Goblin Fruit

by S. E. Burr

  “Okay,” she said, nodding.

  “I hope you haven't missed too much,” said Dad.

  “I'm probably okay,” she answered. “I was doing a homeschooling program while Andrew and I were touring, but now that that's over my mom thinks I should go back to a regular school."

  Dad just stared for a second in the blank way he does sometimes and then comprehension dawned, his face lighting up. “Oh right! You were in Benjamy. You all were getting a little famous I heard.

  “You heard of us here, in New Mexico?” she asked.

  “Well, no,” he admitted. “Your mother told us about it, but Clarity downloaded your album onto her iPod.”

  He turned and looked at me. “What’s that song you like called?”

  Oh, crap. I hesitated. I really didn’t want to answer that.

  “Let me guess,” Audrey said. “The single. ‘First of Many.’”

  I nodded. Talk about sad and ironic—giving a song that name and going catatonic soon afterward. But it was an awesome song.

  “Oh,” said Dad, sounding uncomfortable.

  Audrey kicked at the leaves scattered on the porch. “Don’t worry about it. I know it’s ironic. The band’s finished. Andrew wrote all the songs.”

  “You’re a good bass player,” I told her.

  Audrey shook her head. “No, I’m not. Andrew wrote the songs for easy bass parts. He only let me be in the band because I was…I am…his little sister.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” Dad said, chiming in. “I’ve heard it. You have talent.”

  “Doesn’t matter. That’s all over now.” She walked down the steps. On the walkway, she turned back. “I better go...”

  “Come and see me later,” Dad said. “We’ll talk about your brother.”

  “Alright,” she answered, and then walked away up the street.

  We got in the car with me in the driver’s seat. Putting on my seatbelt, I turned and gave Dad my best “Are you crazy?” look. “Why did you ever become a psychiatrist?” I asked.

  “I wanted to help people.”

  I rolled my eyes. “But didn’t you know you’d have to talk to them?”

  He chuckled. “I stuck my foot in my mouth there didn’t I?” He shook his head. “Honestly, I always preferred the research side of things.”

  “You’re lucky all your patients are zombies,” I told him. I started the car, and the song we were just talking about, “First of Many,” which I’d burned onto a CD, started up with it. It really was a great song. I bobbed my head to the beat as we drove away.

  4

  Third period English was my favorite class besides Art, which, due to some very annoying scheduling conflicts I wasn’t taking this semester. Part of the reason I liked it was the atmosphere. Mrs. Nelson always left the fluorescent lights off and the big windows uncovered, making the lighting a lot less depressing than in the rest of the school. The walls of the room were covered in creative art projects portraying Juliet on her balcony and Piggy from Lord of the Flies and a bunch of scenes from a bunch of other books, too. Also, Mrs. Nelson was less boring than the average teacher. Regardless, I wasn’t paying attention.

  I was thinking about Audrey. It was really sad how torn up she was about her brother. I was used to tragedy, a little numb to it maybe. All of the patients at the catatonia center were tragedies, my mother included. It sometimes sucked, badly, but I'd never known Mom any other way. What Audrey was going through was different. To be around someone every day, to talk and laugh with him, to think everything was fine, and then to have that person disappear, become one of the walking dead—it was awful.

  “Clarity…Clarity Harman…Earth to Clarity…” Ms. Nelson was staring at me, and, glancing around, I realized the rest of the class was too. Todd (thinks he’s God) Williams laughed sneeringly from the back row.

  “Clarity,” Mrs. Nelson said again, “What poem do you plan to interpret for your midterm assignment?”

  “Goblin Market1,” I answered right away, “by Christina Rosetti.”

  Mrs. Nelson stared at me for a second before nodding. “That’s an ambitious choice. ‘Goblin Market’ is a much longer, more complex poem than students in this class usually have chosen, but if you’re sure...”

  “I am,” I said, and I was. I hadn’t even considered another poem. “Goblin Market” was the only poem that mattered to me.

  “Okay,” Mrs. Nelson said and turned away. “Isaac Juarez, what about you?”

  “‘The Cat in the Hat’ by Theodor Geisel, ma’am.”

