Juniper Lemon's Happiness Index Read online

  It falls on my supporting hand like a death sheet.

  I jerk back. The hanging pancake slows to a stop and I am instantly at the sink, rinsing with a vengeance. Then, absurdly, as I am scrubbing I feel the demented urge to laugh—and do. One down!

  Two more to go.

  More confident, I go to lop another section off the block Ms. Gilbert left out for me. But this time, as I’m lifting it, I fumble the slice and it drops.

  The wedge falls to the floor.

  And instead of clay, I see the fall of a lifeless hand.

  I flinch backward, knocking the shelf behind me. The structure rocks, and the item closest to the edge, a fired navy bowl, goes diving to the floor and breaks into a dozen pieces.

  Only, it isn’t a bowl.

  It’s a driver’s-side mirror, and the pieces are fragments of glass.

  The next thing I know I am lying facedown across a wooden worktable, heart pounding. Slowly, with infinite reassurances—It’s okay, you’re okay, it wasn’t real—I gather my breath and pull myself to my feet. When I work up the courage to look, the shards on the floor are blue again: nothing more than a ceramic bowl cracked from the center out.

  With a sigh, I look around for the broom.

  Once I’ve swept the shards into a dustpan, though, I’m not sure what to do with them. Throw them away? Ms. Gilbert said she’d pulled these from storage; I guess it’s not like anyone will miss them.

  Still . . .

  I raise my eyes to the shelves. A bowl-shaped vacancy stares back at me.

  Another blank space.

  I am haunted by them: the pause at Camie’s name. The gap in my Index. The sidesteps where she should be in conversations, but isn’t. Her empty chair at dinner; her toothbrush and her shampoo; her shoes from the entryway, her keys from the kitchen hook, her tea and favorite cereal from the cupboard.

  YOU.

  I can’t escape the holes. My life is braided through with my sister, and now that she is gone, everything is coming apart. Counting positives was her idea; her death has cast a shadow over that. Taking art was her idea; I can’t touch clay without remembering she is dead. The party was her idea—

  We all know how that turned out.

  A terrible thought occurs to me. What if going to Shawn’s party was just a way to get the letter to YOU? Cam’s inviting me a means to an end? That would mean she never actually forgave me. And I’d thought things were okay, or finally starting to be, between us again, but if Cam was just playing nice to get her car keys back from Mom and Dad—

  Any progress that night’s null and void.

  VOID

  The dustpan falls from my fingers with a clatter. I stare tensely at the shards on the floor.

  Then, instead of picking them up, I thrust my arms into the shelves and shove.

  Whole rows of pottery shatter loudly upon the ground, but I don’t stop there; I take a vase from the next shelf and hurl it across the room.

  Crash.

  I take another, then another, then another, flinging and launching and smashing work against the floor and tables and walls until everything in reach is obliterated, and earthen and colored and two-tone shards make the studio a junkyard of bones.

  My shoulders rise and fall. My breath is ragged, blood racing, and for once the thing raging in my chest is not a flood, but a hurricane. I do not feel like crying; I feel like ripping the world to shreds.

  That’s when I look up, and notice Brand Sayers in the door.

  He stares at me, his pale blue eyes impenetrable. I feel the wild power that’s possessed me falter. I have been seen. There will be consequences.

  But Brand doesn’t say anything; he only crosses the room, calmly skirting the ceramic explosions, and moves past me to the other side of the shelf. Then he hefts up an object—an ugly penguin cookie jar—and hurls it against the floor.

  Crash.

  He picks up another. Looks at me through the aisles.

  An invitation.

  In answer, I pick up another vase. I look back at him, and we’re in agreement: Our selections go flying.

  Then we are both destroying every finished and unfinished ware we can lay hands on: flowerpots, mugs, pitchers, bowls, plates; dishes with golden bears, trays in the shape of fish or fallen leaves, misshapen piggy and Oscar the Grouch banks; vases with two handles, heart-shaped boxes, a Georgia O’Keefe–style cow skull; a pumpkin, a book, a ceramic taco.

