“Okay,” I say. What else can I say? It’s not up to me.
“Pass me to your mother again,” he says, before hanging up. “I want to exchange some civil words. And, Ben?” He waits for me to say something, but I’m just listening—I don’t know that I can talk anymore. It’s like a kind of staring competition; this time I win. “Good luck at school,” he says eventually. “It’s never as bad as you think it’s going to be.”
Mom drives me to school on the first day, but on the way, she says, “Tomorrow, you have to take the bus, like everyone else. I don’t want you to be one of those weird kids who comes to work with Mommy.”
A week ago, she finally told me herself what was going on. She didn’t know I’d overheard her and Granma talking. “I found a job,” she’d said. “That’s what I’ve been doing all summer, looking for work. I’ll be teaching social studies at your school. Just part-time.”
“But you haven’t taught in years.”
“Teaching is one of those careers where people are always leaving or starting over.” She looked at me; for some reason, she seemed emotional. “This is a big deal for me. I haven’t worked in fifteen years. I need to hear you say that it’s okay, that you don’t mind.”
“Of course it’s okay,” I told her.
I guess it’s Mom’s first day of school today, too. Which is why she’s all dressed up—she wears a skirt and a blouse, and I can smell her perfume in the car. She looks like a teacher now, like some woman you don’t really know, who talks to you in a friendly way but like a stranger.
For the rest of the twenty-minute ride, we don’t say much, until we pull up at the school. It’s more like a campus; there’s a parking lot and the grounds are huge and covered in fresh-cut grass, like a park. My old school in New York always seemed pretty big to me, but it was nothing like this. The building looks like it was just finished, like it’s a Lego model of a building instead of the real thing. It’s got white bricks with red around the edges, and there’s a big chunky archway you have to walk through to get inside. There are shiny tiles in the hallways, and everything echoes. It feels like there are thousands of kids. That’s the other thing: the kids in my New York school were pretty rich, but there was a uniform so we all dressed the same. Here people wear whatever they want, except shorts, which seems dumb, because it’s like . . . a hundred degrees out. I hear some kids speaking Spanish in the hallways. Everybody seems to know where they’re going.
Mom takes me into the main office to introduce me. There’s a woman at the reception desk, talking on the phone, but she smiles at me. Somebody is watering a plant on a filing cabinet. Mom tells me their names, but I can’t remember them—it’s all a blur. She says, “Where’s your homeroom?” and I stare at my schedule, which is printed on a piece of paper. None of it makes sense to me. The rooms are just numbers, but the man with the watering can points me in the right direction, and Mom says, “Good luck, Ben,” then changes her mind and gives me a quick hug. After that I’m on my own.
In homeroom, the first thing we do is get our locker numbers. There are long rows of metal cupboards in the hallways, painted blue. Most of the kids have brought combination locks with them; and after the bell rings, they troop along to find their lockers and get set up. But I don’t have a lock, and anyway, I don’t really see the point. It’s just another reason to get lost.
My schedule is weird—classes seem to end at weird times, like 9:27. Then the bell rings and you have to find the next class. Just to get from one place to another you have to dodge all this traffic. I keep checking my schedule, then stuffing it back into my pocket, so the paper gets all crumpled up. Then I forget which pocket I put it in. It’s like that all morning. At the beginning of every class we say our names, but I can’t remember anybody. Teachers assign seats, but I know I’ll forget those, too. At least once you’re sitting down, it’s, like, okay . . . for the next half hour, I know I’m in the right place.
By lunchtime, I’m totally exhausted. Mom comes and finds me. She’s wearing a badge on her blouse now that says MRS. MICHAELS. There are picnic benches outside the cafeteria, in the shade of a big old pecan tree. Granma has packed lunches for both of us, and we walk outside.
I unwrap my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The pecan tree drops nuts and twigs and leaves onto the concrete, which has little pebbles in it, so bits of nuts and leaves get stuck in between. I keep looking at the ground.
Mom says, “I forgot how cold it gets in the air-conditioning. Tomorrow I’m definitely going to bring a sweater.”
