I knew what it was Alana wanted to show me. I knew what she wanted me to relive, and no matter how hard I tried to fight it, I knew she would make me remember. The present was an unwanted souvenir.
History was my least favorite subject but my most favorite class, because Sunny was always in full entertainment mode. We spent class time passing notes back and forth with crazy games and drawings scrawled across them. Sunny’s favorite class-time activity was hangman. I’d show up to history and a note would be sitting on my desk, folded meticulously into one of Sunny’s signature origami flowers or cranes. I’d keep it hidden under my desk so Mr. Montgomery couldn’t see what I was doing. Not that it mattered; between his coke-bottle glasses and general lack of interest in his classroom we were usually in the clear. She loved to design lengthy, complex puzzles that would take most of class to work through. The notebook page would be filled with blank spaces, and I’d pass my guesses back and forth to her while we fought to cover up our laughter. Alana James was one of her favorite puzzle subjects.
Like this one:
_ _ _ _ _ / .
Which meant: Alana is a butt monkey who belongs in a circus.
Or this one:
_/ _ / _ ?
/ . / .
Which meant: What’s better than Alana James? Anything. Even cancer.
They were a little juvenile, but that was what made them so funny. Plus they made the droning sound of Mr. Montgomery’s voice more palatable. If I had to sit through that class without Sunny’s notes to get me through the hour-and-fifteen-minute period, I would have impaled myself on Mr. Montgomery’s laser pointer, he was that boring.
One day I showed up to class as usual and found one of Sunny’s paper cranes waiting for me. I grinned the way I always did when I saw a note sitting on my desk and raised my eyebrow when I saw Sunny bouncing up and down in her chair, biting her lip to suppress a smirk.
I took my time opening it, dramatizing each movement because it drove her crazy. She almost fell out of her seat trying to get me to open it faster, her red head bobbing up and down with excitement as she motioned for me to hurry up.
This particular day she drew a picture, the detailed shading a dead giveaway that she’d worked on it all afternoon. I smoothed the paper against my desk to get a better look while Sunny leaned over my shoulder to admire her handiwork. The grin on her face was enormous.
I knew immediately that it was a drawing of Alana, not because Sunny was an especially good artist, but because I’d seen enough of her artwork to know what her Alanas looked like. This Alana had her back to me and her face turned to the side. The main focus was on her naked butt, which Sunny exaggerated so that it took up half of the page. She’d drawn dimples and pockmarks all over the Alana’s enormous butt cheeks, with arrows pointing to each dimple and the word “seats” scribbled next to the arrows. At the bottom of the page there was a row of tiny stick people gathering at the Alana’s feet, with a little stand labeled “ticket booth” and “$2 per ride” next to the Alana’s gigantic big toe. Above the whole thing were the words:
Ride Inside Alana James’s Butt Dimples!
Feel Them Jiggle and Shake!
The Scariest Ride in the History of Rides!
Sunny clapped her hand over her mouth after I’d taken it all in, her face red from holding in her laughter. Usually I was right there with her, but something was off that day. Something about the picture made me feel a little sick, like she’d gone too far even though I’d seen Sunny draw crueler pictures and use meaner words to describe people.
I should have told her I thought it was mean. I should have said something to let her know I didn’t think it was very funny. But I didn’t. Instead I grabbed my pencil and drew a stick person into one of the dimples, passing it back to Sunny with a note reading, “It’s more realistic if you show someone riding inside one of her butt dimples.”
This made Sunny really happy, and she started to draw more stick people, all of them with wide open mouths, screaming in terror as they bumped and jiggled inside the Alana’s terrifying dimples.
Sunny wanted her artwork to get the attention it deserved, so she passed it to Mark Schroen who passed it to Tracey Allen who passed it to the girl with braces whose name I could never remember. I turned around and faced forward, pretending to be engrossed in the list of historical dates Mr. Montgomery scrawled on the board so I wouldn’t have to hear the snickers and titters filling the classroom. When the picture made its way back to my desk, I glanced at it long enough to see there were smudges and finger prints around the butt dimples, the paper sticky from all the fingers touching it. Sunny snatched it from my hands and sent it around the other side of the classroom before I could protest.
Sometime during lunch I noticed Alana occupying her usual spot in the cafeteria, sitting on the floor away from the other tables with her books spread out around her. She held a piece of notebook paper in her shaking hands, and even through the dim florescent lighting of the cafeteria I could make out the words “Butt Dimples” from where the black ink had bled through to the other side of the page.
I didn’t want to look at her face. I didn’t want to see her red, swollen eyes or the way her bottom lip trembled. I didn’t want to see the way she kept staring at the paper, like she was memorizing the details or looking into a mirror to inspect her makeup. But I couldn’t stop. It was like the stairs; all I could do was face forward. It made me wonder how many other notes and pictures had made it into Alana’s hands throughout the years, and how many times she sat quietly in the corner of the cafeteria examining our creations like she was looking at her reflection.
But the worst prank we played was last year, when Sunny gave Alana an invitation to her birthday party with the wrong address printed on it.