  Crash, crash, crash.

  When there is nothing left—nothing small enough to throw—we stand in the ruins. Through the empty shelves our eyes meet. I am still breathing hard. I feel like screaming, I feel like laughing, I feel like reaching through the shelves and either shoving Brand or taking his hand—I’m not sure which. But before either of us can do anything—

  “BRAND SAYERS!”

  Ms. Gilbert stands in the side door, livid. Her eyes bulge like Peeps in a microwave. I realize, breath catching, that from where she is standing she can see only him—I’m obstructed by shelf frames and sacks of raw, unfired clay.

  Brand’s eyes hold mine through the vacant space. Then—

  He takes off, toppling a birdbath and a bowling pin in his wake.

  “BRAND SAYERS, GET BACK HERE!”

  He makes for the opposite door, leaping broken heaps like hurdles so that Ms. Gilbert must scurry, stumbling on shattered pieces, to follow.

  Then both are gone, and I am alone in the wreckage.

  - 68 -

  The next day Ms. Gilbert asks me in at lunch to discuss an alternate art unit. Today will mark the third in a row I haven’t eaten with Lauren, and as I cut through the cafeteria on my way to the portables I can’t help but wonder if that cements it. If I look for her at our old table, will she be there?

  The lunchroom is split level, and when I make way across the lower floor I don’t see her.

  The end of our old upstairs table is empty.

  My stomach sinks. I realize I’d been hoping for a chance to explain myself to Lauren—that I’d skipped out yesterday because I’d needed air, been too shaken after art—not been avoiding her.

  But maybe she’s avoiding me.

  “Juniper!”

  I whip around, hopeful. But the person who jogs over from the bank of vending machines is Nate.

  “Hey,” he says when he catches up to me. His grin’s the size and brightness of California. “You still checking out Booster today?”

  I attempt to reflect his warmth. “That’s the plan. You?”

  “Yep. Thinkin’ treasurer has my name on it—unless you want it?”

  He looks so serious asking, my lips can’t help but twitch into a real smile. “All yours.”

  “Whew! No political tension.”

  “Not from me. But with Booster so popular, I don’t know, you might be up against a lint ball or a tumbleweed or something . . .”

  “Better bring my A game.”

  Geez, this kid’s resting face is contagious. What does that thing run on: candy and rainbows?

  Nate nods at something below eye level. “So, do all the cool kids eat off campus, or—?”

  I realize he means my empty hands. “Oh—no, I’m just on my way to see the art teacher.”

  “Ah. Well, if you see a cool kid, will you ask them for me?”

  I shove his arm. “Shut up. I’ll see you at Booster.”

  He grins back. “See you.”

  ∞

  Ms. Gilbert is waiting when I enter the studio.

  “Juniper!” she calls when she spots me. “Come in. Have a seat.”

  I hug my elbows as I approach the desk, trying hard not to look too furtively at the floor. I’m astonished to find the concrete swept clean, the shards of yesterday heaped in garbage sacks in the corner. Did Brand put them there?

  More imp
ortantly, did he say anything to Ms. G?

  I pull up the chair and sit.

  “So.” Ms. Gilbert watches me carefully. A lump slides down my throat. “It seems ceramics doesn’t agree with you.”

  My shoulders tighten. She knows.

  “I—”

  “I saw your throw yesterday,” she explains. “Left out on the wheel. I figured you wouldn’t have left it like that unless you’d had to leave in a hurry.”

  Oh. I guess I didn’t clean that up, either.

  But wait—does that mean she still thinks it was just Brand?

  I nod, afraid anything more will give me away.

  “Well . . .” Ms. Gilbert pushes a half-eaten sandwich aside. “I’ve worked with at least one other student who had a hard time handling clay before. Sensory issues. I’m not sure if that’s what you’re experiencing . . .”

  She pauses and lowers her chin at me. When I realize she is waiting for affirmation, I stiffly bob my head again. Why not?

  She really doesn’t suspect me?

