What Mr. Mattero Did

by Priscilla Cummings

  On the already-crowded bus, I could see that Jenna was saving me a seat toward the back. It felt like everybody watched me as I turned sideways to squeeze myself down the aisle. They all knew it was us now. I didn’t like the attention. Why were they making such a big deal out of it anyway? I almost didn’t want to sit with Jenna because of what was happening, but she patted the spot beside her and scooted over, so I sat down.

  We didn’t talk to each other at first. Just waited until the bus was full and jerked forward. That’s when I leaned over toward her and said in her ear: “I didn’t know Mr. Mattero had a daughter at our school.”

  Jenna shook her head a little. “No, I didn’t either.”

  We hadn’t had time to talk about it earlier.

  I sighed because I felt bad for Melody Mattero. “Those kids that threw the food at her were mean.”

  “What?”

  You can’t hear a darn thing on that bus without yelling. “Those kids—they were mean!”

  “Yeah,” she agreed, but she was fiddling around with her new charm bracelet, and I couldn’t see her face, to see if she really meant it.

  She used both hands to pull her long hair back over her shoulders. The bus bounced down the highway. A wad of paper hit me on the back of my head. I turned around to see who threw it, and so many kids laughed you couldn’t tell.

  At the first stop, some of the worst kids in the back got off. I was glad.

  I readjusted the Kleenex on my thumb, which had stopped bleeding but still hurt.

  Jenna turned to me when the bus moved again. “So what?”

  “So what?” I repeated. Like what was she talking about?

  “Yeah. Like so what if Mr. Mattero has a daughter?”

  I just stared at her. Talk about a delayed reaction, I thought.

  Jenna started examining her fingernails, but she knew I was looking at her. Suddenly, she flashed me this icy look and arched her eyebrows. “Maybe he abuses her, too,” she said.

  Something inside of me tightened up then. Tightened right up into a hard knot. And as the bus rolled on, that knot got bigger and bigger. I started adding things up in my head: Suzanne was not in school. The police were doing an investigation. Mr. Mattero had a daughter.

  The next thing you know, Jenna had those silver earrings out of her earlobes and was handing them to me. “Here,” she offered. “I know how much you like them.”

  It was so random! I couldn’t believe it. I loved those earrings. “Are you sure? I mean, why?”

  Jenna smiled sweetly. “ ’Cause we’re best friends is why.”

  At the bus stop, after we got off, I asked her again, “Are you sure?”

  But she just pushed my hand away. “Totally. They’re yours.”

  I admired the shiny earrings in the palm of my hand. I thought it was really nice—and very generous—of Jenna to give those earrings to me.

  “Good luck with your mom,” I told her.

  “Oh, yeah.” She rolled her eyes. “Thanks.”

  Then we turned away from each other. Jenna went one way, and I went the other.

  At our house, Mom was outside, washing our van. She turned off the hose when she saw me.

  “Hi. How was school?”

  I swung the backpack off my shoulder. “Okay, I guess.”

  “Anybody say anything? About the situation?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Claire, are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m all right.” I kind of snapped the words at her because I didn’t feel like talking about it, and my mom is always trying to get stuff out of me. “I’m just hungry,” I told her, scrunching up my nose.

  “Well, you know what there is. Yogurt, cheese—apples, some new apples. When you go in, be quiet, okay? Both the kids are napping.”

  Inside, I dropped my backpack on the floor, went straight up to my room, and closed the door. My stomach was rattling because I’d only had the Luna bar for lunch. I fell on my bed, picked up my platypus, and lay it on my midriff to calm the noise.

  There was a ton of homework to do because I hadn’t done any the night before. Half a chapter to read in earth science, twenty problems in math, sentences to dissect in English, pages to read in lit, two pages in the Spanish workbook. But I didn’t feel like doing any of it. I was too scared.

  What I wanted to do, what I needed to do, was talk to Suzanne.

