The Disturbed Girl's Dictionary Read online

  Text copyright © 2018 by NoNieqa Ramos

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  Carolrhoda Lab™

  An imprint of Carolrhoda Books

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

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  Cover and interior images: iStock.com/bezmaski (background); iStock.com/nojustice (drywall); iStock.com/mxtama (textured); iStock.com/ojoel (fungus tub texture); iStock.com/retrofutur (bathtub); iStock.com/123ducu (concrete texture); iStock.com/Jag_cz (splatter explosion); Picsfive/Shutterstock.com (notebook).

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  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 10.5/15.

  Typeface provided by Linotype AG.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Ramos, NoNieqa, author.

  Title: The disturbed girl’s dictionary / by NoNieqa Ramos.

  Description: Minneapolis : Carolrhoda Lab, [2018] | Summary: Fifteen-year-old Macy, officially labeled “disturbed” by her school, records her impressions of her rough neighborhood and home life as she tries to rescue her brother from Child Protective Services, win back her overachieving best friend after a fight, and figure out whether to tell her incarcerated father about her mother’s cheating.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017004654 (print) | LCCN 2017031962 (ebook) | ISBN 9781512498554 (eb pdf) | ISBN 9781512439762 (th : alk. paper)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Family problems—Fiction. | Emotional problems—Fiction. | Learning disabilities—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.R3656 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.1.R3656 Di 2018 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017004654

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1-42212-25774-9/28/2017

  9781541516670 ePub

  9781541516687 ePub

  9781541516694 mobi

  To Miguel, my Twue Wuv!

  Always/Never

  Interjection. Sometimes hated. Always feared. Never disrespected.

  “Still getting radio silence.” I scroll down my list of followers. “But she didn’t unfollow . . . or unfriend me.”

  The word unfriend makes George tighten the strap on his helmet. (See H for Helmet. George is what you call special. But not to his face if you want to avoid me jackhammering yours.) “Look, look. Alma posted another one of her kids.” Alma’s got so many siblings and half-siblings and cousins living at her house I lose count.

  I hold up my iPad and George leans over, almost tipping his desk. “Yo, see that in the background? The little dude there on top of the fridge!” He scrolls and laughs, slamming into the seat so hard it crashes into the desk behind it. If you sit near George, it’s highly recommended you wears a helmet too.

  Teacher Man glares at us. He is annoyed because our ignorant asses broke the school firewall again to check social media posts, but we can’t even pass a daily quiz. Right now we’re supposed to be doing a historical analysis between suffrage and civil rights, but I got to know if my friendship with Alma is history first. We haven’t talked in two weeks and I’m in serious bestie withdrawal.

  History is the only class the three of us have together anymore. The only reason Alma is in a regular class—and rest assured there’s nothing regular about the cray-crays in this class—is because all her other classes are AP and she needs a breather. Alma’s not here today though. She’s on another field trip in this program called Tomorrow’s Leaders Today. (See G for Gifted and Talented.) George and I are not in this program because nobody appreciates our gifts or talents today—or any other day. Currently George is displaying his talent for appreciating my jokes. Every time he laughs he bashes into desks like bumper cars. Any minute he’ll start wheezing and get sent to the nurse. George has the asthma.

  Me: “Alma always never posts pics of herself. Even her profile pic is of one of her kids. Check it out. This girl is Alma’s mini-me. She always never—”

  “Macy! George!” Teacher Man is staring us down. “Let’s talk about why we cannot use the words always and never in the same sentence.”

  “What do you mean by we?” I lean way back in my seat. People are always talking like that to me. Saying our and we.

  Our plan for Macy is . . . I think we can all agree that . . . We don’t want THAT to happen, do we?

  Teacher pops a cap off a black marker and writes the sentence I said on the whiteboard in Caps Lock.

  ALMA ALWAYS NEVER DOES THAT.

  He’s trying to turn this into what he calls a teachable moment. Like that time he made us proofread all the graffiti in the bafroom.

