Little Panic

by Amanda Stern

  Anarchy

  When Eddie gets kicked out of high school and the attention gets shifted back to him from Holly, something occurs to me. If I got in trouble at school, then I’d have stuff to tell Taylor. If I got suspended or kicked out, I’d be a real troublemaker who couldn’t be tamed, and he’d love that. He’d stop trying to get me to admit to things about my family that aren’t true, and he’d focus on my own brokenness. So I stop wearing my uniform to school, and I start using the elevator even though I’m not a teacher or a senior. The first time I showed up in combat boots, black jeans, and Eddie’s Bauhaus T-shirt, I got sent home to change, but when I didn’t return, they just let me get away with it, kind of the same way they let me get away with dropping History class (which was way too hard for me) and put me in AP Art.

  I spend most of my time in the art room now.

  “Wow, you like Bauhaus?” Basi asks when she sees me in the shirt.

  “Yeah, I love Bauhaus,” I say, surprised she’s heard of the band.

  “I have some Paul Klee over here. Come look,” she says, pulling out a big art book. “Let me find my favorite.”

  She turns the pages, stopping on a light blue and pink painting with drawings of stick figures. “He used such innovative techniques, very ahead of his time.”

  “Wow,” I say. “Cool.” I don’t understand what this has to do with the band Bauhaus, but I want to pretend I am the person she thinks I am. After all, I have the weird ability to identify the work I’ve never seen before of artists working in expressionism and cubism. She keeps turning the pages and describing the techniques of terribly named artists I’ve never heard of before, like Gropius and Muche. Basi calls me all the names I’m not: precocious, ahead of my time, a wunderkind. I would give anything for just one of those words to be true. When her class comes in, I linger with Mr. Indresano, who also compliments me on my outfit.

  “How have you not been sent home yet?” he asks.

  “Voehl sent me home the other day, and I didn’t come back, so now they’re making an exception.”

  He laughs. “Only you could get away with something like this.”

  He looks around me toward Basi in the back and then motions to my shirt. “Don’t tell her it’s a band. She’ll be destroyed,” he says.

  “Scout’s honor,” I say.

  “So, uh…I’ve been seeing a lot of graffiti around the Village lately,” he says, glazing a vase before tossing it into the kiln. “One of them is a big circle with a large A spray-painted in the middle. Yours?”

  I flush with pride that he thinks I’m tough enough, and brave enough, to be a graffiti artist in the East Village. “Yeah, that one’s mine,” I say. “It’s an A for Amanda.”

  He laughs. “You’re such a funny kid,” he says.

  I laugh, too, even though I don’t understand why it’s funny. When the bell rings, I go back downstairs and immediately head to the library, where I discover Bauhaus is also an artistic movement. Now, whenever any of the other students ask me what Bauhaus is, I scoff. It’s a punk band, and also an artistic movement. They’ve never heard of Paul Klee or Grobus or Mush? Wow, where’ve they been?

  On my way to Mr. Zunkel’s I run onto Emily S., the smartest girl in the class, and I ask her if an A with a circle around it means something.

  “Does it look like this?” She takes my notebook and draws a capital letter A and then a circle around it.

  It looks familiar, so I say yes.

  “It stands for ‘anarchy,’” she says. “The circle is an O, and it stands for ‘order.’”

  “Oh, anarchy. Order. I didn’t know that.”

  “Yep. Now you do.”

  I scurry to the library to look up “anarchy.”

  -noun

  1. A state or society without government or law.

  2. Political and social disorder due to the absence of governmental control.

  Whatever that means, it definitely does not mean Amanda. I’m pulsed by shots of mortification, but then the bell rings and I sprint to class, where Amelia leans over and says, “Let’s do something crazy.”

  “Crazy how?” I ask.

  “Like, this class is so fucking boring. Let’s take off our socks and pass them around, and try not to get caught—something, anything.”

  “Anarchy,” I say.

  “I guess so,” Amelia says, not knowing the word. This is my moment to get in trouble, I realize. Out of nowhere, an image appears in my head of bras flying from person to person during class.

