by Robin Roe
“Do you know what’s worse?”
“What?”
“When I was a freshman, they had two performances. The Saturday-night show for the parents, and another one on Friday afternoon, when the entire school was forced to come.” I must look horrified, because he says, “I know, right? Consider yourself lucky. They just changed that last year.”
“So the students don’t come to the Saturday-night show?”
“Definitely not.” He grins. “No one who doesn’t have a kid performing would willingly put themselves through that.” The doll starts to wail again. “Do you have to take that thing to lunch with you?”
“Yes.”
“Where do you sit? I never see you.”
“I don’t go to the cafeteria.”
“Then where do you eat?”
I can’t answer that, so I don’t.
“Oh, Julian.” Adam sighs. “So secretive.”
I duck out of Dr. Whitlock’s office a few minutes early—she never notices—and head to the cafeteria. Lately we’ve all become obsessed with The Game, which is basically Truth or Dare without the option to choose truth. As soon as you’re given a dare, it’s either comply or get ostracized. Then you get to dare someone else, so it’s the game that never ends.
It’s fun, but there’s one unfair rule: guys can be dared to strip completely and make fools of themselves by ringing someone’s doorbell or streaking down the street, but girls can’t be asked to shed any undergarments.
Allison once cited safety issues, which is obviously a ridiculous excuse. It’s not like a kidnapper-rapist is going to steal them while we’re all pointing and laughing. Emerald, in her superior, yet reasonable way, said something about the female body being more beautiful and therefore more sacred—basically implying that seeing a guy’s junk is equivalent to seeing a naked chimp at the zoo.
I’m one of the first to get a seat today, and soon all my friends squeeze into the table. I glance around for a suitable challenge, then spot Principal Pearce bent over his cane—the one that could be a prop from Lord of the Rings. All my friends are legitimately nervous as I look each one in the eye.
I freakin love it when it’s my turn.
“Okay…Camila,” I say. She watches me, her green eye shadow looking like a bruise that’s starting to change colors. “I want you to go flirt with Mr. Pearce for at least three minutes.”
“No problem,” she says, way too smug. We all laugh as she sashays over and puts a seductive hand on his arm. I’ve got to give it to the old man. Camila’s doing her best hair tossing and cleavage thrusting, but he doesn’t look impressed. Suddenly she spins around and stomps back—high heels smacking the floor—and slaps a little piece of paper on our table. “I got a dress code detention.”
We burst out laughing. When she storms off, we laugh even harder.
Just a few minutes later, Camila returns. “Adam,” she says, leveling me with an icy smile.
Now, it’s just understood that you forward the dare when it’s your turn, instead of immediately striking back at whoever dared you. Otherwise, no one else would get to play. But apparently Camila’s too pissed to play by the rules.
She reaches into her purse, then tosses a pair of tiny, Camila-size panties at me. “Put them on.”
Everyone at the table starts laughing like crazy, but I have to ask, “Were you just wearing these?”
“No! You’re disgusting! I got them from my locker.”
“Why do you have spare underwear in your locker?”
“Just put them on,” she orders, “and make sure everyone in your next class knows you’re wearing them.”
I give her a wide smile. If she wants to embarrass me, she’s going to have to try harder than that.
Between lunch and fifth period—only moments after squeezing into Camila’s miniature underwear—I trip and end up sprawled out in the center of the crowded hall. Charlie and Allison cackle like I did it on purpose for their amusement.
It takes me a little longer than usual to get up, and when I do—shit shit shit—my ankle hurts. I yell out in high-pitched agony. It really, seriously hurts.
Camila rolls her eyes and examines her long fingernails. “You’re not getting out of this, Adam.”
I moan, stagger-hopping to the wall, and lean against a row of lockers. The underwear’s squeezing my balls, and I’m pretty sure my ankle is broken in ten places. Or at least sprained.
Allison stops laughing. “I think he needs to go to the nurse,” she tells Charlie, sounding all motherly. I want to hug her right now, but that would mean letting go of the lockers. Then, to me, “Come on, Adam, let’s go.”
