The Martin Chronicles Page 2

  “She’d be toast,” Dave said. “He’d fry her with his atomic breath.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Brace Face might bite through him with her grill.”

  I got up and pretended to be a crazed monster, marching through the room. “I have to take a leak,” I said, heading for the bathroom. As I opened the door, I saw my cousin Evie sitting on the toilet, bringing a wad of toilet paper from between her legs. Our eyes met, her expression as startled as mine. My gaze slipped to the shadowy space between her legs and she snapped her thighs together, covering herself with her hands. I stepped back into my room and shut the door.

  Dave’s head snapped up. “That was fast.”

  I didn’t move, my hand still on the doorknob. “I just saw my cousin on the toilet.”

  Dave looked at me, awestruck. “Did you see anything?”

  I leaned toward him, whispering, “I think I saw her vagina.”

  There was a pause as he considered this information, and then he said, “What’d it look like?”

  I hadn’t really seen anything, just a flash of thigh, but I’d put it out there. “Like Mothra when it gets really angry.” Dave nodded, as if it all made sense.

  At dinner that night, I avoided eye contact with Evie. Aunt Beth had made something called borscht, this purplish thick liquid that looked like the blood of one of the monsters from a Godzilla movie. She and my parents were talking about where to look for apartments, my mom suggesting a few neighborhoods and then my dad reminding her how expensive the rents were in those places. Evie was pushing a potato through her soup, not eating any of it. Finally, Aunt Beth took a sip of her soup and said, “This needs pepper.” She looked at me. “Don’t you think, Marty? Pepper might give it a kick in the pants.”

  I shrugged.

  And then, out of nowhere, Evie said, “This tastes like shit.” It was true, but I couldn’t believe she said it.

  “Evie!” Aunt Beth said. “Watch your language!”

  “This is awful, Mom,” she said, throwing down her spoon. She pushed her chair out from the table, as if she was going to flip the whole thing over. I hadn’t been able to look at her all evening and now I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Her face turned red, her lips clenched in anger. She was like a monster, lying dormant for millions of years, suddenly set free again. “I don’t even know why you try,” Evie added.

  “That’s enough,” Aunt Beth shouted, her voice angrier than I had ever heard. Her mouth trembled and I couldn’t tell if she was going to scream or cry. She took a deep breath, resting her hands on the table as if she was trying to steady herself. “If you can’t be civil, you can go to our room.”

  Evie got up and marched out of the dining room. Aunt Beth looked at my mom and dad. “I’m sorry,” she said, rising and walking to the kitchen. My mom ran after her. My dad looked at me. “It’s all right, buddy,” he said. “Evie’s having a rough time. I’m not sure she wants to move.” I nodded, but I didn’t get it. I couldn’t imagine living upstate, where they were now. Way too quiet. My dad looked at the bowl of chunky liquid in front of him, raising his eyebrows suspiciously, before pushing his chair back and following my mother into the kitchen. I sat there, in silence, wondering if I was supposed to wait or I was excused.

  * * *

  At school the next day, Mr. Harding spent the morning reviewing homonyms for a quiz, but I couldn’t get Evie’s explosion out of my head. I wondered if it was all because I had walked in on her in the bathroom. Part of me wanted to tell her that I hadn’t seen anything, but that would have meant talking to her, and I wasn’t going to do that.

  At lunch, I sat with a bunch of my friends while the girls clustered together at another table next to ours. It was sloppy joe day, the heavy smell of meat sauce all around us. I stared at Brace Face. She wasn’t wearing her mouth gear and seemed to smile more without it. Someone at my table dared Alan Oates to go sit with the girls. He flipped up the collar of his blazer and walked to their table. I couldn’t hear what he said, but a few moments later all the girls stood up and cleared out. “They said they were done,” he told us when he returned. “Their loss.”

  I watched the girls clear their trays at the cleaning station and then hurry out the door. Alan started boasting about some girl he had met from another school who taught him how to French-kiss. I got up and took my tray over to the cleaning station.

  That’s when I saw it.

