KABOOM Read online

  I looked at Britt again. I noticed little bumps on her chest. Bumps I swear were not there a week ago. Just the beginnings.

  “Wow!” I said. “What’s going on here? It won’t be long and I’m going to have to go with you to buy bras.”

  “Really?” Britt asked, perking up considerably and touching her boobs. “When?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Soon. Things are really starting to ...”

  “Grow. I know!” Britt said, smiling. “And I’m getting hair down there too. Just a few. Want to see?” Britt squirmed out of her pants and showed me.

  Awkward!

  But hey, I remembered this. It wasn’t that long ago that my body had started going through the same thing. I remembered the Gettysburg fiasco and not having a clue as to what was going on.

  “Here’s another thing,” I said. “It won’t be that much longer and you’re going to get your period. Don’t freak out like I did when you start to bleed down there for the first time. We should get you pads now. Better to be prepared.”

  “Cool,” Britt said.

  I shuddered at the thought of another visit with Potter the Perv at Fas Chek.

  “Maybe we can get Kevin to drive us to Charleston where we can go to some bigger stores. You know, get a better selection and all.”

  “Yeah!” Britt said. “This weekend? Can we? Please?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Why not? Kevin will be thrilled to go with us to buy bras and pads for you!” Once again I hid my smile. “But Mister Wiggins is definitely not invited. It’s just too much for her little bunny brain. She’s torn and tattered enough as it is. Buying bras and pads would totally send her over the edge. Right down the rabbit hole!”

  Britt laughed and threw her arms around me.

  “Thank you!” she said, burying her face in my breasts and breathing in deeply. She held me for quite a while.

  “I love you!” she finally said.

  Wow, I thought. She really wasn’t so bad after all.

  “I love you too,” I said.

  52

  “SO WHAT DOES IT ACTUALLY FEEL LIKE?” I asked Ashley. We were back on our mountain, in our sacred grove of trees, bowling with acorns. We had set up little alleys in the dirt with pins made of hemlock cones and we were happily bowling away, all the while serenaded by Jay-Z, the red squirrel. Hyper chatterbox that he was, it was hard to tell whether he was cheering us on or just pissed because we had stolen his lunch.

  I was crushing her, 79–43. I loved beating Ashley in games.

  “How do you think it feels?” Ashley answered. “Terrible. Don’t rub it in.”

  I had just gotten a strike. It was now 89–43. First to 100 won.

  “Terrible?” I said. “I thought you said it was awesome?”

  Ashley stopped in mid-throw, looking confused.

  “I’m definitely not on my game. I’m down almost fifty points. How can getting my ass kicked possibly feel awesome?”

  I laughed and flung an acorn at her.

  “Ashley! I’m talking about sex, not bowling.”

  Ashley laughed so hard she started to choke. She was gasping for breath. I was scared I was going to have to do the Heimlich maneuver on her. I had a vague memory of it from ninth-grade health class. I knew it had something to do with whacking her boobs but the details were a little fuzzy. It took nearly a minute before she could even speak.

  “Seriously,” I said. “What’s it feel like, you know, to have Marc inside of you?” I had asked her this a bunch of times before but I was still so curious. I just couldn’t seem to wrap my brain around how the whole thing went down.

  Ashley wiped the laughter tears from her eyes.

  “It’s kind of like bowling,” she said. “Real bowling. You have these two big balls. You have this one even bigger pin. And then you ...”

  “Stop!” I said. “I’m being serious, Ash. I want to know.”

  Jay-Z had quit his incessant chattering and was now staring at us in his little dweeby rodent way, all buggy eyes and twitchy ears.

  “Are you old enough to hear this, Jay-Z?” Ashley yelled. “Do you need a permission slip from your mama?” The red squirrel raced over to Bradley Beech, acrobatically leapt up to the first limb, and chatter-answered what we took to be a yes.

  “I mean, it’s great,” Ashley said. “Particularly after the first couple of times, which kind of hurt. But now that I know what’s going on it’s much better. We’ve only done it, like, five times. It’s really fun. I do kind of wish he’d last a little longer though.”

