by Jim Murphy
I took the dark, gloomy stairs two at a time and was on the main floor in a few seconds. A couple of weak overhead lights were left on in the main hall leading to the principal’s office, probably so parents coming to pick up sick kids wouldn’t get lost in the dark. A thin finger of light let me see the statue of Saint Stephen that was built into the wall next to Sister Rose Mary’s office, a saintly smile on his lips (which were painted a weird red) and a large stone in his right hand.
The story goes that long ago an angry mob stoned him to death because he was Catholic. Which does not sound like a fun way to go, if you ask me. But there he was anyway, smiling happily, as if to say Hey, kid. Play your cards right and you too can wear lipstick and be pulverized to death.
I crossed myself quickly for good luck as I walked past the statue and into the principal’s outer office. I was about to say hello to Mrs. Branfurs, the school secretary (who was really Billy Branfurs’s mom), when Sister Rose Mary came bustling out of her office. She had a wad of papers in one hand and the brass bell she rang to get the attention of noisy kids in the other. She glanced up from the papers, spotted me, and said, “Ah, we meet again, Master Murphy.”
“Sister Regina sent me up to—”
“You can tell me your story later. I have to speak with Mrs. Durkin and Sister Dominick now and do some other chores around school.” Sister Rose Mary was all of four feet six inches tall (if that), so I was taller than her by over a foot. Still, nobody ever messed with her.
She gave the papers to Mrs. Branfurs, along with some instructions. Sister Rose Mary was carrying the bell by the clapper so it wouldn’t always be ringing. Her entire hand and part of her wrist were hidden inside it. The handle was sort of like a pirate’s hook, only straight and pointy. She tapped me on the wrist with her pirate hand and added, “Stand there and watch the clock for fifteen minutes while I’m away. And don’t fidget.”
“Yes, Sister.”
As she left the office, she added, “And think about your sins.”
“Yes, Sister.”
I had done clock-watch time before. Lots. So I took my place in the center of the room and stared at the clock. Mrs. Branfurs shuffled the papers, then began typing.
I took a deep breath and tried to relax. Watching a clock for fifteen minutes is a form of slow torture and must be against some United Nations war convention rules. The clock ticks along, and you (meaning me) get to see the second hand click, click, click its slow way around the clock face, one tiny space at a time.
From experience, I knew that the best way to get through this was to think about something else. Something that would take my brain on a little journey.
This is when I began thinking about roses. Not the flower kind, though my mom loved to grow them. I began thinking about the nun kind of Rose and how many of them we had at St. Stephen’s. So many I could hardly keep them straight in my head.
To start, there was the principal, Sister Rose Mary. And Sister Angelica Rose, of course. And Sister Rose Vincent, no forgetting her. My brother, Jerry, was in eighth grade, and his teacher was named Sister Rose Edwards. And there was Sister Rose Ascenza, who was visiting from Italy, and Sister Rose of Lima, who was here from Peru. Oh, and there was Sister Immaculata Rose.
Most nuns seemed old to me, but Sister Immaculata was really old, and by old I mean ancient. She could have been there to help push the stone from Jesus’s grave on Easter morning. She didn’t teach anymore, just hung around the convent, which was right behind the school. Once a day she took a stroll up Beech Street, the dead-end side street where the school and convent were. “Taking a stroll” suggests that she had some speed in her step, but she actually doddered along at about ten feet an hour, saying her rosary. Everybody on the street knew and liked Sister Immaculata, and some people put benches on their front lawns near the sidewalk so she could stop and rest along the way.
I came out of my Rose nun thoughts to discover that only four minutes and twenty-two seconds had clicked by. Darn. Not fair, I thought. Here, of course, my brain took charge, and I heard myself thinking that what really wasn’t fair was the way Sister Angelica had singled me out, which made Kathy Gathers laugh at me, and that I was doing clock-watch time. Though I admit that laughing when I saw the chicken cutlet on Sister R’s shoe wasn’t very smart.
