Dead Silence

by Norah McClintock

  “I told him I wasn’t interested,” I said, so that maybe he’d lose that sharp look on his face. “And I’m not. What did the school tell him?”

  “Nothing,” Riel said. “It’s against school policy to give out information about students.”

  “I thought he was going to follow me home or something,” I said. “He really wanted to talk to me.”

  “At least he can’t find you through the phone book. If he bothers you again, let me know, Mike.”

  The only phone in the house was listed under Riel’s name.

  I ate some breakfast and then went to school.

  I stood outside, and I looked at the faces of all the kids who were standing around out there, waiting for the bell to ring. When I went inside, I looked at the faces of all the kids who were rushing for their lockers. I looked at the faces of all the kids who were hurrying to their homerooms and then who were out in the hall again a few minutes later, hurrying to their first class of the day. I looked at the faces of all the kids in my first class. And my second class and my third. The only thing that made it even the least bit bearable was Rebecca. She was in a couple of my classes, so at least when I looked at her, I knew for sure that she’d had nothing to do with it and, because she hadn’t been anywhere nearby, that she hadn’t been one of those people who had just stood and watched while everything was happening. But that didn’t stop my hands from clenching and my stomach from churning when I looked at all the other people—kids and teachers—who were going through the day like it was any other day, like nothing had happened, like nothing—or no one—was missing. It didn’t stop me from wanting to scream at them or grab them and shake them and tell them—yell at them—that this wasn’t a day like any other day and that someone was missing. Someone important. To me, anyway.

  Lunchtime.

  Rebecca couldn’t go to the cafeteria with me. She had a meeting for her exchange trip.

  “I’m sorry, Mike,” she said. She’d been apologizing for days now. She apologized when she couldn’t walk to school with me. She apologized when she had to meet with some other kids for her biology assignment. She said, “I feel like I shouldn’t even be thinking about school. And then I tell myself, I bet Sal wouldn’t want everyone to mess up their grades on account of him. Don’t you think, Mike?”

  I bet she was right, but school was the last thing I cared about. Whether Sal would have wanted it or not, I was definitely messing up my grades. I told her it was okay, that she should go and not worry about it anymore. I didn’t tell her that I wasn’t sure what I was going to do without her. I didn’t want her to feel bad.

  “Are you working tonight?” she said.

  “Six to nine,” I said.

  She looked disappointed. “It’s my last night in town for a whole week. I was hoping we could spend it together.”

  “We can do something after work,” I said. “I’ll come over to your place.”

  “Okay,” she said. She kissed me on the cheek and then hurried off to her class meeting.

  I went where I usually went at lunchtime, the cafeteria, even though I wasn’t hungry. I bought a carton of chocolate milk and looked around to see if there was anyone I wanted to sit with. There wasn’t. I spotted a small, empty table at the back of the room. I was heading for it when I realized that I’d have to squeeze by Teddy and his friends to get there. I glanced at Teddy. He was sitting at one end of the table, like he was the father, with all his friends around the long sides like they were his happy little family. He looked right at me. He didn’t smirk the way he usually did. Instead, he looked—I don’t know—he looked serious, I guess. Just for a second, I thought he was going to say something to me. That was enough to make me change my mind and turn around, which is what I was doing when somebody slammed into me, somebody who was in a hurry to get somewhere.

  Alex.

  I recognized the look on his face. I had seen it a couple of times at the store. He was worked up about some-thing—so worked up that he didn’t even seem to realize that he’d slammed into me.

  “Hey!” someone howled—a girl at another table who got elbowed in the head when Alex pushed past her, too. Alex didn’t stop, he didn’t apologize, he didn’t even seem to notice her. He bulldozed his way to Teddy’s table, grabbed Bailey by the arm, and wrenched him around. Annie, who was sitting next to Bailey, was so startled that she let out a yelp. Everyone turned to see what was going on.

  “You lied to me,” Alex said.

