The History of Hilary Hambrushina Read online

  I wasn’t sure what to say. “Thanks. But even if all of that is true, I’m not as good looking as Chanel, and that’s what counts. At least, it counts to guys.”

  “Boys,” scoffed Kallie. “I leave them alone. As far as I’m concerned, they’re another species.”

  A giggle escaped my throat. “Well, that’s true.”

  “And you are good looking. You just don’t look like those other girls. I don’t think Chanel’s that good looking, anyway. She seems like your average blond with too much makeup.”

  “But Kallie,” I said, feeling confidential, “haven’t you ever wanted to be like someone else?”

  “Sure.”

  “Who?”

  Her voice was wistful. “Joan of Arc because she was brave and she fought for what she believed in. Picasso because he was creative and not afraid of taking risks. And Einstein, mostly for the same reasons as Picasso but also because I liked his hair.”

  “What?” I laughed, picturing Kallie with white hair even wilder than her own.

  “It’s true. And I still want to be like them. O.K., maybe I don’t want Einstein’s hair.” She titled her head at me. “But you didn’t say you wanted to be like Chanel Winters, you said you wanted to be her. There’s a big difference.”

  “Well, did you ever want to be someone else?”

  “I did when I was younger. But I haven’t for the last year.”

  I was going to ask her what had happened in the last year to make her change her mind, but something stopped me. I said, “Why don’t you want to be someone else?”

  She sighed. When she spoke, her voice sounded far away, as if we were talking on the phone long distance. “Because there’s no point in wishing that. I’ll never be anybody but me. And you’ll never be anybody but you. The sooner you learn that, the sooner you can stop worrying about what other people think and just enjoy being you.”

  We were quiet. Kallie swallowed the last of her ice cream cone and threw her napkin in the garbage. “Look,” she said. “A movie theatre.”

  I looked up. We were standing in front of the mall’s theatre.

  “I haven’t been to the movies in an eon. Do you want to go?”

  I scanned the movies on the blinking marquee. Over the Big Top was on. This day might not be a total disaster, I told myself.

  “Jumping Jupiters! Saura is playing! Let’s see that!” Kallie said, turning to me with a delighted smile.

  I swallowed my frustration. Of course I wanted to see Over the Big Top, but I didn’t want to explain to Kallie why. Besides, she’d probably say it was too full of people making kissing sounds like cows pulling their feet out of poop. I didn’t think I could take that, not on top of everything else. So I pasted on a smile. “O.K., let’s see Saura.”

  “Great.” Kallie checked her watch. “We’d better get our tickets. The movie starts in a few minutes.” She looked at me, then said softly, “Let’s just forget about Chanel Winters and enjoy Saura, O.K.?”

  I nodded, looking down at my mostly uneaten daiquiri ice. It had turned to liquid, and cold rivers of it ran down the side of the cup and onto my fingers. I tossed it in a garbage can and followed Kallie to the box office.

  I enjoyed Saura more than I expected. I mean, it wasn’t Over the Big Top or anything, but it was kind of cool, especially when Saura karate-chopped the rapiers out of the hands of five large threatening men. Kallie loved the movie and raved about it the whole way home. I was thinking about what she had said about Chanel and the importance of being yourself. When we reached Kallie’s yard, I said morosely, “I’m glad you enjoyed the movie. At least something went right today.”

  “What do you mean?” I was quiet. “Is this about Chanel Winters?”

  But I didn’t want to talk about that. “No, it’s about the clothes. I just thought I could show you something different that you’d like. You’ve shown me so many new things. But I haven’t given you anything.” I sounded like a little kid disappointed that the drawing she’d made for Mother’s Day had fallen in the bathtub. One who was expecting a chocolate bar in return for the drawing.

  “Hil, don’t say that! You’ve given me plenty of things. Time, imagination, but most of all friendship. That’s way more important than some dumb shirt.”

  I winced. “I just wish you liked those clothes.”

  Her eyes narrowed, but her voice was sad. “Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t. They’re just not me.”