  “I got it! Take your bra off during class and pass it to me, okay?” She smiles and nods. We write Emily S. a note with the directive and pass it to her.

  Class begins, boring as usual, until Amelia starts fumbling under her shirt, dropping her hands each time Mr. Zunkel turns to face us. When she frees the bra, she pulls it through one sleeve, handing it to Sofia. Emily S. is taking longer, but soon I have two bras in my possession, and I tie them together. My plan is to play catch with the bras during class. Each time Mr. Zunkel turns around, someone will throw the knotted bras to someone else, like the game of Hot Potato. I start the game off by throwing the bras to Amelia, who catches them. There are a few gasps and a couple of titters. Mr. Zunkel turns around.

  “May I help you?” he asks.

  We blink at him innocently; we’re good, thanks. He looks over his shoulder at his backside to see if perhaps there’s something clinging. As soon as he begins writing, Amelia throws the bras to Emily S., who throws them to Natasha up front, but Emily S. is too exuberant, and the bra-ball sails past Natasha and lands on Mr. Zunkel’s shoulder. His head cocked, he side-eyes the dangling bras.

  “Whose, may I ask, are these?” He holds up the tangle of bras, and everyone goes absurdly silent, except for me. I can’t control myself. I fall off my stool and onto the floor in a puddle of hysteria. I’m laughing so hard, I don’t even see Mrs. Toro, the school’s “benevolent dictator,” before she grabs the side of my head and leads me out of class, ear first. It is surprisingly painful.

  I’m told to wait in Mrs. Voehl’s office. A few minutes later, Amelia and Emily S. join me. While Mrs. Toro goes to find Mrs. Voehl, the three of us giggle out our nerves, uncertain of our punishment. Amelia looks sheepish, whereas Emily is trying to project confidence. I know they don’t want to get kicked out, but I do. Although now it’s just occurring to me that if I get kicked out, no other school might accept me. I hadn’t thought of that. Knowing my mom, she’ll pull some strings and get me in somewhere decent, but still, nerves begin to lower themselves toward me from the ceiling. Why am I so stupid? I consider the consequences only after I’ve done the action. If I get expelled, I’ll have to tell my dad, and after Eddie I’m not sure he will actually let me live.

  “A bra? A bra?” We hear Mrs. Voehl’s voice down the hall. She walks into her office. She sits across from us.

  “Two bras,” I say, correcting her. Then, instantly scared: “Sorry.”

  “Let me guess whose idea this was,” she says, her eyes locked on mine. I shrug, but I am filled with pride. The more attention I get for being a troublemaker, the less anxious I feel, and there is nothing I want more than to feel less anxious. I start confessing.

  “They didn’t have anything to do with it. I made them. But it was an accident that it landed on Mr. Zunkel.”

  “Is that true, girls?” Emily and Amelia nod. “So you were the mastermind?” Mrs. Voehl asks me.

  I like being associated with that term. “Yes. I was the mastermind.”

  “All right then. Here’s what we’re going to do. Emily S. and Amelia, you are suspended for the rest of the day. You may return tomorrow. I will call both your mothers and tell them.”

  Amelia starts crying.

  “But you, Amanda, are suspended starting now through Friday,” Mrs. Voehl continues.

  “But final exams are next week. I’ll miss review week.” This has just occurred to me—if I’m only suspended but not expelled, I still have exams, and
I can’t fail those. Now I’m worried.

  “Not my problem,” she says. “In addition, you’re in charge of informing your parents of your suspension,” she says.

  “What? Why? That’s so not fair!” I say. “I can’t do that.”

  “You will come to school for the remainder of this week, but you’ll spend it in the basement, doing in-school suspension. You may not take any of your textbooks. You must sit there by yourself alone for the next four days. Am I clear?”

  I am furious and miserable, but I nod.

  “Okay, please collect your stuff and leave the building immediately. I’ll see the two of you tomorrow; and Amanda, see to it that you sign in tomorrow morning by 8:40 a.m.”

  Emily and Amelia feel really bad for me. Emily especially, since she’s the one who overshot the throw.