Still, it wasn’t fair. I’d come to school hoping to change, but they wouldn’t let me. Sister Angelica wouldn’t let me! I remembered the way she looked at me—like I was a predatory worm—and I found my brain going dark and darker until I was sure it was twisting itself into a brain knot. Then I remembered Kathy Gathers laughing at me, and my heart started racing with anger.
I looked at the clock. Still six long minutes to go. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. The second hand moved along very, very, very slowly. The back of my head seemed to be going numb as I watched the second hand. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. I got angrier and angrier with every tick of the clock. This. Tick. Is. Tick. Not. Tick. Fair. Tick. This is not fair. This is not fair . . .
In some far-off part of the school, Sister Rose Mary began ringing her bell. I closed my eyes tight, then opened them. I could see through the office windows that clouds had blocked out the light. Or was that gloomy darkness just in my head? No, there were ominous-looking clouds moving in. Way off to the left, there was a really dark patch of sky that looked like a purple-green bruise. It was going to rain, and hard. I hoped I could get home before the storm.
I shook my head to refocus my wandering thoughts. Or, as Mayor might suggest, to make a plan. Step one was simple. I needed to figure out how to murderlate-embarrass Sister Angelica. In a big, gigantic way that fit my rage. The guys were working on that while I was watching the second hand, so I didn’t have to worry about it just now. Step two would be harder. I needed to figure out how to win over Kathy Gathers.
I reminded myself that it was only the first day of school, so I could still show her that I wanted to change. Yes, she’d laughed at me. Twice. But I’d been laughed at since kindergarten, so that was nothing new. Exactly how to impress her escaped my brain, but I knew I could figure it out . . .
“Ah, James,” Mrs. Branfurs said in a whisper, “you might want to stand up straight. Sister Rose Mary will be on her way back.”
I snapped to attention and took a deep breath. I could almost feel Sister Rose Mary’s pirate hand poking me in the ribs as she lectured me about wasting food, kids starving in Armenia, and laughing inappropriately.
“I wouldn’t worry,” Mrs. Branfurs added, her voice even softer. “She has a meeting with a parent in”—she looked at her watch—“five minutes and won’t have much time.”
Even though I was still standing as straight as an iron pole, I felt myself relax inside. “Thanks,” I whispered. Some adults know exactly what to say and are even nice enough to say it.
Sister Rose Mary ghosted back into her office, looked at me as if she didn’t know why I was there, then told me she had spoken to Sister Regina and that I could go to my class. Like most nuns, she added something as I made my escape. “And let’s not let this happen again.”
I kind of drifted through the rest of the afternoon. I caught up with my class just as they were going back inside, so I didn’t hear anything about the Plan. When Sister Angelica had her back to us, writing something or other on the blackboard, Vero leaned over to let me know what they had talked about. He was whispering so softly I could barely hear a word. Even so, that whisper didn’t get past Sister Angelica.
“Master Vero,” she said, not even bothering to turn around, “your friend doesn’t need any further distractions or trouble today.”
Vero and I looked at each other. She hadn’t taken her eyes off the blackboard, so how did she know what was going on behind her?
“Um, yes, Sister.” Vero sat up in his desk, a puzzled look on his face. I think nuns have weird alien powers. There’s simply no other way to explain it.
4
The Almost Plan
&nbs
p; IT WAS BEGINNING to rain when school got out. Just a sprinkle, but that really nasty-looking section of sky was right overhead and there were some rumbles of thunder. You could tell it was going to let loose any second. The guys and I split up and headed for home, moving fast.
I was in such a hurry that I didn’t stop to get my usual bag of salty potato sticks at the store across from school. And I hardly thought about the three high school girls I usually passed on the way home. I didn’t know them, but I had noticed them for the first time in fifth grade, around when I started really liking Kathy Gathers. They always wore short plaid skirts in different colors and matching tight sweaters, and they said “Hello, handsome” to me whenever we passed on the sidewalk. Which made me blush. In a way that felt good.
I did stop briefly on the bridge over the train tracks to pick up a penny. My mom said it was bad luck to leave an orphaned penny on the ground, and I didn’t need any more bad luck that day. Not with Sister Angelica gunning for me.
