Weird Girl, page 3
By midmorning, Cleo had compiled a list of questions based on her research, as well as the events of the previous night. Darwin was still sleeping, so Cleo went to her mother’s study. Helen was sitting at her desk, humming softly and scratching at a dried blue patch behind her left ear while she read a book about hydrangeas. If her cheeks took on a much pinker hue during the conversation that followed with her daughter, it was certainly because Helen must be fighting an infection of some sort.
***
Monday at school, Cleo proudly submitted her paper entitled Intercourse: The Ins and Outs of Human Copulatory Practices. Her tutor read it twice, and then even the principal read it. It must have been a stellar example of academic research, because the principal called Cleo to her office to talk about it.
Mrs. Heinz had the paper on her desk. “Lucy,” she said, “I would like to discuss this assignment, but I also feel that there is a deeper issue here that we need to explore, so I’m going to ask you some questions, and I need for you to answer them honestly. Do you understand?”
Cleo nodded.
Mrs. Heinz continued, “Lucy, I’d like to know more about your home life.” She took a deep breath, like a diver on the highest platform. “Do your parents ever ask you to watch them…in moments of intimacy?”
“No,” said Cleo.
“Have they ever discussed their sexual encounters with you?” the principal asked. “Ummm…I mean, well not their sexual encounters with you, but have their sexual encounters with each other ever been mentioned to you? Although…I suppose it does need to be asked—has either of your parents ever tried to be intimate with you?” asked Mrs. Heinz.
“No,” said Cleo. She waited a few seconds and said, “They only discuss the sexual activities of other people.”
The principal’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. “What?”
Cleo spoke slowly and distinctly, because clearly Mrs. Heinz was having trouble understanding. “They never discuss their own intimate escapades, but they have mentioned, on multiple occasions, their observations of other people’s sexual practices. Especially my father.”
Mrs. Heinz was astonished. She wouldn’t make eye contact, but simply turned to her computer and began typing. For several minutes, the only sounds in the office were of the aquarium’s gurgling filter in the corner, Mrs. Heinz’s clacking keys, and Cleo’s pen as she made observations of her principal’s behavior. The woman was clearly stressed. Cleo was just about to make a recommendation that Mrs. Heinz go home early for the day, when the woman hit a button and the printer hummed to life. Two sheets of paper shot out, were carefully folded and put into an envelope with the school’s logo on it, and a name was quickly written on the outside.
Mrs. Heinz handed the envelope to Cleo and said, “Lucy, I expect you to give this to your mother when you arrive home today. If she wishes to call me, my home phone number is at the bottom of the second page. Otherwise, I will be in my office all day tomorrow awaiting her response.”
Cleo took the envelope and put it between the last page and back cover of her notebook to keep it flat. “Okay,” she said.
Mrs. Heinz frowned. “And furthermore, on the subject of this paper that you submitted this morning, I need to say that I am both concerned and very disappointed. This is not the sort of research that a child your age has any business doing, and I can only suspect that, based on the title, as well as the questionable content, you approached the assignment with an unnecessary amount of humor and disrespect.”
Cleo was shocked. “You didn’t like it?” she asked. “Do you have any particular critiques that would be beneficial for revision before I submit it to The American Journal of Sex for publication?”
“You are not submitting this anywhere for publication!” Mrs. Heinz snapped. “You are not to allow anyone, ever, to read this. You are going to rewrite this assignment, Miss Gardener, and you are going to make it appropriate for an elementary school environment. I will leave it to your tutor to set a deadline for this, but I suggest that you get started immediately.” And then she picked up Cleo’s paper and tore each page neatly down the center.
Cleo felt her blood pressure rising. She tried to rationalize with herself—this is just a bump in the road; you pick yourself up and dust yourself off; these are the days of our lives—but it didn’t work.
“You’re a damn Nazi!” she yelled (which is what her father always said when he was on the phone with his publisher), and threw a stapler right at Mrs. Heinz’s head.
***
Mrs. Harrison couldn’t get the parents to collect their daughter early from school. “I called her house seven times,” she said, “but the woman who answered would only yell at me in Chinese.” (Meanwhile, across town, Mrs. Fhang was cursing a blue streak in her native language. She was trying to watch her stories, and some crazy white lady kept calling and trying to give her a little girl.)
Mrs. Harrison looked at Cleo with narrowed eyes. “Maybe you should talk to her.”
Cleo smiled sweetly. “Mrs. Harrison, I’m only nine years old. What opportunity would I have had to learn Chinese as a second language?”
“Well, somebody at your house speaks Chinese,” said Mrs. Harrison. “Maybe you can at least tell them to come get you.”
