Violet in Bloom Read online

  But what the heck. It’s Yasaman. If Yasaman wants to do this, then Milla will help.

  In fact . . .

  Mom Joyce returned from her colleague’s baby shower—scratch that, her blessing way—with party favors. There’d been a game involving tasting unlabeled jars of baby food, and Mom Joyce won, correctly identifying all the flavors including the wild card, butternut squash. Her prize? A gift basket filled with products from Yummy Tummy, an organic grocery.

  When Mom Joyce got home, she deposited the basket on the granite island in the kitchen, inviting Mom Abigail and Milla to help themselves.

  “Take anything you want,” she said drily. “Anything. Really.”

  So Milla sampled a low-sugar carrot cake muffin and felt neither here nor there about it. But there’d been tons more samples in the basket. All sorts of things, all healthy.

  Good feelings tingle through Milla as she posts a comment to Yasaman’s blog:

  making movies, Katie-Rose was born ready. Her mom says she came out of the womb yelling “Action!” and clapping a baby-size director’s clapboard, but ha ha, that isn’t really true. Katie-Rose wishes it were. That would have been hilarious.

  Katie-Rose is set up quite nicely, however. While she doesn’t own a director’s clapboard, she does have a sunshine yellow video camera. It’s small enough to fit in her pocket, which means she can bring it anywhere and whip it out whenever she needs it. Like right now.

  A grin spreads across Katie-Rose’s face. She’s ready, she’s set . . . it’s go time.

  FADE IN:

  INTERIOR RIVENDELL ELEMENTARY—HALLWAY BY SNACK CABINET—MORNING

  KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)

  All right, Yazalicious. We have five minutes before class. Make me proud, sweetheart!

  Yasaman stands, giggling, in front of a row of stacked cabinets. Her arms are wrapped around her ribs and her shoulders are up by her ears.

  YASAMAN

  Katie-Rose!

  KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)

  Hey, you said you wanted to talk about trans fats, so talk. You do want the role, don’t you?

  On three . . . two . . . one . . . start!

  Still giggling, Yasaman gestures behind her.

  YASAMAN

  Well, here we have . . . the snack cabinet.

  KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)

  Yes, Yaz. Now get to the good part.

  YASAMAN

  And inside the snack cabinet, you will find . . .

  She opens the uppermost cabinet to reveal boxes upon boxes of generic cheese crackers, called Cheezy D’lites.

  YASAMAN (CONT’D)

  Well . . . snacks.

  The image jiggles. Off-screen, Katie-Rose can be heard laughing.

  YASAMAN (CONT’D)

  Katie-Rose!

  KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)

  Sorry. Temporarily overwhelmed by your brilliance, that’s all. Carry on!

  Yasaman presses her lips together.

  YASAMAN

  But you should know that these Cheezy D’lites, while they may look yummy—

  KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)

  (interrupting)

  And taste yummy. Mmm.

  YASAMAN

  —are actually poison disguised as cheesy goodness.

  Katie-Rose rotates the camera toward herself. Her face, when it appears, is huge.

  KATIE-ROSE

  I came up with that, by the way. “Poison disguised as cheesy goodness.”

  Yasaman clears her throat. The camera swings back.

  YASAMAN

  And they’re bad for you. That’s all. Because they have trans fats in them, which lead to cancer—

  KATIE-ROSE (off-screen)

  And fatness! And heart attacks! And—

  The image jiggles.

  KATIE-ROSE (off-screen, CONT’D)

  (passing the camera off to Yasaman)

  Here, take this.

  When Katie-Rose first comes into view, she is blurry. Then her edges pull together. She’s wearing tattered jeans and a T-shirt that says “Brothers Make Good Pets.”

  KATIE-ROSE (CONT’D)

  And they are bad, bad, baddy bad-bad, and that’s all you need to know, except that we, the students of Rivendell, are the future of America!

  YASAMAN (off-screen)

  (under her breath)

  Oh dear.

  KATIE-ROSE

  Do our teachers want to kill us? Is that their devious plan? Or are they simply too cheap to buy a bunch of bananas? Whatever the dark truth is, action must be taken!

  She disappears, then reappears with her backpack. Balancing it on her raised knee, she unzips the front pocket and pulls out a roll of black-and-yellow police tape.

