L I L L Y

 

Lilly had her own table at the back of the social studies class. And a hard wooden chair that swiveled and squeaked but was a solid as a tank circa World War I. Many of the rooms now had a similar set up, a necessary accommodation for Lilly’s Unusual Stature. At first she’d objected to her exile at the back of the class, but now she rather liked the view and thought of herself as a periscope, keeping an eye on everything that bobbed in the water. Her best friend Rain was always allowed to sit beside her, which made a lot of things about middle school and being a giant rather better than expected.

Ms. Molina, a young teacher who somehow managed to seem exuberant and laid back at the same time, half-leaned, half-sat on the front of her desk, ankles and wrists delicately crossed as she waited for someone other than Lilly to raise a hand. It wasn’t that Ms. Molina wouldn’t call on her—quite the opposite—but she always paused to see if anyone else wanted to participate.

Her classmates’ behavior, especially the girls, puzzled Lilly. Where last year they’d been quick to give an answer or eager to ask a question, they’d lost their voices over the summer. Lilly imagined them at the same overnight camp-of- horrors, where their personalities had been extracted with a slender hook that went up a nostril and pulled out a sticky portion of their Silly Putty brains. The Egyptians had used such a process to make mummies, but her classmates were zombies now, with well-manicured hands. Hands they rarely opted to raise. A scent of fear clung to them, though what clung to the boys was more like boredom, or the dirt of indifference.

“Lilly?” Ms. Molina smiled at her, an expression more sad than happy. It was a look Lilly was seeing more often on the adults she encountered, and if it held an undercurrent of what-is-going-to-become-of-you, Lilly opted not to notice. She hadn’t firmly decided how she felt about her new self, but she retained enough hope not to assume the worst.

“Hatshepsut!” She might’ve pronounced it wrong, but she’d loved reading about the first woman pharaoh.

“And the significance of her reign was…?”

“People thought she would just be regent until her stepson was old enough, but her reign was so successful that she never stepped down.” A conspiratorial grin traveled from Lilly to Rain, Lilly to Ms. Molina—some secret understanding that taking over the world was the right thing for girls to do.

As if sensing a threat, a hand shot up from the middle of the room, belonging to a pudgy-cheeked boy whose name Lilly always forgot. Bryce or Bruce or Brace. He didn’t wait for Ms. Molina’s permission to blurt out, “Shouldn’t she be in college? It isn’t fair.”

Rain mouthed “college?” and she and Lilly snorted before giggling behind their hands.

Bruce or Brace or Bryce whipped around to scowl at them.

“Lilly knows the answer because she read the—”

Before Ms. Molina could finish, and heedless of his own folly, Brace or Bryce or Bruce interrupted her. “There’s no way she’s a sixth grader, she might not even be a girl. No one that big can—”

This time it was Rain who took offense. “You think tall people can’t be young, or girls? That’s the dumbest—”

“Okay, let’s—” Ms. Molina shifted away from her desk and onto her feet.

“My brain is a lot bigger now,” Lilly said in her own defense.

“So I guess you’re right, that might be a little unfair.”

Half the class, already amused by the departure from their regular routine, roared their approval; none of them returned with a litter to carry the now pink-cheeked boy from the battlefield. And whatever admonishment Ms. Molina had been on the verge of unleashing to settle the matter, instead she pressed her lips together to keep from looking too amused. But Lilly saw the glint of approval in her eyes.

 

 

After school, Lilly and Rain walked to Rain’s house; Lilly was glad to stretch out her legs. Sometimes, as she and her best friend gabbled about the who and what of their day, Lilly missed seeing a low-hanging branch before it struck her in the face. Rain chided her as if she’d always been so tall, always forgetting to move tree limbs out of the way because of her love for leaf sandwiches.

“…and much smaller than a bee, but quite larger than a flea…” The high-pitched voice came from above.

The girls looked around to see which bird had spoken. Most people considered the birds and their anthropomorphic chatter a nuisance, but Lilly had an affinity for them. Some sang the ditties from radio commercials, and some imitated the people they heard. Some had such mysterious things to say, a riddle, or a fragment of heartfelt advice. A few even sounded like other animals, the croaking frog, the meowing cat, the midnight cricket.

“…that would be the ladybird, the ladybug another word.” It was the little brown bird with the white stripes on its wings, reciting in a grandmotherly tone. Lilly grinned, eager to hear the rest of the poem, but her head came too near the bird’s nest and it flew away.

By the time they arrived at Rain’s house Lilly had acquired a few scratches—on her forehead, on her left cheek—but was otherwise not worse for the wear.

“Snack?” Rain asked as she tossed her backpack onto the kitchen’s cluttered island.

“I’m starving!” Lilly sat on one of the wooden bar stools and shoved away a pile of mail, a menagerie of pens, a flashlight, and two screwdrivers, until she had enough space to rest her elbows.

