The Freak Observer Read online

  Blythe Woolston doesn’t remember learning how to read, but she suspects someone taught her as a ploy to keep her out of trouble in a slightly dangerous world full of bears and chainsaws and swift rivers. Today she reads books and writes the indexes that appear on their final pages. She lives in a wonder cupboard: one drawer is full of peppercorns, another holds the skull of a hoplitomeryx, another collects lint that might be useful in making bandages if it comes to that. The Freak Observer is her first novel, and it earned the William C. Morris award for best debut novel in 2011. She is also the author of Catch and Release, a novel. Follow her blog at www.blythewoolston.com.

  Praise for The Freak Observer

  “When I read for pleasure, I read for voice, and Loa’s voice is so true, so bone-dry funny, so enormously sad. . . . Brava Blythe Woolston for giving this girl’s voice to the world.”

  —Kathe Koja, author of Headlong

  “Blythe Woolston’s Loa Lindgren—like Kaye Gibbons’s Ellen Foster or Sapphire’s Precious Jones—is marvelously tenacious, off-beat, and resilient. This is a startling and believable voice.”

  —Julie Schumacher, author of Black Box

  “The Freak Observer is at once tender and shocking, smart and edgy, emotionally rich and emotionally raw. Woolston writes with what seems like great ease yet with great originality.”

  —Christina Meldrum, author of Madapple

  Text copyright © 2010 by Blythe Woolston

  Carolrhoda LabTMis a trademark of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means— electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

  Carolrhoda LabTM

  An imprint of Carolrhoda Books

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 U.S.A.

  Website address: www.lernerbooks.com

  Cover and interior photographs © iStockphoto.com/Alexander Den (heart);

  © BBS United/The Image Bank/Getty Images (brain).

  Birdlike creature on cover, detail from left wing of “The Temptation of St. Anthony” triptych by Hieronymus Bosch (ca. 1450–1516). Located at Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon, Portugal. Outline by Bill Hauser/Independent Picture Service.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Woolston, Blythe.

  The Freak Observer / by Blythe Woolston.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Suffering from a crippling case of post-traumatic stress disorder, sixteen-year-old Loa Lindgren tries to use her problem solving skills, sharpened in physics and computer programming, to cure herself.

  ISBN: 978–0–7613–6212–8 (trade hard cover : alk. paper)

  [1. Post-traumatic stress disorder—Fiction. 2. Emotional problems—Fiction.]

  I. Title.

  PZ7.W88713Fr 2010 2010000989

  [Fic]—dc22

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 – BP – 7/15/10

  eISBN: 978-0-7613-6544-0 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-3179-9 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-3178-2 (mobi)

  I got up and went to school because nobody said I couldn’t. I have a little yellow green blush of bruise under my jaw. It’s a nice piece of evidence for the physics of force. Once that energy was distributed along the rubber doohickey on the toilet plunger, the impact pressure was reduced.

  I could raise my hand and tell the whole class what I learned about pressure and force when my dad clobbered me. It would reinforce today’s concept. I have been observing physics in action, just as instructed. I don’t raise my hand. I don’t say a word.

  . . .

  I’m in school, and I’m trying to figure out why my physics teacher wants to sleep on a bed of nails in the first place— and that’s distracting me from the math, which is honest and elegant and doesn’t require any human motivation. I’m in school, but I don’t even make it through my first class before I receive a little note informing me to visit Mrs. Bishop in the counseling office. So I’m sitting outside her door watching first period tick away. I’m pretty sure I’m missing class so she can tell me that I shouldn’t miss class. That’s the way things work.

  . . .

  “Loa, come on in,” says Mrs. Bishop. “I understand you were friends with Esther.” She has to get right to the point. There is only one of her, and there are a lot of students.

  What do I say to that? We rode the same bus. We went to grade school together for nine years. I know Esther liked pink meringue cookies.

  I have a picture of us from first grade. We are standing on the steps of the school for picture day, Esther, Reba, and I. Esther is wearing a long dress that makes her look like she belongs on a wagon train. Reba has on her favorite Mulan T-shirt and a pink, ruffled skirt. I have a cocoa stain down my front, and I’m trying to look really fierce, so I have my hands curled up in little fists and I’m scowling. I wasn’t angry. I just thought it would be cool.

  My mother didn’t think it was cool. She had forgotten that it was picture day. She would have made sure I wore a better shirt. The cocoa stain was bad, but I made it even worse by frowning.

  I remember the first time I saw Esther. It was before we even went to school.

  My dad decided I needed a puppy. Esther’s family had some, so we drove up to their place. They had pole corrals right in their yard. Their house was even older than our house, but it was a lot bigger too. It had to be big. It seemed to me like there were a lot of people in that family. Some of Esther’s aunts and uncles and cousins might have been there. Or maybe my measuring stick for “a lot of people” was my own family, so more than three was a lot.