  First thing I did, though, I put a Band-Aid on my disgusting thumb. A SpongeBob Band-Aid. Can you believe it? They’re the only Band-Aids we had in the house. Then I checked myself out in the bathroom mirror and redid my hair, quickly making a new ponytail, snapping the barrettes back in. I popped some gum in my mouth and, just for the heck of it, put on my fake Oakley sunglasses—my Foakleys—that Suzanne’s older sister got for us cheap in New York City last fall when she went to look at a college.

  On my way out, my grandmother was walking in with my mother. My grandmother lives in the town next to us, but it’s only twenty minutes away so she stops by a lot. I didn’t mind. I love my grandmother.

  “Hi, Meemaw,” I greeted her.

  “Hello there, my darlin’,” she said, cupping my face in her cold, bony hands. She kissed me on one cheek, then the other. And then she stepped back and started shaking her head. “Carlena!” she cried out to my mother, who was washing her hands off in the kitchen sink. “Look at this child! Look at how thin she is! You have got to make her eat.”

  Mom nodded sadly; she always does. But we’re used to this kind of talk from Meemaw, and my mother does not have the energy to pursue it.

  “Claire, sweetie, you’re fading away,” Meemaw moaned.

  “I’m fine. I’m absolutely fine!” I assured her.

  “And what’s this I hear about your school? About some teacher?”

  I glanced at Mom. We had decided last night not to tell Meemaw what had happened to me. She was too old, we figured, and the way she got upset, we didn’t want to worry her.

  My mother picked up a towel to dry her hands and shook her head. “The school’s right on top of it, Mom. They won’t let that guy back in to teach.”

  “Well, that’s good,” Meemaw agreed. She folded her hands over her enormous stomach and scowled. “They need to put that man in jail.”

  I didn’t want to stick around anymore. “I’m goin’ over Suzanne’s,” I announced.

  When Mom took in a breath, like she was going to object, I added quickly, “Just for a minute, okay? Please. I need to see her, Mom. She wasn’t in school.”

  My mother let her breath out. “All right,” she agreed. “But be back before dinner.”

  I scooted out the door and took the sidewalk through my neighborhood to Suzanne’s house, which was three streets away.

  Of the three of us—Jenna, Suzanne, and me—Suzanne has the nicest house. It’s in the part of our development that is newest and has, like, the biggest and most expensive homes with two-car garages, big front hallways, and spotlights in the front yards that come on at night and light up the bushes. Suzanne and her older sister each have their own rooms and bathrooms, and in the basement, there’s a pool table and tons of exercise equipment. I was really jealous of Suzanne sometimes. At her house, every time you ate something, you could go down the basement and walk it off on the treadmill. At our house, even if we could afford it, we couldn’t have any of that equipment on account of the kids.

  When I rang the bell, I could hear the chimes inside. Suzanne came to the door right away and seemed glad to see me.

  “You weren’t in school,” I said.

  “No, my mom didn’t want me to go.” She looked over her shoulder, then whispered to me, “She’s lying down, resting. Do you want to walk over to the shopping center?”

  “Sure.” I nodded. “I don’t have any money though.”

  “Hold on, I’ll be right back.” Suzanne disappeared into her house for a minute. She returned, pulling a denim jacket on and holding a five-dollar bill in one hand.

  Softl
y, she closed the door to her house. We heard it latch. Then we fell in step and walked quickly down her front steps to another sidewalk on the street.

  “What happened today?” Suzanne wanted to know.

  I filled her in while we walked the two blocks to the playground, where there was a shortcut to the shopping center. I told her how everyone at school knew it was us who had told about Mr. Mattero. How Mr. Mattero wasn’t allowed in the building, so we had a sub in music. How we got some sort of notice from Mrs. Fernandez at the end of the day. And how, at lunch, I found out Mr. Mattero had a daughter at our school.

  Suzanne stopped and looked at me. “He does?”

  “Yeah, in the eighth grade.”

  She groaned, but she didn’t really say anything. What could you say?

  We walked on.