  YASAMAN (off-screen)

  Um, Katie-Rose? What are you . . . ?

  Katie-Rose rips off a piece and sticks it from one edge of the snack cabinet to the other.

  KATIE-ROSE

  Take that, trans fattiness!

  She does a fancy karate kick and whips her arm through the air like an ax.

  KATIE-ROSE (CONT’D)

  Kai-yah!

  YASAMAN (off-screen)

  Okay, but I’m not sure how—

  More karate-ness happens, accompanied by sound effects, wild eyes, and exciting arm slashes.

  KATIE-ROSE

  Let’s see you be trans fatty now! Mwahaha!

  At that moment, a girl in a humongous headgear comes around the corner. Neither Yasaman nor Katie-Rose spots her. She approaches just as Katie-Rose moves into a fancy lunge-and-strike sequence.

  NATALIA

  (coming right up behind Katie-Rose)

  Hi! What’cha doing?

  Katie-Rose jumps and screams. Natalia giggles.

  KATIE-ROSE

  Natalia!

  NATALIA

  Oopthie. Did I thcare you?

  KATIE-ROSE

  You shouldn’t sneak up on people! Don’t you know that’s rude?!

  YASAMAN (off-screen)

  Um, hi, Natalia. And Katie-Rose, I’m sure she didn’t mean to.

  NATALIA

  Of courth not. You jutht didn’t thee me becauth you were . . . doing whatever you were doing.

  (more giggles)

  What were you doing?

  Red splotches rise on Katie-Rose’s face.

  KATIE-ROSE

  It was kah-rah-tay, which, if you don’t know, is an ancient form of self-defense that can take down even the most fearsome enemy.

  NATALIA

  Oh. Who’th the enemy? The thnack cabinet?

  Off-screen, Yasaman tries to stifle a laugh. Katie-Rose glares: first at Yasaman, and then at Natalia.

  KATIE-ROSE

  Yes, thanks for mocking me. I certainly do love to be mocked. And now, good-bye.

  YASAMAN (off-screen)

  Katie-Rose!

  KATIE-ROSE

  What? I call ’em as I see ’em, all right?

  YASAMAN (off-screen)

  Oh my goodness. Natalia, I am so sorry—and so is Katie-Rose. Really.

  KATIE-ROSE

  No, I’m not. And, omigosh, are you still filming???

  Turn off the camera, Yasaman! Now!

  Natalia’s eyebrows go up.

  NATALIA

  (to Yasaman)

  Wow. Does she always talk to you like that?

  Yasaman shuts off the camera, but not before capturing Katie-Rose’s expression, which is a mix of defiance and unease.

  FADE TO BLACK

  “Here,” Yasaman says, handing Katie-Rose her camera without looking at her.

  Katie-Rose realizes she’s messed up, though she doesn’t really think it’s her fault. Nonetheless, she says in a pinched prune voice, “I didn’t mean to be rude. To either of you.” She focuses on Natalia’s shirt rather than looking directly at Natalia. “But, Natalia, you disrupted a very critical film project.”

  “Well, you’re throwing a very critical fitical,” Natalia responds.

  Katie-Rose wants to slap her. Seri
ously. In her normal life, Katie-Rose isn’t a violent person, but when she gets mad, something goes screwy in her wiring. Her thoughts go too fast. Everything is stupid. Everyone should just go away.

  (Everyone who isn’t one of her flower friends, that is.)

  She stares Natalia dead in the eye. “‘Fitical’ isn’t a word.”

  “Okay,” Natalia says nonchalantly. “Why did you tape shut the cabinet?”

  “Because we wanted to,” Katie-Rose says.

  “Well, you wanted to,” Yasaman says, toeing the floor.

  Katie-Rose’s hands curl into fists.

  “But why?” Natalia presses.

  “Because there is trans-fatty badness going on in there.”

  “In the cabinet?”

  “Yes. And again I say good-bye.”

  “Katie-Rose,” Yasaman says helplessly, and Katie-Rose burns with shame. Does Yasaman think Katie-Rose likes being such a brat? But Natalia is being a brat, too, the way she’s deliberately pushing Katie-Rose’s buttons.

  “We’re starting a campaign,” Yasaman explains to Natalia.

