Chapter Three: Ollie

THIS MORNING, FRANCINE IS PASSING OUT THE lab worksheets in AP Bio, which reminds me that it’s been about a week since she told me her grandpa is dying and I’ve basically acted like I don’t give two shits.

I feel bad. Of course I feel bad. The problem is, every time you give Francine an inch, she comes back with enough absurdity to send you to Jupiter and back. Like this thing about pretending to be some kind of honorary grandson for her a gūng. What was that all about? How did she expect me to pull off something like that?

And why me?

I had to disengage, I tell myself. For my own self-preservation. Francine’s weirdness is the kind that could rub off if you’re not careful. It’s not so much the way she looks—if you never had a conversation with her, you might be fooled into thinking she was normal. You might even, occasionally, think she was cute. But no, Francine is always getting involved, jumping up to volunteer for this or that, waving her arm in your face like there’s actual competition for World’s Most Annoying Samaritan. Everybody at Hargis already knows the honor belongs to her.

I admit that maybe I didn’t always feel that way—maybe, ages ago, I actually found her semi-tolerable. Except I haven’t really thought about that in a while, and I don’t feel like starting now.

Francine doesn’t notice as I watch her bustling down the side of the classroom, handing out packets of worksheets to each row. She purses her lips slightly as she counts, like she’s almost but not quite forming the numbers aloud. When a stack drops to the floor, pages splayed out, she stoops to pick it up with near-professional efficiency, and something about that—the way you can’t tell anything’s up with her at all—makes me want to wrench away the packets and pass them out for her.

“All right, loves,” says Ms. Abdi, leaning over the lab station at the front of the room. She’s extremely short, with long dreads and a habit of stretching out sentences into yogic-breath territory. “You all remember what today is, right?”

Half the room groans because how could we forget? Ms. Abdi gives the projector screen a tug, and it snaps up, coiling into a roll. On the whiteboard, in Francine’s handwriting, are the words PIG DISSECTION DAY in purple marker. In the corner, she’s even drawn a little pig with a curly tail, which I can’t decide if I think is sort of funny or totally grotesque.

“Now, keep in mind this is a privilege.” Ms. Abdi looks us each in the eye, and in spite of myself, I straighten a bit in my chair. “Treat this opportunity with the respect it deserves. Honor the process and your specimen.” She gestures to the trays lining the counter along the far wall and then brings her hands back together, eyelids fluttering closed. I almost expect her to bow her head. “Be present.”

Francine has reached the row in front of me, and I slump down again, eyes averted. While waiting for her to pass, I study the wooden panel just beneath the tabletop, where somebody in my seat, during some dreary class period, had scratched the initials “S. T. + L. D.” and encircled them in a shaky heart. For months now, when there hasn’t been anything better to do, I’ve found myself absently retracing the lines with my own pen, doing my part to preserve the mark for posterity. Sometimes I wonder about S. T. and L. D. and whether they made it past AP Bio.

Ms. Abdi is strolling down the aisle now, hands clasped behind her back. “Dissection is a way for you to gain an intimate understanding of how organisms are built,” she says. “Of how you are built. Because don’t forget, humans, too, are physical beings. We, too, are flesh and bone.”

I find myself getting kind of interested in Ms. Abdi’s monologue, but then my phone buzzes, and I sneak it out of my pocket. The text is from Rollo Chen, my best friend and usual lab partner, who is noticeably absent from the seat next to me.

Gonna miss lab, the message reads. Taking care of some biz.

I met Rollo on the first day of seventh grade, when he tried to sell me a subscription to “Rollo Pool,” a rideshare service pitched as an alternative to being driven everywhere by your parents (no credit card required). I didn’t take him up on the offer, but that hardly mattered: Rollo had already gotten dozens of other kids to sign up, and he would have made a killing if all his drivers—recruited from among his older cousins—hadn’t quit based on claims that they were being underpaid. (“I don’t see Uber paying a living wage,” he said later, shrugging.)

I wasn’t sure what to make of a guy like Rollo, but I ran into him again a few weeks afterward, when Mom made me go to the Welcome Dance. Everybody else was in the gym having a grand old time, but he was sitting under the bleachers by the basketball courts—exactly where I’d been planning to hide out until it was time to be picked up. “I know you’re gonna find this hard to believe,” Rollo said, remarkably smooth for a kid who was crawling out from under a metal bench. “But I can’t dance for shit!” Then he grinned, a big chipmunk-like smile crisscrossed at the time with braces, and somehow, in that force field of his shamelessness, I felt a little bit less alone.

Right now, though, Rollo is nowhere to be found.

Me: Dude, it’s the pig dissection. It’s like 50% of our grade.

