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BOOBS<strong>Suzy</strong> Mckee <strong>Charnas</strong>
The thing is, it's like your brain wants to go on thinking about the miserablehistory mid-term you have to take tomorrow, but your body takesover. And what a body! You can see in the dark and run like the wind andleap parked cars in a single bound.Of course you pay for it next morning (but it's worth it). I always wakeup sti and sore, with dirty hands and feet and face, and I have to jump inthe shower fast so Hilda won't see me like that.Not that she would know what it was about, but why take chances? SoI pretend it's the other thing that's bothering me. So she goes, Come on,sweetie, everybody gets cramps, that's no reason to go around moaning andgroaning. What are you doing, trying to get out of school just because you'vegot your period?If I didn't like Hilda, which I do even though she is only a stepmotherinstead of my real mother, I would show her something that would keep meout of school forever, and it's not fake, either.But there are plenty of people I'd rather show that to.I already showed that dork Billy Linden.Hey, <strong>Boobs</strong>! he goes, in the hall right outside Homeroom. A lot of kidslaughed, naturally, though Rita Frye called him an asshole.Billy is the one that started it, sort of, because he always started everything,him with his big mouth. At the beginning of term, he came barrelingdown on me hollering, Hey, look at Bornstein, something musta happenedto her over the summer! What happened, Bornstein? Hey, everybody, lookat <strong>Boobs</strong> Bornstein!He made a grab at my chest, and I socked him in the shoulder, and hepunched me in the face, which made me dizzy and shocked and made me cry,too, in front of everybody.I mean, I always used to wrestle and ght with the boys, being that I wasstrong for a girl. All of a sudden it was dierent. He hit me hard, to reallyhurt, and the shock sort of got me in the pit of my stomach and made mefeel nauseous, too, as well as mad and embarrassed to death.I had to go home with a bloody nose and lie with my head back and icewrapped in a towel on my face and dripping down into my hair.Hilda sat on the couch next to me and patted me. She goes, I'm sorryabout this, honey, but really, you have to learn it sometime. You're all growingup and the boys are getting stronger than you'll ever be. If you ght withboys, you're bound to get hurt. You have to nd other ways to handle them.To make things worse, the next morning I started to bleed down there,which Hilda had explained carefully to me a couple of times, so at least Iknew what was going on. Hilda really tried extra hard without being ickyabout it, but I hated when she talked about how it was all part of these2
exciting changes in my body that are so important and how terric it is tobecome a young woman.Sure. The whole thing was so messy and disgusting, worse than she hadsaid, worse than I could imagine, with these black clots of gunk coming outin a smear of pink bloodI thought I would throw up. That's just the liningof your uterus, Hilda said. Big deal. It was still gross.And plus, the smell.Hilda tried to make me feel better, she really did. She said we shouldmark the occasion like primitive people do, so it's something special, notjust a nasty thing that just sort of falls on you.So we decided to put poor old Pinkie away, my stued dog that I've sleptwith since I was three. Pinkie is bald and sort of hard and lumpy, since hegot put in the washing machine by mistake, and you would never know hewas all soft plush when he was new, or even that he was pink.Last time my friend Gerry-Anne came over, before the summer, she sawPinky laying on my pillow and though she didn't say anything, I could tellshe was thinking that was kind of babyish. So I'd been thinking about notkeeping Pinky around anymore.Hilda and I made him this nice box lined with pretty scraps from herquilting class, and I thanked him out loud for being my friend for so manyyears, and we put him up in the closet, on the top shelf.I felt terrible, but if Gerry-Anne decided I was too babyish to be friendswith anymore, I could end up with no friends at all. When you have neverbeen popular since the time you were skinny and fast and everybody wantedyou on their team, you have that kind of thing on your mind.Hilda and Dad made me go to school the next morning so nobody wouldthink I was scared of Billy Linden (which I was) or that I would let him keepme away just by being such a dork.Everybody kept sneaking funny looks at me and whispering, and I wassure it was because I couldn't help walking funny with the pad between mylegs and because they could smell what was happening, which as far as Iknew hadn't happened to anybody else in Eight A yet. Just like nobody elsein the whole grade had anything real in their stupid training bras except me,thanks a lot.Anyway I stayed away from everybody as much as I could and wouldn'ttalk to Gerry-Anne, even, because I was scared she would ask me why Iwalked funny and smelled bad.Billy Linden avoided me just like everybody else, except one of his stupidbuddies purposely bumped into me so I stumbled into Billy on the lunch-line.Billy turns around and he goes, real loud, Hey, <strong>Boobs</strong>, when did you startwearing black and blue make-up?3
