My phone vibrates again with a message from Even: I’m sorry I missed you after school. Crazy day. Is everything OK?

  “No everything isn’t OK,” I say aloud, poking myself with the needle. I mutter one of Boo’s Polish curses, and think, In case you haven’t noticed, I’m big, fat, and ugly. At Johnson Regional High and the Legowski-Gracia household, that is the currency for jokes, laughter, and mockery. I poke myself again and try to get a thimble on my stubby finger. That’s when I see it. A white mouse dashes across the floor of my room and under my dresser. I squeak.

  I’m not necessarily afraid of mice but don’t like the idea of one in my room. I scurry downstairs calling for Skunk. He’s not here. I root through the jumbled basement, searching for a mousetrap. I triumphantly march up the stairs with two; they are rusty, but they will do the trick.

  I tear off a couple chunks of Velveeta cheese and set the first trap. Mama watches Wheel of Fortune and shouts at the TV. When she sees me, she hollers, “What took you so long?”

  “Sorry.”

  I put the trap on the opposite side of her bed where she can’t see it.

  “Anyone winning big?” I ask, hoping to smooth things over.

  “They’re all so stupid. They use this one all the time. Event. Two n’s in the fourth word. ‘Slipped on a banana peel.’ See?” She says as a letter lights up. If Mama had a purpose in life, it would have been to go on Wheel of Fortune. She’d make it to the bonus round and get the million-dollar wedge. We’d be rich. I watch the rest of the episode with her and get the answers moments before she says them aloud. Maybe all the years of watching it with her have paid off, but for what? She doesn’t even notice when I leave the room.

  Even texts me one more time: See you in the morning? G’night.

  The next day, in a daze from staying up so late sewing, I walk to meet Even. When I see him waiting for me with a big smile, the previous day rushes back to me. I grimace, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of him thinking everything is fine.

  “What’s up?” he asks, concerned.

  “Nothing.” I stomp past him and continue toward school.

  “Did something happen?” he calls, catching up to me.

  I stop, whip around, and raise my voice.

  “Yes, something happened. Allie happened. You tell me.”

  His expression is blank with a knot of concern between his eyes. I don’t want to believe that he’s in on some stupid bet. I don’t want to believe he and Allie are seeing each other. I want to believe in the Even I know. I want to believe in us.

  His smile chips at my frosty exterior. I lower my hackles. The school comes into view in the distance as we trek on.

  “Listen, yesterday—” I begin, but a honking car interrupts me.

  A black Toyota Corolla pulls up. Hillary’s behind the wheel and Allie’s in the passenger seat. Allie rolls down the window. Her jacket is open and she leans on the edge of the door, her cleavage spilling out of her shirt and into the cold.

  “Hey, handsome. Remember these?” she says, laughing. “Want a ride?” she asks in a sexy voice.

  “Uh. Nah. I’m good. Thanks,” Even says. He looks like he just ate a lemon, whole, along with a dill pickle.

  Allie looks annoyed. “Fine. Remember what I said, fat girl,” she calls as Hillary pulls away.

  His jaw tightens. “Eff you,” Even shouts. He looks at me, anger flashing in his eyes. The chill air and his words freeze my tears. “What did she say?”

  “To me? The fat girl? What didn’t she say?”

  “No really. I want to know. That isn’t right. What a bitch,” Even says, spitting mad.

  “I’ll tell you if you tell me what happened on Thanksgiving,” I say, bargaining.

  He looks confused, and then his eyes grow wide. He starts to laugh.

  I fear this is the moment. The girls are going to circle back and he’s going to tell me, in front of them, that our friendship was just a hoax.

  “Sugar,” he says, putting his arm around my shoulder, “she flashed me her boobs.”

  I turn my head, my mouth agape. Our faces are so close I see a few freckles, left over from summer, and the scar on his lip.

  “I’m an eighteen-year-old dude. I’d be lying if I said they weren’t, well you know, but—” he shakes his head. “She’s just needy. She kinda makes my skin crawl and blech, so much perfume. She smells like a department store. I had the hunch she was a total idiot, but she just proved it. No chance. Not at all.”

  Every fiber of my being relaxes and heat pools in my fingers and toes again.