“I can’t walk.”
Camila stamps her tiny foot and pouts. “You have to finish the dare!”
Charlie squints like he’s trying to figure out if this is some kind of trick. Then he apparently decides I’m really hurt, because he yells at me, “How can someone trip over literally nothing? Idiot!” I know this is his way of saying he cares.
Allison pats his back as if he’s the one who needs comforting, then Camila snaps her fingers. “Charlie, Allison, help him.” Sometimes she treats people like they’re her brother, and it can be pretty intimidating. The two of them quickly obey and do this thing where they stretch out my arms and drape them over their tall shoulders. Allison’s five foot ten—my height—but trying to sling an arm around Charlie makes things dangerously lopsided. We briefly consider switching him out for Camila, but that would just tilt us in the other direction.
The bell rings, and we’re officially late to our next class.
“Oh Jesus, just climb on,” Charlie grumbles, squatting low to the ground. Grinning, I hobble over and hop onto his back. He puts his arms under my knees, and we’re on our way, piggyback-style.
“You boys look cute like that.” Camila winks, snapping a picture with her phone. I smile back and nuzzle Charlie’s neck.
“Dude…” His voice is low and threatening and hilarious. “If you don’t quit it, I’m throwing you down, and you can crawl to the nurse’s office.” He drops my legs, and for a second they’re dangling. I hitch them back up and latch on tighter with my arms.
“You make me land on this foot, and I’ll kill you.” But I quit it, because I believe him.
When the four of us file into the nurse’s office, the middle-aged lady’s face instantly sours. “All right, kids.” She puts her fists on her wide hips. “Theatrics I don’t need.”
“Theatrics?” Camila puts her little fists on her own hips.
“He sprained his ankle,” Allison explains as Charlie backs up into a chair and drops me. I really need to get this underwear off. It’s like a weird version of choking.
“It doesn’t take ten kids to bring in one kid,” Grumpy Nurse says. “The rest of you can get to class.”
Camila’s clearly pissed, Allison looks afraid to leave me here, and Charlie is three seconds from imploding.
“It’s fine, guys,” I tell them. “I’ll text you later.” They leave grudgingly while the nurse grabs a thermometer and stuffs it into a thermometer condom. “The problem’s my ank—” She shoves it under my tongue.
“No fever,” she says when she extracts it a minute later.
“It’s my ankle.”
“Hmm.” She lifts my jeans, then presses the bone with her cold fingers.
“Ow. Ow.”
“I don’t see any swelling.”
“It really, really hurts.”
“You’ve been awfully smiley for someone who’s really hurt. Tell me the truth. Do you have a test this period you’re worried about?”
“Ah…I do have a test, but I’m not worried about it.”
She nods like she’s figured me out. “Okay, you go take that test, then if you’re still in pain, we’ll call Mom.”
“But my class is upstairs, on the other side of the school. I don’t think I can make it.” I look around the room. “What about that wheelchair?”
“What ab
out it?”
“Can I borrow it?”
“That’s for someone who is seriously ill. Not for kids looking for a good time.”
“Looking for a…I’m not looking for a good time, I assure you. Just transportation.”
“You go back to class, take your test, then we’ll talk.”
“But—”
“Right. Now.”
She means it. She’s seriously kicking me out. I get up, hobble-limp, then hop on my uninjured foot. So far so good. A few more hops—then I stumble, and every bit of my weight lands full force on my aching ankle. “Fuck!”
The nurse gasps, her hands flying to her chest like she’s been shot. I hobble-limp back to the chair while she stomps in squeaky nurse shoes to her desk. “I’m writing you up,” she announces, jerking out a pad of paper.
“I’m sorry. It was involuntary.”
“And you’re still not doing what I asked.”
“I wish I could.”
She starts writing furiously, reading aloud as she goes. “Refuses…to follow…instructions.”
I’m starting to feel queasy. I landed too hard, and now my foot is freakin throbbing. Sweat beads on my upper lip. “I think I may actually have a fever now. Maybe you could take my temperature again.”