I didn't give him the satisfaction of knowing that he had actually brokenmy nose, which the doctor said. Good thing they don't have to bandage youup for that. Billy would be hollering up a storm about how I had my nose ina sling as well as my boobs.That night I got up after I was supposed to be asleep and took o myunderpants and T-shirt that I sleep in and stood looking at myself in themirror. I didn't need to turn a light on. The moon was full and it was shiningright into my bedroom through the big dormer window.I crossed my arms and pinched myself hard to sort of punish my body forwhat it was doing to me.As if that could make it stop.No wonder Edie Siler had starved herself to death in the tenth grade!I understood her perfectly. She was trying to keep her body down, keep itnormal-looking, thin and strong, like I was too, back when I looked like aperson, not a cartoon that somebody would call <strong>Boobs</strong>.And then something warm trickled in a little line down the inside of myleg, and I knew it was blood and I couldn't stand it anymore. I pressed mythighs together and shut my eyes hard, and I did something.I mean I felt it happening. I felt myself shrink down to a hard core ofsort of cold re inside my bones, and all the esh part, the muscles and thesquishy insides and the skin, went sort of glowing and free-oating, all shiningwith moonlight, and I felt a sort of shifting and balance-changing going on.I thought I was fainting on account of my stupid period. So I turnedaround and threw myself on my bed, only by the time I hit it, I knew somethingwas seriously wrong.For one thing, my nose and my head were crammed with these crazy, richsensations that it took me a second to even gure out were smells, they wereso much stronger than any smells I'd ever smelled. And they wereI don'tknow interesting instead of just stinky, even the rotten ones.I opened my mouth to get the smells a little better, and heard myselfpanting in a funny way as if I'd been running, which I hadn't, and then therewas this long part of my face sticking out and something moving theremytongue.I was licking my chops.Well, there was this moment of complete and utter panic. I tore aroundthe room whining and panting and hearing my toenails clicking on the oorboards,and then I huddled down and crouched in the corner because I wasscared Dad and Hilda would hear me and come to nd out what was makingall this racket.Because I could hear them. I could hear their bed creak when one ofthem turned over, and Dad's breath whistling a little in an almost snore,4
and I could smell them too, each one with a perfectly clear bunch of smells,kind of like those desserts of mixed ice cream they call a medley.My body was twitching and jumping with fear and energy, and my room it's a converted attic-space, wide but with a ceiling that's low in placesmy room felt like a jail. And plus, I was terried of catching a glimpse ofmyself in the mirror. I had a pretty good idea of what I would see, and Ididn't want to see it.Besides, I had to pee, and I couldn't face trying to deal with the toilet inthe state I was in.So I eased the bedroom door open with my shoulder and nearly fell downthe stairs trying to work them with four legs and thinking about it, insteadof letting my body just do it. I put my hands on the front door to open it,but my hands weren't hands, they were paws with long knobby toes coveredwith fur, and the toes had thick black claws sticking out of the ends of them.The pit of my stomach sort of exploded with horror, and I yelled. It cameout this wavery wooo noise that echoed eerily in my skullbones. Upstairs,Hilda goes, Jack, what was that? I bolted for the basement as I heard Dadhit the oor of their bedroom.The basement door slips its latch all the time, so I just shoved it openand down I went, doing better on the stairs this time because I was tooscared to think. I spent the rest of the night down there, moaning to myself(which meant