Imperfect Timing
dalia hajir
The girls make clay sculptures outdoors, and Millie makes an elephant. The head starts off too big, leaving just enough blue clay to fashion a thin belly. How selfish the elephant’s head is, hogging all the clay—she slides it away with her thumb slowly, slowly, until she gets bored and instead snaps away a handful of chunks. If the elephant were alive, it would trumpet angrily upon having its face disfigured. If she had more clay, she would give it Dumbo’s big ears.
Mrs. Murphy, the girl scout leader, walks behind the girls as they build their sculptures over the long wooden tables. There are about two dozen tables for just twenty girls, who form groups of three or four. Millie sits by herself. A few days ago, when Mrs. Murphy asked why she sat alone during a painting activity, she just shrugged and continued, feeling content with the pink paint spreading over the paper, amazed that it did whatever she wanted it to do. She remembers painting a pink elephant that day.
“That’s beautiful, Millie,” says Mrs. Murphy when she sees her clay elephant. “Good job.”
Excited, Millie takes her elephant to Sonia and Lisa, who sit side by side. Sonia’s arm rests on Lisa’s shoulder as Lisa covers her face with her hands. Is she crying? With a sudden sense of duty to make Lisa feel better, Millie bounces to the other side of the table.
“Look at the elephant,” says Millie.
Taken aback, Lisa stops crying. Her eyes peek through her fingers and fixate on the elephant’s clay eyes.
“Look at it and don’t think of anything else,” says Millie, remembering those wellness gurus on TV who speak slowly to make you feel at peace, moving their hands in wide circles. “Imagine riding an elephant in the savannah—” Lisa giggles, “—the sun hitting your face—”
“Oh my God, shut up,” says Sonia.
“What?” says Millie.
“Shut up and leave her alone. Go.”
She feels stupid as she glances between them. Sonia shooes her away with her hand. Lisa says nothing.
She walks away silently, feeling like squashing the elephant between her hands, but she places it back on her table very slowly so it knows she doesn’t really mean it. She glowers at their backs. Sonia must have gotten angry because her sculpture sucks. A boring butterfly. She must be one of those girls who join gangs because their moms beat them, so she has to make everyone else miserable.
While waiting in line for the bathroom, Sonia’s beautiful straight brown hair hangs down to her hips. With scissors in hand, Millie silently slips the blades behind Sonia’s neck and cuts with a shik.
. . .
Sonia bawls at Mrs. Murphy’s side while other girls gather around her, consoling her as if she didn’t deserve it. Only one girl stays at the table but even she eventually drops the sculpting to join the commotion.
Millie wants to make sure Sonia knows she regrets nothing, so she stays semi-visible behind a tree trunk and makes her most I-don’t-care-what-you-tell-them face, slightly raising her eyebrows and giving her the side-eye like the other girls do. With rising sobs, Sonia points to the restroom cabin, then to Millie. She clasps her lost hair as if it were her dead child, which then cuts with a pair of invisible scissors. The girls gasp. The troop looks at Millie, who pretends to be drawing on the dirt with a long stick.
“Millie,” Mrs. Murphy calls.
“What?” Millie says, a bit too loud.
“Come here.”
“No. You’re going to yell at me.” She tries to paint it as a joke half-way, but it comes out even more awkward. She imagines herself like a homeless, crazy man talking nonsense.
“Why do you say that?”
“I’m not playing that game!” says Millie, her eyes in the dirt.
“I’m not playing,” says Mrs. Murphy, but not in a mean way—more like a defusing-a-bomb way. “Come here.”
Millie walks towards her, crunching leaves beneath her shoes. If you get angry, you lose. If you get angry, you lose. She stops at several steps-distance, imagining herself and Mrs. Murphy talking with the homeless man. If you get angry, you lose.
“Did you cut her hair, Millie?”
Millie’s stomach sinks, her stick idly scratching deeper lines in the dirt. She avoids Sonia’s face especially, knowing she’d do something to make her even more angry.
“Why did you do it?”
Millie shifts her weight back and forth. She tries coming up with something smart that makes everybody get on her side, like in the movies. She replays her response in her mind, her heart hammering faster as she visualizes herself saying it out loud. Then she catches Veronica circling her finger near her right temple: She’s crazy.
That’s it. Millie throws a pebble, flinging her arm so hard it hurts. It hits Veronica’s forehead. A sharp scream. Veronica bends, clutching her head. Mrs. Murphy kneels and moves away Veronica’s hand to see.