  “What do you mean ‘last longer’?” I asked.

  “I mean, as soon as he’s inside of me, you know, as soon as we’re going at it and I’m starting to figure out what to do, he’s already done.”

  “Done?”

  “Yeah, done. He, you know, does his guy thing and that’s pretty much it. I’ve barely opened the door and he’s already in and out.”

  “Like, how long?’ I asked.

  “Not long.”

  “Like, minutes not long?”

  “Are you kidding me? That would be awesome! It’s like, I don’t know, half a minute at the most. Quickie is way too long a word for it.”

  “Have you told him that?”

  “What? Are you crazy, Cyndie? What am I supposed to say? ‘Hey Marc, do you mind lasting a little longer here?’ Seriously, it still feels good and all. It feels great. I’m just, you know, not getting off.”

  “And he is.”

  “He sure is.”

  “How do you know?”

  “What do you mean how do I know?”

  “I mean, can you, like, feel it.”

  “Big time! Afterwards it’s like totally drippy down there.”

  “What do you mean, ‘drippy’?” I asked.

  “You know, goopy. Gooey.”

  “No, I don’t know. I don’t know anything, Ashley. Tell me. You have to tell me everything.”

  “After he’s done it’s just drippy down there. I don’t how else to describe it.”

  “Oh my God!” I said. “I never thought of that. Where does it all go?”

  “I don’t know. It just kind of drips out I guess.”

  Thank goodness Ashley was the first one to do it. If I hadn’t known these essential facts when the time came for me, I think I would have totally freaked out. I would have thought that, I don’t know, my insides were falling out or something. Goopiness was definitely not something they taught us in ninth-grade health class.

  “But you don’t, like, you know, get off or anything?”

  “Not totally. Don’t get me wrong. I really like it. But he hasn’t gotten me all the way there yet.”

  “Does he touch you before he goes in? Like, down there?” I asked.

  “Of course. And that’s really fun, too. But he hasn’t quite figured out where my thingamabob is.”

  “Your thingamabob?”

  “Yeah.”

  I was confused. Thingamabob was coming to mean so many different things.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” Ashley continued. “The thinkabout thing. That little button down there. The spot that feels so good. I’m yanking a blank here. What’s it called?”

  “The clitoris?”

  “That’s it. The clit.”

  She laughed again.

  “Have you asked him to, you know, pay attention to that?”

  “Oh my God, Cyndie! That would be, like, totally embarrassing. It’s much easier to do it than it is to talk about it. Much easier.”

  “So let me get this straight,” I said. “He’s hardly in before he’s out. He can’t seem to find your thingamabob. And then, when it’s all over, you’re the one that gets stuck with all of the goopiness?”

  “Exactly!” Ashley said. She started to laugh again. Big-time laughter. She laughed so hard she began to choke again. And, even if I had remembered, I was laughing way too hard to do the Heimlich maneuver.

  53

  “LIFE IS LIKE A FERRIS
WHEEL,” Auntie Sadie was fond of saying. “Sometimes you’re riding on top, holding hands with your honey, eating fried dough and cotton candy with the whole wide world stretched crystal-clear before you as far as the eye can see.

  “And other times, you’re not so lucky. Other times you’re plummeting down, free-falling, terrified and dizzy, your stomach doing somersaults and your bowels ready to explode.”

  Sadie was right about the ups and the downs. And today, unfortunately, was a hurtling-down day. After I’d been on top for so long, the plummet, just like Sadie had said, was horrifying.

  I had kept the idea about our mini-mine as a possible historic preservation site secret from Ashley, Marc, and the rest of the KABOOMers. Ashley hadn’t been in on the conversation with Kevin about the permitting process, and it hadn’t come up again in KABOOM meetings. She still didn’t realize the possibility of using our mine as a way to stop the mountaintop removal project. What if our mine really was a historic site? Or, better yet, part of a Civil War fortification? It was possible.

