Calf Read online

  Mrs. Perkins was very excited about the play idea and made the sixth graders practice their auditions in class. There were mimeographed sheets with speeches for each character. Everyone wanted to be Dorothy or the Scarecrow. When Mrs. Perkins asked Tammy which character she wanted to audition for, Tammy said, “The Witch.” Tammy thought that would be a cool choice and that way she wouldn’t have to sing any songs.

  The auditions were held upstairs in the music room during a special class with the fifth and sixth grades together. When you auditioned, you went to the front of the room and said your memorized speech. So far, no one else was doing the Witch speech.

  The music teacher called Tammy’s name.

  Tammy stood in front of the class. The music teacher didn’t say anything, so Tammy decided to start. She shivered as if someone had dumped a bucket of water on her head.

  “See what you have done! In a minute I shall melt away.”

  Tammy waited a little bit for the space where Dorothy would say something back, and then she went on as though Dorothy had said her line.

  “Didn’t you know water would be the end of me?”

  Again, Tammy waited in silence and said the Dorothy line to herself inside her head. Then she melted by slowly crouching down to the floor.

  “Well, in a few minutes I shall be all melted, and you will have the castle to yourself. I have been wicked in my day, but I never thought a little girl like you would ever be able to melt me and end my wicked deeds. Look out—here I go!”

  Tammy squatted down and curled up in a ball on the floor with her cheek on the speckled linoleum. She couldn’t see anything in the classroom because her hair fell in front of her face like a curtain. She waited there for the music teacher to say something.

  “Is she dead yet?” Kenny called out from the back of the room.

  “Okay. Good job,” the music teacher said.

  Tammy got up off the floor and took her seat. She didn’t know if the music teacher liked her audition or not. The music teacher said “good job” to everyone.

  “Did you lick the floor when you melted?” Kenny was sitting right behind her. “Did you? Did you? I don’t want to suck face with someone who eats off the floor. Gross!”

  “She’s a shrinky dink!” someone else said.

  People always acted this way in music class because no one was afraid of the music teacher. They never did this with Mrs. Perkins. If they acted up in class, Mrs. Perkins would drop a stack of textbooks on the floor that would make everyone gasp and look up. The music teacher was dumb and nobody liked her.

  The next week in music class, the music teacher had written who had what parts on the blackboard.

  Gretchen was Dorothy.

  Colin was the Scarecrow.

  Monique was the Tin Man.

  Josh was the Lion.

  Kenny was the King of the Winged Monkeys.

  And Tammy was the Witch.

  When Tammy got home from school, Steffi told her that the whole fourth-grade class was going to be the chorus. They were going to sing all the songs and wear green shirts that said OZ. Tammy told her she didn’t care. Tammy said the songs were stupid and the OZ shirts looked like baby bibs and the whole reason she wanted to be the Witch was because the Witch didn’t sing any songs. Steffi tried to say that Tammy felt that way because she wasn’t a good singer, which wasn’t true. Steffi was just saying that to be mean in her Miss Know It All way.

  At dinner, Tammy’s mother said she had an announcement. Tammy and Steffi already knew she was going out of town on Friday and that they would be left with Nick. Now she said that Nick had to go out of town too. It had something to do with his job. Tammy and Steffi looked at each other. They didn’t know exactly what this meant. They baby-sat themselves whenever their mother and Nick went out somewhere at night. They were used to that. But they had never been left alone overnight before.

  Steffi piped up and said that she was going to spend the night at Kirin’s. Kirin had invited her to sleep over, so they didn’t have to worry about her. That was typical Steffi. She was going to stick Tammy with baby-sitting Hugh. Steffi didn’t care about anyone else and she didn’t like getting stuck having to do anything extra. That’s why she got sick and had asthma all the time, so she didn’t have to do anything.

