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But sometimes, hedidwork at the dump. Laura did not take it back. Instead, she reached for the hem of Sally’s skirt and pulled it up to inspect it. Sally tried to pull the skirt back down before anyone saw her underwear, but Laura had a good grip, and Sally couldn’t yank it free. Cold air hit the back of her thighs. A boy snickered behind her, and Sally’s face went red with shame.
“This is my skirt!” Laura yelled for everyone to hear. “I threw it away last week. Your pa must have pulled it out of the trash and pretended it was a gift.”
Sally’s face went hot at hearing the lie. “He did not. He brought it home to me, so it isn’t yours.”
“It is too mine. I got red paint on it in art class. So my mom told me to throw it away. Look, there’s paint right here on the hem right where I spilled it. Your garbage papa must have stole it from my trash can!” There it was, red paint smeared and faded, but there just the same. Someone had tried to rub it away, but it wasn’t her papa. Sally knew it wasn’t her papa. Laura was a liar.
“He did not!” Sally shoved Laura as hard as she could, but the girl barely stumbled backward. Laura caught herself before she fell, laughing high-pitched and wild. She covered her mouth as she scanned the cafeteria, welcoming the students to laugh along with her. A few of them did. Then more than a few.
“He did too steal it! You can’t afford clothes like mine, so he took it out of the trash and gave it to you. Dirty clothes for a dirty Sally, that’s what your pa thinks of you. Only Dirty Sally’s wear other people’s clothes out of the trash!”
“He did not dig your clothes out of the trash!”
But it was too late. The idea was there, the kind of idea that takes a tiny spark to ignite a whole movement. Within seconds, the other kids were echoing Laura. Even the lunchroom monitor was trying hard to hide a smile, telling kids to stop in that false way adults sometimes do when they’re pretending not to enjoy the chaos. Even Jack was smiling, though he quit when she caught his eye. The only one not joining in the chorus was Paul, but the noise from everyone else was so loud that it smothered any feelings of gratefulness she might have had. An audience of one can’t hold up against a crowd of dozens.
Dirty Sally…Dirty Sally. The phrase drifted around the cafeteria, occasionally said in a shocked whisper, but more often on a laugh.Dirty Sally. Dirty Sally.
Now she knew how Carmen felt, but this was so much worse. Garbage Girl was a terrible nickname, but it could have belonged to anyone. Garbage Girl is interchangeable and vague.
The worst thing of all is to have your own name be everyone’s new favorite insult.
Dirty Sallyfollowed her the rest of the day.
The creek was higherthan normal due to last night’s rain, the bank still soggy and soft from today’s overcast sky. Sally sat by it, contemplating whether to take the plunge and have a quick bath. It was a cold day, so there wouldn’t be time for soap, but usually, the water was enough to get most of the dirt off, especially when she used a little sand and pebbles. If you grabbed the silty ones from the bottom, they weren’t too sharp and hardly ever nicked the skin. That’s what she’d found over the last couple of times bathing out here.
The water company shut off their supply inside the house two weeks back, and her papa hadn’t yet paid the bill to get it turned back on. Sometimes she carried water from the creek to fill up the old bathtub. A cold bath inside a slightly drafty house was better than a cold bath in a wind-swirling creek, but carrying five buckets back and forth a hundred yards was tiring and sweaty, even after dark in late September. Though it scared her to bathe alone this far from the house after sunset, she forced herself a couple times a week. You can’t go to school when you smell bad, not when your nickname is Dirty Sally. The taunts would be worse.
“What are you doing out here by yourself? You know you’re supposed to get me first. That’s what we agreed to,” Paul said, moving to sit down next to her like he did every night. They’d taken to coming to the creek after dinner for an hour at night, not for any real reason except to talk. Usually, they met by the big Oak tree at the edge of Sally’s backyard, but tonight she didn’t feel like waiting for him. Even though she knew there were monsters in the woods that could snatch her away like one snatched Stacy Pennington over a decade ago, tonight she wished for one to, just to see where it might take her. Anyplace was better than here.
They never found Stacy Pennington. Sally liked to think she was living an enchanted life as a forest troll who had bunnies for pets and yelled at humans for fun. Life in the forest would be better than life in Silver Bell. She had a list of ten people she would holler at now if it wouldn’t get her in trouble at school.
Sally didn’t look at Paul. Her thoughts were too heavy to move her head. “Just sitting. Thinking.”
“Well, don’t make a habit of thinking without me. We made a deal, and I don’t like walking out here alone.” The toe of his sneaker brushed the surface of the water and caused a ripple. A school of minnows approached to their right. Sally should probably grab a few and try to catch dinner, but she couldn’t force herself to move. It’s like Laura took her survival instinct right from her when she christened her with that awful name.
Still, she grinned at Paul. He always brought one out of her. “You scared?”
He rolled his eyes. “No, I just don’t want you to be.” She knew he was lying, but she didn’t tease him further. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you when there aren’t any other hands. That’s what her papa said sometimes.
“You don’t need to worry about me. I ain’t scared of much anymore.”
She could tell by the way he moved that he didn’t like her words. “I’m sorry for what Laura said yesterday. I hate that nickname. If I could’ve punched her in the mouth, I would have.”
Her insides felt a little fluttery at his words, but she chalked it up to her stomach beginning to rumble. She hadn’t eaten since this morning, and right now, pancakes sounded about as appetizing as stuffing her face with pond scum.
“Don’t punch her, or you’ll get kicked out of school, and I wouldn’t handle that real well.”
They sat on that for a minute; neither one knowing what to say next.
“What happened to your skirt?” Paul finally said, running a finger over the knee of her old trousers. “I liked it. Hope you didn’t get rid of it.” There it was, another flutter. She really needed to eat something.
“I asked my papa, and he admitted that he found it at the dump. So, I put it in the trash can where it belonged. Can’t wear it to school no more anyway or Laura will tease me about it.”
Paul leaned back on his hands. “I wish you’d kept it. Your skirt looked better than any she ever wore. You should go get it and keep it. Don’t have to wear it to school if you don’t want to. Besides, Laura’s stupid, and you shouldn’t listen to her.”
Sally wished it were that simple. “Even if I didn’t listen to her, everyone else does. And that’s easy for you to say. You could show up at school dressed in a garbage bag, and everyone would still like you.” Sally knew he didn’t argue because she was mostly right. Laura didn’t like Paul, though. She announced it in front of the whole class after she got caught passing him a note in history last month. The teacher read the note out loud. It was one of those “Check this box if you like me, check this box if you don’t.” Paul had taken one look at the note and tossed it on the floor. To hear him tell it, only stupid girls played stupid games, and he didn’t want to win a stupid prize. And that’s what Laura was, a stupid prize like a cheap stuffed toy you win at a carnival after dropping ten bucks. Take one look at it and realize you could have bought the same thing at the five and dime for a handful of pennies.
“I think I’ll skip the garbage bags if you don’t mind,” he said. Sally’s insides flipped in on themselves when Paul winked. Curiously, when she laughed, his neck went all red.