  “What the—” Bailey began. Alex still had Bailey by the arm, and he dragged him up and backward. He was a beefy guy, and either he was stronger than Bailey or he’d caught Bailey by surprise. Either way, Bailey was slow to react. His chair started to topple over. “What’s the matter with you, Alex?” Bailey said. His chair crashed to the floor. The only reason Bailey didn’t crash with it was that Alex still had him by the arm and was jerking him up.

  “You lied to me. You said you would never let people make fun of me. But you were right there when they did, and you didn’t say anything. Staci told me.”

  “Let go of me,” Bailey said. Now that he was on his feet, he looked bigger than Alex. Taller, too. It seemed like it should have been easy for him to break free. But Alex held on tight.

  “You lied to me.”

  I glanced at Teddy, who had a puzzled look on his face as he watched what was going on. Matt and Steven stood up. Each one of them grabbed one of Alex’s arms to pull him off Bailey. Alex didn’t like that. He kicked and struggled. One kick caught Matt right where it hurt the most. Matt’s face turned crimson. He retaliated by punching Alex.

  “Stop it,” Bailey yelled at him. He shoved Matt away from Alex. “Leave him alone.”

  Matt was hunched over now because of the pain, but when he looked up at Bailey, I could see that he wanted to punch him, too, for defending Alex.

  “Go on,” Bailey said to Alex, shoving him, too. “Get out of here before you get everyone in trouble.”

  Alex glowered at him. “You lied to me.”

  “Get out of here, Alex,” Bailey said.

  They locked eyes for a few seconds. Then Alex ducked his head. He turned and pushed his way out of the cafeteria, his eyes down the whole time. Everyone watched him go. I glanced at Bailey. He had a sour look on his face, but he didn’t say anything. He sat down again, and Annie laid a hand over top of his.

  “Stupid retard,” Steven said.

  Bailey glowered at him. “Why don’t you shut up?” he said.

  “Jeez, what’s eating you?” Steven said.

  Annie squeezed Bailey’s hand. The way she looked at him when she did it told me that squeeze meant something and that she was trying to calm him down. It also told me that she knew what was going on, even if no one else did. Bailey sat there stone-faced for a few seconds. Then he raised his head and said to Matt and Steven, “You touch him again, and you’ll be sorry.”

  Steven started to laugh. He thought Bailey was kidding.

  “Any of you,” Bailey said. “Leave him alone.”

  “Hey, what’s your problem?” Matt said.

  “He’s my cousin,” Bailey said. He spat the words at them, but I couldn’t tell if he was mad at them for what they had done or mad at what he was telling them. “He’s my cousin, okay?” He got up so fast that he knocked his chair over. He bent down, grabbed it, and slammed it onto its feet. Then he stalked away from the table. Annie grabbed her bag and hurried after him.

  The rest of them stared after him in stunned silence.

  Finally Teddy said, “Jeez, why didn’t he just say so?”

  I was at my locker right after school, getting my homework stuff together, when someone behind me said, “Hey, McGill.”

  It was Teddy. I turned slowly and stared at him.

  “Are you talking to me?” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. For once he wasn’t smirking. He had the same look on his face that I’d noticed down in the cafeteria. “Look, about your friend Sal—”

&nb
sp; I started to seethe inside. I didn’t want to hear him talk about Sal.

  “I was pissed at him, okay? I admit it.”

  But he kept talking. I wanted to lunge at him. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to hurt him.

  “Seeing Staci with him, it really got to me,” he said.

  I wanted to smash his face in.

  “Being dumped …” He shook his head. “That really messed me up, you know?”

  But what good would it do? I forced myself to think about Sal and what he would do. He wouldn’t smash Teddy—or anyone else—in the face. No way. He would count to ten, and then he would walk away.

  I stared at Teddy for a moment and then turned back to my locker. I wanted him to go away, but I didn’t hear footsteps, so I knew he was still standing behind me.

  “Look, I’m really sorry about what happened,” he said. “I know what you think, but I had nothing to do with it.”

