Page 31 of The Initial Insult

It might rot my teeth, but the sugar is helping us all get along. We’ve got the giggles, and Tress has even loosened up a little bit.

“Hey,” she says, bumping me with her elbow. “Do your impression of Mr. Stephens.”

“Oh . . .,” I say, my stomach bottoming out a little bit.

“Do her what?” Gretchen asks.

“She can do Mr. Stephens,” Tress says. “She’s, like, really good at impressions.”

It’s true, I am. But it’s not something I do for just anybody. Last time Mom caught me mimicking our mailman, Dad in a laughing fit on the couch, she told me it wasn’t nice to make fun of people.

“I’m not making fun,” I insisted. “I’m just—”

“Pretending to be a sixty-year-old man?” Mom asked, raising an eyebrow. “That’s weird, Felicity.”

Maybe it is weird, I don’t know. I’d kept my impressions just for Tress since then, but now Maddie and Gretchen are looking at me expectantly.

“All right,” I say, standing up. A cascade of cookie crumbs rolls off my front as I get into position, throwing my shoulders back and making myself big, barrel-chested like Mr. Stephens, our science teacher.

“Volcanoes,” I say, dropping my voice really low and rounding out my vowels. “Are truly a miracle of geology.”

Maddie erupts in a fit of giggles, and Tress claps. Gretchen just looks at me, wide-eyed.

“That was . . . bizarre,” she finally says.

Weird, my mom’s voice echoes in the back of my head, and I falter on my feet, wondering how Gretchen would react if I dropped to the floor right now, foaming at the mouth. Bizarre would just be the beginning.

“Do another one, do another one,” Maddie says. “Do Captain Choir!”

I roll into an impression of Mrs. Adams, our music teacher, smacking the undersides of my arms to make my skin wobble, which totally is making fun of someone. But even Gretchen is laughing now, so I keep going.

“Oh, do Ms. Frampton!” Gretchen says.

That one’s harder. Ms. Frampton is a complete airhead of a substitute that we get sometimes. She’s really young and nice and just seems to want everyone to be happy. Last time we had her she brought homemade cookies, and then lost control of the classroom when Jessica Stanhope had an allergic reaction to the nuts in them. We haven’t seen Ms. Frampton since then.

I screw my eyes shut, trying to remember her. Trying to recall the set of her face, small repeated movements, the lilt of her voice. All the things that make a person unique.

“Hello, class,” I singsong as I breeze through the doorway, pretending like I’ve just arrived. “How are we today? I’ve got cookies for everyone . . . except Jessica.”

“Like Jessica needs any more cookies,” Gretchen says, holding her hands out from her waist. Maddie erupts into giggles, but Tress is frozen in place, her face a tight mask.

I don’t know what happened. It’s not like she’s friends with Jessica or anything, and my impression wasn’t that bad. I hit the high notes of Ms. Frampton’s voice, the cadence of her speech with a little downturn at the end. No . . . wait. That’s not right. I wasn’t doing Ms. Frampton at all; I fell back on mimicking a voice that I’ve heard a million times.

I was doing Annabelle Montor.

And by the look on Tress’s face, I nailed it.

Chapter 26

Tress

Sixth Grade

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

It’s true, but not because I have to pee. I’m going to puke. I’m going to lose Coke and Doritos and Oreos all over these girls who have parents. I push past Felicity, and she reaches for me, her fingers glancing over my arm. It’s just like my mom said when I rolled around on the ground with Dad and Goldie . . . I can hear you, but I can’t see you. I might never see my mom again for as long as I live, but I just heard her voice. And it came out of Felicity Turnado’s mouth.

“Don’t touch me,” I growl, ducking out from under her reach.