Mathilda Savitch. Victor Lodato
and where do they go? All I know is I’m not tired and I’m not taking a lousy shower and I’m not reading a stupid book for school about the King and Queen of Spain. I’m just going to sit on this bed and if I want to pull a few hairs from my head I will, and no one can stop me.
Six hairs. Brown, but when I look close I can see it’s almost red where it comes out of my head. Like the hair of another person. Like another person inside me, and she’s just starting to squirm her way out like a sprout. This is not in the least bit frightening. I’ve actually been expecting her.
I know you can’t see anything from where you are.
You just have to believe me.
School started again a week ago and I’m very happy to report that Anna McDougal, my best friend, is in my class. Overall it’s an interesting mix of people this year. No one but Anna has any relevance to the story of my life, but a list is always a good thing. I’ll give it to you with thumbnails.
Libby Harris has a disastrous mole on the tip of her nose. A shame really because she’s very quiet and nice. Her father is a lawyer and so she’ll probably have plastic surgery eventually.
Sal Verazzo is pretty much the fattest person in the school. Black hair, possibly shoe polish. Thinks he’s a rock star. Completely deranged.
Sue Fleishman is tall and has curly hair. She doesn’t walk, she sort of slides across the floor like she’s wearing slippers. A stupid way to move but the boys drool over her.
Barbara Bradley always has snacks. She’s allowed to eat them during class. Supposedly she has a disease.
Jack Delaney is an admirer of mine, but we’ve never spoken. He has a shirt with a rude monkey on it. Sex addict or will be.
Mimi Brockton is crippled! I’m always watching her, I can’t get enough of her. Red hair. I know I’m not supposed to say crippled, but it’s really the best word.
Donna Lavora has thrown up several times since she’s come to this school. Will not do well in life.
Max Overmeyer looks like he lives in a shack. Doesn’t smell right. Probably a victim of poverty.
Eyad Tayssir has perfect white teeth but you hardly ever see them. He’s not a big smiler. Middle Eastern, I’m not sure exactly what country.
Mary Quintas supposedly has a great singing talent but I’ve heard better. She wants to be snob sisters with me but I’m not interested.
Lonnie Tyson still thinks he’s going to be an astronaut. Good muscles.
Carol Benton is the worst. Conceited, big breasted, and loud. Unattractive but worshipped by men. Doesn’t like me apparently.
Bruce Sellars is funny and I hear he knows magic. I’ve seen him speaking to Carol Benton unfortunately.
Chris Bibb, known as Dribble, came back to school with a tan. It doesn’t make sense on him.
The lovely Anna McDougal of course. With whom I have an important but stormy relationship. More on this later.
Kelly Graber has bad teeth. I suspect she’s unloved. Good at sports.
Lisa Mead eats liverwurst. Every day!
Lucas London is very pale but I don’t think albino. When he talks his hands shake. He’s like a lamb. He’s so small you almost want to carry him.
Avi Gosh is the one person smarter than me. He has the eyes of a girl, but he’s very confident. Rich. Sometimes wears sandals.
I’m probably forgetting a few people but if I am there’s probably a reason. Some people are like ghosts, you can’t capture them, or if you do it’s nothing but a blur.
But really it’s amazing to be around so many different kinds of people every day. Sometimes I watch them and it’s like Animal Planet. Everyone’s alive and hungry and sometimes Sal Verazzo is so crazy to tell a story that spit starts flying out of his mouth. And in the morning just before class begins, when everyone’s talking at the same time, it’s like a radio caught between stations. But not two stations, more like a hundred. You can’t make heads or tails of what anyone’s saying. It doesn’t even sound like English, it sounds like bubbles coming up out of boiling mud. If I listen too long, it starts to bother me. It’s probably what hell sounds like. I saw hell once in a movie, and it was pretty incomprehensible. I had to turn it off.
I have a sister who died. Did I tell you this already? I did but you don’t remember, you didn’t understand the code.
My sister’s name was Helene. Helene and Mathilda. Everyone always said we were the opposite of each other. Night and Day was the famous expression. I’m the younger one, but it still feels backwards that Helene died first.
She died a year ago, but in my mind sometimes it’s five minutes. In the morning sometimes it hasn’t even happened yet. For a second I’m confused, but then it all comes back. It happens again.
She was sixteen at the end. Practically seventeen, just a few months to go. But sometimes, the way she dressed, you’d think she was even older. Plus she had an excellent way of moving. A person who didn’t know her might think she was showing off, but the truth is she just had a natural sway to her. And then add to that her legs. They went from here to Las Vegas, which is how Ma once described the length of them.
Some of the memories I have of Helene are from the beginning of my life, when I was a baby. Ma looks at me like I’m crazy when I tell her I remember the day Helene was carrying me, and then she started running and she climbed over a fence with me still in her arms.
“What fence?” my mother says.
“A white fence,” I say.
When I say this my father puts his hand on my arm. “Stop,” he says. Lately that’s getting to be his favorite word.
I think about Helene a lot, but basically I’m not allowed to talk about her. To Ma and Da, I mean. Not that this is a rule. It’s more like a law, I suppose.
The other memory I have is Helene and I are in a hole and it’s dark and wet. Somehow we’re upside down. I remember water getting in my mouth. Maybe we’re in a well is my first thought.
“You never fell in a well,” Ma says.
“What about a grave,” I say, “or a ditch? People fall in holes all the time,” I say.
Ma goes white like I’m the vampire of questions. My beautiful Da looks at me and I stop.
The thing is, Helene died from a train. That’s the problem. She didn’t jump, a man pushed her. We don’t know who this man was and the police say, at this point, we probably never will.
I wasn’t there when it happened. Neither were Ma and Da. Why she was at the train station is still a big question. A boyfriend is what I think. Helene had lots of them, sometimes even boys from other schools in other towns. She was pretty popular. She had red hair, it was the most amazing hair in the world.
It happened on a Wednesday, which is such an ordinary day. It happened in the middle of the afternoon. A man pushed Helene in front of a train, it’s unbelievable. I always think it’s a mistake. But then it proves to be correct.
Do you believe in curses? That there can be a curse on a person or on a bunch of people at the same time, like a family curse? How will we all die? I wonder. And when?
Helene was going to be a singer. She was a singer. There are recordings. Da made them on his old tape recorder. No one can listen to them now, they’re the most dangerous thing in the