Another shotgun-gasp and she writes even faster.
I CRUTCH THROUGH the crowded cafeteria the next day, and everyone at our table makes room for me to prop up my foot. “What’s that?” Camila asks, tapping her long red fingernail on the mason jar I pulled from my backpack.
“Water.”
“Why does it look like that?”
“My mom added a few shots of herbal remedies for ligament healing,” I explain.
Camila shudders. In all fairness, it does look like a urine sample.
Charlie’s glowering his way through the crowd, then he spots me and his entire countenance becomes alarmingly cheerful.
“Oh god,” I moan as he approaches, still beaming. “Who told you?”
“Everyone told me. I just didn’t think it was possible.”
“No one thought it was possible,” Emerald adds, her blue eyes sparkly and amused.
Matt pulls up a chair and demands of Charlie, “Why are you so happy?” It’s a reasonable question. I don’t think any of us have ever seen his teeth before.
“You don’t know?” Charlie sits up straighter, obviously excited about the prospect of telling someone who doesn’t know.
“Know what?”
Charlie’s mouth opens, but before he can speak, Camila says, “Adam got an ISS.”
“Hey!” Charlie glares. “I was about to tell him.”
“Adam?” Matt looks at me like I was just arrested for double homicide. “How?”
So I tell the entire table my story about the cruel nurse, maybe exaggerating things just a little to make it funnier, but also to gain their sympathy. Now everyone is equal parts amused and angry on my behalf.
Well, except for Charlie. He’s just amused. “This is awesome.”
I try to give him a mean look, but it can’t be very convincing since I’m laughing. “It’s not awesome. It’s ridiculous.”
Somewhere during my story Jesse actually removed both earbuds, and now he’s giving me a knowing smile. “What’d your mom say?”
“What do you think?” My mom is sort of famous for making our fifth-grade teacher cry.
Charlie grins. “Can I watch her kick the nurse’s ass?”
“I hate to disappoint, but she won’t be coming. She wanted to, but—”
“You begged her not to?” Emerald accurately guesses.
“I just convinced her that it’s not a big deal.” Because it’s really not. “She’s more fight-the-system, and I’m more just-let-it-go.”
“No kidding.” Charlie stuffs four french fries into his mouth.
“Hey, I could fight the system,” I protest.
Matt puts a supportive hand on my shoulder. “We know you could, buddy.”
Everyone’s looking at me like I’m something adorable and harmless.
“I could. It’s not like I’ve never been in a fight before.”
Now they’re looking at me with perplexed suspicion. Emerald’s eyes twinkle like she suspects I’m just trying to impress everyone.
“I have. Marcus…seventh grade?”
Jesse and Charlie look at each other for a second, then burst out laughing.
“Getting smacked in the face with a Harry Potter book does not qualify as a fight,” Charlie says.
“First of all, it wasn’t just any Harry Potter book. It was Order of the Phoenix.”
Matt gasps. He knows that Order of the Phoenix is the longest and most potentially dangerous of all the Harry Potter books when used as a weapon.
“Still not a fight,” Charlie insists. “Now maybe, if you’d hit him back…”
It honestly never occurred to me to hit him back. I remember standing there in stunned pain, then feeling even more shocked when Marcus collapsed and started crying and writhing around on the floor. “I couldn’t. He was having a mental breakdown or something.”
“Why’d he hit you, anyway?” Matt asks.
“I know,” Charlie says eagerly. “I saw the whole thing. We were in the middle of Math class, and Marcus was trying to do his worksheet or something, and he just snapped because Adam wouldn’t stop talking.”
Now all the guys at our table are laughing hysterically, and the girls look like they want to join in but are trying to leave me some dignity.
“You don’t know how much that sucked for me. My mom went insane.”
This only makes them laugh harder.
It really did suck. When she picked me up from school that day, I still had an ice pack on my cheek, and she went ballistic. I tried to appeal to her social worker side, but it was like she’d had no professional training at all. She pulled me back into the school, then got even more irate when the principal wouldn’t promise immediate retribution. When it comes to me, she can get embarrassingly mafia-esque.
