One Bloody Thing After Another by Joey Comeau Page B

call?” Jackie says to the cop. “Like on TV , right?” Nobody’s listening. They’re all rushing in and out of the room, or talking into their telephones. Something keeps beeping in the room. “What’s happening?” Jackie says. “What’s going on?”
    â€œSomething about trees,” the cop tells her. “We don’t know what.”
    Jackie gets her one phone call in a small room with a few desks and more police on their phones. They all have their hands on their foreheads, and their brows are furrowed. The man next to Jackie is chewing his stapler.
    â€œIt isn’t terrorists,” frowning cop # 1 says into the phone. “There’s no reason to believe that it’s terrorists.”
    â€œNo, ma’am, it isn’t terrorists,” frowning cop # 2 says into her phone. She sighs.
    The cop who led Jackie in here says, “Press nine.” All of the lights are flashing on the phone. Jackie presses nine. Then she dials Ann’s number. Ann answers on the first ring.
    â€œHello?”
    â€œLook out your window,” Jackie says. “Are there any trees in your yard?”
    â€œI can’t hang out anymore,” Ann says.

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    They want to take Jackie’s fingerprints next. Nope.
    She tells the cop that she has to go to the bathroom. She uses her little girl voice.
    She still doesn’t want to say her magic word.
    The cop pounds on the door again, and turns the knob.
    The door starts to swing inward.
    â€œMom,” Jackie says, under her breath.
    She is a computer shutting down.
    Door number one, no Jackie.
    Door number two, no Jackie.
    Door number three . . .
    While the police run around the building trying to find her, Jackie sits down on the floor next to her mother, and she rubs her back through the gown. Jackie’s mother doesn’t look up from the toilet.
    her,
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    In her bedroom the map of her trees takes up half of the wall. There are green pins stuck into the map, one for each of the trees. Jackie finds the pin for 10 Osborne Street and pulls it out. She drops the green pin back in the box and fishes out a black one. It’s the first black pin on the map.
    She reaches up and pulls out another of the green pins, the broken-arm tree. She pushes a black pin into the map in its place.
    She replaces each and every green pin with a black pin.
    I
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    Ann is over to do homework.
    At Jackie’s building, they race up the stairs together to the apartment. Jackie’s father says it’s okay, so Ann calls her mom to see if she can stay over. Ann’s mother has red hair and she says, “Oh of course, darling.”
    In bed the two girls look up at the ceiling and Ann tells Jackie that a boy called her and asked her to a movie. She sounds excited, and Jackie sits up and smiles.
    â€œThat’s great!” she says. They hug, and Jackie doesn’t let go. She puts her hand on Ann’s shoulder and she kisses her. She puts her mouth on Ann’s and Ann kisses back.
    â€œLet’s spend the night up on the roof,” Ann says. There is a bit of blood on her chin from their kiss. “We can launch paper airplanes out into the street. There are no more trees. All of this paper has got to be worth a fortune,” she says. “It’ll be like burning hundred dollar bills.”
    While she folds paper airplanes with sheets from her notebook, Jackie sits on the bed. Ann is so careful, making every fold perfect. Jackie loves the way she bites her lip to concentrate. She wonders if Ann makes that face when she’s getting dressed.
    â€œI love you,” Jackie says, and Ann laughs happily.
    â€œWe have these old newspapers, too,” Ann says. “We could make a piñata.” The shirt she’s wearing is tight, and you can see the shape of her breasts, the shape of her stomach, the small curve of her back. Jackie reaches out a hand to touch Ann’s stomach under her shirt, and Ann