Big Mouth & Ugly Girl Read online

  To Tara Weikum

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  IT WAS AN ORDINARY JANUARY AFTERNOON, a Thursday, when they came for Matt Donaghy.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THAT JANUARY AFTERNOON, WHEN UGLY GIRL struck out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  LIFE CONSISTS OF FACTS, AND FACTS ARE OF two kinds: Boring, and Crucial.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “SON, YOU KNOW WHY WE’RE HERE.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  NO I DID NOT. I DID NOT. I DID NOT.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “URSULA, WHAT’RE YOU WATCHING?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  URSULA RIGGS! THIS HAD TO BE A JOKE.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  FRIDAY MORNING, I WAS DESPERATE TO LEAVE for school as soon as possible, before Mom . . . .

  CHAPTER NINE

  “MATT! GOOD NEWS! PICK UP THE PHONE.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “HI, URSULA!”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WED 2/7/01 10:31PM

  Dear Ursula—

  I’m wondering, is something wrong? Around school, you

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  UGLY GIRL, PRINCIPAL’S PET!

  This really weird bizarre thing.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IT WAS A FRIDAY AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY, after classes. Two weeks and one day after . . .

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  IT WAS A MONDAY AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY, after classes. Two weeks, four days after Matt Donaghy’s . . .

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  FRI 2/16/01 2:11AM

  Dear Ursula,

  I saw you in school yesterday. Not seeing me.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  UGLY GIRL, WARRIOR-WOMAN.

  Ugly Girl, flying high in Manhattan.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  WINTER LONELINESS. WINTER SOLITUDE. You could drift away into the hilly, rock-strewn woods . . .

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  TRUCULENT. I LOOKED UP THE WORD IN THE dictionary and it meant what I’d thought it meant.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  EVERYBODY AT ROCKY RIVER HIGH WAS BUZZING. Two new, startling developments.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THERE IT WAS: MATT DONAGHY’S EMPTY DESK, in homeroom. Three rows to my left, two desks

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “HEY,DONAGH-Y!”

  “Hey, fag!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THAT WEEK I WAS IN A FIERY RED MOOD. At least I was feeling pretty good about my drawing again:

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  NOBODY WOULD KNOW! NOBODY COULD EVEN GUESS.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “MATT?”

  I saw him, and I knew it was him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THURS 3/1/01 5:25AM

  Dear Ursula,

  Thank you for the other day.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  FRI 3/2/01 9:12 PM

  Dear Ursula,

  I’m thinking about the other day.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “PUMPKIN! HEY.”

  It was like he’d come back from, where?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  HE’D FELT HER STRONG FINGERS CLOSE AROUND . . .

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  SAT 3/3/01 11:03 PM

  Dear Ursula,

  This is going to sound really REALLY corny . . .

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  FIERY RED. I WAS FEELING SO GOOD. Like we’d already known each other. In biology there is always . . .

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  MOM NOTICED MY GOOD MOOD, AND LOOKED at me kind of funny. Trying to think what this might mean

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  AT ROCKY RIVER HIGH, THROUGH THE MONTH of March, everybody had an opinion . . .

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  HE ASKED ME, SO I TOLD HIM. If he didn’t want me to tell him, why’d he ask?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  NO E-MAILS AWAITING ME IN THE MORNING, posted by Your friend Matt during the night. No telephone

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  MATT WASN’T GOING TO GIVE IN. Feeling like a time bomb. A secret bomb, and nobody knows . . .

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “MATT, WHERE ARE YOU? IT’S TIME.”

  It was Matt’s mother calling him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  UGLY GIRL, NO TEARS. AND NO LOOKING BACK. Never, never give in.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  “URSULA, WHAT’S THAT? ‘TREASURE HUNT’?” Was it a joke? A trick? My hand turned the stiff piece of

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  TWO NIGHTS LATER, THE PHONE RANG AND I answered it and it was Matt.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  ALEX RAN HOME CRYING. “Pumpkin is gone, Mom! They took Pumpkin!”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  “MAYBE I CAN HELP SOMEHOW? AT LEAST I can be with you.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  I SAID TO MATT, “ I HAVE AN IDEA. C’MON!” “What?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  BY FOUR FORTY P.M. THAT AFTERNOON PUMPKIN was back home. Safely.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  I LOVE YOU. AND I LOVE YOU.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  FIRE ALARMS WERE RINGING, DEAFENING. “FIRE DRILL!”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  EVEN AS IT WAS BEING RELEASED TO THE media, the news was spreading through Rocky River High.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  “OH, URSULA.”

