I pull her up.
I pull her up and face our parents.
‘It was a joke,’ I say.
‘I’m fine. I was joking.’
Dragon squints.
Mom and Dad frown.
But for some reason
everyone decides to believe me.
Everyone except Tippi.
A Victory
Mrs Buchannan teaches the whole class badminton
and rather than watching,
we join in
awkwardly.
Still. Though the shuttlecock is light
and Tippi and I are given a
racket each,
we can’t get close to beating a single player on the other
side,
even when that player is Jon,
even when he doesn’t once run.
You’d think he’d let us win
a few points.
You’d think he’d do it as a mercy,
magnanimously letting the shuttlecock
drop on to his side of the court a couple of times.
But pity is not part of the game.
Maybe we should feel downhearted.
Maybe badminton should make us feel like losers.
But knowing we’ve lost fairly,
knowing Jon doesn’t care how we take it,
that’s a victory all in itself.
After Badminton
The victory feels pretty short lived
when
Tippi and I are forced to sit on the toilet seat
long
after gym class,
long after we’ve finished peeing,
just to get
our breaths back.
‘We should take it easier,’
I say.
‘Yes, please,’ Tippi agrees.
For once,
she agrees.
Reunited
Tippi and I turn up at The Church
carrying a big bag of chips
for sharing.
‘So we’re all good again?’ Yasmeen asks.
‘Guess so,’ Tippi says,
begrudgingly.
I smile.
I smile and Jon smiles
back.
‘It felt like you were gone forever,’ he says.
‘I know,’ I say.
‘But we’re back now.’
Normal
‘Why aren’t you friends with the jocks
or the rockers
or the nerds
or with any guys
at school?’
I ask Jon.
‘I’m on a scholarship, Grace.
You know what that means.
We’re too normal for them.’
‘Are you kidding?
You are normal.
And normal is good.
Normal is my goal,’
I tell him.
He shakes his head and
takes my hand,
strokes my thumb
with his fingers
making the vessels in my heart burn.
‘Around here normal is a slur,’ he says,
‘Deep down
everyone wants to be a
star
and normal is the road to
nothingness.’
But everyone is wrong.
Normal is the Holy Grail
and only those without it
know its value.
It is all I have ever wanted
and I would trade
weird or freakish or spectacular or astonishing
for normal
any day of the week.
‘I love your normal,’ I tell him,
then feel my face
burn up
as I wonder how I let
these words slip out—
words too close to the truth.
He watches me.
‘I know you do,’ he says.
The Reader
Jon lends me all the books he loves
once he’s read them—
thick tomes like doorstops,
corners curled down
and spines broken and sun-bleached.
Sometimes I follow his lead,
read along in The Grapes of Wrath
until I find a dog-eared page
then stop
so I can inhabit the rhythm of his reading,
feel how
it must have been for him to
turn those pages,
see those words,
thoughts.
I cannot watch a film in secret,
and even with my headphones
on
I know that Tippi hears the tinny hissing
of my music
in her own ears.
But when I read,
I am completely alone.
I have privacy from her
and from everyone.
When I read
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
I am not in Hoboken but in
Milan Kundera’s
Prague
with the seductive Sabina
who wears nothing but a bowler hat
and I am with her as she opens the door to her
art studio, where she welcomes her lover.
I am alone in Virginia Woolf’s
Orlando,
in Orlando’s chamber
when she wakes up a woman
after living her whole life a beautiful man.
And yet,
somehow,
knowing that Jon has run his eyes
along these pages
and digested the very same words
I am devouring,
makes me feel like
I am tasting him, too.
Diet
I batter the chicken flat,
flour it for schnitzel,
and fry it in hot sunflower oil
until it
sizzles and
pops in the pan.
But the only thing to pass Dragon’s lips
are a few slices of cucumber
from the undressed salad.
She nibbles at them like a baby rabbit
and slides everything else
to the corner of her plate.
I put down my fork.
‘You don’t like the schnitzel,’ I say.
Mom looks up and says,
‘You have to eat, honey,’
though too tiredly to have any impact.
Dragon shakes her head.
‘I had a huge lunch,’
she says, and smiles so hard,
and so wide,
it can only be a lie.
Our Part
Dragon’s ballet studio is planning a special six-week trip
to Russia,
but she can’t go,
not when Mom and Dad are spending every spare cent
sending us to therapy and on the best health insurance
money can buy so
we don’t
drop down
dead.
‘It’s Dad’s fault,’ Tippi says.
‘Every time he drinks, he’s flushing
money down the toilet.’
But we can’t pretend that’s all it is.
We have to own up to what we’re costing—
to what we’re making our sister sacrifice.
‘You know what we could do,’ I say.
Tippi waves away the
suggestion.
We’ve discussed being on TV before
and agreed not to do it,
agreed never to let anyone in
except those we love.
‘Not a chance,’ Tippi says.
‘Not a chance in hell.’
When I tow Tippi into Dragon’s room
our sister pretends she doesn’t care about
going to Russia or about
the Bolshoi Ballet or about herself at all.
‘I’ll go another time,’ she says,
then lifts one leg out behind her
and using her desk as a barre
bends her back
into a perfect
lunula.
I could cry
but Tippi turns away.
‘I won’t be on TV,’ she mutters.
Skinny
‘Are you on a diet?’
Mom asks the next night,
opening a
can of salty salmon
and pinching Tippi’s
forearm.
Tippi pulls away.
‘Girls and their figures,’
Dad grumbles.
He hasn’t been
drinking today.
He went into
New York instead,
so he smells clean
again,
like wood chips
and baby wipes.
But even so,
his voice is
edged with spurs.
‘We should see
Dr Derrick,’
Mom says.