  “It’s okay.” It isn’t, though. The only thing I didn’t want to happen—getting expelled for being an idiot—is what’s going to happen now that I can’t review for exams. I’m terrified. I’m also terrified to be trapped in a basement by myself. The two sides of myself keep crashing into each other and I don’t know what to do. Just when I feel practiced at being confident and tough, which keeps my fear at bay, something happens to override the fake me and pull the real me to the surface. How do I get rid of that me? How do I get rid of this fear?

  When I get home and tell my mom, I’m expecting a full-out war, but she laughs and thinks it’s funny. When I explain that it’s in-school suspension and I’ll be stuck in a basement, she calls the school and tries to fix it, but even she can’t do that. The best she can offer is securing me a tutor to make up for missing review week. I reverberate all night, unable to sleep, terrified of the basement I’m going to have to sit in all week. Will it be like a dungeon, the place I used to imagine Etan Patz shivering in? Will they lock me in there and forget about me? What if I never see my mom again, or the rest of my family? How will anyone know where I am?

  As I make my way toward the basement, I feel like I’m walking to my last execution, but I am surprised to discover the basement has offices in it, with people working. It’s carpeted, lights are on, and it’s not an industrial warehouse with racks of bloody meat. Still, as soon as the door closes on the room I’m in, I feel isolated and afraid. There’s a small vent in the wall but no window. I sit at the desk and begin to worry about final exams, none of which I can study for, and all of which I’ll fail, even with a tutor.

  Some days Mr. Indresano sneaks me lunch, but he’s not allowed to open the door. He can only talk to me from the other side, and I can collect the tray only once he’s gone. If anyone is caught talking to me or looking at me, they’ll get suspended, too. I don’t know what they’d do to a teacher. Just like last year, I’m ignored. Except my only consolation is that this time it’s for being a rebel, not an outcast.

  Emily S. calls me the first night and tells me they had an assembly about the bra incident, and Mrs. Toro held up the tied-together bras to show the students. It didn’t go over as planned because everyone laughed. I’m not supposed to know this, but Mr. Indresano told me I’m a celebrity. I can’t wait to tell Eddie. And I can’t wait to tell Taylor that I’m officially bad news.

  * * *

  I never get expelled, and I get through eighth grade by the skin of my teeth. Despite the tutors, after-school labs, and study help, my highest grade is a D+. It doesn’t matter who tries to help me, or how many tests doctors give me, even my very best isn’t enough. Even when I study twice as long as everyone else, I still don’t understand, and I still fail the tests. In order to really learn something, I need to experience it, to live through it, but all we do is study textbooks. My tutors don’t help much because they’re distractible, and I keep them talking about things other than school, like movies and actors and plays we like. That’s why I’ve stopped studying. I’m just not the kind of smart that counts.

  “I hate Whittaker. It’s too hard! Why did you make me go here?” I write to my mom.

  “You wanted to go! You wanted to wear a uniform.”

  “That’s not a very good reason,” I write back.

  “You wanted to go there.”

  “I was twelve, I didn’t know anything! Why did you let me go here when it’s too hard for me???”

  “You wanted to be with Kara. You said that’s what you wanted.”

  “Well, she’s not even here anymore!”

  “Do you want to switch schools?”

  “YES!”

  Everyone keeps using the same words as my school textbooks to describe the things I don’t understand, as though the solution is to have different people try saying the same things to me. Why can’t anyone just use their own words and speak in my language instead of theirs? Why does sitting in a chair all day listening and taking notes work for everyone except me? Why can’t anyone explain things using stories, or take me out into the world where there are objects I can see and feel? I’m the slowest out of everyone, and I’m the oldest. I’m older and dumber, older and littler. Day after day, everyone around me gets smarter. How will I get through life? I worry about what happens when my friends start catching on.

  There are other things pushing at me from inside, trying to get me to think about them, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to think about how I’m going into ninth grade, and even though I’ve perfected my tough exterior, I still get homesick, still sometimes sleep on the couch in my mom’s room, still get countdowns; and even though I now occasionally sleep away from home, it’s torturous. Even though my mom and I fight, and communicate best through notes, I still can’t be away from her without short-circuiting. I am one person in the world and another at home; but inside my body, between those two selves, is a crack in the floorboards, and that’s where my I is stuck. If only someone could take a knife and flick me out.

