Chapter 8
Just when I think I’m having the most unlucky week of my life, I’m at my locker getting ready for Food Science, looking at myself in my locker mirror––rubbing Almay lip gloss on because I’m not allowed to wear make-up, but I am allowed to have shiny lips.
IT happens.
Something bigger than astral projections or sunny island beaches or exploding bottles with messages inside of them. Or even Ally having the same old look in her eye. Hayden walks up to my locker and he says, “Hi.”
I so know that my pink jeans are lucky even though they’re getting dirty now. Forget Ally. Forget freaking Adrianne. I’m so happy my pink jeans make my butt look good and I say, “Hi,” forgetting how to speak after one word. I wipe my left palm on my lucky pink jeans, remembering when Hayden held my hand. Remembering when he wouldn’t look at me.
“So,” Hayden says in a whisper, he stands really close to me and continues. “Here’s the thing, that place, the island?” Then he hands me a note that reads: It’s Planet Popular.
“Planet...” I say.
Hayden puts a finger over my mouth and my voice is all muffled when I say it, and I’m embarrassed because I spit a little on his skin, and in my next breath I can’t believe I’m the one who’s embarrassed because he’s the one who put his finger over my mouth.
“You can’t say it out loud. Don’t let Adrianne know I told you,” he says.
“Ah, so her strange power over glass is combined with a superhuman-ability to hear things no human could ever hear normally?”
“Yes,” he says.
“Why are you even telling me this?” I say, sort of sick of all the secret-creepiness in my life.
“I have my reasons.”
“And what’s this planet, this-thing-I-can’t-say anyway? What, are you kidding me?”
“It’s a place every teenager visits but...” he says, shifting his eyes up and down the hall.
“But what?”
“But, a certain someone was banished from it and...”
“And that’s why you guys need me? Because I’m so incredibly popular?” I say.
“No ...”
“Of course not. Because I’m not incredibly popular.”
“We need someone with a…”
“Incredible ability to let other people use them?”
“Sort of.”
And then the bell rings and we take off for class, together. See this is how I crushed on Hayden––don’t laugh. I’ve been watching him cook all semester and he has this really cool way of rolling his pretzels. I liked that about him. No one pays attention to the way they roll their pretzels like Hayden. Only, this class is about baking apple pies and I am better at that than Hayden is. And I catch him looking over at me, when I roll out the crust. When I put the pie in the oven, Hayden peers over like he has something more to tell me.
“Wait for me after school. By the bike racks,” he says.
So I do. It’s after school and I’m by the bike racks. Waiting. I hate waiting. And just when I think this is the luckiest day of my life and that my pink jeans are still lucky––even though I’m a teenager now––because Hayden talked to me and slipped me a note and everything, I wish I’d never worn them. Because I hate watching Ally and Adrianne walk home without me. Hayden is late. And pretty soon there are only five bikes in the rack and just when I think he isn’t ever going to show, the bush whispers to me.
“Over here,” it says.
Well, actually it’s a hedge, a row of hedges planted on the other side of the bike racks and I always thought that if I ever wanted to ditch school, I’d hide there first. Then, I’d go where no one would know I was ditching, like a dark, dark movie theatre or the forest. I love the forest. But you know that already.
“Roxie,” the bushes whisper again. And I usually don’t approach strange bushes that talk to me, but I kind of recognize the voice, although his whisper sounds a lot different than his regular voice.
“Hayden? What took you so long?”
“Just sit here, right here beside me.”
“Ok,” I say. He’s so nervous he starts getting me nervous. He’s all looking over his shoulders and peering through the pine needles, checking the teachers’ cars as they drive by. I whisper too because he whispers, even though there’s no one anywhere near that can hear.
“Why are we whispering?”
“Because we have to keep everything I’m about to tell you a secret, that’s why.”
Another secret. But it’s OK. Because today Hayden talked to me and passed me a note and met me at the bike racks and we’re sitting in my secret ditching spot, whispering. To each other. Telling secrets.
“What’s the thing you want to know most of all?” he asks.
I guess right then, the way he’s looking at me so-not-in-control––not like himself at all––and a little scared, I want to know whether he’s a good kisser. “I want to know lots of things,” I say. Because, as cute as Hayden is, if he’s a bad kisser that’s a deal breaker.
