Zenobia July Read online

  VIKING

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York

  First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2019

  Copyright © 2019 by Lisa Bunker

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  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE.

  Ebook ISBN 9780451479426

  Version_1

  In memory of Leelah Alcorn

  and of all the other children

  who couldn’t find a way through.

  This book was born out of pondering

  what needed to be different

  in order for you to endure and survive.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Interlude | Seeing Zen: Aunt Phil

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Interlude | Seeing Zen: Natalie

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Interlude | Seeing Zen: Paul

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Interlude | Seeing Zen: Melissa

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Interlude | Seeing Zen: Grandma Gail

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Interlude | Seeing Zen: Aunt Lucy

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  Chapter Sixty

  About the Author

  ONE

  SHE HAD THAT new kid look. Anyone paying attention could have seen it. In the flinchiness of her shoulders. In the way her eyes skittered from face to face as the other students streamed past. Managed to show up, her shoulders and eyes said, but not sure about having the nerve to actually go in. Might be too much today.

  Not that anyone was paying attention. First day of school at Monarch Middle, everyone was scoping for friends, shouting hey, clustering up. It was a hot morning. It felt like summer swearing it was going to stick around this year, no really. The wind moving through the high branches of the trees made wavering leaf shadows.

  The new kid was wearing a blue dress that was too big for her, sneakers with white socks pushed down, and a heavy-looking backpack. Her jumbled mopflop of hair made her face look smaller and her eyes look bigger. The tiny metal balls that ear-piercers put in newly pierced ears glinted in her lobes. She hovered behind a pillar at the far end of the entrance, away from the crush.

  Fewer students now, mostly single ones hurrying to beat the bell. Each time the metal-and-glass doors swung shut, a mirror image of the sidewalk clunked back into place, and each time, the new kid’s eyes shifted toward it. She looked like she might be asking her reflection to tell her that everything was going to be all right. But then her eyes always went down again, like maybe her reflection had shaken its head.

  Now a minute with no one using the leftmost door. This time her eyes stayed. She stared at her mirror image.

  She turned first to one side, then the other. She swished her dress.

  A furtive glance around, and then an awkward pirouette. As she finished the spin a truck passed behind her, turning the reflection background dark and transparent, and she screened her face with her hands and cringed away. Someone was watching her through the glass.

  The door opened and the watcher came out—another student. What you might notice first, if you were a detail person: the sharp-edged exact haircut with a part. The stocky, square body shape. The jeans rolled up to mid calf, revealing mismatched socks, the button-down shirt and boots, the big black glasses. Or, if you were more the general-impression type, you might notice that this new person seemed equally balanced between looking like a girl and looking like a boy.

  The watcher approached cautiously, stopped a few steps away. “Hey. You okay?”

  No answer.

  “Um . . . I haven’t seen you before. Are you new?”

  Still no answer, just an eyes-wide look. But then, one quick nod.

  “Oh. Okay.” Silence. “Um, so, you wanna come inside? School is about to start.”

  The new kid curled sideways like she was trying to disappear into herself. The bell rang. Her body jerked.

  “You don’t say much.” Not mean, just saying.

  The skin around those big eyes got wrinkles in it. “I can talk.” Just above a whisper, but clear enough.

  “Cool. You can dance, too. Looked good. Nice moves.”

  The new kid’s fingers twisted together.

  “So, person who can talk and dance, do you also have a name?”

  Again the new kid tried to curl-disappear, so hard she stumbled back around. After a couple of seconds, though, her head came up and her spine got straight again and she turned back. “My name is Zenobia.” A little gasp after, like it had taken all her strength to say.

  “What? No way! How do you spell that?”

  Zenobia spelled her name.

  “And what’s your last name?” The question was eager, almost hard, but it came with a light in the eyes. Some kind of geeky glee happening there.

  “My last name?”

  “Yeah.”

  Silence. The
n, “July.” An actual whisper this time.

  “Like the month?”

  “Yes. My name is Zenobia July.” Another gasp.

  A sudden laugh. Geeky glee stronger now, beaming out. “That is totally Ex. Cell. Ent! Eleven letters and no repeats.”

  Zen’s eyes went up and left. For a second, picturing alphabet, she forgot to look scared. “You’re right,” she said. “I never noticed.”

  “That’s the closest anyone has come in a long time to matching me. But you didn’t, not quite. I’ve got thirteen.”

