Good Neighbors(15)
“Go home!” Shelly shouted from the air. “The whole reason we have that stupid sinkhole is because your parents don’t pay taxes!”
“Just go home,” one of the Ottomanelli twins added. She thought it was Michael, the mean one, until the other one added, “No food line feet allowed, you dirty Wildes!” So, probably, that one was Michael. They were dressed in identical Islanders jerseys, only today Michael wore glasses and Mark had on blue-tinted contacts. Nobody in the Rat Pack could tell them apart, so they just got called Markle.
“Go home!” Lainee Hestia chimed, which hurt the most, because Lainee was a total weenie. We’re talking dressing-up-like-Rey-from-Star-Wars-for-class-photos, bringing-a-light-saber-to-field-trips, owning-over-a-hundred-action-figure-erasers–level weeniedom.
“I’m not on your property. My parents bought our house and it’s ours and I have a right to stand on this sidewalk like anybody else,” Julia said.
Shelly jumped harder. The springs screamed. Sound-sensitive Larry covered his ears. The kids sitting around the edges—the Markles, Ella Schroeder, and Lainee Hestia—maneuvered toward the platform’s edge and clung to its circular rail while the rest of the Rat Pack—Sam Singh, Dave Harrison, and Charlie Walsh—huddled with wary expressions a few yards away.
Plat! Shelly hit the tramp, then flew back up again: “GO! AWAY!” Plat! She landed. Then up again, her jumpsuit big as a sail: “GO AWAY!” Her voice was high-pitched and happy and sad all rolled into one.
Plat!
Up again. Julia saw something bright and red and wrong between Shelly’s spread legs.
“GO!”
Plat!
“THE FUCK!”
Plat!
“AWAY!”
Plat!
Shelly came down hard that last time, catapulting her little sister right out of the trampoline. Ella landed on her hands and knees. “I’m telling!” she wailed.
“Don’t you dare—” Shelly started.
“—I’m telling Mom you came out here even though you’re not allowed and you made me come, too, and now I’m hurt and she’ll be so mad at you!” Ella screeched with fake tears.
Shelly’s chest puffed out. So did the veins on her neck. Between her spread legs was a thin red stain. Julia looked away because it was too embarrassing. Maybe that was why no one else pointed it out, either.
“Why is Shelly bad now, Julia?” Larry asked without whispering or even lowering his voice. His green turtleneck was tight, his face blotchy red from heat.
Shelly shined her fury in Larry’s direction, and vented it. “Aspy,” she hissed.
Larry squinted, which was his way of showing hurt feelings.
“My mom said he’s gonna get kicked out of normal school,” said Shelly. “He’s draining all the resources.”
“I’m leaving school?” Larry asked.
“Call him Robot Brother. That’s his nickname. And he’s not aspy. He just hates you, because you super-suck a bag’a dead dicks,” Julia said.
Shelly flipped off the tramp and ran, stopping just short of knocking Julia down. Tiny veins throbbed across her eyes like blood mites. “Face or body?”
“Shelly, stop,” Dave Harrison called.
“The eight of us took a vote,” Shelly answered without taking her eyes off Julia. “We all agreed. Nobody talks to the Wildes… So, which is it, Julia?” she asked, like they were strangers. Like they’d never promised during sleepovers, while their drunk moms had guzzled wine on the porch under fake tiki torches, that they’d be best friends forever.
“Our air-conditioning’s gone to shit,” Julia panted. “We have to be out here. I don’t want to fight and I don’t want to be in a place nobody wants me but it’s too hot. Whatever your problem is, get over it.” She pointed at the deflated yellow mat on her dried-up lawn. “We could all Slip ’N Slide. You could, too, Shelly. Plus my mom went grocery shopping and there’s Eggo pancakes.”
Shelly’s frown eased.
“We won’t tell your mom. She’ll never even know you came outside,” Julia said. “It’s totally early. She’s sleeping for another hour at least.” Hungover, Julia meant, but she didn’t say it.
Shelly let out a long sigh, and Julia knew she was winning. Please, please, please let this turn out okay, she silently prayed. Let Shelly act like a human being again, and let the neighborhood kids not tease anymore, and let the Slip ’N Slide be awesome, so I can have just ONE GOOD DAY.
But then Larry opened his big mouth. “Shelly can’t be on our Slip ’N Slide, Julia. Robot Boy says no bullies in school.”
Shelly spun. In three strides, she was toe to toe with Larry. “Face or body?”
Larry’s eyes engaged a point just over Shelly’s left shoulder. “You are a bad person,” he said in monotone and without contractions, which meant he was terrified.
“Okay, I’ll pick for you,” Shelly answered as she flicked her index finger at his nose, then his small chest, then his nose, and back to his chest again, singsonging: “My-mother-punched-your-mother-right-in-the-nose…
“What-color-was-the-blood?” Shelly continued, nose-chest-nose-chest. It was so weird. What thirteen-year-old plays It? All the other kids watched. Except for the mean Markle, their faces registered discomfort.