The Initial Insult - Mindy McGinnis Page 0,55

just crawling—”

“Felicity isn’t too bad,” my mom pipes up.

“Neither is Maddie,” adds Kira Anho, who had been quiet until now and has hardly taken a drink. Mom had to push her to take a glass at all, saying that she wasn’t our principal yet.

“Brynn hardly has any,” her mom says.

“Well, Black kids don’t really get lice, though, do they?” Jill says, quaffing the rest of her wine.

“Jill!” my mom says. “Maybe you should lay off the wine.”

Everyone laughs, like they’re supposed to. Everyone except Brynn and Angela. Brynn is next to me, her arm pressed against mine. It’s stiff, all the muscles tightened up, waiting for the moment to pass, or wanting to strike out, slap the laughter out of the air. I don’t know which.

“What?” Gretchen’s mom says. “That’s what I heard. I mean, maybe it’s different since she’s mixed race—”

“Did you hear that the dollar store is closing?” Mrs. Anho pipes up, shutting down Gretchen’s mom.

“No, that’s too bad,” my mom says, happy for the subject change. “I mean, we don’t shop there, of course, but it will be a loss for a lot of families.”

I can’t see Brynn’s face, our hair hanging between us. I can’t see Angela, either, but I can feel a wall of tension behind me, her quiet rage something that my friend has inherited, something she puts on like a coat for a cold day at recess. Except I guess in Amontillado it’s always a cold day at recess for Brynn and Angela. My thumbs fly across my phone as I text her.

I don’t think Tress had lice.

I think it was Gretchen.

Next to me, her phone vibrates. Seconds later, a bubble appears on my screen.

Yep.

And her mom’s a bitch.

I stifle a giggle, not wanting anyone to know we’re texting, or that Brynn just called Jill Astor a bitch. I look down at my phone, at the texts I sent.

I don’t think Tress had lice.

I think it was Gretchen.

I know it’s true. Gretchen had been itching the night of my party, not Tress. Mom had burned all the bedding, the little red mess from Maddie’s melting Popsicle going up in flames along with Gretchen’s lice, still clinging to my pillow—the one she’d used.

I think about Dr. Gabriella, and how she’d turned my back to her, how looking at a painting of trees instead of her face had made it easier to tell the truth. I think about her telling me to try that in real life sometime.

I don’t have a painting of trees, but I do have my hair falling around me in a curtain right now, blocking off everyone else so I can’t see them. There’s a script right in front of me, the words written out so that all I have to do is read them. Say them aloud.

My mom tilts my head a different direction and I minimize my texts.

I don’t say the words. I’m learning.

Girls who live in a trailer with their grandfather at an animal zoo have lice.

Girls who have private therapists do not.

Hours later my scalp is pink and tingling, and Mom is putting fresh sheets on my bed. They’re brand-new, with the little lines from being folded in the package still pressed firmly into them, even when she snaps them in the air above my mattress. A year ago I would’ve been under them, yelping as Mom tucked in the corners, made fake cries about the weird lump in the center, and tried to push it back down while I giggled, pressing back.

Now I’m squashed into a corner of the room, holding tight to a brand-new stuffed animal that had taken the place of all my burned ones, and trying to put together the perfect sentence to call my mom a liar.

“Mom . . . I think Gretchen was the one with lice. And I think you know it, too.”

She doesn’t stop moving, only gives the pillow she’s sliding into its new case an unnecessarily hard thumping. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? You all ended up with it.”

“It matters when you’re blaming Tress,” I say.

“I’m not blaming Tress,” Mom says tightly, stretching out over the bed to smooth the corners. “Jill Astor is.”

“But you didn’t tell her she was wrong!” I yell, my fingers digging deep into the teddy bear. “You didn’t tell her it was Gretchen! And you didn’t defend Tress!”

A little voice in my head adds something much worse: Neither did you.

“Honey . . . ,” Mom sighs, resting her head on my pillow.