But it wasn’t that way for Mom’s cousin Albert who drowned himself on his honeymoon.
It wasn’t that way for Frog Boy.
Or the man at the induction center.
At a tea party in my closet, I shuffle their place cards (and corresponding nut cups) and put Frog Boy next to Jane Asher, a shy young art student named Adolf Hitler (who dies before he’s twenty) next to drowned Cousin Albert, and Mrs. Wiggins next to John Merrick, the Elephant Man. And instead of prayers, Tarzan (Earl of Greystoke) instructs us in pounding our chests, and perfecting our yodels.
Spider monkeys and all fifteen varieties of howler monkeys join in, their tails wrapped around tree branches and each other.
In my room, tails and disfigurements don’t matter.
Names don’t matter either. They’re just words, squiggles on a page.
In my bedroom, you can be what you want.
Chapter 5
Things I’ve Killed
I keep Mrs. Wiggins’s tooth in my bedroom dresser. It glows through my underwear when I open the drawer.
This morning its holy light pours down the dresser like lava and runs to my open closet where it puddles under the big plastic One Hour Martinizing bag. Inside it is the one-piece Big Bad Wolf Halloween costume (minus the mask) Mom told me to throw out two years ago.
Before Mrs. Wiggins died, I draped the costume over my shoulders and sat on the bed beside her, the two of us staring at the moon. She liked it a lot and, leaning against my long hairy arms, she smelled and licked the fake fur like it was a real wolf. Dogs are related to wolves, and wolves mate for life—I saw it on TV. It made her happy, so I didn’t throw it out.
I wish I had though.
The bag shivers and shakes with anger. It knows I’m scared; it knows I don’t want to have a tail. I quickly shut the closet, and push my desk and chair against it.
Things get out if you’re not careful, things get in.
I know that a glowing dogtooth, an angry Halloween costume, and a dresser that spews lava sounds like fairy tales, but since Peace Lake, weird stuff happens every day.
* * *
When Dad’s gone, Lauren, Mom, and I eat whatever we want for breakfast.
Mom makes herself a screwdriver, a cup of black coffee, and a stack of honey-drizzled Roman Meal toast she puts on a tray and sets next to her easel. She’s working on a picture of a bookstall in Paris, she even put my name on one of the bindings. Mom’s been smiling since she got up. When Dad’s away on business, she covers the kitchen table with newspaper and tubes of paint and works all day. This morning she wears her hair in a scarf, powders her face, and dabs her cheeks and lips with bright red lipstick. “Like a geisha,” she explains.
Lauren pouts until Mom makes her a geisha too.
While our mother paints, we eat cereal in front of the TV. I’m too old for Saturday-morning cartoons, but today is Halloween and Dad and I have a bet about the kids in the studio audience. I say there’ll be more pirates than cowboys, but he disagrees. Dad and I make little bets all the time. I usually lose my allowance to him, but it’s back on my desk next time I look.
Dad plays poker with “the guys from work” each Wednesday. There’re dice with his pocket change on top of his dresser, and he always has a pack of fresh cards whenever my sister and I need them.
Lauren laughs when Huckleberry Hound tells Quick Draw McGraw he needs a girlfriend. Boys make her giggle.
Mom doesn’t care what dishes we use as long as we clean up after ourselves. Lauren eats Trix with a wooden spoon out of a small saucepan; I eat Cocoa Krispies from the gravy boat.
I hear a howl from my bedroom closet, a long, lonely howl like in the werewolf movies.
Is it calling Mrs. Wiggins? Or me?
Dad says my imagination is a national treasure. Mom says, “People need all the quiet they can get after a traumatic experience.” What happened at Peace Lake was a traumatic experience, she explained. She even gave me a Valium to sleep that night, but the pill got stuck in my throat so I taped it in my scrapbook instead. If it were smaller, like the dust mop–looking protozoa thing we learned about in science, maybe I could have swallowed it and then peed it out the way Frieda passes a kidney stone “every time I turn around.”
The howl is for me. The old wolf costume is calling.
I try to ignore it but, when it howls for the third time, I can’t.
* * *
I’m human, and it’s fake fur and rubber, I remind myself as I hold the costume at arm’s length and tiptoe down the hall past the bathroom toward the back porch and trash can.
Lauren’s in the bathroom singing, “We will fight our countries baa-A-tles, in the air, on land and sea . . .” She loves the “Marines’ Hymn” and marches in front of the mirror, saluting herself, as she sings. She stops when she hears the floor creak beneath me, and peeks through the crack in the door. I walk faster.
“Don’t!” I try to warn her, but it’s too late. When she opens the door and steps out, the costume digs its claws into me.
“You still have that old thing?” She just turned eleven, but Lauren sounds like Mom. “You were supposed to throw it away. It has bugs.”
“It does not!” I say, but my words become a growl that rolls over my long black tongue, drenching my sharp yellow teeth in saliva, curling my lips like Elvis.
Usually Lauren’s stronger than me, and when we pinch, scratch, and pull each other’s hair, Mom tells us to “stop rough-housing,” and that’s it. This time is different though. This time the wolf skin crawls up my arm and when it wraps itself around me, I jump on Lauren, growling, barking, and snapping. When she tries to get away, I don’t let her up.
“Stop it!” She kicks and slaps, while squirming underneath me. “Stop it! Lily!” She pulls at the fur but it’s part of me now. “MoMMMM!”
Inside my Keds, thick hair sprouts on the tops of my feet, and pushes against the laces. The muscles in my arms and legs grow tight and strong. Two bloods pulse inside me now, one on top of the other. Dog blood. My blood.
“Get OFF me!”
She’s scared and angry, but for the first time ever I don’t care. I’m stronger than her and I like it.
“MmmOOMMM . . . MmmmOMMM!”
Suddenly, Mom stands over us, slapping at me with a bathroom towel. “Lily! Stop it! LILY!” And finally I do, freezing in place on all fours. Lauren crawls out from under me, crying and afraid. “For God’s sake, Lily,” Mom says breathlessly, “what’s gotten into you? ”
Lauren sits on the toilet lid and Mom looks her over. Thoroughly, too, like Lauren at the quarry and me at Peace Lake; like she’d forgotten something or left something behind.
“You okay?” she asks. There’s lipstick on her teeth.
Lauren nods.
Sweaty and panting, with the hairy hide twisted around my neck and shoulders, I smell like Dad’s BO after playing tennis. I must have bit my tongue; I taste blood.
“Stand up, Lily!” Mom barks, then reaches down and jerks the costume off me. “You told me you threw out this damn thing.” She looks at her hand. “Dog hair. That sick old dog slept on it, it’s filthy.” She catches her reflection in the mirror and quickly looks