Listen to the Hamster Sing

Chapter 2

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On the last day of January, I got to school on time. I mention that first because it was the most significant thing to happen that day. Okay, I lie.

Titus grunted a farewell to me before getting as far away as possible. I’m fairly sure no one in the school knows we’re related. He’s very tall, the tallest of all of us, with shaggy black hair and striking eyes (so my espionage tactics in the girl’s locker room have gleaned for me), and he is very, very smart. Salutatorian smart.

At the other end of the charisma spectrum lies I. My eyes are dull and gray, and I am far from smart, although I am tall-ish. It would be hard not to notice me, since I’m 5’9” and my hair usually adds on another three or four inches in its bushiest state.

Hardly a day goes by without some peacock bothering me. It’s usually girls. They must be drawn to the mystery I exude.

Ha. Ha ha.

I was actually relieved that Titus would never stand next to me long enough for people to link us together. If they perceived a connection with which they could fuse and form some sort of parasitic relationship, the peacocks might try to befriend me in their own simpering, insincere ways. There’s a similar effect from knowing Booth. Both he and Titus are graduating this year. They don’t hang out with the same people, but they’re popular with their respective groups and they act like brothers at home.

Booth hangs out with angry people. They get along fine.

In Bio we were at our lab stations, so I spent my time toying with the Bunsen burner, which was, ironically, the only thing they let me touch. I had a habit of turning the sink way, way on, and they were tired of being drenched. Plus the teacher had hit them all on the head for letting me touch anything at all. She probably wouldn’t be thrilled with me playing with fire, but her concentration was elsewhere. Much like Nero’s probably was as Rome was burning to cinders.

The upside to not being allowed to do anything was that although Biology might be my worst subject, I had near perfect grades on labs.

Throughout the class, I watched a little more intensely as the people in my group interacted. The guy sitting across to me scooted away a little so that he was only on the periphery of my scrutiny. Note to self: be inconspicuous when studying people like mealworms.

“Why don’t you ever brush your hair?” were the first words spoken directly to me that day, in math. The girl who asked me this question looked genuinely concerned, so I nudged at the mass of hair piled on my head and soon got so involved in searching out what exactly was so disgusting about it that I forgot to answer. So I just sat there like a lonely monkey while she looked at me expectantly.

When I met her staring curiously, she gave a nervous smile before turning back to the practice tests we were having in Algebra II. She made a show of concentration before up and moving across the classroom to sit with her friends.

My first act in the process of tricking some saps for my friendship photo should have been to quite simply answer people when they spoke to me.

But…that talking thing…meh.

I slumped against the school cello in orchestra, waggling my bow in the air and barely missing whacking my stand partner in the face. Jared glared at me and then glared at the floor. He was ADHD and unpredictable. Even though he was horrible at cello he thought he deserved to be first chair.

I wouldn’t have felt bad if I had blinded him. But remembering the project, I pasted on a smile and regarded him brightly.

“How bout that Bach, huh?”

“Bach,” he sneered, “Is the best composer of all of them.”

His expression dared me to contradict him. “Um…do you really know that many other composers?”

He scowled even harder and shoved my music on the floor.

Obviously he was an expert on composers and felt the need to express his genius by destroying things. I picked up my paper and swiped it across his arm in the hopes of giving him a severe paper-cut, but the angle wasn’t quite right, so it was something like shooting a rhino with a BB gun. He swung his face toward me, blinked a few times, and bashed my music back out of my hands. The sheets fluttered back to the ground and I decided to stare at them until they moved on their own.

Well, fine. Maybe we couldn’t be friends. Not that great friendships haven’t grown out of a healthy scuffle or two. But Stand-Partner Jared seemed a little reluctant.

Teacher walked in and stepped up on his little box because he was so short. Mr. Ruby was, to put it simply, insane. Today he’d slicked his long tendrils of snowy white hair over the enormous bald patch standing front and center, and he was wearing his old glasses.

