The Chocolate Money by Ashley Prentice Norton Read Free Book Online

day together amassing things. Babs is deep into
W,
circling her favorites.
    I move my book away from where we are sitting. Try to hide it from Babs. She hates when she catches me reading. Says I’m showing off. Not working hard enough to make friends. I don’t even mark my place. I would trade Emma’s adventures for shoes with Babs any day. Unfortunately,
Bovary
slides off my bed into the space next to the wall where I’ve stashed a ginger ale. I hear the can thunk against the wall as it tips over. The sticky pop must now be pooling on the expensive bunny-fur carpet.
    Babs has ears like a deer. She hears the can spill too. She crawls forward on my bed. Reaches down and pulls the can up slowly, as if she were fishing garbage from a dirty lake. She examines it for a moment, then hurls it at the wall.
    I watch the can fly across the room. It leaves a stain on the silver-lamé wallpaper. More damage than I have done to the bunny-fur rug.
    “What the fuck, Bettina. You know you are not supposed to have drinks or food in your room.”
    She lights up a cigarette, rips the
Vogue
from my hands. Waits for a response.
    I think if I handle this right, we can get back to the shoes. Surely more fun for both of us. Rarely, but sometimes, I can sway Babs by using the right tone.
    I say, “I’m sorry, Babs. I just thought I’d be really careful, and there wouldn’t be a problem.”
    No such luck. She is still staring at me with dull, flat eyes. I have ruined the shoe project. All for a ginger ale.
    “The ginger ale is for Lily. Do you know how many calories are in a single fucking can? Not to mention the fact that you tried to sneak it. I fucking hate sneaks. I wonder what else you have hidden in here.”
    I try to reach out and touch her wrist. Keep her from leaving the bed. Useless. The ship has sailed. I just have to hope that daybreak will come as fast as possible and provide a benevolent shore. Babs loves to stay up all night working on various projects, but she always calls it quits before Lily wakes me for breakfast. Her idea of being a civilized person.
    “Take off your nightgown, Bettina, so I can see you have nothing hidden in there.”
    I do as I’m told. Am now naked on my bed. This might be enough punishment to inflict for most people. Not Babs.
    She stands up, walks over to the armoire where I keep my clothes. It has a
The
Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
feel. Big enough for me to hide inside. Sometimes I do. Not tonight. There will be no hiding tonight.
    She opens the door and pulls at the top drawer. She grabs fistfuls of my socks and brings them over to the bed. Begins unballing them. She carefully reaches her hand inside each one where my feet normally go, checks that there is nothing tucked in there.
    “I know how sneaks work, Bettina. They pick the places where most people would not think to look.”
    I begin to wonder if I have indeed stashed something important in my socks. But no. The only thing I truly value, my autographed napkin from Brooke taped to her picture and framed, is on my desk. Not hidden but in clear view. Maybe this will add points to my honesty column. Maybe Babs will see it and be less mad after all.
    But she is just getting started. After the socks, she goes through my underwear. It is all the same, white cotton bikini briefs. No Disney princesses, Pooh Bears, or Tinker Bells for me. She takes each one out and stretches the elastic and then smells the place where my crotch would be.
    I’m still not old enough to have anything but immaculate underwear, even before it is washed. I always wipe carefully whenever I go to the bathroom. Am not yet burdened by all the messy emissions of a menstrual cycle.
    Babs is so thin that she almost never juices or has a monthly period. She eats so little that she rarely has a bowel movement, and when she does, she takes long showers and scrubs her anal region clean of any traces of excrement. The only thing that taxes her panties is use. When the elastics