  The class laughed.

  “No Dr. Seuss, Isaac,” said Mrs. Nelson.

  The door opened, and Audrey walked through it. She looked nervous, and I gave her an encouraging smile as Mrs. Nelson introduced her as a new student. She smiled back and then, looking toward the back of the room, gave an even bigger smile and a small wave. I turned to see who she was looking at and got a sick feeling in my stomach when I saw Todd.

  Could Audrey be joining the ranks of the Todd worshipers already? He was the worst boy in the world to have a crush on—mean, shallow, and completely self-obsessed. Plus he was a major partier.

  When the bell rang about fifteen minutes later, I was glad Todd and his friends left quickly, not giving Audrey a chance at any more contact. I went over to the desk Mrs. Nelson had assigned her to at the side of the room. “Hey,” I said. “You're here.”

  She smiled and then rolled her eyes. “Yeah, took me all morning to get registered, but I'm here.”

  “Walk with me,” I said. “I'll show you the cafeteria.”

  The cafeteria was like generic school cafeterias everywhere. The floors were linoleum. The tables were those long, gray, institutional type with attached benches. Posters of food pyramids and talking fruits and vegetables decorated the walls. Along one side was the serving area worked assembly-line-style by a surly cafeteria lady and the students from whatever club wanted to earn some extra cash that week to buy soccer balls, or food for needy families, or halter tops for unfailingly slutty pep rally dance routines.

  As we got our lunch trays, I scanned the room. My friends weren’t there, again. Lately, the term “friends” had become pretty questionable. I knew where they were—getting high behind the equipment shed. They’d tried to get me to come a couple of times, but yeah, that wasn’t happening. I mean, come on, I lived in a fruit-induced catatonia center. I wasn’t interested in drugs, and the fact that my former best friend, Jamie, was dating Todd’s best friend, Pete, a freaking drug dealer, didn’t change that. Quite the opposite. He was an idiot. They were all idiots. So what if he didn’t sell fruit? So what if the pills they took were legal with a prescription? That didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. Anyway, I was glad Todd wasn’t there because I thought I should try to keep Audrey as far away from him as possible. I led her toward the end of a table at the side of the room.

  As Audrey sat down, her iPod fell out of her pocket and tumbled to the floor. She picked it up and set it on the table next to her tray. She was wearing fingerless bicycle-style gloves, which I liked. They were a lot like mine. Gloves were part of the school's dress code, but it was dumb. Okay, so don't go holding hands with strangers; that was common sense, but people were way too paranoid about casual contact. I had lived with catatonia patients, people whose sweat, especially on their palms, had been shown to continue to excrete the drug years after last use, and nothing had ever happened to me.

  “What do you listen to?” I asked her, nodding toward the iPod.

  “Oh a bunch of different stuff,” she said, “Mostly bands that people have never heard of or else bands that are kind of old.”

  “Like what?”

  “I have a lot of Nada Surf on there. I've always loved them.”

  I laughed. That was clever. “‘Always Love’ is seriously one of the best songs ever,” I said.

  “Really?” said Audrey. “Cool.”

  I asked her if I could see her iPod and she nodded, taking a bite of h
er food.

  Scrolling through the songs, I raised my eyebrows. “Annie Neilly?”

  “Some of her stuff is cool,” Audrey said. Then she laughed, “Or not really. I was going through a phase, alright?”

  “Alright…” I said, in a way that let her know I didn’t really believe her, but also that I didn’t really care, and that I thought the whole thing was hilarious. At least I hope that’s how I said it, but it didn’t matter because then I noticed something that floored me. “You have The Mountain Goats on here.”

  Audrey nodded, swallowing.

  I was amazed. “I thought I was the only person in this entire city who had ever heard of them.”

  “Yeah,” said Audrey, “They're an acquired taste in a lot of ways, but the lyrics are amazing.”

  “Yeah, like half the time, I have no idea what he’s talking about,” I said. “He’s referencing obscure literature or something, but that just makes it even cooler, and the songs can be really dark, but in a funny way. You feel like you should be all depressed or something, but laughing at the same time.”

  “Like the way life is sometimes.” She paused. “And sometimes it's just depressing.”