  I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I could feel myself going cold all over. If he didn’t leave me alone—

  “The cops believe me, you know,” he said, still in a quiet voice. “There are five different guys who said they saw me out there the whole time and that I never left the sidewalk.”

  Right. Five guys. Five guys who hung around with him all the time. Five friends. Talk about credible witnesses.

  “It wasn’t me,” he said. “It wasn’t any of us.”

  I wanted him to leave. But he wouldn’t. He just kept standing there, talking to me.

  “I know how you feel,” he said.

  Boy, that was the last thing he should have said to me. I turned around to face him.

  “You’re probably wishing you hadn’t blown him off that day,” he said. “Maybe you think it would have made a difference if you hadn’t.”

  It was hard to keep calm. “What are you talking about?” I said.

  “I took a look at that note you stuck on his locker.”

  “You what?”

  “After I saw what you did—”

  “What I did?”

  “I saw what was in your locker, McGill. I heard you lie to your girlfriend. It made me wonder, you know? So when you went and stuck that note on Sal’s locker, I was curious. So I read it.”

  He never finished what he was saying because I dropped the books I had in my hands and I shoved him back into the bank of lockers on the opposite side of the hall. I slammed him so hard that I must have knocked the wind out of him, because he had a dazed look on his face and his knees buckled. That didn’t stop me. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to hurt him bad for what he had just said. When he started to come off the lockers, I shoved him again, harder this time. This time some kids who were at the far end of the hall turned to look.

  “Hey, I just—” Teddy started to say.

  I punched him as hard as I could in the stomach. He didn’t fight back, and that made me even angrier. I wanted him to fight. I wanted to get into it with him. I wanted to feel something besides all the stuff that was whirling around inside me. I wanted him to come right back at me and make me feel something—anything. But he didn’t.

  I pulled back my fist to hit him again, to see if I could make him at least try to defend himself. But a couple of guys ran down the hall. They weren’t even Teddy’s friends, but they helped him to his feet. Then one of the guys, a senior, I think, stepped between Teddy and me to keep me from hitting him again. The next thing I knew, Ms. Rather appeared. She looked at Teddy and then at me. She asked Teddy if he was okay, and he said he was, even though he looked kind of pale and shaken up. She looked at him for a few more moments. Then she said, “To the office. Both of you. Now.”

  I marched down to the office. Teddy must have been moving a lot more slowly because he didn’t show up until after I had been sitting on the bench opposite the counter for at least a minute. He sat down beside me but left a big space between us. His face was still pale as he glanced around. We were the only students in the office. There were two secretaries, but they were both on the phone. Right after that Ms. Rather walked in. She came over to where we were sitting and looked at us. She zeroed in on me and said, “Which one of you is going to tell me what happened?”

  “It was my fault,” Teddy said. “I said something I shouldn’t have, and Mike reacted. I’m sorry.”

  Ms. Rather’s eyes shifted from me to Teddy. I held my breath and wondered exactly what Teddy was going to tell her.

  “I said something about his friend,” he said. “It was stupid, and I’m sorry. I mean, what if my best friend had just died? And what if some ass—What if someone said something stupid about the guy? I’d probably do exactly what Mike did.”

  “That wouldn’t make it right,” Ms. Rather said. “We expect students at this school to settle their differences without resorting to violence.”

  “I know,” Teddy said. “But people don’t always act the way they’re supposed to when they’re grieving, am I right?”

  I glanced at him. Why was he defending me like that?

  “Give Mike a break, Ms. Rather,” he said. “I promise I won’t shoot off my mouth anymore. That way, Mike won’t have any reason to get mad. What do you say?”

  Ms. Rather looked at Teddy. She looked at me. She said, “So you’re telling me that if I let you walk out of this office, you two will get along. No more fighting. Is that it?”

  “Yeah,” Teddy said.

  She looked at me. “Mike?”

  “No more fighting,” I mumbled.