  With a red marker, he crosses out the word always and rereads it. He says, “See, always is what we call superfluous. It’s clutter.”

  Clutter? Like he knows my life.

  “You’re pissing me off,” I say. I stay seated. I don’t get in his face. Yet. I stay in my circle—draw a imaginary one around my desk. (See C for Circle.)

  Teacher turns his back. “I hear you, Macy,” he says. “I’m sorry you’re angry.”

  “I didn’t say I was angry,” I shout. My circle is bursting with flames. “I said I was pissed.”

  The teacher turns on the projector. He’s got a PowerPoint with GIFs. He’s got Vines. He’s got everything but a top hat and a cane. He is ignoring my behavior. This is a time-honored teacher strategy that also royally pisses me off.

  I reach into my desk. Take out History of the American People Volume 1 and clean house. Cross out all the pages about shit that’s got nothing to do with me. What’s left? Not much. The teacher keeps clicking through his slideshow until he hears the silence of the other kids. Until he hears the slashing of my pen.

  “Macy!” he whips around, blinking in the light of the projector. “What are you doing?”

  I guess he is no longer ignoring my behavior. “Are you angry?” I crack my knuckles. “Or are you pissed?”

  If he were a cartoon, smoke would be pouring out his ears. A kid coughs as if he can smell it. “Put the Sharpie down, Macy. Vandalism will not be tolerated. You—”

  “Vandalism? I’m not vandalizing any more than you. I’m just deciding which words count and which ones don’t. Which words mean something and which don’t. That’s exactly what you do.”

  “Macy! You can’t argue two plus two is three, and you can’t argue that always and never should be used in the same sentence. You’re not in middle school anymore.” He slams his marker on the lip of the board. It rolls onto the floor. “I expect—”

  Me: “You dropped something.”

  His nostrils twitch.

  Yeah. He’s pissed.

  “What you’re not picking up on is how much is at stake here, Macy. Nobody’s gonna give you a lollipop anymore just because you throw a tantrum.”

  “What did you say, motherfoe?” I throw my desk.

  The other kids hide under their desks like it’s a tornado drill. Teacher Man pushes the office button. I’m going. Don’t even need to give me a lollipop. It’s a violation of my civil rights, though. Depriving my ass of a education. I walk out and slam the door.

  I sit outside the principal’s office and take out the dictionary you’
re reading right now. (By-the-fucking-way, you’re reading this because I’m missing or dead or in a nuthouse, or CPS stole it, and maybe you don’t know I’m standing right behind you, motherfoe.)

  Back to Always/Never. Miss Black, my English teacher, says that to prove your point you have to give many examples. Here’s mine: Mothers always never leave.

  I remember the first time my mother left. She thought I was asleep, but I saw her packing her bags. I don’t know why she left the house that night or what made her come back, but she did. I mean I guess she’s got enough reasons to leave, but what I always never get is what brings her back. Is a bad mother the one who leaves or the one who stays even though she should go?

  I checked what was inside those bags. In one bag was a ratty old stuffed dog missing a ear. Her honey-bear bong and a dime bag. (And let me share my disappointment that a dime bag don’t actually got no dimes in it, believe me.) Pictures of herself at the beach. Queen Helena hair gel. A lock of my brother Zane’s hair. (See B for Burner and G for Gas.)

  She always leaves a note. It says: I know you’ll never forgive me. But you’ll always love me. I know it. I still love my mother. The bitch. (The bitch is crossed out, but I can still read it through the scribble.) All my love, Yasmin.

  But she always never leaves. Always acts like those bags aren’t still in the back of her closet, waiting. In the morning, I always look for the piece of tape hanging on the front door where the note was. Always find all the empty kitchen cabinets open like she wants us to know there’s nothing left for us here. The stuffed dog is back in that bashed-up box of hers. She got it from the group home when she left at thirteen. The bong and the dime bag are back in her panty drawer. The gel is on the kitchen sink where she does her hair when somebody’s stunk up the bafroom. The pictures of me on the dresser have never left.