  THIS WAS MOM’S REACTION.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  WAS MATT IMAGINING IT? OR WAS IT REAL?

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  “PUMP-KIN! THIS WAY.” She was trotting into the woods, panting and sniffing

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CREDITS

  COPYRIGHT

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  JANUARY

  ONE

  IT WAS AN ORDINARY JANUARY AFTERNOON, a Thursday, when they came for Matt Donaghy.

  They came for him during fifth period, which was Matt’s study period, in room 220 of Rocky River High School, Westchester County.

  Matt and three friends—Russ, Stacey, Skeet—had formed a circle with their desks at the rear of the room and were conferring, in lowered voices, about Matt’s adaptation of a short story by Edgar Allan Poe into a one-act play; after school, in Drama Club, the four of them were scheduled to read William Wilson: A Case of Mistaken Identity for the club members and their advisor, Mr. Weinberg. It was a coincidence that Mr. Weinberg, who taught English and drama at Rocky River High, was in charge of fifth-period study hall, and when a knock came at the door of the room, Mr. Weinberg went to open it in his good-natured, sauntering manner.

  “Yes, gentlemen? What can I do for you?”

  Only a few students, sitting near the front of the room, took much notice. They might have registered a note of surprise in Mr. Weinberg’s tone. But Mr. Weinberg, with his graying sandy hair worn longer than most of his male colleagues’ at Rocky River, and a bristling beard that invited teasing, had a flair for dramatizing ordinary remarks, giving a light touch where he could. Calling strangers “gentlemen” was exactly in keeping with Mr. Weinberg’s humor.

  At the rear of the room, Matt and his friends were absorbed in the play, for which Matt was doing hurried revisions, typing away furiously on his laptop. Anxiously he’d asked his friends, “But does this work? Is it scary, is it funny, does it move?” Matt Donaghy had something of a reputation at Rocky River for being both brainy and a comic character, but secretly he was a perfectionist, too. He’d been working on his one-act play William Wilson: A Case of Mistaken Identity longer than his friends knew, and he had hopes it would be selected to be performed at
the school’s Spring Arts Festival.

  Typing in revisions, Matt hadn’t been paying any attention to Mr. Weinberg at the front of the room talking with two men. Until he heard his name spoken—“Matthew Donaghy?”

  Matt looked up. What was this? He saw Mr. Weinberg pointing in his direction, looking worried. Matt swallowed hard, beginning to be frightened. What did these men, strangers, want with him? They wore dark suits, white shirts, plain neckties; and they were definitely not smiling. As Matt stared, they approached him, moving not together but along two separate aisles, as if to block off his route if he tried to escape. Afterward Matt would realize how swift and purposeful—and practiced—they were. If I’d made a break to get my backpack . . . If I’d reached into my pocket . . .

  The taller of the two men, who wore dark-rimmed glasses with green-tinted lenses, said, “You’re Matthew Donaghy?”

  Matt was so surprised, he heard himself stammer, “Y-Yes. I’m—Matt.”

  The classroom had gone deathly silent. Everyone was staring at Matt and the two strangers. It was like a moment on TV, but there were no cameras. The men in their dark suits exuded an authority that made rumpled, familiar Mr. Weinberg in his corduroy jacket and slacks look ineffectual.

  “Is something w-wrong? What do you want with—me?”

  Matt’s mind flooded: Something had happened at home to his mother, or his brother, Alex . . . his father was away on business; had something happened to him? A plane crash . . .

  The men were standing on either side of his desk, looming over him. Unnaturally close for strangers. The man with the glasses and a small fixed smile introduced himself and his companion to Matt as detectives with the Rocky River Police Department and asked Matt to step outside into the corridor. “We’ll only need a few minutes.”