  I looked at her. Her dress had a streak of peanut butter ’n chocolate under one armpit, and her hair looked like a helicopter had just taken off in it. Face it, I told myself, she’ll never change her style. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I asked half-heartedly, “What did you buy in the souvenir store?”

  “Oh. A postcard from the Bata Shoe Museum. It’s for one of my scrapbooks. I was missing a picture of a silk mule from the eighteenth century, so now I have one.”

  I felt like I’d been told that a loved one had drowned off Point Pelee, only to hear that person’s voice in the distance. “The Bata Shoe Museum?”

  “Yeah. I went there a couple of years ago. It’s a really neat place. You should go. I bet you’d like it.”

  “You mean you’re interested in shoes and fashion?” I said slowly.

  “Yeah.” Then her eyes widened. “Oh, I get it. You think because I don’t like your kind of clothes, I don’t like any kind of clothes.”

  “I just assumed —”

  “Well don’t. Don’t assume things about me and I won’t assume things about you.”

  She spoke in a sharp voice that reminded me of the way she’d spoken when I asked about the sandball. Although it was bright outside, I felt as if menacing storm clouds had suddenly materialized over my head.

  “O.K.,” I said in a small voice.

  Kallie exhaled, and the storm clouds moved off and became grey patches hovering in the distance. “Good. I have to go home now because I’m helping my mom cook dinner, but thanks a bunch for taking me to the mall. I really enjoyed it.”

  I managed a weak but sincere smile. “O.K. See you.”

  “See you.”

  I started to walk across my lawn when Kallie called me back.

  “Don’t you think it would be a lot of pressure?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Being popular like Chanel. What if your hair looked bad one day or you got a pimple on the end of your nose? Then everyone would laugh at you, and you’d be popped like a balloon.”

  “I guess so.”

  “But if you’re a geek, everyone laughs at you anyway, right, so who cares? One more time won’t make any difference. You can do what you want.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “Let’s just say I suspect being a geek has its advantages.”

  I wasn’t convinced.

  That evening, I lay on my bed, thinking. I wasn’t surprised that Kallie didn’t like the clothes, only disappointed. How was I going to deal with having a geeky friend at school next year? And don’t even get me started on what I was thinking about The Dress. I remembered how Kallie had looked at me quietly, like she disapproved of me wanting it, and I felt like I’d ballooned from a one-ton into a two-ton sandball. After everything I’d been through at the beach, how could she imply I was too fat to wear the dress of my dreams? Some friend.

  And then I remembered all those compliments. It was nice, almost embarrassingly nice. I couldn’t figure Kallie out. How could she be so cruel one minute and so kind the next? I stared at the faceless Victorian ladies on my wall, as if they knew the answer.

  I was having even less success understanding myself. I had to admit that some of the stuff Kallie said got to me. Especially the part about being yourself and not worrying what other people thought of you. It had never occurred to me to not be worried about what other people thought, but maybe Kallie was wrong about that. I didn’t think she had as much life experience as I did.

  And what was so wrong with wanting to be someone
else? Why was it bad to want to improve yourself? Everything was so confusing. I longed for the previous summers, when I hung around with Lynn and didn’t have to worry about anything more complicated than whether Mom was making her infamous meat loaf for dinner.

  Just then, Mom herself knocked on my door.

  “Hilary? There’s a phone call for you.”

  I’d been so absorbed in my thoughts I hadn’t even heard the phone ring. I hurried into my parents’ room. I wasn’t allowed to have a phone in my room. much less a cell phone. Another sore point between my mom and me. I jumped into the cozy armchair near the bay window, and reached for the receiver, knocking over a miniature Buddha. “Hello?”

  “Hil?” said a voice scratchy with static.

  “Lynn!” I exclaimed happily. “How are you?”

  “I’m O.K. How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  I’d been waiting so long to hear from her, but now that I had, I didn’t know what to say. We both burst out laughing and Lynn apologized for sending only one e-mail. She’d wanted to send more, but things were crazy there and when her family wasn’t travelling, her parents and sister were taking her places in town.