  Tammy’s mother said she was going to ask a friend of hers at work if she could stay over with the kids. Tammy knew this was not going to be good. Her mother and Nick were terrible at picking baby-sitters. They were always weird, like Mrs. Brown who ate all their ice cream. Or once they had a boy baby-sitter who washed their faces before bed by rubbing a bar of soap all over without any water. Or the skinny woman who made them kneel down and say prayers even though they didn’t say prayers in their house. When Tammy asked her why they had to do that, she said so God won’t send you to Hell when you die.

  Steffi was always weaseling out of things. She always had something up her sleeve, and if for some reason she didn’t, she could always get sick. Now Steffi was leaving Tammy in the lurch overnight and Tammy would have to think of something so she wouldn’t get stuck with their stupid brother.

  Nothing was decided at that meal. Tammy’s mother and Nick gave them one of those lines like “When you need to know, you’ll know.” That meant they didn’t know. It was the same as when Tammy asked, “What’s for dinner?” and they answered back, “Food.” That meant they didn’t know.

  The next day Tammy’s mother and Nick told them they had spoken to Kirin’s mother and that all three of them would spend the night at Kirin’s house. Tammy couldn’t believe this. She couldn’t believe that she was being forced to spend the night at a friend of her sister’s. A fourth grader. It was embarrassing. Hugh didn’t say anything. He didn’t care and he probably didn’t get it. This was totally unfair.

  “What happened to your friend from work?” Tammy asked.

  “She had weekend plans,” her mother said.

  “Like what?”

  “She had plans!” Nick yelled in. “It’s all been settled!”

  Tammy shut up because if she didn’t, he would start in with no TV, no dessert, and whatever else he could think of.

  This sucked.

  Tammy was so embarrassed she didn’t mention it to anyone at school on Friday. Her biggest worry was that Gretchen and Monique both lived on the same block as Kirin and they might see her over there. Tammy thought maybe she could sneak by and make a point of not going outside.

  Nick had left for his trip early in the day. When Tammy’s mother came home from work she told the kids to pack their overnight gear and she would drive them to Kirin’s. Tammy didn’t know why they had to go over there so soon. Couldn’t they wait until it was time to go to bed and then go over? But her mother said no, it doesn’t work that way.

  When her mother parked the car in front of Kirin’s house, Tammy immediately got out and walked quickly to the front door so that she was hidden between the two big bushes on either side of the porch. Tammy’s mother took a long time walking over. She walked so slowly, swinging her purse on her wrist, and then acted as if she didn’t know where the doorbell was.

  Kirin answered the door and let them in. Valerie walked over from the kitchen with a big goofy smile on her face. She looked like a stretched-out version of Kirin. She probably didn’t want them there and was just putting on a show to make them feel better.

  When Tammy’s mother left, Valerie asked, “Who wants pizza for dinner?”

  Kirin and Steffi started jumping up and down, holding hands, and acting younger than they were. They were chanting, “Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!” like crazy.

  Everyone went into the kitchen and Valerie gave the kids orange sodas. Then she asked what kind of pizza they wanted.

  “Extra cheese!” Kirin said.

  “Yes, extra cheese!” Steffi piped in.

  “Nothing else?” Valerie asked.

  “Nope!” they said together.

  When Tammy’s family ordered pizza at home they
always got it with everything. Even with anchovies, because Nick liked them. Tammy and Steffi thought they were too salty, but Nick said they could pick them off. That’s what they always got. They never got plain cheese pizza. Tammy had never even thought about what she would want on her ideal pizza. Steffi was breaking the rules, but there was no way she would get caught, and she wasn’t really breaking the rules since this was someone else’s house. Tammy was a little mad at Steffi for figuring that out.

  Kirin’s mom ate with them. She was one of those mothers who tried to pretend she was a kid too. Tammy thought those mothers were kind of fake. After all, they weren’t kids. It was like they were trying too hard to be cool and they really weren’t.

  The cool thing about Kirin’s house was that there really were no rules. Kirin fed Pudding the dog her pizza crusts. They could have a second soda if they wanted. They could have a second ice cream bar if they wanted. They could watch whatever they wanted on TV—cable TV—and they weren’t banished to a kids’ TV room. Those were all cool things. The weird thing was it was just weird. Tammy felt like she couldn’t relax.