Rain started falling hard when I was still a block from home, so I was drenched when I finally pushed open our front door.
My mom worked as my dad’s receptionist-bookkeeper most days, and Jerry was out, probably off at his friend’s house down the block, playing penny ante poker. So I was alone in the house. Which was fine. I liked being by myself. Only with the day I had had, plus the rain and my soggy clothes, a cloud of gloom kept following me from room to room. Not even watching cartoons on television was enough to distract me.
I wondered what the guys had said about murderlating Sister Angelica. As we were leaving school, Mayor said they had some ideas, but he didn’t have time to give me any details. Except that Al the Second Grader was definitely a deranged individual in a helpful sort of way. Which meant that all I could do at the moment was figure out how to change Kathy Gathers’s opinion of me.
I could try to actually study harder to improve my pitiful grades. I’d always brought some books home, mostly so Mom wouldn’t ask why I hadn’t brought any books home. Unfortunately, I was so angry at Angelica that I hadn’t copied the day’s assignments from the blackboard, so I had no idea what I was supposed to read or do.
Philip’s house was right behind mine. I could go to his window and ask him for the assignments. And find out if he knew anything more about the emerging Plan. His bedroom was on the side of his house next to our back property line, and sometimes we talked (as much as Philip ever talked, that is) back there. But the rain was coming down in buckets, and going to his house seemed like a lot of work. I could call him, but he’d probably think it was weird if I suddenly started asking about homework on the phone. No sixth-grade guy ever did that.
I decided that the only thing I could do was pay better attention tomorrow. Tomorrow would be plenty soon to start studying.
But I needed to do something right away to show Kathy that I’d changed. Or at least wanted to change. Write another story popped into my head. No, no, no. Even if I wrote a great Kathy Gathers story where she was thin and gorgeous and nuclear-scientist smart (and she’s all of those in real life), she’d be suspicious. And I had promised not to write any more stories about her, and I never, ever break a promise. So what could I do?
The mind works in mysterious ways. At least mine does. For some reason I thought about the star-shaped scar on my right arm where Sister Anita had stabbed me with her yellow ballpoint pen just before last Easter. She tried to say it had been an accident, but I don’t think anyone in the class believed that. Anyway, for some completely weird reason I thought about putting a tattoo there. Of Kathy’s initials.
It was a brilliant idea. So brilliant I started to smile.
Naturally, I couldn’t get a real tattoo. But I’d drawn tattoos on my arm in the past (mostly the uniform numbers of baseball players I liked), so I knew that a black ballpoint pen would be a decent substitute. And I could darken it whenever it started to fade.
I went upstairs three steps at a time, tossed my wet shirt onto the bathroom floor, and toweled my right arm dry. There was my scar, about one inch across. A few days after the stabbing, the puncture wound had become infected and ugly, and when the scab finally fell off a few weeks later, voilà, there was a scar, looking like an exploding red star.
I found a pen in my room, then went back to the bathroom, where I stood sideways in front of the mirror. Now, doing an ink tattoo left-handed while looking into a mirror isn’t easy. Try it and you’ll understand why. Everything is backwards and turned around. My eyes kind of crossed when I tried to position the pen point, and even concentrating real hard, I began writing the letter K backwards. Not a good start. Which seemed to be the theme of my whole day.
I was able to calm myself when I realized it was only a small line and not a major flub. I went back to work and did a really good job. The star scar was right between the two letters, K ★ G, high enough up on my arm to be covered by a short-sleeved shirt. I could keep my tattoo hidden from my parents and snoopy teachers but let Kathy see it when I wanted to.
I checked it in the mirror and even flexed my muscles to see if it rippled the way tattoos do in the movies. I suddenly had another brilliant idea. I found a pen with red ink and began coloring in the star to deepen the red. The finished project looked downright artistic, if I say so myself.
