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  “You really have no mercy, do you, Mom?” said Ryan, his voice getting so soft he could barely hear it himself.

  “I tell the truth,” said Mother.

  “No, you don’t,” said Ryan. “You just say what you think will hurt me and make me embarrassed to spend time with Bizzy.”

  “I know how men think,” said Mother. “And you’re a man. You’d be pretty worthless as a man if you didn’t think that way.”

  “Bizzy is the most interesting person I know. The smartest kid in school who isn’t me. Go ahead and believe that I’m a bunny rabbit with only one idea in its mind, Mom. It just shows you don’t know half as much as you think you do.”

  “No,” said Mother. “You don’t know half as much as you think you do. Just remember, I warned you. And when your hands are going places they have no business going, you’re going to hear my voice in your head, saying, ‘Get control of yourself, don’t ruin her life—or yours, for that matter.’”

  “We’ve got to have more of these lovely talks, Mom,” said Ryan.

  Mom gave a little hoot of laughter and left the great room so he could get undressed and go to bed. He lay awake trying desperately not to think of Bizzy in a sexual way, and failing; but then every time he did, he would imagine his mother right there watching them, and he thought: If I’m going to think of my mother whenever I’m hugging or kissing some girl, then I really am living in hell.

  I need to get a job so I can move out of the house and not have other people watching every single thing I do.

  And then he thought: What am I worried about? Like Dianne said, I don’t need a car, and I don’t have to scrape gum off the bleachers to be with her.

  Bizzy’s mom drove her to school every morning, but Ryan could walk her home every night. All he had to do was wait till the after-school play practices and chorus practices were over, and then just walk home with her. He’d say, Why don’t I walk you home from school so your mom doesn’t have to come and wait for you?

  The next day, when he said that, Bizzy grinned. “So it’s somehow better for you to wait till my practices are over?”

  “I can read. Do homework. Listen to the practices. Or all at once,” said Ryan. “My time is pretty well worthless, and your mom has stuff to do.”

  “Like casting spells using the toes of frogs,” said Bizzy. “Double double, toil and trouble.”

  “Just let her know I can get you home safely.”

  “Because nobody would dare attack me with you as my giant guard dog.”

  “So I have to earn a black belt or buy a gun before I qualify as your escort?”

  “I’ll tell her not to pick me up tomorrow. Tonight, you stay after and show her that you really will be here, reliably, and that you’re sort of respectable—no tin, no ink—and she’ll give her verdict about you walking me home.”

  “Isn’t it enough that I live on the other side of the same house as you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “It isn’t enough that I’m my father’s son?”

  She looked at him as if he were crazy. “Why would that matter? We don’t even know your father.”

  And that was what kept nagging at Ryan even after Bizzy’s mother gave him a long stare and then said yes, he could walk her home the next day. Bizzy’s family really didn’t know Dad? Then who had Mom been talking about when she dropped all those remarks about a family that Dad liked better than them?

  5

  Walking Bizzy home started out weird. Not because of anything Bizzy said or did, but because of other people. Not other kids, necessarily—not that many kids were even at school that late, except whoever was in the same activity that Bizzy had stayed for.

  The first night, it was play practice, and so when the drama kids acted a little weird, what of it? They were always weird, anyway. But yes, they did kind of keep an eye on Ryan and Bizzy, looking at them covertly, like in a spy movie. Never actually facing them and staring, but tilting their heads, glancing over their shoulders, in one case even looking into a makeup mirror.

  Were they feeling protective of Bizzy? Making sure that Ryan wasn’t, what, abducting her? As if he could. Ryan lived in a house with a nice big bathroom mirror. He had looked at himself often enough, dressed and naked, and he knew that nobody would worry about his having the strength to subdue a cockroach. He had clear memories of Dianne once shouting at him not to stomp a cricket on the back porch, because if he got its attention it might eat him. He didn’t even get mad at her that time, because he knew that it was kind of true and he couldn’t think of anything more pathetic than a weak kid like him getting red-faced screaming mad. Just one more thing to put on his Why-am-I-not-an-only-child checklist.

  So why would they think they needed to keep her safe from him?

  No, no, that wasn’t it at all. They weren’t protecting her. They weren’t looking out for her.

  They were simply looking at her. Ryan might as well not exist. Their eyes were following her and only her.

  “You must be really popular with the drama kids,” said Ryan.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said in a very sarcastic tone.

  “Well, yeah,” he answered.

  “New girl comes into school, tries out for the school play and gets the lead right off, beating out six girls who’ve been in drama from freshman year, all of whom felt entitled to get the part.”

  “So . . . admiration?”

  She gave a little bark of a laugh. “Yeah, they admire me. They want to grow up to be just like me.”

  “I don’t see them hating you,” said Ryan.

  Bizzy shrugged. “Your mind-reading skills are apparently deficient.”

  No point in arguing, because she was right. He could see where the other kids were looking, but he had no idea what they were thinking. He never knew what anybody was thinking. Sometimes not even himself, especially when he caught himself thinking some thought that retreated out of his head the moment he realized he was thinking it. And above all, he could never outguess Bizzy. He had learned that several times during back-porch conversations.