whining through my nose, really) and trotting around rubbingagainst the walls trying to rub o this crazy shape I had, or just movingaround because I couldn't sit still. The place was thick with stinks and theseslow-swirling currents of hot and cold air. I couldn't handle all the input.As for having to pee, in the end I managed to sort of hike my butt up overthe edge of the slop-sink by Dad's workbench and let go in there. The onlyproblem was that I couldn't turn the taps on to rinse out the smell becauseof my paws.Then about three a.m. I woke up from a doze curled up in a bare placeon the oor where the spiders weren't so likely to walk, and I couldn't seea thing or smell anything either, so I knew I was okay again even before Ichecked and found ngers on my hands again instead of claws.I zipped upstairs and stood under the shower so long that Hilda yelledat me for using up the hot water when she had a load of wash to do thatmorning. I was only trying to steam some of the stiness out of my muscles,but I couldn't tell her that.It was real weird to just dress and go to school after a night like that.One good thing, I had stopped bleeding after only one day, which Hilda saidwasn't so strange for the rst time. So it had to be the huge greenish bruiseon my face from Billy's punch that everybody was staring at.5
muscles, and feet a little bigger than I would have picked. But I'll takefour big feet over two big boobs any day.My face was terric, with jaggedy white ripsaw teeth and eyes that weresmall and clear and gleaming in the moonlight. The tail was a little bizarre,but I got used to it, and actually it had a nice plumy shape. My shoulders werebig and covered with long, glossy-looking fur, and I had this neat coloring,dark on the back and a sort of melting silver on my front and underparts.The thing was, though, my tongue, hanging out. I had a lot of troublewith that, it looked gross and silly at the same time. I mean, that was mytongue, about a foot long and neatly draped over the points of my bottomcanines. That was when I realized that I didn't have a whole lot of expressionsto use, not with that face, which was more like a mask.But it was alive, it was my face, those were my own long black lips thatmy tongue licked.No doubt about it, this was me. I was a werewolf, like in the moviesthey showed over Halloween weekend. But it wasn't anything like your uglymovie werewolf that's just some guy loaded up with pounds and pounds ofmake-up. I was gorgeous.I didn't want to just hang around admiring myself in the mirror, though.I couldn't stand being cooped up in that stuy, smell-crowded room.When everything settled down and I could hear Dad and Hilda breathingthe way they do when they're sleeping, I snuck out.The dark wasn't very dark to me, and the cold felt sharp like vinegar, butnot in a hurting way. Everyplace I went, there were these currents like wavesin the air, and I could draw them in through my long wolf nose and roll thesmell of them over the back of my tongue. It was like a whole dierent world,with bright sounds everywhere and rich, strong smells.And I could run.I started running because a car came by while I was sning at the garbagebags on the curb, and I was really scared of being seen in the headlights. SoI took o down the dirt alley between our house and the Morrisons' nextdoor, and holy cow, I could tear along with hardly a sound, I could jumptheir picket fence without even thinking about it. My back legs were like steelsprings and I came down solid and square on four legs with almost no shockat all, let alone worrying about losing my balance or twisting an ankle.Man, I could run through that chilly air all thick and moisty with smells,I could almost y. It was like last year, when I didn't have boobs bouncingand yanking in front even when I'm only walking fast.Just two rows of neat little bumps down the curve of my belly. I sat downand looked.I tore open garbage bags to nd out about the smells in them, but I didn't6