She heaps the salmon
on to hunks of
wholegrain bread
and squirts
mayonnaise at it.
I look at Tippi.
She has lost weight
though I never noticed.
And it doesn’t make sense.
I’m the one addicted
to carrot sticks and
fruity tea.
‘Maybe we should
see a doctor,’
Tippi says, and I stiffen.
‘Yes,
make an appointment,’
Dad tells us,
and stomps
out of the room
leaving a trail
of grey mood
behind him.
‘There’s seriously no need,’ I say. ‘I feel great.
Don’t you?’
Tippi tenses
and bites into her half of our
salmon sandwich.
‘Most of the time,’ she whispers.
‘But not always.
And you don’t, either.’
Searching for String
Dad buys a bird feeder,
that he fills with seeds.
He thrashes around in the junk drawer
for some string
to hang the long, green, three-storey cylinder
and when he can’t find any
stomps down to the basement
coming up
minutes later
empty-handed.
The longer he searches for string,
the harder he treads,
the stiffer he breathes.
‘Let’s help him look,’ I say.
Tippi shakes her head.
‘He’s not a child,
let him deal with his own goddamn feelings,’
she says,
as though she hasn’t figured out
that Dad’s feelings are always
someone else’s responsibility.
How He Is for Others
Before winter comes
barrelling in with bared teeth and
icy jaws,
Dad fires up the BBQ
and we get the whole family over
to eat hot dogs and blackened corn.
‘Your dad is so funny,’
our cousin Hannah says,
watching him
and giggling
as Dad does his Beyoncé dance,
wiggling his butt,
spinning his arms,
and hanging off Mom like she’s a human pole.
‘He isn’t always like that,’ I say.
‘Really?’ Hannah asks.
‘Really,’ Tippi says.
Our cousin frowns and
shakes her head;
she doesn’t believe a word of it.
Cankles
On Monday morning
Tippi and I sit
on a table in the common room
and watch Yasmeen and Jon scrambling
to copy down our answers for history
homework.
Tippi lifts her leg and points her toes.
‘I have a chubby ankle,’ she says.
‘When did that happen?’
Yasmeen looks up,
prods Tippi’s foot with the point of her pen.
‘You’re probably pregnant,’ she says,
and smirks.
I laugh and lift my own leg.
Point my toe.
See that my ankle
isn’t as slender as it used to be
either.
How is that fair?
For conjoined twins
to have cankles
as well as everything else?
When Apart
Now Jon and I have swapped numbers
and he is among
my Favourites
I spend any lessons
apart from him
with my phone hidden
beneath my desk
sending
messages and waiting for replies.
Tippi rolls her eyes.
‘I won’t let you cheat later,’
she says.
But I don’t care.
There’s another message coming through.
Texts
Wot do the tattoos on ur
hand mean????
Nada
Can’t b nothing
Can
Can’t
Mayb I like stars …
Mayb I’m that shallow
Ur not!
I am
Tell me!!!
They remind me the
universe is bigger
than me
Than u?
Than what we think should
matter
I need some stars 2
U totally do
On the Sidelines
The other girls play basketball
while we sit on the sidelines,
me with a book,
Tippi with her headphones in.
Margot Glass isn’t doing gym
either
and sits with us,
right by me
on the wooden bench.
‘Got my monthly,’ she explains,
taking out a tube of sticky lip balm
and smearing it all over
her plump pink lips.
‘Tic Tac?’ she asks,
holding out a transparent box brimming
with tiny white capsules.
Our classmates have offered us nothing
but
a wide berth
so I’m surprised Margot is even talking to me.
‘Sure,’ I say,
and Margot
rattles
four tiny pieces of candy
into my hand.
‘I was saying to some of the other girls last night
how sorry I feel for you and your sister,’ Margot says.
‘I need my privacy.
I’d hate to be so trapped all the time.’
Margot
opens her mouth
and tips the Tic Tacs straight inside.
‘It doesn’t bother us,’ I say.
Margot Glass almost smiles—
her lips and eyes
hard and mirthless.
I curl my fingers around the
Tic Tacs in my palm and
slowly
the sweet minty coating melts
in my sugary
fist.
Thank You Anyway
Jon’s lawn is littered with empty beer cans and
a rusting, tyre-less bicycle is tied to the chain-link fence.
The windows of his house
are protected by bars
and his front door has green graffiti sprayed across the glass.
As he pushes open his door
a German shepherd leaps at us
and licks our arms.
‘Down, Pup,’ he says,
and pulls the dog away.
The house smells of cigarettes.
Dirty dishes are piled high in the sink.
The TV is on—no one is watching it.
Jon goes to the refrigerator.
‘Coke?’ he asks,
and I am filled up with shame
because the last thing I want to
do is eat or drink
anything in this house.
The doorbell buzzes.
‘That’ll be Yasmeen,’ Jon says, and
rushes to open it.
A guy with a grey beard and
a teardrop tattoo below his eye
emerges from a bathroom door
in the corner of the kitchen.
‘Fuck me,’ he says,
dropping a cigarette on to the tiled floor
and grinding it down into tobacco dust
with the heel of his boot.
‘I mean …
fuck me,’ he repeats,
and
as sweetly as if we’d been offered
pumpkin pie,
Tippi replies,
‘No.
But thank you anyway.’
In Jon’s Room
Jon’s bedroom smells of stale bedsheets
and aftershave.
The walls are covered with photographs of dead writers
and
tattoo art.
‘Sorry I was rude to your dad,’ Tippi says,
and then,
‘though I’m not really sorry.’
Jon laughs.
‘Cal’s my stepdad. He’s OK.
He’s here, you know.
He stayed after Mom bailed.
And he’s an asshole sometimes, but he didn’t leave.
He pays for my train tickets and lunch,
and if it weren’t for him