Girl on the Other Side

by Deborah Kerbel

  This year is turning out to be worse than ever. Maybe it’s because the piranhas are beginning to date the pit bulls.

  I remember reading that animals display their physical prowess to the opposite sex by attacking other, less dominant, animals. If that’s true, it would explain a lot of stuff going on at my school this year.

  Tabby Freeman walks in to class just ahead of me. She’s the head piranha — the one all the other girls look up to and copy. She isn’t the prettiest girl in school, but her family is the richest and most powerful in town and that matters a lot more than looks around here.

  I plop into my seat just as the second bell rings. Putting down her marker, Miss Wall turns around to face us. She catches my eye and her face crinkles into a wide smile. I smile back. Miss Wall is my favourite teacher this year. Maybe my favourite teacher ever. Plump and pleasant and gray-haired, she reminds me of a grandmother — not my own, of course. I never actually had a grandparent — all four of them died before I was born. Clearly our family’s DNA has serious flaws. But I guess that’s pretty obvious when you look at my mother. She was diagnosed with primary-progressive Multiple Sclerosis a few months after my baby brother Cody was born. Although at first the symptoms were mild, they got bad really fast. Mommy’s a different person now than she was four years ago — unsteady on her feet and exhausted and weak all the time. Sometimes weeks go by when she doesn’t get out of bed except to use the bathroom. Daddy tries to help, but he isn’t around very much. He’s a firefighter and works crazy shifts so when he’s home he ends up sleeping a lot, because his body clock is so turned around. Most of the time, I’m on my own taking care of the house, my baby brother and two little sisters, and the pets, of course. I try not to complain. Compared to what Mommy’s dealing with, my problems are pretty insignificant.

  “Today we’re about to embark on an adventure,” Miss Wall says, picking up a thin paperback book from her desk. “And I promise it will be an adventure you’ll never forget.”

  She holds up the book. It’s Romeo and Juliet. The class groans in unison. I’m not surprised. This is probably the first time any of them had ever been asked to read Shakespeare. I, of course, read the Bard’s complete works the summer I turned thirteen. And Romeo and Juliet is one of my favourites.

  Miss Wall walks around the class carrying an armful of books and a small plastic medicine bottle. Everyone receives a copy of the play along with a little yellow pill. I turn it over in my hand. It doesn’t take more than a second to find the tiny M&M logo stamped on the shell.

  “Shakespeare’s plays are arguably the most beautiful works of literature ever written,” Miss Wall explains over the noise of crunching candies. “And certainly, the Bard’s tragedies are the most stirring and powerful of all his works. But understanding sixteenth-century English can be quite difficult at times. You’ve all received a special painkiller to help make this a little easier. Now, let’s begin.”

  Brilliant! Our own junior-high version of Mary Poppins. I put the “pill” in my mouth and let the chocolate melt slowly on my tongue, trying to make the sweetness last as long as possible. This class is the highlight of my school day. And it’s all because of Miss Wall. Over the past few months, I’ve been wandering in here during the lunch hour to talk to her. It’s as a good place as any to avoid my tormentors. She doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, I get the feeling she likes the company. Not once has she ever asked me why I wasn’t in the cafeteria with the other kids … but I have a funny feeling that she probably already knows why.

  A couple of times I’ve come close to telling Miss Wall about my problems — the bullying, Mommy’s disease, how I’m practically raising my little sisters and brother all by myself. But fear always holds me back. What if she calls Child Services? What if they take us away from Mommy and Daddy?

  So, instead, I make sure to keep the conversation light. We talk about books and animals and I tell her which universities I want to attend. I once asked her why she never married and she told me it was because she spends all her free time re-reading the course materials and preparing her lessons.

  “I never had much time for dating … guess you could say that I’m married to my job,” she said. I loved hearing that. When I get older, I want to be just as passionate about my career. I pretty much have it narrowed down to two choices. Because I love animals so much, I want to be either a zoologist or a veterinarian. Probably a zoologist.

  “You’ve all heard of Romeo and Juliet,” Miss Wall continues as she strolls slowly up and down the aisles. “Before we begin the play, I’d like you all to write down anything you know, or think you know, about the characters. You have five minutes, then we’ll discuss.”

