Fly on the Wall: How One Girl Saw Everything by E. Lockhart Read Free Book Online Page B

adapted so that instead of being confused I'm able to look at a hundred different images and follow what's going on in each one.
    In front of me is a window with frosted glass. I want to walk up it. The compulsion is strong, so despite my disorientation I get my six legs moving and—like Spider-Man—crawl up the glass to the top of the window.
    Crawl up the glass!
    When I reach the top, I stop and look around. In front of me is the ceiling, covered with good-smelling gray mildew spots. To myright, the side of the windowsill. Down to the back, showers and sinks. To my left, the other side of the windowsill and a row of toilet stalls with wooden doors painted a peeling blue. Directly behind me are rows of lockers and wooden benches. The tiles on the floor are dingy.
    Where am I?
    The room is familiar, and yet unfamiliar. A locker room. But not the one I'm used to. The tiles in the girls' room are white, and the walls are pink—but here are the same ancient, rusty showerheads, same square sinks. But bigger, with blue paint and blue tile.
    And there are urinals.
    Oh. My. God. I am in the boys' locker room.
The boys' locker room at Ma-Ha.
    The girls' locker room is way smaller.
    The boys have twelve showerheads and we have only six.
    They have full-size lockers, and ours are only half-size.
    And they have rows of minilockers, like mesh baskets that slide in and out of a large metal cabinet, with combination locks on them. For stuff they want to leave overnight.
    The total unfairness pisses me off so much that for a minute I forget to think about how I've got wings,
    and six legs,
    and eyes that see out the back of my head.
    I forget to wonder how any of this is happening or whether it's a dream.
    I stand there on the window, rubbing my little forefeet together and fuming.
    Why would theirs be bigger than ours?
    We have to practically get dressed in the spray from the showers
,
    and shove our clothes into these tiny half-size lockers
,
    and why is it only the girls have to lug their gym shoes and shampoo in backpacks, when the boys have all this storage?
    And why do they have nice long benches, when we have stubby ones?
    And why do they have more showers, when everyone knows girls take longer showers than boys?
    Ooh, they have a full-length mirror, too, and an extra tub for dirty towels, when ours is always overflowing.
    Hell. I thought sexism was over already. I never thought it would be quietly living on in the architecture of my own school. We've been suffering in that tiny-ass locker room all this time, while the boys are showering in the lap of luxury.
    Well, the paint is peeling and it's not exactly clean in here, but it's luxury compared to what the girls get.
    Fuck.
    Hell.
    Every bad word out there.
    I'm a fly. What does it matter what the locker rooms are like?
    If I don't change back, I've got maybe a few weeks to live, ifnobody swats me and no spider eats me. Pop will return from Hong Kong and I'll be gone without a trace. The apartment will be empty. No one will have seen me for eight days. Pop will call the police to make a missing person's report
,
    and Ma will come back and blame him for my disappearance
,
    and they'll be miserable and heartbroken and hate each other even more than they already do
,
    and all the while they're grieving and carrying on,
and the police are searching for my chopped-up shell of a body somewhere in a dark alley
,
    I'll just be buzzing hard up against this single window
unable to talk,
unable to explain,
unable to help or change back
or do
anything
—
stuck in a life even tinier than the one I left.
I might as well be dead.
And I will be soon enough.
    I freak the hell out for several hours, just creeping up and down the windowsill with my heart in a knot of anxiety and fear.
    But then, I think,
    Hey, maybe I should try these wings.
    They're here. On my back. I mean, I may be trapped in a nightmare, but I do have wings.
    And that should mean I can fly, right?
    I stretch them wide, then