  Kirin’s mom thought it would be fun for all of the kids to sleep together in the guest room. Kirin dug out her sleeping bag and laid it on the floor next to Steffi’s. Then the four of them rearranged themselves in a circle with their heads in the center, as if there were a campfire on the floor. They watched TV in the dark and the giant HBO letters spun around against a starry background.

  There was some movie on about Vietnam called The Deer Hunter. Ten minutes into it Kirin stood up and switched off the TV.

  “This is boring.”

  She and Steffi walked out of the room. Tammy would’ve preferred to watch Grease on the laser disc player, but she didn’t know how it worked. She followed Steffi and Kirin across the hall into Kirin’s bedroom.

  “Let’s play a game,” Kirin said as she bounced onto her bed. “I know!”

  She dipped her head over the side and rummaged around under her bed. Then she wiggled a little farther and did a somersault onto the floor.

  “Tada!”

  She opened up her closet door and pulled out a bunch of board games—Sorry!, Monopoly, and The Game of Life—and brought them over to her bed. Then she went back and squatted on the closet floor and pulled out a see-through Tupperware container with a lid on it. Inside was a pale liquid that looked like pee. Kirin opened it and drank some. She passed it to Steffi who drank some too.

  “What is it?” Tammy asked as Steffi handed it to her.

  “Just drink it, silly.”

  Tammy drank some. It tasted bad. Like rotten apple juice.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s wine,” said Steffi.

  “You’re not supposed to drink that.”

  Kirin and Steffi each took another gulp. “It makes silly things sillier. It makes you feel better,” Kirin said. “It’s kind of like medicine,” Steffi said. They took one more drink each before Kirin snapped the lid back on and stowed the container back in the closet.

  “Do you want to hear a spooky story?” Kirin asked.

  “Yes!” Steffi said. She was enjoying this whole thing because it made her feel like she was in charge.

  Tammy didn’t like scary stories or scary movies, but she didn’t want to seem like a chicken when she was the oldest one there. She ignored them and walked back to the TV guest room. Just because she had to spend the night there didn’t mean she had to hang out with them.

  “Well, for one thing, this house is haunted!” Kirin said. She and Steffi followed Tammy like annoying little gnats that won’t leave you alone. They plopped down onto their sleeping bags. “Not haunted with ghosts,” Kirin said, “but with angels.”

  Tammy didn’t believe stuff like that. A ghost she might actually believe. After Tammy saw The Amityville Horror, she stopped going down into the basement of her house. She no longer liked to hang up her coat in the closet that led down to the basement. If she had to do it, she waited until someone else was home and then she did it really fast. But angels were like fairies and Kirin was obviously making this up.

  “There’s no such thing,” Tammy said.

  “Yes there is.”

  “No there’s not.”

  “Yes there is. There are haunting angels. I know because my mom says so. She’s seen them and sometimes they talk to her.”

  “Your mom’s just saying that. It’s not really true. It’s like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. They’re not really real, adults just pretend they’re real so they don’t hurt your feelings.”

  “My mom sees them. They don’t talk to me, they only talk to her.”

  “You probably still believe in the Easter Bunny too.”

  “No, I don’t. That’s made up by candy companies.”

  “Well, your stupid angel ghosts are made up too.”

  “Why are you being mean?” That was Steffi putting on her goody-two-shoes voice.

  “Shut up,” Tammy said.

  “This is my house and you can’t tell her to shut up,” Kirin said.

  Hugh wasn’t paying attention. He was tracing the designs of his Superman sleeping bag with two fingers, making them walk like the legs of a little person around the giant red S.

  “Then ask your mom. I won’t believe you until she says so, and she better not be pretending little kids’ stuff, because I can tell when grown-ups do that.”

  Kirin stood up on her skinny legs sticking out from her cow-jumping-over-the-moon nightgown. She padded her way out of the room and they heard her yell, “Mommy!” down the hall. Tammy could hear them talking in another room. Then Kirin came back and said, “She says it’s true.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t hear her say it.”

