First World Problems

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

 

Arielle sighed and pushed away from the table, collecting her and Lena’s plates. “Great. Now you pissed him off. He’s going to be in a mood for days.” She scrubbed their plates with as much frustration as Callum had.

“He was already pissed off,” Lena whispered. “It’s been a year today. Since she…you know.”

Arielle rolled her eyes. “Whatever. He doesn’t have to take it out on us.”

“I don’t know what you two are talking about obviously, but what did I do to piss him off?” I asked, hoping to file away the information for future.

But Lena just pressed her lips tight and said, “It’s not really important. I’m sure you’re not anything like… Well, this isn’t the same situation at all. It’s just that almost everything here does have to do with dirt, blood, or planting things, except teaching. Your stepmom was trying to give you a break, I think,” she said softly. “So you should probably reconsider.”

“Maybe I could have some time to get used to Guyana. Being here is so different, and it was a long flight,” I ventured. “Just for tomorrow? I could hang out and organize the space here.” Both girls looked at me blankly. “You know…your shoes and stuff are everywhere, the use of your kitchen space is totally inefficient…”

Arielle spun and leaned against the sink with a sigh. “Whatever, that’s—”

“Useless,” muttered Callum, bursting back out of the room and scaring me half to death. He stalked to the other side of the house without another word. It was only after another door slammed that I exhaled. At least the other girls didn’t seem too fazed.

Lena stood up and grabbed my plate, and I gave her a quick smile of thanks. ”Did you get enough to eat?” she asked softly.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to come up with something nice to say about dinner. If I was going to get in good with this crowd, she was my ticket. And even I had to admit that dinner wasn’t half-bad. “The chicken was incredible.”

Arielle and Lena stopped what they were doing mid-movement. They stared at me for a few seconds, and then Arielle started to shake her head. “Oh, man.”

“What?” I asked. “What did I say?” I hated feeling so unmoored. I didn’t know anything about Guyana or the food or how things were done here, and they were just…looking at me. There was nowhere safe to look back—both their expressions only made me more panicked.

By then, Lena had finished scrubbing my plate. Slowly she set it in the dryer and turned to me. “That wasn’t chicken,” she said, quietly.

“Well, what is it? Pork? Turkey? What?” I suddenly hated myself for doing next to no research on Guyana or what humans normally ate in the goddamn rainforest. Still no answer. Despite myself, my voice raised in a screech. “What was it?” I could already feel the meat churning in my stomach, barely digested. Oh, God.

Arielle turned and took a deep breath. “We mostly do it for population control. They’re everywhere. Chicken of the trees, the locals call them.”

Trees. I gulped. “Parrots? Monkeys?” Bile burned at my throat.

Lena cleared her throat. “It’s iguana.”

Oh, God. Oh, Jesus. Had I seriously just eaten lizard? These kids were supposed to be my housemates, and they were trying to poison me with reptile meat? The churning in my stomach reached a critical point, my mouth watered, and heat flooded my chest, making my skin itch. Oh, shit. I hadn’t felt this bad since that stupid bitch Ashley’s birthday party back in Pittsburgh, when I had the stomach flu. A little alcohol that was way past its prime and a bite of bad guac hit me the wrong way.