“I’m serious,” I say, pretending not to be as amused as they are. “She still has plans for that kid. She says she’s just biding her time.”
Jesse takes a breath from laughing. “Dude, your mom is awesome.”
WHEN I GET to Child Development on Thursday, Jared is smashing his fists into the backpack beneath his desk like it’s an arcade punching bag. I get the usual rush of fear/sympathy, but at the same time I feel a strange wave of contentment as I take in the room. It’s a nursery. Babies are everywhere—lying on the floor, leaning against purses. Mine is safe under my arm as I find my seat in the back. I set him on the desktop, and look at his wide brown eyes and small smile.
The bells rings, and a moment later babies start waking up and wailing. A frazzled-looking teacher pokes her head into the room. “Mind if I shut the door?” she asks.
Miss Carlisle nods sadly.
And the door closes, trapping all the cries inside.
Stressed-out girls start typing codes into their babies’ backs. The room falls silent, but only for a few seconds before a different group starts up.
“Do you understand now?” Miss Carlisle raises her voice so we can hear her over all the noise. “Do you see how this would ruin your lives?”
My baby has been with me every moment this week, and sometimes I think I can tell the difference between hungry-crying and sad-crying just like my parents said they could with me. Mostly I don’t mind the noise, although I do worry when we’re in my hidden room and his loud voice echoes to the rafters. But I worry even more in the middle of the night.
Russell has been away, but I’ve been afraid he’ll come home after I fall asleep, afraid he’ll hear and get mad, and I keep getting a cold pain in my stomach like I’ve swallowed a thousand winters.
But for the past three nights it’s been only us—me and the baby—and I haven’t noticed the strange noises the house usually makes, almost like they aren’t there anymore. It’s b
een nice and not terrible, but I don’t know when Russell will be back.
Now the baby is looking at me with worried eyes. I smooth down his soft hair and run a hand over his round cheek.
“What the fuck?” Jared’s voice finds me like a missile. “Are you petting your doll?”
Everyone is looking at me now. Kristin’s rolling her fish eyes. Violet is staring, her eyes so inky dark, they look wet. A couple of other girls laugh.
I glance at Jared, and that’s when I see what is sticking out of his backpack: a baby. Its rosy cheek is caved in. Jared launches to his feet, kicking over the bag. The baby’s head thumps hard against the floor.
“Jared!” Miss Carlisle looks up from her computer. “These dolls are expensive!”
Jared scowls and grabs the baby by the hair to toss it onto his seat. Then he looks at me.
My eyes flit to Miss Carlisle, who’s back to concentrating on her screen.
Jared starts toward me like a predator, like a wolf.
My heart begins to pound in my ears, and the next thing I know, I’ve pulled my baby into my lap and wrapped my arms around him. Jared stops in his tracks, almost as if he’s startled.
Then he smiles with wolf teeth. “Someone really likes his dolly.”
I hear a couple more laughs and feel my face getting hot. I should probably set him back on the table, because everyone is acting like it’s weird to hold him, but if I do, Jared might grab him and do something to him.
“Jared,” Miss Carlisle says wearily, “go back to your seat.”
But he doesn’t.
He stares me down, eyes full of angry black scribbles like the ones he used to make on my watercolors.
“Jared,” Miss Carlisle repeats.
The scribbles start to swirl. They fill up his face—the whole room.
“Jared.”
He growls, then begins walking backward, watching me all the way to his desk.
Then he shoves his baby to the floor and slams into his seat.
I’VE NEVER BEEN inside the ISS room, but I can already tell it’s going to suck. It’s windowless, colorless, posterless—basically totally freakin bleak. There’re five desks, all facing one gray wall so our backs are to the teacher. Floor-to-ceiling wooden partitions separate each desk like bathroom stalls. I guess they’re to avoid distractions or the pleasure of looking at anyone, but it feels a lot like being stuck in the corner—a punishment I found unbearable when I was a kid. Within five minutes my skin’s crawling. I need to move or see something—anything—but this room was designed so that you have to stare at the wall.