  I nodded. I was speechless. She had The Mountain Goats on her iPod. I had burned a CD of some of their songs and listened to it so much that Jamie had burned it literally (as in with a cigarette lighter.)

  We ate in silence for a minute while I digested this bizarre-o coincidence, and then I said something about the next band on her playlist, and we spent the rest of the lunch period talking about music. When I looked at my phone and realized the bell was about to ring for fourth period, I groaned. Geometry was all the way across the school. “I better get to class,” I said. “Any more tardies and the school will call my dad.”

  “I’ll walk with you,” Audrey said. “If you want.” She sounded kind of shy.

  I smiled at her reassuringly. “Sure.”

  As we walked across the cafeteria, I saw Todd, back from the equipment shed, moving toward me. Pete was next to him, and, holding Pete's (gloved) hand with one hand and clutching his arm with the other, was Jamie. Todd's friends and my old friends followed in a big group. “Cafeteria food is rank,” Pete was saying.

  Todd ignored him, and stopped in front of me, blocking my way.

  He said in a loud voice, “Hey Clarity, I didn’t know you were such an animal lover.”

  I glared at him. He was such an idiot, always hassling me. “What?”

  He looked at Audrey. “Is it adopt an elephant day or something?”

  She gasped and said Todd's name quietly, sounding completely shocked and devastated.

  I glowered at him and then turned my glare to Jamie when I heard her laugh. She never used to be so mean.

  She glared back at me. "I don't know, Todd," she said. "Maybe Audrey adopted her. That frizzy hair makes more sense on a poodle than a person, and only some kind of color blind creature would wear those clothes."

  And then, without ever deciding to do it, and to my own amazement, I threw my lunch tray at Jamie. My aim was terrible. I hit Todd instead, splattering peach juice and gravy all over his jacket.

  He made an angry grunt and took a step toward me.

  I backed up, and he came after me, but then stopped, stunned as another tray of food hit him in the chest.

  Audrey had thrown her tray too.

  "You whale," he said, and grabbing a fistful of spaghetti off the tray of some random student at a table nearby, hurled it at her.

  Then I rushed toward him about to...I had no idea...get in the first fight of my life, and with a boy.

  Before I reached him, though, a loud whistle blew. Everyone looked up to see Mr. Sanchez, the assistant principal, coming toward us and bellowing things like, “What’s going on here?” and “Don’t even think about it!”

  At the same time, I noticed Mrs. Nelson standing nearby looking stern, but amused at the same time.

  Mr. Sanchez marched Audrey, Todd, and me to his office. Mrs. Nelson came too, walking behind us the whole way.

  Once there, he sat us in a row in front of his desk and told us he was going to go call our parents, not to say a word while he was gone, and that our eyes better be on our feet. I thought he was kind of overdoing the whole tough guy, disciplinarian thing.

  While he was gone, Mrs. Nelson just stood there, staring down at us—not very far down; she was about 5 foot 2, but she could still be pretty intimidating. She looked incredibly stern, and I wondered if I'd just imagined her amused look in the cafeteria.

  When Mr. Sanchez came back, he told us that Audrey's and Todd's mothers and my father were on their way.

  "You called my mom?" said Todd.

  "Yes, I did,” said Mr. Sanchez, his tone exasperated. “I tried your father's work, but his secretary said that he couldn't be disturbed."

  Todd started to protest, but Mr. Sanchez barked “I don’t want to hear it.”

  Todd backed down and looked sullenly at his feet. I decided I kind of liked Mr. Sanchez's tough act when it was directed at Todd.

  Our parents got there really quick. I was surprised to see who Todd’s mom was, absolutely amazed actually. It was Maria, the new nurse at the catatonia center! I hadn't known Todd was half Hispanic, and I certainly had never expected that he could be descended from someone as nice as Maria. The decency gene must have skipped a generation.

  Maria and Audrey’s mom hugged as soon as they saw each other. I knew they were old friends, which made me wonder about Todd and Audrey. How well did they know each other? I'd thought they just met today.

  "Dr. Harman," Maria said, greeting my dad.