  “Thirteen letters?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “With no repeats.”

  “Yeah.”

  Zen waited, then asked, sounding just a little annoyed. “Okay then, so what’s your name?”

  “Arli, people call me. A-R-L-I.”

  “That’s only four letters.”

  “No duh.”

  “So what’s your full name?”

  “Yeah, you know what? I’m already late for class. Find me at lunch and ask me again then. You coming in?”

  Zen’s eyes did another circuit: school entrance, down at herself, then up again to Arli’s face. For the first time, a touch of a smile. “Yeah, okay, I guess I can. Thanks.” They went in together through the mirrored door.

  TWO

  ZEN FELT HERSELF whirled along like a twig in a flood, her mind battered by the flurry and racket and smell of so many other kids. And the eyes. So many eyes. Teachers garbled at her, and she nodded and agreed to whatever it was they had said. Only one thing kept her from giving in to the overwhelm. It was a silly thing, but even as she rolled her eyes at it she grabbed the lifeline: she wanted to know Arli’s full name. Just hang on till lunch, she whispered to herself. Just hang on till lunch.

  Before lunch, though, there was another challenge to get through: bathroom break. On the way into her second-period class, she spotted the door to the girls’ restroom a short stretch down the hall. During the last five minutes of class she packed up her things, and then the instant the bell rang she was out the door, down the hall, first person in the room, and straight into the farthest stall.

  It took a second to remember to lift the dress up instead of pulling it down. As she settled on the cool plastic of the seat she checked sight lines through the cracks. Nothing but wall, except all the way to the right a bit of the last sink. If anyone was going to peek they’d have to come down to the end, and there was no reason, with the last stall taken. She was as safe as she could expect to be. She sat and tried to still her quivering body enough to let go and relieve her aching bladder.

  Just as the squeezer muscles down there finally began to relax, the door creaked and footsteps entered. Her squeezer muscles clamped shut again.

  “. . . hair like that,” Voice Number One was saying.

  “God, I know, right?” said Voice Number Two.

  “It looked like, you know, when they’re selling pumpkins at Halloween? Like scarecrow hair made of, you know, corn husks. Corn husk hair.”

  Giggles. “God, Natalie, you’re so mean,” said Voice Number Two admiringly.

  “Just calling it the way I see it,” said Voice Number One, aka Natalie apparently. Natalie talked like she was Queen of the World.

  Zen bent double and buried her face in her knees. Girl-voices echoed between hard surfaces, but she couldn’t hear the words anymore. The door creaked again. Feet grouped and shuffled. The five minutes of class-break took a year to pass. Only when the bell had rung and the room had emptied again would her squeezer muscles finally unclench. She was late for her third class.

  Two endless class periods later another bell rang, and Zen checked her sweat-creased schedule for the twentieth time. Yes, she had made it. Lunch. The cafeteria was still going to be a gauntlet—all those eyes, all in one place—but at least if Arli was there, there would be one face she had seen before.

  The haircut and glasses were easy to spot. Arli was sitting at an edge table with a couple of other kids, one of them a girl wearing a colorful head scarf pinned at her chin, the other a seriously skinny boy with a buzz cut on one side of his head and long bright-blue hair on the other, tied back in a half ponytail. Zen clutched the reusable lunch bag Aunt Phil had given her and wove her way over.

  Arli looked up as she approached. “Hey. Join us.”

  “Thanks.” She sat down. The two kids she didn’t know yet looked at her. Zen ducked her face.

  Half-and-half hair boy spoke. “Hi. Welcome to Arli’s table of orphan misfits. I’m Clem.”

  “Orphans?”

  “Not literally.”

  “Clem?”

  “Arli gave me that. Nickname Genius over here.”

  “But, why Clem?”

  “It’s short for Clementine. I had one in my lunch the day we met. My regular boring name is Greg.”

  “Oh.” All three still looking at her. She swallowed, made herself go on. “Okay, my name is—”

  Arli cut in. “Zen.” Said like it was a Moment.

  “Um, yes? That is what I was going to say?”

  “And now there’s no turning back,” said Clem. “Now you’re one of us.”

  “But . . . that’s so obvious.”

  Arli did a stare over glasses. “So?”

  “And my aunts already use it.”

  “So? Sometimes simple is best. Do not question the Nickname Genius.”

  Zen turned to the other girl. “Um, so, what did Arli name you?”