A bloodstain. Millie puffs her chest as though she had expected that. It’s okay—it’s okay—it’s not like she broke her skull—
The girls scream and scatter. But some stay within Millie’s reach, trying to run away, but not really—one laughs and spreads her arms like a bullfighter until Millie chases her.
“Girl! What is wrong with you? Everyone, stop! Stop!” says Mrs. Murphy. If the bullfighter girl hadn’t hidden behind Mrs. Murphy, Millie would beat her up. Veronica keeps crying at Mrs. Murphy’s side.
“She said I’m crazy!”
“Millie—”
“With the finger!” says Millie, her face red with tears. “Like this!”
“Miss! Miss!” says another girl, tugging at Mrs. Murphy’s sleeve. She and her friends do that Oscar-winning act where they have no idea what Millie is talking about. “Veronica was just doing her hair—look—like this! We did nothing to her!” Veronica’s other friends nod fervently in agreement.
“They’re lying!”
“Come here.” Mrs. Murphy purses her lips and yanks Millie’s arm. “I’m done with this behavior, young girl. What happened to you? And this week you were doing so well. I’m going to call your parents.”
“No!”
Mrs. Murphy doesn’t expect her to tug so hard, nearly tripping when Millie runs to the forest.
. . .
Clinging to a tree so nobody can see her, Millie imagines what it’d be like if they found her dead in a ditch. Then they’ll be traumatized forever and regret not being nice, but it’ll be too late—she’d be laughing at them from the ghost realm. Everyone in the troop would be wearing black suits and umbrellas at her funeral on a rainy day, ashamed of themselves. They’d forget all about Sonia’s stupid hair and Veronica’s even stupider head. Those two would be the ones crying the most, knowing it was all their fault. But then Millie’s parents would be sad, which isn’t as good. Maybe she could mail them letters so they know she’s alive, tying the notes in squirrels’ tails like in Drake & Josh. She could even live with a pack of wolves and become one of them, like Mowgli in The Jungle Book. Are there even wolves in this forest? What if there are and they eat her? Maybe wolves aren’t such a good idea after all.
While planning her new life in the forest, the girls march near the tree. Through the foliage Millie sees their little heads scattering and looking behind bushes and big rocks, but nobody thinks of looking up. “Millie! Millie!” they call. “Come back! Where are you!”
“Live happily ever after without me!” Millie mutters, squashing Sonia’s head between her index and thumb.
. . .
Clumps of blueberries! She runs and snaps handfuls of them from a bush. Perhaps she can sneak into the camp to get her backpack, but for now she stuffs them in her pockets. It’s a shame they’ll stain the uniform, but now she’s a survivor, she reminds herself—life in the forest is tough and she’ll have to do without some comforts. As she fills her mouth with blueberries, a brownish hairy caterpillar over a mossy rock draws her attention. Millie recalls a bearded man on TV who eats insects for their protein, which is disgusting even if he tries to convince himself it’s not. Even if this is her new life, she will never eat worms.
She places a tree branch in front of the caterpillar and watches as it climbs onto it. The caterpillar twists around, picking the best branch. Aren’t you a smart caterpillar? Will you look as fluffy when you transform, or will you become bald? In any case, pray you don’t look like Sonia’s butterfly!
She chuckles, carefully replacing the caterpillar on its rock. Mrs. Murphy’s teachings are already proving useful for her new life:
Fuzzy and bright, it's all right
Hairs or spikes—best turn back!
After a while, a rustle in the grass makes her stand up. At the edge of the clearing, she sees the twitching of a small snout. A piglet!
Millie runs at it, and it flees.
“Hey, don’t go! Wait!”
The piglet runs surprisingly fast for its size, squealing as though Millie will eat it. If you think this is fast, wait till you see this!
But a far away, deeper snort makes her stop on her tracks.
A huge wild boar charges at her, its head low and its hooves lifting dust. Millie screams and flees the other way around, running faster now, her heart beating in her throat like a trapped mouse. She climbs on a tree, not even thinking if it’s one of the good ones—she’ll become as light as a feather if it means the branches won’t snap. She clings so hard the rough bark stings her fingers. She pictures herself living in this tree forever and never touching the ground again.
Breathing fast, she looks down, and the wild boar, exuding a strong smell of musk, circles around, snorting. Millie grabs a handful of berries and tosses them far away. Attracted to the scent, the boar charges toward the berries. Millie takes the chance to climb higher, hoping that the boar will forget about her. She stops breathing to become as quiet as possible, hearing distant snorts, then a rustling, then nothing—just forest sounds. She’s afraid it’s just hiding and waiting for her, so she stays in the tree for a long time.