That afternoon at 2:30, Vera came, as usual, to take Cleo home from school. Cleo wasn’t very talkative during the drive, but Vera never liked to push. When they arrived at the house, Cleo claimed that she had tons of homework, and went straight to her room. She climbed onto Achillea’s bed with her backpack and pulled out the two letters she had been given at school. Using a letter opener carved from a human femur, she quickly opened them.
The first was the one Mrs. Heinz had given her earlier in the day. “Mrs. Gardener” was scrawled on the outside. Cleo scowled. Sometimes an alternate identity was a pain in the rear. She was used to being called Lucy Gardener at school, but she forgot that everyone assumed her mother’s last name would be Gardener also. She thought about the Chinese lady and smiled. Cleo had forgotten about the fake phone number, too.
Dear Mrs. Gardener,
Educators strive to touch every child in a special way, guiding them to a better understanding of the pleasures that can be found in new experiences. As principal of New Bridge Elementary School, I am a firm believer in the value of thorough instruction. Watching children discover themselves has long been a passion of mine, and I like to believe that my hand has guided many a young person to a higher state of enlightenment throughout my eighteen years of service.
Your daughter is brilliant, Mrs. Gardener. However, Lucy seems to have little practical knowledge of social etiquette, interpersonal relations, or boundaries. In fact, she has no friends, never socializes with anyone, and is, quite frankly, the creepiest child that has ever been enrolled at this institution. She has no concept of what is appropriate for a child her age, and I have my doubts that you have any concept of this, either.
Given the paper that your child submitted to her tutor today, I am not only shocked, but very concerned about Lucy’s home environment. Clearly, you allow her to be exposed to things that nobody under the age of thirty should see (if even then). I am putting Lucy, and you, on probation, Mrs. Gardener. She will be under close observation for the foreseeable future, and if at any time I suspect that her caretakers (meaning you and your husband) are not providing an appropriately regulated environment for an eight year old, I will have no choice but to contact DSS on Lucy’s behalf. She is, after all, only a child.
I expect that you will wish to discuss this further. My home number is 590-8876, and I will be in my office all day tomorrow. I look forward to continuing this dialogue.
Sincerely,
Pamela Heinz
Principal
New Bridge Elementary School
Cleo scowled and unfolded the other letter. This one was from Mrs. Harrison.
Mrs. Gardener,
As Mrs. Heinz is currently waiting for her CAT scan, I act on her behalf by informing you that your child, Lucy Gardener, is hereby suspended from school for a period of two weeks. She will be expected to keep up with her assignments during this time. This will be on her permanent record. If you have any questions, please contact me at the school.
Your child is a menace. If I could have her arrested, I would.
Sincerely,
Marjory Harrison
Suspended! But she was being persecuted! Her freedom of speech was being violated! She briefly considered composing a scathing letter about censorship and the fall of civilization, but decided that there were more important things to consider, such as how to tell her parents that she was suspended from school.
She lay back on Achillea’s bed and watched two spiders carefully constructing webs on the ceiling (Helen would not allow spiders or insects to be killed, as it may disrupt the ecological balance). There were three options: 1. Tell them everything, and take the consequences; 2. Tell them nothing, and find something to do with her time after she was dropped off at school every morning; or 3. Lie.
Cleo mentally ran through the meeting with Mrs. Heinz. The woman was really out of line. The memory of her slowly tearing each page in half was infuriating. But, as Cleo remembered the stapler flying through the air, the thunk of metal meeting flesh and bone, the stapler arcing sideways to shatter the aquarium, the look of surprise on Mrs. Heinz’s face as the blood ran down, the three goldfish flopping helplessly on the floor, their gills pumping—there was a real chance that Helen and Darwin would not be supportive. She scowled again. Everybody always sided with the person who bled. Nobody ever cared about the invisible injuries of intellectual repression. It was abuse!
If she continued to go to school, there was a chance of someone seeing her while Vera was still around. So, Cleo decided that the only recourse was to lie.
That evening, when Cleo went downstairs for dinner, she had a crisp, sealed envelope with the school’s logo on the outside. Her parents were surprised, as they had both managed to forget that Cleo was enrolled in a public school.
Dear Dr. St. James,
Your daughter is one of the finest students we have ever had at New Bridge. She continues to grow intellectually, and has now reached an even higher level of the state curriculum. Her thirst for knowledge is an inspiration to all who know her, and her most recent dissertation on human reproduction is a stellar example of the work we have come to expect from her.
Therefore, we have decided to extend the opportunity of a two week sabbatical in which Cleo can work on an independent study project for her tutor. We feel that this time outside of the school environment will prove invaluable to her research. There is no need for her to return to our campus until the 29th of this month.
