GIRL, UNPLUGGED
YA Novel Chapter 15 | 11 Minute Read
This is Chapter 15 of a YA novel. To see where the story began, check out the GIRL, UNPLUGGED table of contents post, or head to the GIRL, UNPLUGGED section of the Story Hoarder Substack page to see all the chapters.
This chapter is an 11 minute read.
CHAPTER 15: Food Fights
Sticking together was one thing, but what to do next while sticking together was a decision still left unchecked. As everyone got quietly back to the work of planning out routes that would work for all of us, I was struck by the changing light in the room around us. Did anyone still think we were getting home tonight?
I don’t think I ever noticed the sunset before — not how long it takes, or what time it happens, or how to actually see it in a city where buildings, and trees and people and cars all block your view. Stella had said the police were ordering a sundown curfew, but no one had come to check on us.
No one.
There were no police, no crazy tourists knocking on our doors, nothing to interrupt all of our own weird, internal discussions about what we were going to do next. But that lack of interruption also included no reminders concerning the passage of time — like the various alerts each of us set on our phones, the worried texts from our parents, the 3pm universal buzz letting everyone’s phone know that today’s HQ Trivia game was about to go live — time was passing, but everything that normally reminded me of this was missing.
Everything except my body. I was getting hungry. My stomach was threatening to scream for outside assistance.
My quick hot pretzel lunch in the park was a cute idea at the time, when I knew I was heading straight home to one of mom’s home cooked feasts probably waiting for me on the table, but now it seemed like the dumbest idea in the world.
Protein, Nat. Never forget protein.
Then I remembered the bin of snacks in the closet and wondered how the light had changed in there. Would I be able to see? A little optimistic fool of a voice inside me reminded me that I could just use the flashlight on my phone to light my way, and I swear I took a moment to mentally slap her. There was no need to have a voice like that reminding me of all of my heartbreaks when I was hungry.
I walked over to Terrell. “Did you grab any of those glow sticks, Terrell?”
“Huh? Oh yeah!” He reached into his deep, for boys only (a rant for another day!), jeans pockets. “You want one?”
“Yeah, please,” I said. I smiled at Princess who was watching me closely. I have to admit, I was finding this whole Princess-crushing-on-Terrell-thing quite adorable.
He pulled one out of the rubber banded bundle from his pocket.
“There’s a bunch more in the closet, he didn’t take them all,” Princess said. Oh wow. She didn’t even want me to ask the boy for a glow stick. This was serious.
“That’s where I’m going. Just not sure I’ll be able to see when I get there.” I pointed to the stairwell hallway that now looked as dark as the closet when we first opened it. “I saw a bin with snacks in it. I figured I’d check it out.”
“Snacks?” Dustin wasn’t near me anymore, and I wasn’t talking that loudly, but he heard me. “Dude. Show me snacks.”
Terrell put his hand on my shoulder and said, “That is a brilliant idea.”
Princess stepped closer to the two of us and turned to face Terrell. “Good thing I found that closet, huh?” she said, then turned to me with a forced smile and continued, “I’ll help you get them, Nat.”
“Did you see what they were, Natalie?” Stella asked.
“Guys.” Colin walked around the group to stand between me and the hallway to the closet. “Look, I didn’t want to be the stereotypical teenage boy who thinks of nothing but food… and… well, there’s ladies present so let’s just leave it at food,” he smirked and pointed at Rainbow when he said this. “But — well — I have to admit, food has been on my mind for a huge portion of the day.” He turned to me. “Natalie, your snacks sound like they could be fun — I don’t want to downplay them at all, and I really look forward to diving into them as an option as well — but I’m super worried about the food in the cafeteria not being eaten at all. There’s like sandwiches and stuff down there and I think they require refrigeration, so —“
“Sand-wich-es! Sand-wich-es!” Dustin yelled, as he hopped over to Colin’s side. “Sand-wich-es!”
“Yes!” Terrell added, jumping in and joining Colin, “Sand-wich-es!” He turned toward the group, clapping along with each syllable until it was clear no one else was joining them.
“I like sandwiches,” I said with a shrug — partially because it was true and partially because I liked the idea of someone else being in charge of the food. I motioned for Dustin to lead the way to the cafeteria.
After years of returning to this same spot for our class trip, and the cafeteria being our grand taste of freedom, we all knew exactly where it was and what it served. However, in years past we had taken the uber-fancy elevator to get to the bottom floor feasting. That meant, of course, that we were headed back to the stairwell — which presented two problems: darkness and Rose.
For the darkness, we did put Terrell’s glow sticks to work. We cracked open five of them and, instead of carrying them, we spread them out on the stairs so everyone could actually see the steps as they walked down. It was a pretty simple and quick solution.
Rose was another matter. A matter I wish I never got involved in. First, Rose argued that she should just stay, which led to Daria saying she would just stay, which led to Stella reminding them that we all agreed to stick together for this whole ordeal. Dustin said he thought Stella was taking everything “a bit too literally,” and Stella lost it. I don’t know if it was that she was tired and hungry and losing patience, or if it was the fact that she thought she finally had a rule to follow in this whole mess and Dustin was trying to blow it up in her face — whatever it was, Stella was losing her Stella-ness. I actually felt bad for her, she looked like she was going to burst internally.
