by Nikki Loftin
They were the same green as my mother’s.
I thought of my mother for a moment, trying to ignore the stabbing pain that came with the memory. Tears prickled behind my nose. I sniffed, trying to hold them back, but one tear spilled down my cheek. Principal Trapp caught it on a napkin and wiped my face gently.
“Oh, Lorelei,” she said after a minute. “You are full, aren’t you? Full of sadness.” I could tell she wanted to hug me, but she didn’t. She probably thought I would be embarrassed.
I closed my eyes for a second, and wished the principal and I were alone. Wished I could tell her why I had been so sad for so long.
My Mom left me, I would tell her. She . . . died. She fell.
Of course I didn’t say anything out loud. I never talked about Mom. I couldn’t tell the principal about it. I didn’t want anyone to know what I’d done.
My secret. My shame.
I felt a scream building up inside, a scream that would tear me apart when it came out.
She died and left me alone. No one to love me, if they knew my secret. Of course, no one in the world could love me now. Could they?
After they learned I killed her.
I opened my eyes, my heart pounding like I’d won a race. The principal was standing up, staring at me curiously.
“Lorelei? You closed your eyes for a minute there. Are you tired?” She shook her finger at Ms. Morrigan, pretending to scold her. “Alva, you’re working the kids too hard. Remember, you have all year. Don’t exhaust them in the first week.” She paused. “And take care of yourself, too. You’re too pale. Make sure you eat something.”
“I’m just tired,” Ms. Morrigan said.
Tired, I thought. I was tired, too. I blinked, my eyes thick and heavy. I felt like I’d fallen asleep. Had I? How embarrassing!
Ms. Morrigan’s shoulders shook, as if she were holding back laughter. Like she knew a secret joke. Was everyone in on it? I took in the tables around me. The waiters had cleared the plates, and the kids were talking to each other. No one else had noticed me nodding off in the middle of lunch. Or so I hoped.
Principal Trapp smiled at Ms. Morrigan. “They’re all full, I think. Time for class. Not for naps.” She shook her finger at me this time.
“Principal Trapp?” I asked, uncertain. “Did I say something about my . . . ?” But she was already walking through the doors. Ms. Morrigan clapped her hands for the wait staff, and in minutes every plate was cleared.
We all went back to class, in noisy groups—we were allowed to talk as much as we wanted in the hallways at Splendid. No one else seemed to notice anything strange had happened at lunch or said anything at all about the food, except to complain that they wished the teacher had let them eat another helping. Nobody seemed to notice how much they’d already had.
Except for this: In class, after our second official snack time (taffy, which I rubbed spit on and stuck to the underside of my desk, even though my stomach was roaring for more), three of the kids had to unbutton their jeans to breathe.
I would tell Dad about the food that night, I decided. See what he thought.
CHAPTER SEVEN:
FORGETTING
When I got home, I knew there was something I was supposed to do, something I wanted to tell Dad, but I couldn’t remember what. I had the same feeling at my last voice recital, when I’d stood up to sing and completely forgotten the words to the song I’d practiced for six months.
My mind spun in circles all afternoon. I could remember my classes and playing on the playground. But there was something else, something that hadn’t been right. Something Dad would help me with. My head hurt when I tried to think about it, though, and it was time for dinner. So I washed up and decided to stop trying. I could figure it out tomorrow.
“How was school?” Molly ladled mashed potatoes and carrots onto my plate while I watched. I could smell fried chicken in the kitchen. It was my favorite meal—or it would have been if it were homemade; I’d seen Molly stuffing the fast food containers into the trash can right before Dad got home—but for some reason tonight I couldn’t stand the odor of it.
“Fine,” I said, trying not to breathe in.
“Just fine?” Dad came in, carrying the chicken, and set a drumstick on my plate. “It’s supposed to be the most advanced academic, high-tech wonder school—the only one of its kind—and all you can say is ‘fine’?” He laughed and Molly kissed him as he walked past her. “Kids,” he said, as if Molly knew anything about children. She’d never had any, and I’d heard her telling a friend on the phone she was glad she only had to be a mother to two of the darn things. Except she used a different word than darn.