  In his confusion Matt looked to Mr. Weinberg for permission—as if the high school teacher’s authority could exceed the authority of the police.

  Mr. Weinberg nodded brusquely, excusing Matt. He too appeared confused, unnerved.

  Matt untangled his legs from beneath his desk. He was a tall, lanky, whippet-lean boy who blushed easily. With so many eyes on him, he felt that his skin was burning, breaking into a fierce flamelike acne. He heard himself stammer, “Should I—take my things?” He meant his black canvas backpack, which he’d dropped onto the floor beside his desk, the numerous messy pages of his play script, and his laptop computer.

  Meaning too—Will I be coming back?

  The detectives didn’t trouble to answer Matt, and didn’t wait for him to pick up the backpack; one of them took charge of it, and the other carried Matt’s laptop. Matt didn’t follow them from the room; they walked close beside him, not touching him but definitely giving the impression of escorting him out of study hall. Matt moved like a person in a dream. He caught a glimpse of his friends’ shocked faces, especially Stacey’s. Stacey Flynn. She was a popular girl, very pretty, but a serious student; the nearest Matt Donaghy had to a girlfriend, though mostly they were “just friends,” linked by an interest in Drama Club. Matt felt a stab of shame that Stacey should be witnessing this. . . . Afterward he would recall how matter-of-fact and practiced the detectives obviously were, removing the object of their investigation from a public place.

  What a long distance it seemed, walking from the rear of the classroom to the front, and to the door, as everyone stared. There was a roaring in Matt’s ears. Maybe his house had caught on fire? No, a plane crash . . . Where was Dad, in Atlanta? Dallas? When was he coming home? Today, tomorrow? But was it likely that police would come to school to inform a student of such private news?

  It was bad news, obviously.

  “Through here, son. Right this way.”

  In the corridor outside the classroom, Matt stared at the detectives, who were both big men, taller than Matt and many pounds heavier. He swallowed hard; he was beginning now to feel the effect of a purely physical anxiety.

  Matt heard his hoarse, frightened voice. “What—is it?”

  The detective with the glasses regarded Matt now with a look of forced patience. “Son, you know why we’re here.”

  TWO

  THAT JANUARY AFTERNOON, WHEN UGLY GIRL struck out.

  Not that I was hurt, I was not.

  Not that I gave a damn, I did not.

  Not that any of you saw me cry, nobody ever saw Ugly Girl cry.

  All through school, if I’d had to wait to be chosen for any team, I’d have waited at the sidelines like the other left-behind losers. Fat girls, girls wearing thick glasses, girls lacking “motor coordination,” asthmatic girls who puffed and panted if they had to trot a few yards. But Ugly Girl was one of the best athletes at Rocky River High. Even the guys had to acknowledge that fact, however they hated to. So Ms. Schultz, our gym teacher (kind of an Ugly Girl herself, big boned, clumsy in social situations, with coarse swarthy skin and kinky hair), always named me a team captain. She’d call out “Ursula Riggs” like she hadn’t any idea the name was ugly, and even when she chided me—“Ursula, be careful!”—“Ursula, that’s a foul!”—you could tell she favored me, in secret. Ugly Girls got to stick together, right?

  In seventh and eighth grades I was a swimmer-diver, and that was my happiest time. But swim team didn’t work out. Ugly Girl’s body wasn’t built for the diving board, or for water. Or for critical eyes. In high school I got into “land” sports—“contact” sports. Soccer, field hockey, volleyball, basketball. There Ugly Girl excelled. Junior year I was captain of the Rocky River girls’ basketball team. We were on a winning streak, though I surely wasn’t what you’d call a popular captain, and if I was in one of my Fiery Red moods, I wasn’t what you’d call a team player. I was out to score, and I scored.

  Ms. Schultz scolded me, in the way that teachers who like you can scold, letting you know they expect more of you than you’re giving. “You’re a gifted athlete, Ursula, and I know that you’re a very good academic student, too. When you want to be.” Pause. “I wish I could rely upon you more, with your teammates.” I didn’t like hearing this, but I just shrugged and stared at the floor. My clunky feet. Ugly Girl wished she could rely upon herself more, too.

