Hyacinth Girls Read Online Free

rocked back and forth. Her voice was dark, complicated, and kids started pointing at her, and then at Silibetti, too, like they were both part of some blood-drinking cult. Was Silibetti afraid? Did he know he’d been branded? He called her a crazy bitch as I gave one last kick. Then the bell was ringing and people were trampling past. They stepped on my feet and fingers, and I felt groggy, unsteady. I decided I’d stay on the floor. I’d take a nap on the cool gray tiles. Soon Curtis would find out what happened and I imagined he’d leave high school to come here and get me, speaking in the soft voice he used when our moms were asleep. Then he’d offer to carry me home, and I’d twine my arms around his neck, and he’d say it was all a bad dream. I would never have to go back.
    There was a girl’s face in front of me. I realized it was her.
    “Do you want to go to the nurse?” she asked sweetly. “I think they busted your lip.”
    —
    I stroked Callie’s hair as I finished with the familiar words. “They called her Joyce McFrenzy, Evil McFrenzy, or EMF for short. People claimed she’d summoned the devil and levitated for a full minute over the stairs. I once asked her why she was willing to do it just to save somebody she didn’t know, and she gave me this grin. ‘I knew we were meant to be friends.’ ”
    “And then you were hyacinth girls,” Callie said.
    “Yes,” I said. “We were.”
     
All My Interactions with Robyn Doblak, #1
    For Rebecca/From Callie
    I won’t count all the times I saw her in art class.
    I’ll just start with the first time we talked in school. We probably wouldn’t have even met if I didn’t have to see Miss Baranski. You know, she never said anything useful—she wasn’t a REAL psychiatrist. It was always just
How are you feeling? How are things at home?
She used this fake soothing voice and I always gave the same answers.
Good. No problems
. But the worst thing about it was she was always running late. You had to wait outside her door, and sometimes people saw you, so you had to lean against the wall to keep your face hidden…or stroll back and forth to the water fountain, like people wouldn’t guess what you were doing there.
    ANYWAY, it was right before Christmas, I could hear the chorus practicing “Frosty the Snowman,” and I’d been waiting for Miss Baranski for the last ten minutes. Robyn was waiting, too, humming along with the music. Then she noticed one of my wristbands. “Pit bull awareness?”
    It wasn’t like when you met Mom. It wasn’t some amazing scene. I wasn’t saving Robyn and she wasn’t saving me. I was only killing time. I started to explain.
    “There was once this pit bull who saved thirty peoples’ lives. But all anyone thinks is they’re these vicious crazy killers.”
    “Thirty people? How did he save them?”
    “They got stranded in a flood and this pit bull—she brought them food.”
    She nodded and I looked at the foil trees stapled to the wall. I would give Miss Baranski two more minutes and then I was taking off.
    “My dad wanted me to get a dog,” Robyn said. Then she started touching her silver headband. She said her mom changed her mind because dogs were too much work. I already knew that her dad was dead. I’d heard about his leukemia. Pretty much everyone in school heard about it when he died in seventh grade. What I didn’t expect was that Robyn would start crying. Right there, out in the hall. I probably should’ve knocked on Miss Baranski’s door, but I didn’t think of that until later. I just started talking about whatever popped into my head. I told her about the imaginary dog I had when I was little and how she used to chase me around the house. I was just trying to make her laugh and I started talking louder and louder. “Imaginary dogs are great,” I said. “You can get a whole pack of them. And the best part is they’ll attack whoever you want.”
    I did a little growl and Robyn finally smiled. Her