. . .
By the time she has the courage to climb down, her arms and legs feel wobbly.
Her hair undone, her uniform dirty and dusty, Millie wipes her eyes, sniffling. During the boar attack, she lost her sense of place. She feels eyes all around her. The clouds tease her, forcing the forest into an eerie darkness whenever they hover under the sun.
Her ankles hurt bad from all the walking. Sitting near a lake, she hugs her knees, her fingers making idle waves in the water, the reflections of the trees and clouds being cut in thousands of pieces. If she stays still enough, the waves make the lake appear as though it's growing larger, rising over the forest and the sky, and she must blink fast from time to time so it doesn’t swallow her whole.
“Millie!”
Millie jumps up, frantically looks around, and hides behind a bush. When the troop appears on sight, she is filled with both fear and relief. They didn’t see her; they were just calling for her, though with more desperation than before. If this felt like hours for Millie, it must have felt like days for Mrs. Murphy.
As they get closer, their light green uniforms and insignias get bigger and clearer. Millie’s heart hammers so loudly she’s afraid they might hear it. Maybe she can jump and scare them and laugh it all off—but they look so worn out they might just get angrier with her.
Lisa and Sonia walk behind the others, with Lisa reviewing tree trunks as though the others hadn’t looked well. Sonia lifts her shoe, letting out a disgusted “bleh” at a squashed bug in her sole.
“She always ruins everything,” says Sonia, scraping her sole in the ground.
“Shut up already!” Lisa yells.
“Me? Me? What did I even do to you?”
“She ran away because of you!” she yells. “She wanted to do something nice and you had to be—you had to be such a fluffernutter!”
Sonia’s mouth opens wide. Millie’s does too—she covers it with both hands. She never thought Lisa could talk like that.
“Excuse me?” says Sonia.
“Yeah—yeah, that’s right!” Lisa nods decisively. “So, you know what?” She slides off her friendship bracelet—one Sonia made for her two weeks ago—and drops it on the ground. “This is yours!”
“I’m not picking it up!” says Sonia.
“Fine—I don’t want you to!”
“Fine!” Sonia slides off her own friendship bracelet and drops it harder. “I hope you’re happy!”
“I am!” says Lisa as Sonia stomps away. She stands in the middle of the small clearing, alone with Millie.
“Psst,” says Millie from behind the bush.
Lisa turns, troubled.
“Psst. Over here,” whispers Millie.
When Lisa reaches the other side of the bush, she lets out a humongous gasp.
. . .
On the way back, they ask her many questions. Where did you go? What were you doing all this time? Millie tells them all about it—the tree, the blueberries, the boar, and they listen as though she had survived alone on an island for ten years. Still, Lisa makes sure they remember she found Millie first, locking her arm in hers and acting as her manager, which Millie is grateful for because she had never talked to so many people at once. They had even hugged her and started crying when she stepped out the bush—even Veronica—, and she had no idea of what to do except cry with them.
Before reaching the camp, Mrs. Murphy, who had kept close to Millie the entire way, gathers them all in a tight circle and whispers to keep this adventure their little secret, and the girls nod at each other and chuckle with a twinge of devilishness.
. . .
Lisa and Millie sit at the wooden table making friendship bracelets. Lisa had told her she likes orange, so Millie picked all the orange beads she could find. Lisa found this funny—the good type of funny.
Lisa pretends she doesn’t notice Sonia glancing at them. She sits all alone at her table. They haven’t talked in a whole week since their fight. Sonia keeps her hair in a ponytail now, and Millie once heard her cry in a restroom stall.
When Millie and Sonia accidentally make eye contact, Sonia doesn’t look angry—just sad. Millie and Lisa smile lightly at each other. They pull beads to make a bracelet for Sonia, too.
Dalia Hajir is a 24-year-old senior at the University of Texas at El Paso majoring in Studio Art and Creative Writing. Her writing has been published in Borderlands, an El Paso Community College student-driven publication about El Paso culture, where she authored and edited articles for three years. Additionally, her poem "Confinement" was published in Life in the Time, a collection of artworks and writing from people from Ciudad Juarez, El Paso, and Las Cruces, with a focus on the COVID-19 pandemic. Her writing plays with a mix of comedy and tragedy.
