Flarby

Darby walked over the sidewalk, watching out for cracks. Step on a crack and break your mother's back. She didn't want to do that; she was a good girl.

Ahead, three boys walked slowly, poking their way to school. Darby measured her steps, as she didn't want to catch up with the boys. She knew that if they kept at that pace, they would make her late. She wouldn't pass them, though, 'cause they would make fun of her, which was worse than being late.

Darby felt the coins in her pocket, cool and steely. She held them in her hand. Her secret strength. They grew wet and warm. She wanted to put them in her mouth and suck on them, but didn't because of germs.

The boys wouldn't matter soon. They wouldn't matter once she got to the Corner Mart. Then they'd keep going and she'd go into the store, into the candy aisle, and get her prize. Then she'd feel good. Then she'd have won over all the kids at school who made fun of her. She'd have won over her parents who put her on a DIET. She'd have won over that room mother who came up to her at hot lunch and took her red jello cake with whipped cream frosting away from her because her mother had told the PTA that Darby was on a strict diet.

Darby broke into a crampy sweat and then realized that she had to go to the bathroom very badly. Well, she'd just have to hold it until she got to school, even though she was pretty sure it was both number one and number two. Some kids said the words "poop" and "pee", but Darby never said those words. She wouldn't even say "hell" when they recited Bible passages in religion class, even though the teachers let you say it when you were talking about God.

She wished that she could wear pants like the boys could. They didn't even have to buy whole uniforms; they could just wear pants and a white dress shirt. They were the lucky ones. They didn't have to go to the uniform place with their moms, where Mrs. Lund (who went to Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow, too) worked and get measured and weighed right in the middle of the store and have Mrs. Lund shout out the numbers to her stockboy, who was a man. And then when they couldn't find one that would fit her, as if Catholic girls were all the same size or couldn't be chubby at all, Mrs. Lund had just kept shaking her head with her arms crossed over her hard bosom, and kept saying in her high-pitched voice, "I just don't know what we're going to do about this." She looked at Darby as if she were such a trial for them all because they couldn't find clothes for her.

She felt for her money. Still there, of course. She didn't plan to spend it all on candy. There was a barrette at Leibman's that she wanted to get her mother for her birthday next week. Her mom would like the barrette. It would look pretty in her pretty long hair. Her mom would be happy then. She would try it on and then say how pretty it was. Then maybe she'd say how pretty Darby's hair was and how it was just like her own.

Darby sucked in her stomach as she passed the news rack. She stopped at the candy shelf. She liked to look at the candy, all blues and reds and exclamation points. She picked up the candy bracelet and looked at the price: 5 cents. She put it back. She knew she'd end up taking the candy bracelet anyway, but she liked to linger over each and every candy and think about how they would taste in her mouth, and about how she was getting something that she shouldn't have. She liked the candy bracelets and necklaces the best because she could hide them and eat them one piece at a time and it could take up to a week to finish them if she ate them slowly.

Darby continued to look: chocolate went too fast. She liked the jawbreakers a little, but they were so big and hurt her mouth until they were halfway gone. The taffy was good, but it, too, went too fast. She picked up a big candy ring and looked at it on her finger. The plastic ring part squeezed the flesh on the underside of her finger, but the candy gem looked nice, all big and red and shiny under the crinkly plastic cellophane.

Someone walked over to the comic aisle. Darby froze. It was Georgie Kopilanski, a sixth grader. And there she was, getting candy, probably the worst possible thing for a girl like her to be seen doing.

She ran into the freezer aisle. She didn't think that he had seen her, he was too occupied with Superman. That bathroom feeling came back full force. She crossed her legs and jumped up and down a bit. She began twisting her body around. There was no way to keep it back any more.

She walked down the aisle as quietly as she could.

Georgie looked up. For a second, his eyebrows went up as if he remembered her and was happy to see her, but then a look of disgust crossed his face as he remembered who she was. Darby's heart sank. Here it comes. Ignore him. Just ignore him.

