The Importance of Wings Page 6

  “Nothing’s more important than wings,” I shoot back.

  Liat eyes me intensely. “Really?” I shut up then.

  chapter fourteen

  halloween is a big deal on our block.

  All the little kids wear costumes and go trick-or-treating. We do, too. Eighth grade is the unofficial cutoff point. Afterward, when it gets dark, everyone hikes to the woods to tell ghost stories.

  Kathleen, Gayle, Liat, and I plan to go trick-or-treating together. We go to Liat’s house to pick her up.

  Kathleen is dressed as a witch, in a sheer black dress and torn black stockings. Her pointed black hat keeps flopping over her forehead. It annoys her a lot, but at least she has a different costume from last year.

  Gayle and I dress as black cats, same as last year. Black headbands with furry black ears, fuzzy black tails, and black noses with black whiskers.

  Secretly, I wish I could go as Wonder Woman.

  It’s hard to think of Liat’s house as Liat’s house and not the Cursed House. Especially since it’s Halloween. I find myself wondering if there are secret torture chambers behind the walls, dusty dungeons in the basement, crumbling skeletons under the floor, and bloody body parts in the attic. It makes me shudder—scared and excited at the same time.

  Rivka answers the door. She’s wearing a long wine-colored dress with jagged sleeves. I wonder if this is a special outfit for Halloween or if it’s for everyday use. I decide it’s the latter.

  Rivka screeches in delight. “Eizeh yoffee!” she cries, which means “How lovely!”

  Liat’s father comes to the door. He’s wearing yet another polyester special. He must have a limitless supply. It looks appropriate today, though. It is, after all, Halloween.

  Liat doesn’t have a costume. Rivka helps her throw together some clothes and says she’s going as a “weirdo.” I want to laugh at that one. Will the real weirdo please stand up?

  In the end, Liat wears a sparkly blue wig, shiny black pants, a gold shirt with silver stripes, and red cowboy boots. Everything is borrowed from Rivka. Ha! No surprise there. Rivka makes up Liat’s eyes so heavily with silver eye shadow and black eyeliner that she looks like Cleopatra. She looks really pretty.

  Every Halloween, the same rumor goes around the block that somebody is giving away green apples with razor blades wedged inside them. I have never once gotten a green apple from anyone on Halloween, but the rumor still goes around every year. The boys love telling the little kids on the block what will happen to their mouths and tongues and throats when they bite into it.

  Rivka invites us inside and fills our bags with plastic-wrapped baklava that she informs us has just come out of the oven. I don’t think Rivka understands that Halloween is all about store-bought, sealed candy. Well, at least it isn’t green apples. You could expect something like that from the Cursed House.

  In the living room, I notice a photo on the wall of a black-haired woman sitting on a flowered towel at the beach. Next to her is a little girl with the same black hair. I study the picture closely until it finally dawns on me. It’s Liat and her mom.

  “That was our last vacation—the last time we were all together,” Liat says, coming up behind me. “We went to Elat.”

  I nod solemnly. It’s hard to take Liat seriously with her sparkly blue hair and Cleopatra eyes, but there’s no mistaking the deep sorrow in her voice. I want to hug her, but I worry Liat won’t like it. It occurs to me that my parents went to Elat on their honeymoon. I don’t really know anything about Elat. I only know what my parents have told me—that it’s like Israel’s Miami Beach.

  I pry my eyes away from the photo and look around the living room. The furniture Liat and her father have is shabby, which possibly means they’re poorer than us.

  The longer I stand there, the more freaked-out I start to feel. If anything bad is going to happen in this house, it will surely be on Halloween. I’m relieved when Rivka tells us, “Have good time—don’t eat so much bad stuff,” and sends us off.

  We go trick-or-treating for two and a half hours, stuffing ourselves as we go along with Snickers and Milky Ways and Tootsie Rolls and M&M’s and Butterfingers. I start to feel sick. I never want to look at another candy bar again. Then, holding our stomachs, we head to the woods as night falls.

  No one has given us green apples, though someone did give chocolate chip cookies in sandwich baggies. It’s too bad, because I love chocolate chip cookies.

  “How could they be so clueless?” Gayle complains, tossing her cookies into a trash can. “What a waste.”