  Nestled on a tray between a half-eaten sloppy joe and a crushed milk carton was Alice Jakantowicz’s retainer box. You couldn’t miss it, this round, bright blue container glowing in the pile of trash on her tray. In the cafeteria light, I could make out the outline of the retainer sitting inside, like a creature resting in its cave. There was no one behind me, so I grabbed the container and stuffed it into my jacket. Outside, in the hallway, I jammed the box into my book bag just before Brace Face reappeared, running toward the cafeteria. She looked at me for a moment, her expression worried, and then darted inside.

  It took no time for news about the missing retainer to make it around our grade. Max came into the library and found Dave and me doing our search assignment, trying to find a book on giraffes by using the card catalogue. “Guess what,” Max said. “Brace Face lost her grill.”

  I tried to look surprised.

  “She’s down at the dumpsters searching for it,” he added.

  I thought about telling them. They were my best friends. Still, I decided against it. Max was incapable of keeping a secret and I wasn’t ready to tell Dave. Not yet. For some reason, I didn’t want anyone to know. This was just between me and Brace Face.

  Back in class, we were working on a math lesson, subtracting six-digit numbers. Brad Yost raised his hand to ask how that would ever be useful, and Mr. Harding dropped a demerit on Brad’s desk. Fifteen minutes later, Brace Face returned to the room. Her hair was a tangled mess, her jumper and white shirt covered in stains. Her eyes were puffy and red, as if she had been crying. The boys in the class started giggling and Mr. Harding was having a difficult time quieting them down. Finally, he whispered something in her ear and she turned to leave. She looked devastated. I knew the feeling. I had lost several retainers myself in exactly the same way and had spent a few afternoons rummaging through garbage cans behind the school, only to come up empty-handed. I wanted to tell her I understood, but I just smiled at her, thoroughly delighted, not because I had the retainer, not because she was a mess, but because there was a connection between us that hadn’t been there before. She looked back at me, her eyes suspicious, as if I alone was responsible for her losing it.

  That night at dinner, I couldn’t wait to be excused. Aunt Beth had made moussaka, which looked a lot like lasagna but tasted nothing like it. Evie wasn’t feeling well so she stayed in her room. My dad worked at his food with the slow precision of a surgeon and a troubled expression on his face. My mom and Aunt Beth, though, seemed oddly chipper, telling stories about when they were younger, one after the other. The time Aunt Beth stuck an acorn up her nose. The time my mom crashed her dad’s car. They kept telling the stories, laughing all the way through, even though they hardly seemed like the kinds of things you wanted to remember. Evie was the closest thing I had to a sibling, but I couldn’t imagine we’d ever be as comfortable as my mom and Aunt Beth seemed with each other.

  After dinner, I shut my door and retrieved the case from my book bag. I sat on my bed and put the blue case on a pillow in front of me. Rain was coming down, the sky outside the window so gray it felt as if our building was caught inside a cloud. I snapped open the box and a familiar mint scent drifted to my nose. I held my breath as I opened the box completely and saw it—a flimsy piece of pink plastic with a silver wire, the black strap balled up beside it. The whole thing looked exactly like the one I had worn last year, only smaller, more fragile.

  I lay down on my back and held the retainer to the light, dragging my finger along the plastic. One side was smooth, but the other was covered with bumps and r
idges, a mold of the top of Brace Face’s mouth. It was strange to feel the terrain of the retainer as if I were touching the inside of her mouth. For a moment I wondered if maybe she could feel it too.

  I sat up and tried to fit the strap around my head. It was too small for me, barely reaching all the way from one ear to the other, but I was able to stretch the strap, attaching each end to the retainer and fitting it into my mouth. I knew the drill. The retainer itself was small and didn’t sit right, but I moved it with my thumb, forcing it into place. The rough side of the plastic tore into the flesh on the top of my mouth, but I didn’t care. I rolled over onto my stomach and started to move my hips, rubbing against the bed. The plastic continued to give me trouble, catching the inside of my mouth on its rough finish. Outside, the rain fell, hammering my air conditioner like a drumroll.

  I didn’t hear the door open.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Evie said, startling me.

  I turned and saw her standing in the doorway.

  “What are you wearing?” she said, and started to laugh. Her eyes drifted down to my pants, tented at my hips. “Gross!”