Rollo: Relax, you got this.

“Ollie,” says Ms. Abdi. “You need a partner, don’t you? This isn’t one you can do by yourself.” She skips her eyes over Rollo’s empty seat to land on Jiya Jain, who pushes back a lock of magenta hair and removes an earbud in the same sleight of hand.

“Um,” I stall. “Rollo might be . . . late.”

Jiya slouches a bit as she leans forward, though on her, the habit is almost intimidating. Other than a nose ring, she dresses like a child from the nineties, but don’t let that fool you. Her vibe is definitely too cool for school. Right now, she pulls her notebook closer, flipping to a fresh page as if preparing to jot down whatever Ms. Abdi is about to say, but the giveaway is the intricate pattern of thick lines bleeding through from her drawing. She’s basically always drawing, often very intensely, which is why I avoid saying much to her. Also, she scares me.

“Tell Rollo he needs to see me about all the classes he’s missed.” Ms. Abdi rubs her chin, like she’s tallying how much Rollo has let her down. “And then can you please put your phone away, Ollie?”

I scramble to stuff it back in my pocket.

“You’ll work with Jiya today,” Ms. Abdi decides, and before I can convince myself it won’t be that bad, Francine, now empty-handed, skips up and slides into her seat at the end of the row.

Right next to Jiya.

“Oh, yes,” adds Ms. Abdi, nodding like I’m in for a real treat. “And Francine, of course. You girls don’t mind?”

This is another reason I don’t really talk to Jiya: she and Francine are best friends. It’s as true as it is inexplicable.

They both glance over at me now, and Francine raises her chin slightly. “Sure,” she says, her voice a shade more apathetic than I expected. “Ollie can be in our group.”

“Wonderful,” says Ms. Abdi. “Let’s get started, then.”

Francine, of course, is the one who jumps up to get first crack at the pig fetuses. I stay in my seat, as does Jiya, who flips back to her artwork-in-progress. The drawing, done elaborately in black and gold Sharpie, features an Indian American girl with dark-rimmed eyes, like Jiya herself, whose face is being grabbed by a hand wrestling its way out of a phone screen. The effect is a little alarming.

“So, you and Francine always work together?” This is not the most unnecessary thing I could have said, but it’s up there.

“Yup.” Jiya’s head is still bent over the page, like she can’t even be bothered to notice how inane my comment was. “She’s usually the one who does the heavy-lifting, though. She loves labs.”

As if on cue, Francine reappears and sets a tray on the tabletop with a clink. Our pig, encased in its shrink-wrapped sarcophagus, teeters a bit, and I try not to look at it.

“Here,” says Francine, handing me an apron. She’s already got hers on, along with goggles and gloves, and before Jiya and I have time to follow suit, she cuts a straight line across the bag and frees the pig from the plastic. Unceremoniously, she lays it onto the paper towels nestled in our tray, and the three of us stare down at the rubbery form.

“Are you okay, Ollie?” Francine nudges her goggles up her nose. “Is it the smell?”

“No.” I grip the edge of the table, wishing I’d thought to lie about having a religious reason to get out of this. “I mean, yes, I’m fine.” The smell is vaguely chemical but less pungent than I’d imagined. The issue is more that it’s a fully formed piglet, complete with skinny legs that end in little hooves, eyes resting in the appearance of sleep, and—the thing that really gets me—fuzz along the top of its head.

“Are you sure?” says Francine. “Do you want to just be the instructions reader?”

I would like nothing better than to be the fucking instructions reader, but I can feel Francine’s concern settling around my shoulders, trapping me like a heavy cloak I don’t need.

“No,” I say again. “I said I was fine.”

“I’ll be the instructions reader,” Jiya pipes up, grabbing one of the lab packets. When I shoot her a look, she raises an eyebrow. “Well, someone’s got to.”

“Jiya’s a very good instructions reader,” Francine assures me.

“Great,” I say. “Terrific.”

“I think we should name him.” Jiya inspects our pig fondly. “Any ideas?”

Francine shrugs, and they both turn to me. Unfortunately, I’m too nauseous to come up with anything good. “How about . . . Piggy?”

“Piggy?” Jiya appears to notice me properly for the first time, and it’s not a positive assessment.

Francine decides to riff on my suggestion. “What if we made it . . . Pigby.”

“Pigby,” repeats Jiya, thoughtfully this time. “That’s better.” And I guess it is.

Francine, however, is already moving on. “Can you lift up the tray, Ollie?” She knots together two rubber bands and tugs them taut over Pigby’s head. “I need your help tying him down.”