His new glasses had broken last week when he’d startled us with a section quiz. Or, more specifically, he startled me. And now he was back in his old, eye-enlarging glasses, and he gawked at me like an owl before scowling. Everybody scowls at me. How can I make friends when everybody’s screwing up their face at me?

“Take out the St. Paul. Hopefully we can make it through the first movement without mayhem and death?” he announced sarcastically. A few people smirked, but they weren’t looking at me, they were looking at Señor Hot Stuff in the second violin section.

Tom had managed to snap the neck of his horrible instrument for the third time last week, while playing. It had swung by its strings and knocked Tom’s stand partner in the forehead. The violin was starting to become a monstrosity, a Frankenstein’s monster of stringed instruments that very often seemed to have a mind of its own. At least, I thought so. I whispered my thoughts and concerns to Jared, but he only put his hand on my face and shoved me away. His hand smelled like oranges. Maybe that’s what evil smells like.

I chose a lunch table in the corner this time, hoping that perhaps people wouldn’t be crossing the ocean of tables and suddenly get caught by some inexplicable current that brought them my way. I dreaded the day when it might be discovered that I was related to Titus. Then again, it had been two and a half years, and nothing yet.

And then the world collapsed on top of my head.

Rather, Titus, for some crazy reason, sat next to me at the completely empty round table. I gaped at him and then threw my chocolate at him.

“No, what, what?” I demanded in a panic, poised at the edge of my seat to run away.

“God chill,” he hissed, looking around to see if I’d drawn any attention with my squeaky idiocy. I had not, although the multitude of eyes that always followed Titus around while pretending to not follow Titus were wandering around our way. It was only a matter of time.

“What do you want?” I poked him in the forehead.

He slapped my hand away and resentfully yanked out his lunch. I knew Mom had packed it when I saw him pull out two bananas, a PB&J and a juice box. He glared at me when I stared at it pointedly.

“Like it’s my fault,” he muttered. Then he sighed. “Klein said I should…you know. Whatever.”

“Since when do you listen to that cheesebat? He’s crazy!”

“He…has ways.” That’s all Titus would say on that matter. I suspected blackmail, which I also suspected it would behoove me to partake in. My second oldest brother ducked his dark head to pay full attention to his 5th-grade lunch.

After five minutes of silence, I was ready to kick him in the shins. “Sooooo,” I said, retrieving my chocolate from the floor and unwrapping it. “You got any girlfriends?”

“I knew there was a reason I never spend time with you,” he growled. I continued to munch on my chocolate, wondering if I was hurt by that remark. His insults kind of lost their potency over the span of the ten years that he’d seemingly hated me, but yeah, it did hurt. Out of all my brothers and sisters, Titus resented me the most. He was the most popular, but I’d like to believe there was something deeper than just loss of reputation that prompted him to be such an ass to me.

Melissa didn’t like me much either, though. Maybe popularity did destroy souls.

He finally glanced up at me, though. I was tracing the grain in the table and he sighed. And he mussed up my hair and gave me a half-hearted grin.

“Idiot child,” I said, pushing his hand away. But I grinned goofily and he saw it. And he looked a little sad in that instant. His shoulders hunched over, though, when a hand slid over his back and Mona Dilcher perched on the chair beside him.

I regarded her with suspicion.

She regarded me with suspicion.

I continued to regard her thus.

Her expression changed to one of confusion and interest. Haha, that’s because I can cut people at the knees with my looks. While she was recovering, I scooted my butt out in my chair and slumped back, tugging a piece of hair into my mouth with my tongue, with a bit of struggle.

“I’m Mona,” she finally said, after realizing that Titus, who was shoveling food into his mouth, wasn’t going to do the introductions. Little steps. She held out her hand over his head and I took it gingerly.

“Layla,” I said, snatching my hand back so that I wouldn’t be the awkward person who latches on too long to be socially correct.