  I turned away from her. “Evie!” I shouted. “Get out!”

  “Oh, I see. It’s okay if you walk in on me, but not the other way around?”

  My heart raced. “Evie,” I said, “please.”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment, and then I heard the door close. I quickly took off the brace, stuffed it into its box, and buried it in the deepest corner of my closet.

  * * *

  The next day, Mr. Harding gave us our homonym quiz. He wrote a series of words on the board. Dear/Deer. Pail/Pale. Bear/Bare. Know/No. Tail/Tale. Each person had to go up and write a sentence or two that used both words. Dave got the first and wrote, Dear Diary, I shot a deer today with my rifle.

  “Very creative, Mr. Pearson,” Mr. Harding said, sitting in the back row. “The NRA would be proud. Next, why don’t we have Mademoiselle Papoochis.”

  This girl we called “Pooch” stood and wrote, The pail was filled with pale water.

  “Excellent,” Mr. Harding said. “Almost poetic.” He searched the room. “How about Mr. Kelso.”

  I walked up to the board and looked at my words. Bear/Bare. For some reason, I couldn’t focus, as if the words weren’t English. The incident with Evie lingered in my head, clouding my thoughts. I brought the chalk to the board to write something, but stopped short.

  Mr. Harding said, “In this lifetime, Mr. Kelso.”

  Finally I wrote, I saw a bear in the woods. I knew this was right, but I couldn’t think of anything to do with bare. At that moment, I didn’t even know what it meant.

  “While Mr. Kelso is brooding, let’s have someone else,” Mr. Harding said. He searched the room. “Ms. Jakantowicz?”

  Brace Face took her position next to me. Know/No. Those were her words. It seemed completely unfair, as that was the homonym she had used earlier in the week. She could just write the same thing if she wanted. But when she got up to the board, she didn’t do anything, just stared at me as if I was the problem she had to solve. Mr. Harding cleared his throat and said, “Ms. Jakantowicz? Is something amiss?”

  She continued to stare. I turned and faced her. She was cleaned up, no food stains, no retainer. She looked pretty. “What’s your problem?” I said.

  Finally, she moved to the blackboard and began writing. People started whispering. I turned to see what she had written: I know Martin stole my retainer. He can’t say no.

  The noise in the classroom grew louder. Brace Face walked closer to me, saying, “I know it was you. I know it was you.”

  Mr. Harding leapt up, his shoes slapping the floor with a loud crack. “Now see here, Ms. Jakantowicz. We don’t just go making uninformed accusations…”

  But Brace Face kept repeating the words, “I know it was you. I know it was you.” Tears began to stream down her cheeks, and she kept saying, “I know it was you,” as if she could actually prove it. She was glorious, like one of the monsters in the movie ransacking the city, knocking down buildings as if that was what she was born to do.

  If I had stayed quiet, the whole thing might have passed over. She would have gotten in trouble and I might not have needed to finish the quiz. I was the victim, she was the monster. But Brace Face was accusing me, the anger in her eyes like the look Evie had given her mother at dinner the other night. I said the first thing that came into my head.

  “Godzilla is now in New York City! The city is being invaded by Godzilla!”

  Students started laughing uncontrollably. “Godzilla is in New York City!” I said, repeating the words over and over. Harding was shouting at us to be quiet in multiple languages, but even he couldn’t stop it. At last, he picked up a ruler and slapped it across the blackboard. The room fell silent. “Take your seats!” he yelled. “Everyone pull out a sheet of paper and write new sentences for each of these homonyms. Absolutely no talking.” There was a general moan before he slapped the blackboard again, shouting, “Enough!”

  I walked to my chair, my mind racing. I couldn’t figure out how she knew. Had she seen me put it in my bag? Why didn’t she stop me? Had Evie told her? How could she know Evie? Did all girls know each other? My thoughts swirled. In front of me, Brace Face slipped into her seat, her back heaving with sobs. Harding walked the aisle, handing her a demerit. She took it without a word. He was about to walk away when he turned and handed me one as well.

  “She started it!” I said. “That’s not fair!”