  “She just went and asked her!” Steffi said.

  “I couldn’t hear what she said. How am I supposed to know?”

  “I just asked her and she said they’re real,” Kirin said.

  “Maybe that’s something she just tells you. It doesn’t mean they’re really real.”

  “You’re just being mean. You really are the Wicked Witch.”

  “Well you’re just two dumb fourth graders in the chorus wearing stupid Oz bibs. You wear bibs because you’re babies and you’ll probably drool on yourselves when you sing.”

  There was a silence while Kirin and Steffi thought about what to say back. Pudding the dog wandered in the room and sat down by Kirin.

  “My dog thinks you’re dumb.”

  “Fuck you, you’re both dumb.”

  Kirin and Steffi looked shocked that Tammy said that to them. Steffi knew that Tammy said “fuck” at home when they were alone, but it was another thing to say it at somebody else’s house. It was like saying it at school. She wasn’t supposed to do it.

  Kirin stood up again on her twiggy legs and marched out of the room. Pudding scampered after her.

  “Why do you have to ruin everything?” Steffi whispered to Tammy. “You always have to go and get in trouble for nothing. Just because you’re mad about something you have to go and be mean to everybody.”

  Tammy ignored her. She was pissed that she was stuck here with the two of them and her brother. She was in the sixth grade. Next year she would be in junior high. She was too old to be forced into hanging around with younger kids.

  Kirin returned with her mother and dog. Kirin had a big know-it-all smile on her face.

  “Tammy wants to ask you something,” Kirin said.

  Tammy hated being put on the spot like that. It made her look stupid. This was probably all some big joke. She looked down at her sleeping bag and pulled at the strap that connected the green canvas outside to the plaid flannel inside. It used to be Nick’s before he lived with them. Tammy hoped that by not looking at Kirin and her mother, they would eventually go away.

  “Yes?” Valerie asked.

  Tammy looked up at her. Valerie had a funny look on her face and her eyes were glassy and watery. Tammy knew that look. It meant she’d been crying a
nd was trying to cover it up. She was wearing a long see-through nightgown and Tammy could see her boobs right through it. She hadn’t put a bathrobe on over it. Maybe she thought Tammy had something serious to ask her.

  “Nothing,” Tammy said.

  Kirin wasn’t going to let her off so easily. Little kids were like that. If they thought they could win something over on a big kid, they milked it for all it was worth. Steffi did that all the time.

  “She wants to know about the angel ghosts. She doesn’t believe they’re real,” Kirin said, swinging her mom’s arm back and forth in the doorway.

  Her mom didn’t say anything. She stood there thinking about something else and not paying attention.

  “Maaa-uhhmm!” Kirin whined.

  “What?”

  “The angel ghosts!”

  “What about them?”

  “They’re real, right?”

  Her mom looked around the room and she looked very scared. Tammy couldn’t tell if she was putting them on or not. Usually people’s dads would do that, tell ghost stories to freak kids out and then laugh and say it was all a joke.

  “You should go to sleep now,” she said, but she didn’t turn out the lights. “Do you want a story?”

  “Okay,” Kirin said in a cheery voice. Valerie walked in and sat on the couch. Kirin and Steffi laid on their stomachs with their chins propped up on their fists, kicking their legs backward into the air. Tammy was too old for bedtime stories. She would’ve preferred to read. She had brought the book Island of the Blue Dolphins in her overnight bag and she was near the end. It was about an Indian girl who was left alone on an island when her tribe moved away. She was sailing away on a boat with her tribe, but she dove into the water to save her brother who was accidentally left behind. Then her brother died and she made friends with a wild dog. Tammy was near the end so she knew the Indian girl would get rescued soon.

  “Tell the angel ghost story,” Kirin said.

  “No,” Tammy said.

  “Yes, tell it!” Steffi said.

  “You’ll scare him,” Tammy said quietly and motioned to Hugh.

  “He’s already asleep!”

  “No he’s not,” Tammy said. “Are you asleep?” She said it loudly, on purpose, to wake him up.