Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2013 by Carolita Blythe

  Jacket art copyright © 2013 by {Erykah’s PhotoGraphy}

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Blythe, Carolita.

  Revenge of a not-so-pretty girl / Carolita Blythe. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Fourteen-year-old Faye, an African American living in 1984 Brooklyn, New York, copes with her mother’s abuse by stealing with her friends, but when robbing an elderly woman almost turns to murder, she gains an opportunity to learn new truths about life.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-97845-5

  [1. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 2. Conduct of life—Fiction. 3. Old age—Fiction. 4. Family problems—Fiction. 5. African Americans—Fiction. 6. Catholic schools—Fiction. 7. Schools—Fiction. 8. Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.B6278Rev 2013

  [Fic]—dc23

  2012012735

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  For Orville Fraser Blythe

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  I’ve gotta admit, I’m not all that enthusiastic when my turn on lookout duty comes around again. It’s making me start to rethink just how badly I really want to come across this supposed movie actress. The stairwell Caroline and I have been tucked away in is one long hallway and a massive lobby from the front of the building, but I can clearly hear the bitterness in the wind. That thing is howling and hissing and undoubtedly trying to warn me against going outside. Even though spring started three weeks ago, it still feels like we’re in the middle of winter. But Caroline’s shooting me this “What the hell are you waiting for?” look, so I slowly remove myself from the warmth of our little hiding place and start down the hall. I’m making it a point to take my time, dragging my feet along the shiny marble floor with its pretty diamond design, looking around at all the fancy light fixtures on the walls and the tiny chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, taking in how large all the doors to the apartments are and how solid and real the wood appears to be.

  It’s funny to think that my building is only about seven blocks away. It might as well be in another galaxy. I think we have fluorescent lights in our hallways, and half the time they’re either flickering or completely out. And if I had to take a stab at what our lobby floor was made of, I’d say painted-over cement. But I guess that’s how it goes in Brooklyn. You get off at the Parkside Avenue subway stop and turn left, you end up landing on pretty average. That’s the direction the people who look most like me head in—the people with brown skin and the people wearing workers’ uniforms. The white people who come out of that station always seem to turn right and head in this direction, where there are all these fancy buildings overlooking Prospect Park.

  I’m at the edge of the lobby when Gillian suddenly comes flying into view, her eyes wide, her long, bony face smashed up against the glass of the outer lobby doors. I can’t tell whether she’s mistakenly pushing at the handles, which she should be pulling if she’s trying to open the doors, or whether she’s being pinned there against her will by the sudden hurricane-force April winds. Based on her look of torture, I’m thinking that, more than likely, she’s being wind-pummeled. It’s not like she’s able to put up much resistance against the elements, considering how skinny she is. I mean, she actually makes me feel like a normal-sized human being. And I’ve seen the most up-to-date height and weight charts for 1984. I’m nowhere near the average for a fourteen-year-old city-dwelling female.

  “Faye, she’s coming!” Gillian yells as I rush through the inner set of doors, which immediately close behind me, and into the vestibule to try and help her. But even though Gillian has hardly any meat on her bones, I don’t have enough strength to combat both the wind and her motionless body, and I can only get the door open about eight inches. Still, Gillian manages to squeeze a scrawny arm and leg through before getting stuck.

  I turn back and glance over at Caroline, who’s probably the same weight as me and Gillian combined. It’s pretty funny that Caroline and Gillian are cousins, considering that one of them is so round and the other so straight. They kind of resemble the number 10 when they stand side by side. Caroline’s still comfortably situated in the stairwell, pulling some of the jawbreakers she told me she’d run out of from her pocket and dropping them into her mouth. I start waving furiously at her and finally get her to notice me.

  “The lady’s coming,” I mouth a few times instead of yelling, since I don’t want to risk attracting the neighbors’ attention. “And we need help.”

  Caroline finally heaves herself off the steps.

  “What the hell are you two doing?” she grumbles once she reaches us. Only, her mouth is kind of full, so it doesn’t come out very clearly. But I guess I would have asked the same thing, with Gillian being all contorted and me trying to yank her inside with one hand and keep the door open with the other.

  Some stuck-up girl wearing a fresh-looking sheepskin jacket passes by, glances our way, and whispers something to her friend and giggles.

  “You better mind your own business!” Caroline yells after them as she pulls the door open wide enough for Gillian to slip through. Then she looks at me. “So, where’s the movie star?” Caroline gets out before a fit of coughing overtakes her. Her already hyperthyroid eyes bulge out a little more, and she starts pointing to her throat and wheezing, so I ball my hand into a fist and punch her in the back, square between the shoulder blades.

  “You shouldn’t put so much candy in your mouth at one time,” Gillian says.

  “Yeah, especially candy you claimed you ran out of,” I add.