  My dad told me to stay in the car while he got out. He went in the house to talk to Esther’s dad. In a little while, the kids had all come out to stare at me in the car. I was staring back. Then one of the big girls went into the house and came out with a can of creamed corn. She poured it on the dirt. A whole bunch of puppies came tumbling out from under the porch and started licking up the yellow mess. Then a big pig came around the corner and headed for the corn. Before he could get there, a little tiny girl picked up a stick of firewood and whacked that pig as hard as she could right in the head. The other kids started laughing, but that little girl just stood her ground. She wouldn’t let that pig get close to that creamed corn. That little tiny girl was Esther.

  Then my dad came out of the house. Esther’s dad pointed at a couple of the puppies. My dad reached down and scooped one up.

  Next thing I knew, I was the happiest kid in the world and that puppy was giving me a tongue bath like crazy. He smelled a little bit like creamed corn.

  Esther is dead now. She was a defender of puppies and a whacker of pigs, and now she is dead.

  “Yes,” I say, “I knew her.”

  “Well,” says Mrs. Bishop, “How are you handling that?”

  “I’m OK,” I lie. “It’s sad, but I’m doing OK.”

  The truth is just way too complicated, and it doesn’t belong in this conversation: My dad lost his shit and clobbered me with a toilet plunger, and then I totally lost my shit and started hallucinating again. You know how it is. . . . Same-ol’, same-ol’.

  “I need to tell you that I sent a letter to your parents.”

  Well, I’d better keep a close eye on the mail, because that is a little gathering shit storm on the horizon. Does Mrs. Bishop really think my parents are going to read a letter on official school stationery and
then sit me down at the kitchen table and say, “Honey, school’s important”? Does she imagine there will be hugs and a brand-new graphing calculator, just to show they care?

  My family is more about yelling than hugging.

  There will be yelling if that letter is read. Some of that yelling will be directed at Mrs. Bishop—“and-who-does-she-think-she-is-the-bitch?”—and some will be at me—“damn-it-to-hell-look-where-your-cattin’-around-got-you”—and some might be at Little Harold if he has the TV on too loud or if he left the bread unwrapped so it will dry out. Oh, yeah, it would be a very special after-school special. I can hardly wait.

  “We understand how upsetting this sort of thing can be, especially when you are still working through . . . ” she trails off—then gets back on track, “But you have to come to school. We have to keep you headed toward graduation. We like you, but we don’t want you to spend an extra year with us.”

  It’s a dumb joke, but she might be telling me the truth. I think she really does like me. I think she really does want me to graduate. I also think she gives that speech to a lot of kids, and most of them end up with a GED or in the alternative program or working some crap job.

  “Not that I think that is going to happen. But this is the year, Loa, this is the year that grades matter. The universities will be most interested in what you do this year. Scholarships are harder and harder to find—grants seem like they get smaller every year. So I just wanted to let your parents know the situation. We all need to work together. We need to make sure your grades prove you can make it.” She shifts gears a little, rummages around in one of the piles on her desk.

  “I also wanted to give you this. Another student was considering this school. It seems like a good fit for you. And this one too.” She is collecting some bright and shiny booklets and pamphlets in her hand. “You need to start thinking about applying to schools. There is a meeting about the financial aid process during your lunch period next week. You need to go. Listen for the announcement. And you should probably get back on track with speech and debate. Activities like that make a difference when they look at your application.”

  “I lost my debate partner,” I say.

  “Ah, yes, you were on a team with Corey.” She pauses a little. Her face is resting in just a little bit of a smile. The worry lines fade out of her forehead. “What a great opportunity for him.”

  “A great opportunity,” I agree. Repetition always sounds like agreement unless you make it sound like a question.

  “You could try an individual event like Lincoln-Douglas or Impromptu. Corey used to do Impromptu before the two of you teamed up for debate.”

  There are at least seven good reasons why I would suck at Impromptu, but I have the answer that trumps all answers.

  “I have to work. I work after school and on the weekends now, so practice and traveling to meets is out.”

  “Oh. I’d forgotten.”

  Did she know? I never told her. Is she supposed to know everything about every student?

  “Well, that’s good too.”

  She is unstoppable.

  “Working to save money for college shows real responsibility.”

  I think we spent my last check on toilet paper, wool socks, and gas. A college fund is a little low on the list of priorities right now—below laundry detergent, actually, and way below the power bill. This is a situation where the best answer is a nod.

  Things are wrapping up. She scribbles out a hall pass and late excuse for me. “Take care, Loa.”

  Now I get to take my note and slither into French.

  . . .

  “Lulu! Voozetahnretahr.”

  “Maywe, juhzsweearetard.” I should get points for honesty too.

  . . .

  I missed school. I’m entitled to make up the work, because death is a good excuse.

  In French I get a ziplock bag full of mini-tapes and a crappy little tape player. Voila, c’est facile—or, as I like to say, Wallasayfasill.

  In math all I need to do is adjust the dates on the syllabus. Each missed assignment is now due one week later.