  At the playground, we saw a couple girls from our middle school sitting on the swings, talking, while they dragged their feet in the sand. They were sixth-graders, but we wanted to avoid them, so we hustled down the dirt path into a trashy ravine that took us over to the shopping center. It was a narrow path, with tall prickly bushes growing on either side so we had to go single file for a while and we didn’t talk. When we came out near the Dumpster behind the Food Mart, Suzanne said, “Boy, we’re really in it now, aren’t we?”

  Her expression matched my own. I knew we both felt bad and a little scared. “Yeah, we really are.” I squashed a paper cup on the ground with my heel.

  We walked on.

  “My mother went to the Catholic school today and tried to enroll me,” Suzanne said. “I begged her not to because I don’t want to go there. We’re not even Catholic! But my mom, she just wants me out of Oakdale. What am I going to do?”

  “I don’t know, Suzanne. But how can she send you there? I mean, will you have to wear one of those little kilts? You’ll look like a geek, Suzanne.”

  “Thanks a lot, Claire! That makes me feel a whole lot better, you know?”

  I was thinking of asking her if she would have to go to confession, too, only I could see Suzanne was depressed enough. And she was my friend—my oldest friend—after all. So I let up.

  “Just tell your mom you want to stay at Oakdale. Ask her to give the school a second chance,” I suggested. “Tell her it’ll all blow over.”

  We walked on through the parking lot in silence. In front of the Dunkin’ Donuts we stopped.

  “Oh, my God,” Suzanne said. She reached out and touched one of my silver earrings. “Where’d you get these?”

  I grinned shyly ’cause I didn’t want Suzanne to be jealous. “Jenna gave them to me.”

  Suzanne started smiling and put a hand over her mouth.

  The grin fell off my face. “What? What is it?”

  She brought her hand down. “I thought so. I was there when she got them.”

  “So?” I didn’t know what she was getting at.

  Suzanne widened her eyes. “Claire, Jenna stole those earrings from that kiosk thing at the mall. You know, the one with all the rhinestone barrettes and stuff.”

  “She did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, how was I supposed to know?”

  Suzanne shrugged. I’m sure we were thinking the same thing, how Jenna had tried to get us to shoplift some makeup about a month ago, but Suzanne and I were way too scared. Plus it was wrong. We wouldn’t do it. I kicked at a crack in the sidewalk. It felt a little embarrassing to be wearing something that somebody actually stole.

  “Look,” Suzanne said, “it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t steal them.”

  I looked up at her, and as I did I had a flashback to Jenna’s room and all the nice stuff she always had, like that shirt from Abercrombie & Fitch, and the new purse. Gifts from her mother, she was always telling us. But come to think of it, her mother hadn’t even been home the past few days! It gave me a stomachache thinking about this.

  “Really. Forget it, Claire. Look, I’m getting a doughnut. You want one?”

  I shook my head. “No. Just a Diet Pepsi, okay?”

  Suzanne went into the shop and bought two sodas and a glazed doughnut, and we sat on the bus stop bench in front of the Hair Cuttery. It didn’t even kill me to watch Suzanne eat that doughnut, I was so churned up inside. I examined the Band-Aid on my thumb. GO SPONGEBOB, it said. Patrick the Starfish was chasing a jellyfish, only you couldn’t see the jellyfish because of the way the Band-Aid wrapped around.

  “Cool,” Suzanne said, noticing. “I love SpongeBob—especially his pet snail.”

  “Gary? Yeah, me, too,” I said, smiling at her. “It kills me when he meows.”

  We started laughing, and lo and behold those kids from our middle school—the two girls on the swings—showed up across the way. I wondered if they had followed us from the playground.

  We watched them come closer until they stopped in front us.

  “Is it true?” one of them asked. “Are you guys the ones who reported on Mr. Mattero?”

  We sat up. Suzanne shot me a frightened look. Instantly, her face got as red as her hair. I thought it was pretty bold of them to come right out and ask us that. It kind of made me mad, too. “Yeah, it’s true!” I shot back. “Mr. Mattero did a bad thing.”

  For a second, I didn’t know what they’d do. I braced myself for those girls to start blubbering about how we messed up the band competition. But instead, one of them said, “Wow. You must have been, like, really scared.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t have known what to do!” the other agreed.