“Like the song!” she said with a bright smile. Mona Dilcher…well, I don’t know anything about her personality. I can guess, but everyone’s deeper than they look so I try not to judge. I mean, look at me.

Mona has enviously straight, dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and mercilessly plucked eyebrows. I smoothed mine down in self-defense.

Somehow, I managed to remember that she had said something, even though I was a little late in my response. “Yes. My mom….liked it.” I scrunched my face and anxiously waited for her to show me whether or not that response was acceptable.

“My parents are big into the Rolling Stones,” she said, rolling her eyes. I perked up. Not because I knew what she was talking about, because she said it companionably.

“Silly…parents,” I agreed. This time it was Titus who rolled his eyes heavenward. Mona just laughed lightly.

“So how do you know this oaf?” she asked, slapping him boisterously on the back. Titus leaned back in his chair and widened his eyes at me. I couldn’t understand what he was trying to tell me.

“Oh, we’ve just know each other forever,” I hedged. He looked conflicted. Then he sighed and messed up my hair again.

“You weirdo,” he said fondly. He turned to Mona. “She’s my sister.”

She was obviously shocked.

“You have a sister Titus?” Mona regarded me now with awe.

“Um, you know he has...many sisters, yeah? And brothers?” I offered, wanting to be helpful.

She wasn’t even looking at me anymore—she was almost gaping at my brother, and it struck me just how private Titus was. Everyone loved him but nobody knew him. He never brought home girlfriends, but I knew he had them.

He gave me a rueful grin and rubbed his hands over his hair.

“Titus, how big is your family?” she laughed.

“On a scale of what to what?” he asked. She stuck out her bottom lip and he groaned. “Just, you know. I only…I have three sisters and two brothers.”

“Do any of them go here?”

I’ve never seen someone’s mind being blown before. I felt like I was about to.

“Yeah.” He was getting surlier, shoving his now unoccupied hands into his jean pockets. That standoffishness explained how he was able to keep so private, since I was ready to drop the subject and I wasn’t even the one who’d picked it up. Mona, however, was undaunted.

“Titus.”

“They all go here expect my older brother.”

“I’m glad I’m not the only one you’ve kept a secret,” I chirped with a big grin while Mona opened her mouth wide and gave a whoop. Titus winced before letting out a sigh. I was allowing her jovial relationship with him to affect my less jovial one, and I was happy for a moment there in Titus’s presence.

“Wow. Wow. Well, you learn new things everyday,” she said, turning back to me with a more genuine smile.

“It is school, Money. That’s the idea,” Titus said, not looking at either of us, but instead leaning back over his chair and staring at the skylight.

She smacked him on the head as the bell rang. “Don’t call me that.” Standing, she nodded at me. “It was nice to meet you. See you around, Layla-like-the-song.” Mona waved at some people and joined them as they filed out.

I stood up slowly while the rest of the cafeteria emptied. My brother gave me a half-hearted smile and handed me my backpack after he shoved his trash into his own.

“Klein is a cheesebat,” he muttered. He steered me through the crowd with one hand on my shoulder.

“Sorry.” I didn’t know if I’d done anything wrong, but chances were I had. He dropped his hand once we were out. With an exaggerated shrug, he put an end to the subject.

“Whatever. What’s your next class?” We stood awkwardly by the lockers next to the cafeteria door. Titus was watching the crowd of students stumbling by and nodding at people he knew.

“The one where a short fat man yells at me to sweat harder.” I hated gym.

Titus let out a real laugh and was about to go for my hair again, but I ducked backward and struck a battle pose. Just because I don’t brush it doesn’t mean my hair isn’t organized in its own right. He shook his head.

The bell rang again and he shoved me in the direction of the gym. “See you at home,” he called over his shoulder.

