“Oh my god. She sounds exactly like my little cousin. She’s so annoying,” begins Natalie. The girl has a lot to say about her cousins today. But Maggie’s face is scrunched up like she’s thinking hard, and I’m pretty sure I know what she’s thinking. “This one time at Christmas—or wait, maybe it was Easter—”
“Jackson, that’s messed up,” interrupts Maggie.
“I know, right?” he says.
“No, really. It sounds like she’s—” And I can hear it coming and I say a silent prayer to Maggie under my breath. Don’t call Jackson’s sister a psychopath. Don’t call Jackson’s sister a psychopath. The two of us binge-watched three seasons of a series called In the Mind of a Maniac last summer and Maggie’s been on the lookout for psychopaths ever since. For the love of all that is good and pure and holy in the world, don’t call Jackson’s sister a— “Angry. Really, really angry.”
At least she didn’t say psychopath.
“Maybe.” Jackson shifts a little, lays off my lunch for a second, looks down. I remember the other things I’ve heard about Quin, and how the first day I met him she refused to leave the car because she was mad about another move. Maggie might be right. Even though I don’t think she should take that out on Jackson’s beautiful forehead, part of me gets why she would be angry. At everybody.
And I think this is maybe what he’s thinking, too, and I think this is why he doesn’t seem especially mad at her. If Tyler even accidentally hit me like that, I’d be demanding that my parents take him to the vet and put him down, but Jackson is just staring at the tube of nitroglycerin or whatever it is, and folding one lip over the other, while everybody else waits for him to make this moment fun again. Charm us, Jackson! That’s what we want from you!
“Have you ever thought,” I finally say, not taking my eyes off him, “she might be a werewolf?”
He looks up, and smiles with just his eyes. Grateful. “I hadn’t, but now that you say that, it does make sense. The violent outbursts, the howling, the constant hair brushing . . .”
“The ruthless approach to board games,” I add. “My mom probably has a support group listed in her binder.”
“Do you think we should try cutting out gluten?”
“I don’t know. Maggie, is that working for you?”
Maggie throws a baby carrot at me.
“What are you guys even talking about?” chirps Natalie, who has lost track of the conversation, and more important, where she and her cousins all fit in it.
Guess what, Natalie? You don’t, says my cocky butterfly.
The bell rings, giving us four minutes to get to next period. Tahlia tugs Natalie up. “Come on. You always make me late.”
Maggie carries her tray to the recycling station.
“Thanks for finally sitting with me, Greer,” Jackson says.
“Well, I felt sorry for you with the head injury and the werewolf sister. And being new and friendless and from Cleveland and all that.” Jackson tilts the empty Pirate’s Booty bag my way. Classic big-sibling trick: pawn off the garbage on the other kid. I throw up my hands to refuse.
He heads toward the second-floor stairwell, but not before turning around to add, “I guess tomorrow I’ll sit at the counter and write wistful poetry about your Booty.” I turn tomato red, and the tiny butterfly shits herself.
Maggie slides next to me and looks back and forth between me and the disappearing Jackson. She smirks, but doesn’t accuse me of anything. “He’s cool. But the sister sounds like a psychopath.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
CHAPTER 18
Volleyball tryouts are starting and the new bra hasn’t arrived. I’ll make do with my sports-bra-over-regular-bra-under-giant-shirt strategy. Maggie is excited that I’m trying out. She says she always thought I’d be good at team sports because I’m good at following directions and remembering rules. I draw a frowny poo on her arm in blue pen. And then she adds that I’m strong, because Mags can’t lift anything heavier than a twenty-ounce kombucha, which makes me seem like a weightlifter. I think she also feels bad because she’s at play practice every day, and I go home alone to lie half naked in my room. (She doesn’t know that’s what I’m doing, but she figures the alone part, and she likes the idea of me having something to do.)
Tryouts last the week. Jessa explained there are practices every day after school, and Ms. Reinhold and the team captains evaluate people as they go. Two years ago, a newbie like me wouldn’t have had a shot, but now that volleyball shares a season with basketball, Jessa says they lost some good players.
There are a ton of warm-ups before we get near a volleyball: burpees, mountain climbers, squats. None of them are easy, and all of them make my superboob swing around like an accident-prone trapeze artist. I keep yanking both bras back in place, but one of the straps underneath gets twisted and starts rubbing.
The worst drill is something the girls from last year call “sprinting to hell and back.” You run one length of the gym, bend down and touch the line, run back, touch the line, then run three quarters, touch the line, run back, and keep shrinking the distance until it’s only a few feet—and then you start lengthening it again until you are running the whole way again. It’s horrible.
If it was gym class, a few guys would go all out and race, but most people would trot along next to a friend and never even bother to touch the line. But these girls (a) know they are being evaluated for both skill and attitude; (b) are fiercely competitive; and (c) might be a sleeper cell trained on Themyscira to defeat the Patriarchy using only brute power and headbands.
It’s impossible not to get caught up in it. I watch the first group go, and when it’s my turn, I’m right there in the mix, heart pounding, shoes squeaking, racing for that line like I’m Katniss Everdeen and Prim’s life depends on it. I sprint up the gym, pivot a foot in front of the line, and smack my hand down, then shoot the other direction. It’s murder on the knees, and one girl who hasn’t tied her shoes tightly actually slides right out of them on the second stop. As the drill goes on, the line begins to stagger. I’m behind a couple of girls, but ahead of the main pack. Maude and Mavis are not happy, though, double-corralled in their school-day bra and the sports bra. They are hot and sore, and the twisted spot is hurting like crazy. It feels like a piece of tree bark rubbing against a blister. I put one hand up to hold the strap away from my skin, and by doing this I can use that forearm to hold back some of the bouncing as well.
Turning into my final full-length run, I am right on the heels of Jessa. She’s throwing her whole self into it, and I’m trying to keep up while carrying an armload of angry kittens (with claws). We finish the drill and sink against the wall to watch the third group of runners.