,” she said, “and I may have a couple of ideas.” For some reason – probably because I was weak with hunger at the time – I’d said yes. Even though going into Martian Control was just about the last thing in the world that I wanted to do. I mean, if they had bats on the outside of the house, what did they have on the inside?
I glanced around the table. Everyone was looking at me. I couldn’t very well get out of it now.
“Oh … uh … sure,” I stammered. “Of course. I remember.” I smiled at the three silver hoops in Marva’s left ear. “I’m really looking forward to it.”
On the way to her house, Marva did most of the talking. Marva was never shy, but today she wouldn’t shut up. She told me how much she wanted to be an actress, though she wasn’t sure that she’d ever want to do television – it was the theatre that really mattered. She told me that her mother had wanted to be a dancer when she was a teenager, but she’d injured her back. She told me that her father had lived in India for three years after he got out of college. She told me that her older sister had disappointed her parents by marrying a banker. She told me that her brother used to have a pet iguana. She asked me if I believed in astral projection.
“Astral projection?” I knew a lot about stars, I mean, stars are my thing, but I wasn’t sure what astral projection was.
Marva said it was when you left your body. You were still you, but you could fly around and see yourself.
I said, “You’re kidding, right?”
“Uh uh,” said Marva. “It’s one of my great ambitions in life. Next to acting on the London stage.”
She asked me what my great ambition was. For some reason – maybe because I was so surprised she was giving me a chance to talk – I told her something I’d never told anybody but Amy before. “What I’d really like to do is go into space,” I said. “You know, I’d like to be a scientist-astronaut.”
Marva nodded. “It’s sort of the same thing,” she said.
I wasn’t so sure about that, but I didn’t have a chance to reply because we’d arrived at her house.
Most places look better in the sunshine than they do in heavy rain. You know: brighter, cheerier, less likely to be inhabited by vampires or visitors from outer space. But not the house where Marva lived. It looked just as weird on a sunny afternoon as it had in the rain. Weirder even. In the sunlight you could see just how badly the paint was peeling, and just how much junk was on the porch, and that there were all sorts of feeders and bat boxes and bird houses and wind chimes and things hanging from the roof and the trees.
“Home sweet home,” cried Marva as she stepped over a sleeping cat and sailed through the front door.
So this is it, I thought to myself. Buckle your seat belt! You’re going inside Martian Control!
“Yeah.” I smiled, stepping over the same cat and following her in. “Home sweet home.” Two inches over the threshold, I tripped over something large and warm and soft. I flew past Marva. Whatever I’d tripped over let out this bloodcurdling scream and flew past me. I pulled myself off the wall.
Marva didn’t even notice. “Come on,” she said, continuing down the hall. “My room’s a mess. We can go into the dining-room.”
Still shaking slightly, I groped down the dark hall after her.
My grandmother had a dining-room. My grandmother’s dining room has a big cupboard, and a sideboard, and an enormous table in the middle of the room. The one thing you do in my grandmother’s dining-room is eat. One glance at Marva’s dining room told me that the one thing you didn’t do in it was eat. True, the table was large and in the middle of the room, but it was piled high with who-knew-what. Bags, boxes, pieces of wood, books, tools, empty cups and glasses… There were only two chairs, and both of them were covered with papers and clothes. Marva’s room must really have been a mess if we had to come in here.
Marva threw her books on top of something on the table. “You want some juice or food?” she asked as she pulled out a chair and shoved the things on it onto the floor.
My stomach growled. “Oh, no thanks,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“Take a seat, then,” said Marva, indicating the other chair. “I need sustenance. I’m going to get myself something to eat. I’ll be right back.”
I removed a stack of wood and a hammer from the second chair and sat down. Gingerly. I looked around the room. The walls were lined with bookcases – though they weren’t all filled with books. Most of them were filled with junk. There was an open sewing machine in one corner and some sort of workbench in another. There was an enormous fish tank, another tank of small reptiles and a cage of mice under the window. There were posters of things like whales and tree toads hanging on the shelves and the few bare pieces of wall. There was a wood carving of a snowy owl on top of one of the bookcases. I’d never seen anything like this room before.