  “Just ignore her. I mean, I’m sorry she’s a douche to you, but people suck. We know that. Whether they’re our relatives or jerks at school. We’ll find our tribe. Someday.”

  As we approach the entrance to Johnson Regional High, Even takes his arm from my shoulder to open the door, then pulls me close again. I have one of those Edward and Bella moments when they parade through the parking lot, having just come out as a couple. Though I know I’m no beauty.

  Nothing, and I mean nothing, bursts my bubble until I get home. Skunk’s passed out on the living-room couch, greasy wrappers littering the floor and the credits of some stupid movie running on the TV screen. I go upstairs to get started on my homework, grabbing crackers, veggie dip, and a tall glass of water, determined to get back on track since I’d been eating so much junk. About halfway up, something smells foul. I wrinkle my nose, sniffing the dip. It’s fine.

  At the top of the stairs, Skunk’s left his door wide open. This is unusual because he’s kept it locked since the wallet incident. I peer in to see if he’s conducting some nasty science experiment or if there’s a basket of socks that need washing. I discover the source of the smell.

  I drop the glass of water, and it smashes to the ground, sending liquid-covered shards of glass onto my sneakers. I scream. If Mama is afraid of rodents, it is nothing compared to my fear of snakes.

  I scramble down the stairs.

  “Skunk, you wake up this instant. Wake up, wake up, wake up. Now!” I scream in a panic. I rush to the kitchen and lock myself in the pantry. Then I realize it is under Skunk’s room. I run to Mama’s room. Groggily, she wakes up.

  “Skunk. He has a snake. In his room.” Mama is well aware of my intense fear of snakes. The mousetrap on the floor in the corner helps me figure out where the mice came from. He was trying to feed the thing and the mice escaped. I panic. What if the snake escapes? Skunk isn’t too bright or careful.

  “Mama, snakes eat mice. That’s why there have been mice in the house.”

  She looks at me from behind a puff of smoke. I don’t know if she heard me or maybe she doesn’t care.

  “Skunkkkkk,” she yells in the way that only Mama can.

  Moments later, he’s in the doorway, standing at attention.

  “What?”

  “Come here, boy. Sugar here tells me you done got a snake up in your room.”

  He takes a step in, and I dash out the door. She has fire in her eyes. If she had a Taser, which I wouldn’t doubt, she’d use it. I run up the stairs and hover in the doorway of Skunk’s room. I take aim with my cell phone and snap a photo of the scaly, writhing thing. Its body coils in the filthy tank. I barrel back down the stairs and into Mama’s room.

  “Look, see?” I show Mama the photo amidst Skunk’s hemming and hawing.

  Mama lets out a noise between a hiss and a growl. “You get that rat-eating thing out of this house now.”

  I’d like to think Mama understands my fear of snakes and urges Skunk to get rid of it for my benefit, but I know her well enough to be sure that it’s the mice that terrify her, probably because there’s no chair for her to stand on anymore.

  “What do you want me to do with it? I can’t just let it go.”

  “I don’t care. Send it back where it came from,” she says with venom.

  “I can’t. It’s just a python. Look, it ain’t gonna get bigger than five feet.”

  Mama gives him a look. “And just how many mice does a five-foot python eat?” she spits at him.

  “I got it from some kid to give to my girlfriend, but she didn’t want it. Her name’s Petunia.”

  At this, Mama bursts into hysterics followed by the tickle of a cough.

  I stifle my laughter.

  “Who is Petunia, the snake or your girlfriend?” She lets out a loud whoop of a laugh, but stops herself before she has a coughing fit. “You? You have a girlfriend. I’ll never cease to be amazed. What kind of floozy did you get to take up with you?”

  “Well, actually we broke up. But—” Skunk starts to say, but Mama cuts him off.

  “Is that where you’ve been? Is that why you’ve been missing school? I got a call, you know. I told them, no, not my son. I’ve got good kids. Raised ’em up right. They’re good students, and they go to school. No truancy in this house. Now you done make me look like a liar.” Mama starts to cough, and the fit doesn’t stop for what seems like minutes.