  “I wouldn’t get rid of them if I were you,” I say, feeling mischievous. “You might need them to feed the werewolves.”

  “Werewolves?” she asks fearfully.

  “Haven’t you heard? There were reports last week of three werewolves in the woods,” I say, then mimic a round of evil laughter like the villains on Super Friends.

  Gayle rolls her eyes.

  I sound much, much more lighthearted than I actually feel. I do not like the woods, even during the day. I’m ready to head home, but Kathleen wants to go there. Last year, I was sure I was going to have a heart attack during the telling of the ghost stories. Nothing happened, but I was glad when it was over. Why does Halloween have to be about ghosts and witches and vampires? Why can’t it just be about free candy?

  We reach the woods. Kathleen brought a flashlight from home, and we walk slowly behind the faint beam. In the dark, the trees strongly resemble murderers and kidnappers. Disturbing thoughts from every horror movie I’ve ever seen race through my mind as we crunch the dried leaves. I see brain-dead zombies in every shadow. A sudden breeze feels icy on my bare neck. Every time a branch snags me, I am convinced it is an escaped convict with a long, sharp knife.

  We look for the clearing, where everyone is supposed to meet. Some kids believe the strange clearing in the middle of the woods is where the aliens landed in their spaceship when they arrived to kidnap people for their wicked medical experiments. I have to admit it is odd to have a perfect clearing right in the middle of the woods, but I’m sure it has nothing to do with evil aliens. Right?

  Someone lets out a bloodcurdling wail.

  Before I know what’s happening, I’m grabbed roughly around the waist. I shriek my head off as the person—or thing!—drags me away from the others and pulls me down to the ground. A warm mouth suddenly closes over mine.

  Is this a kiss?

  The warm lips pull back.

  “Kathleen?” the mouth says.

  “Eddie?” I croak.

  He stands up. Blue eyes twinkle at me. He is dressed as a skeleton in a tight-fitting black bodysuit with white bones gleaming against it. My entire body burns with embarrassment and shame.

  “Roxanne?” he mutters. Then, sheepishly, “Sorry, I thought you were Kathleen.”

  Kathleen, Gayle, and Liat soon surround me. I get to my feet slowly, feeling dazed.

  “Are you okay?” Liat asks.

  “Um, yeah,” I mumble. “I’m okay.” I can’t make myself look at Eddie.

  “What did you grab Roxanne for?” Kathleen asks, punching him in the arm.

  Kathleen didn’t see the kiss! I ask myself if it really happened or if I just imagined it.

  Eddie ignores Kathleen’s question. “Come on, let’s go,” he says briskly. He seizes Kathleen’s hand and begins leading her through the woods. Kathleen doesn’t pull her hand away from his. I feel a sharp pang of jealousy.

  I shuffle behind everyone, licking my lips slowly. I wonder how a boy’s lips could feel so soft, so sweet. My first kiss! From Eddie!

  Except that it was meant for Kathleen. I try to forget that part.

  We reach the clearing. Kids are milling around. Some are seated in a circle on the ground. We find a free spot and sit down together. I sit between Eddie and Liat, feeling a strange mixture of euphoria and envy.

  Eddie grabs Kathleen’s flashlight and holds it under his chin. The light makes him look like a hideous
zombie. His blue eyes glitter when he glances at me. I feel that same burning sensation of lust and humiliation.

  “Let’s begin,” he says in a deep, exaggerated voice. “Gather round, my maggots, and we will talk about horror and blood and guts.”

  Everyone sits down and gazes at him expectantly. Lots of kids have brought flashlights, and they hold them under their chins like Eddie. The circle looks like a spooky ring of bobbing zombie heads.

  “As you all know, horrible creatures live in these woods,” Eddie says ominously. “Creatures who feast on brains and suck blood out of veins and peck eyeballs out of skulls.”

  Kids make delighted grossed-out sounds.

  “Last year I found the skeleton of Stood-Up Serena in these woods,” Eddie goes on somberly. “Stood-Up Serena was tortured before she was murdered in these woods. They pulled out her fingernails, cut off her nose, sliced off her ears, popped out her eyeballs, and chopped off her toes one by one.”

  The taste of six different candy bars rises up in my throat, but I swallow furiously. I know Eddie is making all this up, but does he have to be so disgusting?

