by Susan Patron
“You little—” Ollie held her down, ramming a knee in her back. But suddenly it stopped. Ollie was off her, there was shouting, and she sucked in air, trembling uncontrollably, not sure, as she got on all fours, if her muscles would allow her to stand. Her knuckles burned as if they had skidded on concrete; her legs shook as she swayed on her hands and knees. She felt like throwing up.
And then many things were happening at once. It was hard to pay attention, hard to focus, because Lucky was filled with a powerful urge, if only she could get to her feet, to go roaring after Ollie Martin and pound him, pummel him with her fists. But she was scared, too, because she knew now how strong he was. And seething hot anger spurted through her veins because he was so wrong about her mother, but—and this made her more infuriated—right about her father.
And finally she was sitting on the wall, spitting out dirt, and Sandi the bus driver’s voice was nearby, with the static of her two-way radio. Sandi was saying, “Ambulance at the Sierra City Elementary bus stop. A kid is hurt.”
Then Lucky felt a rich gladness wash through her: It was okay. She was apparently injured but would live, and Ollie Martin would get in deep, deep trouble for hurting her.
But when she checked herself, Lucky found out she was not the one who had been hurt, except for her feelings and her pride. It was Lincoln, propped against the wall, his face white and filled with pain, cradling his right arm to his chest.
“Get back, Miles. Move away!” Sandi shouted. “I need a clear path here.”
Lucky watched as Miles picked something up off the ground, scooted out of the way, and came to sit on the gravel between her and Lincoln.
“I don’t get why that boy hates us so much,” he said, frowning up at Lucky. “But you shouldn’t have socked him. You’ll probably have to go to hell for that.” He swiped the back of an arm across his eyes and glared at her.
“No, she won’t,” Lincoln said, his voice strained.
Lucky was still a little breathless, as if she’d almost drowned. “Oh, Miles,” she said. “It’ll be okay.”
As the ambulance pulled up, she glanced down at Miles. Arms wrapped around legs, forehead on knees, and his lips, Lucky could see, silently moving. And clenched in one fist she saw what he had been carefully gathering up from the ground: a handful of Juicy Fruit gum wrappers. She reached over and cupped her hand underneath his; he relaxed his fingers, letting the papers fall into her palm. “What’s up with this, Miles?” she asked.
“I wanted to spur that boy Ollie on, and you, too, Lucky.”
“Spur us on?”
“It was really scary, you don’t know how scared I was, and when he knocked you down on the ground before Lincoln came I just wanted to beat him up, but I was too scared. All I could think of was how Justine says if we’re mad or scared we should do a good deed to ‘spur one another on toward love.’ But I don’t know if picking up his trash was a good enough deed. I don’t know if it worked.”
Lucky looked at the crumpled wrappers in her hand and then over at Ollie, slumped against a tree with a hand to his jaw. His skateboard had been confiscated by Sandi. Without it, his limbs seemed useless and limp, as if the skateboard was an engine his body couldn’t run without.
She squeezed the wrappers hard, into a tight little ball, but she was not spurred on toward love and there were no good deeds in her angry heart.
10. the principal’s office
Ms. Baum-Izzart was not wearing her usual cheerful-but-businesslike look. She frowned over a form on her desk, a form, Lucky guessed, that detailed yesterday’s fight at the bus stop. A framed photo of a smiling, curly-haired man holding a tiny bald newborn baby was propped on the desk, facing those who waited for the principal. It was a little weird to think of Ms. Baum-Izzart as a mom, a person with a domestic life she went home to every day, changing diapers and laughing with her curly-haired husband and making coffee. Lucky felt cheered for a moment at the thought of her having a whole private non-principal life of her own as a regular human being.
It is not comfortable or easy to sit in a principal’s office, waiting for a verdict. Lincoln appeared calm and relaxed, his sprained wrist encased in a splinted black brace with Velcro closures. Lucky knew she was in trouble, and it made her squirm in her own wooden chair. Occasionally she sneaked sideways looks at the boy she had punched, the eighth grader Ollie Martin.
