Ashley Cooper's Arc

Chapter 12 of 37

The morning after the kiss, the whispers started. Ashley heard her name in the hall, then the word "freak." By lunch she knew where it came from. Susie and Lucie, the new twins with one body and two heads, were telling everyone her bone arm meant she was rotting inside. A few kids who had smiled at her yesterday now looked away. Ashley found the twins by the lockers, holding court. "You want to talk about my arm," she said. "Talk to my face." Susie smiled with one head. "We just think people should know," she said. Lucie nodded with the other. "Dead things spread." Ashley wanted to snap back. Instead she remembered how the staring had faded once she stopped hiding. Cruelty needed a secret to feed on. She had no secret left. "Fine," she said. "Then let's show everyone." She raised her voice so the hall could hear. "You two spread better than any rumor. So tell them the whole thing." She pulled her sleeve to the elbow and held the bare bones up. "It works. It holds a pencil. It held my boyfriend's hand. What have you got that's actually different?" The hall laughed. Not at Ashley. At the twins, who had called her strange while standing there as the strangest thing in the room. Susie's mouth opened and closed. Lucie's face went red. The crowd Ashley once feared now turned toward the twins with the same hungry stare. "Say something dead now," Ashley said, and walked away. The rumor died by the final bell. But winning left a bruise. That night at the Cooper house, Ashley sat at the kitchen table while her mother came in from work. Mandy Cooper still wore stage makeup, her dark hair pinned, heels in one hand. Behind her came Ricky, the family friend with the red flannel and thick black beard, carrying a takeout bag. "Bad day?" Mandy asked. She dropped her heels and sat. "I beat them," Ashley said. "The twins. I made the whole school laugh at them instead of me." She frowned. "It felt good for about a minute." Ricky set the food down and pulled up a chair. "You fought fire with fire," he said. "That works once. Then you're just the girl who burns people." Mandy took Ashley's bone hand across the table. "You won by showing your arm. Not by cutting them down. Remember which one worked." Ashley thought about the crowd's laughter. It had been ugly. She had made two girls into a joke to save herself. It kept her spot. It did not make her proud. "Mike saw the whole thing," she said quietly. "He didn't laugh. He just watched me." She pulled her sleeve back down. "I don't know what he thought." The rumor was dead. Her spot was safe. But now she needed to know if the boy who chose her still liked the person he'd seen in that hall.