eat anything from them. I wasn't about to chow down on other people's stalehotdog-ends and pizza crusts and fat and bones scraped o their plates andall mixed in with mashed potatoes and stu.When I found places where dogs had stopped and made their mark, Isquatted down and pissed there too, right on top, I just wiped them out.I bounded across that enormous lawn around the Wanscombe place, wherenobody but the Oriental gardener ever sets foot, and walked up the back andover the top of their BMW, leaving big fat pawprints all over it. Nobody sawme, nobody heard me, I was a shadow.Well, except for the dogs, of course.There was a lot of barking when I went by, real hysterics, which at rstI was really scared about. But then I popped out of an alley up on RidgeRoad, where the big houses are, right in front of about six dogs that runtogether. Their owners let them out all night and don't care if they get hitby a car.They'd been trotting along with the wind behind them, checking out allthe garbage bags set out for pickup the next morning. When they saw me,one of them let out a yelp of surprise, and they all skidded to a stop.Six of them. I was scared. I growled.The dogs turned fast, banging into each other in their hurry, and trottedaway.I don't know what they would have done if they met a real wolf, but Iwas something special, I guess.I followed them.They scattered and ran.Well, I ran too, and this was a dierent kind of running. I mean, I stretched,and I raced, and there was this joy. I chased one of them.Zig, zag, this little terrier-kind of dog tried to cut left and dive under thegate of somebody's front walk, all without a soundhe was running too hardto yell, and I was happy running quiet.Just before he could ooze under the gate, I caught up with him andwithout thinking I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him o his feetand gave him a shake as hard as I could, from side to side.I felt his neck crack, the sound vibrated through all the bones of my face.I picked him up in my mouth, and it was like he hardly weighed a thing.I trotted away holding him up o the ground, and under a bush in Baker'sPark I held him down with my paws and I bit into his belly, that was stillwarm and quivering.Like I said, I was hungry.The blood gave me this rush like you wouldn't believe. I stood there aminute looking around and licking my lips, just sort of panting and tasting7
the taste because I was stunned by it, it was like eating honey or the bestchocolate malted you ever had.So I put my head down and chomped that little dog, like shoving yourface into a pizza and inhaling it. God, I was starved, so I didn't mind thatthe meat was tough and rank-tasting after that rst wonderful bite. I evenlicked blood o the ground after, never mind the grit mixed in.I ate two more dogs that night, one that was tied up on a clothesline in acruddy yard full of rusted-out car parts down on the South side, and one fatold yellow dog out snuing around on his own and way too slow. He tastedpretty bad, and by then I was feeling full, so I left a lot.I strolled around the park, shoving the swings with my big black wolfnose, and I found the bench where Mr. Granby sits and feeds the pigeonsevery day, never mind that nobody else wants the dirty birds around crappingon their cars. I took a dump there, right where he sits.Then I gave the setting moon a goodnight, which came out quavery andwild, Loo-loo-loo! And I loped toward home, springing o the thick padsof my paws and letting my tongue loll out and feeling generally super.I slipped inside and trotted upstairs, and in my room I stopped to lookat myself in the mirror.As gorgeous as before, and only a few dabs of blood on me, which Itook time to lick o. I did get a little worriedI mean, suppose that was it,suppose having killed and eaten what I'd killed in my wolf shape, I was stuckin this shape forever? Like, if you wander into a fairy castle and eat or drinkanything, that's it, you can't ever leave. Suppose when the morning came Ididn't change back?Well, there wasn't much I could do about that one way or the other, andto tell the truth, I felt like I wouldn't mind; it had been worth it.When I was nice and clean, including licking o my own bottom whichseemed like a perfectly normal and nice thing to do at the time, I jumped upon the bed, curled up, and corked right o. When I woke up with the sun inmy eyes, there I was, my own self again.It was very strange, grabbing breakfast and wearing my old sweatshirtthat wallowed all over me so I didn't stick out so much, while Hilda yawnedand shued around in her robe and slippers and acted like her and Dadhadn't been doing it last night, which I knew dierent.And plus, it was perfectly clear that she didn't have a clue about what /had been doing, which gave me a strange feeling.One of the things about growing up which they're careful not to tell youis, you start having more things you don't talk to your parents about. AndI had a doozie.Hilda goes, What's the matter, are you o Sugar Pops now? Honestly,8