A few kids stop by and say, “Hello, Mrs. Michaels.” It’s the first time I’ve heard anyone call her that since we left New York.
“I want you to meet my son, Ben,” she tells them. “He’s new here. He’s in the seventh grade. Keep an eye out for him, will you?”
Everybody has to pretend to be nice because I’m the teacher’s son, but really . . . I mean, nobody wants to talk to me.
When they’ve gone, I ask Mom: “How come people still call you Mrs. Michaels? That’s Dad’s name.”
“It’s still my name, too.”
“But it doesn’t make sense. I thought you wanted a divorce.”
Mom brushes crumbs off the picnic table. I can tell she’s thinking about what to say. “I don’t know what I want. But I’ve had this name for a long time now. You get used to it.”
“I don’t get it.”
Instead of answering, Mom stands up and smooths out her skirt. She takes a mirror from her purse and checks her makeup. In school, even though she tries to be nice to me, she’s kind of different—she’s not totally Mom, she’s also someone else. I can tell she’s nervous, too, or busy, or distracted.
After lunch, kids wander off to their lockers, but it seems like a waste of time to me. Maybe they just want to stand around and talk or something. I don’t have anyone to talk to anyway, so I just grab my backpack and go.
But it’s getting pretty heavy by this point: we have quite a few books. That’s mostly what we seem to be doing today, getting textbooks, and some of them are as big as shoe boxes. Social studies is the worst—the textbook weighs about five pounds, and I can’t even fit it into my backpack anymore. I have to carry it in my arms.
There’s only one more class to get through—English. I feel like I’ve run a marathon or something, or stayed too long in the pool, and I’m all kind of shrunk and worn-out. Everything echoes in my head. On the way to the classroom, somebody says, “I guess you know this already, but you can put some of that stuff in your locker.”
It’s the girl from next door, the girl with the yellow hair. My heart jumps—it’s the first time somebody has talked to me all day. I mean, somebody who isn’t a teacher. She’s shorter than she seemed on the trampoline. I’m used to being one of the smallest kids in class, but I can look her in the eye.
“I didn’t bring a lock.”
“Well, you’re going to hurt your back carrying all that stuff.”
“It’s not too bad. I don’t really mind.”
She shrugs. “Suit yourself.” But she’s still walking with me. “I’m Mabley, by the way. It’s kind of a dumb name, but I guess I’m stuck with it.” She says “I guess” a lot, but she also seems pretty sure of herself.
“I’m Ben.” But I don’t mention that we’re next-door neighbors.
After school, I wait for Mom in the parking lot by the car. She’s a little late coming out, and when she sees me, she says, “You look like I feel.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tired,” she says, putting down her purse on the hood of the Toyota, and another bag, and her bottle of water, and trying to find her keys. “Go on, say it.”
“Say what?”
“Do I have to go back there tomorrow?”
She opens the car and we get in—it’s nice to be able to shut the door on everything. She feels like my mom again; it’s just the two of us.
“Do I have to go back there tomorrow?” I ask.
&nb
sp; “You and me both, kid,” she says.
The school bus leaves at seven o’clock the next morning, so Granma wakes me at six. “I don’t mind getting up,” she says. “It’s the only cool hour in the day.”
It’s funny because Mom is in bed on the other side of the room. She groans and rolls over, like a kid. “I don’t want to get up,” she says, and Granma gives me a look. Like we’re the sensible ones.
We have breakfast together while Mom showers and puts on her “work clothes”—a skirt and tights and polished shoes. After that, she’s like a different person. She tries to act normal, but it’s a bit like a teacher trying to act normal: you can tell they’re pretending or thinking about something else.
Granma sees me carrying textbooks under my arm.
“Didn’t they give you a locker?” she asks.
“I didn’t have a lock.”
“That’s something we can fix right now,” she says, and goes to what she calls the “everything cupboard” in the hallway—it’s where she keeps nails and light bulbs and restaurant match books, stuff like that. “Aha,” she says, and holds up an old combination lock, the kind you use on a bicycle chain.
