Sunny Read online

  But that’s what my parents did. School, then more school.

  And after more school, once they both got fancy jobs in offices with carpeted floors and phone answerers and vending machines with trail mix and fruit snacks, they would buy this giant house, then move on to step four of the plan—or is it step five?—which was to make me, and I was going to be named Sunny whether I was a boy or a girl.

  The next step in the plan was to homeschool me, which just means go to school at home, and Aurelia was supposed to be my teacher, all along. According to the plan.

  And so she is. And I’m glad she’s here.

  Crazy thing is, Diary, you weren’t part of the plan. But I’m glad you’re here too.

  Dear Diary,

  Aurelia laughed at Darryl this morning. She was coming in and he was going out and he said good-bye to me, but it was in a weird way, like the words were coming through his throat but not actually out of his mouth, and Aurelia thought that was funny and asked him what was wrong with him. He said nothing was wrong with him, but Aurelia knew that wasn’t true. Not just because of the way he was talking, but also because of the way he was looking. He wears a gray or blue suit every day, and today it was a gray one, but it was wrinkled, and one of the pant legs was too long, so he looked like half of him had shrunk overnight.

  She asked me why he looked like he had just run a mile in his business suit.

  Him need to fix his hem. That’s what she said in a baby voice, and it was funny until she asked me what his problem was, and I told her he hadn’t really said too much to me since Saturday’s race. Or . . . not-race. Aurelia knew I was going to do it, and she gave me a high five before shaking her head and saying, Him need to fix his attitude And his hem. Then she told me that I needed to fix us pancakes.

  For breakfast.

  And for math.

  This is what homeschool is like for me now, Diary. I don’t remember if I told you what it was like for me back then, but that’s probably because homeschool back then just felt like . . . day. Like nothing to talk about. Like nothing different. But now I know it’s different because everyone on my team has to go to school—outside school inside of a building—and they complain about bullies—at least Ghost does—and Patty’s always going on about hair flippers, whoever they are. So I know my version of school isn’t like theirs at all.

  First pancakes. Turn a recipe for six into a recipe for two. If I do it right, I eat the pancakes. If I do it wrong, I have to watch Aurelia eat all the pancakes (extra syrup) and I have to eat a health bar (extra health).

  Then science class. Which today was dissecting a health bar. Because I had pancakes for breakfast. Because division comes pretty natural to me. Thankfully. So, yeah. Turns out a heath bar has a lot of funny-sounding stuff in it that actually seems kind of weird. Also, they taste like dirt. I know, because I’ve had dirt.

  After that, English. Right now I’m learning Shakespeare. You know Shakespeare? Wait, first let’s talk about that name—Shakespeare. Shake a spear in your face. Tell you to back up off me before I . . . do something bad. Like . . . recite you some poetry that sounds like,

  Thee thither thather rather in rhythm,

  Dost thou knowest such promise of prism,

  O hallowed light! All swallowed by night!

  O am nee ah tick em buh lism!

  Seriously, Diary. His name is like a warning. And for good reason. His work is hard. But Aurelia makes it fun. She acts out the plays and stuff. Romeo and Juliet. I love you, no, I love you. We have to be together. But we can’t. But we have to. Oh, but we can’t so now we have to die. Made me think of my parents, but only until Aurelia turned on this movie called West Side Story, which she said is just like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, except with gangs and knives and snapping and dancing. That makes me think I might want to join a gang. Of dancers.

  And then social studies. We do a lot of different things, but today we went to the museum. One of my favorite things to do. We wandered the big halls, staring up at the walls, reading about war and art, gazing at soldiers who wore white ponytail wigs, and queens and kings wrapped in bandages and buried in gold, and castles and constitutions and letters like these, and on and on. Until we finally sat down and just looked at other people looking at the things we just looked at. Watched their heads swivel as they read, and their fingers point, sometimes too close to the art. Watched old people hold hands and creep around. Old people whose brains are probably just as museum-y as the museum. Romeos and Juliets, who I bet had pancakes for breakfast, and health bars in their back pockets.