  I extract a pen from my pencil case, flip my binder open to a new page, lean forward, and take a deep breath. I love the crisp, clean smell of fresh paper … it’s so full of promise and potential. Twirling the pen around my knuckles, I stare at the blank page and think about Miss Wall’s question.

  Who were Romeo and Juliet?

  Simple enough. They were two kids I have a few things in common with. I lean over my binder and start writing.

  Romeo and Juliet were a pair of tragic teenagers who were mature beyond their years. They became desperate to find a way to escape their unhappy circumstances and came up with a plan. At the end of the play, everyone who’d ever tried to push them around was sorry.

  I feel a pair of eyes on me and look up to see Alison Villemere staring at my page from her desk across the aisle. Instinctively, I cover my work with my arm so she can’t see what I’ve written. I don’t like to brag, but I’m by far the smartest kid in school. Everybody knows it — which, of course, means that everybody wants to copy off me. But I never allow it. Let them trade their futures for hockey games and shopping malls. Not me. I have a plan to get away from here.

  In four years, I’m going to graduate valedictorian and win a full scholarship to the university of my choice. Maybe even three years if I can pull off an early graduation. A scholarship is going to be my one-way ticket out of this abyss.

  I look down at the words I’ve written, figuring with a high degree of certainty that my answer is probably the only intelligent one in the entire class. If I keep working hard, words like these are going to set me free.

  April 2

  tabby

  Drip … drip … drip …

  The tub faucet in my ensuite has been leaking for weeks. I heard somewhere that in China, a dripping faucet is used as torture. For me it does the opposite — I swear, the dripping saves my sanity. When I’m lying in bed at night, it’s the only thing that holds off the awful silence that takes over my house after Nanny Beth goes down to her bedroom in the basement.

  The weekends are different, of course. There’s always lots of noise then. Dylan and Brandi usually come to sleep over at my house and my parents are always popping in and out. But on weeknights, if Catherine and David are staying out late, I sometimes feel like the silence is going to swallow me alive in my bed. In the past week, they’ve been out more than normal, sometimes not even making it home at all.

  Drip … drip … drip …

  As comforting as I find the noise, Nanny, on the other hand, seems to agree with the Chinese. With a sigh, she flips her magazine shut and leans forward on the vanity stool. There’s a small frown squatting in the place of her usual perma-smile.

  “That faucet’s driving me crazy, Tabby. It’s been weeks now — haven’t you asked your mama to fix it yet?”

  Sam, who had been napping at Nanny’s feet, opens his sad, brown eyes and stares at me. The skin on his forehead crinkles with curiosity, as if he’s wondering the same thing.

  “Um, no — not yet,” I reply. I’m too embarrassed to tell her the reason why. Lifting my foot out of the bubbles, I stick my big toe into the open mouth of the dripping tap. Nanny waits a moment to see if I need her for anything before opening the magazine back up.

  My mama. What a joke. In my baby book, it says that my f
irst word was “mama.” But that’s a big, fat lie. I know that because last year, Nanny confessed to me that she wrote it in there to make my mother happy. I wasn’t surprised. After all, that’s Nanny’s job … right? And Catherine would never have known the truth, anyway.

  Throughout my childhood it was Nanny who made my meals, read me stories, kissed my scraped knees, sung me to sleep, and of course, gave me baths. To this day, she still keeps me company while I soak in the tub. Honestly, after all this time I’d be afraid to take a bath alone. This house is so freaking big, every word out of my mouth makes an echo. Seriously, it’s like living in a museum. It’s not so bad during the day, but at night it’s pretty frightening. I don’t know why my parents built such a huge house when they barely spend any time in it. To look important, I guess. I just can’t imagine what I would do if Nanny wasn’t here.

  Last summer, I got the scare of my life when Catherine told me she was thinking about letting her go.

  You’re almost grown up now, Tabitha, she’d said. Don’t you think that fourteen is too old for a nanny?