Bryan wasn’t having any problem eating, and he answered the question with his mouth full of mashed potatoes. “It was awesome! We had computer lab and played football at PE time. And my teacher, Ms. Morrigan, is the coolest.”
“What about your teacher, Lorelei?” Dad asked.
“That’s weird,” I said. “My teacher is named Ms. Morrigan, too.”
“Huh,” Dad shrugged, not particularly interested. “What’re the odds of that?” He turned to me and scooped a forkful of carrots up to his mouth. One bitten piece fell off and landed on the purple tablecloth. I stared at it, a small orange crescent on the dark purple fabric, and felt my heart race like I was being chased by something huge, and I knew I couldn’t run fast enough to escape.
“Lorelei? Did you make any new friends?” Dad looked annoyed. He probably thought I was being rude, just staring at the tablecloth. I guessed I was.
“Yeah. I met a kid named Andrew. And Allison’s in my class.”
He turned away, satisfied, before I even finished speaking. That was all he needed, just one little thing, and I was off the hook. He had a mental checklist: Come home from work? Check. Eat dinner? Check. Get Lorelei to tell about her day? Check. With me out of the way, he started talking to Bryan about football. Molly bustled around the table, fussing with the side plates and refilling Dad’s, on her feet so much you would think she was allergic to chairs.
After dinner, Dad and Molly went to watch TV, leaving Bryan and me to clear up. “Hey, Bry,” I said casually, “what do you really think about school?”
“What would I think?” He snapped a dish towel toward me and missed. “It’s great. Now get in here and clean the counters, would you? I’ve got video games that need me.”
Video games that needed him? I almost laughed. He was worried about video games, and I was worried about . . . what was I worried about?
“Hey,” I said as he was closing the dishwasher, “how about a game of hide and seek?”
“What?” He looked up, surprised. We hadn’t played that in years. But when we were younger, it was practically all we would do together. From the time I could talk, I would shout, “Count to a hundred” and run off, and Bryan would look for me for as long as it took. By the time I was six, I knew every hiding place in the neighborhood, but so did he.
“You want to play hide and seek?” he repeated and shook his head. “Sure, whatever.”
It was almost a yes! “Count to a hundred,” I yelled back, and ran out the door. I hid in the first place I found, behind the trash can. I knew he’d find me in less than a minute, but it didn’t matter. I wanted to be found.
I stayed out there for a half hour, slapping at the mosquitoes that flew over to keep me company. It got darker and darker, and no one came calling. Dad and Molly probably didn’t even know I was outside.
Bryan?
He had video games that needed him.
He wasn’t looking for me. Nobody was.
It’s all I deserve, I told myself.
I got up, knees stiff, and wandered back inside to my bedroom.
I couldn’t remember falling asleep. But the next morning, I woke up
with a wet pillow, and a sick, twisting hunger that felt like teeth chewing at my insides.
CHAPTER EIGHT:
ONE MOUTHFUL OF MYSTERY
Today, we will begin our study of Greek mythology,” Ms. Morrigan said the next morning. One of the boys on the other side of the room raised his hand.
“Ms. Morrigan?”
It was Neil Ogden, this really mean kid from my neighborhood. I’d known him for a long time—he’d thrown rocks at me three years before, when I was selling Girl Scout cookies. Then he’d turned over our trash cans when I told my dad. Neil asked Ms. Morrigan a question with a really rude tone of voice, but his words were garbled. He swallowed a mouthful of candy and went on. “I think mythology’s boring. Is everything in this school going to be boring?”
Ms. Morrigan smiled. “Neil, if you aren’t interested in today’s topic, you can go to the library or the computer lab to entertain yourself until our morning recess. We’ll be doing Candy Math again after that.”
“I can leave?” Neil looked surprised. “I can just go?”