  I forgot my anger at how she hadn’t been in touch. After all I’d been through today, just hearing her voice was like having a cool, sweet-smelling lotion poured on a burn. I asked how she liked San Francisco.

  “It’s great. We saw the Golden Gate Bridge and Chinatown and rode in those trolleys. We’ve been so many places. The whole family went to Disneyland a few weeks ago and that was fun. I mean, fun for the little kids. But the best was L.A. My parents took me and my sister there for a week, and it was so cool.”

  “Did you see Damian Sámos?”

  “No, but we went to Rodeo Drive and guess what? I bought something from one of the stores. It cost like a million dollars and my mom was freaking, but it was worth it! I mean, it’s from L.A. The Limit is, like, nothing compared to the stores there!” she said gleefully.

  My stomach suddenly felt cold and hollow. Buddha looked up at me mockingly.

  “So, yeah, it’s been a fairly good vacation.” She was speaking in that smug voice she used when she was trying to act cool and distant even though she was really excited about something. “What have you been up to?”

  I drew a deep breath. “Nothing much. I went to the beach last week.”

  “Oh, that’s nice. You went with your parents?”

  “No,” I said quietly. Then I dropped the bomb. “Actually I went with a friend.”

  There was a pause. “A friend,” said Lynn, in a totally different tone of voice. “Oh. Who was it, someone from our class?”

  “No.” I waited. I wasn’t going to tell her about Kallie. She’d have to ask.

  Lynn sighed. “Are you going to tell me who it is, or do I have to guess?”

  “Her name is Kallie Foster, and she just moved in next door to me. She’s really nice. She’s going to Mackenzie, too. We’ve been hanging around a lot the last few weeks,” I said, feeling as if I was telling a rival I’d just been asked out by Brett Filburn.

  “Oh,” said Lynn coldly. “I’m so glad you have someone to hang around with when I’m not there.”

  I started to feel guilty. “I think you’d really like her.”

  “Whatever. Look, Hil, I’ve got to go.”

  Before she could hang up, I said, “I’m sorry, Lynn, I didn’t mean to —”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said dismissively.

  But I could tell she was going to worry, so I added, “When you come back, maybe we can go to The Limit and look at those dresses.”

  Her voice thawed. “Sure. I’d like that.”

  “When are you coming back again?”

  “August 20th. Anyway, I have to go. Nice talking to you. And have fun with Carrie.”

  “Kallie.”

  “Whatever. Talk to you later, Hil.”

  I trudged back to my room and leaned against my desk, staring at Damian Sámos. (He wasn’t any more help than the Victorian ladies.) I knew it wasn’t very nice of me to rub Kallie in Lynn’s face. I mean, yes, Lynn was having fun without me, but she was having fun with her family, not with another friend, so it was different. Then again, I thought, Lynn has a sister, but I don’t have anyone else, so why shouldn’t I be allowed to have another good friend?

  Even so, when I thought about all the times Kallie and I had painted her walls and played Gorgolia, I had the same awkward feeling I’d had when I’d come back from Kallie’s that first time. I felt like Lynn had found out all about my time with Kallie, although really I’d told her almost nothing, and that now I was charged with something and I had to defend myself. Only I didn’t entirely believe in my own innocence.

  But even in my confusion, I knew that I didn’t want to let Lynn or Kallie tell me what to do. I’d just have to figure that out for myself.

  -9-

  Galileo’s Moons

  The red-haired woman braced herself against the crate in the pitch-dark storeroom, the scissors gripped tightly in her hand, ready to strike the masked man who was after her…

  But for once I didn’t care whether Nancy Drew escaped from the murderer. All I cared about were three questions: How was I going to get Lynn to accept Kallie as my friend? How was I going to get Kallie to become less of a nerd? And most importantly, how was I going to get in with the right people at school next year?

  I was reading a paragraph for the third time when I heard a gate slam. Kallie was standing in my backyard, wearing a black T-shirt with silver stars and moons on it and crooked 3-D glasses that looked like they came from a cereal box.

