Devilish

Whereas I, as the Junior Judges had so rightly pointed out, was four-foot ten and five-sixths inches (in school shoes) with blond hair, and I looked like an escaped street urchin from Oliver Twist. (The hair was dry and brittle because I dyed it with a home-brewed peroxide solution, which worked really well when I first started doing it as a freshman and couldn’t stop because if I used anything else on my hair, it turned a kind of moss-green color.)

Joan set her Froot Loops down and gazed at me evenly.

‘You have that look on your face,’ she said. ‘Are you thinking about Elton?’

My dad glanced up from his puzzle.

‘No.’ I gave her a silencing look, stiffening my jaw. She knew she wasn’t supposed to mention my ex in front of my dad because he would think I was still upset. It had been six months, three weeks, and two days since our breakup. I was over it.

‘It’s Allison, I said. ‘Today is Big-Little Day. I need to make sure she gets a little. This is the first big event since the prom. It means a lot to her. I can’t let anything bad happen.’

‘Allison will be fine,’ my dad chimed in. ‘Why would you need to worry about her?’

This was one thing Joan understood completely.

‘Ally needs to relax,’ Joan said. ‘Someone will definitely take her as long as she doesn’t get all… you know…spazzy.’

‘How do you keep someone from being spazzy?’ I asked, pushing aside some mushrooms that had attached themselves to the steaky goodness. ‘I know she’s great, but she’s going to be wound up today. She’s going to start breathing fast and get dizzy and scare away the freshmen.’

‘You can’t worry about something that hasn’t happened yet,’ my father said, turning back to his Sudoku. ‘You have to take life as it comes.’

This irritated me. When I worry about one thing, I frequently take it out on something or someone else. And the fact that my dad was offering stupid and totally untrue advice set me off.

‘Oh no?’ I said. ‘Isn’t worrying about things that haven’t happened yet the purpose of several major government agencies, like the army and FEMA? What about yearly checkups? Savings accounts? Tornado shelters? Earthquake-proofing?’

‘Moisturizer?’ Joan added.

‘You’re a math professor,’ I said. ‘What’s the study of probability? Figuring out what will probably happen. And then you dump all of that probability information into huge tables that insurance companies use. So they know who will probably crash their car, which places will probably get flooded, who might trip into the fireplace and set themselves on fire…’

‘I don’t think there’s a category for that, Jane.’

‘You see my point,’ I said archly. ‘Of course we know bad things do happen. And I know that Allison is probably going to spaz. She will probably start talking about her collection of Build-A-Bears or quoting entire episodes of Charmed, and while I think she’s cute, most people will think she’s insane and they will run.’

I was getting a little frenzied now. Joan was nodding away, like I was preaching and she had been infected by the spirit — but my dad was still back a few steps.

‘But she hasn’t done any of that yet,’ he said. ‘If you go into it with that attitude, there’s almost no point. Probability isn’t a guarantee. Give her some credit. You have to assume that she’ll do just fine.’

‘But she won’t.’

‘Well, then,’ my dad said, quietly folding his completed puzzle in half, ‘sounds like she had no chance in the first place. So I guess…’

He stood and flicked a lost Froot Loop over at Joan.

‘…you’ll just have to save her from herself.’

The sky was red that morning, which I think is supposed to be a sailor’s warning about something…storms, waves, sea monsters. It was a stupidly hot morning, too. October in Providence, Rhode Island, is not a hot time, normally. It’s New England — we like it cold and grim. We cultivate colds like some areas of the world nurture grapes and produce fine wines.

There was no homeroom for us. We were all instructed to go right to the gym, where folding tables had already been set up all along the walls. Where we, the seniors, were supposed to sit. The freshmen and new students would all stream in and approach us.

My fears turned out to be for nothing. Instead of the weepy Ally I was expecting, she walked in proudly examining a red velvet cupcake at arm’s length, displaying it to me.

‘I found it in my locker,’ she said with a grin. ‘With this.’

She held up a note that read: WILL YOU BE MY BIG?

‘Some freshman must be trying to suck up to you!’ I said with enthusiasm. ‘Would have helped if she’d left her name. But points for busting into your locker to leave you cake.’

She broke it in half and offered a piece to me, then immediately withdrew it and hid it behind her back.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Red chocolate. I wasn’t thinking.

I can’t eat red foods. They freak me out. No food should be the color of blood.

There was a warning squawk of the microphone, so Allison crammed the rest of the cupcake into her mouth, getting a little frosting on her cheek in the process. I felt bad about doubting her that morning. Allison was a big girl — she could handle herself.

‘Today’s your day,’ I said. ‘I can feel it. You’re doing a lot better than me. I got squat.’

‘Someone will come for you,’ she said. ‘Everyone knows you.’

Our vice principal, Sister Dominic, came up to the microphone to lead us through a Hail Mary; two specially written appeals to St. Teresa, begging her to help us all become better sisters; and one verse of ‘Join Us Together with a Rainbow of Love,’ a hymn written by a former student of questionable sanity. Then our student counsel president, Donna Skal, went to the microphone in the middle of the room.

‘Good morning, St. T.’s!’ she said, much, much too loudly. ‘A little warm in here today, huh? Must be all of that big-little energy!’

We were roasting in our polyester uniforms, yanking desperately at our collars, and twisting to find more air.

‘Sisterhood,’ Donna went on. ‘What does it mean?’

‘It usually means having a sister,’ I said to Ally in a low voice.

‘Would you shut up?’ she whispered. ‘They’ll kick us out, and then I won’t get a little.’

‘I can’t help it,’ I said. ‘I’m allergic to people who talk like spokesmodels.’

This wasn’t really fair. There was nothing particularly wrong with Donna, except for the fact that she was successful because she had that odd squeaky-cleanness that lots of teen pop stars exude, the kind that seems to have been manufactured in a laboratory. Her hair was genuinely golden, and her eyes were large, like a cartoon deer’s. She could sometimes be heard saying things like, ‘My sister told me I laugh in my sleep!’ (The best I’ve ever gotten from my sister was, ‘I thought there was something wrong with the dog, but it was just you snoring.’)

‘Sisterhood means loving each other no matter what we look like or how we dress outside of school,’ Donna explained. ‘Sisterhood means putting each other first. Sisterhood means believing in each other and going the extra mile.’

‘Or it means having a sister,’ I added quickly.

Ally giggled before she could stop herself and shoved her fist into her mouth, but she was a hair too late. Sister Dominic lifted herself up on her toes and scanned the seniors. She found us quickly. She held two fingers up in the air and then poked a finger first at me, then at Ally. I knew this gesture well. It translated into two demerits, each of you. Ally let out a low groan.

‘Sorry,’ I whispered.

One of the doors in the back opened. We all heard it, and everyone turned in unison.

‘There they are,’ Ally said, suddenly awed.

In a minute of shuffling and whispering, the freshmen were lined up like an advancing army, all with bright, crazy looks in their eyes. We quickly assumed our positions in the chairs. A jumpy, almost volatile vibe came into the room, and the temperature shot up about ten degrees.