I trundled, shell-shocked, to the locker room. There was no hurry for this class, considering the girls that were in it. About fifteen minutes later, we were outside on the tennis courts, clad in the school-system-required uniform. It consisted of a child-size-large blue shirt with the Surry County Public Schools logo, and enormous shorts that flattered no one. Most girls rolled the waistband a few dozen times. I just stuck my hands on my hips and rocked back and forth on my feet while the freezing cold wind turned the shorts into a parachute.

“Five laps around the courts, ladies and gentleman. And if anyone starts walking, you all have to run ten.”

And we all set off groaning. My friendly classmates shot me warning looks, but I just pumped my spindly, scratched-up legs and told myself it had to end soon.

I gasped in exhaustion and held onto the chain-link fence around the court for support as everyone else gathered around Mr. Unger.

“Copperdine, get your butt over here,” the short fat man bellowed. I sidled over. “Today we’re doing pairs, and I will pick them.”

More groans. I chewed on my thumbnail a bit, more than a little worried by this new development. Sports are not my forte. I used to be on the swim team, but I didn’t make it onto the high school one. Unger pushed us off into our groups like we needed to be herded, and I skipped away a few feet when he came at me.

“Copperdine and Grennick,” he growled, turning away. A weedy blond guy approached me uneasily and didn’t speak. He just tucked his thumbs in his waistband and waited for courts to be assigned.

We ended up facing another co-ed pair, neither of whom I knew by name. Judging by their smirks, they knew who I was. My partner finally spoke to me while Unger was shouting rules for the matches.

“I’m Russ,” he said. He made no move to shake my hand. I guess that would’ve been silly.

“Layla.”

“Ah.”

We stood silently and I bounced the racket against the tip of my shoe a few times. Yet another disastrous social performance from Layla Copperdine.

The game was pretty bad, too.

I walked into English later, with a bag of ice pressed to my jaw. It was actually a bag of water—it mostly melted during History, and got all my stuff wet with condensation and maybe a leak. But I am not above dramatic entrances, so I kept it long enough to toss in the trashcan before my last class with a groan of pain. Tennis balls should be the Army’s secret weapon. They come out of nowhere.

I listened to roll for the first time since time began. Angry blond guy’s name was actually Graham Wayne IV. I’d be angry, too. What part of your name is a Roman numeral supposed to be? It’s not a first, middle or last name. It doesn’t make sense. Maybe Wayne is his middle name and IV is his last.

We were given our next book, having just finished up Macbeth. I flipped through it and smelled the pages with satisfaction.

Students kept glancing back at me in some strange pattern. Sometimes a head near the front would crane up to see me. Sometimes three or four turned at once. I sank lower in my chair, wondering if I was being paranoid.

“You never see them together. They don’t even look like they are!”—one of many variations on the ejaculations of astonishment from the people who cared about that stuff. I understood why Titus kept everything private if this was the kind of reaction he always got when one of his secrets was exposed.

At least I thought this was what it was all about.

“I don’t understand why he’d want you,” a voice came from behind me as I was struggling womanfully to fit all the textbooks I needed into my dirty, tattered backpack. I was close enough to making the zipper close that I very much resented anyone who thought they had a right to distract me, and I didn’t make any form of response. A growl escaped me as I yanked at the sawtoothed-fiend.

“Hey! Hey…Lily.” The voice just wouldn’t stop. I shoved my hair from my face, forcing it to pile up on one side of my head, and jerked my head around. The tiny brunette looked taken aback. I swiveled around to face her, waiting for her to say something.

It was an awkward silence, but I do much better in those than other people, and she broke first.

“I was wondering if what I heard was true,” she said more diplomatically. Her tone was less acerbic. She didn’t seem to know what to do with me. I shrugged. Why would she think I could possibly help her out in finding the veracity of some random thing she’d heard? Did I look all knowing, hunched down on the floor with my books scattered about me? My books had defeated me.

When I remained silent, still adopting an expression of inquiry, she took a half step back and dug her toe into the tile of the hallway. “Are you dating Titus?”