“I bet you don’t know the combination,” I tell her.
“Are you doubting me, Ben Michaels?” She smiles. “It’s here somewhere.”
But it’s true, she can’t find the number—usually she writes them on a yellow Post-it note, and she starts poking through an old coffee can full of scraps of paper.
“It’s fine, Granma. I don’t really mind carrying my books around.”
“Don’t be silly,” she says, still rummaging through the cupboard. “Kids’ll make fun of you otherwise. The lockers are where everybody hangs out—I remember that much.”
“Really, Granma.” I touch her on the shoulder, to make her turn around. “I don’t want a locker. It stresses me out, getting to class on time anyway. This way I can’t forget anything.”
Finally she stops and gives me the once-over—she looks at me for about half a minute. “At least take this,” she says, and hands me an old canvas satchel from the cupboard. It’s kind of a cool bag; it’s got pockets and flaps on the front, and little slots for pens, and a leather buckle. I put my math book inside.
Mom walks me to the bus stop. The sun is just coming up as we leave the house; there’s still a kind of mistiness or grayness in the air, but even while we wait for the bus to come, you can feel the day getting hot.
My stop is at the intersection of a big road with a lot of traffic and a quiet road shaded by tall trees. Kids start showing up, mostly too tired to talk. There’s a house on the corner, with a metal fence in front, a sprinkler in the grass, and a newspaper lying on the front path in a wet bag. I wonder who lives there and wander over to look at it. They’ve got an old refrigerator on the front porch, and a couple of armchairs and a wooden coffee table, like it’s an inside room—a kitchen or a living room. If I stare at the house, nobody will talk to me, which is what I want.
Somebody says, “Good morning, Mrs. Michaels,” and Mom says, “Morning, Mabley. Do you know my son?”
“We met already,” Mabley says. “He likes to carry his books around.”
Mom gives me a look.
A few minutes later, she kisses me on top of my head, before walking back to Granma’s house. Her job is only part-time so she doesn’t have to drive in till third period.
“It’s not really fair,” she says to me quietly. “You have to work harder than I do.”
“I don’t mind.”
I want her to go so I can get on the bus next to Mabley and maybe sit next to her. If I stand in the right position on the sidewalk, we might end up in line together when the bus arrives. Then we can share one of the bench seats. But it’s embarrassing, trying to talk to her when Mom’s around.
After she’s gone, Mabley says, “You’re that kid I see in the bamboo bushes all the time. I can never tell what you’re doing in there.”
“Nothing much,” I say.
“Sometimes I think you’re watching me.”
“I just like it in there.” I can’t tell if I’m blushing. “Everybody leaves me alone.”
“Okay,” Mabley says. Maybe she thinks I’m being rude. When the bus arrives, she gets in after me and sits down a few rows behind me. I stare out the window at the road—it’s funny how you can get used to anything. Even another day of school.
Nine
IT’S RAINING at lunchtime. A kind of hot, heavy rain that goes straight down. Mom told me this morning that she couldn’t see me for lunch—she had a meeting—so I stare out the windows of the hall doors for a minute, wondering if I should eat outside anyway—there’s a picnic bench under part of the roof. But it looks pretty dreary outside. The rain is coming down hard enough that it splashes off the concrete when it lands.
Inside, the electric lights look different: they look too bright for some reason, like they have to work harder because there isn’t any sunshine coming in. In the end, there’s nothing I can do but face the cafeteria, hundreds of kids sitting around and eating, talking at the same time. At least I don’t have to wait in line, I’ve got my lunch in Granma’s satchel. Mabley sees me just kind of standing there in all the noise, looking for an empty seat. One of the kids at her table gets up to bus his tray, and she calls over to me, “Hey, Ben. You can sit with us.”
The tables are these big round plastic tables and have room for about six or seven people; Mabley introduces me. There’s a boy named Pete Miller, who I recognize from one of my classes. When he sees me, he says, “It’s the bag man.”