  It wasn’t though I hadn’t wrestled with the to-tell-or-not-to-tell dilemma. But I knew that telling Ashley and then everyone in KABOOM meant that it wouldn’t be our mine anymore. Having a secret place just for the two of us meant everything to me. I was so into Kevin, and Ashley was so glued to Marc, that we were spending less and less time just with each other. But the mine was still our sacred, secret place. We had grown up there. Giving that up, going public with it, would be almost too much to bear.

  I had asked Kevin to talk more about historic preservation sites and the permitting process at the meeting in order to see how Ashley reacted. Then we could take it from there. Maybe one of these days we would have to share our mine with the rest of the world. But I wanted to put that day off for as long as possible.

  We had just begun our Thursday after-school KABOOM meeting when Principal Miller walked into the room. He didn’t sit down, but instead stood awkwardly by the door, one hand on the knob, nervously licking his moustache. He declined Ashley’s offer of Cheetos.

  “I’m here to inform you,” he began, “that this is to be the last meeting of your group.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “I’m quite sure that there are other more appropriate places for you to meet, outside of school.” Miller’s moustache was nervously twitching. “And with Mr. Cooper no longer your advisor, you have no choice. You will have to go elsewhere.”

  “What?” Ashley asked. “Mr. Cooper is no longer our advisor?”

  “I have requested that Mr. Cooper step down, and he has agreed. Without an advisor, there can be no club.”

  “Whoa,” I said. “He hasn’t even come to a meeting! He’s had nothing to do with our group.”

  “It doesn’t matter. My decision is final. No advisor, no club.”

  “Is this because of American’s donation? Are they the ones making you do this?” We had heard the rumor that American Coal was all set to make another large contribution to the high school, this time funding new bleachers for the football field.

  Principal Miller was silent.

  “I thought you were all about our right to free expression!” Ashley said. “I thought you were all gung ho over ‘this is what school is all about.’ And now we can’t even meet here?”

  “The case is closed,” Miller said. “This meeting is your last.” He turned and left the room.

  We were pissed.

  “Son of a bitch!” Piggy said. “We’ve been betrayed. Coop has grassed on us.”

  “I’m sure there’s an explanation,” I said. “Coop would never do something like this.”

  “He would if his job was at stake!” Kevin said.

  “They wouldn’t do that to him, would they?” I asked.

  “Don’t forget who we’re up against,” Becky said. “They’re American, remember? They run the show. Even here at the high school. They tell Miller to jump and he says, ‘How high?’ He’ll do whatever they say.”

  “But to stop a dinky little group like ours? Seriously?”

  “I guess that’s the good news,” Frank said. “They must not think of us that way.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Piggy said again.

  We sat there in stunned silence.

  “And where the heck is Marc?” Ashley asked. “Why isn’t he here?”

  Kevin let go of my hand, twirled his hair, and stared at the floor.

  “What?” Ashley asked, staring at him. “What’s going on?”

  Kevin squirmed in his chair.

  “Kevin!” Ashley demanded. “What the heck is going on?”

  “He told me not to say anything,” Kevin said. “He told me he’d tell you later.”

  “Tell me what?” Ashley asked, her voice rising a notch. The rest of the group looked away in awkward silence.

  I turned toward Kevin and gave him the look. Kevin sighed and twirled his hair even faster.

  “I guess Marc isn’t going to come anymore,” he said, still not looking up.

  “What do you mean ‘he’s not coming anymore’?” Ashley asked, getting out of her chair.

  “Mr. Miller gave him an ultimatum, too. Keep being the mascot or stay in KABOOM. His choice.”

  “And he chose the mascot?” Ashley was practically shrieking. “Over us? Over me?”

  Kevin didn’t answer.

  Ashley burst into tears and fled the room. I gave Kevin the look one more time and went out after her.

  •

  It was the evening after the last meeting and Ashley was over at my house. Dinner had yet to be served, and she was already on the second box of Kleenex and halfway through the third bag of Cheetos.

  “I can’t believe this,” she kept repeating through the tears. “I can’t believe he did this to me!”

  “He didn’t do it to you,” I said. “Think of what an honor it is to be the mascot. For Marc to give that up was asking a lot.”

