Page 30 of The Initial Insult

“What?” I’d looked down at it, shocked, then back up to see Rue giving me . . . well, giving me a shit-eating grin.

“You asshole!” I’d said—a word that Cecil dropped a lot around the cages—and done the only thing that seemed like the right reaction. I threw it at her.

She’d been thrilled, ducking her head and jumping into the tree to grab an apple from the stash she kept up there, throwing it at me the second I turned my back. It sailed through the square holes of the fence and I understood; we were playing a game.

I’d gathered a few things, some apples from the orchard, a tennis ball I usually tossed with Goldie, and a balled-up sock from the box of mismatches. Rue and I spent most of the afternoon throwing things at each other, which I guess is how you make friends with an orangutan.

She’s watching me now from her tree; I can see her eyeing me through the leaves. She’ll probably wait until I’m in throwing distance and peg me from afar. She’s gotten pretty good at judging what will fit through the fence holes and what won’t, and her aim is improving.

“All right, Zee,” I tell the zebra, giving her a last rub on the neck. “You’re good.”

Goldie slips through the paddock slats as I climb over, her dirty haunches bouncing as she runs in front of me. I really need to trim her up, give her a bath. Not that long ago she had monthly appointments with the groomer and would come home with a bow on top of her head, Mom and Dad telling her she was a good girl, a pretty girl. Dad would roll around on the ground with Goldie, then grab my leg and pull me into the pile, telling me I was a good girl, too, while I shrieked and reached for Mom, who would pretend I was invisible.

“What is that?” she’d say, cocking her head. “I think I hear my daughter . . . but I can’t see her. Weird.”

I squash the thought as soon as I have it, painful because it came true. Mom can’t see me now, neither can Dad, and I bet they can’t hear me, either. Felicity Turnado showed up at my house in her nightgown, crying, asking if she could spend the night, and after that everything changed. Goldie isn’t an indoor dog anymore, and she isn’t a clean dog anymore. Cecil doesn’t tell me that I’m a good girl, either, no matter how clean the pens are or how hard I work. That’s just the way it is.

The tennis ball hits me square in the forehead, and Goldie grabs it on the third bounce, running off with her head in the air. I rub the spot.

“Nice, Rue,” I tell her. I hold my hands up, empty. Goldie ran off with my only ammo. “You win.” She gives me a chirp and comes down, graceful and effortless, swinging easily through the power of her own strength. She drops in front of me, cocking her head when my phone goes off in my back pocket. There’s a question on her face—what is this new thing?

I’m as surprised as she is. Right after Mom and Dad disappeared there had been a lot of messages, kids from school asking if I was all right (I wasn’t) and if there was anything they could do (they couldn’t). But the messages had dwindled as time passed, and my new situation became old. I wasn’t news anymore. I was just poor now. I couldn’t do the movies or the mall without that awkward moment when someone else’s mom handed me a folded twenty, or spend the night without being encouraged to take a shower and scrub real good before bedtime.

I stopped taking the twenties, started refusing to scrub real good, and the pity invitations didn’t come anymore. The only person I hadn’t heard from in months was the person I wanted to talk to the most: Felicity. So when I pull the phone out of my back pocket and see that I’ve got a text from her, and that she wants me to come to her birthday party, I say the first thing that comes to mind, some more words that Cecil taught me.

“Holy shit.”

In her cage, Rue grins at me.

I am not glad I came to the party.

Cecil was not happy when I told him I wasn’t doing chores tonight, because it means he can’t get blackout drunk for another extra hour. I didn’t even think about asking him to drive me into town, and I would’ve walked the whole way if Ribbit’s mom hadn’t spotted me hiking down the road with my backpack and sleeping bag. I’d grabbed the bag after Cecil yelled at me that a girl who doesn’t pull her weight doesn’t need a bed to sleep in at night. I’ve been locked out for less, and slept in the stable more than once when Cecil was in a mood. If I can stay at Felicity’s, at least I won’t smell like an ostrich in the morning.

Aunt Lenore gave me a ride to Felicity’s house, a little line in between her eyebrows. She told me to have a good time when I got out of the car, Cecil’s old boots slapping against the Turnados’ paved walkway. Cecil took most of my stuff to Goodwill when I moved in with him, said he didn’t have the kind of room that Mom and Dad did and that I didn’t need most of that stuff anyway. What I needed was to learn not to be spoiled.

I guess one of the things that spoiled me was having my own shoes, because Cecil traded all of them to some guy at the bar who forgot to get his kid a birthday present in exchange for a bottle of whiskey. So now I have on his old boots, the dried mud and probably more than a little animal shit tracking all over Felicity’s bedroom carpet. Which, I notice, is new.

April—Felicity’s mom—was weird with me, one hand on my shoulder as she guided me to Felicity’s room, like I didn’t know the way. Then Gretchen had mentioned invitations. I didn’t get one of those. I got a text last night, last minute.

I’m standing here, wearing an old man’s shoes, holding a sleeping bag I’m not supposed to have, staring down a bunch of girls I don’t really like. And despite the weight of Felicity’s arm across my shoulders, something is being made very clear to me.

I don’t belong here.

Chapter 25

Felicity

Sixth Grade

We’re friends again.

It happened slowly, starting with the fact that no one had brought any sleeping bags—breaking the news to Mom that this was now a sleepover had not been awesome—and so we ended up making a pile of blankets on the floor of my room. We’re cuddled in, a bag of Doritos passing between us, wiping cheesy fingers on whatever we can find.

Mom had carried Tress’s boots outside with a wrinkled nose, and I had given her a pair of my pajamas. She’s almost like us, now, with the right clothes on and that scab on her knee covered. Almost. There’s still something about her eyes, and how she’s being too careful, watching Gretchen like she’s waiting for her to attack.

Which she hasn’t done . . . so far.

Brynn’s mom picked her up about an hour ago and me, Gretchen, Maddie, and Tress had torn through a package of cookies and a case of soda that Dad had slipped into my room, with a wink and a thumbs-up. I’m guessing Mom is lying on the couch downstairs, her mouth a thin, flat line as she crosses her fingers and prays I don’t have a seizure in front of everyone. Either that or worrying about the soda rotting my teeth out of my head. She always says my smile is my best feature. I guess if I didn’t have seizures maybe that would be my best feature instead.