Dreamology(25)

I don’t think she really wants to hear my answer to who I am hanging out with, because currently it’s Oliver, the school’s biggest troublemaker; my father, a middle-aged neuroscientist; Jerry, a geriatric bulldog; and golden boy Max Wolfe, but only in an subconscious state. It also strikes me as amusing that she and Dean Hammer could be so very different and yet very much the same. This is not far from asking me what I want on my tombstone.

“Um, I think I must have missed the signup deadline for clubs?” I try. “I hadn’t really thought about it . . .”

Delilah studies me, her head nodding over and over. Her stare makes me uncomfortable, so I glance out the window, and that’s when I see Sergio and Brunilda, watching me from a tree outside. Sergio lifts a wing, salutes me, and they both fly off.

What in the—? Am I asleep? I blink a few times.

“Well, what did you do at your old school?” Delilah is asking.

Explored. Visited the museums. Played chess with some old guys in Central Park. Tried to keep Jerry from eating the ducks in the pond, at which I had only a ninety-eight percent success rate.

“I spent a lot of time outside,” I say. And then instantly realize it sounds like I do a lot of drugs.

“That’s helpful!” Delilah says. “What about the orienteering society? They organize weekly camping trips, hikes up local mountains . . .”

My eyes go wide with horror. “Not that kind of outside. I grew up in New York City.”

Delilah raises her eyebrows. “How very cosmopolitan!” she says. Then she reaches into the bookshelf next to us and pulls down a giant stack of fliers. “Here, why don’t you review some of these. They might give you some ideas.”

“Can I just take them with me and decide later?” I ask.

Can I just take them with me and throw them out? I think.

Delilah smiles knowingly. “I’d prefer if you picked three before leaving my office today. I promise you will find something you’ll like. We have over forty clubs and societies here at Bennett.”

I glance down at the fliers, and the first one I see says, “Amateur Juggling Coalition.”

“I’m sure I will,” I say, flipping the page immediately. “Eventually.”





12


Please Choose an Orb




IN ANOTHER ONE of her infrequent letters from Africa, my mother described a German explorer who, in 1878, wrote about being led by a tribe called the Mkodo through the Madagascar jungle. The explorer claimed he watched a giant pineapple-shaped tree strangle and then ingest a woman, its tendrils wrapping themselves around her body while its huge leaves slowly folded over her like some sick cocoon or, in my imagination, some horror movie from the fifties with poor set design. The entire story, the tribe that led him, and the explorer himself were later deemed a fraud, but that didn’t stop others from still suspecting the killer plant’s existence.

At the moment, while I sit on a bench within the Bennett Academy greenhouse, a beautiful run-down building composed entirely of glass walls and a green metal skeletal structure, I am willing to admit that I am one of those people. Because in the corner of the greenhouse farthest from the main entrance is a plant that doesn’t just appear to be looking at me; it also looks like it might try to bite me if I get too close. As I watch, I actually think I see it lean closer to sniff the hand of a girl standing next to it in a purple skirt, like Jerry sniffs a treat he’s about to devour. But when I look again, it hasn’t moved, and the girl is unharmed.

I really tried everything to avoid coming here. I don’t think I have so much as watered a flower in my entire life. But Delilah told me that joining the bocce team wasn’t enough, and my attempt to join SASM yesterday—Students Against Social Media—didn’t go very well.

At the first meeting we went around the circle introducing ourselves, and when I told them my name, a girl named Gigi typed something aggressively on a laptop.

“Alice Rowe, formerly of Manhattan?” Gigi asked.

“That’s correct,” I answered.

“I see here you have a Facebook account.” She looked up at me over the top of her sleek silver glasses. “Is it active?”

“I never go on it,” I said.

“And what about Instagram?” she asked. “JerrysWorld?”

“Does that really count?” I answered, suddenly feeling a little hot. I’d taken chemistry exams easier than this. “It’s just photos . . . I really like photography.”

“So do I,” Gigi said. “But I don’t need the whole world to ‘like’ my photography to feel a sense of satisfaction and belonging.” When she said the word like, she took her pointer finger and jabbed it into the air in front of her, as though poking an invisible heart icon on an invisible Instagram feed.

“I don’t use it that much . . .” I try.

“So you did not post a photo just this morning of a bulldog lying in a pile of leaves?” she asked.

“He was really excited about the first day of fall,” I say, a little more defensively this time.

“And the Spotify? I see you have over one hundred followers.”

Needless to say, it was suggested to me that I not return to Students Against Social Media.

“Okay guys,” a guy named Parker says now, standing up and facing the handful of students that are seated around the shelves of plants and potting soil. He’s wearing a short-sleeved plaid shirt, those strange sneakers that have individual spaces for your toes, and is screwing on the cap to a Nalgene bottle with a sticker on it that says, MAY THE FOREST BE WITH YOU. “Really psyched to see such an excellent turnout for the Terrarium Club. I’m going to assume you all know what a terrarium is, but in case not, it’s basically a small-scale ecosystem within a container. Just plants, no animals or reptiles of any kind. We’ll begin with closed terrariums, where sunlight and the closed environment are used to circulate water to be self-sustaining, and move on to open terrariums toward the end of the semester, which focus primarily on plants like succulents, which require drier air.”