  Mr. Harding’s eyes, weary and desperate, searched the room, until he caught himself and looked back at me, this time with a familiar intensity. “Life,” he said, “is not fair, Mr. Kelso. I believe this is your third demerit.” He walked toward the front of the room, but not before adding, “Have your parents sign it.”

  I took the yellow note card, staring at the line where my parents would have to sign, my heart beating so intensely I could feel my whole chair shake.

  * * *

  That night, I wasn’t hungry, despite the fact that Evie and Aunt Beth were out looking at apartments and my mom had made dinner. “You love spaghetti,” she said, her expression concerned when I didn’t eat.

  “Is something wrong, bud?” my dad said.

  “No,” I said. The demerit was in my pocket. My whole body felt depleted, as if I hadn’t slept for a long time.

  “Is it about Evie?” my mom said. It wasn’t, but I couldn’t tell them. I nodded. My mom reached over and took my hand. “She’s going through a tough time.”

  I pushed the noodles around the plate. “Can I be excused?”

  My mom turned to my dad, as if she wanted him to do something. “I don’t see why not,” my dad said. My mom shook her head, before adding, “Honey, if you want to talk, we’re here, okay?”

  “I know,” I said, and headed to my room.

  I sat in bed, trying to think what to do. I had never really gotten in trouble, and at that moment everything seemed to be coming down around me. I had a stolen retainer sitting at the bottom of my closet. I had to get my parents’ signature on a demerit. Alice Jakantowicz hated me. My cousin hated me.

  I woke the next morning with a plan of how to fix at least one thing. I decided I would bring the retainer back to school and tell Harding I had found it by the garbage. Alice Jakantowicz would have her grill back. I would be the hero. Maybe Harding would let me forget the last demerit. Maybe Brace Face and I would be friends. Everything would return to normal. Maybe for the better.

  The moment I got to school that day, everything had changed. The extra chairs had been removed. A row of dark blue ponchos lined the coatracks. My seat was back in the last row.

  The girls were gone.

  “Where’d they go?” Alan Oates asked.

  “The water main was repaired,” Mr. Harding said. “They’re back at their own school. Perhaps now we can get back to some degree of normalcy.”

  The room was quiet, as if we all were wai
ting for something else to happen. No one said a word. When the girls had been there, I had wanted them to leave. Now the classroom felt smaller without them.

  No one was home when I got back that afternoon. I watched television for a while, because the afternoon special was a replay of Destroy All Monsters. I tried to get into it, but for the first time, I actually felt sorry for the monsters, as if they were the ones who suffered, getting ordered around by the moon women and attacked by armies. It wasn’t their fault.

  Finally, I turned it off and went to my room. I jammed one shoe under the door and another under my bathroom door. No one was getting in. I pulled the retainer out of my bag and set it on the floor. My whole body tensed as I looked at it. This sad little piece of plastic and metal wire had caused me nothing but problems. I picked up a big toy truck Dave and I used when we pretended to be Godzilla, and started hitting the retainer, gently at first, just tapping at it. When it didn’t break, I put all my strength into it, smashing the truck against the retainer and the floor. I was making a ton of noise. It didn’t break at first, although the wire started to bend and the plastic flattened out. I would probably never see Alice Jakantowicz again, but at that moment, I wanted to destroy any trace of her. The pink plastic started to give, large cracks veining across its surface until the whole thing shattered, scattering across the floor.

  There was a knock at the door and I leapt up. “What are you doing?” Evie said, pushing the door open enough to get her head in.

  “Just playing,” I said, out of breath.

  “Uh-huh,” she said, her eyes searching the room. “Look, our parents went out to dinner. They left me money for pizza.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I said.

  “Whatever,” she said. “I already ordered it. I’m going to eat in the kitchen. Come in if you want some.”

  I cleaned up the broken pieces of the retainer and threw everything—shattered retainer, strap, case—down the garbage chute. I walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table with Evie, who was once again reading a magazine. Her mom had decided they couldn’t afford to live in New York, so now they were thinking about New Jersey, or maybe somewhere just a little ways away from where they lived now. I started to think the whole moving thing would probably never happen, that it was just another idea Aunt Beth was trying out. We sat there in silence until Evie looked up and said, “What’s wrong with you?”