The Initial Insult - Mindy McGinnis Page 0,61
be the target if I don’t get out of here. My feet, and whatever just ran across them. I shudder, but the movement doesn’t stop when I tell it to, and pretty soon I’m shaking all over.
“Not now,” I say, like if I give my body verbal commands rather than just think them, it might actually listen. But this isn’t a seizure; I realize that after the initial spasm passes and a new sensation starts . . . a hot jet deep inside my belly, working its way upward.
“Oh, wait . . . no.”
I’m saying things to nothing and no one, alone in a dark corner, trapped and desperate as I vomit all over myself. Once I start it’s hard to stop, and the tight clench of my stomach muscles is too much for my bladder. It lets go, and in a very short time, I am completely empty.
I hang, useless, a stinking sack of skin. I can feel my heart beating, small, tired, scared, moving timidly, as if asking the question Should I keep doing this?
At my feet, my companion stirs, running back and forth in the small space, frightened. It leaves tiny pinpoints of wet spots on my skin as it goes, which cool in seconds. A tail whips across my shins, and I know it’s a rat, one that’s covered in my own mess and tracking it back and forth across my feet. But I can’t feel disgust.
All I feel is complete and utter solidarity.
“You better get out of here,” I tell it. “She’s not going to back down.”
There’s a moment, like it’s considering my words, and then the rat is gone, shuffling over the knee-high wall Tress has built and disappearing with the flick of a tail.
I thought I was empty; I thought I had nothing left inside me.
But I do. More tears.
Chapter 43
Tress
Gretchen’s announcement that something ate her dog is followed by a panic.
Everyone reacts differently, some with screams, a few mutters of disbelief, and more than a little nervous laughter, gasping noises meant to convey hilarity, but really they’re saying, I don’t know what to do.
It’s been that way for a while now, the truly amused laughter at Ribbit’s admission of wanting to screw the principal devolving into something more primitive, a confused sound that admits the person making it thinks they are supposed to be laughing but doesn’t know if something funny is happening or not. Like maybe what used to be funny is now something else. Something darker.
Regardless, the discovery of William Wilson’s demise presents the perfect opportunity. Anyone streaming has swiveled to Gretchen, all phones capturing the moment when the queen bee is surrounded by her drones, all of them soothing, touching, hugging, although I do spot a few not-so-hidden smiles. Someone tries to take the dog’s tail out of Gretchen’s hand, but she resists at the last moment, clutching tight to the vertebrae.
I make my move, following the cat’s prints toward a bedroom on the second floor. I glance over the banister. Below me, Hugh still faces off with Ribbit, both bemused now that the attention has moved from them to Gretchen. I back away, toward the wall, but Hugh has caught the movement, and our eyes lock for a second before I duck into the bedroom.
The door clicks shut behind me, and I slide to the ground, flicking on the flashlight.
There, sitting on the bed, tail curled around front paws, the cat waits for me.
Chapter 44
Felicity
My mother was thrilled when I came home from kindergarten and announced that I had a friend.
It had been something of a concern, apparently. Mom and Dad had done everything they could for me up to that point. I’d had playdates with their friends’ kids, gone to preschool, taken dance lessons, and spent summer afternoons at the pool. I realize now they were doing their best to get me entrenched with the right people. The right people with the right last names, but I wasn’t doing my part. Maddie Anho got mad at me when I won a coloring contest, and she felt she stayed in the lines better than I did and that my “creativity” of color use was really just a mess. I was more interested in picking at my toes during dance class than learning how to stand on them, like Gretchen Astor.
So my social outlook was somewhat sketchy when I got on the bus with my new backpack full of freshly sharpened pencils. I remember Mom waving at me from