  Dear Diary,

  There’s so much I need to tell you about now, but there’s also a lot I need to tell you about then. You missed a lot when I put you away. You missed a lot since I stopped making noise. Since I stopped asking about her. Since I stopped screaming about how bad I miss her, how I don’t know what it means to miss her but know that I feel like one pant leg is always too long. Like something just don’t fit. Since I got okay at keeping my mother inside, so that I didn’t upset Darryl.

  One of the things you missed is really important, but before I tell you, I have to tell you about the time Aurelia took me to get a tattoo. It was a few years ago. We were at the museum, having our usual social studies class, this time staring at old sculptures. I remember there was this one that we were looking at. A statue of a lady as white as Lu. She looked like she might’ve been about to do some kind of dance move, maybe a spin, but couldn’t quite whip it right because the artist forgot to make arms for her. And all of a sudden, while looking at the armless lady, Aurelia just started crying. I told her it was okay that the lady didn’t have arms because it was just a statue. And Aurelia said that wasn’t why she was crying. That she was crying because it was her anniversary. And then I told her that I didn’t know she was married. And she said she wasn’t, which really confused me, and my confused became confused-er when she all of a sudden was like, Let’s go get a tattoo.

  I was thinking what you’re thinking right now, Diary. I was thinking WHAT? But she didn’t mean we were getting tattoos. She meant she was going to get a tattoo, and I was going to come with her. Art class.

  Have you ever been to a tattoo place? Actually, I know the answer to that one. You haven’t. But I have. There was art all over the walls, and books and books of sketches of googly-eyed dragons and hearts with knives stabbed in them and dripping fruit and all kinds of other stuff. And a lady who looked like she liked the same things Aurelia liked sat behind the counter in the front of the place. She was bald and had a tattoo of a corner store on the side of her head. I remember her. I’ll never forget her. And I’ll never forget Fish.

  Fish was this big, big, big dude—the guy who tattooed Aurelia. He was like a walking wall. And if he was really a wall, he would’ve been like a wall in my house. Clean. Plain. No marks. No color. No art nowhere. Seems weird for a house. Seemed weirder for a tattooer.

  And I’ll never forget him asking Aurelia how many years she’s celebrating, but he said it like How many is it, again? like he was supposed to know. And Aurelia saying this was her twentieth anniversary. And him asking if she wanted another star, and her saying yes but in a different color. And him asking what color, and Aurelia turning to me and asking me what color, and me saying green. But not just any green. Go green.

  And I’ll never forget him pulling out this weird little machine that buzzed like it had a tiny lawnmower engine inside of it, if there was a such thing as tiny lawnmowers, and dipping it in what looked like green paint, then scratching another ugly star into Aurelia’s wrist. And while he was doing it, dragging that buzzing machine over her skin a few times, scraping green into brown, Aurelia told me a story to keep her mind off the pain.

  The story was about how she got hooked on drugs when she was in college. Yeah, I was surprised too! Aurelia said her boyfriend introduced them to her and she just got . . . lost. She said the only people there to help her were my parents. They pretty much dragged her to get he
lp. Especially my mother, who, after Aurelia got out of drug rehab, begged her to come to a dance class with her so she could stay busy and keep her mind off getting lost again. And this dance class was going to help Aurelia stay found. That’s when I found out my mother used to dance. According to Aurelia, my mother wasn’t very good at it, but still.

  After Aurelia’s first year clean, she and my mother got really, really bad star tattoos as a way to celebrate. And Aurelia kept doing it every year after. Tattoo after tattoo. Star after star. Kept dancing, too. And my mother made Darryl promise to keep Aurelia close—keep an eye on her—keep her busy, which is how she ended up my teacher. Part of the plan.

  Oh, and I’ll never forget asking Fish why they called him Fish, since he didn’t look like . . . a fish. And instead of just answering, he lifted his shirt up over his head, and there was a picture of Aurelia tattooed on his big belly.

  Aurelia Simone Fisher.