  I totally lost it. It was the first time I’d cried in front of Catherine since I was a little kid. Luckily, I was able to convince her to change her mind. It actually wasn’t that hard. After I stopped crying and reminded her of all the housework Nanny does around here, she agreed to keep her on for a couple more years.

  I look across the room to where Nanny is perched on the stool, leaning over a magazine and twirling her fingers through her long, black ponytail. She’s the tiniest grown-up I’ve ever seen. I think she’s, like, four-foot-nine or something like that. She’s so small, that, even though she’s in her mid-thirties, she still shops at GapKids and can easily pass for a teenager. And it isn’t just because of her size, her face looks young, too. Her skin is the colour of honey and just as smooth. When I see old pictures of Nanny holding me as a baby, I’m always amazed at how little she’s changed over the years. I swear, she still looks like the same nineteen-year-old girl who’d just arrived from the Philippines to live with us after I was born.

  Physically, we’re total opposites. From the outside, I’m clearly a Freeman. I have Catherine’s thick, brown hair (except hers is dyed blonde now), high cheekbones, and long, thin frame. From David I inherited my square-shaped face and tiger-green eyes. But that’s all I got from them, thank God!

  I close my eyes and let my head sink down into the warm water. My pulse throbs softly in my ears — a nice little reminder that I’m still alive. I lie like that for a long time, enjoying the sensation of floating — which I’ll take over falling anytime. The water slowly turns cool.

  Suddenly, I’m startled by the feel of fingers tickling my toes. Giggling, I lift my head out of the water to see Nanny perching on the edge of the tub. Rose-scented bubbles crackle and pop in my ears.

  “It’s ten o’clock, Tabby,” she says softly.

  Ten o’clock? Oops. How long have I been lying here?

  “I’m going to go down and get ready for bed,” she continues, with a yawn. “Have you finished all your homework for tomorrow?”

  “Um, yeah … almost,” I fib.

  “That’s my good girl.” Her smile is back again, so big it literally seems to stretch from ear to ear. It’s wide and warm and infectious and I can’t help smiling, too. Nanny takes such good care of me. I’m sure she loves me as much as she loves her own daughter back in the Philippines. When I was younger, I used to bug my parents to bring her over to Canada and raise her as my sister. But Catherine wasn’t interested in the idea of raising somebody else’s kid. That is, until the year I turned eight and Angelina Jolie adopted a Cambodian orphan. Catherine thought that was pretty cool. For a week or two there I thought I actually had real a chance at that little sister. But soon enough she lost interest again.

  Once, a long time ago, I asked Nanny how she could have left her baby with her parents and moved to the other side of the world. I remember how my question made her wide smile melt into a frown.

  “I can’t earn very much money in the Philippines,” she’d said. “Money can buy a better life and that’s something I must do for my daughter.”

  I didn’t really understand her answer at the time. But the next year Nanny’s daughter was diagnosed with diabetes, and she asked my parents for a raise in her salary to help with the medical bills. That’s when it all began to make a bit more sense.

  But still, I know it makes Nanny sad. Sometimes I hear her crying in her room — the noise travels up the air vents from the basement and echoes off my bedroom walls. I tell her how much I love her every day, to help fight off some of her sadness. But as much as I adore her, a small part of me is always afraid: if she could leave her “real” child, what’s to stop her from leaving me one day, too?

  Nanny yawns again. Not wanting to keep her waiting any longer, I pull the plug. The water swirls down the drain, taking the last of the melting bubbles with it. She hands me my robe as I step out of the tub. While I sit on the vanity stool, she puts a towel to my hair and gently rubs it dry, then helps me brush it straight and smooth. When she’s done, she kisses my cheek and turns to leave.

  “Good night, my dear.”

  “Good night, Nanny … I love you.”

  I hear her slippered feet softly padding down the stairs, and then the door to the basement gently close. A cool shiver runs over my dripping body. I pull my robe tighter and reach down to pat Sam. Still eager for company, I try to tempt him with a game.

  “Hey, boy … wanna play catch?” I ask in my highest-pitched doggie-fun voice.