Ms. Morrigan nodded. “Of course. Next time, you needn’t ask. Just excuse yourself. You’ll find that children are the most important thing at Splendid. Not the lessons. The children themselves.” She looked around. “Would anyone else like to go at this time? It would be best not to interrupt those students who are interested in our Greek mythology unit.”
No surprise what happened then. Out of our class of fourteen kids, only seven stayed. Allison left with her new friends, all of them carrying their golden candy bowls in one hand and their cell phones in the other. None of the kids sitting nearby stayed, except for Andrew. I tried to get his attention, but he had his eyes shut. He was sweating, too, even though the room was cold. I knew why.
Ever since breakfast ended, I had been trying to avoid the candy dish. Today mine was filled with Skittles, because of my fictional lactose intolerance. I hated Skittles—they were so grainy, it felt like chewing sugar dirt—so it shouldn’t have been a problem to keep from eating them. Plus, I had eaten at least four pieces of toast and three eggs at breakfast before the plates had been cleared. I had no reason to feel so hungry, but I had to sit on my hands to keep from stuffing my face with candy. The only reason I didn’t get up and leave the classroom was that I didn’t know if I could keep from eating if I didn’t sit on my hands.
The concentration it took to ignore the golden bowl made it hard to stay in tune with what Ms. Morrigan was saying. When I finally wrenched my thoughts away from the candy, she was in the middle of her lecture, and most of the class was opening their books. “And so, each of you will be given the chance to choose from any of the figures in Greek mythology that interest you. Choose a favorite, if you have one. Or choose a minor figure, and write an additional myth to go along with the original. It’s up to you. Be creative.”
“Ma’am?” It was Andrew; he had his hand raised, but when the teacher frowned, he remembered and took it down. “Ms. Morrigan,” he said, “can we work in pairs?”
“I suppose,” she said. “You can assist each other. But I would prefer if each of you chose a different mythological character to research.”
Andrew waved me over. I scooted my desk across the white tile floor. “Can we work together?” he asked.
“I don’t write very well. It takes me a long time, and it’s usually all jumbled up,” I said after a few seconds. “I can’t even read my own handwriting most of the time. Nobody ever wants to partner with me.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “Nobody ever partners with me. But that’s because I’m fat.”
“That stinks,” I said.
Andrew looked at me like I was a puzzle he couldn’t solve.
“What?”
“How come you can’t write well?” he asked.
“Because I’m dumb,” I whispered back, and opened my book.
“No, you’re not,” he said. “You’re the first one to get the math answers. And you can draw. I saw your sketch in art class. It was as good as a picture you would buy somewhere.”
I blushed a little. I had drawn a unicorn, but I didn’t know anyone had seen. My unicorns were pretty good, I guessed. Lots of practice and all. “It’s just doodles.”
“Whatever you say,” he said, smiling. “I can’t draw. My best subjects are science and lunch. So this year my mom sent me to science summer camp and fat camp. She’s supportive that way.” His T-shirt today was a blue one that said Nuclear Physics Is the Bomb. He patted his stomach right under the picture of a mushroom cloud.
I laughed, thinking how cool it was he could make fun of his own situation.
“So, why do you think you’re dumb?”
I shrugged. “That’s what my brother tells me.”
“Sounds like a jerk.”
“He wasn’t always,” I said. “We used to get along great. But then—” I stopped. I didn’t want him to start looking at me the way kids always did when they found out your mom had died. They felt sorry for you, but they didn’t want to come any closer in case it was contagious. Like Mom Death was a virus. “Something bad happened.” My gut twisted, like I’d told a lie. Something bad had happened to Mom? More like someone bad.
Me.
“What?” he asked.
I didn’t have to answer. Ms. Morrigan walked past and we opened our books, pretending to look for a character to research. My book fell open to a page with a picture of a mother and daughter embracing. The daughter looked a little like me. “Persephone,” I murmured out loud. “Who’s Persephone?”
