Page 7 of Without a Clue

Too easy to what, Ricky? Kill someone?

Are these really things you should announce out loud?

This from Ricky, for the record, is normal. We are informed on a daily basis via email or otherwise how something can and will kill us. And it often ends with a statement about just how easy it’d be for he himself to do it. Reassuring stuff.

We all ignore him.

“The whole incident with the stereo is too funny not to use in a book,” Crystal says. She hoists her camo backpack that’s twice the size of her body higher over her shoulders as she strides alongside us, her little legs working like a seagull on a brisk walk. “It’d be a travesty not to show the world the hilarious moment of the Pip Breakdown. I’m working on a book set here in Miami—”

“Is that what we’ll refer to this incident as?” Gordon says, ever the one for naming things. He has an entire language he’s created for curse words, which he uses, in our real world, on the daily. “Binks” is one of them.

“Finks” if you’re going for a low blow.

You should see Gordon and all his buddies at Comic-Con in their wizard hats holding thirty-two-ounce sodas, each tossing their own made-up languages into the pile of conversation, each secretly, desperately hoping their made-up words will catch on.

And while Neena and Hugh and the rest carry on, arguing over exactly who is going to get the honor of using Pineapple Trunks in their next novel, I glance to the shore, back to the specific spot in the distance where I completely lost it.

Man, I really lost it.

In all the lifetime events of Penelope Mae Dupont, none will be as extreme as this. Mom likes to talk about how I once walked outside of my room as a three-year-old and peed on the carpet in defiance while in time-out. But that’s the point. People who know me laugh, precisely because it’s the exact opposite of something I’d do. I’m compliant and obedient.

I obey laws.

I give away cats when the landlord says they are no longer allowed (difficult, I assure you).

Hugh gives me a deadline for two days from now? I do it in one.

Hugh wants me to fly with him on a whim to an abandoned hospital in the middle of Nowhere, America, for some terrifying research? I say, “Shall I pack one bag or two?”

But that spot on the shore . . .

It seems that everybody’s relieved I actually have a breaking point.

For weeks they’d been trying to get me to open up, to display any emotion, and I’d clamped my mouth shut.

I had composed myself.

I’d brushed my unruly hair until it went into a nice, neat ballerina bun. Every single one of my cardigan buttons was looped in place. I put on a polite smile and said to every single person who dared ask, So how are you, Pip . . . really?, “Me?” (as though it was funny they should ask such a surprising thing). “Oh, I’m doing well. Really well. Thank you so much for asking. And how are you, [insert anyone from distant aunt to secretly unsympathetic, gossipy downstairs neighbor]? How is your [dog, geranium, wart issue, whatever possible topic comes to mind to get the subject off me]?”

And I had just gotten to the point where everyone was possibly believing the ruse—including myself—when today happened.

The moment the man broke my perfect peace bubble and was so wholly inconsiderate, not thinking for a moment about how his actions affected the rest of the world around him, that I lost it.

Because the reality is, what you do with your life affects other people.

Thinking only of yourself comes with a cost, always.

You just may not be the one paying it.

People should know that.

Michael should know that.

Pineapple Trunks—and every other person on earth for that matter—should know that.

And be held accountable.

“Well, I think it’s safe to say on behalf of everyone, we are all very proud of you, darling,” Neena says quietly, bringing me back to the world around me. The beating Miami sun overhead. The blue and white bunting flags of the cruise ship snapping in the wind. Nothing depressing or unhappy in sight.