Lincoln was the only one not in trouble. He had arrived at the bus stop just when Ollie twisted her arm, shoved her down, and pinned her to the ground by thrusting his knee in her back. Lincoln had thrown his skinny, muscular arm around Ollie’s neck from behind, pressing hard against his throat. That forced Ollie, stocky and fifteen pounds heavier, to jump off of Lucky in order to send Lincoln flying backward. Lincoln sprained his wrist when he landed and was told by the X-ray technician he was fortunate the bones hadn’t fractured.
Lucky hoped and fully expected that Ollie Martin would get the brunt of the punishment, whatever it turned out to be. She still seethed at his nasty insults to Brigitte and hoped he’d be kicked out of school and sent to a military academy where he would have to wear a uniform and say “sir” to everyone and eat bad food and sleep on a metal cot. Brigitte and Ollie Martin’s mom and Lincoln’s parents had already come to the school for a meeting, but Brigitte would only say they all agreed to let Ms. Baum-Izzart and the junior high principal decide each of their fates.
When a tall, thin-haired man tapped on the open door, Ms. Baum-Izzart got up, shook his hand, and offered him the remaining chair. She introduced everyone briskly: He was Dr. Strictmund, the principal from Einstein Junior High. It was not the type of social situation where you’re supposed to smile and say how glad you are to meet the person, so Lucky and Lincoln both just said hi, and Ollie Martin leaned forward in his chair, avoiding eye contact. Dr. Strictmund did not seem as if he would have a baby or a wife or even an interesting hobby. He looked like his one true identity was principalness, and it ruled every moment of his life. Lucky was sure that he drove his car like a principal and heated frozen spinach in the microwave like a principal and fluffed his pillow like a principal. He even smelled like a principal, starchy with a whiff of Pine-Sol.
“Okay,” Ms. Baum-Izzart began. “First, all of you need to know that fighting of any kind is completely unacceptable. There is never a reason to fight, especially on the school grounds. I am very, very disappointed in you.”
“I didn’t plan to,” Lucky blurted. “I couldn’t help it. He was telling lies. He said my mother—” She broke off, unable to repeat the insult.
“He said Brigitte poisoned us,” Lincoln finished, in a matter-of-fact way.
Ollie slid down in his chair, snorting. “You’re all against me,” he said. “It’s four against one. Why don’t you just suspend me and get it over with?”
“Ollie, sit up and stop that behavior,” Dr. Strictmund ordered. “Throughout this session I’ll be monitoring your nonverbal communication and the way you comport yourself. You are not running this meeting. I want to see if you are mature enough to discuss the incident now or if you would rather do litter collection every day for a week and then have the meeting.” Dr. Strictmund’s eyes, the beaming laserlike eyes of a principal, bore into Ollie Martin. Lucky glanced at Lincoln, thrilled: Ollie Martin was really going to get it. Lincoln raised his eyebrows minutely: code for wait and see.
Ollie overcorrected his posture in a false, super-obedient way, as if he were following Dr. Strictmund’s instructions, but Lucky knew that he did it sarcastically. She dreaded the time not far off, when she would be surrounded by boys in that age group.
“Moving on,” Ms. Baum-Izzart said. “Lucky, you hit Ollie first. That was a choice and a decision you made. You need to take responsibility for that, and realize that you could and should have walked away or ignored him.”
“Besides,” Ollie Martin said, “it’s a free country. I just said what everyone already knows, that they’re running an illegal business and the county
’s shutting them down. When foreigners come here, they have to follow the rules like everyone else.”
Lucky blazed with indignation but kept her mouth shut, because Dr. Strictmund beat her to it. “This is your last warning, Ollie,” he barked. “What goes on among adults, and Mrs. Trimble’s establishment, is none of your business.”
What happened next surprised everyone, even Lucky. Maybe it was because he’d called Brigitte’s Hard Pan Café “Mrs. Trimble’s establishment,” which made it sound sort of shady, like it was something bad. But Lincoln looked at Dr. Strictmund and said, “Sorry, sir, but I disagree.”
“Lincoln,” Ms. Baum-Izzart said, “our understanding is that you broke up the fight and got a badly sprained wrist when Ollie shoved you off. Are you changing your story?”
Everyone waited for Lincoln’s answer. Ollie Martin, whose body, Lucky thought, seemed too big for him to live in easily, leaned forward, elbows on knees, forehead on the heels of his hands, as if he were staring at the floor, but actually he peered sideways at Lincoln.