  “Cool. For what?” When Natalia talks, the rubber bands attached to her headgear stretch. It’s an extremely complicated contraption, and Katie-Rose has wondered in the past if Natalia feels the way dogs do when they have to wear those cones around their heads. She has even—IN THE PAST—entertained the idea of randomly bringing Natalia ice cream, or some other treat, just to be nice.

  No more.

  Today she wants to attach a hook to Natalia’s headgear. A hook attached to a chain, and on the other end of the chain, an electronic pulley. Using a remote control On switch, Katie-Rose would activate the pulley, and whoosh! Away Natalia would go, jerked backward like a measuring tape retracting into its square metal case.

  “For how we should have healthy snacks during morning break,” Yasaman tells Natalia. “The Cheezy D’lites they give us? They have trans fats, and I don’t know if you know, but trans fats are super unhealthy.”

  “Oh, I know, I hate tranth fatth!” Natalia says. “Can I be part of the campaign, too?”

  “No,” Katie-Rose starts to say, but she manages to swallow it. Yasaman is so nice that it makes Katie-Rose feel un-nice, which is an itchy way to feel. Like having a wedgie, or when the seam of her socks scrunches up wrong.

  Yasaman glances at Katie-Rose. “Um, sure, I guess. But we haven’t planned it all the way out yet.”

  “Well, I am your girl, then, becauth I am very contherned about health. For eckthample, did you know that I’ve never had a Coke in my life? In my whole entire life?”

  What?! Katie-Rose thinks. She feels her face go scrunchy, because she doesn’t believe this for a second.

  “Wow,” Yasaman asks. “How come?”

  “Or Pepthi,” Natalia says. “Becauth it’th unhealthy!”

  “Natalia, you have so,” Katie-Rose says.

  “Nope, not one thip.”

  “Bull-pooty,” Katie-Rose says. “Everyone has had Coke or Pepsi at some point. Even if you don’t drink Coke now, I’m sure you had some when you were a baby, or at someone’s birthday party. You just don’t remember.”

  “Nope.”

  Katie-Rose turns to Yasaman. “She has.”

  Yasaman twists the end of her hijab. It’s brown and gold, and makes her eyes appear even more luminous than usual. “We should go to class, or we’ll get marked as tardy.”

  Natalia gestures at the police tape. “Are you going to leave that?”

  “Yes,” Katie-Rose says, because she certainly is now.

  “What if you get in trouble?”

  “Then I’ll get in trouble. What’s it to you?”

  Yasaman’s discomfort shimmers off her. “So I’ll see you guys in Ms. Perez’s room?” She waits less than half a second. “All right . . . well, bye!”

  She quick-walks away. The hall is filling with other kids, but to Katie-Rose, it feels as if it’s just her and Natalia. It also feels as if she’s in an old-fashioned western shootout. She doesn’t know how things got this bad this fast, but they did.

  “When it comes to trans fats, I’m not afraid to put myself on the line,” she tells Natalia. “But you want us to take the tape off the cabinet, ’cause you’re scared of getting in trouble, so that’s why you can’t be part of our campaign.”

  Natalia presses her lips together. Her eyes somehow flatten out, too, and Katie-Rose yearns to call Yasaman back. If Yasaman could see Natalia now, she would see the real Natalia, the Natalia who is not sweet and innocent. But no, because if Yasaman came back, Natalia would slide back into her candy-coated shell. Katie-Rose shivers. It feels like a whisper on the nape of her neck.

  “You’re only thaying that to be mean,” Natalia says. “I’m going to athk Yathaman, and Yathaman will thay yeth.”

  She spins on her heel.

  “Wait!” Katie-Rose calls. Her heart beats fast. She wishes fleetingly that she had been nicer to Natalia from the beginning, but it’s too late for that now.

  Natalia pauses. She turns around.

  “You can’t ask Yasaman, because . . . because . . .”

  “Becauth why, Katie-Rothe?”

  Because I don’t want you turning Yasaman against me, she wants to say, but she knows how babyish that would sound.

  “Because I say so,” she whispers.