  But Sam’s twelve years old and lazy. He plods to my room, heaves himself onto my bed, curls into a ball and, with a loud snort, goes to sleep. After that, the silence begins to creep in — under the door, through the walls, rising up from the floorboards, like smoke from an approaching fire. Before I know it, the silence is here. It fills my ears until the only thing keeping me from screaming is the steady drip of the bathtub faucet.

  Dropping my robe on the carpet, I pull on the pajamas Nanny has spread out so neatly on my silk bedspread and scoot in beside Sam. I lie there in my big bed, listening to the dripping tap, staring at the chandelier, and dreading sleep. I struggle to keep my eyes open for as long as possible, trying my hardest to hold off the nightmare I know is coming.

  By the way, in case you’re wondering, my actual first word was “Nanny.”

  Lora

  Allie, Chelsea, and Cody are all in the tub together. It’s a pretty tight squeeze, but they don’t seem to mind and it really saves me time. Waves of water slosh onto the floor as they splash, squeal, and giggle.

  Just clean it up later, I tell myself, yawning so wide, I can feel the corners of my mouth cracking.

  I’ve been awake since 6:30. That’s the time I have to get up and start making breakfast every morning. As usual, I have to wake up the kids, get them dressed and fed, sit Cody on the potty, make sure Mommy has her medicine for the day, and walk everyone to school and daycare. The firefighting community is big on helping each other out, thank God. Usually, one of them or one of their spouses comes to sit in the house with Mommy while I’m at school. Sometimes they’ll even make us dinner, which is a huge help. After school I have to pick the kids up, clean the house, and feed the family and the pets. Every day is the same. Only after everyone is in bed do I ever get a chance to study and do my homework. It’s a crazy schedule. Sometimes I don’t get to sleep until after 1:00 in the morning.

  “Shampoo time,” I announce, trying to force a bit of pep into my voice. My body is so tired I feel like I can fall asleep right there perched on the edge of the tub. But I still have to wash them, dry them off, dress them, brush their teeth, read them stories and wrestle them into their beds. Oh, and I have to study for a math test tomorrow. Every day I feel like I’m running a marathon that will never end.

  I glance at my watch sitting by the sink. It’s 8:45 — if I hurry, I can still get a couple hours of cramming in. The thought of turning
on my computer makes my stomach cramp up with anxiety. Oh God, I hope there aren’t any of those awful emails waiting for me. No matter how many times I change my web account, they still manage to find me. Sometimes their words are so mean and hateful, they make me want to lock myself in my room and never come out again.

  “I can do it by myself,” says Allie. Eager to help, she takes the shampoo bottle and starts washing her own hair, then Cody’s.

  “Thanks, cutie,” I say. Even though she’s only seven, she seems to understand our family’s situation and has taken it upon herself to be my little assistant. Squeezing a blob of shampoo into my hands, I lean over Chelsea and vigorously scrub the remains of her brother’s lollipop out of her wet curls. They’re red, just like mine. We’re all redheads in this family. It’s actually pretty rare. Only about two percent of the world’s population has red hair. And the only animals in the wild with red hair are orangutans, squirrels, and foxes. Oh, and there’s a breed of red-haired panda in Asia that lives …

  “Ouch! You’we huwting me Lowa!” Chelsea wails, interrupting my thoughts. “Stop!”

  I pause, close my eyes, and for a nanosecond actually consider it. Seriously, nothing would make me happier than to end this bath and just let her go to bed with a tangled head full of sticky, grape-flavoured candy. But I just can’t do it to her. Even though my own hair is kind of greasy and needing a wash. Gosh, I can’t even remember the last time I shampooed it. Two … three … four days ago? There’s never any time left at the end of the day to take care of myself. No time, and even less energy. But I know they’ll make fun of me if I don’t wash my hair before school tomorrow. And believe me, the last thing I want to do is give them more ammunition. They make fun of everything about me — the way my nose turns up, and the way I slouch — which you would do too if you stood a full head taller than every other girl in school — my intelligence, and of course, my advanced vocabulary. I’ve been teased about my freckles (which cover so much of my body that you can’t even tell what colour my skin is), my knobby knees, and once I was even teased about the small, brown mole on my palm.