My laughter was apparently unappreciated. She kicked my backpack, cursed because it was the least-kickable object known to man, and left, shoving past a few fellow students on her rampage.

Little skinny angry people are funny.

Mona hadn’t spread the news all around school. That made her one cool bean in my book. I’ve never been one to judge by looks or reputation, but I don’t want to seem like some naïve crazy person at the same time. It was good to think that now I knew I didn’t have to be suspicious of everyone just because I was a little different.

“Did Kara bother you?” someone else asked. I realized then that I hadn’t moved since she rampaged off, and I jumped to my feet. The movement startled the speaker, who turned out to be Graham Wayne IV.

“Not really, why, Graham Wayne the fourth?”

He had apparently been about to say something else, but immediately screwed his mouth shut and scowled at me.

Again with the scowls.

“I just want to…inform you,” he said, struggling for words, “That Titus isn’t a good idea for a girl like you.”

The strap on my backpack would probably finally break if I tried to carry all this, I thought ruefully, gazing down at my bag and giving it a few test tugs.

“It’s just…it doesn’t seem like you…would know a lot about people? And I don’t want that to…” He trailed off.

I really needed to get one of those big bags with the two compartments. Sure, being able to carry more would probably turn me into a hunchback and I didn’t need to be more of a social outcast if I was supposed to pass my time capsule project, but I could finally get all my homework home without tearing my fingers to pieces trying to zip something that clearly doesn’t want to be zipped.

“Layla?”

“Mmhm?”

“Are you…goddammit, I just don’t care. Joel told me to talk to you. He can do it himself.”

Alarmed by the sudden shift, I only watched Graham Wayne IV as he slapped his slight handful of books against his leg once, and went out to the parking lot.

It was nice that Joel was already making friends. Someone like him—genial, comfortable with pushing himself on strangers and stealing their food—would be easily accepted. So much so that he was using Graham Wayne IV as a messenger boy. Delegation is key.

“People think we’re dating,” Titus said later, shoving his face against the counter and letting it drop once or twice more. “It’s nice of Mona to keep her mouth shut, but—JESUS FISH ON A HOOK.” Once he noticed that I had swung my body up on the counter and was sitting cross-legged directly before him, he nearly fell out of his chair, but changed his mind and caught himself on the edge of the counter.

“And now I’m using your curses. Ridiculous! Fuck.”

“Fuck,” I parroted in agreement.

“It’s not that big of a deal, girly-man,” Klein scoffed as he came into the kitchen and grabbed a water from the fridge. He was back early.

“Get fired?” Titus sneered. My oldest brother rolled his eyes.

“Are you kidding? They love me. Everybody loves me. Isn’t that right, Alice in Wonderland?“

“I love you,” I chirped.

Titus waited a few beats while Klein regarded him with a pout. “Yeah, okay. I love you, too,” he grumbled. “Cheesebat.”

Klein grabbed us both and rubbed our skulls together while I screeched and Titus yowled. When our brother let us go, Titus was also rubbing his ear and glaring at me.

“There we go. One big, happy, long-suffering family,” Klein said with satisfaction.

“And people wonder what’s wrong with me. I was the first girl in this family.” This time my oldest brother grinned delightedly and rolled me into a hug.

“Well said. And there’s nothing wrong with you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you a few sessions of electro-shock couldn’t cure,” Titus amended under his breath. I only rolled my eyes as I rested my cheek against Klein’s chest, but Klein released me with one arm and hit him straight on the head.

“Nothing wrong with you a brain transplant couldn’t fix.”

“I don’t need the speech again.” Titus threw up his hands in surrender and slumped out of the kitchen.

“What speech?”

“We just exchanged words on the topic of familial responsibility.”

I knew he’d done it for me. “Oh Klein. Kleiny. Mr. Cheesebat. Why haven’t you gone off to college yet?”

He just hugged me again and let me go. Sometimes I think he treats me like a lot younger of a sister than I am.