  Natalia smiles like Katie-Rose is a little baby. A silly little baby.“Well, Katie-Rothe, that’th very interethting. There’th jutht one problem.” She tilts her head. “It’th not up to you, ith it?”

  to line up for morning break, but unlike the others, Milla doesn’t make a mad dash for the playground. She wants to stay a safe distance from Max, because she’s nervous about seeing him after the embarrassed way she dashed out of Katie-Rose’s house yesterday. Maybe he doesn’t know about that. But what if he does?

  She lingers by Mr. Emerson’s desk. He’s straightening his papers with one hand, because he only has one hand. Just one arm, too. He’s cool, though.

  “Is it all right if I go to the bathroom?” she asks.

  “Of course, that’s what break is for,” he says. What he doesn’t say—not in words—is, And, Milla, did you really need to ask my permission? Mr. Emerson wants Milla to work on being more independent. He told her moms so at back-to-school night.

  “Do you want me to take the oar?” Milla asks. A kayak oar is Mr. Emerson’s crazy version of a bathroom pass, but it’s mainly for when kids need to go during class, not during break.

  He gives her the look, which is the signal the two of them agreed on for the times when she’s asking for too much teacher-approval. Mr. Emerson achieves the look by lowering his chin and pretending to peer over nonexistent glasses.

  “I’ll just leave it,” Milla says.

  “Excellent,” Mr. Emerson replies.

  She smiles to make sure he still likes her. He smiles back. Then he tells her to go on and let him do his work, please.

  In the hall, Milla kicks her white sneakers against the floor. If she does it right, they squeak. Then she stops, because fifth graders probably aren’t supposed to squeak, especially since the lower grades have already had their break and are back in class.

  She goes into the girls’ bathroom and stands there for a while, gazing at herself in the mirror. Hello, she tells herself silently. It’s always a marvel to her that she is who she is. That she lives in this body. That she is this body. Everyone thinks she’s pretty; she knows that. Sometimes she thinks she is, too. Other times, she sees herself more as combinations of color: blonde hair, blue eyes, rosebud lips. It’s all so random, really.

  She leaves the bathroom and wanders down the hall, peeking into various rooms. She spots Yasaman in the media center and goes over to her computer terminal. “Why aren’t you outside?” she asks.

  “I got a pass to stay inside,” Yasaman says. She covers the screen with her hands. “I’m working on something for our website.”

  “What is it?” Milla asks.
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  “Just something. Stop looking!” Her eyes are bright, and Milla can see herself in them. In the bathroom mirror, her reflection was life-size. In Yasaman’s eyes, she is tiny, tiny, but shiny.

  Yasaman swivels in her chair to make Milla turn away from the computer. “Hey, thanks for leaving a comment on my blog last night. So what’s your great Snack Attack idea?”

  “If you’re not telling, then neither am I,” Milla says.

  “Milla!”

  The media center assistant rises from her desk.

  “Kidding,” Milla says. “I’ll tell you at lunch, when we’re all together. Bye!”

  At last, she goes outside. She surveys the playground, and when she spots Max by the tetherball court, anxiety scurries up her and lodges in her rib cage. Eeek!

  Next she searches for Katie-Rose and Violet. They’re over by the swing set, and they seem to be staring at a boy named Cyril Remkiwicz, who’s kind of a weirdie. Their heads are together, and they’re whispering. As for Cyril, he’s sitting on the rubber edge of a humongous tractor tire that serves as a sandbox for the younger kids. He’s writing in the small spiral notebook he always has with him. His shirt has flying toasters on it.

  Milla goes over.

  “—but no one’s ever seen inside it,” Katie-Rose is saying. She shifts her gaze. “Milla, hi. I’m telling Violet about Cyril.”

  Violet smiles at Milla. “Hey Mills. Cute top.”

  Milla looks down at her brown shirt with the white appliqué owl on it. She paired it with a denim miniskirt and brown boots that come halfway up her shins, because she wanted to look nice for Max.

  “Thanks,” she tells Violet.

  “Anyway,” Katie-Rose continues. “We don’t know for sure, but we think Cyril writes stuff down about people. Bad stuff. Right, Milla?”

  Milla hesitates, because she feels guilty talking about people behind their backs. But that is the rumor. She nods.

  “If no one’s seen inside it, how do you know?” Violet asks. She’s still new to Rivendell—she moved here from Atlanta—so there’s tons she hasn’t yet learned.