Georgie stuck his tongue out at Darby. "Darby, Darby, big fat Flarby," he chanted quietly, in a whisper so that Mrs. Creepy couldn't hear. Grown-ups weren't supposed to hear.

Darby turned around without looking at him and went back to the freezer aisle. A warm tiny stream of urine traveled down her leg. Fat. She was fat. That was a bad word in Darby's book. It was even worse than "hell" or "poop".

Darby pretended to study the contents of the freezer. Hmmm, frozen peas, corn niblets, bread dough. The cold swirled around her bare legs, making the urge to go to the bathroom unbearable. She had to go, but she couldn't because of stupid Georgie.

She saw Georgie finally go up to the counter and leave. She had to go to the bathroom now, it was all that she could think about. She was getting chills and cramps from it.

Darby walked back to the candy aisle. She wouldn't be able to look at everything, just grab what she wanted, use the bathroom, and run to school.

"You know, you shouldn't eat that junk," Mrs. Creepy barked.

"Huh?" Darby jumped.

She hadn't expected Mrs. Creepy to start talking to her. Mrs. Creepy never talked to kids, just told them how much money they owed for stuff.

"A big girl like you's already had too many sweets." Mrs. Creepy just held her tight little smile, as if she had just given Darby a big Christmas present, tied up with a pretty pink bow.

Darby stood there with her mouth open. She didn't know what to say. She felt like telling Mrs. Creepy that she didn't eat many sweets at all, that she wasn't allowed to eat any sweets ever, and that she just didn't know why everyone thought they were doing her such a big favor by making her feel awful about it.

"Umm… I've got to get something for my mother. She's have a dinner… uh, dinner party." Lying was a sin. Her mother didn't have dinner parties, not ever, but Darby knew that television parents gave parties for their friends. Her mother wasn't like TV parents at all, but Darby liked to pretend that she was, and tell other people that she was, too.

Darby ran back to the freezer section. What would be good for a dinner party? She saw a frozen banana cream pie. That sounded rich and fancy. Darby opened the freezer door. The coldness hit her bare legs and immediately she was sure that if she didn't get to the bathroom RIGHT NOW, she was going to have an accident.

She grabbed the pie and wiggled up to the counter as well as she could while holding her legs together.

Mrs. Creepy looked down at the pie and snorted. She reached down and picked up her pack of cigarettes. She slowly pulled one out with her thin, bony fingers that were the same width as the cigarettes, and put it in her wrinkled lipsticked mouth. It was hot in the store. The sun was bright and caught millions of little dust flecks. Mrs. Creepy sighed and then she rang up Darby's purchases.

"It's for my mother," Darby repeated. "Dinner party."

Peering over the counter, Mrs. Creepy regarded her slightly. "Seventy-two cents!" she said.

Darby plunked all of her money on the counter and Mrs. Creepy picked out what she wanted with slender disgust. Darby would have counted it herself, but she was crazy with urgency, feeling that she would dirty herself at any moment.

"Do you want a bag?" Mrs. Creepy rasped.

"No, Mrs. Crigi, thank you," Darby said as politely as she could. "Um, do you have a bathroom I could use please?"

Mrs. Creepy leaned over the counted and looked at her up and down. "Not for public use!" she squawked, slapping her bone and skin hand down on the Formica counter top.

Darby grabbed the pie and dashed out the door. Tears were streaming down her face. Her stomach went hard and lumpy thinking about what Mrs. Creepy had said and what Georgie had said.

Don't think about it. It didn't happen. No, she wouldn't cry. She wouldn't cry!

Her bladder hurt. She was sweating despite the cool autumn breeze.

Suddenly she just couldn't hold it any longer. A little bit came out. Then she felt the warmth on her legs and more came out. Wet through her underwear, down into her socks and shoes. When she realized that she had wet herself, she started to cry more. The harder she cried, the harder she wet.

