The Lit Report Read Online Free Page A

They suck but at least they don’t stink.”
    I put Ruth’s homework on her desk next to her computer. The screensaver was a flying monkey from
The Wizard of Oz
with the words
When monkeys fly out of my butt
instead of a tail.
    â€œYou feeling any better?” I asked, making myself comfortable in the desk chair and keeping my distance from Ruth’s puke-germs. There’s nothing I hate more than puking. Vomiting scenes in movies make me nauseous. Even the sight of the bedside bucket made me queasy.
    â€œA bit,” Ruth replied. “For a while this morning I thought I was gonna die, but it’s better now. Now I’m just bored.I can’t even be bothered to watch shitty TV . My energy level is, like, zero. No, it’s more like negative ten.” Ruth pulled her hair out of its elastic and sighed. “Plus, I feel all, kinda, emotional. This morning I cried watching
Regis and Kelly
with my mom. There was something about little homeless kids in Thailand and I just lost it. Plus, my boobs hurt. Like before my period.”
    â€œYou think you’re PMS -ing?” I asked cautiously. If she was, I wasn’t going to hang around. A while ago, Ruth had thrown a stiletto-heeled boot at my head when I wouldn’t hand over the remote. Other girls get irritable and weepy before their periods; Ruth gets psychotic. I had to have three stitches in my forehead after the boot episode. I scratched the bump where the scar was. Was it really only a month ago? It seemed longer. A lot longer.
    â€œUm, Ruth,” I said cautiously. “You’ve had a period, right? Since, you know, Rick.”
    Ruth looked at me as if I was insane. “Duh,” she said. “You remember. Pizza Day. You freaked out ‘cause I took your last tampon. And then the next day your period started and you had to get a pad from the school nurse.” She took a sip of ginger ale and belched loudly.
    â€œYeah, but—” I hesitated, wondering if she would figure it out on her own or if she was just in massive denial. Even Ruth can count to twenty-eight, but this was the first time she’d needed to. “Pizza Day was in October. November washot dogs.” I pulled my agenda out of my pack, opened it and held it out to her. “Look. Pizza Day—October 18. Hot Dog Day—November 16. Remember?” Ruth took one look at the agenda, threw it across the room, leaned over the side of the bed and puked into the ice-cream bucket.
    When she was finished puking (it was mostly dry heaves, thank goodness) she started crying, and I left the desk chair and got her a damp washcloth and a glass of water from the bathroom. I curled up on the bed with her and stroked her blue hair away from her sweaty forehead. That’s what my mom does when I’m sick and it always helps. I decided against asking her whether they had used condoms. It seemed like locking the barn door after the horse is gone, as Nana likes to say.
    When she finally stopped sobbing, I wiped her face with the washcloth and got her to sip some water. I had the idea, even then, that hydration was important.
    â€œI am so fucked,” she moaned.
    â€œWell, yeah,” I said. “We’ve established that.”
    She glared at me and took another sip of water. “It’s not funny, Julia. I mean, what am I gonna do? Pete and Peggy will kill me. Or send me away. Look what they did to Jonah, and his biggest sin was listening to Miles Davis.” Ruth gulped and reached for the bucket again. I looked away while she retched.
    â€œWhat about Rick?” I asked.
    â€œWhat about him?”
    â€œAre you going to tell him? That he’s going to be a father?”
    Ruth lay down and pulled the pillow over her head so her next words were muffled. It sounded as if she said, “I don’t know.”
    â€œYou don’t know?” I repeated.
    She sat up suddenly, her face flushed, her hands balled into fists.