  I didn’t have many friends in Rocky River. (My mom and little sister were into “friends.”) But that was a Boring Fact.

  Strange: how stuff that used to bother me in middle school, had the power to make me hide away and cry, didn’t bother me at all now. Since that day I woke up and knew I wasn’t an ugly girl, I was Ugly Girl.

  I laughed, and it wasn’t a nice feminine laugh like my mom encourages. It was a real laugh, deep in the gut.

  I would never be ashamed of my body again; I would be proud of it. (Except maybe my breasts. Which I strapped in like I was on swim team, and kind of flattened, in a sports bra.)

  My hair used to be this pretty fluffy blond, the baby pictures show. Now it’s darker. For the hell of it someday I’d like to shave my skull, like a skinhead. Or maybe trim my hair in a crew cut. Or dye it black. Or bleach it. Except my dad wouldn’t approve and my mom would die of shame. They had their prissy notions of girl like my kid sister, Lisa. Lisa is an aspiring ballerina, and Mom’s gaga about her dancing classes.

  What pissed me was until just recently my Grandma Riggs was into comparing Lisa and me. “Ursula, dear, when are you going to stop growing?” Like this was a joke, or something I could control by an act of will, which made me hate the Grandma Riggs I used to love.

  Why do old people who’ve known you since infancy think they actually know you and can say insulting things?

  “I’ll stop growing, Grandma,” I said, trying to keep it pleasant, “when you stop getting older. OK?”

  That was mean. That hurt Grandma. Ugly Girl didn’t care.

  Lots of people I was starting to hate who I used to like a lot. But when you like people, you can be hurt. I’d made a few mistakes with girl friends, and one or two guys I’d thought were my buddies, and I wouldn’t make these mistakes again.

 
; What I liked about being so tall was I could look just about any guy eye-to-eye, even older guys on the street, or actual adult men I didn’t know. Unlike other girls, I didn’t shrink away like a balloon deflating if guys teased me or said crude things meant to embarrass. How do you embarrass Ugly Girl, exactly? Around school you hear girls talking about their boyfriends, certain “sexual practices” expected of them, sometimes right in the school building, or in the parking lot behind; and hearing such things made Ugly Girl just laugh. As if Ugly Girl would go down for any guy, or any human being, ever!

  I’d grown taller than my mom by the time I was thirteen, and I really liked that. Mom was one of those “petite” women who watch their weight constantly, and are anxious about lines and sagging in their faces, as if the whole world is staring at them and cares! It felt good, too, to be almost as tall as my dad (who was six feet three, weighed over two hundred pounds), so he’d have to treat me more like an equal than just a child.

  Most of all it felt good to be as tall as, in some cases taller than, my teachers. Not one of the Rocky River female teachers was Ugly Girl’s height, and always I made sure I stood straight, like a West Point cadet, when I spoke with them. Everyone was cautious around Mrs. Hale, our guidance counselor, who could sabotage your chances of getting into a good college by putting something negative in your file, but not Ugly Girl. My favorite teachers were Ms. Zwilich, who taught biology, and Mr. Weinberg, who taught literature, and I wasn’t afraid to stand up to them, either.

  I could see that my teachers didn’t know what to make of me. There was Ursula Riggs, who was an excellent student, a serious girl with an interest in biology and art, and there was Ugly Girl, who played sports like a Comanche and who had a sullen, sarcastic tongue. It was Ugly Girl who was susceptible to “moods”—these ranged from Inky Black to Fiery Red. In a mood I’d sometimes walk out of class, yawning; or I might quit a test in the middle, just snatch up my backpack and exit. My grades were everything from A+ to F. In a rational frame of mind I knew I had to worry I’d screw up my SATs and not get into a college of the caliber I could bear going to, but then in the next minute I’d shrug and laugh. Who cares? Not Ugly Girl.

  Ursula Riggs was a coward, fearing other people’s opinions and the future. Ugly Girl was no coward, and didn’t give a damn about the future. Ugly Girl, warrior-woman.