Mabley frowns at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Look at him,” Pete says. “He’s got all these bags. Everybody has to watch out when he sits down; they kind of duck under their desks. He’s like swinging these bags left and right. He’s a menace.”
“Peter Miller, you talk a lot of nonsense. Sit down, Ben. Don’t listen to him.”
“I’m telling you,” Pete says. “He’s a danger to society. It’s like bags are his superhero weapon. They call him Bagman.”
“I don’t like lockers,” I say, feeling stupid.
“Lockers are like kryptonite to Bagman,” Pete says.
“Peter Miller, stop it,” Mabley tells him, but you can tell they’re friends.
“I’m just messing with him,” Pete says, and looks at me. “You don’t mind, right? What’s your name?”
“Ben.”
“Ben doesn’t mind,” he says.
But that’s what it’s like all lunch. There are other kids at the table, including a boy called Jeff who wears his outdoor jacket inside. He gets pack lunches, too, and his mom always gives him a bag of Goldfish crackers. Sometimes he takes a handful and puts them in the pages of an open textbook. Then he smashes the book shut and pours the cracker dust into his mouth. It’s kind of disgusting. Mabley seems to collect these people; they all seem to know each other from the school marching band. Jeff plays the snare drum, and there’s a girl named Natasha who puts her tuba on the seat next to her and pretends to give it lunch. Mabley plays tenor sax. But mostly what they talk about is normal stuff, like teachers and tryouts. Pete keeps coming up with new superhero names for me. Like Mr. Two Bags or Backpackman.
“Don’t listen to him,” Mabley says. “Peter’s just a jock. This is how jocks talk to each other—they don’t know any better. This is how they try to make friends.”
I look over at Pete. He has freckles and the kind of hair that comes out over his forehead and you can’t quite tell how it stays in place. For some reason, even though I don’t like him, he reminds me of Jake. They are both the kind of kid who thinks that if something seems funny to them that means everybody else is having a good time, too.
After school, I catch the bus home. Some kids walk, but not many; others get rides. It’s stopped raining by this point, but the grass is still wet and the sidewalks are still dark. The ground sort of steams up; the sun looks hazy. There are
kids everywhere, standing in different groups, talking. All these buses come and go and I look out for Mabley, because I don’t know which bus is mine.
When it comes, we sit together on one of the bench seats. “Your friends seem nice,” I say, just to say something, and she kind of laughs.
“Don’t worry about Peter, he just likes playing the clown. He’s a good kid,” she says, like she’s older than he is. For some reason, I feel jealous of him. I feel jealous of Mabley, too. She acts like she’s known him for years, which I guess she has.
The bus ride lasts twenty minutes, and we get off just over the road from where it picks us up. Then we cross the street and walk home together. We pass the house with the refrigerator on the front porch, and I point it out to Mabley. “Wouldn’t it be great?” I say. “I want to have refrigerators everywhere. That way you can always get a cold Coke or a bowl of ice cream.”
“I want a refrigerator in my bedroom.”
“I want a TV in my bedroom.”
“My parents have a TV in their bedroom,” Mabley says. “They used to let me watch cartoons with them on Saturday morning. But now Dad says I’m too grown-up.”
There are twigs and leaves all over the road because of the rainstorm, and I kind of kick them along as I walk. Water is still running along the curbs and making noise as it goes down the drains.
“I share a bedroom with my mom,” I say.
“Oh really?” But I think Mabley feels embarrassed, because she doesn’t say anything else.
“I don’t think she’d let me watch TV in bed,” I say. “She won’t even let me have a phone.”
“Phones are bad for you.”
“That’s what my mom says.”
“They suck out your brains and turn you into a zombie. I’ve seen it happen.”
“You sound just like my mom,” I say.
Then we’re at Granma’s house, and Mabley kind of looks at me, like, See you tomorrow, and walks up her own front steps. Mom’s Toyota isn’t back yet—it’s just Granma’s Volvo in the driveway. When I get inside, Granma is messing around in the kitchen and puts a plate of waffles on the table for me. “How was your second day of school?” she says.
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