  However, once they got away from the school grounds and the looks still continued, not just from kids but from adults walking or cycling or driving by, Ryan started getting curious. They were still taking semi-clandestine looks—eyes glancing then darting away—and nobody seemed to be angry or suspicious or hostile at all. Just furtive.

  Finally he said, “Can we stop for a second?”

  “You need a rest?” Bizzy asked, bewildered.

  “I just need to look at you. And while we’re at it, you look at me.”

  “Yep, you’re still visible,” she said.

  “People are staring at us,” said Ryan.

  “An early symptom of paranoid schizophrenia is the certainty that people are spying on you.”

  “I know,” he said. “But I’m pretty sure they’re spying on you.”

  “Paranoia by proxy?” she said. “I don’t think that’s a thing.”

  “You look completely normal.”

  “And I try so hard to be special.”

  “Well, you are,” said Ryan.

  Her eyebrows rose.

  “Don’t read anything into that,” he said. “I’m just saying, I know I think you’re extraordinary, but I didn’t expect total strangers in passing cars to be distracted by you just because you’re walking down the street.”

  “I have such a special walk,” she said.

  And then, before he could make any kind of retort, she added, “I know they look, Ryan. And maybe someday we’ll talk about why.”

  “You know about it? And you know why?”

  “Just not today,” she said. “This is what I was worried about. What Mom was worried about. That you’d notice and ask questions and make life hard for me all over again.”

  “I’m not here t
o make life hard for you,” he said, though he was dying of curiosity now. “I thought I’d make it easier.”

  “And that is what you’re doing,” said Bizzy. “Just . . . please don’t notice people noticing us. Or at least, don’t make me talk about it.”

  “Fine,” said Ryan. “I actually thought I was being really clever to notice them noticing you. You, by the way, not ‘us.’”

  “You are clever. And observant. You’re looking out for me, and I appreciate it.”

  Slight as it was, her smile was so sweet and genuine that he felt his heart leap, and warmth overspread his face. Am I blushing? he wondered. The way he felt made him want to reach out and touch her.

  “Can we walk again now?” she asked. “We’ve been standing here so long that I’m beginning to feel like I grew out of a crack in the sidewalk.”

  “Sure,” he said, turning and letting her pass him so he could walk beside her again. Wanting so badly to take her hand.

  “I appreciate especially that you aren’t turning this into some kind of boyfriend-girlfriend thing,” Bizzy said.

  “Not a good move, then?”

  “I saw you wanting to take my hand, and I don’t want any kind of outward symbol of something that isn’t really there.”

  “You saw me wanting to take your hand?”

  “Was I wrong?” she asked softly, still walking forward, still watching where she was going.

  He didn’t want to answer. But he also didn’t want her to think he was trying to fool her. “You weren’t wrong,” said Ryan. “But it wasn’t a plot, like that’s why I offered to walk you home. It just sort of came up.”

  “I’m not offended by your wanting to, Ryan. I’m kind of flattered by it. It might be nice to hold hands. Less lonely. But people read things into anything that happens between a girl and a boy.”

  Meaning, thought Ryan, that you don’t want me to read things into holding hands with you.

  “There’s nothing wrong with you, Ryan. We’ve had some great talks. I like you a lot. I consider you my best friend at this school. I don’t have anybody like your Defenseur Fabron.”

  “Defense? What do you think he is?”

  “A brother,” said Bizzy. “For a guy who needs a brother and doesn’t have one.”

  Ryan thought about this a little. “And is that what you want me to be? To you?”

  “Too late,” said Bizzy. “We already passed that point a few back-porch conversations ago.”

  “Then what are we?”

  “Walking home together,” said Bizzy. “Since we live, literally, next door.”

  “Thank you for using ‘literally’ correctly,” said Ryan.

  “I literally always do that,” she said. “To help make English a better language.”

  He laughed. She was funny, and laughing was way better than showing any of his feelings, since he didn’t know whether to be hurt that she didn’t want to hold hands, uneasy that she could see that he wanted to, or thrilled that she had said “we already passed that point,” so he was already more than a brother. Whatever more-than-a-brother meant.

  This walking-her-home business was going to be very bad for his nerves. Because now that he was paying such close attention to her—looking at her, trying to see what the passersby saw in her—he was reaching the conclusion that she might be the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Was that just because he was falling in love with her? No; self-honesty time. He had already fallen in love with her, head-over-heels, dreaming of her at night, thinking of her whenever he wasn’t actively reading something or watching something or talking to somebody. And sometimes even when he was doing those things.

  “Don’t get silly on me, Ryan,” she said.

  Could she really read his mind?

  Then he felt her hand slip into his. She held his hand lightly and not for long. It slipped away after just a few steps. He did not try to hold on or to reconnect. That hand-holding thing—it had quieted him, eased the aching feeling in the pit of his stomach. Why did that happen? Shouldn’t her touch have heightened all his feelings?

  He was going to make himself crazy with all this.