  When she catches her breath, she says, “Skunk, I may be stuck in this bed, but if I find out that thing is still here in the morning, I will hang you out. You understand? That’s a promise.”

  The three of us—Fat Henry, Skunk, and I—have seen the inside of Mama’s hand enough times to know she means business. Finally, I’m relieved.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Christmas lights and slush decorate town. I still hold on to hope for a fresh white blanket of snow on Christmas morning. Like Thanksgiving, I’m not sure what this year will bring. Maybe everyone will come back to our house, but I doubt it. We weren’t the most gracious of hosts.

  Skunk got rid of the snake, but holds me responsible and is nastier than ever. I meet Even after school the day before the last day leading up to Christmas break.

  “Plans?” he asks.

  “Nothing. You?”

  “Same. My dad’s arm is still healing, and he’s zonked out on pills. I think he’s smoking pot, too. Kill the pain, y’know?”

  “It’s just his arm. I’ve broken my arm. It’s bad, but not like—I mean—” I’m suddenly afraid I’m saying the wrong thing, but then I realize Even’s probably talking about another kind of pain. Grief, nearly two decades’ worth, that he and his father have suffered in their own ways.

  I’m quiet as we walk through the streets before we each go to our houses. The backs of my pants are damp almost up to my calf. However, this pair is getting looser, evidence that sticking with walking, staying away from soda, and eating a little more sensibly is helping. The day after next, I’m going to Keene to pick up a couple of Christmas gifts, including one for myself, a new scale. Then I have an idea.

  “Want to go to Keene and go Christmas shopping with me?” I ask.

  “I’d love to, but I can’t. I have a couple extra shifts at the shop; guys with families requested them off, and I snapped them up. Still gotta save for the trip. Not long now. Just slog through this winter, then spring, and graduation. That reminds me, when is your eighteenth? We’ve got to get your motorcycle license.”

  Even knows I repeated first grade, making me the oldest and fattest girl in eleventh, but somehow, we’ve never discussed birthdays. Skunk repeated two grades, so I don’t feel bad about it. As for Fat Henry, he breezed through, but caused a fair number of gray hairs on the teachers’ heads.

  “New Year’s Day,” I say. “The big one-eight.”

  “No way, New Year’s Day? That has to be good luck or something. Cool. We’ll have to celebrate. Hmm . . . I already have a Christmas present in mind for you, but now your birthday, too. The pressure is on.” He smiles like this is a good thing, and I reward him with one of my own. His grows bigger, he winks, and then he heads down Birch Road.

  When I get home, I text Brittany and ask her if she wants to come Christmas shopping with me. I suppose we’ve both been preoccupied with boys this year, so we haven’t spent as much time together as we used to, but it’s as if she and Mason are glued together at the hip. I’ve noticed she’s been absent from school a bit the last few weeks but haven’t thought much of it. She texts back a few lazy minutes later, and we make plans for the next day.

  I crack open my history book to study for my final the following day, my last one. I drift off to sleep and Allie, with snakes for hair, curses me while Brittany runs around me in circles. She becomes a wisp of a blur. Then there’s Even, trapped on a mountain, presumably cast there by evil Allie/Medusa. I call for him, he calls back, and I wake up in a sweat, gasping for breath.

  At the end of the next day, my brain is fried from exams and too little sleep. A long break from school is welcome, but when I get home, Skunk quickly reminds me why spending the day at Johnson Regional High School is preferable to spending it at our house.

  When I open the door, a rank smell, along with a haze of smoke, makes my eyes water. I go in the kitchen and find a perfectly round, burnt piece of meat in a skillet on the stove.

  “Skunk?”

  I turn off the burner and turn on the vent fan, but it groans, sputters, and refuses to whir.

  “Skunk!” I call again.

  I go into Mama’s room, but she’s asleep. The fact that she slept through the alarm and smoke worries me. I go up to Skunk’s room, but find the bathroom door is shut. I rap on it, and he tells me where to go.

  “What the heck are you burning downstairs?”

  A mean laugh echoes through the wood.

  “What do you think?”

  I actually have no idea, but it smells gross. The door to the bathroom opens. A rivaling disgusting smell wafts out as he exits.

