Electro [hs]

Three

Three  ♀ 

After the fight with his mom, the boy doesn't venture home until evening. I know this because I'm slouched on a plastic chair with a broken backrest, picking the wet bread and melted cheese off a burger my dad's just cremated on the grill when they pass us.

"You know, you should come down to the Revival on Sunday with me. Lot of young people....girls your age, that kind of thing," dad is saying. I look at him, watching him squirm bodily and add, "Nice Christian girls. To make friends with."

This has me cocking my eyebrow at him, a curl of anger worming its way around my stomach.

"Not really my thing. You know; the enclosed spaces, the crowds," I take a sip of diet coke, drawing my head up so I can get a nice view of the way my next comment lands. "the enforced worship of some made up sky wizard....thanks, dad, but I'm not sure I have it in me to spend the next couple months unlearning evolution and, like, basic scientific fact with you."

"Well your mother won't want you lazing around on your own this whole time," he snaps. I feel happy that I've managed to strike the nerve I predicted I would. And then it wanes, because I've been here a matter of hours and I'm already getting shitty with my dad. It gets worse when he sighs, his whole massive body slumping,"I don't know; won't you get lonely out here, Charlie?"

Oh, dad, I was lonely in Minnesota. At least now I have an excuse...

I just shrug at him.

A moth hits the neon bug zapper set out on the table as the temperature begins to drop and the sun sinks behind the laurel oak. Screaming cicadas mark the tempo and I listen to the sound of footsteps rising up from the grass walkways between trailers to form a back-beat. There's this sweet kind of raspy voice sitting heavy on stagnant air singing,

"El zo-zo-zoológico! Yo veo los animales! El elefante, la jirafa Y la cebra, el tigre, el león!"

"What's that, then?" says a deeper one. One that gives me the kind of involuntary shiver which makes me want to claw at my nervous system.

"Animal song, stupid. El zo-zo-zoológico! And then elephant, giraffe, zebra..."

The girl with the binoculars, now binocular-less, drifts past us. She's grown about six feet in height, attached like a limpet to the back of the boy's shoulders, bouncing as he walks. Slumping down in my chair, I pretend not to have noticed, to not be looking. If my hoodie could swallow me up, I would let it, but she sees me and clearly remembers our little encounter earlier as she waves her little grubby palm.

Following her gaze, the boy turns to look at me and I swear his face is a little more than I've equipped myself to deal with. He sort of frowns a little suspiciously- probably wondering what his sister is doing waving at me-  I think I must grimace like I've trodden in dog shit and then they keep on going. I get a fizz in the pit of my stomach. I want to punch it until the feeling goes away.

"Who's that?" is the last thing I hear him say. The girl answers but her voice gets lost under the cries of the insects.

"See," I say, turning back to my dad. "I made one friend already. Tomorrow we might even go play in the sandbox."

**

Now, before I go any further, let's talk for a minute about hormones. Specifically what little bastards they can be.

Testosterone, estrogen, the other ones with long names like heroes from greek mythology that I can't remember right now, they're all a nightmare from the moment you first get exposed to the idea of them. From that point, aged twelve, when you're sat down in health class and shown all these terrifying diagrams about your changing body and the differences between boys and girls, you're trapped, locked into this roller coaster that's about to take the sharpest dip downwards you've ever experienced. No escaping it.