  There are no daily assignments in computing. I either turn my programs and web page in by the last week of term or I fail. I could probably do everything in one sleepless code-monkey marathon if I had access to a computer for more than forty-five minutes a school day. Anyway, not to worry. I have that covered.

  In English, Miss (Heartless) Hart says there is no way to make up for the missed discussions in class. Have I kept up with the reading schedule? I would like to point out that I could keep up with her reading schedule even if I had to reinvent the alphabet on a daily basis before I got started. I don’t point that out. I just bask in her glare.

  During lunch I revisit Mr. Banacek in physics.

  “You can just pull something out of the extra-credit jar,” he says. So I reach in and fish out a scrap of paper. It says:

  Freak Observer (Boltzmann Brain)

  “Write me something, and get it to me by the end of the quarter. OK, Loa?” He looks like he knows he should say something kind.

  “I have to hurry. I’ll miss my class,” I say, to make it easier for both of us.

  . . .

  It is hard riding the bus home. I take a seat behind J.B. the driver and plug the taped French lessons into my head. It’s my only defense against the inevitable. And it won’t work, because the inevitable is inevitable.

  The bus goes right by the place where Esther died.

  It was bad in the morning when I was going to school, but it is worse now in the afternoon, because I know it is going to happen. Shutting my eyes and pretending French is a language isn’t going to help. Nothing is going to help.

  This is how it happened.

  The trooper was nice. He let me ride in the front seat. He pulled out a box of some industrial-grade tissues when he saw me wiping my snot on my sleeve.

  Then he said, “I’m sorry. I have to take you home. It’s the law.”

  When he said it, I believed him. And I felt a little sorry for him, because troopers have to do a lot of things that are terrible, like being where death happens. It’s just part of their job. They arrive and they decide who is alive and who is dead and who is responsible. They talk on their radios, and they talk to the ones left living, and sometimes they take people home—even and especially if they don’t want to go home.

  The troopers weren’t the first ones at the scene. The truck driver was there. I and Abel were both there. And Esther’s body was there. I don’t know who called the troopers, but I remember the sirens seemed to start almost as soon as I could figure out what had happened.

  I hadn’t even been looking at Esther. I was watching the river current and thinking about how the water looked almost predictable when it broke around the rocks into rapids. I know about chaos physics. I know the breaking point of a riffle around a rock is no more predictable than the way wind sculpts a cloud. I know that, but it didn’t stop me from trying to see the pattern. So I was neglecting Esther. If she had invited me to come along so she would have had someone to talk to, I was a bad choice. I was all burrowed into my brain.

  The last I saw her, she was standing at the top of the cutbank. What she was thinking then or what she was thinking when she ran down the bank, I do not know. I told them that.

  I heard tires squeal.

  I heard a crash that went on and on.

  By the time I ran partway down the bank toward the highway, the logging truck was jackknifed at the bottom of the hill. His load had broken loose, and some of the logs were still shifting, still moving to the place gravity wanted them to be. One of them had shot way down the road and shattered on impact. Velocity. Acceleration. Linear momentum.

  It amazed me. Like WOW! Look at that tree exploded to splinters—an origami shooting star.

  The trucker had his door open and was kneeling on the pavement. He was pretty lucky to have got out of that mess still walking. One of his logs could have moved right throu
gh him on its trajectory. I could hear him yelling, but I couldn’t figure out what he was saying. It was kind of broken up and hard to understand because he was puking. He was still trying to say something, but the words were lost in gagging and spitting.

  I was so distracted by that guy that I didn’t see the rest of the picture right away.

  Then I saw Esther.

  My first thought was

  Her heart has fallen out of her body.

  I didn’t know that could happen. I didn’t know what to do. So I just froze there on the cutbank.

  I don’t know how to put a heart back into a body.

  It was the only thought I had, and it wasn’t very useful.

  It seemed like a long time, but it wasn’t really, because Abel was right behind me, and he pushed me out of the way. I slid down the bank in the loose dirt and rocks. Then I just sat there where I fell. I watched Abel while he grabbed his sister and tried to make her be alive.

  I could see that her heart hadn’t fallen out. The muscle on her arm had been torn away from the bone. It was just a lump of muscle. Her heart was safe inside her, but she was still dead.

  I didn’t go to her. I was afraid to go down the bank and onto the highway. I was afraid to look and I was afraid to see.

  I wasn’t a very good friend.

  I guess I could have touched her hand or said her name. I didn’t. Maybe that’s the sort of thing I will regret for the rest of my life. I don’t know. So far the rest of my life hasn’t been very long.

  . . .

  The troopers came with their sirens and flashing lights. They put flares in the road so the accident wouldn’t get worse. Pretty soon it was dark, and the paramedics came and gathered Esther up and took her away. Abel went too. They didn’t use the siren when they drove away. It was that silent ambulance that got me. I might have been OK if it hadn’t been for that quiet ambulance.