  It was pretty late in October, but this was Virginia, not Minnesota, so only a few leaves were beginning to turn, and the air wasn’t brisk enough even to require a jacket or sweater. Not while the sun was up, anyway.

  There were still insects out and about. Now and then, bees wandering across dandelion blossoms in lawns they passed. Butterflies here and there. No winter kill-off yet. Mom said that was one of the best things about living in Virginia. Not far enough south for the insects to live through winter and get gigantic.

  Now and then, a bee rose from the flowers and headed out, sometimes in a wiggly path, as if it were still randomly scouting for more pollen, and sometimes in a rapid, direct flight, probably home to the hive to do a little dance and tell everyone where good pollen could be found.

  There was one bee, however, that didn’t seem to have any rational purpose. It began to circle Ryan and Bizzy. It made a couple of close passes. Ryan saw her flinch a little each time.

  “Not a fan of bees?”

  “Wish they weren’t fans of mine,” she said. “The curse of blonde hair. They think I’m a really big flower.”

  Ryan thought of Dianne’s long hair, back when she wore it that way. The time when Mom dragged her into the house while Dianne was screaming, “Get it off me, get it off, it’s stinging me!” Dianne flailed at her own hair, and Mother called to Ryan, “Help, Ryan! The bee is tangled in her hair!”

  And Ryan did what seemed quickest and best to him at the moment. He scooped up the kitchen shears from the knife box on top of the counter, ran into the living room, saw where the bee was squirming in Dianne’s hair, right near her neck and just under her ear. Then he pushed Mother’s hands out of the way, pulled Dianne’s hair straight, and cut the hair just above the bee.

  “Who said to cut her hair?” demanded Mom, even though he had already been brandishing the scissors when he pushed Mom’s hands away.

  The bee just tumbled to the ground, already dying or maybe dead from having stung Dianne.

  Ryan knew that the stinger might still be in his little sister’s skin, so he pulled the remaining hair out of the way, and yes, there it was, standing up from her skin. He knew better than to pinch it—that would be like pumping more poison into her through a syringe. Instead he flicked the stinger away.

  Dianne’s skin was already swelling under the spot where the stinger had been. She said, “I can’t swallow, Mom.” And then she opened her mouth and gasped for air.

  “Call nine-one-one,” said Mom.

  Ryan was already at the phone, or so it seemed, he moved so fast. “Bee sting,” he said. “She’s having trouble breathing.”

  The 911 operator already had their address from the phone display. Dad once said, this is why we need a landline: so that when we call from home, emergency people will know where we are. Smart man, Ryan thought right then.

  Dianne was turning blue and Mother was blowing air into her throat while pinching off her nose, but Ryan knew that his job was to stand in the doorway and wave the EMTs into the house. So he did that and they came in, one of them already holding a syringe and needle. The anti-sting, thought Ryan. A sting just like the bee’s, only to save her life this time.

  A few seconds after he injected Dianne with whatever it was, the anaphylactic shock eased off and then just seemed to end. Dianne was breathing readily enough, but there was still a high whimper in her voice. And they took her to the hospital, Mother riding in the ambulance with her, and Ryan staying home to call Dad and tell him where they were and what was happening.

  Ryan had never felt so helpless in his life. And yet when he thought back over the event, he felt like the thing to do had come straight into his mind, and when he did the thing, he moved so fast, so
accurately—he reached for the scissors before he even looked for them—because the decision to cut her hair had already been made, somewhere in the back of his brain. And his hand came away with the scissors, and he switched the scissors to his right hand and moved Mom’s hands away and then whick, one neat cut, and a thick sheaf of hair was falling and the bee was falling and instantly he spotted the sting and his hand was already reaching to brush it off and . . .

  And even though no one said it at the time, Ryan knew that he had been superb in that crisis. He had been quick and he had been right. Because later, when Mom groused about how the only way to deal with the cut he had made in Dianne’s hair was for her to get a bob and wear it short for a while, Dad said, “The doctor said that if Ry hadn’t gotten to the sting so fast, she probably would have died.”

  The doctor said that and nobody bothered to tell Ryan? The doctor had said that Ryan’s quick action probably saved her life, and Mom was complaining about Dianne having to wear her hair short?

  That was the only acknowledgment he got.

  That and the fact that Dianne never grew her hair long again. It was always so short on the sides that it never reached past the bottoms of her ears, and never touched her collar in back. A catch-no-bees strategy. She must still remember the terror of the bee in her hair and the sting and the anaphylactic shock. And maybe somewhere in there she remembered how somebody saved her life by cutting a major tress from her head.

  Or maybe she resented his intrusion into her hairspace. They didn’t discuss it. But might that have been the foundation of the better relationship they were starting to have lately? Her knowing that when push came to shove, he cared about her and did whatever it took to save her?

  So that whole memory was there in the back of Ryan’s mind as the bee darted in at Bizzy for a third time. Bizzy was fairly blonde all right, and her hair didn’t quite reach her shoulders, so it swung free, and that’s why she caught the bee in the web of her hair. As she flipped her head away from the bee, her hair floated out and suddenly the bee was in it and couldn’t get out.