Bliss , livre ebook

ALSO BY LAUREN MYRACLE
Rhymes with Witches
ttyl
ttfn
l8 r , g 8 r
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
How to Be Bad

PUBLISHER S NOTE : This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Myracle, Lauren, 1969- Bliss / by Lauren Myracle. p. cm.
Summary: Having grown up in a California commune, Bliss sees her aloof grandmother s Atlanta world as a foreign country, but she is determined to be nice as a freshman at an elite high school, which makes her the perfect target for a girl obsessed with the occult. ISBN 978-0-8109-7071-7 (Harry N. Abrams: alk. paper) [1. Interpersonal relations-Fiction. 2. High schools-Fiction. 3. Schools-Fiction. 4. Occultism-Fiction. 5. Grandmothers-Fiction. 6. Atlanta (Ga.)-History-20th century-Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M9955Bli 2008 [Fic]-dc22 2007050036
Text copyright 2008 Lauren Myracle Book design by Maria T. Middleton
Page 73: From the song Little Boxes. Words and music by Malvina Reynolds. Copyright 1962 Schroder Music Co. (ASCAP) Renewed 1990. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Page 209: Happiness Is a Warm Gun. 1968 Sony/ATV Tunes LLC. All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Page 275: Easy Rider. Lyrics originally copyright 1924 Gertrude Ma Rainey.
Published in 2008 by Amulet Books, an imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
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With deep and abiding love, I blame this one entirely on my mother.
randmother won t tolerate occultism, even of the nose-twitching sort made so adorable by Samantha Stevens, so I m not allowed to watch Bewitched . Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie is indecent in her filmy pants and sparkly halter, so I m not allowed to watch that, either. Mod Squad ? Miniskirts. Scandalous. Those ultramodern miniskirt girls purse Grandmother s lips up almost as much as boys with long hair and girls who neither shave nor wear appropriate undergarments. Almost, but not quite, because when it comes to the destruction of traditional values, hippies trump witches and mod girls, hands down.
Hippies use marijuana.
Hippies don t bathe.
Hippies cohabitate in flimsy tents and eat goat cheese. The girls don t wear bras, and their unfettered breasts bounce shamelessly beneath tank tops reading MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR . They have sexual relations indiscriminately, and they burden their offspring with ridiculous names. And-the most dire offense of all-they deposit said offspring in the imposing Southern mansions of their even more imposing Southern parents, shirking the responsibility of raising their children themselves.
To clarify: I m the offspring. My name is Bliss. Mom and Dad fled to Canada to avoid supporting President Nixon s version of American patriotism, and they abandoned me here, in Atlanta, with a well-coiffed grandmother I barely know. My grandfather is dead.
This is a situation neither Grandmother nor I would have chosen, but Grandmother is nothing if not morally upright, which made it impossible for her to turn me away. She s also uptight , and it seems that often the two go together. Mom hugged me hard after dropping me off, whispering that I should stay true to myself no matter what anyone said. By anyone, I assume she meant Grandmother, whose sole remark to Mom was, Well, Genevieve, I didn t think you could fall any further. Once again, you ve proven me wrong. Then she turned to me, her mouth pruning into a frown. Pigeon Carrier s Disease?! Dr. Montgomery will be aghast.
The penicillin made my pee stink, but it got rid of the fever and most of the scaliness. Even more remarkable, I m no longer coughing. My clean breaths fill me with joy and guilt in equal measure.
Something else I feel guilty about: I like my daily hot showers, and I like Grandmother s expensive toiletries. The soap from the commune never lathered. It was lumpish and gray, and it itched my scalp. Grandmother has lavender shampoo to match her lavender soap. My hair is as soft as angels wings.
I like TV too. Grandmother s TV is a brand-new Zenith Giant-Screen, with a Space Command 600 Remote Control. I can change channels from the sofa. Truly! I stretch out on the chintz cushions- no feet on the coffee table, please -and with a push of my thumb, The Andy Griffith Show flickers into resolution. Andy Griffith is one of the few shows Grandmother tolerates, and of the others on her approved list- My Three Sons, Green Acres, Petticoat Junction -it s my clear-and-away favorite. Plus, it s in reruns already, so I can watch it every day.