  Fish was the boyfriend. The one she was messed up with when they were younger. The amateur tattoo artist who gave her the first star in her galaxy.

  That was the day I decided to never do drugs. And the day I decided that when I got old enough, I would get a tattoo that covered my whole stomach. It’s going to be of three ships, but not on water. On land. And, most importantly—the thing you missed—that was the day Aurelia started teaching me to dance.

  Dear Diary,

  Yes. I dance.

  I know. A lot has changed.

  I guess you could say, dancing with Aurelia is like gym class. We kick our shoes off, then move whatever we can move out of the way in the living room of my house to make enough space—a pretend dance floor with carpet the same ashy color as cardboard, but not as easy to break-dance on. We move the coffee table, and some of the smaller things, but the chair, my father’s chair—their chair—we leave alone. Darryl’s told me a bunch of times that he and my mother bought the chair as their first piece of furniture together. He had just landed his big-time business job doing whatever he does with numbers and money and ROI, and was going to help my mother open up her own therapy office. Her own space to talk to people about their lives, and what they’re scared of, and how dreaming sounds to them, and the first thing she and my father bought together—for her—was the thing to make the clients more comfortable. This chair. It’s soft purple, and leans back, and Darryl’s always lint-rolling it, and brushing its bulky arms softly with the palms of his hands, like patting a son that’s made him proud.

  So me and Aurelia don’t mess with it. Just leave it alone and pretend it’s our only audience member. Aurelia calls it Harry Chairy. I call it Chair. Like Cher. You know who that is, Diary? Well, if you don’t, just know she makes pretty good dance music.

  And Aurelia makes pretty good dance moves. Out of anything. She can make them out of ballet. I know you know what ballet is, but just in case you don’t, it’s tip-top, tiptoe, total body control. Sounds like ocean. Like rolling waves. She also does tap, but never brings her shoes with her because you can’t hear the tappity-tapping on carpet either. She does modern dance, which is like . . . I don’t know. It doesn’t really feel all that modern. Not to me. But I guess it’s more like theater dance. Like drama. Kind of stuff they do in the West Side Story movie. Snap, snap. And, my favorite, hip-hop. Now this is what I’m talking about. This is what I’ve been talking about, what I meant when I said every move has a sound. A tick or a boom, or something. Like a tickboom. Or a tick-tickboom. Or, in this case:

  Hit and hit and ugh and ooooh, clap and aye, and owwww, whoosh

  Hit and hit and ugh and ooooh, clap and aye, and owwww, whoosh

  to go with these moves:

  Shrug and shrug and kick and slide back, clap and dab and body roll, spin

  Shrug and shrug and kick and slide back, clap and dab and body roll, spin

  And Aurelia always tells me to end . . . with attitude. Which basically always seems to be me ending with a big cheese on my face. So instead of ending like what! I always end like wow! But Aurelia don’t mind.

  Dear Diary,

  Aurelia knew that I was going to have to confront Coach at practice about what happened Saturday at the meet, so she asked me if I was nervous when we pulled up to the park. I had basically been quiet after the dancing, and on the whole ride to practice. I told her I was nervous, a little. But really, I was nervous . . . a lot. And then she asked me if I was sure I wanted to even be there. Like, if Darryl wasn’t so hard on me about running, would I still want to be on the team at all? Diary, she was talking to me about how I did what I said I was going to do, and when I was going to do it, so that I didn’t feel like I was disrespecting my mom by quitting on the day she died or on the day she gave birth to me, and I could hear everything Aurelia was saying—it wasn’t going all womp womp or nothing like that—but at the same time I was staring out at the track. Watched for a second as Lu and Ghost slapped hands. Patty and Aaron laughed at something. Brit-Brat and Deja were talking to Whit. And Coach was sitting on the bench on the side with his phone to his ear. And . . . I don’t know. Something about seeing everybody just made me feel like I belonged. I know that’s a little cheesy. But it’s true. So I told Aurelia that I would. That I wanted to be there, on this team, with these people. And then I got out of the car. And suddenly I didn’t feel so good. From cheesy to queasy . . . easy.