  “Both of you, shut up,” Caroline responds. “And why’d you have to punch so hard, Faye? Next time you do that, I’m punching you back.”r />
  Great, I think. Next time I save you from choking to death on the fistful of sweets you shoved down your throat, don’t thank me, assault me.

  “As I was saying, where is she?” Caroline asks with some attitude.

  “Just down at the corner,” Gillian answers. “Only, the wind got hold of her little ‘Ho ho ho, Green Giant’ hat, and this man had to run it down for her. I gotta tell you, though, she doesn’t look like a movie star to me.”

  “And how many movie stars have you seen in your life?” Caroline asks.

  “Plenty. Diana Ross, Marilyn Monroe—”

  “I’m not talking about on TV or at the movies, retarded human being,” Caroline snaps. “I’m talking about in real life.”

  Gillian opens her mouth to answer, but Caroline puts her palm to Gillian’s face and Gillian’s lips snap shut.

  “Look,” Caroline continues, “she hasn’t been a movie star for a thousand years now, so don’t go expecting some glamour-puss. Anyway, remember the plan. Just act like you’re looking for an apartment number. She’ll probably try to help us out. Then just follow my lead.”

  I turn to face the intercom, where apartment numbers are typed out next to the last names and first initials of the tenants, but I’m not so focused on that. I’m peeping out the corner of my eye, waiting for a glimpse of the movie star. It’ll be my first sighting ever, which is pretty exciting. She might not be famous anymore, but it’s not every day you come across a Hollywood actress in Brooklyn.

  In my peripheral vision, I catch a blur of green whizzing on by, but I can’t tell whether it’s human, plant, or animal. A few seconds later, I see that green blur return. With great effort, it attempts to climb the stairs leading to the vestibule where we stand. I notice Caroline and Gillian peeking too, but no one does anything. Finally, I move toward the front door.

  “Faye, what are you doing?” Caroline screeches.

  “Look at it outside. If we don’t help her, she just might not make it in here.”

  This seems to register with Caroline, and she rushes over to me. Actually, let me qualify that. For most normal people, her movement would be considered a lazy stroll, but for Caroline, it’s actually a bit of a jog. Anyway, she gets to the door and pushes it open. Gillian and I go out and flank the lady and help her in.

  “Oh, thank you,” she says, sounding as if she has just crossed the finish line at the New York City Marathon.

  All I can think is, Damn, this woman is old. We’re talking Roman Colosseum, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman old. Like, when did she make movies, in ancient Egyptian times? And she’s so tiny. Then I detect a slight hump on her back, which makes it seem like she has a candy cane for a spine. And her hair’s all wispy and white and blown about, like a big ball of cotton candy someone forgot to add the pink coloring to. Her powder-white skin is wrinkly and spotted—kind of reptilian. And her green wool coat looks about four sizes too big.

  I move so that I’m standing behind her, and I find myself looking down at her feet—at these little ankle boots she has her gray pants tucked into. And I’m thinking, Not only does this woman look like she was never in a film, she doesn’t even look like she could afford to live in this hoity-toity building. In fact, she looks as if she might be homeless.

  “So, who are you girls looking for?” she asks as she takes her keys out of her little brown pocketbook and opens up the second set of lobby doors. Her voice is small and faint.

  “Um. Cheryl. On the third floor,” Caroline says.

  Gillian and I exchange looks. Caroline does have a friend who lives in the building—the same friend who happened to tell Caroline about this old lady once being a movie star—but that girl’s name is Janet, and she lives on the fifth floor.

  “I don’t know a Cheryl. She’s a young girl like you all? What’s her last name? Maybe I know her family.”

  “Oh, I don’t even know. She goes to my school. I know where her apartment is, but I can’t remember the number,” Caroline says.

  I gotta admit, I’ve always been in awe of how quickly Caroline can come up with things. It’s a true art.

  “Well, come on in,” the old woman says once the door is open. She holds it out to us with one hand as she grabs her grocery bag with the other.

  Caroline doesn’t move at first, and I can tell she’s nervous. And Caroline’s never nervous. The old lady turns toward her, and Caroline steps forward and kind of wrenches the bag from the old lady.

  “I can carry it for you,” Caroline says. “Where do you live?”

  It takes the lady a few seconds to respond, as if she’s thinking over whether to answer Caroline or not.

  “End of the hall, near the stairs,” she finally says. “That’s very nice of you to help.”

  Caroline’s gotta be the gutsiest person I’ve ever known. I watch as she walks alongside the old woman, whose little boots squeak against the lobby’s marble floors. They pass a big fake fireplace with a mantel that must be eight feet high, then continue down the hall we just came from. Gillian and I follow a few feet behind them but stop once we reach the elevator. That was the plan. Hang back at the edge of the lobby and wait for Caroline to make her way into the old lady’s apartment. Once she’s had a chance to check things out, she’ll signal us. So I just stand there, looking up once more at the tiny glass chandeliers. With any luck, this will all go very quickly.