  “But what we did in that situation,” she continues, “was just to have him explore another medium. So for the rest of the unit, while the class did ceramics down here, he worked upstairs on his own projects. Like independent study. Would that be a better fit for you, maybe?”

  I know a good deal when I see one.

  “What do I have to do?”

  ∞

  After school, I finally have the chance to search the cafeteria for 65 without being watched. Of course I don’t find it there; it’s been two days since I lost it, so I don’t really expect to. But I had to check before resorting to more drastic measures.

  Measures involving rubber boots, a raincoat, and yellow dishwashing gloves.

  I always pictured dumpsters to be like oozing, mold-infested treasure chests: everything heaped together, milk cartons with PB crusts with calzone goop, carrot sticks with corndog butts in slushie melt. But when I lift a lid off one of the four out back, what I see is black plastic: large sacks like the ones the broken pottery was in. Of course it’s in bags.

  But bags or no, the stuff is rank. I get a noseful of Garbáge No. 5 and immediately drop the lid, sending several fat flies whizzing off in start.

  God almighty. How am I going to do this?

  I check my gloves again and face the dumpster. Look around and suck in a breath.

  Then I run at it, wrench up the lid, and nab the first sack I lay hold of. The lid slams shut, leaving me panting with my prize.

  There—that wasn’t so bad, was it? I drop the bag on the ground. I didn’t even have to climb inside like I’d originally thought.

  I find the knot at the top and tug it loose. The sack spills open.

  “Yugh!”

  Reflexively I cover my nose with my coat sleeve. The stench is like pizza and curry and black bananas. And no wonder: Judging by the bites of sesame bun and the grease-stained fry boats jutting out, I’ve exhumed a cafeteria special.

  Bracing myself, I poke the sack open further and begin picking through it.

  Ramen cup. Spork. Soda can. Four tots and a smear of mustard. Brown bag. Pretzel bag. Nacho chips fused to banana peel. Wedge of deep-fried meat; can’t tell if chicken nugget or chicken fried steak, which does not actually contain chicken. Soggy lettuce. Bean slop. Remains of taco shell.

  When I feel something gloppy through a glove, an unfinished pudding, I startle and drop the sack. A straw pokes through the bottom, and a sticky orange liquid begins to pool on the ground.

  Rain boots, don’t fail me now.

  I rake the whole load without glimpsing so much as a torn sheet of wide-ruled. When I go to put it back, it occurs to me that my Index is probably closer to the bottom—in a sack from two days ago—so I pull my next bag, and the next, from deeper down.

  When I finally find one whose papers date September 8, the day I lost 65, the sacks are so deep that I’m having trouble reaching them. The only way to get to them now is . . .

  Don’t even think it

  . . . To go in.

  A shiver skitters down my back.

  I ignore it.

  Screwing up my face, I zip my raincoat to the chin. Pull up my gloves. Boots. Hood for good measure.

  Then, with a deep, stomach-expanding breath of air I’m not convinced won’t be my last, I step up and boost myself over the rim.

  Squish.

  Despite my rubber boots, something soft rolls beneath one of my feet and I slip, landing on my butt.

  Oh god—

  Flies. One crawls up my arm and another finds my glove and a third brushes my face. I yelp and thrash at them and they scatter, but their buzzing is everywhere. My eyes sting and I want to retch, as likely from the smell and their touch as the squelch of objects rotting below.

  Pushing myself up—more mystery items sag, crunch, crumble, and give way—I quickly clamber back to my feet. But before I can catch my breath—

  A voice.

  Crap.

  I drop back down.

  The sound, male, is followed by footsteps and resolves into a tune, growing louder. I press low, willing that the singer won’t look inside—or worse, toss something in.

  But today’s entertainment doesn’t concern himself with the open dumpster; there is a clicking sound, and a new smell, and the song, “Another One Bites the Dust,” becomes nasal as though hummed through clamped teeth.

  I hold my breath. When he blows air out, cigarette smoke wafts in. He must be inches from where I cower.