“I mean about your birthday,” he says.
“I want to know why you guys even came in the first place. And I want to know where we went to, or didn’t go to, or traveled to in our minds, or you know what I mean.”
“Shhhhh,” he says. Shushing really isn’t attractive.
I don’t like being shushed. “Really?” I whisper back almost shouting. And if he puts his finger over my mouth again I’ll bite it off. I mean, in a way I kinda liked it, but it makes me mad too.
“Ok,” he ducks his head down when a car drives by like they’ll even see us. I’m getting super-sick of the secret-agent man stuff he’s up to. “So here’s the deal,” he says.
“The deal about what?”
“About the island.”
I look at the sky like it might come falling down on us because Hayden decided to tell me something about the thing we had sworn to never tell another living soul about and I really, triple-wanted that ugly rabbit’s foot in my back pocket. I didn’t care what leg it came off of or what kind of eyes the guy had who did the deed.
“It’s another world.”
“I know, I read your note. But what does it even mean? I mean I was there. I’m not popular.”
“It’s a place all kids visit in what they think are their dreams and once you do, if you find what your looking for and your shadow survives, you’re popular. Unless something happens.”
“What happened?”
“There’s really only two rules that can never be broken,” he says.
“What. The freaking Oath of Secrecy? Hey, I know Adrianne has you guys all believing this stuff. And don’t get me wrong, it’s cool. But I’ve never dreamt about the place before. And, Earth to Hayden? Guess what? I’m not popular.”
“But you will be, and that’s why you AP’d with us. Planet Popular finds you. Some kids remember their time there. Some don’t. No one can AP alone. We knew when you sent out the invitations, you’d be next.”
I roll my eyes.
“I knew you would remember,” he says.
“Sounds like a place I don’t want to go. Sounds shallow and mean and exclusive and about everything I hate about pea-, uh, the last two weeks at school. Why would I want to go back there?” I say, even though I want to go back to Planet Popular more than anything because, let’s face it, girls don’t fall for the unpopular guy at school just like boys don’t sit up and take notice of the most interesting dodo they meet. It’s the curse of middle school. Even with everything. All of it. Being grounded for the rest of my life and being ignored by all the peacocks. I want to be a peacock. More than anything.
“When did you decide to send your birthday invitations?” Hayden asks.
Oh, about the time I decided I was doomed to never have a party because I’d never gone to parties and didn’t want to end up the biggest dodo at high school next year. That’s why. Like I’m so going to tell him that. Or, because I have a blind desire to be liked.
I’m so going to tell him that. Or, no, I just remembered I’d rather stab my eyeballs with needles.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Well, think about it. I bet the first time you started thinking about the party is exactly when Adrianne got kicked off Planet Popular.”
“Kicked off? Why would she get kicked off and if she did, I know her, she got to go back.”
“I can’t explain,” he says flicking his fingers through his amazing reddish-brown hair.
“Oh, so you coming to my birthday was a sympathy thing. The only reason Adrianne lowered herself to come to my birthday and brought you guys along was so she could show the powers-that-be on Planet Whatever she isn’t a total monster?”
His eyes get wide. “You’re close. Only, she had to do so much more. And she failed.”
Wait a minute. Peacocks don’t fail. Peacocks always win. It’s sort of The Law of Being A Peacock. “Lucky guess,” I say, knowing I’m anything but, looking up at the sky that isn’t falling again. But if some secrets are out, and nothing bad happens then I guess I can talk to pretty much anyone I want to about what happened in the attic on my birthday. I get kind of a warm feeling inside, even though the wind’s coming up and I’ve been used. I’m a peacock. I mean, Hayden said I will be one. Whatever.
But all that really matters is that Hayden and I are hiding together in the bushes, talking. And that’s amazing, but then I blow it. “Why are you just telling me all this?”
“Because you have to be ready.”
“For what?”
“For when we go back.”
And I’m like, “Great. Sign me up. When we go back it’ll be like an episode of Survivor and Adrianne will vote my butt off the island.”
“No, Adrianne left something behind and it’s changed everything.” He bites his lip. “And I want to tell you everything, but I can’t. Adrianne’s already broken one of the rules. And now we’re all going to pay.”