Ms. Morrigan kneeled down next to my desk. “That’s a wonderful choice, Lorelei. A very sad tale.”
I looked into her flashing eyes and listened as she read the page out loud. “Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of the hearth, was gathering narcissus buds on the hillside with her maidens. She was surpassingly fair, and thus attracted the attention of Hades, the God of the underworld, who decided to take her for his bride. He waited for the moment to present itself. At last, Persephone wandered too far from her maidens, and Hades tore through the underbelly of the earth, dragging her back down with him across the River Styx, and into the vault of the underworld itself.”
“He was the god of what again?” I asked.
“The dead,” Ms. Morrigan replied and went on. “When her mother realized what had happened, she left her temple, and wandered the countryside dressed in sackcloth, disguised as an old woman. Driven mad by grief, Demeter refused to bless the harvest, and the crops rotted in the fields. Winter came, and springtime was banished from the earth. The world cried out for food, but the grieving mother did not hear her stepchildren, desolate in the loss of her own dear daughter.”
“Demeter was goddess of the harvest?” I asked. “So, without her, there was no food.” My stomach growled, and I tried not to reach into the candy bowl.
Ms. Morrigan watched my fingers twitch, and smiled.
“Stubborn,” she murmured.
“Me?” I asked. Was she talking about me?
But she shook her head. “Stubborn Demeter.” She kept reading. “The other gods prevailed upon her to allow the springtime to come, lest all the earth perish. Hades agreed to let the kidnapped girl go back to her mother, but before she was allowed to return, she was to sit at the table in the feasting hall of the underworld. At dinner, Persephone ate six seeds of a pomegranate. When he saw this, Hades laughed, for she belonged to him. For each seed she took, she would spend one month each year with him in the underworld. The other half of the year she would return to her mother. And thus Demeter blesses the earth with spring and summer, and a good harvest, then mourns her daughter’s loss for the length of every deep, dark winter.”
“That’s so sad,” Andrew said. “To have to live in he—the underworld, I mean, for half the year?”
“
Sad for the god Hades as well, I should think,” Ms. Morrigan said, straightening up, “to live alone, waiting for his bride for six months of every year.”
“But she wasn’t his bride,” I said. “He kidnapped her. He tricked her into eating the seeds, when he knew what would happen if she did it. She didn’t want to be there; she didn’t love him. Why would anyone feel sorry for him?”
Ms. Morrigan turned away, but I heard her answer. “Why, indeed? I merely point out, there are many sides to these old stories. Many ways to look at them. Even the villain in a play can bleed, and weep.”
She walked quickly back to her desk and sat, thumbing through some papers. She rested her forehead on one hand, hiding her face from view.
Andrew wiggled his eyebrows at me when he was sure she wasn’t looking. “Okay, that was officially weird,” he said. “I guess Ms. Morrigan’s got issues with mythology.”
I laughed softly. “Yeah. Well, one good thing: We don’t have to read it now. But writing a new myth isn’t going to be easy. Heck, sometimes writing the heading on my paper gives me a brain cramp.”
“So do you know why you really have trouble writing?” Andrew asked. I looked up, checking to make sure he wasn’t making fun of me. He wasn’t; he just seemed interested.
“Yeah. I think I’m dysgraphic.”
“What’s that?”
“Kind of like dyslexic, except I can read fine. I just have trouble with the writing part of things.” A lot of trouble.
“Oh. You only think you have it? Haven’t you been tested or something?”
“No,” I said. “My dad keeps saying we’ll get around to it. I think he’s hoping I’ll grow out of it.” I shrugged. “I do the best I can, and I keep my head down. Usually, the teachers give me Cs. Except in music and art. I get As in those. I was in choir at Russell Elementary. I wish we had music here. It’s my best thing.”
“You sing?” Andrew looked excited. “I love music. I’ve played the piano for six years. I’m really good, I can even compose.” He blushed. “I guess that sounded sort of conceited.”