Kelsey, I can't keep up with you! And why can't you wear something nicerthan that old shirt to school? Oh, I get it: disguise, right?She sighed and looked at me kind of sad but smiling, her hands on herhips. Kelsey, Kelsey, she goes, if only I'd had half of what you've got whenI was a girlI was at as an ironing board, and it made me so miserable, Ican't tell you.She's still real thin and neat-looking, so what does she know about it?But she meant well, and anyhow I was feeling so good I didn't argue.I didn't change my shirt, though.That night I didn't turn into a wolf. I laid there waiting, but though themoon came up, nothing happened no matter how hard I tried, and after awhile I went and looked out the window and realized that the moon wasn'treally full anymore, it was getting smaller.I wasn't so much relieved as sorry. I bought a calendar at the school booksale two weeks later, and I checked the full moon nights coming up and waitedanxiously to see what would happen.Meantime, things rolled along as usual. I got a rash of zits on my chin.I would look in the mirror and think about my wolf-face, that had beautifulsleek fur instead of zits.Zits and all I went to Angela Durkin's party, and next day Billy Lindentold everybody that I went in one of the bedrooms at Angela's and made outwith him, which I did not. But since no grown-ups were home and Fat Joeybrought grass to the party, most of the kids were stoned and didn't knowwho did what or where anyhow.As a matter of fact, Billy once actually did get a girl in Seven B high onetime out in his parents' garage, and him and two of his friends did it to herwhile she was zonked out of her mind, or anyway they said they did, and shewas too embarrassed to say anything one way or the other, and a little whilelater she changed schools.How I know about it is the same way everybody else does, which is becauseBilly was the biggest boaster in the whole school, and you could never tell ifhe was lying or not.So I guess it wasn't so surprising that some people believed what Billysaid about me. Gerry-Anne quit talking to me after that. Meantime Hildagot pregnant.This turned into a huge discussion about how Hilda had been worriedabout her biological clock so she and Dad had decided to have a kid, andI shouldn't mind, it would be fun for me and good preparation for being amother myself later on, when I found some nice guy and got married.Sure. Great preparation. Like Mary O'Hare in my class, who gets tochange her youngest baby sister's diapers all the time, yick. She jokes about9
it, but you can tell she really hates it. Now it looked like it was my turncoming up, as usual.The only thing that made life bearable was my secret.You're laid back today, Devon Brown said to me in the lunchroom oneday after Billy had been specially obnoxious, trying to ick rolled up piecesof bread from his table so they would land on my chest. Devon was sittingwith me because he was bad at French, my only good subject, and I washelping him out with some verbs. I guess he wanted to know why I wasn'tupset because of Billy picking on me. He goes, How come?That's a secret, I said, thinking about what Devon would say if he knewa werewolf was helping him with his French: loup. Manger.He goes, What secret? Devon has freckles and is actually kind of cutelooking.A secret, I go, so I can't tell you, dummy.He looks real superior and he goes, Well, it can't be much of a secret,because girls can't keep secrets, everybody knows that.Sure, like that kid Sara in Eight B who it turned out her own fatherhad been molesting her for years, but she never told anybody until somepsychologist caught on from some tests we all had to take in seventh grade.Up till then, Sara kept her secret ne.And I kept mine, marking o the days on the calendar. The only part Ididn't look forward to was having a period again, which last time came rightbefore the change.When the time came, I got crampy and more zits popped out on my face,but I didn't have a period.I changed, though.The next morning they were talking in school about a couple of prizeminiature Schnauzers at the Wanscombes that had been hauled out of theiryard by somebody and killed, and almost nothing left of them.Well, my stomach turned a little when I heard some kids describing whatMr. Wanscombe had found over in Baker's Park, the remains, as peoplesaid. I felt a little guilty, too, because Mrs. Wanscombe had really lovedthose little dogs, which somehow I didn't think about at all when I was awolf the night before, trotting around hungry in the moonlight.I knew those Schnauzers personally, so I was sorry, even if they wereirritating little mutts that made a lot of noise.But heck, the Wanscombes shouldn't have left them out all night in thecold. Anyhow, they were rich, they could buy new ones if they wanted.Still and all, though. I mean, dogs are just dumb animals. If they're mean,it's because they're wired that way or somebody made them mean, they can'thelp it. They can't just decide to be nice, like a person can. And plus, they10