  The day after eighth grade ends is Taylor and Gwen’s summer party at Gwen’s family’s house in Connecticut. In the morning, I put my bathing suit on under Eddie’s Bauhaus T-shirt and his army green cut-offs, so I don’t have to reveal myself to the other girls when we’re changing. I’m wearing a one-piece from Capezio; it’s dark gray and ribbed, with a high neckline. It’s the most Amish bathing suit I could find, and because I’m terrified it’s still too revealing, I plan on swimming with a T-shirt on. I don’t want to show Taylor my private body—I don’t want to show anyone—and I don’t want him to think I’m wearing a bathing suit because I know he wants to see me in one. In my least sexy, most boyish outfit, I lace up my boots and take the subway to Grand Central Station, worried I won’t be able to find Paul, Claire, Graham, Keith, or Cole at the information booth. Embarrassingly, I actually can’t find the booth until I follow a group of tourists, but no one has arrived yet when I get there. I pick a spot and wait, but then I’m nervous that they’re on the other side of the booth. I walk around it in circles and then ask the lady behind the counter if this is the information booth. She says yes, but maybe she’s wrong.

  Just as I get nervous that they’ve all left without me, I hear a whoop and see brown curls flying. Paul is skipping toward me.

  “We forgot to buy tickets,” he calls halfway across the atrium.

  “Oh shit!” All the blood in my body drops to my feet. “I forgot my money.”

  He reaches me. “I got yours.”

  “Thank you! I’ll pay you back.”

  “Nah, I’ll tell Gwen and she’ll give me the money. I get her to buy me stuff all the time,” he says.

  “For real?”

  “Yeah. They live for that shit. They’re like people who want to be parents but have no kids, so we let them take care of us.”

  “Oh,” I say. “I had no idea.”

  “Stick with me, Stern. I’ll show you the ropes,” he says. I am caught up in a fantasy where he holds my hand as we race together to the train, but instead he says, “You can grab seats if you want. I have to wait for Claire.”

  Claire. Why is the worst person on earth dating the best?


  “No, I’ll wait with you,” I say. When Claire finally arrives, the train is about to leave without us so we have to sprint. By the time I slide into my window seat, we’re all breathless. Out the window is just tunnel-wall blackness, and the car is freezing from an overcompensating air conditioner, and that bus-before-camp feeling suddenly slides into my body and stays. I’d been so glad to be with Paul I’d forgotten about my nerves. The doors shut and I can barely breathe: I don’t know where I’m going, how long I’ll be away, or how I’m getting home. My lips grow dry, and, abruptly nauseated by panic, I shut my eyes and pretend to sleep.

  I feel a kick against my shin. “Already?” Paul teases.

  “Didn’t sleep last night,” I lie. I refuse to open my eyes.

  “Oooohhhh, Amanda had a big night!” Cole yells. “Did you have sexy time?”

  I force a mysterious, dismissive smile and manage to get them to leave me alone. I need to keep my eyes closed, so that I can’t see anyone and I can pretend that no one can see me. Eventually, the rest fall asleep, too. By the time we arrive, I’m doing a better job of seeming to be easygoing. Taylor’s waiting at the station, and we load into the car and watch the landscape roll past. Everyone sighs and coos at the beauty of the countryside, but to me, any new, unfamiliar smell just reminds me of leaving home. I wish I could enjoy these things like everyone else, but I don’t know if I’ll ever separate the smell of fall leaves, burning wood, or anything that means “away,” from my long-ingrained feelings of terror and sorrow.

  Taylor and Gwen’s place is enormous. There are two houses on the property. One for the family and the other to change for the pool. The other acting kids, who arrived on an earlier train, are already swimming and splashing around. We drop our stuff and follow Gwen to the pool house, where we can change. It’s cold and smells like cheap coconut sunscreen, mildew, and oversoaked skin. As we’re taking off our clothes, I catch Claire staring at me in the full-length mirror. I’m immediately nervous.