Dumplin - Julie Murphy Page 0,42

you told your mom?”

I rub my forehead. “Christ. No. I haven’t really figured out the logistics. I just know that I want to enter the pageant. Not like I can hide it from her.”

“She’s going to freak.”

“Yeah, well, she’s always been embarrassed by me. Why not give her a good reason?”

Ellen doesn’t say I’m wrong even if she thinks so. “We need to game plan. What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Working, but I don’t think Alejandro will care if you come and hang out.”

“Okay. Me. You. Tomorrow night.”

I hang up and put the old form away. Now that I’ve told El, she won’t let me back down.

I try to sleep, but not even Dolly does my nerves any good.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Ellen and Tim pick me up in the morning so that I won’t have to face the carport because I am officially Patrick Thomas’s public enemy number one.

But except for a few whispers, school is relatively calm. Everyone seems to have suppressed the memory of or sort of gotten over last week’s incident.

At least that’s what I think until lunch. People crowd in groups all passing around phones. Most laugh. Some shake their head in disgust. In the lunch line, I peer over a girl’s shoulder. She turns to me, her voice bubbling with laughter, and says, “Have you seen this?” Her arm’s outstretched, holding the screen within inches of my face.

Hannah Perez. Her school photo on the screen sits alongside a photo of a horse, with his gummy mouth of giant teeth on full display. Just like Hannah. Except hers are even more crooked. The caption for the picture says: HaaaaaaAAAAAaaannah. I hear it in my head in Patrick Shit-for-Brains Thomas’s voice.

“That’s not funny,” I spit.

The girl whips her phone around, holding it to her chest, with her face twisted in confusion. “Um. Okay.”

I know very little about Hannah except that she is quiet and stubborn. In third grade, during art, we all sat coloring hand turkeys for Thanksgiving. I hadn’t heard Hannah speak all year, but then I took the marker that sat in front of her—one she didn’t even appear to be using—and she slapped it out of my hand, yelling that I should’ve asked for permission first. The only other memory I have of her is from fifth grade when she snapped at a teacher who kept calling her African American. Which actually made sense because she’s Dominican.

As I’m walking to my next class, I hear things like, “So horrible,” or “I’m sorry, but she’s hideous,” or “Why doesn’t she get braces?”

That last one is the sentiment that stays with me all day because Hannah shouldn’t have to get braces. Maybe she can’t afford them or maybe she’s scared to get them. Either way, she shouldn’t have to fill her mouth with metal so that some shitheads will leave her alone.

In fifth period, Bo sits with his arms crossed tight over his chest. His cheek is bruised and a scabbing cut clusters at the corner of his lip. I want to know what happened. Who he got in a fight with.

But it’s not your business, I remind myself.

When he sees me, his brow furrows, and his lips fall into a deep-set frown, breaking his scab. He pulls the sleeve of his sweatshirt over his hand and pats it to his mouth.

After school, I meet Ellen in the parking lot. “Did you see all that stuff about Hannah?”

I nod. “She must have lost it when she found out. Does anyone know who did it?”

“Tim says some guys on the golf team, but that they can’t get in trouble because no one can prove anything and it didn’t happen at school.”

“That’s such bullshit.”

Tim and El drive me home and wait for me to change into my Chili Bowl uniform shirt. They drop me off at work and Ellen promises to come back for me later with her mom’s car.

I brace myself for Alejandro. He’s got to be pissed that I missed so much work, but when I walk in, he asks, “You’re not still grounded, are you?”

I shake my head.

“Good. ’Cause I don’t cross moms. Anyone’s mom. So if you’re lying, you can go home.”

“Not lying,” I say. “Totally free.”

Around seven, Ellen walks in. “Sorry, my mom would only let me take the car if I ate dinner with them.”

“It’s cool.”

She hoists herself up on the other end of the counter and whispers, “This place smells like onions and BO. I still don’t get why you quit Harpy’s for this shitter.”

“Better