  The old lady’s door opens and she disappears inside. Then Caroline disappears. And now there’s an empty hallway, quiet except for the racket being caused by the wind.

  I’m pretty sure only a few seconds pass before Caroline sticks her hand out the door and starts waving it like she’s swatting at flies, but it feels like hours. Gillian and I just look at each other; then we run down to the apartment. The squeak of my sneakers against the floor sounds as loud as a train coming to a quick stop on metal rails. Caroline closes the door the minute we’re in, and I see the old woman propped up against the wall like a rickety wooden chair. The groceries are all scattered on the floor, and Caroline’s got hold of the lady’s pocketbook.

  “What did you do?” I ask her as I stare at the old woman.

  “Is she dead?” Gillian asks, her mouth slack, like she’s got no control over her jaw.

  “She ain’t dead!” Caroline yells in frustration. “How’s she gonna be dead if she’s still halfway standing? And I didn’t do anything. Just pushed her so she’d move away from the door, and she went falling into the wall in slow motion, like the Bionic Woman or something.”

  I see the lady trying to straighten up, only it’s taking way more energy and effort than it should. Her little old feet in her Little House on the Prairie ankle boots are slipping and sliding around.

  We’re standing in her hallway, and on the walls are three colorful paintings of three really depressed-looking people. But they look a bit cartoonlike. There’s a bathroom to the right side of us and a really big kitchen straight ahead. There’s a radiator in the hall—one of those long pole types that stretches from floor to ceiling. It spits and whistles a little. I can’t tell if the apartment is really hot or if it’s just my nerves. To the left is the living room.

  Caroline walks over to the lady and stands in front of her. She’s not a very good-looking girl from a straight-on angle, so I’m just imagining what she must look like if you have to look up at her, like the old lady has to from her bent position.

  “Well, at least let’s put her in a chair or something,” I say as I look toward the kitchen.

  As we move her down the hall, I start thinking of how fabulous this is going to be. According to Caroline’s friend, this woman keeps all her money under her mattress and in the pockets of the clothes in her closets. Now, we’re not planning on taking every penny of her savings. That would just be wrong. But even if we only score a thousand bucks each, we’ll be set for a good long while. I mean, the only time I ever see anything in the way of an allowance is on the few occasions Daddy shows up after lucking out with som
e musical gigs. And then it’s usually only ten or twenty bucks. Mama would never part with her hard-earned dollars. As she delights in telling me, she pays the rent, light bill, gas, and telephone. She works so I can have food in my belly and clothes on my back, so why the hell should she have to give me extra cash so I can flutter about at leisure, having the time of my life? Oh, and let’s not forget her number-one philosophy—which she totally plagiarized: The greatest gifts in life are free.

  Just to set the record straight, we don’t normally go after the life savings of old, decrepit people. We’re not completely heartless. We usually have more-deserving targets—pretty, stuck-up girls with loads of extra cash in their pockets. The type who are used to getting whatever they want, whenever they ask for it. The type who are so used to being called beautiful, the word doesn’t even have meaning for them anymore. They come in all shades and sizes. And their clothes are always name-brand. Their moms would never think of getting them shoes from the value bin at the Kmart. But what really sets them apart is their foul attitude, which you can sniff out from a mile away. They have a way of looking down their perfect noses at anyone they feel is not worthy of sharing the air with them. They have a way of making us regular girls feel inferior for not winning the gene pool lottery. Torturing them is simply our way of getting a little revenge. Although, I do have to admit that recently it’s kind of become more about how much money we can score. It’s nice to be able to go to the movies, and to buy records and some cool T-shirts. But with the boatload of cash we’ll be getting from this old movie star, we can go back to getting even with these girls first and earning a little extra money second. Heck, after today, it won’t even matter if they don’t have much cash on them. We’ll be like the Brooklyn version of Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Only, instead of giving to the poor, we’ll be giving power to the plain and non-outstanding.

  Once we get to the kitchen, Caroline continues rummaging through the old lady’s purse. She throws a pocket pack of Kleenex on the floor, then some mints. When she comes across a wallet, she pulls out six dollars. Gillian and I begin easing the old lady onto one of the chairs at the table in the center of the large room, but before we can get her down, Caroline is stuffing her giant mitts into the lady’s coat pockets. Geez, couldn’t she have had the decency to take the coat off first? If a person isn’t being a jerk, they should be allowed to have some level of dignity during a mugging. Anyway, the only thing Caroline seems to find there are a couple of pennies. And I can sense her frustration as she undoes the bottom buttons on the old woman’s coat and pats her down all NYPD-style.