  “We’re having snake meat. Grilled Petunia for Christmas dinner.” He laughs in a sinister way that doesn’t convince me he didn’t actually kill the thing. I don’t like snakes, but I didn’t want it dead, especially not to eat. I’m disgusted. I won’t be spending Christmas here if that’s the case.

  I go to the kitchen to clean up and get myself a snack. There is no sign of a dead snake in the fridge or freezer, but it could be in the deep freezer down cellar. I know Skunk is an a-hole, but I don’t think of him as that cruel, so I sneak down there for a look. As I’m in charge of acquiring most of the food, I’m well-acquainted with what we have, and there aren’t any suspicious meats wrapped up. I hope to the good Lord that he isn’t stupid enough to keep it in his room. Dead or alive, I don’t want a snake in this house.

  When I get back upstairs, I watch through the window as Fat Henry gets out of his car. He comes up the walk. I open the door before he does. He greets me with a smile from ear to ear.

  “Looks like you’ve lost some weight. You haven’t been taking those pills you got for Mama, have you? I saw an exposé. Those things are dangerous. I told Mama, but she don’t listen to me. She isn’t taking them, is she?”

  “Nah. I don’t think so. I make sure she takes all her pills before I go to school in the morning, and she hasn’t asked for them since about a week after I got them. She said they made her gassy.” I notice he doesn’t have his usual box of donuts.

  “I came by to say hi and see what y’all are doing for Christmas. I’m going to Stacy’s grandma’s. She’s ninety, so this may be the last one. Y’know?”

  I deflate. After the last few times I saw him, mostly at church, I’d hoped he’d be joining us, since he’s maybe the only tolerable person in my family—a new honor. I shrug my shoulders.

  “No plans that I know of. Church, of course. I’m just hoping for snow. Maybe watch a movie.”

  “You always have loved snow on Christmas. Remember that year we all got sleds? That was fun, huh?”

  “Until I broke my arm. Remember Skunk ran me over trying to get ahead of me on the jump?”

  “Oh yeah. Sorry. I forgot.”

  “Everyone usually does,” I mutter.

  “Speaking of Skunk, where is he?”

  I fill him in on the latest of Skunk’s escapades, including the questionable burnt meat.

  “He’s probably upstairs. You should interrogate him,” I joke.

  Fat Henry, who really can’t be called “fat” anymore—I guess I just call him that out of habit—pokes at the questionable contents in the skillet.

  “Don’t you worry; that’s just bologna. He let it burn. I reckon he was playing a joke on you. Or he just forgot about it. I’m going to see Mama. How’s her cough?”

  “Bad, but the same. I really think she should go to the doctor, but I don’t know how to get her there. It’s too bad they don’t do house calls like they did in the olden days.”

  Fat Henry inclines his head toward me and speaks in a hush. “Sugar, you’re doing well in school, and it looks like you’ve been taking better care of yourself. Don’t you worry about Mama. I’ll make sure to come by twice a week from now on. You just be a teenager. When I was your age, I was out causing trouble, but I was having fun.”

  It’s easy for him to say, harder for me to do. Nonetheless, I’m impressed by how nice he’s become. I make a mental note to thank Stacy next time I see her, knowing it’s probably all due to her influence. He gives me a hug, possibly for the first time ever, and then vanishes down the dim hallway.

  I go to pick Brittany up the next day, and since she’s not waiting outside as I’d hoped, I pull open the flimsy screen door and knock on the regular one. I rub my hands together, shivering. Two days until Christmas. Snow, snow, snow. Please. I bounce on my toes and cross my fingers.

  A few moments later, Brittany shouts, “Hang on. I’m coming.” Her smeared lipstick tells me she and Mason were making out. “I’ll be back in a while,” she calls to no one I can see. “He’s back there. Anyway, let’s go,” she says to me. She’s wearing her oversize, don’t-mind-me-I’m-just-shoplifting hoodie.

  I’d noticed Brittany’s badly broken-out skin last time I saw her, but it looks like she’s done something to clear it up a little and she seems to have gained back a few scant pounds. In public, I often feel like the disparity in our sizes calls attention to us. I’m tall and big, she’s short and tiny, but it is good to see her again. I guess.