“We? Me?”
“Not you. Me.”
A car pulls up beside the bike racks.
“My mom just pulled up. I have to go. I’ll tell you more tomorrow. Just don’t go into the attic alone.” And he flies out from the middle of the bushes and all of a sudden it’s getting dark, way dark, in the scratchy branches and I’m all alone. I hear Hayden slide a little on the asphalt on his run to his mom’s car, then I watch him run back to me, to the bushes and he sticks his head partway through the branches and says, “You want a ride? It looks like rain.”
“Sure,” I say. “If your mom doesn’t mind.”
“It’s my dad and he’s cool.”
“K.” I climb into Hayden’s dad’s Jeep and the rain comes down hard right after we snap our seat belts on. It’s so cool to be safe and warm and with a guy you like when it’s dark and rainy outside. I like it. A lot. And I wonder for the first time what it will be like to be in high school. Doing all the firsts I have left. I wonder what it will be like to have a boyfriend. To kiss a boy. A guy who worries about me getting wet in the rain. I love that I’m cozy inside Hayden’s car. What I don’t love is how mad Mom is going to be when I ring the doorbell because I forgot my key, again, and she’s beside herself because I’m not at Ally’s like usual.
One thing I do know, my brother says it all the time, Knowledge is power. And I figure if I just go back to Planet Popular by myself, the powers-that-be wouldn’t mind and I’d be the coolest, most popular peacock on this planet because I’d have been the James T. Kirk of Peacocks––going where no peacock as ever gone before––and I’d know more than they do. Note to self: google animals in space. It’ll be my one shot to soar to the top of Oakdale Middle School. I mean, I was the only one who could read the writing on the note and I was the one who saw the weird white orb dancing in my attic––the portal. I’ll go tonight. I can turn into a peacock all on my own. And I like Planet Popular more and more, because if I ran the place I’d kick Adrianne off too. She probably hearty-loopied them to death.
I sit through dinner enduring things like, So how was your day? and Who did you sit with at lunch? I mean, every day Mom asks the same question, right when I get home from school. And sometimes I don’t feel like talking right when I get home from school. Especially when I’m dripping wet. Especially when I forgot my jacket at school and I have to run to the front door and get sopping wet and don’t turn around because I don’t want to give Hayden and his nice father a wet t-shirt view of me. I run upstairs to change so fast Mom barely has time to get mad at me, she sees how wet I am. She stored up all her questions for dinner though and it feels more like Jeopardy than dinner and I get mad halfway through because she doesn’t have any questions, I mean none, for my brothers.
Why don’t they ever get into trouble? I guess it’s the grades. You get straight As, you can do pretty much anything you want.
And, on top of that, when I have much, much more important things to do, like you know, APing to Planet Popular, it’s my night to do the dishes. Which, even when it’s not my night to do the dishes, I still have to do some of them because my brothers are the world’s worst dishwashers.
So I sit at the sink and stare at the bubbles of the soapy dishwater. It’s pretty amazing how magical bubbles are. As I scrape plates with the scrubber in my plastic gloves, it’s the first time I ever wear the icky gloves and the first time I put on an apron to protect my clothes because, well, they’re lucky and I don’t want to get any stains on them, and I think now that I’m a teenager I should start doing things like wearing aprons and rubber gloves.
Anyway, I stare into the water and I get to thinking. Most everyone likes to think of themselves––my Auntie Ann would say fancies themselves––as clever and interesting. But not everyone is, are they? What if I’m not? I mean what if I think I’m all cool and everything and I end up––not. Would they bust me on Planet Popular? It sort of terrifies me.
And what’s this smell I’m smelling? Really? I guess boobs aren’t the only new thing I’ll have to get used to. I guess, when I’m nervous and clearly not-popular enough and about to storm Planet Popular I’ll have to get used to the strange new scent that I’ve got going on. Yuck. Note to self: buy freaking deodorant. I guess along with boobs, and plastic gloves and aprons and my period [which still hasn’t come yet] I get to smell like I’ve just run a mile when I’m at my most vulnerable. Nice.