I love Sheriff Taylor in his crisp uniform, and sometimes (how embarrassing) I think about him as I fall asleep in my four-poster bed with freshly laundered sheets and down pillow. He s got a kind smile, he s a great dad to Opie, and he teases gray-bunned Aunt Bee, but never in a mean-spirited way. Plus, he s nice to Barney, the bumbling deputy sheriff who causes more problems than he solves.
If I were still on the commune, I wouldn t be watching Andy Griffith . I d be digging a new latrine or helping Flying V pick herbs or looking after Daisy and Clementine, the twins. We weren t lazy on the commune, despite what Grandmother thinks. I m lazy here. Grandmother s maid, a black woman named Rosie who s at least as old as Grandmother, whispers past me, picking up crumbs before I realize I ve dropped them. She folds my underwear. She collects the hairballs from the shower drain and makes them disappear. Quite a lot of my hair seems to be falling out, which I attribute to my new regimen of washing, conditioning, and brushing.
If Flying V could see me, she d shake her head. Letting an old auntie wait on you? That ain t the Bliss I know.
Well, she s right. I feel newly born, dropped like a baby into this slippery world of giant-screen TVs and lavender soap and feather pillows. Last week Grandmother hosted a sip and see to introduce me to her friends from the Ladies Auxiliary, and because I was nervous, I crossed and recrossed my legs in the school-issued knee-length cotton skirt Grandmother had given me to replace my gypsy skirt with the bells. Grandmother glared, and I didn t know why. After everyone left, she informed me that young ladies are to cross their legs at the ankles only. To do otherwise suggests wantonness.
I also made the mistake of mentioning Daisy and Clementine during the sip and see. Daisy and Clementine will have a new baby brother or sister next month, not that I ll be there to meet him or her. But everyone likes babies, so when one of the ladies showed off a bonnet she was knitting for her soon-to-be-born granddaughter, I beamed and said, Oh, groovy! My friend Flying V-well, really, it s Virginia-she s pregnant too.
Everyone fell silent, and my smile faltered. Grandmother later told me that you re not supposed to say pregnant ; you re supposed to say expecting or in the family way. Um, okay. I don t get it . . . but okay.
There are so many things I don t get, that I m afraid even daily doses of Andy Griffith won t bring me up to speed. School starts in a week, and I m petrified. Grandmother has enrolled me in Crestview Academy, the most prestigious private school in the South. It used to be a convent, and when Grandmother showed me the brochure, I imagined nuns in black habits patrolling the vast grounds. The imposing buildings are constructed from stone; the lawns are green and dotted with stone benches. It s quite stately looking, which, despite my apprehension, appeals to my imagination. There s not a latrine in sight.
The school shifted from Catholicism when it lost the nuns, but Grandmother assures me that Crestview students follow a Christian code of conduct. They also follow a Christian code of attire-though when I said, Neat-o! Tunics and sandals! Grandmother didn t crack a smile. Crestview boys, I gathered from the brochure, wear khakis and collared shirts. Girls can wear either a blue or gray skirt, a white blouse with a Peter Pan collar, and brown penny loafers. Grandmother bought me two skirts in each color, three blouses, and a blue cardigan for chilly weather. Also, five pairs of white knee-highs, five pairs of nude hose, and the penny loafers.
I ll be a freshman, Grandmother informed me, and I could sense her amazement that I tested into my appropriate age-based grade level despite the fact that I ve never been formally schooled.
Well . . . I did read on the commune, I told her. Quite a lot, actually.
How? Grandmother asked.
What do you mean, how? I said. I didn t want to be rude, but surely she didn t want a description of how I moved my eyes from line to line.
She made an impatient sound. The books, where did you get the books? You were squatting like animals in the wild.
I felt a surge of shame. The bookmobile came every week, I said as levelly as I could. It was government funded. I was never an animal squatting in the wild, but she had just made me feel like one.
So beginning next week, I ll be in a homeroom with twelve other fourteen-year-olds. There are three other ninth-grade homerooms in addition to mine, which means fifty-two freshmen, g