The Initial Insult - Mindy McGinnis Page 0,51

it half-heartedly to get it out of my face, but it’s too heavy with gore to move much.

“I’ve got it,” Tress says, once more tucking my hair back, pinning it down. This time the bobby pins scrape across the swelling where she hit me with the brick, and I wince. She holds a shock of my hair for second, one perfect curl that has somehow managed to hold its shape in the damp, and avoid any blood splatter.

She raises her eyes to mine and says, “Let’s talk about lice.”

Shit.

Chapter 36

Tress

Sixth Grade

Rue is peeling a banana when a truck pulls into our drive. She yells to get my attention, but she doesn’t need to; I was trying to pull some of the larger mats out of Goldie’s tail, and she bolted out from underneath my hands at the sight of the truck to happily greet it, like maybe whoever is here might be coming to take her away, take her somewhere better.

I do what I’ve been told—run and get Cecil. Cecil told me early on that he didn’t much care what kind of grades I got in school, or if I acted up there, either. His only rules were (1) help him take care of the animals, (2) stay out of his way when I’m not, (3) come get him if anybody shows up at the house, (4) don’t come down to the lower acre, and (5) don’t be weird, which I figured out meant sex by the way his eyebrows came together when he said it.

I prefer the animals to him, so rules one and two are not a problem. Rule five I’m not worried about, either, for lots of reasons. Rule three I messed up the first couple times because, if I’m being honest, I’m a little bit proud of the animals—especially Zee, once I got her cleaned up nice. The first time a car pulled in, slowing down after spotting the “Amontillado Animal Attractions” sign, I’d run out to greet them, waving like a kid with a lemonade stand.

Cecil had laid into me for that, said he needed to be the first one to see any visitors because he was the one who had to size them up. Amontillado Animal Attractions doesn’t have any prices posted—that’s because Cecil makes them up on the spot, after evaluating what they’re driving and wearing, their last name, how many kids they’ve got, and—in his words—the cut of their jib.

What that actually means is that he charges more to people he doesn’t like.

I’ve seen him let a minivan full of kids with no shoes come in for five bucks and charge fifty to a curious lady on her own, driving a shiny car. I told him after the family left that it was nice of him to let them in for so little, to which he’d told me that nice didn’t come into it.

“They only had five bucks, kid,” he said, rubbing the top of my head—the only sign of affection he ever allows. “And I wanted it.”

I can say a lot about Cecil, but I can’t say he never taught me anything.

Today, though, there’s something different about the vehicle that pulls in. It’s not a minivan with no hubcaps full of screaming kids, and it’s not a bored soccer mom with an afternoon on her hands. It’s a small truck with a big cage in the back, axles doing their best to keep up with the payload.

I light out for the back acre. There’s a point past where I’m not supposed to go. I’ve been told to just stand and give a yell for Cecil. I’ve caught a whiff of skunk down there once or twice, so I’ve always assumed he’s got some critters down there that he doesn’t want me around. But today the standing and shouting doesn’t work, and there’s an impatient honk from whoever’s behind the wheel of that truck.

So now I’ve got to decide which rule I break—the one about coming to get him when someone’s in the driveway, or the one about not going down to the lower acre? I hear the truck’s engine cut out and the man say something. Whatever is in that cage lets out a shriek, getting one in return from the driver. Goldie comes running in my direction, her tail between her legs and pure fear in her eyes. Which makes my decision for me. I’d rather deal with Cecil and skunks than whatever is in the back of that truck.

I