  When at last the song is over, there’s a crunch of shoe on gravel: the rubbing out of the cigarette. Thank god. I inhale through my nose, wait for the footsteps to move away.

  They don’t.

  Instead, a rattling sound. Then—

  Kshh kshh. Kshhhhhhhhhh.

  A new smell overtakes me: a pretentious musk two years of high school has equipped me to recognize anywhere. Sure enough, I see the mist rise up in jets.

  I can’t take it. Garbage, smoke, body spray—the three meld in a disgusting bouquet and fill my mouth like a cloth. My stomach heaves, my eyes water, my throat tickles and constricts—

  Cough.

  “What the—?”

  The spraying stops.

  There’s a clunk of metal and a shadow falls over me. When I dare to look up, I find the bone-defined face of Brand Sayers looking down.

  “Well, well!” Brand rocks on his feet, smirking where he stands along the rim. “If it isn’t Lemon Little. Why so down in the dumps?”

  I stare at him, paralyzed. Partly because I don’t know what to say; partly because Brand is laughing at his own joke, and I don’t know whether to laugh with him or fear for my life. Inclined toward the latter, I slowly rise to my feet against the opposite wall.

  Act natural, a helpful inner voice suggests.

  “Hi,” I start, coolly not gagging on Axe. “I, um. Lost something.”

  “That so?” Brand grins, a look of dangerous amusement. I can’t help noticing one diamond-edge canine in his smile: a feature that makes him look both dashing and like the very devil.

  “Yes,” I say, less firmly than I mean to.

  He looks me over and pushes his lips together. “I don’t suppose it was your way home or grasp of inclement weather.”

  The rain gear. My gloves.

  “Or is Fisherman Yellow just ‘in’ right now?”

  “It was . . . my lucky . . . hairpin,” I say, snatching up the first loose article I spy. “Found it! Guess I can go now.”

  “Lemon.” Brand slides sideways after me with an air of aren’t-we-all-friends-here—not blocking my exit, but stopping me, anyway. “I took the fall for you! Five days in-school suspension and a hairy old X on the permanent record. All I ask in return is the answer to a simple question. Is that so unreasonable?”r />
  I fold my arms and face him.

  “What do you want?”

  “All I want to know”—Brand’s blue eyes narrow as they move between mine in scrutiny—“is what you’re really looking for.”

  What I’m “really” looking for?

  “In this dumpster, or in life?”

  He gives me a look.

  “Fine.”

  I glance away from him and down at my feet. I know I could leave, just walk away and say nothing and come back to look for 65 tomorrow—but I’m arrested by his intentness. Why should he even care?

  Does he care?

  With a thin breath, I say matter-of-factly, “An index card.”

  “An index card.” Brand looks skeptical.

  I shrug. Let him make what he will of it.

  His eyes tighten. “What’s on it?”

  “That . . . is for me to know.”

  And no one ever to find out.

  I turn dismissively and stoop to return to work, figuring he’ll soon lose interest and hop down, leave me be. But Brand does neither; instead he drums his fingers along the metal, weighing something.

  Then he leans in over the rim on his elbows.

  “Tell you what, Lemon.”

  “Juniper.”

  “I’m gonna help you find your little secret.”

  The bag in my hands goes limp. “What?”

  The dumpster bangs as Brand jumps down from it. A moment later he opens the one beside me.

  “And when we find it,” Brand continues aboard this vessel, “you’re going to show me what it says.”

  I watch him take a sack from the top.

  “But—”

  My words fail me. I’ve no arguments.

  “Why?” I blurt instead.

  “Why not? It’s clearly something worthwhile.” He heaves the bag down and dusts his hands, squinting against the sun. “So—what kind of card we talking here? Three by five? Five by eight? Lined? Blank?”

  I don’t answer him.

  “It isn’t, like, Grandma’s Secret Cookie Recipe, or some shit like that, is it?”

  I hold my head with my forearm.

  “Look.” I inhale and straighten in a way I hope looks authoritative. “I didn’t ask for your help.”