  Eddie suddenly stops and looks meaningfully at Liat. “We have among us tonight a descendant of Stood-Up Serena.”

  An excited murmur travels around the circle.

  “This descendant has moved into the Cursed House, that place of horror and evil, to accept the same fate of her long-lost ancestor.”

  Kathleen sighs loudly and tries snatching the flashlight away from Eddie. But Eddie resists and continues to talk about the Cursed House, recounting in graphic detail all the bloody things that have happened there. He also adds some imaginative stories of his own involving chain saws, axes, ice picks, and black crows with sharp beaks.

  Goose bumps on my arms and legs sprout into Mount Everests. Some kids in the creepy, zombie-head circle squirm uneasily. Others sniffle in low voices.

  I glance at Liat. Her face is expressionless.

  We hear loud thrashing noises. Eddie stops talking. A bunch of Things suddenly crash out of the woods and into the clearing. The zombie-head circle erupts in screams. Kids jump up and run in all directions. The Things reach out arms and grab at people. Eddie shines his flashlight onto them.

  It’s red-bumped-pimply-faced Glenn! And his red-bumped-pimply-faced friends!

  I scramble to my feet and, without even devoting one ounce of brain activity to the thought, take off. I ignore twisted branches scratching at my arms and face. I trip over a log, fall facedown into a pile of crud, get up, and take off again. Not until I’m at the edge of the woods do I stop running. I’m surprised to see Gayle and Liat beside me. We’re all panting.

  “I can’t believe … we just left like that,” Liat says.

  Not very Wonder Woman–like. I feel totally uncool.

  chapter fifteen

  it’s the day after halloween. Gayle and I are having candy bars for breakfast, but they’re bitter, not sweet, on my tongue.

  I’m thinking about Liat.

  Liat and I are the same age, we came to the U.S. at exactly the same time, and we both have strange Israeli parents (except for her not having a mother).

  And yet.

  I am afraid.

  Embarrassed.

  Confused. Liat is not.

  The sound of the doorbell interrupts my thoughts. I open the door to find Liat and Rivka standing on our stoop. Rivka is wearing a neon-orange top, dark pink pants, and deep-purple cowboy boots. She is so bright I have to squint. Liat is carrying a foil-wrapped plate.

  “Rivka made this,” Liat says, handing me the plate. “It’s her fantastic schnitzel.”

  “Just for you, booba!” Rivka screeches.

  It smells wonderful. “Thank you,” I say. Schnitzel isn’t a real Hebrew word, but for some reason, it’s the word most Israelis use for fried chicken.

  “I go now,” Rivka says. “I have perm twins today.” Her boots click smartly on the sidewalk as she hurries away.

  I take the plate from Liat. It’s very American, when you think about it, to bring food to your neighbors. Funny that Rivka, who is so Israeli, would do that.

  “What are perm twins?” I ask as I carry the plate carefully into the kitchen and set it on the table. Gayle’s still gorging herself on a Snickers bar.

  Liat follows me. “Oh, these cute little twin girls are getting perms today,” she says.

  Gayle sniffs loudly. “What’s that?” she asks.

  The scent of fried chicken has filled every crevice of the kitchen. Although I’m not hungry, I peel back the foil from the plate and gaze appreciatively at the golden-brown pieces. Gayle removes a leg and chomps down on it. Liat and I sit at the table and watch her.

  “Rivka’s a great cook,” Gayle says between bites.

  “Yeah, Rivka’s great,” Liat agrees.

  “Too bad she isn’t so great with clothes,” I say.

  “What’s wrong with her clothes?” Liat asks.

  I grunt. “Haven’t you noticed?”

  Liat shrugs. “They’re not so bad. A little bright, I guess.”

  I ask the question I’ve been wanting to ask for a long time. “How come your dad wears those outfits?”

  Gayle wipes chicken juice from her mouth and looks expectantly at Liat.

  Liat shrugs again. “I guess they’re comfortable.”

  “But they make him look so weird. Like Rivka.”

  “So?”

  “So, aren’t you worried?” “About what?”

  “About people staring at them? About being embarrassed when you’re with them?”

  “Maybe a little bit,” she admits.

