by Ray Garton
Mom turned from the counter with a plate in each hand, setting them on the table. “Honey,” she said to Dad, “why don’t you let me take a look at it?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Let me see. It might need a Band-Aid. I could—”
“No!” Dad snapped.
Mom flinched at his tone. “Okay. Fine.” She turned to David. “Eat your breakfast before it gets cold. I’ve got to go.”
David ignored his mother as she bent down and kissed him on the head, staring instead at Dad, who poured the rest of the saccharine tablets into his coffee, emptying the bottle. He took a few big gulps of the coffee, looking satisfied as more steam swirled from his lips.
“Bye, darling,” Mom said, kissing Dad, too. Then she gathered her books from the counter and started out of the kitchen.
“Mom!” David said, his back stiff. He wanted desperately for her to stay. Something was wrong.
“Hurry up and eat, David, or you’ll be late again,” she called over her shoulder as she disappeared through the doorway.
David stared at the empty doorway until he heard the front door close. He looked at the clock: 7:20. The ticking seemed thunderous in the silence.
Dad stared across the table at David, his breakfast ignored, steam rising from his cup.
Mom knocked on the kitchen window, startling David. “You’re not eating!” she exclaimed through the glass. She turned and hurried to the car.
David bit his lip, fighting the urge to bound out of the kitchen and stop her. What would he say? If he tried to explain to her the icy dread that was growing inside him, he would only sound crazy. With a helpless, sinking feeling, he watched her back the car out of the driveway and disappear down the road.
David looked at his breakfast. His stomach was burning with tension and the mere thought of putting the waffles and eggs and orange wedges into his mouth made his throat feel tight.
Dad continued to stare unflinchingly at David. His face was stone, his eyes empty and unblinking.
He’s just not feeling well, David thought, trying to reassure himself. He’s probably coming down the with flu, that’s all. But it didn’t work. Dad’s stare did not waver and David began to feel as if he were being held in a giant steel fist that was slowly clenching tighter and tighter.
David tried to speak, but his throat was dry and only croaked. He coughed, then said, “I . . . I don’t think I’m very hungry.”
No reaction. Neither a twitch of his cheek nor a blink of his eyes. Then Dad pushed his chair from the table and stood, never taking his eyes from David. He walked around the table until he was standing beside David, tall and straight. He took David’s arm.
David suddenly felt as if the wind had been knocked from his lungs. He wanted to jerk his arm away, to scream, Get away from me! Don’t touch me! He wanted to run from the house as fast as he could and not come back until Mom was home. But how could he do such a thing to his own dad?
Quietly, his voice cutting through the silence like a new razor blade, Dad said, “Let me walk you to the bus stop.”
Slowly, David stood. His knees felt rubbery and the bag hanging from his shoulder suddenly felt like a cement block. Dad’s grip on his elbow was not tight, but neither was it gentle. David’s feet were made of lead and it was only with effort that he left the kitchen at his dad’s side.
They crossed the living room and went out the front door. It wasn’t until they were starting down the driveway that David mustered the nerve to look up at his dad.
He was still staring at David, even as he walked, as if he’d never looked away. His lips were smiling but his eyes were not. When they reached the end of the driveway, Dad finally let go of David’s arm.
Slipping his hands into the pockets of his bathrobe, Dad turned and gazed toward Copper Hill.
“You know, you were right, son,” Dad said. He looked down at David. “There is something over the hill.”
David tensed. “What?”
Dad smiled again, but still his eyes remained cold. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
David suddenly did not want to see whatever lay beyond Copper Hill. “No, Dad,” he said quietly, shrinking back a step.
Still smiling, Dad reached for his hand.
“Dad . . .”
His smile did not waver as he grabbed David’s hand and began pulling him hard toward the house.
“No!” David shouted, trying to jerk his hand away. “What are you doing?” He wrenched his hand from his dad’s grip. David could hear the distant rumble of the bus rounding the corner down the road.