  “Hi, Hil! Ready to go?” she said, grinning.

  “Go where?”

  “To the planetarium!”

  My heart felt like a miniature bowling ball. I’d never been less in the mood to go to a planetarium, and that was saying something.

  “I don’t feel like going today. Can we go another time?”

  “Sorry, but today’s the only day Razi’s going downtown this week.”

  I sighed. “All right.”

  She seemed to notice my displeasure for the first time. “If you really don’t want to go…”

  “No, I said I’d go and I will.” I sounded as if I was donating a small organ to save her life and she should be very grateful to me.

  Kallie and her dad held a humming contest the whole way to the planetarium. He hummed the music to Hockey Night in Canada, and she tried to out-hum him with the national anthem. It was a good thing they weren’t sitting in the back because otherwise I probably would have slapped them. They were so immersed in their hum-a-thon that we drove right past the turnoff to the planetarium. I checked my watch. If we didn’t hurry up, we were going to be late for the two o’clock show and we’d have to wait another hour until the next one started.

  So you can imagine my mood when we finally pulled up outside the building.

  As we got out of the car, Kallie’s dad intoned in a deep, formal voice, “Goodbye, Callisto Amonalisa Eadoin and Hilary Laura.”

  Kallie giggled. “Goodbye, O Humdacious Hummer. We shall rendezvous at precisely four o’clock in front of this fabulous —”

  “Kallie, it’s almost two. The show’s about to start,” I said. I hurried up the steps to the front entrance.

  We bought our tickets and I strode towards the theatre. Kallie lingered behind to fiddle with her 3-D glasses.

  “Hurry up!” I snapped. “Why are you wearing those stupid things anyway?”

  “Because it’ll give me a different view of the planets. Do you want a pair? I brought an extra one.”

  “No! Let’s just go.”

  We entered the theatre and sat down just in time for the lights to dim. Sinking into the plush seats, we gazed up as hundreds of pinpoints of light dotted the domed ceiling like fireflies popping up at a surprise firefly birthday party. The audience, mostly small children and their mothers, said, “Ooooh. Aaaah.” One of those p
atient voices that enunciates every syllable came over the intercom. “The universe is billions of years old…”

  At first I was too irritated to listen to the commentary. But gradually my thoughts were pulled back to what the announcer was saying about the human fascination with what lay beyond our planet.

  “The ancient peoples of the world believed that the earth lay at the centre of the universe, and that the planets and the sun revolved around the earth. But in 1610, Galileo used a new invention, the telescope, to locate four moons that revolved around Jupiter: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. With Galileo’s discovery came proof that some heavenly bodies did not revolve around the earth. Galileo’s theory was controversial because it went against everything that had previously been thought…”

  I turned to Kallie and whispered, “Is that where your name comes from? One of Jupiter’s moons?”

  “Partly,” she whispered back. “My mom’s into astronomy, and she wanted to name me after a moon.”

  But I didn’t get a chance to ask where else her name came from before the screen sent us on a dizzying tour of the universe. I leaned back in my chair, absorbing the colours and shapes on the screen. I hadn’t realized how immense the universe was and how small we were in comparison. Listening in awe to the presentation, I forgot about everything except what was beyond the earth.

  Before I knew it, the show had ended and we had moved from the cool dark of the theatre to the piercing sun outside. Kallie was just as enraptured with the show as I was.

  “What a wonderful experience,” she said quietly.

  “Yes,” I said. We exchanged smiles.

  Then she broke the mood by declaring, “I’m hungry! Where can we get something to eat around here?”

  I pointed towards the big park across the street. “We could go to the park. They might be selling ice cream.”

  “Great!” She took off.

  I followed, panting to keep up. We found a guy riding one of those bicycles with a freezer attached. Kallie bought a purple ghost Popsicle with gum for eyes and I bought a drumstick (because I figured I had to have a treat once in a while). Kallie headed through the tall trees and across the dry grass to an empty bench.