God would hold that against her or against Monica Mathers, who’d never started a war or killed anybody, and whose deadeye three-pointers were straight-up amazing. After all, hadn’t God made both of them? But people were like that, she’d noticed. They’d invoke Godly privilege at the weirdest of times and for the most stupid of reasons. Jen decided that if God wasn’t putting any faith in her, she wasn’t putting her faith in Him. And so, now, alone in the jungle, she did not call out for special favors. As far as she was concerned, thatwould be cheating. Jennifer played rough sometimes, but she always played fair.
A long rope of root formed an almost-bench above the mossy ground, and after testing its solidity, she sat on it to think. It was only moments later that she heard off-key humming and saw a girl marching between the trees, a spear in one hand. The girl had a strawberry blond bob and an impish face. The remnants of her sash read
Miss Illin,
and for a moment, Jennifer thought of her as being from a very cool hip-hop state.
“Hi. Uh, hello,” Jennifer said. “I’m Jennifer Huberman. Miss Michigan.”
The girl didn’t respond.
“Hey!” Jennifer waved her arms. “Over here!”
The girl looked up. Startled, she dropped the spear, which stuck fast in a fat tree root. A flock of shrieking black birds spiraled skyward as the giant, gnarled tree seemed to uncoil, and Jennifer saw that it was not a mass of roots looped about the trunk but a freakishly big snake the length of a custom RV.
Jennifer leapt to her feet. “Holy {bleep bleep} 12 ! Get your {bleep} 13 out of the way!”
Too late, the girl looked up just as the snake opened wide and swallowed her down in a giant gulp.
“{Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep} 14 !” Jennifer said many, many times.
The snake, with its girl-size, midthroat bulge, turned to Jennifer with a strangled hiss.
They say in near-death experiences that one’s life plays out before one’s eyes. Jennifer’s brain went to scan, flitting from one randomimage to the next: her mom coming home from the factory, bone-weary, angry, and utterly defeated, the bills sitting untouched on the chipped, Rent-A-Racket dinette set. Tommy, her little brother, riding around the crappy, one-bedroom apartment on a dumpster-dive Big Wheel till Jennifer thought she would scream from the constant whine of it. The days of ditching school to hang out at Galaxy Comics and talk mutants and
Watchmen
with Mohammed and Akilah, who ran the place and sometimes paid her in old comics if she’d help them stock. Getting busted for stealing a pack of Ho Hos from a Gas-It-N-Go and landing in juvie. The counselor who saw Jen as the perfect do-gooder project on her resume, offering her a chance at beauty pageant redemption meant to save them both. The crash. The island. The snake.
The snake. It seesawed its way toward her in an ungainly, almost blind fashion, tongue lashing wildly, mouth pulled back slightly to reveal double rows of grungy, bladelike teeth and puffy, bleeding gums. This was how she was going to die? After the years of crushing poverty, the dismissal by her teachers and schoolmates, the way that most people looked through girls like Jennifer as if they were too inconsequential to acknowledge with a glance? She was going to go down as kibble for some giant snake alcoholic? This was utter bullshit 15 .
“What Would Wonder Woman Do?” she said, like a prayer.
And then, as if in answer, Jennifer raced for the spear, which had been thrown free when the girl was swallowed. But the snake’s undulating tail knocked it just out of reach.
“You scaly bitch 16 !” Jen gasped.
The snake lunged. With a loud screech, Jennifer leapt up and grabbed hold of a tree limb, hoping that it was, in fact, a tree limb, and not some other freaky form of island life intent on eating her. Inside the snake’s throat, the girl pushed with her hands and feet,forming a blockade with her body. She wasn’t going down
A long rope of root formed an almost-bench above the mossy ground, and after testing its solidity, she sat on it to think. It was only moments later that she heard off-key humming and saw a girl marching between the trees, a spear in one hand. The girl had a strawberry blond bob and an impish face. The remnants of her sash read
Miss Illin,
and for a moment, Jennifer thought of her as being from a very cool hip-hop state.
“Hi. Uh, hello,” Jennifer said. “I’m Jennifer Huberman. Miss Michigan.”
The girl didn’t respond.
“Hey!” Jennifer waved her arms. “Over here!”
The girl looked up. Startled, she dropped the spear, which stuck fast in a fat tree root. A flock of shrieking black birds spiraled skyward as the giant, gnarled tree seemed to uncoil, and Jennifer saw that it was not a mass of roots looped about the trunk but a freakishly big snake the length of a custom RV.
Jennifer leapt to her feet. “Holy {bleep bleep} 12 ! Get your {bleep} 13 out of the way!”
Too late, the girl looked up just as the snake opened wide and swallowed her down in a giant gulp.
“{Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep} 14 !” Jennifer said many, many times.
The snake, with its girl-size, midthroat bulge, turned to Jennifer with a strangled hiss.
They say in near-death experiences that one’s life plays out before one’s eyes. Jennifer’s brain went to scan, flitting from one randomimage to the next: her mom coming home from the factory, bone-weary, angry, and utterly defeated, the bills sitting untouched on the chipped, Rent-A-Racket dinette set. Tommy, her little brother, riding around the crappy, one-bedroom apartment on a dumpster-dive Big Wheel till Jennifer thought she would scream from the constant whine of it. The days of ditching school to hang out at Galaxy Comics and talk mutants and
Watchmen
with Mohammed and Akilah, who ran the place and sometimes paid her in old comics if she’d help them stock. Getting busted for stealing a pack of Ho Hos from a Gas-It-N-Go and landing in juvie. The counselor who saw Jen as the perfect do-gooder project on her resume, offering her a chance at beauty pageant redemption meant to save them both. The crash. The island. The snake.
The snake. It seesawed its way toward her in an ungainly, almost blind fashion, tongue lashing wildly, mouth pulled back slightly to reveal double rows of grungy, bladelike teeth and puffy, bleeding gums. This was how she was going to die? After the years of crushing poverty, the dismissal by her teachers and schoolmates, the way that most people looked through girls like Jennifer as if they were too inconsequential to acknowledge with a glance? She was going to go down as kibble for some giant snake alcoholic? This was utter bullshit 15 .
“What Would Wonder Woman Do?” she said, like a prayer.
And then, as if in answer, Jennifer raced for the spear, which had been thrown free when the girl was swallowed. But the snake’s undulating tail knocked it just out of reach.
“You scaly bitch 16 !” Jen gasped.
The snake lunged. With a loud screech, Jennifer leapt up and grabbed hold of a tree limb, hoping that it was, in fact, a tree limb, and not some other freaky form of island life intent on eating her. Inside the snake’s throat, the girl pushed with her hands and feet,forming a blockade with her body. She wasn’t going down
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