Somehow I recover enough to do as she asks, which enables her to slip the linked elastics under the tray. But when she stretches one loop toward me, I balk. “Can you at least hold it?” she sighs.

I take it reluctantly. “You’re awfully chill about all this,” I observe, hoping she doesn’t think I’m impressed. Even if I am.

Francine wraps her side of the rubber band chain around Pigby’s front right leg. “I’d like to go to med school someday, so I’ll have to get used to a lot worse.”

Ugh, I should’ve known. Every time I hear about an Asian kid who’s planning to become a doctor, I could throw up. “Do you really want to, though, or is it just what your parents want?”

“Both, I guess.” She points at Pigby’s other front leg, and even though I’m still feeling squeamish, I follow her example and secure his limb to the tray.

“What kind of doctor?” I ask, curious in spite of myself.

“Primary care,” Francine answers without hesitating, and I picture our family doctor, the ancient Dr. Nguyen, whose office in a boxy Little Saigon medical building is adorned with faded posters about handwashing and heart attacks (courtesy of pharmaceutical companies). He’s the only doctor I know personally, and I wouldn’t want to be him at all.

I flick another rubber band across the table. “Doesn’t that seem kinda boring?”

“There’s a shortage of family physicians nationwide,” Francine explains, and I don’t know whether that’s better or worse than if she’d just said her parents made her. “Can you lift the tray again?”

Seeing no other choice, I help her tie down the pig’s remaining legs. Together, we make sure poor Pigby, strung up as if in a medieval torture device, won’t be going anywhere.

“Now cut a V shape,” Jiya reads from the instructions. “Under the pig’s neck.”

Scalpel in hand, Francine squints over her shoulder at the diagram on her lab sheet. “Okay,” she says, feeling her fingers along the skin where she’s about to make the incision. “Here goes—”

“Wait,” I say. “We’re gonna . . . just like that?”

Francine’s scalpel is still hovering over Pigby. “Yes?”

“But his entire existence has been about nothing. We didn’t even let him make it out of the womb alive. His sole purpose was being a specimen for dissection.”

Both Francine and Jiya seem surprised by my outpouring. I’m a little surprised, too.

“That’s not nothing,” says Francine. “His sole purpose would have been being a byproduct to the pork industry.”

“They raise the sows for meat,” Jiya clarifies. “And then they remove the fetuses to discard or use as fertilizer.” She turns to Francine. “I guess Ollie’s kind of right? If it weren’t for the meat industrial complex, Pigby could have grown up to be a happy adult pig.”

“If it weren’t for the meat industrial complex,” Francine replies, “Pigby wouldn’t exist.”

“How do you know, though?” I mean for the question to be combative, but instead it limps forward, practically begging everyone to feel sorry for it.

“Are we talking about . . . pig souls?” Francine sets down the scalpel, and there’s a whiff of incredulity in her question.

“I’m just saying, we don’t know. We don’t know where life comes from, or where it goes, or how it gets allocated. But you’re just standing there, with death in front of you, and you’re not even thinking about it.”

Francine studies me for a moment, and then the full weight of my douchebaggery hits me as I remember: her grandpa. Her grandpa’s fucking dying and I’m asking why she isn’t thinking about questions of life and death.

I try to fumble together an apology as Francine picks up the scalpel again. But instead of going back in for the cut, she pauses and drops her hands, clasping one wrist over the other. “Would you like to say a few words for Pigby?”

“What?” Coming from anyone else, this would surely be sarcastic, but from Francine, it’s hard to tell.

“Like a prayer or something,” Francine prompts. “Whatever you want.”

I look over at Jiya for help, but she only shrugs. “I don’t believe in God.”

I’m not sure I believe in God either. My parents are technically Buddhist, but I have no idea what Buddhists would say for a pig who’s about to get sliced open.

“I don’t know,” I stammer.

With the air of somebody who realizes she has to do everything herself, Francine bows her head. “Thank you, Pigby, for being our specimen and giving us a chance to learn about mammalian anatomy. We don’t know where your soul is headed, or if you even have one, but what matters is that you were alive once. Your life, though short, was given over completely to the service of others, which is the most anyone can aspire to. You had, and always will have had, a purpose.”

She straightens up again. “How’s that?” she says generally, but her eyes are asking me.

I’m astounded. Francine’s speech, unfussy yet strangely thoughtful, was somehow appropriate, its poignance buried beneath the breezy pragmatism. It’s clearly more than I was able to muster and much more than I was expecting from Francine.

But I don’t know how to say any of that, or even if I want to. So I cross my arms and turn toward the window because it’s easier than looking at her.

“It’s whatever,” I mumble. “Can we just get this over with?”

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