  "Maria," he said. "What a surprise." He smiled reassuringly at her, and then looked at Audrey's mom, and said “Mrs. Ortiz, good to see you.”

  Mrs. Ortiz had light brown hair and blue eyes. She was a large woman, obese even, and she had some health problems. She used crutches to help her get around, the kind for walking, not the underarm kind people hop around on. She had a kind face and many laugh lines, but you could see strain there too. She was a woman who had known great joy and great sorrow. “And you, Dr. Harman. This is quite an assemblage isn't it?”

  “Yes indeed,” said Dad, and then looked at me, a question in his eyes.

  I grimaced. This was majorly awkward.

  Mr. Sanchez asked them to sit, and when everyone except Mrs. Nelson was seated and rather cramped in the not-huge office, he said, “Your children very nearly started a brawl in the cafeteria at lunch today.”

  I thought that was an exaggeration, but it certainly had the impact he was going for—shock. Our parents each sent startled looks at us, and we each just avoided their gazes.

  Mr. Sanchez went on. "Now we need to get to the bottom of this.” He looked around at us all and then his gaze settled on Audrey. "Why don’t you start?”

  Audrey cleared her throat and swallowed, looked at her feet, and then looked up, but I could tell she wanted to melt into her chair.

  “It wasn't her fault,” I said. “It was between Todd and me. He and...his friends were harassing Audrey and me, and I lost it. I threw my tray at him."

  "I see," said Mr. Sanchez. "What did Todd do to you?"

  Todd groaned. “Nothing.”

  I glared at him. “He’s constantly hassling me,” I said. “But today…he said something about Audrey.”

  "Oh?" said Mr. Sanchez.

  I looked at Audrey. She was staring at her shoes.

  Mr. Sanchez made an impatient noise in his throat. "What did he say?"

  I didn't answer. Todd and Audrey were both staring at the floor, but whereas Audrey looked embarrassed, Todd just looked sullen, like a spoiled little kid.

  "Audrey?" said Mr. Sanchez.

  She looked up. "He was making fun of my weight."

  "Ay!" said Maria, and we all looked at her. She was glaring at her son. "Is this true?”

  He grunted. “I guess so, but I was just kidding. Clarity turned it into a big deal.”
/>
  I opened my mouth, about to let him have it, but Maria beat me to it.

  “Be a man!” she said. “Are you a gentleman or are you a beast?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Sanchez said, joining in, “That's hardly the way to welcome a new student, young man.”

  Todd shook his head but didn't respond.

  I heard Audrey’s mom whisper “Are you alright?” to her, but she just shrugged.

  "Hmm," said Mr. Sanchez, pushing himself back from the desk and looking around at us. “So what are we going to do about this?"

  "Punish him," said Maria, "but DO NOT suspend him. He will just get in more trouble."

  Mrs. Nelson spoke up for the first time, from where she stood by the wall. “May I make a suggestion?” she asked.

  Mr. Sanchez nodded.

  "These three are all in my third period English class. I think that Todd needs some time with Audrey and Clarity to learn how to interact with them without being a bully, and I think Clarity and Audrey need to practice dealing with Todd without resorting to violence." She looked at us. "I suggest that you three spend the next two weeks of lunch periods in my room. I’d like you, Clarity, to coordinate the painting of a mural on one of my walls. You can research some literary theme together, and turn it into a mural. I'll want some kind of a sign that tells about the author whose work you depict."

  Mr. Sanchez cleared his throat. "Well, that's an interesting idea, Mrs. Nelson. Of course, they'd need to be supervised. Are you volunteering?”

  “I suppose so,” she said.

  The assistant principal nodded. “Alright, that sounds like a good idea to me.” He glowered at us. “If it isn't agreeable to any of you, I'm sure we could come up with something more severe.”

  I smiled at Mrs. Nelson and mouthed “thank you.” This was sure a lot better than being suspended or going to ISS, even if I had to put up with Todd.

  Todd sighed and said "Just suspend me,” but his mother said something cutting to him in Spanish. I didn’t know what it was, but I could tell by Mr. Sanchez’s face that he was impressed by it. I half expected him to pull out a notepad and take some notes for improving his tough guy act.