Marva came thumping back in with a tray in her hands. On it was a bottle of juice, two glasses, a bowl of fruit and a bowl of nuts. She threw herself into her chair. She kicked off her shoes. She scooped up a handful of nuts and started crunching away. Suddenly I felt like I hadn’t eaten in weeks. I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from reaching for an orange or two.
“OK,” said Marva, shovelling another handful of nuts into her mouth, “let’s talk about frogs.”
Frog’s legs, I thought. I wonder if they really do taste like chicken?
Marva started to talk. Though not about frogs. She said she hoped I hadn’t traumatized the dog too much by stepping on him or she’d never get him out of the bath tub. She talked about amino acids. She told me about a woman in Arizona who could leave her body at will.
While Marva talked, I listened. Not that there was anything else to do. At first I thought that I was going to sit there, counting every nut she put in her mouth because I was so hungry, but my hunger was soon replaced by something else. Paranoia. The more Marva talked, the more uneasy I became. I was sure I was being watched. I could feel two eyes boring into me. Just like when I was walking home from Amy’s on Sunday. I looked around, but the fish were minding their own business, swimming in circles, the lizards were sound asleep, and the mice were out of range.
Marva talked some more about the theatre, and how the part she’d really like to play was Hamlet.
“Hamlet?” I said, trying to distract myself. “But Hamlet’s a man.”
“So what?” said Marva. “It’s called acting, isn’t it?”
Then she told me the names of the two lizards and the fifteen fish and how her brother had once walked halfway to Connecticut because someone told him that he would never be able to do it. “He would’ve made it, too,” said Marva, “except my father figured out where he was going and went after him in the car.”
Then she told me about the time she and Joan had snuck out of the house at midnight to go for a walk in the moonlight, but when they’d come back they couldn’t get in and had to climb up a tree and in through her brother’s bedroom window.
“You and Joan?” I said. Joan was nice, but she seemed so boring. I could imagine Marva doing something wild like sneaking out of the house to walk under the stars, but not Joan. It made me feel almost jealous. The most daring thing Amy and I had ever done together was go on the Death Defier roller-coaster at Playworld after our mothers had told us not to.
“It was a full moon,” said Marva.
Although Marva was actually pretty interesting, I was getting more and more nervous. Not only was the house strange, but I was becoming surer and surer that I was being watched. Trying not to be too obvious, I kept glancing around, but I couldn’t see anyone. The lizards were still fast asleep.
An apple core went whizzing past my ear. “Pay attention,” ordered Marva. “You’re not paying attention.”
“Yes, I am.”
Marva tossed her head. “I’ve decided what you should do about the frogs,” she said grandly.
Relief washed over me. It was about time. Once she’d told me her idea, I’d be able to go home. I stopped listening for shallow breathing and looking for eyes peering at me from the shadows. “Great,” I said. “What should I do?”
Marva grinned. “You should set all of the frogs in Mr Hererra’s lab free,” she announced.
“I should what?” She really was too much.
“Set them all free,” Marva repeated. “It’ll be like the Boston Tea Party, a symbolic revolutionary act.”
“I don’t want to start a revolution,” I pointed out. “I just don’t want to have to cut up a frog.”
Marva waved her arms theatrically. “But just think of it!” she cried. “If you give them their freedom, no one will have to cut one up. You’ll not only be stopping the senseless slaughter of innocent amphibians, you’ll be contributing to the happiness of your fellow students.” She leaned back in her chair with a contented sigh. “Actually, it’s exactly what my brother once did.”
My mind had started wandering again while she was talking about innocent amphibians, but the mention of her brother brought it back with a snap. Marva’s brother! Chris “Bizarro” County! Of course! Why hadn’t I thought of that before? That was why I thought someone was watching us! Somebody was watching us. Marva’s weirdo brother. He was probably hidden behind a bookcase or peeking through a crack in the door or something.
“Oh, really?” I said, smiling at Marva and acting as though I was about to lean back in my chair. But then, quick as an electron, I spun around, sure that I’d catch him off guard.
I was in mid-spin when I heard it. Flapping. The flapping of heavy wings. Bats! I thought. The flapping grew louder. Good grief! They’ve got bats in the house! Now I had my back to Marva and was staring at a wall of books. All I could think of was bats. Big bats with tiny red eyes and enormous leather wings.