“What’s going on with Brigitte’s Hard Pan Café concerns everybody,” Lincoln said, “not just the adults. It’s true that there are a lot of rumors, and people jump to conclusions. Lucky was trying to set the record straight. Kids are as affected by this as much as adults, maybe more.”
How did Lincoln always know what to say, and how to say the right thing at exactly the right time? Even though he was kind of letting Ollie Martin off the hook, he was also standing up to Dr. Strictmund and defending Lucky.
“Point taken,” Dr. Strictmund said unexpectedly. He nodded in a certain principal-like way at Ms. Baum-Izzart.
“But,” Ms. Baum-Izzart said, “we still have the issue of fighting. Lucky and Ollie, I’m waiting to hear whether or not you both take responsibility and will find ways never involving physical violence to resolve differences.”
“Otherwise,” Dr. Strictmund put in, “you’ll both be suspended on the spot.”
“But doesn’t he”—Lucky jerked her chin at Ollie Martin—“get some kind of punishment?”
Lincoln moved the worn toe of his Converse back and forth, a little sweeping motion that made Lucky realize, as Ms. Baum-Izzart’s puckered eyebrows also signaled, that she had put her foot in her mouth.
“Um,” she went on in a rush, “and I promise not to hit boys twice my size even when they bad-mouth my mother.” Lucky saw a tiny smile flit onto her principal’s face, then quickly disappear.
Dr. Strictmund nodded again. He turned his laser-beam eyes on Ollie Martin, who made a show of sitting up straight in his chair again. “Right,” Ollie said. “She almost broke my jaw. But next time it happens I’ll just stand there and let myself get hit. Okay?”
“I’m not really hearing a resolution here,” Ms. Baum-Izzart said. “Obviously, everyone needs to work harder at finding acceptable ways to resolve conflicts. I want some positive thinking from you.” She turned to Ollie. “Dr. Strictmund and I were especially disturbed by the aspect of prejudice in your taunting of Lucky’s family,” she said. “This is a country of immigrants. Do you know anything about your own heritage?”
For the first time Ollie lifted his eyes, which had astonishingly long lashes. He looked back at Ms. Baum-Izzart defiantly. “Yeah, we’re white. So what?”
“Change that tone, Ollie,” said Dr. Strictmund, “or this will get much worse.”
Ollie muttered, “I don’t see what my race has to do with anything.”
“Dr. Strictmund and I think it would be a good learning experience for you to find out more about your own background. Lincoln’s mother, Mrs. Kennedy, works at the Sierra City Library, and she has agreed to help you do some genealogical research. We want you to make a family tree. Start with your parents’ generation. List their full names and where they were born. That’s the easy part.”
Ms. Baum-Izzart went on, “Then do the same with both sets of their parents, your grandparents. And we want you to go back another generation before that: names and places of birth of your great-grandparents. Mrs. Kennedy believes you’ll be able to fill in some of your family background through online sources, and she’ll guide you with the research.
“Lucky, your assignment is different. You need to think more about consequences—how your actions and your decisions affect other people as well as yourself,” Ms. Baum-Izzart said. Lucky frowned. This was not sounding good.
“Please think about what I just said. Then write a thousand-word report on the subject of actions and their consequences. Start with an outline and include your thoughts on—”
Lucky disliked written reports more than any other type of homework. The biggest problem was how boring they were. The boredom secretions from writing a long report, she believed, could actually harm every lobe of the brain—especially a tender young developing brain like hers. Principals did not always realize the health ramifications of the torture of writing one thousand words, especially on a topic such as consequences, which was seriously boring before you even got started. Instead of letting her principal continue to describe this extreme punishment, Lucky interrupted, “Wait, that’s not fair! If he has to make a family tree, then I should have to make a family tree.”
There was a silence. The two principals exchanged a glance. Lucky noticed this and then suddenly realized what it was about. She stood up.
“Ms. Baum-Izzart,” she said slowly, “is it because I’m adopted? Is that why you don’t think I can make a family tree?”