I look left and then right to make sure I’m alone. Like I’m Wonder Woman and I’m about to spin in circles and turn into superhero outfit. Neither of which I’m actually doing. But I don’t want anyone to see me going into the garage because that would be weird. No one is around though. And I take off my rubber gloves and shake them over the sink.
The sink where I sometimes wash my hair when I wake up late for school. My dad has a freaking conniption when I walk to school with wet hair, which happens all the time. He’s convinced I’ll get sick every time I do. I mean, anyone who has survived a war, well, you just can’t argue with people like that. They know more than you about survival. And you need to listen. Even when you don’t want to. Just like you have to listen to the kids in the neighborhood about the spooky house in town. And right then, I wish I’d really paid better attention to him and his survival habits.
I hang my apron on the hook by the baker’s rack and take one last, long look around the kitchen. I tip-toe to the garage door, passing by my chair at the kitchen table, passing Dad’s study door where we always hang our Advent calendar, and I reach the coat closet where we keep all our sodas. I put my hand on the doorknob to the garage and give it a silent turn and step out of the house. I flick a light switch on and walk to the green-carpeted steps that lead to the attic. I flick another switch to turn on the small light above the steps and walk up. As soon as I place my hand on the attic door, I catch a twisted glimpse of myself in the golden doorknob and I tremble. How I look will matter on Planet Peacock. I’m not wearing any makeup. I’m still wearing my lucky outfit, a day’s worth of stains
all over it.
But I don’t go back downstairs to do any additional primping. For one simple reason––because of what Hayden said. I’m about to be a peacock, even though I haven’t worn make-up or had very many friends. Even though we aren’t rich. And I can’t think of one reason why I would be popular at all. So I wonder how the miracle will occur. After all, I’m just a dodo. Nothing special. Like my brothers point out every day.
I open the attic door. Something I’ve done a million times but feels like I’m doing for the very first time. The stale, cold attic air blows over me. But it isn’t totally stale, something else flavors the cold air, a scent of flowers. Of gardenia. And the only reason I’d ever know that scent is because it’s the fragrance Mom wears when Mom and Dad stay in on Saturday nights.
Saturday night is their night. As creepy as I should find that, I don’t. We kids are always on our own that night. They’d have cocktails in Dad’s study and I’d hear them laughing behind closed doors. I liked that Mom and Dad love to be together because a lot of parents don’t. A lot of parents split up. I like their laughs.
And I know that tomorrow night, Saturday night, Mitch will be out with Lola and Mom and Dad will be with each other and Brian will do whatever lame thing Brian always does on Saturday night. And I won’t be with Ally. Like I usually am these days.
I’ll have to find a way to wriggle out of that one because I’ve decided. I’m going to Planet Peacock on Saturday night. It’s the perfect night for me to AP again. The perfect night for me to get one up on the peacocks. I’ll find whatever they’re looking for and bring it back. I won’t fail. I close the attic door and walk back downstairs, turning off the lights as I go. I have to talk to Ally one last time.
“So when you coming over tomorrow?” Ally says the first thing when I call her.
“I ah, think I’m not feeling so good. I think I need to stay home.” I cough.
“What? We have to plan for twin day on Monday. Unless you’re dead, you’re coming.”
“OK, how about I let you know tomorrow.” I had to soften the blow some way and I thought it was better to start now, early. That way I wouldn’t feel so bad about lying to her later.
“Mom bought us some tie-dye stuff and she’s going to let us do it in the garage,” Ally says.
“That’s cool,” I say. It sounds like fun. I’m almost tempted to wait.
“Yeah, and Dad’s got some weird 70s music he’s playing you have to hear it,” Ally says laughing.
“Great,” I’m feeling worse and worse about the lie. Talking about a night that won’t happen. I don’t know what to say next but I realize I don’t totally suck at the whole lying thing. And just as I’m about to open my mouth again the doorbell rings.
“Uh, I got to go, Ally, someone’s at the door.”
“Ah, ok...”
And I hang up, just like that. I know what Ally’s thinking. She’s like, your mom always answers the door, you never answer the door. You never even hear doorbells half the time. It’s weird how a person changes when they start lying. I scramble out of the kitchen, but Mom is already mid-stride just in front of the door. I have to cool my heels to not run into her.
Mom opens the door and there, standing with his hands in his pockets is Hayden.
