Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronn-Mills Read Free Book Online

me.
    “Got it?”
    “What a line.” Paige frowns at the monitor. “Why is it called a Mango?”
    “Think about it, dork. Man-go. A man goes. He goes pee. It’s a pun.”
    “Oh. Duh.” She looks slightly embarrassed. “But won’t your parents ask you why you had a Mango shipped to your house when you can go down to the store and get one?”
    “Shut up!”
    After everything’s ordered, we go to the mall so Paige can look for an outfit for graduation. She makes me hold her purse while she tries on thing after thing at store after store. My brain starts to hurt from all her questions: “Does this color go with that one?” and “Should I get a skirt or a dress?” And, of course, “Does this make my butt look big?”
    While we’re walking around, I see Heather Graves with a bunch of people. She gives me a big smile and wave, so I give her the same in return. Then a random guy grabs her arm and pulls her down the walkway. It’s a different guy than the one she was with after class. She forgets all about me, laughing and smiling at him.
    Paige sees me wave at Heather. “You’re friends with Heather?” She doesn’t seem to approve. Heather and Paige run in two separate crowds.
    “We have the same geography class, that’s all.”
    “Oh.” But I see Paige looking out of the sides of her eyes at me.

    After I get home, I park myself in my back yard and close my eyes. It’s a nice place, all landscaped and fancy. There’s even a pond with a fountain that my dad built. The pond is maybe a foot deep, with built-up brick sides and various sizes of rocks sticking out of it, so the fountain will splash and make noise. It even has underwater lights.
    The sound of water flinging itself over the rocks soothes me, so I pull up a lawn chair and dangle my feet in the pond while I chuck landscape gravel into it, plink plink.
    “Please don’t do that.”
    I jump about a foot. “Geez! Don’t sneak up on people!”
    Before my announcement, my mom was a regular mom with an amazing capacity for patience, even when I grew my hair into a six-inch Mohawk that I sculpted with Elmer’s glue and/or gelatin, whichever we had. That was in my Sid Vicious phase a few years ago. After my announcement, she put every single school photo, from kindergarten to my senior picture, on the refrigerator. The night after I told them, she called her best friend and cried at least five minutes for each picture. She thought I was gone, but I was upstairs. I wanted to run down and rip up every single one, then tell her how sorry I was. I just stayed upstairs.
    “Did you and Paige have fun last night?” She’s standing next to me, staring into the fountain.
    “It was fine. We danced. Watched people sing karaoke.”
    Big pause. “Did you … go as Gabe?”
    “There wasn’t anybody there we know, if that helps.”
    She’s flustered. “You know that’s not what I meant.” Now she’s staring at the grass.
    “Forget it.” No use getting uptight.
    “Could you please come help me with supper? John might come over too.”
    “Be right there.”
    She heads back inside, Birkenstocks making flip-flip sounds as they slap her feet. I know summer’s coming when my mom wears her Birks the right way: no socks. I want to run after her and hug her like I did when I was six, when I needed her because I was scared of the thing under my bed. But I can’t bring myself to do it.
    Then my dad comes by and studies the pond but not me. “Did your mother tell you not to throw the gravel in the pond?”
    “She did.” I stand up to go inside.
    “Okay.” He goes back to his shop.
    Then Pete comes by. “Can I use your car? I need to go to Target and check my schedule.”
    “Keys are on the table. Hey, Pete … ”
    “Cool. Thanks, Liz.” And he’s gone.
    They’ve perfected the art of making me useful but invisible.
    I go inside and make salad for my mom.

    I hope nobody’s home when the Mango gets here.
    I bought a dick today. Holy shit.

    This week,