  I think both Suzanne and I were surprised at their reaction. And seeing the sympathy we were getting, I guess that’s what got Suzanne’s courage up. I was so amazed because usually she’s so shy and all.

  “We weren’t even doing anything,” Suzanne told them, “just helping him put away play costumes, and he came in and put his arms around us.”

  “Yeah—we pulled away!” I exclaimed.

  “I told him to stop!” Suzanne pointed out.

  “But he felt us up anyway!” I added.

  Both of those little sixth-graders sucked in their breath and looked like they were ready to pee their pants they were so shocked at what we said.

  Suzanne and I turned to each other. I don’t know if she was thinking the same thing as me, but I was, like, amazed at how much easier it was to talk about it now. Yeah. Like, This is what Mr. Mattero did! This is what happened to us on Monday afternoon in the band room at Oakdale Middle School.

  14

  Melody

  I BUMPED INTO A CHAIR as I rushed from the cafeteria, then sprinted down the hall. My cheeks burned I was so horrified—and so embarrassed! In the girls‘ room, I took one look in the mirror and clapped a hand over my mouth. Some of the string beans dripping with tomato sauce were still plastered in my hair, and one of the slimy vegetables had slid down the side of my face.

  Annie ran up beside me and gasped.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay.” I held up a hand and stopped her. “It’s not blood; it’s tomato sauce.”

  But Annie threw an arm around my shoulders anyway. She knew how much this had hurt. “Oh, my God, Mellie. They are so stupid—and so mean. I can’t believe it! Those idiots!”

  “Can you get me a paper towel?” I asked.

  While she did, I plucked the mess out of my hair and threw the beans into the wastebasket. When Annie handed me the dampened paper towel, I used it to wipe off my face and hair.

  Soon Jane, Noelle, and Liz stormed into the bathroom with the news that they had reported the incident to the teacher on lunch duty. Three boys, they said, had been taken to the office.

  It was the longest day I ever spent in school. My hair was still sticky and matted from the gooey tomato sauce, and everyone could see it. I don’t know how I got through two more classes and then homeroom, where we all received a special handout from the principal. I took one look and couldn’t read it all because it was about Dad. I pushed the letter inside my Spanish book, which I shoved inside my backpack w
hen the bell rang.

  I had to be alone to read that note.

  Annie waved to me over the crowd in the hall. “Call me tonight!”

  I think I nodded to her, I’m not sure. I walked quickly to my bus. Sitting up front, I stared out the window while the others clambered on. Hurry, hurry, hurry, I said to myself, curling my toes inside my shoes and tapping the tips of my feet on the floor as I willed the bus to move faster.

  Fortunately my bus stop was early. I was first off and walked fast. If my backpack didn’t weigh a ton I would’ve run up the sidewalk.

  I was glad when I didn’t see any cars in the driveway or on the street in front of our house. At the side door, I fished the key out of my backpack, let myself in, then locked the door and went directly upstairs to my room. There, I dropped the heavy backpack on my bed and pulled out the Spanish book, which held the note. I smoothed it out on my lap and read it:Dear Students, Parents, and Staff:

  I want to inform you of a serious incident within our school that has had terrible consequences for several of our students and their families, as well as a member of our staff.

  There will be a full investigation of this matter by the local police as well as by the school board. During that time—and afterward—I expect everyone in this school to respect the rights of each and every student here to attend classes and be a part of our school community without fear of verbal or physical harassment of any kind. Violators will be dealt with by me personally.

  Thank you for your attention to this matter.

  Mrs. Helena Fernandez, Principal

  I read the note a second time, then a third, then folded and hid it beneath the jewelry box on my dresser. A full investigation of this matter. It made my father sound like a criminal!

  Ashamed, uncertain—afraid of what it all meant, I wandered into the hall and sat on the stairs, pulling on my braid and thinking until Harmony rubbed up against me and nudged my arm to be petted. Beside me was a family picture, one of dozens that covered the wall the entire length of the stairs. I stared at the one closest, a picture of my father.