“Hi, is Roxie home?” he says.
My mom sticks her head outside. The rain’s pouring harder now. I can actually hear it hit the windows.
“Sure. Did you ride your bike?”
“Ah, yeah,” he says.
“Well get inside, you must be freezing,” Mom says.
But guys never really are. He takes two steps inside sort of hugging the wall next to the front door.
I can’t believe it. Hayden, here at my house. He was so not even in the realm of being friends with me way back when I was twelve and now, he rides to my house in the rain and rings my doorbell. I have to call Ally. Like immediately.
I walk into the hallway and Hayden smiles at me but doesn’t say anything. My mom shuts the door and gives Hayden a big smile back. “You want to stay for dinner?” She asks, a spatula still in her hand. Her apron tied around her waist.
“No Mrs. O’Grady, I’ll just be a second,” Hayden says. He watches her leave. Tracking her. As soon as she gets busy in the kitchen he says, “You can’t go in the attic.”
“Why not?” I say.
“Just trust me. Don’t go up there.”
“Why? Give me one reason. Cause I can think of lots of reasons why I should. And don’t tell me it’s complicated.”
“You’ll never come back,” he says.
“All it took was Mitch and Lola and Brian to open the door. Anyone can open that door and I’ll snap right back. That’s how it worked the night of my party. All I need is someone like you to come in and open the door. It’s easy. I’m just going back for a day. Promise me, on Sunday morning, you’ll open the attic door and bounce me back.”
“No, it’s more complicated than that,” Hayden says.
Great. “What? Why? I know how it works.”
“You can’t go alone.”
“You don’t think I can do it? I’m not popular enough?” I say, having a hard time breathing.
“No, that’s not it, listen the planet isn’t what you think it is. It’s not easy. It’s different for everyone, depending on what you need to find. What you most want. And you know what? You could get stuck there, forever.”
“Really, because I haven’t heard of very many popular people ever disappearing off the face of the planet. It’s usually some loner. Usually somebody who doesn’t have a lot of friends who trusts somebody––oh, like me with you.”
“I’m telling you, don’t go alone.”
“Really? You know, it’s like that with ghosts and séances too. I mean just because dead people talk to you doesn’t mean that they’re smart. What if you get a dumb ghost who tells you things? It’s weird how everyone always assumes that messages from the great beyond are, smart.”
“Really? Totally off-topic. But this isn’t. Don’t mess with this. Don’t mess with the shadow people,” Hayden slaps his hand on his forehead. And winces. “I’m warning you,” he says, super serious.
Shadow people. And for the first time I get a peek at what Hayden will look like at eighteen.
“I have to. It’s life or death. I’m nobody Hayden. I’m one of those girls who always disappear. There’s nothing here to stick around for.”
“Nothing? No one?” he says.
Gulp. And I want to say come with me. But a week ago he never talked to me, a few days ago he ignored me and now I don’t know. I don’t know if I can trust him on this mission, this James T. Kirk Peacock Mission. They all have their secrets and it makes me want some of my own. But I kind of think that maybe he likes the way I roll pretzels too. My left hand gets all tingly in the spots where he held it. “I’m not what I want to be,” I say.
“That’s different,” he says. “What if what you want to be ends up being a big mistake?”
“You sound like Mitch. Like you don’t think I’m smart enough to make up my own mind.”
“Why tomorrow?” he says.
“Because it’s the perfect time.” My whole family will be busy.
“Whatever. I warned you,” and Hayden opens the front door and slips out but not before he looks back at me again like he’s trying to make up his mind about something. I clutch the new red rabbit’s foot I have in my back pocket. I asked Mom to buy it for me. I have a feeling I’ll need more than my pink jeans and yellow polka-dot socks for my epic journey.
“You never told me why you needed me. Why? Why was I the only one who could read the message? You guys only came over to use me. The least you could do is tell me why.”
“Because we didn’t have any other choice,” he said and he closed the door.
Great. I was expecting something epic. Like I am the chosen one. Or, no one else could have found the what-ever-it-is but me. But no. Even his reaso
n is as dodo as I am. The only reason they were friends with me was because they had to be. I’m sick of his games and I’m going to find all the answers I need myself.