don't taste so great, I think because they put so much junk in commercialdog-foodsanti-worm medicine and ashes and ground up sh, stu like that.Ick.In fact after the second schnauzer I had felt sort of sick and I didn't sleepreal well that night. So I was not in a great mood to start with; and thatwas the day that my new brassiere disappeared while I was in gym. Later onI got passed a note telling me where to nd it: stapled to the bulletin boardoutside the Principal's oce, where everybody could see that I was trying abra with an underwire.Naturally, it had to be Stacey Buhl that grabbed my bra while I waschanging for gym and my back was turned, since she was now hanging outwith Billy and his friends.Billy went around all day making bets at the top of his lungs on how soonI would be wearing a D-cup.Stacey didn't matter, she was just a jerk. Billy mattered. He had wreckedme in that school forever, with his nasty mind and his big, fat mouth. I waspast crying or ghting and getting punched out. I was boiling, I had hadenough crap from him, and I had an idea.I followed Billy home and waited on his porch until his mom came homeand she made him come down and talk to me. He stood in the doorway andtalked through the screen door, eating a banana and lounging around like hedidn't have a care in the world.So he goes, Whatcha want, <strong>Boobs</strong>?I stammered a lot, being I was so nervous about telling such big lies, butthat probably made me sound more believable.I told him that I would make a deal with him: I would meet him thatnight in Baker's Park, late, and take o my shirt and bra and let him dowhatever he wanted with my boobs if that would satisfy his curiosity and hewould nd somebody else to pick on and leave me alone.What? he said, staring at my chest with his mouth open. His voicesqueaked and he was practically drooling on the oor. He couldn't believehis good luck.I said the same thing over again.He almost came out onto the porch to try it right then and there. Well,shit, he goes, lowering his voice a lot, why didn't you say something before?You really mean it?I go, Sure, though I couldn't look at him.After a minute he goes, Okay, it's a deal. Listen, Kelsey, if you like it,can we, uh, do it again, you know?I go, Sure. But Billy, one thing: this is a secret, between just you andme. If you tell anybody, if there's one other person hanging around out there11
tonightOh no, he goes, real fast, I won't say a thing to anybody, honest. Nota word, I promise!Not until afterward, of course, was what he meant, which if there was onething Billy Linden couldn't do, it was to keep quiet if he knew somethingbad about another person.You're gonna like it, I know you are, he goes, speaking strictly for himselfas usual. Jeez. I can't believe this!But he did, the dork.I couldn't eat much for dinner that night, I was too excited, and I wentupstairs early to do homework, I told Dad and Hilda.Then I waited for the moon, and when it came, I changed.Billy was in the park. I caught a whi of him, very sweaty and excited,but I stayed cool. I snuck around for a while, as quiet as I couldwhichwas real quietmaking sure none of his stupid friends were lurking around.I mean, I wouldn't have trusted just his promise for a million dollars.I passed up half a hamburger lying in the gutter where somebody hadparked for lunch next to Baker's Park. My mouth watered, but I didn't wantto spoil my appetite. I was hungry and happy, sort of singing inside my ownhead, Shoo, y, pie, and an apple-pan-dowdie. . . Without any sound, of course.Billy had been sitting on a bench, his hands in his pockets, twisting aroundto look this way and that way, watching for mefor my human selfto comejoin him. He had a jacket on, being it was very chilly out.Which he didn't stop to think that maybe a sane person wouldn't be crazyenough to sit out there and take o her top leaving her naked skin bare to thebreeze. But that was Billy all right, totally xed on his own greedy self andwithout a single thought for somebody else. I bet all he could think aboutwas what a great scam this was, to feel up old <strong>Boobs</strong> in the park and thencrow about it all over school.Now he was walking around the park, kicking at the sprinkler-heads andglancing up every once in a while, frowning and looking sulky.I could see he was starting to think that I might stand him up. Maybehe even suspected that old <strong>Boobs</strong> was lurking around watching him andlaughing to herself because he had fallen for a trick. Maybe old <strong>Boobs</strong> hadeven brought some kids from school with her to see what a jerk he was.Actually that would have been pretty good, except Billy probably wouldhave broken my nose for me again, or worse, if I'd tried it.Kelsey? he goes, sounding mad.I didn't want him stomping o home in a hu. I moved up closer, and Ilet the bushes swish a little around my shoulders.12