“Why don’t we just bring the food back up here?” I suggested quietly. A simple solution, I thought.
“Oh hell no!” Brenda said.
Evidently, I was wrong.
“Please no bringing food all around this place. This place has to have bugs, or rats, or… something—” she mimed a gag— “and I really don’t want them finding the cots.”
Evidently, I was a disgusting human being for even thinking about this horrible idea. Brenda sounded like my mom. I felt like I had been reprimanded. I involuntarily rolled my eyes and turned away. I felt like a little kid with stupid little kid ideas.
“Excellent point,” Russ said.
Yes. Russ. While I faced away from the girl who publicly dissed me for offering a suggestion, Russ decided to agree with her. I felt like such a loser. I felt like my intentions were completely misrepresented, once again, by the damn words that left my mouth. Russ must have been thinking, How gross Natalie is! She’s okay with living with bugs in her cot! Didn’t these people understand that I was trying to help? Didn’t they know that I, too, was a fan of hygiene? The prospect of bugs, rats, or whatever invading our cots grossed me out too! I mean, now that it had been brought up! I just wasn’t thinking about that at the moment! I was thinking about helping Rose!
I moved toward the hallway expecting Russ to say something about how maybe the group should abandon me and my filthy ideas before continuing on, but instead he spoke to Rose. “Look, Rose, we can help you down, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
I didn’t wait to listen to how the whole thing panned out. I cracked the glow stick Terrell had given me and started walking into the hallway. I threw it down the dark abyss of the stairwell going down to the cafeteria expecting to find a ton of roaches dispersing at the first sight of light. Terrell joined me, cracking two glow sticks and handing them to me, before cracking another two for himself. We walked down the stairs, separating the sticks so that the whole stairwell glowed.
It was simple. It was quick. It was silent work. It helped the group.
But that happened after the conversation with Rose.
It taught me something: I am definitely more helpful when I shut my mouth.
The museum cafe reminded me a lot of Staten Island Prep. Since our school is so small, it doesn't have one of those auditorium sized cafeterias. In the museum cafe, there were ten tables with chairs and a small counter with three huge silver refrigerators behind it.
Luckily, one entire wall was nothing but windows, probably to take advantage of the view of the park. For us, it meant taking advantage of what was clearly the last hours of light. The sun was straight ahead of us, somewhere behind the buildings on the other side of the park. The sky above started deepening in hues and the oranges, reds and yellow lights that marked the sun’s location were all straight ahead and becoming more and more obscured. Looking at all of those colors, I couldn’t help but wonder where Murph was and whether or not he was missing his bag.
At the end of the counter, next to the cash register was a small square filled with bottled drinks and melting ice. I wondered if the refrigerators and freezers could do a better job of hanging on to the cold if they stayed closed. As thought entered my mind, I saw that Colin already had Rainbow behind the counter where he was opening the fridge. “I’m starving.” He grabbed a clear plastic container that had a sandwich and a small pudding-like cup inside. “Turkey club and yogurt, Rain?”
“Sounds good,” she said smiling.
“I’m taking two for me,” he said and walked away from the fridge with three stacked high.
Dustin followed and nodded for me to do the same. I felt weird about it. Was any of this going to be considered stealing? I didn’t have enough cash to pay for it, or any food for the trip home, not at Manhattan prices. If I remembered correctly there were only thirteen dollars left in my wallet. So, without any ATMs or use of my debit card, this was my only chance for food until I got home. I decided to start a mental I.O.U. List. I’d come back to the museum and pay them for the things I took when everything went back to normal.
Stella, who very likely was debating the same moral quandary, came up behind me and raised a point that helped me to feel less guilty about the decision. ”Remember, everything will go bad and end up in the garbage anyway.”
"Well we're not going to eat everything, Stella,” Princess said snidely.
Stella flipped her head in Princess’s direction. I couldn't see her face clearly in the dimming light of the setting sun, but I had a feeling she was shooting Princess a dirty look. There was a new tension among the group since we all engaged in the tiny debate about how to feed Rose. "I'm not saying you have to,” she said, “ but I thought you might want to think about taking some with you, since it will just go to waste if we don’t.”
“So, is that it? Are we going now?” Brenda asked. “Has it been decided?”
“Nothing’s been decided,” Russ said.
Stella huffed and spun around. “What do you want to do right now? Do you want to head out when the sun is setting?” She pointed to the view of our only time keeper.
Everyone got quiet quick.
"No, seriously," Stella continued. "It’s either that or getting ready for the night here in the museum. We’re not getting any other help to get home. Mrs. Krimble’s gone. Dr. Davies is gone. Val’s gone. As far as I’m concerned, Murph made his choice — sorry, Nat,” she tilted her head quickly in my direction making my stomach skip. Then she turned and said, “And Lord knows how long Rose is going to hold it together. I think we need to get home.”