Dad’s cold smile dissolved into a mocking sneer. “What’s the matter, son,” he said, “afraid of something?”
David took a broad step back, staring up in disbelief at his dad. The tiny smile wrinkles on his face no longer seemed warm and friendly, and his eyes were like a stranger’s, unfamiliar and uncaring.
The bus slowed as it neared, and finally stopped in front of the driveway. The sound of the doors clattering open brought a rush of relief David never thought he’d feel at the arrival of his school bus. Hitching his backpack up with a shrug, David backed toward the bus.
The man standing in the driveway was not his dad. He looked like him; he wore his clothes. But David knew that George Gardiner was not behind those eyes.
As David put one foot on the bus step, Dad grinned, lifted a hand slowly, and waved.
“See you this afternoon,” he said. Then he added, in a tone that was somehow not right, that had behind it the sound of glass being cut, “Champ.”
David stepped up into the bus and the doors closed. He could not have felt more threatened had there been a gun at his head.
C H A P T E R
Six
When David got to class that morning, there were dead frogs split open like pomegranates on the desks. Other frogs, very much alive, threw themselves against the glass sides of the jars in which they were trapped on Mrs. McKeltch’s desk, as if they sensed their fate.
David plopped down at his desk, frowning. His stomach was upset and one foot kicked the desk leg nervously. He could not erase the image of his dad standing in the driveway, looking a mess, waving his hand and smiling falsely as David boarded the bus. The way he felt, he dreaded sitting through classes that day. But he also dreaded going home.
Mrs. McKeltch divided the students into pairs as they came in and assigned each pair to a dissected frog.
David’s partner was Heather. She sat beside him, her brown hair in a ponytail, and stared with a curled lip at the frog.
“That’s disgusting,” she whispered.
Although he did not feel like talking, David said, “It’s just a frog.”
“But all its . . . its insides are showing.”
“You have them, too, you know.”
She turned to him and wrinkled her nose. “Don’t say that. I don’t want to know.”
When the last bell rang, Mrs. McKeltch stood before her desk holding a stack of papers to her bosom. Her face was stern and her gray hair was arranged in its usual tight curls and sharp little waves. The friendly morning chatter among the students was silenced by her stare.
“These papers,” Mrs. McKeltch said, “are consent forms for the upcoming field trip. Your parents must sign them or you will not be allowed to go and you will get an F for the day.” She began walking up and down the aisles between the desks, passing the papers to her students. “So, have your parents sign them tonight and bring them back to me promptly in the morning.”
When she came to David and held out the paper, she gave him a glare that seemed to warn: Behave today, or else.
When she was finished, Mrs. McKeltch returned to her desk and gestured to the frogs hopping around in their jars. “I collected these fresh specimens yesterday from the marsh area adjacent to Copper Hill. When we’re finished here this morning, these frogs—” She pointed to those on her desk, then to the dissected frogs before the students. “—will look like the frogs you have before you.” She lif
ted a shoe box from her desk and took from it a small object with a shiny blade. “This is a scalpel. It is very sharp so be extremely careful when using it.” As she passed out the scalpels, she said, “Before we start the dissection, we’re going to review what we’ve learned about frogs in the past week.” She went to the front of the classroom and pulled down a chart over the blackboard. She pointed to the colorful diagram of a dissected frog and asked, “Who can tell me what these two red sacs are?”
The class was silent.
“You may refer to the frogs in front of you if it will help,” Mrs. McKeltch said, frustrated.
Marcy Young raised her hand, her eyes fixed on the dissected frog.
“Yes, Marcy?” Mrs. McKeltch said, smiling her iguana smile.
Still looking down at her frog, Marcy asked, “Which ones, Mrs. McKeltch?”
When Mrs. McKeltch went to the back of the class to help Marcy, a frog flew through the air behind her and slapped onto Heather’s chest, sliding into her lap, unseen by the teacher.
“Gawd!” Heather squealed, startling David.