Cleo’s brilliance illuminates us all, and we are certain that her project, which we ask her not to discuss at this early stage, will have a profound effect on both the local and scientific communities.
Sincerely,
Pamela Heinz
Principal
New Bridge Elementary School
She bit her lip and tried not to squirm as her mother, and then her father, read the letter. It had taken her all afternoon to painstakingly duplicate the logo on the outside of the envelope, but she felt that the effort was worth it to achieve that extra bit of authenticity.
There was a moment of silence when her parents looked at one another, and Cleo thought her heart would stop. She almost blurted out the truth, but then her father smiled. They congratulated her, wished her the best of luck, and then started eating. Cleo let her breath out slowly, and felt the tension drift away. That had been easier than she expected. She smiled, and began to eat her peas.
4
Some might call it trust. Others might call it neglect. Cleo didn’t care what it was. Her parents believed the letter, didn’t ask questions, and quickly returned to their own interests. The only problem was Vera. If Cleo stayed in the house, Vera popped in to check on her. To bring her snacks. To bring her a sweater. To frown and ask if this big project really had anything to do with trying to put clothes on the taxidermy wildebeest in the foyer. It was annoying. So, Cleo ventured out of the house in search of something to fill her days.
She packed a backpack with the following:
-2 notebooks
-2 pens
-magnifying glass
-binoculars
-orange juice
-2 apples
-pocketknife (stolen from her father’s desk)
At the last minute, she also dropped in a necklace made of human teeth (because you never knew when you might have to barter with the natives) and a shrunken human head. The head was just a conversation starter, really. (Hi! Would you like to look at my shrivelly head?) Also, Cleo occasionally talked to it, because Vera found this less weird than when she talked to her dead sister. His name was Waldorf (after a matchbook that she found in her mother’s underwear drawer). It seemed to suit him better than Big Dick’s (from a matchbook found in her father’s underwear drawer).
She let herself out the back door and decided to go left. Her own backyard was pretty familiar to her by this point, so she headed straight for the fence and squeezed through a space where two boards had fallen down. For two beats, she stood still. In her entire life, she had never ventured past her own yard. She had no idea what was in this forest, or beyond. Cleo was thrilled.
By late morning, she had observed birds, followed a garter snake to its hole, counted ants, sketched twelve varieties of tree bark, and attempted to document a day in the life of a crayfish in the stream. She then spent fifteen minutes describing the surprising strength and grip of a crayfish claw, and speculating on the evolutionary purpose of pain receptors in the human toes. Deciding that her duty as nature observer had been fulfilled for the time being, Cleo then spent two exhausting hours playing hide and seek with Waldorf. That sneaky little bastard was a world-class hider.
It was while she was comparing the flavor profiles of apples and oranges that she heard the voices. Cleo tossed the apple cores over her head, grabbed Waldorf by the hair, and followed the sound.
It was a small back yard behind a single story brick house. A boy and a girl were jumping on a trampoline and eating popsicles. Cleo watched from the tree line as they sat cross-legged in the center of the trampoline to eat the last few bites of their rapidly melting ice. With the aura of red stain around their mouths and chins, Cleo thought they looked like cannibals. She boldly ventured forth, extended Waldorf in their general direction, and exclaimed, “Hi! Would you like to look at my shrivelly head?”
Both children screamed.
Cleo beat a fast retreat into the woods. After all, her father always said, “Always extend a hand in friendship, but be prepared to run when the war cries start. There’s no negotiating with cannibals once you’re in the pot.”
Once again safely ensconced in her forest retreat, Cleo sat on a fallen tree to write down everything that had happened. Her heart was still racing. She lay back on the log and looked up through the canopy at the sky. She had so many questions. Who were those children? Why had they screamed? Where could she get a cherry popsicle?
The next morning, she once again let herself out through the back door. She briefly considered turning right this time, but the hole in the fence called to her. Back into the woods she went.
This time, she was prepared. She pulled out the list she had made during breakfast.
1. Drop a rock on that crayfish. (Her toe was still swollen and throbbing.)
2. Look for animals other than birds, ants, garter snakes, and crayfish. Write down interesting stuff.
3. Figure out a way to beat Waldorf at hide and seek.
4. Avoid people, especially cannibals and children.
5. Maybe go back to the cannibal house. (She couldn’t help but think of it that way.)
Sadly, boredom set in thirty minutes later. For the first time, she had no interest in writing in her observation journal. She tried not to think about the children while she pretended to be Lewis and Clark (well, Waldorf had to fill in as Clark), blazing a new trail to the Pacific. She tried to convince herself that it was purely coincidental that, just as she found herself in need of some Lakota Indians, she heard voices nearby. It wasn’t like she was trying to find them again. Well, maybe a little bit.