  “Dyna. It is short for Dynamo.” She said the last word with a push, like the announcer in a superhero cartoon, and Arli and Clem laughed. “What is funny?” said Dyna. She had an accent.

  Clem touched her arm. “Nothing. We love you.”

  “Oh? Okay.” She turned back to Zen. “My real name is Chantal.”

  Zen glanced at Arli. “So why Dyna?” she said.

  “Because she has such intense eyes.” She did, indeed—a sharp, bright, steady gaze.

  “I like your scarf,” Zen said. It was the first thing she had said all day just because she was thinking it. The scarf was partly plain black, but with a border of gold and purple in an elaborate print design.

  Dyna smiled. “Merci, thank you,” she said.

  “De rien, you’re welcome,” said Clem, looking pleased with himself. Language geek, maybe.

  “Hijab,” said Arli. Word geek, already established.

  “Yes,” said Dyna. “You remember.”

  Dyna’s smile gave Zen the courage to speak her curiosity. “Where are you from?”

  “From the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Here two years.”

  Clem said, “Where are you from, Zen? Only fair.”

  “Oh. Um, Arizona. Here, um, four months.”

  “How come you moved to the beautiful city of Portland, Maine?”

  A reasonable question, but Zen’s eyes went down and her body folded into itself. Trying to disappear again. Glances among the other three. Arli said, “Never mind. Some other time, right?”

  “Sure,” said Clem. Dyna nodded.

  To get past the moment, Zen unpacked the lunch Aunt Phil had made for her. It turned out to be a couple of plastic tubs, one containing cut-up veggies, the other full of brownish-yellow goop. She popped the lid and garlic-smell puffed up hard. So many new foods since coming to live with the Aunties. She had seen this one before, but she couldn’t remember what it was called. “What is this again?” she asked.

  Three pairs of eyes examined her lunch.

  “Hummus?” said Dyna.

  “Looks like,” said Clem. “Haven’t you ever seen hummus before?”

  “Not often enough to remember the name.”

  Arli said, “How can you not know hummus? It’s the official state dip of Arizona.” The other two laughed, and after a second Zen did too . . . and ju
st like that, they were joking around, the way friends do. The conversation veered randomly, it didn’t matter where, and Zen ate her veggies and hummus, and lunch period passed easy.

  It was only when the bell rang that she realized she still didn’t know Arli’s full name. “Give me your number,” Arli said. “I’ll text you.” Then it was time for class.

  THREE

  THE AFTERNOON STILL blurred by, but it wasn’t as bad as before. Now underneath all the spinning, Zen felt a floor, because now there were three faces she might see that she knew. Clem’s blue hair made him easy to spot, and she did, twice, once with eye contact and an eyebrow flash. And Dyna turned out to be in her last-period class. There were no empty seats near her when Zen came in, but they exchanged friendly looks, and it helped. Arli she did not see again, but Arli had her phone number. There were connections now. New reasons on the yes side of the question of whether it was possible she might actually survive this.

  When the last bell finally rang and the hall-flow spilled Zen out in front of the school, she saw Aunt Phil in the park across the street . . . talking to a squirrel? That seemed to be what she was doing. Zen bit her lip. Aunt Phil was definitely an odd person, and Zen hadn’t yet figured out how to feel completely comfortable with her.

  Aunt Phil had a craggy face and big, gnarled hands and a clumpy-stumpy way of moving around in her boots and jeans. She also had a wild Mohawk-style haircut, dyed red, orange, and yellow, and rows of rings all the way up around both ears. And, she talked like hippie was definitely still a thing.

  But it was Aunt Phil’s eyes that most alarmed Zen. Alarmed, but also intrigued. They were so bright, and you got the sense when they looked at you that you were being seen. Zen had spent most of her life looking into eyes that were closed off like the doors of vaults, or roiling with anger, or both. After so many eyes like that, it was hard to look steadily back into Aunt Phil’s shrewd twinkle.

  Oh, and, one more thing: Aunt Phil used pet names. A seemingly endless variety of them. Zen hadn’t yet decided how she felt about that.

  She crossed the street and walked under the park trees to join her aunt, who was, indeed, talking to a squirrel. “Nice chatting with you, little critter,” she said as Zen stepped close. “But I gotta wind it up now. My girl is out.” Then that disconcerting gaze, and, “Well, hey, pumpkin. You made it.”