The Wolf House: The Complete Series by Mary Borsellino

Author:Mary Borsellino [Borsellino, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Omnium Gatherum
Published: 2016-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

BETTE

Bette stabs the blade of the pocketknife in hard as she can, grimace curling her glossy red lip open enough to show a flash of gritted white teeth. She draws the blade back and strikes a second time, and the dark rubber of the rear right tire of the station wagon exhales its life out slowly through two punctures.

“It’s nice to see that real vampires live up to the standards of refinements and culture set by their fictional counterparts,” Jay says in his standard deadpan monotone. Bette flips him off wordlessly and moves on to the next car in the lot.

The rooftop parking lot of the mall is mostly deserted; they’re the only people there, and there’s only a handful of cars still around for Bette to inflict casual vandalism on. Jay’s perched precariously on the low cement wall which divides the roof level from the long three-storey drop to the road below. To Bette, their choice of pastimes seems indicative of their respective attitudes to the universe at large: when Bette wants to distract herself from worry, she destroys things, and when Jay wishes to do the same he flirts with the possibility of destroying himself.

“Stop that,” Jay demands as she vents her frustration on yet another tire. Bette shrugs, closing the knife and putting it back into the pocket of her pants. She walks over to where he’s sitting and jumps up, balanced as a cat, before walking along the barricade in ostentatiously dainty steps.

“Did you ever read the Oz books when you were a kid?”

Jay shakes his head. Bette does a slow cartwheel, pausing on her hands for a few moments to observe the late-night vista of the suburb upside-down before standing again.

“My favourite was the one about the patchwork girl of Oz,” she goes on. “She’s, you know, made of patchwork. Scraps sewn together. And she looks pretty nuts, but she loves it. She’s totally proud of being this freakish creature, and wouldn’t be any other way even if she had the choice. She thinks dignity is the stupidest thing that she’s ever heard of. She was my absolute hero when I was tiny.”

Jay, in characteristic Jay fashion, lets Bette chatter on without interruption.

“But I don’t know,” Bette says, jumping back down onto the tarred surface of the lot and facing him. “I feel like I’m a patchwork girl now, and it sort of sucks. Like, I know I’m fantastic, right, but I’m just pieces of other fantastic stuff that’s all sewn together. I make up all these comparisons of what stuff about me means, but since all those things I’m comparing myself to already have meanings, there’s no meaning that’s just me, you know?”

“I know you’re the only existential juvenile delinquent I currently know,” Jay offers in a tone that manages to be teasing and flat at once. Bette makes an annoyed face, stalking away and over to one of the cars, climbing onto the hood. She sits down, cross-legged, and starts to talk again at a slightly louder volume, so that Jay can still hear her over the increased distance.

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