I studied my new tattoo a couple of times from different perspectives. Okay, I studied it seven or eight times and even used a handheld mirror to check it out up close. This close-up look started me wondering if the red scar thing might look a little too much like blood, and some people (Kathy?) might think it was weird. After a moment of panic (I get these from time to time), I put on a T-shirt that covered the tattoo. I could scrub the red star extra hard over the next week and slowly tone down the color. Until then, I would keep my work of art hidden.
An hour later my brother came home, said “Hey,” and punched me hard in the tattooed arm. “How’d your day go?” he asked.
“The pits.”
“Good old St. Stephen’s,” he said. He stuck his head into the refrigerator, searching for something to eat. “You should have seen Rose Edwards in action today.” He emerged from the refrigerator with an orange and began to peel it. “Rick was messing around, making all sorts of mouth noises, and she winged a big pink eraser at him. He was, like, fifty feet away, but she nailed him square in the nose. She’s got some arm.”
“Cool,” I said. Lots of nuns tossed stuff at kids, but most weren’t very accurate. It was good to know which ones were and be ready to duck.
My mom came home next and started making dinner.
“How was your day, Jimmy?”
“Okay.”
“Anything interesting happen?”
“Not really.”
She looked up from cutting a carrot and seemed genuinely sad. “Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of adventures this year.”
“I can’t wait,” I mumbled.
Dad was visiting a client in Hoboken, so he got home last. He kissed Mom hello, then sat in his big armchair next to the fireplace in the living room, crossed his legs, and started to read the Newark Star-Ledger. After a few minutes he called out to Mom in the kitchen.
“Did you see this article, Helen? That bridge they put up two years ago is already falling apart. Shoddy materials.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. All politicians are crooks.”
It had really been a terrifically crappy first day of school, and even that little recollection got my brain buzzing again like a pissed-off bee. To calm it, I remembered the punch hello from my brother, encouragement from Mom, Dad reading the paper and chatting with Mom about the news. These things meant that all was right with the world just now. Except, of course, for Sister Angelica Rose, who was probably back there in the convent inventing new ways to torture me. At least there would be a long night before my next humiliation.
5
My Cherry Jell-O Backbone
HERE’S THE PROBLEM with going to sleep. You close your eyes, all relax
ed, and a second later it’s morning and you have to go back to school. Back to the big brick torture chamber. All I could do was hope for a better day and maintain a low profile. As in, will myself to become invisible.
School started out fine. In the big playground before the bell rang, Mayor and Iggy gave me the update on murderlating Angelica. Lots of ideas had been tossed around, I was told, but Al the Second Grader came up with the most imaginative one. He wanted to dig a big hole where Sister Angelica would walk, stud the bottom with long, sharp, pointy punji sticks, and then hide the hole with grass. Angelica comes strolling along, completely unaware of the trap, and then pow, she falls in and is skewered like a wienie on a stick.
This would be a little more severe than embarrassing her, but I liked the image of a stuck Sister Angelica. Then I saw a problem. “Ah, Mayor—”
“Yeah, yeah, we know,” Mayor said, clearly frustrated.
The catch was obvious. The outside spaces around St. Stephen’s and the convent were either concrete or asphalt. Or iron grates where water drained off. Inside the school grounds there was one tiny patch of dirt with two spindly pine trees and a couple of other miserable-looking plants, but it was to the side of the asphalt, up against the building, and nobody actually walked there.
“But don’t worry, Murph. We haven’t given up. And Al said he’d study his G.I. Joe and horror comics for more ideas.” True to his professional calling, Mayor decided we’d have another meeting at lunchtime. “And why the long-sleeved shirt? It’s gonna be hot today.”
I grabbed the area where my tattoo was to make sure it was truly hidden. “Ah, all my other shirts were dirty.”
In class I decided to lie low. Literally. I slid down in my chair until my back and head were nearly parallel with the floor. This way I could avoid being spotted and having to answer any of those questions teachers always seem to be coming up with. It took Sister Angelica all of one minute and twenty-eight seconds to scope me out and say, “Master Murphy. Is your backbone made of cherry Jell-O today?”