  Apple

  Noun. A apple a day keeps the doctor away. So does not having no insurance to pay him with.

  It’s lunchtime. This is supposed to be my twenty minutes.

  We get 180 school days a year to try and undo what every fuck-up did to us, to themselves, to the fucking planet. But we only get twenty minutes for ourselves. Can you do the maf?

  Twenty minutes to laugh our asses off, stead of being told to sit our asses down and shut our mouths up. Even a damn fruit fly got more time to live.

  Today I’m sitting in the cafeteria by my lonely-ass self, rolling a apple down the lopsided table I’m sitting at. It falls off the edge and bruises. If Adam offered Eve the apples from my cafeteria, she’d a been like yeah no, thems nasty. I flash back to the day Alma and I stopped speaking.

  Alma crunches a apple that I swear has been sitting in the cafeteria since the beginning of school and maybe the beginning of time.

  “How can you eat that shit?”

  “Please don’t call my food shit. I eat it because it’s healthy.”

  “Some people eat bugs because they’re healthy. Don’t mean I’m gonna eat them.”

  “But you’ll eat that blue Laffy Taffy? That’s no better than eating plastic.”

  I stick out my blue tongue.

  “If your tongue looks like that, can you think about what your insides look like?” Alma shakes her head in disgust at my ignorant ass. “I’ll grant you the produce here is substandard. But what if I could show you a place where the fruit is better than plastic?”

  “Does this involve a field trip?”

  “Yaas, queen. Come with me to the supermarket.”

  Me: “The Super S? Bwhahaha.” (See S for Super.) “Can we place a bet?”

  Alma: “No. Not the Super S. A real supermarket. My mom makes the trek there once a month. The bus fare is expensive, but she has this special card from WIC. It gets her formula and fruit for the babies for free.”

  “Wait. A card? Like a credit card? Could I get me one of those?”

  “No. It’s only for kids under five.”

  “Dang.”

  “Anyway, the Tomorrow’s Leaders group is going there on a field trip in a couple weeks, to learn about health and rational decision-making and budgeting.”

  Me: “So I guess the rest of us idiots is okay sick, stupit, and broke.”

  Alma: “Macy, my point is that you and I can go together sometime.”

  But we didn’t go there. Because the next day we had the fight.

  And the next night I dreamed of a magical supermarket. One where we was outside. Not in a cafeteria that could double as a hospital waiting room. One where you had time to finish a sentence—and your damn food. Where there was nothing and nobody but you and your bestie and you could pluck Laffy Taffy from the trees.

  Am

  Verb. A verb? Who I am is something I do? Seems to me who I am isn’t much about what I do, but a whole lotta things that’s already done.

  Am I disturbed? School says I am. Social worker says I am. Teachers say I am. The paperwork with the words Individualized Education Plan (IEP) says I am.

  “Maybe we could get some money for this,” I hear my mother say, peeling off the IEP paperwork from the kitchen table. She sits down. “Your father got some when he busted his knee moving furniture.”

  “Cha-ching,” I say. I mean, if being crazy is worth anything we’ll be billionaires. My mother starts looking it up on her phone.

  I grab the paperwork. Look at the photo of me clipped to the top. I shaved my head the day before school picture day, and it itched so bad I had scratch marks in my scalp. Pierced myself so I could connect a chain from my nose to my ear. I like options. Bee-you-tee-ful bitches!

  “I still can’t believe you did that to yourself,” my mother says, glancing up from her screen. “All that beautiful black hair. I used to love to comb it.”

  “Yeah, I remember. Sit your ass down. Stop being a little fucking baby, it’s just a knot. Ah, the memories.”

  “Shut up, Macy.” Her screen sucks her back in.

