“It’s a car. It’s doesn’t have to be pretty. It just has to work,” Julia answered. “I don’t know why you’re so mean. I never did anything to you.”
“I’m not mean. You’re just a loser. And losers aren’t allowed,” Shelly answered. She was wearing a Free People plaid linen jumpsuit and matching long-sleeve linen blouse underneath, Free People socks, probably even day-of-the-week Free People underpants, too. For the heat, it was a lot of clothes.
“That’s not even your trampoline. It’s the Markles’s,” Julia said, tugging on her Hawaiian shirt.
“So?” Shelly asked as she started to bounce. She looked angrier than usual, which was saying something. Her elaborately braided hair rippled in dyssynchronous arcs like each one was alive. The kids sitting around her bobbed like buoys.
“So, you guys wouldn’t even be allowed out here if it wasn’t for my mom’s Slip ’N Slide. She’s the one who chilled your uptight parents out,” Julia called out across the Ottomanellis’ perfectly green lawn.
“We’re still not allowed. Shelly sneaked so I sneaked,” little Ella announced.
“Shut up,” Shelly answered as she started jumping: Plat! Plat! Plat! It echoed, that sound, and reminded Julia of all the stuff kids around here bragged about, like memberships to the town pool, season ski-lift tickets, and buttered popcorn with M&M’s mixed in at the movies. That trampoline was money.
“Go home!” Shelly shouted from the air. “The whole reason we have that stupid sinkhole is because your parents don’t pay taxes!”
“Just go home,” one of the Ottomanelli twins added. She thought it was Michael, the mean one, until the other one added, “No food line feet allowed, you dirty Wildes!” So, probably, that one was Michael. They were dressed in identical Islanders jerseys, only today Michael wore glasses and Mark had on blue-tinted contacts. Nobody in the Rat Pack could tell them apart, so they just got called Markle.
“Go home!” Lainee Hestia chimed, which hurt the most, because Lainee was a total weenie. We’re talking dressing-up-like-Rey-from-Star-Wars-for-class-photos, bringing-a-light-saber-to-field-trips, owning-over-a-hundred-action-figure-erasers–level weeniedom.
“I’m not on your property. My parents bought our house and it’s ours and I have a right to stand on this sidewalk like anybody else,” Julia said.
Shelly jumped harder. The springs screamed. Sound-sensitive Larry covered his ears. The kids sitting around the edges—the Markles, Ella Schroeder, and Lainee Hestia—maneuvered toward the platform’s edge and clung to its circular rail while the rest of the Rat Pack—Sam Singh, Dave Harrison, and Charlie Walsh—huddled with wary expressions a few yards away.
Plat! Shelly hit the tramp, then flew back up again: “GO! AWAY!” Plat! She landed. Then up again, her jumpsuit big as a sail: “GO AWAY!” Her voice was high-pitched and happy and sad all rolled into one.
Plat!
Up again. Julia saw something bright and red and wrong between Shelly’s spread legs.
“GO!”
Plat!
“THE FUCK!”
Plat!
“AWAY!”
Plat!
Shelly came down hard that last time, catapulting her little sister right out of the trampoline. Ella landed on her hands and knees. “I’m telling!” she wailed.
“Don’t you dare—” Shelly started.
“—I’m telling Mom you came out here even though you’re not allowed and you made me come, too, and now I’m hurt and she’ll be so mad at you!” Ella screeched with fake tears.
Shelly’s chest puffed out. So did the veins on her neck. Between her spread legs was a thin red stain. Julia looked away because it was too embarrassing. Maybe that was why no one else pointed it out, either.
“Why is Shelly bad now, Julia?” Larry asked without whispering or even lowering his voice. His green turtleneck was tight, his face blotchy red from heat.
Shelly shined her fury in Larry’s direction, and vented it. “Aspy,” she hissed.
Larry squinted, which was his way of showing hurt feelings.
“My mom said he’s gonna get kicked out of normal school,” said Shelly. “He’s draining all the resources.”
“I’m leaving school?” Larry asked.
“Call him Robot Brother. That’s his nickname. And he’s not aspy. He just hates you, because you super-suck a bag’a dead dicks,” Julia said.