In winter we showed up to school with thrift store snow pants, cheeks smeared with Vaseline, and when someone saw the beige handle of the plastic grocery bags Mom used to line our leaky moon boots sticking out, everyone laughed at us. At home we cried, and Mom told us a story about some girl who stunk so bad no one wanted to sit next to her at school, so she did because of how you could always see where tears had streaked her dirty face. We didn’t understand her point because we had squeaky Noxzema-clean skin, and all the girls at school smelled like Love’s Babysoft.
When the snow melted in spring, Mom grew rhubarb along the side of the house, which she made into just about everything she could. Jam, dumplings, pie. One time Nicole from class came over after school and we plucked some out of the dirt, dipped the stalks in sugar and chomped on ‘em. The next day after we found out she only used us to make Jessica jealous, and she made fun of us in front of everyone at recess saying rhubarb was poor people food because it grows like weeds. But when the notes about the lice outbreak got sent home in everyone’s backpacks, we all were itching our heads, sharing stories about the shampoo and tiny comb. Nicole showed up to school with a bob because her hair got so tangled up, and when the other girls made fun of her, we sat down next to her at lunch, spread out the contents of our three lunchboxes, and had a big buffet.
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