Read Online Ugly Girls: A Novel by Lindsay Hunter - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lindsay Hunter
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writing it all over again, only neater. Loved to have the class watch her get an answer right, please the teacher, be the best.
But now she felt embarrassed by her excitement. She dropped her bag as hard as she could on the floor, walked up and snatched the chalk from the teacher’s hand. The equation had three different letters in it, or was one of the letters a multiplication sign? She felt ashamed that she didn’t know, angry that Mr. Clark knew she didn’t know and was making an example of her.
Sometimes when it felt like there was no way out Baby Girl could feel her body getting cold, like it was shutting down so she could think. Like the time a man in his boxers had held up a bat and swung it at her and Perry, yelling how he was going to call the cops. At first it was like Baby Girl was hearing and seeing everything all at once, the man yelling, Perry laughing, a car going by two streets over. And then she had gone cold, could see the way out as if it had been blasted with a flashlight: scream, charge at the man, yank down his boxers, run.
And now here she was again, cold as a lizard. The equation ordered itself, she knew the answer was 26x . Wrote it on the board, wrote suck and dicks around it, so the answer read, “Suck 26x dicks.”
Mr. Clark looked like his boxers had landed around his ankles. The boy in the back exploded again. Baby Girl threw the chalk at him on her way out. She hated him, she felt sorry for Mr. Clark and that made her hate him, hate herself.
Heat, footslaps, the wham of her car door. She hunched low, breathing the thick hot air in the car. The bell rang; the bell rang again. Perry would be in biology now. She sent two texts: P, I’m in the car and Hey what u doin? Added a smiley face, because it seemed more girly, less desperate for a response, but at the last second Baby Girl decided it made her seem high or dense. She fucked up the deletion, though, so her text read:
Hey what u doin?:
No smile, just eyes, like Baby Girl wanted him to know she wasn’t playing, she was looking for him, she wasn’t even blinking, she was looking so hard.
He probably wouldn’t even notice the eyes. She hoped he wouldn’t, she hoped he would.
THEY WERE WATCHING A VIDEO about predatory animals when she got Baby Girl’s text. She could have stayed and watched that video, it was pretty interesting, especially since she was the only girl who didn’t hide her eyes when the animals would catch something, bite deep into flesh, the zebra or whatever thrashing and then woops, there’s its ribs. Perry wasn’t coldhearted. She just wasn’t scared like the other girls.
She could have stayed and felt just fine with that, but she didn’t want to miss out on a ride from Baby Girl, didn’t want to miss out on the feeling of driving out of the parking lot while everyone else was still stuck inside the school. She asked to go to the bathroom, threw the hall pass in the garbage on her way out, waited for the parking lot guard to chug around the bend, out of sight. The school was a flat brown building with a parking lot in front and a bunch of trailers parked in what used to be the football field out back. The school had expanded enough to need trailer classrooms, and it didn’t have enough money to keep up with a football team, so problem solved. The parking lot guard patrolled the parking lot and the trailers, so kids always waited for the golf cart to make its way over toward the old football field before they made a run for it. Perry never ran, though. Running made you look guilty.
Baby Girl was hunched low in the driver’s seat, staring at her phone. Perry got in and Baby Girl backed out of the parking spot, drove them through the gates, sped through the yellow light at the corner, still hunched. Perry felt it, she felt that freedom she’d been expecting, the sun suddenly brighter and the air quieter and the grass so green it hurt her eyes, everything seeming to say that what she’d done was
But now she felt embarrassed by her excitement. She dropped her bag as hard as she could on the floor, walked up and snatched the chalk from the teacher’s hand. The equation had three different letters in it, or was one of the letters a multiplication sign? She felt ashamed that she didn’t know, angry that Mr. Clark knew she didn’t know and was making an example of her.
Sometimes when it felt like there was no way out Baby Girl could feel her body getting cold, like it was shutting down so she could think. Like the time a man in his boxers had held up a bat and swung it at her and Perry, yelling how he was going to call the cops. At first it was like Baby Girl was hearing and seeing everything all at once, the man yelling, Perry laughing, a car going by two streets over. And then she had gone cold, could see the way out as if it had been blasted with a flashlight: scream, charge at the man, yank down his boxers, run.
And now here she was again, cold as a lizard. The equation ordered itself, she knew the answer was 26x . Wrote it on the board, wrote suck and dicks around it, so the answer read, “Suck 26x dicks.”
Mr. Clark looked like his boxers had landed around his ankles. The boy in the back exploded again. Baby Girl threw the chalk at him on her way out. She hated him, she felt sorry for Mr. Clark and that made her hate him, hate herself.
Heat, footslaps, the wham of her car door. She hunched low, breathing the thick hot air in the car. The bell rang; the bell rang again. Perry would be in biology now. She sent two texts: P, I’m in the car and Hey what u doin? Added a smiley face, because it seemed more girly, less desperate for a response, but at the last second Baby Girl decided it made her seem high or dense. She fucked up the deletion, though, so her text read:
Hey what u doin?:
No smile, just eyes, like Baby Girl wanted him to know she wasn’t playing, she was looking for him, she wasn’t even blinking, she was looking so hard.
He probably wouldn’t even notice the eyes. She hoped he wouldn’t, she hoped he would.
THEY WERE WATCHING A VIDEO about predatory animals when she got Baby Girl’s text. She could have stayed and watched that video, it was pretty interesting, especially since she was the only girl who didn’t hide her eyes when the animals would catch something, bite deep into flesh, the zebra or whatever thrashing and then woops, there’s its ribs. Perry wasn’t coldhearted. She just wasn’t scared like the other girls.
She could have stayed and felt just fine with that, but she didn’t want to miss out on a ride from Baby Girl, didn’t want to miss out on the feeling of driving out of the parking lot while everyone else was still stuck inside the school. She asked to go to the bathroom, threw the hall pass in the garbage on her way out, waited for the parking lot guard to chug around the bend, out of sight. The school was a flat brown building with a parking lot in front and a bunch of trailers parked in what used to be the football field out back. The school had expanded enough to need trailer classrooms, and it didn’t have enough money to keep up with a football team, so problem solved. The parking lot guard patrolled the parking lot and the trailers, so kids always waited for the golf cart to make its way over toward the old football field before they made a run for it. Perry never ran, though. Running made you look guilty.
Baby Girl was hunched low in the driver’s seat, staring at her phone. Perry got in and Baby Girl backed out of the parking spot, drove them through the gates, sped through the yellow light at the corner, still hunched. Perry felt it, she felt that freedom she’d been expecting, the sun suddenly brighter and the air quieter and the grass so green it hurt her eyes, everything seeming to say that what she’d done was
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