Everyone turned to Rose sitting at the end of one of the first tables in the cafeteria. The group came down ahead of her — everyone but Daria, of course, who walked every slow, pathetic step with her, taking two breaks on the journey to take a breath. Though they thought their expedition was a private trial shared between the two of them, every sound made and word spoken echoed through the stairwell and found its way to us. It had taken such an enormous effort for her to get down the stairs to this room that she sat as soon as she could, in the first seat she could find. Daria had brought her food and she ate hungrily the moment it was placed in front of her.
Stella sat back down and shook her head. “Look. I don’t know, but if that's not what's happening, then what should we be doing?"
No one answered. Everyone looked left and right as if searching for the first speaker. And it was like I was back in that closet again, with Princess, and Colin, and Terrell, and the silence was weighing heavy on me again. Did no one have a suggestion, or an idea? There was one person who needed a voice — it wasn’t me, that was for damn sure — I was afraid no one was going to say anything, or even ask her, so I blurted it out. “What about you, Rose? What’s the best plan for you?”
Daria looked at me and smiled weakly. Rose placed her sandwich down on her plate, took a long drink from her bottle of water, swallowed hard and said, “I don’t want to scare anyone here, but home isn’t going to help me much more than here. It’s pretty likely I need a hospital.”
Where is the nearest hospital? I flinched — again — ready to grab my phone for a quick Google search. It was so hard to shake off old habits. As the twitches for my phone kept happening, I felt more and more like a part of my brain was amputated. I could still guess, I could still figure things out — my intelligence was unharmed — but my primary line of attack for all problem solving situations had been eradicated. Problems were everywhere and every single time I reached out my first muscle memory thoughts about how I could tackle them, I was crippled. After coping with that new, but increasingly familiar heartbreak, something even more frightening occurred to me. “Can a hospital help you? You know… like this?” I asked, almost terrified to know the answer.
Rose smirked and pointed at me, “And ding! Ding! Ding! To the girl who once had a blog!” Rose sounded tired which complimented her sarcasm perfectly. “Thing is, I don’t know who can help me and, if I’m being honest with you all right now, I’m pretty fucking terrified. I’ve been trying to say this all afternoon, but please don’t ask me to make the decision for the group — all options seem horrible for me — whatever you guys decide, I’ll do, but at some point you guys might really want to ditch me.”
“Don’t say that!” Daria said.
“Well, on top of the brain-crushing pain that I am experiencing right now, I am starting to get dizzy again, which means all kinds of travel are going to be problematic for me. But, the real kicker is, if this doesn’t get resolved soon, I’m in real danger of losing my sight completely which means not moving forward is not the best idea for me either.”
“You can go blind?” Rainbow said, just barely above a whisper.
“I was pretty close to it before I had my shunt put in.” Rose pulled back her hood and took off her bandana, revealing short, funky hair that looked like it lacked a style, then she turned her head revealing a scar in the shape of a long, curved line with tons of tiny little lines crossing over it. “No one wants brain surgery, but sometimes it’s the greatest thing that could ever happen to you. I was getting close to being able to come back to school like a normal fucking human being. No more ‘Robot Rosie’ shit.”
Gasps around the room. A quiet “damn” from one of the boys — I suspected Colin.
“So, what do you think happened?” Terrell asked. “Why are you all messed up again?”
Rose shrugged. “You guys lost your phones, I lost my miracle. I think my shunt was affected by this storm thing.”
I didn’t want to eat anymore. All of the feelings I had right then were sickening. What had I been mourning all of this time? How did that measure up to what Rose had lost and still had to lose? We were all quiet for possibly the longest we had been since we set out on our trip that morning.
“Excuse me,” Rainbow said through a hiccup, and she ran out the door of the cafeteria. I followed her, using her sobs as my guide. I found her in the stairwell, she was hysterical.
“Rainbow?” I asked as softly as I could to still be heard above her echoing cries. “What happened?”
“My dad,” she said, then started crying uncontrollably again. She took a deep breath. “I didn’t even think, Natalie. I mean, I thought of him — of course I did. I thought of my mom, my dad, and my sister, and whether or not they were in a safe place —“ another deep breath “—but, my God, I didn’t think of the—“ more sobs.
I sat next to her and put my arm around her shoulder. “Rainbow, I’m sorry.” I had no idea what I was sorry for exactly, but I at least I knew I was sorry she felt so badly.
“He has a stent in his heart, Natalie. His heart!” she broke down again. “Will it still work? Did he have a heart attack? Could he survive one if he did? Do those paddle things that they use to help people in those situations even help? I can’t even call him to see if he’s okay!”
I had no answers for Rainbow. I had a feeling she was spit-firing questions at me as if I were her new search engine. I couldn’t deliver. Search engines no longer functioned in this world. I turned myself so I could get both arms around her and said, “I don’t know Rainbow. Maybe we’ll find someone who does.”
And that’s when I first had the thought that people — other real life human beings, not a device — might be the answer.
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