  “Well, why don’t we put that to the test?” She leaned back in her chair. “Every time there’s a football game or a soccer game—including games played by people who use the playing field but who aren’t members of our school community—the spectators leave a big mess behind. You can hardly see the ground under the bleachers for all the candy bar wrappers and popcorn bags and plastic cups. With school budgets the way they are these days, we have fewer caretakers working fewer hours, which means that they can’t keep up with everything. No one has had the time to clean up under the bleachers. I was going to make an announcement about that and to ask for volunteers to pick up all the litter. I can see now that I don’t have to do that, do I?”

  Teddy caught on faster than me. He said, “No, ma’am. I’d be happy to take care of that for you.”

  Ms. Rather looked at me. When I didn’t say anything, Teddy added, “And I’m sure Mike would, too, isn’t that right, Mike?”

  “Why, thank you, Teddy,” Ms. Rather said. “Report to the caretaker’s office. I’ll call Mr. Wong and let him know you’re on your way. He’ll give you everything you need to get the job done.”

  Teddy stood up. So did I. We headed for the door.

  “Mike?” Ms. Rather said. I stopped and turned back to look at her. “The first time, Mr. Gianneris gave you a pass. I’m giving you one this time—I won’t even tell John—because I think I know where all this hostility is coming from. But it has to stop. This type of behavior won’t be tolerated, no matter what’s causing it. If you’re having problems dealing with what happened to Sal, I can refer you to someone. But it’s your responsibility to take the first step. This is the absolute last time that you’ll get a break from me or from any other staff member in this school. You get physical with another student for any reason whatsoever and you’ll be looking at a three-day suspension. Do you understand me?”

  Whatever.

  I went downstairs with Teddy, but not because I was afraid I would get suspended if I didn’t. I didn’t care. I didn’t go because I was afraid that Ms. Rather would tell Riel, either. I just went. Teddy was smart enough not to say anything to me. Mr. Wong, the head caretaker, was on the phone when we got to his office, but he hung up almost immediately and smiled at us.

  “I love volunteers,” he said.

  He showed us where we could get some coveralls and work gloves. Then he showed us where we could find a couple of gigantic plastic garbage cans on wheels, plus some rakes and a couple of poles with big metal spikes on th
e ends of them.

  “Those are to pick up litter,” he said, “not to wage mortal combat.”

  Teddy smiled. I didn’t.

  “You know the job,” Mr. Wong said. “I’ll be out in a minute. Ms. Rather wants me to keep an eye on you two.”

  Ms. Rather wasn’t kidding about the mess under the bleachers. Besides candy bar wrappers and drink cups, there were empty cigarette packages, burnt-up matches, empty chip bags, dirty tissues and paper napkins, bus and subway transfers, old newspapers, game lineups, and some other, more disgusting stuff.

  Teddy headed over to one end of the bleachers, so I immediately went to the other end. I know it was supposed to be punishment, but the truth was that I didn’t mind it. It felt good to stab and stab and STAB at garbage with those sharp metal spikes. I kept going until there was no more room left on the spike, and then I pushed all the stuff off into the plastic garbage can and started all over again. Bit by bit, the ground under the bleachers started to look good. Bit by bit, Teddy and I worked our way toward each other. The whole time I wondered what exactly he had seen and who he had told—and who he might tell.

  Finally, we were separated by only a couple of yards. He looked at me. He seemed tense, on edge, like maybe he thought I might hit him again. But Mr. Wong was at the side of the athletics field. He was watching us.

  “I won’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Teddy said, his voice quiet even though there was no one around to hear us. “When someone told me afterward that Sal was supposed to be on his way downtown to write his driver’s test, you know what I thought? I thought, I wish he’d just gone there. Maybe then things would be different.” He didn’t look like the same smirking Teddy now. He didn’t look like the guy who was always hassling Staci. “I guess you think the same thing, huh?”

  I felt my stomach clench.

  “Or if I hadn’t mouthed off at Staci again,” he said. “Then he wouldn’t have had to come and help her. She likes him, you know.”

  “They were just friends,” I said. I wasn’t sure why I was even talking to him. “Sal already had a girlfriend.”