  I read. Paperwork says Last name: MYOFB. First name: Macy Cashmere. Couple of days shy of fifteen. Born to Yasmin and Augustine MYOFB. Current residence no longer a 1980 Ford Pinto. We moved from a car to a no-tell motel to the house we’re in now when Daddy got that job as a mover. I remember when Daddy pulled up to the garage. “This time,” he said, “when the roof leaks it’ll be the rain and not somebody’s toilet.” Part of the roof caved in like three months later.

  Me and Zane used to run through the house with umbrellas when it rained, with my mother screaming, “Stop it, that’s seven years bad luck, fourteen, stop!” Once the sun came out while it was still raining, and my mother smiled. She said, “That means a witch is getting married, you know.” I liked when she talked like that. And my dad joked, “We had sun showers on our wedding day, right?” And she smacked him, but she was happy.

  I look at the bars on our windows and think about my daddy in prison and the last time he’s seen the sun.

  “I wonder what kind of money that foster family is making off Zane,” my mother says. My brother Zane got kidnapped by CPS three weeks ago. “I didn’t stay long enough for my foster parents to make money off of me.”

  I turn back to my paperwork. It says I was born premature. ADHD. Learning disability unconfirmed. Emotionally disturbed. Exhibits compulsive behavior. CPS investigation pending. Life pending. (I scratched that last part in.)

  I sniff the paper. Oil has soaked through the packet. It’s Domino’s. I lick some oil from my finger.

  “I hate when you do that shit,” my mother says, getting up. “You could’ve had some pizza.”

  “You know I’m on strike,” I say. “Hunger strike.”

  “You still gonna be on strike when it’s your birfday?”

  “Yeah—about that.”

  “About what?”

  “About the restaurant. The big to-do. I’ma pass.”

  “What? Do you know how much I would’ve killed to have my mother remember my birfday? Shit, once she forgot me at the grocery store. I went to the bafroom and when I came out she was g
one.”

  “I know you don’t have no money for a fancy restaurant. Where’d you get it from? Mr. Guest, right?”

  “Macy, you need to learn to appreciate—”

  “That’s a yes.”

  “Fine, Macy. Have it your way. And his goddamn name is Sal.”

  She digs in a drawer and pulls out a square envelope. “In fact, since you’re boycotting your birfday, that must include the gifts too.” She crumples the envelope into a wad. Stomps off to her bedroom. “Good night!”

  “FYI! It’s 10 a.m.”

  I stare at the trash can. Pull out the envelope, out of curiosity. Just to know what the card inside says. Buy yourself a new sweatshirt. Love, Mom. A hundred-dollar bill floats to the ground. A hundred bucks. Talk about a sell-your-soul-to-El-Diablo moment. What could that buy me?

  I decide to put it away for emergencies. Only then could I use Mr. Guest’s money. I tuck the bill in my jeans pocket for now. Rip off the oil spot from the IEP paper and chew on it. It is so delicious.

  A feather blows through the hole in the window. I look out. Wait, it’s not a feather. Snow!

  Looking out the window is like watching television. Only no one can say you haven’t paid your bill and they’re going to shut it off in thirty days. Nobody owns the snow. Except maybe the junkyard dogs just before dawn.

  I picture the snowflakes tasting like the oil spot I tore from my IEP. Some snowflakes taste like pepperoni. Some taste like pineapple and ham. My brother Zane and I used to gather empty pizza boxes, candy wrappers, gutted McDonald’s Happy Meals, and play Restaurant. Pretend to eat the food that used to be inside the wrappers. Some of them still had their smells: peanutty caramel, orange-cinnamon. Every once in a while we’d actually find a stray Skittle or something. A few days before Zane got kidnapped (See B for Burners and G for Gas.), we split a Dum Dum some kid dropped. Rinsed it off. He took a lick. Then me. Somehow we got full.

  Now I scope out the back of the fridge for old cartons of white rice. Shake the toaster oven. Score! A burnt pepperoni and half a charred crust. Tomorrow’s breakfast!