Darby ran behind the store, behind the dumpster and squatted there in the bushes. She was late for school, wet through to her skin, and now she was dirty from the grass and mud too. She stopped crying and looked at her frozen banana cream pie. She had almost forgotten that there wasn't really a dinner party and that it was a lie. What had she bought that pie for? Now she spent all of her money. Just because she had wanted to prove Old Creepy wrong, she had wrecked her mom's birthday present. Now, she wouldn't be able to buy the pretty barrette to give to her mom on her birthday morning. Now her mom wouldn't smile at her and say thank you and tell her what a pretty gift it was. Now she wouldn't put it in her pretty hair that was just like Darby's. Now she wouldn't say what pretty hair Darby had too.

Stupid pie. Stupid Georgie. Stupid old lady. Stupid Darby. Too stupid to even do something so simple as to buy her mom a birthday present. Georgie was right. She was a big fat Flarby. She should have known that she would mess things up. What her mom always said was right: Darby always wrecked things.

The pie would have been good at a dinner party, she thought, with its pretty designs in the whipped cream. She imagined sitting at a fancy table with a white lace table cloth and glittering silver candlesticks and forks and spoons.

A pretty lady would come in wearing an apron, like the TV moms do, and she would smile at Darby. "Darby, sweetie, would you like a piece of pie before dinner?" TV mom would say, as she would slice up the pretty pie and set a large piece on a pretty plate.

"Yes, please," Darby said as she broke off a chunk of the pie with her fingers. She daintily bit a piece of the crust and cream and tasted it, with an expression of content like on the commercials, and said, "Oh, it's delicious!"

"I'm glad you like it, Darby, because I made it especially for you!"

Darby shoved the piece into her mouth, not feeling how it froze her teeth. The cream melted slowly against her tongue. She imagined how wonderful it would be to die drowning in whipped cream.

"Oh, look! Daddy's home!" TV mom would exclaim. "How's my little princess?" Handsome TV dad would call.

"Daddy, I'm glad you're finally home!" Darby smiled as she licked the cream off of her hands.

"I'm glad that you are eating, Sweety."

"When Darby has finished with her pie, I'll set dinner out. It's Darby's favorite tonight." TV mom would say prettily.

"Well, whatever that is," TV dad would smile and hug Darby, "I'm sure that it will be delicious. Right, Kitten?"

"Right," Darby said thickly, with graham cracker spraying out as she spoke. The pie tin sat empty on her lap.

All gone. Done. Darby opened her eyes wide.

Her legs were dry with grass and dirt stuck to them, but her underwear and socks and shoes were still soaked. She smelled sour and briny. She got up and tossed the pie tin in the dumpster. She swiped her hand over her face, and then tasted the cream and graham cracker crumbs on her fingers. The taste was salty sweet from her tears.

Dirt and grass stuck to the backs of her legs. She tried to brush them away, but they stuck to the cream on her hands.

Darby decided that she had better go home now. Daddy was across town, living with Becky, who used to baby-sit for Darby when she was little. Darby didn't have to worry about him yelling at her for not going to school or for peeing, because she hadn't seen him since she was four.

Darby would go home and take the phone book to her room and run her finger over her father's name, which was already smeared with her finger's oil, and hope that school wouldn't call her mother.

But she deserved it if her mother was mad at her. She spent the barrette money on a stupid frozen pie. She was too stupid to even stay on the diet her mommy put her on. Her mommy would love her if she were smaller. Her daddy would visit her if she were smaller. She couldn't even control her number one and had gone in her underpants like a baby. If her mother found out, she'd make her wear diapers, even to school. She was bad. She was a bad girl. Her mother was right. Darby was stupid and bad. She was an embarrassment to them all.

She began to walk home, stepping over the cracks in the sidewalk, trying not to let her legs touch so she wouldn't be reminded of what she had done.

"Flarby," she whispered.

Wendy Wimmer
First Prize, Abundance's Writing Contest, 2000