  “What if someone called Rivka a weirdo while you were with her?” I ask, getting to the point.

  “I guess I’d ignore them.”

  “What if they started a fight with you?” I ask.

  “I’d fight back, Roxanne.”

  “What if you didn’t know how to fight back?”

  “I’d learn.” Liat leans forward. “We’re Israeli, Roxanne. Israelis are tough. Israelis are sabras.”

  Sabra is Hebrew for “prickly pear,” a tropical fruit that grows in Israel. Sabras are tough and hard on the outside, soft and sweet on the inside.

  I want to be a sabra.

  The TV suddenly goes blank. An announcer says they are interrupting their regularly scheduled program to bring us a news alert. A man with silver hair starts talking about Israel. We all freeze and glue our eyes to the screen.

  “We’ve just gotten word that a bomb has killed a dozen people in Jerusalem earlier this morning. No one has claimed responsibility….”

  The words melt together in my ears. The only thing I’m able to concentrate on is the horrible pictures on TV. People spattered with bright red blood, people weeping, people running, people screaming, people lying on the ground, reaching their arms toward the camera….

  “Ema,” Gayle murmurs.

  What did the announcer say? Jerusalem?

  Ema isn’t in Jerusalem. Ema is in Tel Aviv.

  “She’s in Tel Aviv,” I say, my voice sounding far away. “She’s not in Jerusalem.”

  But I wonder. What if she went to Jerusalem? What if she decided to visit Jerusalem? What if she was in Jerusalem? What if, what if, what if she’s one of those people, those people spattered with bright red blood, those people weeping, those people running, those people screaming, those people lying on the ground, reaching their arms toward the camera….

  I’m distracted from these terrible thoughts by loud wails. Loud wails in the kitchen. Gayle is crying, her cheeks are splotchy and scarlet, tears are rolling down her cheeks, her expression is twisted into utter agony.

  I put my arms around her. Her entire body shakes uncontrollably. Tears burn in my eyes, too, but a voice inside my head keeps saying, “She’s not in Jerusalem. She’s in Tel Aviv. In Tel Aviv. Not Jerusalem. Tel Aviv. Not Jerusalem.”

  I’m surprised when I look up. Liat is shaking, too. Shaking just like Gayle. Her
face is splotchy, too, twisted like my sister’s, shiny with tears. Is Liat …

  Crying?

  Strong, tough, Israeli Liat?

  It’s a silent kind of crying, but it’s crying.

  Liat is crying for my ema?

  No.

  Liat is crying for her ema.

  The voice inside my head, the one that insisted Ema isn’t one of those people, is overcome by the wailing in the kitchen, and soon I’m crying, too. The three of us are bawling, right there in the kitchen, with the TV blaring, the announcer talking, sirens yowling, pictures flashing, and those people in Jerusalem screaming and weeping and dying, and I can’t take it, I can’t take it.

  Aba said we could call Ema in an emergency. This is an emergency.

  With Gayle still in my arms, I half-drag and half-carry her to the telephone on the wall. I try to remember how to dial Israel, but I’m too upset. It takes three tries before I get all the numbers right.

  There is a lot of static and clicking and noise. But I hear a single voice ask, “Hello?”

  I feel life drain back into my body.

  “Ema!” I holler. “You’re alive!”

  “Motek! Yes, motek, oh, I miss you so much. I try to call before but the lines were blocked. I knew you would worry. I’m in Tel Aviv. I am okay.”

  “I miss you!” I yell, and, all of a sudden, I’m crying even harder.

  Gayle grabs the telephone from me and screams, “Ema, I want you to come home!”

  “Soon,” Ema says. “I am okay. I love you so much.” The static comes again, and the call is over. An obnoxious dial tone drones in my ears.

  Gayle smiles up at me through her wet eyelashes. I kiss her cheek.

  Liat is wiping her eyes delicately, carefully, as if she’s wearing Cleopatra makeup.

  “Liat …,” I start to say, but I can’t think of any words that will help.

  chapter sixteen

  things feel very strange between me and Liat for a few days after the Jerusalem bombing. In fact, we even get into another little fight.

  It happens when Gayle and I are watching cartoons in our pajamas on Saturday morning. Liat rings the doorbell. We let her in and she sighs, “You guys watch so much TV.”