Swooshswooshswooo … Swooshswooshswooo… The flapping was right over me.
“Get down!” shouted Marva.
I didn’t get down. Something skimmed past my head. Something large. Something with claws and fangs.
I screamed. It screamed. I screamed again. It was flapping above me, trying to land in my hair. I jumped out of my chair and started running from the room. As I crashed through the door, I could hear Marva start to sob. I ran down the hallway, shrieking. I had to get to the front door. That was all. I just had to get to the door. Once I was outside I’d be safe. Whatever it was was right behind me, shrieking louder than I. I ran and ran. Flapflapflapflapflap. Swooshswooshswoosh… It was the longest hallway I’d ever been in. It was the hallway of a nightmare, getting longer and longer as you run faster and faster. Flapflapflapflapswooshswooshswooo…
Then, just as I was about to reach the County’s front door, it flew open, and a tall figure stepped inside. A vampire! I thought. A vampire has come to help the bat!
“Geronimo!” screamed the vampire. “Geronimo!”
And then I slammed into him at full speed and the two of us fell to the floor.
Marva’s laughter filled up the hall.
“Get off me, you idiot!” screamed the figure in the doorway. But it wasn’t a vampire trying to stop me from escaping, it was Marva’s brother trying to get into the house. It was easy to see why he was always in trouble in school. He had a real attitude problem.
“Oh, pardon me,” I said with as much sarcasm as I could manage under the circumstances. “The next time I’m being attacked, I’ll try and make sure that you’re not in my way.” It seemed to me that he could have asked if I was all right or not. He was at least a foot taller than I was. I touched my nose to see if it was bleeding.
“What are you, deaf as well as stupid? Get up! I have to get Geronimo! Can’t you understand you’ve upset him?”
I’d been planning to get up. I mean, I wasn’t going to just lie there in the hallway, sprawled across Chris County, was I? I’d rather have been back at the dance. But his attitude was really beginning to annoy me. What did he mean I’d upset Geronimo? His bat had frightened me out of a year’s growth, which was something a person of my height couldn’t afford.
I didn’t budge. If he could have an attitude, I could have one too. “I’ve upset him? And what about me? I’m not used to having vampire bats chasing me through the house.”
“Deaf, stupid and blind as well,” he said. “Geronimo isn’t a bat, he’s a snowy owl.” He gave me a shove.
“Don’t you shove me!” I shoved him back.
He looked like he was going to just lift me off him, but Marva finally recovered enough to speak. “Stop it, you guys,” she ordered. “You don’t even know each other yet and already you’re fighting.” She bent over us. “Jenny,” she said in this mock-formal way, “I’d like you to meet my brother, Chris. Chris, this is Jenny Kaliski. Remember I told you about her? She’s the one having trouble with Herrera.”
The annoyed expression that had been on his face since we landed on the floor was replaced by one of amazement. “This is frog girl?”
Frog girl? Was that what Marva called me at home? For Pete’s sake, I might be short but I wasn’t green.
He turned to me. The annoyed look returned. “How could you scare Geronimo like that?” he demanded. “I thought you were concerned about other species.”
I pulled myself to a sitting position and glared at him. I could think of one species I wasn’t feeling too concerned about. “I’ll have you know that your precious owl nearly scared me to death.”
He got to his feet and stood there glaring at me. “Maybe next time he’ll do better” he said. What a charming boy.
“You could help her up, you know,” said Marva.
“I don’t need your help,” I informed him coolly.
But of course, Chris County wasn’t the kind of person to care what anyone else said. He reached out, grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet so quickly that we both nearly fell down again. “As soon as I find Geronimo you can apologize,” he said.
Me apologize to an owl? I was too surprised to answer. Marva and I watched him disappear up the stairs, making what I supposed must be comforting snowy owl sounds and calling, “Geronimo! Geronimo! It’s all right, boy, that girl won’t scare you any more.”
Marva turned to me with a big grin. “Isn’t it great Chris came home?” she asked. “Now he’ll be able to help with your frog plans.”
“Marva,” I said. “Marva, is that what you call me? ‘Frog girl’?”
Marva laughed. “Of course not,” she said. “That’s what Chris calls you.”