He turned to see Kevin (Who else? he thought) laughing into his palm across the room. Not at all in the mood for Kevin, David grabbed the frog from Heather’s lap and half stood, putting his hand on the desktop. He threw the frog at Kevin just as Mrs. McKeltch turned around.
“David Gardiner!” she snapped.
He paid little attention to her because he’d put his hand right on the scalpel; a small cut on the outer edge of his palm had begun to bleed.
“That may be the way you behave at home,” Mrs. McKeltch went on, “but it’s not the way you’ll behave in my classroom!” The students began laughing at David until Mrs. McKeltch raised her hand and said, “One, two, three, four, five!”
Instant silence.
“Oh God, he’s bleeding!” Heather gasped, gawking with wide eyes at David’s hand.
Mrs. McKeltch approached David’s desk and towered over him like a building. Her fists were clenched at her sides and her lips were pressed so tightly together they’d become pale.
“Heather,” she said, her eyes boring into David, “you supervise them while I take this uncontrolled young man to the school nurse.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Heather said softly. She gave David a look of silent apology.
Mrs. McKeltch grabbed David’s wrist and dragged him out of the room, stopping in the hall to examine his cut briefly. Her eyes narrowed to slits and a cold smile pulled at her lips as she led him down the hall holding his wrist in an iron grip. “I hope you need a tetanus shot,” she hissed.
“That’s good news, Mrs. Beacham,” Linda said into the phone, sitting on the edge of her desk. “I’m glad it wasn’t a break.”
She could hear someone stopping outside her office door and tried to wrap up the conversation.
“Just keep her off the foot for a few days and tell her—”
The door opened and Mrs. McKeltch stormed in, her face tight, holding the hand of the boy who Linda had run into the day before.
“Ms. Magnuson,” Mrs. McKeltch said angrily, “David here has gone ahead and cut himself. It probably serves him right.”
Linda held up a palm, trying to listen to Mrs. Beacham. “Okay, that’s fine,” she said. “Tell her that we’ll miss her here at school. All right, thank you.” She hung up the phone and turned in time to see Mrs. McKeltch rolling her eyes, annoyed at having to wait. “I’m sorry,” Linda said with a smile. “What’s wrong?”
“I said this silly boy has cut himself! I don’t know what he’s gotten into. He’s . . . he’s simply uncontrollable.”
Children behave only as well as they’re treated, Linda thought, wanting to say it aloud, but knowing better. She put a hand on David’s shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. “I’ll take it from here, Mrs. McKletch,” she said, realizing her mistake the moment it was out of her mouth.
“It’s McKeltch,” the teacher snapped, her nostrils flaring. She turned and stalked out, slamming the office door so hard it rattled the pictures on the walls.
Linda sighed with relief and smiled down at David. He was holding his injured hand gingerly with the other, frowning deeply.
“Why don’t you come back here and sit down,” she said, trying to sound as pleasant as possible to make up for Mrs. McKeltch’s harsh behavior. The woman made her angry, but she held it in, deciding the boy had seen enough anger for one day.
She led him into the examination room and helped him up onto the cushioned table, taking his hand carefully in hers. The cut was bleeding quite a bit, but it wasn’t bad.
“I think you’ll live,” she said.
He looked away, his eyes fixed blankly on a stack of paper towels on the counter by the sink. There were more frown lines on his forehead than seemed fitting for a boy so young.
“Hey,” Linda said, patting his arm, “don’t worry about her, okay? Mrs. McKeltch, I mean. She’s just . . . like that.” She smiled, but got no reaction. “Okay?”
He looked at her and nodded, chewing his lip.
Linda got her tray of supplies and placed it next to David. “You sure get around this place, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
Dipping a swab into a bottle of iodine, she said, “Now, this stuff stings a little, so watch out, okay?” She gently tended the cut, cautiously watching David’s face for a reaction. But he did not even flinch. In fact, he didn’t even seem to notice the stinging medicine; he was staring blankly again, this time at a picture on the wall across from him. He seemed preoccupied, perhaps even troubled, as if the cut on his hand were the least of his worries.