Another look between the principals confirmed Lucky’s suspicion, but Ms. Baum-Izzart said, “Lucky, please sit down. It’s not that we don’t think you can make one. It’s rather a situation where we assumed a family chart might be more relevant to you when you’re older. Remember, Ollie is in the eighth grade; you’re in sixth. Whereas the essay would be a way for you to focus on—”
To her horror, Lucky felt tears prickling behind her eyeballs. She sat down and tilted her head back slightly to keep them, if possible, from spilling over. A mental image came to her of Miles’s T. rex Tree of Life chart, which was kind of like a family tree except it showed millions of years instead of several generations. This thought made her feel calmer.
“Could I just say something?” Lucky asked. Miraculously, the tears slid back down inside her head. “My biological family is not extinct. They are my bloodline.” A new idea, a way of explaining, came to her in a rush. “It’s like my dog,” she said. “She has a dog father and a dog mother, dog grandparents and great-grandparents, even though she doesn’t know them. They’re her bloodline. And she has an adopted family, which is me and Brigitte. Well, and Lincoln, and also Miles. And of course Short Sammy and Roy. And really Dot, too, and the Captain—”
Lucky sensed she was losing the thread. “Anyway . . .” She looked at Ms. Baum-Izzart, whom she had known since the age of five, and at Dr. Strictmund, a stranger. Both were tapping the eraser ends of their pencils, as if eraser-tapping were taught in Principal School as a technique of getting students to stay focused. “Anyway,” she said again, “one positive consequence of my socking Ollie in the jaw would be finding out about my other family, my biological family.” Finding out about my father, she thought, and had to tilt her head back again for a second. “It seems only fair—”
Dr. Strictmund cleared his throat loudly. He looked at Ms. Baum-Izzart. She nodded. They both quit tapping their erasers and put their pencils down. Monitoring this nonverbal communication and the way they comported themselves (probably more techniques they got from Principal School), Lucky was impressed. “Okay,” Ms. Baum-Izzart said. “We see your point. I just need to be sure: Are you certain you want to do this research, Lucky?”
“Hey, how come you let her decide?” Ollie demanded. “If she gets to do a family tree, I should get to do an essay.”
“Hold on, here. This is getting out of hand,” Dr. Strictmund said.
“You like writing essays?” Lucky asked, turning to Ollie.
“Yes, way out of
hand,” Ms. Baum-Izzart agreed. “No more interrupting for any reason.” (But Lucky stayed facing Ollie and big-eyed him as a way of saying, Really? And he eye-rolled her back as a way of saying, Anything is better than a dorky family tree.) Ignoring them, since at least they weren’t verbally interrupting, Ms. Baum-Izzart continued. “All right. The assignment is to do a family tree. It will be a way for both of you”—she turned her gaze from Lucky to Ollie and back to Lucky—“to discover an aspect of who you are. It will give you something to think about besides hurting each other. Do you both understand?”
Ollie breathed out through his mouth noisily and cracked the knuckles of his left hand. He said, “Yeah, fine.” Lucky figured he’d gotten off easy, whereas she had a ton of work to do, since she practically didn’t know anything about her biological ancestors. A tinge of regret about what she’d gotten herself into began to seep throughout all her brain lobes.
Now she worried that she ought to have begged for a different punishment, like community service. She would much rather have done that, helping Short Sammy clear litter from his adopted highway, the two of them out in the forest of Joshua trees, the giant tortured-looking ancient ones with their dried-out twisted branches, the younger ones with fewer limbs, the green pups and babies growing like thick straight spiky-headed sticks. Then she realized the two principals’ pencils were eraser-tapping again, and she felt the slightest nudge to the side of her foot, but Lincoln was gazing at Ms. Baum-Izzart’s photo as if he’d touched her just by chance.
So Lucky shrugged in a Brigitte-like way, to show it didn’t matter much to her anyway, and without thinking about it she repeated Ollie’s exact words. “Yeah, fine,” she said, and only then did the slight pressure cease, of Lincoln’s shoe against hers.
Dr. Strictmund said, “Ollie, Lucky,” and waited until they both looked at him. He held their eyes for a moment, the way principals do, and said, “You need to take this seriously. We want good work from you and we want it on our desks in a month. None of your other work is to fall behind.” And then, with the exact tone and expression of a principal, he said, “This meeting is over.”