“Chips and salsa? PB&J?”

“Sure.”

“Which?” The light from the refrigerator lit up Rain’s face and cast a sheen on her curtain of black hair. They used to take turns braiding each other’s hair and Lilly had loved the comfort of her friend’s fingers twisting and stroking her long locks. It was the thing she’d become most self-conscious about, her hair a noticeable deficit where everything else—legs, nose, boobs, hands—were on the scale of abundance, even if in excess.

“Both? I’m really hungry.”

Rain handed over the bag of tortilla chips and jar of salsa. “We’ve got more if you finish that.”

“Thanks.” If Lilly hadn’t been so hungry she would’ve helped make the sandwiches, but over the past weeks an unspoken arrangement had settled into their friendship: Rain helped whenever she could. She didn’t ask or make a big deal of it, she just picked up whatever Lilly dropped, held doors open, tied her sneakers if they came undone. Sometimes she knew Lilly needed assistance before Lilly realized it herself, like when they made the year’s first poster project and Rain automatically trimmed all the pictures they’d printed: Lilly couldn’t use scissors anymore, the finger holes were too small.

The phone rang.

“Probably my mom,” Rain said as she spread plum jam on a slice of bread.

Lilly dug out the cordless handset from the detritus in front of her. Recognizing the caller, she answered it. “Hi Daddy.”

Rain turned to her, grinning. It was a running wish between them that their loving and well-meaning parents either left them alone, or got them their own damn phones.

The adults were in cahoots about the evils of cellular phone dependency: The isolating tendency to ignore everything except the small glowing screen; the perilous access to social media—where they might attract bullies or perverts. Rain’s brother Declan just got his cellphone a few weeks ago, when he started high school. The girls still hoped not to wait that long.

“Good…” Lilly gobbled tortilla chips, heavily laden with spicy tomatillo salsa, as they went through their usual after-school convo. “No, not really…. A little…” Her dad finally said something that sparked her interest. Lilly’s eyes widened and she perked up. “Really?… Can Rain come over?… Okay, bye!”

Rain slid their two plates onto the island, pushing away more stuff, and sat on the stool beside Lilly. “What’s up?”

“My dad’s picking me up at four-forty-five because guess what? He found a lady who makes custom clothes and she’s coming over at five to start working on my—”

“Holy galoshes, that’s so awesome! Can you design anything you want?”

“I think so. Want to come over and help me—” A crack like a bat hitting a ball startled them out of their conversation.

The next thing Lilly knew she was sitting on the tiled floor, the stool in splintered fragments around her.

“Are you okay?” Rain leapt onto the floor beside Lilly.

Everything in her vision wobbled for a minute. Lilly wasn’t sure if she was okay. The core of her body ached as her spine shouted in protest at being unceremoniously dumped on the ground.

“Lilly? Are you hurt? Should I call your dad?”

“No, I’m okay, just….Wasn’t expecting that. Sorry.”

What Lilly felt most was embarrassment. Had her weight weakened the stool in recent weeks? Should she have known it couldn’t hold her anymore? “I’ll buy you a new one,” she mumbled.

“Who cares, it’s just an ancient dumb chair.” Rain stood, gripping her friend’s arm, prepared to help her up. But Lilly wasn’t quite ready.

“Will your parents be mad?”

Rain just gave her a look, a don’t-be-ridiculous, a look-at-the-state-of-our-house, a you’ve known-my-parents-forever look, which made Lilly feel a little better. But just a little.

“What if I outgrow the world?”

“Oh Lilly.” Rain embraced her, crouching so Lilly could weep on her shoulder. “It’ll be okay.”

“Sometimes I don’t mind it, but sometimes…What if I never stop?”

“You will.”

It’s what everyone said—her grandparents, the nurses, the scan technicians, teachers, Rain’s parents—because it should be true. A person shouldn’t be able to keep growing forever. But nothing about Lilly’s growth spurt conformed to the known rules of being human. And sometimes, when the consequences lay in pieces all around her, it made her worried. And a little scared.

She planted one hand on the tile floor and her feet flat on the ground. Rain, who’d once been quite a bit taller than she, used the strength she’d acquired from years of playing soccer and helped hoist her up. Both girls grunted with the exertion of it, which turned to laughter as Lilly, fully upright, found herself just beneath the light fixture, which floated over her head like a fancy glass hat.

“It looks good on you,” said Rain.

“Maybe I’ll design a dress to go with it.”

Rain didn’t let go of her hand. “You’re a superhero. Don’t forget that.”

Lilly heard the unshed tears in her best friend’s voice.

Where once it had just been adults who were afraid for her, now Rain was too. But Lilly had a magic trick for keeping her own fear at bay: no matter what happened, she knew Rain would always be her friend.