“Tough guy, huh?” Linda asked.
David shrugged, watching as she put a Band-Aid over the cut. He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, then said, “So you’re the new nurse, huh?”
“Oh, that’s right, I never introduced myself. I’m Linda Magnuson.” She took David’s hand in hers and shook it, realizing, as David squirmed in pain and jerked his hand back, holding it to his stomach protectively, that she shook the wrong hand. “David!” Linda gasped, covering her mouth. “I’m sorry, David, really! I’m so sorry.” She touched his arm and leaned forward anxiously, hoping she hadn’t hurt him badly. “Are you okay?”
A smile slowly grew on David’s face; he seemed touched by her concern. “Yeah, don’t worry about it. It’s okay.”
Brushing aside a few strands of her blond hair, she stepped back. “Good. Well,” she joined her hands before her, “you should probably get back to class.”
David scooted off the edge of the table and started out of the room, still holding his hand.
Linda realized that he was moving very slowly. And he was frowning again, head bowed, eyes distant.
“Hey,” Linda said.
David turned, looked up at her, and blinked a few times. “Hm?”
“Is anything wrong, David? Anything bothering you? If there is, I want you to know you can talk to me about it. I’m a good listener.”
He thought about that a moment, seemed to consider saying something, his lips slightly pursed, his head cocked to one side. Then he shook his head and said, “No. Nothing.”
“Okay.” She reached down and brushed his bangs from his forehead. “You be careful with that hand now, okay?”
“I will.” He turned and left the office, closing the door softly.
Linda gritted her teeth, her anger at Mrs. McKeltch coming back with force. How could she treat children so coldly? Didn’t she think they were human? Didn’t she think they had feelings just like everybody else? Well, Linda thought, everybody, that is, except Mrs. McKeltch. She returned to her desk to make some phone calls.
Going home on the bus, David was the only passenger who remained totally silent. He peered out the window, wondering what he would find at home, wondering if Dad would still be there, if he would be better or . . . what if Mom started acting strange like Dad? David immediately rejected the thought, wanting to deal with only one problem
at a time.
“What the heck’s your problem?” Doug asked.
“Huh?”
“What’s your problem? You mad or something?”
“Oh, no.” David shook his head.
“Then how come you’re being so quiet? Are you sick?”
“No. But I think my dad might be. I’m worried about him.”
“How come?”
“Well, he . . . I don’t know, he just kinda got weird this morning.”
“Oh, jeez, don’t worry about that.”
David turned to him for an explanation.
“My dad does that all the time. So does Mom. All parents do. Parents are weird,” he said with a wave of his hand. “They go through these moods, you know? My mom tells me I’ll understand when I grow up. But I don’t think I want to understand the way they act sometimes. Nah, don’t worry about it. It’s nothin’.”
“You think so?”
“Sure.” Doug poked him in the ribs with his elbow. “Cheer up.”
David smiled, feeling a little better. But his smile disappeared as soon his house came into view.
Dad’s pickup truck was in the driveway.
Mom’s car was nowhere in sight, but David realized it could be in the garage. David walked to the front of the bus and held onto a rail as it stopped. The doors opened. David couldn’t move his feet from the top step. He held the cold rail and stared at his house. It was usually a welcome sight with its cheery windows and well-kept yard. Now it seemed threatening. The windows were like eyes that watched his every move and the front door, which was open wide, was a mouth patiently waiting for David to step inside.
“David . . .”
He turned to Mr. Bob. The driver waved a meaty hand at the door, motioning for him to get off.
“See ya tomorrow,” Mr. Bob said.
David nodded. Before stepping down, he glanced toward the back of the bus at Doug. He was laughing with someone; David was forgotten. As the doors closed behind him and the bus rumbled away, David felt very alone. He watched the bus disappear down the road, then turned toward the house.
As he walked up the driveway, David looked around the yard for some sign of his parents, but saw nothing.
