Some of the Parts - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Hannah Barnaby has worked as a children's book editor, a bookseller, and a teacher of writing for children and young adults. She holds an MA in children's literature from Simmons College and an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College. Her first novel, Wonder Show, was a William C. Morris nominee. Hannah lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her family.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

ONE

HOLD ON

Saturday 9/20

We are driving around town in Mel’s inherited Oldsmobile when we see the pig truck.

Mel and I first became friends when she was the only one in my comp class who liked my short story. It was called “The President Dreams of His Mother,” and it was about how the president of the United States had a dream that he was talking to his mother and she was completely naked the whole time and he was so disturbed by the dream that he couldn’t concentrate on his job, which resulted in the nuclear annihilation of the entire East Coast.

Truthfully, the story wasn’t very good. But Mel called it “delightfully obtuse” and clapped for an inappropriately long time at the end of my reading. I’m never sure if Mel knows what she’s talking about but I make a lot of effort to believe that she does, because it’s nice to think that someone is (a) knowledgeable and (b) on my side.

Mel never knew my brother very well--we were more friends within the boundaries of the school building than friends who paint each other’s toenails at sleepovers. Amy and Zoey and Fiona had filled that category, but they hadn’t come over since the accident and I hadn’t tried to call them. Maybe none of us knew who was supposed to call first. Then Mel showed up at my house, and when she did, she acted totally normal. Her visit was like the social equivalent of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. For a week I had been holding my breath whenever I went anywhere because people were constantly coming up to me and hugging me, or pretending they hadn’t seen me because they didn’t know what to say. Mel just knocked on my front door and said, “Do you have any chocolate? I am dying for some chocolate.” She even used the word dying without cringing or gasping or anything. So I let her in.

Hanging out with Mel makes it easy for me to be quiet. There’s no pressure for me to talk because Mel is always working on something and she is fully focused on whatever that is. She doesn’t care if I zone out when I see a pair of mittens that look like the ones my brother had when we were little, or a car that looks like the one he wassaving up for when he died.

A black Mustang.

There are more of those around than you might think.

So it’s a decent arrangement, even though Mel is not always easy. Her voice is like gravel under tires and her laugh is harsh and she makes jokes that aren’t funny. And she drives like a maniac. I don’t think it occurs to her that I might have a personal issue with reckless driving. At least, I hope it doesn’t. I hope it’s just ignorance and not cruelty. It is useful to have a friend with a car. We are in the same grade, but she is a year older because once upon a time herparents sent her to an expensive school that was called “progressive” and then turned out to be a front for a religious cult. Mel had to repeat third grade, and her mother has never gotten over it.

It is difficult to keep my composure when she drives like that. I am always waiting for the next crash, the sickening crunch of metal and glass, the pain, the sirens, the chaos.

For all her faults, Mel insulates me from the rest of the world, the world that looks so bright andsharp now, in the after. She talks and talks and fills my ears so I don’t have to listen for those terrible sounds. She keeps a list of word combinations that would make great band names. Terminal Butterfly. Soapbox Evangelists. She makes up games for us to play so I don’t have to think. Our favorite is Opposite.

“What’s the opposite of bridge?” I ask.

“Burn,” she tells me.

Today Mel is driving a bit more reasonably than usual because even she is not immune to the effect of the maple trees that line the highway, their leaves turning obscene shades of red and orange. I am holding my hand out the open window and letting it coast the invisible wave of air. And because my hand is pleasantly numbed by the chill-edged air, and because the leaves are rioting all around us, and because the sky is so blue, I am temporarily fooled into thinking that the world might be coming back online.

Mel has just said burn when the pig truck appears in the distance, like some strange mirage. We come up on it slowly. I recognize the sort of truck it is as we get closer, know to expect something alive inside of it by the ventilation holes all around thehuge metal cargo container. It is not until we pull up alongside the truck that I see the shocking, dreadful pink of the pigs. Their bodies are pressed against the metal, bulging out of the holes like fleshy bubbles. I can’t see their faces, can’t make out their individual bodies, so it is as if there is just one endless mass of pig stuffed into the truck, as if they have all been mashedtogether into some kind of living, breathing, horrible pulp.

“Oh my god,” I whisper.

Mel looks over. “Gross,” she comments, but she says it so casually that I know she isn’t having the same trouble breathing that I’m having. My chest is tight and my throat is, too, and I’m caught between wanting to retch and wanting to cry. This is how I am now. Unfeeling, numb, until something pierces my casing and I pour messily out into the world.

I try to gather myself back into place, but it’s no use. The pigs are too pink, the sun deepening their color until they are almost as bright as the trees. All I can do is cover my eyes. It feels like cheating, but I do it anyway.

And Mel must see me do it because she says, “Hang on,” and I hear the enormous engine of the Oldsmobile groan with the effort of accelerating. I peek out from between my fingers to see the front edge of the trailer recede past my window, and as we pass thetruck’s cab, the driver waggles his fingers at us and grins.

TWO

MISS MISERY

Mel and I head for Common Grounds and get there just in time for my shift. I try to avoid coming here on my days off--Cranky Andy doesn’t like having to treat his employees like customers. It stretches the limits of his already limited social energy. He’d rather be practicing his foam-art technique or making a spreadsheet to chart sales trends in baked goods. So Mel likes to drive me to work because she can get a latte to go. The only other place to get coffee in town is Dunkin’ Donuts and Mel says their coffee tastes “like industry,” whatever that means.

Common Grounds used to be a drugstore, and when they converted it into a coffee shop, they decided tokeep some of the old features, including the automatic doors. They swoosh open as if by magic. I mean, it’s not magic, obviously. It’s magnets or electric sensors or something. Anyway, the swoosh was accompanied by a ding until Cranky Andy said he couldn’t stand it anymore and made them disconnect the dinger. Cranky Andy gets what he wants. No one else in this town can make a decent latte, especially not with decorative designs engraved in the foam.

I had just gotten used to the ding when it stopped. I had just stopped being startled by it and now Ikind of miss it. But I’ll adjust.

I have to, if I wantnormal again. I started working here two weeks after the accident. School...