He goes, Hey, Kelse, it's late, where've you been?I listened to the words, but mostly I listened to the little thread of worryickering in his voice, low and high, high and low, as he tried to gure outwhat was going on.I let out the whisper of a growl.He stood real still, staring at the bushes, and he goes, That you, Kelse?Answer me.I was wild inside. I couldn't wait another second. I tore through the bushesand leaped for him, ying.He stumbled backward with a squawkWhat!jerking his hands up infront of his face, and he was just sucking in a big breath to yell with when Ihit him like a demo-derby truck.I jammed my nose past his feeble claws and chomped down hard on hisface.No sound came out of him except this wet, thick gurgle, which I couldmore taste than hear because the sound came right into my mouth with thegush of his blood and the hot mess of meat and skin that I tore away andswallowed.He thrashed around, hitting at me, but I hardly felt anything throughmy fur. I mean, he wasn't so big and strong laying there on the ground withme straddling him all lean and wiry with wolf-muscle. And plus, he was inshock. I got a strong whi from below as he let go of everything right intohis pants.Dogs were barking, but so many people around Baker's Park have dogs tokeep out burglars, and the dogs make such a racket all the time, that nobodypays any attention. I wasn't worried. Anyway, I was too busy to care.I nosed in under what was left of Billy's jaw and I bit his throat out.Now let him go around telling lies about people.His clothes were a lot of trouble and I really missed having hands. Imanaged to drag his shirt out of his belt with my teeth, though, and it waseasy to tear his belly open. Pretty messy, but once I got in there, it was betterthan Thanksgiving dinner. Who would think that somebody as horrible asBilly Linden could taste so good?He was barely moving by then, and I quit thinking about him as BillyLinden anymore. I quit thinking at all, I just pushed my head in and pulledout delicious steaming chunks and ate until I was picking at tidbits, andeverything was getting cold.On the way home I saw a police car cruising the neighborhood the waythey do sometimes. I hid in the shadows and of course they never saw me.There was a lot of washing up to do in the morning, and when Hilda sawmy sheets she shook her head and she goes, You should be more careful13
about keeping track of your period so as not to get caught by surprise.Everybody in school knew something had happened to Billy Linden, butit wasn't until the day after that that they got the word. Kids stood aroundin little huddles trading rumors about how some wild animal had chewedBilly up. I would walk up and listen in and add a really gross remark ortwo, like part of the game of thrilling each other green and nauseous withmade-up details to see who would upchuck rst.Not me, that's for sure. I mean, when somebody went on about howBilly's whole head was gnawed down to the skull and they didn't even knowwho he was except from the bus pass in his wallet, I got a little urpy. It'samazing the things people will dream up. But when I thought about what Ihad actually done to Billy, I had to smile.It felt totally wonderful to walk through the halls without having anybodyyelling, Hey, <strong>Boobs</strong>!Even my social life is looking up. Gerry-Anne is not only talking to meagain, she invited me out on a double-date with her. Some guy she met ata party asked her to go to the movies with him next weekend, and he has afriend. They're both from Fawcett Junior High across town, which will be achange. I was nervous when she asked me, but nally I said yes. My rst realdate!I am still pretty nervous, to tell the truth. I have to keep promising myselfthat I will not worry about my chest, I will not be self-conscious, even if theguy stares.Actually things at school are not completely hunky-dory. Hilda says That'sLife when I complain about things, and I am beginning to believe her. FatJoey somehow got to be my lab-partner in Science, and if he doesn't quittrying to grab a feel whenever we have to stand close together to do anexperiment, he is going to be sorry.He doesn't know it, but he's got until the next full moon.14
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