You Don't Know Everything, Jilly P!: Chapters 1–9

Dad is sitting in front of the television. His short, wavy hair is black, except for a small off-center tuft at the front that’s been white since he was eighteen.

The news anchor introduces us to “Ella Davila, age fifteen, fatally shot in an incident with police in Santa Rosa, California.”

The books in B. A. Delacourt’s Magically Mysterious Vidalia trilogy are my favorite books in the world, and De La Court is the official website for news and information about the series, as well as for connecting with other fans.

Everyone in Vidalia has an aura based on how good they are. Generally, good people glow green. People who are more questionable glow yellow. People who are downright evil glow red.

PureGreenElvenGrl: Well, you sure didn't pay attention when they taught spelling. It's protagOnist.
profoundinoaktown: whatever, you know i'm Deaf, english is my 2nd language, come back to me when you can sign protagOnist

Just like Mom is still flat out on the couch. She skips dinner entirely. She ate a late lunch and her stomach isn’t feeling great, so it’s just Dad, me, and a tray of ziti at the dinner table, looking at each other, wondering when my baby sister will decide it’s time to vacate Mom’s body.

“Hey, you two! Emma’s sleeping.” She nods over at the corner of the room, where Emma is nestled inside a plastic-and-steel crib.

We sit on the bed together, tiny Emma in my lap and Mom in Dad’s arms, all of us transfixed by Emma’s every movement until she falls back asleep.

“Welcome to life, Jilly,” is all Dad has to offer, along with a tousle of my hair.

Dad doesn’t even bother to get out of the car at Aunt Alicia and Aunt Joanne’s. He just waits until Aunt Alicia lets me in before heading back to the hospital. Inside, the dinner Aunt Alicia is cooking smells savory and delicious, like I could snack on the air itself.

Aunt Alicia laughs. “Well, there are a couple of steps between birth and wielding a chopping knife, but glad to hear you’re ready to help teach her the ways of the kitchen.”

“I have many skills,” Aunt Joanne says proudly. “Cooking is not one of them. Thank you, Alicia, for gracing us with your talent.”
“Oh, this? It was nothing.” Aunt Alicia waves her hand in the air, but her eyes let us know that her modesty doesn’t run very deep.

I talk her through the next steps. "Put one tablespoon of jelly—I recommend mixed berry—in the middle of the other half, like this.” I drop a dollop, spread it out, and hand the spoon to Emma for her to do the same.

Back in elementary school, Macy and I used to take the bus home. The engine would diesel its way up the hill and drop us each off on the corner of our blocks. Now that we go to Piedmont Middle School, we have to make the trek ourselves.

I pass the house with grapevines and two yellow VW Bugs in the driveway, the yard with a dozen bird feeders and another dozen stone turtles, and the three houses in a row that got together to make a giant stepped succulent garden.

Tufts of yellow grass scatter the dirt between the rocks—it’s been another year of drought, but even when there isn’t a ban, we never water the grass.

Dad says water is a precious commodity and should only be used for food-bearing plants.

“And can you guess what this one is?” I show Macy the sign I learned yesterday as we trudge uphill from school.
“Um, your eyes itch?”
“Close, I guess. It’s cry.”

“This is practically a banquet!” Dad says. “Alicia just whipped this up on a Tuesday? That woman is a culinary genius.”

We learned about barometers in school last year. They’re kind of like thermometers for air pressure.

A vasselvar is a strong romantic and psychic connection in Vidalia. It’s what keeps Gwenella fighting for Magian, the knife thrower from the North, even when all hope is lost.

How much better would it be if we could see the auras of people we don’t know as well? People like Profound. A bubbly wave washes over me at the thought of him, coating everything in a tingling warmth, but leaving behind a film of self-consciousness.

I’m so deep in my head that I don’t even notice that movie is over and the credits have started until Macy starts pelting me with unpopped kernels of popcorn.

BADisGreat: Naw. At least, not this one. just gets a little feisty sometimes
PureGreenElvenGrl: who you calling feisty?

I end up counting slowly to ten and then kind of medium-fast to fifteen once I remember that I scrolled up to read the chat dialogue, so he’s already been there. I click on my avatar and return from my journey.