  “I don’t give a shit about the stupid mascot!” Ashley yelled. “It’s lame and I hate it!”

  “I know,” I said. “I hate it too. But put yourself in his shoes. It was a tough choice.”

  “Choice? What kind of choice was it? You either do the right thing or you don’t. You either stand by your principles or you cave. And he caved! And he didn’t even have the guts to tell me! Maybe he really was a spy. Maybe this whole thing was just one big joke to him.”

  “You know that’s not true!” I said. “He was going to tell you. Kevin said so. And, anyway, it doesn’t mean you have to be done with him.”

  “Oh, I am done with him, all right. I am so done with him. I wouldn’t get back together if he came crawling, begging, pleading. I told him so. ‘Don’t call me,’ I said. ‘Don’t text. Don’t Facebook. Don’t even look at me in the hallway. It is so over!’”

  “Don’t you think you might be overreacting?” I asked.

  “Overreacting?” Ashley shouted. She hadn’t even noticed that she had mistakenly wiped her eyes with a Cheeto and begun munching on a Kleenex. “Overreacting was when you dumped Kevin. That was just stupid. I mean, seriously, if he’s going to choose the damn mascot over me then I am done! Finished! Out of there! I will never, ever talk to him again!”

  I wiped the Cheeto crumbs out of her eyes while she spit out the wad of Kleenex.

  “So what do we do now?” Ashley asked.

  “Well,” I said. “I could get Kevin to talk to him. You know how much Marc likes you. I bet he’ll come around.”

  “Stop!” Ashley said. “I meant what do we do about Mr. Cooper and KABOOM? About finding a place to meet?”

  “We can do it at my house,” I said. “Or at Frank’s church. We’ll think of something.”

  Ashley sighed and put her head on my shoulder.

  “Goddamn Ferris wheel,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “It kind of sucks, doesn’t it.”

  •

  School was awkward. The no-contact rule was in full force. In between c
lasses I’d post up at the end of the hallway, scan the field for he-who-shall-not-be named, and give Ashley the thumbs-up signal when the coast was clear. She would race from class to class with her eyes on the floor, desperate to reduce the chance of any inadvertent sightings. Given that Marc was Kevin’s best friend, it was doubly awkward when the two of them were together. Since I wasn’t allowed to talk to Marc, I’d have to use hand signals to get Kevin’s attention. It was all super-complicated.

  And then there was Mr. Cooper. Oh my God, the man was a wreck! A total basket case. He was so out of it that he had quit combing or flossing. His hair was a mess and there were green things growing between his teeth. Thin as he was, he seemed to be losing weight. You could practically see right through him.

  Rather than demand an explanation from him immediately, we decided to give him the silent treatment. In fact, we ignored him completely. We could see that it was killing him.

  After a few days of this, Frank convinced us of the virtue of forgiveness. “‘For if you forgive men when they sin against you,’” he quoted, “‘your heavenly Father will also forgive you.’”

  Fortunately for Mr. Cooper, Ashley and I were so exhausted from devoting all of our mad vibes at Marc that we didn’t have much left in the wrath department for Coop.

  After school, a bunch of us KABOOMers converged on Mr. Cooper’s classroom to offer up the olive branch. Minus Piggy. Piggy was still in a rage. He wanted to burn down the school. “It’s us versus them!” Piggy ranted. “The line has been crossed. He’s either with us or against!”

  Piggy was not exactly one to forgive and forget.

  But it was awfully hard to stay mad at Mr. Cooper for long. He was so pathetic in his remorse.

  “You must think I am an evil, evil man!” Coop said, his head in his hands. “I have totally let you down. But I was told by Principal Miller that I had to quit KABOOM. I did not take it lightly. I ranted. I raved. You have got to believe me.”

  “We believe you,” I said.

  “Miller’s cut me a lot of slack before, but he wasn’t going to budge on this one. American was going to withhold their latest donation if the school continued to sanction this club. Miller gave me a choice: stop being the advisor or stop teaching. What was I to do?”