  The walk from the car to the track was a long one. And all I could think about was, what was my plan? In my mind there was an outline:

  I. OPTION 1: APPROACH COACH (and avoid rhyming)

  A. Sit down next to him and tie your shoes and say “Fancy seeing you here.”

  B. Approach him like West Side Story, snap, snap, snap, snap.

  C. Walk straight up to him and slap him in the face so he’ll be forced to talk about something else.

  II. OPTION 2: DON’T APPROACH COACH

  A. Run directly onto the track.

  B. Turn around and walk back to the car before Aurelia leaves.

  C. Finally try to activate my teleportation powers.

  And a chart:

  TELL COACH HOW YOU FEEL

  GO HOME AND MAKE MORE PANCAKES

  DON’T TELL COACH HOW YOU FEEL

  And also a graph:

  ME, IF I TALK TO COACH

  BOOMTICK (silver lining)

  ME, IF I DON’T TALK TO COACH

  Figured it was better to be safe than sorry. But still didn’t think to pack a barf bag, and the pancakes I had this morning had turned back into batter. A bitter batter, pitter-pattering up my throat.

  Dear Diary,

  Don’t worry. I didn’t puke. But I wanted to when Coach called my name and waved me over, and then yelled it louder and told me to hustle up, and that’s when I wanted to puke myself out of myself, like blooepp and just lay there on the ground, a slimy brown ooze.

  Aaron was leading the stretches in that way-too-serious way he does, and Lu was mimicking him in that way-too-silly way he does, and Ghost and Patty were trying not to laugh, and Coach barked at them and told them he had enough going on and not to make it a long week. And I wished I was with them trying not to laugh, but I was too busy trying to imagine ways to pull the cat out of my mouth.

  I was also wondering if maybe I was Coach’s enough going on.

  Next thing I knew, Coach was standing in front of me, telling me to pick my head up and look at him, and asking me what happened on Saturday. He said at first he thought I caught a cramp or something, but then said he saw me smiling and knew it couldn’t have been a cramp, unless it was a cramp in the mind. I told him I didn’t know how to explain it.

  He said, Try.

  I said, I don’t know how to say it.

  He said, Try harder.

  And I just stood there as all the thoughts went boing boing in my brain. Thoughts about how maybe I could just lie. But I’m not a liar. But I could just tell him I stopped running because I wanted to give everybody else from other teams a chance to feel what it feels like to win—a half l
ie has to be better than a whole lie, right?—and that it would even add some extra spice to it for the crowd, and then the next week I would be back to winning, except I didn’t want to actually run anymore, so even just the thought of saying that made me feel jumpy. But still, I didn’t want to say . . . everything.

  Coach said he was waiting. He cocked his head. Folded his arms.

  I looked down.

  Up, up!

  I looked up. And told him I stopped running because . . . I was tired.

  He asked me what I meant by that. Said it didn’t sound right.

  I told him, It was right, though. I was tired. I am tired.

  Coach cocked his head to the other side, and I could tell he was getting fizzy inside.

  So was I. Like a soda bottle with bubbles rising up through the body, up the neck. And then, suddenly, blooepp. Just . . . came out. All the sound that sounded like I don’t want to run no more, Coach. That sounded like because, like I already told you, my mother died giving birth to me, and my father is mad at me, and that’s the only reason I run, but I didn’t do nothing. I didn’t do nothing. I don’t want to do this no more.

  Diary, here’s the thing. You can’t really be on a track team if you don’t want to run. I know that. But I didn’t want to run. And I still wanted to be on the team. Because I’m weird. So Coach, who was now less fizzy, asked me what I wanted to do. I told him I didn’t know. Then he told me I couldn’t be on the team no more, that it just didn’t make sense to keep me if I wasn’t running. I wanted to tell him it doesn’t have to make sense, but then he said he still loved me and wanted to see if he could help me with whatever else I wanted to do. And I asked him if he was serious, and he said he was.