The Mitochondrial Curiosities of Marcels 1 to 19. Jocelyn Brown

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СКАЧАТЬ Coming of age and all that.’

      ‘Because, Dad, it’s hard to plan without a rough estimate.’

      He could have used it up, that’s one possibility. Rita could have taken it. But it did exist. ‘Plan,’ he said. ‘You’ll have enough.’

      I planned. I was up all night, and by the next morning the Plan was a beautiful thing. I’d go to Toronto, where I had blog friends, and find a way to live that wasn’t totally fake. Until then, I’d keep inventing stuff, making things, so I could get into the Renegade Craft Fair with Oxymrn who made $800 there last year with her retro aprons and beads.

      So we made the deal, Leonard and I, and back I went. For the first time, I had a goal: to somehow use the futility of school as fuel for my blog, my crafts, my real life. For a while it worked, then I got incredibly sleepy. The school counsellor, Mr. Santini, was activated, and he was so worried about my lack of peer group I couldn’t stand his discomfort. ‘Whatever, fine,’ I told him. ‘I will make attempts.’ The film club was first, until Jeremy Mills said I had to wear spandex and get slathered in peanut butter because all film club members had to be corpses in his film on cockroaches taking over the world. Then came the anarchists, as in how adorable, anarchists in high school. Like vegetarians in McDonald’s. After the head anarchist’s girlfriend’s birthday party, that was all over. ‘Adolescence is deeply painful,’ I told Santini. ‘My way of getting through it is alone.’

      He left me in peace since I was almost passing biology and art and had developed positive regard, as he put it, for Ms. Riddell, the biology teacher. Joan settled back down to getting people fired at work and Leonard stopped calling me every night for a report. For ten weeks, the Plan grew strong and glorious. I checked Toronto job sites every day and found a bunch of coffee shops that always need staff. I found a room in a house at Bloor and Dufferin, shared bathroom et cetera but who cares, and last week I sent them my rent and damage deposit knowing that today I would have the special account to pay Joan back before she knew she had been borrowed from. Six days ago, I registered for the Renegade Craft Fair, expensive but worth it, and of course I’d pay Joan back by the end of the week.

      Five days ago, the Plan was poised to replace my meaningless life like an Academy Award presenter waiting to go onstage. Paige and I were in the Bio lab, partners because everyone else was partnered by the time we got there on Teeth Day – another tragic family situation being no dental plan. Aside from terror and pain, Teeth Day at the university student dental clinic means bus marathon which always means late. Since Paige is eleven months younger than me it is already unspeakable that we are in the same class, but she’s gifted, so who cares about my suffering. She had to be advanced a year and, five days ago, there she stood avec moi over dead fruit flies. Talk about foreshadowing. I had killed them with too much chloroform and she was displeased. ‘It’s easier when they’re dead,’ I told her. She had just said, ‘Correction? We’re supposed to chart their offspring?’ when the intercom crackled and our names were called. Paige tried to funnel the dead bugs back into the jar. ‘Get a move on, girls,’ Ms. Riddell said and I swung my bag over my shoulder, blowing the flies away. ‘Sorry,’ I said to them and Riddell.

      In the hallway, Paige said, ‘It’s Dad.’ I was all of a sudden hollow, like a cheap chocolate Easter bunny caving in over a heat source. Leonard had already had two heart attacks. I used to be scared he’d die, used to imagine him dead on a stretcher every time I saw an ambulance or heard a siren. But since the Plan, no worries. Because Leonard was indispensable to the Plan, his death stopped being possible. I stopped at the trophy case with a picture of someone’s butt still taped to the corner. We could see Joan in the office with the principal. Paige pulled on my sleeve. ‘If we don’t move, it didn’t happen,’ I say. Paige pulled again. ‘C’mon, Dree. They see us.’

      Three

      We’re back in the bio lab and the fruit flies are still dead. Paige impales me with her pointy little elbow and whispers, ‘Sit up.’

      I lift my head long enough to look at the clock. Three p.m. Day 2 of being fifteen. I should be over Winnipeg about now. And since I’m not, I should be at home in bed. And since I’m not, I should destroy my sister because, clearly, that’s what she did to me this morning with her pre-dawn hysteria. ‘Paige,’ Joan had said in ubermaternal mode. ‘Paige, honey, no one expects to see you girls today.’ And Paige?

      ‘Correction, Mom. My handbell choir does expect me because without me, Mom, there is no A flat. Also, Mom, Dree and I are going to fail biology if we don’t deal with the fruit flies today. Capital F fail, Mom.’

      With head down and hope crushed, I listen to Riddell doing her responsible-sexuality thing.

      ‘And what is our main purpose as a species?’ she asks. ‘Don’t be so savagely dull, good lord, think of fruit flies, think of any species and what they must do. Yes, Raymond, brilliant, reproduction, reproduce is what your genes demand, do be sensible and understand that you are foremost a gene machine, and genes demand replication at any expense, including STDS and good taste, and hormones can be viciously clever in convincing us something is about love or pleasure when really it’s all biochemistry, the same kind of biochemistry that gets fruit flies and all other species to mate, and they’re not exactly thrilling, are they, but let’s hope they enjoyed themselves.’

      Ms. Riddell gets all that out in the time it takes most people to say, ‘Hey, how’s it going.’ And good for you, Ms. Riddell, for talking about sex all the time, but please. If we’re biologically programmed to bonk everything that moves, why not tell us where to get cost-effective sexual aids? Or better yet, provide DIY instructions?

      ‘And now, young friends, turn your thoughts to activity of a cellular nature, and kindly formulate hypotheses on your favourite organelle.’ Riddell walks between the lab tables, checking for things to con fiscate. ‘Yes, I speak of your final project, that penultimate expression of genius worth 50 percent of your final mark, and yes, the outline for your presentation is still due on Friday. Do work with great intellectual rigour; the marking will be savage.’

      With the class nicely traumatized, Riddell, DNA earrings twirling, comes over to Paige and me and puts her hand on my shoulder. I almost start bawling. ‘Girls, I’m surprised you’re here,’ she says, and I say, ‘Yeah, you have no idea, Ms. Riddell, how surprised I am.’ Paige gets all huffy and wants to talk deadlines but Riddell says, ‘Mercy, Paige, I hardly think we need discuss that today.’

      Paige is all, ‘But Ms. Riddell, I need to start an independent project on mitochondria, I’m researching – ’

      ‘Shuddup! I’m totally into mito, too!’ I couldn’t help myself.

      ‘Mercy,’ Riddell says. ‘Well then, excellent, yes, do work together on this one, yes, I do see you’re not comfortable but that’s hardly the point of projects, is it, Paige?’ Riddell gives me a good-for-you pat, makes sure we’ve got all the assignment info and goes off to stop the back row from starting another fire. ‘You are so unstable,’ Paige hisses.

      What are mitochondria, I wonder, and smile at her. Something to do with cells, something about power. Something to google when I can’t think of anything interesting to do.

      Going to English feels excessive, as it so often does after biology, so I hit the library. Fresh hell. I’m deep into etsy.com and in comes my tortured English teacher, Mr. Trenchey, with my tortured English class. He doesn’t say hello, just raises his eyebrows and clutches Death of a Salesman tighter to his chest. Blayne sits beside me and stares at my breasts like Blayne does, a total perv, and I slump low enough to graze the СКАЧАТЬ